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[[TabletopGame/YuGiOh The Yu-Gi-Oh card game]] has so many cool cards that just aren't really worth the effort that it gets its own page. Many of them are hard to summon or activate, and it's not worth it during a competition. For actual awesome and practical cards, see [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame here]].
Keep in mind, given the right deck, most of these examples can be viable if you have the time and creativity to do so.
[[folder: Instant Win Conditions]]
Cards that grant {{Instant Win Condition}}s are often [[DifficultButAwesome difficult to play, but satisfying to see actually work.]]
* [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). You can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually became one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodius Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord]] is ''much worse'' than Exodia's inherent InstantWinCondition. First of all, to summon it, you must shuffle all your monsters from your graveyard to your deck, which is considered impractical as most decks today are graveyard-reliant. Secondly, it begins with NO ATK and is increased by 1000 for each normal monster in your graveyard, and you can send a monster from your hand or deck to the graveyard whenever it attacks. Thirdly, it is banished when it leaves the field. That means once it is gotten rid of, it is pretty much gone for good with your ''fattened deck'', which is considered bad for most players. [[FourIsDeath Fourth and most importantly]], to achieve the InstantWinCondition, you must spend about FIVE turns to send a piece of Exodia ''each turn with its own effect'', which means that you cannot hasten the process to victory with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial Foolish Burial]] or other milling mechanics. While Exodius is very easy to summon, can use its effects to your advantage by regaining lost Extra Deck monsters, and be used as Rank 10 Xyz fodder, it is its InstantWinCondition that succumbs to this trope.
** In 2019, another Exodia card was announced, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia,_the_Legendary_Defender Exodia, the Legendary Defender]] and of course it has a win condition attached. For this one, if you tribute summon it by its effect of tributing '''''5''''' monsters and then proceed to destroy a DARK Fiend monster your opponent owns (which means no cheating with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nightmare_Archfiends Nightmare Archfiends]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystic_Box Mystic Box]]), you win the duel. Between the absurd Tribute Summoning requirement and specific battle restrictions, it's unlikely this condition will be met with any frequency, since you're generally going to need three specific cards in hand (Exodia, an attribute-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Scroll_of_Bewitchment Scroll of Bewitchment]], and a type-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/DNA_Surgery DNA Surgery]]) and five Tributes available. And Legendary Defender has ''no'' protection whatsoever. All things considered, if you want to use Exodia as a beater, you're probably better off with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Legendary_Exodia_Incarnate The Legendary Exodia Incarnate]].
** Yet another Exodia card was introduced the same year, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/True_Exodia True Exodia]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this monster, and put all 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters on the field, and make sure they are the only monsters in the field. The 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters are extremely weak Normal Monsters, and if you had these 4 on the field, your best option is to probably Link Summon a bunch of monsters rather than risking them on the field.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_Board Destiny Board]] is probably one of the most difficult victory condition to achieve. Not only will you need to have your ''entire backrow'' to reserve its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spirit_Message Spirit Messages]], each one can only be placed each of your opponent's End Phase (which means it takes about ''ten'' turns to achieve victory with this set of cards). And should one of the Spirit Messages you control leaves the field, all of them are gone for good! You can use [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sanctuary Dark Sanctuary]] to summon them as monsters, but that only leads to even more problems. First, the Sprit Messages won't have any ATK or DEF and can't be given a boost since they're immune to all card effects, including your own. Sure they can't be targeted for attacks, but Dark Sanctuary doesn't stop your opponent from attacking directly, so you can't use the Spirit Messages as [[StoneWall Stone Walls]]. And if they do attack, it comes down to a coin toss whether the attack goes through or not. And let's not forget that you'll have progressively fewer Monster Card Zones to work with if you do choose to summon the Spirit Messages as monsters.
* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Last_Turn Last Turn]]. It clears the field of all but one of your monsters, wipes the field and hands and then your opponent special summons any monster, last man standing wins. Sounds fair right? Until you realize just [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jowgen_the_Spiritualist how]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fossil_Dyna_Pachycephalo many]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Archlord_Kristya monsters]] have an effect that prevents special summons... so it is banned, for good.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Countdown Final Countdown]]: On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and the only way to stop it is to win before that happens. But that certain amount of time? ''20 turns. And'' it has a 2000-point cost. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Battle_Fader more]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Swift_Scarecrow and]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/One_Day_of_Peace more]] stall cards coming out, Countdown victories are getting easier, leading to this card becoming limited in TCG.
* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the DifficultButAwesome [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominaga_the_Deity_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes]]. It requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Snake_Deity a specific trap card]] to be activated, and then only in response to the destruction of its predecessor, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominon_the_King_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominion the King of Poisonous Snakes]]. Both cards have zero attack, but are boosted by the number of Reptiles in your graveyard (fortunately, there's specifically a card for sending Reptiles to the grave from the deck), but once it actually gets summoned, Vennominaga is all but invincible, since it cannot be affected at all by other card effects and if it damages the opponent three times without being killed itself, it's an automatic win. Its InstantWinCondition is quite redundant since you can easily finish your opponent off with its high ATK.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Horakhti Holactie the Creator of Light]] requires you to tribute all 3 Egyptian God cards to summon (and no cheating with cards that take the names of other cards, they have to be the originals). The fact that Ra can't be special summoned is another roadblock to getting this out. If you do summon it, however (and its summon can't be negated), you win the duel instantly, much like Exodia. But aside from decks specifically designed to bring it out, it's rather worthless (and even those decks designed around it rarely work). Not to mention, if your opponent allowed you to setup to the point you could get the three God cards on field, you could have already pretty much won in the meantime.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_88:_Gimmick_Puppet_of_Leo Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo]] is an Xyz monster that has an effect that can allow you to win the duel within 3 turns of it being on the field. However, it requires you to have no spells or traps on the field to use its effect and keeps you from conducting your battle phase that turn if you do. This is extremely dangerous against any skilled opponents since it allows them plenty of time to get the right card to stop it before you get that far and requires you to be very cautious about what spell/trap cards you set/activate lest you give up the ability to use its effect. And given it takes 3 Level 8 monsters to be on the field to summon it in the first place (Monsters that usually have very high stats), you'd most likely have a better chance of winning by just attacking with them and not having to be careful with placing or using traps/spells. However, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman it does have a small window of use]] in that it can effectively counter stalling decks such as Final Countdown and Chain Burn, which run little to no removal and instead are focused on preventing you from attacking.
** Although its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C88 upgraded form]] looks a bit better than the original form for not having the latter's restrictions and immune to effect targeting, it is pretty hard to summon as it must be Special Summoned with a "Rank-Up-Magic" Spell Card targeting its original form, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Also, its victory condition is pretty redundant since it has a hefty 3500 ATK and can detach an Xyz material to inflict 1000 damage every turn; by the time it's out of materials, your opponent is probably dead anyway.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jackpot_7 Jackpot 7]]'s effect is that you can activate it to get it shuffled back into your deck, when it is sent to the graveyard by an opponent's card effect, it banishes itself, and when all three copies of it are banished by their effects, you win the duel. Which sounds cool until you realize how hard and inconsistent it is to pull off. Splashing it into a random deck and expecting the opponent to use backrow removal on it will only result in the opponent being more careful with destroying your backrow (which is good for mind games but nothing else). To meet the condition with any kind of consistency requires also building a deck built entirely around a combo giving your opponent certain monsters to trigger their effects ([[LoopholeAbuse since that technically makes them the opponent's card effect]]) and hoping they can't derail the combo (which is pathetically easy to do). [[SubvertedTrope The exception to this]] were decks built around abusing the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar Morphing]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar_2 Jars']] effects by giving them to your opponent and triggering them, since there are enough ways to set it up and don't require particularly specific combos to succeed. The potential for such abuse to pop up in the TCG likely led to the bans of those cards before Jackpot 7 was released.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ghostrick_Angel_of_Mischief Ghostrick Angel of Mischief]] definitely counts, at least as far as its win condition is concerned. Its effect is that it can be Xyz Summoned on top of another Ghostrick Xyz monster, wins the duel once it has 10 Xyz materials, and you can attach one Ghostrick card from your hand to it during each of your turns. This means that in a proper Ghostrick deck, you have to minus yourself for at least 7 turns in a row and hope it lives, something that's very unlikely to happen in most duels. There are other ways to pull its win condition off, but none of those methods are consistent enough to be a competitive deck in its own right (for reference, the ''easiest'' version uses a Utopia engine that requires four specific Spell cards and roughly half your Extra Deck). The funny thing is that Angel of Mischief is actually a pretty strong card in itself (it's easily summoned, has good stats, and is the deck's primary searcher), meaning you'll see pretty much every Ghostrick player running a few but almost none going for its win condition.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Assault Phantasm Spiral Assault]] requires that a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Dragon Phantasm Spiral Dragon]] equipped with the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Crash three different]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Grip archetypal]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Wave Equip Spells]] destroy three monsters by battle in order to automatically win the Duel. Granted, the archetype is focused on getting your Dragon out and many of the cards work to re-equip these Equip Spells onto Phantasm Spiral Dragon, but once you activate Assault, your opponent will most likely be doing everything in their power to stop that Dragon from succeeding. Plus, by the time you get the Equip Spells all attached, you have a 3300 ATK monster that does piercing, has destruction immunity, and burns the opponent on a regular basis. You're already winning at that point, so Assault is almost superfluous.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/F.A._Winners F.A. Winners]] has the effect that if an F.A. whose level is 5 higher than its original level battles an opponent's monster and inflicts battle damage as a result, you can banish a card from your hand, field, or grave, and you win if you banish 3 different F.A. field spells by this effect, and this is also a true once per turn effect. To start, F.A. cards generally don’t benefit from being banished, so you’d likely only ever consider using this on field spells already in the grave or if you’re one away from winning. And secondly, F.A. monsters gain attack equal to their current levels x300, so by the time you can start triggering this effect, especially if you summon their synchro monster, you will have at least one big beater on the field. And by the time you could trigger this effect 3 turns in a row, and the opponent hasn't stopped you by then, then victory is within grasp anyways, so much like Phantasm Spiral Assault, it becomes a giant why bother.
* Remember the flashback duel between Pegasus and Bandit Keith?[[labelnote:Details]]The former can [[{{Telepathy}} read his opponent's mind]] with the Millennium Eye. Therefore he has a child audience to duel Keith in place of himself, but not before dropping down the notes for the kid on how to win the duel.[[/labelnote]] Keith ended up losing the duel, and there is an instance where the winner used a Normal Monster that has evolved to a Duel Winner: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flying_Elephant Flying Elephant]]. It cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effect once during the opponent's turn. Once the effect is used and it stays until their End Phase, it can attack for game (regardless of opponent's LP) in your next turn, so long as it is a Direct Attack that causes damage. Sounds cool, eh? But its effect is clunky as hell and your opponent will have tons of ways to stop that, ''even if it was released during the time it was introduced''[[note]]Early 2000s[[/note]]. The only way you’d ever win with this is if your opponent does so intentionally or [[TooDumbToLive is a special kind of stupid]].
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play, especially since [[LoopholeAbuse there's nothing stopping them from using it to summon a monster to use as Xyz Material, which doesn't count as making it leave the field]] even if you make them activate it in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the OCG, largely because Utopic ZEXAL doesn't require jumping through several convoluted hoops (destroying one specific monster you own with specifically a monster effect ''and'' getting a Numeron Network in the Graveyard, activating and resolving Chaos Ritual, and hoping your opponent is dumb enough to destroy Numeronius with a card effect and ''not'' have another one ready for Numeronia and/or fail to remove Numeronius without destroying it, all while devoting ''half your Extra Deck'' to pulling this off) and can lock your opponent down hard enough that it might as well be an instant win anyway.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* Having more than forty cards in your deck, for starters. You ''may'' be able to get away with forty one - forty three, but going to the max sixty card limit is generally seen as a bad thing. Sure, having extra cards in the deck for any given situation is nice, but it makes actually getting the cards you ''need'' in any given situation much, ''much'' harder to draw.
** Konami apparently took note of this and started to make some cards that actually avert this nature. Two notable examples are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pot_of_Desires Pot of Desires]], who nets the player the infamous "Pot of Greed" advantage at the cost of losing 10 cards from his deck permanently, and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/That_Grass_Looks_Greener That Grass Looks Greener]], which can mill 20 cards from the player's 60-card deck if played on the first turn, effectively setting up plays for an entire game. In fact, Grass did its job [[GoneHorriblyRight a bit too well]], becoming almost a win condition if resolved and getting limited and later banned in the TCG.
* From a meta, non-card game itself example: Konami actually did make [[{{Defictionalization}} toy Duel Disk to play the card game with anywhere]], but they were rife with problems. Even disregarding the obvious fact that they don't come with super advanced holographic imagery, and the fact that they were intended for young children to play with, as something that ''can'' work with the card game, it still deserves a mention here. Early creations didn't include an extra deck or banish zones, and the slots that held the cards in were too small for sleeves, making accidentally bending and tearing the cards frustratingly common. Even though later Duel Disks would fix this problem, there were still quite a few annoyances. Not only do they give the wearer ''insane'' wrist cramps shortly after putting them on, you'll likely get a few eyebrows raised your way if you tried playing with someone with it outside. Additionally, it's hard to keep track of what the opponent has played and make sure they don't pull any sleight of hand when they're far away, meaning it's likely you'll only ever use it inside while standing close next to someone, and if that's the case, you're better off just playing at a table where you can sit down and have a better view of the field.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
* Fusion Monsters suffered a lot of the same problems as Ritual Monsters, being that Polymerization and the required fusion materials can end up becoming a dead draw if not already in your hand. Thankfully, Konami caught onto this in the later years of the game, making more "generic" Fusion Monsters that require either two monsters of specific archetype, monster type, or attribute to fusion into the Fusion Monster, as well as making more Polymerization cards with additional effects to keep them from being dead draws in themselves.
** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
** In the early days of the card game, there were worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly some of the most useless cards in the game. Even by the standards of the earliest days of the game, a monster with only 900 or 1000 ATK that required a spell and two specific monsters simply wasn't worth the effort no matter how you looked at it. They have [[NotCompletelyUseless found players]] since then, though, with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] turning them into quick Rank 3 fodder.
*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for. [[LoopholeAbuse You can use fusion substitute monsters to avoid having to use Ultimate Dragon]], but given that Black Luster Soldier isn't exactly an impressive card on its own and Dragon Master Knight does nothing other than have big ATK, it's questionable whether loading your deck with cards like these is worth the payoff.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail (and your opponent somehow holding a full hand of cards). The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
* Many Tribute Monsters (monsters with 5 or more level stars) in the card game fall under this, especially in the early days. You can spend an enormous amount of resources on it and lose the whole thing to a simple trap card such as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bottomless_Trap_Hole Bottomless Trap Hole.]] Later tribute-summon based archetypes make up for this by allowing for easy tribute fodder, having effects that trigger when tribute summoning, and the tribute monsters having effects powerful enough to justify their summoning in the first place.
* And then there's the anime-only card, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ragnarok Ragnarok]]. The effect? If [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Magician Dark Magician,]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Magician_Girl Dark Magician Girl,]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sage Dark Sage,]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Magician_of_Black_Chaos Magician of Black Chaos]] (a minimum of 2 required) are on the field, all monsters on the enemy's side of the field can be banished. The cost? You have to banish ''every monster from your hand, deck, and graveyard''. The cost was probably only there for the undoubtedly [[RuleOfCool awesome]] visual effect: all of Yugi's monsters appear and swarm the enemy in order to banish it. There exists a real-life counterpart of it, Dark Burning Magic (which is based by the ''manga'' version of Ra's defeat), which completely removes the "lose all your other monsters" requirement, making it a quirky pick in Dark Magician decks that use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bond_Between_Teacher_and_Student Bond Between Teacher and Student]].
* For how impressive it sounds, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Huge_Revolution Huge Revolution]] certainly falls under this trope. If the conditions are correct, you can send your opponent's entire hand to the Graveyard and nuke their entire field, which should put them at a [[{{Pun}} huge]] disadvantage. But those conditions? Three weak, specific Normal Monsters with no relation to each other (they don't fall under an archetype that supports them) that have different Types, Attributes, and Levels, making searching for them all but impossible. Even if you somehow manage to pull it off, the combined original ATK of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/People_Running_About People Running About]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Oppressed_People Oppressed People]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/United_Resistance United Resistance]] (i.e. the three monsters needed to activate this card) is a mere 2000, and you're unlikely to have another monster to inflict further battle damage. If that wasn't enough, it is a Trap Card that can only be activated during your Main Phase, which completely goes against the point of it being a Trap Card (i.e. being able to be activated during either player's turn). ''And you still have to Set it and wait for your next turn before you can activate it''. Not to mention the revolution can easily be negated by every Counter Trap under the sun. It is almost completely impossible to build a Deck around this card, and it's not recommended to try.
** Similar to Huge Revolution, we have [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Law_of_the_Normal The Law of the Normal]], this card also Nukes your opponent's field and hand, and you need 5 Level 2 or lower Normal Monsters (i.e. monsters with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effects) on the field in order to use this card. The one silver lining of this particular card is that Tokens count as Normal Monsters, so it's not as hard to fulfill the activation conditions, but you still need a way to actually kill the opponent after playing it since low-level Tokens and Normal Monsters can rarely OTK through battle damage even with a full board of them.
* In the card game, we have [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Destiny Final Destiny]], which destroys all cards on the field at the cost of 5 discards. Since the maximum hand size is 6 (barring the use of spells like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hieroglyph_Lithograph Hieroglyph Lithograph]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Infinite_Cards Infinite Cards]]), playing Final Destiny leaves you with likely no hand and no field, giving you no way to take advantage of the freshly-cleared field. Not to mention, getting 5 cards in your hand to discard is a pretty tall order to begin with unless you drew Final Destiny in your opening hand.
** Pretty much everything that has already been said about Final Destiny can also be said about [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guarded_Treasure Guarded Treasure]]. You discard 5 cards, subsequently drawing 2 cards and drawing 2 cards instead of 1 for your normal draw during your following Draw Phases if it's still on the field. Drawing cards is a key to success in the card game, but in addition to the problems mentioned above with Final Destiny, you have to wait for your following turns to get much use out of Guarded Treasure, and if your opponent has any competence whatever they'll be able to destroy it before the first one.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Vehicroid_-_Stealth_Union Super Vehicroid Stealth Union]], a CombiningMecha Fusion Monster with an effect that lets it attack all the opponent's monsters, deal damage even if the monsters are in Defense Mode, and reduce your opponent's monster count by one by equipping it... made of four specific monsters plus a card that lets you Fusion Summon, and ''halves its own ATK every time it attacks'' until it's done attacking. It's quite concerning that this monster, which takes 5 specific cards to summon, is effectively only 100 ATK stronger than the Normal Summonable [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Asura_Priest Asura Priest]].
* The banned [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Victory_Dragon Victory Dragon]], an extremely hard-to-summon monster with stats that, for those difficult conditions, are relatively unremarkable. If it somehow attacks directly for the win, wins the entire ''match''. Not just this game, but an entire set of "best of three" duels. However, there's no rule (at least not in the US ruleset) saying your opponent can't just [[StopHavingFunGuys forfeit the duel when you attack]], sparing him the match loss. And in nearly any tournament setting of the sort where matches are actually played, Victory Dragon is banned.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Perfectly_Ultimate_Great_Moth Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth]]. Summoning it as originally intended is pretty much impossible, as you have to equip [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Petit_Moth Petit Moth]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Evolution Cocoon Of Evolution]], then wait for 6 turns before it can finally hit the field. Some legacy support remedied this, turning the archetype into a semisolid competitor in a game oversaturated with boss monsters. Say hello to [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Ultra_Evolution Super Cocoon of Evolution]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Parasite_Paranoid Parasite Paranoid]], which allow you to bring out two [=PUGM=]s in a single turn while also getting rid of one of your opponent's monsters! It's still not particularly good, since it's nothing but a giant beatstick, but it does make the card actually possible to play.
* The Wicked Gods and the legal version of Egyptian God Cards. Decent effects, but they all require THREE tributes to summon and fall to a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mirror_Force Mirror Force]] just as easily as any other monster when they attack. Especially that Wicked Gods cannot be Special Summoned.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Wicked_Eraser The Wicked Eraser]]: First of all, he can't be Special Summoned, which means if he's sent to the Graveyard (which is quite likely considering almost all of his effects occur when he's sent to the Graveyard), he's done. (Unless you plan to use Monster Reincarnation, or something like that.) On top of that, his attack and defense are equal to the number of cards your opponent controls x1000, which means if your opponent controls only one monster with 1100 ATK or more, he's done.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantom Armityle the Chaos Phantom]]. It requires banishing three cards (the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sacred_Beast Sacred Beasts]], who can also fall under this trope) , however since each of those three cards themselves require three cards to play, it really takes a total of 12 cards to get out. It gains a whopping 10,000 attack during your turn, meaning any successful attack would almost certainly win you the game (unless your opponent had a +2000 attack monster or really boosted his life points) since you start with 8000 life points. As if being ridiculously hard to get out wasn't enough, it only gains 10,000 attack during your turn, can be destroyed by any common methods (except battle), and is actually inferior than the combine might of the cards it requires (the Sacred Beasts combined may have as little as 8,000 attack, but usually will have +12,000 attack). However, with the release of the new Sacred Beasts Structure Deck, which contained not only more searchers for the Sacred Beasts, but even a dedicated Fusion Spell card to Fusion out Armityle, as well as a new version of Armityle that not only banishes your opponent's entire field at the end of your turn, but also Special Summons out the original for free, it seems the issues concerning Armityle's summoning conditions have been dealt with.
** There's an alternate method to summon this card though: Use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber-Stein Cyber-Stein]] to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantasm_-_Phantom_of_Fury Armityle the Chaos Phantasm - Phantom of Fury]], give it to your opponent, then pray your opponent does not get rid of this card during the End Phase. If you successfully do it, all your opponent's card will be banished, and Armityle the Chaos Phantom will be summoned ignoring its summoning condition, but you will be left with a 0 ATK Armityle during your opponent's turn.
* Similarly, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia_Necross Exodia Necross]]. It starts off with 1800 Attack and gains 500 at the start of each of your turns, and can't be destroyed in battle, or as a result of any Spells or Traps (meaning no Raigeki or Mirror Force will get it off the field). The catch is that it can only be Special Summoned with a Spell Card that you can only use if all five pieces of Exodia are in your graveyard. And if any of those pieces are removed from the graveyard, it is immediately destroyed and can't be revived. It can also be destroyed by monster effects and can be gotten off the field by any non-destruction removal.
* The Dark Crisis booster pack brought quite a few of these in addition to Exodia Necross, an example being [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Berserk_Dragon Berserk Dragon]]. While it has 3500 Attack, it can only be Special Summoned with the Quickplay Spell Card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/A_Deal_with_Dark_Ruler A Deal with Dark Ruler]] on a turn that one of your Level 8 monsters is sent to the Graveyard. It also gets to attack all monsters on your opponent's field once... but in addition, it loses 500 Attack at the end of each of your turns, which will quickly make it easy prey to anything tough your opponent has.
* Considering its [[RuleOfCool really cool]]-looking effect in the [[Anime/YuGiOh anime]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gandora_the_Dragon_of_Destruction Gandora the Dragon of Destruction]] is considered this for four reasons. First of all, this card cannot be Special Summoned, which means that you will have to tribute two monsters on your field or use a double-tributer. Secondly, you will have to pay ''half'' of your LP to nuke the field except this card. Although it banishes the cards, there are plenty of cards that don't have anywhere near as bad of a cost. Thirdly, this card gains 300 ATK for each card destroyed this way. However, the ATK boost is not impressive unless there are lots of cards on the field beforehand. [[FourIsDeath Fourth, and lastly]], this card is sent to the Graveyard during the End Phase of the turn it was Summoned.
** Gandora has an even more powerful version, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gandora_Giga_Rays_the_Dragon_of_Destruction Gandora Giga Rays the Dragon of Destruction]]. A NOMI monster (meaning you have to Special Summon it by its effect first) that hit the field for the "simple" cost of any 2 monsters in your hand and/or on the field. It instantly gains 300 ATK for every banished card, so in a dedicated build, it could swing as a beefy beatstick. But what makes it fit this category is its other effects. [[RuleOfThree By paying half of your Life Points]], you can do a variety of increasingly devastating effects... depending on how many Gandora cards with different names are in your Graveyard. For 1, you just nuke the field, for 2, you banish everything on the field, and if you have copies of OG Gandora, Gandora X, AND Gandora Giga Rays in your Graveyard, you get to banish EVERYTHING on the field AND in both player's Graveyards, meaning you most likely won't get a second chance to use that powerful of a nuke again that Duel. Plus, getting those monsters in the Grave will most likely telegraph to your opponent exactly what you're trying to do if they have any logical sense. Satisfying as hell, but not very reliable. This was averted with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_95:_Galaxy-Eyes_Dark_Matter_Dragon Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon]], as its effect could easily send 3 Gandora cards into the GY, and is one of the reasons Number 95 itself is banned in the OCG.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Steelswarm_Hercules Steelswarm Hercules]] is similar to Gandora, except it needs 3 "Steelswarm" tributes (which, even given the Steelswarm's focus on Tribute Summoning, can be quite a tall order), and it does not send itself to the GY at the End Phase.
* While the Blue-Eyes archetype has gotten some major updates in the ''Arc-V'' era that makes them far more usable, to the point of even popping up in tournaments, certain cards of the archetype still seem to only exist because of anime tie-ins, and as such, only really work on [[TheMagicPokerEquation Heart of the Cards]] logic.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], which requires 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragons and Polymerization. They don't have to be on the field, and in some ways it's better to fuse them while in your hand than tributing two monsters just for one regular Blue-Eyes. However, it's a steep cost anyway, with very little payoff. All BEUD is, is a 4500 ATK beater with no effects to speak off. If you ''could'' summon it, you're just better off using their support to summon two of them onto the field for a rank 8 Xyz monster, or swarm the field with 3000 ATK beaters to possibly OTK the opponent. While it meshes well with decks that can bring monsters back from the grave and protect them from card effects, which the recent Blue-Eyes greatly supports, it's still a lot of effort for a card of fairly limited use.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Shining_Dragon Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon]] requires the Ultimate Dragon above to be ''tributed from the field'' to be summoned. All that trouble to get the BEUD and then send it to the graveyard. Shining Dragon has 3000 ATK, but gains 300 for every Dragon in your graveyard. That means, at summon, it will most likely have 300 ATK ''less'' than your Ultimate Dragon (Blue-Eyes x3 + Ultimate Dragon in the graveyard). Fortunately, it comes with the bonus of being untargetable by anything other than attacks, and will most likely be much stronger than anything your opponent has anyway. If you run it, you should run it in a dedicated Dragon deck, which admittedly makes it very powerful, but otherwise there is really no benefit to using it.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Paladin_of_White_Dragon Paladin of White Dragon]] is an easily summoned card, but it's still a Ritual monster, even if it's only level 4. You still have to have a monster to tribute for it, and its stats are on par for a level 4. Its main effect is that sending it to the Graveyard lets you summon a Blue-Eyes from your hand or deck, but ultimately this means that you spent an extra card to send two monsters to the Graveyard to get your Blue-Eyes. The only net gain is that both tributes didn't have to be on the field at the same time, and the Blue-Eyes didn't have to be in your hand.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reign-Beaux%2C_Overlord_of_Dark_World Reign-Beaux, Overlord of Dark World]]: He's the big daddy of the Dark World archetype (until they [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Grapha got a new big daddy]]), who gains effects when discarded by effects (but not costs) and gains ''better'' effects when discarded by an opponent's effect! This guy, however, needs to be discarded by an opponent's effect in order to do anything, and while there are ways to force an opponent's effect into letting you discard (such as with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Deal Dark Deal]]) they're way too inconsistent to rely on as a main tactic. But if you ''do'' manage to discard him by your opponent's effect, you get a monster with a respectable 2500 ATK AND you get to destroy all your opponent's monsters OR their spells and traps! However, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goldd,_Wu-Lord_of_Dark_World Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World]] is only marginally less awesome but summons himself when discarded by your own effect, so he's one of the more practical cards in a Dark World deck.
* Even if it has the second highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Force Machina Force]] is one of the best examples of Awesome, But Impractical due to its extremely difficult summoning conditions of having [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Commander_Covington Commander Covington]] on your field and sending [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Defender Machina Defender]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Soldier Machina Soldier]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Sniper Machina Sniper]] you control to the graveyard. To make things worse, it cannot declare an attack unless you pay 1000 Life Points. What's more, it's a "NOMI", meaning that if your opponent destroys it, it's gone for good (unless you feel like using something like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Monster_Reincarnation Monster Reincarnation]] and repeating the whole process of summoning it again.) This card only sees use in a Machina deck as discard fodder to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Fortress Machina Fortress]], a far more practical boss-monster for the archetype, and even then it's since been outclassed by the likes of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Cannon Machina Cannon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Megaform Machina Megaform]], which have other uses.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sophia,_Goddess_of_Rebirth Sophia, Goddess of Rebirth]], from the latest Duel Terminal. It has a heavy summoning cost of requiring a Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, ''and'' Xyz monster to be on the field. However, they can be on either side of the field, and can be tributed against the opponent's will a la [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lava_Golem Lava Golem]]. Once it's summoned, its effect activates which banishes everything from both players' fields, hands, and graveyards. Neither Sophia's effect nor its summon can be stopped, meaning that if you pull her off, you'll get an instant 3600 shot at your opponent's life points, if not a game win due to their loss of resources (unless they pull a card like Dark Hole or Mirror Force out of their ass, and ''even then'', they likely won't be able to do anything other than that). Difficult to summon, by no means splashable, [[DifficultButAwesome but in the right deck (and when you know your opponent enough to use his monster selection strengths against him), it can make quite a punch]].
** While the Nekroz archetype, in general, subverts this for most of their members in relation to what was said about Ritual Monsters at the top of this page, the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nekroz_of_Sophia Nekroz version of Sophia]] is this trope taken UpToEleven. Both of its effects are actually great: lock your opponent's Extra Deck for one Main Phase, or nuke the fields and graveyards. So, here's the impractical: to summon her, you need to tribute 3 monsters on your side of the field with different types. Not impractical enough? It would seem so, except that due to Sophia's restriction, '''you cannot summon them in the turn you're going to bring Sophia out.''' Actually, you can't even summon other monsters in that turn, because Sophia must be brought out in a turn in which you didn't Normal Summon, Set or Special Summon. Basically, you have to keep three monsters with different types and exactly 11 levels in your field for one turn to bring her out. And that's not going into the fact she negates the awesome and not-at-all impractical nature of the Nekroz Ritual Spell cards: Cycle cannot summon her from the Graveyard, Mirror cannot banish materials from the Graveyard and Kaleidoscope (the best Ritual Spell in the archetype) ''cannot summon her at all''. "Oh, but I can use the hand effect to keep my opponent at bay, right?" Right, but her effect also requires you to discard one of your Nekroz Ritual Spell cards, which is a huge price to pay in an archetype that heavily depends on their Ritual Summons. Not to mention that her Extra Deck lockout only lasts for that ''Main Phase 1'' instead of the entire turn, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vanity%27s_Emptiness other]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Artifact_Scythe cards]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dimensional_Barrier work]] much better than that.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tierra,_Source_of_Destruction Tierra, Source of Destruction]], the ultimate evil that absorbs her power in the lore of the game is even harder to pull off, for an even more powerful effect. The Awesome? Tierra spins every other card in the Graveyard, on the field and in both players hands, as well as face up Pendulum Monsters in the Extra Deck back to their respective decks. The Impractical? In order to get this effect you need 10 cards in your possession, all with different names, and you need to return each and every one to the deck. This means you would need to accumulate cards just to get her out, which by that point the game could be decided.
** Then there's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Avida,_Rebuilder_of_Worlds Avida, Rebuilder of Worlds]]. This card must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by there being at least 8 or more Link Monsters with different names on the field and/or in either player's graveyards, and of this card is Special Summoned, it shuffles all other monsters that are banished, on the field, and in the graveyards into the Decks. Neither player can activate cards or effects in response to this effect's activation. Problem is, you cannot Special Summon other monsters the turn you activate this effect, and your opponent can easily tribute this card with a Kaiju.
* Back in the old days of the game, there was [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gate_Guardian Gate Guardian]], a 3750 ATK monster who can only be summoned by tributing his three components, each of which require two tributes themselves. The best bit? Gate Guardian's three pieces combined have ''twice'' as much ATK as Gate Guardian (not to mention pretty decent effects that Gate Guardian doesn't get), and 3 monsters are harder to get rid of than a single target, so Gate Guardian is impractical ''even in a deck based around him''. A good example of this can be found in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khtSmTR23I8#t=4m36s the last duel of this video]]. He had to have a perfect hand, get lucky with Monster Gate, discard a ''Dark Hole'', be left with no other cards on the hand or field (aside from the field spell), all to watch Gate Guardian be destroyed by a simple Mirror Force.[[note]]Fun fact: at the end of the video, the Duelist states that, out of the many Duels in which he used that Deck, he only ever successfully summoned Gate Guardian thrice, including the time depicted. In mild fairness, it was less a Gate Guardian deck and more a Zubaba General deck that could summon Gate Guardian for style points, but that's still a damning record.[[/note]] The closest thing to a use it has is its high stats for a main-deck Warrior, making it good fodder for Zubaba General or [=UFOroid=] Fighter - but even then, you could do the same thing with, say, any given Black Luster Soldier variant, and lose 750 extra ATK on already-overkill stats in exchange for having a monster that can actually be summoned or do things.
** Gate Guardian is seen as so useless that there's a Skill in ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks'' that amounts to "start with nothing but Gate Guardian in hand and its three components on the field, none of which can actually do anything besides be used to summon Gate Guardian." Effectively, it lets you do the impossible and actually bring him out on your first turn in exchange for not being able to do much else, and given the lower powerscale of that game, whacking someone with a Guardian might actually be enough to win a game or two. It's still seen as a pretty bad strategy, though, especially since you also start with only 500 LP, meaning that you're basically screwed against anyone with monster removal or burn damage.
*** That said, Gate Guardian does shockingly see some usage. Mostly when it comes to farming certain event duelists. As Gate Guardian can be utilized as a unmovable wall to stall your opponent with no worries until you can set up your field. Most commonly, people would use Union attack on Gravekeeper's Vassal with it to farm a lot of points. However, other than this method, no one would ever use Gate Guardian.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Theinen_the_Great_Sphinx Theinen the Great Sphinx]]: 6500 ATK on the turn that he's summoned, and 3500 ATK on all the other turns. In order to get him out, you need to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Andro_Sphinx Andro Sphinx]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sphinx_Teleia Sphinx Teleia]]. Each requires two simple tributes to get out (unless you control Pyramid of Light - see below - in which case you can Special Summon them via their own effects by paying 500 Life Points apiece, but only from your hand). You then need to somehow destroy BOTH at once in order to summon Thenien. They do make a card for accomplishing this, called [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pyramid_of_Light Pyramid of Light]]. When active, it does nothing, but if destroyed, it will destroy all of the Sphinx cards that you control. Problem is, if your opponent somehow destroys it while you have only a single Sphinx out, then you just lost your good monster.
* The Spell card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reversal_Quiz Reversal Quiz]]: To use it, you have to discard your entire hand and get rid of every card you have on the field. Afterwards, you have to guess what the card on the top of your deck is (Monster, Trap, or Spell). If you guess correctly, you get to swap Life Points with your opponent. Whilst this seems like a decent enough payoff, if you fail to guess the card on top of your deck, you're essentially defenseless against your opponent (unless you've got more Life Points than them, which defeats the purpose of playing the card in the first place). If you do guess it correctly, you'll still have to hope that the very next card you pick up is a decent card which can defend you from your opponent, since they'll essentially get a free shot at you after you activate Reversal Quiz. If it isn't a decent card, then by the time you can get a decent enough defense up, your opponent will probably have whittled your Life Points down to what they were when you played the card. In short, it is virtually impossible to play Reversal Quiz and get out of a situation which only it could have solved/improved. The only use of this card is a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reversal_Quiz_OTK really gimmicky OTK.]]
* Some of the Spirit Monsters from the Legacy of Darkness booster pack and such can be this. An example is the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yamata_Dragon Yamata Dragon]], who packs 2600 Attack and upon inflicting battle damage, allows you to draw until you have five cards in your hand. There's also [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi]], which has 2800 Attack, and, if it does battle damage to the opponent, they have to discard their entire hand during their next draw phase before they draw. The problem is that both of them take two tributes. Now let's look at the main drawbacks of Spirit Monsters. First, they can't be Special Summoned in any way, so it's usually not worth it unless you build a deck around them. Second, they return to your hand at the end of the turn, so it can mean trouble if they're the only things you have on the field. There is the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spiritual_Energy_Settle_Machine Spiritual Energy Settle Machine]], which allows them to stay on the field, but you have to discard one card from your hand each turn to keep it on the field. And if that leaves the field at any time, the spirit monsters return to the hands, so it's not the easiest thing to maintain. However, later support cards for Spirit Monsters makes them easier to summon, and Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi's effect is potentially game-ending enough to promote it from this trope to [[DeathOrGloryAttack high-risk, high reward]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Obedient_Fiend Ultimate Obedient Fiend]]: 3500 attack and 3000 defense, and negates the effects of monsters it destroys... but in order for it to attack it has to be the only card on your side of the field, and you can't have any other cards in your hand.
* The Counter Trap card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Judgment_of_Anubis Judgment of Anubis]] has a cool name and an awesome effect: you can negate a card, destroy a monster, and inflict damage equal to its attack points all at once. However, the negated card in question has to be very specific: a Spell card that destroys your Spell/Trap cards. In practice, it becomes essentially an anti-[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Heavy_Storm Heavy Storm]]/[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystical_Space_Typhoon Mystical Space Typhoon]] card similar to cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/White_Hole White Hole]] which are powerless against anything else and thus are most likely to just be a dead draw.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Big_Shield_Gardna Big Shield Gardna]] has 2600 DEF and it requires no Tribute to summon. The catch? At the end of the Damage Step of a battle where this card is attacked, it ''turns to attack mode'', and it only has 100 ATK, meaning that your opponent's next monster will both destroy Big Shield Gardna and get a direct swing at your Life Points. However, though it is impractical as a defender, it was commonly used in burn decks since ramming into 2600 DEF still hurts a lot.
** Similarly, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_HERO_-_Defender Destiny HERO - Defender]] has 2700 DEF and requires no Tributes to Normal Summon/Set, but woe betide you if it's in face-up Defense Position during your opponent's Standby Phase, as they'll be able to draw another card.
* Some of the Archfiend monsters, particularly the ones introduced in Dark Crisis, can be considered this. On one hand, they have a side effect that allows you to roll a die in response to your opponent's cards that target it, and if it ends up a certain number, you can negate the effect completely and destroy it. However, it comes at a rather large turnoff of a cost: they ''force'' you to pay between 500 and 900 Life Points (depending on the monster) during each of your Standby Phases whether you want to or not, unless you have less than the required amount (in which case the monster is destroyed), even if Skill Drain is active. You can remove this effect using the field card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pandemonium Pandemonium]], however.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rocket_Arrow_Express Rocket Arrow Express]] has 5000 attack (one of only a handful of monsters that do) and just requires your field to be empty to special summon it from your hand. The problem is that its effect makes it so you can't conduct your battle phase the turn it's summoned, you can't activate any card effects or set anything while it's on the field, and it destroys itself unless you discard your entire hand each of your standby phases. All of this adds up to a monster that has extremely high attack but makes you into a sitting duck for your opponent when you summon it (unless the opponent happens to have a Skill Drain on the field, though even then, you still have to pay the maintenance cost).
* In the anime, Sugoroku Muto's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ancient_Dragon_(DM_anime) Ancient Dragon]]. It's a pretty powerful Monster, make no mistake; it's got 2800 ATK, it revives itself as long as you've got Ancient City out, and it has a proto-version of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Dragon_Archfiend Red Dragon Archfiend]]'s effect (only better, since it only destroys your opponent's monsters). However, it easily beats Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth in the "friggin' impossible to Summon" category - at least PUGM requires only two cards to summon. Ancient Dragon requires seven, and an insanely complicated procedure. First, you need to activate Ancient City, a Field Spell that is needed for the other cards. Then, you need to activate Ancient Tome, a card that would be sort of useful if not for the discard effect. Then, you need to summon Ancient Giant, a roundly mediocre Level 5 Monster with 2200 ATK and no effect other than damaging you when you don't attack with it. Then you need to activate Ancient Key, which Summons two Stone Giant Tokens, which could lose a fight to a Basic Insect and have the same effect as Ancient Giant (only slightly worse - Ancient Giant does 300, Stone Giant Tokens do 500 each). Then you need to switch those Tokens to DEF (and yes, that does mean you take damage from their effects). Then, you need to switch them back to ATK, which activates the effect of Ancient Key, destroying the Tokens and activating Ancient Gate. Only then, you can use Ancient Gate to discard Giant and Tome to summon the dragon. This was, of course, intentional; Sugoroku considered being able to Summon one an impressive accomplishment and did it mostly to settle a bet.
* On the subject of very effective Monsters with annoyingly-difficult Summoning conditions, meet [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fushioh_Richie Fusioh Richie]] [[BlindIdiotTranslation (or Nosferatu Lich if you're not dumb)]]. Richie has a pretty impressive set of stats, he's immune to Spell and trap card effects which target, and he can Summon a Zombie once per turn. He was also available in Pharaonic Guardian, a very early set, at a time when Zombies were a very popular Deck type. This obviously led to a massive surge of Decks with him as the ace, right? Well, not so much. To Summon Richie, you need to play [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Great_Dezard Great Dezard]], a one-Tribute Spellcaster with 1900 ATK, and then use Great Dezard to destroy at least two opponent's Monsters. Only then can you Tribute Dezard to summon Richie. Even in the days when Summoned Skull was considered a game-winning card, this was way, way too slow, and in the modern day, it's gone from slow to glacial.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Muka_Muka Muka Muka]] was a 600 ATK Level 2 Monster that gained 300 ATK and DEF for every card in your hand. This sounds like a good deal, since if you draw him on the first turn, you can get a Level 2 Monster with 2100 ATK... and his big brother, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Enraged_Muka_Muka Enraged Muka Muka]], costs a tribute but starts with 1200 and gains 400 for each, which would give him 3200 ATK in the same situation. So what's the problem? Well, he's completely useless in the mid-game, because by then both players probably have only one or two cards in their hand. Even if you draw him early, it's a better strategy to just play the cards in your hand instead of letting them sit there to power up Muka Muka. There are Decks that try to focus on drawing tons of cards to inflate Muka's strength, but let's be honest - if you have a whole Deck focused on drawing cards, it's a better idea to just run Exodia.
* LV Monsters zigzag this. Their concept (protect a weak Monster and then Tribute it to summon an upgraded form) sounds like it'd be rife with this, but in practice, they vary quite a bit. And then there's Dark Lucius and Allure Queen, who are... this trope. To level up Dark Lucius, you need to use his 1000-ATK [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV4 LV4 form]] to destroy an opponent's monster, then bring out his 1700-ATK [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV6 LV6 form]] and negate an opponent's monster's effect that activates when it's destroyed, and only then can you summon the respectable [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV8 LV8 form]] You are probably asking, "What if I try to start from the [=LV6=] form?" Then you're screwed; Lucius's higher forms only get their effects if summoned by a lower form, so starting from the [=LV6=] form leaves you with a weak card with no effect. (And no, they don't get their effects if you use Level Up, either.) You're probably also asking, "What if my opponent doesn't have a Monster with an effect that activates when destroyed?" Then you're screwed, because [=LV6=] can't activate its effect and level up. And Lucius is the ''stronger'' one. Allure Queen has the same drawback of its cards losing their effects if not Summoned by a lesser form's effect, but they add in the problem that they rely on the opponent having the right Monsters on the field. Furthermore, their effect (equip an opponent's monster onto themselves) is pretty much a watered-down version of Relinquished, a much older and easier-to-play card. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Allure_Queen_LV7 Allure Queen LV7]] has only 1500 ATK and no way to raise it, which makes it a sitting duck. At least if you couldn't jump through all the hoops, you could use Lucius [=LV8=] as an effect-less beatstick, but attempting to Normal Summon Allure Queen [=LV7=] is about as dumb as strategies get.
* To Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Montage_Dragon Montage Dragon]], you discard three Monsters. The awesome? Montage Dragon's ATK is equal to their combined levels x300, which can easily lead to a card strong enough to OneHitKill the opponent; he maxes out at 10800. The impractical? Discarding three monsters sets you back heavily in card advantage (playing it on the first turn involves dropping two-thirds of your hand), Montage Dragon is a complete dead draw if you don't have three other monsters in your hand, and Montage Dragon has no protective effects, making it a massive clay pigeon for every Trap under the sun. Overall, it will either win you the Duel in one turn, or die the second it hits the field and leave you with no options... and if your opponent is even remotely competent, it'll be the latter.
* Many 2000 ATK+ Level 4 or lower monsters have some kind of drawback: Giant Kozaky, Flash Assailant, Zombyra The Dark, Nuvia the Wicked, Unfriendly Amazon, Goblin Attack Force and that's just a sample. The practice started to die down around the release of 2000-ATK Normal Monster Gene-Warped Warwolf, but even before then, players had largely refused to bite. Put simply, most cards with the aforementioned drawbacks suffered such severe drawbacks that you needed to restructure your strategy to accommodate them, which flew in the face of BoringButPractical Beatdown strategy: sure, you could set your whole hand and Flash Assailant would be good, sure, you could play Scapegoat and Panther Warrior would be acceptable... or you could just play Gemini Elf, which has only 100 less ATK. The fact that Beatdown in general has fallen heavily out of favor means that even Gene-Warped Warwolf is pretty much meaningless today, so what chance has a loser like Boar Soldier got?
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_30%3A_Acid_Golem_of_Destruction Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction]]. It boasts a good 3000 ATK - one of the highest among Rank 3 Xyz monsters- making it a very potent beatstick. However, it also prevents you from Special Summoning, forces you to detach one of its Xyz Material every turn or take a hefty amount of damage, and on top of that, it can't attack at all while it has no Xyz Material. As such, it's only really used for attacking in situations where it can end the game, when a player desperately needs to get over a high attack monster, or alongside a Skill Drain. This is because its ''[[LethalJokeCharacter real]]'' use, as implied in the anime, is to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1Er8GhdQA use a card like Creature Swap or Mystic Box to give it to the opponent,]] tossing them a useless monster that shuts down their strategies and kills them in four turns.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tellarknight_Ptolemaeus Tellarknight Ptolemaeus's]] effect to detach 7 materials to skip the opponent's turn, definitely fits this trope. As it is literally impossible to summon it with more than 6 materials (and in most cases, no more than 5), the fastest way you could possibly get to this is by exhausting pretty much all your resources to give it those 6 materials and hope it lives until your next turn, spending at least one Stellarknight card from your extra deck in the process. And, quite frankly, if you can manage to have 6 level 4 monsters on your field, you probably have far better options than waiting a turn to skip the opponent's turn after that (especially in a warrior deck like Tellarknights, where [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_86:_Heroic_Champion_-_Rhongomyniad Number 86: Heroic Champion - Rhongomyniad]] was an option to lock your opponent down hard enough that you're basically skipping their turns anyway). Thus, you'll probably never use or see this effect used in competitive duels with it legal.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Quantum_Mecha_Overlord_Great_Magnas Super Quantal Mech King Great Magnus]] is a Rank 12 Xyz monster. Yes, a Rank 12. It requires 3 Level 12 monsters to summon, which will very rarely happen; but it can be summoned via its archetype's field spell. The impracticality of it is that in order to summon him this way, you need to have three other Xyz monsters either on the field or in the Graveyard, and in order to get his better effects, you need more materials on him. A hell of a lot of work for this guy... Well, should you pull off the impossible, you have a Rank 12 monster with 5-7 materials, giving him immunity to virtually any card effect, places a lock on the opponents deck, and can spin cards back to the deck with one xyz material.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raidraptor_-_Final_Fortress_Falcon Final Fortress Falcon]] is a rare Rank TWELVE Xyz which can be summoned by ranking up Ultimate Falcon. It has 300 more ATK and 800 more DEF, and if it has a Raidraptor monster as material, is unaffected by card effects. But instead of field suppression, Final Fortress is first and foremost an offensive attacker, letting you banish a Raidraptor from the Graveyard each time you kill a monster by battle to attack again, and letting you detach an Xyz Material to put all banished Raidraptors back in the Graveyard. Last Strix helps you get this monster out faster, but it is still ungainly and loses its immunities if its materials are detached, making Ultimate Falcon an overall better boss monster.
* Synchro Monsters that require other Synchro Monsters as Synchro Materials can fall in and out of this trope, depending on their summoning requirements. A few examples:
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shooting_Quasar_Dragon Shooting Quasar Dragon]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cosmic_Blazar_Dragon Cosmic Blazar Dragon]] have the hallmarks of this trope: Quasar has 4000 ATK, can attack twice, can negate anything once per turn, and summons [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shooting_Star_Dragon Shooting Star Dragon]] from your Extra Deck when it leaves the field (awesome); Blazar can negate '''any''' Effect, Summon and Attack by banishing itself until the End Phase. They require a Tuner Synchro Monster and two non-Tuner Synchro Monsters whose levels add up to 12 as materials (impractical). At first glance, they seems like more "deplete your hand to summon them, leaving you with no defense" monsters, like Gate Guardian above. However, a good number of Synchro Monsters give you extra draw power, which somewhat balances it out; specifically, one of the most commonly used materials is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Hyper_Librarian T.G. Hyper Librarian]], a Lv.5 Synchro Monster that lets you draw a card whenever either player Synchro Summons anything while it's on the field, making it a staple in Synchro decks. Combine this with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Formula_Synchron Formula Synchron]], a Lv.2 Tuner Synchro Monster, and you're all but guaranteed to draw a minimum of 3 cards while summoning them. Combined with the versatility of Lv.5 Synchro Monsters in general, this means that while they aren't practical as your main monsters, they can very easily be splashed in most Synchro decks.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Nova_Dragon Red Nova Dragon]] is similar, but with slightly laxer requirements and a less powerful effect. It only requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Dragon_Archfiend Red Dragon Archfiend]] (a Lv.8 Synchro Monster) and two tuners, with the sum of the three monsters' levels being 12. This means that you can theoretically get it out easier than Shooting Quasar Dragon above. In practice, however, it's not so simple; as it requires a specific monster as a material, your opponent can prevent you from summoning it by removing that monster from the field, and it isn't as easily splashed as Quasar. In terms of effects, it gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in your Graveyard, and can negate an opponent's attack by banishing itself, after which it returns to the field at the end of the turn; it also looks very badass. ''However'', while it can't be destroyed by your opponent's cards, it has no such protection from being banished, forcibly tributed with a monster like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lava_Golem Lava Golem]], or returned to the hand or deck. It also lacks the ability to negate effects. Overall, this leaves it more impractical than the aforementioned Quasar Dragon, although new Red Dragon Archfiend support cards make it viable when dueling for fun.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Supernova_Dragon Red Supernova Dragon]] has 4000 ATK, gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in your GY, cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects, and you can banish ALL cards your opponent controls when your opponent activates any monster effect or declares an attack. Problem is, it requires 3 Tuners + 1+ non-Tuner Synchro monsters to Synchro Summon this card, and it's even harder to summon then Red Nova Dragon.
** In its debut, the entire Synchro mechanic itself was impractical in ''Duel Links'' because the smaller deck sizes left little room for Tuners, which at the time were hard to get out and were very weak on their own. In addition, because performing the summon required at least two monsters on the field, and there are only 3 zones available, it could easily be intercepted by meta staples like Enemy Controller[[note]]which steals a monster at the cost of the user sacrificing one of their own[[/note]] or especially Treacherous Trap Hole[[note]]which destroys two monsters and which only has the activation condition of the user having no Trap Cards in the Graveyard[[/note]]. The mechanic only saw widespread play when Synchro archetypes were released that could easily Special Summon spam, such as the notorious Legendary Six Samurai.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Converging_Wishes Converging Wishes]] Special Summons 1 "Stardust Dragon" from your Extra Deck if you have 5 or more Dragon-Type Synchro Monsters and equips it to Stardust Dragon. When equipped, it gains ATK equal to all the combined ATK of all Dragon-Type Synchro Monsters in your Graveyard. Also when it destroys an opponent's monster by battle, you can banish 1 Dragon Synchro monster to make it attack again. This could easily result in a 10000+ ATK multiple attacker, but the cost of activating this card is utterly ridiculous.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zushin_the_Sleeping_Giant Zushin the Sleeping Giant]] may very well be the all-time champion of this. To summon this guy, you have to keep a Level 1 Normal Monster (i.e. a monster with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effect) alive for most likely '''''10 TURNS'''''. In a game where even monsters with all kinds of protection effects tend to last 2 or 3 turns at ''most'' and Duels can be decided within the space of ''one''. And you have to have Zushin in hand for all 10 turns. On the other hand, if you manage to do the impossible, you get a monster that can beat down basically ''anything'' the opponent throws at it and is immune to every card effect - but can only deal 1000 damage at a time[[note]] No, you can't boost its ATK, since it's immune to ''every'' card effect, including yours[[/note]]. Notably, Zushin was even considered Awesome, But Impractical InUniverse in ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'': it was considered to be on-par with the [[PhysicalGod Egyptian Gods]], but even though every man and his dog had a copy, '''nobody''' has ''ever'' been able to summon him until Team Taiyou pulled it off, it's ''that'' hard to summon.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zoodiac_Boarbow Zoodiac Boarbow]], which by default can attack the opponent directly, also has an effect that, if the conditions are met, forces the opponent to send all their cards on the field and in their hand to the graveyard if this card inflicts battle damage, an effect that will almost certainly win you the duel against most decks if successful (it swaps to defense afterwards, but it's moot by that point). But, said conditions are completely absurd, requiring having a minimum of 12 materials stacked beneath it. Sure, the archetype has ways of stacking Xyz on top of other Xyz multiple times a turn, but doing so requires, at minimum, waiting a turn after summoning this with at least one non-Xyz Zoodiac attached as a material or one Fire-Formation spell (since ATK points are necessary to trigger this effect in the first place), using few (if any) of the xyz monsters' effects, dedicating an absurd amount of extra deck space to individual Zoodiac xyz monsters, and finally, getting the chance to successfully attack and resolve the effect. If said attack fails, [[DeathOrGloryAttack all of the effort you put into it goes to waste]]. And, when the archetype as a whole has quickly become a major GameBreaker due to the effects of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zoodiac_Ratpier Ratpier]], being able to Xyz summon using only one monster, and the rest of the archetype's Xyz monsters' far more practical effects (see [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame this page]] for more details), you begin to wonder why they bothered giving Boarbow such a horrendously impractical effect at all.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian Flower Cardians]], an archetype based on the game ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanafuda Hanafuda]]'', have unparalleled drawing and deck-thinning capabilities, the ability to make dozens of summons in a single turn through both monster effects and summoning Spells [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Koi_Koi Super Koi Koi]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Gathering Flower Gathering]], and multiple powerhouse Synchros, including [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian_Lightshower Lightshower]], who has 3000 ATK, protects all your Cardians from targeting and destruction, and does 1500 damage per turn, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian_Lightflare Lightflare]], who has 5000 ATK, negates Spells and Traps and the effects of monsters it battles, and summons Lightshower for free when it dies. It'd be the most powerful Synchro archetype in the game, if not for one little problem: [[LuckBasedMission bricking.]] Flower Cardians have a grand total of ''two'' monsters that can be summoned without controlling any other cards, meaning that unless you get them or one of their summoning Spells in your opening hand, you're going to get mulched. And to make matters worse, while they have many draw cards, the majority of them only work if the card you drew was another Cardian, and while they have easy spamming and Tuners, many of their effects limit you to summoning more Cardians. This leads to a deck that [[CripplingOverspecialization needs to be played pure]] to use its full potential, but doing so also makes the deck's weaknesses most evident.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goddess_of_Sweet_Revenge Goddess of Sweet Revenge's]] effect is essentially a hand trap field nuke with the added benefit of being able to Special Summon any monster in its controller's deck. However, a couple of very situational conditions have to be met just to use this card's effect: 1. The card's controller must not have any other cards in their hand or their field (this includes spell and trap cards) 2. Your opponent must be attacking with one of their monsters. If a player manages to get into the kind of situation that it is literally made for, then it is awesome, as it allows the controller to make a quick surprise come-back (provided it isn't negated, as it has no protection against the myriad of effect-negating cards detailed elsewhere on this page), but any other situation leaves this card a complete dead draw.
* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Timelord Timelords]] can be Normal Summoned without Tribute if you control no monsters, are immune to destruction by any card, you take no battle damage from battles involving them, and have pretty powerful effects after they battle. Completely undefeatable? No. First, they cannot be Special Summoned from the Deck (though their own support gets around this), which is pretty bad in a metagame focused on fast Summoning. There are ten of them (and that's barring [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sephylon,_the_Ultimate_Timelord Sephylon, the Ultimate Timelord]]), and they all have 0 ATK and 0 DEF barring [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sandaion,_the_Timelord Sandaion]] and Sephylon (and the former prevents any player from taking battle damage from battles involving it. Yes, that includes your opponent), making it extremely foolish to build a Deck around them as they clog up 25% of your entire Deck. Also, during your Standby Phase, they are shuffled back into your Deck. On top of all that, their powerful effects rely on them getting off an attack, and they are not immune to being returned to the hand or Deck, or banished. One attack-negating effect from your opponent, and their effects are wasted and you must watch them meaninglessly shuffle themselves into your Deck on your next turn.
* The likely king of ineffectual boss monsters: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/D.D._Jet_Iron D.D. Jet Iron.]] Oh, yes, it has 4000 ATK, but its summoning requirement is sending four rather specific monsters to the Graveyard from the hand or field, and none of those four are anything above mediocre. On top of that, its only effect is being able to tribute itself to revive those same monsters - which might actually be more useful, since three of them are also fairly high-level. But only one of the cards used to summon it is searchable, and searching it out requires you to tribute one of the other ones, so you'll almost never be able to bring it out! Unless you're the biggest fan in the world of its anime wielder or ''Manga/BabelII'', there's almost no reason to even attempt using it.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sextet_Summon Sextet Summon]], requires you to banish SIX monsters with the same original Type but different monster card types (Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, Link) from your hand, GY, and/or face-up field, then Special Summon 1 monster with the same original Type as the banished monsters from your Deck or Extra Deck. The effect is decent, but nowhere ''near'' worth the absurdly steep cost, especially as it doesn't ignore summoning conditions, not to mention probably unnecessary as any halfway decent deck should be able to get its key monsters out at least somewhat consistently in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ten_Thousand_Dragon Ten Thousand Dragon]] is released to commemorate the milestone of 10,000 cards in the OCG. While it can have 10,000 ATK/DEF, its Summoning condition does not make it worth playing since it must be Special Summoned (from hand) by tributing monsters whose sum of ATK/DEF are 10,000 or more. Not to mention it is susceptible to summon negation and all kinds of card effects.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armed_Dragon_Catapult_Cannon Armed Dragon Catapult Cannon]] can easily erase the opponent's field, and prevent them from using almost anything. But to Summon it, you need to have Special Summoned both [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/VWXYZ-Dragon_Catapult_Cannon VWXYZ]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armed_Dragon_LV7 Armed Dragon LV7]], which are boss monsters of distinct archetypes with no synergy. It's much more convenient to just devote your deck to one archetype.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Halberd_Cannon/Assault_Mode T.G Halberd Cannon/Assault Mode]]. To summon this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Halberd_Cannon T.G Halberd Cannon]] which has the exact same summoning requirements as Shooting Quasar Dragon mentioned above using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Assault_Mode_Activate a very specific Trap Card]]. When your opponent would Summon a monster, you can negate the effect to banish that card and all Special Summoned monsters your opponent controls. It has 4500 ATK, but you'd never see it in the meta, likely because it's more difficult to summon than Shooting Quasar Dragon. Though this card can be Summoned significantly easier with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Assault_Reboot Assault Reboot]], albeit still needs other "/Assault Mode" monsters mentioned below.
** In fact, any of the "/Assault Mode" monsters could qualify, since their overly-specific summoning requirements could result in them becoming bricks clogging your Deck that only offer a 500 point boost to their tribute's ATK and DEF, something that can easily be achieved with any other card.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Cosmo_Neos Elemental HERO Cosmo Neos]] can lock your opponent from activating cards, also cards your opponent controls cannot activate their effects for this turn, and destroys all cards your opponent controls during the End Phase. You need to shuffle [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Neos Elemental Hero Neos]] and 3 Neo-Spacian monsters to summon this card. Needless to say, even if this card was released in 2007, it's still too slow to summon.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Divine_Neos Elemental HERO Divine Neos]]. It must be Fusion Summoned using any 5 "Neos", "Neo Space", "Neo-Spacian", or "HERO" monsters (including at least 1 "Neos" or "Neo Space" monster, 1 "Neo-Spacian" monster, and 1 "HERO" monster). All you get is a mediocre 2500 ATK monster which only effect is that you can banish one "Neos", "Neo Space", "Neo-Spacian", or "HERO" monster from your Graveyard, also it gains a measly 500 ATK, and until the End Phase it also gains the banished monster's effects. If you wanted to copy monster effects, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Windwitch_-_Crystal_Bell Windwitch - Crystal Bell]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantom_of_Chaos Phantom of Chaos]] might be better alternatives, simply because they can copy any monster. The one thing Divine Neos is good for is as a target for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Future_Fusion Future Fusion]], and even then only for dumping 5 Monsters from the Deck to the Graveyard rather than actually summoning the darn thing.
* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai Superheavy Samurai]]. Not only are the majority of them [[HumongousMecha massive robot]] samurai, but many of their best monsters can attack while in Defense-Position using their DEF as ATK. Not only that, but these monsters also [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai_Steam_Train_King have DEF as high as ''4800,'']] making them close to indestructible. Oh, and some of their higher leveled monsters can be Special Summoned without a sacrifice. So what's the catch? Any Deck that focuses on them has to focus on them alone. That means you can't bolster it with other cards outside its archetype, not even Spells or Traps. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Yes, you read that right.]] A pure Monster Deck sounds horrendously imbalanced already, but very few Superheavy Samurai monsters have ATK that breaks 2000, meaning any card effect that forces monsters into Attack Mode would screw you over big time.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Five-Headed_Link_Dragon Five-Headed Link Dragon]]. 5000 ATK, unaffected by other card's effects, cannot be destroyed by battle by most Attributes, and can nuke your opponent's field if you used 5 different Attributes to Link Summon this card. The catch is you must banish 5 cards from your GY face down during your opponent's End Phase, or this card is sent to the GY. If you could summon 5 monsters by the way, a better, quicker and more splashable option is to just use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/85289965 Borrelsword Dragon]].
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome... until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]]. That said, they were considered extremely useful back in the day, and were widely played; it's just that the modern game has become so hostile to Counter Traps that unless one is playing a mostly-Traps deck, it's hard to justify using anything but the best ones available.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metaltron_XII,_the_True_Dracombatant Metaltron XII, the True Dracombatant]] is unaffected by the effects of cards with the same card type (Monster, Spell, and/or Trap) as the original card type of the cards Tributed for its Tribute Summon, and can Special Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Naturia_Exterio Naturia Exterio]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai_Steam_Train_King Superheavy Samurai Steam Train King]] when it gets destroyed by your opponent, in fact any Fusion/Synchro/Xyz Extra Deck monster that is EARTH/WATER/FIRE/WIND. So why isn't this card used often in Draco decks? It requires 3 Tributes (very expensive) and can easily be Tributed by a Kaiju. Even when [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Master_Peace,_the_True_Dracoslaying_King Master Peace]] got banned, there was still no reason to use it due to the resources the player would need to summon it. But to be fair, he's better than the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Egyptian_God Egyptian Gods]].
[[/folder]]
----
Keep in mind, given the right deck, most of these examples can be viable if you have the time and creativity to do so.
[[folder: Instant Win Conditions]]
Cards that grant {{Instant Win Condition}}s are often [[DifficultButAwesome difficult to play, but satisfying to see actually work.]]
* [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). You can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually became one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodius Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord]] is ''much worse'' than Exodia's inherent InstantWinCondition. First of all, to summon it, you must shuffle all your monsters from your graveyard to your deck, which is considered impractical as most decks today are graveyard-reliant. Secondly, it begins with NO ATK and is increased by 1000 for each normal monster in your graveyard, and you can send a monster from your hand or deck to the graveyard whenever it attacks. Thirdly, it is banished when it leaves the field. That means once it is gotten rid of, it is pretty much gone for good with your ''fattened deck'', which is considered bad for most players. [[FourIsDeath Fourth and most importantly]], to achieve the InstantWinCondition, you must spend about FIVE turns to send a piece of Exodia ''each turn with its own effect'', which means that you cannot hasten the process to victory with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial Foolish Burial]] or other milling mechanics. While Exodius is very easy to summon, can use its effects to your advantage by regaining lost Extra Deck monsters, and be used as Rank 10 Xyz fodder, it is its InstantWinCondition that succumbs to this trope.
** In 2019, another Exodia card was announced, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia,_the_Legendary_Defender Exodia, the Legendary Defender]] and of course it has a win condition attached. For this one, if you tribute summon it by its effect of tributing '''''5''''' monsters and then proceed to destroy a DARK Fiend monster your opponent owns (which means no cheating with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nightmare_Archfiends Nightmare Archfiends]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystic_Box Mystic Box]]), you win the duel. Between the absurd Tribute Summoning requirement and specific battle restrictions, it's unlikely this condition will be met with any frequency, since you're generally going to need three specific cards in hand (Exodia, an attribute-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Scroll_of_Bewitchment Scroll of Bewitchment]], and a type-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/DNA_Surgery DNA Surgery]]) and five Tributes available. And Legendary Defender has ''no'' protection whatsoever. All things considered, if you want to use Exodia as a beater, you're probably better off with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Legendary_Exodia_Incarnate The Legendary Exodia Incarnate]].
** Yet another Exodia card was introduced the same year, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/True_Exodia True Exodia]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this monster, and put all 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters on the field, and make sure they are the only monsters in the field. The 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters are extremely weak Normal Monsters, and if you had these 4 on the field, your best option is to probably Link Summon a bunch of monsters rather than risking them on the field.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_Board Destiny Board]] is probably one of the most difficult victory condition to achieve. Not only will you need to have your ''entire backrow'' to reserve its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spirit_Message Spirit Messages]], each one can only be placed each of your opponent's End Phase (which means it takes about ''ten'' turns to achieve victory with this set of cards). And should one of the Spirit Messages you control leaves the field, all of them are gone for good! You can use [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sanctuary Dark Sanctuary]] to summon them as monsters, but that only leads to even more problems. First, the Sprit Messages won't have any ATK or DEF and can't be given a boost since they're immune to all card effects, including your own. Sure they can't be targeted for attacks, but Dark Sanctuary doesn't stop your opponent from attacking directly, so you can't use the Spirit Messages as [[StoneWall Stone Walls]]. And if they do attack, it comes down to a coin toss whether the attack goes through or not. And let's not forget that you'll have progressively fewer Monster Card Zones to work with if you do choose to summon the Spirit Messages as monsters.
* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Last_Turn Last Turn]]. It clears the field of all but one of your monsters, wipes the field and hands and then your opponent special summons any monster, last man standing wins. Sounds fair right? Until you realize just [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jowgen_the_Spiritualist how]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fossil_Dyna_Pachycephalo many]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Archlord_Kristya monsters]] have an effect that prevents special summons... so it is banned, for good.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Countdown Final Countdown]]: On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and the only way to stop it is to win before that happens. But that certain amount of time? ''20 turns. And'' it has a 2000-point cost. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Battle_Fader more]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Swift_Scarecrow and]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/One_Day_of_Peace more]] stall cards coming out, Countdown victories are getting easier, leading to this card becoming limited in TCG.
* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the DifficultButAwesome [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominaga_the_Deity_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes]]. It requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Snake_Deity a specific trap card]] to be activated, and then only in response to the destruction of its predecessor, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominon_the_King_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominion the King of Poisonous Snakes]]. Both cards have zero attack, but are boosted by the number of Reptiles in your graveyard (fortunately, there's specifically a card for sending Reptiles to the grave from the deck), but once it actually gets summoned, Vennominaga is all but invincible, since it cannot be affected at all by other card effects and if it damages the opponent three times without being killed itself, it's an automatic win. Its InstantWinCondition is quite redundant since you can easily finish your opponent off with its high ATK.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Horakhti Holactie the Creator of Light]] requires you to tribute all 3 Egyptian God cards to summon (and no cheating with cards that take the names of other cards, they have to be the originals). The fact that Ra can't be special summoned is another roadblock to getting this out. If you do summon it, however (and its summon can't be negated), you win the duel instantly, much like Exodia. But aside from decks specifically designed to bring it out, it's rather worthless (and even those decks designed around it rarely work). Not to mention, if your opponent allowed you to setup to the point you could get the three God cards on field, you could have already pretty much won in the meantime.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_88:_Gimmick_Puppet_of_Leo Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo]] is an Xyz monster that has an effect that can allow you to win the duel within 3 turns of it being on the field. However, it requires you to have no spells or traps on the field to use its effect and keeps you from conducting your battle phase that turn if you do. This is extremely dangerous against any skilled opponents since it allows them plenty of time to get the right card to stop it before you get that far and requires you to be very cautious about what spell/trap cards you set/activate lest you give up the ability to use its effect. And given it takes 3 Level 8 monsters to be on the field to summon it in the first place (Monsters that usually have very high stats), you'd most likely have a better chance of winning by just attacking with them and not having to be careful with placing or using traps/spells. However, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman it does have a small window of use]] in that it can effectively counter stalling decks such as Final Countdown and Chain Burn, which run little to no removal and instead are focused on preventing you from attacking.
** Although its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C88 upgraded form]] looks a bit better than the original form for not having the latter's restrictions and immune to effect targeting, it is pretty hard to summon as it must be Special Summoned with a "Rank-Up-Magic" Spell Card targeting its original form, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Also, its victory condition is pretty redundant since it has a hefty 3500 ATK and can detach an Xyz material to inflict 1000 damage every turn; by the time it's out of materials, your opponent is probably dead anyway.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jackpot_7 Jackpot 7]]'s effect is that you can activate it to get it shuffled back into your deck, when it is sent to the graveyard by an opponent's card effect, it banishes itself, and when all three copies of it are banished by their effects, you win the duel. Which sounds cool until you realize how hard and inconsistent it is to pull off. Splashing it into a random deck and expecting the opponent to use backrow removal on it will only result in the opponent being more careful with destroying your backrow (which is good for mind games but nothing else). To meet the condition with any kind of consistency requires also building a deck built entirely around a combo giving your opponent certain monsters to trigger their effects ([[LoopholeAbuse since that technically makes them the opponent's card effect]]) and hoping they can't derail the combo (which is pathetically easy to do). [[SubvertedTrope The exception to this]] were decks built around abusing the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar Morphing]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar_2 Jars']] effects by giving them to your opponent and triggering them, since there are enough ways to set it up and don't require particularly specific combos to succeed. The potential for such abuse to pop up in the TCG likely led to the bans of those cards before Jackpot 7 was released.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ghostrick_Angel_of_Mischief Ghostrick Angel of Mischief]] definitely counts, at least as far as its win condition is concerned. Its effect is that it can be Xyz Summoned on top of another Ghostrick Xyz monster, wins the duel once it has 10 Xyz materials, and you can attach one Ghostrick card from your hand to it during each of your turns. This means that in a proper Ghostrick deck, you have to minus yourself for at least 7 turns in a row and hope it lives, something that's very unlikely to happen in most duels. There are other ways to pull its win condition off, but none of those methods are consistent enough to be a competitive deck in its own right (for reference, the ''easiest'' version uses a Utopia engine that requires four specific Spell cards and roughly half your Extra Deck). The funny thing is that Angel of Mischief is actually a pretty strong card in itself (it's easily summoned, has good stats, and is the deck's primary searcher), meaning you'll see pretty much every Ghostrick player running a few but almost none going for its win condition.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Assault Phantasm Spiral Assault]] requires that a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Dragon Phantasm Spiral Dragon]] equipped with the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Crash three different]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Grip archetypal]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Wave Equip Spells]] destroy three monsters by battle in order to automatically win the Duel. Granted, the archetype is focused on getting your Dragon out and many of the cards work to re-equip these Equip Spells onto Phantasm Spiral Dragon, but once you activate Assault, your opponent will most likely be doing everything in their power to stop that Dragon from succeeding. Plus, by the time you get the Equip Spells all attached, you have a 3300 ATK monster that does piercing, has destruction immunity, and burns the opponent on a regular basis. You're already winning at that point, so Assault is almost superfluous.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/F.A._Winners F.A. Winners]] has the effect that if an F.A. whose level is 5 higher than its original level battles an opponent's monster and inflicts battle damage as a result, you can banish a card from your hand, field, or grave, and you win if you banish 3 different F.A. field spells by this effect, and this is also a true once per turn effect. To start, F.A. cards generally don’t benefit from being banished, so you’d likely only ever consider using this on field spells already in the grave or if you’re one away from winning. And secondly, F.A. monsters gain attack equal to their current levels x300, so by the time you can start triggering this effect, especially if you summon their synchro monster, you will have at least one big beater on the field. And by the time you could trigger this effect 3 turns in a row, and the opponent hasn't stopped you by then, then victory is within grasp anyways, so much like Phantasm Spiral Assault, it becomes a giant why bother.
* Remember the flashback duel between Pegasus and Bandit Keith?[[labelnote:Details]]The former can [[{{Telepathy}} read his opponent's mind]] with the Millennium Eye. Therefore he has a child audience to duel Keith in place of himself, but not before dropping down the notes for the kid on how to win the duel.[[/labelnote]] Keith ended up losing the duel, and there is an instance where the winner used a Normal Monster that has evolved to a Duel Winner: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flying_Elephant Flying Elephant]]. It cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effect once during the opponent's turn. Once the effect is used and it stays until their End Phase, it can attack for game (regardless of opponent's LP) in your next turn, so long as it is a Direct Attack that causes damage. Sounds cool, eh? But its effect is clunky as hell and your opponent will have tons of ways to stop that, ''even if it was released during the time it was introduced''[[note]]Early 2000s[[/note]]. The only way you’d ever win with this is if your opponent does so intentionally or [[TooDumbToLive is a special kind of stupid]].
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play, especially since [[LoopholeAbuse there's nothing stopping them from using it to summon a monster to use as Xyz Material, which doesn't count as making it leave the field]] even if you make them activate it in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the OCG, largely because Utopic ZEXAL doesn't require jumping through several convoluted hoops (destroying one specific monster you own with specifically a monster effect ''and'' getting a Numeron Network in the Graveyard, activating and resolving Chaos Ritual, and hoping your opponent is dumb enough to destroy Numeronius with a card effect and ''not'' have another one ready for Numeronia and/or fail to remove Numeronius without destroying it, all while devoting ''half your Extra Deck'' to pulling this off) and can lock your opponent down hard enough that it might as well be an instant win anyway.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* Having more than forty cards in your deck, for starters. You ''may'' be able to get away with forty one - forty three, but going to the max sixty card limit is generally seen as a bad thing. Sure, having extra cards in the deck for any given situation is nice, but it makes actually getting the cards you ''need'' in any given situation much, ''much'' harder to draw.
** Konami apparently took note of this and started to make some cards that actually avert this nature. Two notable examples are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pot_of_Desires Pot of Desires]], who nets the player the infamous "Pot of Greed" advantage at the cost of losing 10 cards from his deck permanently, and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/That_Grass_Looks_Greener That Grass Looks Greener]], which can mill 20 cards from the player's 60-card deck if played on the first turn, effectively setting up plays for an entire game. In fact, Grass did its job [[GoneHorriblyRight a bit too well]], becoming almost a win condition if resolved and getting limited and later banned in the TCG.
* From a meta, non-card game itself example: Konami actually did make [[{{Defictionalization}} toy Duel Disk to play the card game with anywhere]], but they were rife with problems. Even disregarding the obvious fact that they don't come with super advanced holographic imagery, and the fact that they were intended for young children to play with, as something that ''can'' work with the card game, it still deserves a mention here. Early creations didn't include an extra deck or banish zones, and the slots that held the cards in were too small for sleeves, making accidentally bending and tearing the cards frustratingly common. Even though later Duel Disks would fix this problem, there were still quite a few annoyances. Not only do they give the wearer ''insane'' wrist cramps shortly after putting them on, you'll likely get a few eyebrows raised your way if you tried playing with someone with it outside. Additionally, it's hard to keep track of what the opponent has played and make sure they don't pull any sleight of hand when they're far away, meaning it's likely you'll only ever use it inside while standing close next to someone, and if that's the case, you're better off just playing at a table where you can sit down and have a better view of the field.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
* Fusion Monsters suffered a lot of the same problems as Ritual Monsters, being that Polymerization and the required fusion materials can end up becoming a dead draw if not already in your hand. Thankfully, Konami caught onto this in the later years of the game, making more "generic" Fusion Monsters that require either two monsters of specific archetype, monster type, or attribute to fusion into the Fusion Monster, as well as making more Polymerization cards with additional effects to keep them from being dead draws in themselves.
** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
** In the early days of the card game, there were worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly some of the most useless cards in the game. Even by the standards of the earliest days of the game, a monster with only 900 or 1000 ATK that required a spell and two specific monsters simply wasn't worth the effort no matter how you looked at it. They have [[NotCompletelyUseless found players]] since then, though, with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] turning them into quick Rank 3 fodder.
*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for. [[LoopholeAbuse You can use fusion substitute monsters to avoid having to use Ultimate Dragon]], but given that Black Luster Soldier isn't exactly an impressive card on its own and Dragon Master Knight does nothing other than have big ATK, it's questionable whether loading your deck with cards like these is worth the payoff.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail (and your opponent somehow holding a full hand of cards). The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
* Many Tribute Monsters (monsters with 5 or more level stars) in the card game fall under this, especially in the early days. You can spend an enormous amount of resources on it and lose the whole thing to a simple trap card such as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bottomless_Trap_Hole Bottomless Trap Hole.]] Later tribute-summon based archetypes make up for this by allowing for easy tribute fodder, having effects that trigger when tribute summoning, and the tribute monsters having effects powerful enough to justify their summoning in the first place.
* And then there's the anime-only card, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ragnarok Ragnarok]]. The effect? If [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Magician Dark Magician,]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Magician_Girl Dark Magician Girl,]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sage Dark Sage,]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Magician_of_Black_Chaos Magician of Black Chaos]] (a minimum of 2 required) are on the field, all monsters on the enemy's side of the field can be banished. The cost? You have to banish ''every monster from your hand, deck, and graveyard''. The cost was probably only there for the undoubtedly [[RuleOfCool awesome]] visual effect: all of Yugi's monsters appear and swarm the enemy in order to banish it. There exists a real-life counterpart of it, Dark Burning Magic (which is based by the ''manga'' version of Ra's defeat), which completely removes the "lose all your other monsters" requirement, making it a quirky pick in Dark Magician decks that use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bond_Between_Teacher_and_Student Bond Between Teacher and Student]].
* For how impressive it sounds, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Huge_Revolution Huge Revolution]] certainly falls under this trope. If the conditions are correct, you can send your opponent's entire hand to the Graveyard and nuke their entire field, which should put them at a [[{{Pun}} huge]] disadvantage. But those conditions? Three weak, specific Normal Monsters with no relation to each other (they don't fall under an archetype that supports them) that have different Types, Attributes, and Levels, making searching for them all but impossible. Even if you somehow manage to pull it off, the combined original ATK of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/People_Running_About People Running About]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Oppressed_People Oppressed People]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/United_Resistance United Resistance]] (i.e. the three monsters needed to activate this card) is a mere 2000, and you're unlikely to have another monster to inflict further battle damage. If that wasn't enough, it is a Trap Card that can only be activated during your Main Phase, which completely goes against the point of it being a Trap Card (i.e. being able to be activated during either player's turn). ''And you still have to Set it and wait for your next turn before you can activate it''. Not to mention the revolution can easily be negated by every Counter Trap under the sun. It is almost completely impossible to build a Deck around this card, and it's not recommended to try.
** Similar to Huge Revolution, we have [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Law_of_the_Normal The Law of the Normal]], this card also Nukes your opponent's field and hand, and you need 5 Level 2 or lower Normal Monsters (i.e. monsters with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effects) on the field in order to use this card. The one silver lining of this particular card is that Tokens count as Normal Monsters, so it's not as hard to fulfill the activation conditions, but you still need a way to actually kill the opponent after playing it since low-level Tokens and Normal Monsters can rarely OTK through battle damage even with a full board of them.
* In the card game, we have [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Destiny Final Destiny]], which destroys all cards on the field at the cost of 5 discards. Since the maximum hand size is 6 (barring the use of spells like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hieroglyph_Lithograph Hieroglyph Lithograph]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Infinite_Cards Infinite Cards]]), playing Final Destiny leaves you with likely no hand and no field, giving you no way to take advantage of the freshly-cleared field. Not to mention, getting 5 cards in your hand to discard is a pretty tall order to begin with unless you drew Final Destiny in your opening hand.
** Pretty much everything that has already been said about Final Destiny can also be said about [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guarded_Treasure Guarded Treasure]]. You discard 5 cards, subsequently drawing 2 cards and drawing 2 cards instead of 1 for your normal draw during your following Draw Phases if it's still on the field. Drawing cards is a key to success in the card game, but in addition to the problems mentioned above with Final Destiny, you have to wait for your following turns to get much use out of Guarded Treasure, and if your opponent has any competence whatever they'll be able to destroy it before the first one.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Vehicroid_-_Stealth_Union Super Vehicroid Stealth Union]], a CombiningMecha Fusion Monster with an effect that lets it attack all the opponent's monsters, deal damage even if the monsters are in Defense Mode, and reduce your opponent's monster count by one by equipping it... made of four specific monsters plus a card that lets you Fusion Summon, and ''halves its own ATK every time it attacks'' until it's done attacking. It's quite concerning that this monster, which takes 5 specific cards to summon, is effectively only 100 ATK stronger than the Normal Summonable [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Asura_Priest Asura Priest]].
* The banned [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Victory_Dragon Victory Dragon]], an extremely hard-to-summon monster with stats that, for those difficult conditions, are relatively unremarkable. If it somehow attacks directly for the win, wins the entire ''match''. Not just this game, but an entire set of "best of three" duels. However, there's no rule (at least not in the US ruleset) saying your opponent can't just [[StopHavingFunGuys forfeit the duel when you attack]], sparing him the match loss. And in nearly any tournament setting of the sort where matches are actually played, Victory Dragon is banned.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Perfectly_Ultimate_Great_Moth Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth]]. Summoning it as originally intended is pretty much impossible, as you have to equip [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Petit_Moth Petit Moth]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Evolution Cocoon Of Evolution]], then wait for 6 turns before it can finally hit the field. Some legacy support remedied this, turning the archetype into a semisolid competitor in a game oversaturated with boss monsters. Say hello to [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Ultra_Evolution Super Cocoon of Evolution]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Parasite_Paranoid Parasite Paranoid]], which allow you to bring out two [=PUGM=]s in a single turn while also getting rid of one of your opponent's monsters! It's still not particularly good, since it's nothing but a giant beatstick, but it does make the card actually possible to play.
* The Wicked Gods and the legal version of Egyptian God Cards. Decent effects, but they all require THREE tributes to summon and fall to a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mirror_Force Mirror Force]] just as easily as any other monster when they attack. Especially that Wicked Gods cannot be Special Summoned.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Wicked_Eraser The Wicked Eraser]]: First of all, he can't be Special Summoned, which means if he's sent to the Graveyard (which is quite likely considering almost all of his effects occur when he's sent to the Graveyard), he's done. (Unless you plan to use Monster Reincarnation, or something like that.) On top of that, his attack and defense are equal to the number of cards your opponent controls x1000, which means if your opponent controls only one monster with 1100 ATK or more, he's done.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantom Armityle the Chaos Phantom]]. It requires banishing three cards (the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sacred_Beast Sacred Beasts]], who can also fall under this trope) , however since each of those three cards themselves require three cards to play, it really takes a total of 12 cards to get out. It gains a whopping 10,000 attack during your turn, meaning any successful attack would almost certainly win you the game (unless your opponent had a +2000 attack monster or really boosted his life points) since you start with 8000 life points. As if being ridiculously hard to get out wasn't enough, it only gains 10,000 attack during your turn, can be destroyed by any common methods (except battle), and is actually inferior than the combine might of the cards it requires (the Sacred Beasts combined may have as little as 8,000 attack, but usually will have +12,000 attack). However, with the release of the new Sacred Beasts Structure Deck, which contained not only more searchers for the Sacred Beasts, but even a dedicated Fusion Spell card to Fusion out Armityle, as well as a new version of Armityle that not only banishes your opponent's entire field at the end of your turn, but also Special Summons out the original for free, it seems the issues concerning Armityle's summoning conditions have been dealt with.
** There's an alternate method to summon this card though: Use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber-Stein Cyber-Stein]] to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantasm_-_Phantom_of_Fury Armityle the Chaos Phantasm - Phantom of Fury]], give it to your opponent, then pray your opponent does not get rid of this card during the End Phase. If you successfully do it, all your opponent's card will be banished, and Armityle the Chaos Phantom will be summoned ignoring its summoning condition, but you will be left with a 0 ATK Armityle during your opponent's turn.
* Similarly, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia_Necross Exodia Necross]]. It starts off with 1800 Attack and gains 500 at the start of each of your turns, and can't be destroyed in battle, or as a result of any Spells or Traps (meaning no Raigeki or Mirror Force will get it off the field). The catch is that it can only be Special Summoned with a Spell Card that you can only use if all five pieces of Exodia are in your graveyard. And if any of those pieces are removed from the graveyard, it is immediately destroyed and can't be revived. It can also be destroyed by monster effects and can be gotten off the field by any non-destruction removal.
* The Dark Crisis booster pack brought quite a few of these in addition to Exodia Necross, an example being [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Berserk_Dragon Berserk Dragon]]. While it has 3500 Attack, it can only be Special Summoned with the Quickplay Spell Card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/A_Deal_with_Dark_Ruler A Deal with Dark Ruler]] on a turn that one of your Level 8 monsters is sent to the Graveyard. It also gets to attack all monsters on your opponent's field once... but in addition, it loses 500 Attack at the end of each of your turns, which will quickly make it easy prey to anything tough your opponent has.
* Considering its [[RuleOfCool really cool]]-looking effect in the [[Anime/YuGiOh anime]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gandora_the_Dragon_of_Destruction Gandora the Dragon of Destruction]] is considered this for four reasons. First of all, this card cannot be Special Summoned, which means that you will have to tribute two monsters on your field or use a double-tributer. Secondly, you will have to pay ''half'' of your LP to nuke the field except this card. Although it banishes the cards, there are plenty of cards that don't have anywhere near as bad of a cost. Thirdly, this card gains 300 ATK for each card destroyed this way. However, the ATK boost is not impressive unless there are lots of cards on the field beforehand. [[FourIsDeath Fourth, and lastly]], this card is sent to the Graveyard during the End Phase of the turn it was Summoned.
** Gandora has an even more powerful version, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gandora_Giga_Rays_the_Dragon_of_Destruction Gandora Giga Rays the Dragon of Destruction]]. A NOMI monster (meaning you have to Special Summon it by its effect first) that hit the field for the "simple" cost of any 2 monsters in your hand and/or on the field. It instantly gains 300 ATK for every banished card, so in a dedicated build, it could swing as a beefy beatstick. But what makes it fit this category is its other effects. [[RuleOfThree By paying half of your Life Points]], you can do a variety of increasingly devastating effects... depending on how many Gandora cards with different names are in your Graveyard. For 1, you just nuke the field, for 2, you banish everything on the field, and if you have copies of OG Gandora, Gandora X, AND Gandora Giga Rays in your Graveyard, you get to banish EVERYTHING on the field AND in both player's Graveyards, meaning you most likely won't get a second chance to use that powerful of a nuke again that Duel. Plus, getting those monsters in the Grave will most likely telegraph to your opponent exactly what you're trying to do if they have any logical sense. Satisfying as hell, but not very reliable. This was averted with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_95:_Galaxy-Eyes_Dark_Matter_Dragon Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon]], as its effect could easily send 3 Gandora cards into the GY, and is one of the reasons Number 95 itself is banned in the OCG.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Steelswarm_Hercules Steelswarm Hercules]] is similar to Gandora, except it needs 3 "Steelswarm" tributes (which, even given the Steelswarm's focus on Tribute Summoning, can be quite a tall order), and it does not send itself to the GY at the End Phase.
* While the Blue-Eyes archetype has gotten some major updates in the ''Arc-V'' era that makes them far more usable, to the point of even popping up in tournaments, certain cards of the archetype still seem to only exist because of anime tie-ins, and as such, only really work on [[TheMagicPokerEquation Heart of the Cards]] logic.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], which requires 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragons and Polymerization. They don't have to be on the field, and in some ways it's better to fuse them while in your hand than tributing two monsters just for one regular Blue-Eyes. However, it's a steep cost anyway, with very little payoff. All BEUD is, is a 4500 ATK beater with no effects to speak off. If you ''could'' summon it, you're just better off using their support to summon two of them onto the field for a rank 8 Xyz monster, or swarm the field with 3000 ATK beaters to possibly OTK the opponent. While it meshes well with decks that can bring monsters back from the grave and protect them from card effects, which the recent Blue-Eyes greatly supports, it's still a lot of effort for a card of fairly limited use.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Shining_Dragon Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon]] requires the Ultimate Dragon above to be ''tributed from the field'' to be summoned. All that trouble to get the BEUD and then send it to the graveyard. Shining Dragon has 3000 ATK, but gains 300 for every Dragon in your graveyard. That means, at summon, it will most likely have 300 ATK ''less'' than your Ultimate Dragon (Blue-Eyes x3 + Ultimate Dragon in the graveyard). Fortunately, it comes with the bonus of being untargetable by anything other than attacks, and will most likely be much stronger than anything your opponent has anyway. If you run it, you should run it in a dedicated Dragon deck, which admittedly makes it very powerful, but otherwise there is really no benefit to using it.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Paladin_of_White_Dragon Paladin of White Dragon]] is an easily summoned card, but it's still a Ritual monster, even if it's only level 4. You still have to have a monster to tribute for it, and its stats are on par for a level 4. Its main effect is that sending it to the Graveyard lets you summon a Blue-Eyes from your hand or deck, but ultimately this means that you spent an extra card to send two monsters to the Graveyard to get your Blue-Eyes. The only net gain is that both tributes didn't have to be on the field at the same time, and the Blue-Eyes didn't have to be in your hand.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reign-Beaux%2C_Overlord_of_Dark_World Reign-Beaux, Overlord of Dark World]]: He's the big daddy of the Dark World archetype (until they [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Grapha got a new big daddy]]), who gains effects when discarded by effects (but not costs) and gains ''better'' effects when discarded by an opponent's effect! This guy, however, needs to be discarded by an opponent's effect in order to do anything, and while there are ways to force an opponent's effect into letting you discard (such as with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Deal Dark Deal]]) they're way too inconsistent to rely on as a main tactic. But if you ''do'' manage to discard him by your opponent's effect, you get a monster with a respectable 2500 ATK AND you get to destroy all your opponent's monsters OR their spells and traps! However, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goldd,_Wu-Lord_of_Dark_World Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World]] is only marginally less awesome but summons himself when discarded by your own effect, so he's one of the more practical cards in a Dark World deck.
* Even if it has the second highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Force Machina Force]] is one of the best examples of Awesome, But Impractical due to its extremely difficult summoning conditions of having [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Commander_Covington Commander Covington]] on your field and sending [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Defender Machina Defender]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Soldier Machina Soldier]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Sniper Machina Sniper]] you control to the graveyard. To make things worse, it cannot declare an attack unless you pay 1000 Life Points. What's more, it's a "NOMI", meaning that if your opponent destroys it, it's gone for good (unless you feel like using something like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Monster_Reincarnation Monster Reincarnation]] and repeating the whole process of summoning it again.) This card only sees use in a Machina deck as discard fodder to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Fortress Machina Fortress]], a far more practical boss-monster for the archetype, and even then it's since been outclassed by the likes of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Cannon Machina Cannon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Megaform Machina Megaform]], which have other uses.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sophia,_Goddess_of_Rebirth Sophia, Goddess of Rebirth]], from the latest Duel Terminal. It has a heavy summoning cost of requiring a Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, ''and'' Xyz monster to be on the field. However, they can be on either side of the field, and can be tributed against the opponent's will a la [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lava_Golem Lava Golem]]. Once it's summoned, its effect activates which banishes everything from both players' fields, hands, and graveyards. Neither Sophia's effect nor its summon can be stopped, meaning that if you pull her off, you'll get an instant 3600 shot at your opponent's life points, if not a game win due to their loss of resources (unless they pull a card like Dark Hole or Mirror Force out of their ass, and ''even then'', they likely won't be able to do anything other than that). Difficult to summon, by no means splashable, [[DifficultButAwesome but in the right deck (and when you know your opponent enough to use his monster selection strengths against him), it can make quite a punch]].
** While the Nekroz archetype, in general, subverts this for most of their members in relation to what was said about Ritual Monsters at the top of this page, the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nekroz_of_Sophia Nekroz version of Sophia]] is this trope taken UpToEleven. Both of its effects are actually great: lock your opponent's Extra Deck for one Main Phase, or nuke the fields and graveyards. So, here's the impractical: to summon her, you need to tribute 3 monsters on your side of the field with different types. Not impractical enough? It would seem so, except that due to Sophia's restriction, '''you cannot summon them in the turn you're going to bring Sophia out.''' Actually, you can't even summon other monsters in that turn, because Sophia must be brought out in a turn in which you didn't Normal Summon, Set or Special Summon. Basically, you have to keep three monsters with different types and exactly 11 levels in your field for one turn to bring her out. And that's not going into the fact she negates the awesome and not-at-all impractical nature of the Nekroz Ritual Spell cards: Cycle cannot summon her from the Graveyard, Mirror cannot banish materials from the Graveyard and Kaleidoscope (the best Ritual Spell in the archetype) ''cannot summon her at all''. "Oh, but I can use the hand effect to keep my opponent at bay, right?" Right, but her effect also requires you to discard one of your Nekroz Ritual Spell cards, which is a huge price to pay in an archetype that heavily depends on their Ritual Summons. Not to mention that her Extra Deck lockout only lasts for that ''Main Phase 1'' instead of the entire turn, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vanity%27s_Emptiness other]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Artifact_Scythe cards]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dimensional_Barrier work]] much better than that.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tierra,_Source_of_Destruction Tierra, Source of Destruction]], the ultimate evil that absorbs her power in the lore of the game is even harder to pull off, for an even more powerful effect. The Awesome? Tierra spins every other card in the Graveyard, on the field and in both players hands, as well as face up Pendulum Monsters in the Extra Deck back to their respective decks. The Impractical? In order to get this effect you need 10 cards in your possession, all with different names, and you need to return each and every one to the deck. This means you would need to accumulate cards just to get her out, which by that point the game could be decided.
** Then there's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Avida,_Rebuilder_of_Worlds Avida, Rebuilder of Worlds]]. This card must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by there being at least 8 or more Link Monsters with different names on the field and/or in either player's graveyards, and of this card is Special Summoned, it shuffles all other monsters that are banished, on the field, and in the graveyards into the Decks. Neither player can activate cards or effects in response to this effect's activation. Problem is, you cannot Special Summon other monsters the turn you activate this effect, and your opponent can easily tribute this card with a Kaiju.
* Back in the old days of the game, there was [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gate_Guardian Gate Guardian]], a 3750 ATK monster who can only be summoned by tributing his three components, each of which require two tributes themselves. The best bit? Gate Guardian's three pieces combined have ''twice'' as much ATK as Gate Guardian (not to mention pretty decent effects that Gate Guardian doesn't get), and 3 monsters are harder to get rid of than a single target, so Gate Guardian is impractical ''even in a deck based around him''. A good example of this can be found in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khtSmTR23I8#t=4m36s the last duel of this video]]. He had to have a perfect hand, get lucky with Monster Gate, discard a ''Dark Hole'', be left with no other cards on the hand or field (aside from the field spell), all to watch Gate Guardian be destroyed by a simple Mirror Force.[[note]]Fun fact: at the end of the video, the Duelist states that, out of the many Duels in which he used that Deck, he only ever successfully summoned Gate Guardian thrice, including the time depicted. In mild fairness, it was less a Gate Guardian deck and more a Zubaba General deck that could summon Gate Guardian for style points, but that's still a damning record.[[/note]] The closest thing to a use it has is its high stats for a main-deck Warrior, making it good fodder for Zubaba General or [=UFOroid=] Fighter - but even then, you could do the same thing with, say, any given Black Luster Soldier variant, and lose 750 extra ATK on already-overkill stats in exchange for having a monster that can actually be summoned or do things.
** Gate Guardian is seen as so useless that there's a Skill in ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks'' that amounts to "start with nothing but Gate Guardian in hand and its three components on the field, none of which can actually do anything besides be used to summon Gate Guardian." Effectively, it lets you do the impossible and actually bring him out on your first turn in exchange for not being able to do much else, and given the lower powerscale of that game, whacking someone with a Guardian might actually be enough to win a game or two. It's still seen as a pretty bad strategy, though, especially since you also start with only 500 LP, meaning that you're basically screwed against anyone with monster removal or burn damage.
*** That said, Gate Guardian does shockingly see some usage. Mostly when it comes to farming certain event duelists. As Gate Guardian can be utilized as a unmovable wall to stall your opponent with no worries until you can set up your field. Most commonly, people would use Union attack on Gravekeeper's Vassal with it to farm a lot of points. However, other than this method, no one would ever use Gate Guardian.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Theinen_the_Great_Sphinx Theinen the Great Sphinx]]: 6500 ATK on the turn that he's summoned, and 3500 ATK on all the other turns. In order to get him out, you need to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Andro_Sphinx Andro Sphinx]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sphinx_Teleia Sphinx Teleia]]. Each requires two simple tributes to get out (unless you control Pyramid of Light - see below - in which case you can Special Summon them via their own effects by paying 500 Life Points apiece, but only from your hand). You then need to somehow destroy BOTH at once in order to summon Thenien. They do make a card for accomplishing this, called [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pyramid_of_Light Pyramid of Light]]. When active, it does nothing, but if destroyed, it will destroy all of the Sphinx cards that you control. Problem is, if your opponent somehow destroys it while you have only a single Sphinx out, then you just lost your good monster.
* The Spell card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reversal_Quiz Reversal Quiz]]: To use it, you have to discard your entire hand and get rid of every card you have on the field. Afterwards, you have to guess what the card on the top of your deck is (Monster, Trap, or Spell). If you guess correctly, you get to swap Life Points with your opponent. Whilst this seems like a decent enough payoff, if you fail to guess the card on top of your deck, you're essentially defenseless against your opponent (unless you've got more Life Points than them, which defeats the purpose of playing the card in the first place). If you do guess it correctly, you'll still have to hope that the very next card you pick up is a decent card which can defend you from your opponent, since they'll essentially get a free shot at you after you activate Reversal Quiz. If it isn't a decent card, then by the time you can get a decent enough defense up, your opponent will probably have whittled your Life Points down to what they were when you played the card. In short, it is virtually impossible to play Reversal Quiz and get out of a situation which only it could have solved/improved. The only use of this card is a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reversal_Quiz_OTK really gimmicky OTK.]]
* Some of the Spirit Monsters from the Legacy of Darkness booster pack and such can be this. An example is the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yamata_Dragon Yamata Dragon]], who packs 2600 Attack and upon inflicting battle damage, allows you to draw until you have five cards in your hand. There's also [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi]], which has 2800 Attack, and, if it does battle damage to the opponent, they have to discard their entire hand during their next draw phase before they draw. The problem is that both of them take two tributes. Now let's look at the main drawbacks of Spirit Monsters. First, they can't be Special Summoned in any way, so it's usually not worth it unless you build a deck around them. Second, they return to your hand at the end of the turn, so it can mean trouble if they're the only things you have on the field. There is the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spiritual_Energy_Settle_Machine Spiritual Energy Settle Machine]], which allows them to stay on the field, but you have to discard one card from your hand each turn to keep it on the field. And if that leaves the field at any time, the spirit monsters return to the hands, so it's not the easiest thing to maintain. However, later support cards for Spirit Monsters makes them easier to summon, and Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi's effect is potentially game-ending enough to promote it from this trope to [[DeathOrGloryAttack high-risk, high reward]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Obedient_Fiend Ultimate Obedient Fiend]]: 3500 attack and 3000 defense, and negates the effects of monsters it destroys... but in order for it to attack it has to be the only card on your side of the field, and you can't have any other cards in your hand.
* The Counter Trap card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Judgment_of_Anubis Judgment of Anubis]] has a cool name and an awesome effect: you can negate a card, destroy a monster, and inflict damage equal to its attack points all at once. However, the negated card in question has to be very specific: a Spell card that destroys your Spell/Trap cards. In practice, it becomes essentially an anti-[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Heavy_Storm Heavy Storm]]/[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystical_Space_Typhoon Mystical Space Typhoon]] card similar to cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/White_Hole White Hole]] which are powerless against anything else and thus are most likely to just be a dead draw.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Big_Shield_Gardna Big Shield Gardna]] has 2600 DEF and it requires no Tribute to summon. The catch? At the end of the Damage Step of a battle where this card is attacked, it ''turns to attack mode'', and it only has 100 ATK, meaning that your opponent's next monster will both destroy Big Shield Gardna and get a direct swing at your Life Points. However, though it is impractical as a defender, it was commonly used in burn decks since ramming into 2600 DEF still hurts a lot.
** Similarly, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_HERO_-_Defender Destiny HERO - Defender]] has 2700 DEF and requires no Tributes to Normal Summon/Set, but woe betide you if it's in face-up Defense Position during your opponent's Standby Phase, as they'll be able to draw another card.
* Some of the Archfiend monsters, particularly the ones introduced in Dark Crisis, can be considered this. On one hand, they have a side effect that allows you to roll a die in response to your opponent's cards that target it, and if it ends up a certain number, you can negate the effect completely and destroy it. However, it comes at a rather large turnoff of a cost: they ''force'' you to pay between 500 and 900 Life Points (depending on the monster) during each of your Standby Phases whether you want to or not, unless you have less than the required amount (in which case the monster is destroyed), even if Skill Drain is active. You can remove this effect using the field card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pandemonium Pandemonium]], however.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rocket_Arrow_Express Rocket Arrow Express]] has 5000 attack (one of only a handful of monsters that do) and just requires your field to be empty to special summon it from your hand. The problem is that its effect makes it so you can't conduct your battle phase the turn it's summoned, you can't activate any card effects or set anything while it's on the field, and it destroys itself unless you discard your entire hand each of your standby phases. All of this adds up to a monster that has extremely high attack but makes you into a sitting duck for your opponent when you summon it (unless the opponent happens to have a Skill Drain on the field, though even then, you still have to pay the maintenance cost).
* In the anime, Sugoroku Muto's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ancient_Dragon_(DM_anime) Ancient Dragon]]. It's a pretty powerful Monster, make no mistake; it's got 2800 ATK, it revives itself as long as you've got Ancient City out, and it has a proto-version of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Dragon_Archfiend Red Dragon Archfiend]]'s effect (only better, since it only destroys your opponent's monsters). However, it easily beats Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth in the "friggin' impossible to Summon" category - at least PUGM requires only two cards to summon. Ancient Dragon requires seven, and an insanely complicated procedure. First, you need to activate Ancient City, a Field Spell that is needed for the other cards. Then, you need to activate Ancient Tome, a card that would be sort of useful if not for the discard effect. Then, you need to summon Ancient Giant, a roundly mediocre Level 5 Monster with 2200 ATK and no effect other than damaging you when you don't attack with it. Then you need to activate Ancient Key, which Summons two Stone Giant Tokens, which could lose a fight to a Basic Insect and have the same effect as Ancient Giant (only slightly worse - Ancient Giant does 300, Stone Giant Tokens do 500 each). Then you need to switch those Tokens to DEF (and yes, that does mean you take damage from their effects). Then, you need to switch them back to ATK, which activates the effect of Ancient Key, destroying the Tokens and activating Ancient Gate. Only then, you can use Ancient Gate to discard Giant and Tome to summon the dragon. This was, of course, intentional; Sugoroku considered being able to Summon one an impressive accomplishment and did it mostly to settle a bet.
* On the subject of very effective Monsters with annoyingly-difficult Summoning conditions, meet [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fushioh_Richie Fusioh Richie]] [[BlindIdiotTranslation (or Nosferatu Lich if you're not dumb)]]. Richie has a pretty impressive set of stats, he's immune to Spell and trap card effects which target, and he can Summon a Zombie once per turn. He was also available in Pharaonic Guardian, a very early set, at a time when Zombies were a very popular Deck type. This obviously led to a massive surge of Decks with him as the ace, right? Well, not so much. To Summon Richie, you need to play [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Great_Dezard Great Dezard]], a one-Tribute Spellcaster with 1900 ATK, and then use Great Dezard to destroy at least two opponent's Monsters. Only then can you Tribute Dezard to summon Richie. Even in the days when Summoned Skull was considered a game-winning card, this was way, way too slow, and in the modern day, it's gone from slow to glacial.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Muka_Muka Muka Muka]] was a 600 ATK Level 2 Monster that gained 300 ATK and DEF for every card in your hand. This sounds like a good deal, since if you draw him on the first turn, you can get a Level 2 Monster with 2100 ATK... and his big brother, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Enraged_Muka_Muka Enraged Muka Muka]], costs a tribute but starts with 1200 and gains 400 for each, which would give him 3200 ATK in the same situation. So what's the problem? Well, he's completely useless in the mid-game, because by then both players probably have only one or two cards in their hand. Even if you draw him early, it's a better strategy to just play the cards in your hand instead of letting them sit there to power up Muka Muka. There are Decks that try to focus on drawing tons of cards to inflate Muka's strength, but let's be honest - if you have a whole Deck focused on drawing cards, it's a better idea to just run Exodia.
* LV Monsters zigzag this. Their concept (protect a weak Monster and then Tribute it to summon an upgraded form) sounds like it'd be rife with this, but in practice, they vary quite a bit. And then there's Dark Lucius and Allure Queen, who are... this trope. To level up Dark Lucius, you need to use his 1000-ATK [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV4 LV4 form]] to destroy an opponent's monster, then bring out his 1700-ATK [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV6 LV6 form]] and negate an opponent's monster's effect that activates when it's destroyed, and only then can you summon the respectable [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV8 LV8 form]] You are probably asking, "What if I try to start from the [=LV6=] form?" Then you're screwed; Lucius's higher forms only get their effects if summoned by a lower form, so starting from the [=LV6=] form leaves you with a weak card with no effect. (And no, they don't get their effects if you use Level Up, either.) You're probably also asking, "What if my opponent doesn't have a Monster with an effect that activates when destroyed?" Then you're screwed, because [=LV6=] can't activate its effect and level up. And Lucius is the ''stronger'' one. Allure Queen has the same drawback of its cards losing their effects if not Summoned by a lesser form's effect, but they add in the problem that they rely on the opponent having the right Monsters on the field. Furthermore, their effect (equip an opponent's monster onto themselves) is pretty much a watered-down version of Relinquished, a much older and easier-to-play card. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Allure_Queen_LV7 Allure Queen LV7]] has only 1500 ATK and no way to raise it, which makes it a sitting duck. At least if you couldn't jump through all the hoops, you could use Lucius [=LV8=] as an effect-less beatstick, but attempting to Normal Summon Allure Queen [=LV7=] is about as dumb as strategies get.
* To Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Montage_Dragon Montage Dragon]], you discard three Monsters. The awesome? Montage Dragon's ATK is equal to their combined levels x300, which can easily lead to a card strong enough to OneHitKill the opponent; he maxes out at 10800. The impractical? Discarding three monsters sets you back heavily in card advantage (playing it on the first turn involves dropping two-thirds of your hand), Montage Dragon is a complete dead draw if you don't have three other monsters in your hand, and Montage Dragon has no protective effects, making it a massive clay pigeon for every Trap under the sun. Overall, it will either win you the Duel in one turn, or die the second it hits the field and leave you with no options... and if your opponent is even remotely competent, it'll be the latter.
* Many 2000 ATK+ Level 4 or lower monsters have some kind of drawback: Giant Kozaky, Flash Assailant, Zombyra The Dark, Nuvia the Wicked, Unfriendly Amazon, Goblin Attack Force and that's just a sample. The practice started to die down around the release of 2000-ATK Normal Monster Gene-Warped Warwolf, but even before then, players had largely refused to bite. Put simply, most cards with the aforementioned drawbacks suffered such severe drawbacks that you needed to restructure your strategy to accommodate them, which flew in the face of BoringButPractical Beatdown strategy: sure, you could set your whole hand and Flash Assailant would be good, sure, you could play Scapegoat and Panther Warrior would be acceptable... or you could just play Gemini Elf, which has only 100 less ATK. The fact that Beatdown in general has fallen heavily out of favor means that even Gene-Warped Warwolf is pretty much meaningless today, so what chance has a loser like Boar Soldier got?
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_30%3A_Acid_Golem_of_Destruction Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction]]. It boasts a good 3000 ATK - one of the highest among Rank 3 Xyz monsters- making it a very potent beatstick. However, it also prevents you from Special Summoning, forces you to detach one of its Xyz Material every turn or take a hefty amount of damage, and on top of that, it can't attack at all while it has no Xyz Material. As such, it's only really used for attacking in situations where it can end the game, when a player desperately needs to get over a high attack monster, or alongside a Skill Drain. This is because its ''[[LethalJokeCharacter real]]'' use, as implied in the anime, is to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1Er8GhdQA use a card like Creature Swap or Mystic Box to give it to the opponent,]] tossing them a useless monster that shuts down their strategies and kills them in four turns.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tellarknight_Ptolemaeus Tellarknight Ptolemaeus's]] effect to detach 7 materials to skip the opponent's turn, definitely fits this trope. As it is literally impossible to summon it with more than 6 materials (and in most cases, no more than 5), the fastest way you could possibly get to this is by exhausting pretty much all your resources to give it those 6 materials and hope it lives until your next turn, spending at least one Stellarknight card from your extra deck in the process. And, quite frankly, if you can manage to have 6 level 4 monsters on your field, you probably have far better options than waiting a turn to skip the opponent's turn after that (especially in a warrior deck like Tellarknights, where [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_86:_Heroic_Champion_-_Rhongomyniad Number 86: Heroic Champion - Rhongomyniad]] was an option to lock your opponent down hard enough that you're basically skipping their turns anyway). Thus, you'll probably never use or see this effect used in competitive duels with it legal.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Quantum_Mecha_Overlord_Great_Magnas Super Quantal Mech King Great Magnus]] is a Rank 12 Xyz monster. Yes, a Rank 12. It requires 3 Level 12 monsters to summon, which will very rarely happen; but it can be summoned via its archetype's field spell. The impracticality of it is that in order to summon him this way, you need to have three other Xyz monsters either on the field or in the Graveyard, and in order to get his better effects, you need more materials on him. A hell of a lot of work for this guy... Well, should you pull off the impossible, you have a Rank 12 monster with 5-7 materials, giving him immunity to virtually any card effect, places a lock on the opponents deck, and can spin cards back to the deck with one xyz material.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raidraptor_-_Final_Fortress_Falcon Final Fortress Falcon]] is a rare Rank TWELVE Xyz which can be summoned by ranking up Ultimate Falcon. It has 300 more ATK and 800 more DEF, and if it has a Raidraptor monster as material, is unaffected by card effects. But instead of field suppression, Final Fortress is first and foremost an offensive attacker, letting you banish a Raidraptor from the Graveyard each time you kill a monster by battle to attack again, and letting you detach an Xyz Material to put all banished Raidraptors back in the Graveyard. Last Strix helps you get this monster out faster, but it is still ungainly and loses its immunities if its materials are detached, making Ultimate Falcon an overall better boss monster.
* Synchro Monsters that require other Synchro Monsters as Synchro Materials can fall in and out of this trope, depending on their summoning requirements. A few examples:
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shooting_Quasar_Dragon Shooting Quasar Dragon]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cosmic_Blazar_Dragon Cosmic Blazar Dragon]] have the hallmarks of this trope: Quasar has 4000 ATK, can attack twice, can negate anything once per turn, and summons [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shooting_Star_Dragon Shooting Star Dragon]] from your Extra Deck when it leaves the field (awesome); Blazar can negate '''any''' Effect, Summon and Attack by banishing itself until the End Phase. They require a Tuner Synchro Monster and two non-Tuner Synchro Monsters whose levels add up to 12 as materials (impractical). At first glance, they seems like more "deplete your hand to summon them, leaving you with no defense" monsters, like Gate Guardian above. However, a good number of Synchro Monsters give you extra draw power, which somewhat balances it out; specifically, one of the most commonly used materials is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Hyper_Librarian T.G. Hyper Librarian]], a Lv.5 Synchro Monster that lets you draw a card whenever either player Synchro Summons anything while it's on the field, making it a staple in Synchro decks. Combine this with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Formula_Synchron Formula Synchron]], a Lv.2 Tuner Synchro Monster, and you're all but guaranteed to draw a minimum of 3 cards while summoning them. Combined with the versatility of Lv.5 Synchro Monsters in general, this means that while they aren't practical as your main monsters, they can very easily be splashed in most Synchro decks.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Nova_Dragon Red Nova Dragon]] is similar, but with slightly laxer requirements and a less powerful effect. It only requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Dragon_Archfiend Red Dragon Archfiend]] (a Lv.8 Synchro Monster) and two tuners, with the sum of the three monsters' levels being 12. This means that you can theoretically get it out easier than Shooting Quasar Dragon above. In practice, however, it's not so simple; as it requires a specific monster as a material, your opponent can prevent you from summoning it by removing that monster from the field, and it isn't as easily splashed as Quasar. In terms of effects, it gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in your Graveyard, and can negate an opponent's attack by banishing itself, after which it returns to the field at the end of the turn; it also looks very badass. ''However'', while it can't be destroyed by your opponent's cards, it has no such protection from being banished, forcibly tributed with a monster like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lava_Golem Lava Golem]], or returned to the hand or deck. It also lacks the ability to negate effects. Overall, this leaves it more impractical than the aforementioned Quasar Dragon, although new Red Dragon Archfiend support cards make it viable when dueling for fun.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Supernova_Dragon Red Supernova Dragon]] has 4000 ATK, gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in your GY, cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects, and you can banish ALL cards your opponent controls when your opponent activates any monster effect or declares an attack. Problem is, it requires 3 Tuners + 1+ non-Tuner Synchro monsters to Synchro Summon this card, and it's even harder to summon then Red Nova Dragon.
** In its debut, the entire Synchro mechanic itself was impractical in ''Duel Links'' because the smaller deck sizes left little room for Tuners, which at the time were hard to get out and were very weak on their own. In addition, because performing the summon required at least two monsters on the field, and there are only 3 zones available, it could easily be intercepted by meta staples like Enemy Controller[[note]]which steals a monster at the cost of the user sacrificing one of their own[[/note]] or especially Treacherous Trap Hole[[note]]which destroys two monsters and which only has the activation condition of the user having no Trap Cards in the Graveyard[[/note]]. The mechanic only saw widespread play when Synchro archetypes were released that could easily Special Summon spam, such as the notorious Legendary Six Samurai.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Converging_Wishes Converging Wishes]] Special Summons 1 "Stardust Dragon" from your Extra Deck if you have 5 or more Dragon-Type Synchro Monsters and equips it to Stardust Dragon. When equipped, it gains ATK equal to all the combined ATK of all Dragon-Type Synchro Monsters in your Graveyard. Also when it destroys an opponent's monster by battle, you can banish 1 Dragon Synchro monster to make it attack again. This could easily result in a 10000+ ATK multiple attacker, but the cost of activating this card is utterly ridiculous.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zushin_the_Sleeping_Giant Zushin the Sleeping Giant]] may very well be the all-time champion of this. To summon this guy, you have to keep a Level 1 Normal Monster (i.e. a monster with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effect) alive for most likely '''''10 TURNS'''''. In a game where even monsters with all kinds of protection effects tend to last 2 or 3 turns at ''most'' and Duels can be decided within the space of ''one''. And you have to have Zushin in hand for all 10 turns. On the other hand, if you manage to do the impossible, you get a monster that can beat down basically ''anything'' the opponent throws at it and is immune to every card effect - but can only deal 1000 damage at a time[[note]] No, you can't boost its ATK, since it's immune to ''every'' card effect, including yours[[/note]]. Notably, Zushin was even considered Awesome, But Impractical InUniverse in ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'': it was considered to be on-par with the [[PhysicalGod Egyptian Gods]], but even though every man and his dog had a copy, '''nobody''' has ''ever'' been able to summon him until Team Taiyou pulled it off, it's ''that'' hard to summon.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zoodiac_Boarbow Zoodiac Boarbow]], which by default can attack the opponent directly, also has an effect that, if the conditions are met, forces the opponent to send all their cards on the field and in their hand to the graveyard if this card inflicts battle damage, an effect that will almost certainly win you the duel against most decks if successful (it swaps to defense afterwards, but it's moot by that point). But, said conditions are completely absurd, requiring having a minimum of 12 materials stacked beneath it. Sure, the archetype has ways of stacking Xyz on top of other Xyz multiple times a turn, but doing so requires, at minimum, waiting a turn after summoning this with at least one non-Xyz Zoodiac attached as a material or one Fire-Formation spell (since ATK points are necessary to trigger this effect in the first place), using few (if any) of the xyz monsters' effects, dedicating an absurd amount of extra deck space to individual Zoodiac xyz monsters, and finally, getting the chance to successfully attack and resolve the effect. If said attack fails, [[DeathOrGloryAttack all of the effort you put into it goes to waste]]. And, when the archetype as a whole has quickly become a major GameBreaker due to the effects of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zoodiac_Ratpier Ratpier]], being able to Xyz summon using only one monster, and the rest of the archetype's Xyz monsters' far more practical effects (see [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame this page]] for more details), you begin to wonder why they bothered giving Boarbow such a horrendously impractical effect at all.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian Flower Cardians]], an archetype based on the game ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanafuda Hanafuda]]'', have unparalleled drawing and deck-thinning capabilities, the ability to make dozens of summons in a single turn through both monster effects and summoning Spells [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Koi_Koi Super Koi Koi]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Gathering Flower Gathering]], and multiple powerhouse Synchros, including [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian_Lightshower Lightshower]], who has 3000 ATK, protects all your Cardians from targeting and destruction, and does 1500 damage per turn, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian_Lightflare Lightflare]], who has 5000 ATK, negates Spells and Traps and the effects of monsters it battles, and summons Lightshower for free when it dies. It'd be the most powerful Synchro archetype in the game, if not for one little problem: [[LuckBasedMission bricking.]] Flower Cardians have a grand total of ''two'' monsters that can be summoned without controlling any other cards, meaning that unless you get them or one of their summoning Spells in your opening hand, you're going to get mulched. And to make matters worse, while they have many draw cards, the majority of them only work if the card you drew was another Cardian, and while they have easy spamming and Tuners, many of their effects limit you to summoning more Cardians. This leads to a deck that [[CripplingOverspecialization needs to be played pure]] to use its full potential, but doing so also makes the deck's weaknesses most evident.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goddess_of_Sweet_Revenge Goddess of Sweet Revenge's]] effect is essentially a hand trap field nuke with the added benefit of being able to Special Summon any monster in its controller's deck. However, a couple of very situational conditions have to be met just to use this card's effect: 1. The card's controller must not have any other cards in their hand or their field (this includes spell and trap cards) 2. Your opponent must be attacking with one of their monsters. If a player manages to get into the kind of situation that it is literally made for, then it is awesome, as it allows the controller to make a quick surprise come-back (provided it isn't negated, as it has no protection against the myriad of effect-negating cards detailed elsewhere on this page), but any other situation leaves this card a complete dead draw.
* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Timelord Timelords]] can be Normal Summoned without Tribute if you control no monsters, are immune to destruction by any card, you take no battle damage from battles involving them, and have pretty powerful effects after they battle. Completely undefeatable? No. First, they cannot be Special Summoned from the Deck (though their own support gets around this), which is pretty bad in a metagame focused on fast Summoning. There are ten of them (and that's barring [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sephylon,_the_Ultimate_Timelord Sephylon, the Ultimate Timelord]]), and they all have 0 ATK and 0 DEF barring [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sandaion,_the_Timelord Sandaion]] and Sephylon (and the former prevents any player from taking battle damage from battles involving it. Yes, that includes your opponent), making it extremely foolish to build a Deck around them as they clog up 25% of your entire Deck. Also, during your Standby Phase, they are shuffled back into your Deck. On top of all that, their powerful effects rely on them getting off an attack, and they are not immune to being returned to the hand or Deck, or banished. One attack-negating effect from your opponent, and their effects are wasted and you must watch them meaninglessly shuffle themselves into your Deck on your next turn.
* The likely king of ineffectual boss monsters: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/D.D._Jet_Iron D.D. Jet Iron.]] Oh, yes, it has 4000 ATK, but its summoning requirement is sending four rather specific monsters to the Graveyard from the hand or field, and none of those four are anything above mediocre. On top of that, its only effect is being able to tribute itself to revive those same monsters - which might actually be more useful, since three of them are also fairly high-level. But only one of the cards used to summon it is searchable, and searching it out requires you to tribute one of the other ones, so you'll almost never be able to bring it out! Unless you're the biggest fan in the world of its anime wielder or ''Manga/BabelII'', there's almost no reason to even attempt using it.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sextet_Summon Sextet Summon]], requires you to banish SIX monsters with the same original Type but different monster card types (Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, Link) from your hand, GY, and/or face-up field, then Special Summon 1 monster with the same original Type as the banished monsters from your Deck or Extra Deck. The effect is decent, but nowhere ''near'' worth the absurdly steep cost, especially as it doesn't ignore summoning conditions, not to mention probably unnecessary as any halfway decent deck should be able to get its key monsters out at least somewhat consistently in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ten_Thousand_Dragon Ten Thousand Dragon]] is released to commemorate the milestone of 10,000 cards in the OCG. While it can have 10,000 ATK/DEF, its Summoning condition does not make it worth playing since it must be Special Summoned (from hand) by tributing monsters whose sum of ATK/DEF are 10,000 or more. Not to mention it is susceptible to summon negation and all kinds of card effects.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armed_Dragon_Catapult_Cannon Armed Dragon Catapult Cannon]] can easily erase the opponent's field, and prevent them from using almost anything. But to Summon it, you need to have Special Summoned both [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/VWXYZ-Dragon_Catapult_Cannon VWXYZ]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armed_Dragon_LV7 Armed Dragon LV7]], which are boss monsters of distinct archetypes with no synergy. It's much more convenient to just devote your deck to one archetype.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Halberd_Cannon/Assault_Mode T.G Halberd Cannon/Assault Mode]]. To summon this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Halberd_Cannon T.G Halberd Cannon]] which has the exact same summoning requirements as Shooting Quasar Dragon mentioned above using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Assault_Mode_Activate a very specific Trap Card]]. When your opponent would Summon a monster, you can negate the effect to banish that card and all Special Summoned monsters your opponent controls. It has 4500 ATK, but you'd never see it in the meta, likely because it's more difficult to summon than Shooting Quasar Dragon. Though this card can be Summoned significantly easier with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Assault_Reboot Assault Reboot]], albeit still needs other "/Assault Mode" monsters mentioned below.
** In fact, any of the "/Assault Mode" monsters could qualify, since their overly-specific summoning requirements could result in them becoming bricks clogging your Deck that only offer a 500 point boost to their tribute's ATK and DEF, something that can easily be achieved with any other card.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Cosmo_Neos Elemental HERO Cosmo Neos]] can lock your opponent from activating cards, also cards your opponent controls cannot activate their effects for this turn, and destroys all cards your opponent controls during the End Phase. You need to shuffle [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Neos Elemental Hero Neos]] and 3 Neo-Spacian monsters to summon this card. Needless to say, even if this card was released in 2007, it's still too slow to summon.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Divine_Neos Elemental HERO Divine Neos]]. It must be Fusion Summoned using any 5 "Neos", "Neo Space", "Neo-Spacian", or "HERO" monsters (including at least 1 "Neos" or "Neo Space" monster, 1 "Neo-Spacian" monster, and 1 "HERO" monster). All you get is a mediocre 2500 ATK monster which only effect is that you can banish one "Neos", "Neo Space", "Neo-Spacian", or "HERO" monster from your Graveyard, also it gains a measly 500 ATK, and until the End Phase it also gains the banished monster's effects. If you wanted to copy monster effects, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Windwitch_-_Crystal_Bell Windwitch - Crystal Bell]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantom_of_Chaos Phantom of Chaos]] might be better alternatives, simply because they can copy any monster. The one thing Divine Neos is good for is as a target for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Future_Fusion Future Fusion]], and even then only for dumping 5 Monsters from the Deck to the Graveyard rather than actually summoning the darn thing.
* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai Superheavy Samurai]]. Not only are the majority of them [[HumongousMecha massive robot]] samurai, but many of their best monsters can attack while in Defense-Position using their DEF as ATK. Not only that, but these monsters also [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai_Steam_Train_King have DEF as high as ''4800,'']] making them close to indestructible. Oh, and some of their higher leveled monsters can be Special Summoned without a sacrifice. So what's the catch? Any Deck that focuses on them has to focus on them alone. That means you can't bolster it with other cards outside its archetype, not even Spells or Traps. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Yes, you read that right.]] A pure Monster Deck sounds horrendously imbalanced already, but very few Superheavy Samurai monsters have ATK that breaks 2000, meaning any card effect that forces monsters into Attack Mode would screw you over big time.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Five-Headed_Link_Dragon Five-Headed Link Dragon]]. 5000 ATK, unaffected by other card's effects, cannot be destroyed by battle by most Attributes, and can nuke your opponent's field if you used 5 different Attributes to Link Summon this card. The catch is you must banish 5 cards from your GY face down during your opponent's End Phase, or this card is sent to the GY. If you could summon 5 monsters by the way, a better, quicker and more splashable option is to just use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/85289965 Borrelsword Dragon]].
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome... until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]]. That said, they were considered extremely useful back in the day, and were widely played; it's just that the modern game has become so hostile to Counter Traps that unless one is playing a mostly-Traps deck, it's hard to justify using anything but the best ones available.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metaltron_XII,_the_True_Dracombatant Metaltron XII, the True Dracombatant]] is unaffected by the effects of cards with the same card type (Monster, Spell, and/or Trap) as the original card type of the cards Tributed for its Tribute Summon, and can Special Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Naturia_Exterio Naturia Exterio]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai_Steam_Train_King Superheavy Samurai Steam Train King]] when it gets destroyed by your opponent, in fact any Fusion/Synchro/Xyz Extra Deck monster that is EARTH/WATER/FIRE/WIND. So why isn't this card used often in Draco decks? It requires 3 Tributes (very expensive) and can easily be Tributed by a Kaiju. Even when [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Master_Peace,_the_True_Dracoslaying_King Master Peace]] got banned, there was still no reason to use it due to the resources the player would need to summon it. But to be fair, he's better than the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Egyptian_God Egyptian Gods]].
[[/folder]]
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to:
Keep in mind, given the right deck, most of these examples can be viable if you have the time and creativity to do so.
[[folder: Instant Win Conditions]]
Cards that grant {{Instant Win Condition}}s are often [[DifficultButAwesome difficult to play, but satisfying to see actually work.]]
* [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). You can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually became one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodius Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord]] is ''much worse'' than Exodia's inherent InstantWinCondition. First of all, to summon it, you must shuffle all your monsters from your graveyard to your deck, which is considered impractical as most decks today are graveyard-reliant. Secondly, it begins with NO ATK and is increased by 1000 for each normal monster in your graveyard, and you can send a monster from your hand or deck to the graveyard whenever it attacks. Thirdly, it is banished when it leaves the field. That means once it is gotten rid of, it is pretty much gone for good with your ''fattened deck'', which is considered bad for most players. [[FourIsDeath Fourth and most importantly]], to achieve the InstantWinCondition, you must spend about FIVE turns to send a piece of Exodia ''each turn with its own effect'', which means that you cannot hasten the process to victory with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial Foolish Burial]] or other milling mechanics. While Exodius is very easy to summon, can use its effects to your advantage by regaining lost Extra Deck monsters, and be used as Rank 10 Xyz fodder, it is its InstantWinCondition that succumbs to this trope.
** In 2019, another Exodia card was announced, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia,_the_Legendary_Defender Exodia, the Legendary Defender]] and of course it has a win condition attached. For this one, if you tribute summon it by its effect of tributing '''''5''''' monsters and then proceed to destroy a DARK Fiend monster your opponent owns (which means no cheating with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nightmare_Archfiends Nightmare Archfiends]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystic_Box Mystic Box]]), you win the duel. Between the absurd Tribute Summoning requirement and specific battle restrictions, it's unlikely this condition will be met with any frequency, since you're generally going to need three specific cards in hand (Exodia, an attribute-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Scroll_of_Bewitchment Scroll of Bewitchment]], and a type-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/DNA_Surgery DNA Surgery]]) and five Tributes available. And Legendary Defender has ''no'' protection whatsoever. All things considered, if you want to use Exodia as a beater, you're probably better off with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Legendary_Exodia_Incarnate The Legendary Exodia Incarnate]].
** Yet another Exodia card was introduced the same year, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/True_Exodia True Exodia]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this monster, and put all 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters on the field, and make sure they are the only monsters in the field. The 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters are extremely weak Normal Monsters, and if you had these 4 on the field, your best option is to probably Link Summon a bunch of monsters rather than risking them on the field.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_Board Destiny Board]] is probably one of the most difficult victory condition to achieve. Not only will you need to have your ''entire backrow'' to reserve its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spirit_Message Spirit Messages]], each one can only be placed each of your opponent's End Phase (which means it takes about ''ten'' turns to achieve victory with this set of cards). And should one of the Spirit Messages you control leaves the field, all of them are gone for good! You can use [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sanctuary Dark Sanctuary]] to summon them as monsters, but that only leads to even more problems. First, the Sprit Messages won't have any ATK or DEF and can't be given a boost since they're immune to all card effects, including your own. Sure they can't be targeted for attacks, but Dark Sanctuary doesn't stop your opponent from attacking directly, so you can't use the Spirit Messages as [[StoneWall Stone Walls]]. And if they do attack, it comes down to a coin toss whether the attack goes through or not. And let's not forget that you'll have progressively fewer Monster Card Zones to work with if you do choose to summon the Spirit Messages as monsters.
* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Last_Turn Last Turn]]. It clears the field of all but one of your monsters, wipes the field and hands and then your opponent special summons any monster, last man standing wins. Sounds fair right? Until you realize just [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jowgen_the_Spiritualist how]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fossil_Dyna_Pachycephalo many]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Archlord_Kristya monsters]] have an effect that prevents special summons... so it is banned, for good.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Countdown Final Countdown]]: On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and the only way to stop it is to win before that happens. But that certain amount of time? ''20 turns. And'' it has a 2000-point cost. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Battle_Fader more]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Swift_Scarecrow and]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/One_Day_of_Peace more]] stall cards coming out, Countdown victories are getting easier, leading to this card becoming limited in TCG.
* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the DifficultButAwesome [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominaga_the_Deity_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes]]. It requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Snake_Deity a specific trap card]] to be activated, and then only in response to the destruction of its predecessor, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominon_the_King_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominion the King of Poisonous Snakes]]. Both cards have zero attack, but are boosted by the number of Reptiles in your graveyard (fortunately, there's specifically a card for sending Reptiles to the grave from the deck), but once it actually gets summoned, Vennominaga is all but invincible, since it cannot be affected at all by other card effects and if it damages the opponent three times without being killed itself, it's an automatic win. Its InstantWinCondition is quite redundant since you can easily finish your opponent off with its high ATK.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Horakhti Holactie the Creator of Light]] requires you to tribute all 3 Egyptian God cards to summon (and no cheating with cards that take the names of other cards, they have to be the originals). The fact that Ra can't be special summoned is another roadblock to getting this out. If you do summon it, however (and its summon can't be negated), you win the duel instantly, much like Exodia. But aside from decks specifically designed to bring it out, it's rather worthless (and even those decks designed around it rarely work). Not to mention, if your opponent allowed you to setup to the point you could get the three God cards on field, you could have already pretty much won in the meantime.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_88:_Gimmick_Puppet_of_Leo Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo]] is an Xyz monster that has an effect that can allow you to win the duel within 3 turns of it being on the field. However, it requires you to have no spells or traps on the field to use its effect and keeps you from conducting your battle phase that turn if you do. This is extremely dangerous against any skilled opponents since it allows them plenty of time to get the right card to stop it before you get that far and requires you to be very cautious about what spell/trap cards you set/activate lest you give up the ability to use its effect. And given it takes 3 Level 8 monsters to be on the field to summon it in the first place (Monsters that usually have very high stats), you'd most likely have a better chance of winning by just attacking with them and not having to be careful with placing or using traps/spells. However, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman it does have a small window of use]] in that it can effectively counter stalling decks such as Final Countdown and Chain Burn, which run little to no removal and instead are focused on preventing you from attacking.
** Although its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C88 upgraded form]] looks a bit better than the original form for not having the latter's restrictions and immune to effect targeting, it is pretty hard to summon as it must be Special Summoned with a "Rank-Up-Magic" Spell Card targeting its original form, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Also, its victory condition is pretty redundant since it has a hefty 3500 ATK and can detach an Xyz material to inflict 1000 damage every turn; by the time it's out of materials, your opponent is probably dead anyway.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jackpot_7 Jackpot 7]]'s effect is that you can activate it to get it shuffled back into your deck, when it is sent to the graveyard by an opponent's card effect, it banishes itself, and when all three copies of it are banished by their effects, you win the duel. Which sounds cool until you realize how hard and inconsistent it is to pull off. Splashing it into a random deck and expecting the opponent to use backrow removal on it will only result in the opponent being more careful with destroying your backrow (which is good for mind games but nothing else). To meet the condition with any kind of consistency requires also building a deck built entirely around a combo giving your opponent certain monsters to trigger their effects ([[LoopholeAbuse since that technically makes them the opponent's card effect]]) and hoping they can't derail the combo (which is pathetically easy to do). [[SubvertedTrope The exception to this]] were decks built around abusing the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar Morphing]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar_2 Jars']] effects by giving them to your opponent and triggering them, since there are enough ways to set it up and don't require particularly specific combos to succeed. The potential for such abuse to pop up in the TCG likely led to the bans of those cards before Jackpot 7 was released.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ghostrick_Angel_of_Mischief Ghostrick Angel of Mischief]] definitely counts, at least as far as its win condition is concerned. Its effect is that it can be Xyz Summoned on top of another Ghostrick Xyz monster, wins the duel once it has 10 Xyz materials, and you can attach one Ghostrick card from your hand to it during each of your turns. This means that in a proper Ghostrick deck, you have to minus yourself for at least 7 turns in a row and hope it lives, something that's very unlikely to happen in most duels. There are other ways to pull its win condition off, but none of those methods are consistent enough to be a competitive deck in its own right (for reference, the ''easiest'' version uses a Utopia engine that requires four specific Spell cards and roughly half your Extra Deck). The funny thing is that Angel of Mischief is actually a pretty strong card in itself (it's easily summoned, has good stats, and is the deck's primary searcher), meaning you'll see pretty much every Ghostrick player running a few but almost none going for its win condition.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Assault Phantasm Spiral Assault]] requires that a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Dragon Phantasm Spiral Dragon]] equipped with the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Crash three different]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Grip archetypal]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Wave Equip Spells]] destroy three monsters by battle in order to automatically win the Duel. Granted, the archetype is focused on getting your Dragon out and many of the cards work to re-equip these Equip Spells onto Phantasm Spiral Dragon, but once you activate Assault, your opponent will most likely be doing everything in their power to stop that Dragon from succeeding. Plus, by the time you get the Equip Spells all attached, you have a 3300 ATK monster that does piercing, has destruction immunity, and burns the opponent on a regular basis. You're already winning at that point, so Assault is almost superfluous.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/F.A._Winners F.A. Winners]] has the effect that if an F.A. whose level is 5 higher than its original level battles an opponent's monster and inflicts battle damage as a result, you can banish a card from your hand, field, or grave, and you win if you banish 3 different F.A. field spells by this effect, and this is also a true once per turn effect. To start, F.A. cards generally don’t benefit from being banished, so you’d likely only ever consider using this on field spells already in the grave or if you’re one away from winning. And secondly, F.A. monsters gain attack equal to their current levels x300, so by the time you can start triggering this effect, especially if you summon their synchro monster, you will have at least one big beater on the field. And by the time you could trigger this effect 3 turns in a row, and the opponent hasn't stopped you by then, then victory is within grasp anyways, so much like Phantasm Spiral Assault, it becomes a giant why bother.
* Remember the flashback duel between Pegasus and Bandit Keith?[[labelnote:Details]]The former can [[{{Telepathy}} read his opponent's mind]] with the Millennium Eye. Therefore he has a child audience to duel Keith in place of himself, but not before dropping down the notes for the kid on how to win the duel.[[/labelnote]] Keith ended up losing the duel, and there is an instance where the winner used a Normal Monster that has evolved to a Duel Winner: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flying_Elephant Flying Elephant]]. It cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effect once during the opponent's turn. Once the effect is used and it stays until their End Phase, it can attack for game (regardless of opponent's LP) in your next turn, so long as it is a Direct Attack that causes damage. Sounds cool, eh? But its effect is clunky as hell and your opponent will have tons of ways to stop that, ''even if it was released during the time it was introduced''[[note]]Early 2000s[[/note]]. The only way you’d ever win with this is if your opponent does so intentionally or [[TooDumbToLive is a special kind of stupid]].
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play, especially since [[LoopholeAbuse there's nothing stopping them from using it to summon a monster to use as Xyz Material, which doesn't count as making it leave the field]] even if you make them activate it in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the OCG, largely because Utopic ZEXAL doesn't require jumping through several convoluted hoops (destroying one specific monster you own with specifically a monster effect ''and'' getting a Numeron Network in the Graveyard, activating and resolving Chaos Ritual, and hoping your opponent is dumb enough to destroy Numeronius with a card effect and ''not'' have another one ready for Numeronia and/or fail to remove Numeronius without destroying it, all while devoting ''half your Extra Deck'' to pulling this off) and can lock your opponent down hard enough that it might as well be an instant win anyway.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Other]]
* Having more than forty cards in your deck, for starters. You ''may'' be able to get away with forty one - forty three, but going to the max sixty card limit is generally seen as a bad thing. Sure, having extra cards in the deck for any given situation is nice, but it makes actually getting the cards you ''need'' in any given situation much, ''much'' harder to draw.
** Konami apparently took note of this and started to make some cards that actually avert this nature. Two notable examples are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pot_of_Desires Pot of Desires]], who nets the player the infamous "Pot of Greed" advantage at the cost of losing 10 cards from his deck permanently, and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/That_Grass_Looks_Greener That Grass Looks Greener]], which can mill 20 cards from the player's 60-card deck if played on the first turn, effectively setting up plays for an entire game. In fact, Grass did its job [[GoneHorriblyRight a bit too well]], becoming almost a win condition if resolved and getting limited and later banned in the TCG.
* From a meta, non-card game itself example: Konami actually did make [[{{Defictionalization}} toy Duel Disk to play the card game with anywhere]], but they were rife with problems. Even disregarding the obvious fact that they don't come with super advanced holographic imagery, and the fact that they were intended for young children to play with, as something that ''can'' work with the card game, it still deserves a mention here. Early creations didn't include an extra deck or banish zones, and the slots that held the cards in were too small for sleeves, making accidentally bending and tearing the cards frustratingly common. Even though later Duel Disks would fix this problem, there were still quite a few annoyances. Not only do they give the wearer ''insane'' wrist cramps shortly after putting them on, you'll likely get a few eyebrows raised your way if you tried playing with someone with it outside. Additionally, it's hard to keep track of what the opponent has played and make sure they don't pull any sleight of hand when they're far away, meaning it's likely you'll only ever use it inside while standing close next to someone, and if that's the case, you're better off just playing at a table where you can sit down and have a better view of the field.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
* Fusion Monsters suffered a lot of the same problems as Ritual Monsters, being that Polymerization and the required fusion materials can end up becoming a dead draw if not already in your hand. Thankfully, Konami caught onto this in the later years of the game, making more "generic" Fusion Monsters that require either two monsters of specific archetype, monster type, or attribute to fusion into the Fusion Monster, as well as making more Polymerization cards with additional effects to keep them from being dead draws in themselves.
** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
** In the early days of the card game, there were worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly some of the most useless cards in the game. Even by the standards of the earliest days of the game, a monster with only 900 or 1000 ATK that required a spell and two specific monsters simply wasn't worth the effort no matter how you looked at it. They have [[NotCompletelyUseless found players]] since then, though, with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] turning them into quick Rank 3 fodder.
*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for. [[LoopholeAbuse You can use fusion substitute monsters to avoid having to use Ultimate Dragon]], but given that Black Luster Soldier isn't exactly an impressive card on its own and Dragon Master Knight does nothing other than have big ATK, it's questionable whether loading your deck with cards like these is worth the payoff.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail (and your opponent somehow holding a full hand of cards). The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
* Many Tribute Monsters (monsters with 5 or more level stars) in the card game fall under this, especially in the early days. You can spend an enormous amount of resources on it and lose the whole thing to a simple trap card such as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bottomless_Trap_Hole Bottomless Trap Hole.]] Later tribute-summon based archetypes make up for this by allowing for easy tribute fodder, having effects that trigger when tribute summoning, and the tribute monsters having effects powerful enough to justify their summoning in the first place.
* And then there's the anime-only card, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ragnarok Ragnarok]]. The effect? If [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Magician Dark Magician,]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Magician_Girl Dark Magician Girl,]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sage Dark Sage,]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Magician_of_Black_Chaos Magician of Black Chaos]] (a minimum of 2 required) are on the field, all monsters on the enemy's side of the field can be banished. The cost? You have to banish ''every monster from your hand, deck, and graveyard''. The cost was probably only there for the undoubtedly [[RuleOfCool awesome]] visual effect: all of Yugi's monsters appear and swarm the enemy in order to banish it. There exists a real-life counterpart of it, Dark Burning Magic (which is based by the ''manga'' version of Ra's defeat), which completely removes the "lose all your other monsters" requirement, making it a quirky pick in Dark Magician decks that use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bond_Between_Teacher_and_Student Bond Between Teacher and Student]].
* For how impressive it sounds, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Huge_Revolution Huge Revolution]] certainly falls under this trope. If the conditions are correct, you can send your opponent's entire hand to the Graveyard and nuke their entire field, which should put them at a [[{{Pun}} huge]] disadvantage. But those conditions? Three weak, specific Normal Monsters with no relation to each other (they don't fall under an archetype that supports them) that have different Types, Attributes, and Levels, making searching for them all but impossible. Even if you somehow manage to pull it off, the combined original ATK of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/People_Running_About People Running About]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Oppressed_People Oppressed People]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/United_Resistance United Resistance]] (i.e. the three monsters needed to activate this card) is a mere 2000, and you're unlikely to have another monster to inflict further battle damage. If that wasn't enough, it is a Trap Card that can only be activated during your Main Phase, which completely goes against the point of it being a Trap Card (i.e. being able to be activated during either player's turn). ''And you still have to Set it and wait for your next turn before you can activate it''. Not to mention the revolution can easily be negated by every Counter Trap under the sun. It is almost completely impossible to build a Deck around this card, and it's not recommended to try.
** Similar to Huge Revolution, we have [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Law_of_the_Normal The Law of the Normal]], this card also Nukes your opponent's field and hand, and you need 5 Level 2 or lower Normal Monsters (i.e. monsters with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effects) on the field in order to use this card. The one silver lining of this particular card is that Tokens count as Normal Monsters, so it's not as hard to fulfill the activation conditions, but you still need a way to actually kill the opponent after playing it since low-level Tokens and Normal Monsters can rarely OTK through battle damage even with a full board of them.
* In the card game, we have [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Destiny Final Destiny]], which destroys all cards on the field at the cost of 5 discards. Since the maximum hand size is 6 (barring the use of spells like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hieroglyph_Lithograph Hieroglyph Lithograph]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Infinite_Cards Infinite Cards]]), playing Final Destiny leaves you with likely no hand and no field, giving you no way to take advantage of the freshly-cleared field. Not to mention, getting 5 cards in your hand to discard is a pretty tall order to begin with unless you drew Final Destiny in your opening hand.
** Pretty much everything that has already been said about Final Destiny can also be said about [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guarded_Treasure Guarded Treasure]]. You discard 5 cards, subsequently drawing 2 cards and drawing 2 cards instead of 1 for your normal draw during your following Draw Phases if it's still on the field. Drawing cards is a key to success in the card game, but in addition to the problems mentioned above with Final Destiny, you have to wait for your following turns to get much use out of Guarded Treasure, and if your opponent has any competence whatever they'll be able to destroy it before the first one.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Vehicroid_-_Stealth_Union Super Vehicroid Stealth Union]], a CombiningMecha Fusion Monster with an effect that lets it attack all the opponent's monsters, deal damage even if the monsters are in Defense Mode, and reduce your opponent's monster count by one by equipping it... made of four specific monsters plus a card that lets you Fusion Summon, and ''halves its own ATK every time it attacks'' until it's done attacking. It's quite concerning that this monster, which takes 5 specific cards to summon, is effectively only 100 ATK stronger than the Normal Summonable [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Asura_Priest Asura Priest]].
* The banned [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Victory_Dragon Victory Dragon]], an extremely hard-to-summon monster with stats that, for those difficult conditions, are relatively unremarkable. If it somehow attacks directly for the win, wins the entire ''match''. Not just this game, but an entire set of "best of three" duels. However, there's no rule (at least not in the US ruleset) saying your opponent can't just [[StopHavingFunGuys forfeit the duel when you attack]], sparing him the match loss. And in nearly any tournament setting of the sort where matches are actually played, Victory Dragon is banned.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Perfectly_Ultimate_Great_Moth Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth]]. Summoning it as originally intended is pretty much impossible, as you have to equip [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Petit_Moth Petit Moth]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Evolution Cocoon Of Evolution]], then wait for 6 turns before it can finally hit the field. Some legacy support remedied this, turning the archetype into a semisolid competitor in a game oversaturated with boss monsters. Say hello to [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Ultra_Evolution Super Cocoon of Evolution]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Parasite_Paranoid Parasite Paranoid]], which allow you to bring out two [=PUGM=]s in a single turn while also getting rid of one of your opponent's monsters! It's still not particularly good, since it's nothing but a giant beatstick, but it does make the card actually possible to play.
* The Wicked Gods and the legal version of Egyptian God Cards. Decent effects, but they all require THREE tributes to summon and fall to a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mirror_Force Mirror Force]] just as easily as any other monster when they attack. Especially that Wicked Gods cannot be Special Summoned.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Wicked_Eraser The Wicked Eraser]]: First of all, he can't be Special Summoned, which means if he's sent to the Graveyard (which is quite likely considering almost all of his effects occur when he's sent to the Graveyard), he's done. (Unless you plan to use Monster Reincarnation, or something like that.) On top of that, his attack and defense are equal to the number of cards your opponent controls x1000, which means if your opponent controls only one monster with 1100 ATK or more, he's done.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantom Armityle the Chaos Phantom]]. It requires banishing three cards (the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sacred_Beast Sacred Beasts]], who can also fall under this trope) , however since each of those three cards themselves require three cards to play, it really takes a total of 12 cards to get out. It gains a whopping 10,000 attack during your turn, meaning any successful attack would almost certainly win you the game (unless your opponent had a +2000 attack monster or really boosted his life points) since you start with 8000 life points. As if being ridiculously hard to get out wasn't enough, it only gains 10,000 attack during your turn, can be destroyed by any common methods (except battle), and is actually inferior than the combine might of the cards it requires (the Sacred Beasts combined may have as little as 8,000 attack, but usually will have +12,000 attack). However, with the release of the new Sacred Beasts Structure Deck, which contained not only more searchers for the Sacred Beasts, but even a dedicated Fusion Spell card to Fusion out Armityle, as well as a new version of Armityle that not only banishes your opponent's entire field at the end of your turn, but also Special Summons out the original for free, it seems the issues concerning Armityle's summoning conditions have been dealt with.
** There's an alternate method to summon this card though: Use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber-Stein Cyber-Stein]] to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantasm_-_Phantom_of_Fury Armityle the Chaos Phantasm - Phantom of Fury]], give it to your opponent, then pray your opponent does not get rid of this card during the End Phase. If you successfully do it, all your opponent's card will be banished, and Armityle the Chaos Phantom will be summoned ignoring its summoning condition, but you will be left with a 0 ATK Armityle during your opponent's turn.
* Similarly, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia_Necross Exodia Necross]]. It starts off with 1800 Attack and gains 500 at the start of each of your turns, and can't be destroyed in battle, or as a result of any Spells or Traps (meaning no Raigeki or Mirror Force will get it off the field). The catch is that it can only be Special Summoned with a Spell Card that you can only use if all five pieces of Exodia are in your graveyard. And if any of those pieces are removed from the graveyard, it is immediately destroyed and can't be revived. It can also be destroyed by monster effects and can be gotten off the field by any non-destruction removal.
* The Dark Crisis booster pack brought quite a few of these in addition to Exodia Necross, an example being [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Berserk_Dragon Berserk Dragon]]. While it has 3500 Attack, it can only be Special Summoned with the Quickplay Spell Card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/A_Deal_with_Dark_Ruler A Deal with Dark Ruler]] on a turn that one of your Level 8 monsters is sent to the Graveyard. It also gets to attack all monsters on your opponent's field once... but in addition, it loses 500 Attack at the end of each of your turns, which will quickly make it easy prey to anything tough your opponent has.
* Considering its [[RuleOfCool really cool]]-looking effect in the [[Anime/YuGiOh anime]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gandora_the_Dragon_of_Destruction Gandora the Dragon of Destruction]] is considered this for four reasons. First of all, this card cannot be Special Summoned, which means that you will have to tribute two monsters on your field or use a double-tributer. Secondly, you will have to pay ''half'' of your LP to nuke the field except this card. Although it banishes the cards, there are plenty of cards that don't have anywhere near as bad of a cost. Thirdly, this card gains 300 ATK for each card destroyed this way. However, the ATK boost is not impressive unless there are lots of cards on the field beforehand. [[FourIsDeath Fourth, and lastly]], this card is sent to the Graveyard during the End Phase of the turn it was Summoned.
** Gandora has an even more powerful version, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gandora_Giga_Rays_the_Dragon_of_Destruction Gandora Giga Rays the Dragon of Destruction]]. A NOMI monster (meaning you have to Special Summon it by its effect first) that hit the field for the "simple" cost of any 2 monsters in your hand and/or on the field. It instantly gains 300 ATK for every banished card, so in a dedicated build, it could swing as a beefy beatstick. But what makes it fit this category is its other effects. [[RuleOfThree By paying half of your Life Points]], you can do a variety of increasingly devastating effects... depending on how many Gandora cards with different names are in your Graveyard. For 1, you just nuke the field, for 2, you banish everything on the field, and if you have copies of OG Gandora, Gandora X, AND Gandora Giga Rays in your Graveyard, you get to banish EVERYTHING on the field AND in both player's Graveyards, meaning you most likely won't get a second chance to use that powerful of a nuke again that Duel. Plus, getting those monsters in the Grave will most likely telegraph to your opponent exactly what you're trying to do if they have any logical sense. Satisfying as hell, but not very reliable. This was averted with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_95:_Galaxy-Eyes_Dark_Matter_Dragon Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon]], as its effect could easily send 3 Gandora cards into the GY, and is one of the reasons Number 95 itself is banned in the OCG.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Steelswarm_Hercules Steelswarm Hercules]] is similar to Gandora, except it needs 3 "Steelswarm" tributes (which, even given the Steelswarm's focus on Tribute Summoning, can be quite a tall order), and it does not send itself to the GY at the End Phase.
* While the Blue-Eyes archetype has gotten some major updates in the ''Arc-V'' era that makes them far more usable, to the point of even popping up in tournaments, certain cards of the archetype still seem to only exist because of anime tie-ins, and as such, only really work on [[TheMagicPokerEquation Heart of the Cards]] logic.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], which requires 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragons and Polymerization. They don't have to be on the field, and in some ways it's better to fuse them while in your hand than tributing two monsters just for one regular Blue-Eyes. However, it's a steep cost anyway, with very little payoff. All BEUD is, is a 4500 ATK beater with no effects to speak off. If you ''could'' summon it, you're just better off using their support to summon two of them onto the field for a rank 8 Xyz monster, or swarm the field with 3000 ATK beaters to possibly OTK the opponent. While it meshes well with decks that can bring monsters back from the grave and protect them from card effects, which the recent Blue-Eyes greatly supports, it's still a lot of effort for a card of fairly limited use.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Shining_Dragon Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon]] requires the Ultimate Dragon above to be ''tributed from the field'' to be summoned. All that trouble to get the BEUD and then send it to the graveyard. Shining Dragon has 3000 ATK, but gains 300 for every Dragon in your graveyard. That means, at summon, it will most likely have 300 ATK ''less'' than your Ultimate Dragon (Blue-Eyes x3 + Ultimate Dragon in the graveyard). Fortunately, it comes with the bonus of being untargetable by anything other than attacks, and will most likely be much stronger than anything your opponent has anyway. If you run it, you should run it in a dedicated Dragon deck, which admittedly makes it very powerful, but otherwise there is really no benefit to using it.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Paladin_of_White_Dragon Paladin of White Dragon]] is an easily summoned card, but it's still a Ritual monster, even if it's only level 4. You still have to have a monster to tribute for it, and its stats are on par for a level 4. Its main effect is that sending it to the Graveyard lets you summon a Blue-Eyes from your hand or deck, but ultimately this means that you spent an extra card to send two monsters to the Graveyard to get your Blue-Eyes. The only net gain is that both tributes didn't have to be on the field at the same time, and the Blue-Eyes didn't have to be in your hand.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reign-Beaux%2C_Overlord_of_Dark_World Reign-Beaux, Overlord of Dark World]]: He's the big daddy of the Dark World archetype (until they [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Grapha got a new big daddy]]), who gains effects when discarded by effects (but not costs) and gains ''better'' effects when discarded by an opponent's effect! This guy, however, needs to be discarded by an opponent's effect in order to do anything, and while there are ways to force an opponent's effect into letting you discard (such as with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Deal Dark Deal]]) they're way too inconsistent to rely on as a main tactic. But if you ''do'' manage to discard him by your opponent's effect, you get a monster with a respectable 2500 ATK AND you get to destroy all your opponent's monsters OR their spells and traps! However, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goldd,_Wu-Lord_of_Dark_World Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World]] is only marginally less awesome but summons himself when discarded by your own effect, so he's one of the more practical cards in a Dark World deck.
* Even if it has the second highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Force Machina Force]] is one of the best examples of Awesome, But Impractical due to its extremely difficult summoning conditions of having [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Commander_Covington Commander Covington]] on your field and sending [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Defender Machina Defender]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Soldier Machina Soldier]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Sniper Machina Sniper]] you control to the graveyard. To make things worse, it cannot declare an attack unless you pay 1000 Life Points. What's more, it's a "NOMI", meaning that if your opponent destroys it, it's gone for good (unless you feel like using something like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Monster_Reincarnation Monster Reincarnation]] and repeating the whole process of summoning it again.) This card only sees use in a Machina deck as discard fodder to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Fortress Machina Fortress]], a far more practical boss-monster for the archetype, and even then it's since been outclassed by the likes of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Cannon Machina Cannon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Megaform Machina Megaform]], which have other uses.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sophia,_Goddess_of_Rebirth Sophia, Goddess of Rebirth]], from the latest Duel Terminal. It has a heavy summoning cost of requiring a Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, ''and'' Xyz monster to be on the field. However, they can be on either side of the field, and can be tributed against the opponent's will a la [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lava_Golem Lava Golem]]. Once it's summoned, its effect activates which banishes everything from both players' fields, hands, and graveyards. Neither Sophia's effect nor its summon can be stopped, meaning that if you pull her off, you'll get an instant 3600 shot at your opponent's life points, if not a game win due to their loss of resources (unless they pull a card like Dark Hole or Mirror Force out of their ass, and ''even then'', they likely won't be able to do anything other than that). Difficult to summon, by no means splashable, [[DifficultButAwesome but in the right deck (and when you know your opponent enough to use his monster selection strengths against him), it can make quite a punch]].
** While the Nekroz archetype, in general, subverts this for most of their members in relation to what was said about Ritual Monsters at the top of this page, the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nekroz_of_Sophia Nekroz version of Sophia]] is this trope taken UpToEleven. Both of its effects are actually great: lock your opponent's Extra Deck for one Main Phase, or nuke the fields and graveyards. So, here's the impractical: to summon her, you need to tribute 3 monsters on your side of the field with different types. Not impractical enough? It would seem so, except that due to Sophia's restriction, '''you cannot summon them in the turn you're going to bring Sophia out.''' Actually, you can't even summon other monsters in that turn, because Sophia must be brought out in a turn in which you didn't Normal Summon, Set or Special Summon. Basically, you have to keep three monsters with different types and exactly 11 levels in your field for one turn to bring her out. And that's not going into the fact she negates the awesome and not-at-all impractical nature of the Nekroz Ritual Spell cards: Cycle cannot summon her from the Graveyard, Mirror cannot banish materials from the Graveyard and Kaleidoscope (the best Ritual Spell in the archetype) ''cannot summon her at all''. "Oh, but I can use the hand effect to keep my opponent at bay, right?" Right, but her effect also requires you to discard one of your Nekroz Ritual Spell cards, which is a huge price to pay in an archetype that heavily depends on their Ritual Summons. Not to mention that her Extra Deck lockout only lasts for that ''Main Phase 1'' instead of the entire turn, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vanity%27s_Emptiness other]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Artifact_Scythe cards]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dimensional_Barrier work]] much better than that.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tierra,_Source_of_Destruction Tierra, Source of Destruction]], the ultimate evil that absorbs her power in the lore of the game is even harder to pull off, for an even more powerful effect. The Awesome? Tierra spins every other card in the Graveyard, on the field and in both players hands, as well as face up Pendulum Monsters in the Extra Deck back to their respective decks. The Impractical? In order to get this effect you need 10 cards in your possession, all with different names, and you need to return each and every one to the deck. This means you would need to accumulate cards just to get her out, which by that point the game could be decided.
** Then there's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Avida,_Rebuilder_of_Worlds Avida, Rebuilder of Worlds]]. This card must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by there being at least 8 or more Link Monsters with different names on the field and/or in either player's graveyards, and of this card is Special Summoned, it shuffles all other monsters that are banished, on the field, and in the graveyards into the Decks. Neither player can activate cards or effects in response to this effect's activation. Problem is, you cannot Special Summon other monsters the turn you activate this effect, and your opponent can easily tribute this card with a Kaiju.
* Back in the old days of the game, there was [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gate_Guardian Gate Guardian]], a 3750 ATK monster who can only be summoned by tributing his three components, each of which require two tributes themselves. The best bit? Gate Guardian's three pieces combined have ''twice'' as much ATK as Gate Guardian (not to mention pretty decent effects that Gate Guardian doesn't get), and 3 monsters are harder to get rid of than a single target, so Gate Guardian is impractical ''even in a deck based around him''. A good example of this can be found in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khtSmTR23I8#t=4m36s the last duel of this video]]. He had to have a perfect hand, get lucky with Monster Gate, discard a ''Dark Hole'', be left with no other cards on the hand or field (aside from the field spell), all to watch Gate Guardian be destroyed by a simple Mirror Force.[[note]]Fun fact: at the end of the video, the Duelist states that, out of the many Duels in which he used that Deck, he only ever successfully summoned Gate Guardian thrice, including the time depicted. In mild fairness, it was less a Gate Guardian deck and more a Zubaba General deck that could summon Gate Guardian for style points, but that's still a damning record.[[/note]] The closest thing to a use it has is its high stats for a main-deck Warrior, making it good fodder for Zubaba General or [=UFOroid=] Fighter - but even then, you could do the same thing with, say, any given Black Luster Soldier variant, and lose 750 extra ATK on already-overkill stats in exchange for having a monster that can actually be summoned or do things.
** Gate Guardian is seen as so useless that there's a Skill in ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks'' that amounts to "start with nothing but Gate Guardian in hand and its three components on the field, none of which can actually do anything besides be used to summon Gate Guardian." Effectively, it lets you do the impossible and actually bring him out on your first turn in exchange for not being able to do much else, and given the lower powerscale of that game, whacking someone with a Guardian might actually be enough to win a game or two. It's still seen as a pretty bad strategy, though, especially since you also start with only 500 LP, meaning that you're basically screwed against anyone with monster removal or burn damage.
*** That said, Gate Guardian does shockingly see some usage. Mostly when it comes to farming certain event duelists. As Gate Guardian can be utilized as a unmovable wall to stall your opponent with no worries until you can set up your field. Most commonly, people would use Union attack on Gravekeeper's Vassal with it to farm a lot of points. However, other than this method, no one would ever use Gate Guardian.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Theinen_the_Great_Sphinx Theinen the Great Sphinx]]: 6500 ATK on the turn that he's summoned, and 3500 ATK on all the other turns. In order to get him out, you need to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Andro_Sphinx Andro Sphinx]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sphinx_Teleia Sphinx Teleia]]. Each requires two simple tributes to get out (unless you control Pyramid of Light - see below - in which case you can Special Summon them via their own effects by paying 500 Life Points apiece, but only from your hand). You then need to somehow destroy BOTH at once in order to summon Thenien. They do make a card for accomplishing this, called [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pyramid_of_Light Pyramid of Light]]. When active, it does nothing, but if destroyed, it will destroy all of the Sphinx cards that you control. Problem is, if your opponent somehow destroys it while you have only a single Sphinx out, then you just lost your good monster.
* The Spell card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reversal_Quiz Reversal Quiz]]: To use it, you have to discard your entire hand and get rid of every card you have on the field. Afterwards, you have to guess what the card on the top of your deck is (Monster, Trap, or Spell). If you guess correctly, you get to swap Life Points with your opponent. Whilst this seems like a decent enough payoff, if you fail to guess the card on top of your deck, you're essentially defenseless against your opponent (unless you've got more Life Points than them, which defeats the purpose of playing the card in the first place). If you do guess it correctly, you'll still have to hope that the very next card you pick up is a decent card which can defend you from your opponent, since they'll essentially get a free shot at you after you activate Reversal Quiz. If it isn't a decent card, then by the time you can get a decent enough defense up, your opponent will probably have whittled your Life Points down to what they were when you played the card. In short, it is virtually impossible to play Reversal Quiz and get out of a situation which only it could have solved/improved. The only use of this card is a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Reversal_Quiz_OTK really gimmicky OTK.]]
* Some of the Spirit Monsters from the Legacy of Darkness booster pack and such can be this. An example is the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yamata_Dragon Yamata Dragon]], who packs 2600 Attack and upon inflicting battle damage, allows you to draw until you have five cards in your hand. There's also [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi]], which has 2800 Attack, and, if it does battle damage to the opponent, they have to discard their entire hand during their next draw phase before they draw. The problem is that both of them take two tributes. Now let's look at the main drawbacks of Spirit Monsters. First, they can't be Special Summoned in any way, so it's usually not worth it unless you build a deck around them. Second, they return to your hand at the end of the turn, so it can mean trouble if they're the only things you have on the field. There is the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spiritual_Energy_Settle_Machine Spiritual Energy Settle Machine]], which allows them to stay on the field, but you have to discard one card from your hand each turn to keep it on the field. And if that leaves the field at any time, the spirit monsters return to the hands, so it's not the easiest thing to maintain. However, later support cards for Spirit Monsters makes them easier to summon, and Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi's effect is potentially game-ending enough to promote it from this trope to [[DeathOrGloryAttack high-risk, high reward]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Obedient_Fiend Ultimate Obedient Fiend]]: 3500 attack and 3000 defense, and negates the effects of monsters it destroys... but in order for it to attack it has to be the only card on your side of the field, and you can't have any other cards in your hand.
* The Counter Trap card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Judgment_of_Anubis Judgment of Anubis]] has a cool name and an awesome effect: you can negate a card, destroy a monster, and inflict damage equal to its attack points all at once. However, the negated card in question has to be very specific: a Spell card that destroys your Spell/Trap cards. In practice, it becomes essentially an anti-[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Heavy_Storm Heavy Storm]]/[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystical_Space_Typhoon Mystical Space Typhoon]] card similar to cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/White_Hole White Hole]] which are powerless against anything else and thus are most likely to just be a dead draw.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Big_Shield_Gardna Big Shield Gardna]] has 2600 DEF and it requires no Tribute to summon. The catch? At the end of the Damage Step of a battle where this card is attacked, it ''turns to attack mode'', and it only has 100 ATK, meaning that your opponent's next monster will both destroy Big Shield Gardna and get a direct swing at your Life Points. However, though it is impractical as a defender, it was commonly used in burn decks since ramming into 2600 DEF still hurts a lot.
** Similarly, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_HERO_-_Defender Destiny HERO - Defender]] has 2700 DEF and requires no Tributes to Normal Summon/Set, but woe betide you if it's in face-up Defense Position during your opponent's Standby Phase, as they'll be able to draw another card.
* Some of the Archfiend monsters, particularly the ones introduced in Dark Crisis, can be considered this. On one hand, they have a side effect that allows you to roll a die in response to your opponent's cards that target it, and if it ends up a certain number, you can negate the effect completely and destroy it. However, it comes at a rather large turnoff of a cost: they ''force'' you to pay between 500 and 900 Life Points (depending on the monster) during each of your Standby Phases whether you want to or not, unless you have less than the required amount (in which case the monster is destroyed), even if Skill Drain is active. You can remove this effect using the field card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pandemonium Pandemonium]], however.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rocket_Arrow_Express Rocket Arrow Express]] has 5000 attack (one of only a handful of monsters that do) and just requires your field to be empty to special summon it from your hand. The problem is that its effect makes it so you can't conduct your battle phase the turn it's summoned, you can't activate any card effects or set anything while it's on the field, and it destroys itself unless you discard your entire hand each of your standby phases. All of this adds up to a monster that has extremely high attack but makes you into a sitting duck for your opponent when you summon it (unless the opponent happens to have a Skill Drain on the field, though even then, you still have to pay the maintenance cost).
* In the anime, Sugoroku Muto's [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ancient_Dragon_(DM_anime) Ancient Dragon]]. It's a pretty powerful Monster, make no mistake; it's got 2800 ATK, it revives itself as long as you've got Ancient City out, and it has a proto-version of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Dragon_Archfiend Red Dragon Archfiend]]'s effect (only better, since it only destroys your opponent's monsters). However, it easily beats Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth in the "friggin' impossible to Summon" category - at least PUGM requires only two cards to summon. Ancient Dragon requires seven, and an insanely complicated procedure. First, you need to activate Ancient City, a Field Spell that is needed for the other cards. Then, you need to activate Ancient Tome, a card that would be sort of useful if not for the discard effect. Then, you need to summon Ancient Giant, a roundly mediocre Level 5 Monster with 2200 ATK and no effect other than damaging you when you don't attack with it. Then you need to activate Ancient Key, which Summons two Stone Giant Tokens, which could lose a fight to a Basic Insect and have the same effect as Ancient Giant (only slightly worse - Ancient Giant does 300, Stone Giant Tokens do 500 each). Then you need to switch those Tokens to DEF (and yes, that does mean you take damage from their effects). Then, you need to switch them back to ATK, which activates the effect of Ancient Key, destroying the Tokens and activating Ancient Gate. Only then, you can use Ancient Gate to discard Giant and Tome to summon the dragon. This was, of course, intentional; Sugoroku considered being able to Summon one an impressive accomplishment and did it mostly to settle a bet.
* On the subject of very effective Monsters with annoyingly-difficult Summoning conditions, meet [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fushioh_Richie Fusioh Richie]] [[BlindIdiotTranslation (or Nosferatu Lich if you're not dumb)]]. Richie has a pretty impressive set of stats, he's immune to Spell and trap card effects which target, and he can Summon a Zombie once per turn. He was also available in Pharaonic Guardian, a very early set, at a time when Zombies were a very popular Deck type. This obviously led to a massive surge of Decks with him as the ace, right? Well, not so much. To Summon Richie, you need to play [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Great_Dezard Great Dezard]], a one-Tribute Spellcaster with 1900 ATK, and then use Great Dezard to destroy at least two opponent's Monsters. Only then can you Tribute Dezard to summon Richie. Even in the days when Summoned Skull was considered a game-winning card, this was way, way too slow, and in the modern day, it's gone from slow to glacial.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Muka_Muka Muka Muka]] was a 600 ATK Level 2 Monster that gained 300 ATK and DEF for every card in your hand. This sounds like a good deal, since if you draw him on the first turn, you can get a Level 2 Monster with 2100 ATK... and his big brother, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Enraged_Muka_Muka Enraged Muka Muka]], costs a tribute but starts with 1200 and gains 400 for each, which would give him 3200 ATK in the same situation. So what's the problem? Well, he's completely useless in the mid-game, because by then both players probably have only one or two cards in their hand. Even if you draw him early, it's a better strategy to just play the cards in your hand instead of letting them sit there to power up Muka Muka. There are Decks that try to focus on drawing tons of cards to inflate Muka's strength, but let's be honest - if you have a whole Deck focused on drawing cards, it's a better idea to just run Exodia.
* LV Monsters zigzag this. Their concept (protect a weak Monster and then Tribute it to summon an upgraded form) sounds like it'd be rife with this, but in practice, they vary quite a bit. And then there's Dark Lucius and Allure Queen, who are... this trope. To level up Dark Lucius, you need to use his 1000-ATK [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV4 LV4 form]] to destroy an opponent's monster, then bring out his 1700-ATK [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV6 LV6 form]] and negate an opponent's monster's effect that activates when it's destroyed, and only then can you summon the respectable [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Lucius_LV8 LV8 form]] You are probably asking, "What if I try to start from the [=LV6=] form?" Then you're screwed; Lucius's higher forms only get their effects if summoned by a lower form, so starting from the [=LV6=] form leaves you with a weak card with no effect. (And no, they don't get their effects if you use Level Up, either.) You're probably also asking, "What if my opponent doesn't have a Monster with an effect that activates when destroyed?" Then you're screwed, because [=LV6=] can't activate its effect and level up. And Lucius is the ''stronger'' one. Allure Queen has the same drawback of its cards losing their effects if not Summoned by a lesser form's effect, but they add in the problem that they rely on the opponent having the right Monsters on the field. Furthermore, their effect (equip an opponent's monster onto themselves) is pretty much a watered-down version of Relinquished, a much older and easier-to-play card. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Allure_Queen_LV7 Allure Queen LV7]] has only 1500 ATK and no way to raise it, which makes it a sitting duck. At least if you couldn't jump through all the hoops, you could use Lucius [=LV8=] as an effect-less beatstick, but attempting to Normal Summon Allure Queen [=LV7=] is about as dumb as strategies get.
* To Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Montage_Dragon Montage Dragon]], you discard three Monsters. The awesome? Montage Dragon's ATK is equal to their combined levels x300, which can easily lead to a card strong enough to OneHitKill the opponent; he maxes out at 10800. The impractical? Discarding three monsters sets you back heavily in card advantage (playing it on the first turn involves dropping two-thirds of your hand), Montage Dragon is a complete dead draw if you don't have three other monsters in your hand, and Montage Dragon has no protective effects, making it a massive clay pigeon for every Trap under the sun. Overall, it will either win you the Duel in one turn, or die the second it hits the field and leave you with no options... and if your opponent is even remotely competent, it'll be the latter.
* Many 2000 ATK+ Level 4 or lower monsters have some kind of drawback: Giant Kozaky, Flash Assailant, Zombyra The Dark, Nuvia the Wicked, Unfriendly Amazon, Goblin Attack Force and that's just a sample. The practice started to die down around the release of 2000-ATK Normal Monster Gene-Warped Warwolf, but even before then, players had largely refused to bite. Put simply, most cards with the aforementioned drawbacks suffered such severe drawbacks that you needed to restructure your strategy to accommodate them, which flew in the face of BoringButPractical Beatdown strategy: sure, you could set your whole hand and Flash Assailant would be good, sure, you could play Scapegoat and Panther Warrior would be acceptable... or you could just play Gemini Elf, which has only 100 less ATK. The fact that Beatdown in general has fallen heavily out of favor means that even Gene-Warped Warwolf is pretty much meaningless today, so what chance has a loser like Boar Soldier got?
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_30%3A_Acid_Golem_of_Destruction Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction]]. It boasts a good 3000 ATK - one of the highest among Rank 3 Xyz monsters- making it a very potent beatstick. However, it also prevents you from Special Summoning, forces you to detach one of its Xyz Material every turn or take a hefty amount of damage, and on top of that, it can't attack at all while it has no Xyz Material. As such, it's only really used for attacking in situations where it can end the game, when a player desperately needs to get over a high attack monster, or alongside a Skill Drain. This is because its ''[[LethalJokeCharacter real]]'' use, as implied in the anime, is to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1Er8GhdQA use a card like Creature Swap or Mystic Box to give it to the opponent,]] tossing them a useless monster that shuts down their strategies and kills them in four turns.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tellarknight_Ptolemaeus Tellarknight Ptolemaeus's]] effect to detach 7 materials to skip the opponent's turn, definitely fits this trope. As it is literally impossible to summon it with more than 6 materials (and in most cases, no more than 5), the fastest way you could possibly get to this is by exhausting pretty much all your resources to give it those 6 materials and hope it lives until your next turn, spending at least one Stellarknight card from your extra deck in the process. And, quite frankly, if you can manage to have 6 level 4 monsters on your field, you probably have far better options than waiting a turn to skip the opponent's turn after that (especially in a warrior deck like Tellarknights, where [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_86:_Heroic_Champion_-_Rhongomyniad Number 86: Heroic Champion - Rhongomyniad]] was an option to lock your opponent down hard enough that you're basically skipping their turns anyway). Thus, you'll probably never use or see this effect used in competitive duels with it legal.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Quantum_Mecha_Overlord_Great_Magnas Super Quantal Mech King Great Magnus]] is a Rank 12 Xyz monster. Yes, a Rank 12. It requires 3 Level 12 monsters to summon, which will very rarely happen; but it can be summoned via its archetype's field spell. The impracticality of it is that in order to summon him this way, you need to have three other Xyz monsters either on the field or in the Graveyard, and in order to get his better effects, you need more materials on him. A hell of a lot of work for this guy... Well, should you pull off the impossible, you have a Rank 12 monster with 5-7 materials, giving him immunity to virtually any card effect, places a lock on the opponents deck, and can spin cards back to the deck with one xyz material.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raidraptor_-_Final_Fortress_Falcon Final Fortress Falcon]] is a rare Rank TWELVE Xyz which can be summoned by ranking up Ultimate Falcon. It has 300 more ATK and 800 more DEF, and if it has a Raidraptor monster as material, is unaffected by card effects. But instead of field suppression, Final Fortress is first and foremost an offensive attacker, letting you banish a Raidraptor from the Graveyard each time you kill a monster by battle to attack again, and letting you detach an Xyz Material to put all banished Raidraptors back in the Graveyard. Last Strix helps you get this monster out faster, but it is still ungainly and loses its immunities if its materials are detached, making Ultimate Falcon an overall better boss monster.
* Synchro Monsters that require other Synchro Monsters as Synchro Materials can fall in and out of this trope, depending on their summoning requirements. A few examples:
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shooting_Quasar_Dragon Shooting Quasar Dragon]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cosmic_Blazar_Dragon Cosmic Blazar Dragon]] have the hallmarks of this trope: Quasar has 4000 ATK, can attack twice, can negate anything once per turn, and summons [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Shooting_Star_Dragon Shooting Star Dragon]] from your Extra Deck when it leaves the field (awesome); Blazar can negate '''any''' Effect, Summon and Attack by banishing itself until the End Phase. They require a Tuner Synchro Monster and two non-Tuner Synchro Monsters whose levels add up to 12 as materials (impractical). At first glance, they seems like more "deplete your hand to summon them, leaving you with no defense" monsters, like Gate Guardian above. However, a good number of Synchro Monsters give you extra draw power, which somewhat balances it out; specifically, one of the most commonly used materials is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Hyper_Librarian T.G. Hyper Librarian]], a Lv.5 Synchro Monster that lets you draw a card whenever either player Synchro Summons anything while it's on the field, making it a staple in Synchro decks. Combine this with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Formula_Synchron Formula Synchron]], a Lv.2 Tuner Synchro Monster, and you're all but guaranteed to draw a minimum of 3 cards while summoning them. Combined with the versatility of Lv.5 Synchro Monsters in general, this means that while they aren't practical as your main monsters, they can very easily be splashed in most Synchro decks.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Nova_Dragon Red Nova Dragon]] is similar, but with slightly laxer requirements and a less powerful effect. It only requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Dragon_Archfiend Red Dragon Archfiend]] (a Lv.8 Synchro Monster) and two tuners, with the sum of the three monsters' levels being 12. This means that you can theoretically get it out easier than Shooting Quasar Dragon above. In practice, however, it's not so simple; as it requires a specific monster as a material, your opponent can prevent you from summoning it by removing that monster from the field, and it isn't as easily splashed as Quasar. In terms of effects, it gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in your Graveyard, and can negate an opponent's attack by banishing itself, after which it returns to the field at the end of the turn; it also looks very badass. ''However'', while it can't be destroyed by your opponent's cards, it has no such protection from being banished, forcibly tributed with a monster like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lava_Golem Lava Golem]], or returned to the hand or deck. It also lacks the ability to negate effects. Overall, this leaves it more impractical than the aforementioned Quasar Dragon, although new Red Dragon Archfiend support cards make it viable when dueling for fun.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red_Supernova_Dragon Red Supernova Dragon]] has 4000 ATK, gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in your GY, cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects, and you can banish ALL cards your opponent controls when your opponent activates any monster effect or declares an attack. Problem is, it requires 3 Tuners + 1+ non-Tuner Synchro monsters to Synchro Summon this card, and it's even harder to summon then Red Nova Dragon.
** In its debut, the entire Synchro mechanic itself was impractical in ''Duel Links'' because the smaller deck sizes left little room for Tuners, which at the time were hard to get out and were very weak on their own. In addition, because performing the summon required at least two monsters on the field, and there are only 3 zones available, it could easily be intercepted by meta staples like Enemy Controller[[note]]which steals a monster at the cost of the user sacrificing one of their own[[/note]] or especially Treacherous Trap Hole[[note]]which destroys two monsters and which only has the activation condition of the user having no Trap Cards in the Graveyard[[/note]]. The mechanic only saw widespread play when Synchro archetypes were released that could easily Special Summon spam, such as the notorious Legendary Six Samurai.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Converging_Wishes Converging Wishes]] Special Summons 1 "Stardust Dragon" from your Extra Deck if you have 5 or more Dragon-Type Synchro Monsters and equips it to Stardust Dragon. When equipped, it gains ATK equal to all the combined ATK of all Dragon-Type Synchro Monsters in your Graveyard. Also when it destroys an opponent's monster by battle, you can banish 1 Dragon Synchro monster to make it attack again. This could easily result in a 10000+ ATK multiple attacker, but the cost of activating this card is utterly ridiculous.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zushin_the_Sleeping_Giant Zushin the Sleeping Giant]] may very well be the all-time champion of this. To summon this guy, you have to keep a Level 1 Normal Monster (i.e. a monster with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effect) alive for most likely '''''10 TURNS'''''. In a game where even monsters with all kinds of protection effects tend to last 2 or 3 turns at ''most'' and Duels can be decided within the space of ''one''. And you have to have Zushin in hand for all 10 turns. On the other hand, if you manage to do the impossible, you get a monster that can beat down basically ''anything'' the opponent throws at it and is immune to every card effect - but can only deal 1000 damage at a time[[note]] No, you can't boost its ATK, since it's immune to ''every'' card effect, including yours[[/note]]. Notably, Zushin was even considered Awesome, But Impractical InUniverse in ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'': it was considered to be on-par with the [[PhysicalGod Egyptian Gods]], but even though every man and his dog had a copy, '''nobody''' has ''ever'' been able to summon him until Team Taiyou pulled it off, it's ''that'' hard to summon.
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zoodiac_Boarbow Zoodiac Boarbow]], which by default can attack the opponent directly, also has an effect that, if the conditions are met, forces the opponent to send all their cards on the field and in their hand to the graveyard if this card inflicts battle damage, an effect that will almost certainly win you the duel against most decks if successful (it swaps to defense afterwards, but it's moot by that point). But, said conditions are completely absurd, requiring having a minimum of 12 materials stacked beneath it. Sure, the archetype has ways of stacking Xyz on top of other Xyz multiple times a turn, but doing so requires, at minimum, waiting a turn after summoning this with at least one non-Xyz Zoodiac attached as a material or one Fire-Formation spell (since ATK points are necessary to trigger this effect in the first place), using few (if any) of the xyz monsters' effects, dedicating an absurd amount of extra deck space to individual Zoodiac xyz monsters, and finally, getting the chance to successfully attack and resolve the effect. If said attack fails, [[DeathOrGloryAttack all of the effort you put into it goes to waste]]. And, when the archetype as a whole has quickly become a major GameBreaker due to the effects of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zoodiac_Ratpier Ratpier]], being able to Xyz summon using only one monster, and the rest of the archetype's Xyz monsters' far more practical effects (see [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame this page]] for more details), you begin to wonder why they bothered giving Boarbow such a horrendously impractical effect at all.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian Flower Cardians]], an archetype based on the game ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanafuda Hanafuda]]'', have unparalleled drawing and deck-thinning capabilities, the ability to make dozens of summons in a single turn through both monster effects and summoning Spells [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Super_Koi_Koi Super Koi Koi]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Gathering Flower Gathering]], and multiple powerhouse Synchros, including [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian_Lightshower Lightshower]], who has 3000 ATK, protects all your Cardians from targeting and destruction, and does 1500 damage per turn, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flower_Cardian_Lightflare Lightflare]], who has 5000 ATK, negates Spells and Traps and the effects of monsters it battles, and summons Lightshower for free when it dies. It'd be the most powerful Synchro archetype in the game, if not for one little problem: [[LuckBasedMission bricking.]] Flower Cardians have a grand total of ''two'' monsters that can be summoned without controlling any other cards, meaning that unless you get them or one of their summoning Spells in your opening hand, you're going to get mulched. And to make matters worse, while they have many draw cards, the majority of them only work if the card you drew was another Cardian, and while they have easy spamming and Tuners, many of their effects limit you to summoning more Cardians. This leads to a deck that [[CripplingOverspecialization needs to be played pure]] to use its full potential, but doing so also makes the deck's weaknesses most evident.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goddess_of_Sweet_Revenge Goddess of Sweet Revenge's]] effect is essentially a hand trap field nuke with the added benefit of being able to Special Summon any monster in its controller's deck. However, a couple of very situational conditions have to be met just to use this card's effect: 1. The card's controller must not have any other cards in their hand or their field (this includes spell and trap cards) 2. Your opponent must be attacking with one of their monsters. If a player manages to get into the kind of situation that it is literally made for, then it is awesome, as it allows the controller to make a quick surprise come-back (provided it isn't negated, as it has no protection against the myriad of effect-negating cards detailed elsewhere on this page), but any other situation leaves this card a complete dead draw.
* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Timelord Timelords]] can be Normal Summoned without Tribute if you control no monsters, are immune to destruction by any card, you take no battle damage from battles involving them, and have pretty powerful effects after they battle. Completely undefeatable? No. First, they cannot be Special Summoned from the Deck (though their own support gets around this), which is pretty bad in a metagame focused on fast Summoning. There are ten of them (and that's barring [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sephylon,_the_Ultimate_Timelord Sephylon, the Ultimate Timelord]]), and they all have 0 ATK and 0 DEF barring [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sandaion,_the_Timelord Sandaion]] and Sephylon (and the former prevents any player from taking battle damage from battles involving it. Yes, that includes your opponent), making it extremely foolish to build a Deck around them as they clog up 25% of your entire Deck. Also, during your Standby Phase, they are shuffled back into your Deck. On top of all that, their powerful effects rely on them getting off an attack, and they are not immune to being returned to the hand or Deck, or banished. One attack-negating effect from your opponent, and their effects are wasted and you must watch them meaninglessly shuffle themselves into your Deck on your next turn.
* The likely king of ineffectual boss monsters: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/D.D._Jet_Iron D.D. Jet Iron.]] Oh, yes, it has 4000 ATK, but its summoning requirement is sending four rather specific monsters to the Graveyard from the hand or field, and none of those four are anything above mediocre. On top of that, its only effect is being able to tribute itself to revive those same monsters - which might actually be more useful, since three of them are also fairly high-level. But only one of the cards used to summon it is searchable, and searching it out requires you to tribute one of the other ones, so you'll almost never be able to bring it out! Unless you're the biggest fan in the world of its anime wielder or ''Manga/BabelII'', there's almost no reason to even attempt using it.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sextet_Summon Sextet Summon]], requires you to banish SIX monsters with the same original Type but different monster card types (Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, Link) from your hand, GY, and/or face-up field, then Special Summon 1 monster with the same original Type as the banished monsters from your Deck or Extra Deck. The effect is decent, but nowhere ''near'' worth the absurdly steep cost, especially as it doesn't ignore summoning conditions, not to mention probably unnecessary as any halfway decent deck should be able to get its key monsters out at least somewhat consistently in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ten_Thousand_Dragon Ten Thousand Dragon]] is released to commemorate the milestone of 10,000 cards in the OCG. While it can have 10,000 ATK/DEF, its Summoning condition does not make it worth playing since it must be Special Summoned (from hand) by tributing monsters whose sum of ATK/DEF are 10,000 or more. Not to mention it is susceptible to summon negation and all kinds of card effects.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armed_Dragon_Catapult_Cannon Armed Dragon Catapult Cannon]] can easily erase the opponent's field, and prevent them from using almost anything. But to Summon it, you need to have Special Summoned both [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/VWXYZ-Dragon_Catapult_Cannon VWXYZ]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armed_Dragon_LV7 Armed Dragon LV7]], which are boss monsters of distinct archetypes with no synergy. It's much more convenient to just devote your deck to one archetype.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Halberd_Cannon/Assault_Mode T.G Halberd Cannon/Assault Mode]]. To summon this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/T.G._Halberd_Cannon T.G Halberd Cannon]] which has the exact same summoning requirements as Shooting Quasar Dragon mentioned above using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Assault_Mode_Activate a very specific Trap Card]]. When your opponent would Summon a monster, you can negate the effect to banish that card and all Special Summoned monsters your opponent controls. It has 4500 ATK, but you'd never see it in the meta, likely because it's more difficult to summon than Shooting Quasar Dragon. Though this card can be Summoned significantly easier with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Assault_Reboot Assault Reboot]], albeit still needs other "/Assault Mode" monsters mentioned below.
** In fact, any of the "/Assault Mode" monsters could qualify, since their overly-specific summoning requirements could result in them becoming bricks clogging your Deck that only offer a 500 point boost to their tribute's ATK and DEF, something that can easily be achieved with any other card.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Cosmo_Neos Elemental HERO Cosmo Neos]] can lock your opponent from activating cards, also cards your opponent controls cannot activate their effects for this turn, and destroys all cards your opponent controls during the End Phase. You need to shuffle [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Neos Elemental Hero Neos]] and 3 Neo-Spacian monsters to summon this card. Needless to say, even if this card was released in 2007, it's still too slow to summon.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Divine_Neos Elemental HERO Divine Neos]]. It must be Fusion Summoned using any 5 "Neos", "Neo Space", "Neo-Spacian", or "HERO" monsters (including at least 1 "Neos" or "Neo Space" monster, 1 "Neo-Spacian" monster, and 1 "HERO" monster). All you get is a mediocre 2500 ATK monster which only effect is that you can banish one "Neos", "Neo Space", "Neo-Spacian", or "HERO" monster from your Graveyard, also it gains a measly 500 ATK, and until the End Phase it also gains the banished monster's effects. If you wanted to copy monster effects, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Windwitch_-_Crystal_Bell Windwitch - Crystal Bell]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantom_of_Chaos Phantom of Chaos]] might be better alternatives, simply because they can copy any monster. The one thing Divine Neos is good for is as a target for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Future_Fusion Future Fusion]], and even then only for dumping 5 Monsters from the Deck to the Graveyard rather than actually summoning the darn thing.
* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai Superheavy Samurai]]. Not only are the majority of them [[HumongousMecha massive robot]] samurai, but many of their best monsters can attack while in Defense-Position using their DEF as ATK. Not only that, but these monsters also [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai_Steam_Train_King have DEF as high as ''4800,'']] making them close to indestructible. Oh, and some of their higher leveled monsters can be Special Summoned without a sacrifice. So what's the catch? Any Deck that focuses on them has to focus on them alone. That means you can't bolster it with other cards outside its archetype, not even Spells or Traps. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Yes, you read that right.]] A pure Monster Deck sounds horrendously imbalanced already, but very few Superheavy Samurai monsters have ATK that breaks 2000, meaning any card effect that forces monsters into Attack Mode would screw you over big time.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Five-Headed_Link_Dragon Five-Headed Link Dragon]]. 5000 ATK, unaffected by other card's effects, cannot be destroyed by battle by most Attributes, and can nuke your opponent's field if you used 5 different Attributes to Link Summon this card. The catch is you must banish 5 cards from your GY face down during your opponent's End Phase, or this card is sent to the GY. If you could summon 5 monsters by the way, a better, quicker and more splashable option is to just use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/85289965 Borrelsword Dragon]].
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome... until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]]. That said, they were considered extremely useful back in the day, and were widely played; it's just that the modern game has become so hostile to Counter Traps that unless one is playing a mostly-Traps deck, it's hard to justify using anything but the best ones available.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metaltron_XII,_the_True_Dracombatant Metaltron XII, the True Dracombatant]] is unaffected by the effects of cards with the same card type (Monster, Spell, and/or Trap) as the original card type of the cards Tributed for its Tribute Summon, and can Special Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Naturia_Exterio Naturia Exterio]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Superheavy_Samurai_Steam_Train_King Superheavy Samurai Steam Train King]] when it gets destroyed by your opponent, in fact any Fusion/Synchro/Xyz Extra Deck monster that is EARTH/WATER/FIRE/WIND. So why isn't this card used often in Draco decks? It requires 3 Tributes (very expensive) and can easily be Tributed by a Kaiju. Even when [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Master_Peace,_the_True_Dracoslaying_King Master Peace]] got banned, there was still no reason to use it due to the resources the player would need to summon it. But to be fair, he's better than the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Egyptian_God Egyptian Gods]].
[[/folder]]
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* The Dark Crisis booster pack brought quite a few of these in addition to Exodia Necross, an example being [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Berserk_Dragon Berserk Dragon]]. While it has 3500 Attack, it can only be Special Summoned with the Quickplay Spell Card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/A_Deal_with_Dark_Ruler A Deal with Dark Ruler]] on a turn that one of your Level 8 monsters is sent to the Graveyard. It also gets to attack all monsters on your opponent's field once...but in addition, it loses 500 Attack at the end of each of your turns, which will quickly make it easy prey to anything tough your opponent has.
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* The Dark Crisis booster pack brought quite a few of these in addition to Exodia Necross, an example being [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Berserk_Dragon Berserk Dragon]]. While it has 3500 Attack, it can only be Special Summoned with the Quickplay Spell Card [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/A_Deal_with_Dark_Ruler A Deal with Dark Ruler]] on a turn that one of your Level 8 monsters is sent to the Graveyard. It also gets to attack all monsters on your opponent's field once... but in addition, it loses 500 Attack at the end of each of your turns, which will quickly make it easy prey to anything tough your opponent has.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome...until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]]. That said, they were considered extremely useful back in the day, and were widely played; it's just that the modern game has become so hostile to Counter Traps that unless one is playing a mostly-Traps deck, it's hard to justify using anything but the best ones available.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome... until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]]. That said, they were considered extremely useful back in the day, and were widely played; it's just that the modern game has become so hostile to Counter Traps that unless one is playing a mostly-Traps deck, it's hard to justify using anything but the best ones available.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Berserker_Crush Berserker Crush]] banishes any monster from your Graveyard to give Winged Kuriboh the ATK/DEF of the banished monster. If you precede this with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Secret_Pass_to_the_Treasures Secret Pass to the Treasures]] and combine it with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Double_Attack Double Attack]], and by banishing a monster with 4000 or more ATK, [[CherryTapping you can potentially get a one-turn kill with one of the weakest monsters in the game's history.]]
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome...until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]].
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Bribe Dark Bribe]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Recall Recall]] have become this. They are generic Counter Traps that can be chained to most Spells/Traps, or monster effects, respectively. Considering that the large majority of Counter Traps have restrictive activation requirements, these two seem welcome...until you realise they also let your opponent draw one more card. In a game where hand advantage is incredibly important to the extent that one draw can make the difference between victory and defeat, cards that let your opponent draw more are not worth any advantages they offer. If you want to run a generic Counter Trap, it's a better idea to just run [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Judgment Solemn Judgment]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Warning Warning]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solemn_Strike Strike]]. That said, they were considered extremely useful back in the day, and were widely played; it's just that the modern game has become so hostile to Counter Traps that unless one is playing a mostly-Traps deck, it's hard to justify using anything but the best ones available.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the OCG.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the OCG.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play.
play, especially since [[LoopholeAbuse there's nothing stopping them from using it to summon a monster to use as Xyz Material, which doesn't count as making it leave the field]] even if you make them activate it in the first place.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in theOCG.OCG, largely because Utopic ZEXAL doesn't require jumping through several convoluted hoops (destroying one specific monster you own with specifically a monster effect ''and'' getting a Numeron Network in the Graveyard, activating and resolving Chaos Ritual, and hoping your opponent is dumb enough to destroy Numeronius with a card effect and ''not'' have another one ready for Numeronia and/or fail to remove Numeronius without destroying it, all while devoting ''half your Extra Deck'' to pulling this off) and can lock your opponent down hard enough that it might as well be an instant win anyway.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the
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** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for.
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** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for. [[LoopholeAbuse You can use fusion substitute monsters to avoid having to use Ultimate Dragon]], but given that Black Luster Soldier isn't exactly an impressive card on its own and Dragon Master Knight does nothing other than have big ATK, it's questionable whether loading your deck with cards like these is worth the payoff.
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* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail. The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
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* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail.fail (and your opponent somehow holding a full hand of cards). The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
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** Similar to Huge Revolution, we have [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Law_of_the_Normal The Law of the Normal]], this card also Nukes your opponent's field and hand, and you need 5 Level 2 or lower Normal Monsters with no effects on the field in order to use this card. The one silver lining of this particular card is that Tokens count as Normal Monsters, so it's not as hard to fulfill the activation conditions, but you still need a way to actually kill the opponent after playing it.
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** Similar to Huge Revolution, we have [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Law_of_the_Normal The Law of the Normal]], this card also Nukes your opponent's field and hand, and you need 5 Level 2 or lower Normal Monsters (i.e. monsters with bottom-of-the-barrel stats and no effects effects) on the field in order to use this card. The one silver lining of this particular card is that Tokens count as Normal Monsters, so it's not as hard to fulfill the activation conditions, but you still need a way to actually kill the opponent after playing it.it since low-level Tokens and Normal Monsters can rarely OTK through battle damage even with a full board of them.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Steelswarm_Hercules Steelswarm Hercules]] is similar to Gandora, except it needs 3 "Steelswarm" tributes, and it does not send itself to the GY at the End Phase.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Steelswarm_Hercules Steelswarm Hercules]] is similar to Gandora, except it needs 3 "Steelswarm" tributes, tributes (which, even given the Steelswarm's focus on Tribute Summoning, can be quite a tall order), and it does not send itself to the GY at the End Phase.
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* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Obedient_Fiend Ultimate Obedient Fiend]]: 3500 attack and 3000 defense...but in order for it to attack it has to be the only card on your side of the field, and you can't have any other cards in your hand.
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* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Obedient_Fiend Ultimate Obedient Fiend]]: 3500 attack and 3000 defense...defense, and negates the effects of monsters it destroys... but in order for it to attack it has to be the only card on your side of the field, and you can't have any other cards in your hand.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack. A better way to use the Numerons is summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Number S0: Utopic ZEXAL]] instead, which actually became a meta strategy and led to its ban in the OCG.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_iC1000:_Numeronius_Numeronia Number iC1000]]. To win with this card, you need to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C1000:_Numeronius Number C1000]] first (and let your opponent destroy it with a card effect), which the easiest way to summon is to use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Numeron_Chaos_Ritual Numeron Chaos Ritual]]. Both cards are intensely tough to summon/activate. But once you succeed, you get a '''RANK 13''' monster with '''100000 ATK'''(no, seriously you didn't read that wrong), and if you opponent does not attack, you win. And even if your opponent does attack, you can just detach a Xyz material from this card to negate the attack.
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*** In 2019, another Exodia card was announced, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodia,_the_Legendary_Defender Exodia, the Legendary Defender]] and of course it has a win condition attached. For this one, if you tribute summon it by its effect of tributing '''''5''''' monsters and then proceed to destroy a DARK Fiend monster your opponent owns (which means no cheating with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Nightmare_Archfiends Nightmare Archfiends]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mystic_Box Mystic Box]]), you win the duel. Between the absurd Tribute Summoning requirement and specific battle restrictions, it's unlikely this condition will be met with any frequency, since you're generally going to need three specific cards in hand (Exodia, an attribute-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Scroll_of_Bewitchment Scroll of Bewitchment]], and a type-changing card like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/DNA_Surgery DNA Surgery]]) and five Tributes available. And Legendary Defender has ''no'' protection whatsoever. All things considered, if you want to use Exodia as a beater, you're probably better off with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/The_Legendary_Exodia_Incarnate The Legendary Exodia Incarnate]].
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** There's an alternate method to summon this card though: Use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber-Stein Cyber-Stein]] to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantasm_-_Phantom_of_Fury Armityle the Chaos Phantasm - Phantom of Fury]], give it to your opponent, then pray your opponent does not get rid of this card during the End Phase. If you successfully do it, all your opponent's card will be banished, and Armityle the Chaos Phantom will be summoned ignoring its summoning condition, but you will be left with a 0 ATK Armityle during your opponent's turn.
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* In general, cards that grant {{Instant Win Condition}}s are [[DifficultButAwesome difficult to play, but satisfying to see actually work.]]
** [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). You can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually became one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
*** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodius Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord]] is ''much worse'' than Exodia's inherent InstantWinCondition. First of all, to summon it, you must shuffle all your monsters from your graveyard to your deck, which is considered impractical as most decks today are graveyard-reliant. Secondly, it begins with NO ATK and is increased by 1000 for each normal monster in your graveyard, and you can send a monster from your hand or deck to the graveyard whenever it attacks. Thirdly, it is banished when it leaves the field. That means once it is gotten rid of, it is pretty much gone for good with your ''fattened deck'', which is considered bad for most players. [[FourIsDeath Fourth and most importantly]], to achieve the InstantWinCondition, you must spend about FIVE turns to send a piece of Exodia ''each turn with its own effect'', which means that you cannot hasten the process to victory with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial Foolish Burial]] or other milling mechanics. While Exodius is very easy to summon, can use its effects to your advantage by regaining lost Extra Deck monsters, and be used as Rank 10 Xyz fodder, it is its InstantWinCondition that succumbs to this trope.
** [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). You can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually became one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
*** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Exodius Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord]] is ''much worse'' than Exodia's inherent InstantWinCondition. First of all, to summon it, you must shuffle all your monsters from your graveyard to your deck, which is considered impractical as most decks today are graveyard-reliant. Secondly, it begins with NO ATK and is increased by 1000 for each normal monster in your graveyard, and you can send a monster from your hand or deck to the graveyard whenever it attacks. Thirdly, it is banished when it leaves the field. That means once it is gotten rid of, it is pretty much gone for good with your ''fattened deck'', which is considered bad for most players. [[FourIsDeath Fourth and most importantly]], to achieve the InstantWinCondition, you must spend about FIVE turns to send a piece of Exodia ''each turn with its own effect'', which means that you cannot hasten the process to victory with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial Foolish Burial]] or other milling mechanics. While Exodius is very easy to summon, can use its effects to your advantage by regaining lost Extra Deck monsters, and be used as Rank 10 Xyz fodder, it is its InstantWinCondition that succumbs to this trope.
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*** Yet another Exodia card was introduced the same year, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/True_Exodia True Exodia]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this monster, and put all 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters on the field, and make sure they are the only monsters in the field. The 4 Forbidden One Normal Monsters are extremely weak Normal Monsters, and if you had these 4 on the field, your best option is to probably Link Summon a bunch of monsters rather than risking them on the field.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_Board Destiny Board]] is probably one of the most difficult victory condition to achieve. Not only will you need to have your ''entire backrow'' to reserve its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spirit_Message Spirit Messages]], each one can only be placed each of your opponent's End Phase (which means it takes about ''ten'' turns to achieve victory with this set of cards). And should one of the Spirit Messages you control leaves the field, all of them are gone for good! You can use [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sanctuary Dark Sanctuary]] to summon them as monsters, but that only leads to even more problems. First, the Sprit Messages won't have any ATK or DEF and can't be given a boost since they're immune to all card effects, including your own. Sure they can't be targeted for attacks, but Dark Sanctuary doesn't stop your opponent from attacking directly, so you can't use the Spirit Messages as [[StoneWall Stone Walls]]. And if they do attack, it comes down to a coin toss whether the attack goes through or not. And let's not forget that you'll have progressively fewer Monster Card Zones to work with if you do choose to summon the Spirit Messages as monsters.
** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Last_Turn Last Turn]]. It clears the field of all but one of your monsters, wipes the field and hands and then your opponent special summons any monster, last man standing wins. Sounds fair right? Until you realize just [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jowgen_the_Spiritualist how]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fossil_Dyna_Pachycephalo many]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Archlord_Kristya monsters]] have an effect that prevents special summons... so it is banned, for good.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Countdown Final Countdown]]: On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and the only way to stop it is to win before that happens. But that certain amount of time? ''20 turns. And'' it has a 2000-point cost. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Battle_Fader more]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Swift_Scarecrow and]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/One_Day_of_Peace more]] stall cards coming out, Countdown victories are getting easier, leading to this card becoming limited in TCG.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the DifficultButAwesome [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominaga_the_Deity_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes]]. It requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Snake_Deity a specific trap card]] to be activated, and then only in response to the destruction of its predecessor, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominon_the_King_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominion the King of Poisonous Snakes]]. Both cards have zero attack, but are boosted by the number of Reptiles in your graveyard (fortunately, there's specifically a card for sending Reptiles to the grave from the deck), but once it actually gets summoned, Vennominaga is all but invincible, since it cannot be affected at all by other card effects and if it damages the opponent three times without being killed itself, it's an automatic win. Its InstantWinCondition is quite redundant since you can easily finish your opponent off with its high ATK.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Horakhti Holactie the Creator of Light]] requires you to tribute all 3 Egyptian God cards to summon (and no cheating with cards that take the names of other cards, they have to be the originals). The fact that Ra can't be special summoned is another roadblock to getting this out. If you do summon it, however (and its summon can't be negated), you win the duel instantly, much like Exodia. But aside from decks specifically designed to bring it out, it's rather worthless (and even those decks designed around it rarely work). Not to mention, if your opponent allowed you to setup to the point you could get the three God cards on field, you could have already pretty much won in the meantime.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_88:_Gimmick_Puppet_of_Leo Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo]] is an Xyz monster that has an effect that can allow you to win the duel within 3 turns of it being on the field. However, it requires you to have no spells or traps on the field to use its effect and keeps you from conducting your battle phase that turn if you do. This is extremely dangerous against any skilled opponents since it allows them plenty of time to get the right card to stop it before you get that far and requires you to be very cautious about what spell/trap cards you set/activate lest you give up the ability to use its effect. And given it takes 3 Level 8 monsters to be on the field to summon it in the first place (Monsters that usually have very high stats), you'd most likely have a better chance of winning by just attacking with them and not having to be careful with placing or using traps/spells. However, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman it does have a small window of use]] in that it can effectively counter stalling decks such as Final Countdown and Chain Burn, which run little to no removal and instead are focused on preventing you from attacking.
*** Although its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C88 upgraded form]] looks a bit better than the original form for not having the latter's restrictions and immune to effect targeting, it is pretty hard to summon as it must be Special Summoned with a "Rank-Up-Magic" Spell Card targeting its original form, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Also, its victory condition is pretty redundant since it has a hefty 3500 ATK and can detach an Xyz material to inflict 1000 damage every turn; by the time it's out of materials, your opponent is probably dead anyway.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jackpot_7 Jackpot 7]]'s effect is that you can activate it to get it shuffled back into your deck, when it is sent to the graveyard by an opponent's card effect, it banishes itself, and when all three copies of it are banished by their effects, you win the duel. Which sounds cool until you realize how hard and inconsistent it is to pull off. Splashing it into a random deck and expecting the opponent to use backrow removal on it will only result in the opponent being more careful with destroying your backrow (which is good for mind games but nothing else). To meet the condition with any kind of consistency requires also building a deck built entirely around a combo giving your opponent certain monsters to trigger their effects ([[LoopholeAbuse since that technically makes them the opponent's card effect]]) and hoping they can't derail the combo (which is pathetically easy to do). [[SubvertedTrope The exception to this]] were decks built around abusing the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar Morphing]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar_2 Jars']] effects by giving them to your opponent and triggering them, since there are enough ways to set it up and don't require particularly specific combos to succeed. The potential for such abuse to pop up in the TCG likely led to the bans of those cards before Jackpot 7 was released.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ghostrick_Angel_of_Mischief Ghostrick Angel of Mischief]] definitely counts, at least as far as its win condition is concerned. Its effect is that it can be Xyz Summoned on top of another Ghostrick Xyz monster, wins the duel once it has 10 Xyz materials, and you can attach one Ghostrick card from your hand to it during each of your turns. This means that in a proper Ghostrick deck, you have to minus yourself for at least 7 turns in a row and hope it lives, something that's very unlikely to happen in most duels. There are other ways to pull its win condition off, but none of those methods are consistent enough to be a competitive deck in its own right (for reference, the ''easiest'' version uses a Utopia engine that requires four specific Spell cards and roughly half your Extra Deck). The funny thing is that Angel of Mischief is actually a pretty strong card in itself (it's easily summoned, has good stats, and is the deck's primary searcher), meaning you'll see pretty much every Ghostrick player running a few but almost none going for its win condition.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Assault Phantasm Spiral Assault]] requires that a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Dragon Phantasm Spiral Dragon]] equipped with the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Crash three different]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Grip archetypal]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Wave Equip Spells]] destroy three monsters by battle in order to automatically win the Duel. Granted, the archetype is focused on getting your Dragon out and many of the cards work to re-equip these Equip Spells onto Phantasm Spiral Dragon, but once you activate Assault, your opponent will most likely be doing everything in their power to stop that Dragon from succeeding. Plus, by the time you get the Equip Spells all attached, you have a 3300 ATK monster that does piercing, has destruction immunity, and burns the opponent on a regular basis. You're already winning at that point, so Assault is almost superfluous.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/F.A._Winners F.A. Winners]] has the effect that if an F.A. whose level is 5 higher than its original level battles an opponent's monster and inflicts battle damage as a result, you can banish a card from your hand, field, or grave, and you win if you banish 3 different F.A. field spells by this effect, and this is also a true once per turn effect. To start, F.A. cards generally don’t benefit from being banished, so you’d likely only ever consider using this on field spells already in the grave or if you’re one away from winning. And secondly, F.A. monsters gain attack equal to their current levels x300, so by the time you can start triggering this effect, especially if you summon their synchro monster, you will have at least one big beater on the field. And by the time you could trigger this effect 3 turns in a row, and the opponent hasn't stopped you by then, then victory is within grasp anyways, so much like Phantasm Spiral Assault, it becomes a giant why bother.
** Remember the flashback duel between Pegasus and Bandit Keith?[[labelnote:Details]]The former can [[{{Telepathy}} read his opponent's mind]] with the Millennium Eye. Therefore he has a child audience to duel Keith in place of himself, but not before dropping down the notes for the kid on how to win the duel.[[/labelnote]] Keith ended up losing the duel, and there is an instance where the winner used a Normal Monster that has evolved to a Duel Winner: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flying_Elephant Flying Elephant]]. It cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effect once during the opponent's turn. Once the effect is used and it stays until their End Phase, it can attack for game (regardless of opponent's LP) in your next turn, so long as it is a Direct Attack that causes damage. Sounds cool, eh? But its effect is clunky as hell and your opponent will have tons of ways to stop that, ''even if it was released during the time it was introduced''[[note]]Early 2000s[[/note]]. The only way you’d ever win with this is if your opponent does so intentionally or [[TooDumbToLive is a special kind of stupid]].
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Destiny_Board Destiny Board]] is probably one of the most difficult victory condition to achieve. Not only will you need to have your ''entire backrow'' to reserve its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spirit_Message Spirit Messages]], each one can only be placed each of your opponent's End Phase (which means it takes about ''ten'' turns to achieve victory with this set of cards). And should one of the Spirit Messages you control leaves the field, all of them are gone for good! You can use [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Sanctuary Dark Sanctuary]] to summon them as monsters, but that only leads to even more problems. First, the Sprit Messages won't have any ATK or DEF and can't be given a boost since they're immune to all card effects, including your own. Sure they can't be targeted for attacks, but Dark Sanctuary doesn't stop your opponent from attacking directly, so you can't use the Spirit Messages as [[StoneWall Stone Walls]]. And if they do attack, it comes down to a coin toss whether the attack goes through or not. And let's not forget that you'll have progressively fewer Monster Card Zones to work with if you do choose to summon the Spirit Messages as monsters.
** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Last_Turn Last Turn]]. It clears the field of all but one of your monsters, wipes the field and hands and then your opponent special summons any monster, last man standing wins. Sounds fair right? Until you realize just [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jowgen_the_Spiritualist how]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fossil_Dyna_Pachycephalo many]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Archlord_Kristya monsters]] have an effect that prevents special summons... so it is banned, for good.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Final_Countdown Final Countdown]]: On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and the only way to stop it is to win before that happens. But that certain amount of time? ''20 turns. And'' it has a 2000-point cost. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Battle_Fader more]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Swift_Scarecrow and]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/One_Day_of_Peace more]] stall cards coming out, Countdown victories are getting easier, leading to this card becoming limited in TCG.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the DifficultButAwesome [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominaga_the_Deity_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes]]. It requires [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Snake_Deity a specific trap card]] to be activated, and then only in response to the destruction of its predecessor, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vennominon_the_King_of_Poisonous_Snakes Vennominion the King of Poisonous Snakes]]. Both cards have zero attack, but are boosted by the number of Reptiles in your graveyard (fortunately, there's specifically a card for sending Reptiles to the grave from the deck), but once it actually gets summoned, Vennominaga is all but invincible, since it cannot be affected at all by other card effects and if it damages the opponent three times without being killed itself, it's an automatic win. Its InstantWinCondition is quite redundant since you can easily finish your opponent off with its high ATK.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Horakhti Holactie the Creator of Light]] requires you to tribute all 3 Egyptian God cards to summon (and no cheating with cards that take the names of other cards, they have to be the originals). The fact that Ra can't be special summoned is another roadblock to getting this out. If you do summon it, however (and its summon can't be negated), you win the duel instantly, much like Exodia. But aside from decks specifically designed to bring it out, it's rather worthless (and even those decks designed around it rarely work). Not to mention, if your opponent allowed you to setup to the point you could get the three God cards on field, you could have already pretty much won in the meantime.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_88:_Gimmick_Puppet_of_Leo Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo]] is an Xyz monster that has an effect that can allow you to win the duel within 3 turns of it being on the field. However, it requires you to have no spells or traps on the field to use its effect and keeps you from conducting your battle phase that turn if you do. This is extremely dangerous against any skilled opponents since it allows them plenty of time to get the right card to stop it before you get that far and requires you to be very cautious about what spell/trap cards you set/activate lest you give up the ability to use its effect. And given it takes 3 Level 8 monsters to be on the field to summon it in the first place (Monsters that usually have very high stats), you'd most likely have a better chance of winning by just attacking with them and not having to be careful with placing or using traps/spells. However, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman it does have a small window of use]] in that it can effectively counter stalling decks such as Final Countdown and Chain Burn, which run little to no removal and instead are focused on preventing you from attacking.
*** Although its [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C88 upgraded form]] looks a bit better than the original form for not having the latter's restrictions and immune to effect targeting, it is pretty hard to summon as it must be Special Summoned with a "Rank-Up-Magic" Spell Card targeting its original form, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Also, its victory condition is pretty redundant since it has a hefty 3500 ATK and can detach an Xyz material to inflict 1000 damage every turn; by the time it's out of materials, your opponent is probably dead anyway.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jackpot_7 Jackpot 7]]'s effect is that you can activate it to get it shuffled back into your deck, when it is sent to the graveyard by an opponent's card effect, it banishes itself, and when all three copies of it are banished by their effects, you win the duel. Which sounds cool until you realize how hard and inconsistent it is to pull off. Splashing it into a random deck and expecting the opponent to use backrow removal on it will only result in the opponent being more careful with destroying your backrow (which is good for mind games but nothing else). To meet the condition with any kind of consistency requires also building a deck built entirely around a combo giving your opponent certain monsters to trigger their effects ([[LoopholeAbuse since that technically makes them the opponent's card effect]]) and hoping they can't derail the combo (which is pathetically easy to do). [[SubvertedTrope The exception to this]] were decks built around abusing the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar Morphing]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Morphing_Jar_2 Jars']] effects by giving them to your opponent and triggering them, since there are enough ways to set it up and don't require particularly specific combos to succeed. The potential for such abuse to pop up in the TCG likely led to the bans of those cards before Jackpot 7 was released.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ghostrick_Angel_of_Mischief Ghostrick Angel of Mischief]] definitely counts, at least as far as its win condition is concerned. Its effect is that it can be Xyz Summoned on top of another Ghostrick Xyz monster, wins the duel once it has 10 Xyz materials, and you can attach one Ghostrick card from your hand to it during each of your turns. This means that in a proper Ghostrick deck, you have to minus yourself for at least 7 turns in a row and hope it lives, something that's very unlikely to happen in most duels. There are other ways to pull its win condition off, but none of those methods are consistent enough to be a competitive deck in its own right (for reference, the ''easiest'' version uses a Utopia engine that requires four specific Spell cards and roughly half your Extra Deck). The funny thing is that Angel of Mischief is actually a pretty strong card in itself (it's easily summoned, has good stats, and is the deck's primary searcher), meaning you'll see pretty much every Ghostrick player running a few but almost none going for its win condition.
** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Assault Phantasm Spiral Assault]] requires that a [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Dragon Phantasm Spiral Dragon]] equipped with the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Crash three different]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Grip archetypal]] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Phantasm_Spiral_Wave Equip Spells]] destroy three monsters by battle in order to automatically win the Duel. Granted, the archetype is focused on getting your Dragon out and many of the cards work to re-equip these Equip Spells onto Phantasm Spiral Dragon, but once you activate Assault, your opponent will most likely be doing everything in their power to stop that Dragon from succeeding. Plus, by the time you get the Equip Spells all attached, you have a 3300 ATK monster that does piercing, has destruction immunity, and burns the opponent on a regular basis. You're already winning at that point, so Assault is almost superfluous.
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/F.A._Winners F.A. Winners]] has the effect that if an F.A. whose level is 5 higher than its original level battles an opponent's monster and inflicts battle damage as a result, you can banish a card from your hand, field, or grave, and you win if you banish 3 different F.A. field spells by this effect, and this is also a true once per turn effect. To start, F.A. cards generally don’t benefit from being banished, so you’d likely only ever consider using this on field spells already in the grave or if you’re one away from winning. And secondly, F.A. monsters gain attack equal to their current levels x300, so by the time you can start triggering this effect, especially if you summon their synchro monster, you will have at least one big beater on the field. And by the time you could trigger this effect 3 turns in a row, and the opponent hasn't stopped you by then, then victory is within grasp anyways, so much like Phantasm Spiral Assault, it becomes a giant why bother.
** Remember the flashback duel between Pegasus and Bandit Keith?[[labelnote:Details]]The former can [[{{Telepathy}} read his opponent's mind]] with the Millennium Eye. Therefore he has a child audience to duel Keith in place of himself, but not before dropping down the notes for the kid on how to win the duel.[[/labelnote]] Keith ended up losing the duel, and there is an instance where the winner used a Normal Monster that has evolved to a Duel Winner: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flying_Elephant Flying Elephant]]. It cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effect once during the opponent's turn. Once the effect is used and it stays until their End Phase, it can attack for game (regardless of opponent's LP) in your next turn, so long as it is a Direct Attack that causes damage. Sounds cool, eh? But its effect is clunky as hell and your opponent will have tons of ways to stop that, ''even if it was released during the time it was introduced''[[note]]Early 2000s[[/note]]. The only way you’d ever win with this is if your opponent does so intentionally or [[TooDumbToLive is a special kind of stupid]].
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relay_Soul Relay Soul]]. To win with this card, you have to give your opponent this card, hope they set it and activate it, and pray the card summoned by this card's effect leaves the field-- which is something no sane person would play.
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* Having more than forty cards in your deck, for starters. You ''may'' be able to get away with forty one - forty three, but going to the max sixty card limit is generally seen as a bad thing. Sure, having extra cards in the deck for any given situation is nice, but it makes actually getting the cards you ''need'' in any given situation much, ''much'' harder to draw.
** Konami apparently took note of this and started to make some cards that actually avert this nature. Two notable examples are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pot_of_Desires Pot of Desires]], who nets the player the infamous "Pot of Greed" advantage at the cost of losing 10 cards from his deck permanently, and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/That_Grass_Looks_Greener That Grass Looks Greener]], which can mill 20 cards from the player's 60-card deck if played on the first turn, effectively setting up plays for an entire game. In fact, Grass did its job [[GoneHorriblyRight a bit too well]], becoming almost a win condition if resolved and getting limited and later banned in the TCG.
* From a meta, non-card game itself example: Konami actually did make [[{{Defictionalization}} toy Duel Disk to play the card game with anywhere]], but they were rife with problems. Even disregarding the obvious fact that they don't come with super advanced holographic imagery, and the fact that they were intended for young children to play with, as something that ''can'' work with the card game, it still deserves a mention here. Early creations didn't include an extra deck or banish zones, and the slots that held the cards in were too small for sleeves, making accidentally bending and tearing the cards frustratingly common. Even though later Duel Disks would fix this problem, there were still quite a few annoyances. Not only do they give the wearer ''insane'' wrist cramps shortly after putting them on, you'll likely get a few eyebrows raised your way if you tried playing with someone with it outside. Additionally, it's hard to keep track of what the opponent has played and make sure they don't pull any sleight of hand when they're far away, meaning it's likely you'll only ever use it inside while standing close next to someone, and if that's the case, you're better off just playing at a table where you can sit down and have a better view of the field.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
* Fusion Monsters suffered a lot of the same problems as Ritual Monsters, being that Polymerization and the required fusion materials can end up becoming a dead draw if not already in your hand. Thankfully, Konami caught onto this in the later years of the game, making more "generic" Fusion Monsters that require either two monsters of specific archetype, monster type, or attribute to fusion into the Fusion Monster, as well as making more Polymerization cards with additional effects to keep them from being dead draws in themselves.
** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
** In the early days of the card game, there were worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly some of the most useless cards in the game. Even by the standards of the earliest days of the game, a monster with only 900 or 1000 ATK that required a spell and two specific monsters simply wasn't worth the effort no matter how you looked at it. They have [[NotCompletelyUseless found players]] since then, though, with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] turning them into quick Rank 3 fodder.
*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail. The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
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*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail. The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
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[[folder: Other]]
* Having more than forty cards in your deck, for starters. You ''may'' be able to get away with forty one - forty three, but going to the max sixty card limit is generally seen as a bad thing. Sure, having extra cards in the deck for any given situation is nice, but it makes actually getting the cards you ''need'' in any given situation much, ''much'' harder to draw.
** Konami apparently took note of this and started to make some cards that actually avert this nature. Two notable examples are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pot_of_Desires Pot of Desires]], who nets the player the infamous "Pot of Greed" advantage at the cost of losing 10 cards from his deck permanently, and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/That_Grass_Looks_Greener That Grass Looks Greener]], which can mill 20 cards from the player's 60-card deck if played on the first turn, effectively setting up plays for an entire game. In fact, Grass did its job [[GoneHorriblyRight a bit too well]], becoming almost a win condition if resolved and getting limited and later banned in the TCG.
* From a meta, non-card game itself example: Konami actually did make [[{{Defictionalization}} toy Duel Disk to play the card game with anywhere]], but they were rife with problems. Even disregarding the obvious fact that they don't come with super advanced holographic imagery, and the fact that they were intended for young children to play with, as something that ''can'' work with the card game, it still deserves a mention here. Early creations didn't include an extra deck or banish zones, and the slots that held the cards in were too small for sleeves, making accidentally bending and tearing the cards frustratingly common. Even though later Duel Disks would fix this problem, there were still quite a few annoyances. Not only do they give the wearer ''insane'' wrist cramps shortly after putting them on, you'll likely get a few eyebrows raised your way if you tried playing with someone with it outside. Additionally, it's hard to keep track of what the opponent has played and make sure they don't pull any sleight of hand when they're far away, meaning it's likely you'll only ever use it inside while standing close next to someone, and if that's the case, you're better off just playing at a table where you can sit down and have a better view of the field.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
* Fusion Monsters suffered a lot of the same problems as Ritual Monsters, being that Polymerization and the required fusion materials can end up becoming a dead draw if not already in your hand. Thankfully, Konami caught onto this in the later years of the game, making more "generic" Fusion Monsters that require either two monsters of specific archetype, monster type, or attribute to fusion into the Fusion Monster, as well as making more Polymerization cards with additional effects to keep them from being dead draws in themselves.
** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
** In the early days of the card game, there were worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly some of the most useless cards in the game. Even by the standards of the earliest days of the game, a monster with only 900 or 1000 ATK that required a spell and two specific monsters simply wasn't worth the effort no matter how you looked at it. They have [[NotCompletelyUseless found players]] since then, though, with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] turning them into quick Rank 3 fodder.
*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail. The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
[[folder: Other]]
* Having more than forty cards in your deck, for starters. You ''may'' be able to get away with forty one - forty three, but going to the max sixty card limit is generally seen as a bad thing. Sure, having extra cards in the deck for any given situation is nice, but it makes actually getting the cards you ''need'' in any given situation much, ''much'' harder to draw.
** Konami apparently took note of this and started to make some cards that actually avert this nature. Two notable examples are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Pot_of_Desires Pot of Desires]], who nets the player the infamous "Pot of Greed" advantage at the cost of losing 10 cards from his deck permanently, and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/That_Grass_Looks_Greener That Grass Looks Greener]], which can mill 20 cards from the player's 60-card deck if played on the first turn, effectively setting up plays for an entire game. In fact, Grass did its job [[GoneHorriblyRight a bit too well]], becoming almost a win condition if resolved and getting limited and later banned in the TCG.
* From a meta, non-card game itself example: Konami actually did make [[{{Defictionalization}} toy Duel Disk to play the card game with anywhere]], but they were rife with problems. Even disregarding the obvious fact that they don't come with super advanced holographic imagery, and the fact that they were intended for young children to play with, as something that ''can'' work with the card game, it still deserves a mention here. Early creations didn't include an extra deck or banish zones, and the slots that held the cards in were too small for sleeves, making accidentally bending and tearing the cards frustratingly common. Even though later Duel Disks would fix this problem, there were still quite a few annoyances. Not only do they give the wearer ''insane'' wrist cramps shortly after putting them on, you'll likely get a few eyebrows raised your way if you tried playing with someone with it outside. Additionally, it's hard to keep track of what the opponent has played and make sure they don't pull any sleight of hand when they're far away, meaning it's likely you'll only ever use it inside while standing close next to someone, and if that's the case, you're better off just playing at a table where you can sit down and have a better view of the field.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
* Fusion Monsters suffered a lot of the same problems as Ritual Monsters, being that Polymerization and the required fusion materials can end up becoming a dead draw if not already in your hand. Thankfully, Konami caught onto this in the later years of the game, making more "generic" Fusion Monsters that require either two monsters of specific archetype, monster type, or attribute to fusion into the Fusion Monster, as well as making more Polymerization cards with additional effects to keep them from being dead draws in themselves.
** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
** In the early days of the card game, there were worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly some of the most useless cards in the game. Even by the standards of the earliest days of the game, a monster with only 900 or 1000 ATK that required a spell and two specific monsters simply wasn't worth the effort no matter how you looked at it. They have [[NotCompletelyUseless found players]] since then, though, with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] turning them into quick Rank 3 fodder.
*** King of all of these horrible early Fusions is [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rare_Fish Rare Fish]], clocking in at 1500 ATK for a Level 4 Fusion that has no effect. What makes him so special? Well, one of his Fusion Materials is the aforementioned Fusionist, meaning in the early days you had to Fusion Summon Fusionist, THEN Fusion Summon a second time to get this guy out! The best part? In Japan, he was initially released in the same Booster Pack as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Skull_Red_Bird Skull Red Bird]], a Level 4 Normal Monster with 1550 ATK and the same rarity, meaning Rare Fish was [[PowerCreep Power Crept]] ''immediately''. [[SarcasmMode Quite the rare fish indeed]]. Thankfully, he's also found a home in budget Rank 4 WATER Decks, where Instant Fusion bypasses all of the hoops required to get this guy out the legitimate way.
** Other fusions that are useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Black_Luster_Soldier Black Luster Soldier]] (a ritual monster) and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyes_Ultimate_Dragon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon]], another fusion monster. Generally anything that requires more than one fusion monster is probably more difficult to use than the average player would have patience for.
** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
* Cards that rely on coin tosses and die rolls are the very embodiment of this trope by default, as they revolve around chance. They tend to have powerful effects if luck is on your side but effects that are detrimental to you otherwise. For example, the Trap Card [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gamble Gamble]] can be activated if your opponent has 6 or more cards in their hand and you have 2 or less, and allows you to draw until you have ''5 cards in your hand'', which would be a GameBreaker if it didn't revolve around a coin toss that can result in your next turn getting skipped instead if you fail. The Arcana Force monsters revolve entirely around coin tosses, and the Deck will collapse in on you if you're unlucky. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dice_Re-Roll Dice Re-Roll]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Second_Coin_Toss Second Coin Toss]] can give you a second [[{{Pun}} chance]], but it's still not recommended to build a Deck around cards that rely on luck. The one exception is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sixth_Sense Sixth Sense]], which can either result in you drawing an insane amount of cards or milling your own Deck, both results can be taken advantage of in the modern game as many Decks are Graveyard-reliant. In fact, Sixth Sense is considered a GameBreaker and was immediately Limited and then banned upon its introduction to the TCG in 2013, and in the OCG it has been banned since 2005.
* There is a series of WATER monsters that are unaffected by Spells as long as [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Umi Umi]] is on the field. This is great against cards like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Raigeki Raigeki]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]], until you realize that they can't be targeted by ''any'' Spell Cards, [[EquivalentExchange including your own]].
* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
* In an excellent example of PowerCreep, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Injection_Fairy_Lily Injection Fairy Lily]] has long since succumbed to this. Back in the days where tribute monsters ruled the game, this monster could instantly boost its attack by 3000 to kill any of them at a 2000 Life point cost, often more than worth it due to the resources they pooled into it. This made it limited and briefly banned in the early days of the game. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to pump out gigantic beaters, and Lily's effect is too expensive to be worth using over those. The only time it's seen in the limelight since was its brief stint as [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman one of the few outs at the time]] to the infamous [[GameBreaker/YuGiOhCardGame Apoqliphort Towers]].
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** In its debut, the entire Synchro mechanic itself was impractical in ''Duel Links'' because the smaller deck sizes left little room for Tuners, which at the time were hard to get out and were very weak on their own. In addition, because performing the summon required at least two monsters on the field, and there are only 3 zones available, it could easily be intercepted by meta staples like Enemy Controller[[note]]which steals a monster at the cost of the user sacrificing one of their own[[/note]] or especially Treacherous Trap Hole[[note]]which destroys two monsters and which only has the activation condition of the user having no Trap Cards in the Graveyard[[/note]]. The mechanic only saw widespread play when Synchro archetypes were released that could easily Special Summon spam, such as the notorious Legendary Six Samurai.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand[[note]]which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough[[/note]], and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
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* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ritual_Monster Ritual Monsters]] are by far the hardest monsters in the game to summon, with the only few Ritual Monsters people actually play being the exception because they're just ''that damn good''. To wit, they could be considered the FlawedPrototype of Synchro Summons. They require a magic card that sacrifices monsters on the field equal to, or more than, the Ritual Monster's level. Doesn't sound too bad, but the main drawback is, unlike Fusions and Synchros, Ritual Monsters are stored in the Main Deck instead of the Extra Deck. As a result, they frequently end up being a dead draw unless your deck is specifically designed around them or you already have the Ritual magic card in your hand[[note]]which hand,[[note]]Which in itself can be a dead draw if you don't get the Ritual Monster soon enough[[/note]], enough.[[/note]] and unlike other monsters, they can't be resummoned from the graveyard unless already Ritual Summoned, and often have subdued effects for the trouble needed to summon them. While Konami has been addressing these problems by making Ritual cards that can sacrifice monsters from the Extra Deck and giving them really, really good effects[[note]]The Nekroz' main claim to fame[[/note]] fame.[[/note]] and having the Ritual magic cards that Ritual Summon the Ritual Monsters from the graveyard and aren't tied down to a specific Ritual Monster, they still can be a dead draw at really inopportune moments, and thus you're often better off going with cards that support the other summoning methods in the Extra Deck if you want to win consistently. Their only real advantage is, as they are a special summon and can take sacrifices from your hand, they can be summoned in addition to the one-per-turn normal summon limit and without losing other monsters on the field to gain a superior numbers advantage, but this often isn't worth the drawbacks they offer. It's quite telling that some of the generic Ritual support in the game would be downright broken in most archetypes, but often go Unlimited because Rituals are so inherently clunky that they need PurposelyOverpowered support to keep up. In Duel Links however, due to the smaller deck size, Rituals became easier to use, with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Angel Cyber Angels]] topping the meta.
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** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility for their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
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** Old school Elemental [=HEROes=] are probably the best example of this. Granted, near the end of their era they got a lot of good support and fusions that can be gotten out relatively consistently, and while it is a fun deck to play casually, it still comes off as an archetype that feels like a FlawedPrototype to future fusion archetypes. While the sheer amount of fusions they have allowed for great versatility for in their day, they still suffered from a semi-high bricking chance regardless, and most of their fusion materials are too weak to protect yourself until you can draw a fusion spell card or the materials for the fusion you need. Also, compared to fusion archetypes from the Arc-V era like Shaddolls and Frightfurs, they have almost no way of recovering should their field be nuked, or if one of their fusion boss monsters get destroyed. On top of that, quite a few of their fusions can be rather underwhelming, with only a select few even breaking 2000 ATK. Overall, the entire archetype feels like it was Konami just testing out ''what'' makes a fusion archetype good; a fact that becomes more apparent with later [=E-HERO=]es released during the ''ZEXAL'' era having generic fusion materials and better ways to recover overall, making the old school [=E-HERO=]es even more of this Trope than they already were.
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** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which featured a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, had seen classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
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** Tellingly, ''VideoGame/YuGiOhDuelLinks,'' which featured features a rebooted card pool that focused primarily on supporting original generation cards in its initial months, had seen saw classic Ritual Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Relinquished Relinquished]]) and Tribute Monsters ([[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravekeeper%27s_Chief Gravekeeper's Chief]]) elevated into the metagame. However, despite the massive amount of support, Fusion Monsters remained little more than a gimmick until modern cards like Destiny HERO - Dangerous were introduced.
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* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. And not only that, the monsters are completely useless in hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
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* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Red-Eyes_Black_Metal_Dragon Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalzoa Metalzoa]] can be special summoned from deck by tributing their original counterpart on field outfitted with [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Metalmorph Metalmorph]]. The problem? You're sending Metalmorph to the grave for a measly 100 attack and defense points increase, while the very monster you sent to grave could reach a higher attack value by attacking anything with at least 300 attack points. And not Not only that, the monsters are completely useless in the hand and graveyard since they can only be summoned from the deck, forcing you to run cards to return them to your deck should you be unlucky enough to draw them. In short, they're just too much trouble for the measly "reward" you get by playing them.[[note]]In the original anime and manga, the "reward" was better - Machine-type monsters were inherently AntiMagic, so being able to trade in a normal monster for a machine counterpart, with ''no'' trade-off in attack power, was win-win. The card can also be used on any monster, to boot.[[/note]] The only reason you'd want to make this play would be to make room for a Spell or Trap Card.
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** [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). And you can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually become one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
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** [[TropeCodifier Good ol']] [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forbidden_One Exodia]]: It gives you an instant win, but only if you have 5 certain cards in your hand at the same time (the cards can also be played as weak monsters). And you You can only have one of each in your deck. The only way to use him efficiently is to have a deck completely built around getting him in your hand, which is still a heavily luck-based strategy which leaves you almost defenseless, especially if your opponent uses cards that discard from your hand. '''[[SubvertedTrope However]]''', with more and more stall cards and cards that ''purely'' increase draw power, Exodia decks eventually become became one of the most hated "solitaire" decks players ever faced.
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* Even if it has the second highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Force Machina Force]] is one of the best examples of Awesome, But Impractical due to its extremely difficult summoning conditions of having [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Commander_Covington Commander Covington]] on your field and sending [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Defender Machina Defender]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Soldier Machina Soldier]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Sniper Machina Sniper]] you control to the graveyard. To make things worse, it cannot declare an attack unless you pay 1000 Life Points. What's more, it's a "NOMI", meaning that if your opponent destroys it, it's gone for good (unless you feel like using something like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Monster_Reincarnation Monster Reincarnation]] and repeating the whole process of summoning it again.) This card only sees use in a Machina deck as discard fodder to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Fortress Machina Fortress]], a far more practical boss-monster for the archetype, and even then it's since been outclassed by the likes of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Cannon Machina Cannon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Megaform Machina Megaform]], which have other uses. It can also be used as an unconventional StoneWall because of its high ATK, if it wasn't for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bottomless_Trap_Hole the]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/System_Down countless]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Inaba_White_Rabbit methods]] of getting around it.
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* Even if it has the second highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Force Machina Force]] is one of the best examples of Awesome, But Impractical due to its extremely difficult summoning conditions of having [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Commander_Covington Commander Covington]] on your field and sending [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Defender Machina Defender]], [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Soldier Machina Soldier]], and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Sniper Machina Sniper]] you control to the graveyard. To make things worse, it cannot declare an attack unless you pay 1000 Life Points. What's more, it's a "NOMI", meaning that if your opponent destroys it, it's gone for good (unless you feel like using something like [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Monster_Reincarnation Monster Reincarnation]] and repeating the whole process of summoning it again.) This card only sees use in a Machina deck as discard fodder to summon [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Fortress Machina Fortress]], a far more practical boss-monster for the archetype, and even then it's since been outclassed by the likes of [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Cannon Machina Cannon]] and [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machina_Megaform Machina Megaform]], which have other uses. It can also be used as an unconventional StoneWall because of its high ATK, if it wasn't for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bottomless_Trap_Hole the]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/System_Down countless]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Inaba_White_Rabbit methods]] of getting around it.
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* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantom Armityle the Chaos Phantom]]. It requires banishing three cards (the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sacred_Beast Sacred Beasts]], who can also fall under this trope) , however since each of those three cards themselves require three cards to play, it really takes a total of 12 cards to get out. It gains a whopping 10,000 attack during your turn, meaning any successful attack would almost certainly win you the game (unless your opponent had a +2000 attack monster or really boosted his life points) since you start with 8000 life points. As if being ridiculously hard to get out wasn't enough, it only gains 10,000 attack during your turn, can be destroyed by any common methods (except battle), and is actually inferior than the combine might of the cards it requires (the Sacred Beasts combined may have as little as 8,000 attack, but usually will have +12,000 attack).
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* [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Armityle_the_Chaos_Phantom Armityle the Chaos Phantom]]. It requires banishing three cards (the [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sacred_Beast Sacred Beasts]], who can also fall under this trope) , however since each of those three cards themselves require three cards to play, it really takes a total of 12 cards to get out. It gains a whopping 10,000 attack during your turn, meaning any successful attack would almost certainly win you the game (unless your opponent had a +2000 attack monster or really boosted his life points) since you start with 8000 life points. As if being ridiculously hard to get out wasn't enough, it only gains 10,000 attack during your turn, can be destroyed by any common methods (except battle), and is actually inferior than the combine might of the cards it requires (the Sacred Beasts combined may have as little as 8,000 attack, but usually will have +12,000 attack). However, with the release of the new Sacred Beasts Structure Deck, which contained not only more searchers for the Sacred Beasts, but even a dedicated Fusion Spell card to Fusion out Armityle, as well as a new version of Armityle that not only banishes your opponent's entire field at the end of your turn, but also Special Summons out the original for free, it seems the issues concerning Armityle's summoning conditions have been dealt with.
