One week after Rosetta's release, I was at a Battle Hardened in Milwaukee, where Luke Magnuson and Levi Rauch piloted separate Verdance decklists to Top 4 positions. Luke was making use of the massive life gain available via Count Your Blessings, while Levi took a more aggressive posture that looked to make steady gains before closing with a combo. Meanwhile, Sebastian Spicher claimed 5th with Verdance at The Calling: Lyon - and his list was also unique. With three lists already finding success, Verdance was off to a promising start...
...and that was it. Since that time, Verdance has essentially fallen out of the meta. Count Your Blessings became the providence of Enigma, and the unlikely Oscilio has taken the lead as the Wizard of choice in Classic Constructed. Over in Earth, Florian hasn't exactly stolen the spotlight, but Jarl is about to, placing new demands on Verdance's card pool; when playsets of Felling of the Crown and Plow Under will set you back $300, it's hard to even try her out.
In a lot of ways, this feels like an outcome we should have seen coming. The 'battle mage' archetype has always struggled to claim legitimacy among Wizards - who can't justify splitting between arcane and physical damage when Runeblade is right there - but Earth lent Verdance some truly powerful attacks that didn't ask her to pay the generic toll in defense and rate of value. The greater cost seems to be the lack of instant-speed playlines; without those, Verdance is forced to confront the reality of arcane's lowered rate of damage. And while Verdance's end-game combo with Rampant Growth is capable of excessive damage, the deck's draw rate isn't nearly as fast as Kano's; surviving to the 2nd cycle is a significantly taller order.
None of this is to say that Verdance is unplayable; and while the deck may have an outsized cost-to-payoff ratio, it's decidedly a deck you can enjoy and win with at a local Armory level. But after such an illustrious start, it's hard to believe Verdance has since slipped to the bottom of the Rosetta roster.
Perhaps the most likely culprit in Verdance's downfall is her signature weapon, Staff of Verdant Shoots. It's hard to argue with amp-on-demand, but at the cost of 3 resources, +1 damage (and, if you pitched Earth, +1 defense on your non-attacks) just doesn't feel like it's worth a whole blue card. Combine this with the tendency to build Verdance with less arcane damage than most Wizards, and it's hard to ignore that, until you've banished 8 Earth cards, Verdance is bringing nothing to your deck beyond access to the Earth talent.
But there's a fault to Verdance even more fundamental than that: the hard truth that healing doesn't win you games. After all, winning doesn't come from ending the game with more life, but by bringing the opponent to zero. LSS is aware of this, of course - an overconfidence in this was how Count Your Blessings was ever allowed to exist - and her own hero power converts life gain to damage dealt. As in so many games, being the healer in Flesh and Blood is a tough sell.
Finally, no hero's prospects can be assessed in a vacuum; we have to place Verdance in relation to the meta, which at the moment is predominantly Mystic. We've already alluded to Enigma's superior use of life gain, but the Mystic Illusionist also manages the tall attack pattern that Earth endorses without much trouble. Adding a wide attack pattern to Verdance's sideboard further divides the already-split focus that plagues the deck.
On the other side of the equation, Nuu exploits the heavy prevalence of blues in Verdance's decklists. Blocking isn't a hardship for an Earth hero, but the reactions of the Assassin class make it harder to calculate the right blocks. The matchup can feel uncomfortably like a race - not enough to push Verdance out of the meta, but an uncertain matchup that doesn't instill confidence.
Moving away from Mistveil, one other hero really shapes the discussion: Aurora. While there's essentially no overlap in their card pools, Aurora and Verdance shares one element that calls the latter into question: damage on two fronts. However, Aurora's fast, wide strategy puts pressure on the top decks of the meta, while Verdance's slow, tall combo finisher gives them too much room to breathe. A head-to-head between these two decks is a fascinating push/pull that can end in either's favor, but their matchup spreads couldn't be more different.
Is there a path forward for Verdance? The way I see it, there are three possibilities.
- The meta shifts with The Hunted, taking the focus away from Enigma and thereby allowing slower midrange decks to work their preferred gameplan.
- Verdance gets a new weapon that sets her apart from other Wizards and bridges the disparity between her Earth and arcane strategies.
- Verdance's build gets completely reimagined - perhaps inspired by a new Expansion Slot card - and she finds herself in a strong position to answer the aggro side of the meta.
Embodiment of Earth is a token with vast potential, held back in public consciousness by its ties to the Earth card pool. When you consider, however, a Wizard deck built with non-attack actions that block 4 with an Embodiment in play, the potential for clean breakpoint blocks feels relevant.
Verdance could also be built with an emphasis on Amp. While Wizards aren't known for go again, they're recently gained quite a bit of access to buffs; these could provide a new way to make use of excess resources and bigger hands.
At the moment, the incentive is lacking to experiment with Verdance, who seems to be occupying the middle of many roads while other heroes follow those paths to their outer limits. True to her nature, I see plenty of room for growth as we look forward to a new season.
