Sylvan Deck Profile, Post Dragons of Legend

Now that Dragons of Legend is released, I present to you my best Sylvan deck profile yet!

Sylvan Deck Profile

Monsters (27):

• 3 Sylvan Hermitree
• 3 Sylvan Sagequoia
• 2 Fallen Angel of Roses
• 1 Debris Dragon
• 2 Sylvan Marshalleaf
• 3 Kuribandit
• 2 Lonefire Blossom
• 3 Sylvan Koomushroomo
• 1 Spore
• 3 Sylvan Peaskeeper
• 1 Sylvan Cherubsprout
• 1 Sylvan Princessprout
• 2 Copy Plant

Spells (11):

• 2 Soul Charge
• 3 Sylvan Charity
• 3 Miracle Fertilizer
• 3 Mount Sylvania

Traps (2):

• 2 Royal Decree

Extra Deck (15):

• 1 Star Eater
• 1 Stardust Dragon
• 1 Black Rose Dragon
• 1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
• 1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
• 2 Divine Dragon Knight Felgrand
• 1 Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector
• 2 Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter
• 1 Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack
• 1 Number 11: Big Eye
• 1 Downerd Magician
• 1 Wind-Up Zenmaines
• 1 Slacker Magician

Side Deck (15):

• 1 Sylvan Marshalleaf
• 2 Sylvan Snapdrassinagon
• 1 Dark Hole
• 3 Mystical Space Typhoon
• 2 Forbidden Chalice
• 3 Forbidden Lance
• 2 XYZ Encore
• 1 Royal Decree

I’ll start off by saying that I’m extremely confident in this new build compared to last time I posted a deck list. My last list was very unrefined still and I had yet to iron out all the plays and combos that I wanted to do with the deck. Now, I’ve honed in a lot of the numbers for this deck to hopefully create a more idealized build of the deck, at least for this specific meta.

The most notable change to the deck I think is the swap of Trap cards for Royal Decree. Once I had built a clear goal in my mind for what I wanted to achieve with the deck, it made much more sense to run Royal Decree than any other Trap cards. About the vision I had for the deck; one could easily build this deck to achieve other means, I’ve seen builds that are focused on the card Raging Mad Plants, and I won’t knock that card or strategy since I tested that and it certainly works. Personally, I built this iteration for a lock down play style, with the ideal field of Divine Dragon Knight Felgrand, Stardust Dragon and Royal Decree. Against many decks this field is nearly unbreakable and wins in 2 to 3 turns. I focused particularly on the summon of Stardust Dragon because of Artifacts and Hands. Other than outright OTKs involving returning the Hand monsters to the opponent’s hand, this deck doesn’t have any realistic options for dealing with those cards. Stardust Dragon is a be all and end all to this situation, and in combination with Decree you practically auto-win versus the Hat Trick deck.

Royal Decree also saves a lot of room to fill it with the new cards from Dragons of Legend: Kuribandit and Soul Charge. Soul Charge is pretty obvious in this deck given you run Lonefire Blossom and your constantly dumping monsters into the graveyard. Early game Soul Charge can be a nuisance though if you aren’t afforded the opportunity to excavate early game. If you do open with Bandit, Mushroom or Lonefire you general will be able to pull a clean Soul Charge unless the opponent pushes for damage early game.

I was a little tentative about Kuribandit early on in testing. The reason being was because if I go first and use Bandit’s effect and excavate some Sylvans, for the most part their effects will be meaningless because it’s during my End Phase. For example, Peaskeeper, Cherub and Princessprout, Koomushroomo and Marshalleaf are all pointless when excavated during my End Phase if I’m going first. My opponent has nothing to destroy and my opponent can just attack over weenies tat get special summoned. This ends up being all fine though for one reason: Kuribandit provides massive amount of setup for the deck and digs for Spell cards. Spell cards cause you to win with this deck. If you open all monsters you’re probably going to lose. If you open a bunch of Spells you’re probably going to win. Kuribandit makes sure that you dig for spell cards and also sets up Peaskeeper, Miracle Fertilizer and Soul Charge. Also, sending your Sylvan Spells to the grave isn’t even bad because they can be recurred using Sagequoia.

Bandit of course is amazing when going second. The opponent does have the option to Solemn Warning or Breakthrough Skill Bandit upon its summon, but in most instances they will not, similar to how in most instances people don’t stop Cardcar D. When you use Kuribandit going second you can hit Marshalleaf and Koomushroomo for really devastating and safe destruction of opponent’s setups before you attempt to OTK the opponent.

As I said, I also worked on a video of some replays of how the deck works. Sorry for lack of quality and audio, this is the best I could do. Here’s a 30 minute compilation of replays showing various things about this deck. During some of the duels I’m testing different variations of the deck, that’s why you’ll see some different cards in their than in this profile:

The only thing I really have left to talk about is the side deck. The side deck is incredibly unrefined and untested, but I will explain the theory behind it.

Marshalleaf, Snapdrassinagons and XYZ Encore are for Evilswarms. Ophion’s really annoying in this deck so I added those outs. The reason for Snapdrassinagon is because it combos with the Field Spell, Mount Sylvania. When Snapdrassinagon is sent to the graveyard by any means he Excavates 1 and sends it to grave if it’s a plant-type monster. With the Field Spell you can discard Snapdrassinagon and top deck a Sylvan monster. Then after resolution, Snapdrassinagon will start a new chain to excavate and excavate the card you just top decked. This is helpful against Evilswarms because you can do this to top deck Marshalleaf and pop an Ophion immediately.

Dark Hole, Forbidden Chalice and Forbidden Lance are for when you’re going second. Typically I would side out Royal Decree when going second because it’s slow and you need to make plays on your turn 1. Lance allows you to do that and ideally play through your opponent’s set cards. Forbidden Chalice is the same except for monster effects aka Abyss Dweller, Felgrand, Artifacts, Evolzars and what have you. Abyss Dweller is a massive problem for this deck, so this is necessary. You can play around it, but it’s a real hassle since you can’t use any excavation effects.

Mystical Space Typhoon and the 3rd Royal Decree are for decks you think will be siding deadly Continuous Trap cards like Soul Drain or Macro Cosmos or maybe just a bunch of Trap Holes like Traptrix.

QOTW? Question of the Week:

What are your thoughts on Evilswarms in the new meta. They have a strong match-up against Artifacts, Dragon Rulers and Geargia, and Fire Fist, their typically bad match-up, is nowhere to be seen. Are conditions perfect for them to thrive again?

Written by: Kyle