Decks like Dragapult ex/Iron Thorns ex play this card to set up their entire gameplan on their first turn, making it a necessity in many of the current format's evolution-centric decks
There are other ways to draw a lot of cards with white, but I'm partial to the enchantress strategy, which in my opinion is some of the best card draw in the game, let alone for mono-white decks
But all jokes aside, Nettle Guard is much more than just a decent attacker if you play it in the early turns, and it retains its utility later in the game thanks to its sacrifice ability
Most of these games are very old and, often, have rules of play that allow any card to be played at any time
Setting aside the utterly random bit of artifact-hosing (which I guess is a reference to Mirrodin Pure defeating the colored Phyrexians), theres an interesting riff on cards like Platinum Angel, Lichs Mirror, Angel of Grace, and Exquisite Archangel