New cards are always unknown quantities when coming into competitive events like a YCS, so let’s take a look at the cards in the latest Structure Deck Lair of Darkness!

We’re already seeing a bunch of Decks centered around the monsters in Lair of Darkness, starting with Lilith, Lady of Lament.  Her effect lets the player reveal 3 Normal Traps in the Deck, and the opponent randomly picks one to Set to your field while the other 2 go back to your Deck.  Some players using Lilith, Lady of Lament are also using 3 copies of Evenly Matched, effectively removing the random element from the effect and instantly adding a powerful Trap to the field.

Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair can be Special Summoned from the hand or Graveyard if a DARK monster you control is Tributed.  It also can’t be Tributed by your opponent, effectively countering opponent’s Kaiju plays.

Ahrima, the Wicked Warden has a monster effect that adds the Field Spell Lair of Darkness, a centerpiece of the strategy, or you could Summon Ahrima to use its effect to either draw a card or add a DARK monster with 2000 or less DEF from the Deck to your hand.  Either effect is excellent towards finding the card you need to build a field or take your opponent’s apart!

Duke Shade, the Sinister Shadow Lord starts at 500 ATK but can Tribute DARK monsters to Special Summon itself from the hand and gain 500 ATK for each monster Tributed for its effect.

And all of these monsters are tied together by the new Field Spell Lair of Darkness!  All monsters on the field become DARK, and once per turn, if you were to Tribute a monster to activate a card or effect, you can Tribute an opponent’s DARK monster as if you controlled it!  This effect acts as removal and progressing your own strategy along, getting the best of both offense and defense!

And, in addition to the new cards Lair of Darkness also includes reprints of popular cards like Allure of Darkness, Tour Guide From the Underworld and almost all of the Virus Trap cards, including the newest Virus Trap Card Grinning Grave Virus!  This new Trap forces your opponent to destroy cards based on how many ATK points the monster you Tributed had, but if you Tributed a monster with 2000 or more ATK, you also get the traditional “Virus” condition of looking at all of your opponent’s draws for the next 3 turns and destroying the cards if they meet a certain condition.  In this case, the condition is simply “be a monster.”  While cards like Deck Devastation Virus and Crush Card Virus only hit monsters that fall within a certain range of ATK, Grinning Grave Virus hits every monster!

The vendors on site sold out of Lair of Darkness yesterday, so we’re sure to see a bunch of these cards here in competition today!