Pure Sylvan

Adamancipator is better anyway.... WHO SAID THAT?! It seems like you who proclaimed such a foolish Statement did not yet understand the true Potential hiding within the Sylvan Archetype. Let me change that today by introducing to you a very pure approach to the Sylvan Strategy. Yes you don't even wanna play Lonefire Blossom and friends in this Deck which certainly looks strange at first sight. 

There's been a reason this Archetype had a short time Meta viability back in the ZEXAL era and today we will find out why, let's go into the Details:

Entrance to the Mount Sylvania Forest

Let's start by finding out what this Deck is all about. Sylvan's introduced the Term "Excavate" to the game and the whole Archetype revolves around that mechanic. You have many cards which excavate the top cards of your Deck and send every excavated Plant to the GY. Every Sylvan will then trigger an additional effect upon being sent to the GY. Every non Plant will be placed on the bottom of the Deck instead most of the time. 

With this simple mechanic you will generate massive advantage and can easily go through your whole Deck in 1 to 2 turns. From that position you will wanna use Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector and Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter your 2 Boss Monsters to finish of the opponent with a Swift OTK. In general Alsei is a going first Boss and Orea a going second Boss. 

Now how to get there is the important part. Your new Link-2 Monster Sylvan Dancepione is your heart and soul in that regard. She can excavate up to 3 cards from your Deck and special summon up to 2 Plants among the excavated cards and send the rest to the GY. After that you can as a hard once per turn target a Plant in your GY and adjust the Level of all Monsters Sylvan Dancepione points to, to match the level of the Monster in the GY. An easy Rank 1 to 8 Play is waiting for you right here. You won't be able to use these Monsters as Link Material so don't even think about it:) 

To even get 2 Monsters on the field to make Sylvan Dancepione all your other cards within your Deck come into play. Did you know Sylvan even has their in Archetype Graceful Charity? Truly fascinating stuff for sure is waiting to be uncovered. Let's enter the Depths of the Sylvania Forest together.

Encounter with the Creatures of Mount Sylvania

Every Maindeck Sylvan monster has a effect related to excavating and an effect when they are being excavated and sent to the GY themselves. They always send all excavated Plants to the GY and place the remaining cards on the bottom of the Deck in any order (I won't mention that whenever I talk about excavating from now on). I will now introduce all of these effects and what kind of applications they fulfill in your Deck starting from Level 1 up until Level 8: 

Sylvan Cherubsprout: When Special Summoned you can excavate 1 or 2 cards. If excavated you can Special summon a L1 Plant from the Deck. This 2nd effect is a hard once per turn. The first effect can miss timing which is unfortunate but you can trigger this effect as many times as you want in one turn and even with the 2nd effect of this card herself. Keep in Mind to use this effect as Chain Link 1 if possible to get the correct timing on this effect. Since both Sylvan Hermitree and Sylvan Mikorange are mandatory chain 1 effects if excavated, you have to be extra careful here. Also a card like Sylvan Blessing is handmade to work with this card and turns this little Sprout into potential interruption during the opponents turn. (If you have Sylvan Komushroomo and/or Sylvan Marshalleaf on top of the Deck). 

Sylvan Princessprout: You can tribute this card to excavate and sent the top card of your Deck to the GY (Even Spell & Traps in this Case), then you can place 1 Sprout Monster in the GY on top of your Deck. If she's excavated you can Special Summon her with a level from 1 to 8. Both effects are hard Once per turns. She can set up her 2nd effect with her first effect but you could also place Sylvan Cherubsprout on top of the Deck instead of Sylvan Princessprout. Thanks to her easy Level Manipulation you can even reach an easy Number 87: Queen of the Night setup which you sometimes wanna do. Obviously your in Archetype Bosses are the better options most of the time. There's even a nice Combo with Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter letting you change the order of up to 8 Cards from the Top of your Deck (That's Basically Cheating at that point). 

Sylvan Peaskeeper: When normal or special summoned you can excavate the top card of your Deck. If excavated you can special a L4 or lower Plant Monster from your GY. This 2nd effect is a hard once per Turn. Similar to Sylvan Cherubsprout this card can create an interruption in the opponents turn when combined with Sylvan Blessing. The first effect can also miss timing but has no other limitations. The Reborn effect is obviously useful in plenty of Situations and a very welcome addition to your lineup especially to create bigger Combo lines with Sylvan Cherubsprout. 

Sylvan Snapdrassinagon: If he's send from the Hand or Field to the GY you can excavate the top card of your Deck. If he's excavated you can excavate the top card of your Deck. Both effects have no limitations. You play quite a few cards which require you to send a Plant from your Hand or Field to the GY and these always trigger Sylvan Snapdrassinagon in the process. Thanks to this card alone you can go much deeper into your Deck and fill up your GY with Plants quickly. When playing this Deck you will quickly realize just how good this card really is since he can make cards like Mount Sylvania , Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter and Sylvan Princessprite much more efficient. 

Sylvan Komushroomo: When flipped face up you can excavate 1 to 5 Cards. If excavated you can target 1 Spell or Trap on the Field and destroy it. Both effects have no limitations. The fact that he can excavate up to 5 Cards is amazing, sadly he has to be flipped face up to achieve this amazing effect. At least he has 2000 DEF and Number 87: Queen of the Night could actually set this effect up when you happen to special summon Sylvan Komushroomo face up. This effect can miss timing too, which won't come up very often. His 2nd effect is just overall nice. A free Spell or Trap Destruction is always good, especially when combined with Sylvan Blessing and other Sylvans for an interruption during the opponents turn. He can also destroy your own Sylvan Waterslide if you want to stop excavating your Draws. 

Sylvan Marshalleaf: When normal summoned you can excavate 1 or 2 cards. If excavated you can target and destroy 1 Monster on the field. Both effects have no limitations. He's often one of your best starters and your best Normal Summon to get things started. That first effect could miss timing but that will most likely never happen. Just like Sylvan Komushroomo his 2nd effect can be used as an interruption with correct setup and since just like Sylvan Komushroomo he can target your cards on the field too, he's yet another way to trigger Sylvan Snapdrassinagon or even Sylvan Sagequoia. It should be noted that both Sylvan Marshalleaf and Sylvan Komushroomo are great ways to be setup when going first. Use Mount Sylvania or Sylvan Flowerknight to get them on top of the Deck and then use Sylvan Blessing to revive either Sylvan Cherubsprout or Sylvan Peaskeeper to interrupt the opponent. If Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector is active you can then remove one card on top of that, nice! 

Sylvan Mikorange: When destroyed by Battle or opponents Card effect you can excavate the top card of your Deck. If excavated all Plants you control gain 300 ATK/DEF. Both effects have no limitations. UNDERDOG ALARM! The first effect of this card is poo poo bad and can miss timing too but the 2nd effect is leagues better. A Mandatory permanent increase of 300 ATK/DEF for all your Plants with the potential to loop this effect with cards like Sylvan Guardioak or Sylvan Lotuswain makes this effect very useful. Just one Trigger makes your Boss Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter a 3100 ATK threat which is way better then 2800 ATK. The amount of times you will win thanks to this card is fascinating. Since it's Mandatory you could chain it in any order you desire when combined with Sylvan Hermitree. As an example the opponent has Blackwing Full Armor Master on the field and that card has 3000 ATK and is unaffected by card effects. Only thanks to Sylvan Mikorange you now have a way to get over this nasty Boss Monster with a 3100 ATK Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter and win the game from there.

Sylvan Flowerknight: When normal summoned you can excavate the top Card of your Deck. If excavated you can place any Sylvan Card from your Deck on top of the Deck. Both effects have no limitations. The first effect is just Sylvan Marshalleaf but worse and could also miss timing which almost won't ever happen. The 2nd effect is very useful. He can search for any Sylvan Card not just Monsters and place it on top of your Deck. If you have Sylvan Princessprite , Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector or Sylvan Charity on the field/in the Hand, any Spell or Trap you choose with Sylvan Flowerknight is easily added to your Hand. Since you can choose every Sylvan Monster too it's the versatility that makes this card so strong. Whatever you need can be brought to the top of the Deck easily with him. With 1800 ATK he's also a decent L4 Beater on the Field itself. Keep in mind how he's your easy ticket to Sylvan Hermitree and if Sylvan Dancepione excavates 3 plants after that you get an instant Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector summon ready just like that.

Sylvan Bladefender: When he destroys an Monster by Battle you can excavate the top card of your Deck. If excavated you can add him back to your Hand. Both effects have no limitations. Since he's a L4 Monster with 1900 ATK his first effect could actually come up sometimes, but that still doesn't make it very good to be honest. His 2nd effect is nice since he helps you to keep enough Plant Monsters in your Hand to send to the GY with Cards such as Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter , Mount Sylvania or Sylvan Princessprite. Thanks to recycling effects you can keep bringing Sylvan Bladefender back to your Hand or Field to use him again to gain maximum advantage. Without a card like him Sylvan's quickly loose Hand advantage which you want to prevent for as long as possible. 

Sylvan Lotuswain: Once per turn you can excavate cards up to the Number of Cards the opponent controls. If excavated you can target up to 5 other Sylvan Cards in your GY and place them on the bottom of the Deck in any order. The 2nd effect has no limitations outside of not being able to target Sylvan Lotuswain itself. He's the first Tribute Monster of the Deck and that is visible in how the effects start getting stronger. In Theory the first effect can excavate anything between 1 to 12 cards which sounds amazing but let's be real. Most of the time it's 3 to 7 cards at most maybe. (Which is still strong don't get me wrong here). He has very nice Combo Potential with Sylvan Guardioak which we will talk about below now. 

Sylvan Guardioak: Once per turn you can excavate 1 to 3 cards. If excavated you can target another Plant Monster in your GY and place it on the Top of the Deck. The 2nd effect has no limitations outside of not being able to target Sylvan Guardioak itself. The first effect is just overall strong. Having an easy way to excavate up to 3 Cards every turn is very nice to have and if you happen to remove Sylvan Guardioak from the field and resummon him you can use that effect again. The 2nd Effect forms a nice loop with Sylvan Lotuswain together. If Sylvan Lotuswain is already in the GY and Sylvan Guardioak gets excavated you can then target Sylvan Lotuswain and place it on top of the Deck. Use your Arsenal of excavation cards to excavate Sylvan Lotuswain again, now being able to recycle Sylvan Guardioak together with up to 4 other Sylvan cards back to the bottom of the Deck. When you mill Sylvan Guardioak again you can repeat this process an infinite amount of times to never run out of ressources. Truly an magnificient Combo you don't find often these days. This Combo is also your only Life ensurance in Duels which take several turns. With this loop you can keep ressources to be used in the Main Deck and don't run out of Gas. 

Sylvan Sagequoia: When a Sylvan Monster is sent to the GY except during the Damage Step you can Special summon this card from your Hand. Once per turn you can excavate the top Card of your Deck. If excavated you can target 1 Sylvan Spell/Trap in your GY and return it to the Hand. The first and third effect have no limitations. He's easily your best Sylvan Maindeck Monster. A L7 pretty much free Special summon with 2600 ATK a built in excavation and recycling effect is all this Archetype could ever need. He gives access to easy Link-2 plays and Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter lines. Also he can bring back Sylvan Charity and other Sylvan Spell/Traps which is amazing to have. Play him at 3 or don't play Sylvans is my advice for this card (Yes he's that good). 

Sylvan Hermitree: Once per Turn you can excavate the top Card of your Deck. If it's a plant you send it to the GY (Just like all other Sylvans) but you Draw 1 card too. Otherwise place it on the bottom of the Deck (Just like all other Sylvans). If he's excavated you look at the top 3 cards of your Deck and place them on top of your Deck in any order, that's mandatory. The 2nd effect has no limitations. He's your L8 Maindeck Boss with 2700 ATK. Usually people like to play him 3 times and use cards such as Lonefire Blossom to gain 3 Draws in one turn (Or more since his soft once per turn nature). This Deck doesn't need that so we play him for his Level alone. We want to shuffle our Deck as few times as possible so it's better to avoid effects which would shuffle your deck (Like Lonefire Blossom) for the most part. Overall he's a good card and not to be underestimated. 

Arriving at the foot of Mount Sylvania 

We now gained a good overview over all the Maindeck Sylvan Monsters (Yes I wrote to much, I know) and can almost move to the Boss Monsters... almost. Before we have to talk about just a few more kinda important cards. 

I already talked a bit about Sylvan Dancepione earlier. With her you will access your Boss Monsters much easier and you will almost always summon her to get to an easier OTK Position. Since she's a rather new Monster all of her effects are hard once per turns. Just a few more notes here: Her excavation effect which excavates 1 to 3 cards works a little different. Cards which are not Plants or which you don't special summon will be sent to the GY and not return to the bottom of the Deck like usual. You can special summon up to 2 of the excavated Plants to the 2 Zones this Card points to, or to any other Zone you like. At the End of the day she's your easy XYZ Summon enabler since she can manipulate the levels so easily and that's all you need. You might even wanna use the Level manipulation with the first effect of Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter too, to get control over what you draw/excavate next. 

Who we haven't talked about much is Sylvan Princessprite your Rank 1 XYZ Monster. She has 2 hard once per turn effects which are both equally as useful. You can detach a XYZ Material from her to excavate the top card of the Deck. If it's a Plant it will be sent to the GY as usual but if it's a Spell or Trap you can add it to your Hand. With Sylvan Flowerknight or Mount Sylvania you can manipulate your top card of the Deck to always be a Spell or Trap card so it's quite easy to get there. The other effect allows you to send a Plant from your Hand or Field to the GY to target a Sylvan Monster in your GY and special summon it. Having a reborn effect for every Sylvan Monster independent from it's level is very good to see in a Deck which sends almost all of it's Monsters to the GY. 

Now how about we quickly talk about the Spell and Trap Lineup to be ready for the Bossmonsters after that? Let's have a closer look: 

Mount Sylvania: The field Spell of your Archetype. It's first effect is a hard once per turn. The first effect let's you send a Plant from your Hand or Field to the GY to place any Sylvan Card from your Deck on top of the Deck. During the opponents End Phase you can excavate the top Card of your Deck if it's a Plant it will be Sent to the GY like usual but if it's a Spell or Trap you can decide if you place it on the top or bottom of your Deck. With Sylvan Snapdrassinagon combined the first effect let's you trigger any Sylvan Monster effect you like which is quite strong. The 2nd effect is slow but opponents usually don't think your field Spell is dangerous so it will trigger sudden advantage quite often. 

Sylvan Charity: The Graceful Charity of your Archetype. Draw 3 Cards then reveal 2 cards in your Hand and at least 1 Sylvan card and place them on top of your Deck in any Order. Otherwise your whole Hand will be placed on top of your Deck. Only 1 Sylvan Charity can be activated in a turn. So drawing 3 Cards is always broken and Graceful Charity will be forever forbidden because of this effect exactly. The downside of this card will never come up in this Deck and the upside of stacking 2 Cards from your Hand on top of your Deck in any order after Drawing 3 Cards should be obvious.

Sylvan Waterslide: Each time the opponent attacks directly you excavate the top card of your Deck with the usual Sylvan effect. During your Draw Phase instead of Drawing you excavate the top card of your Deck and send it to the GY if it's a Plant, otherwise it will be added to your Hand. The first effect is nice to discourage direct attacks and protect your Life Points since you can easily excavate Sylvan Monsters which interrupt or Special Summon. This effect is very nice to not loose against OTK heavy Decks. The 2nd effect does enable advantage starting in the Draw Phase and it's mandatory too. Be careful against Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring since you won't draw anything if the opponent has her ready. Use Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter or Sylvan Komushroomo in case you want to get rid of this mandatory effect yourself. A little Double Edged for sure but also quite strong sometimes. 

Sylvan Blessing: Place 1 Card from your Hand on the Top or Bottom of the Deck to Special summon 1 Sylvan Monster from your Hand or GY onto the field. It's unaffected by Card effects and will be placed on the Top or Bottom of your Deck during the End Phase. This card is a true Blessing in disguise. You can place a card in your Hand which you want to have in the Deck instead on the Top or Bottom of it and Special any Sylvan Monster from the Hand or GY and make it unaffected by any card effect too. This enables many interruption plays or an unbreakable Wall if needed. Since it returns to the Top or Bottom of the Deck during the End Phase it can then be excavated through Mount Sylvania and generate even more advantage. This card is the reason I play Baromet the Sacred Sheep Shrub in the Extra Deck to prepare this Card for yet another use. Sylvan Sagequoia can achieve similar things. 

Reaching the Peak of Mount Sylvania

I already mentioned them quite often by this point. It's time to talk about Boss Monsters! 

Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter: He's your Rank 7 Boss with 2800/2500 ATK/DEF. Both of his effects are a soft once per turn. You can send 1 Plant Monster from your Hand or Field to the GY and look at the Top Cards of your Deck equal to the Level the send Monster had on the hand/field. Place them back on top of the Deck in any order. The 2nd effect let's you detach a XYZ Material and excavate 1 to 3 Cards. Every Plant will be Send to the GY and every other excavated Card will be returned to the bottom of the Deck. For every excavated Plant you return 1 Card on the Field to it's owners Hand except this Card (Minimum 1 card, Maximum 3 cards). 

Having a way to order the top 1 to 8 cards is already very strong. Having non targeting Removal for up to 3 Cards on the field is even better. You may even return your own Cards back to the Hand to get around some soft once per turn restrictions. I like to use it to reset Sylvan Waterslide (To have a normal Draw Phase again), Sylvan Hermitree , Sylvan Sagequoia , Sylvan Guardioak or Sylvan Lotuswain. Obviously most of them are Tribute Monsters but like I said before Sylvan Blessing is a true Blessing in that regard too. Clearly non targeting Removal is very Strong to clear the opponents Field too. Going second he's your OTK enabler Number 1. 

Alsei, the Sylvan High Protector: He's your Rank 8 Boss with 2300/3200 ATK/DEF. His first effect is a soft once per turn and his 2nd effect is a hard once per turn. You can declare a Card Name and excavate the top card of your Deck. If it's the declared Card you add it to your Hand, otherwise it's send to the GY. If a Card is sent from your Deck to the GY by card effect you can detach 1 XYZ Material to target any Card on the field and return it to the Top or Bottom of the Deck. 

The first effect is perfect to get a Spell/Trap that you put on top of your Deck with Sylvan Flowerknight or Mount Sylvania into your Hand or to simply call anything that's wrong to get one of your Sylvan Monster effects activated. My advice is to always call the name of one of your Spell & Traps in case your top Card is unknown. The 2nd effect can stack the opponents Deck and give him a useless Draw or the opposite and get a card that's very good for him on the bottom of his Deck. Thanks to Sylvan Blessing this effect can be used as an interruption during the opponents turn too. Since you can use this effect on your cards too, you can stack your own Deck to get a Sylvan excavation effect active that you may need depending on the Situation. This card is very good going first since it can severely punish the opponent. Combined with Sylvan Marshalleaf's and/or Sylvan Komushroomo's and a Sylvan Cherubsprout you can remove up to 3 cards at once from the opponent during his turn. 

Walking towards the Lotus Waterslide

We talked about pretty much everything at this point. If you plan on using this Deck for Master Duel feel free to add some generic options like Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder or Underworld Goddess of the Closed World to the Extra Deck. They always make for great additions to pretty much every Deck. 

As for my options I chose to stick with Plants to be able to Recycle them with Sylvan Guardioak or use other generic Plant effects in this Deck to support them even further. This turns out to be quite effective at times so let me introduce the 3 options I use. 

Number 87: Queen of the Night is still the strongest Plant Monster in terms of ATK with 3200. She needs 3 L8 Monsters to be summoned which is kinda easily done within your Deck. As a quick effect by detaching a XYZ Material she can target and prevent the activation of a Set Spell/Trap as long as she's on the Field or give a 300 ATK Boost to any Monster or Flip Down a Plant Monster on the field, which I like to use in combination with Sylvan Komushroomo. Compared to Alsei and Orea she's not that strong but the potential 3500 ATK are what comes up most. 

Fairy Knight Ingunar is the Mass Removal guy. With 3 L6 Monsters you get him onto the field. You can detach 2 Materials to Return all other Cards on the field to their owner's hands. Nothing can be activated from the opponent in response to this effect. Having a big Hand again is good for Sylvans in general and having an empty Board on the opponents side makes way for an easy OTK. 

Baromet the Sacred Sheep Shrub is summoned with 2 or more L4 Monsters. You can detach a Material to get Sylvan Blessing back to the bottom of the Deck and Draw 1 Card. If you activate Sylvan Blessing you can detach a Material from any XYZ Monster you control and special a L4 Monster from the Hand. You might've noticed that I like Sylvan Blessing a lot so I try to use it to it's maximum Potential with this card. 

Free Fall down the Waterslide 

Every Deck has a weakness and Sylvan is no excava.... ahh I mean exception. Being a Graveyard reliant Strategy cards like Dimension Shifter , Necrovalley or any other anti GY card will leave you wide open with little to no options for recovery. In general a lot of interruption or negation from your opponent will severely hurt your Deck. You play an agressive advantage oriented Deck and everything to stop that is obviously bad for you. 

Since you excavate and show every Card before you get it the opponent can prepare well for almost everything you might have. Then again Sylvans are a rare sight nowadays and if you use this Deck in Master Duel your opponent won't read your cards anyway, trust me. 

The reliance on Sylvan Dancepione turns out to be quite bad too. If the opponent stops the on summon excavation with negation your OTK gameplan is pretty much stopped for a turn which is devastating. Sylvan Sagequoia , Sylvan Blessing or a set Sylvan Komushroomo can help you to survive another round but surely not against other agressive Decks. 

Sylvan is not an easy Deck to pilot pure and you always have to think about your starters. If the obvious Starter Sylvan Marshalleaf is stopped you gotta get creative. Mount Sylvania with Sylvan Snapdrassinagon combined is a way less obvious way to get things started without wasting the normal summon too. Blind summoning Sylvan Marshalleaf and hoping for the best is not that good. Use other cards first to bait out interruption and then go in with Sylvan Marshalleaf if possible. 

Finally the lack of protection against Removal outside of Sylvan Blessing is yet another downside. If you don't have interruption ready or Sylvan Waterslide is missing you are in Danger of loosing fast against other agressive Decks. Always think about your defensive options too and not just about advantage. 

Final Thoughts before leaving the Forest

Sylvan's are fun, a lot of fun to be real. The Excavation mechanic with Sylvan's for me is way more interesting then how Adamancipators handled it much later. Sylvan reminds me a bit of Flower Cardian too, another Deck I like to use sometimes. You will get through your whole Deck very quickly with both of these Decks. Unlike Flower Cardians however you have a great Recycling Combo with Sylvan Guardioak and Sylvan Lotuswain which is a thing I really like in this Deck. 

I have to mention that this Deck is not that easy to pilot in this pure variant. You have to know every card in and out and anticipate possible interruption from the opponent at any time. Otherwise you quickly end up with an empty Board. However if you practice this Deck a lot you will end up having a lot of fun with it. Certainly not the strongest but very versatile, fun and unique for sure. 

If you like a Deck which has all of it's Cards available at almost any time with massive Advantage, Recycling Loop and easy OTK lines Sylvan is the Deck for you. 

Final Rating: 

★★★★★★★ OTK Potential

★★☆☆☆☆☆ Defensive Tools

★★★☆☆☆☆ Control Options

★★★★★☆☆ Removal Options

★★★★★★★ Recovery/Recycling

★★★★★☆☆ Card Advantage

Overall Rating: ★★★★★☆☆  29/42★

The Laws of Nature 

Sylvan's have a few special rulings which I will list down below: 

About Excavating: Excavating a card does mean it stays inside the Deck but is shown to each player. This is important to know for effects which interact with cards which get sent from the Deck to the GY like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring.

About Placing Cards: Placing cards on the Top or Bottom of your Deck won't get your Deck shuffled if you didn't look at your Deck before that. 

About When... you can...: Many Maindeck Sylvan Monsters use a When... you can... type of effect. These effects will miss timing when they are activated mid Chain or are not the last thing to happen during an effect resolution. Be sure to use these effects as Chain Link 1. 

Orea, the Sylvan High Arbiter: When returning Cards to the owner's Hand you always have to choose at least one card. If you excavated 3 Plants you can choose up to 3 cards (Non targeting). 

Sylvan Hermitree: His 2nd effect is mandatory.

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