Crash into Success!

Generation Force has been out on the scene for a little while now. Despite the plethora of brand new cards and support, GENF actually has mixed reviews. The most "hyped" card before the set release, Steelswarm Roach, has dropped in popularity. With the TCg ruling change on Overlay units now being the same as the OCG ruling, a few game winning rank 3 Xyz monsters have been slowed down(at least until Photon Shockwave). On top of that, Generation Fish/F!sh decks, the cover theme on the set, are too slow for the format they are in.

But even after all this; we still have some fun cards that have come out of GENF and 4 new monsters that may very well have snuck under the radar.

Crashbugs at their core are a Xyz archetype. They even have X, Y, and Z in their names! Let's use the term archetype loosely though, as it is only 4 monsters. That doesn't mean they don’t have support. Level 3, Dark, Fiend, 0 attack; you can combo these with many, many excellent cards.
Allure of Darkness
Escape from the Dark Dimension
Dark Necrofear
Darkness Neosphere
Dark Armed Dragon
Limit Reverse
Mystic Tomato
Sangan
Tour Guide of the Underworld
Debris Dragon
Pot of Avarice
Stygian Sergeants
And the list goes on.
In fact, it may be a bit better to say that Crashbugs are a capable engine in many dark-themed or fiend decks. In pure fiends with bosses, we had to resort to Giant Germs, Dark Grepher, Armageddon Knight, and other cards that may only have synergy with 1 spell or trap card in the deck. Like some of our favorite engines in the grave, Crashbugs have a simple effect that can eventually fuel many other cards in the deck. When this card is normal summoned: You can Special Summon a Crashbug (X, Y, or Z, depending on the one you normal summoned) from your deck. You must control a Crashbug (X, Y, or Z, depending on the one you normal summoned) to use this effect."

It may sound a little slow, and yes it is not a strategy you can rely on turn 1, but like Nordics, it is one that you can consistently pull off on turn 2 (depending on how many boss monsters you want to run). Here are some of the simple ways to "Crash" on turn 2:
1) Set or Summon Mystic Tomato on your first turn. Have it destroyed by battle and summon the correct bug to the field, depending on which is in your hand. On your following turn, Normal summon your bug to special the final piece from your deck.
2) Summon Armageddon Knight or Dark Grepher and use their effects to place a Crashbug in your graveyard. On your following turn, activate Call of the Haunted, Limit Reverse, or Monster Reborn to set up your "Crash". Similarly, activate Allure of Darkness to remove a particular Crashbug. You can then use Escape from the Dark Dimension to perform the same play.
3) Use a monster like Tour Guide or Debris Dragon to summon a Crashbug when you otherwise couldn't. If you do no Overlay them on that turn, you can use protective traps to ensure a proper "Crash" on your next turn.

There are many other ways to set up a "Crash", placing all 3 Crashbugs on the field at once. No matter what route you choose to summon these little guys, you will usually end with DARK Fiend monsters in your graveyard. Apparently, this is the best place to be when you are a DARK Fiend as it becomes fuel for some of the best boss monsters in the game.
Dark Necrofear - Necrofear is nowhere near as frightening as she used to be with so many high attack monsters that are ALMOST as free to summon as she is. What she excels in is how free she is to summon and her effect. If your opponent uses Torrential on your Crash, or if you tried to summon No. 34 Terror-Byte and had it eat a Solemn Warning or Raigeki Break, you can now summon Dark Necrofear from your hand. 2200 ATK is still a REALLY good attack rating after something like Torrential Tribute. 2800 DEF is also good if you really need to stall. Combine it with Super Crashbug(we'll talk about this later), your attack position Necrofear will have 2800 ATK. When Necrofear eventually gets destroyed, her effect activates and she gets a new doll, your opponent's monster(the doll is edited out of our TCG card image). Torrential, Mirror Force, suicide, even Solemn Warning will trigger Necrofear's effect to equip itself to an opponent's monster. Your opponent will practically have to spend 2 cards to cancel out the pressure Necrofear emits.(If you didn't notice, Necrofear is my favorite card in YGO).

Darkness Neosphere - Is a HIGHLY rewarding boss monster. Yes it will be dead in your hand in some duels, but in a turn 1 hand it is much better. To summon Neosphere, you have to invest 2 monster cards for her summon: one on the field and one in your hand and only when the opponent declares an attack. After all of that, you cannot special summon Neosphere from the graveyard(or summon it any other way for that matter). What Neosphere does do is sets up your graveyard for Call of the Haunted, Limit Reverse, Escape from, Dark Armed Dragon, and even Dark Necrofear. If any of your cards are TRULY dead(in Crashbugs, Neosphere is usually the only dead card), then you can dump them with Neosphere to put them to better use (Avarice, Necrofear, or Dark Armed). If you simply want to play her because of the 4000ATK, then that is cool too. In this age of Solemn and Heavy Storm, 4000ATK is nothing to scoff at from anyone.

Dark Armed Dragon - Summon Armageddon Knight, ditch Crashbug Z= 1 dark in grave, 1 on the field that will get destroyed.
Summon Tour Guide, Summon Z, Overlay for No. 17 Leviathan Dragon, Pitch an Xyz material Leviathan's effect = 1 Dark in grave, 1 on the field.
Have your Mystic tomato get destroyed = dump as many dark monsters as applicable.
Dark Armed Dragon is probably the most game changing boss in the deck, as it can turn a bad situation into a 2800 monster that can destroy 3 cards. Dark Armed in Crashbugs is like Dark Armed in Blackwings. Instead of dumping darks with Dark Armed as a backup, you will be controlling your graveyard with proper monster plays.


Super Crashbug - Yet another boss to drop for no reason. It is fairly simple to fuel him too with Sangan, Tour Guide, and Mystic Tomato. You can even run Grepher in the deck if you want for the most extreme builds; pitch an X to send a Y or Z from the deck to the grave. He will first hit the field in defense position, which is a way to balance the card I suppose. Luckily he has 3000 defense so your opponent probably can't swing over it. If they let it live, you get a 3000 beat stick that can swing over any attack position monster save Aesirs, Ancient Fairy Dragon, and Shooting Quasar. Because it banishes the bugmen from the grave, it can set up Dark Armed plays, especially since you cannot Bottomless his initial summon. Once it dies, you can SS it from the grave or the banish zone in ATK position and apply more pressure. Combine it with an already face-up No. 34 Terror-Byte and you will have some nice offensive power. You can even summon it with Debris Dragon after it hits the field and Overlay for Utopia.

No. 34 Terror-Byte we all know that Leviathan Dragon and Leviair make for good 2-monster XYZ, but we do have a THREE-monster XYZ in the form of Terror-byte. Perhaps the true boss of the Crash strategy, you can summon it by successfully "Crashing" the field (summoning all 3 Crashbugs). Overlay each one for this 0/2900 Brain Control on legs. Of course, it can only take level 4 and lower monsters, so your opponent will probably stop summoning monsters unless they know they wont control a low level monster in their end phase(or have gotten rid of Terror-byte). If they do try to make something like Brionac or Scrap Dragon, a well timed Bottomless, Solemn Warning, or Effect Veiler can stun their play and give you their monster. Terror-Byte itself is a Dark monster, so losing it to Warning or Raigeki Break will put 4 Darks in your graveyard. Remove 1 for Chaos Sorc or BLS and you can summon Dark Armed. Remove all 3 bugmen for Necrofear or Super Crashbug.

I haven't been able to test a real-life version of the deck, but I have some pre-Alpha ideas in mind. Once I figure out which strategies are most consistent, that is probably the build I will go with. Most classic builds consist of 2 of each Crashbug, 3 Tour Guide, and 2 Mystic Tomato. The means to reuse them can vary and the number of boss monsters to feed off of their plays can vary too. It is difficult to imagine which decks would be best because consistency has been reduced in many of the most popular decks this year. Crashbugs don't have many ways to search out individual copies from the deck and add them to your hand, especially now that the TCG ruling for XYZ materials is the same as the OCG ruling. The only way to choose the most powerful and consistent deck is to test them all:

Pure Fiends - There is a LOT more fiend support cards in YGO than people think. Crashbugs themselves can be thought of as fiend support; perhaps enough to give pure fiends another try. They have MANY high level bosses(some more playable than others) that usually put in their worth if you can summon them. Caius is probably the easiest to use and can capitalize on a 1st turn defensive play. Dark Ruler Hades was probably more powerful in the last format, but Reborn Tengu is still alive and well and Hades will stop all annoying effects of destroyed monsters. Smaller monsters are fun to play too. Giant Germ and Stygian Security still make for excellent fuel. Doomcalibur Knight is MUCH easier to get now and creates as much pressure as a Thunderking nowadays. Not only is 1900 ATK very nice against Venus and Lyla, but your opponent will PROBABLY waste an additional card to get rid of it. Phantom of Chaos will also do dangerous things once you put silly cards in the graveyard. Perhaps the most hilarious is dropping a Hate Buster when they attack your Crashbug X. Hate Buster destroys an attacking monster but also damages the opponent by the opponent's original attack. Just don't add too many for-fun cards, as your consistency will drop dramatically.

Genius style: It is worth noting however that once you get a crashbug, it is fairly easy to reuse it. With that in mind, it may be possible to make a deck using 1 of each crashbug. Call of the Haunted, Monster Reborn and Limit Reverse allow easy access to graveyard bound Crashbugs, and you can run 6 of these. Escape from the Dark Dimension and Burial from the D.D. can get a Banished Crashbug to the field too. Three Tour Guide and 1-2 Tomatoes are a method to get them out of the deck, but there are even MORE cards that can search them in the form of Damage Condenser and Damage Gate. With a lower monster count, you are free to run better spells and traps and have a much easier time maintaining a graveyard count for Dark Armed Dragon. Of course, this sounds very difficult on paper and only the best strategists could probably pull it off!

Sept 2011 style: Why not run Chaos too. With so many dark monsters, it is already half way there. You can replace Necrofear or Super Crash for Chaos Sorcerers(or don't remove either, just be wary of dead draws). For lights, you can go with Effect Veilers or my favorite choice, Dimensional Alchemist. Dimensional Alch can get back Tour Guides to reuse their effects, boss monsters like Necrofear and Dark Armed after Allure of Darkness, and is excellent bait for drawing out cards. Other popular lights are Thunderking Raioh, Ryko the Lightsworn Hunter, Cyber Dragon, and Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress. Then, with our 2011 format, you can run Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning and REALLY destroy people. Leading the duel with a light monster like Raioh will make Chaos Sorc and BLS live instantly.

If you can get the Tour Guides, or if you already have Tour Guide of the Underworld, do us all a favor and try this deck out. YCS Toronto is right around the corner and we need more decks to compete than Gravekeepers, Agents, Vision Heroes and Twilight. There is a lot of potential with card combinations in Crashbugs, and I do not think that anyone has created an end-all-beat-all version of the deck. I know I want to; maybe I should buyout all the EXVC I see and chase Tour Guides around New England.