In Edison, plants have a lot of burst power, being able to summon a strong boss monster in Tytannial, Princess of Camellias off a normal summon with Lonefire Blossom. Gigaplant is also a strong addition to plants, giving them some power in the mid and late game.
However, Spore and Glow-Up Bulb, despite being absolutely iconic plant cards, are not legal in Edison as they were not printed yet, and this reduces the effectiveness of their payoffs.
Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis is a card that went under the radar forever. Personally, it's because I always thought that it required to be summoned via Phoenixian Seed to be able to use its effect, but it turns out that it can be summoned from the grave no matter how it found itself there. So let's read its effect carefully before getting started:
This card cannot be Special Summoned except with its own effect or with "Phoenixian Seed".
You see how I was confused about this? This is exactly the same as Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes, but since Vennominaga activates when destroyed (and as such must be summoned first somehow), there's no way to bypass using Rise of the Snake Deity for the first summon.
If this card attacks, it is destroyed after damage calculation.
Konami perfectly engeneered this card's text to fit this short line among two longer, and much more relevant, lines, perfectly hiding it from my every opponent on DB who misreads the card every single time.
If this card you control is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, inflict 800 damage to your opponent.
Ookazi on destruction is not a bad effect per se, but it gets much bettter.
During your End Phase, you can remove from play 1 Plant-Type monster from your Graveyard to Special Summon this card from your Graveyard in Defense Position.
And THIS is why we play the card. Amaryllis, at the very cheap cost of banishing one plant from grave, can summon itself back from the grave no matter how it was sent there. Ookazi on destruction is looking much hotter now, isn't it? Heck, even self-destroying on attack is a positive for this card, since it basically is able to deal 3000 damage by itself on a direct attack.
Amaryllis decks aim to abuse this: you already have access to Tytannial, which is a huge card by itself, but when paired with Amaryllis burn you have a gameplan even in front of Colossal Fighter or Red Dragon Archfiend. The opponent NEEDS to address Amaryllis after you summon it, because if they don't you get access to a 2200 ATK beater for free, and they will get the 800 damage either way.
By playing plants, you also get access to Mark of the Rose, and since you are banishing a lot with Amaryllis you also get access to D.D.R. into Tytannial (or Lonefire->Tytannial and, more occasionally, just Dandylion for extra tribute fodder for Tytannial).
The mills are provided by the milling engine I discussed in my latest post, and the protect Lyla minigame here is super effective since you have both Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Raigeki Break, on top of the much more occasional Necro Gardna.
One note is that, as I mentioned, both Lyla and Amaryllis are cards the opponent needs to address as fast as possible. Most of the times that will happen with just an attack, but when both Lyla and Amaryllis are on field, this turns into a tough choice for the opponent if they only have one monster. Usually, they will pick Lyla, as it is generally much more threatening, but this also means that they will lose their beater to Amaryllis on the next turn and get a lot of damage. This is an incredibly strong early play whch lets you position yourself in a much better position to win.
The deck is fairly straightforward to play, so rather than discussing strategy, I want to discuss some specific card choices:
The plants
Amaryllis needs plants to summon itself back, and if you go and count you will see that there are a total of 11 plants. This is neat for a couple of reasons: first of all, a Lyla mill with 34 cards in the deck, of which 11 are plants, has a 76% probability of milling at least 1, 23% of milling 2 or more.
Secondly, if push comes to shove and you go for a grindy game, 11 plants means that you can summon Amaryllis 10 times (13 with Burial from a Different Dimension), for a grand total of 8000 damage if it gets destroyed every time.
Sadly, the plants card pool kinda sucks in Edison. Gigaplant is good, but it's another brick on top of 3 Amaryllis and 3 Tytannials. As such, aside from Lonefire and Dandylion, the other options are:
- Botanical Lion: a good beater, 1900 by itself (1600+300) with a great 2000 DEF, making it able to face HERO decks. With a Dandy activation, it goes to 2500, which is definitely nothing to scoff at.
- Lord Poison: floats into Tytannial (or, as usual, Lonefire->Tytannial or occasionally Dandy), but a bit slow IMHO.
- Koa'Ki Meiru Gravirose: 1900 beater that can send Dandy and Lonefire (and Necro Gardna and Plague, if you are playing it) to the grave on command. Sadly, it's not guaranteed to survive a turn, and it's just slightly better than Lyla's random mills in the early game.
- Cactus Bouncer: a great card, and I'm mostly considering siding it to be honest, but in the main deck it loses to all the HERO decks and even Dragons can crash into it with Red-Eyes Wyvern, on top of requiring more setup than Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo or even Vanity's Fiend.
- Mystic Tomato: just a floater that you can play up to 3 of and float into Gardna/Plague, but outclassed by Lord Poison in this deck.
- Rafflesia Seduction: a card I never heard of until searching for cards to put in the deck, a flip monster which lets you take control of an opponent's monster for one turn. I would have loved to play that, but it's DEFINITELY too slow for the deck.
- Neo-Spacian Glow Moss: I desperately wanted to play a Neo-Spacian engine (draw power with
Convert Contact, access to Grand Mole, pluses from Cross Porter on a mill), but of course the plant Neo-Spacian is the one who sucks the most. - Puppet Plant: I was considering playing this, but IMHO the card is not TOO useful even against actual targets, so it was no better than a random vanilla plant.
- Grass Phantom: 1000 ATK, but gains 500 ATK for every Grass Phantom in grave. Okay, it's bad, but wouldn't it be fun?
I was playing 1 Botanical Lion and 1 Lord Poison for a while, but I ended up removing Lord Poison to get some space for a larger Lightsworn package.
The Lightsworn package
As I mentioned earlier, summon Lyla pass is a a very strong play, and at a point I was playing 3 Lyla, 1 Ryko, 1 Charge and 0 Solar Recharge. However, Solar Recharge is incredibly strong, especially in this deck, so I expanded the engine to 3 Lyla, 3 Ryko, 1 Charge and 3 Solar Recharge. I am currently testing 2 Ryko and 1 Lumina instead, just to get access to mid game Lumina->Lyla to mill 6 and discard dead cards in hand.
The mills
The good mills for the deck are the aforementioned 11 plants and Necro Gardna. You might have noticed the lack of Plaguespreader Zombie, which was in the decklist until recently.
Plague is mostly useful in the late game, where usually you don't have access either to monsters to synchro with (since Tytannial and Amaryllis are LV8) or an extra card in hand to pay for Plague's cost. I recently decided to cut it, and happy since.
Another common mill target is Volcanic Counter, which helps with the burn part of the deck. It's not a bad card per se, but it is worse than Magic Cylinder under ANY point of view except that it becomes available by milling it instead of drawing (which, on the other hand, means that it is more dead in hand?), and it's quite easy to play against, as well as dying to the same side deck cards as the whole deck.
The traps
At first I was debating whether to play 3 PWWB or 3 Raigeki Break, so I settled for 2 and 2, but those proved so strong that I went to 3 and 3. PWWB and Raigeki Break are incredibly flexible and can deal with a lot of issues, besides Thought Ruler Archfiend specifically (or Tytannial with other plants on field?).
In general, Raigeki Break is less risky but offers a smaller payback, while PWWB really sucks against some cards (I'm not using PWWB against Stratos if it's going to beat over Lyla unless I'm desperate), but lets you capitalize on slow starts on the opponent or lock them down into a bad draw to gain an extra turn.
I was considering Karma Cut, as well, since it offers permanent removal at the same cost, although limited to monsters. Hitting a Treeborn Frog with Karma Cut feels great, though. I might test it some and consider it in the side, or go for the fabled 2 RB, 2 PWWB, 2 KC, but eh.
Finally, another option is Divine Wrath. Divine Wrath is in general a great card in Edison IMHO, and in this deck it deals with Caius, Stratos (denying them the +1, and still protecting your Lyla), and Brionac among others. The main problem with Divine Wrath is that it is not chainable, losing some flexibility. It is, on the other hand, a perfectly valid option that I'm playing with from time to time.
The side
As always, my siding abilities completely suck.
I've been liking Prohibition lately and I've come to prefer Soul Release to D.D. Crow. The deck can in theory play Royal Oppression as well, with the good old logic of "play big monster, make the opponent suffer" and by draining them of LPs with multiple Amaryllis.
That aside, some honourable mentions in the side are Book of Moon and Card Destruction.
Book of Moon is a good card in general, helps the "protect the Lyla" gameplan, and can wreck havoc in some matchups. That aside, there's one more utility in the deck, which any Goat Format player knows: permanently stealing monsters with Mark of the Rose. If you Book a monster stolen with Mark of the Rose it stays with you forever, so there's that.
The other mention is Card Destruction. The card is very common in Amaryllis decks, but to be honest I don't see the appeal. A lot of decks profit from a +0 Card Destruction when you play it against them, so why should I play it as a -1 effect in the main deck when there are plenty of more profitable ways to discard plants from hand? I'm considering dropping this altogether, but when it goes off and the opponent doesn't profit off it it's a good card, so for now it's stuck in the side and brought in only against specific matchups.
The fails
I really wanted to play Debris Dragon in here. Trooper and Dandy are top-notch targets, Lonefire is great and Ryko is okay. However, the Black Rose Dragon bombs are not too useful in this deck in particular, and Debris was very often a dead draw.
Magic Cylinder is another card I wanted to make work. In the early game it can protect Lyla, while in the late game it can help finishing games. And mind you, it works. When the opponent knows you are playing PWWB and RB, having backrow without any cards in hand makes them go for the push, and you can punish them for that with Cylinder. However, the only good amount of Cylinders you can play is 1, since the instant the opponent sees it they will play around that, and 1 Cylinder isn't as good at closing games, nor at being drawn in the early game. I might try it out again sometime somewhen, but my hopes are low.
Magical Stone Excavation is something that I adore from a theory point of view in this deck. Reusing Heavy Storm when the opponent has stopped playing around it, or recycling your power spells in general is incredibly powerful. However, the cost is very steep, and it's another early game brick which might prevent you from actually going off.
Needle Ceiling is in theory another card that could work. Having access to chainable field blows when your monsters aren't worth much (Amaryllis and Dandy tokens, mostly) is great. However, I found that in the games in which I could enable Needle Ceiling I was winning already, making it a mostly win more card. It could be a side deck card against specific decks, though.
Conclusions
Welp, this was quite the write up for an overall "simple" deck. This has come to be one of my favourite decks recently, as it is plenty of fun to play, and leads to grindier games in general, but is also able to punish slow starts from the opponent by putting a lot of damage on board very quickly.
See you to the next Deep Dive, although I still have no idea what it will be about.
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