Top Picks from Yu-Gi-Oh! Phantom Nightmare: Cards You Need

The 25th year of Yu-Gi-Oh! the Trading Card Game started with a blast from the past with the release of Phantom Nightmare in February. Why? First because Yu-Gi-Oh! Phantom Nightmare brings back support for “Yubel” Archetype after 16 years from its first release. Second because almost on the same date in 2008 Konami released Yubel for the first time in a set named “Phantom Darkness”, closely followed by “Light of Destruction” in a similar way as “Legacy of Destruction” just released in April after “Phantom Nightmare”.

Together with all these similarities, Yu-Gi-Oh! Phantom Nightmare set includes a lot of support for past Archetypes continuing the effort started by Konami with “Maze of Millennia” to bring new life into all those themes and decks which made the history of this great Trading Card Game. The set also marks the release of some new Archetypes and themes ("Ashened", "Voiceless Voice" and "Goblin Biker") but, most importantly, Phantom Nightmare includes some great support for the new “Pyro” Archetype. If you would like to know more about this set, you can check the article “The Ultimate Guide to Yu-Gi-Oh! Phantom Nightmare Set” on Magic Madhouse blog.

Considering that the set has been around for a few months now and that we had some time to test the new cards in our decks, we thought of putting together a list of the best Phantom Nightmare cards you really need to look for in the set.

Phantom Nightmare top picks

Before we start, I would like to remind that the list below is by all mean not comprehensive, and that it is mainly based on the impact that each card can have on Yu-Gi-Oh! gameplay. The rarity/ market value of the cards is not considered in it but will be mentioned at the end of this article when we review the overall set and its collectible value. Let's get started!

1. Snake-Eyes Poplar (Lv1 Effect Monster)

The ultra rare Snake Eyes Poplar is likely to be the most important card in the whole set and a game changer for Snake-Eyes and Fire/Pyro hybrid decks, including the meta-relevant Fire Kings Deck.

As an Effect Monster, Poplar has a couple of very important abilities. First it can be normal summoned or special summoned if it is added to the hand in any way other than drawing. Once on the field, Poplar's second ability activates allowing the player to add any “Snake-Eyes” Spell or Trap card from the deck to the hand. Finally, it Poplar is sent to the Grave yard, it can summon one Fire monster from any graveyard to its owner's Spell & Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell.

The flexibility of having effects in hand, on the field, and in the Grave yard, would be enough to make this card quite interesting in the current meta. Most important, Poplar can be searched using Snake-Eye Oak and it can look for “Original Sinful Spoils – Snake-Eye” generating a powerful engine that can be exploited in a variety of different decks. For example, if you are playing a Fire King deck, Sinful Spoil will allow the player to look for “Legendary Fire King Ponix” or to place “Rescue-ACE Hydrant” straight from the deck into their Spell & Trap zone.

In other decks, if you use Ash to start your combo, Sinful Spoils can look for Snake-Eye Oak directly from the deck to bring back Poplar and Ash and then use the effect of this last one to summon a larger monster like Snake-Eyes Flamberge Dragon.

All these are very straightforward 1-card combos that can be further extended to bring out all the cards you need for your strategy. Considering this is the direction the current meta game is taking, Snake-Eyes Poplar can easily be consider the single best card to look for in Phantom Nightmare.

2. Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames

The second most interesting card in Phantom Nightmare set is “Promethean Princess Bestower of Flame”, a rank-3 Link Monster that can be summoned by tributing 2 or more Effect Monsters. Once on the field, the player can use this card ability to Special Summon a Fire monster from the Grave yard every turn during the main phase. Moreover, if the opponent Special Summons a monster to their field when Promethean Princess is in the Grave yard, her second effect allows her to come back to the field by destroying one Monster on both sides of the field. The two effects are clearly linked together to allow this Monster to keep its presence on the field with a high potential to extend the combo in a lot of different directions.

Overall, this card is a fantastic generic Monster that can support any Fire-based deck making it very relevant in the current metagame. Considering we just just started the new year and it is very likely we will see more and more Fire Monsters support as we progress through the season, this card is very well positioned to see a lot of play hence the choice to include it into the list.

3. Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice

The third of the top picks of Phantom Nightmare, the Lv1 Effect Monster “Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice” is another key card of this set not just for the role it can play in the Voiceless Voice Archetype but, most important, as a clear first effort from Konami to revive Ritual Summoning. For a lot of years, in fact, this Special Summoning mechanics has not been favoured by the players due to the efforts needed to set-up all needed cards with respect to the reward bought by Summoning a Ritual Monster. After multiple attempts to improve the mechanics, we finally got a 1-card summoning combo that uses Lo as unique tribute to bring out “Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice”. It has to be noted that Lo can also to pay the entire tribute cost of any Warrior or Dragon Light Ritual monster making this card quite valuable not just in a Voiceless voice deck.

Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice has also another couple of very useful effects. First, when it is tributed to summon a Light Warrior or Dragon Ritual Monster, Lo can special summoned herself back from the Graveyard to be used again to extend the combo. In addition, once summoned to the field, Lo can also place one Voiceless Voice continuous Spell or Trap Card directly from the deck to the field. Depending on the situation, there are a few good options to search with the most obvious being “Barrier of the Voiceless Voice” to get “Saffira, Dragon Queen of the Voiceless Voice” out from the deck and into the hand. In its dedicate Archetype, Lo also plays a different key role but you will find some details about it reading next card description.

4. Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice (Quarter Century Secret Rare)

Considering how well the new Voiceless Voice Archetype has been doing in the OCG, the next card in this list could only be the new “Skull Guardian Protector of the Voiceless Voice”. This new version has the same ATK and DEF values of the classic Skull Guardian and it is still a ritual monster. However, what makes this card highly interesting is its ability to negate the activation of a card or an effect every turn and destroy the related card if Lo, Prayers of the Voiceless Voice is on the field.

Essentially, Skull Guardian and Lo have been designed to strongly work together to create a viable Ritual Summoning mechanics. First, Lo can be used as the only tribute to bring Skull Guardian out that in return allows Lo to come back to the field to boost Skull Guardian ATK by 2050 and to enable its negate ability. Once it is summoned back, Lo can also set a continuous Voiceless Voice Spell and Trap like for example “Barrier of the Voiceless Voice” that forces the opponent to attack only ritual Monsters while also protecting your monsters from any card effect. This is on top of the flexibility granted by Skull Guardian negate ability that can deal with all opponent’s interruptions, including the largely used “Ash Blossom” or “Nibiru the Primal Being”.

5. Veidos the Eruption Dragon of Extinction

“Ashened” is a pretty new Archetype released for the first time in Phantom Nightmare and an exclusive of the TGC. Among the very first group of cards released in this set, “Veidos the Eruption Dragon of Extinction” is the most interesting one and a key card for the whole Archetype engine hence the reason for adding it to this list.

Veidos is a LV9 DARK Effect Monster that can be summoned directly to the opponent's field by destroying a Field Spell Card (from either side of the field). Once summoned, it also allows you to set or add to the player's hand any "Ashened" Continuous Trap from your Deck with the obvious choice being “Ashened for Eternity”. This trap will allows the player to take back the control of Veidos while reducing the ATK of all of the opponent's face-up Monsters by 2800 making them an easy target for your Dragon.

The opponent will also have to face quite a challenge in dealing with Veidos as this Monster can destroy all Monsters on the filed once it is sent to the Grave Yard from the Opponent's field. Surely the nickname of “Dragon of Extinction” is well deserved and it is easy to see how this ability can open up to a numbers of combos and interesting interactions.

In the newer set “Legacy of Destuction” the Ashened Archetype also received some very interesting support highly focus on making Veidos the core of the deck engine. The Lv4 Effect Pyro Monster “Spearhead of the Ashened City”, for example, can be tributed to return Veidos to the hand if needed. Most important, the newer set includes a Lv10 Fusion monster, “Veidos the Dragon of Endless Darkness”, that can only be summoned using Veidos and 2 or more other Pyro Monsters. With its 3000ATK and immunity to all card or monster effects, this Monster is the perfect follow-up to Veidos effects to lay waste on the enemy Life Points.

Why you should collect Phantom Nightmare?

As anticipated initially, Phantom Nightmare is quite an interesting set with a lot of really playable cards including a number that are defintely impactful on the current meta. There are also a number of useful cards to boost older interesting decks and a few that could be used in the future depending on how much support will be released this year. The greatest strength of this new set, is the substantial support it provides to a variety of different archetypes, including some that have been not supported for a long time like Yubel. In addition, Phantom nightmare features some very good support for the Fire decks that are largely used in the current meta game together with introducing the new and interesting Ashened Archetype. It is also important to remind this set contains no reprints, thus there is a chance all of the cards you can pull from the booster packs may find some role sooner or later in game.

In terms of rarity and value, it should be considered that this set includes a very good amount of playable rare cards and that some of them can be pulled as Quarter Century Rares making this set quite valuable. As a result, the expectation is that the cards from this set will retain their value for a while. To give perspective, at the time of writing there are 11 single cards from Phantom Nightmare on the market selling from prices ranging between £30 and £120. Among them “Yubel - The Loving Defender Forever” and “Promethean Princess, Bestower of Flames” are the most expensive while “Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice” is the most expensive non-Quarter Century Rare card. Magicians of Bonds and Unity is also a big favourite from this set not only because it is uniquely available in this set as Quarter Century Rare but also because this card has only been printed in this rarity so far and only in four sets.

Overall, there are plenty of good reasons to collect Phantom Nightmare considering both the gameplay and the monetary value of the cards from this set. My personal suggestion if you decide to invest in this set is to go for a couple of Booster Boxes at least. This should give you the possibility to obtain all the new common cards and a good fraction of the rare cards. This without considering the possibility to obtain any of the rarest cards of the set which pull rates are around 1 every 2 or three booster boxes. Considering the strongly discounted price of the boxes on Magic Madhouse, I would perhaps recommend to go for three boxes to have the best chances but whatever you decide to do, this set can be a great addition to your collection.