Forum:Deck Guide/Crystal Beasts

From Yugipedia
< Forum:Deck Guide
Revision as of 05:29, 5 May 2023 by Gadjiltron (talk | contribs) (→‎Subsequent Monsters)
Jump to: navigation, search

by Gadjiltron

Intro

In the third season of GX, we were introduced to a rather interesting character, Jesse Anderson, and his unique Crystal Beasts archetype. In addition to these monsters having voice acting of their own, their special attributes made them highly notable, even before the arrival of Rainbow Dragon. By Force of the Breaker, players now get to wield the Crystal Beasts' unique abilities, too!

Mechanics

There's a common thing for Crystal Beasts - when they would be destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, they could enter the S/T Zone instead. When placed there, they are treated as Continuous Spells. (This process shall be known through the guide as "crystallization") Though they do nothing in there (except for one), this is crucial to some of their strategies, as the many card effects associated with them benefit off this. This also circumvents effects that say "destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard" to trigger.

Note that there are several ways your opponent can circumvent your Crystal Beasts getting into the S/T Zones. For one, they need to be face-up and have their effects un-negated when destroyed before they get said option. This means your opponent can destroy them with effects while face-down or negate their effects to disable crystallization. Don't worry if they do get attacked while face-down - they will be flipped up for Damage Calculation, so after the attack they still get an opportunity to crystallize. Also, if they were to be both destroyed and banished at the same time (like through Bottomless Trap Hole), they cannot enter the S/T Zone (Fortunately they still have this option if Macro Cosmos or Dimensional Fissure is active.)

For those who seek to put a Crystal Beast Deck together, you can acquire the essential cards from Structure Deck: Legend of the Crystals. Three copies gives you a playset of all the important cards and comes with some staples to boot!

Analysis

Strengths

  • Incredible S/T library - Any other Deck wishes it had this much strong S/T support as Crystal Beasts do!

Weaknesses

  • Obsolete monster lineup - To compensate for their incredible S/T support, they are saddled with a line of monsters that are mostly unplayable, and Konami has been super reluctant to add any more due to lore reasons. We do get the Advanced Crystal Beasts much later on, buuuuut...
  • Field Spell reliance - Advanced Crystal Beasts cannot play without Advanced Dark. They have ways to defend and search it, but when the field is gone they all crumble.

The Basics

Crystal Beast Lineup

Let's start with the basics. Can't do anything without any monsters!

  • Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus - The core starter of the Deck. On Summon, crystallize any Crystal Beast from hand/Deck/GY. Decent 1800/1200 stats. Max it out, no questions.
  • Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle - Second-in-command for the Crystal Beasts. On Special Summon, you Special Summon all your Crystal Beasts from your backrow, setting up for sick Extra Deck plays. 300/300 stats leave it pretty fragile. Run 1-2 depending on deck space.
  • Crystal Beast Cobalt Eagle - 1400/800 stats are pretty mediocre, and its effect puts a Crystal Beast card on the top of your Deck. It's a pretty bad effect, but it's played mainly because it's another WIND monster to access certain Extra Deck monsters like Lightning Chidori. Run up to 1.
  • Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth - 1700/1600 stats are very beefy, but it has an outdated battle-redirection effect. You're more likely to know it for the dub choosing to make it speak in Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Beast Emerald Tortoise - 600/2000 makes it a tanky boy in Defense Position, but its effect helps put your Crystal Beasts into Defense after they're done attacking to protect your LP, which is very mediocre even at the time of debut. Funny thing is that because he's an Aqua monster he saw play in Tearlaments Decks of all things, due to a very potent field spell searcher. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger - 1600/1000 is just alright, and when it's attacking it grows to 2000 ATK. Back in the day it could beat over most other monsters, but now it's just obsolete. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat - It's a wimpy 1200/600 and can attack directly for half damage. Was interesting for sneaking past locking effects, but terribly obsolete. Run 0-1.
  • Ultimate Crystal Rainbow Dragon - The original boss monster for Crystal Beasts can only be Special Summoned by having seven different Crystal Beasts with different names on your field or GY combined. At 4000 ATK it can pack a punch, and while it has two effects they're not usable the turn it's Summoned. The first Quick Effect sends all your Crystal Beast monsters on the field to the GY to gain 1000 ATK for each, which is nice for funny big numbers but not very good. The second effect, an Ignition Effect, can banish all your Crystal Beast monsters from your GY to shuffle everything on the field into the Deck, even itself... but you lose a lot of resources this way and won't be in a good position to recover often. Rainbow Dragon was very frequently not worth running all seven Crystal Beasts, but only came back to relevance as it became a conduit for accessing the stronger boss monsters and even using the other better support cards. Run 1 tops since it's a garnet but you have to have at least one to use some of the better effects.
  • Ultimate Crystal Rainbow Dark Dragon - Because this was printed way before the Advanced Crystal Beasts, it's made a generic DARK boss monster. You Summon it by banishing seven different DARK monsters from your GY, and by banishing every other DARK monster from your field or GY it gains 500 ATK for each. It's even worse than OG Rainbow Dragon! Don't run it.

Subsequent Monsters

  • Crystal Beast Rainbow Dragon - After years of being stuck on seven, we finally get an eighth Crystal Beast and it's very strong. 3000 ATK gives the Deck the muscle it needs to go places, and when an attack involving a Crystal Beast is declared it can Special Summon itself for a surprise push or a mid-Battle Phase showstopper. It's also the only Crystal Beast that does something in the backrow - you can banish it from your backrow to Special Summon a Crystal Beast from your Deck and then search for a Rainbow Dragon. It's definitely your go-to crystallization target for Pegasus. Run 2-3.
  • SECE added two Pendulum Monsters to supplement the archetype, but unfortunately they're obsoleted due to the Master Rule changes which force your Pendulum Scales to occupy the backrow, clogging up valuable space for your crystals.
    • Crystal Master - Scale 5 LV3 Pendulum Monster, with under-par 1300/1000 stats. Not like you'd be using it in combat. As a Pendulum, it gives a very, very helpful defense by making all your Crystal Beast cards and Rainbow Dragon monsters untargetable. As a monster, you can Tribute it to tutor any Crystal Beast, Rainbow Dragon, or Crystal support S/T, pretty much letting you tutor nigh-on anything of use. However, we have a Spell that does what he does without consuming your Normal Summon.
    • Crystal Defender - Scale 2 LV4 Pendulum Monster, with decent 1500/1800 stats. Combo'd with the above card, the 5-2 range lets you Pendulum Summon all range of Crystal Beast monsters, along with them. Sets off Carbuncle, too! As a Pendulum, it gives your Crystal Beast cards and Rainbow Dragon monsters protection from destruction by card effects once per turn, giving them much-appreciated staying power against kill-happy Decks. As a monster, you can Tribute it from your hand or field to double the stats of a Crystal Beast monster when it battles, though it gets destroyed at the end of the Damage Step. Not like you'd be worrying - since it's a free chance to crystallize while making an offensive push through a particularly tough monster. If you do run it, treat it like a battle handtrap rather than trying to use it as Scale.
  • Ultimate Crystal Rainbow Overdragon - An alternate Fusion boss monster that you can either by Fusion Summoning or by sacrificing one of the other Ultimate Crystal monsters. Two effects, which are stronger than the original Rainbow Dragon's. First lets you banish a Crystal Beast from your GY to get a temporary ATK boost, again for funny big number business. The second effect is only accessible if you took the long route to Summon this card, either through Ultimate Crystal Magic, Dragon's Mirror, Polymerization, and you get a full field shuffle without losing other resources. It's cute stuff, but you have to jump through one too many hoops to get to it. Run 0-1 based on what you want to do with it.
  • Ultimate Crystal Rainbow Dragon Overdrive - The biggest of daddies in the Rainbow Dragon lineup, made by banishing an Ultimate Crystal and 7 Crystal Beast monsters from your field and/or GY, after you've already Special Summoned another Ultimate Crystal monster. With seven different banished Crystal Beast names this card goes up to a monstrous 11000 ATK, and as a Quick Effect, if this card hasn't battled, you can Tribute it to shuffle the field and Special Summon as many banished Crystal Beasts as you want. Talk about overkill! There's a combo to basically turbo this card out and it's fun to execute but isn't the most popular build by far. Run 0-1 based on if you're actually going Double Rainbow Turbo all the way what does it mean.

Advanced Crystal Beasts

Battles of Legend: Crystal Revenge adapts the Advanced Crystal Beasts after being anime-locked for so long. Originally, they were just DARK recolors of the base seven and that won't fly in this day and age, so when they're adapted to the TCG, they're given better effects. Though a lot of their effects only supplant other Advanced Crystal Beasts, they're still legal targets for your original Crystal Beast support.

  • Advanced Dark - Central Field Spell to the sub-archetype. Without it, you can't play. Turns all your Crystal Beasts DARK for the purpose of setting up Rainbow Dark Dragon (which we should never bother with), and when your Ultimate Crystal monsters battle, the attack target's effects are negated to neutralize any battle protection or floating effect. If you would take damage from a battle with a Crystal Beast, you can mill a Crystal Beast to not take the damage (but your monster is still crystallized). All in all, three mediocre effects on a Field Spell, but you must run 3 if you even want to use the sub-archetype.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus - Original Sapphire Pegasus was strong enough, and there's very little room to advance from it. Advanced Sapphire Pegasus lets you crystallize an Advanced Crystal Beast on Summon, from hand/Deck/GY/banished. Very simple, very strong. Run 3.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Cobalt Eagle - Advanced Cobalt Eagle becomes second-in-command because Konami stapled a discard-to-search-Field effect onto it. Its on-field effect is a little better, letting you put an Advanced Crystal Beast from field to hand or Deck, your choice. The fact that it searches the Field makes it a compulsory 3-of.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Ruby Carbuncle - Advanced Ruby Carbuncle doesn't have its swarm ability tied to a Special Summon trigger from anywhere, so be careful about pulling it out from the Deck or GY. Instead, if it's in the backrow, it can Special Summon itself then Special Summon Advanced Crystal Beasts from your backrow. It's a definite crystallization target and a magnet for all forms of S/T removal. Run 1-2.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth - Advanced Amber Mammoth no longer redirects attacks but instead straight-up negates them. It even protects from targeting effects by negating anything that targets an Advanced Dark or Advanced Crystal Beast as a soft once-per-turn. Use it to add layers of protection to the Field Spell that keeps the whole thing together. Run 1-2.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger - Advanced Topaz Tiger makes its stat boost passive and extends it to all your Beasts, and also applies a stat penalty to the opponent's monsters. These stack, by the way, and with two copies you can beat over nearly anything. It's the focus of a very silly beatdown build, too. Run 1-3.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat - Advanced Amethyst Cat extends her direct-attack ability to all your Advanced Crystal Beasts. If Topaz Tiger can't give you enough stat swing to push past an enemy board, go straight for the LP instead! Nah, it's still not very good. Run 0-1.
  • Advanced Crystal Beast Emerald Tortoise - Advanced Emerald Tortoise now has a Quick battle position change effect, without needing any triggers. Better, yes, but still not very good. Run 0-1.

Spells & Traps

With that done, let's look at the extensive S/T support:

  • Ancient City - Rainbow Ruins - It has a lot of cumulative effects that make it one of the strongest Fields at the time, but a lot of these are mainly reactive and the modern Deck has no room to accommodate it. Run 0-1.
  1. It is immune to destruction by card effects. Fields with innate self-protection like this are very rare.
  2. Once per turn, you can halve the Battle Damage from one of your opponent's attacks, letting you survive a little longer.
  3. You can send a Crystal Beast monster you control to the Graveyard to negate the activation of one of your opponent's S/Ts. A fairly decent means to protect your monsters once you start staging an attack.
  4. You can draw an additional card once per turn. This count resets if you play over with another copy of Rainbow Ruins, allowing you to run through the Deck faster!
  5. You can Special Summon one Crystal Beast from your S/T Zone. Either target Carbuncle for a swarm, or simply free up a S/T Zone slot to use your own cards.
  • Awakening of the Crystal Ultimates - The main reason why you want to have Rainbow Dragon nowadays. You activate one of its two effects by revealing an Ultimate Crystal monster from your hand, or you can get both if you control one already. First effect searches for a "Rainbow Bridge" card to access some of the best support spells in the game. Second effect lets you Special Summon a Crystal Beast from anywhere. Both are awesome and can get your game plan rolling. Run 3.
  • Crystal Abundance - The original OTK engine uses 4 crystals as cost but sends everything to the GY and you get Crystal Beasts based on what was sent away. You can easily make a board that can take out a now-undefended opponent, and then go into Link or Xyz plays afterwards if they're still standing! But nowadays you don't focus on accumulating crystals like before. Run max of 1 if you're still nostalgic.
  • Crystal Aegis - Destroy a Crystal Beast monster you control to get a Token of similar properties, putting that monster in the backrow and setting up other crystallization triggers. If you crystallize from other means, you can banish this card from GY to Special Summon a Crystal Beast from backrow. It's got an interesting combo with Summoner Monk - Discard this to Special Summon Pegasus, get Pegasus to crystallize another Pegasus, which then triggers this card's GY effect to Special Summon the second Pegasus, giving you three bodies on the board in one go. In isolation, it's not that good. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Beacon - Requires 2 crystallized Beasts, but Special Summons one from your Deck. This is very good with Pegasus in filling up the S/T slots, or you can pull a Carbuncle for a quick swarm. Run 1-2.
  • Crystal Blessing - Replaces 2 Crystal Beasts into the S/T Zone, and is good for recovering after getting hit by some S/T destruction, or fueling up for other more costly effects. Run 0-2.
  • Crystal Bond - Search your Deck for a Crystal Beast, then crystallize a different named Crystal Beast. Plain and simple - one of your best starters as it searches Pegasus and crystallizes CBRD in one fell swoop, and prime Ash bait. Run 2-3.
  • Crystal Boon - This Trap card lets you Special Summon 2 Crystals from your backrow, giving you a boost of LP so you can still win in overtime. If a Crystal Beast is crystallized while this is in the GY, you can banish it, excavate the top card of your Deck, and add to hand or Special Summon it if that's a Crystal Beast monster. Both sides of this card have niche combos with various Crystal Beasts, but none of it is really powerful. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Brilliance - Your Crystal Beasts gain ATK equal to their DEF. This means Pegasus reaches 3000, Mammoth reaches 3300, Tiger reaches 2600, and so on. If a Crystal Beast gets crystallized, you can send this card to the GY to Summon a Crystal Beast from hand or GY, and you take halved battle damage for the rest of the turn to compensate for the stat loss. Very funny for a beatdown strat, but not very good otherwise. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Conclave - It's a Continuous Trap, but a very powerful one. Whenever your Crystals get blown up, you can Summon another Crystal Beast from your Deck. Say a Pegasus gets destroyed in battle. Special Summon Ruby Carbuncle to bring Pegasus back at a net gain in card advantage! This card also sends itself to the GY to return a Crystal Beast and another card on the field to hand, giving your more Pegasus mileage while interrupting the opponent's combo. It's so good that there's a Crystal Beast variant named after it! Run 2-3.
  • Crystal Miracle - Crystal Beasts now gain an omni-negating Counter Trap! You destroy a Crystal Beast card (either monster or backrow) to negate anything. If a Crystal Beast gets crystallized, you can banish this card from GY to crystallize another from almost anywhere, refueling your backrow for more shenanigans. Fantastic on both sides, but as a Counter Trap it can become a brick if you have too many. Run 2.
  • Crystal Pair - When a Crystal Beast monster is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, you can activate this card, crystallizing another Beast from the Deck, and preventing further Battle Damage this turn. It's a bit counter-intuitive to let a Crystal Beast hit the Grave through battle though... Avoid.
  • Crystal Promise - This simple Spell Special Summons a crystallized Beast. Good when used with Pegasus for further crystallization, and can be used with Carbuncle for a sudden swarm. Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Raigeki - At the cost of a crystallized Beast, this destroys a card of the opponent's. Good removal for a budget. Run 0-2.
  • Crystal Release - An awesome equip card for the Crystal Beasts. The equipped monster gains 800 ATK, which is enough to get some of the weaker beasts to hold their own in battle, while powering up the stronger ones to extents where they can take down normally stronger beatsticks. And that's not all - when sent from the field to the Graveyard, it furthers the strategy by crystallizing another Crystal Beast from the Deck (watch out because you can miss the timing here.) Run 0-1.
  • Crystal Tree - An odd Continuous Spell which gains counters each time a Crystal Beast gets Crystallized. It can send itself to the Graveyard to crystallize a number of Beasts from your Deck equal to the number of counters on it. Best if you play this at no more than 1 copy, and best used to its full potential once it hits 2 counters, no more.
  • Counter Gem - At the cost of wiping your S/T Zone, you get to fill it to the brim with Crystal Beasts from the Graveyard. After which all Crystal Beasts cards you control are wiped off the field. The rules dictate that this card remains in the S/T Zone until it is done resolving, meaning a total of 4 Crystals of your choice will fill the zone. As the name implies, it runs counter to what you really want to be doing. Don't run it.
  • (Crystal) Golden Rule - Place 2 different-named Crystal Beasts from your Deck in your backrow, then Special Summon a Crystal Beast with a different name from those two from hand or GY and equip this card to it. Chances are you're Summoning Ruby Carbuncle with this for 3 bodies on the board. Best run in Rainbow Dragon-based builds where you have enough names to spare. Run 2.
  • Last Resort - Seeks out a Rainbow Ruins from your Deck and activates it when your opponent attacks. If you play over a field in the process your opponent gets a free draw. Good for a bit of surprise element, but Terraforming is usually preferred. Avoid.
  • Rainbow Bridge - Search for a Crystal S/T. No restrictions otherwise. Gets your best play starters or your interruption. Searches Abundance for the nostalgic. Even finds Awakening. Run 3, no questions.
  • Rainbow Bridge of the Heart - Best Continuous Spell for the archetype. Three effects, all busted: First one gets you an additional Crystal Beast Normal Summon, so if you got extra Pegasus you can double up on that. Second effect lets you destroy a Crystal Beast card in hand or on field to search for a Crystal S/T, functioning as more toolboxing. Final effect triggers on crystallization, even from the second effect, letting you return this card an another card your opponent controls to the hand so that this card isn't threatened by destruction. It only does everything! Run 3.
  • Rainbow Bridge of Salvation - This Trap card is hard to activate... at first glance. First effect basically resets the whole Duel if there are two LV10 monsters with different Types on the field, but you're never going to use that. What you want is the second effect, where you can banish it from the GY to search for a Field Spell and a Crystal Beast. You send it to the GY with cards like Foolish Burial Goods, Awakening of the Crystal Ultimates, or even Magicians' Souls to get things started. In fact, it's even used in Tearlaments since it can get Primeval Planet Perlereino and Emerald Tortoise is an Aqua monster. Of course such power is a once per Duel effect. Run 1-2.
  • Rainbow Gravity - Once you have fulfilled the conditions for Rainbow Dragon, this card lets you summon it from your Deck or Graveyard, ignoring the Summoning conditions. If you want to, Rainbow Dark Dragon can also be summoned by this effect. Quite a good card for Rainbow builds, when you just lost the Dragon or need an emergency beater late into the game, but run no more than 1 if you do.
  • Rainbow Path - When the opponent attacks, you can send a crystallized Crystal Beast to the Graveyard to negate it, and then search out Rainbow Dragon or Rainbow Dark to your hand. Not quite worth the cost unless you're almost set for the arrival of the Dragon.
  • Rainbow Refraction - A special support from SECE, where you get to Special Summon any number of Crystal Beast monsters with different names from your Deck when a Rainbow (Dark) Dragon activates its effect. Largely unusable since Rainbow Dragon on its own is enough to destroy the opponent, and you won't need to trigger its effects. Avoid.
  • Rare Value - A debated card. While you wind up losing a crystallized Crystal Beast, you draw 2 cards. Some say the tradeoff is not worth it, others welcome the draw power. It's not searchable by Rainbow Bridge so it's less valuable. Run 0-2.

Variants

Double Rainbow Turbo

What does it mean?! This build focuses on running the whole gamut of Crystal Beasts and actually Summons Rainbow Dragon and ends on both of its Fusion variants. You get lots of style points and can give the opponent the big number business, but this combo is very fragile. All you need is Crystal Bond and Rainbow Bridge of the Heart in hand. You can use Rainbow Bridge and Awakening of the Crystal Ultimates to help find the other combo starters.

  1. Activate Crystal Bond. Search Pegasus, crystallize ACRD. (Ash Blossom chokepoint. Droll & Lock chokepoint.)
  2. Activate Rainbow Bridge of the Heart. Normal Summon Pegasus, crystallize Ruby Carbuncle. (Imperm or Veiler chokepoint.)
  3. ACRD banishes itself from backrow to search for Rainbow Dragon and Special Summon a Level 4 Crystal Beast that isn't Pegasus.
  4. Rainbow Bridge of the Heart second effect, destroy Carbuncle, search Golden Rule.
  5. Activate Golden Rule to crystallize a Level 3 and 4 Crystal Beast with different names. Special Summon Ruby Carbuncle from GY, and Special Summon your backrow. (Nibiru or Bystial chokepoint.) Your field should consist of two Level 3 Crystal Beasts and three Level 4 Crystal Beasts, all of different names.
  6. Ruby + Level 3 Crystal Beast = Cherubini, Ebon Angel of the Burning Abyss. Activate its effect and mill a third Level 3 Crystal Beast that isn't the same name as the other two Level 3 Crystal Beasts already in your GY.
  7. Pegasus + Level 4 Crystal Beast = Number 60: Dugares the Timeless. Detach 2 materials and Special Summon Pegasus. Crystallize the last Crystal Beast you need.
  8. You now have 7 Crystal Beast names, so Special Summon Rainbow Dragon.
  9. Cherubini + Dugares = Cross-Sheep.
  10. Tribute Rainbow Dragon for Rainbow Overdragon into a Zone that Cross-Sheep points to. Trigger Cross-Sheep, Special Summon Ruby Carbuncle from GY, Special Summon your backrow.
  11. Cross-Sheep + 2 Crystal Beasts = 3-mat Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess. 2 other Crystal Beasts can make I:P Masquerena.
  12. Banish Rainbow Dragon and your seven Crystal Beasts from GY to Special Summon Ultimate Crystal Rainbow Dragon Overdrive.

Decklist purposely left incomplete to display the core of the Deck. Fill the rest with staples as you see fit.

Double Rainbow

Conclave Control

NESHY has basically been piloting this list for a while since the Structure Deck support dropped. It eschews the superfluous Crystal Beasts for a more compact core that makes the most of its S/T support, and techs Field Spells to use Rainbow Bridge of Salvation to target the meta depending on matchup. The center of the Deck is Crystal Conclave, which juggles Pegasus and the crystals it collects to outvalue the opponent while keeping them from making important plays. You can even tech in a Mathmech engine as a finisher for the funny "Crystal Math" pun, though it is ill-advised.

Decklist purposely left incomplete to display the core of the Deck. Fill the rest with staples as you see fit.

Retrieved from "https://yugipedia.com/index.php?title=Forum:Deck_Guide/Crystal_Beasts&oldid=4694520"