When Do I PLAY MY HAND TRAP? | How To Identify "Choke Points" In Master Duel 

Some other paradigms to consider, that is, when you don't know what the other is playing: 1. When you have 2 disruptions (like Ash and Imperm), usually go for the most specific first (Imperm) while saving the more flexible (Ash). 2. If you go unimpeded in your turn, consider the opp to have Called By and other cards that couldn't be used. So when you use your Ash or other cards, make these assumptions to order. 3. If you go unimpeded in your turn, consider firing off Maxx at draw phase, as your opp might have Called By (in which case, Maxx would have done nothing), their deck goes around it (in which case, Maxx would do nothing), has Kaijus or Go Second (giving you one card or stopping that), or simply they have no answers. 4. If you have Ash and Maxx C in your hand, consider using Ash first in their play to potentially bait a Called By. If they Called By your Ash, they will be unable to Ash your Maxx C then.

As a Marincess player I can testify when we use Sea Angel to search Dive, we don't actually have Dive on hand. We fold hard to Ash.

Very useful vid! As a general rule, I Imperm/Veiler their normal summon and keep Ash for second thing they activate, especially if you play vs Fusion deck, keep Ash for their Branded Fusions and never "ash" Springans Kitt or Aluber, cause they ALWAYS have Branded Fusion anyway which is hard once per turn! Against Swordsoul, let them summon their lv8 synchro and negate/destroy Swordsoul Strategist Longyuan or anything that leads to anything that is not lv8 synchro. Spright, best to negate Gigantic as they tend to summon it earlier to protect vs Nibiru and is most problematic card because of how it stops you from summoning Nibiru or anything that is not lv2. Pile decks, I just pray they don't mill Snow cause if you go second they will flip your normal summon face down which is huge problem for me at least. Most unfair cards there are Snow, Grass and Chaos Ruler, if these resolve you probably gonna lose. Vs Dark Magician, usually you either remove their Eternal soul early or lose if pulled into a longer duel. Removing Dark Magician from play would be ideal if possible.

If Guardian Chimera is made with or after Polymerization is used/discarded/milled, you can' t use targeted monster negation against it, in which case you're going to have to use Forbidden Droplet to either negate it or enough things around it to remove cards from your side of the field, assuming you don't have ways to protect those cards from destruction effects(i.e. Dingirsu). It can't draw cards if it doesn' t get to destroy anything. It's also important to snatch it with TTT if you don't have a good non-targeting way to get rid of it once its Targeting protection is up.

Yes! As a recently new player I love this type of guide content, thank you for this!

I’ve learned so much since following you. Thanks so much for this content. Love your videos 🙏🏽💪🏽

Yesss I love this video-essays! Keep in the good work Lex :)

There used to be an excel sheet about when to use handtraps against most meta deck on red dit and it was my holy grail for playing yugioh again after 10 years. But sadly it seems that the author stopped playing MD and the sheet is left unupdated :(

An interesting exception to 'use Ash early': for Galaxy-Eyes (truly a tier 0 deck you'll run into all the time) when they go for their OTK, you can Ash the Afterglow to stop it since the special summon and ATK boost are tied to the same effect. This is a great way to kill their momentum since now they've sunk a bunch of resources into what is effectively a beatstick with no protection. Of course, now you can recover by going into Neo Prime.

what a joy of video, really aprecciate this kind of work, such a precious information for every kind of player dont care at what level you are, thanks again hex lex

yep, learning certain decks, you do get advantage when you against them. blue-eyes for an example. we all know how blue-eyes can do. especially when chaos max on the field. the first time i saw him, i thought he's unstoppable! now, i just realize that i can't touch him by effects, but not getting destroyed by same ATK.

Because of Spright, Gamma would also be a lot more common, so shotgunning Maxx C during draw phase or chaining to special summon effect can also means instant Gamma, which can give your opponent free bodies for plays like synchro summon or links.

you made like 40 minutes video and I'm tempting to say "I see button, I click yes"

Great video! Love these presentation type videos.

This is a great video! Keep up the good work!

Cool vid! I will say though, in my experience with playing against Branded, if I only have monster effect negation in my disposal, if I decide to wait until I see the Lubellion, then it might've been too late for me to do so because the deck does have ways to dodge effect negation via Despian Comedy or if they activated Branded Lost (granted Branded Lost hasn't seen that much play recently). In the scenario where I unfortunately open with only monster effect negation vs Branded, sometimes I just negate the Aluber and just hope they don't have Branded Fusion in hand, and if they have it, they have it, didn't open Ash anyway.

Great video man, learned a lot from this.

Excellent video!

Keep in mind when you are playing vs Swordsoul Tenyi, not only can your opponent summon baronne before the 5th summon, but in a lot of hands they can summon Chaofeng made with Baxia which turns off your nib as long as Chaofeng is on the field, as well as your Effect Veiler, Gamma and other light monsters. If you care about that you should nib asap, but be prepared for followup, because ideally you wouldn't go into chaofeng unless you have mo'ye/longyuan + wyrm/swso card in hand

Goated video, thanks a million

Good vid like always

I know bro is going to be a content machine when tear drops lmao

I went on a bit of a losing streak yesterday versus despia, ran into them 3 times in a row. Each game went exactly the same. I lost the coin toss, the only interruption I drew was imperm, they combo off, until they get to lubellion, I imperm the lubellion, they chain branded in red (which they didn't search) pitching lubellion causing the imperm to fizzle. End on mirrorjade + dragostapelia + 1 or 2 tax dragon.

Oh shit I needed this video

Problem with Imperm/Veiler on Lubelion instead of Aluber is if they already have the Branded Fusion in hand, they're just going to get Branded in Red and blank your handtrap that way. It's better to make them have Branded Fusion than to let them play around Imperm.

when my brain hurt i just play floodgate set 4 pass, so there was a duel that in draw phase my opponent used starter spright to summon carrot to preemptively had a trap negate early, but i dogmatika punishment it and TLDR they go to sky cavalry in order to go to zeus, im like, bro you just choke your self earlier with starter,,,,

It's interesting because there's cards like sunny snitch. The card is ashable and it's going to go get them a starter, but it could also get them an extender, so you don't know if you should ash that or the actual starter. I tend to use those spell cards as bait myself when I am playing those decks so sometimes you have to be in your opponents head better

Just activate Maxx C and you win :)

There are times I'll chain Maxx c to draw cards like extrav just to try to resolve it before they draw into ash or called by. Not the best but I'd rather them end on T set pass than deny Maxx c and full combo.

I think it’ll be better to go over decks specific choke points

I highly suggest using the settings for hold to off to hide handtraps

Choke point for Punk?

Leaving comments first here to watch later.

First xd

Soooo needed since I need to learn Nibby better IRL. Not here cause I know Master Duel is gonna enter…TEAR 0