I started messing around with Sylvans again and with some testing, here’s a deck profile.
Hello everybody! I’m finally back, I didn’t think about not being able to do an article on the second Monday, right after I got back, but I got back on Sunday so I really didn’t have time to make an article, especially since I was so tired from my plane ride. I’m finally back though, so sorry about the hiatus of sorts. Over the weeks before I was gone and at my local free play time this week (and likely the future) I’ve been using Sylvans as a sort of fun deck, because not everybody likes to play against Shaddoll Artifacts, especially if they’re also running a “fun” deck as someone might call it. I personally think competitive decks are fun as well, but I completely understand the overwhelming factor they present to decks that are non-meta and how that would be not so fun. That aside, here’s a profile of the Sylvan deck I’ve been working on.
Main Deck (40):
Monsters (23):
- 2 Sylvan Hermitree
- 3 Sylvan Sagequoia
- 1 Rose Paladin
- 2 Sylvan Marshalleaf
- 2 Mathematician
- 1 Rose Archer
- 3 Lonefire Blossom
- 1 Rose Lover
- 1 Spore
- 1 Sylvan Cherubsprout
- 2 Sylvan Princessprout
- 1 Glow-Up Bulb
- 3 Effect Veiler
Spells (17):
- 1 Raigeki
- 1 Reinforcement of the Army
- 1 Soul Charge
- 3 Upstart Goblin
- 2 Terraforming
- 3 Sylvan Charity
- 1 Book of Moon
- 3 Miracle Fertilizer
- 2 Mount Sylvania
Extra Deck (15):
Synchros (6):
- 1 Star Eater
- 1 Leo, Keeper of the Sacred Tree
- 1 Scrap Dragon
- 1 Stardust Dragon
- 1 Stardust Spark Dragon
- 1 Black Rose Dragon
XYZs (9):
- 1 Number 107: Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon
- 1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
- 1 Coach King Gaintrainer
- 2 Divine Dragon Knight Felgrand
- 1 Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector
- 2 Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter
- 1 Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack
The deck is wildly different from my last iteration. I took inspiration from a lot of other builds I’ve seen since about a year ago and a handful of other things and compiled this version. This build is notably low on plant monsters, only running a total of 17 plants, so the odds are usually going to be a little less than 50% that you will blindly excavate a plant, meaning that’s not really a good idea to do with this build (if it ever was). I’ve added a few new things in that I thought worked really well thanks to Frazier Smith’s turbo build posted on ARG, specifically Mathematician and Upstart Goblin.
Major changes, the biggest probably being the complete removal of Komushroomo. I still really like the card, but I’m not even running MST because the format doesn’t really warrant its use, plus MST is a terrible card unless it’s required. Komushroomo does provide the nice setup phase, but it’s incredibly slow setup, and considering it’s excavation effect is usually not that helpful I decided to cut it completely. I have thought about maining at least 1, and most likely I would side 1 or 2 copies if I went to a tournament with the deck.
The level 1 Plant engine is pretty refined, all the way down to 5 monsters. As I’m pretty sure I’ve stated before, Glow-up Bulb is incredibly underwhelming in the deck, so I may cut it for some trap cards, a Komushroomo, a Marshalleaf or another Paladin/Rose Archer. Peaskeeper is cool because it revives Lonefire, but that necessitates you drawing Lonefire, in which case you should usually be fine. It really only adds additional power to situations that you’re in the advantageous position and provides inconsistency in otherwise bad positions, a.k.a. a win more card. Spore and Cherub at 1 I would say is a staple for the deck, no other amounts will suffice, and 2 Princessprout also feels like the perfect number, I could only potentially make an argument for 3, but that makes you dead draw it more and you don’t really want to draw the princess.
I dropped down to 2 Hermitree because I couldn’t really think of a good reason to be running the 3rd one. It clumps horribly in your hand and you rarely if ever summon the 3rd one onto the field. I figured I might as well cut it in place of the Paladin which could essentially replace it or be Sagequoia/Lonefire when necessary.
When most people are watching me duel they always question Mathematician. Mathematician is actually a really good addition to the deck because it works in a bunch of different ways and additionally has the drawing effect to boost otherwise poor hands. The obligatory play is to send Spore or Glow-up Bulb to the graveyard with Mathematician. The second play is to combo with either Sagequoia or Hermitree. In both instances you can send a Rose Lover and use it to special summon either Hermitree or Sagequoia from the hand, this helps to prevent dead drawing the big trees. In the case of Sagequoia you can also send any Sylvan monster from the deck to the graveyard with Mathematician and this will also trigger Sagequoia’s summoning effect which only requires a Sylvan monster to be sent to the graveyard by a card effect to summon Sagequoia from the hand. With the addition of Mathematician and Rose Archer I was very tempted to run Crane Crane to summon Meliae of the Trees, which is an easy way to revive your big trees. I’ll be looking into it in the future.
One major new addition is Upstart Goblin. Initially I thought this card contradicted the deck’s style because it only increases the number of non-plants you have a change of excavating, but in actuality the card works as a combo piece in this deck. Because of the number of ways to top deck different cards, Upstart Goblin can essentially be used to search specific deck pieces. The most optimal and frequently used use of Upstart Goblin would be to top deck Sylvan Charity with Mount Sylvania and then search it in that fashion. You can also use Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter to look at the top 8 cards of your deck and put the one you want on top of the deck and then Upstart Goblin it to your hand. This is particularly more relevant games 2 and 3 when you’ve sided in floodgate cards since Sylvans are immune to most relevant floodgate cards, ex. Mistake.
I have added the mini ROTA engine to the deck, 1 Reinforcement of the Army which can search either Rose Archer or Rose Paladin. I’ve liked it a lot so far, the ability to have multiple options through a card is very nice.
Raigeki, Book of Moon and 2 Marshalleaf are my Djinn lock outs. I don’t really like Raigeki or Book of Moon that much in the deck, but I don’t really like any of the other potential Djinn lock outs I could be running. I also run 3 Effect Veiler which I think is a staple right now for a lot of decks. This helps provide a potential out to the Djinn lock setup and is also the best thing the deck has to offer as far as protection from Trishula.
If you have any questions about the deck in any way feel free to ask and I will try to answer as best I can!
QOTW? Question of the Week:
So Star Seraphs… how good do you think they make decks like Shaddolls and Satellarknights in comparison to Nekroz?
Written by: Kyle Oliver