Yu-Gi-Oh! Trap Cards Are DEAD. Here's How I'd Fix Them.

This is how BA can still compete

“Soul charge was legal like for 2 years” My brother in Christ, Soul charge was legal for 5 years! I think that the concept of trap cards having a “counter” measure if you get rid of them preemptively it’s really nice, it would help a lot and might not fix the problem, but it will give the game more room for variety

The funniest part of this is that homebrew cards coming from an insane player are better than anything Konami's been launching lately

A problem I’ve noticed with trap cards that somehow almost never comes up when discussing the subject is that trap cards always put you in a utility disadvantage compared to monster effects. If a monster is an omni negate, even if you negate its effects, your opponent still has a tool to directly deal damage to you and get closer to their win condition, in contrast, a trap card, regardless on how good it is, once it’s used (even if it succeeds or not), it is sent to the graveyard, and it’s not like trap card effects are so busted in comparison to current monsters that that balance is necessary. Because of that, monster decks have an inherent advantage at getting closer to their win condition exclusively because their effects they want to push forward also allow them to deal damage, compared to trap decks that require a more finite balance between trap cards to slow the opponent and utility/offensive monster threats to actually win the game. By having to juggle those two concepts, it affects how fast you can actually reach your win condition.

The first card on the list could have just said “destroy 1 card your opponent controls” and it would have powercrept basically all the single target removal traps, even if it targeted. That’s how bad konami has been making trap cards: compulsory evacuation device is the next best thing to that card.

Honestly I might play Writhing Rot generically in the side in any deck. Recurring Nightmare is a terrifying concept. Soul Charge also cost your BP though so I’d like to see an additional restriction. Maybe you cannot set any cards on your next turn

I would change Phantom mirror force to be a direct attack in order to be activated, at least from hand

As a Traptrix player, i really like the idea of "Tripwire" for another reason. You can play mindgame with your opponent but with traps, like "oh, you wanna destroy this card ?... Are you sure ? Could be bait... Or not..." And even if he knows which one it is on the field, he still have to be careful depending on the duel.

I like the idea of Writhing Rot, or at least the part where it can set itself. Maybe more traps that can set themselves from hand if opponent has performed X action

I don't like cards that cannot be responded to, because it's not interactive so it's less fun. But I do agree that cards should have protections like for example "this card effects cannot be negated", so it still gives the chance to your opponent to respond, and thus making the card more skill based

Traptrix holetea is a good design trap card since you can choose to immediately use it by discarding a trap or you can wait in order to use it also it has a very strong graveyard effect so even if it gets popped you still get some value

If you think about it, The tearlaments trap cards are very similiar to the trap card ideas in this video (except being generic), they have an extra effect when theyre sent to GY by effect (doesnt have to be the opponent's, but whatever) so it has uses beyond the first turn/going first. Goes to show how crazy tearlament cards are.

The problem with trying to address the vulnerability of traps like this becomes "Okay so how am I supposed to play around this?" If you design a boardwipe that can't be responded to and if you try to clear it just wipes your board even harder, what are you supposed to do against it?

Trapp "C" Lv2 monster insect dark You can discard this card; this turn, Whenever your opponent activates a monster effect, reveal 3 normal traps in your deck, you randomly set one of them. You cannot reveal more than one trap with the same name this way per turn. You can banish this card from your graveyard to activate a trap that was set this turn.

These are so interesting! Some criticism for encouraging further discussions: 1. As many people would agree/have ptsd, cards that don't allow any response like super poly is inherently unhealthy (outside of God cards), even for a simple effect like this. I do thin, however, that not allowing monster responses only allows for more interesting deck building, as combo decks can change to play cards that will set up backrow or add quick plays to hand 2. Writing Rot is probably the coolest. I'd honestly want to see an archetype of traps that reveal traps to set themselves early. Allows for a more interactive trap engine, recursion, and changing the "set and wait" playstyle 3. Soul charge for traps is 100% fine, especially since the condition for setting from deck is so specific in this example 4. Phantom Mirror Force is an inspiring retrain. Hopefully Konami does something similar with a more anime-feel to bridge gaps between competitiveness and nostalgia 4. It's unfortunate that Konami has consistently boosted trap decks by giving floodgates and similar types of traps to keep up with faster decks as opposed to something like this. The few times I've seen trap decks play without them make them so cool. With new cards like these, the floodgates of the past could soon be no more 5. Trap Pendulum, hurry up Konami :)

These are some interesting card designs. I honestly think more normal traps just need secondary grave effects that can be activated after they get popped the same turn/ if discarded. They don't need to have the same effect twice just something impactful to not get stomped on the next turn.

I think it would be cool to have expand on the "Waking the Dragon" like effects, making the conditions more varied: Have a bunch of cards that trigger simply on being destroyed, with weaker effects that will always go off, then having stronger cards with conditions like being destroyed by a monster or a spell, being targeted or being banished, making it so that it plays off the mind games of trap cards, with the oppoment not being sure what to use to destroy them, and if they get it wrong they get a harsher punishment.

Let's fix Yu-gi-oh for the 69th time!

I like how you listed harpie's feather duster as a weakness of traps then made all of ur traps weak to turn 2 feather duster.

There are several mechanics that already exist (either with trap cards, or with monster/spell cards) which can be very helpful. 1. A lot of decks have searchable continuous traps. Instead of adding the continuous traps to hand, they can place the continuous traps into the S/T zones face up so that the player has direct access to their effects, e.g. Lubellion. 2. Flip monsters are very similar to trap cards. Some of the effects Farfa mentioned are effects very similar to flip monster effects like in Shaddoll: they float when destroyed while being face-down. 3. We can go one step further, have monsters/spells that can trigger traps the turn they are set. In this sense, Subterror and Labyrinth are very similar. 4. Hand traps that allow monsters/traps to interrupt your opponent's play from your hand. Imperm is the most popular one, but we can have more. 5. In modern yugioh, monsters get put in the S/T zones, and S/T put in the monster zones. Eldlich and Paleozoic both do this. A trap can be used as a trap once, and then recycled once more to plus one. 6. We can do to traps what Runick fountain did for quick spells. In other words, a better version of Magical Musket. 7. GY effects when milled. Lightsworn and Tearlaments have those, we could have more.