[Deck Review] The Roots of the Format

Hey Everybody, Today We've got a deck which I believe most of you have been familiar with through these past 2-3 formats because of its domination, great synergy and invading the top YCS/Regionals decklists with massive numbers, Before Starting to talk about Plants after EXCV (Extreme Victory) I'd like to give a brief introduction about how plants developed.

With the release of "Crossroads of Chaos" set Plants attained huge popularity among many duelists, It was no longer a random deck but it had its own ways to control the duel through Gigaplants/Tytannials/Black Garden spam but they didn't make any strong impacts because the whole format was bowing to Tele-DAD decks but it was worthwhile trying.

Things changed a little with the release of "crimson Crisis" when "Debris Dragon" was first introduced, Such a card had an influence on every botanical duelist as it was the reason behind the dawn of Debu Hime deck whose whole strategy was to abuse Black-Rose Dragon (There were no Solemn Warnings) fueling the graveyard for Pot of Avarices but again the support "Blackwings" recieved at that time was rediculously insane and from then they dominated the format.

Then time has come for plants to rise, spread their roots, establish for themselves a base and not to be considered an understimated deck anymore thanks to "Quickdraw Dandy Warrior" build which abused "Dandylion" like never before tearing up the format with Drill Warrior/Black Rose Dragon and much tokens' abuse..By the end of the format, Many good duelists started to drop Quickdraw for the sake of consistency (Evolution of Debu Hime), Yet Good things don't last, The Banlist Semi-ed Debris Dragon and limited Dandylion and with "Solemn Warning" being a staple it became hard for the deck to function like before.

The Present :
Plants now won't have to deal with one of the most irritating cards which used to slow down the deck alot ; Book of Moon, thanks to its limitation. Now Synchros are much easier to land and thus Plants should have functioned better BUT NO !! because of "Solemn Warning" being Staple and "Effect Veiler" backing up most decks, Things just became harder.
Not to mention, Plants' -big plays- aren't that big now when compared to the first turn Shi En/Stardust Dragon splashed by Six Samurais and Dragunity duelists..and their first turn set plays which were once considered good just don't work anymore because other decks could just outspeed/outplay plants, set-up much easier and faster and so botanical duelists rushed to the OCG to see their outs to such a harsh format.

And as usual OCG duelists had the answer which was "Chaos Plants" and "Doppel-Plants" (An inconsistent variant of Chaos Plants)
The whole point of this deck is to once again do fast and instant synchro summons, get pluses and tokens' abuse and fuel the graveyard for POA and Chaos Sorcerer filling the monster linup with lots of handy, strategy supportive Light and Dark monsters.
But even that wasn't even close to enough, as that deck faced many challenges this format as it had a high rate of getting bad hands and the horrible Gravekeeper matchup as "Chaos Sorcerer", "Debris Dragon", "Junk Synchron", "Spore" , "Pot of Avarice", "Monster Reborn", "Call of the Haunted" and "Limit Reverse" all fall to gravekeepers' "Necro Valley". Yes !! It almost wrecks half of the deck and since Gravekeepers are dominating everywhere, many duelists decided to just let the deck go...BUT Konami has given us hope in the form of T.G. Librarian, Trishula (to TCG) and Shooting Quasar Dragon. And from here the real article starts !!

T.G. Hyper Librarian
Dark/Spell Caster/5*/2400/1800
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
While this card is face-up on the field, each time a Synchro Monster(s) is Synchro Summoned, draw 1 card for each.

Why're you still reading ?! If you read the card's effect, you should've been choking already...Yes !! Its effect is rediculously broken, This card allows you to draw one card whenever YOU OR YOUR OPPONENT synchro summons giving you a free and easy +1, So your opponent shall think twice before tuning as even if he tuned to run over Librarian..Librarian did his floater-job successfully allowing you to have more options for a come-back the following turn, And trust me when i say no deck can abuse this card as Junk-Doppel Fish decks and Junk-Doppel variants.
That's not everything, This card's stats has impressed lots of duelists being a 2400 Beater despite that awesome effect and most importantly being a level 5 spellcaster which makes it the perfect synchro material for "Arcanite Magician".
Sample Combo

Spoiler:

Shooting Quasar Dragon
Light/Dragon/12*/4000/4000
1 Tuner Synchro Monster + 2 or more non-Tuner Synchro Monsters
This card cannot be Special Summoned except by Synchro Summon. This card can attack a number of times during the Battle Phase equal to the number of non-Tuner monsters used as Synchro Material Monsters. Once per turn, you can negate the activation of a Spell, Trap or Effect Monster's effect and destroy it. When this card is removed from the field, you can Special Summon 1 "Shooting Star Dragon" from your Extra Deck.

This card is freaking good, It's the futuristic form of the roaring stardust dragon backed up by 4000 Atk and Def point ready to penetrate through any defenses. Have you ever thought Shi En is broken ? Well this card's effect is way more broken as it negates spells/traps and effects of effect monsters. Hold on! that's not everything as this card can attack multiple of times (1x number of non-tuner synchro materials) and as if that wasn't enough to define the card as broken one as this card is given an ability to Special Summon Shooting Star Dragon from your extra deck IF your opponent could destroy it somehow.
The card is broken for sure and if summoned successfully, it almost means game. However, because of the tight space in decks of Junk-Doppel Synchro extra deck, Hard summon conditions and the probability of this card's summon getting negated (would be -3 excluding draws u get), Some duelists prefer to drop it for the staple Shooting Star Dragon.
Sample Combo

Spoiler:

Deck Strategy :
The best thing about the deck is that it's having no main winning condition but various and different engines all working smoothly as Plants run the Synchron (Junk and Doppel)/Debris (Debris, Lonefire, Trooper, Dandylion, Spore, Glow Up Bulb)/Lightsworn (Ryko, Lyla and CoTLB)/ engines which all co-operate for one purpose which is to fuel the graveyard with Debris and Junk targets then summon either for instant synchro summons and enjoy the +2 you gained from the tokens which could be abused in getting +1s from formula synchrons or building up for bigger synchro summons or just backing you up.

Things doesn't end there, You're not just fueling they graveyard for Debris and Junk and big spore/glow-up bulb plays but you're also setting up for ending the game with Chaos Sorcerer/Dark Armed Dragon and you can never run out of options thanks to Pot of Avarices

Some variants (most common in OCG) drop the Debris Dragons and part of the plant engine so they could fit in Quickdraw Synchrons, Unknown Synchron and Tuning so they got access to the drill loop. Such build does really well as well.


Despite how good the deck is, It gets completely shut by one of the most irritating deck of the format which is Gravekeepers as explained before Yet the key to the solution was found once again in the awesome card set EXCV, don't take me literally as i'm talking about Reborn Tengu!

Reborn Tengu
Wind/Beast-Warrior/4*/1700/600
When this card is removed from the field, Special Summon 1 "Reborn Tengu" from your Deck.

This card breaks the format, It's really broken and splash-able in almost any deck, It's effect never misses the timing and an amazing way to keep your field presence. This card is the perfect tribute fodder because it replaces itself, That's just the same reason why this card is the perfect synchro material.It's also the best card to force/trigger solemns and keeps your opponents' traps useless and don't forget the amazing OTK potential this card has
Let's check the following decklist first.


The very first thing to be noticed here is that the winning conditions were totally changed, chaos Sorcerers & Dark Armed Dragon were both dropped because of the dead draws they can give (and no need to remind you with Gravekeeper's matchup) for triple caius which does amazingly well penetrating through facedowns and faceups whether they are spells/traps or monsters and could deal some damage as well if it targetted a Dark monster (no need to mention synergy between caius and tengu)
Also Doppels and Junks were dropped for the great Birdman and Tengu engine as they give you instant Black Rose Dragon giving you the opportunity to nuke the field for free (+1 Tengu gets on the field), Such engine can't be affected by necrovalley...Everything else is self-explanatory
The deck itself isn't as explosive as Doppel-Junk but is too consistent and can deal with many and various situations and most importantly doesn't get affected much by necrovalley.

The article is over i hope i didn't forget anything, Thanks for reading. Looking forward to hearing your comments.

Plants is one of my favorite decks, even though I haven't used them in a while. Gigaplant OTK with Limit Reverse and Disk Commander was fun back in the day.

Same here and while I don't use them mainly I did work on a deck not to long ago for my GF which ya yet to be finished. Perhaps il try a Quasar/Librarian engine for it.

The Quasar Librarian engine is just ridiculous though i do like the 3 Caius build with Tengu and Birdman! I might just net deck that build

Junk/DoppelPlants is just too good. Will be slightly weaker when prio rulings hits, but still good.

Good work EJ!