Trinity is much, much slower than the TCG and OCG. This is mostly due to the Summon Limit: In Trinity, neither player can Summon more than 3 Effect monsters each turn. This slows down the format, and makes it so OTK/FTK combos are much more difficult to pull off. However, this certainly doesn't remove the combo potential from the format. This article is just an introduction to all of the crazy things that you're capable of doing in Trinity!Haven't heard of Trinity before? You can find an introduction to the format here!
Combo Cards
The Trinity Forbidden List is pretty different to the TCG/OCG one. Due to the Summon Limit and the Card Limit, many combo pieces which are banned in the TCG/OCG are legal in Trinity - And remarkably, are often seen as "fairer" cards: After all, they're not seen in First-Turn-Kill combo decks! Here's a list of the major combo cards which are currently Forbidden in the TCG, but Unlimited in Trinity:
- Blackwing - Gofu the Vague Shadow
- Dandylion
- Cyber-Stein
- Level Eater
- Makyura the Destructor
- Elder Entity Norden
- Ancient Fairy Dragon
- Lavalval Chain
- Tellarknight Ptolemaeus
- Zoodiac Broadbull
- Card of Safe Return
- Last Will
- Metamorphosis
- Spellbook of Judgment
- Supreme King Dragon Starving Venom
- Ultimate Offering
Hold onto your Dandylions and Blackwing - Gofu the Vague Shadows, because they're still pretty good in Trinity. In fact, all of the combo cards on this list have seen a fair amount of play in the format - Yet none of them have damaged the format! This article covers all of the above cards, and how they're used in Trinity. There are lots of other cool combo cards which are legal in Trinity - Such as Magical Scientist or Denglong, First of the Yang Zing, but I haven't included them here; they're still restricted in the format. If you're interested in the Trinity Magical Scientist combo decks, you can read up on that here.
Generic Combo Cards
This section covers all of the combo cards which you can use in pretty much any deck. Since all of these cards are unlimited, there's not much of an opportunity cost when teching them into things!
Blackwing - Gofu the Vague Shadow
Blackwing - Gofu the Vague Shadow is a card which doesn't need much introduction. You probably recognize it through all of the crazy shenanigans it's been capable of doing in the TCG. What's most noteworthy about Gofu is its token spawning ability. Tokens aren't effect monsters, meaning that they don't count towards the Summon Limit! This means that, after summoning gofu, you've still got 2 more Summons free. Most commonly, the card is used to Link Summon a Gaia Saber, the Lightning Shadow. Gaia Saber is great for beating over the opponent's monsters - 2600 atk from one card is pretty solid in Trinity.
However, there are more many more applications for gofu out there. To start with, the release of FLOD has given us "Knightmare" monsters. We can use one of the Gofu tokens to make a Linkuriboh. Then, use the other two monsters to Link Summon either Knightmare Phoenix or Knightmare Cerberus. This lets us pop an opponent's card and get a draw! Since the Knightmares are co-linked to the Linnkuriboh, they're also granted protection effects. It's even still possible to extend this combo with a Gaia Saber, the Lightning Shadow! Since he doesn't count towards the Summon Limit (being a non-effect monster), we can simply use our Knightmare and Linkuriboh to Link Summon him!
Elder Entity Norden / Instant Fusion / Metamorphosis
Oh, Noden. The TCG combo madness of Elder Entity Norden caused it to become Forbidden there, but you'll fine it to be much more restrained in Trinity. The most bread-and butter play is to Instant Fusion out Noden, and revive a level 4 monster for a rank 4 XYZ. If you're playing Tuner Monsters, such as Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit, you can also make Synchros with him! You might find yourself with a lot of Extra Deck space, and nothing to do with it. In that case, i'd advise you to fit 1 Instant Fusion into the maindeck, as well as any generic rank 4 XYZ monsters. Evilswarm Exciton Knight is always a good call, as well as something like Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer. If you're playing Ghost Ogre, a spicy Black Rose Dragon in the extra deck can be a good call!
Some players also opt to play Invoked Raidjin or Thousand-Eyes Restrict as additional Instant Fusion targets. it's entirely up to you, and very dependent on how much room you have in the Extra Deck. What's important to remember with Invoked Raidjin is his interaction with Instant Fusion: If you flip him face-down, he doesn't get destroyed in the End Phase! You can also summon Elder Entity Norden with the unlimited Metamorphosis! Doing so requires you to Normal Set a monster before using the Metamorphosis - otherwise you'll hit the Summon Limit before making your rank 4 XYZ monster.
Lavalval Chain
This guy's been Forbidden for quite a while in the TCG. Lavalval Chain got banned there partially as a result of the Djinn Releaser of Rituals Lock, but has been an integral combo card for a very long time. You might remember it from being a critical component of Infernity loops. In Trinity, it serves a very different purpose. Due to the Summon Limit, you're not going to make this guy as a combo starter: It's just not feasible to make with less than 2 summons. However, that doesn't stop it from seeing play in the format!
My favorite card to mill with Lavalval Chain is Tri-Blaze Accelerator Reload. Volcanic is a really solid deck in Trinity; Both Volcanic Shell and Volcanic Scattershot are Unbound, meaning that you can play 3 of each without having to have a larger maindeck size! Being able to make a Rank 4 therefore gives you access to a Raigeki and 1500 burn as a quick effect on the opponent's turn! Since you've just blown up the opponent's board, they might not be able to attack over the chain as a result. This lets you use Lavalval Chain's effect again on your next turn. Maybe you mill a Volcanic Shell to start the value engine going. You can even stack a win-condition to the top of the deck!
Many other Rank 4 decks have experimented with Lavalval Chain to mill or stack their crucial components. Trinity is a Highlander format, meaning that you'll have a lot of options to go for. Minervasworn often uses Lavalval Chain to mill Fairy Tail - Snow, which is undeniably one of the strongest cards in the deck. Snow can even protect Chain by setting an opponent's attacking monster!
Tellarknight Ptolemaeus
This one is quite interesting. Tellarknight Ptolemaeus wasn't legal for too long in the TCG, nor the OCG. Typically, it was used to XYZ Summon Cyber Dragon Infinity by using only 3 level 4 monsters. That combo is pretty straightforward: Detach 3, make Cyber Dragon Nova, slap Cyber Dragon Infinity on top. However, this is quite difficult to accomplish in Trinity Format. Since this Xyz Combo uses all 3 of your Effect Monster Summons, you'll need to Pendulum Summon 3 level 4 vanillas on the first turn in order to do it. If you're playing a Pendulum deck, a much better option is to do the Qliphort Combo (Show in this article). Despite that, Ptolemaeus can actually make Infinity with only 2 materials - If you're patient enough!
The combo here is to go as follows: Make a 2-Material Ptolemaeus, then go to the End Phase. Attach a "Tellarknight" monster (Usually Stellarknight Delteros), and pass the turn to your opponent. They usually can't out the Tellarknight Ptolemaeus by battle, as it has 2600 DEF. If they try to target it, chain the effect to make Constellar Pleiades! They might try to use something like a Dark Hole, in which case you can make Cyber Dragon Nova, and then you can use Nova's Effect to Summon a Panzer Dragon. When your opponent can't out it, they'll pass the turn back to you. Then, you can just use the effect of Tellarknight Ptolemaeus to make Cyber Dragon Nova and then Cyber Dragon infinity! You don't need to play all of the gizmos in the Extra Deck - But it makes your Ptolemaeus play very safe, regardless.
Last Will
Last Will is perhaps my favorite card in the game. It's got really weird rulings associated with it, which everyone still debates since not even Konami really knows what they wanted this card to do. It's also probably in the top 5 most broken cards ever. Despite all of that, it's a Unlimited in Trinity! For the uninitiated, here's how the card works:
- There is no restriction to activating the card. Even if a monster hasn't been sent to your Graveyard, you can activate the card.
- After it resolves, nothing happens; You don't get to Summon a monster from your deck yet.
- Once this turn, if a monster on your field has been sent to your GY, you can Special Summon a monster with 1500 or less ATK from your deck.
- You can do this in any phase, and at any time. End Phase? Sure, you can resolve it. Battle Phase? As long as it's not the Damage Step, you can apply the effect.
- You can't apply the effect if a chain is going on.
- You can activate the card before or after a monster has been sent to the GY. It doesn't matter.
In a mostly singleton format, search cards are exceptionally important. Last Will can search everything that Sangan does, but with almost no restrictions! You can use the effect of the monster you search, Last Will doesn't use up your normal Summon, and the monster gets Summoned to the field! Triggering Will is easy - Either crash your own monster into an opponent's, or use it for Link Material. You can even tribute it for a Tribute Summon or effect. Last Will is less of a "Combo card", and more of a "Consistency card" - Yet due to its nature as a searcher, it's still a combo piece contender!
Specific Combo Cards
Although all of the above can be played in any deck, the following combo cards require you to play either a certain engine, or to have a specific gameplan in mind. Again, all of these cards are unlimited.
Cyber-Stein
Stein, Stein, Stein. Cyber-Stein legal in the OCG, where you'll most likely summon The Last Warrior from Another Planet or Naturia Exterio. This can end games quickly, as using spell/traps and summoning monsters is surprisingly quite commonplace. However, both the Warrior and Exterio are Forbidden in Trinity - making Stein have considerably fewer targets. I've seen Stein OTK in Trinity before - It's really fun to play and to play against, as it summons the craziest old-school OTK monsters in the game, such as Cyber End Dragon to equip with Megamorph. Despite this, the deck isn't particularly competitive.
This is a pretty fun Stein-OTK deck worth trying out!
Zoodiac Broadbull
Zoo! You either loved the TCG Zoo format, or hated it. Zoodiac Drident is Forbidden in both the TCG and Trinity, but Zoodiac Broadbull is alive and kicking, even if his art does reveal his hernia. Zoodiac Ratpier is also Unbound in Trinity, meaning that you can play 3 Ratpier in a 30-card deck. Ratpier combos aren't very common due to the summon limit, but his mill effect is still very relevant!
One of the most consistent combos in Trinity is the "2800 ATK Banishing Piercer combo", which is seen quite a lot. You can start the combo with any of Zoodiac Barrage, Fire Formation - Tenki, Zoodiac Ratpier, or Zoodiac Thoroughblade. Summon any of these guys, and if it was a Ratpier, mill Thoroughblade. Then, make a Zoodiac Tigermortar. Her effect should detach the Rat to reattach Thoroughblade. Slap a Zoodiac Broadbull on top, and use his effect to search a Zoodiac Whiptail. Once you attach the Whip, you've got yourself a 2800 ATK monster which banishing anything it touches and Pierces! pretty good for just a single Normal Summon.
Zoo can also make use of the Unlimited True King Lithosagym, the Disaster. Any "Zoodiac" Monster can make Zoodiac Broadbull, who then searches any other Zoo of your choice. That's an immediate 2 EARTH monsters for Lithosagym - It also only uses 2 Summons! Finally, Zoodiac Broadbull can be used as a searcher for any Beast-Warrior Monster than you like. Playing Bujins? Throw in some Zoos for the 2800 ATK Banish/Piercer Combo, as well as a way to search Bujin Yamato!
Card of Safe Return
This is another perfect example of a card which is disgustingly broken in the TCG, but balanced in Trinity. Although it doesn't see too much play, Card of Safe Return is pretty potent. With the release of Super Team Buddy Force Unite!, the amount of revival traps in the format has almost doubled: By using Buddy Force alongside Call of the Haunted, Oasis of Dragon Souls, Powerful Rebirth, and Premature Burial & company, you're able to consistently draw into more revival traps, or useful card advantage. This can prove to be especially strong when reviving a Satellarknight Altair or Fusion Summoned Elder Entity Norden, who can then summon another monster from the graveyard - Netting you a second draw!
That's just one way to trigger Card of Safe return - but there are plenty more. Things like Performage Trick Clown and Heroic Challenger - Thousand Blades are recurable from the graveyard, and the Dragon Rulers are all legal in Trinity! A rank 4 build playing Nefarious Archfiend Eater of Nefariousness and Fairy Tail - Snow could also prove to be a competent deck.
Spellbook of Judgment
Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence? Who cares, when Spellbook of Judgment is the epitome of Card Advantage! Pretty much all of the other cards on this list are balanced in Trinity due to the Summon Limit. However, Judgment is a Spell Card which interacts almost entirely with other Spell cards - none of which summon themselves. In fact, Judgment is balanced instead by the other major rule of Trinity: The Card Limit. Since you're usually only playing 1 of each "Spellbook" card in your deck, Judgment burns itself quite quickly. Don't expect to resolve it more than once in a game unless you have a Jar of Avarice set.
Despite this, the card can be pretty absurd at times. The release of "Brandish/Sky Striker" monsters has turned Spellbooks into a real deck, since Spellbook of Judgment counts all of your activated spell cards - not just "Spellbook" ones! An example of such a deck can be found here. When playing this deck, you should remember to capitalize on not only the Spellbook-searching part of Spellbook of Judgment, but also the Summon effect! Dropping a Jowgen the Spiritualist in your End Phase can create a huge nuisance for the opponent - Given that you have some form of Protection!
Supreme King Dragon Starving Venom
Recently Forbidden on the TCG banlist, Supreme King Dragon Starving Venom was a facilitator of the notorious Pendulum FTK deck. Both the Summon Limit and Card Limit make this combo completely non-viable in Trinity. Despite that, it's still seen play in a lot of Pendulum Decks - For example, Punkrocklee's 2nd place April 2018 Metalfoes decklist. In this sort of deck, you generally use Supreme King Dragon Starving Venom as a beatstick which is easy to summon.
Ultimate Offering
You may not have had the chance to use Ultimate Offering in the TCG, since it's been Forbidden since 2013. If you did use it, it was most likely in a Gadget deck. Typically, you're going to use Ultimate Offering to summon a monster which searches itself - In the Gadget deck, the gadget effects are practically converted into "When this card is Summoned: Special Summon 8 Gadgets from your deck". Obviously, this creates a lot of degeneracy in the TCG, where there's no Summon Limit. Don't even get me started on the possibility of Link Shenanigans with Ultimate Offering!
However, Trinity does have a Summon Limit. Even so, you might find Ultimate Offering to be the strongest card on this list. For a start, you can "cheat" the Summon Limit with it by Summoning monsters on the opponent's turn. If you summon a Monster with Ultimate Offering in the opponent's End Step of the Battle Phase, they don't get to attack the monster! The opponent still has the possibility if Main Phase 2 removal - or just chaining Mystical Space Typhoon, but Ultimate Offering is still a useful tech for decks which use a lot of Normal Summons. Here are some cards which have some strong synergy with Ultimate Offering:
HERO
Elemental HERO Stratos can search another copy of itself, which can then search another HERO or blow up a piece of Backrow. Vision HERO Vyon acts in a similar way, being able to mill Elemental HERO Shadow Mist to search, and then summon what you just searched. Finally, searching an Elemental HERO Honest Neos in the Battle Phase can be critical for preventing a big damage swing.
Spirits
Aratama can search any Spirit, such as Amano-Iwato to block the opponent's Main Phase 2. You can even use it to summon Tsukuyomi or Hebo, Lord of the River to disrupt the opponent's plays! This was seen in SRN347's Graydle-Spirit control deck from March 2018. In fact, since spirits bounce in the end phase, you can net twice as many searches from Aratama this way.
Monarchs
Monarchs already have a dedicated Ultimate Offering: Escalation of the Monarchs. However, you should note that duplicate cards are very useful in singleton formats. having a second copy of a powerful cards lets you build more around it, and Ultimate Offering is no exception. Have you ever lost a monster in your own Battle Phase to The Monarchs Stormforth + Escalation? Now you can have it happen twice as often! You can even use Ultimate Offering to Tribute Summon a mini monarch, and then use it again to Tribute Summon a Mega Monarch!
Fairy Tails
Fairy Tail - Luna and Fairy Tail - Snow are some of the strongest cards in Trinity. You can use them in combination with Ultimate Offering to make them even stronger! Luna searches Snow, in the same manner than HERO monsters and Spirits search themselves. On top of this, you can also use their effects to flip a monster face-down with Snow, and bounce anything without the opponent with Luna! Since you're doing this in the Battle Phase, you opponent can't even out the Fairy Tail - Luna "Lock" with Spell Speed 1 effects.
Generic Combos
If you've got a combo which interacts with the Summon Limit - such as a Magical Scientist combo - you can use Ultimate Offering to reduce the amount of Summons on your turn. All of the combos in the Magical Scientist Combo Article rely on you only having 2 summons left, since the first is the Scientist being Normal Summoned. If you can get an additional summon, the amount of plays you can accomplish increase exponentially!
In closing
Trinity certainly isn't the format for 20-minute long combos or synchro laddering. If you want to play a deck like that, you're definitely going to want to build it in the TCG. Despite this, there's a huge number of cards out there which are banned in the TCG but legal & fair in Trinity! If you ever want to try out an older banned combo card in a modern metagame, Trinity's got you covered.
Until next time- Stay Groovy!
