Apparently, the bird is the word. Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 is in the books, and I won't sugar coat it... it was an ugly Pro Tour.

Nadu, Winged Wisdom is clearly a design mistake on the level of Skullclamp. It's impossible to imagine anything other than a major oversight on the part of Wizards of the Coast given how obvious the combo is with Shuko and how many overtly powerful ways there are in Modern to fetch each half of the combo like Chord of Calling and Urza's Saga. While there were plenty of innovations as far as the specific decklists at the Pro Tour, the core of the deck with mana dorks, Springheart Nantuko, and friends was discovered fairly quickly and is relentlessly efficient.

Bant Nadu | Modern | Simon Nielsen, 1st Place Pro Tour MH3

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Noble Hierarch
• 1 Outrider en-Kor
• 1 Endurance
• 1 Sylvan Safekeeper
• 2 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
• 2 Haywire Mite
• 2 Wall of Roots
• 4 Delighted Halfling
• 4 Nadu, Winged Wisdom
• 4 Springheart Nantuko

• Instants (6)
• 2 Summoner's Pact
• 4 Chord of Calling

• Artifacts (6)
• 2 The One Ring
• 4 Shuko

• Lands (25)
• 2 Forest
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Hedge Maze
• 1 Lush Portico
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Shifting Woodland
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Waterlogged Grove
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• 2 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Urza's Saga
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Teferi, Time Raveler
• 1 Endurance
• 1 Drannith Magistrate
• 2 Suncleanser
• 1 Volatile Stormdrake
• 1 Soulless Jailer
• 1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
• 1 Force of Vigor
• 1 Dismember
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Veil of Summer
• 1 Shadowspear

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Everyone playing in the Pro Tour knew this going in, and despite Nadu being public enemy number one, it still completely dominated the tournament. Nadu decks were almost half of the Top 32, as well as the entire Top 4 and eventual champion. The deck also had an almost a 60% win rate, which is massive for the most played deck in the tournament that everyone was trying to beat.

As for me, I went with a different approach.

Gruul Eldrazi | Modern | Jim Davis | Pro Tour MH3 | 104th Place

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Ulamog, the Defiler
• 4 Devourer of Destiny
• 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
• 4 Sowing Mycospawn

• Instants (8)
• 4 Kozilek's Command
• 4 Through the Breach

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 All Is Dust
• 4 Ancient Stirrings

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Talisman of Resilience
• 4 Talisman of Impulse
• 4 The One Ring

• Lands (22)
• 2 Forest
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Gemstone Caverns
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 2 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 3 Karplusan Forest
• 4 Eldrazi Temple
• 4 Grove of the Burnwillows
• 4 Ugin's Labyrinth

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 World Breaker
• 2 Thought-Knot Seer
• 2 Soulless Jailer
• 3 Dismember
• 2 Trinisphere
• 2 The Stone Brain
• 1 Bojuka Bog

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I took a big risk this Pro Tour, playing a deck that zero other players on my star-studded team chose to play.

While the majority of my team played Bant Nadu and Mono-Black Necrodominance, with a few Ruby Storm and Esper Goyro's Vengeance players, I decided to go with a version of Red/Green Though the Breach Eldrazi made by friend and former teammate Andrew Jessup.

While the deck is obviously based around casting Through the Breach and putting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in play, there are a bunch of very powerful Modern Horizons 3 cards that give these new Eldrazi decks a surprising amount of consistency and flexibility.

With the deck hellbent on finding it's double mana lands as well as assembling the combo, Devourer of Destiny provides a Once Upon a Time type of effect on a card that is also super reasonable to cast. Kozilek's Command is perhaps the most impressive and flexible of all the new cards, giving the Eldrazi decks an efficient and powerful card that can be both reactive and proactive at any stage of the game. It's also excellent for assembling the combo. And of course, Ugin's Labyrinth provides some much-needed redundancy to Eldrazi Temple.

The big innovation in the deck was replacing the archaic 2016 card Thought-Knot Seer with the extremely impressive Sowing Mycospawn, an incredible tool at ensuring a constant flow of Eldrazi Temples as well as searching up utility lands like Cavern of Souls. Kicking it is very real and the card brings an amazing level of consistency to the deck.

I definitely underestimated how much Nadu there would actually be, as my deck felt like an anti-anti-Nadu deck as it just trashes any sort of energy deck or fair deck, but I ended up a decent 6-4 in the Modern portion of the Pro Tour.

Look for me playing the deck right here on CoolStuffInc.com this coming Monday in my video article!

Overall, I'd do poorly in the draft portion of the event, going 1-2 in each draft and ending up with an overall 8-8 record good for 104th place, which based on year-long standings is good enough to qualify me for the World Championship once again! This is technically my worst finish since the return of the Pro Tour, but that's pretty good as I maintain my Pro Tour streak and my day two streak:

There were 20 players that didn't just appear in all five post-pandemic PTs (ONE MOM LTR MKM OTJ), they made *all five day twos*. Here's how they did day one at #PTMH3. Three fell, leaving 17 moving into 2025. ggs @Vendilion pulling this one out of the fire! pic.twitter.com/CduyLBdlBX

— ajlvi (@ajlvi) June 29, 2024

Only 17 players have played in every Pro Tour and also made every day two and I'm one of them. That's pretty cool!

I do a full, hour-long recap of the Pro Tour on my YouTube if you want the full details about the testing house, Amsterdam, preparation, and a round-by-round account of the event:

But for now, let's see how those predictions did!

Prediction One: Boros Energy Will Have A Sub-50% Win Rate

Result: Partial Credit

Okay, so technically Boros Energy had a 50.5% win rate.

However, this doesn't really tell the whole story. Boros Energy had a poor record against the top decks in the field, especially Nadu (33%) and Jeskai Control (31%). Furthermore, the very similar archetype of Mardu Energy had a 41% win rate.

When you aggregate all of these factors, I'm at least taking partial credit for this one.

Prediction Two: There Will Be At Least One Necrodominance Deck In Top 8

Result: Correct!

Necropotence is still good, who would have thought!

Necrodominance was a breakout card of Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, putting two players into the Top 8 of the event (my teammate Seth Manfield and my former teammate Noah Ma).

While Seth's deck was more all-in, with a ton of MDFCs as well as a bunch of Phyrexian Tower and even Shambling Ghast, Noah's version was more "normal" and much closer to a Mono-Black Midrange deck. Either way however, both players saw success in the event with the archetype and there's no doubt that it will be a major player going forward.

Mixing Grief with all of the powerful Black interaction and insanely powerful draw engines is a recipe for a lot of wins in this format.

Prediction Three: There Will Be A Hall Of Fame Player In Top 8 Playing Storm

Result: Incorrect

Oh boy, the inside source does not pay off!

I knew that Kai Budde, Luis Scott-Vargas, and Jon Finkel (who was crushing everyone in the house with the deck) were all playing Storm in the Pro Tour, and with Storm also being a favorite archetype among a lot of the older hall of famers this seemed like a really easy bet.

However, the room was ready.

Storm was the second most played deck in the room after Nadu, but had an appalling 36% win rate over a very large sample size. Quite frankly, the deck is easy to hate out if you want to beat it, and folks came jam packed with Dranith Magistrate, Trinisphere, Soulless Jailer, and more.

Prediction Four: There Will Be At Least One Surprise Deck In Top 8

Result: Correct!

All the talk at the Pro Tour was about Nadu, but who saw Supreme Verdict coming?

Javier Dominguez, who is on a torrid run of never finishing worse than 10th place in the last five Pro Tours, brought a Jeskai Control deck to the tournament and rode it all the way to Top 8, being the only non-Nadu, non-Necrodominance deck in Top 8.

Sure, there's the usual Modern Horizons spin with eight pitch spells and an energy package with new standout Wrath of the Skies, but when it comes down to it this is just a classic control deck in a format usually hostile to that sort of thing.

Prediction Five: Two Members Of Our Testing Team Will Make Top 8

Result: Correct!

It's hard to explain how fortunate I am to be able to prepare with the team that I do, but when you add Jon Finkel and Kai Budde into the mix things hit a whole new level.

Let's just see that picture again cause it's an awesome one!

How could you not bet on this squad?

And once again, two of our finest in Sam Pardee and Seth Manfield made it to the elimination rounds, with Matt Sperling (not pictured as he couldn't make it to the testing house) also came in a heartbreaker 9th place after going a perfect 10-0 in Constructed.

I hope that one day I'll get my chance on the Sunday stage, but for now I'm super pleased to work with this squad as there's always someone to cheer for on Sundays!

What's Next?

The schedule for this Pro Tour season has been weird, with all three Pro Tours frontloaded on the first half of the year. The only event remaining is The World Championships, which will be held at MagicCon Vegas in October.

With Bloomburrow being a major release and Standard rotation, it will be nice to be able to focus solely on content for a bit, although I am extremely excited to once again be battling for the title of World Champion.

So, look for some exciting new things on the content front from here both here on CoolStuffInc.com as well as on my own personal content!