Since 2004, there has been certain restrictions to cards in the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game. There are 3 lists for players to follow and to build their decks. “Forbidden” means that you are not allowed to have any copies of the particular cards in your deck, “limited” means you can only have one copy of a particular card in your deck and “Semi-Limited” means you can have only two particular cards in your deck. Whatever cards that are not on these lists, you can have a max of 3 cards in your deck. The reason for these lists is for balancing issues and to prevent powerful cards being used to win duels or to cut strategies. I have played the game from 2001-2008 and I have came across these lists in that time span. Every 6 months, these lists are updated and certain cards are either switched from one list to another or removed entirely. Now it is time to count down the top 10 forbidden cards in Yu-Gi-Oh history.

10. Dimension Fusion(Spell Card)

The most powerful spell for special summoning ever created. It took a long time to be forbidden but the card can easily create otks (one turn kill strategy). You can use just your own banished monsters and dont need ur opponent to have any. This card is crazy since it gives you the ability to get so many powerful banished monster cards out at once. Very few cards in existance have that ability.

9. Imperial Order (Continuous Trap Card)

Best negation ever created. Almost free and negates(cancels effects) any regular, quick-play, or ritual spell card.It can almost kill certain decks. maybe it would be weaker in a 10+ trap and less spell format, but not many decks would ignore this card. Also, there are certain cards that allows you to not pay any life points so be warned if someone use a card with that effect and this card at the same time.

8. Fiber Jar (Flip-Effect Monster Card)

While I must say that the Jar cards are weird as hell, this takes the cake. It’s a very unique and extremely badly designed card, but why? Because it’s essentially a reset button that I honestly think any and every deck would include on the simple basis that it saves you more than any other card could.

Not only does the game reset barring Life points which is in and of itself as luck based as it could get, this in tournaments can easily extend duels to be far longer than they should and draw everybody into overtime. This could possibly be what got in banned in the first place, since duels used to be far slower than they are now.

The card, like the other Jars, has a backing in luck to it. Morphing Jar gambles your opponent drawing 5 good cards, Cyber Jar gambles your opponent getting good cards AND enormous field presence, this risks your opponent getting a good opening hand.

It’s beyond the luck of the other cards in that it flips the bird to most of what happened prior to this card’s flip. There’s so little skill involved and it’s just a lazy reset button for anybody who’s in a poor situation, plus, the idea of people running this at 1 frequently gives the possibly for 2 to go off in one game. Duels would have potential to be the length of matches.

It makes things tedious and somewhat boring, on top of it. It’s just annoying to run into this and have to re-rely on luck because of a cheap flip-effect that re-does all but life points, meaning you could then re-open terribly.

The card itself is too good on almost every level to come back and most certainly would heavily impact the game. Should stay at 0, forever. Pojo opinion, begin.

7. Exchange Of The Spirit (Trap Card)

One of the fastest otk cards ever created. The duel can easily end before even starting your first turn. Easy to get 15 cards in the graveyard and comboing this with Hand Destruction easily ends the game. Nothing can stop this when you dont even get the chance to set a card. broken beyond belief. In fact, I was defeated a number of times due to card combos involving this card and cards that can damage your life points due to the number of cards that are in the graveyard.

6. Raigeki (Spell Card) and Harpie’s Feather Duster (Spell Card)

The reason these two cards are tied is because they both do almost the same action. Raigeki’s effect allows you to destroy all monsters on your opponents side of the field and the Feather Duster allows you to destroy every Spell and Trap on your opponents side of the field. Now imagine using these two cards in the same turn. Completely unfair. Raigeki was one of the first cards to be on the Forbidden list in 2004 and in October 2014, it was finally removed after spending 10 years on lockdown.

5. Thousand-Eyes Restrict (Fusion- Effect Monster Card)

This card annoyed the living crap out of me so bad that I refused to duel against anybody who had this card in their deck. All monsters except that one on the field cannot attack or change their battle positions. Plus, you can take control of one of your opponents monsters and have it as your own and whatever attack that monster is, will be transferred to this monster.

4. Tribe-Infecting Virus (Effect Monster Card)

Another card that is really powerful. It is too powerful because the effect is not once per turn. It can destroy any monster card on the field that you call (for example, Dragon, Zombie, Spellcaster types and more) as long as you discard a card from your hand. Every turn you can literally wipe the field with this card. The only way your Monster cards cannot be affected is if you have them on face down defense position.

3. Number 16: Shock Master (XYZ Effect Monster)

The effect is similar to the previous card but it really slows down the pace of a turn of using a card. Imagine that you cannot use an effect or activate a certain type of card until the end of your next turn. Talk about a serious cut down.

3. CHAOS EMPEROR DRAGON – ENVOY OF THE END (Effect Monster)

The only card in the game to clear everyone’s hand and field in one shot. Once you pay 1000 life points, every card on the field and both players hands are sent to the graveyard and your opponent takes 300 points of damage for each card sent. Imagine that there is 20 cards on the field and about a different number in both players hands. You can deal up to between 6000-8000 points of damage to your opponents life points in one turn. Now that is an overkill.

2. Sixth Sense (Trap Card)

The effect of this trap card can be both good and bad. The reason it can be good is because if one of the dice number results land correctly, you can draw as much cards depending on one of the selected numbers. If one of your two choices does not come up on the result of the dice roll, then you have to discard the number of cards from your deck. This can actually be dangerous because there are certain monsters with effects that can activate once they are discarded from the top of the deck. Also, the effect of allowing you to draw that many cards can benefit the player if they desperately need powerful cards.

1. Yata-Garasu (Effect Monster)

The most notorious card on this list. This card was banned the moment tournament players discovered exploits with this card to lock down players from drawing a card during the “draw phase” at the start of every turn. There are hundreds of combos to execute the “Yata-Garasu lock” and even more ways to prevent this card from ever leaving the field. I highly ever doubt that this card will ever get off the forbidden list due to the many exploits you can do with this one card every turn.

Follow me @julianexcalibur