Wild Knights, Hot Crazy Box

If you'll indulge me I'm going to be doing something a little different today. Generally speaking I try and keep things kinda general, or at least not overly technical. But today I feel like talking about a particular Yu-Gi-Oh card. And this, obviously, is going to get fairly specific. So if you're not all that into playing Yu-Gi-Oh then I guess there's a strong possibility that none of what I'm going to say will mean anything to you.

Just remember:

Now, having said all that, let's talk about Number 85: Crazy Box
I gotta be honest with you here, I fucking LOVE Crazy Box. I think it's great. But when I've been googling around looking it up I've encountered a few, shall we say, less than enthusiastic snarky comments.

Case in point.

And thus it is that I feel I must take to the internet to rebuff such viewpoints. Because arguing against a sane, sensible opinion is pretty much what the internet is FOR.

Now, to be up front, no, Crazy Box is probably not going to be winning you any major league competitive tournaments any time soon. Although I fully encourage you to try anyway, as actually pulling that shit off would be fucking HILARIOUS. Although you might want to wear knee pads or something to protect yourself from all the table flips. Of course, actually wanting to play in a competitive environment is a whole different flavor of crazy, and not really a problem I'm able to help you with.

Yeah, all those thousands of cards are great, but wouldn't it be so much cooler if EVERYONE PLAYED EXACTLY THE SAME THING?

The real strength of Crazy Box lies not in it's strength as a card (which really shouldn't be discounted) but in how much FUN it is to play. Seriously. Win or lose I'm not sure I've enjoyed any of my decks quite as much as my Crazy Box one.

So, let's have a proper look shall we? He's a rank 4 Xyz monster requiring 2 materials. This means he's RIDICULOUSLY easy to summon. There's plenty of cheap common Xyz fodder out there for swarming level 4 monsters. I mean, with the current environment is it even possible to NOT have full playsets of Goblindbergh and Kagetokage?

Moving on, he's also a DARK Fiend type. A type and attribute combination that is not exactly lacking in support options should you find yourself needing such things. And finally he's got 3000 Attack. THREE THOUSAND. That is pretty respectable for something you can reliably bust out on your first turn. But then we get to his effects:

This card cannot attack.
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; roll a six-sided die and apply the result.
1: Halve your Life Points.
2: Draw 1 card.
3: Your opponent discards 1 card.
4: Negate the effects of 1 face-up card on the field, until the end of this turn.
5: Destroy 1 card on the field.
6: Destroy this card.

And now I guess you can see where people start to dismiss him. That whole cannot attack part is pretty major. You know, aside from the whole having a giant 3000 attack wall on the field thing. Or if you can roll a 4.

I first got Crazy Box in a sealed pack tournament type thing I was running with a couple of friends. I got him towards the end, and decided to use him partly because I'd not had any usable Xyz monsters up to that point, and partly because he just looked cool and seemed like he could be a laugh. I was comfortably ahead in points anyway, so I figured I take some risks in the name of making things interesting.

And then I started rolling 4s. Lot's of 4s. I'm sure most people will have twigged it immediately, but it was getting late and I wasn't really paying attention so it was a beautiful moment for me when I first activated the effect rolled a 4 and then realized that Crazy Box can negate it's own effect for a turn and attack.

That right there really cemented my admiration for the card, an also revealed to me the secret of how to play Crazy Box. And that super secret strategy is "Fuck it, Crazy Box". 2 monsters on your side of the field and an Ancient Gear Golem in your hand. Do you do the sensible thing? FUCK NO, CRAZY BOX.

A winner was me.

Really, it's keeping this attitude that's the key to successfully playing a Crazy Box deck. With that in mind, let's have a look at the remaining effects.

Halving your life points does seem pretty bad, and you're more or less guaranteed to have this happen at least once every game. But as the voices in your head will tell you, CRAZY BOX HAS NO NEED OF YOUR MORTAL LIFE POINTS. Drawing an extra card is always good, particularly when it has the possibility of generating more Crazy Box. Having your opponent discard a card is actually pretty much the worst result, since I can never actually roll that when my opponent actually has any cards. When they don't have any cards in hand I can roll in regular as clockwork though. Truly the Crazy Box Giveth, and the Crazy Box taketh away. We've already discussed negating effects. Mainly you'll be using this on Crazy Box itself, but never underestimate the ability to mess with whatever other annoying stuff your opponent may be trying to do. Destroying a card is also a handy thing if you can pull it off. Although of course if you roll a 6 Crazy Box will detonate itself. Which is either frustrating or hilarious depending on your point of view. Just remember that CRAZY BOX IS ETERNAL. Also take time to remind your opponent of this, preferably whilst giggling maniacally. Then activate Xyz Revenge or something, just to see the look on their face.

Again, it's pretty much inevitable that this will happen.at least once per game. But personally I don't mind so much for two main reasons. Firstly, this is quite literally the only time I'm ever able to actually roll that high on a D6. Seriously, I used to think that you divided the given number for any die by 2 to get the maximum result. A natural 20 is like Bigfoot amongst my gaming group. We all know that one crazy guy who says he's actually seen one, but nobody really believes him.

The second reason is that, whilst it's guaranteed that you're going to get some pretty bad results the moment, as they say, has been prepared for.

The 4th Doctor, shortly after rolling both a 1 AND a 6.

Because knowing that these things are going to happen is part of how you build your deck. There's lot's of ways in which you can mitigate or even take advantage of the negative effects of Crazy Box. Even if you just pack a couple Megamorph and Michizure and hope for the best.

Now, I usually frown on posting and looking up deck recipes online, as it's incredibly lame to use someone else's deck. Nothing wrong with arriving at similar builds independently. Even with the thousands of available cards that's bound to happen sometimes. But I did play Yu-Gi-Oh online to develop a pathological hatred of cookie cutter meta game bullshit. Which, to be fair, might be why I keep trying to pull shit like building a goddamn Crazy Box deck. But I'm not sure that this article would be entirely complete without demonstrating a build that's at least kinda functional. So allow me to walk you through my current favourite deck.

Kagetokage X2

Goblindbergh X2

Rescue Rabbit X1

Dark Blade X3

Vorse Raider X3

Zombyra the Dark X2

Tardy Orc X1

Snipe Hunter X1

Dark Effigy X2

Roulette Barrel X3

Level 4 monster are, fairly obviously a key component. Kagetokage, Goblindbergh and Rescue Rabbit are all basically a free Crazy Box. Hell, if you somehow get all 3 at once then you can get 2 Crazy Box out in a single turn. Dark Blade and Vorse Raider are respectable creatures in their own right, but more importantly fuel the Rescue Rabbit. Zombyra and Tardy Orc are big enough to last on their own if they have to. Snipe Hunter and Roulette Barrel are mainly there for having possibly useful effects that involve rolling dice, and Dark Effigy is purely there because it happens to look like Crazy Box. No other reason.

Maximum Six X1

The single non level 4 monster is Maximum Six. If you're starting to wonder if I built this deck primarily by just getting a whole bunch of stuff that used dice as part of it's effect then I applaud your remarkable deductive reasoning skills. He's actually not bad at all as a back up to support Crazy Box either. On average he'll be at least as good as a Summoned Skull, possibly better. Plus he's fun and thematic.

Dicephoon X3

Dangerous Machine Type-6 X2

Xyz Revenge X1

Overlay Regen X2

Forbidden Chalice X1

Overlay Capture X1

Graceful Dice X2

Spells up next, and as you can tell theme is king here. If you thought that things weren't risky enough already then allow me to introduce you to the concept of "Possibly fantastic but liable to backfire horribly". Which is, I guess the mission statement for this deck. Dicephoon and Dangerous Machine Type 6 were obvious must haves for the deck. As indeed was Graceful Dice. I mean, you just would, wouldn't you? Overlay Regen, Overlay Capture and Xyz Revenge are all in to demonstrate that the only thing better than Crazy Box is MOAR CRAZY BOX, but if there's one thing that I really wish I had more of it's Forbidden Chalice. Remember, it's a quick play spell so if you get a bad result on Crazy Box you can chain it, negate the effect and then attack with 3400 points of boxed crazy to the face. But it's way to expensive as a single, so we'll just have to deal with it.

Dice Re-Roll X3

Skull Dice X2

Puzzle Reborn X1

Skill Drain X1

Then we have the world most obvious selection of traps. OF COURSE there's a full set of Dice Re-Roll. What did you think was going to happen? Skull Dice because theme and Puzzle Reborn as a backup for when a Crazy Box inevitably self destructs. And then there's Skill Drain, which again is so obvious it really makes me wonder how anyone can ever have a problem with Crazy Box at all. Possibly because, much like Forbidden Chalice it's way overpriced as a single. Just sit on it until things go not great and then laugh maniacally. Plus it works great with Zombyra, Tardy Orc or any other big ass attack level 4 drawback creatures you may wish to substitute.

Number 85: Crazy Box X3

Number 69: Heraldry Crest X1

The extra deck is pretty much as you might expect. Crazy Box, Crazy Box, Crazy Box. But Heraldry Crest makes for a great back up plan. Not only can it become a Crazy Box itself, but it has the wonderful bonus of negating the effect of all other Xyz monsters on the field when it's summoned. Do you have any idea what it's like to be in a stalemate situation with a couple of Crazy Boxes with no materials and then manage to summon Heraldry Crest? I DID THAT, IT WAS AWESOME.

Now, obviously there's still room for improvement here. Adding in full playsets of Skill Drain and Forbidden Chalice would make it pretty savage. Particularly if you sub out Dark Effigy and Snip Hunter for more Tardy Orcs or other big creatures of that ilk. And obviously a second Rescue Rabbit wouldn't go amiss. You should probably swap in Gene-Warped Warwolf and Alexandrite Dragon as well whilst your at it, just to be super jammy about everything. And whilst I'm tempted, all of that stuff tends to go for more than I feel like paying for a single. Especially considering I blew the budget on cheap Dangerous Machine Type-6s from ebay.

Thanks. That's SO much safer.

Normally in measuring the performance of any deck the main thing you're looking at is consistency. Can it reliably do whatever it is it's supposed to do. What makes this deck so fun I think is that it has a pretty high consistency, but thing it does consistently is be utterly random. It's designed to summon Crazy Box, and it does so with remarkable ease. And once that's happened then nobody knows how it's going to go. Once the dice start rolling it's in the hands of fate. And whilst you can build around fate to try and nudge things in your favour there's always that element of unpredictability. And the fact that you're prepared for it whilst your opponent isn't is part of your advantage. They might get milled or simply crushed. They might have their key cards negated. Or you might self destruct spectacularly before they even get a chance to summon their prize monster. You won't always win with Crazy Box, but you'll certainly have a good time.

And if you can't enjoy a game then what the hell is the point of playing it?