Notes & Combos

I played a midrange version of Trap Lab, notably deviating from the usual but clunkier choices like Solemns and Prisons that Trap tends to play for more responsive defensive options that better accommodate the speed and needs of the meta. Ultimately, this list ended up well positioned to contest the current environment's top end - blending several efficient means of gaining value alongside flexible, effective answers to play through a variety of MUs as need be.

Notes

• Daruma is the most comprehensive answer Lab has available to it for what's going on right now, and with the rise in the popularity of decks like Math and VS since November that should come as no surprise. While its blowout potential is well known it seldom gets credit for how strong it can be offensively - helping bypass floodgates and interaction alike to push through key lines and disruption. I'm essentially running 4 here, amplifying the rate at which I can take advantage of these benefits way more than the typical Lab while sharply lessening my dependency on Lady to go fetch it, and thus reducing the opponent's chances to keep me off of power traps by blocking her.

• The Nadir package was strong in this run; It not only helps in playing a solid value-based game plan to edge out the decks trying to out-resource you, but it's also just a widely adaptable tool that you can even go second with. Being on the extra copy of Punishment allows our Ecclesia to be a meatier threat in the grind, as Big cycling with her along with further copies of Nadir actually snowballs as opposed to Labs that are only on the regular single target.

• This list is on Set-Up, as the pseudo Turbulence interaction with Lady was too good to pass up in this type of meta. Even beyond that consideration though, Set-Up was powerful in a vacuum here; It lets you take the lead when you're at parity, can functionally close out the game when you're ahead, and is good recovery when you're behind on board. In a deck that's primarily reactive to gain CA and wants to play the stretch, having an in-engine proactive option to do so was a very nice addition and even more so as it affords you extra gas for attrition games.

• The 3/1 Bystial-Crow split is to better hedge against Purrely while still respecting the matchups those choices normally shine in. Fenrir finds itself included as another means to extract value and problem-solve gamestates. Unlike in its furniture counterpart, it's actually better aligned here as it's harder to deal with Fenrir backed up by real traps than HTs, and with that, the card's ability to stick to the board and push for CA long-term is much higher.