Any time one card lets you search your Deck and add another to your hand, it’s worth paying attention to. The most successful strategies in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG are usually the most consistent, and the ones that offer the most choice. Those two factors let you adapt to your opponent’s moves so you can outplay them; searching your deck for the right card at the right time makes it way easier to win.

Today we introduce a new World Premiere card making its global debut in Dimension of Chaos, a quirky new search Trap that’s not tied to any one theme. Painful Escape brings more precision to some of the biggest Decks going, and lends search power to a few old-school decks to help you get cards that were almost impossible to search otherwise.

Painful Escape’s a Normal Trap card that lets you Tribute 1 monster to add a monster with the same original Type, Attribute, and Level, but a different name, from your Deck or Graveyard to your hand. You can play it anywhere you run monsters with matching Types, Attributes, and Levels, but it’s best if you can soften the impact of the Tribute by nabbing free cards along the way. That means any deck that Special Summons Token Monsters, or that scores free cards with monster effects, or that runs Pendulum Monsters, can all cheat the cost of Painful Escape’s activation.

Right off the bat, it’s an awesome fit for the new Majespecter theme from Dimension of Chaos. The Majespecters offer two pairs of matched monsters: Majespecter Crow and Majespecter Fox are Level 4’s that search a “Majespecter” Spell Card or Trap Card from your Deck respectively, when you Normal or Special Summon them. Majespecter Raccoon and Majespecter Cat are Level 3’s that search “Majespecter” monsters. All four are Wind Spellcasters, and they’re all Pendulum Monsters too.

That means you can Summon Crow to search a Spell Card, then Tribute it off with Painful Escape to get Fox, netting a Trap when you Summon it. When you Tribute Crow it goes to your Extra Deck, so instead of you losing it to your Graveyard you get to Pendulum Summon it back later. The combo also works in reverse, using Fox to search a Trap Card and then Tributing it off to fetch Crow instead, and the same trick applies to Raccoon and Cat.

Using Painful Escape to swap out one of your Majespecters on the Chain, or in response to an attack, can keep your strategy moving forward. Once you build your Pendulum Scale you can Special Summon the monsters you’re searching too. It’s a great addition that can take Majespecters to the next level.

So what else is Painful Escape good for? One of the coolest things about it is that you don’t just search your Deck; you can activate Escape to recycle a monster from your Graveyard, too. That means you can play it in Burning Abyss for even more search power, getting to the Malebranches you need even faster. But you can also use it to get back Barbar, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss to abuse its burn effect, much like how you could use Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss, or The Traveler and the Burning Abyss.

But you know what none of those cards can recycle? Tour Guide from the Underworld. Lots of Malebranches offer valuable effects when you Tribute them, so you can use one, get back Tour Guide, and launch another play with it.

Satellarknights are all Level 4 LIGHT Warriors, too, so Painful Escape becomes an alternative searcher, sort of like Satellarknight Skybridge. Again, the difference is that Escape lets you reuse a Satellarknight from your Graveyard – invaluable when you’re out of Satellarknight Altairs in your Deck. It helps you load your Graveyard for Altair plays in the early game, too.

It’s even pretty good with Performage Juggler and Performage Trick Clown, letting you pitch Juggler and searching Trick Clown, freeing you up to banish Juggler from your Graveyard to get another Performage with its ability. Dimension of Chaos introduces two new “Igknight” monsters too, Igknight Cavalier and Igknight Veteran at Levels 5 and 6, matching Igknight Margrave and Igknight Gallant from Clash of Rebellions. That’s four monster pairs for Painful Escape, all of them Pendulums that you can Special Summon back to the field later.

Want to speed up your Inzektor deck, yarding and searching Inzektor Hornet and assembling your OTK’s? Playing Counter Fairies, and looking for Honest or Bountiful Artemis? Want to trade your Mecha Phantom Beast Tokens for Mecha Phantom Beast Hamstrats? Painful Escape makes it happen. Watch for it at the Dimension of Chaos Sneak Peek this weekend.