Just like how Sinister Serpent is horrifying discard fodder in Traditional, Treeborn Frog is horrifying Tribute fodder. This especially works with the powerful One for One or Foolish Burial Spell, or even more powerfully, Traps Quickplays that require a Tribute for a cost, as you can just activate these during your Standby Phase as Treeborn will instantly revive itself (examples being Spiritual Water Art and Enemy Controller, with Enemy Controller being the most powerful as you can play multiple copies from the hand during Standby Phase). It is very annoying when you find your opponent will ALWAYS have a monster on their field at the start of all their turns, your own consolation being all Traps your opponent use must be extremely chainable. Aside from being Tribute fodder, Treeborn acts like a Scrap-Iron Scarecrow, blocking one of your attacks once per turn. Unlike Scarecrow, you need a D.D. Crow (or something like Dark Ruler Ha Des) instead of Mystical Space Typhoon to permanently put it out of commission.

Well, the first obvious application for this monster is in Frog Decks. With Swap Frog, Ronintoadin, and Dupe Frog, Treeborn can easily be searched and will cause pain to your opponent. However, usage of Treeborn often clashes with another Frog strategy: usage of Wetlands and Solidarity. Most players, however, prefer to stick with the reliability of Treeborn rather than the brute force of those Spells.

However, the most popular use of Treeborn would be with the Monarch Tribute Monsters, forming a Deck named as Frognarchs. Hyper offensive decks usually have low reliability on Continuous cards, which Treeborn appreciates. In a Monarch Deck, Treeborn Frog easily provides free Tribute fodder constantly. Evil/Steelswarm Decks, similarly, also have a lot of Tribute monsters, but they're a bit more reliant on Traps than Monarchs do.

Granted, in my personal experience, Monarchs can't really qualify as an archetype as they have no specific support cards. Also, they are only very popular for short amounts of time, specifically, around March 1 and September 1 (when they put the new Ban Lists into effect). By far, again in my personal experience, the most effective Deck that uses Treeborn is the Synchro Turbo Deck (another hyper-offensive Deck). This kind of Deck has lost a lot of power with recent Ban Lists and competition with Xyzs for Extra Deck space, but the way it works is that once Treeborn hits the Graveyard, it constantly revives itself and is greatly helpful for numerous Synchro Summons. When used together with Effect Veiler, Formula Synchron will soon follow, and before long the opponent will have out Ally of Justice Catastor, T.G. Hyper Librarian, and Formula Synchron. Together, all three will form Shooting Quasar Dragon. Aside from this, Treeborn Frog is an especially evil combo with Scrap Dragon. Quite frankly, Dandylion is better for these combos, but hey, that guy's Limited.

Although this rarely will happen, I need to make a point that perhaps the funnest thing Treeborn Frog can do is to mess with Light and Darkness Dragon. Light and Darkness will negate Treeborn's effect once. Since Treeborn is still in your Grave and it's still the Standby Phase, you can keep on trying to revive Treeborn until LD Dragon runs out of juice to negate it. In the end, you summon your Treeborn and your opponent is left with only an 800 ATK LD Dragon. Also, if King Tiger Wanghu is out on the field, you can keep constantly reviving and destroying Treeborn Frog. (Wow... I just had a crazy OTK idea involving Wanghu, Treeborn, and Genex Ally Bellflame.)

A few more decks that might be able to splash Treeborn in are Bounzers and Fabled. Both have very low reliance on Trap Cards. Bounzers, while an extremely constricted archetype, seems to have a theme of several Tribute monsters, and they can put Treeborn to good use. Fabled, meanwhile, discards...a LOT. Although Treeborn Frog can seem decent in a deck that rarely uses Traps and discards so much, the Fabled monsters can often handle this fine by themselves (both Cerberrus will Special Summon themselves immediately after discarded), meaning Treeborn is not extremely important. I also have a friend who experimented with a great wall engine by combining Naturia Pineapple and Treeborn. There are probably some other Decks out there too that can find a use for Treeborn, but the following three Decks I have listed are the ones that abuse it the best.

Niche Decks: Frogs, Monarchs, Synchro Turbo

Ruling Clarification: Treeborn Frog requires there to be no other Treeborn to be on the field during activation AND resolution, so you can't revive more than one Treeborn in the same turn.
Trad: 1.6/5 (Sinister Serpent is kinda better)
Adv: 3/5 (suffers a lot from lack of splashability and the decks that do use it well are falling behind in popularity, but Treeborn is still mighty useful)
Aesthetics: 3.5/5 A frog angel...it's quite a serene picture, actually. The English department really hurt it by taking the halo out, though. The concept of this card, for some reason, reminds me of the movie Kermit's Swamp Days watched 10 years ago in which Kermit the Frog almost got vivisected. Treeborn's Japanese name is Yomi Frog. Cards that are originally called "Yomi" are usually translated as Abyss into English. (The Red Nova character played this kind of Deck with anime-only cards against Jack Atlas.) Yomi (黄泉)better translates as the Japanese version of hell. Yomigaeru (よみがえる) means resurrection, and this is a pun in Japanese because gaeru (ガエル) is homonymous with "frog." That said, I think "Treeborn Frog" is a cool name, but it will be trouble if any "Abyss" support cards come out.

Philosophy Corner: Anyway, my point from yesterday was that a large percentage of the people that may be reading this may be young children (people under high school level). So I'd like to take this opportunity to address them. When you're really young, you might have dreams of what you grow up to be. As you grow up into teenagers and inevitable adults, you will often find yourselves letting go of these dreams without realizing it. So life isn't what it's all cracked up to be...it gets quite boring actually. Well, it depends, when you grow up, whether you go out with your friends a lot (but around your 20's, you probably moved out, living alone or sharing rent with a roommate, so it might get boring at times if you're low on money and living cheap). By the time people get to around high school, about 33% have had or are currently in some boyfriend-girlfriend status. Usually these relationships do not last long, though there are rare occasions that they go on for a few years and rarer still they end up in long-lasting marriages. I'm not hinting at anything, but that would what many people would be satisfied with: they go out with people, enter college, get a job, continue going out with people until they finally meet the person they will ultimately marry; if you are reading this article, this is how life has likely been like in your community since the 1970's. My point is that, you should never stop pursuing what you believe in. And don't purposefully aim low either; pursue what you truly believe in. Very few people are lucky enough to get exactly what they wish for, but the people that try to swim up the waterfall are the people that are remembered. Do your best in school but don't let it kill the fun in your life; conversely, don't let the fun in your life prevent you from doing well in school. In this human society, getting a good education is the key to not getting ripped apart, so get involved in your community and be proactive. Anything negative or mean that you get in elementary should almost completely die out by the time you get to high school, but I'm speaking only from experience. Just don't be an obnoxious brat in school and you should be totally fine. Just work hard. If anything comes up that bothers you, do not hesitate to discuss with your friends, parents, school staff, or even to me about it. And as for Yu-Gi-Oh, never let other people tell you what you can or cannot do. I do admit dueling is a fun hobby :D Even professional duelists need to work secure jobs, though... Have a good weekend, everybody.
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