Hello Yugioh Community! I am back to wrap up my discussion on cards I feel players should greatly consider to put in their side decks for the up and coming World Championship Qualifier that will be held in Pittsburgh on July 16th and 17th! I will be discussing the plentiful amount of trap cards that are out there to consider that might be worthy of one of the 15 slots in the side deck!
It’s a Trap!
Trap cards usually take up at least half the space of every players side decks. There are many different trap cards out there that help take care of many different decks. I am going to examine my favorites and why I would suggest using them!
Chain Disappearance
This card fist began to see very little play back during the Troop Dupe Scoop format. This card allows you to remove all copies of a monster from the deck and hand with the same name of a monster with 1000 or less attack that was just summoned. It was one of the only ways to easily remove the 3 copies of Card Trooper that were legal back in the day. Now this card is popular again and even more powerful. With decks like Plants and Frogs running around this card can have a devastating impact. Removing all copies of Treeborn Frog from your opponents deck, hand, and the one they summoned on the field can literally end the game for any Frog Monarch player. Against plants this card almost has endless targets: Dandylion and its tokens, Sangan, Debris Dragon, Ryko Lightsworn Hunter, Lonefire Blossom (that does not call priority), Glow up Bulb, Spore, and even Formula Synchron! It can hit over half of the monsters in a plant deck making this card a big problem for even the best plant player. The only downside to Chain Disappearance is the fact that it does not target (Similar to Bottomless Trap Hole), so there are ways your opponent can play around it to save their monster. For Example, Let’s say I special summon a Treeborn Frog from my graveyard during my stand by phase, my opponent responds to my summon with Chain Disappearance, I can then chain a card like Enemy Controller to tribute my Frog and take control of my opponents monster, since it is a cost my Treeborn is no longer on the field to be removed when the Chain Disappearance tries to resolve so it sort of fizzles. This is just a fact to keep in mind to perhaps play around these kind of situations and get the maximum use out of this key side deck card!
Fiendish Chain
Yet another card that saw no play when it was released, but has grown popular as of late. The main deck that I like to side this card against is the brand new Agent Fairy deck. If you are using a deck that likes to special summon (Which is most competitive decks), then Archlord Kristya can really give you some problems. This card will not only negate the giant fairy’s effect, it will also not allow it to attack rendering it almost completely useless. This is one of the few cards out there that can stop a Kristya from looping you out of the game. It can also be sided against pretty much any deck. It can hurt monarchs pretty bad, negating a Caius effect and preventing it from attacking. A cool combo is to use chain this card on a trigger effect such as Debris Dragon or Caius and then on your turn using Giant Trunade to bounce it to your hand to be able to reuse again! This is one of my favorite side deck cards at the moment.
Debunk
This new card has also been seeing a lot of play in the past 2 YCS that it has been legal at. The ability to stop Effect Veiler, D.D. Crow, Gorz, Sangan, XX-Saber Darksoul…etc. with one card is pretty amazing. This card is very versatile and can hurt many decks in this format. Against Monarchs you can remove their Treeborn Frog from play or stop their Gorz or Battle Fader. This card is almost never dead against Plants hitting over half their deck: Reborn Tengu, Dandylion, Spore, Glow up Bulb, Effect Veiler, and Sangan. I really like Debunk right now because of the number of decks that can be hurt by this card. With every deck maining a couple copies of Effect Veiler, Debunk can be quite powerful!
Rivalry of Warlords/Gozen Match
Both of these cards do pretty much the exact same thing: shut down your opponent. In order to side these card your deck must be running all the same Attribute(Gozen Match) or all the same type ( Rivalry of Warlords). If you are running a deck that can run both of these cards I would choose to run Rivalry of Warlords as it can shut down more decks and hurt a lot worse. These cards can tear apart Plants and Monarchs. With the ruling that players are not allowed to tribute monsters for different types/attributes, unless they have a Mobius the Frost Monarch, their Treeborn Frog will not be doing much besides sitting on the field. Againts Plants if you chain this card when they summon a Debris Dragon it can be a game ender. These are two of the most lockdown cards in the game right now and if you are running a deck that can take advantage of either of these cards then they should be in your side deck!
Malevolent Catastrophe
Even though Anti Meta Hero Beat and Gravekeeper’s have declined in popularity if you do play them it is tough to beat these decks when they summon a monster and set 4 or 5 backrows. Well this card can have a huge surprise factor and practically win you the game! When I was playing in Top 8 of YCS Anaheim against my good friend Austin Kulman he had a face up Royal Oppression, 2 f/d backrows, a Necrovalley, and a Gravekeeper’s Assailant. All I had was an XX-Saber Emmersblade on my field and nothing else with my Giant Trunande in my graveyard. I thought I had lost the game, but then I top decked my sided Malevolent Catastrophe and was able to destroy everything he had and come back from there. This card can be devastating to decks that rely on having a lot of cards in their spell and trap zones for protection. This card can be very good and I would strongly suggest having a slot for this card in your Side Deck.
Royal Oppression
Last, but certainly not least! This card has made its way in to the main of many decks including one’s that special summon a lot themselves. The idea that this card could be used in heavy special summoning decks first became popular during the TeleDad era. The idea of how to use this card in a deck that special summons is to try and set up a big board of monsters such as Stardust Dragon or anything bigger than your opponent can handle without special summoning and then have the Royal Oppression to lock your opponent down and hope that they can’t comeback. With almost every deck using special summons to swarm and win the game, I believe this card will be key to win match ups and stop your opponent in their tracks. If this card cannot earn a spot in the main deck, it should certainly hold a spot in the side to help fight off the power of Fabled and Plants!
Conclusion
There are many powerful cards that can be used in sidedecks of every deck out there. The six that I talked about today are the cards I feel will help players the most. Certainly there are many other options out there and each player will find cards that they like to use for themselves. I have a good feeling though that the cards that I discussed will be seen in many of the top decks at the WCQ in July!
Thank you for reading! I will be attending the WCQ on the weekend of July 15th to the 17th so feel free to say Hello to me! It will actually be my 21st birthday on the Friday of the WCQ on July 15th! Good Luck to everyone who attends and I hope to see you there!
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