Performapal Popperup – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Performapal Popperup is a kind of draw card any archetype would kill to have.

You may need a Pendulum Scale set up to activate it (so two card investment), but once you’ve got that this card is online. Any cards up to three prevents you from needing only Pendulum Monsters for the cost. You only need to Special Summon one monster to prevent yourself from losing some serious LP damage, meaning you’ll have to save your Pendulum Summon for after this card (you are likely to do this anyways because you are fixing your hand with this card). The ability to choose how many cards up to three does allow you some flexibility in terms of controlling your outcome. Ensure you will get the Pendulum Summon through no matter what by having one of the types of monsters in your hand before playing Popperup and then play this card. This card can get you further into your deck and if you have cards you can get rid of (doubles) it won’t be a hard decision.

Can’t see anything bad about this card when played correctly.

Advanced-4/5     Art-4/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Crunch$G

Next up in Yuya’s week is a card more likely being used outside Pendulum Decks then it is in them, Performapal Popperup.

Popperup is a Normal Spell that can let you send up to 3 cards from your hand to the graveyard to draw an equal number of cards, then you can Special Summon a number of Performapal, Odd-Eyes, or Pendulum Magician monsters with different names from the hand up to the number of cards drawn with Levels between the Scales in the Pendulum Zones. If you didn’t Special Summon anything from the hand, you lose 1000 LP for each card in the hand. It’s a lot of text, but the discard up to 3 to draw 3 is all that matters. It allows combo Decks to get their graveyard setup for whatever they might need while also drawing cards. The LP loss won’t matter as long as they don’t hit 0. Theoretically if this was used in a Pendulum Deck, I guess it’s cool to get basically a 2nd Pendulum Summon. There’s a few cards that Pendulums won’t mind are in the graveyard, so the discard isn’t that bad. This card is massive Ash Blossom bait, so hope you have Called by the Grave. You can only activate 1 a turn, which is fine for not too much draw power. It’s a pretty good card in combo strategies, okay for the archetype it was meant for. 

Advanced Rating: 4.25/5

Art: 4/5 It’s a Performapal Party!

Alex
Searcy

There is a LOT going on with today’s card   Performapal Popperup, while cute enough in name and appearance, has much text.   As you should be aware, sometimes that’s good and sometimes not   Let’s start with this is a Normal Magic card and a -1.  Potentially even more actually.  But the potential to plus is there too.  You can discard up to 3 cards from your Hand to the Grave to Draw the same number of cards.  That’s an honest trade, and cycling and dumping is great almost all the time anyway.  You then Special Summon Performapal, Magician Pendulum Monsters, and/or Odd-Eyes Monsters.  The range involved there is nice.  You are locked into the range of the distances between your Pendulum scales.  This I don’t like   I guess it’s appropriate, but I feel that adds an unnecessary challenge to this card   Lastly, not Special Summoning via this card costs you 1000 Lifepoints   I don’t see that happening to backfire often, but this card does need some setup and it could absolutely   Potential is here though.

Rating:  3.5/5

Art:  4/5 The Performapals didn’t invite any of the listed friends on the card to their party 

Solember
YouTube

Performapal Popperup

Send up to 3 to the GY. Draw that many cards. Summon 3 Odd-Eyes, Performapal or Magician Pendulum Monsters that work with your scale or lose lifepoints. The effect is wordy, but simple.

I don’t usually speak directly to the competitive scene or refer to a current phase of meta when I review cards, but I will mention this: Ash Blossom. Any card that can negate it is also a threat, of course. I generally avoid cards that have a cost that is a death sentence if the effect is negated.

On its own merit, it is a poorly designed card. All three of the archetypes that it affects, however, are already heavy with summoning and searching effects. Add to this that if you have a Pendulum Scale required to summon the (up to) three monsters, you could probably just do that instead.

That leads to the second glaring weakness of this card. Anything that can chain to the activation that can destroy either of the cards in your Pendulum Zones means you’ll likely be taking a sizeable chunk of lifepoints.

The balance on this card is fine, and I see no way this card can be abused consistently. It has a good effect and it is balanced with a HOPT. I would say it could have used a good, “opponent cannot respond to this card’s activation”.

The card is ugly, and that’s not just because most Performapal Monsters are arguably hideous. I mean no thought seems to have gone into the design at all. Only Whip Snake appears to fit into the design. The other two look like recycled clip art, and the placement of their rainbows is questionable.

Versatility – 1
– It can’t really fit in a lot of places.

Rogue Plays – 0
– So close to a perfect Mystical Refpanel card. Some day, Konami…

Art – 0
– Seriously, where is Trampolynx going?

Balance – 3
– This card could use some built in protection.

Uniqueness – 2
– The combination of things this card can do is pretty unique, but the effects themselves are built into the archetypes it supports.

This card gets a 1/5. It has potential, but struggling to find a safe time to play it really takes away from its utility. Anything that stops drawing, can destroy a Pendulum Scale, stops summoning or negates it outright is likely a death sentence.