Some of the most powerful (and annoying) cards in Yu-Gi-Oh are trap cards.
With so many different benefits, like making it harder for your opponent to do things in a duel or making your own deck stronger, there’s a lot to go around.
But you can only use a lot of these cards once. Having a card that you can use more than once can be very useful.
Continuous Trap Cards come into play at this point.
And in this list, we’ll put some of the best ongoing traps in the game in order of how useful they are.
18. Imperial Order
Order is another net that is banned from the TCG because it cancels out the effects of all spell cards.
It is especially bad when it is tied to a card like Pot of Desires or Pot of Extravagance, ruining the effect while still making the player pay the activation cost.
To keep Order active, you have to pay 700 life points during each pause phase. This is a small price to pay for its abilities, and you can always decline if you need to use spells.
But to get the best results, you should play in themes with few spells, such as Tri-Brigade and True Draco.
17. Evenly Matched
This card costs a lot in real life, but you can use it online for free. Evenly Matched goes into effect at the end of either player’s fight phase.
It makes your opponent get rid of any number of cards so that they have the same number as you do.
You can also play Evenly from your hand if you don’t control any cards. When it resolves, it counts itself, so your opponent keeps one card.
However, if you play second, you can go straight to the end of your fight phase, banish all but one of your opponent’s cards, and then continue with your combos in the second main.
16. Skill Drain
Even in the TCG, where this is being written, Skill Drain costs 1000 life points to use, but it always cancels out the benefits of all monsters on the field.
If your opponent doesn’t have a way to get rid of a trap that isn’t a monster, this often ends their turn totally.
Yes, Drain also affects your own monsters, but by the time you use it, you should have already used the abilities you want to use.
Some decks, like Qliphorts, even do better when effects are cancelled.
15. Lose 1 Turn
Even though this card’s effect doesn’t make your opponent lose a turn, it’s still pretty good.
You can use “Lose 1 Turn” if you don’t control any special-summoned monsters.
If you do, special-summoned monsters on the field can’t use their effects this turn, and special-summoned monsters with effects are put in defense position.
If you play a deck like Nurse Burn or Monarchs that doesn’t rely on special summons, this card can slow down your opponent enough that you can easily win the fight.
Also, the game is pretty much over if your opponent shows up to a fight without a way to get rid of this card.
14. Rivalry of Warlords
Rivalry of Warlords is surprisingly good against nearly every deck with new cards.
Your opponent can’t handle more than one type of monster while Rivalry of Warlords is on the field.
If they control more than one type, they must send whatever else they have to the graves.
For instance, if your opponent controls a monster that can cast spells, they can only control other monsters that can cast spells.
Contrary to what most people think, this card can be very useful even against one-monster-type teams.
Most of the time, common link monsters with different types will be used in the extra deck.
13. Summon Limit
As you might expect, Summon Limit makes it hard to bring most monsters from the extra deck into play.
The main thing this card does is that it limits each player to two summons per turn, even if those summons are cancelled.
For example, if my opponent tries to call a monster and I use Solemn Strike, that summon still counts toward their limit.
This card is very useful because most good monsters from the extra deck can be called with just two materials.
Most of the time, Fusion summoning and Ritual summoning decks do much better than Xyz, Synchro, and Link summoning decks.
12. Curse of Darkness
Curse of Darkness is a really cool card because you can use it to either drag out your fight or end it quickly.
With Curse of Darkness, the person who owns a spell card must pay 1000 life points every time it is used.
Curse of Darkness will work well if you have few or no spell cards in your deck.
But even if you do use some spell cards, there are others, like Des Wombat, that stop you from taking damage from effects.
On the other hand, you can turn this into a healing effect by using Prime Material Dragon, which turns any effect damage into healing instead.
11. And the Band Played On
“And the Band Played On” is another really annoying card, which is another reason to always bring a card like Cosmic Cyclone with you.
When “And the Band Played On” is used, neither player can special summon monsters with the same level or rank as monsters they already control.
So if you handle a level 4 monster, you can’t special summon another level 4 monster.
Since this works for ranks as well, this card can be very strong.
But since Link monsters don’t have levels, this card can sometimes fall short.
If you don’t play Symphonic Warrior, you can easily get around this card with any other deck.
10. Soul Drain
Soul Drain works a lot like a hand trap, and if played against the right deck, it can be used to stop all of your opponent’s attacks.
Soul Drain can be used if you pay 1000 life points.
After you do this, banished monsters in the graveyard won’t be able to use their effects if they start a chain.
With this ability, you can shut down a lot of decks that depend on the graveyard, like Invoked Shaddoll Dogmatika, Edlich, and so on.
You can even add this card to a Gravekeeper deck with Necrovalley, which also puts a lot of restrictions on the graveyard, to completely shut down the graveyard.
9. Mistake
Mistake is another card on this list that makes it very hard for your opponent to do combos.
While Mistake is on the field with its face up, neither player can add cards from the deck to their hands except during the draw phase.
Mistake is a hard counter to many meta decks, like Virtual World, Fire Fist, and many more, because they all depend on adding cards to their hands to fill the field.
At the moment, Rokket is a great deck to use this card in because it doesn’t depend on adding monsters to the hand.
Instead, Rokket decks normally send monsters to the graveyard so they can special summon more monsters.
8. There Can Be Only One
Rivalry of the Warlords and “There Can Only Be One” are very similar cards, but “There Can Only Be One” works a little differently.
After “There Can Be Only One” is activated, each player can only control one of each type of monster and must send the rest to the graveyard.
If you play this card with Rivalry of the Warlords, your opponent can only control one monster. This is a cool trick, but it makes it harder for you to play as well.
Ghostrick and Lightsworn are the best decks for this card because they have many different kinds of cards.
7. Spirit Barrier
Spirit Barrier is the next card on this list. It is a great continuous trap that helps you stay alive during a fight.
Spirit Barrier keeps you from taking any fight damage as long as you have a monster on the field.
In other words, as long as this card is in play, you can only take damage from direct hits.
Spirit Barrier can help you if you’ve ever wanted to get rid of a monster to use its effect when it’s killed in battle but didn’t want to take any battle damage.
If you have this active, you can attack bigger monsters without worrying about losing Life Points.
6. Skill Drain
The first rare card on this list is Skill Drain.
So, if something is good enough to be limited, it’s probably good enough to be in your deck.
If you pay 1000 life points to use Skill Drain, you can cancel the effects of all monsters on the field that are face up.
If you want to use this in any deck, the best time to use it is when your opponent’s turn starts, so they can’t do anything.
Other than that, Skill Drain can work really well in decks like Dark World, which use the graveyard to trigger most of their effects.
5. Scrubbed Raid
So long as Scrubbed Raid is on the field, you theoretically can’t lose the duel by getting attacked.
You can use Scrubbed Raid during each battle phase to send a card you control to the graveyard and end the battle phase.
When you use this card, you should know that it has a spell speed of 2, which means you can chain it after a trap is activated.
For example, you can use Ice Dragon’s Prison to get rid of a monster your opponent controls, then use Scrubbed Raid to send Ice Dragon’s Prison to the graveyard.
Since they both have the same spell speed, Ice Dragon’s Prison’s effect isn’t cancelled out, and you end the fight phase for free.
4. Imperial Iron Wall
Fun fact:
The card text for Imperial Iron Wall is the third shortest in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, with only 5 words.
While Imperial Iron Wall is on the field, neither side can get rid of cards.
The Imperial Iron Wall is a great card to keep in your side deck in case your opponent plays cards that get rid of all your cards or that depend on cards being thrown away.
For example, you might be surprised when you meet a Gren Maju player because it’s not a very common strategy.
But Imperial Iron Wall makes a Gren Maju deck pretty much safe.
But the Imperial Iron Wall can also be used against famous traps like the Ice Dragon’s Prison.
3. Ordeal of a Traveller
Ordeal of a Traveller quickly turns into a nightmare for any player, unless they are the happiest person in the world.
Every time a monster announces an attack, its owner must pick a random card from the other player’s hand and try to guess what type of card it is (monster, spell, or trap).
If they guess wrong, the monster goes back to the player’s hand.
If you have three different types of cards in your hand, your opponent’s attack has a 66.7% chance of failing.
Keeping this in mind, you should keep some traps in your hand if you use this card.
The only real drawback is that you have to show your opponent the card they are thinking in order to confirm the type.
2. Anti-Spell Fragrance
Anti-Spell Fragrance is a trick that is surprisingly good, but not many people use it.
It makes each person put down their spells and wait until it’s their turn to use them.
This card totally shuts down a lot of spell-based decks, like most Fusion, HERO, and Fluffal decks.
If you’re playing Blackwing and want to give your opponent another crushing blow, you can use Delta Crow – Anti Reverse to destroy all of their spells.
But if you play a lot of spells, it can be hard to deal with this card.
So it might be a good idea to use a card like Knightmare Phoenix to destroy it on your turn.
1. Macro Cosmos
Macro Cosmos could make you unbeatable in a fight, so it’s important to keep an eye out for it.
Most people want to use Macro Cosmos for its main result, which is pretty great:
Any card sent to the graveyard is instead sent to the discard pile.
This is very strong because of two things.
First, you can use this to your advantage by making sure your opponent can’t use any effects that have to do with the graveyard because all the cards are gone.
This works especially well against Dragons and Invoked Shaddoll Dogmatika, which are some of the best decks in the metagame right now.
And second, if you also use Soul Absorption, you can use this card to gain a crazy amount of life points.
Now, cards like Dark Hole can give you up to 3000 more life points right away.
