History AwesomeButImpractical / YuGiOh

** Similarly, Exodia Necros. 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 (like Cyber Jar).

* In the card game, we have Final Destiny, which destroys all cards on the field at the cost of 5 discards. Since the maximum hand size is 6, playing Final Destiny leaves you with likely no hand and no field. There are also monsters like Super Vehicroid Stealth Union, a CombiningMecha Fusion Monster made of 4 specific monsters, with an effect that lets it attack all the opponent's monsters while negating their effects... and ''halving its own ATK'', which isn't too high to begin with. Worst of all is the now-banned Victory Dragon, an extremely hard-to-summon monster with poor stats that, if it somehow attacks directly for the win, wins the entire ''match''. However, there's no rule saying your opponent can't just [[StopHavingFunGuys forfeit the duel when you attack]], sparing him the match loss.

* In general, cards that grant {{Instant Win Condition}}s (such as Destiny Board) are difficult to play, but satisfying to see actually work.

* Consider its [[RuleOfCool really cool]] looking and effect in the [[YuGiOh anime]], [[http://yugioh.wikia.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 [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Double_Coston this card]], where you only need to tribute it). Secondly, you will have to pay ''half'' of your LP to nuke the field except this card. Although it removes the cards from play, most players prefer JD or Demise as they have a much lower cost when nuking the field. 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. Forth and lastly, [[FourIsDeath this card is sent to the Graveyard during the End Phase of the turn it was Summoned.]]

* In general, cards that grant {{Instant Win Condition}}s are difficult to play, but satisfying to see actually work.

* Most Tribute Monsters (monsters with 5 or more level stars) in the ''[[Tabletopgame/YuGiOh card game]]''. You can spend an enormous amount of resources on it and lose the whole thing to a simple Bottomless Trap Hole.
** A good deal of this problem had to do with most skilled players having, at almost any given time, [[CrazyPrepared at least three or four]] different ways of [[MundaneSolution destroying]], removing from play, [[ResetButton returning to the opponent's hand]], or otherwise neutralizing any such monster. Anything that requires more than one tribute to get it on the field just isn't worth the effort considering how likely it is that your monster will be a victim to this.

* The Spell card Reverse 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 Magic). 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 defenceless 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 Reverse Quiz. If it isn't a decent card, then by the time you can get a decent enough defence 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 Reverse Quiz and get out of a situation which only it could have solved/improved.

** A good deal of this problem had to do with most skilled players having, at almost any given time, [[CrazyPrepared at least three or four]] different ways of [[MundaneSolution destroying]], removing from play, [[ResetButton returning to the opponent's hand]], or otherwise neutralizing any such monster. Pretty much anything that requires more than one tribute to get it on the field just isn't worth the effort considering how likely it is that your monster will be a victim to this.

* Don't forget Final Countdown. On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and unlike cards like Destiny Board or Venominaga, 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. Most of the GX-era new uber-archetypes would also qualify, being [[CrackIsCheaper hard to put together]], overcomplicated, focused on one specific thing that was often useless (Fusions, counters, skipping the Battle Phase, discarding, mill) and kind of crappy, with some [[GameBreaker notable exceptions]].

* Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth embodies this trope: he's the strongest Insect in the game, but his Summoning conditions are practically ''impossible''. But a literal reading of the card means that the listed summoning conditions only apply to ''special summons''; you can tribute-summon normally.
** Except if you tried to pull that in a tournament the judges would just laugh at you. That's just the way Yu-Gi-Oh words cards.
*** Plus, as of its reprint in the ''Dark Beginnings 2'' set, an errata (basically clarification of the text so that people know how the card's meant to work properly) was made to clarify that it ''cannot'' be Normal Summoned or Set.
* And now the original Egyptian God Cards are being printed for legal tournament usage. They're somewhere between this trope and GameBreaker as they can be either totally useless or nearly unstoppable forces of destruction in the game as they require THREE tributes to summon. Being one of the few things that requires three tributes to summon, it would make them useless if they didn't block any and all effects from going off when they were summoned. Sadly they still fall to a [[AttackReflector Mirror Force]] just as easily as any other monster when they attack.
** Well, Obelisk pretty much subverts this, being almost unstoppable with the right set-up and just really needing like 2 or 3 turns to finish the job anyway, but Ra is this trope incarnated. First, unlike Obelisk, he can't be Special Summoned at all. Second, he has no protection effect, except when he's Summoned. Third, his ATK and DEF is always 0, unless you pay ''all your Life Points except 100'' to have it gain ATK and DEF equal to what you paid. If you attack your opponent directly, ''maybe'' you can finish him off before he can do his CherryTapping. Fourth, his last effect allows you to pay 1000 Life Points to destroy any monster. That's really useful, but you need to skip using his ATK gaining effect to use this, which also means ''keeping a 0 ATK monster completely vulnerable at your side of the field''. Wow.
*** Quite stark contrast to the anime, where, ignoring the borderline DeusExMachina it exhibited later in the arc, Ra's ATK and DEF were equal to the total of the three monsters sacrificed to summon it. Giving up life points to increase it was also an option for when you ended up with it on the field with no stats, however the user could give it however many points they wanted.

** [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/The_Creator_God_of_Light,_Horakhty Horakhty]], the ultimate incarnation of the God cards, requires you to tribute one each of the ''originally printed'' God cards (as we have mentioned, the Gods are already difficult to summon). Although it grants you victory of the duel, most players prefer finishing his/her opponent off by just using one of the God cards to deplete his/her opponent's Life Points. Much simpler, isn't it?

* Don't forget 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.

* Fusion cards partially depend on what card you're summoning. In the early days of the card game, there were totally worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly the most useless cards in the game. Other fusions that are pretty much useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring Black Luster Soldier (a ritual monster) and 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.

* Back in the old days of the game, there was 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, and of course three monsters are harder to get rid of than a single target, so Gate Guardian is impractical ''even in a deck based around him''.

* [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis_Star_God,_Sophia Genesis Star God Sophia]], 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 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). 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]].

*** Quite stark contrast to the anime, where, ignoring the borderline DeusExMachina it exhibited later in the arc, Ra's ATK and DEF were equal to the total of the three monsters sacrificed to summon it. Giving up life points to increase it was also an option for when you ended up with it on the field with no stats, however the user could give it however many points they wanted.

** And then there's the anime-only card, Ragnarok. The effect? If Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl are on the field, all monsters on the enemy's side of the field can be removed from play. The cost? You have to remove ''every monster from your hand, deck, and graveyard from play''. 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's actually a real-world version now. It has the same cost but any two Spellcasters work. The downside? It only destroys ''one'' monster on your opponent's field. If this card could ever be used successfully in a tournament, it would be a ridiculous CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
*** It could make a pretty effective combo with Return From The Different Dimension though, depending on how you used it.
** In the card game, we have Final Destiny, which destroys all cards on the field at the cost of 5 discards. Since the maximum hand size is 6, playing Final Destiny leaves you with likely no hand and no field. There are also monsters like Super Vehicroid Stealth Union, a CombiningMecha Fusion Monster made of 4 specific monsters, with an effect that lets it attack all the opponent's monsters while negating their effects... and ''halving its own ATK'', which isn't too high to begin with. Worst of all is the now-banned Victory Dragon, an extremely hard-to-summon monster with poor stats that, if it somehow attacks directly for the win, wins the entire ''match''. However, there's no rule saying your opponent can't just [[StopHavingFunGuys forfeit the duel when you attack]], sparing him the match loss.
*** Except in Japan, where there ''is''. That's the reason it was banned in the first place.
*** Also, Stealth Union doesn't wins by killing your opponent's monsters. It wins by the often overlooked stealing effect, which will take down ''anything'' non-Machine while working as a crazy strong wall. Sure, 4 specific monsters ''is'' a pain in the ass, but the real problem is on the Vehicroid Archetype itself, not Stealth Union.
** Don't forget Final Countdown. On the bright side, you win automatically after a certain number of turns, and unlike cards like Destiny Board or Venominaga, 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. Most of the GX-era new uber-archetypes would also qualify, being [[CrackIsCheaper hard to put together]], overcomplicated, focused on one specific thing that was often useless (Fusions, counters, skipping the Battle Phase, discarding, mill) and kind of crappy, with some [[GameBreaker notable exceptions]]. Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth embodies this trope: he's the strongest Insect in the game, but his Summoning conditions are practically ''impossible''.
*** Final Countdown can easily become AwesomeYetPractical if you have Spell Economics, which will absorb the life point cost, then throw in a few stall cards like Nightmare's Steel Cage, Swords Of Revealing Light, Gravity Bind, with some monsters that can't be destroyed by battle like Marshmallon, along with a few Pyro Clocks Of Destiny to skip ahead a few turns and it becomes quite easy to get several wins with Final Countdown.
*** Look again at the rules for Great Moth and PUGM. A literal reading of the card means that the listed summoning conditions only apply to ''special summons''; you can tribute-summon normally.
** And now the original Egyptian God Cards are being printed for legal tournament usage. They're somewhere between this trope and GameBreaker as they can be either totally useless or nearly unstoppable forces of destruction in the game as they require THREE tributes to summon. Being one of the few things that requires three tributes to summon, it would make them useless if they didn't block any and all effects from going off when they were summoned. Sadly they still fall to a [[AttackReflector Mirror Force]] just as easily as any other monster when they attack.
*** Well, Obelisk pretty much subverts this, being almost unstoppable with the right set-up and just really needing like 2 or 3 turns to finish the job anyway, but Ra is this trope incarnated. First, unlike Obelisk, he can't be Special Summoned at all. Second, he has no protection effect, except when he's Summoned. Third, his ATK and DEF is always 0, unless you pay ''all your Life Points except 100'' to have it gain ATK and DEF equal to what you paid. If you attack your opponent directly, ''maybe'' you can finish him off before he can do his CherryTapping. Fourth, his last effect allows you to pay 1000 Life Points to destroy any monster. That's really useful, but you need to skip using his ATK gaining effect to use this, which also means ''keeping a 0 ATK monster completely vulnerable at your side of the field''. Wow.

** Armityle the Chaos Phantom. It requires removing three cards (the Sacred Beasts, who can also fall under this trope) from play, 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 +2,000 attack monster or really boosted his life points) since you start with 8,000 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).
** Don't forget 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.
** "[[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Shooting_Star_Dragon Shooting Star Dragon]]" is considered this for two reasons. First of all is its harsh summoning conditions. Secondly, this card can attack as many times as the number of Tuners revealed in the top five cards of your deck. But the thing is, no attack for this powerful monster if no Tuners are revealed in those five cards!
*** SUBVERTED VERY BIG TIME. Shooting Star Dragon is a staple on Tournament plays these days. You can summon it in one turn without ridiculous card combo and abuse his two other powerful effect(since lets face it, his multiple attack effect is absurdly useless). Also the fact that both Formula Synchron and Stardust Dragon being a deck main staple in High level plays, this card is an AwesomeButPractical.
** [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Rainbow_Dark_Dragon Rainbow Dark Dragon]] is considered this for three reasons. First of all, it requires you to ''remove from play 7 DARK monsters WITH DIFFERENT NAMES from your Graveyard''. Secondly, you must ''remove from play all other DARK monsters you control and from your Graveyard'' to buff this card's ATK. Third and most importantly, this card is done for when it is in defense position or have its ATK and [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Shield_and_Sword DEF]] [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Chaos_King_Archfiend switched]].
*** Actually if you have a dark deck it easy to do this
** Consider its [[RuleOfCool really cool]] looking and effect in the [[YuGiOh anime]], [[http://yugioh.wikia.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 [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Double_Coston this card]], where you only need to tribute it). Secondly, you will have to pay ''half'' of your LP to nuke the field except this card. Although it removes the cards from play, most players prefer JD or Demise as they have a much lower cost when nuking the field. 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. Forth and lastly, [[FourIsDeath this card is sent to the Graveyard during the End Phase of the turn it was Summoned.]]
** Fusion cards partially depend on what card you're summoning. In the early days of the card game, there were totally worthless fusion cards like [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Flame_Ghost Flame Ghost]] or [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fusionist Fusionist]], possibly the most useless cards in the game. Other fusions that are pretty much useless unless you get ''very'' lucky or are very good are [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Master_Knight Dragon Master Knight]], requiring Black Luster Soldier (a ritual monster) and 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.
** [[http://yugioh.wikia.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://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Grapha got a new big daddy]]), who gain effects when discarded by effects ([[ThatOneRule but not costs]]) and gain ''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 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://yugioh.wikia.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.

* [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis_Star_God,_Sophia Genesis Star God Sophia]], 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 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). Difficult to summon, by no means splashable, 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.

*** Final Countdown can easily become AwesomeYetPractical if you have Spell Economics, which will absorb the life point cost, then throw in a few stall cards like Nightmare's Steel Cage, Swords Of Revealing Light, Gravity Bind, with some monsters that can't be destroyed by battle like Marshmallon, along with a few Pyro Clocks Of Destiny to skip ahead a few turns and it becomes quite easy to get several wins with Final Countdown.

* Even if it has the second highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Machina_Force Machina Force]] is one of the best examples of AwesomeButImpractical due to its extremely difficult summoning conditions of having [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Covington Commander Covington]] on your field and sending [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Machina_Defender three]] [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Machina_Soldier different]] [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Machina_Sniper monsters]] you control to the graveyard. To make things [[ItGotWorse worse]], it cannot declare an attack unless you pay 1000 Life Points.

* Most Tribute Monsters (monsters with 5 or more level stars) in the ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh card game}}''. You can spend an enormous amount of resources on it and lose the whole thing to a simple Bottomless Trap Hole.

** [[http://yugioh.wikia.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://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Grapha got a new big daddy]]), who gain effects when discarded by effects ([[ThatOneRule but not costs]]) and gain ''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 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://yugioh.wikia.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.