Hey guys, Chief Siddharth here. With all the new releases and the irrelevant ban lists being discussed to death in cyberspace, I decided to take a look at all the archetypes in Yu-Gi-Oh, old and new, and rank the ones according to the strength of their boss monster.
‘Boss Monster’ can refer to the strongest monster of an archetype, or the one of the most widely used powerful monster in an archetype.
Criteria for placement:
A handful of pointers which helped in deciding the rankings
- Playability: Whether the monster is forbidden or limited makes a difference. This is a list for the present, so banned cards aren’t included.
- Ease to summon: A solid boss monster with infinite attack is nothing if it has unfeasible summoning conditions.
- Recurrability: An otherwise average effect can be compensated if the monster can be re-used many times.
- Effect beats attack: Beatsticks are good, but not as good as monsters with great effects.
That’s it for the conditions, now lets get to the actual rankings.
10. Machina Fortress
Boss Monster of the Machina-Gadget Deck
Traits: Easy to summon, devastating when destroyed.
Easy to summon, irritating when destroyed, and perfect for xyz summoning, Machina Fortress really packs a punch. The threshold around which gadget decks are built, fortress is a power-packed boss monster.
Why its here:
- Fortress is among the easiest boss monsters to summon, as mentioned before.
- It’s effect when targeted by monsters or destroyed by battle can really prove painful. Especially when your opponent chooses a card to discard from your hand. Coupled with its synergy with gadgets and machina megaform, fortress is a real stronghold in every sense.
- This effect can instantly recover your lost hand advantage when you summoned this card.
- Being a 2500 attack point beater which can overlay into rank 7 xyzs like Big Eye and Dracossack doesn’t do its reputation any harm.
Fortress is particularly deadly against decks that have little monster removal in the form of spells and traps.
9. Obelisk the Tormentor
The most powerful of the Egyptian god cards in the card game.
Traits: Devastating 4000 attack/defense points and cannot be destroyed by card effects.
The most powerful of the God cards in our card game, Obelisk the Tormentor is a card which any player would love to have on the field. The key cog in any God Card deck, Obelisk really packs a punch.
Benefits:
- Your opponent cannot pull of any last minute tricks when your summoning Obelisk. It’s normal summon cannot be negated, and no card effects can be activated on summon. Solemn warning, bottomless trap hole and torrential tribute cannot effect this divine beast.
- 4000 attack points. Thats all that needs to be said.
- A backup effect where you can destroy your opponent’s pesky monsters helps.
- Obelisk also has good synergy with mound of the bound creator.
While its not the easiest to get out, Obelisk can easily win you a duel once its on the field.
Don’t forget, its also a monster that can steamroll Apo Qliphoth Towers
8. Master Hyperion
Boss monsters of The Agent deck and archetype.
Traits: Easy to summon, provides lots of removal and can gradually win you field advantage.
Master Hyperion is the key monster in the agent deck.
Benefits:
- Not very recurrable but extremely easy to summon.
- Provides virtually limitless removal if used properly.
- Can set up OTK situations easily.
- Gives agent decks access to rank 8 xyzs.
Master Hyperion is a devastating monster when given the right support. It performs the function of a Dark Armed Dragon but can be even better when used to its maximum potential. It rips apart any reactive deck too. A great field presence. Self explanatory overall.
7. Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning
Boss Monster of the Chaos Archetype (1 of the bosses)
Traits: Relatively easy to summon, solid effect.
Like they say, its BLS.
Benefits:
- Clears a field for other beatsticks.
- Can get rid of a pesky card such as fire/ice hand or marshmallon.
- Easy to summon.
Black Luster Soldier is simply a staple in twilight and chaos dragon decks. Part of the famous Chaos Dragon deck, this card could top the list if it weren’t limited on the TCG and OCG banlists
Once again, its powerful effect is self-explanatory.
. 6. Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World
Boss Monster of the Dark World Archetype
Traits: Restores card advantage, extremely reccurrable
Grapha is the card that made Dark World decks competitive. Its release resulted in a swarm of Dark World decks dominating tournaments and becoming the meta.
Benefits:
- Grapha is probably the most reccurrable boss monster ever released. It effect enables you to continuously bombard your opponent with monsters.
- Grapha’s effect also allows you to restore hand advantage at many points in a duel. Considering the meta is full of insane card advantage-based decks, Grapha allows Dark World to keep up.
- Excellent graveyard regulator to special summon DAD. Instead of bringing grapha out using cards like gateway, you can decrease graveyard size by 2 using Grapha’s effect.
- 2700-3000 attack is decent.
- Grapha’s easy recurrability and synergy with cards like trade-in mean that it can not only help you draw deep, it can also give you consistent access to rank 8s such as divine dragon knight felgrand.
Considering we are in a heavily graveyard-based deck this monster scores above the less recurrable BLS and Master Hyperion.
5. Dark Armed Dragon
Boss Monster of the ‘Armed Dragon’ Archetype.
Traits: Solid effect, semi-splashable, not too hard to summon
Dark armed dragon, commonly known as DAD considering the part it played in the famed tele-DAD deck, is one of the legendary boss monsters our game has seen.
Benefits:
- Not very hard to summon. Regulating the graveyard is becoming quite the trend in the current meta.
- Super-powered effect. Dark Armed Dragon, combined with cards like ‘Burial from a different dimension’ can effectively wipe out your opponent’s field.
- Sets up OTK situations, and leads to card advantage.
- Splashable in many decks. Despite being limited, it features in Dark World, Twilight, Chaos Dragon and some other dragon based decks.
This splashable, generic trait keeps it ahead of the chasing pack in this list.
4. Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Boss Monster of the Red-Eyes Black Dragon Archetype
Traits: Semi-splashable, reccurrable, strong effect
They say Dragon rulers add consistency to a dragon based deck. If so, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon adds consistency to the dragon rulers. This monster can deal devastating damage on its own.
Benefits:
- Free special summon of any dragon from your grave. Instant blaster? Instant Grapha? Instant Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon?
- Easy to summon.
- Reccurrable when used in combo with certain cards.
- Decent 2800 attack beatstick.
This card has clocked astronomical prices online, and will continue to do so as long as Dragons are part of our game.
3. Judgement Dragon
Boss Monster of the Lightsworn archetype
Traits: Devastating Effect, 3000 attack beatstick, not too hard to summon.
Judgement Dragon is a card which all decks should fear. Whether you have 50 monsters or a 100 monsters on the field wont make a difference for this card. Having an unparalleled effect (similar only to Gandora) that can wipe the field as many times as required seriously sets the tone for Lightsworn domination.
Benefits:
- 3000 attack points. Enough said.
- Its field wiping effect can give you a clean slate to take control of the duel, and apart from artifacts and yang zing decks, no deck can benefit from this destruction.
- Easy to summon in good lightsworn decks. 4+ lightsworns should be in the grave pretty quickly.
Judgement Dragon can finish off qliphoths, burning abyss, tellarknights and many other decks. With a bit of support, summoning this card = winning the duel.
2. Apoqliphort Towers
Boss Monster of the ‘Qli’ archetype.
Traits: Unique, overpowered effect.
Apoqliphort towers is one of the most powerful boss monsters to ever have been released. Reading the effect itself should make you understand.
Benefits:
- Weakens special summoned monsters. This makes it harder to get past, and effectively a 3500 attack monster at times.
- Unaffected by other card effects, except 10+ star monster effects or continous monster effects. This also makes it hard to get past and cards like raigeki and bottomless trap hole wont work.
- -1s your opponent… and beats cards like beelze. This makes it a time bomb, resulting in eventual victory.
Why it isn’t number 1
- This card’s ability has resulted in the Yugioh community searching for ways to beat it, and publicizing those methods. Copycat, honest, solemn warning, malefic cyber end dragon, heroic knight excalibur and bujingi crane are some cards which can run over apo.
- It speeds up burning abyss and shaddoll decks. It acts as a free deck thinner in those cases, and so cannot be considered good in those situations.
- Some find it to be a win-more card. Which means, players are in a position to win already if they meet the summoning conditions, so its not necessary.
- 3 qli monsters to summon… not the easiest on earth.
- If its swiftly destroyed by your opponent, you’ve overextended so much that you will probably lose.
That said, apoqliphort still gives nightmares to many duelists.
Now for number one…. drum roll please!
Courtesy deviantart
1. Masked Hero Dark Law
No, its not a Shaddoll. Its masked hero DARK LAW.
The boss monster of the increasingly popular HERO archetype.
Traits: Overpowered Effect.
NOTE: The card hasn’t released in english so I made it.. so there is the black and white picture (couldn’t find the colour version).
Dark Law has many benefits which it carries to the field.
- It acts as a live macro cosmos… for your opponent only. This means that you can effectively lockdown your opponent’s graveyard without worrying about your own.
- It can shut down decks based not only on searching, but based on drawing cards. Qliphorts and EXODIA decks are down.
- Shaddolls, Dark World, Burning Abyss, satellarknights, necloths, artifacts, and countless decks can get beaten by this one card.
Dark Law does have a challenging summoning condition, but the fact that there are new tele-dark law decks coming out means that Dark Law will be dictating terms in the meta. Many bosses preceding this will also face problems against Dark Law.
Overpowered in the meta, indeed.
That’s it for this post, more coming later on Chief Siddharth.
Tactical Fouling 