Notes & Combos
Same deck as my D1 climb last season [S16 - April 2023].
At first, I was struggling a bit to stick in Plat 4. Went from Plat 5 -> Plat 4 -> Plat 5 -> Plat 4 -> Plat 5 -> Plat 4. Got back into Plat 4 for the last time after 30 games and from there, didn't derank again.
When I got to Plat 4, I would get slapped around and lose 3 games right away, or lose a few games, win 1, and then lose 4 right afterwards.
During this period, I did try out a Traptrix build with Necrovalley + Dogmatika.. however, I'm not sure how great it was overall in the end, as when I was playing it, I kept going against non-Tear decks, so Necrovalley never really helped. I was running 2 Necrovalley, 2 Commandant, and Necrovalley Throne. My logic using that over Terraforming was that I'd rather be stuck with "dead" monsters in hand, rather than spells that can't do anything. It seemed ok. Alongside that, while it's technically only 2 floodgates, compared to the 5 I have with 2 Fissure/3 Soul Drain, it should be more searchable, so you'd draw less dead cards potentially in other match-ups/have the same chances to get it against Tear. [tried it out based on a suggestion by zeroender] It might have done better if I faced more Tear/Branded though.
Dogmatika was also in the build, as Necrovalley doesn't really do much against it. N'tss/Titaniklad can still trigger [while being safe from Called By] and Punishment isn't dead like it would be with Fissure. The only issue is if you have Necrovalley up, you can't use Nadir to get a card out of the gy.
As for the deck itself, it still seems fine. Still didn't use Raff and never really had good chances to get much going. Most of the time, at least against Tear, if I got a floodgate, I was in a good position and they maybe scooped earlier than they should have. One game I opened [Bottomless, Compulsory, Compulsory, Soul Drain, Soul Drain]. My opponent activated Scream, summoned Scheiren, and then scooped thanks to Soul Drain. If they played, I might have been in trouble.
In the end, given how often you run into Tear, it's still a run floodgates to win or be overwhelmed by all the free stuff they can produce during both turns.
As for Ash, it's not really super great against Tear.. but I still keep it in for the other match-ups. If I had Evenly in, Maxx C might be better. [even if they conflict some]