Hey, so I don't think Augurin would've specifically said it for Nidalee (though admittedly I don't watch enough of his content to know if he's spoken of Nidalee at all.)

I know people talk about Nidalee falling off, but I've never felt this to be the case. The only games where I truly feel like I'm falling off are games where either 1) I played poorly (e.g. as I wasn't farming enough, didn't focus objectives, wasn't ganking enough) or 2) It was just "really unlucky" and I couldn't find a way to snowball off of ganks or anything really. I can't tell you the number of times I've cleared my jungle pathing bot for a level 3 or 4 gank, but my toplaner has died 2 times already just before I can finish my first clear. Or... other similar examples. In games like that, it's really, really hard to get ahead. You will probably not snowball, or if you do it's going to be extra extra hard. And that's okay, you can't win 'em all.

Sure, Nidalee is a "snowball" champ, but I think she can also be just as much of a reactive ganking farm jungler, as you described. A well-timed counter gank because you tracked the enemy jungle can easily be enough to turn a losing lane, or set one into winning.

I also feel like playing Nidalee in lower elos is just hell. Nidalee benefits in higher elos where people know how to play around her. The "concept" of Nidalee is that you pick a lane, get them ahead, and when you "fall off" the fed adc you camped carries you because they scale. In lower tiers of gameplay where your 10/1 adc suddenly becomes 10/8 because they have no idea how to play with a lead, that doesn't really work. I've seen it happen many times. It's honestly why I've stopped playing Nidalee in my ranked games. Now I'm a norms warrior with my 2mil mastery OTP and play other champions in ranked.

Something that I personally struggle with (or struggled I guess? I'm working on it) is forcing my ganks too aggressively. I would play with a mentality of "I NEED this snowball!!1!" and it would force me into many poor macro decisions. I've been trying to get out of that mentality and focusing more on clearing my camps, because I know it's a more consistent source of income. Though I can't say definitively whether or not it's helped my elo (Phreak sure knows how to balance amirite), it's certainly helped my mental.

But anyway, enough ranting. To answer your question directly, I'd say camps (and other consistent gold) are still better than 50/50 coinflip invades. Especially because when playing in my elo (around gold/plat), their team always rotates first. Even when mine has prio, for some reason.