MTG Pro Tour winner calls for ‘crazy stupid’ deck he won with to be banned

Simon Nielsen, champion of the MTG Pro Tour Amsterdam with his Nadu Bant deck, believes this overwhelmingly powerful strategy should be banned as soon as possible. “This deck is ridiculously strong, and I’m just happy I got to use it before it gets banned, which it surely will,” he said upon receiving his trophy on June 30.

The latest Pro Tour winner expects the ban hammer to fall imminently on the Simic-colored bird wizard. Nielsen jokingly added, “Do not invest.” Despite the champ’s warning, many cards have already spiked in price over the last few days in reaction to Nadu, Winged Wisdom’s rise in popularity. Key pieces to the deck’s combo, such as Shuko, have seen an unbelievable upsurge in price.

With a baffling win rate of 59.3 percent that defies logic, the Nadu Bant combo deck really gives new meaning to the old saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” This would explain the following statistic: An overwhelming 25 percent of all MTG Pro Tour Amsterdam Modern players piloted variants of the same Nadu, Winged Wisdom deck. To put it into perspective, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis made up only 21 percent of the meta in 2019 before it got banned in Modern.

In fact, Nadu, Winged Wisdom was such an unstoppable strategy during Pro Tour Amsterdam that five out of the top eight finalists played variants of the same colorful bird. The final was a mirror match between Simon Nielson’s and Sam Pardee’s Nadu decks. Considering all of the above, it’s not a question of whether or not Nadu, Winged Wisdom will get banned, but when.

It’s a surprise to no one that numerous Magic YouTubers, bloggers, and social media content creators are crying out for this winged monstrosity to be axed. As of the time of writing, there have been no remarks from Wizards of the Coast on a possible emergency ban. The next official ban window will be in August. Until then, Modern players will have to learn to overcome or join Nadu.