Notes & Combos
I played Trap Lab Midrange, piloting this particular variant of Lab to a very early M1 for what is now the 3rd season in a row - so I'm not only happy with the results it got but the consistency achieved too. To some, this deck will already be familiar, but for those who are new, this variant essentially seeks to use its medley of lucrative value engines, flexible answers and overall high-card quality to out-interact the opponent to the very end. For that, it lives up to its name at face value and ultimately lands as better at carrying out attrition-based game plans than standard furniture builds while still being more responsive and nimbler going second than typical trap ones. On a whole, it felt well-situated to tackle the current environment and ended up being just that.
Notes:
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With Branded at the front of the meta, the Kashtira engine has increased as this list opts for the full set of Unicorn instead of the former lone copy to pair with Fenrir. Seeing Unicorn early is very valuable in this MU and play patterns that lead it were typically winning; Birth of course is inherently strong here and it gets you to that, but the ED rips are also powerful even in a small quantity if stacked smartly - often swinging the more grindy, even games against Branded to notably favorable. Beyond that, Unicorn was still good into the current combo decks right now in general for similar reasoning, in addition to the rest of the midrange decks when acting as a grind piece - and being on extra copies allowed Fenrir to compound value when unchecked at a greater rate than before. The change worked out very well all run.
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Noticeably, Droll is not in this list. I found its relevant matchup spread to be too narrow in the meta, and its value to be distinctly poor in the MU that matters the most right now. Even against the poster deck that one would ideally want it for (SHS), I mainly only cared about having it going second there (as this list is fine into SHS going first as is) so the case scenario was limited as well for it being truly worthwhile. I did not miss Droll this season, and was actually happy to not have it as I faced more decks that didn't really care about it / it would only be mild against than those that would care.
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The Nadir package was still quite good during the climb and continued to play to this deck's strengths of staying ahead of tempo and getting incremental advantages that can scale. It remains a tidy, versatile answer to a lot of situations in this meta: It's removal against control, disruption against combo, and CA against midrange on demand. That utility was nice to operate with.
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The Belle / Ogre HT shell was a way to effectively slant against the top of the meta without conceding much ground elsewhere, all while still being complementary to how this deck plays for favorable board position and layers its defensive options. And while Belle was widely positive for the way I wanted to complicate key game states this meta, Ogre in particular was sneakily good as it can actually trade for a hard resource like a body, and thus, can give you both tempo and clock advantage more so than other HTs while still eroding CA for the opponent. All in all this HT shell worked well.
Previous list:
https://www.masterduelmeta.com/top-decks/master-i/january-2024/labrynth/jay-in-4k/6sQVP