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Let's get ready to launch with "Catapult Turtle"!

This is another one of Yugi's most memorable Duelist Kingdom-era monsters, with some wild feats to its name. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), its actual manga ability is kind of hard to understand

Small note: I ended up giving this card's text a minor revision. It now says "Once per turn: you can sacrifice 1 other monster you control to destroy 1 of your opponent's on-field cards." This clarified how often a player could use the ability, in line with how it's used in the manga.

This monster is famous for enabling the play where Dark Yugi destroys the flotation ring of the Player Killer of Darkness's card, "Castle of Veiling Darkness" (aka Konami's "Castle of Dark Illusions"), a crazy play that, on its face, doesn't seem like something you should be able to do in a card game!

This is because, in the manga, thanks to the Battle Boxes the rules of Duelist Kingdom duels are less like a pure trading card game and more like a hybrid 3D battle simulation system with a card game as its focus.

"Catapult Turtle"'s special ability is unique in how it interacts with both that simulation system and the more typical card game rules. So it was a little difficult to interpret specifically how its ability was meant to work.

I go into exhaustive detail about how I ascertained this card's ability below the jump!

In the original Japanese version of the manga, "Catapult Turtle"'s ability text apparently says something along the lines of this:

"Launch your monster from the catapult to crush an enemy through their noble death!"

A little vague, as always. Once again, I had to go off of the events that happen in the manga to glean just what it is this card actually does.

In chapter 83, Dark Yugi summons the "Catapult Turtle" in attack mode and immediately sets his "Dragon Knight Gaia" onto its launcher.

The Player Killer of Darkness immediately calls this out as a sacrifice:

And Dark Yugi responds:

Based on this exchange, it seems like "Catapult Turtle" acts as an attack boost, right?

But all of the Player Killer of Darkness's monsters are in defense mode. He even establishes that the monster Dark Yugi is targeting has 3100 DEF:

And Dark Yugi's "Dragon Knight Gaia" has 3100 ATK:

Which should mean that, in a normal battle, "Castle of Veiling Darkness" wouldn't be destroyed if it was merely attacked by a monster that had 3100 ATK. Nothing would happen, according to the rules of the card game.

Of course, we see that something happens, alright. Famously, its 'flotation ring' is destroyed:

By any account, a seemingly-unorthodox interaction. Definitely not something that would happen if this was done during a battle.

Now, the destruction of the flotation ring specifically is a result of how the simulation system operates in this scenario (it's why this exchange is being treated in a semi-realistic manner in the first place, after all). But the interaction of the two/three cards itself falls squarely within the card game's rules, as well.

Once Dark Yugi's "Protective Light Swords" card- which is shown to be holding up the castle on-panel (another facet of the simulation system)- wears off, this happens:

It's a little vague, but this panel appears to show all of the Player Killer of Darkness's monsters dying. Which means that, in any other scenario, the "Castle of Veiling Darkness" would have just fallen down immediately and been destroyed. The only reason "Castle of Veiling Darkness" survived as long as it did is because it was being held up by "Protective Light Swords".

(The next panel, the last one of this duel, shows the Player Killer's Life Points dropping to 0. Why does he have 0 Life Points, you might ask?

According to the special Duelist Kingdom rules, when a monster a player controls is destroyed outside of battle, that player takes a Life Point loss penalty equal to some percentage of that monster's ATK value. The specific percentage of lost points varies depending on the duel. We see Dark Yugi acknowledge this rule here, when he sacrifices "Dragon Knight Gaia" to use "Catapult Turtle''s special ability, where it's a 50% point loss:)

(And it also happens when monsters are destroyed via "Holy Barrier: Mirror Force" or "Time Magician" in this arc as well.

So, when "Castle of Veiling Darkness" destroyed all of the Player Killer's other monsters during its 'death animation', it caused him to lose Life Points as well. And, since 4 of his monsters were destroyed, he would easily lose more than the 2000 Life Points he started with.)

Thus, I posit that what's happening here is this: "Catapult Turtle" is using "Dragon Knight Gaia" to destroy "Castle of Veiling Darkness" outside of a Battle Phase. However, because of the physics simulation system present in the Battle Box's computer system, the destruction itself doesn't happen until the physic effect of the castle crashing down finishes.

But the concept of "Castle of Veiling Darkness" being destroyed via "Catapult Turtle"'s special ability (with the involvement of a monster like "Dragon Knight Gaia") is, itself, a valid move in the card game portion of this interaction. Even if the simulation system enhances the situation around it, the basic actions here work regardless.

So if we were to judge this solely off of this chapter alone, these events suggest the card might work something like this:

"Once per turn: you can target 1 other monster you control. That monster gains 500 ATK. Then, target a monster your opponent controls. If the targeted monster your opponent controls has DEF equal to or less than the targeted monster you control: sacrifice the targeted monster you control, then destroy the targeted monster your opponent controls."

Functional, if needlessly specific. Enough so that I'm not sure that's the full intention of how this card is intended to work in a general sense, even in-universe.

Of course, "Catapult Turtle" is also used in the Dark Yugi vs Mai duel in chapter 116 during the Duelist Kingdom finals, and there it works a little differently. So let's take a look at that match as well and see how it matches up.

First, Dark Yugi takes control of Mai's "Harpies' Pet Dragon" with his Magic Card, "Brain Control".

Then, Dark Yugi summons "Catapult Turtle" and immediately loads the "Harpies' Pet Dragon" onto it.

He says here that he "put it into attack mode!", likely to satisfy Mai's played permanent Magic Card "Seductive Shadow" (which says that Dark Yugi's monsters MUST be in attack mode:

Note that, before this, Mai says that

So "Harpies' Pet Dragon" cannot logically be used to declare an attack on Mai's "Harpy Lady" cards. And the dragon can't be attacking a Magic or Trap Card; that seems to be something only specific monsters like "Card-Hunting Grim Reaper" can do, as Dark Yugi implies in chapter 82:

So what's happening here isn't an attack, and likely doesn't happen during the Battle Phase.

Note that, in no part of this process does any ATK boost for "Harpies' Pet Dragon" come into play as it did for "Dragon Knight Gaia" previously.

Dark Yugi then 'launches' "Harpies' Pet Dragon" at the on-field "Mirror Wall", which activated when Dark Yugi switched "Harpies' Pet Dragon" to attack mode:

He launches the dragon at "Mirror Wall", and in doing so destroys both cards. This is the last time "Catapult Turtle" shows up in the manga.

So here, we see it's not just Monster Cards that "Catapult Turtle" can destroy; it can destroy at least Trap Cards as well. In fact, I would go even further, and say it can also destroy Magic Cards, or Equip Cards, or any of the other unique card types seen in this arc; the common factor is only that the card itself is on-field, as "Mirror Wall" and "Castle of Veiling Darkness" were.

Based on what happens between this appearance and its previous use (sacrificing a monster the player presently controls to destroy a card on the opponent's side of the field), and filtering out the fantastical computer simulation aspects and what isn't in both usages of this card, I think my rendition of this card's special ability is a reasonable enough approximation of what's shown in the manga.

There is the matter of these lines by Mai and Dark Yugi, in chapters 116 and 117 respectively:

But they're so worded in such a general way that I think it would be incorrect to assume that this speaks to a limitation of "Catapult Turtle"'s abilities. Given everything I think it's better to assume that this card can destroy those things in addition to other things, as well.

And there you have it! This was a tough card to figure out, but ultimately I'm satisfied with the result. If you made it this far, I commend you! Thank you so much for your patience.

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