Today’s CotD is Treacherous Trap Hole.  I got into Yu-Gi-Oh shortly after the release of the Yugi and Kaiba Starter Decks in the U.S. so I remember the prominence of both the original Trap Hole way back then as well as the on-again-off-again use of Bottomless Trap Hole.  I guess this has become a whole family of cards right now: there are a total of eight “Trap Hole” related cards.  In addition to the first two well-known ones and today’s card, there are Acid Trap Hole, Adhesion Trap Hole, D.D. Trap Hole, Gemini Trap Hole, and Giant Trap Hole.  I wonder if Konami has thought about creating some support for these so they could be their own deck-type?

 

Well, back on topic, Treacherous Trap Hole is the latest member of the family, and paradoxically may be both the easiest and hardest to use.  Acid Trap Hole has the easiest requirements to met (just activate it when the opponent has something Set, and odds are the DEF will be low enough to destroy it), but how often are Monsters Set in the current metagame?  I was given the impression not often by the players I’ve chatted with.  Adhesion Trap Hole works whenever an opponent Normal, Flip, or Special Summons a Monster (or even multiple Monsters all at once)… but it has to survive that long.  Bottomless Trap Hole, of course, works only when the opponent Summons a Monster (or again, Monsters) with 1500 or more ATK, and that does ignore a significant number of useful cards as well.  D.D. Trap Hole only works when the opponent Sets a Monster in DEF position (yes, there is at least one obscure way to Set a Monster in ATK position), and on top of that you need a Monster of your own to destroy and remove as payment.  Gemini Trap Hole only works if a Gemini Monster whose effect has been activated dies in battle – very specialized.  Giant Trap Hole requires multiple Monsters be Special Summoned at the same time.  The classic Trap Hole only worked against a Normal Summon, and then one with 1000 or more ATK (the Normal Summon being the really restrictive part).

 

Treacherous Trap Hole doesn’t car about something being Summoned or Set.  It doesn’t care about ATK, DEF, or even Monster position.  It doesn’t require you give up a Monster of your own.  You can activate once it has gone through an End Phase of being Set and there are at least two Monsters in play (since it has to hit two for its effect).  That means it can be chained to removal effects, allowing you to potentially net three cards for the price of one.  So that is how it is the easiest… why did I say it was also the hardest.  It does have one restriction clause, and it’s a severe one: you cannot have another Trap in your Graveyard!

 

So where does that leave this card?  It leaves it in the decks of the dedicated, the deprived, and the daring.  Players willing to build a deck around using (abusing?) this card can.  Diskblade Rider is Level 4 Monster that bulks up from 1700 ATK to 2200 ATK for the price of removing a Normal Trap from your Graveyard.  So one could run that, maybe Soul Release, and try to build a deck to abuse those two cards.  You’d probably want to flesh it out with Bazoo the Soul-Eater and Chaos Rider Gustaph for the whole “empty Graveyard” theme, enabling some interesting supporting Spell cards.  If that doesn’t strike your fancy, you can simply add this to Macros Cosmos decks.  It seems an obvious choice there: you’re almost guaranteed to have no Normal Traps in your Graveyard so you’ll just enjoy that sweet two Monster piece of removal, and as an added bonus, you probably have a safe target on the field in case you just need one Monster killed (D.D. Survivor and D.D. Scout Plane).

 

Players lacking Mirror Force have always had other, lesser options.  Torrential Tribute has been easy to come by for quite some time, but running one Torrential and a single Treacherous seems workable.  Even just running Treacherous as your only Trap might work, since how often will Torrential Tribute kill more than two Monsters (excluding your own or ones you know won’t matter like Treeborn Frog)?  After all, we have many nasty Quick-Play Spells that can more or less replace most commonly played Traps: things like Shrink, Rush Recklessly, and Enemy Controller… even more specialized ones like My Body As Shield.

 

Then there are players just willing to chance Treacherous in the deck because they aren’t running many Traps and when it’s used, it’s going to be a huge boon, and when it can’t be used… it can still be S/T removal bait and used to bluff.  And of course, like Reckless Greed, you can set multiple copies and hope to be able to chain them to each other (and that there will be enough Monster targets).  Pity almost every strategy I can think of that you’d counter with that already has a better side deck option available.

 

So all in all, this seems like a worthy addition to the Trap Hole family but probably not something most players will want to main deck.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 2/5

 

Advanced: 3/5

 

Art: 2.5/5

 

-Otaku