Every weekend, tens of thousands of players put up their best decks to compete in the Weekend Ranked event for a chance at free packs. Every week, I post about my experience playing during this heated event.
I did it again. I finished my first 25 games within the first 4 hours of Weekend Ranked opening for play. And all I got was a mediocre score - rather unjustified if I do say so myself - and nothing much to show for it! After proudly declaring my revenge against the horde of Weekend Ranked decks by achieving a 83.1% win rate last weekend, I used the same deck again but to much worse results. Who could blame me for going into full-tilt mode?
Deck Overview
Deck Link: GUDecks
Taking @kstreet 's advice, the only changes that I made to the 83.1% WR deck last week were to replace Wetlands Ogres with strictly better Starving Sabertooths, as well as replacing the lone Shieldbearer with another Felid Janissary.
What's the difference between a Wetlands Ogre and a Starving Sabertooth? A marginally beneficial ability. The difference isn't great, but since I'm playing a Nature deck anyway there's no reason not to replace Wetlands Ogre with Starving Sabertooth.
The reason why I didn't put in Overgrown Rhino is due to my huge disdain for randomness. Please, just hit the correct targets!
Since Shieldbearer would no longer be a neutral card after the Core set refresh, I decided to put have a 2x of Felid Janissary instead. The difference wasn't huge, but 2x includes tend to be more consistent. I didn't feel that it was that different.
Performance and Matchmaking Breakdown
Starting Rank: Mythic
Wins: 15/25
Reward Packs: 1x Core Rare, 2x Core Epic, 2x DO Rare
Theoretical pack value based on current pack prices: $4.98
| Opponent Deck | Score (Wins / Total Games) |
|---|---|
| Nature | 7 / 11 |
| War | 4 / 6 |
| Magic | 1 / 2 |
| Death | 2 / 4 |
| Deception | 1 / 2 |
| Light | 0 / 0 |
| Total | 15 / 25 |
A very sobering 60% WR with the exact same deck on the weekends. What happened? While I do think that the deck is fine, I think I had some bad luck with my draws. I also realized that I didn't have a solid mulligan plan against each match-up, which might have cost me a game or two. Although I'm incredibly salty that I only managed to obtain a 15/25 this time, I also realize that 80% win rates are not something that you should expect. Even with skilled gameplay, most decks shouldn't perform consistently at an 80% win rate anyway and variance in win rates is always to be expected. (That's what I tell myself to make myself feel better as copium.)
I took the advice in CopperPitch's advice for the Weekend Ranked and decided to screen my opponent's decks after I matched with them. It felt dirty for sure, but I benefited from it. I could tell when my opponents were running slightly avant-garde decks and could figure when they ran out of board removal. Of course, knowing that some of them run an optimally-tuned Board Wipe Death did brace me for the worst.
Against similar Nature decks, I honestly felt like things went fine and I was just somewhat unlucky sometimes. Games were won and lost based on how the first few turns played out. With a better draw, I could probably have turned a game or two around.
Surprisingly, the deck performed decently against War. This deck tends to struggle against War especially when they get out an early Protected Shield. Although I thought that each battle against a War deck was a constant struggle, pulling a 67% WR is decent.
Magic decks... as usual, I hate them. Thankfully there weren't too many of them this time around. I would have gone crazy if I had to face 6 Magic decks consecutively again.
Deception decks were fine. With Canopy Barrage and Lightning Strike, dealing with hidden and Order units is a magnitude easier. They don't guarantee that you win against them though.
Stangely enough, the Light decks have all vanished from the ladder. Just two weeks ago, Zoo Light seemed to be the Favourite-of-the-Month deck, but there are nowhere to be seen these days.
Highlights and Game Footage
I recorded most of my battles, but I'll pick two of them to showcase. One showing a hard-fought win, and one of a loss. Let me know if you think I can do better in any of these games.
vs Hidden Deception (W)
This was a tough battle, and it also featured a game-breaking bug that nearly cost me the game! Thankfully, I still managed to win in the end.
Mulligan: Knowing that Deception has tons of dangerous Hidden units, I decide to keep 2x Canopy Barrage in my opening hand.
My opponent plays a turn-1 The Hollow which is extremely annoying. On top of a value-generating ability, it also has Ward, which is costly to remove. Having no 2-drops but knowing that I have to deal with The Hollow, I use a bag of tricks and activated Selena's Mark to get rid of the pesky Ward. Slow, but I had no choice.
The next two turns had me using both my Canopy Barrages to hit everything but The Hollow. At this point, I was quite worried since my opponent had been slowly getting free Guild creatures into his hand thanks to The Hollow.
A few turns later, I play another Lightning Strike and guess where it hit? Definitely not The Hollow. I was quite certain that it had some anti-removal repellant sprayed on it. With The Hollow staying on the board for as long as it did, I was almost certain that this would be a loss since my opponent had tons of value in his hand.
After a long tussle, I finally managed to clear The Hollow on turn 8. By this time, my opponent had near to a 9 cards and I had almost nothing on the board. I was set-up for a loss.
Thankfully, I had a Giant Pangolin which got Sudden Bloom-ed the next turn. This combo nearly wiped out his entire board, and even his surviving Helm Hustler could not save him from the wrath of the giant Giant Pangolin.
As the game approached its end, I got hit with a game-breaking bug - my creature could not attack the opponent's face! It was bugged and I only managed to "fix" it by playing another creature on the next turn. I nearly gave up the game then, but Sudden Bloom comes in handy again to end the game. Whew!
vs Board Wipe Death (L)
Even with the best hands, Board Wipe Death can always put a stop to the party.
The early game went pretty uneventfully, with the classic Marsh Walker into Skeleton Heavy. Of course, my opponent plays cards that draw more cards, allowing him to get his removal combos faster.
Even with a dominating board, my creatures get stopped in their paths with a Sulphuric Rain / Siren of the Grave / Fleshbind combo. Honestly, I was pretty miffed when my opponent pulled this off on the exact turn that he could.
With an ample amount of healing, my opponent managed to mitigate all my damage thus far and made it to the 8-mana turn without a hitch. One End Times later, I resigned to my fate - the almighty Polyhymnia was awaiting me in just two turns and I had nothing that could counter it. Protecting what little I had left of my dignity, I resentfully pressed the "Resign" button.
Historical Performance
It seems like I haven't managed to hit the magical 17 win score during Weekend Ranked with Nature yet. Last week's run was a disaster, but I made changes to the deck that worked very well up until today. I was so sure that this weekend would be the one; I played this deck and its previous revisions in over 100 games since last weekend. I had achieved great win rates with this deck playing this deck last weekend and during the week with a consistent WR of about 80%, so I expected it to perform well this weekend. To my utmost dismay, I was crushed yet again. Next week, I might try to space out my games a little or play at a later time; it seems like the strongest players do play at the start of Weekend Ranked.
Past Weekend Ranked posts and performance in the order of recency:
| Time Period | Deck | Score (Wins / Total Games) | Starting Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2022 W3 (Current) | 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 |
| Dec 2021 W3 | Aggro War | 16 / 25 | Mythic |
| Dec 2021 W2 | Aggro War | 21 / 25 | Twilight Shadow |
Concluding Thoughts
I'm miffed, but what can I do when I voluntarily play a TCG with RNG elements with the most RNG-based god? I'm definitely nowhere near the top when it comes to TCGs although I like to think that I'm at least halfway decent. Not a great performance this time, but I have a firm belief that this deck can at least hit an 18/25 provided the match-ups are good. I'll be running this deck, with or without minor alterations, again next week. I'd like to try hitting 17/25 with a range of decks to prove that I'm not just a one-trick pony.
Hope you enjoyed reading this post! Let me know if you have any thoughts about the deck.
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