Goodbye Hand Traps

Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring

What is the purpose of the hand traps? And why are they present in every competitive deck?

The hand traps in addition to being tuners have the main task of stopping the combos of the opponent's deck. They have the characteristic of being able to be activated directly from the hand and are able to put a stop to the combo deck that already in the first turn manage to create an invincible field full of cards that cannot be destroyed, targeted and that negate the opponent's cards.

This type of deck that can be called "combo" or even better "swarming" and represent a good part of the meta for several years now.

As you can guess, hand traps are very loved and very hated cards as from one point of view it is sad to see your combos interrupted (they say that this kills the fun) while others say that they are a "necessary evil" to be able to give opponents hope of surviving duels.

As I said in previous posts, the problem is always at the base of the game system. If Konami had not allowed the birth of combo decks that have a very high probability of completing the combo in the first round, hand traps would not have been necessary. In fact, nowadays, decks are divided into decks that have hand traps and decks that don't. And it is incredibly annoying to see so many lists of apparently different decks that deal with many archetypes and that in order to work (or rather, to be vaguely competitive) all need to have the same cards, that is hand traps, "flood gates", "going second" cards, etc.

The advent of "Power of the Elements" and the Tearlaments and Spright decks marked a meta change in which the combos are no longer very long and even if during one of these you suffer a hand trap, these two decks still have high possibilities to recover and continue their strategy.

Little pill of history:

Hand traps are those cards that many years ago were called "anti-meta". At the time, the meta was composed of archetypes or combinations of them that had their own consistency and managed to have a high percentage of victory in duels. To counter certain decks, side deck cards were needed to counter this and that deck.

In that meta and in that period the hand traps would have been relegated to the side deck, leaving space inside the main deck with cards useful to support and strengthen one's strategy.

But hand traps are more versatile and can counter any deck so you can insert them regardless of the main deck, thus creating a game in which you prefer cards that hinder your opponent rather than enhance your strategy.

I do not like it.

Right now that hand traps are starting to be less and less used, Konami thinks well to reprint them.

But are we sure that they have really become useless?

They are certainly still useful, but the "Yu-Gi-Oh Power of the Elements" expansion brought new decks that created a new meta.

The Yugioh tier list that has thus been created sees the decks "Terlaments" and "Spright" as tier 1 or 0.

Spright and Tearlaments Archetypes

These two decks are capable of creating an unbreakable field especially if they go first.

Tearlaments won the latest YCS Championship which was held in japan in august 2022 and finished first and third. They have the incredible power to do fusion summons just milling cards (mainly from the top of the deck).

The Spright deck can count on the help of "Toadally Awesome" and “Spright Elf” which negate two cards per turn while the Tearlaments deck can count on many cards that cause interruptions to the opponent's moves.

Among these cards, we have "Tearlaments Lulucaros" and the trap "Tearlaments Metanoise".

Toadally Awesome

Tearlaments Lulucaros

Tearlaments Metanoise

These two decks have the enormous ability to be able to complete their combos despite the opponent's hand traps.

So how do you contrast these two decks since hand traps are no longer of much use?

The answer lies in inserting "going second" cards in the main deck such as the very famous "Dark Ruler No More" which once activated prevents the opponent from activating monster effects in response to this card and, in doing so, "turns off" all effects of the opponent's face-up monsters.

Other cards that can counter Tearlaments and Spright are cards that "destroy" the opponent's field such as the good old "Lava Golem" (which could be played in the Runick deck alongside with Inferno Tempest) and The Winged Dragon of Ra - Sphere Mode.

Dark Ruler No More

Lava Golem

The Winged Dragon of Ra - Sphere Mode

Within the expansion "Power of the Elements," we also see "Garura, Wings of Resonant Life" which paired with "Super Polymerization" allows you to break the opponent's field.

And let's not forget "Starving Venom Fusion Dragon".

Garuga, Wings of Resonant Life

Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

Super Polymerization

Let's imagine together the scenario of a duel against a Spright deck.

At the end of their turn, the Spright deck has Toadally Awesome which is linked to Spright Elf. Both are 2 cards that negate 2 cards at a time for a total of 4. Crazy. If we add that Toadally Awesome cannot be targeted thanks to the Spright Elf effect, we can easily understand why we are talking about Tier 1 or 0 deck.

Ok, how do we manage to overcome such a situation?

Lava Golem

Both monsters are sacrificed and Marik Ishtar will be proud of us.

Marik Ishtar playing Lava Golem Against Joey Wheeler

The Power of the Elements expansion also gave us the "Ultimate Slayer" card e his wonderful art.

Ultimate Slayer

Like Dark Ruler No More, the opponent's monster effects cannot negate this card. Its effect is to return an opponent's monster card to the extra deck at the cost of sending a card of the same type (Xyz, Link, Fusion, or Pendulum) from our extra to the graveyard.

To pay this activation cost we could count on cards like Garura, which once sent to the graveyard makes us draw a card or send to the grave Elder Entity N'tss which destroys an opponent's card.

Elder Entity N'tss

So, returning to the initial question, what role do Hand Traps play in this Spright and Tearlaments meta?

At least 3 are still useful and they are "D.D. Crow", "PSY-Framegear Gamma" and "Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit".

D. D. Crow

Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit

PSY-Framegear Gamma

D.D. Crow goes to block the effects of the Tearlaments activating at the graveyard.

PSY-Framegear Gamma and Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit block the activation of the opponent's monster effects.

Another obstacle to the use of hand traps is represented by "Triple Tactics Talent" whose effect could be summarized as follows:

"if the opponent uses a hand trap, draw 2 cards".

Triple Tactics Talent

Final remarks:

If you are about to approach the competitive game of Yugioh, build decks that have enough negating cards, with going second and flood gate cards. And above all, get ready to face these same cards.

My advice? Runicks.