I got my invite this year by placing third in an OTS Championship. I decided to use Naturia Runick for the event, inspired by Pakawat Pamornsut's recent Top 16 finish at YCS Las Vegas. In this article, I want to share my list and discuss cards that performed well and others that did not.
I was initially thinking of running something else. However, a friend of mine told me to use Naturia Runick, and I started practicing with it. Overall, the deck worked very well. But I wasn't entirely happy with some card choices as well as some of the deck's weaknesses, which became evident during the tournament. Let's start with the decklist:
| Naturia Runick |
|---|
| Main Deck | Extra Deck | Side Deck |
|---|
- 3
- 3
- 1
- 3
- 3
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 3
- 2
- 3
- 3
| - 2
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
- 1
| |
What I Liked
The Runick engine is incredible, versatile, and gets you out of sticky situations with ease while disrupting the flow of your opponent's plays by banishing their crucial cards. Sure, the banishing is luck-based, but I guess I got lucky with banishing some of my opponents' important cards. Furthermore, always came in clutch if I wanted to dump a or any Runick spell to load my graveyard for the effect of .
As for the Naturia engine, it is very versatile as it gives you a synchro or an xyz summon, depending on the situation. Also, the Naturia cards themselves are somewhat sticky as they are all about recurrence and field presence. was a menace and everyone was trying to play around it. was both the star of the Naturia lineup and its villain, which I will get into in a bit.
Going forth to hand traps, was impactful in every matchup. It was always live and managed to peg back the opponent. actually performed much better than I expected. On one opponent, I even used it in two consecutive turns, which he never would have expected. The Bystials were also very impactful against dark-attribute decks, getting rid of problematic cards in the graveyard while giving me access to level nine and ten synchro summons.
was a card that I never imagined I would use so much. I kept resolving Scarlight's effect almost every turn in game one of round one. I think I managed to shave 3,000 life points off my opponent. He would keep special summoning monsters to protect his life points, but then, Scarlight would knock them off, he'd float into something, and Scarlight would then attack over it and force him to keep playing defensively. It was a fantastic card that also came up in other matches, but never as much as in that game.
What I Didn't Like
in the main deck was supposed to be an impactful card, but I didn't use it once during the entire tournament. Whenever it made its way to my hand, I already had cards on my board, so it was just used as fodder for Hugin and . Going forward, I would probably move it to the side deck and add a card that is impactful both when going first and second.
, surprisingly enough, lost me a couple of games by itself. Mainly, it occurred when I opened Camellia only, or Camellia and . Usually, Camellia would either send a , , or to set up plays, but when Camilla was stopped by hand traps, I had a difficult time following up. I was forced many times to go into just to wait out until I could reset my hand eventually using Runicks.
The same goes for the Runick engine sometimes. When I open one or two Runick spell cards without , it is somewhat of a letdown honestly. Sure, the Runick cards were good enough to fend off the opponent for a bit, but without access to the Naturia cards, it was usually an uphill battle. At some points, I was hoping to see more Runick cards, while at other times, I was wishing for more Naturia cards. Maybe the ratio can be tinkered with to find out if there is a better ratio for the Runick spells.
Also, the deck is much weaker without . Sadly, I do not have the card and couldn't borrow one before the tournament, which I believe held me back a bit. I tried to use , which can be made with a normal summoned Ash and any Bystilal for example. Alas, the card never came up.
Overall, the deck achieved its purpose and helped me get my invite. But going forward, especially at a larger tournament, Baronne will definitely be needed. Luckily, we got a reprint in Maze of Memories, making the card somewhat more affordable. In the end, the deck held its own, and the Naturia cards frustrated the opponents with their recursion and synchro capabilities while the Runick spells kept coming down out of nowhere.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.
