Notes & Combos

Played Kashtira Labrynth for this season's M1 run, clearing it with relatively low friction. The deck follows almost all the patterns of the most recent list from me; Aggressively slanted threats to the top of the meta, sound value engines, and overall good capacity to create enough traction to stay in the game for longer if need be. While this combination of themes can "steal" games on its own quite quickly at times (there are obvious matchups right now that struggle heavily with Macro effects) the deck's general posture is to act deeper toward the control side of the spectrum, proposing fewer, but key trades with the opponent while extending the match to the point its greater threats takes control of the game.

Notes

• For control, having access to flexible, weighty pieces of interaction to keep you from falling behind early is often key, and Lilith helps fill that niche nicely. She's a solid starter that can double as some of your more premium pieces of interaction at your own choosing, so even if you have access to Lab engine she's not redundant. She actually loses to less hand traps and other disruption in comparison to your other main NS, Arianna - so she's good into the usual midrange decks that are frequently tossing HTs into you. Beyond that, it's also handy that she scales well: If you see her while your board is developing, you can often get more than one use out of her (sac off a used Arianna and then herself on the opponent's turn for example), and future dark monsters being summoned by you can dodge interaction too if you let her hang around. Was very good in this run particularly (wouldn't have gotten past M5 without her), wish I could have ran 4.

• Arise-Heart is still a powerhouse, a top shelf threat that gives the deck a higher degree of inevitability, but given the current strength of the meta, at times can feel like it's a little forgotten how warping this card can be. Arise-Heart actually has some unique interaction only found here, as this particular Kashtira pairing with Lab is only really possible in Master Duel (In TCG Arise-Heart is just straight-up dead and in the OCG Kashtira is heavily nerfed in a way that makes it unappealing to use as a second engine in the first place).

• One of its more key synergies with Lab that comes up in play, is that GY Big Welcome banishes so it actually charges up Arise-Heart freely while defending him (so players can't force out his effect as easy as it would be in normal Kashtira), and in return, Arise-Heart attaching used Big Welcomes allows Lab to get way more bounces than normal if they ever do out Arise - essentially allowing Lab to restock Big and extend the grind game which was quite nice during my climb. Arise-Heart acting as a lane to rescue banished Lovely or turning her hand rips and pops into banishes was also very useful. Overall a huge help in the current meta