Performapal

"Performapal", known as "Entermate" ( Entameito) in the OCG and English manga, is an archetype used by Yuya Sakaki in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime and manga.

Appearance
The archetype is primarily designed around circus animals, donning apparel such as top hats and polka dot bow ties. Yuya uses the archetype's diversity in appearance to traverse around the Duel Fields, using "Whip Snake" to scale high buildings and "Skeeter Skimmer" to travel across water. Many of the members of this archetype have a colored star on their bodies.

Etymology
Both the English and Japanese names are simple portmanteaus: "Performapal" is a portmanteau of "performance" and "pal", while "Entermate" is a portmanteau of "entertainment" and "mate".

Playing style
"Performapal" monsters possess varied effects giving the archetype a lot of versatility. Many of the weaker monsters possess strong effects that work well when used together. Monsters like "Cheermole" and "Sword Fish" can manipulate ATK and DEF permanently in large increments and continue to do so if they can remain on the field while others like "Fire Mufflerlion" and "Spikeagle" grant bonuses for attacking by providing a 2nd attack for one of your monsters and Piercing Damage respectively.

As the first Pendulum Monster archetype, "Performapal" features a large number of Pendulum Monsters designed to make the most out of the Pendulum Zones. "Performapal Silver Claw" is a powerful beater in the Monster Card Zone that boosts all "Performapal" monsters' ATK when in the Pendulum Zone. "Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer" boosts all "Performapal" monster's ATK by 1000 during a turn when the player pendulum summons. "Performapal Skullcrobat Joker" offers the highest Pendulum Scale of the archetype (8), and can add 1 "Performapal" monster, 1 "Magician" Pendulum Monster, or 1 "Odd-Eyes" monster from the Deck to the hand with its effect.

The archetype is also highly capable at searching and drawing its members out of the deck through multiple cards. Of these, "Pendulum Wizard" is the most potent as it can search for 2 "Performapal" monsters every turn, due to its ability to target itself with its destruction effect, sending it to the extra deck for future pendulum summons. Combining it with effects like "Supply Squad" and "Lizardraw" allow you to gain card advantage quickly, and using "Friendonkey" is an easy way to get special summon it the first time before it goes into the extra deck.

On its own, the archetype is capable of quickly swarming the field and gain large attack boosts through their pendulum monsters' effects. "Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer" and "Partnaga" can greatly boost the attack of one or all of your monsters until the end of the turn. As such, it's relatively easy to always come into the battle phase with at least 1 monster with over 2500 ATK.

The strongest monster in the "Performapal" archetype is "Performapal Elephammer" at 2600 original ATK, which can be normal summoned without tribute if the player controls 2 or more other "Performapals", and Bounces all of the opponent's Spell and Trap cards when it attacks. Together with the Swarm capabilities afforded by pendulum summons, "Elephammer" can make a good finisher for the archetype.

With the release of Structure Deck: Master of Pendulum, the "Performapal" archetype has become more intimately entwined with the "Odd-Eyes" and "Magician" archetypes through cards like "Performapal Skullcrobat Joker" and "Sky Arc", which affords the deck more efficient use of outside cards that were previously just splashable– especially "Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon".

Weaknesses
"Performapal" decks suffer from two big weaknesses that tend to undermine their core strategies: First, the monsters feature inconsistent Pendulum Scales (fully ranging from 2-8) together with a variety of monster Levels– ironically making it difficult for this Pendulum Summon-centered archetype to pendulum summon. Also, though many of the Level 2 and 3 "Performapals" possess strong effects, the lowest scale that "Performapals" have is 2 from "Pendulum Wizard", making it difficult to retrieve those Level 2 Pendulum Monsters from the Extra Deck and making it completely impossible to Pendulum Summon them back from the Extra Deck, outside of using non-archetype Pendulum Monsters (with the release of Structure Deck: Master of Pendulum, this issue has been somewhat mitigated by the convergence of the "Performapal" and "Magician" archetype, which features splashable scale 1 monsters). Level 3 "Performapals" may be hard to Pendulum Summon from the Extra Deck as well, if you opt to use "Pendulum Wizard" for its search effect.

Second, while "Performapals" are outstanding in manipulating ATK and granting special combat tricks to Pendulum Monsters during the battle phase, they suffer a debilitating lack of power under most circumstances. Outside of your own battle phase, "Performapals" lose most of the ATK bonuses they gain and are left stranded with their very low original ATK (with the exemption of "Performapal Elephammer's" outstanding 2600 ATK, most barely scrape over 1800 for ATK or DEF). Combined with the issue of getting support monsters out consistently, dedicated "Performapal" decks will often be left with a field with a few low ATK monsters if you don't have protection such as "Last Minute Cancel" on hand. On top of all of this, "Performapal" cards in general (Monster, Spell, and Trap) have a near-random assortment of effects which make building a deck around them convoluted or predictable.

Also "Performapal" decks greatly rely on their capacity to Pendulum Summon and their Spell and Trap Cards to maintain advantage, "Anti-Spell Fragrance" is especially deliberating to the deck, preventing any Pendulum Scales from being placed and forcing at least one turn of waiting before any Spell Cards can be activated.