The Great Nature Clan:
We’ve all been in that awful situation where we’ve had to attack with a boosted draw trigger in order to put some sort of pressure on our opponent. There isn’t any deck where this is an ideal situation. However, what if I told you that same draw trigger was suddenly hitting for 23000 without trigger bonuses. You’d probably think I was insane and needed to check my math again. While it’s true that I’m no Stephen Hawking, the math is correct and my baby draw trigger has now suddenly become a real threat to my opponent! This ability to boost rear guard units to un-guardable numbers is the speciality of the Great Nature clan.
 |
| SUPER STRONG |
How it Works:
The win condition of the Great Nature deck is to boost your units to very high numbers that your opponent will have trouble guarding against. This is achieved through units such as Binoculus Tiger, Monoculus Tiger, and the decks main Vanguard, School Hunter, Leo-pald. These units temporarily boost another Great Nature Rearguard by 4000 when they attack the Vanguard. So by attacking your opponents Vanguard with a Binoculus Tiger or Monoculus Tiger Rearguard and a Leopald as our Vanguard, we can give our last Rearguard an 8000 power boost. This is how our draw trigger from before can be boosted to such a high power.
However, there is a drawback to this ability. The unit that is boosted must be retired at the beginning of your end phase. This means that while your Rearguard column is very strong, it will only last for one turn and must be replaced on your following turn. Because of this, many players feel that Great Nature decks are gimmicky and can not contend with other tier level decks in the English meta. I disagree entirely and feel that when this deck is built correctly, it is a solid contender in the English meta.
Countering the Drawback:
Normally, retiring your units would be an issue as you would have to draw into the right cards to replace those columns, but the Great Nature deck takes care of its own flaw. For the cost of 1 Counterblast, the Grade 1 Pencil Squire, Hammsuke and Grade 2 Pecil Knight, Hammsuke replace themselves when retired by allowing you to search for another copy from the deck. Not only does this ability allow you to maintain your field presence, but it also provides for extra hand advantage, deck thinning for triggers, and strategy. It is important to note that the Grade 3 Pencil Hero, Hammsuke isn’t recommend as it is an awful ride and provides no shield when searched to the hand.
By constantly recycling your units and searching for new ones, it becomes much easier to play around decks that focus on controlling the field and retiring units, such as Kagero and Narukami. Because of the high popularity of those decks, Great Nature becomes a very good meta choice.The deck’s Vanguard, School Hunter, Leo-pald, also has a Limit Break ability that helps to counter the negative effects of its boosting skill. Once Limit Break 4 is reached, Leo-pald can call back from the drop zone a Great Nature unit that was retired during your present turn, for the cost of 1 counterblast. Thanks to Leo-pald, the Rearguards that would normally have been retired due to the Great Nature boosting effects, remain on the field and ready for action. Its ability to boost and revive units is what makes School Hunter, Leo-pald the best choice for Great Nature’s Grade 3 Vanguard.
Another card that allows you to abuse the boosting power of the Great nature units is the newly released Grade 1 Stamp Sea Otter. This nifty card cannot be retired by effects of other cards, even our own. This means, that we could use it to boost the unit in our second Rearguard column, give it all the boosting effects from Leo-pald and Binoculus Tiger/Monoculus Tiger, and let that column hit for a very large number without having to worry about using a counterblast and replacing units at all. The Stamp Sea Otter adds much needed consistency to the powerful attacks of the Great Nature clan.
Getting the Magic Numbers:
With Flask Marmoset, Great Nature has one of the most unique and powerful starting Vanguards in the game. Keeping with the theme of the deck, Marmoset boosts a Great Nature Rearguard by 4000 for the cost of counterblast 2, and then retires that rearguard at the end phase. This awesome skill can be used multiple times in a turn and can give us the push we need to call final turn on our opponent. Remember the draw trigger from earlier? This is how we boost it to hit over 21000 without triggers. In this situation our columns would be set up as follows:
1) Binoculus Tiger/Monoculus Tiger in front of a booster
2) Leo-pald with the Marmoset behind him
3) Our draw trigger with the Stamp Sea Otter as a booster.
Now, using the Marmosets skill we can Counterblast 2 and give the Otter a 4000 power boost. When Binoculus Tiger/ Monoculus Tiger and Leo-pald attack the opponent’s Vanguard, they each give a 4000 power boost to the Otter as well. Our 5000 power draw trigger + the 6000 power boost from the Otter + the 12000 power boost from our Great Nature skills equal a total of 23000 power from a draw trigger!
Obviously our ideal attacker is not a draw trigger. Usually a Pencil Knight, Hammsuke or Grade 3 Magnet Crocodile work best as the main attacker for our large Rearguard column. If the Magnet Crocodile were attacking instead of the draw trigger in the same scenario as we have above, then it would be hitting for 30000 without triggers! These numbers require your opponent to drop a perfect shield, or their entire hand in order to stop the attack.
These odd numbers also make it easier to hit Vanguard Crossrides that will be released in Set 5. This makes Great Nature a solid anti-meta choice against 13k Vangaurds such as Dragonic Overlord The End and Phantom Blaster Overlord.
Weaknesses and Underplay:
Another problem with the deck is that it lacks the ability to control your opponent’s field. In order to boost another Rearguard, Great Nature units must attack a vanguard. Because of this, we are forced to attack the opponent’s Vanguard and cannot put necessary pressure on their Rearguard columns, or else we sacrifice the winning strategy of the deck. By allowing your opponent to keep their Rearguard columns, they can maintain pressure on you and it can be hard to keep field advantage. Still, the constant pressure that the deck puts on the opponent’s Vanguard can make it difficult for them as well, so many games tend to become a war of attrition and trigger checks.
However, the most important reason the deck doesn’t top is that it simply isn’t played enough. Most people have never played against or with a Great Nature deck and are unaware of it’s capabilities. As we stated in our Gold Paladin article, the more people that play a deck, the more likely that deck will top. At the LA WCQ event, I was one of only 1.7% of the total player base piloting a Great Nature deck. The deck did very well for me and I was able to defeat many top decks including Soulless OTT and Narukami.
I hope that this article has helped you to better understand the Great Nature deck. Great Nature has the potential to be a very competitive and aggressive deck and that is why this Manguarder uses it.
Remember, Always Manguard.
Decklist:
Grade 0:
1x Flask Marmoset- Starting Vanguard
4x Draw Trigger
4x Heal Trigger
8X Critical Trigger
Grade 1:
4x Silver Wolf- 8k Vanilla Booster
4x Cable Sheep- Perfect Shield
4X Stamp Sea Otter- Booster to put effects on
2x Monoculars Tiger- Booster/ RG effect boosts 2nd RG column
Grade 2:
4x Binoculars Tiger- RG effect boosts 2nd RG column
4x Pencil Knight, Hammsuke- Attacker for 2nd RG column
4x Geoglyph Giant- 10k Vanilla/ Attacker for 2nd RG column
Grade 3:
4x School Hunter, Leo-pald- Main VG, boosts RG column
3X Magnet Crocodile- Attacker for 2nd RG column
No comments:
Post a Comment