Sunday 29 May 2011

Snipe Hunter?

Snipe Hunter

I was playing one of my internet buddies via Dueling Network and he was using an Ojamachinegun deck vs. my Shi En says "yo" deck. Naturally, I had a massive advantage over him and won 2-0, but his deck really got me thinking about our little friend Snipe Hunter. This thing used to be a real bad boy in its time, almost like a mini Tribe-Infecting Virus. It got limited for a long time and only left the ban list a while ago. If you're not familiar with this card, here are some stats.

Snipe Hunter
✪✪✪✪ DARK
Fiend / Effect
You can discard 1 card to select 1 card on the field and roll a six-sided die. If the result is not 1 or 6, destroy the selected card.
ATK 1500 DEF 600

Relatively straightforward, discard a card and have a 2 in 3 chance of destroying a card. Whilst gambling based cards are notorious for their inconsistencies, this guy has a few things going for him.

Firstly, this guy is supported by some pretty powerful rulings. Because the destruction is not guaranteed, cards that respond to destruction effects cannot be used in response to this card. That means Stardust Dragon and Shooting Star Dragon can't do anything against this guy. Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En just has to sit there and and have a chance of being destroyed whilst Magatama just sits there unable to respond.

Secondly, this card hits absolutely anything. It doesn't care what you discard and it doesn't care what you choose to destroy. That means if you have trouble with GKs, this card could really ease the match up. Necrovalley's life expectancy can become really short if the GK player fails to deal with Snipe Hunter quickly enough.

Thirdly, this card is amazing bait for Solemn Warning. Solemn Warning kills a monster before it has a chance to use its effect, so if this guy gets warning'd, your hand will remain in tact. This guy can have trouble if he runs into a BTH after targeting it, so just make sure you're careful about how you use it.

Some people may be deterred by the fact this card is luck based, however, it is a 2/3 chance (or 66.6% if you prefer), so the odds of this guy working are in your favor by a relatively good amount. Most of the time you'll be discarding dead cards, or better yet, cards you want in the graveyard like Spore and Glow-Up Bulb. This card is also DARK attribute, meaning it's food for Allure of Darkness, Chaos Sorcerer and Dark Armed Dragon.

His body is a bit paltry, however most decks don't run that many monsters with over 1500 ATK anyway. Tengu can cause this guy irritations in TCG Land, but to be fair there is no practical solution to that card bar Solemn. Grandmaster is also an irritation, but a lot of Samurai decks only run 1 copy, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

This card certainly has home in a few decks. Plants, Lightsworn, Zombies and possibly even Infernity could make really good use of this card. Anything that gets dead hands or needs to get anything out of its hand basically.

I think this little guy has a lot of potential. Tell me what you think.

~Valafar123

3 comments:

  1. He is good.... but I remember me pwning him on DN before. I was using sabers and first turn the guy uses it to pop my face down, which was a Darksoul, and then next turn I mind control it, use its eff to ditch another dark soul and synch for Hyunlei which basically popped his whole field =) Good times.....

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  2. He's cool and all but a friend of mine dropped most of his hand to destroy Necrovalley... By the time he got it... It didn't matter he dropped his follow up lol.

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  3. Yeah, I remember those days.... Such an annoying card. Kept killing my stuff -__-
    I never seen anyone play it again, and it's a surprise when someone uses it.
    I might use him, maybe ^^;

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