Hey there! I am very happy to report that my previous efforts with Labrynth have paid off—I just placed 2nd at a 170-person regional with the deck, and despite being unable to get a playset of Dominus Impulse, I adapted with a more budget-friendly list and still finished 7-1, with trap tech you might never have seen before! This list has gone a bit viral, with Ready 4 Duel and even The Cali Effect mentioning it on one of his recent videos, which is pretty cool.
I’ve refined this list over dozens of matches, and here’s where I’ve landed on.
Overview
This Labrynth list has a lot of layers, with a heavy Trap Card count at 25 Normal Traps and 19 Monsters for a total of 44 cards. It’s inspired by Dihn Kha Bui’s list that he played over one year ago, having an impressive 3rd place finish at YCS Bologna.
The monster ratios are designed to give the deck an unapparelled amount of speed, with its very famous “turn 0 plays” being something that no other deck can currently do—an Ash Blossom resolving will look like nothing when you resolve Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon while setting up your own engine.
But this speed has a cost: you need to play a lot of Trap Cards, something that most players are wary to do. However, this is a prerequisite for reliable turn 0 plays, since without a critical amount of trap cards, you can be stuck with Arias, the Labrynth Servant and no Trap Cards or an Absolute King Back Jack that doesn’t find anything useful.
This means that sometimes you’ll be playing a combo-centric, rapid-fire playstyle where you offload all of your hand before your opponent has a chance to react, and sometimes you will be doing a set 4, summon Sky Crisis and pass—and knowing how to play at both speeds is a very critical part of that.
With all of that said, let’s get to the deck itself!
Main Deck
Engine Ratios
3x Labrynth Chandraglier
3x Labrynth Stovie Torbie
1x Labrynth Cooclock
3x Arias, the Labrynth Servant
1x Lovely Labrynth of the Silver Castle
1x Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle
3x Big Welcome Labrynth
2x Welcome Labrynth
While how many Lady Labrynth you play will vary a lot, 1 felt just enough for this list—while she can be a good draw, most of the time I’d rather fetch her than draw her. I could also play 3x Welcome Labrynth, but I think 2 is better for space and you would rather just search it with furniture and loop the same copy.
These ratios remain baseline for consistency, letting you draw into more traps without drawing too much engine.
Now, for the more experimental ratios, we have:
2x Arianna, the Labrynth Servant
1x Ariane, the Labrynth Servant
1x Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous.
There are my five normal summons, and I decided on these ratios for a few reasons: firstly, Ariane is a non-negotiable for my list; this card enables a lot of plays. It can summon Lovely from your hand if drawn, it can enable rank 4 plays, swap a less useful trap card (usually a Welcome Labrynth set by its own effect) for a more useful one by summoning Back Jack, it gets you card advantage each turn… it’s just a very solid card to have and it enables too many plays to mention here.
To reduce the chance of double normal summons and make room for more traps, I cut to 2 Arianna—and I never missed the third. This might be the ratio that I use from now on.
Lastly, is the 1-of Ecclesia, and she is there just to pretty much round up the normal summon count. At 4 normal summons, you are very likely to see exactly one normal summon, and not multiples. She is also usually able to summon herself if going 2nd, making this a non-issue, and she can be looped with Big Welcome to further search Dogmatika Punishment—but the most important thing is that I’m playing Nadir Servant on my Side Deck, which we’ll talk about in a moment.
Labrynth Labyrinth and Labrynth Set-Up—Cut.
While I usually like playing the Labrynth Spells, I decided to do away with them. I wanted to keep as many live cards as possible in my hands, and these can be very bricky. Most of the times you don’t even need them, and the Field Spell is only really good once you can be sure that you’re going to resolve one of your Welcome traps.
With Shifter decks and control decks phasing out of the meta, I also decided to not play Set-Up. This might change if the Maliss decks that play Dimension Shifter get more popular, but it will depend on how the meta develops.
Removal Trap Cards
For removal, I always aim to have a variety of utility and types of disruption in my builds, and this was no exception. Sadly, I couldn’t get my hands on Dominus Impulse, but this will have to make do. Beyond Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon, which is a 3-of, these are all 2-ofs.
Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon
Practically an automatic 3-of at this point, this card is almost always excellent, and even when it’s bad it’s still decent (like versus Fusion or Ritual decks). It gains tempo, dodges targeted negation, works as pseudo-removal versus certain strategies, can be used offensively or defensively—it’s just a very versatile card with tons of uses, and it’s why it’s the only non-engine trap card I run at three.
Ice Dragon’s Prison
This card is actually not super good into the top meta decks, with Ryzeal not having a lot of Graveyard recursion, and Maliss recouping the bodies you banished, but it does have one purpose: it beats the Fiendsmith engine in one card. Usually you can cut off any Engraver lines with one Ice Dragon’s Prison, which makes it an effective anti-meta card. It can also remove certain other things like Ryzeal Detonator, Blue-Eyes Synchro Monsters, and it tends to be pretty good versus random rogue decks. I might drop this card, or start siding it, but it’s very solid and I don’t regret playing it. It has seen better days, though.
The Spicy Tech: Starry Dragon’s Cycle
One of my favorite additions to this deck, this card seems like a more situational Compulsory Evacuation Device, but it’s actually in an excellent spot right now—you can bounce Splash Mage and summon its target back to your field, you can bounce Ryzeal Duodrive, denying it its search, get any of the two Servants from your Graveyard or a Ryzeal monster, you can get bounce an Fiendsmith Sequentia and get any Fiendsmith card or Labrynth card from your Graveyard—all the pieces are in the format right now for this to be a solid removal card with added utility.
But the more I’ve tried it out, the more I’ve seen with it: I’ve done things like summon Muckraker, summon back Lovely Labrynth, attack, bounce Muckraker, revive Lady Labrynth, Chaos Angel or a Servant from the Graveyard to trigger Lovely and get more advantage. At the time of writing, I’m actually experimenting further with this card, trying out the Unchained package and a lot of other experimental lines. The possibilities with this card keep piling up the more I play it.
While it’s in the perfect spot in this format to have a 2-slot Trap Trick target, this might stay as a mandatory one-of from now on in my lists because of all the lines it can do with my extra deck monsters. It won’t always win you the game, but it opens lines that wouldn’t exist otherwise.
Time will tell how long I’ll play it, but I am very happy with this card and I recommend that every Labrynth player gives it a go!
Dogmatika Punishment
This card was… okay. It’s just good, generic removal. It’s in the weird spot that it can’t specifically answer Ryzeal Detonator, and the Maliss players can dodge it with their trap cards, but carefully playing around and planning ahead for both of those scenarios this makes this card very useful. I ended up not using a lot of its utility effects, like reviving a Labrynth monster with Chimera, or sending a Garura to maintain card advantage, and I also sided it out always versus Ryzeal going 2nd, which makes me wonder if this is truly something that should make the cut.
A very good thing about this card though, is that thanks to Enigmaster Packbit, this can discard you cards, making Transaction Rollback or Back Jack less likely to get stuck in your hand.
Still, it performed very well, and removing 2-for-1 is always good.
Terrors of the Overroot
This is one of my favorite traps, as it’s a versatile, all-in-one thing: it has Graveyard disruption, non-destruction removal, and it targets any card my opponent controls instead of just monsters, meaning it can be a decently impactful card or a blowout one depending on the scenario. However, since Maliss and Ryzeal don’t usually commit Graveyard resources in their opening plays, I was actually not playing it, and I only brought it when it was obvious that I wouldn’t be able to get the Dominus Impulse.
However, as my understanding of the format evolves, I am starting to see more ways to make this card useful—it can also usually answer the Fiendsmith engine by itself, and its downside of not being able to stop the top decks’ opening plays doesn’t mean it’s not useful as they try to extend through your disruption. I am currently trying out ways to make this card fit in future builds, as its immense versatility is always worth considering.
Utility and Discardable Trap Cards
These cards don’t provide direct disruption on their field, but their effects, utility and defensive capability usually make them strong inclusions—and they make my furniture cards have enough discard fodder so I’m almost always gaining advantage through their discards.
Paleozoic Marrella
Ah, Marrella. It’s hard to describe the insane amount of utility this card provides, basically being a blank card that can repeat whatever the best thing is in the rest of your hand
While it has the obvious synergy is with Transaction Rollback, there’s a lot more than what meets the eye: you can Chain Marrella in the GY to Big Welcome to instantly have a body to bounce, you can use it and Stovie Torbie to Summon Paleozoic Opabinia to search for more disruption (though I am not playing it in this list), you can send Big Welcome Labrynth to bounce a card on the field, you can use it as bodies for the Unchained lines, and in general just as a blocker it has been good in a pinch.
It will help you a lot beating the cards that usually beat Labrynth: it will force out your Welcome traps if you get stopped by Ash Blossom, if they use backrow removal, Marrella will give you full value when chained to it without committing you to any play, and can be reset by Lovely to avoid telegraphing to your opponent what it is that you’ll do next.
It’s also a good card to cut when siding—when going 2nd, these types of defensive cards are cut for a more targeted side deck. This card also pairs very well with the two following ones.
Transaction Rollback
Tied for best discard with Absolute King Back Jack, this card complements all your defensive options very well—and it can help you push for OTKs or further disruption when needed. It’s also a very non-committed way to generate resources, as so long as Rollback is in your Graveyard, you can pretty much use it whenever you want. Hell, if Rollback is in your Graveyard, then Marrella is any trap card in your deck.
This can be a bricky card, so playing more than 2 doesn’t feel very good, and I would probably not even play 2 if Marrella wasn’t around—but all the way this card helps you push through all the cards that should counter this strategy is something to be worth considering!
The Black Goat Laughs
The last good discard, I have seldom used this card before except as a secondary Marrella target—it’s just not that useful.
However, we are in a format where certain cards have ignition effects that are vulnerable to a furniture discard. Cards like Ryzeal Duodrive or Maliss Dormouse can easily be stopped by discard Goat with your furniture. There are also some key summons to stop, like Detonator, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Spirit with Eyes of Blue or whatever Maliss Dormouse banishes.
Last but not least— Trap Trick
The most versatile card in the deck by a mile, Trap Trick can literally fetch you any card you want from your deck. This card, alongside Marrella, will basically make you produce any card with your deck every time you see it—and it doesn’t even lose to removal. This will make you round up any turn, and its immense flexibility will win you many games. Thanks to Dihn Kah Bui for rediscovering this old Trap Card and giving it a new purpose!
Extra Deck
This is mostly Punishment, Ultimate Slayer and Nadir Servant targets, let’s go over those first:
Blazing Bombardment Beast, Elder Entity N’tss, Garura, Wings of Resonant Life, Chimera the King of Phantom Beasts, Tri-Brigade Arms Bucephalus II (which sends both Garura and Chimera), Mereologic Aggregator, Enigmaster Packbit.
Phew! That’s most of my extra deck. Now, as for the monsters I actually summoned…
Chaos Angel
Can be made a variety of ways, and its non-OPT effect can be looped in several ways as well (including with Starry Dragon’s Cycle!). A bit situational, but always good to have.
Muckraker from the Underworld
More of a generic link-2 for me, I use it more to place materials in my Graveyard than what I actually use the Summon effect, but it’s useful to recover Lovely Labrynth in a pinch. Its protection effect will also become useful from time to time.
Number 60: Dugares the Timeless
A new addition to my deck, and one that I can’t believe I wasn’t playing before—I am Summoning this guy a lot more often the more I play him. While Arianna and Ariane can give you 2 draws for no discard, sometimes you just really need to handfix you or have a spare level 4 body and nothing to do with it, and this allows you to get extra advantage from it.
The revive effect and the ATK boost effect I have not used yet, but I imagine that as I test it more, I will find more uses for it. Indeed, seeing Dugares be so useful makes me want to play more Rank 4 monsters!
Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis
The star of the show! This card was invaluable the whole tourney. Ryzeal decks will struggle to out it, as they seldom play proactive responses to him, and it turns the only monster in your hand to a useful body that can probably answer to at least two cards.
I was considering playing two, but in the end, I never really needed the second one—it might come up if someone is playing Unicorn, or in super long games, but you’ll be fine most of the time with one.
Side Deck
Last but not least, we have the extra deck. For my side deck patterns when going second, I always sided out Paleozoic Marrella and Transaction Rollback plus the trap card that was the least useful in that matchup, for a total of 6 cards. Still, my goal with a side deck is to have flexible choices—it is very tempting to have ultra-targeted cards like Artifact Lancea or Dimensional Barrier, but I often prefer some general-use cards that allow me to play into my deck’s strengths and don’t leave a big hole for a random rogue deck to knock me out of Swiss rounds.
Phantastical Dragon Phantazmay
Phantazmay has some advantages over the Mulcharmies. Even when Ashed, it can re-attempt to use its effect next turn, it can protect your monster, and it can act as a body for Big Welcome Labrynth and for Sky Crisis. While I still would have liked to play Fuwalos, specifically for Ryzeal Fiendsmith, this is still a solid card that I would play in tandem with it. A super solid card that gives you all the more chances to see your turn 0 plays.
Droll and Lock Bird
Against random decks like Fire King or Mermail, this is still a solid choice. It’s also okay versus Ryzeal Fiendsmith. I only saw it once, but I will probably keep playing it.
Ultimate Slayer
One of my favorite Spell Cads, this card is generally useful against everything, and I side it almost always. I love this card and always include it when possible, so there’s not much to add here.
Dogmatika Package: Nadir Servant, Dogmatika Maximus and Dogmatika Fleurdelis
Since I wasn’t playing Dominus Impulse, I needed a potent replacement to play around mass removal—and with 1 card, Nadir Servant replaces itself by drawing you one, and it dumps Paleozoic Cambroraster and Titaniklad, the Ash Dragon, giving you a negation of a monster. I never drew it, but whenever I have this card in my hand I know that I can play very safe. It can also flex as a going second card, but there aren’t a lot of decks that this is good against at this moment so I would not continue to play it if I got a Dominus Impulse playset.
I actually wasn’t going to play Fleurdelis and Dimension Slice—and I would rather talk about Dimension Slice at another time—but some last-minute shenanigans meant I signed them up instead of Nibiru, the Primal Being, a card I wholeheartedly recommend you play instead.
Conclusion
Through a combination of clever deckbuilding, unprepared opponents and unexpected strong synergies, I believe that Labrynth is in a deceptively decent spot right now, with a few tricks up its sleeve among the top meta decks:
- Against Ryzeal, as long as you have Lovely on the field and non-destruction removal, the Detonator can’t threaten you—they can’t respond to your Normal Trap activations while Lovely is on the field, a fact they will probably won’t play around. Let them extend, and punish them with whatever removal you have.
- Against Maliss, your wide array of removal, as well as Destructive Daruma Karma Cannon will make them struggle to push for game, often burning out before you even run out of trap cards.
While you are never beating Maliss with engine, and the Ryzeal Fiendsmith matchup is pretty rough when going second, but you also have a lot of tools to minimize how bad that is—and with a banlist (and more support!) on the horizon, it’s likely to only get better. Until we get better tools to get more consistent turn 0 plays, or beat Ryzeal’s huge initial tempo swing, side deck adaptation is your best shot at succeeding in this format.
I would encourage rogue players to not give up that easily if you think your deck can compete in the current format. Rather, experiment and think in other ways that may not have been explored—you might be surprised at what your deck can achieve if you’re properly prepared.
What is your preferred way to play the deck, or what do you think about this list? Let me know down in the comments!
