Intro

I started out on Friday playing an aggro nature deck with a lot of success winning my first 5 games straight. By Saturday, the reaction to aggro nature in the meta was extreme:

Unfortunately, I didn't check this until playing several games. I matched into control magic and control deception once and started losing a lot. That's when I decided to check the graph above. I then switched decks to a beefier nature setup and started winning again. I'll explain more.

First Deck

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This deck is all about getting wide, getting buffed, and then winning the game. The large amount of removal/relics makes the deck fairly strong going second against other aggro decks, and I had early success matching into other nature aggro.

But then I matched into a ton of magic/deception and the story changed. Magic in particular is now bursting at the seams with AOE removal. This makes wide, weak boards (e.g. bladeflies) terrible. Case in point:

Once I realized this, I switched to deck 2.

Second Deck

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This deck drops Trial of the Hydra and Bladeflies for larger creatures. Critically, we need creatures with health at 4 or higher. As many as we can get. Shaped Blast, Crystal Rain, and Unannounced Arrival all lose potency against us. We still have 4x relics and lots of removal to keep us flexible against other decks, but topping out with Deadshot and Bloom lets even a single creature become a big threat at 6 mana.

Porphyrion is included just to royally screw Magic players. Shapeshifter not only has 4 HP to avoid AOE, but it's hidden for a turn to avoid direct damage spells. The very next game after swapping, we get to beat up on Magic teched for our previous deck:

Nature requires skill

A lot of people complain that nature is boring or requires no skill. I've got the proof to the contrary. This game kept me thinking the entire time, and I still made misplays.

First Puzzle

My first misplay is at 3 mana. Playing Low-Hanging Fruit before attacking with boar seemed smart. I had a 2/3 chance to hit/kill a non-warded creature. But this quick math was wrong. I should have attacked with the boar first (targeting the warded sailweaver).

• 50% shot of eliminating sailweaver and guaranteeing LHF hits a good target.
• 50% shot of missing sailweaver. If it misses, I could still hit the archer. In this case, LHF is no worse odds than playing it first.
• The only way I make it worse is if the boar misses sailweaver (50%) AND hits one of the other 1 hp creatures (67%). This has a 33% chance of happening.
• If that happens, I reduce my LHF chances from 2/3 to 1/2.

So in summary, attacking with boar had the following outcomes:

• 50% shot to improve LHF chances of killing a creature by 33%.
• 17% shot of not worsening LHF chance to kill.
• 33% shot of worsening LHF chance to kill by 17%

Attacking with Boar first would have slightly improved my odds! I just wasn't able to do the math quickly and under pressure.

Second Puzzle

The next puzzle came at 5 mana.

The board state is a puzzle with an optimal solution. I almost go at it the wrong way, but I think better of it and get it right.

• Jag into frontline to guarantee he hits the target creature (and not risk going face)
• Broccoli + Jag Staff into 2/4 Acolyte
• Heal up the Broccoli so he can't be traded
• Spam a badger

Now that's a nice turn!

Third puzzle

There are so many options/lines to try and tackle this board state. Do I remove his relic? Focus on board? If I focus on board, how to clear?

I make another misplay I think. This one I should have known better. After clearing the frontliner, I attack the 2/2 with my Jag Staff. I didn't want to eat 5 damage, but I should have attacked with the badger first. If he hit either creature (67% chance) I could clear board. The way I played it, I lucked out on the 50/50 badger attack.

Remaining turns

Most of the remaining turns present puzzles requiring skill to solve. I may not have taken all the best lines, but what is challenging/rewarding is that I had options and no obvious next play. This makes the game fulfilling win or lose. I hope GU is able to increase the amount of games where this happens. I make one final misplay by enraging my Rabid Bear when I should've played him before going face. I needed him unconfused way more than I need the extra point of strength.

Luckily, Feral Shapeshifter was basically unstoppable given that my opponent had already played Asterius. I ignored board and finished the game.

Conclusion

You can spot a bad nature player from a mile away. "It requires no skill." No, you just haven't developed the skill yet. Looks like I could use some more practice myself. Practice helps you build intuition like with the boar + LHF situation.

Additionally, adapting to the meta is important! Fortunately (or in my opinion unfortunately), the meta is becoming more rock/paper/scissors. If you match into your counter, your chances of playing around them and winning are really low. On the other hand, this does mean that decks/flavors will rotate on their own. For example:

Wide nature > AOE Magic > Tall Nature > Targeted Spell Magic (e.g. ratify) > repeat

This puts more emphasis on choosing which deck to play and less on the actual game itself, but the meta doesnt' get 'solved' as easily.