One of the first Pendulum decks to ever hit the Yu-Gi-Oh scene, Performapals have received a lot of support in their time. In fact, we’re still seeing new Performapal cards released to this day. This means there are many different routes you can take with this deck. Some players opt for a pure Performapal build with no extra deck, others opt for a Performapal-Odd-Eyes-Pendulum Magician Hybrid, and some have even built Fusion summon based Performapal decks. Performapals are the perfect deck to get used to Pendulum summoning – they can swarm the field with a bunch of cute monsters, then act as a classic beat down deck from the good old days of Yu-Gi-Oh. So if you’re looking to dip your toes into the world of the Performapals, we’ve curated this ranking of the best cards ever printed.
15. Performapal Salutiger
Starting off our list is a card that provides the deck with that all-important search power. When Performapal Salutiger destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the graveyard you can add 1 Performapal pendulum monster from your deck to your hand. This doesn’t work well against other Pendulum decks (as the destroyed monster has to hit the graveyard for this effect to trigger, and destroyed Pendulum monsters go to the Extra deck). But this guy works as an amazingly consistent searcher in any other matchup you encounter with this deck. This guy is great for grabbing whatever Pendulum scales you need from your deck, setting you up perfectly to start swarming the field with Pendulum summons.
14. Performapal Partnaga
The strength of Pendulum decks is their ability to spam the field with monsters repeatedly. Performapal Partnaga rewards you for doing just this, while also providing you with a neat way to OTK your opponent. While in the Pendulum zone, you can target 1 monster you control, and then have it gain 300 attack for each Performapal card you control. The fact this says “card” means you also gain 300 attack for each Performapal in your Pendulum zones, as well as any continuous spells or traps with Performapal in the name. You can reach some insanely high attack stats with this guy in your pendulum zone, making it a great way to finish games in an instant.
13. Performapal Elephammer
Every deck needs a good beat stick – and Performapal Elephammer fills that role. You can normal summon this card to your field without tributes as long as you control 2 Performapal cards – with the ability to put Performapal monsters in the Pendulum zone, this is incredibly easy to achieve. When this card attacks, you can then Giant Trunade your opponent and return all spells and traps they control to the hand. This is an amazing way of dodging battle traps such as Mirror Force, ensuring that your biggest and best monsters can get their attacks in uninterrupted. You can power up another Performapal with Performapal Partnaga, then swing in with Performapal Elephammer first to ensure this huge attack goes through successfully.
12. Performapal Odd-Eyes Synchron
Performapal Odd-Eyes Synchron makes synchro summoning almost too easy. When this card is summoned you can target 1 “Odd-Eyes” or “Performapal” monster in your graveyard and special summon it to your side of the field. This sets you up with a tuner and a non-tuner monster to synchro summon with, all in one normal summon. If the levels in your graveyard aren’t quite right for your synchro summon, you can also use this card’s second effect to special summon 1 of the monsters in your pendulum zone and immediately synchro summon with that monster and this card. This makes finding the right level for your synchro summon incredibly easy, allowing you to access those strong synchro monsters whenever you like.
11. Performapal Call
When it comes to battle traps, you can’t get much better than Performapal Call. In fact, this card was actually limited in Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links for being too strong. This card negates a direct attack & allows you to search up to two Performapal monsters whose total combined defense is below the attack stat of the attacking monsters. This is amazing for recovering from bad game states. You could either search a set of Pendulum scales and start summoning all the monsters you’ve got in hand, or you could search for powerful monsters who’ll help you make a comeback. The only downside of this trap card is that you can’t summon from the Extra deck until the end of the next turn – meaning you won’t be able to bring back any Performapals in your face-up Extra deck.
10. Performapal Gatlinghoul
If you’re looking to fit some burn damage into your Performapal strategy then Performapal Gatlinghoul is perfect for you. In pure Performapal decks, this card is a little tricky to access. But in Odd-Eyes/Performapal hybrid decks it couldn’t be easier to summon – especially with Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon to act as the second fusion material. On summon, this guy burns your opponent for 200 damage for every single card on the field. And then if it was summoned with a Pendulum monster as fusion material it can destroy a monster your opponent controls and inflict damage equal to that monster’s attack. These two effects combined can deal some serious damage.
9. Bubble Barrier
With the introduction of Link monsters, we saw Pendulums get heavily nerfed – Pendulums were no longer able to Pendulum summon freely from the extra deck, and instead had to summon to the Extra monster zone or to any Linked zones. But that’s where Bubble Barrier comes in. This continuous spell card protects all of your Performapals from destruction by battle or card effect once per turn. On top of that, any battles that take place between your Performapals and your opponent’s monsters will inflict zero battle damage to you, leaving your Performapals safe and sound and your life points intact.
8. Performapal Celestial Magician
With Performapals being able to summon so many monsters at once, it’s no wonder this deck can make such good use of the Extra deck. Being able to Pendulum summon a bunch of monsters all at once gives you all the material you need to Link, Synchro, XYZ, or even Fusion summon as much as you like. Performapal Celestial Magician gains different effects depending on what type of monsters you have on the board. The real highlights on this card are the ‘Synchro’ and ‘Pendulum’ effects, which respectively allow you to prevent your opponent from activating monster effects, and to add a Pendulum monster from your deck to your hand during the end phase.
7. Performapal Whip Snake
Performapal Whip Snake is a funny little card that’s surprisingly useful in a whole bunch of circumstances. During either player’s main phase you can target one monster on the field and swap its attack and defense. Not only can this weaken your opponent’s strongest monsters (or buff your monsters if they have high defense stats), but this effect actually has some hilarious interactions against the meta deck Drytrons. Drytrons ritual summon based on attack stats not levels, and as such, Performapal Whip Snake can actually stop ritual summons happening in the first place. There are a whole bunch of weird situations like this where Whip Snake comes in handy. Which is why I always make sure to run at least 1 in any Performapal build.
6. Performapal Parrotrio
The worst thing about playing a Pendulum deck is not drawing the right scales. Luckily, Performapal Parrotrio is a perfect scale no matter what cards you have in hand (well, as long as you have another scale of course). This card can either act as a scale 2 or a scale 7 in the pendulum zone, allowing you to set up a nice set of scales no matter what other Pendulum monsters you have in hand. On top of that, Performapal Parrotrio special summons a Performapal from the deck when it’s destroyed by battle, as long as you’re not summoning a Pendulum monster. This is fantastic for searching out Performapal Salutiger who can search for your Performapal Pendulum monsters, or for getting Performapal Elephammer to put out some serious damage on the board.
5. Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer
Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer is a card that takes Performapals from “good” to “fantastic”. Its Pendulum effect gives your Performapals a whopping 1000 attack each when you Pendulum summon, which is perfect for swarming the field and beating down your opponent. When you pendulum summon this card to the field, you can target up to 2 cards you control and destroy them, and then add Performapal monsters from your deck to your hand up to the number of cards destroyed. Not only is this a great way of searching out your Performapals, but it’s a great way of clearing your Pendulum scales for better scales or effects – or to put them in the extra deck, ready to Pendulum summon to the field.
4. Performance Hurricane
One of the best ways of dealing with threats from the Extra deck is returning them to the Extra deck. Most Extra deck monsters are expensive to summon. So forcing your opponent to summon them all over again basically wastes resources. Performance Hurricane allows you to return multiple cards your opponent controls to the hand, up to the number of Performapal monsters you control. Given that Performapals can get a ludicrous number of monsters on the field at once, Performance Hurricane is the ideal spell for dealing with a bunch of threats all at once.
3. Performapal Skullcrobat Joker
In a Pendulum deck, you don’t typically normal summon all that much. I mean, why bother when you can special summon everything for free with your Pendulum summon? However, the one exception in this deck is Performapal Skullcrobat Joker. When this guy is normal summoned you can add one ‘Performapal’,’Odd-Eyes’, or Pendulum ‘Magician’ card from your deck to your hand. If you’re running a hybrid deck such as Performapal-Odd-Eyes then this card becomes absolutely lethal, allowing you to search out cards from both halves of your deck. Performapal Skullcrobat Joker is also an ideal card for your Pendulum scale with a whopping scale of 8 – this is one of the highest scales available in Performapals, and ideal for summoning a bunch of powerful high-level monsters such as Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon.
2. Performapal Popperup
This draw spell is so powerful that even non-Performapal decks were running it for quite some time. By discarding up to 3 cards, you can draw that many cards and special summon any Performapal, Odd-Eyes, or Pendulum ‘Magician’ cards among them, providing that these monsters have a level that is in the range of your Pendulum scales. This is effectively an additional Pendulum summon using monsters from the deck, which is absolutely insane. The only downside is that if you don’t special summon any monsters off of this effect, you lose 1000 life points for every card in your hand, which can be a lethal amount of damage. Just make sure your deck is jam-packed with Performapals and you’ll be gaining serious card advantage.
1. Performapal Monkeyboard
Performapal Monkeyboard has been a long-standing member of the ban list club, and only recently was allowed to be played at 1 copy per deck. This scale 1 Pendulum monster allows you to add any level 4 or lower Performapal from your deck to your hand, effectively acting as a Performapal Skullcrobat Joker you don’t have to waste your normal summon on. In fact, typically the strategy with this card was to search Skullcrobat Joker to gain an additional search, as well as a level 4 monster to summon with – which is what made this card so broken.
