The arrival of Diabellstar and her Snake-Eye/Sinful-Spoil cronies to Masterduel has completely changed the face of competitive ladder forever. As a stand alone pure deck (this time without its usual Fire Kings/Rescue-Ace compatriots), Snake-Eyes has is an extremely powerful deck! In fact, Snake-Eyes and it's variant decks is so powerful that it is nearly T1 or T0 since it is so dominant in the metagame!
Snake-Eyes Ash is accessible because 10 cards search it from deck, and including itself, it gives this deck THIRTEEN 1 card starters! The immense link spam potential, consistency and firepower of Snake-Eyes allows this deck to outpace, out-resource and overpower decks like Mannadium, Branded and Superheavy Samurai in a fashion to other Tier 1/0 decks did in the past like Tearlaments, Zoodiac and PePe. The support cards for the strategy like Snake-Eyes Poplar (insane custom card for Snake-Eyes) and Promethean Princess (incredibly accessible and generic Link-3 monster that direct buffs all fire strategies) grant Snake-Eyes near-immunity to devastating game-ending handtraps like Droll, Nibiru and even Dimension Shifter!
Step aside Albaz and Visas, it is time for Diabellstar and her lore cards to completely dominate as the face of competitive Yugioh!
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
ARCHETYPES, ENGINES AND DECKBUILDING
Diabellstar's crew is actually composed of 2 archetypes in her "pure" strategy: SNAKE-EYE (deck core) and the sub-archetype SINFUL-SPOILS (support for Snake-Eye). Since the deck is extremely consistent with a lot of 1 card starters, STAPLES form a large part of the deck.
The SNAKE-EYE/SINFUL-SPOILS cards form the core of the deck. This deck core is maximized around searching or summoning from deck Snake-Eyes Ash, the heart and soul of the strategy. Snake-Eyes Ash starts up the entire gameplan, so 10 cards search it (3 Diabellstarr, 3 WANTED, 3 Original Sinful-Spoils, 1 One for One) in addition to having 3 copies of Ash granting a total of 13 starters! With that many starters, this deck is still very consistent, despite "Bonfire" not having been released yet in Masterduel. 1 Jet Synchron is a searchable level 1 fire monster to enable Synchro plays.
The STAPLES featured in this deck are the usual suspects in Masterduel - the 12 card "Maxx C" package (3 Ash, 3 Maxx, 2 Called By, 1 Crossout and 2 Gamma + 1 Driver) so that you can come out on top of the "Maxx C Minigame." 1 Nibiru, Droll, Talents and Imperm are popular staples and Crossout targets to negate. There are a 15 total handtraps!
COMBOS AND GAMEPLAN
Snake-Eye Fire King is a powerful combo deck that can link spam like no tomorrow. After the initial Snake-Eye combo, there are a ton of extenders such as Flamberge Dragon's "soul charge" of level 1 fires and Promethean Princess' summon of any fire monster from GY. Similarly to the "Cyberse pile" decks, Snake-Eye Fire King's immense swarming potential allow that enable the deck to link climb to incredible heights. Not only that, the deck is resilient enough to play through high impact handtraps like Nibiru, Droll, even Dimension Shifter!
A singular uninterrupted Snake-Eyes Ash gets you through everything and provides you with a whopping many interruptions and incredible amounts of resources as follow-up for next turn.
Snake-Eyes Ash = 1 targeted destruction of a monster (Promethean Princess) + 3 monster negates (Apollousa) + Linkuriboh (battle protection) + plenty of follow-up/full field/set-up GY for next turn. (If you have extenders, you also end on Savage Dragon's omni-negate and Baronne's omni-negate by summoning from deck Jet Synchron).
Normal summon Snake-Eyes Ash. Activate Snake Ash's effect to search for Snake Poplar from deck.
Activate Poplar's effect to summon itself from hand when searched.
Activate Poplar's effect when summoned to search for Original Sinful Spoils.
Link summon Linkuriboh using Poplar. Activate Poplar's effect when it leaves the field to place itself in the backrow.
Activate Original Sinful Spoils sending Poplar in the backrow to the GY to summon from deck Snake-Eyes Oak (If you have an extender, summon Jet Synchron instead for Synchro plays).
Activate Oak's on-summon effect to summon from the GY Ash.
Activate Oak's effect sending Linkuriboh to GY to summon from deck Flamberge Dragon.
Link summon I:P Masquerena using Flamberge Dragon + Ash.
Activate Flamberge Dragon's GY effect to summon from GY Ash + Poplar.
Link summon Promethean Princess using Poplar + I:P Masquerena.
Activate Promethean Princess' effect to summon from the GY Flamberge Dragon.
Activate Flamberge Dragon's effect to place in the backrow I:P Masquerena.
Link summon Amblowhale using Promethean Princess + Ash.
During your opponent's draw phase, summon from the backrow I:P Masquerena using Flamberge Dragon's effect.
During your opponent's main phase, link summon Apollousa using I:P Masquerena's effect using Amblowhale + Masqurena + Flamberge Dragon.
Activate Flamberge Dragon's GY effect to summon from GY Ash + Oak.
Activate in CL1 Ash to search for Poplar from deck, CL2 Oak to summon from GY Poplar.
Activate in CL1 Poplar to search from deck, CL2 Poplar to summon from hand.
At an opportune time, summon from the GY Linkuriboh by tributing Poplar. Reaching the GY, Poplar places a fire monster (usually itself) in the backrow.
When your opponent summons a monster, summon from the GY Promethean Princess by destroying your own fire monster and your opponent's summoned monster.
GOING FIRST, a singular Snake-Eyes Ash grants you a triple monster negate with Apollousa, a targeted monster destruction with Promethean Princess, and lots of bodies + follow-up + set-up GY for next turn's OTK. If you have extenders beyond Ash (like Jet Synchron, One for One, or Snake-Eyes Divine Temple) you can also end on Heatsoul's draw 2, Salamangreat Sunlight Wolf's recovery from the GY of a fire monster (like Ash Blossom)! Next turn, you can OTK easily with tons of link material to finish the game with the likes of Accesscode Talker. Remember this is from 1 card, so your hand may also contain one to several of the 15 handtraps!
GOING SECOND, the Snake-Eyes strategy features a ton of handtraps to weaken your opponent's gamestate or potentially end their turn on a suboptimal board so you can start comboing yourself. As you combo up, you can methodically remove your opponent's field using Flamberge Dragon's non-destruction removal, Knightmare Phoenix's S/T destruction, Knightmare Unicorn's shuffle, and Accesscode can be made for up to 3 pops due to the different attribute link material in the GY (dark-Linkuriboh, fire-Knightmake Phoenix, light-Selene),
GENERAL TIPS
Snake-Eyes does a lot of actions that involves having no monsters on the field - meaning that Psy-Frame Gamma is almost always live! Alot of players on ladder leave their Ash Blossom for the Original Sinful Spoils summoning a card from deck, and since the card leaves your field empty, you can Gamma their Ash Blossom! When that interaction happens, people usually leave.
If you manage to summon Gamma + Driver on your turn, you can summon Borreload Savage Dragon for an additional negate. Just be sure your GY is set up with a link monster! A cool interaction is that you can also send to the GY the equipped link monster to the GY as the cost of your Snake-Eye cards!
If you lose out on the Maxx "C" minigame, try to end your board on Flamberge Dragon. For the price of allowing your opponent to draw 1 more card, you can end on a 3000 ATK body and follow-up for next turn since the card floats into your searchers in the GY.
Hiita and Dharc can summon a monster from your opponent's GY (for example, summon your opponent's Ash Blossom or D.D. Crow) and you can either make Selene (typically for Accesscode) or more importantly, Promethean Princess. if your GY is already set-up, this play allows you to get back to your gameplan by summoning a crucial Fire monster from the GY, like Snake-Eyes Ash, Poplar or Flamberge Dragon.
If you have Snake-Eyes Ash and you drew into Original Sinful Spoils already, when you search with Poplar take Snake-Eyes Divine Temple instead so that it's an additional extender. The extra card in the backrow serves as an extender for your Snake-Eyes cost to send a card on the field to the GY.
Snake-Eyes summons so many times (even on the opponent's turn!) that you'd sometimes find yourself in the awkward position of having no more space on your board! Be careful of this scenario. A good way to get around this situation during your opponent's turn is to link away as much monsters as possible for I:P Masquerena.
Since all your interruption is centered around your monsters, be careful about your Apollousa being stolen by your opponent (happens surprisingly a lot). A "talents" or change of heart on your Apollousa is often devastating and is enough to break your board since you'll be facing down your own mass negates.
You'll encounter a lot of Snake-Eye mirror matches on ladder. When facing a rival Snake-Eyes player, negate your opponent's Flamberge Dragon, especially by using Crossout or Called By the Grave. This prevents their target removal of your cards and severely limits their link spam. Also, try to prevent your opponent from summoning or using Hiita, since she can also use your entire GY with all it's effect monsters!
- Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
CONCLUDING COMMENTARY
BUCKLE IN DUELISTS, the Fire Format is upon us! The forecast to our metagame is cloudy, with a extremely high chance of firestorms!
Riding on the back of this maelstrom is our favourite delinquent treasure hunter adventurer! Diabellstar is the face of this upcoming Tier 1/0 metagame, since her Snake-Eyes enable all fire decks with level 1 fire monsters to reach new heights of competitive power. Before the other crucial cards like Fire King and Infernoid come out, Pure Snake-Eyes is already extremely potent at what it does. The strategy provides near infinite link material, Flamberge's "soul charge" for level 1 fire monsters, immense recursion and Promethean Princess's monster reborn!
It is safe to say that Masterduel ladder will be dominated by this femme fatale and her gang for the next couple months, until she gets the inevitable banhammer for being too powerful. Until then, lets burn away all opposition with Pure Snake-Eyes!
GLHF Duelists!
60
-
390
1200
Cool
0
Funny
0
Angry
0
Sad
0