Snake-Eyes Poplar – #PHNI-EN012
If this card is added to your hand, except by drawing it: You can Special Summon this card. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can add 1 “Snake-Eye” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand. If this card is sent to the GY: You can target 1 FIRE monster in your GY; place it face-up in its owner’s Spell & Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell. You can only use each effect of “Snake-Eyes Poplar” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: March 4th, 2024
Rating: 4.42
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Snake-Eyes Poplar begins our week on Pojo and is one of the more sought-after cards in the entire Phantom Nightmare set…and for good reason.
This tiny, adorable Snake-Eye is just like Watapon, where if you search it, it will leap out of your hand and Special Summon itself. Snake-Eye Ash and Bonfire are two cards that immediately come to mind to get this extender going for you. Once Normal or Special Summoned, Poplar becomes a Snake-Eye Spell/Trap search for you, getting you to any of the Snake-Eye Spells or the one Snake-Eye Trap. Divine Temple off Poplar gets you two searches for the price of one (with its search ending up in the Spell/Trap Zone), while Sinful Spoils of Subversion – Snake-Eye is an easy out to any of your opponent’s monsters. Snake-Eye Ash and this card is an auto Link-2, and that can be enough to get your turn going.
Poplar also having the ability to pop a FIRE monster from the grave to your Spell/Trap Zone when it’s sent to the grave gives fuel for Snake-Eyes Flamberge Dragon, Snake-Eye Oak, and Snake-Eye Birch effects, or prep Divine Temple to Special Summon it when the opponent summons a monster next turn.
Poplar was the final piece to help Snake-Eye really achieve dominance. How they mix in with Fire Kings and other FIRE-based strategies gave them a huge leg-up from the start, but Poplar makes things so much easier for them. You need this card in 3’s (for now) in the archetype if playing any combo of it.
Advanced- 4.5/5 Art- 4.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Since there isn’t enough lore for a full proper week besides Goblin Bikers, we get a Snake-Eyes Poplar review earlier than what I normally would have done.
Poplar is a Level 1 FIRE Pyro with 700 ATK and 200 DEF. Stats are low, but Rekindling target for what it’s worth. Pyro has great modern support and FIRE is the Attribute to be right now, especially if you’re a Level 1. First effect triggers upon being added to your hand in any way that isn’t you drawing it, letting you immediately Special Summon it from the hand. This makes Snake-Eye Ash become 2 bodies on the board, which is especially good if you summon it off of Diabellstar and Original Sinful Spoils instead of using your Normal Summon. Upon being Normal or Special Summoned, you can search for any Snake-Eye Spell/Trap. You of course got Original Sinful Spoils to keep your plays going, Sinful Spoils of Subversion is interesting removal, Divine Temple is another way to get a Snake-Eye card on board for your effects while also being able to summon the monsters in the backrow on the opponent’s turn, and Dramatic Chase will be great when we get Snake-Eyes Diabellstar and it also summons a monster you put in the backrow during the End Phase (making it useful with Flamberge Dragon). Finally, if it’s sent to the graveyard, you can target and place any FIRE monster from your graveyard into your Spell/Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell, giving you more fuel for the Snake-Eyes effects to summon from Deck and it can get Flamberge Dragon back on the field to send to the grave to revive 2 Level 1 FIRE monsters for extension. Of course, each effect is a hard once per turn. Poplar overall offers a ton of extension for Snake-Eyes as a whole, hence why you see so much of it now. It’s the easiest extender to get off of Snake-Eye Ash or Bonfire, you get to search for the Snake-Eye backrow for some solid options, and it puts a card back on the field after it is sent to the grave so you got more cards to send to the grave for your Snake-Eye effects. Play 2 at least, you don’t really want to draw it and would rather search it, but it’s good enough to warrant having more than once, especially if you can pull off the play again.
Advanced Rating: 4.25/5
Art: 5/5 Diabellstar’s little pet.
Mighty
Vee
This week is all about Phantom Nightmare’s assorted legacy support, and we’re kicking it off with the one and only Snake-Eyes Poplar, a level 1 FIRE Pyro monster like most other Snake-Eye monsters, and accordingly can be searched by Bonfire, Snake-Eye Ash, and Original Sinful Spoils – Snake-Eye. Fittingly, Poplar only has 700 attack and 200 defense, so you’d be pretty crazy to let it battle. This controversial little fellow managed to rocket Snake-Eye to new heights causing yet another wave of mass hysteria in the Yugioh community, and we’re about to find out why.
Poplar has three hard once per turn effects, all of them culminating in one powerful package that turned Snake-Eye from an engine into a flat-out deck. First, Poplar can Special Summon itself if it’s added to the hand aside from drawing it. While it might seem tempting to search it with Bonfire (which you can do in emergencies) you’ll usually be searching it off of Snake-Eye Ash then summoning it, since otherwise your combo lines will get awkward. Poplar’s second effect is just as powerful, triggering if it’s Normal or Special Summoned to let you search any Snake-Eye Spell or Trap. Current meta builds are opting to search Divine Temple of the Snake-Eye for its extension or Sinful Spoils of Subversion – Snake-Eye as a boardbreaker (or even Original Sinful Spoils – Snake-Eye for follow up). Early builds experimented with using Dramatic Snake-Eye Chase so that you can access Sinful Spoils of Betrayal – Silvera for an omni negate, though that has fallen out of favor since it’ll consume your Diabellstar the Black Witch search. Finally, Poplar’s last effect doesn’t miss either, triggering if it’s sent to the Graveyard to let you place any FIRE monster in either Graveyard into its owner’s Spell/Trap Zone. This includes Poplar itself, so using it as a material for Linkuriboh can put Poplar back on the field, making it prime material to summon Snake-Eyes Flamberge Dragon using Ash or Snake-Eye Oak. Poplar’s effects drastically increase the archetype’s ability to spam Link materials, letting you easily summon Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames and pretty much any generic Link monster you want for follow-up. Poplar is one of the few cards that’s ideal at two copies– you will want to search Poplar to summon it for free as Ash is your ideal Normal Summon, but summoning Poplar isn’t the end of the world, even if that does make it a garnet. Having an additional copy also lets you go nuts for follow-up. It’s not too surprising that people already want Poplar banned (for some reason) but as long as it’s around, Snake-Eye will keep on slithering.
+Generates massive advantage by itself after being searched
+Very flexible combo routes through the sheer variety of Snake-Eye backrow
-Technically a garnet
Advanced: 4.5/5
Art: 4.25/5 Diabellstar finally got her Light-Heart expy it seems
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