Ashoka Pillar – #MZMI-EN018
If this card is Summoned: You can add 1 Equip Spell from your Deck to your hand, then if this card is in Attack Position, change it to Defense Position. You can only use this effect of “Ashoka Pillar” once per turn. If this card is destroyed by battle or card effect: Take 2000 damage.
Date Reviewed: February 5th, 2024
Rating: 3.25
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,
Ashoka Pillar starts our week off on CoTD, a week of Maze of Millennia and honestly, at first I wasn’t sure why we were starting with this.
Ashoka Pillar is a Level 3 Rock monster that can get you an Equip Spell from the deck when summoned, and then perform a Summon Monk and change itself to defense. You take 2000LP damage if Pillar is destroyed by card effect or battle, so you’re going to want to link it away quickly, or have it as a piece of a Synchro Summon. While we don’t care much about LP nowadays, 2000LP is a quarter of your total LP and that is a sizable chunk. While it is an Equip Spell searcher that triggers whenever summoned and has 2200DEF as a Level 3, there are better Equip Spell searching cards and effects.
It is supposed to work with Triangle O, which requires Pillar be on the field with Crystal Skull and Cabrera Stone, but it’s going to take a bit to do that. Skull can Special Summon Stone or Pillar, but you can’t take effect damage the turn you activate that effect in the End Phase…but you take damage when you summon Skull. Pillar can search Stonhenge, which can Special Summon any of these monsters from the grave, but to get these monsters all on the field at the same time, alongside Triangle O, and the trap: Totem Pole with three counters on it so you can double effect damage you’d take and send it over to your opponent…it’s all too much.
Forget its own strategy, lets just focus on what Ashoka Pillar can do in general: search an Equip Spell. Snatch Steal is back and that’s what I’m going for if I’d run this. Its strategy is too slow to work, but it as a generic Equip Spell searcher is alright.
Advanced- 2.5/5 Art- 2/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Maze of Millennia has given us some long awaited cards from OCG’s Animation Chronicle, so we’ll take the next two weeks to look at some of those, starting with a card that might go well with a recent unban: Ashoka Pillar.
Ashoka Pillar is a Level 3 EARTH Rock with 0 ATK and 2200 DEF. A strong DEF stat is always nice when you got no ATK, EARTH is solid, and Rock means you can use Adamancipators to summon this. Upon being summoned, Ashoka Pillar searches for any Equip Spell from your Deck, then it immeidately goes from Attack Position to Defense Position if initially summone in Attack. Either way, you get the Equip Spell search. The intended target I guess is Stonehenge Method to revive a monster with 0 ATK since that’s basically the whole Triangle O strategy this is meant to go into, and that does work. In a Deck like Mikanko, you can search for any part of their extensive lineup of Equip Spells, same for Noble and Infernoble Knights. The TCG also just got Snatch Steal back not long ago, and that of course is searchable off of this card. Ashoka Pillar being a searcher for any Equip Spell leaves a lot of room for experimentation. The other effect triggers upon destruction, dealing you 2000 damage, which is meant to go with Triangle O and Totem Pole to deal the damage to the opponent instead and double it while you’re at it, but if you aren’t using that strategy, you likely just Link this away and not worry about it. Ashoka Pillar giving us a way to search for any Equip Spell just as long as you summon it via any means is pretty strong. I can see Mikanko using this to get to Water Arabesque maybe and summon any Mikanko from Deck. There’s a lot of interesting things this card can open up, and I’ll be excited to see some of them.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 3.5/5 I don’t hate the art, though it is literally just a giant pillar.
Mighty
Vee
While we patiently await Phantom Nightmare, this week we’re covering some of the imports from Maze of Millennia. Ashoka Pillar is our first card, a level 3 EARTH Rock monster used by Yanagi in Yugioh 5Ds. Thanks to being a Rock with 0 attack, it’s searchable with Gallant Granite and Piri Reis Map. Of course, that also means it has an atrocious 0 attack, though its 2200 Defense is very impressive for a mere level 3 monster.
Ashoka Pillar has two effects, the first one being hard once per turn. If it’s summoned, you can search any Equip Spell, then change it to Defense Position if it happened to be in Attack Position. This is obviously meant to combo with Piri Reis Map since you’ll have to Normal Summon it and otherwise leave it as a sitting duck. Searching an Equip Spell isn’t new business, as we already have cards like Hidden Armory, though if you really need an Equip Spell, I guess you can get to one now with Gallant Granite lines. Ashoka Pillar’s other effect continues the trend of Yanagi cards punishing your life points, inflicting 2000 damage to yourself if it’s destroyed by battle or card effect. Considering Pillar has no protection at all, you’re looking at a deficit of 6000 LP if you searched it with Piri Reis Map. It’s not useless, since I’m sure Yanagi fans are over the moon as his deck is slowly coming to life, though there just aren’t that many practical applications for it yet. If you’re crazy it can be a starter in Mikanko, but otherwise it’s mostly just fanservice.
+Searching any Equip Spell is amazing on paper
-Will probably consume Normal Summon
-Bizarre drawback that can easily lead to you getting OTK’d
Advanced: 3.25/5
Art: 3/5 I know it’s an ancient landmark, but why does it look like a lamp post?
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