Notes & Combos

Early M1 - Dinomorphia Labrynth

New year but the same picture. The meta’s dedication to degrading itself firmly remains intact, serving another generous heap of sweaty Tenpai gameplay paired with a side of evasive FTKs both in the literal and functional sense in its latest spectacle known as season 37. If there's any silver lining here it's that the environment is still rather combo leaning beyond the aggro pedalstool that Tenpai sits on at the top of it all; Previously, Season 36 had a notable rise in Gimmick Puppets and Dracoslayer, and post-DC only further encouraged players to pick up Ritual Beast given how well it did. So while the prospect of facing lengthy and explosive combos turn 1 that seemingly take forever but somehow manage to never actually timeout only increased, this type of arena is where heavier control decks can shine.

With that said, Dinomorphia Labrynth continues to be what I reach for as it’s exceptional in terms of control. Its toolkit is still robust and outwardly appealing, housing a lot of the premium counters and normal traps of the format that made it attractive and effective to climb with in December - and all coming at a time now when its interaction suite gained a few more favorable matchups. The meta is kind of a slog to grind, but piloting this has at least made that more tolerable to wade through on the way to the top.

Notes

• Simultaneous Equation Cannons is the latest option in Lab’s orbit, and it's one that's fairly popular in the theme across a couple of different variants since its release a few weeks ago. This season, I've chosen not to be on it or play a variant of Lab that openly caters to it. SEC, while powerful, distinctly lacks agency - the card is largely dependent on your opponent both helping provide the correct card count and lending you a favorable level on the field to use it. Given those factors, it's much more fragile than other interaction, with good players simply being able to manipulate the card count in their favor or deliberately pressuring with links / cumbersome levels to avoid getting hit with any real regularity, making SEC’s reliability as a defensive card questionable. And on the occasions it does get pulled off, most players at a high level don't foolishly overcommit into a Lab opponent knowing this is a pretty popular choice in the meta, so it's often not as backbreaking in reality as it's commonly thought as.

  Furthermore, being on SEC comes with a notable opportunity cost. Maining the card generally means you're not on things like Pot of Extravagance, Chaos Angel, Muckracker, S:P Little Knight, and a pool of other good cards that are useful in Lab. Of course, uniquely here, this would mean not being on the Dino package too. Ultimately this was a cost I wasn't willing to part with, and on top of the issues previously described above earlier, I passed on SEC for 37.

• The interaction suite for normal traps constitutes a bit of an interesting split at 3/3/1. Daruma Cannon is a long-term all-star at this point for Lab and it's no surprise it's a 3-of in this split - it's effective in nearly every relevant matchup, particularly even more so in the biggest one in Tenpai, and has the additional upside of being able to push your agenda through when used offensively. Dimensional Barrier is right up there in reputation, finding itself especially useful even beyond the obvious scope of Tenpai, as decks with mono summon mechanics that aren't highly linked-based are prominent at the top of the meta. While a bunch of Labs ordinarily carry just two copies, I went heavier feeling the full set was worthwhile as its matchup spread and impact going first or second is just that good currently. Lastly, Black Goat is the 1-of, acting as the value play off of Lady when faced with a board wipe or as a strong complementary set to the other floods as it’s still quite good with smart use.