Beginner's Guide to Naturia Ishizu (November 2022)

The TCG Yugioh scene changed forever November 4, 2022 with the release of Magnificent Mavens. Ishizu cards arrived in the set, pushing to the T0 brink the deck that will dominate the meta - Tearlaments Ishizu. Nowadays, only decks that shut off the graveyard or work with the graveyard mills can offer a fighting chance vs. this "Tear Zero" format, and one of those decks are Naturia Ishizu!

Naturia Ishizu fills a decent niche in this mermaid-dominated Yugioh ecosystem. What are the reasons you should you play this deck? There are plenty! 

• Naturia can plus off mills (so you can piggyback and generate advantage when your opponent mills with Ishizu cards. You can play on "turn 0" just like Tearlaments). 
• Naturia are earth type (effectively dodging being banished by Bystial cards, and can be searched/milled/resurrected with Vernusylph cards). 
• Naturia's end board is extremely strong and oppressive (Naturia Beast/Barkion + Sunflower nearly infinitely negates, spells, traps and monsters respectively). 
• Naturia, Vernusylph and Ishizu search, resurrect, recur and mill each other (this deck's archetypes seem to be long lost lovers for each other, d'awww how cute :3). 

Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!

ARCHETYPES, ENGINES AND DECKBUILDING

• Forming the deck’s core strategy, the Naturia cards in the Main Deck consist of 16 cards:

3 Camellia, 3 Molcricket, 1 Stinkbug, 1 Sunflower, 1 Horneedle, 3 Blessing and 3 Sacred Tree. 1 One for One acts as another copy of Molcricket, the main starter of the Naturia archetype.  In the Extra Deck there are 1 Beast, and 1 Barkion.

• The milling and GY manipulation powerhouses of this deck, the Ishizu cards in the maindeck consists of whopping 19 cards:

3 Keldo, 3 Kelbek, 3 Mudora, 3 Agido and 1 Gravekeeper's Trap. 3 Diviner of the Heralds and 3 Herald of Orange Light enable disruption and further milling with the Ishizu cards. 

• Each functioning as a monster reborn of an earth monster, Vernusylph cards assist the Naturia strategy and consist of 9 cards.

3 Awakening Forests, 3 Flourishing Hills, and 3 Misting Seedlings. 

• Board Breakers, Support and Handtraps cards consist of 11 cards.

3 Kashtira Fenrir, 3 Bystial Magnamhut, 1 Druiswyrm, 1 Foolish Burial, 1 Called by the Grave and 2 Pot of Desires. 

55 cards are used in this deck since the milling ability of this deck (and possibly your opponent's deck) makes every key card easily accessible through GY recovery like Vernusylph cards, the Ishizu shufflers and Naturia Blessing. 17+ cards directly or indirectly mill cards to the GY in Naturia Ishizu, so the GY remains readily accessible for plays. 

COMBOS AND GAMEPLAN

Going first, the gameplan is to generally set up a board consisting of Naturia Beast, Molcricket, Camellia and possibly Sunflower, given you have an extender. Any other cards (depending on what you draw/mill) can turn into a rank 4 of your choice (ideally in this format, Abyss Dweller.) or a level 10 Synchro. This end board results in almost infinite spell negates (Beast), up to 3 monster negates (Sunflower) and a GY effect lockdown with Abyss Dweller. The graveyard can have Mudora and Keldo to shuffle back your opponent's GY as additional interruption. This is generally enough to stop any GY deck in it's tracks so that an OTK can be achieved next turn with Naturia Ishizu's relentless monster spam.

If you've been interrupted too much by handtraps/turn 0 interruptions, get Bagooska out to stall for additional resources and an ideal gamestate. 

Going second, opponent's boards are broken by interrupting your opponent at key moments with handtraps like the Bystial cards, Ishizu cards, and Herald of Orange Light. 

This deck easily accesses boss monsters capable of cracking boards and punching over monsters like Baronne, Chengying, Zeus, Accesscode and Underworld Goddess. Kashtira Fenrir is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to breaking boards, and it can be easily accessed from the GY with any Vernusylph card given it was milled earlier. 

If your deck was milled by your opponent, it will help you out on the crack-back during your turn, since a decent GY set-up enables more plays, resources and interruptions for the Naturia player. Every Naturia Sacred Tree milled represents an additional monster on your field to use as Synchro/Link/XYZ material for the OTK!

Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!

GENERAL TIPS

• Before milling with Kelbek and Agido, try to make and activate Abyss Dweller first so that your opponent doesn't plus with your mills.
• Remember that using Vernusylph cards EARTH-LOCK YOUR MONSTER EFFECTS FOR THE REST OF THE TURN! Try to use your non-earth effects before using a Vernusylph card. I personally did this misplay several times, often costing me the game, try not to be like me lol
• Try to set up Gravekeeper's Trap as soon as possible. It searches every Earth Fairy in your deck, including the Vernusylph cards! Also, if you have drawn Naturia Sacred Tree, you can discard it with Gravekeeper's Trap to search for both an Earth Fairy and a Naturia card.
• If your opponent has locked down the field with a crazy monster floodgate like Bagooska or an unkillable tower like I:P boosted Avramax, use Underworld Goddess! This deck can create Ms. Underworld very easily since it readily spams the field with so many monsters like no tomorrow with the Naturia, Vernusylph and Ishizu cards working together. 
• If you make Chengying, its effect to banish your opponent's card in their field and GY can be triggered as a quick effect by the Ishizu cards Mudora and Keldo, as well with the Bystial cards. 
• If you use I:P Masqurena + Bystial Druiswyrm on your opponent's turn to make Knightmare Unicorn, you can remove two cards at once (one targeted shuffle, 1 targeted/send of monster). 
• If you get interrupted too much and you're in a bad position, make Bagooska to stall for resources. 
• The most interchangeable cards in the deck are the Bystial cards (when you're not facing a light/dark deck) and the herald cards (Diviner and Orange Light). If you wanna cut the deck to make it more compact, you can take out these 10 cards to make this deck a 45 card deck. 
• Decks that counter Tearlaments are usually also bad match-ups for this deck - like Floowandereeze and Dracoslayers (the variant that turbos out Necrovalley). Be sure to side appropriately for those match-ups. 

CONCLUDING COMMENTARY

I'll be honest, when I watched the two most recent YCS this "Tear Zero" format, I wanted to take a break playing competitively for a while. Everything felt overwhelming, boring, similar and crazy. Our favourite decks that we piloted were decimated and thrown aside by the unstoppable mermaid juggernaut. Let's not forget the back-to-back chain link 10s in Tear mirror matches (Pak vs. Hani feature match anyone?)! While it's enjoyable for some duelists, I can say with confidence that a 1 deck format with mind-numblingly long turns and chains is not for me.

However, when I discovered Naturia Ishizu, it offered to me a breath of fresh air I needed from the stale competitive match-ups, and hooooo boy is it fun to play and pilot! It's perfectly unique, competitive and interesting all at once while being able to play toe-to-toe with the strongest decks of the format. The immense synergy of Naturia, Ishizu and Vernusylph creating this Earth-attribute symphony is just so incredible!

I'll try out my luck with these cute bugs, flowers and eldritch horrors at my Locals, and hopefully it reinvigorates my passion for competitive Yugioh in this "Tear Zero" format. 

GLHF Duelists!