The Winning and Losing Decks from Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3

The Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 came to an end with Simon Nielsen's victory running the format's most played archetype, Bant Nadu. And while social media discusses a likely ban on the archetype, win rates for other strategies at the event showcase the Metagame's potential competitors.

The table above, presented by mathematician Frank Karsten, shows the performance of many of the event's main decks against the predominant archetypes, thus helping to map out which were the big winners and losers of Pro Tour MH3 and how the format should shape up in the coming weeks!

Bant Nadu

In addition to being the most present archetype in the Pro Tour Metagame, Bant Nadu placed four copies in the Top 8 of the event, featured in a Top 4 made up of mirror matches and also had one of the best winrates of the entire event, with 59.3%, being above the four-color variants that had an aggregate result of 55.8%.

There is no doubt that Nadu, Winged Wisdom will be the deck to beat in Modern in the coming weeks, with a high probability of a ban on the way - both due to its results, its unfun play pattern and how time-consuming and tiresome its matches are to watch. It remains to be seen whether Wizards will attempt a provisional ban with Shuko and Outrider en-kor, or whether they will consider that the problem is in Nadu itself and the newly released creature will leave the format early.

Living End

Living End had the most notable results among the pre-MH3 decks in the event, with a 60% win rate in a total of 25 games.

Besides the inclusion of Sink into Stupor as an answer against counterspells and land drop in a single card and within the mana values ​​allowed by Cascade spells, it didn't present many new features with the arrival of Modern Horizons 3, but if solidified as a viable option for the Pro Tour and a good choice for the event's Metagame and punishing which strategies chose to run fewer interaction with Cascade in favor of a better matchup against other strategies.

Gruul Prowess

With some different variants in the event, Gruul Prowess turned out to be the best Aggro deck in the Pro Tour with a 56.7% win rate, but its balance against Bant Nadu and the Mono Black variants are against its favor in the next few weeks, where it will need to dedicate a little more to “playing under” or using specific hate pieces to combat the two main contenders in the Metagame.

The “Stompy” version ran by Brian Boss is one of the variants that deserves more attention. Its game plan is faster, more objective and “all in” compared to builds that seek to take advantage of Amped Raptor and Unstable Amulet, but if the Metagame becomes less interactive in the coming weeks with the rise of Nadu, Winged Wisdom, it's possible that going for the race is the best option.

Mono Black Necrodominance

Placing two copies in the Top 8, Mono Black Necrodominance may be one Nadu, Winged Wisdom away from being the next best deck in Modern, as its worst matchup among the event's main archetypes was against Bant Nadu, where it had a win rate of just 38%.

On the other hand, this archetype achieved a good win rate against almost all other competitors in the format and most with a significant margin, placing it in the format's best fair strategy space due to its combination of unfair key cards, such as the use of free spells and Necrodominance to stay ahead in the game.

Eldrazi Tron

Another strategy with some variants, Eldrazi Tron basically took the place that belonged to the more traditional versions of Tron in the format and became the main Big Mana of Pro Tour MH3 with a winrate of 54.4%, but with a vaguely bad match against Bant Nadu and a very low win rate against Necrodominance.

Eldrazi Tron, however, showed a good win percentage against most other strategies, such as Jeskai Control, Jeskai Wizards and Ruby Storm, as well as balanced matchups against Energy and other viable archetypes, putting it in a relatively favorable compared to other decks.

Ruby Storm

Among the most played decks, Ruby Storm had the worst win rate conversion and didn't show good results against any of the main Metagame archetypes, not even against Bant Nadu, where it supposedly had the advantage of being one turn faster.

Storm is still fun to take to local events or to play Leagues in Magic Online, but its Pro Tour win rate will certainly make players less dedicated to the archetype steer away from it in the coming weeks.

Jeskai Wizards

Jeskai Wizards is a variant of Jeskai Control aimed at using Snapcaster Mage and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student to make the most of Flame of Anor. Compared to the more traditional versions, Jeskai Wizards had poor results in the event, but its win rate against both Bant Nadu and Mono Black Necro could give it some survival in the Metagame as long as these two strategies remain at the top.

Jeskai Dress Down

Just like the Wizards version, Jeskai Dress Down, which seemed like a good Meta Call for an event where the best deck requires an ability to work, proved to be inefficient compared to the rest of the Metagame and its results against Bant Nadu weren't as good as expected, consolidating the idea that traditional Jeskai Control is the best positioned among Modern's Control variants.

Golgari Yawgmoth

Even with its reputation for preying on creature-based strategies, Golgari Yawgmoth had a notoriously bad winrate against Bant Nadu and seems to be a step behind the best deck in the format in terms of consistency and speed of its combo, losing its spot in the current Metagame and requiring a ban from its competitor to return to the format's spotlight, where it can stand out better against Mono Black Necro.

Gruul Eldrazi

Despite the positive winrate numbers, Gruul Eldrazi did extremely poorly against most of the best decks in the format while it had an excellent winrate against the archetypes that had the worst performances of the event and a very average result against the rest, placing it in a sensitive situation when considering the Metagame's future.

That's all for today.

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Thanks for reading!