Christen57 wrote:I guess I should've worded my statement better. What I meant to say was, it's hardly a good strategy, or even a good mindset, to rely in any way on your opponent "
not knowing" your archetype. I like to always assume my opponents will know, or at least end up figuring out quickly, some of my cards, combos, and other lines of play I may have in mind.
Sure, an opponent not knowing Unchained will make 'em more likely to waste a hand trap, negation, or disruption or something, on the wrong card/effect, but the question is, does that small advantage outweigh the major advantage Unchained still has of too many of it's cards being bricks or -1 in card advantage and too little of it's cards being +1 in card advantage?
It should be clear now that his points are pretty much the same as mine and Renji Asuka's — that Unchained's weaknesses outweigh it's strengths and that you're better off switching to a stronger deck.
Yeah, I may have been judging these hand traps more on how well they worked in my competitive deck than in the deck(s) Sound4 was playing. In this current format, my competitive deck of choice is what people call a "Pile" deck — a deck revolving around not any specific archetype but some random but powerful engines thrown together that happen to synergize with one another.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Yugioh101/comments/t9wg62/ive_heard_the_term_pile_deck_being_thrown_around/Pile decks allow room for creativity and variety, as different Pile decks can use different engine combinations. Some Pile decks
like this one for example that somebody posted on ygoprodeck.com consist of a Rose Dragon engine, a Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer engine, an Adventurer Token engine, a Magicians' Souls engine, a P.U.N.K. engine, and a Small World engine, all put together to work in harmony.
My Pile deck utilizes the Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer engine (Fusion Destiny,
Celestial,
Dasher, and Verte Anaconda) for offense, a Mystic Mine engine (Mystic Mine, Demise of the Land, and Metaverse) for defense, and the Adventurer engine (Aramesir,
Enchantress, Gryphon Rider, Fateful Adventure, and Dracoback) for support. However, instead of hand traps, I chose to max out on Lava Golem,
Dark Ruler,
Ra Sphere Mode,
Alpha,
Pankratops, and Lightning Storm. These cards proved to be better in a deck like mine because they synergized with my deck better than hand traps. Lava Golem and Sphere Mode, for example, both eat up my normal summon, while the Adventurer engine disallows my normal summoned monsters' effects, but those restrictions barely affect me since my deck hardly cares about normal summoning.
Unchained, however, relies far more on normal summoning, in order to begin any plays, than my deck does, making it far riskier to run board-breakers or the Adventurer engine in that deck, so, for Unchained, hand traps are probably indeed the best option. My only concern is, if Sound4's going to run hand traps, the only hand traps good running 3 of are the ones that aren't hard once per turn, are crazy powerful like how powerful Maxx "C" was when that card was still legal, or actually synergize with the deck, like how
Nibiru often synergized with Rock decks since it could be searched off of
Gallant Granite, or how
Ash Blossom often synergized with Salamangreats due to being recyclable with
Sunlight Wolf, or how
Ghost Ogre often synergized with Psychic decks due to being searchable off of
Emergency Teleport.
Now, earlier, I mentioned one major advantage a board-breaker like Dark Ruler No More or Lava Golem has over a hand trap: Usually, with a board-breaker (assuming you're going second of course), you have 6 chances to draw it whereas with a hand trap, you have only 5 chances. When going second, whatever hand trap you're running needs to be seen among your first 5 cards in your opening hand for you to be able to stop an opponent's combo. If you instead draw that hand trap during your turn as your 6th card, it'll likely be too late then as the opponent has already assembled their board. With a board-breaker, however, you can either have it in your opening hand among your 5 cards or draw it as your 6th card in your turn, making it more consistent and forgiving than a hand trap, which is especially important for Pile decks as Pile decks often exceed 40 cards in the main deck, hurting chances of seeing the hand trap(s) in the opening hand.
However, I forgot to mention 2 other major advantages a board-breaker tends to have over a hand trap. First, board-breakers are a bit harder to stop/counter than hand traps. Decks like
Swordsoul or
Mythical Beast, or decks that run
Terrortop/
Taketomborg and
Small World, or the Adventurer Engine, will often have a negate ready by their 5th summon to stop Nibiru,
Called by the Grave stops hand traps that put themselves in the grave to activate,
Sauravis stops hand traps that target and is searchable off of
Preparation of Rites, Dinosaur decks can use
Lost World to put a token on the opponent's field to stop
Gamma and
Imperm, Warrior decks can use
Aqua Dolphin (which is searchable with
Neo Space Connector which is searchable with
Reinforcement of the Army) to take out hand traps with low ATK, WATER decks have
Deep Sea Minstrel which temporarily removes hand traps, and some decks run enough extenders to let them shrug off a hand trap or two and assemble a board regardless. Dark Ruler No More cares about none of this.
Second, when it comes to board-breakers, you get to wait until after the opponent has invested much of their hand into their combo before you begin investing your board-breakers and hand into answering their board. This is important because, with each card you see them play to assemble their board, you're getting more information on their cards and deck before they've gotten any information on your cards. With a hand trap, it's more of a gamble. If it's the first turn, you open up with Ash Blossom, your opponent's going first, and the first card they play is something like
Quick Launch or
Emergency Teleport, do you Ash that spell, or do you let it resolve and wait for them to play an even stronger card then Ash that? What if that
Quick Launch/
Emergency Teleport was their strongest card while the other cards in their hand were bricks or something and you now missed a golden opportunity to use your Ash? Keep in mind they haven't yet normal summoned or played any other cards, so what if you Ash that spell but it turns out they were just using that to bait out an Ash, and then they start normal summoning and playing their stronger card(s) you wish you saved your Ash for? Now you've given them crucial information about what you're playing before they've given you much information about what they're playing, putting yourself at a disadvantage, and, you wasted a hand trap, putting yourself further at a disadvantage.
In competitive yugioh, it's generally a good a idea to save your disruptions/board-breakers until the last moment in which you can and should use them, like how players would often flip
Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy backrow in the end phase instead of the main phase, or use ATK-modifying effects in the damage step if possible, instead of the battle step. With an Ash Blossom, it's harder to determine when that "
last moment in which you can and should use them" will be, but with board-breakers, it's easier to figure out when to use those — during your turn against an already-assembled board since you've already seen much of their cards and thus have enough information (on what the opponent's playing) to make an informed decision, whereas with hand traps, it's trickier because the opponent often hasn't yet played enough cards to give you such information for you to make an informed decision, meaning you'll have to guess if that card you wish to Ash is the best Ash-target at that moment or if the opponent just wants you to waste Ash on that card so they can then play their stronger card(s) without worrying about an Ash.
When I play a board-breaker knowing my opponent has already vomited their hand onto the field to do their combo to assemble that board, I'm playing that board-breaker knowing I most likely won't have to worry about any additional extenders or tricks up my opponents' sleeves for a while, but with a hand trap, I have to do this awkward guessing-game thing where I have to either use my hand trap immediately, hoping it's the right time to use it and that the opponent has no further extenders or stronger cards I would've wanted to use my hand trap on, or hold onto my hand trap, hoping my opponent doesn't seize the opportunity to bring out a negate such as
Herald of the Arc Light or
Apollousa afterwards to keep me from ever using my hand trap. If I guess wrong in either case, I'll most likely lose as my opponent will continue to build up their board until it's too difficult to break. This issue is less likely to occur when I rely on actual board-breakers, and more likely to occur when I rely on hand traps that stop the opponent from combo-ing off only if you guess correctly.