How-to gigaswarm

Before I start, I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies, issues, and what not. This is my first series of blogs, so I am rather new at it. Don’t worry, I will get better though.

This first deck I am going over is going to be a round trip of nostalgia for almost every plant player around. This deck was the first and original plant deck we all had. The Gigaplant Swarm (gigaswarm). This deck is now obsolete due to its upgraded form, the Gigaplant SuperVise deck (gigavise), which I will go over next. If you ask most plant players though, they will tell you that this deck is what they used first, and to this day it remains one of the best decks to start out with to learn to play plants.

Disclaimer: None of these decks are the best of their kind. They are merely examples to help teach how to play the deck, lots of changes can easily be made, so please don’t comment saying how there are better versions, or change this and it becomes better. I know some won’t be great. The purpose of this is to teach, not to give greatest deck ever.

Monsters: 18
Gigaplant-3
Botanical lion-3
Tytannial princess of camellias-2
Lonefire Blossom-2
Ufo Turtle-2
Blazewing butterfly-2
Nettles-1
Copy plant-1
Plaguespreader zombie-1
Sangan-1

Spells:11
Miracle fertilizer-3
Swing of memories-3
Lightning vortex-2
Giant trunade-1
Heavy storm-1
Mystical Space Typhoon-1

Traps:
Threatening roar-3
Ultimate offering-3
Bottomless trap hole-2
Torrential tribute-1
Mirror force-1
Call of the haunted-1

Notable extra deck:
Black brutdrago-3
Stardust dragon-2
Brionac-1
Gigaplant: The reason for this entire deck. It is a Gemini which means that while on the field and in grave it can be a normal monster, so cards like swing of memories fetch it. Its true power lies within its effect when summoned a second time, it can special summon from your hand OR grave an insect OR plant. And in a deck running almost all insects and plants such as this one then you are able to gather an outrageous amount of field advantage in only a few turns with this.

Botanical lion: This is the beatstick of the deck. It seems weak with only 1600 but it gains 300 for every plant on the field, including itself. Making it 1900 base attack, and to make it better control of it cannot change. This lion is one destructive and powerful fighter, and anyone who has played plants a long while will give this card its dues and respect.

Tytannial, princess of camellias: This card is what bumped plants up and got them into the fray when crossroads of chaos came out. She is by far one of the most powerful cards ever created when in conjunction with Lonefire Blossom and Gigaplant; both of which can special summon her for no cost. She has 2800 attack points, and 2600 defense; making her a viable beatstick or a wall. Though that is not her ultimate power, her ultimate power is her effect, she can tribute one plant on her side of the field (herself included) and negate any spell, trap, or effect monster that targets ANY card on the field AND destroy. I capitalized “any” because often times people forget that she can do it for any single card, not just plants. I also capitalized “and” because people forget that she also destroys the card. A beater, a wall, and one of the strongest effects known to yugioh built right in, this makes her one of the most powerful cards ever.

Lonefire Blossom: And now we are onto what I can easily say is the best searcher in all of yugioh. Looking at it you might think it is pathetic, 3 stars, 400 attack, only 1400 defense, fire, all around it is horrible stat and attribute wise, however no one will ever leave this card on the field. This card can search ANY plant monster from the deck just by sacrificing one plant on the field, itself included. This is the basis of the deck, summon it, call priority, sacrifice it, get a second, call priority, sacrifice second, grab Gigaplant. Then you would revive it with gigaplant the next turn to get a second gigaplant, a tytannial, a botanical lion, almost any plant you want.

Ufo turtle: This is the basis of one of 3 different possible engines to use in all gigaplant builds. I will use the other two in the next two blogs, and if you don’t know what an engine is look up Kelly Locke’s article on it, very informative. This card when destroyed by battle will let you grab a fire monster, so you will either go for blazewing butterfly, or lonefire. Usually you would grab lonefire if it is in the deck, blazewing otherwise. However Ufo turtle can grab himself. The combo is usually Ufo-Ufo-lonefire/blazewing. That is all there is to Ufo.

Blazewing butterfly: this is the second Gemini that you see in this deck, it has a very interesting ability. When it has its effect you can sacrifice it to revive another Gemini and give them their effect. So you can revive blazewing, summon it, and then sacrifice it for a Gigaplant that has its ability, later I will explain why you would do this rather than just get Gigaplant and summon it. One other quality that makes this card great is that it is an insect; therefore it is able to be revived by gigaplant.

Nettles, copy plant, Plaguespreader: I am lumping these three together since they all serve the same basic function. To let you synchro. Nettle’s effect will never be used, but if it will be destroyed you can destroy another plant in its place. Copy plant can change its level to another plants level, allowing some easy level 8 syncs with botanical. And Plaguespreader can be revived by putting a card on top of your deck, so you could put a dead gigaplant on the top of the deck, then fetch that gigaplant with a lonefire. Also Copy Plant and Nettles are both able to be revived by Gigaplant, Miracle Fertilizer, etc. , and be searched by lonefire.

Sangan: One of the greatest searchers in the game, seen in almost every deck. It can fetch Lonefire, nettles, copy plant, blazewing, many of the key card in plant decks are less than 1500 attack. And this card can be used for synchros, can be used to activate Torrential tribute, and many other fun tricks. It is invaluable, and used in every plant deck.

Miracle fertilizer: This is one of the best revival cards, and one of the greatest cards for plants. This will let you revive any single plant you have in your grave once per turn, the cost? Just your summon, which is not too bad if you have nothing to summon anyways. And this card is only connected to your monster, but the monster is not connected to it. If it dies, you don’t lose the monster, but if your monster dies you lose miracle fertilizer. This card can be combined with Brionac for a potential otk. Use miracle, revive a monster, discard a card for brionac (preferably a plant) send miracle to your hand, reuse miracle, use brionac again, rinse, lather, repeat until out of cards. You can do multiple synchros, bring out many Gigaplants and Tytannials, many powerful combos can be created with this card.

Swing of memories: The second revival card, this lets you get out a normal monster from your grave, but it dies at the turns end; and if you remember gemini’s are normal in the grave. Now there are 3 ways to easily bypass the negative consequence of this card. The first is revive Gigaplant, summon him, then get a tuner and synchro. The second one will elaborated on what I mentioned about Blazewing earlier; Grab blazewing, summon it, tribute for Gigaplant, start a swarm with gigaplant. The third is the least strategic, simply win.

Lightning vortex: This is used to destroy your opponents monsters and clear the field for an OTK, and to send dead draws to the grave for future use. Not too much can be elaborated on here. Pretty straight forward.

Giant trunade: This lets you reuse Miracle fertilizer, and clears field of S/T’s that could prevent OTK’s, and if you need a few extra cards for Brionac or Lightning vortex it can give you those.

Heavy storm, MST: These two serve the simple straight forward purpose of destroying S/T’s and making OTK’s easier.
Threatening Roar: Protects from attacks, stops them from happening at all, and is chainable. You can also bluff opponents into trying to destroy it and then activate it.

Ultimate offering: This allows extra summons, a few extra summons and about 1000 life points can give you a very strong field. But activate this when you can go for an OTK, since your opponent can abuse it too. Also remember you can activate it multiple times without having to use the summons, so you can use it 3 or 4 times, then use heavy storm, and have 4 or 5 summons that turn that won’t be interrupted.

Bottomless trap hole: Stop your opponent’s swarms, remove their big monsters, ruin their big plays, and defend yourself until you can take the lead. This card does it all.

Torrential tribute: Another big play stopper, also good for forcing sangans activation. Set sangan and this, let your opponent summon some monsters, activate this. Though you have to judge correctly when to play it, play it too early and you lose an opportunity to destroy more monsters, wait too long and they might stop Summoning.

Mirror Force: stops attacks and destroys your opponent’s monsters. Straight forward. Personally I prefer T-roar due to its chainability, but this is still an amazing card.

Call of the haunted: Revive a monster and abuse it, send this back to hand with Brionac for multiple uses, if your opponent activate heavy storm activate Call, grab sangan, get sangans effect. Ruin opponent’s attacks by using it in response to their attack, grabbing a huge beatstick or sangan, or get that last push for an otk.

Black Brutdrago: Built in protection, amazing beatstick, destroy your opponents backrow by ditching your dead gigaplants in hand. Also it is as strong as JD, you can ram JD, grab out a Gigaplant, take out another monster or lifepoints, then SS nettles and sync into a new Brutdrago, or another gigaplant during main phase 2.

Stardust dragon: Easy to get out, protects your swarm, obvious card.

Brionac: I have gone over all the combos he can create. He also allows you to clear your opponents field for easier otk, and has decent stats.

Now the basic strategy is obviously to swarm the field and attack. You will want to get out 2 gigaplant and a tytannial as your big focus. Then start to synchro. Tytannial + Gigaplant + another plant typically will give you a great field offensive and defensively.

Now I should go over beginning game maneuvers. You always want to go first, no matter how offensive this deck is. First round of the match, go first, that is the best situation. Now, the best start would be to bring out a lonefire and then bring out a second one and Gigaplant, along with some defense. Now if you have no lonefire play defense and stall, and work to get lonefire as quick as you can.

Next you want to take as much of a lead early on, and go for the win as quick as you can. Speed is this decks goal. You typically want a Tytannial, Gigaplant, and a Brutdrago/ Stardust by turn 3. With this field you can typically take game quick.

If you lose your field then you need to abuse the many revival cards to take it back quick. The deck can be crushed if its advantage is lost, and can have troubles regaining it, so regain it quick or you will have many issues.

Now on duel 2 if you have the option of choosing, you can decide whether to go first or second. In all honesty there are so many situations that you just have to decide whether or not you would do better with first or second, I can’t help too much on this, it is entirely a judgment call.

And as always there is the side deck, but this is highly meta dependent, and every single persons meta is different. So it is up to you. And if you are bad at siding in and out, don’t worry, so am I. But you will get the hang of it.

Now as I said this deck is highly overshadowed by Gigavise, which I will go over next. For anyone starting plants though, I highly recommend starting with this, just for its simplicity and the fact that it is quite cheap if you don’t add in PSZ. If anyone wishes to get help with plants, give me suggestions on how to improve this blog, or other decks to go over, PM me. Or if you want many ideas visit the plant discussion thread, we are all kind there, and newbie friendly, which can be rare to find online, so feel free to post if you are new. For now this is the end, look forward to my blog on Gigavise, and all comments and constructive criticism are welcome and appreciated.