How does Syncron Material trap work?

[battlezoby]

Being a new player (under a month now) the Syncron Material trap looked pretty cool.
But when I tried to use it... um... traps normally only trigger on opponents turn and I haven't been able to syncron summon on opponent's turn, so it's been pretty useless. In fact, I've been trying it in Open World, and haven't yet been able to use it once.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1871120081

Are there way to make this work, and, secondly, is it a really bad card that rarely works?

Is there a way to use it if you activate it on your opponents turn?

And/or, do I need get my opponent to trigger a trap out Quickplay/Counter spell on my turn so I can use it on my turn? [u[Any suggestions on how to setup something that will likely trigger it when it's usable?[/u]

Anyone have any luck with this? Or is just really unlikely to be useful? (As in, is it likely to help win maybe 1 in 15 bronze or silver matches, or it's worse than that?)

Thanks!

[Soda]

Hi, Official TCG Judge here:

Traps do not need to be activated on your opponent's turn, they just need to be set for one turn before activation.

[battlezoby]

Thanks. It does work on my 2nd turn, despite all the annoying prompts to confirm if I want to (waste it and) trigger it on my opponent's turn.

Unfortunately it also doesn't warn you that the target apparently needs to be face up.

Some people might think that's intuitive, but I didn't/don't. Seems to me you should be able to target a face-down monster and then only be offered a chance to syncro-summon monsters that that facedown card would work with.

I know the real-life card game couldn't work that way, but this is duel-links, so the server obviously knows the level of the opponent's facedown card, so why not offer to let me syncro-summon anything in my extra deck that would work? :-)

[Orochi Samurai]

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Thanks. It does work on my 2nd turn, despite all the annoying prompts to confirm if I want to (waste it and) trigger it on my opponent's turn.

Unfortunately it also doesn't warn you that the target apparently needs to be face up.

Some people might think that's intuitive, but I didn't/don't. Seems to me you should be able to target a face-down monster and then only be offered a chance to syncro-summon monsters that that facedown card would work with.

I know the real-life card game couldn't work that way, but this is duel-links, so the server obviously knows the level of the opponent's facedown card, so why not offer to let me syncro-summon anything in my extra deck that would work? :-)

The problem being that you won't know what level that facedown monster is thus rendering your Synchro attempt moot.

[Soda]

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Thanks. It does work on my 2nd turn, despite all the annoying prompts to confirm if I want to (waste it and) trigger it on my opponent's turn.

Unfortunately it also doesn't warn you that the target apparently needs to be face up.

Some people might think that's intuitive, but I didn't/don't. Seems to me you should be able to target a face-down monster and then only be offered a chance to syncro-summon monsters that that facedown card would work with.

I know the real-life card game couldn't work that way, but this is duel-links, so the server obviously knows the level of the opponent's facedown card, so why not offer to let me syncro-summon anything in my extra deck that would work? :-)

Because anything face-down is not considered "public knowledge." A monster that is face-down does not have a name, type, attribute, or level unless a card is used that allows the CONTROLLER to use the monster in some way (ie. Polymerization).

[Orochi Samurai]

Originally posted by Discord-chan:

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Thanks. It does work on my 2nd turn, despite all the annoying prompts to confirm if I want to (waste it and) trigger it on my opponent's turn.

Unfortunately it also doesn't warn you that the target apparently needs to be face up.

Some people might think that's intuitive, but I didn't/don't. Seems to me you should be able to target a face-down monster and then only be offered a chance to syncro-summon monsters that that facedown card would work with.

I know the real-life card game couldn't work that way, but this is duel-links, so the server obviously knows the level of the opponent's facedown card, so why not offer to let me syncro-summon anything in my extra deck that would work? :-)

Because anything face-down is not considered "public knowledge." A monster that is face-down does not have a name, type, attribute, or level unless a card is used that allows the CONTROLLER to use the monster in some way (ie. Polymerization).

This ^.

It's just the way the game works my friend, even if (at some point) that monster WAS face up, if it is then flipped back to face down via card effect for example, then despite knowing everything about it, the above mentioned rules are still put into play, welcome to Yu-Gi-Oh!

[battlecattle]

I was playing around with that card last week, but found it's hard to use in practice. I found that too often the opponent would have some way of disrupting what I was trying to do or played their monsters in face down defense (tbh I've come to absolutely loathe subterrors).

One card that pairs alright with Synchro Material is Urgent Tuning, which lets one synchro summon on the opponent's turn.