Serpentine Princess – #DB2-EN167
If this face-up card is returned from the field to your Deck, select and Special Summon 1 Level 3 or lower monster from your Deck to your side of the field. Then shuffle your Deck.
Date Reviewed: June 13th, 2024
Rating: 2.50
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,
Never did I ever think we’d be reviewing Serpentine Princess as a Throwback Thursday choice, let alone any choice, but here we are.
A monster that was essentially useless until now, Serpentine Princess has to be face-up and be returned from the field to the Deck for you to get her effect. There were a few ways to do this, but nothing decently constructive that you’d want to use just to Special Summon a Level 3 or lower monster from the Deck to your field. There were better ways always, even back in 2003 to do this (generic recruiter monsters). However, within the Ragnaraika archetype, Serpentine Princess actually has a purpose: another way to get to Samurai Beetle or Evil Seed. Bounce Serpentine with any of your Ragnaraika Link Monsters to Special Summon them from the grave and you replace Serpentine with either Seed or Beetle…or any other Level 3 or lower monster you’d like to Special Summon. You could Special Summon one of your Tuner hand traps, but that likely isn’t a great idea. The first monster that comes to mind in this archetype to summon with this effect is, and should always be Lonefire Blossom, it is just too good. Evil Seed may be the go-to archetype monster, but if you’ve already used that effect this turn, you should go for Lonefire. If Glow-Up Bulb or Spore were still legal they would also be targets for this card being bounced, but they are still banned.
Serpentine Princess likely won’t see play within the Ragnaraika archetype because there’s just too many good Insect, Plant, or Reptile monsters that can be effective upon their summon and not need another card to function at their peak. However, this card now has usefulness, and that was something many thought was never possible.
Advanced- 2/5 Art- 2/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday this week brings us a card many likely forgot about until the Ragnaraika archetype released and had synergy with it: Serpentine Princess.
Serpentine Princess is a Level 4 WATER Reptile with 1400 ATK and 2000 DEF. A strong DEF stat, WATER monsters are always nice, and Reptile holds up well with Ogdoadic. The only effect this card has is that if it is face-up on the field and returned to the Deck, you can summon any Level 3 or lower monster from the Deck, then it tells you to shuffle the Deck cause that’s how old the card is. Summoning any monster within the Level requirement sounds great, there was just never a decent way to resolve this. You most likely had to rely on the opponent returning it to the Deck, which I doubt they would do if they saw this. Now, the Ragnaraika Links can at least put this back to the Deck and trigger it, even if you’re likely only summoning an Insect, Plant, or Reptile off it. It’s just now comes down to getting access to it, which Snake Rain and the Ogdoadic cards can help with. It summons Evil Seed from Deck if you haven’t summoned it already, so that’s a plus. I guess it can also summon Sunseed Genius Loci for Sunavalon combo if you haven’t done that yet in the turn. It’s a cool card I’m sure some Ragnaraika variants will try to figure out how to use since it is access to Level 3 or lower monsters of any kind, or in this case just the three aforementioned Types. Probably best in Ogdoadic or any Reptile variant of the Deck.
Advanced Rating: 3/5
Art: 3/5 I mean, yeah this is something they would have made in 2003.
Mighty
Vee
This week’s Throwback Thursday card foreshadowed Raganraika when a reprint was announced in OCG; it’s none other than the time bomb Serpentine Princess, a level 4 WATER Reptile monster. Surprisingly, WATER Reptiles are not that uncommon, though there’s no real support for them specifically. Instead, since it’s a Reptile, it can be searched by King of the Feral Imps and used in Ogdoadic and Ragnaraika. Despite being an old card from 2003, its stats are surprisingly remarkable for the time period, with 1400 attack and a very solid 2000 defense being somehow better stats than the vanilla Giant Soldier of Stone, though it’s not a relevant stat spread for modern Yugioh.
Serpentine Princess caused a little stir when Ragnaraika was announced, and that’s because of its sole non-once per turn effect that triggers if it’s shuffled face-up from the field to the deck, letting you Special Summon any level 3 or lower monster from your deck (yes ANY). This seemingly deadly combination made Ragnaraika seem invincible, since their Link monsters do trigger Serpentine Princess and hypothetically allow you to loop it for insane amounts of Link material. In practice, the problem is, of course, the fact that you will be locked into Plant, Reptile, and Insect monsters, which are not known for having insanely powerful monsters. Additionally, the strongest among them, Plant hybrids, will have a lot of trouble even accessing Serpentine Princess in the first place since their best cards lock you into Plants and you would have to somehow integrate a Rank 4 Xyz engine to bring out King of the Feral Imps. Serpentine Princess will probably only see play in Ogdoadic hybrids since they can easily summon King of the Feral Imps and search it, enabling strong combos, though you’re still extremely limited by the Reptile lock. Overall it’s a funny card that has potential, but the weaknesses of Ragnaraika unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) prevent it from being as strong as it could be. And yes, to address the elephant in the room, there’s basically no way to use Serpentine Princess outside of Ragnaraika. Sorry!
+Easily searchable in Ogdoadic hybrids
+Incredible potential for nasty combos
-Difficult to access while maneuvering locks in Plant and Insect hybrids
-Limited to summoning Plant, Reptile, and Insect monsters in Ragnaraika
-Almost impossible to reliably trigger outside of Ragnaraika
Advanced: 2.5/5
Art: 2.5/5 Well, I can’t fault old Yugioh art for making scary women!
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