Nature is in a bad spot. The Mortal Judgement set created a lot of bad matchups. Unbound Flames in particular made it incredibly difficult for nature to beat control magic. While still favored against Card Draw Magic, Unbound Flames has made it harder for nature even then. Strength steal deception is brutal. Not to mention all the control decks running sleep and order.
When looking at the matchups, every god has at least one archetype that is winning more than nature.
And low and behold, Amazon is performing better than Aggro (wild) nature. The main difference: Amazon decks can run ward and hidden creatures. To be clear, Amazons haven't gotten better per se. It's just the current meta has become so heavy on removals/stall that wild creatures don't stand a chance with raw stats. A 7/8 Green Giant is removed by An End to War for 3 mana. Very sad.
Here is the deck I'm currently playing when I feel like playing nature (not as often these days).
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In short, this is a better version of the Sudden Bloom wild deck. Importantly, Sudden Bloom doesn't care about what tribe the creature is. This is why it combos so well with cards like Guild Enforcer (which is what you swap out Blades for in a budget deck).
Additionally, I'm thinking about removing Dagan and maybe even Dalia. Unlike wild decks, I find myself lacking enough regen on board to make use of them. I think I'll try 4-5 games with the Flourish god power just to make sure, but I think I want to swap them out for the 3/3 hidden Amazons. This is the obvious swap to make in the budget deck.
Unfortunately, I think you can't run an amazon deck without Myrto's Daughter. It's a major win condition and removing it will drastically lower your win rate. Still, this is much cheaper.
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In aggro matchups, we've got a lot of good options going first or second. Going second, we want boars, faeflame blades, and primal guidance. Going first, Trailmakers and Sanctum Guardians are ideal + plus one reactive card.
The hardest matchups are against control. Trailmakers and Nightleaf Warriors are nice openers and obviously hold on to anything with ward. I was running Moonlight Charm in this deck for a while, but we already have Penthesilean Warriors and Myrto's Daughter filling that role.
If you study the matchup chart, you'll see that amazons don't appear to do much better against control than wild. If you look closer you can see why:
What's missing? Sudden Bloom for starters. Only 61% of amazon decks are even running Arkmonian Onslaught, but Sudden Bloom is 10x better (even though you have to wait for two more turns to play it). Amazons have to have a big buff to finish the game - particularly against control.
Also 99% of these decks are running Canopy Sniper. Neither our main deck nor budget is running it, and snipers are next to worthless against control decks. So in short, these decks are still running the old game plan: get wide. They are also running Selena's Mark, which we aren't except maybe against Deception decks with Shadows of Lethanon.
Our gameplan is different: we just need one creature to stick long enough to buff. We accomplish that with Ward, Hidden, and a few other ways.
OK, so Amazons still don't have a ton of options in the ward department, but this is 4 more than wild has (no one should run the 1/3 confused ward guy). Magic is going to have to spend 2 mana to pop ward and then more mana to kill.
I'm almost positive Dagan and/or Dalia need to come out in favor of Rangers. Admittedly, she is a poor substitute for Feral Shapeshifter, but we have other buffs like Myrto's to play sooner than Sudden Bloom.
Our creatures without hidden/ward need to resist removal with high HP. Dalia may stay in the deck because of this (and her Amazon tag). Agrodor Protector on curve can be removed via shaped blast the following turn, but your opponent usually has to choose between hitting protected or non-protected creatures. It can and will be removed by blade, which is a huge bummer. Tiny silver lining: they don't draw and Blade costs one more mana (so it's ONLY a 1 mana 3/3 + 3 favor /s).
Going first with a great mulligan always feels good. We also match into an...unconventional zombie deck in Ethereal Diamond, but they do get Obelisk down. Finnian is actually the star of the show letting us generate 1/1s to clear board and eventually get to the obelisk.
At 4 mana I attempt to save Finnian by giving him a 5/1 target to remove, but our opponent is a bit smarter than that. In any case, it lets me push 5 damage and distracts from my real goal: getting Myrtos to buff my Protector.
At 6 mana, we get to use the Bloom we've been holding all game. I attack face with my weakest non-confused creature. This is in hopes of Bloom hitting my strongest creature which then lets me splash twice for maximum impact. Looking back, I realized I could have just gone face. My apologies for the bad manners.
