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 that's uncontrollable, 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
After covering the lower probability of dice rolling, we improve chances at least with coin flips. Working with a 50/50 chance is at least more reliable, and Konami knows this. This is why most coin flip cards have a positive or negative effect when you call correctly or hit tails when you wanted heads. Konami has seemingly tried to balance coin flip cards more, so we don't have anything as successful as the best dice rolling cards. At worst, some of these cards at least do nothing when you miss, or at the very least the good ones aren't that big of a negative. Let's get into the coin-related cards and see what we're working with.
Arcana Force XXI - The World (w/ Light Barrier)
Alright, this one might be cheating to put here, but it is a coin flip card. Arcana Force XXI - The World is probably the only Arcana Force monster to ever see play. This is due to them having mostly subpar positive effects and crippling negative effects. The main exception is Arcana Force XXI - The World. The World's effect landing on Heads lets you tribute 2 monsters at the end of your turn to skip the opponent's. This is why Light Barrier is ran with The World, to ensure you get this effect and not the tails effect to let your opponent add the top card of their grave to their hand. This card only ever saw success once with Dangers and Saryuja Skull Dread to turbo the win condition as fast as possible, but I at least wanted to cover this interesting case, even when the gambling aspects were eliminated.
Fiend Comedian
Now we get to the cards where you actually tossed the coin and started gambling. Fiend Comedian has been an interesting Side Deck tech choice in the past. The card lets you toss a coin and if you call it right, you get to banish all cards in the opponent's graveyard. A pretty big nuke against graveyard reliant strategies, which is why it isn't free.
Now, what happens if you call incorrectly? Then you have to send cards from the top of your Deck to the grave equal to the number of cards in the opponent's grave. This is why it's mainly sided in mill strategies like Lightsworn, Zombies, and Infernoids. They aren't hurt too bad if they miss the call. However, it's not useful against all Decks, meaning you only have a 50/50 chance of getting a real benefit in some matchups. This is probably why it was mostly in the Side Deck.
The Paths of Destiny
Now we might be eliminating luck once again here technically, but it's really for what you do to the opponent in this case. The Paths of Destiny is another Trap that makes both players flip a coin. Whoever hits heads gains 2000 LP while whoever hits tails loses 2000 LP. This works pretty well with Darklord Nurse Reficule or Bad Reaction to Simochi to guarantee the opponent takes burn no matter what. It's why you only ever see it in Nurse Burn. Now Nurse Burn doesn't top often, but the few lists that have topped used the card, so it's basically a staple in the Deck.
Blowback Dragon
Barrel Dragon is a somewhat iconic card from the original anime, used by Bandit Keith. On paper, it doesn't look too bad, letting you destroy a targeted monster if you land 2 heads, but it taking 2 Tributes made it barely see any play. Blowback Dragon, on the other hand, is less costly with 1 tribute and can destroy any card, which is why it saw more success. It might of still saw play if it only targeted a monster like Barrel Dragon does, but the fact that it targets any card just makes it far superior to Barrel Dragon. It saw play in a few topping lists over the years, whether just as a good tribute monster, or to use with Machines since the card itself is one.
Gatling Dragon
This is the only list that ever used Barrel Dragon that I could find. That is because Future Fusion and Overload Fusion with it and Blowback Dragon helped summon Gatling Dragon. Now it might of not been summoned often this way. It might of sometimes come up with Cyber-Stein, but you mainly summoned it with Metamorphosis with a Level 8. Now, why would we summon Gatling Dragon? It tosses 3 coins like Blowback and Barrel Dragon. This time, however, it guarantees a destruction of a monster each time you hit heads.
It should be noted that it's mandatory to destroy the exact number, so nothing happens if you can't destroy monsters equal to the number of heads. It can also destroy your monsters, though, so you would have to destroy your own cards to fulfil the condition if needed. With those downsides aside, it's at least something you don't have to draw, so you can use it when it's optimal. Being able to destroy 1-3 of the opponents monsters is pretty good, since three coins means you should be likely to hit heads. It was a popular Goat Format card and remained popular for a few years while Metamorphosis was legal. It's probably the most notable coin flip card.
Conclusion
It's interesting to note the power difference between the best coin-flip and dice-roll cards. Only 4 real coin-flip cards found success vs 6 dice-rolling cards. Nothing here for coin-flips matched the power of Sixth Sense or Snipe Hunter either actually. Their peak was likely Gatling Dragon. It can be easy to make a powerful coin-flip card since a 50/50 chance isn't that unlikely, but I understand the disparity. It's easier to put more good effects on dice rolling otherwise they might not be good. Dice rolling or coin tossing might never be the meta, but you might find a good card using either mechanic every once in a while.
