Plant Discussion Thread: September 2011

Hey guys, you know I love plants, so, like last banlist, I'm making a plant thread so we can post our opinions of the direction we think plants are going to go. There is no right or wrong answer to the question. In fact, new banlists are a good opportunity to try new ideas and bring back some old ideas that work again in the new format. The following are my opinions:

I believe plants still have a chance at being tier 1. Even if they don't end up tier 1, I'll still play them because I love them. I didn't jump on board the bandwagon when they got popular, I've always liked them ever since I heard of Gigavise builds, and I fell in love when I saw Jeff Jones' Quickdraw Plants build haha. Played them ever since. Anyway, despite a Lonefire being gone and us being hit indirectly by some other limitations, I think the plant engine is still viable, though we're left with only 4 plants. Even if it doesn't work Dandy and Bulb will still be great. But that's a very small amount, which begs the question: what other engines to use? Unfortunately/fortunately in this format, for TCG, Tengu and Tour Guide dominate. Unfortunate because they're so broken and will likely never get hit, fortunate for us because we can abuse them in plants. Plants and Zombies are the best decks to use them in IMO. So we'll use 1 or both engines I imagine. To me there are 3 builds that stand out:

Standard Tour Guide/Tengu Plants
Junk Doppel
Quickdraw

Now that's not to say Tour Guide and Tengu don't fit in the other builds, but probably only 1 instead of both, and the standard version will have more tech. I think Junk Doppel is good because it gives more aggression, more ways to abuse Librarian, and, best of all, Quasar will be out soon. We have more space now to run the engine as well now that 2 poa, a Debris, and a Lonefire are gone, and we'll run less traps. Junk Doppel's weakness when compared to Tengu Plants has been that it needs to be more aggressive, and if it can't be aggressive it doesn't do as well. Well, with Heavy Storm back, the more aggressive, the better. And also, as I said before, there's room to run Tengus OR Tour Guide in Doppel variants now.
Quickdraw variants are MUCH better now for the same reasons. More so because of the lack of traps. We stopped playing Quickdraw pretty much when Solemn Warning came out and Heavy left. Now, with Heavy and 3 MST, Warning isn't much of a problem. Drill Warrior has become amazing again with his infinite reverse toolboxing ability and lack of interference by Solemn and Oppression. The problem is making a consistant build. The meta has changed greatly since we last used ol' QuickDraw, so some changes need to be made. If we are to incorporate him, more milling would be nice. However, we have BLS and Tengu or Tour Guide to worry about milling, plus only one poa to get it back. It'll take time to perfect, but I believe QuickDraw and his big brother Drill Warrior will shine, even if we need to make room for exceeds.

So yeah, that's my opinion. We got hit hard for sure, but I think Standard Tengu Tour Guide Plants will still be good with new techs, and more aggressive styles of plants are better now with more trap hate. If samurai still had a chance I might be worried but...they don't! *trollface*. Dark World and Twilight will be a big problem but they're kind inconsistant too, particularly Twilight. If we side hard against them we can stand a chance.

What do you guys think?

Now Harper, you have to understand, plants......were hit hard.............BUT THAT DON'T STOP ME!!!! Man I am still rockin ma plants in new variants, made a version of twilight(not the original I think, never seen an original) and I get ppl ragequittin left and right. Tour guide brings plants back, even with lonefire at 1, tour guide(with good strategy) basically gives you 2 in your deck it's just that good. Haven't had time to make quickdraw yet, cuz I'm making a variant for every card(QD,Junk,Debris,Doppel,etc.) Nice article man, keep on usin teh plants

And we all know WHY they were hit hard.
Ever since 5D's first came into play...Plant types got shot up in terms of epicness.
Which such moves onto the banlist such as these I am surprised they do not ban some of my Dragon cards.

However, Plants have always been an annoyance and probably always will be.

@frost: yay! Plant love! How's your testing coming along? Btw, "Twilight" is LS and darks, but "Chaos" is anything light and dark that abuse BLS, CED, or Chaos. So there's no "original build of Chaos really.
@fenir: I hope so . I doubt plants themselves will get hit anymore, but...idk. "Plants" has come to mean synchro spam basically. Even if Lonefire or Dandy get banned, it's unlikely that Spore of Bulb will ever get hit.
So Tour Guide being slightly nerfed was good, though not necessarily good for us plant users. It was helpful to insta-search anything from Veiler to Lonefire to Debris, but I suppose it had to be done. Now, I got a chance to test Junk Doppel today, and it did surprisingly well. I expected it to be a little slower but it wasn't really. My hands weren't stellar but they were generally consistant. Formula at 1 was more annoying than expected though, since randomly summoning Formula for random draw power isn't that good of a move anymore. I try to save it for the double draw with Librarian or better yet Quasar. I beat a bunch of randoms, then beat Placido's Agents in a single duel. If I can beat a DGA Stardust with Plants they can't be that bad lol. I summarize September Plants like this: We still have acess to the same plays we had before, but we just have to be careful how we use our monster effects and synchros. We need to make room for xyz and several synchros are limited now so the extra is basically only 1 copy each of synchros and xyz. We have to be particularly careful with Formula as it opens probably the most combos. The way the banlist hit plants still allows the same moves but they aren't so abusable and RE-usable. Example: you don't go "Trolol Tengu! Tune with Spore for Librarian for +0 synch! Remove Lonefire special Spore, tune with Tengu for +2 Scrap Dragon! Poa for another random +1! Pop Tengu for Scrap eff and another random +1!"
With less copies of key cards and less poa, it is indeed weaker but smart players can still kick butt with it. You just can't be overly reckless anymore. I'm also going to try Tengu Tour Plants with 2 teched Quickdraw. I have high hopes for it, I forsee Drill to be a formidable threat. I'm considerig using Mystic Tomato bc it's a floater, dark, and a plant that makes Spre level 5. Thoughts? Post more ideas guys...if you do I might post my build! Cool techs? Unique engines? Thoughts? Let's see the plant love!

i made a bet with my friend today that i could make a competitive plant type deck and top and my locals. i'll post my thoughts and deck list soon haha

why separating junk doppel and quickdraw ? i run both in my deck and it's always agressive and consistant

Because some decks don't need the "synchron" synchros(like Drill Warrior)

John: neat! Can't wait to see your build
king: don't let me limit you haha. This thread is discussion, meaning I want everyone to post their opinions. I've found it's hard to make space in the extra deck when I run Dopple and Quickdraw though, since I run Dopple mainly for Quasar. But I might try it out! I love Quickdraw and really love Quasar.