Notes & Combos

Early M1 - Dinomorphia Azamina Labrynth

As if it needed to be more blatantly clear, Season 44 passionately reminds players that Maliss’ tight chokehold on overtuned combo design is equally matched by its unwavering popularity - reassuring the new ranked ladder is still largely a Cyberse ocean that hasn't evaporated even a little bit after a month. It's apparent that this will only change with another relevant pack appearing, but until then, the prospect of pairing into Maliss still has to be notably respected.

Given that, I reached for Dinomorphia Labrynth - a choice that's no stranger coming from me at this point, but one that had a healthy stable of answers for the meta’s star matchup along with some other positive dynamics to help it get by in Ranked effectively. From a bird's eye view, a good set of its touchpoints are attractive right now, be it that its bad matchup in Blue-Eyes isn't nearly as popular as it was pre-Maliss or how its brand of interaction shades the best deck well.

More specifically, it's a strong user of Daruma, Impulse and Tcboo and rolls out that trio to good effect, but it also has relevant thematic flooding while being a prominent user of Solemns. Counters on a whole have become much more powerful with Maliss around, but the summon-oriented ones are particularly lucrative into them, as it's very easy to win on value and trade way up when going after their links. So playing a deck that additionally rewards their use like this one was only a natural fit.

Notes

• Distinctly, this list is on Azamina for a couple of reasons. Deception has gotten better; There's not only less Droll in the meta compared to previous seasons to punish being on it, but burn damage is probably the most relevant it's been in a long time with Maliss being very popular and Millennium packages still seeing a bunch of play too. Life is a legitimate resource in the environment and totals can get low fast with all the payments flying around - a potential 3k burn over a turn cycle is fairly substantial and lets you effectively race an opponent. It can even be enough to outright steal games at times alone or in combination with Stealthbergia as well.

  More importantly though, this engine offers a decent bit of proactivity so you're not as sluggish into the decks that are fundamentally more athletic than you in the meta, along with an in-house omni-negate that's on attribute, so there's no Impulse confliction. Having Silvia access means the deck is not as stressed to hard draw a counter trap to keep Rex or Lovely clean from common outs like MTP, Drillbeam, Talents etc - which is rather relevant in motion. It also means that when you do have a counter trap already, you can be much more selective with its use, so sequencing in general improves too.

• The inclusion of Artifact Lancea and Chaos Hunter has been pretty varied in Lab lists in the recent past. Chaos Hunter has the upfront appeal of being Impulse-friendly and a more definitive answer to Maliss when it sticks. There's also potential upside to be gained depending on what you discard when summoning it. However, the counterplay to it is quite notable - headlined by Knightmare Cerberus but even simply the Maliss player activating Talents can do the trick - and the discard upside had to be built around, which means making deck-building concessions to include fodder for it.

  On top of that, timing is an issue. Hunter needs a special summon first, so your opponent actually has a say when it can be a possibility, and thus, any banishing before that point can still be done without any problem on their end. With all the above in mind, ultimately, I thought Lancea was better and went with that as the silver bullet for Maliss. Not only did it come with less baggage, but there's way more agency you have in using it too - which was particularly important for me. If I were to play Hunter, it would likely be acting as a 4th or 5th copy of Lancea if anything at all.

• Lastly, Powersink Stone felt like an easy slot in since Maliss has taken over, though I’m surprised it hasn’t been adopted more widely in other Lab lists. The continuous trap feels right at home here and strong in this meta. Control generally wants impactful, encompassing answers with low risk when possible, and it certainly checks those boxes. Specifically though, this just outclasses Skill Drain a large percentage of the time - particularly not sharing its vulnerabilities in the Maliss matchup.

  As traditional to Lab, getting the counters isn't an issue, and there's even some neat applications and set-ups with the Morph monsters to contribute to that with their quick effects. Powersink being able to cover very weak monsters that Rex’s threshold usually can't get (like Sage, Lo, etc) while also serving as a direct check to Red Ransom swapping the Dinos was icing on the cake. Very useful card for this climb.