Monday 15 August 2011

Deck Profile: Stitch's Crystal Beasts

Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus

Yes, I know I was meant to do his Fabled deck, but this stood out a bit more for me. CBs have always been an archetype due to the odd way that they play. Their monsters technically float, but in exchange they lose access to back row. This is would be a hindrance, but the deck has access to some very powerful supporting spells in exchange.

Here's his build:

Monsters [14]
[3] Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth
[2] Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle
[3] Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus
[3] Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger
[3] Thunder King Rai-Oh

Spells [22]
[3] Ancient City – Rainbow Ruins
[2] Crystal Abundance
[2] Crystal Beacon
[3] Crystal Blessing
[2] Crystal Promise
[3] Crystal Release
[1] Crystal Tree
[3] Rare Value
[1] Terraforming
[1] Dark Hole
[1] Monster Reborn

Traps [4]
[3] Horn of the Phantom Beast
[1] Torrential Tribute

First of all, I'd like to give him a cookie for staying away from the Rainbow Dragon/Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder builds. Not using Rainbow Dragon gives a lot of flexibility with the monster line up, and not using Hamon is a given. After all, it would still be a -3 for a leech on your resources.

So this is where I pull out my NDS and test the build. Sure, WC11 doesn't have Exceeds, but it should play fine without.

I'm very impressed with its performance. If it's not netting advantage due to Pegasus spam, it's netting advantage from Abundance. It plays better than I initially expected it to, though there were a few things I'd like to discuss about his build.

Firstly, lack of Summoner Monk. I don't know if this is intentional or not, but it looks like it would be at home in this deck. Discard one of your dead spells, summon Pegasus from deck and get a CB in your S/T zone. Then you're free to Exceed away into Steelswarm Roach or Gem-Knight Pearl or who knows what else. I would probably drop a TKRO or a CB Ruby Carbuncle for one.

Next up is Rai-Oh. TKRO is an amazing card right now, however, I think King Tiger Wanghu would be more supported in here. KTW is Horn supported and almost none of the monsters in deck are affected by it. It's a great card in the Plant matchup and a lot of other marchups too. It keeps Tuners, Tokens and other small monsters off the field.

Crystal Release and Horn of the Phantom Beast in the same build seemed a bit odd at first. Surprisingly, it works quite well. Six in total might me a bit overkill though.

I noticed this deck has a few problems with Dimensional Prison. Maining Reborn Tengu may solve this problem. It's compatible with Horn, doesn't fill your back row, sponges D Prison and makes summoning Exceeds a lot easier. A single mained BoM could also help.

Crystal Abundance is sooo good. The current game state permits people to put as many cards into play as they are able to, something that could be considered "overextending". Abundance milks advantage off of this and can be a game ender depending on the size of the opponent's hand. Immunity to Stardust Dragon is nice too. It's a shame that AC-RR gets lost in the process, but you should have a second one in hand by the time you use Abundance.

I only tested a few matchups, but I am impressed by this build. Cookie for you, Stitch. Hopefully my suggestions are valid and will help to improve this build. If anybody else wants me to analyze their deck, just link it to me in the comments section.

~Valafar123

2 comments:

  1. Woo I feel good lol! ^^ first time ever even thinking about crystal beasts. XD

    Wow didn't even think about summoner monk. Nice pointers. Ill test the changes and let you know how it worked for me. ^^ thanks!

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  2. Funny thing, I wrote this a few days ago:

    http://yugiohoi.blogspot.com/2011/08/crystal-beast-with-exceed-monsters.html

    I forgot about horn of the phantom beast, I'm gonna test it right now.

    Also you should try blasting fuse, is like a icarus attack in crystal beast.

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