Time for a rework to Shaping Nature?

Still processing all the changes in the new patch, but hadn’t seen any discussion about the SN buff, so curious about peoples’ thoughts.

My reaction to the buff was, “Oh ok, that’s nice, I’m grateful… but I’m still not going to use the card.” Do others feel the same way? Or maybe I’m overlooking its value now.

The only real home for SN is Nature’s Gift/Symbiosis, as only it gets synergistic benefit from the Nature tag and vitality. But the problem imo is that SN is anti-synergistic with how that deck functions.

Symbiosis is critically dependent on drawing certain golds needed to carry the rounds (Aucwenn, Eithne, Simlas, Freixenet); if you don’t draw them, you lose, period. Symbiosis also pretty much has to be played devotion, meaning almost no access to neutral consistency tools (Oneiro, Triss: B, Roach and Knickers, etc., except Cursed Scroll). So you’re dependent on CotF and Council (which doesn’t work for humans and is random for dryads), maybe Simlas thinning, and lucky draws.

As an echo card, SN comes back to your hand the following round. But that means one less card drawn from deck, which reduces your chances of drawing your win cons. So even though SN got a value buff (now 18-24 for 9p), the loss of consistency is still a deal-breaker for me.

I’m curious if others think SN is worth running now or if you still plan to skip it.

For me, unless they’re willing to give ST more consistency tools that fit a Symbiosis deck, SN would need a much stronger effect to compensate for its downside. Like, “Purify an allied unit, boost it by X, and give it Veil.” Something that helps the archetype overcome its weaknesses. Or just rework the card completely to support a different ST archetype instead.