I debated over the topic of this week’s column for a few days. With so many deserving, underplayed cards waiting for a moment in the sun, it was hard to choose which one to highlight. I finally made up my mind, and with the minor caveat that this card might not actually be underplayed in some areas, I’m going to commit the following thousand-odd words to . . .

Flame Trap.

Flame Trap has seen some play lately, especially in last month’s New Jersey $10K. It’s not in the same group as Betrayal. I won’t argue that it isn’t seeing much play—it is—but in my opinion, it’s not seeing as much as it should.

In short, it’s an awesome, awesome card that does what few others can. It’s a nice piece of tech against several major decks in the current environment, but it’s also jam packed with little tricks. Metagame-oriented cards that provide an advantage in certain matchups generally have one weakness—they’re awful outside of their target matchups. Because Flame Trap is useful outside of its key matchups, it escapes the pitfalls that ensnare cards like Ka-Boom!, Foiled, and Unmasked. It works on two completely separate levels, making it a versatile pick that does more than just set your opponent’s little dudes on fire.

Of course, it does light up a room full of munchkins pretty well, and that’s worth examining before we explore other issues. There are three major archetypes that Flame Trap can mortally injure when played properly: Titans, TNB Blitz, and Cosmic Cops. Ideally, you’ll use Flame Trap in a different way in each matchup. Against Titans, you either want to use it in the mid-game to soften up formations for attack, or you want to keep it until the late game when your opponent’s field is packed with little guys. Odds are good that in the latter situation, your opponent will chain the exhaustion of all of his or her 1- and 2-drops to beef up Roy Harper, but the key factor is that you’ve forced a series of responses before they would normally have happened. You’re disrupting the natural order of how the deck would ideally work, and that’s a good thing. Oh, and you’ll stun a bunch of guys. That’s good, too.

Against Blitz, Flame Trap is more of a desperation play. By turn 4, you’ll probably be under a great deal of pressure, and Flame Trap can cut off a Blitz player’s momentum instantaneously. If he or she played a 3-drop and 4-drop, then you’ve got your work cut out for you, but Blitz rarely looks to curve normally. If you’ve instead been rushed by a ton of 1- and 2-drops, your endurance is probably looking a lot worse (you might even have already lost if the deck really went off), but at the same time, Flame Trap will be much more of a boon for you. Provided that you can capitalize on the time you’ve bought yourself, and that the direct endurance loss doesn’t close the deal before you can take control, Flame Trap is probably a winning move.

Cosmic Cops is one of Flame Trap’s most interesting matchups. You obviously don’t just want to activate Flame Trap and hope that your opponent’s board gets toasted—it’s not going to happen. Your opponent will chain A Child Named Valeria, it’ll resolve, and Flame Trap will do nothing. Or, it’ll just get Fizzled. You want to draw out the Fizzles, attack, force the Valeria, and chain Flame Trap so that it resolves first. If, at that point, the Cosmic Cops player can chain another A Child Named Valeria (which is doable if Alfred Pennyworth is on the field), then the result won’t be ideal—you’ll have lost three cards total. However, you will have forced the opponent to use two cards, so the card disadvantage won’t be that bad. On top of that, you’ll have cut through half of the opponent’s deck’s supply of its key defensive card. Still, you want to use Flame Trap as early as possible. Stunning the opponent’s board is the best-case scenario, and the earlier you chain to a Valeria, the better your chance that the opponent won’t have a second one or a Fizzle.

Okay, so there’s the obvious stuff. It techs out Blitz, Titans, and Cosmic Cops when used correctly. Bust out the 76 trombones for the big parade, eh?

There are a lot more cool tricks that you can do with Flame Trap, most of which are rooted in the simple fact that direct-stun effects can interrupt attacks. That means that if you attack into my little guy instead of a big one, looking to cause some breakthrough, I can Flame Trap it and take only the stun damage. Your attacker will ready, but if Flame Trap was used properly, I’ll have saved myself some endurance. In many cases, I’ll also dodge a nasty effect. That can protect off-team characters like Puppet Master, and it can ruin the plans of an opponent seeking to deal breakthrough by disrupting a team-up and depriving you of the ability to reinforce.

On the other hand, Flame Trap can also interrupt your own attacks. Say you were attacking into something small, and all of a sudden, it grew a pair of shiny claws and gained 5 ATK. Heck, maybe it also grew them out of its knees and gained 10 ATK. Activate Flame Trap, and you’ll stun that Lollipop Leaguer while saving your character. With Crime Lords packing so many effects that require exhaustion, this is bound to become more valuable in the near future than it ever has been before.

The capability to interrupt attacks also allows you to get multiple uses from an effect triggered by combat. For instance, you could stun a character on the opponent’s side, and then send Bane, The Man Who Broke The Bat into combat to trigger his effect and KO the previously stunned character. If the defender is a 1- or 2-drop, you can activate Flame Trap, reset the attack, and send Bane in again to give you another KO. The same move works with Beast Boy and a handful of other cards*. It’s not that useful yet, but watch out for it in the future.

You can also use Flame Trap to improve effects that are applied without declared targeting. For instance, consider Puppet Master—it’s a great card, but the effect is often nerfed by the opponent having small characters to exhaust. However, if you activate his effect and chain Flame Trap, you’re guaranteed to exhaust a decent sized character, as everything small will be stunned by the time the exhaustion effect resolves.

These are small tricks, but they’re also plentiful and surprising.

So, what decks does Flame Trap work in? Quite a few, actually. Despite royally trumping Cosmic Cops (if played carefully), it’s a superb card in that deck if you can find room for it. You can use A Child Named Valeria to protect your own low-drops from Flame Trap while roasting the opponent’s. Mirror matches often come down to who draws Alfred first. A single Flame Trap in a Cops vs. Cops match can be game-breaking.

X-Stall doesn’t really need the help against Titans, though you can never really have too much Titans tech in the current environment. X-Stall does get ripped up by TNB Blitz, and the Cosmic Cops matchup is debatable, so Flame Trap can help. On top of that, the deck can use the Puppet Master trick to make sure its exhaustions are hitting where it counts. If the deck has Avalon Space Station and Scarlet Witch, you can even balance out the discard cost of Flame Trap. Pretty cool.

Flame Trap is interesting in Curve Sentinels, too. Again, this deck ideally wouldn’t need the help with Titans, but it would benefit from a boost in its matchups with Blitz and Cops. The amount of sheer hand power that Sentinels musters will soften the blow of Flame Trap’s discard cost, but the card is difficult to fit into the deck. While the Cops deck has a few numbers that can be tweaked to make room, and X-Stall can essentially afford to ditch X-Corporation entirely, Curve Sentinels is more rigid. This is probably one of the more questionable spots for Flame Trap.

Any deck that can search for plot twists should run at least one copy of Flame Trap and Unmasked. Common Enemy, Doom Control, Gotham Knights, and especially The Brave and the Bold**. If you’ve got a short old man who can run off and find Flame Trap, you should be using it. However, Flame Trap is not just for decks with Boris and Alfred at their disposal, and once more players realize that, there will probably be a shift in most metagames. Cosmic Cops has made a huge splash in the past month, with success that I would call unparalleled. Despite the presence of Fizzle, that trend should slow dramatically if Flame Trap makes its way into more tier one decks.

Besides . . . who could resist burning stuff?

If you’ve never tried Flame Trap, give it a shot. It’s a surprisingly versatile card that justifies its cost, and the environment is ripe for its use. Test it out in decks that might seem an odd fit at first—you might be surprised at how well it performs.

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

Have comments, questions, or suggestions for cards that should see the light of play? Email me at Jason@metagame.com.

*Although, if you’re running Flame Trap in a Titans deck, you’re probably gonna be setting fire to a lot of your own characters. Chalk this one up to core game theory more than practical advice.

**For those unfamiliar with the combo, you team attack with all your little guys on an opponent’s low drop, activate Flame Trap, and then chain Dynamic Duo. The opponent’s characters are stunned and yours aren’t, and when the attack concludes, your team attackers ready.