Assert dominance by summoning Lyla and passing

This will be a short blogpost as an ode to one of my favourite plays in modern day Edison: summon Lyla pass.

When I picked up Edison again recently, everyone was playing a very grindy game, and 3 Rykos were the norm. Nowadays, it feels like everyone (at least on DB) has been pushing for faster decks, able to put up pressure very quickly. I think the reason for that is that there has been a Dragon Turbo surge recently, and probably people had to adapt their decks to avoid losing on turn 2.

This is not a bad thing, mind you. Rather, it's fascinating seeing how quickly the meta changes in a game which is not receiving any new cards, rules, or banlists of sort. But for this reason, seeing a Ryko recently, or God forbid, a Super-Nimble Mega Hamster feels somewhat nostalgic.

I've been recently playing a deck very reliant on milling, and I was playing your usual package of 1 Card Trooper, 3 Ryko, 1 Lyla, 1 Charge of the Light Brigade and 0-3 Solar Recharge. Charge+Trooper is of course the ideal milling play on turn 1: you mill 3 from Charge and pick up whoever, probably Lyla to address backrow without having to wait a turn, and then play Trooper to mill an additional 3 cards.

However, what do you do when Trooper is not an option on turn 1? The standard Edison play would have been to set Ryko to avoid going negative if destroyed by battle, but this means that you are giving the opponent an opportunity to interact with your mill, and if your deck is dependent on those mills you are risking a one-turn setback, and in this fast-paced meta being set back by one turn, especially if your deck isn't super fast, can be lethal.

On the other hand, summoning Lyla guarantees 3 mills on turn 1 and threatens a backrow pop on next turn and additional 3 mills if she survives. This is very threatening for the opponent, and will influence their turn as they will be forced to try to address Lyla.

This starts a minigame around protecting and killing Lyla in the early turns, which you can win by playing enough traps (depending on the deck, Dimensional Prison, Book of Moon, Raigeki Break, or Phoenix Wing Wind Blast are the major contenders). That said, you don't even need traps often. 1700 ATK is nothing to scoff at, although there are tons of HERO decks around recently with their 1800 ATK Stratos and 1900 ATK Alius, so the no-traps gameplan has been a little less effective recently.

As such, lately my milling package has gone to 1 Trooper, 3 Lyla, 1-3 Ryko, 1 Charge, 0-3 Solar Recharge, alongside the inclusion of some defensive traps, and I'm super happy with the results. This is a much more forward gameplan than the passive set Ryko and pass, and it really is rewarded in milling-dependent decks.

Looking forward to apply this to more decks!