The new Crystal Beast cards from Force of the Breaker have been in a constant state of hype since they first were revealed, but I have yet to see anyone make a conscious effort to move beyond the hype and start discussing the Crystal Beasts as a viable competitive option for after June 1st. Right now, it seems to me that the most attention anyone is paying to the Crystal Beasts is taking notice of the huge secondary market value of Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus, but anyone tempted to sell may want to reconsider, because that card is the foundation for one of the fastest non-combo decks the game has seen in ages. Sapphire Pegasus provides the groundwork for a massive amount of deck-thinning, while also hitting for 1800 a turn and setting up for a big finish at the end thanks to Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle. The foundation of any good Crystal Beast build will start with three Sapphire Pegasus cards and then move on to the ultra rare normal spell card Rare Value . . . just like when you start building a Destiny Hero deck, you start out with Elemental Hero Stratos, three copies of Destiny Hero - Malicious, and three copies of Destiny Draw. After that, you have a lot of freedom in designing the rest of your Crystal Beast deck. I can think of about three different ways you could do it just off the top of my head. For one, you could play it as a highly aggressive beatdown deck with a lot of deck thinning, high damage attackers, and swarm tactics. Alternatively, you could go with a more combo-based build, attempting to fill your spell and trap zones as quickly as possible to activate all the effects of Ancient City - Rainbow Ruins. Finally, you could build a deck around loading your spell and trap zones with Crystal Beasts to use for a Crystal Abundance win. Since the cards are so new, however, I think the simplest approach is going to be the best one to start out with. So let’s smash some face!
Monsters: 18
3 Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus
3 Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger
3 Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth
1 Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle
3 Card Trooper
2 Cyber Dragon
3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
Spells: 14
3 Rare Value
3 Crystal Blessing
3 Crystal Promise
2 Crystal Beacon
2 Smashing Ground
1 Snatch Steal
Traps: 9
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
3 Crystal Raigeki
3 Pulling the Rug
The Crystal Beast monsters change the way we think about monsters. With Crystal Beasts, your monsters are much more than meets the eye, turning opposing removal cards into positive effects for you faster than Dr. Vowler can say, “Shape up, you SLACKER!” Each time a Crystal Beast would be destroyed in its monster form, you can place it in your spell and trap zone as a continuous spell instead of sending it to the graveyard! Normally, clogging up your zones with cards that don’t do anything is a bad idea, but the Crystal Beast support cards rely on having their crystallized comrades in your back row in order to work. Rare Value is the one that everyone immediately took note of due to its incredible resemblance to the powerful Destiny Draw spell card. In fact, some people were even thinking of just splashing Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude into their Crystal Beast decks in order to try and make use of the excellent normal spells they have available to them. This isn’t such a good idea though: while it does bypass the requirement of having specific numbers of Crystal Beasts in your spell and trap zones, most of the effects go on to make use of those Crystal Beasts, making Diamond Dude far less useful here.
There are ten Crystal Beasts in the deck, and it’s important to see as many of them as possible in some way, shape, or form. To that end, the requisite three copies of Sapphire Pegasus are in the deck in order to fetch other Crystal Beasts for your spell and trap zones. In particular, it’s really great to search for Ruby Carbuncle out of your deck so that you don’t draw it. In addition, you have three copies of Card Trooper to back up your Pegasi and deliver more beats while dropping cards into your graveyard that you’ll later be able to retrieve with Crystal Blessing. A full set of Crystal Promise cards ensures that even if you only draw one copy of Sapphire Pegasus, you’ll be able to keep on using that one card to fetch more Crystal Beasts from your deck while putting out a constant stream of offense that will wear down your opponent. Eventually, you’ll want to use either Crystal Beacon or Crystal Promise to special summon Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle, and by extension, every other Crystal Beast you’ve stockpiled thus far.
Even better, it’s very easy to clear out your opponent’s defenses while you’re stockpiling your monsters for the main event. The super-popular Raiza the Storm Monarch is downright mean, and this deck is packing three copies to make sure that your opponent is stuck drawing the same card over and over again while desperately trying to thwart your plans. Unfortunately for him or her, it’s rather difficult to thwart a deck that thrives on having its monsters blown away by removal cards. In that way, the Crystal Beasts play a lot like a deck based on Return from the Different Dimension, except that it’s much easier to win with the Crystal Beasts than it is to win with Return. For one thing, a sneaky Call of the Haunted or Jinzo isn’t going to do a thing to stop you from winning when you unleash your swarm. Second, there are no life point requirements on any of your cards, so you can unleash your swarms at any point in the duel. Did you manage to get most of your slots filled by turn 3? Go ahead and try to win. It’s not going to cost you anything—even if your opponent does have Torrential Tribute or Mirror Force—and you have plenty of opportunities to try again due to the fact that when he or she blew up your Crystal Beasts with a trap card, you simply moved them back to your spell and trap zone!
It’s also unlikely that you’re going to be stymied by a Spirit Reaper or Gravekeeper’s Spy, due to the fact that the Crystal Beast deck has automatic access to one of the most versatile removal cards in the game, Crystal Raigeki. Remember how people stopped playing Raigeki Break when Sinister Serpent hit the Forbidden list because they had to spend cards on it? Well, with Crystal Raigeki, the cost is essentially nil. Think about why your Crystal Beast made it to your spell and trap zone in the first place. It either got there because you put it there with a free effect like Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus, you put it there because your opponent blew it up with a spell or trap, or you put it there along with a friend with Crystal Blessing. In all those cases, it’s like you’re paying nothing at all in order to destroy any card your opponent controls and set yourself up for further recursive madness should the game continue on. It’s enough to cause cards like Mystical Space Typhoon and Sakuretsu Armor to be cut from the deck in favor of better theme-based support: something that many players have looked forward to for a long time.
Furthermore, this is one of the few decks where Heavy Storm is not something to throw in just because it’s so darn powerful. Just like in a burn deck, you need your continuous spells and traps in order to do your thing. I would probably side deck Heavy Storm in case you do come up against burn, but I definitely would not include it in the main deck. There are also a lot of people claiming that you should definitely play Giant Trunade in this deck in order to “generate massive advantage.” If by “generate massive advantage,” they actually mean “shoot your own strategy in the foot,” then they would be correct. Trunade deactivates all your Crystal Beast support cards and puts all the Crystal Beasts themselves into your hand where they become bound by the one summon per turn rule and can’t be very easily destroyed by opposing card effects.
As a final note, I’d once again like to draw attention to the three main-decked copies of Pulling the Rug. Right now, main-decked Pulling the Rug is probably the biggest favor you can do yourself if you intend to perform well against the field for 10 rounds straight and move on into the playoffs on Day 2. You simply must have a way to hinder Demise OTK in your main deck, and doing it with a card that also shuts down the Monarch variants is a great way to get the job done.
Shonen Jump Championship Minneapolis, with the Premier Event debut of the Crystal Beasts, is on its way, and next week there will be a special School of Duel primer on how to prepare for events that will take place in an unknown metagame. Until then, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
Jerome McHale
jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu
NEXT WEEK: Oh, Zeradias. I love the way you fetch my field card.