A Yu-Gi-Oh! Traptrix Deck Tech

By Serena L.

Hey guys!
It’s Serena, back again! This time we’re doing something a little different, going with a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck profile. Specifically, we’re talking about a fun budget deck that’s been showing up a lot in the rogue category of the current meta: Traptrix. Most of the contents of this deck will be available in the Traptrix structure deck, but even if you don’t have those or can’t find them, that shouldn’t be a huge issue. The deck revolves around plant and insect type monsters to make rank 4 and link plays to set up interaction and trap cards, specifically ‘Hole’ trap cards. Now, it’s time to duel!

We’re gonna start off with the extra deck. We are running 3 different Traptrix link monsters, who all have the same first effect, being unaffected by trap effects while they’ve been properly link summoned. We begin 3 copies of Traptrix Sera, our link 1. She has two effects you can trigger each turn. First, whenever another Traptrix monster activates it’s effect, you can set a ‘Hole’ normal trap from your deck. Second, when a trap card is activated, you can special summon a Traptrix monster from your deck. Neither of these are limited to your traps or Traptrix effects, either, so depending on the match up, she’s going to get a lot of triggers. Next is the link 2, Traptrix Cularia, who also has two effects, one that lets you set an activated normal ‘Hole’ trap instead of sending it to the graveyard, and during your end phase summons a Traptrix from your grave if defense. The last Traptrix link is Traptrix Atypus, who gives our little plant and bug girls some extra teeth. All Traptrix monsters you control gain 1000 attack as long as you have a normal trap in your graveyard! She also allows you to, once per turn, target face-up cards your opponent controls up to how many plant and/or insect monsters we control and negate their effects for the turn, and after that we can banish a normal trap from our grave to banish one of those cards! The only other links we’re running is Accesscode Talker and Aussa the Earth Charmer, Immovable, who are more general purpose.

Onto the XYZ monsters, we have 2 Traptrix Rafflesia, who is a powerful defensive option and Nibiru protection. She’s unaffected by trap effects while she has material and protects our other Traptrix from being destroyed by battle or effects, and prevents other Traptrix monsters from being targeted, too. She also has a quick effect to detach 1 material to send a ‘Hole’ normal trap from deck to grave that has met it’s activation conditions and this effect becomes that effect! Next is Traptrix Allomerus, who also has the unaffected by traps effect from Rafflesia. She also can detach 2 materials to special summon 1 insect or plant monster from our grave, and she can suck up monsters from your opponents as material if they left the field due to a card effect, say, from being used as fusion material. Finally, for the Traptrix XYZs we have Traptrix Pinguicula, who not only has that same protection the other two have while she has a material, but she also is unaffected by the activated effects of monsters of the same type as her materials! Why does this last part matter?

Well, her other effects let her detach a material to search for a Traptrix monster, which is great, but more importantly, when your opponent’s monster is set to the graveyard or banished from anywhere by an effect, she gets to suck it up as another material. This effect is particularly strong against Maliss starters. Rounding out the extra deck are some general use XYZs, Abyss Dweller, Time Thief Redoer and Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir as rank 4 options, then we have Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS – Sky Thunder wrapping it up, a nice, repeatable board wipe we can make pretty easily.

For the main monster engine we have 3 Traptrix Myrmeleo, 3 Traptrix Pudica, 3 Traptrix Aracnocampa, 1 Traptrix Vesiculo, 3 Traptrix Mantis and 1 Traptrix Nepenthes. All of them share the same effect of being unaffected by normal ‘Hole’ traps. Myrmeleo on normal searches a ‘Hole’ normal trap and on special has a mandatory trigger to pop a spell/trap on your opponent’s field, which can trigger Sera, even if they don’t have any backrow. Pudica on normal searches our field spell, Traptrix Garden and on special banishes something until the next standby phase (which can then get eaten by Pinguicula or Allomerus before it comes back) Aracnocampa protects our set backrow from destruction once each. She can also special summon herself if we control a Traptrix during the main phase as a quick effect, but then locks us into plant or insect monsters from the extra for the rest of the turn. Vesiculo can either send a set trap we control to grave to summon herself from hand, or if we don’t have any backrow we can set a ‘Hole’ normal trap from our graveyard by banishing herself from our graveyard. Mantis on normal lets us add a Traptrix monster from the deck, and as a quick effect lets us bounce a set backrow, then we may set a backrow from hand, thus protecting them from a Cosmic Cyclone or Knightmare Phoenix. Lastly, Nepenthes can add to our hand or summon from the deck, a Traptrix if we activate a ‘Hole’ normal trap.

Our main trap engine that works with our Traptrix is going to be 3 Traptrix Holeutea (which counts as a ‘Hole’ normal trap), 1 Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmare, 1 Floodgate Trap Hole, 1 Terrifying Trap Hole Nightmare and 2 Gravedigger’s Trap Hole. Holeutea is an extender that can be activated the turn it’s set by sending another trap from hand to grave, and can summon itself as a level 4 monster we can link off or XYZ summon it, or can be banished from grave to summon a Traptrix from grave. Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmare can negate and destroy the activated effect of a monster special summoned this turn. Gravedigger’s negates the effect of monster effects activating in the hand, grave or banished, then does 2000 burn damage to an injury to insult, and is how Rafflesia protects us from Nibiru. Floodgate flips a just summoned monster or monsters face down and then they can’t change their battle positions again. Terrifying Trap Hole Nightmare lets us destroy a monster our opponent control with 2000 or more attack, then if we have a ‘Hole’ normal trap in grave, we can banish a monster in their grave. We also have Traptrix Garden, our field spell that we search off Pudica, that gives us an extra normal summon for a Traptrix monster. It also prevents the first battle destruction of each of our insect or plant monsters each turn, and finally we can banish a monster we control to summon a Traptrix from hand or grave.

For non-engine we have 3 Parallel Exceed, 3 The Phantom Knights of Shade Brigandine, 1 Pot of Prosperity and 1 Traptantalizing Tune as extenders. Shade Brigandine can activate to become a level 4 monster, including the turn it’s set if we don’t have another trap in grave. Parallel Exceed can summon itself from hand when we link summon, then summon another copy from deck, both as level 4s. Tune and the Pot both let us dig through our deck more.

Rounding out the deck is 3 Evenly Matched for board clearing, 3 Infinite Impermanence and 3 Dimension Shifters as hand traps. You could run Effect Veiler in place in the Impermanence, but Imperm is a lot more flexible for us, and can also trigger Sera.

Speaking of other cards you can include, Traptrix Dionaea, another main deck one that either summons a Traptrix from grave in defense when she’s normal summoned or when she’s special summoned lets us reset a normal trap from our grave, but we banish it at our next end phase. For other, less budget friendly cards, Dominus Purge can be a trap version of Ash Blossom at the cost of us not being able to activate the effects of dark, water or fire monsters for the rest of the game. The last card I’m gonna mention here is Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis, a powerful and easy to summon boss monster that is always good to have in your back pocket.

You can find my exact decklist here. We’ll be back soon, delving into Magic next time!
For now, Serena, signing out!