If you're tagged, do jump to the Giveaway Results section to see if you've won something!
Ever since I tried out Control Nature, I fell in love with the pure greed and insane value of the deck. My first version of the deck, as documented in my previous post, didn't feel like it was competitive enough for the Weekend Ranked even though it was tons of fun to play. Through a few deck revisions and playtesting, I believe that I've cooked up a pretty inexpensive and decent Control Nature deck that can hold its own well during the Weekend Ranked. And to prove that I'm not all words and no action, I used this deck as my main deck for the Weekend Ranked and obtained a cool 19 wins! Interested to find out more? Read on!
Giveaway Results
Every week, I give away a few units of Hive SBI which help to upvote your posts for visibility and rewards for as long as they run. I explained the mechanics of how this giveaway works in another Weekend Ranked Rundown post, but in short, the more active you are in the GU Hive community, the more chances you have to win.
This week's winners:
@ridsevilla and @theking24 - Leave a comment to accept the prize/give it to someone else or it will be forfeited once I post the next giveaway's results. Once you've accepted the prize once, you don't have to leave a comment anymore; future prizes will automatically be sent to you. Congrats, and thanks for being part of the GU community!
Deck Overview
Deck Link: GUDecks
Do you like 20-minute matches? Do you like to see your opponent's (presumably) rage-filled face as he realizes that he has no chance to win after 20 turns? Then Control Nature is the deck for you. The deck features tons of removal, heals, and value-generating cards that are bound to cause problems for your opponent. Coming in at a cool 0.036 ETH (~100 USD), this is a deck that isn't out of reach for most players. Most of the cards in the deck are pretty self-explanatory - either they remove stuff or heal. The star card of the deck that I want to focus on today is the revamped Sage of Renewal.
Previously, I felt like budget Control Nature didn't work well due to the lack of a powerful 7-drop that could rival the likes of the Demogorgon. Thankfully, the 23 Feb Divine Order Balance patch introduced the reworked Sage of Renewal which is an absolute beast. It fits in with the theme of the deck, refreshing 4 mana and generating up to 4 spells that can swing the tide of battle if played properly while leaving behind a hefty body on the board.
The spell combinations that you can get out of her are amazing! Here are some of the spells that I often select with Sage of Renewal.
A clutch healing spell always comes in handy when matching up against aggressive decks. It's always fun to play multiple Revivifications on a turn when your opponent thinks he has lethal the next turn.
Since you're most likely plopping down Sage of Renewal without any other creatures on the field, Arrow of Rage essentially functions as a targeted 6-damage, which is insane. Natural Selection is also pretty good, with the upside that it generates you one extra card.
I always try to fish for Grass Roots if my opponent's deck has an annoying large creature that can't be dealt with Frenzied Ritual. e.g. against Polyhymnia - Selena's Mark GP + Grass Roots = opponent concedes.
And just in case you don't think this deck has enough value, New Growth and Blood and Bone can help to generate even more cards for you. I pick these sometimes as a "filler" 1-mana card to get another chance at finding whatever other spells I'm hunting for.
When playing Sage of Renewal, I think it's almost never correct to pick a 4-mana spell unless your hand is full. The lower-cost spells are just that much better. Just be sure that you have enough hand space to fit all the cards that you're getting! (You can have a maximum of 9 cards in your hand.)
Performance and Matchmaking Breakdown
Starting Rank: Mythic
Wins: 19/25
Reward Packs: 2x Core Rare, 2x Core Epic, 1x Core Legendary, 2x DO Rare, 2x DO Epic, 1x DO Legendary
Theoretical pack value based on current pack prices: $43.95
| Opponent Deck | Score (Wins / Total Games) |
|---|---|
| Nature | 4 / 6 |
| War | 6 / 7 |
| Magic | 3 / 3 |
| Death | 3 / 4 |
| Deception | 3 / 4 |
| Light | 0 / 1 |
| Total | 19 / 25 |
This is probably one of the evenest distributions of match-ups that I've ever faced, with every faction showing up a few times with the exception of Light. Generally, I feel that this deck currently performs well because not everyone knows how to play against it just yet. It's not a rare sight to see opponents suiciding their Switch Duelist into the Blazing Talisman.
Against the common Mid-range Nature, this deck desperately needs the Blazing Talisman to cull the aggression, without which the match will end in a loss. The big issue lies mostly in that midrange Nature can go wide early, and this deck's multi-hit spells don't come into play until 6-mana. Add some pesky hard-to-remove creatures like Marsh Walkers into the mix, and it can be hell trying to survive until then.
One of my favorite match-ups with this deck is Mid-range/Control War. I believe that this deck is heavily favored against those decks for the following reasons:
- Their game plan doesn't revolve around finishing you off in the first 5 turns, giving you more time to draw your removal spells.
- Carnage Sweep and Sole Survivor are next to useless against this deck.
- Control variants don't have enough value to compete with this deck, and their big creatures die easily to the multitude of removal spells in this deck.
The two decks that I have the most trouble with seem to be Zoo Light and Board Wipe Death. Zoo Light goes wide early and their creatures have high health, making The Hunt much less useful (if I can even survive until 6-mana). For BWD, the main issue is how you'll be overdrawing lots of cards. If your opponent runs the variant that brings back Hippacria's Monster each turn at the end game, there's almost no chance that this deck can win.
Highlights and Game Footage
vs Mid-Range/Control War
Opponent Deck: GUDecks
The game is kinda a snoozefest with its original length being 21 minutes but that's par for the course if you're playing this deck. The entire deck revolves around being reactionary, so there are quite a few turns in which I just GP and pass. Near the end-game, even though my opponent got some insane cards from Strength in Numbers, it was ultimately unable to overpower the sheer value of the deck. I admit that I did get a little greedy at times but it all worked out well in the end for me.
Historical Performance
After 4 weeks of Tempo Mage, I finally broke the mold and tried something different on the weekends! Luckily, this deck proved its worth and managed to hit 19 wins in the current meta. I enjoyed playing this deck a lot even though each match can take ages since it appeals to my Value Town instincts (if you can't tell yet, I used to watch a lot of TrumpSC and his snoozefest HS content).
With many people awakening to the fact that Sage of Renewal is pretty busted and making this deck a viable pick for the Weekend Ranked, chances are people will start to recognize that this deck isn't just a gimmicky off-meta deck and will learn how to counter it, resulting in worse performance in the coming weeks. Let's see how it performs next week.
Last 10 Weekend Ranked posts and performance in order of recency:
| Time Period | Deck | Score (Wins / Total Games) | Starting Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 W4 (Current) | Control Nature | 19 / 25 | Mythic |
| Feb 2022 W3 | Tempo Magic | 18 / 25 | Mythic |
| Feb 2022 W2 | Tempo Magic | 19 / 25 | Mythic |
| Feb 2022 W1 | Tempo Magic | 18 / 25 | Mythic |
| Jan 2022 W5 | Tempo Magic | 19 / 25 | Mythic |
| Jan 2022 W4 | Mid-range Nature | 17 / 25 | Mythic |
| Jan 2022 W3 | Mid-range Nature | 15 / 25 | Mythic |
| Jan 2022 W2 | Mid-range Nature | 11 / 25 | Mythic |
| Jan 2022 W1 | Aggro War | 18 / 25 | Mythic |
| Dec 2021 W4 | Aggro War | 19 / 25 | Mythic |
Concluding Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences running Control Nature in the Weekend Ranked event! It's not a deck for everyone given how long matches can take and can also be boring if you don't like value-oriented decks, but give it a try if you're in the market for a new deck to try.
Post Header image source: Gods Unchained Card Art
If you chanced upon this article and are interested in starting Gods Unchained, you can use my referral code to sign up to play here. It's free to play and free to earn!
Some of the card images in this post are generated by GUListCreator, a tool I created for fast card list lookup and creation to write posts like this on Hive. Do check it out if you like to create content for Gods Unchained!