Some of the nastiest monsters to face in the game are those that generate effects the moment they’re summoned. Monsters like Breaker the Magical Warrior, Zaborg the Thunder Monarch, and Green Gadget (not to mention the other Monarchs and Gadgets) have amazing effects that trigger the moment they hit play. It is very difficult to eliminate these threats in their entirety, which contributes to their dominance over the environment.

Historically, the game has not provided many means of dealing with such monsters. The class of cards that could handle them usually involved counter traps with very high costs. Horn of Heaven could negate the summon at a steep price, Solemn Judgment would cost half of your remaining life points, and Divine Wrath would require a discard from hand. The chance of stopping your opponent’s Monarch and negating its effect was not too good.

Then came the release of Forced Back, a commonly teched card that could provide some mitigation against this growing class of troublesome “effect upon summon” monsters. In a Monarch-dominated format, the one-card loss of using Forced Back could definitely be considered a fair trade through its temporary disabling of such powerful effects. However, the versatile counter trap did not catch on entirely, finding a slot in side decks but little else.

Pulling the Rug, to be released in Strike of Neos, is the first affordably priced trap card that can permanently remove monsters like Mobius the Frost Monarch, Zaborg the Thunder Monarch, Breaker the Magical Warrior, each Gadget, and others. While retaining most of the power of Forced Back, it also manages to destroy the monster. A card-for-card trade while negating your opponent’s biggest threats sounds about right.

Further Ramifications of One of the Best Counter Traps Yet

Clearly this trap was created to be splashed into savvy decks that want to counter the Monarch onslaught. The card will also counter the tricky new threat of Gadgets, making it a very versatile card that can help swing the matchup in your favor during the all-important first game. It’s an even better choice for your side deck, considering that it provides sharp edges in the aforementioned matchups.

However, the card has an impact on other archetypes as well. Loyal readers of Metagame.com have encountered a fascinating concept deck in Jerome McHale’s column. He writes of his experiences creating a Fairy Counter deck that utilizes Bountiful Artemis and a bevy of counter traps to generate massive card advantage over the opponent. Any move they make is countered by a counter trap, which then nets Jerome a card in hand through Artemis’s effect.

Unfortunately, one of the problems with the deck was an inability to counter huge threats such as Mobius the Frost Monarch without paying 4000 life points. Since Solemn Judgment was the only answer to negating such a summon, the deck would often be stuck playing out of a low life point total. After all, a standard set-up involved something like Magic Drain in conjunction with either Negate Attack or Forced Back. Now Forced Back could push the Monarch back to hand, but it was quite clear that Mobius or Zaborg would simply revisit the scenario a turn later, considering that Cyber Dragon and Treeborn Frog provided such easy special summon outlets.

In fact, Forced Back was quite often detrimental to the cause! While pushing a Monarch back to hand and negating its effect could be powerful, you could definitely expect to see it again in a few turns—especially if the opponent had a Treeborn Frog in the graveyard. Players began to adapt, instead opting to use Forced Back to negate flip effects and bothersome normal summons.

Pulling the Rug suffers from none of these drawbacks. It’ll outright destroy the monster, giving the Bountiful Artemis user a free card in hand without any loss of advantage. It gives an additional element of surprise to a deck in need of more answers to negate special summons.

Drawing Parallels to Current Cards in the Environment

As you can see from this article, it’s difficult to refer to Pulling the Rug without referencing the different, playable counter traps that have preceded it. The vast majority of them have a great synergy with each other, and the release of this exciting new trap card provides a good time to reanalyze them.

Magic Drain provides a great shelter to Heavy Storm, which may sweep your entire field otherwise. It can also negate general purpose spell cards used by your opponent to swing the flow of the game, including Graceful Charity and Nobleman of Crossout. However, lying there with no protection against battles or normal summoned monsters makes it vulnerable to cards like Mobius the Frost Monarch and Breaker the Magical Warrior that can simply sweep it off the field.

The counter to this was to use Solemn Judgment along with Magic Drain to provide an unassailable back row. Stall decks use this combination all the time to protect cards such as Gravity Bind and Level Limit - Area B. Decks with Deck Devastation Virus could also use both cards in conjunction with each other, as would Jerome’s Counter Fairy build. Unfortunately, the life point cost of maintaining the field usually grows too steep.

Adding Pulling the Rug to the equation allows you to save Solemn Judgment for the key cards that you really must destroy and negate. Since Pulling the Rug can stop Mobius from threatening your infrastructure, you can protect your back row even better, and do so without paying half your life points.

Think of the different strategic ramifications of this new counter trap. Pulling the Rug is a well-designed piece of work that both prepares duelists to counter the current environment and provides a solid piece of support to certain builds revolving around either locking down the opponent’s strategies or utilizing Bountiful Artemis.