Ever since players figured out that plants were insanely good at summoning synchro monsters, duelists far and wide have been utilizing the power of plants for a whole bunch of different strategies. Whether you’re looking for a deck that can swarm the field, lock down your opponent, or simply summon some big strong monsters, plants have got you covered. So if you want to add some plant power to your deck then look no further, as we’re about to break down the best plant monsters in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!
15. Naturia Cherries
One of the first archetypes to ever make use of plants properly was Naturia. Naturias were monsters all based around creatures of the forest. And so while it wasn’t a pure plant deck, it certainly had some great plant monsters worth talking about. For example, Naturia Cherries is a fantastic card for ensuring you’re never left defenseless. When it’s destroyed by your opponent in any way, shape, or form, you can special summon 2 more Naturia Cherries from your deck. If your opponent is on the war path and attacking you with a bunch of monsters, this guy is a fantastic way to make a comeback. One way you can do this is by using them as tuners for a synchro summon next turn, allowing you to bring out some seriously powerful monsters to beat your opponent with.
14. Splendid Rose
Splendid Rose is a, well, splendid way of getting over your opponent’s big monsters. You can use its effect to halve the attack of one of your opponent’s monsters. This is fantastic for beating those big monsters your opponent controls, without going to all the effort of summoning a big expensive monster yourself. All it costs is banishing a plant monster from your graveyard. Given that you have to send cards to the graveyard to even synchro summon in the first place, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to pull this effect off.
13. Eco, Mystical Spirit of the Forest
This guy is like if “Gorz the Emissary of Darkness” went more eco-friendly. Whenever you take effect damage, you can special summon this guy from your hand, then inflict that same damage right back at your opponent. This is great in those long duels where you and your opponent are both running on low life points. Your opponent may use a burn effect to try and get your life points lower, and you can slap this bad boy down to turn the tables on them. Eco also prevents both players from taking any further effect damage for the rest of the turn – making this card great against burn decks. All you need to do is activate it the first time your opponent burns you, then you’ll be left safe from burn damage for a whole turn (which against burn decks really means a lot!)
12. Periallis, Empress of Blossoms
Periallis is one of the best extenders that plant decks have access to in their extra deck. For those who don’t know, an “extender” is any card that helps you further your plays, so you can get into your bigger monsters as soon as possible. Periallis does this by allowing you to special summon a level 5 or higher plant monster from your hand or graveyard once per turn. This can allow you to revive some seriously powerful plant monsters, or maybe even special summon big monsters without paying their tribute cost. A combo I like to pull off with this card is to synchro summon into it with a level 5 and a level 2 plant monster, then immediately special summon back the level 5 monster with Periallis’ effect. This makes the synchro summon insanely efficient, which is exactly what you need if you want to win in Yu-Gi-Oh!
11. Meliae of the Trees
Rank 3 XYZ monsters are some of the easiest to summon. And you’ve got some amazing cards for special summoning level 3 monsters like Crane-Crane, and so Meliae of the Trees is fantastic due to how easy it is to summon. Plus you can detach an XYZ material from this card to either send a plant monster from the deck to the graveyard, or special summon 1 of your dead plant monsters from the graveyard! This is practically a Foolish Burial and a Monster Reborn all in one card (both of which were so powerful that they were banned at one point or another throughout Yu-Gi-Oh’s history).
10. Sylvan Marshalleaf
Sylvans are one of my favorite plant archetypes in all of Yu-Gi-Oh. If you played Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links when these guys were released there, you’ll know exactly how powerful they can be. Sylvans as a whole are kind of like Lightsworns, in that both archetypes actively focus on milling your deck to trigger effects. When this little guy is summoned, you can mill up to 2 cards from the top of your deck, sending any plant monsters to the graveyard while any other cards are sent back to the bottom of your deck. This ensures that your mills are only your plant monsters that you actually want to be in the graveyard, and not your useful spells and traps. When Marshalleaf itself is milled, you can then destroy any monster your opponent controls, face down or face up. This is one of the best pieces of removal open to Sylvans. And if you’re playing a Sylvan deck I’d definitely recommend running this guy!
9. Spore
Spore is hands-down one of the cutest cards in Yu-Gi-Oh. Bundle this with the fact that it’s got a decent effect, and you’ve got an iconic card on your hands. When this guy is in your graveyard, you can banish another plant monster from the graveyard to special summon Spore right back onto the field. Spore’s level is then increased by the level of that banished monster, meaning by banishing the right monster you can set yourself up perfectly for a synchro summon. This flexibility has made Spore a staple in any plant build – especially ones that utilize synchro monsters to win the game. To use this guy at his full potential, you can send it to the graveyard any time you like by using cards like Foolish Burial or Meliae of the Trees, so you can then synchro summon whatever monster you need, whenever you need.
8. Evil Thorn
Evil Thorn shows that even small-scale effects can have a huge payoff in the long run. You can tribute a face-up Evil Thorn you control to deal 300 damage to your opponent, then special summon 2 more Evil Thorns from your deck. While the damage is a neat added bonus, the real value here is that you’re trading 2 monsters for 1. With two level 1 monsters, not only can you fine-tune the levels on your field to set up a synchro summon, but you can actually go into rank-1 XYZ summons. These are rare in Yu-Gi-Oh, simply due to how hard it can be to swarm the field with level 1 monsters. But with Evil Thorn this is a piece of cake!
7. Mystic Tomato
If you’ve played any sort of old school Yu-Gi-Oh, then you know exactly who this guy is. Mystic Tomato was one of the best searchers in Yu-Gi-Oh for a long time, allowing to special summon any dark monster with 1500 or less attack (from your deck) when it’s destroyed. Often, players would go into another Mystic Tomato, then possibly a third, before finally searching their powerful combo pieces. This meant you could effectively survive 3 attacks from your opponent, while still searching a monster of your choice from your deck. Mystic Tomato is an iconic card in Yu-Gi-Oh’s history – and if you’re looking to put a bit of nostalgia back in your deck this guy is the perfect option.
6. Gigaplant
Gigaplant was released in the set “Phantom Darkness”, one of the most notorious sets in Yu-Gi-Oh’s history. For many players, this set marks the boundary between the old-school slower Yu-Gi-Oh, and the fast-paced combo-focused Yu-Gi-Oh we know and love today. And this card was one of the many new powerful cards introduced in this set. It’s a gemini monster, meaning you’ll need to normal summon it twice to gain it’s effect. But when you do, you get some serious payoff. Gigaplant’s effect allows you to special summon any Plant or Insect from your hand or graveyard. There are some powerful combos you can pull off when you combine this effect with Lonefire Blossom, most of which are still incredibly powerful in this modern format. And this card was one of the first plant monsters to see actual competitive play – it kick started the trend of plants being meta. Now that’s a powerful monster!
5. Queen of Thorns
Generally in Yu-Gi-Oh you have 2 main strategies to consider when building your deck. You can make a beatdown deck, that focuses on bringing out big attack-stat monsters as quickly as possible, or you can make a control deck that focuses on shutting down your opponent as fast as possible. Queen of Thorns is one of the best control cards available to plant decks. Every time a player wants to summon a non-plant monster, be it normal or special summoning, they’ll have to play 1000 life points. This is great for you, the player running an all-plant deck. But for your opponent? Providing they don’t also play plants, they’ll be able to summon a maximum of 7 monsters before they lose the duel. Especially in modern Yu-Gi-Oh, 7 monsters is not a lot at all. Combo decks will easily go through 20-30 monsters in a single turn, which is well over the limit put on them by Queen of Thorns. Which makes this synchro monster perfect for shutting down all manner of combo decks – and making sure your plants stay ahead in the game!
4. Predaplant Chimerafflesia
Predaplants were an archetype introduced in Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V, and are arguably the best plant archetype in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! They’re focused on fusion summoning, with many of the main-deck Predaplant monsters allowing you to fusion summon multiple times a turn! Chimerafllesia is one of the best fusion monsters you can go into. Once per turn, you can banish any monster on the field that has a level less than or equal to this cards. This guy’s a level 7, giving you plenty of options to banish – and if that isn’t good enough for your strategy, you can always modify its level with other effects like Bright Star Dragon. But back to the effect: whenever Chimerafflesia battles an opponent’s monster, their monster loses 1000 attack while Chimerafflesia gains 1000 attack. In numbers alone, this effectively turns Chimeraflessia into a 4500 attack monster every battle phase – that’s a whole Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon! Your opponent will have to summon some powerful monsters to overcome that kind of an attack stat.
3. Traptrix Rafflesia
Bottomless Trap Hole is one of the best traps in Yu-Gi-Oh – it lets you destroy any powerful monster that’s summoned, while also banishing it in the process to ensure it never comes back. Well, Traptrix Rafflesia is all that and more – allowing you to access any “Hole” trap card from your deck at any time you want. There are currently 16 different “Trap Hole” traps you can access with Rafflesia’s effect, with each one being able to viciously shut down anything your opponent might want to do. With Bottomless Trap Hole you can destroy monsters on summon. With Floodgate Trap Hole you can permanently flip a monster face down. The possibilities are endless!
2. Lonefire Blossom
Here’s the only plant on this list so powerful that it’s actually been banned before (and is currently semi-limited in the OCG). And Lonefire Blossom is an essential main-deck card for any plant deck. Here’s what it does: You can tribute any face-up plant monster to special summon any other plant monster from your deck. This also includes Lonefire itself, meaning you can sack off Lonefire to bring out your stronger monsters. Unlike most other cards that special summon monsters from the deck, there are truly no limits to what you can summon with this guy! As long as it’s a plant, it’s fair game, allowing you to get big beatsticks like Gigaplant out on the field without even having to Normal summon them. If you can then trigger Gigaplant’s revival effect by normal summoning it, you can bring Lonefire Blossom right back from the graveyard, and special summon another Gigaplant! Now that’s some serious damage.
1. Predaplant Verte Anaconda
The best Predaplant card ever released was actually released after the ARC-V manga/anime ended – which is kind of sad, given how awesome it would have been to see Verte Anaconda in an anime duel. Predaplant Verte Anaconda can essentially turn itself into any fusion spell you like. By paying 2000 life points, you can send a “Polymerization” or “Fusion” spell from your deck to the graveyard, and have this guy’s effect become equivalent to that card. Granted you can’t fusion summon the turn you activate this effect. But by sending a quick-play spell like Super Polymerization, you can fusion summon at any time during your opponent’s turn as a quick effect! The fact that Super Polymerization also lets you steal your opponent’s monsters to use as fusion material basically turns this guy into an absolutely unstoppable powerhouse – and a staple for plant decks and meta decks alike.
