Post by King Klass on Apr 23, 2009 9:51:57 GMT -5
Welcome Forum Lovers to another instalment of the newly refurbished Kings Kourt *(Formally Knownn as D-slayers Dimension* Where death destruction and chaos reign supreme.
Today’s article takes us back to my Meet the Legends Article series I have decided to resurrect for old times sake. Now today’s feature character is none other than everybody’s sparkling talented duellist who many consider Jaden’s alter ego – Mr Jesse Anderson or as the OCG folks call him JOHAN! Jesse is very similar to Jaden. He talks to monster spirits, he's got a monster spirit following him, and he kind of likes the same hairdo. The only difference is, Jesse has got gem beasts cards, as he got them from winning a contest. He's basically Jaden but with different cards and a different accent (a northern accent). Jesse plays with a crystal beast deck.
Now lets us take a brief stroll down memory lane. Jesse plays with a Rainbow deck, composed of legendary Crystal monsters based on seven precious gemstones collected from around the globe for the construction of a lithograph as evidence of Julius Caesar's reign during the time of the Roman Empire. On its return trip, the ship carrying the stones was battered by a storm, and the treasures disappeared into the depths of the ocean. Employing this concept, Pegasus specially designed and created the Crystal Beasts, which have the unique ability to retreat in a crystallized (Continuous Spell) form to their controller's Spell/Trap Zones when destroyed as means of avoiding complete annihilation.
Due to the exclusivity of the cards, Chazz Princeton's family once attempted to purchase them using all its assets, but Pegasus instead awarded them to Jesse at the end of a regional (European in the Japanese version) tournament. When Jesse calls forth one of his beasts, they start out like the gem than break into that beast. Later under Yubel's influence, Jesse uses Advanced Crystal Beasts. The deck uses the field spell Advanced Dark to negate battle damage while discarding Crystal Beasts to the Graveyard in order to quickly summon Rainbow Dark Dragon. He also has another deck that features the Sacred Beasts and related support to make their summoning easier, with Yubel as his ace card. However Jaden was able to save Jesse from the darkness and free him of Yubel’s Grasp on him.
He comes back in the fourth season to Domino city, where he has a duel with Jaden with the form of Mr. T, as the last one had got control of the city and Jaden had his eyes covered with darkness. After this resolves, both Jaden and Jesse go back to the Academy, which was being attacked and controlled by Fujiwara. After witnessing Fujiwara defeating his old friend Atticus, both join forces against him in a three-way duel. Aside from Counter Cards, Jesse's deck does not contain any other specific resources aimed towards directly destroying the cards of his opponents. He feels that a strategy of merely destroying his opponent's cards through effects is not fun; he wants to learn new strategies by facing them.
Now that you have a brief idea about our start character duellist in the limelight let us go about constructing a deck for him in this day and age of chaotic metagame and what not.
Now a few choices to get the ball rolling would be some copies of Threatening Roar, once you've got the various spell balances just right, and you've not fallen into most of the traps that beset new players. However, many players tend to have a monster line-up that is conflicted and all over the place. Despite what is often claimed, Crystal Beasts don't work that well with Synchros. When you're playing them, you have to be very focused and set up as fast as you can. That means filling your back row with CBs. Synchro Summoning detracts from that. Now a couple of important point to know if you are to play crystal beasts and the most common question new and sometimes old players ask is, if a crystal beast in the s/t card zone is destroyed is it still counted as a beast when it hits the graveyard? The answer to that is you choose whether or not to use the "Crystal Beast" effect at the time the destroyed monster would be sent to the Graveyard.
The deck I'm about to show you is basically your deck with an amended monster line-up and a couple of subtle spell changes and a few new twists. Here's the list:
Now that is one weird looking deck so let’s take a look at a few card choices I have made. The touch of necessary anti-meta and beat down flavour is back. And yes, that is a copy of Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest. Notice how all of your Crystal Beasts are, surprisingly, Beasts? Let one go to the graveyard when destroyed and you get to unleash a 2600-attack insane monkey rather than add another Beast to your back row. Decent trade-off? Pitch it to the 'yard with Foolish Burial or Lightning Vortex, or drop it from your hand to retain the element of surprise. It's versatile, and powerful, and a beat stick in a deck with few.
1. Destiny Hero - Dasher might seem an odd pick, but it's actually got some striking synergies. The multitude of discard effects help it - Lightning Vortex and Foolish Burial work with it as well as Baboon, and it counters a problem Crystal Beasts have struggled with since their release - speed. Unless you pull off a good opening combo like Pegasus/Promise, you're going to struggle to get enough Crystal Beasts to your back row early to make an impact before you're put out of the game. Dasher helps that a lot, allowing you to get two Crystal Beasts onto the field every in a turn instead of one. That makes for faster filling of the back row and more pressure on the opponent to commit removal. It's also a way of Special Summoning Ruby Carbuncle - that's a devastating play, even with only one or two Crystal Beasts in the s/t zone.
2. Thunder king Rai-Oh is a beat stick, a good opening and provides a nice anti-meta element that can, again, force the opponent to commit resources. That makes the final Carbuncle OTK much more likely to succeed. Rare Value is a great card, and a free Pot of Greed is nice, but drawing cards is overrated in Crystal Beasts. Ever had a hand full of monsters due to Rainbow Ruins that you just couldn't use? Drawing is only good to set up the OTK combo, and Rare Value actively slows that win. There are turbo-oriented cards that were clamouring for space, and it had to be dropped.
3. Now some of you bright sparks might have noticed the absence of Crystal Abundance from this deck compared to your average crystal beast deck you see in many other places both in real life and on line. There may be a lot of benefits to your deck but personally I wouldn’t use it. Firstly, you lose all of your Crystal Beasts to pay the cost even if it is negated by Solemn Judgment. Secondly, if you have the requisite four Crystal Beasts, why not just play Promise, Beacon, Dasher or gain a fifth and use the corresponding effect of Rainbow Ruins on Carbuncle. That way, you keep your Ruins intact, your swarm is triggered by several cards that are almost always useful instead of one card that has one use and will never be used more than once in one game, if it ever is - and the chances of having exactly four Crystal Beasts without being able to easily win using some other method are extremely slim.
3. Now you might day yeah good reason but vortex doesn’t do anything in today’s day and age against monsters like Stardust dragon and other similar monsters. But in my view Lightning Vortex is a fantastic card here. It pitches dead cards in the hand, loads Baboon and Dasher and clears the way for Crystal Beast swarms. Stardust really, really isn't a problem - your opponent will rarely summon it because when they do it's likely to get hosed by Baboon or Crystal Release on any of nine monsters. That's if, of course, you don't have a Rai-Oh out in the first place.
4. Topaz + Release, maybe? Lightning Vortex? A pumped Dasher? Or you could have pre-empted the situation with Rai-Oh. Seriously, you have loads of outs and you don't need Synchros. All Synchros do in this deck is making the opposing removal cards that furthered your game plan by filling your back row useful again.
5. I've extensively tested Crystal Beasts, and, in this variant, Kuraz well it does more harm than good. You need to fill up your back row if you want to win, but Kuraz and Rare Value put a huge drain on that resource and you'll struggle to get enough for the win.
6. I'm not saying drawing doesn't help you. Drawing at the expense of your back row development, however, is effectively shooting you in the foot. Sure, you might (if you're lucky) have eight cards in hand, but how are you going to win having exhausted your opening Pegasus if you even drew one? Tele-DAD or Lightsworn will swoop in at this point and tear you to pieces.
7. By all means side Jinzo. However, it's not very useful against Lightsworn, Zombies or most Tele-DAD builds, so it's better-off staying in the side rather than, once more, lowering the numbers of Crystal Beasts that actually end up in s/t form without substantially helping you win the game.
8. Now some of you might not like dasher primarily because it doesn't seem really beneficial, especially not more than Kuraz. Dasher is awesome. It allows you to put pressure on the opponent and speed up the rate at which Crystal Beasts are loaded, also mitigating the potential dead draws of Baboon, other Dashers and Ruby Carbuncle - that's particularly awesome, allowing you a free Special Summon of all the Crystal Beasts in your back row. See above a bit for my reason on why not to use Kuraz in here.
9. Enemy Controller could be a good card here. The main decked copies of Crystal Release and Threatening Roar should be enough to help you win in battle and fend off attacks respectively, but a couple or even three in the side would help out against Gladiator Beasts, particularly aggressive opponents or, due to its utility, any rogue match up in which it would be useful (there are too many to name).
I hope you find this advice useful and well, there you have it! A Turbo Crystal Beast deck, in all of its reasonably-paced glory!
Hope it helps – Have fun and good Luck
K-Klass
Today’s article takes us back to my Meet the Legends Article series I have decided to resurrect for old times sake. Now today’s feature character is none other than everybody’s sparkling talented duellist who many consider Jaden’s alter ego – Mr Jesse Anderson or as the OCG folks call him JOHAN! Jesse is very similar to Jaden. He talks to monster spirits, he's got a monster spirit following him, and he kind of likes the same hairdo. The only difference is, Jesse has got gem beasts cards, as he got them from winning a contest. He's basically Jaden but with different cards and a different accent (a northern accent). Jesse plays with a crystal beast deck.
Now lets us take a brief stroll down memory lane. Jesse plays with a Rainbow deck, composed of legendary Crystal monsters based on seven precious gemstones collected from around the globe for the construction of a lithograph as evidence of Julius Caesar's reign during the time of the Roman Empire. On its return trip, the ship carrying the stones was battered by a storm, and the treasures disappeared into the depths of the ocean. Employing this concept, Pegasus specially designed and created the Crystal Beasts, which have the unique ability to retreat in a crystallized (Continuous Spell) form to their controller's Spell/Trap Zones when destroyed as means of avoiding complete annihilation.
Due to the exclusivity of the cards, Chazz Princeton's family once attempted to purchase them using all its assets, but Pegasus instead awarded them to Jesse at the end of a regional (European in the Japanese version) tournament. When Jesse calls forth one of his beasts, they start out like the gem than break into that beast. Later under Yubel's influence, Jesse uses Advanced Crystal Beasts. The deck uses the field spell Advanced Dark to negate battle damage while discarding Crystal Beasts to the Graveyard in order to quickly summon Rainbow Dark Dragon. He also has another deck that features the Sacred Beasts and related support to make their summoning easier, with Yubel as his ace card. However Jaden was able to save Jesse from the darkness and free him of Yubel’s Grasp on him.
He comes back in the fourth season to Domino city, where he has a duel with Jaden with the form of Mr. T, as the last one had got control of the city and Jaden had his eyes covered with darkness. After this resolves, both Jaden and Jesse go back to the Academy, which was being attacked and controlled by Fujiwara. After witnessing Fujiwara defeating his old friend Atticus, both join forces against him in a three-way duel. Aside from Counter Cards, Jesse's deck does not contain any other specific resources aimed towards directly destroying the cards of his opponents. He feels that a strategy of merely destroying his opponent's cards through effects is not fun; he wants to learn new strategies by facing them.
Now that you have a brief idea about our start character duellist in the limelight let us go about constructing a deck for him in this day and age of chaotic metagame and what not.
Now a few choices to get the ball rolling would be some copies of Threatening Roar, once you've got the various spell balances just right, and you've not fallen into most of the traps that beset new players. However, many players tend to have a monster line-up that is conflicted and all over the place. Despite what is often claimed, Crystal Beasts don't work that well with Synchros. When you're playing them, you have to be very focused and set up as fast as you can. That means filling your back row with CBs. Synchro Summoning detracts from that. Now a couple of important point to know if you are to play crystal beasts and the most common question new and sometimes old players ask is, if a crystal beast in the s/t card zone is destroyed is it still counted as a beast when it hits the graveyard? The answer to that is you choose whether or not to use the "Crystal Beast" effect at the time the destroyed monster would be sent to the Graveyard.
The deck I'm about to show you is basically your deck with an amended monster line-up and a couple of subtle spell changes and a few new twists. Here's the list:
Monsters: 18
3 Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus
3 Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger
3 Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth
3 Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle
3 Destiny Hero Dasher
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
1 Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest
Spells: 20
3 Crystal Beacon
3 Crystal Promise
1 Crystal Blessing
3 Crystal Release
1 Monster Reborn
3 Lightning Vortex
2 Foolish Burial
1 Card Destruction
3 Ancient City - Rainbow Ruins
Traps: 3
3 Threatening Roar
3 Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus
3 Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger
3 Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth
3 Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle
3 Destiny Hero Dasher
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
1 Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest
Spells: 20
3 Crystal Beacon
3 Crystal Promise
1 Crystal Blessing
3 Crystal Release
1 Monster Reborn
3 Lightning Vortex
2 Foolish Burial
1 Card Destruction
3 Ancient City - Rainbow Ruins
Traps: 3
3 Threatening Roar
Now that is one weird looking deck so let’s take a look at a few card choices I have made. The touch of necessary anti-meta and beat down flavour is back. And yes, that is a copy of Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest. Notice how all of your Crystal Beasts are, surprisingly, Beasts? Let one go to the graveyard when destroyed and you get to unleash a 2600-attack insane monkey rather than add another Beast to your back row. Decent trade-off? Pitch it to the 'yard with Foolish Burial or Lightning Vortex, or drop it from your hand to retain the element of surprise. It's versatile, and powerful, and a beat stick in a deck with few.
1. Destiny Hero - Dasher might seem an odd pick, but it's actually got some striking synergies. The multitude of discard effects help it - Lightning Vortex and Foolish Burial work with it as well as Baboon, and it counters a problem Crystal Beasts have struggled with since their release - speed. Unless you pull off a good opening combo like Pegasus/Promise, you're going to struggle to get enough Crystal Beasts to your back row early to make an impact before you're put out of the game. Dasher helps that a lot, allowing you to get two Crystal Beasts onto the field every in a turn instead of one. That makes for faster filling of the back row and more pressure on the opponent to commit removal. It's also a way of Special Summoning Ruby Carbuncle - that's a devastating play, even with only one or two Crystal Beasts in the s/t zone.
2. Thunder king Rai-Oh is a beat stick, a good opening and provides a nice anti-meta element that can, again, force the opponent to commit resources. That makes the final Carbuncle OTK much more likely to succeed. Rare Value is a great card, and a free Pot of Greed is nice, but drawing cards is overrated in Crystal Beasts. Ever had a hand full of monsters due to Rainbow Ruins that you just couldn't use? Drawing is only good to set up the OTK combo, and Rare Value actively slows that win. There are turbo-oriented cards that were clamouring for space, and it had to be dropped.
3. Now some of you bright sparks might have noticed the absence of Crystal Abundance from this deck compared to your average crystal beast deck you see in many other places both in real life and on line. There may be a lot of benefits to your deck but personally I wouldn’t use it. Firstly, you lose all of your Crystal Beasts to pay the cost even if it is negated by Solemn Judgment. Secondly, if you have the requisite four Crystal Beasts, why not just play Promise, Beacon, Dasher or gain a fifth and use the corresponding effect of Rainbow Ruins on Carbuncle. That way, you keep your Ruins intact, your swarm is triggered by several cards that are almost always useful instead of one card that has one use and will never be used more than once in one game, if it ever is - and the chances of having exactly four Crystal Beasts without being able to easily win using some other method are extremely slim.
3. Now you might day yeah good reason but vortex doesn’t do anything in today’s day and age against monsters like Stardust dragon and other similar monsters. But in my view Lightning Vortex is a fantastic card here. It pitches dead cards in the hand, loads Baboon and Dasher and clears the way for Crystal Beast swarms. Stardust really, really isn't a problem - your opponent will rarely summon it because when they do it's likely to get hosed by Baboon or Crystal Release on any of nine monsters. That's if, of course, you don't have a Rai-Oh out in the first place.
4. Topaz + Release, maybe? Lightning Vortex? A pumped Dasher? Or you could have pre-empted the situation with Rai-Oh. Seriously, you have loads of outs and you don't need Synchros. All Synchros do in this deck is making the opposing removal cards that furthered your game plan by filling your back row useful again.
5. I've extensively tested Crystal Beasts, and, in this variant, Kuraz well it does more harm than good. You need to fill up your back row if you want to win, but Kuraz and Rare Value put a huge drain on that resource and you'll struggle to get enough for the win.
6. I'm not saying drawing doesn't help you. Drawing at the expense of your back row development, however, is effectively shooting you in the foot. Sure, you might (if you're lucky) have eight cards in hand, but how are you going to win having exhausted your opening Pegasus if you even drew one? Tele-DAD or Lightsworn will swoop in at this point and tear you to pieces.
7. By all means side Jinzo. However, it's not very useful against Lightsworn, Zombies or most Tele-DAD builds, so it's better-off staying in the side rather than, once more, lowering the numbers of Crystal Beasts that actually end up in s/t form without substantially helping you win the game.
8. Now some of you might not like dasher primarily because it doesn't seem really beneficial, especially not more than Kuraz. Dasher is awesome. It allows you to put pressure on the opponent and speed up the rate at which Crystal Beasts are loaded, also mitigating the potential dead draws of Baboon, other Dashers and Ruby Carbuncle - that's particularly awesome, allowing you a free Special Summon of all the Crystal Beasts in your back row. See above a bit for my reason on why not to use Kuraz in here.
9. Enemy Controller could be a good card here. The main decked copies of Crystal Release and Threatening Roar should be enough to help you win in battle and fend off attacks respectively, but a couple or even three in the side would help out against Gladiator Beasts, particularly aggressive opponents or, due to its utility, any rogue match up in which it would be useful (there are too many to name).
I hope you find this advice useful and well, there you have it! A Turbo Crystal Beast deck, in all of its reasonably-paced glory!
Hope it helps – Have fun and good Luck
K-Klass