A brand new set has been released for the Pokemon Trading Card Game. It has Pokemon and trainers who’s origins are shrouded in ancient times. Each one of these cards have something special to them that is ready to rock the metagame to it’s core. Players will need to be wary as they go into battle because they may find themselves flooded in a ring of powerful Pokemon.
This week we are going to enter a forest where space seems to act a bit differently. You could say that time is slightly off. Something seems broken about it. The plants and vines are rather strange as they have grown to a size that touches the heavens! Some may say that the forest is broken because it has quite an effect on the Pokemon that dare enter it. Join us on TCG Jump as we take our first look into Ancient Origins by spotlighting Forest of Giant Plants!
Forest of Giant Plants is a Stadium card from Ancient Origins. Once it is set on the field, each player’s Grass type Pokemon can evolve on the first turn or during the turn that they are set on the field. This Stadium is discarded when a new Stadium is put into play or by the effect of a Pokemon or Trainer.
The Pros
Forest of Giant Plants have been getting a lot of talk leading up to the release of Ancient Origins. This is basically a reprint of Broken Time-Space from the Diamond and Pearl era but for only Grass type Pokemon. You can evolve your Grass type Pokemon at any time thanks to 
this Stadium. Do you want to get a Vileplume up on your first turn? You can do that! Simply put Oddish on your bench. Next, play Gloom from your hand to evolve Oddish. Lastly, search out for Vileplume and smile as your opponent can’t play any items before their first turn even begin.
This card can even be used to Mega Evolve your EX Pokemon on your first turn. If you have a Sceptile EX with the correct Spirit Link then you can Mega Evolve it into M Sceptile EX thanks to the effects of Forest of Giant Plants. No more waiting a turn with Mega Turbo taking up space in your hand as you eagerly await to take the Grass energy in your discard to attach them to your soon-to-be M Sceptile EX. Forest of Giant Plants allow you to get that M Sceptile in the active and ready to fight in an instance!
Another thing about Forest of Giant Plants is that the Pokemon doesn’t need to evolve into a Grass type. The base Pokemon has to be a Grass type in other to take advantage of Forest of Giant Plants. So if you have a Pineco who is a Grass type, it can evolve into the Forretress who is a Metal type Pokemon on turn one.
This is the Stadium that Grass type decks want to play. Especially if they are planning to play any type of evolutions in their deck. There are plenty of Stage 1 and 2 Pokemon that would love some time in the sun and Forest of Giant Plants is the way to do it!
The Cons
One of the biggest cons is that you will need Forest of Giant Plants in your opening hand along with the Pokemon that makes up the evolution chain that you wish to evolve. If you play four Forest of Giant Plants which will raise your chances of starting with it but there is always the chance where you will not get it. You will also have less room in your deck for other cards if you max out the number of Forest of Giant Plants for your deck.
Another problem with using Forest of Giant Plants is that it can’t be chained with EvoSoda. It is said on EvoSoda that you can’t use it on the first turn or on a Pokemon that was set on the field. That means you can’t use EvoSoda to easily search and evolve your Pokemon on turn one. You will need to resort to other ways to search out the Pokemon you need to evolve your little Oddish into a Gloom and a Vileplume.
Lastly, Forest of Giant Plants is a Stadium which means it can easily be removed when your opponent sets down their own Stadium or by using Primal Groudon EX‘s Gaia Volcano to discard it. To make matters even worst. There is another way to get rid of Stadiums now thanks to Paint Roller. This card discards the active Stadium and allows the user to draw one card. So your Forest of Giant Plants could be your opponent’s way to draw one extra card from their deck. Also, there is also Lugia EX who has an attack that is similar to Primal Groudon EX’s.
How to Play It
There are a few ways to play Forest of Giant Plants. People have been talking about all the Grass Pokemon that would love to evolve on the first turn to rush their opponents.
You may see Vespiquen from Ancient Origins take advantage of Forest of Giant Plants the most. They would want to evolve their Combee quickly into Vespiquen and find ways to discard a lot of Pokemon such as using Battle Compressor. All of this in order to attack quickly on their first attacking turn.
Players may try to use Vileplume in combination of Forest of Giant Plants. Vileplume has an ability called Irritation Powder which prevents both players from using Item cards. This may be a bad thing for for the Vileplume player to be locked of their Items but they know this ahead of time and play Item cards that help them search for what they need to evolve Vileplume. If you want to make the lock go even further then play it with Giratina EX who can lock your opponent from playing Stadiums, Special Energy, and Tools using it’s Chaos Wheel attack.
If you are playing Forest of Giant Plants in Extended then you have a few options. The first one that is getting a lot of hype is Shiftry from Next Destinies. Shiftry maybe a Dark type Pokemon but it can evolve from Nuzleaf who is a Grass type and can take advantage of Forest 
of Giant Plants. Shiftry has an ability called Giant Fan which allows the player to flip a coin upon evolving. If it is heads then it can return one of your opponent’s Pokemon back to their hand. The idea behind this deck is to use Shiftry’s Giant Fan ability as many times as you can by setting up as many Shifty as you can, pick them up and evolving them again via the use of AZ, Devolution Spray from Dragons Exalted and Super Scoop Up. If you do that, you could get enough heads to return your opponent’s entire field back to their hand and win the game because your opponent has no more Pokemon to continue the match.
Forretress from Flashfire works almost in the same way except that it uses it’s ability Thorn Tempest to spread one damage counter to each of your opponent’s Pokemon. You do the same thing to retrieve Shiftry back into your hand with Forretress in order to knock out your opponent’s Pokemon using the one damage counter from Thorn Tempest. You can use Latios EX from Roaring Skies to help clean up any surviving Pokemon.
There is going to be a forest that will invade your metagame! It will have huge plants and quick Pokemon that are ready to attack your deck! So be ready for Forest of Giant Plants as it overgrows and consumes everything in green!
