ACSCR: Number 192: Spiders' Lair

Spiders. One of the most feared Animals in our world and therefore a primary Candidate to star in Movies, Games and other Forms of Media. Most People will remember Quelaag from Dark Souls, the Spider Level from Nioh or Arachne from Soul Eater. But I think, virtually no one remembers the Spider Series from Yu-Gi-Oh. And this has a particularly good reason.

Spiders are beloved, when they are also  beautiful, naked Ladys. The Yu-Gi-Oh "Spiders" should take notes.

The Spider series was played by Roman Goodwin, the leader of the Dark Signers and yet another Villain of 5Ds. Why have all Villains in 5Ds so shitty Cards? Ok, not all are terrible, which we will see later, but most of them are. And the “Spider” series is one of them. It revolves around turning the opponents monsters in Defense Position, implying, that they are caught in a siders web and cannot move anymore. This is a cool Lore implication, but an inherently bad strategy, because there is no initial gain from driving your opponent’s monsters to Defense Position, apart from Stalling or killing them somewhat easier if they have low Defense. Granted, some of the Spiders have okay effects that gain advantage of your opponent having defense position monsters on the field, even if they are fairly slow. The Best one is probably “Mother Spider”, which is basically a “Kaiju” that summons itself to your Field, by sending two of your Opponents Defense Position monsters to the graveyard.

Sadly she is not a sexy mother.

The only downside is, that you can have only Insect Monsters in your Graveyard, which badly hurts the Consistency and Versatility of the Deck. Still, “Mother Spider” has one of the best Removal Effects in the Game and can highly profit from your opponent’s Defense Position monsters. There is also “Spyder Spider”, which recovers an Insect Monster from the Graveyard when destroying a Monster in Defense Position. And even “Relinquished Spider” can be a Board Wipe, even if it requires a whole Lot of Set-Up and is slow as hell.

So, there are some okay things you can do to your opponent if their monsters are in Defense Position. But how do you change their position in the first place? Well, they have a few options, but one card you definitely wouldn’t wanna play is “Spiders’ Liar”. This card lets you, once per Turn, target an Insect Type monster you control. If this monster battles an opponent’s monster, that monster is switched to Defense Position at the Ende of the Battle Phase and cannot change its Position while “Spider’s Lair” is on the Field.

The Artwork is very scary, but the card is tame as a kitten.

So, this card is awfully bad. First, it forces a specific monster of yours to Battle and likely be killed, only to switch the opponent’s monster to Defense and absolutely nothing else. Yeah, it cannot change back, which is okay, but other than that, it is so slow, specific and weak, that it’s effect didn’t matters in the slightest. Your opponent would simply not attack that monster and get rid of it by other ways or get rid of “Spider’s Lair” itself. And what makes this card even worse is, that Spiders have a better card, that makes “Spider’s Lair” obsolete in comparison.

The Artwork is lamer, but the card is so much better.

“Spiders Web” is an Field Spell, and already better by this fact alone, that turns every monster that attacks, yours and your opponents, in Defense Position and does so directly after the Damage Step, so your opponent has no time to activate an Effect or use his monster for some other things, to prevent this from Happening, apart from negating it of Course. So, this effect is much better as “Spiders Lair”, because it affects every monster that Attacks and is not restricted to a single monster, so that your opponents has no choice as to trigger the effect of the card. Yeah, the effect only lasts till the End Phase of the players next turn, but this is enough to get rid of the Opponents Cards in some Way or use some of your good effects. This Card is still not good, because it requires your opponent to attack, but it can be a good Stall Option, a good way to trigger your monsters effects and is Leagues better than “Spiders Lair”. And, as previously said, it is a Field Spell, so it is easier to search out, too. And when it is on field, “Spiders Lair” becomes useless, because it does the Same thing, but much worse and less effective.

So, when you want to play a “Spider” Deck (And I really do not know why you would), play “Spider Web” and don’t even think about playing “Spider’s Lair”. This Lair is as dangerous as a Pool of Snails.