You’ve got cards like Solemn Judgement that can negate pretty much anything and everything you want to do, or cards like Evenly Matched that can destroy your entire board in one fell swoop. If you want to stay ahead of the game, you’ll need some cards in your deck that can counter (and hopefully destroy) these traps. These cards can stop your opponent from disrupting your moves, paving the way to victory. So which anti-trap cards should you be running?
13. A-Team: Trap Disposal Unit
While a 300-attack monster may not seem like a great choice for a deck, this card’s effect more than makes up for it. During either turn, you can tribute this card to negate an opponent’s trap. This is great for stopping so many different plays. For example, your opponent is more likely to play disruptive traps like Solemn Judgement on your turn, while you’re busy doing stuff. On the other hand, your opponent is more likely to play constructive traps (i.e. traps that benefit them) like Call of the Haunted on their turn. A-team: Trap Disposal Unit can stop both types, making this card a seriously handy tool in your arsenal.
12. Dark Bribe
Here’s a great response to any pesky traps (or spells) that need negating and destroying. While it does let your opponent draw an additional card, this may be worth it depending on what you’re negating. If you use Dark Bribe against some of their most powerful traps, then that additional card is barely going to cover all that value they’ve lost. But at the right time this can be pretty helpful.
11. Trap Jammer
A lot of powerful traps come up during the battle phase. For example, take the most iconic trap cards in Yu-Gi-Oh: Magic Cylinder and Mirror Force. Both of these traps activate when your opponent declares an attack, which Trap Jammer can put a stop to before they mess you up. Trap Jammer will also destroy the trap in question, meaning that as long as your opponent isn’t running multiple copies, you won’t have to worry about it for the rest of the game.
10. Counter Counter
This sounds like a kind of niche trap, but it definitely has its uses. Counter Counter negates and destroys any Counter trap card. A lot of the powerful negate cards in Yu-Gi-Oh are counter traps. You only need to look at this list to see that! Well this card is a great tech in case your opponent is running a heavily negating deck. This could be some kind of burn deck where your opponent really needs to stall you, or perhaps an Exodia deck. Either way, Counter Counter is a great side deck option in case your plays just keep getting stopped.
9. Mirage Dragon
Mirage Dragon is a starter deck classic, as it’s a great way of giving new players trap negation. While Mirage Dragon is on the field, your opponent can’t activate traps during the battle phase. This completely protects you from cards like Magic Cylinder, leaving you free to attack your opponent without fear. And as a level 4 monster with 1600 attack, this card is easy to summon. Plus with a fairly high attack stat, it shouldn’t be leaving the board any time too soon.
8. Face-Off
The battle phase is a complex thing in Yu-Gi-Oh. While it’d be nice and simple if it went battle phase -> main phase 2 -> end phase, this isn’t the case. The damage step is a specific part of the battle phase, and is the step where the damage dealt by battle is actually done. Some of the most powerful cards in Yu-Gi-Oh trigger at this exact step. Reason being that most effects can’t be activated during the damage step, and so the ones that can have a huge advantage! Face-Off puts a stop to this, negating any traps, spells, or monster effects that happen during the damage step of an attack. This is an amazingly useful counter card, and great for stopping a whole range of things.
7. Champion’s Vigilance
The conditions to activate this card sound a bit too specific. But for certain decks, this card is borderline broken! While you control a level 7 or higher normal monster, you can negate any summon, spell, or trap. Champion’s Vigilance works fantastically in Red-Eyes decks, Dark Magician decks, and Blue-Eyes decks, all of which mostly center around a level 7 or higher normal monster. The fact that this negation also costs you nothing is mind boggling. This is practically a Solemn Judgement that you don’t have to pay for.
6. Solemn Judgement
When you think of negation effects in Yu-Gi-Oh, you think of this OG card. Solemn Judgement is the swiss army knife of negating. It really does it all! At the cost of half of your life points, you can negate any summon, spell, or trap. The fact that it costs half your LP means that no matter how low your life points get, you can always play this card. Which is good if you’re running low. And Solemn Judgement also destroys the activated card, meaning you won’t have to worry about it coming back any time soon.
5. Wiretap
Wiretap lets you negate any trap card for free, then shuffle it back into the deck. While this won’t destroy your opponent’s trap, they’ll have to wait to draw it all over again. And this could take many turns, meaning if you can attack quickly, that trap is as good as gone. There are very few cards in Yu-Gi-Oh that let you negate something like this for free, making Wiretap a great staple in any deck that needs extra protection.
4. Red Reboot
Here’s a very unique card, in that it’s a trap card that also acts as a hand trap. You don’t see those every day. Red Reboot lets you negate any trap card, at the cost of your opponent keeping that trap card and being allowed to set another trap directly from the deck. This is especially useful in Modern Yu-Gi-Oh, where traps are becoming less common. It may be that your opponent only runs 1 trap card, which makes Red Reboot a free negate. You can also combine this with cards like Harpie’s Feather Duster to know exactly what it is you’re destroying before you do. As if this wasn’t good enough, you can also activate this card directly from your hand for the cost of half your life points. Your opponent will never see it coming, making this a seriously powerful piece of negation.
3. Jinzo
I think we all know how this one works by now. While Jinzo is on the field, all trap effects are completely negated. This means that not only can your opponent activate traps (I mean, they can, but they’ll do nothing). But also, all face-up continuous traps will be negated too. This is fantastic for getting around continuous trap cards like Gravity Bind that can prevent you from attacking, while also negating all other traps in the process. Pretty solid. And sitting at 2400 attack for a one tribute monster, Jinzo truly is one of the best answers to annoying traps. There’s even some support cards for this guy.
2. Trap Stun
Trap Stun avoids the drawback of cards like Jinzo, which prevent you from activating your own traps. So this is great if you’ve just had a really good turn, and you want to make sure your field stays exactly as it is. All you need to do is play Trap Stun right at the start of your opponent’s turn. They’ll be locked out of trap cards until their end phase! You can also use this when you want to attack your opponent. Activate Trap Stun at the start of the battle phase, and your opponent won’t be able to stop your attacks with cards like Mirror Force. Just make sure that for any traps you do want to activate this turn, you activate them in your main phase 1. Don’t wanna accidentally lock yourself out here.
1. Royal Decree
If you’re looking for cards that negate traps, Royal Decree is easily your best option. It negates all trap effects aside from itself, as long as it stays on the field. This means you won’t have to worry about any traps affecting your plays. This negating effect lasts insanely long. As long as it takes for your opponent to draw a card that can destroy Royal Decree! This gives you a whole bunch of time to build up your board without fear of being negated. While you won’t be able to activate your own traps while this card is up, that cost is well worth all the turns of negation you’ll get from it.
