With such a wide range of effects from limiting what your opponent can do in a duel, to powering up the strength of your own deck, there’s a lot to go around. But a lot of these cards can only be used once. So having a card that can be used multiple times can become really valuable. That’s where continuous traps come into play. And in this list we’ll be ranking some of the most useful continuous traps in the game.
15. Lose 1 Turn
Even though this card doesn’t actually make your opponent lose a turn, its effect is still quite good nonetheless. You can activate Lose 1 Turn when you control no special summoned monsters, and if you do, monsters that are special summoned to the field cannot use their effects this turn (and special summoned effect monsters are changed to defense position). If you play a deck that doesn’t rely on special summoning, like Nurse Burn or Monarchs, this card can slow your opponent down enough for you to easily win the duel. Moreover, if your opponent rocks up to a duel without a way to destroy this card, then the game is as good as over.
14. Rivalry of Warlords
Rivalry of Warlords is surprisingly effective against almost any deck that features recent cards. While Rivalry of Warlords is on the field, your opponent cannot control more than 1 type of monster. If they control more than 1 type, they must send whatever else they have to the graveyard. For example, if your opponent controls a spellcaster-type monster, they can only control spellcasters. Unlike what most people think, this card can be quite effective even against decks that are based on a single monster type. More often than not, you’ll see generic link monsters being used in the extra deck that feature different types.
13. Summon Limit
Summon Limit, as you probably can guess, makes it very difficult to summon most extra deck monsters. Essentially what this card does is it limits each player to 2 summons per turn, including negated summons. For example, if my opponent tries to summon a monster and I activated Solemn Strike, that summon would still count towards their limit. This card is extremely effective since most decent extra deck monsters basically require 2 materials to be summoned. Decks that rely on Fusion summoning and Ritual summoning usually perform much better than decks that use Xyz, Synchro, and Link.
12. Curse of Darkness
Curse of Darkness is a really interesting card, since you can either use it to prolong your duel, or to shorten it quickly. With Curse of Darkness, every time a spell card is activated, the owner of the card must pay 1000 life points. Obviously if you have little to no spell cards in your deck, Curse of Darkness will work great. But even if you do use some spell cards, there are others like Des Wombat that prevent you from taking effect damage. On the other hand, you can turn this into a healing effect using Prime Material Dragon since it turns any effect damage into healing instead.
11. And the Band Played On
“And the Band Played On” is another really annoying card to deal with, which is another reason to always bring a card like Cosmic Cyclone with you. When “And the Band Played On” is activated, neither player can special summon monsters with the same level or rank as monsters they already control. So if you control a level 4 monster, you cannot special summon another level 4. Since this also applies to ranks, this card can be really powerful. But unfortunately, this card can fall a bit short since Link monsters don’t have a level. Otherwise, as long as you play a deck like Symphonic Warrior, you’ll have no trouble getting around this card.
10. Soul Drain
Soul Drain has a very “hand-trap” like effect that can be used to completely shut down your opponent’s combos – if played against the right deck. You can activate Soul Drain by paying 1000 life points. After doing so, monsters that are banished and in the graveyard cannot activate their effects if it starts a chain. This effect allows you to shut down a lot of decks that rely on the graveyard, including Invoked Shaddoll Dogmatika, Edlich, and so on. For a complete shutdown of the graveyard, you can even add this card to a Gravekeeper deck that uses Necrovalley, which also heavily limits the graveyard.
9. Mistake
Mistake is another card on this list that severely hinders your opponent’s ability to pull off their combos. While Mistake is face-up on the field, neither player can add cards to their hands from the deck, apart from the draw phase. Mistake is a hard counter to many meta decks such as Virtual World, Fire Fist, and much more, since they all rely on adding cards to their hands to flood the field. Currently, a really good deck to play this card in is Rokket, since it doesn’t rely on adding monsters to the hand. Instead Rokket decks usually send monsters to the graveyard to special summon more monsters.
8. There Can Be Only One
“There Can Only Be One” is a really similar card to Rivalry of the Warlords from earlier on this list, but just works a little differently. After the activation of “There Can Be Only One”, each player is only allowed to control 1 monster of each type – and must send the others to the graveyard. A cool trick is to use this card alongside Rivalry of the Warlords so that your opponent can only control 1 monster, but that makes it a little hard for you to play as well. The best decks to use this card in are Ghostrick and Lightsworn, since they contain cards of many different types.
7. Spirit Barrier
The next card on this list, Spirit Barrier, is an excellent continuous trap that helps to keep you alive during a duel. If you have a monster on the field, Spirit Barrier prevents you from taking any battle damage. In other words, while this card is on the field, all battle damage you take must be from direct attacks. If you’ve ever wanted to get rid of your monster to activate its effect when it’s destroyed by battle, and don’t want to take any of the battle damage, well Spirit Barrier is here to help. With this active, it allows you to attack stronger monsters without any fear of hurting your Life Points.
6. Skill Drain
Skill Drain is the first limited card on this list. So if it’s good enough to become limited, then it’s most likely good enough to be in your deck. You can activate Skill Drain after paying 1000 life points, which allows you to negate the effects of all face-up monsters on the field. If you want to play this in any deck, an ideal time to activate it would be at the start of your opponent’s turn – to prevent them from doing anything. Otherwise, Skill Drain can work really well in decks like Dark World that activate most of their effects from the graveyard.
5. Scrubbed Raid
As long as Scrubbed Raid is on the field, then technically it’s impossible for you to lose the duel from taking an attack. Every battle phase, you can activate Scrubbed Raid, which lets you send a card you control to the graveyard and end the battle phase. A technical rule you should know when using this card is that it’s a spell speed 2 card, which means you can chain it after activating a trap. For example, you can activate a card like Ice Dragon’s Prison to banish an opponent’s monster, then you immediately activate Scrubbed Raid and send Ice Dragon’s Prison to the graveyard. Since they’re the same spell speed, the effect of Ice Dragon’s Prison isn’t negated, and you essentially end the battle phase for free.
4. Imperial Iron Wall
Fun fact: Imperial Iron Wall has the third shortest card text in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, since it only has 5 words. While active on the field, Imperial Iron Wall prevents both players from banishing cards. Imperial Iron Wall is a really nice card to have in your side deck in case your opponent plays cards that banish all your cards, or rely on cards to be banished. For instance, every now and then you’ll face a Gren Maju player and be thrown off since it’s not really a popular strategy. However, Imperial Iron Wall basically makes a Gren Maju deck harmless. But you can also use Imperial Iron Wall against popular traps like Ice Dragon’s Prison.
3. Ordeal of a Traveller
Unless you’re playing the luckiest person alive, Ordeal of a Traveller quickly becomes a nightmare for any player. Every time a monster declares an attack, the monster’s owner must pick a random card from the other player’s hand and guess what type that card is (monster, spell, or trap). If they guess the type wrong, then the monster is returned to the hand. If you have three card types in your hand, there’s a 66.7% chance of your opponent’s attack failing. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to keep some traps in your hand if you’re using this card. The only real downside is that you need to reveal the card that your opponent is guessing in order to verify the type.
2. Anti-Spell Fragrance
Anti-Spell Fragrance is a surprisingly powerful trap that not many people play. It forces each player to set down spells and wait a turn before using them. This card completely shuts down a lot of decks that rely on spells, such as most Fusion decks, HERO decks, and Fluffals. If you’re a Blackwing player and want to deal another crushing blow to your opponent, you can activate Delta Crow – Anti Reverse to destroy all their spells. However, if you play a lot of spells, this card is a little difficult to deal with. So it might be a good idea to destroy it on your turn using a card like Knightmare Phoenix.
1. Macro Cosmos
Macro Cosmos has the potential to make you invincible in a duel, so this is definitely a card to look out for. The main effect of Macro Cosmos that most people are looking to use is pretty great: Any card sent to the graveyard is banished instead. This is really powerful for two reasons. First, you can use this to your advantage by preventing your opponent from activating any effects related to the graveyard, since all cards are banished. This works particularly well against decks like Dragons and Invoked Shaddoll Dogmatika (some of the current strongest decks in the meta as of this writing). And second, you can use this card to gain an absurd amount of life points by also activating Soul Absorption. Now cards like Dark Hole can instantly get you up to 3000 additional life points.
