Karakuri Bonze mdl 9763 “Kunamzan” – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

Crunch$G

It’s nice to see Karakuri support once again as it’s one of my favorite archetypes. I was hoping they’d get a Link Monster, but the update to the Master Rule nullified the need for an archetypal Link really. This week we start with one of our new play enablers, Karakuri Bonze mdl 9763 “Kunamzan”.

Kunamzan is a Level 5 EARTH Machine with 2000 ATK and 1500 DEF. Fine-ish stats on a Level 5, and the EARTH/Machine package is the best for the corresponding Attribute and Type. Kunamzan must attack if able, which is something you see on all the Main Deck Karakuri. It’s fine here as 2000 ATK should get over a decent amount. If this card is targeted for an attack, change the battle position of it. This part can be a downer since 1500 is far easier to get over with a simple Normal Summon than 2000, but it’s consistent with all the Karakuri, even if some only go from Attack to Defense when attacked. At least this can go from its low 1500 DEF to its better 2000 ATK. In all honesty, this won’t stay on the field long enough for either of those effects to matter because this is supposed to enable your plays. If this card is in your hand, you can target a Karakuri you control to change its battle position and Special Summon this card from the hand as a Tuner, but you can only Special Summon EARTH Machines from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. The restriction is fine since all the Karakuri Synchros are EARTH and Machine, and getting this out with great ease off a Normal Summon is great. You already got a Level 2 in Inashichi that can search this out, which then lets you use this to swap Inashichi to Defense and summon this as a Tuner for a Level 7 Synchro into Burei, which then can summon another Karakuri from the Deck to help do more Synchro plays. You got some Level 4 Normal Summons in the Deck that aren’t Tuners, so having this and one of those can give you a Level 9 Synchro if you needed, which we’ll get to that later. There’s only 1 Level 3 Karakuri that isn’t a Tuner, and it isn’t really played so you can’t go into Bureido. This allows Karakuri to do some great plays and build a decent board with just an Inashichi, and it helps if you had a Ninishi to back it up, but Burei can summon that anyways. It’s a great card for Karakrui, a simple 3 of in my opinion. 

Advanced Rating: 4/5

Art: 4.5/5 I’m a fan of the design of this whole archetype, looks like a wooden mechanized samurai.

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Karakuri Bonze mdl 9763 “Kunamzan”

   I struggled this weekend to make a Karakuri deck that was viable this weekend and that made use of all of the cards that will be covered this week. I have to say that while I absolutely love the archetype, it isn’t easy to run. This card was almost always either a dead draw or a lucky top deck for me, but in all fairness, so are most of the cards within the archetype.

   I will point out that my best results came from an outright stall deck intended to simply stop all battle damage and destroy Monsters. I filled my deck with traps that I would otherwise stray away from such as Bottomless Trap Hole. With all these traps, I found a use for this guy in being used to start building momentum safely.

   Kunamzan synergizes well with Urgent Scheduling and Qliphort Genius. Crystron Halquifibrax is also able to be summoned with this method. There is also an argument to be made for Mecha Phantom Beast Auroradon making excellent use of this card. Of course there are also the Karakuri Synchro Monsters to consider. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised how much use I ended up getting from this card. It was satisfying when I could pull off a win against decks that had no business losing to Karakuri in 2020, regardless of how inconsistent those wins were. I believe almost every win utilized Kunamzan in some way, actually, so that is pretty cool.

   I will say that a HOPT was necessary, but this card could probably use just a bit more bang to balance it out. I would have given it a Karakuri S/T search when it changes its battle position, and even then it wouldn’t be an amazing card.

   I like the design. I’m not an Overwatch player, but I get some serious Zenyatta vibes from this guy. His etymology is clever and vibes well with the Karakuri Archetype. Bonze is a Buddhist monk and  the name alludes to “namu san”. Karakuri is also an archetype that gets very nice background art instead of swirling colors, and this card is no exception.

Versatility – 1
– It plays in one style of deck.
Rogue Plays – 3
– You can set some things in motion with this guy, but you might brick trying.
Art – 5
– You are looking as good as ever, Karakuri.
Balance – 4
– There are no gross strategies, but the card is a bit under powered.
Uniqueness – 3
– A lot of cards summon themselves into their own archetype-riddled board. I do like that this guy makes himself into a tuner when he pops in that way, though.

I give this card a 2/5. He is good within his archetype, but he feels about six years too late to the game.