Luck is a part of many card games, and Yu-Gi-Oh is no exception. There are instances where you need to have the perfect draw to pull a comeback. Other times, you have to hope your opponent doesn't have the perfect counter to your plays. However, while there are ways to control your luck in these instances, there are cards in the game that require literal luck and gambling. These cards usually either require a coin toss or a roll of the dice to pull off a certain effect. Due to the natural risk of these cards, most of the time they don't see competitive play. In this small series, I want to cover the few cards that had this element of luck that found any notable competitive success.
Introduction
In part 1 of this series, I want to go over the successful cards that require dice. In Yu-Gi-Oh, all dice-related cards just need a six-sided dice, so we at least know where our odds are in each card. A 1-in-6 chance to get an effect is very low to rely on in this card game when you want to limit gambling aspects as much as possible. At the very least, some of these cards do have higher than a 1-in-6 chance to benefit you. Some of these might even have a guaranteed benefit, it's just by how much that you're gambling on.
Due to most cards, however, not having as good of odds as others, only a select few dice-related cards have seen play. Some of these cards have even spent time on the Forbidden & Limited List at some point, and one still does. Today, I'll look at the dice-roll cards that had the most notable impact on the game.
Dice Jar
The first card I want to cover has only made an impact once, but that impact was made on a grand stage. At the 2017 World Championship, Ryan Yu won the Dragon Duel side event running a Chain Burn strategy. What makes his Deck notable in this is the inclusion of Dice Jar in his Deck. Dice Jar already has the issue of being a FLIP effect, but adding the dice aspect makes the card not too promising to run. The effect is simple, both players roll a dice until a player rolls a higher number. The player that rolls the higher number then burns the opponent for damage times the number rolled times 500. This ensures at least 1000 to 2500 damage for a player rolling a 2-5 if they win, which is big damage that burn would like to take advantage of.
Now I didn't mention a 6 roll's burn for 3000. That's because if the winner rolled a 6, they could inflict 6000 damage to the opponent. It's a very high amount of damage that does look promising. You just have to be willing to gamble the opponent getting the winning 6 roll as well. Even if they don't win with a 6, 1000-2500 damage is a lot, no matter who takes it. The high damage output potential of this card was always nice, it's just been seen so sparingly due to the risk of letting the opponent burn you as well. It's likely why Ryan only ran a single copy in his Deck.
Blind Obliteration
The next card is experimental, but I felt it was worthy of a mention at least. Blind Obliteration is a Normal Trap that rolled two six-sided die for you. Once the die are rolled, you destroy all face-up monsters with Levels/Ranks lower than the total rolled. It's a nice way to destroy some monsters with lower Levels or Ranks while potentially destroying bigger monsters.
It should be noted it doesn't affect Link Ratings, especially since this was released alongside the Link mechanic. Still, it could potentially wipe an opponent's board, but it also affects your monsters. It affecting your monsters and the luck aspect of what you could end up destroying is probably why it was only seen at one event. YCS Rimini Italy 2017 was the lone sighting of this card with 2 Top 8 finishes (1 only sided the card) alongside a Top 16. It should be noted this was still a Tier 0 Zoodiac meta, so it going up against a ton of people using Level/Rank 4s might be what caused the initial consideration.
Number 7: Lucky Straight
The next two cards are interesting, as they are both Extra Deck monsters. This means at least you don't have to worry about the luck aspect to these cards unless you opt to summon them. I'll go in chronological order and discuss Number 7: Lucky Straight first. Now Number 7 is a pretty high investment Rank 7, needing 3 Level 7s to summon. In return, you get a monster that's initially weak at 700 ATK. The dice effect, however, gives Lucky Straight some fire power. Lucky Straight lets you roll a six-sided dice twice to have his ATK become 700 times the higher number you rolled, so you get decent chance to get a stronger monster out of this.
The luck aspect of Lucky Straight gets even more interesting with both dice rolls. If you manage to get both totals from the 2 dice rolled to equal 7, you get a choice from 3 effects. One effect lets you wipe all other cards off the board to the grave. The second option lets you summon a monster from your hand or either graveyard. Finally, the third effect is a literal Graceful Charity. These powerful effects are nice on a card with a decent chance to pull them off. There are multiple ways to get a combination of 7 with 2 dice that might make it worth gambling for. The gambling aspect and high summoning condition does mean this probably didn't always come up. With that said, a few Dragon Ruler lists ran it, so I imagine it was pulled off at some point.
Number 85: Crazy Box
Now we get a monster that's easier to summon with Number 85: Crazy Box. All this card needs to summon is just any 2 Level 4s, making it part of the famous Rank 4 Toolbox. Now, what makes Crazy Box worth considering over the other Rank 4s that don't need luck? Well, I know this was used for Eradicator Epidemic Virus and/or Deck Devastation Virus, but not everyone used both Crazy Box and either Virus. Some players were just willing to gamble with Crazy Box, but what were we gambling? The card already had the downside of not being able to attack with its 3000 ATK. Well, the benefit depends on the roll of a dice.
If you are unfortunate enough to roll a 1 with Crazy Box, your life points are halved, putting you closer to losing the game. It isn't the only negative effect, as rolling a 6 would destroy this card. At the very least, however, 4 of the 6 effects were good, so you had a 2/3 chance to benefit somehow.
Rolling a 2 let you draw a card, which is always nice. Rolling a 3 made the opponent discard a card, which is another way to get ahead in advantage. A 4 negated the effects of a face-up card on the field for turn, either shutting an opponent's monster off or letting you actually attack with Crazy Box depending on the target. Finally, a 5 let you destroy a card on the field, which is at least free removal if you're lucky. So overall, 4 decent effects with a 2/3rd chance of getting one. I can see why this was considered in Rank 4 Decks.
Snipe Hunter
Now we reach the cards that were worthy of the Forbidden & Limited List. In this instance, the card I will talk about was limited from September 2007 to September 2010 when it was semi-limited before returning to unlimited in March 2011. The card I'm referencing is Snipe Hunter. This is a simple Level 4 Fiend who needs a discard for his dice rolling effect. However, if you roll a 2-5, you get to destroy a monster you targeted.
Hitting a 1 or 6 is a big negative, as nothing happens, but at least there's no once per turn. You could use this effect as much as you wished in a single turn. Not only that, but it was also graveyard setup. These factors helped the card see play from release up until early 2009, though besides later 2013 Dragon Rulers, it only had flurries of success up until 2014. It should be noted, however, its later success was mainly in the Side Deck.
Sixth Sense
Now for the card so broken, Konami limited it upon release in October 2013 and banned it in January 2014. Sixth Sense is one of the few Traps in the game to earn the status of Forbidden. It was banned in the OCG for many years before hitting the TCG. The reason is you declare two numbers from 1-6 and roll a dice. If you called it right, you drew the number it landed on, otherwise you milled the number you landed on. The chance alone to potentially draw 5 or 6 cards is insane, but this is a card that got better with age as graveyard effects became more reliant.
The OCG were somewhat quick to ban this card, releasing it in September 2003 and banning it March 2005 after a limit in September the previous year. The TCG was right to limit and ban it at the breakneck pace they did. The card is insanely good. A potential mill for not drawing a bunch of cards isn't much of a negative. There's really no gambling to it like the other cards. Many Decks would love a card like this.
The only real format the TCG saw this in was post September 2013 Dragon Rulers, which was still Tier 0, so they mostly had the success with the card. OCG were lucky to play this in a bit more, and back when it probably wouldn't of been as broken to mill. Thankfully, this card only had a small time in the spotlight in both formats and likely will never return barring an errata.
Conclusion
Even with the luck-based aspects of rolling dice, Konami were bound to get some competitive hits at least. Only two were real major successes, but the others did have nice niches. Though you could still use Number 7 with Rank 7s and Number 85 with Rank 4s, the only card that aged well really is Sixth Sense. I've heard theories before on Number 67: Pair-a-Dice Smasher, but nothing notable has come from it yet. Unless Konami makes another powerful dice-related card with little to no downside, or releases Sixth Sense, I don't expect to see dice in the meta much besides deciding who goes first. Gambling is just too risky in the modern game with its speed.
