Wizards of the Coast wrapped up its Magic: The Gathering – Modern Horizons 3 Pro Tour event over the weekend at MagicCon Amsterdam, where the Nadu, Winged Wisdom decks ruled the event.
The pro tour championship event consisted of two days of Modern Horizons 3 draft and Modern format play with a Top 8 single-elimination event for the title on the third day. Decks utilizing the new Nadu, Winged Wisdom card from Modern Horizons 3 represented more than 25% of the total Modern constructed format field at the event, thanks to a brand-new combo, with a slightly cumbersome strategy, involving Springheart Natuko and Shuko. The second-most played deck in the metagame was Ruby Storm being played by 9.5% of the field.
By the time the Top 8 was announced, it was clear that the Nadu decks were the story of the event. Five of the Top 8 decks were Nadu decks, and the finals eventually boiled down to a Nadu on Nadu mirror match between Sam Pardee and Simon Nielsen. During the third game of their five-game set, there was a point where Pardee and Nielsen decided to short cut the 5-10 minutes it would take Pardee to play out the Nadu combo on his own by handing over his sideboard to Nielsen to see if the game was a lock and Nielsen could just concede to go onto game four. Eventually, Nielsen ended up besting Pardee in four games to take home the Pro Tour trophy on Sunday, which was also his birthday.
This event was very reminiscent of 2019’s “Summer of Hogaak,” where Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis terrorized Modern and Legacy players on the MagicFest circuit (see “Banned and Restricted Lists“). However, this is possibly worse because the combo can go off out-of-nowhere with a lucky draw and it takes a player 5-10 minutes of executing triggers to finish the game. To say the least, the deck, if it goes off properly, is non-interactive, leaving one player playing Magic and the other a spectator as they lose.
It is a strong possibility that WotC designers will re-evaluate this card’s legality in Modern in the near future, much like they did for Hogaak. As a point of note for retailers, once Hogaak was banned in 2019, there was a sales boom on Magic: The Gathering singles as the Modern format shifted again (see “Sales Records on TCGplayer“). There is a good possibility that history repeats itself here, should Nadu get nerfed.
Source: ICV2
