I hear that decks that can effectively wield three copies of Snatch Steal in a format where Snatch Steal is Forbidden can be pretty good. In a similar vein, decks that have access to vast amounts of negation that only they can play in addition to multiple spells that allow special summons should be pretty good too, right? How about if one of those negation options comes attached to a huge body? All of that sounds pretty good to me, and it can be yours starting at the Crossroads of Chaos Sneak Preview... as long as you’re willing to play Plants!
Tytannial, Princess of Camellias
Plant/Effect
ATK 2800/DEF 2600
You can tribute a face-up Plant you control to negate the activation of a spell, trap, or effect monster’s effect that targets a card or cards on the field and destroy it.
Tytannial brings Plant decks a number of things they’ve been sorely lacking. First off, she’s huge. With 2800 ATK, Tytannial can take down both Stardust Dragon and Thought Ruler Archfiend while trading with Goyo Guardian and Dark Armed Dragon. She basically forces players to use Colossal Fighter when they’d much rather play something with built-in protection to monster removal. While that Fighter will always be able to beat Tytannial and come back for more, this is highly contingent on it actually making it to the damage step. Deckbuilders will, of course, include measures to make sure this doesn’t happen.
The Princess of Camellias is a huge beater, but that’s not all she’s capable of. Tytannial also has a built-in negation effect that’s somewhat similar to the negation effect of Stardust Dragon. You have to tribute a Plant to use it, and you don’t get that Plant back at the end of turn unless you use some special summon trick to recur it, but in return, you can negate the activation of any effect that targets any card or cards on the field. This lets you negate stuff like Brain Control and Dimensional Prison that would get past Stardust Dragon in addition to monsters like Exiled Force or Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress that would get past Thought Ruler Archfiend. It’s almost a "best of both worlds" scenario, but there are definite weaknesses that can be exploited—both in the cost that must be paid to activate the effect and its total inability to block non-targeting effects.
For the things that Tytannial can’t stop, there’s a pretty good chance that you can stop them 
with this next card!
Pollinosis
Counter Trap
Tribute a Plant. Negate the activation of a spell or trap, or the normal or special summon of a monster, and destroy that card.
That’s this close to Solemn Judgment. All you’d need to do is add "Flip Summon" to the list of things that it negates and it would have all the abilities of the counter trap that everyone is willing to play, except differently costed. With Plant decks, free monsters are commonplace. You can summon between one to three monsters on most turns, so having a spare waiting around to be tributed to either Pollinosis or Tytannial will be a common sight.
Pollinosis picks up most of the slack left by Tytannial, as it can negate the non-targeting field sweepers like Lightning Vortex and Mirror Force, but it misses monster effects like those of Goyo Guardian. Fortunately, since it’s more or less a Solemn Judgment that you don’t have to pay life points for, you can hopefully prevent the summon from ever taking place. The question is, what’s the best way to get the fodder Plants need to make Pollinosis a worthy play? You don’t really want to give up Tytannial or any copies of Gigaplant you might be harboring . . . but random Plants summoned back by Gigaplant are fair game! I’m a proponent of using stuff like Homunculus the Alchemic Being as a generic 4-star beater and extremely expendable dude, if only to tempt my opponents into making plays they shouldn’t. After all, how much fun do you think it is to convince your opponent that he or she has you backed into a corner before suddenly pulling out Black Rose Dragon and wiping the field? It seems pretty fun to me, so leaving bait on the field to be summarily tributed to Pollinosis when the need arises is perfectly within my view on how Plant decks ought to be played.
One of the trickiest things that a Plant player has to deal with is actually drawing the cards he or she needs in order to do anything useful. Specifically, drawing Lonefire Blossom in the starting hand was requisite for the deck to do anything useful in past incarnations. After the initial surge with Blossom, the field would frequently be wiped clean by Gladiator Beast Gyzarus or something similar. At this point, the Plant player would be forced to rely on . . . wait for it . . . Swing of Memories to get one Gigaplant back so that he or she could use it to normal summon another Gigaplant and hopefully regain control of the field. The problem was, that move never had a future. It was either going to win right then and there with the aid of Lightning Vortex or the opponent was going to take control back next turn and beat you to a pulp. Thanks to today’s final preview card, that’s no long a concern.
Miracle Fertilizer
Once per turn, you can select a Plant from your graveyard and special summon it. You can’t normal summon or set the turn you special summon a monster with this effect. If a monster summoned by this effect is removed from the field, destroy Miracle Fertilizer.
Miracle Fertilizer is the Premature Burial that just keeps giving . . . so long as you do your part to make sure your Plant isn’t done in by a cold snap! It’s extremely versatile and can act as copies four through six of Lonefire Blossom in addition to just bringing back beatsticks. If you think that you can keep Gigaplant around until next turn when you can normal summon again, go ahead and do that. If you just need to kill Stardust Dragon right freaking now, get Tytannial. Sure, the card gets disrupted by D.D. Crow, but it’s infinitely better than Swing of Memories and beats up Symbol of Heritage on the playground for its lunch money.
I’m not really sure how it was decided that Plants would be the previously maligned type that would suddenly become super-powered, but I’m all for playing new, theme-specific versions of cards that everyone else plays alongside their generic counterparts. In fact, I vastly enjoy winning counter-wars without paying a single life point. You can too starting this Saturday at the Crossroads of Chaos Sneak Preview! If you’re headed to the one in Pittsburgh on November 2nd, make sure you say hi, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
—Jerome McHale
