Notes & Combos

I played Furniture Lab for this season's climb, and one that's notably on mained Belles and Ariane. Overall, the deck performed very well for me as I was able to get to M1 pretty quickly without much friction - ending up winning seven of my last eight games to qualify. For more information on the deck choices please read below

FAQ

Why is there no Eradicator virus?

EEV has gotten a lot of public spotlight recently outside of MD, and with that, plenty of expectations for it to be an auto-include in Lab lists over here with the new support. Be that as it may, the virus simply isn't as good right now as many have imagined - with the big 3 decks in the meta either not really caring about it, being able to recover key spells/traps afterward anyway or a mix of both. EEV is better against the rogue decks of the format, but those are largely matchups you should be winning already, so I excluded it.

Why play Ariane?

Ariane is a choice that's more uncommon than not for Lab, competitively seeing next to no play in the TCG or MD and only really getting playtime in the OCG. I played Ariane because I believe she's particularly good right now: In a meta that's still loaded with and led by Tear, being able to end on Dweller + Lady + traps with consistency is obviously strong, as is ending on Machinex in midrange matchups. Positioning Ariane as a value engine was also quite good and something that I aimed for a fair bit in my climb as your removal traps being +2 on res snowballs very quickly and allows you to be favored in matchups that grind.

Why is there no Dogmatika Punishment?

DP is still pretty rough given we're in a Tear environment - you really don't want to be destroying their monsters. Beyond Tear, a bunch of decks just trade pretty well into it, and arguably more importantly, there's still tons of gy hate out on ladder from stun and other rogue decks teching stuff like Di-Fi, Macro, Soul Drain, etc that can either render DP useless or greatly devalue it.

Notes

• Belle was good all run. I wanted an HT that was well-balanced on both offense and defense while still being impactful on the meta and she filled that role nicely. Saved me a bunch from Bystials, Called By, etc. Also really happy to have her mained for the mirror which is growing in popularity.

• It's often misunderstood that Ariane is too risky to play. In reality, though, this isn't the case; You should rarely be using here SS effect raw or as a first action, and almost always out behind the core furniture combo / under Lady. This way she's generally CA safe (she'll end up CA neutral at worst a lot of the time) and you can protect her with Big in a bunch of cases if need be.