History HighTierScrappy / YuGiOh

%%* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Voiceless_Voice Voiceless Voice]] is a deck that has brought back Ritual Summoning via Levels with a vengeance. They are an archetype of LIGHT monsters that are primarily retrains of old Ritual Monsters that focus on Ritual Summoning powerful LIGHT Warrior or Dragon Ritual Monsters back up with powerful protections that can be recurred rather easily even if an opponent manages to break their board.

* One of the first known High Tier Scrappies is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yata-Garasu Yata-Garasu]]. Despite only having 200 attack points, it possesses the ability to make your opponent skip their draw phase when it does damage. But its low attack makes it easy to destroy right? Wrong. It also possesses the Spirit characteristic with means it returns to its owner's hand at the end phase. Of particular note is the combo with Chaos Emperor Dragon and Sangan in the old days. After triggering CED's effect while your Sangan is on the field, Sangan hits the graveyard and triggers its tutor effect, allowing you to retrieve Yata, and assuming you haven't used your normal summon for the turn yet, leaving you free to summon it and attack. Not only is your opponent unable to draw, but their hand was just emptied by the effect of Chaos Emperor Dragon, resulting in a guaranteed win. Such was the brokenness of the combo that Konami saw fit to ban ''both'', with Yata returning to limited status in the May 2022 banlist in the TCG and the October 2022 OCG banlist, a ''whopping 18 years later'', and CED only coming back after a nerf.

%%* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Voiceless_Voice Voiceless Voice]]

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Firewall_Dragon Firewall Dragon]] has ascended to becoming the most singularly loathed protagonist monster of all time among the card-game-playing fanbase. It has very generic requirements, making it feasible in pretty much any deck, usable stats, and two great effects. The first is a bounce effect that can allow for both getting rid of an opponent's problem cards and recycling your own cards, and the second allows you to summon a monster from your hand whenever a monster it points to is sent to the Graveyard. This makes it an absurdly versatile card, capable of starting combos, keeping combos going, and turning a duel around - and what's more, while the first effect has a use limitation on it, the second effect ''doesn't.'' This last detail makes the card far more powerful than it should be, allowing its effect to be potentially looped and go on forever. The card broke new ground by being the first protagonist ace monster to ever be limited to one, after it was discovered just how laughably broken three Firewalls could be, and even when limited to one, it was still a deadly cog in the machine of multiple FTK decks. But what pushes it here is that because the card is [[Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS Yusaku's]] ace monster, it was able survive many banlists while other cards involved in those FTK decks were banned or limited, meaning the fanbase saw it as surviving not because it's balanced, but [[CreatorsPet because Konami wouldn't ban or errata Yusaku's ace]]. It was finally banned in the TCG in early December 2019, becoming the first card of that stature to face the list. It was later released after both effects were given an "only once per turn" clause, and the second effect was nerfed to only Special Summon Cyberse monsters from your hand.

* After years of PowerCreep, the current modern day deck aims to, while going first, set up as many boss monsters with negate or interruption effects that make it very difficult for the opponent to play, lest the opponent proceeds to set up on ''them''. Many tournament-topping decks are adept enough at this to fit into this trope this way. However, occasionally a deck comes along that's so strong that it becomes Tier 0, where no other deck can compete barring HighlySpecificCounterplay, and these decks generally live in infamy forever. Some notable Tier 0 decks include Zoodiac, which lets you go +5 or more off of one card, PePe[[note]](Performages and Pals)[[/note]], which is the most commonly cited reason for why the Pendulum mechanic needed to be heavily nerfed to the point of not being able to function, and Ishizu Tearlaments, whose quick GY effects can let them put out Fusion monsters in the middle of the opponent's turn while ''going second'' and needed multiple hits to take out.

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Future_Fusion Future Fusion]], upon activation, dumped all the materials for a revealed Fusion Monster. The actual Fusion Summon takes two turns, but even if the card was removed before then, you still got free dumping. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Five-Headed_Dragon Five-Headed Dragon]] was a common target for this as you essentially get to dump five Dragons of your choice. The card ended up banned, only returning after an errata delayed the dumping for a turn after activation.

For cards that are hated for being underpowered, see [[LowTierLetdown/YuGiOh here]].

* Kashtira is a deck focused on swarming the field with powerful Level/Rank 7 monsters with a game plan that involves banishing the opponent's cards face-down, a powerful form of resource denial that is difficult to recover from or work around. The major payoff for their face-down banishment synergy is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Kashtira_Shangri-Ira Kashtira Shangri-Ira,]] which locks out the opponent from using their card zones, and a complement to the strategy is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_89:_Diablosis_the_Mind_Hacker Number 89: Diablosis the Mind Hacker]] who can snipe important answers right out of the opponent's Extra Deck and provide two triggers for Shangri-Ira in one go. Capping things off is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Kashtira_Arise-Heart Kashtira Arise-Heart]], who has a passive banishing floodgate ability that supplies himself with Xyz Material, and has another banishing disruption effect to make the setup almost impossible to break without HighlySpecificCounterplay. The Kashtira matchup often has a very binary outcome -- either the Kashtira player goes full combo and outright prevents the opponent from playing, or the opponent has the outs that disrupts the combo or breaks open their board, and the Kashtira player loses due to having no follow-up. It's a CurbStompBattle for either player tied to a LuckBasedMission which is not very fun for either player to experience, and Kashtira would quickly fill the power vacuum left behind after the Tearlaments were hit by the banlist. Both the OCG and TCG would go on to hit different pieces of the full Kashtira combo (Fenrir and Unicorn on OCG, Unicorn, Arise-Heart and Diablosis for TCG) to knock it down a peg. Special mention goes to [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Kashtira_Fenrir Kashtira Fenrir], a card that's seen tons of competitive play outside of Kashtira due to how good it is in every deck (as it's a free special summon that can immediately search for a another copy of itself that can banish face-up cards when it battles or the opponent activates a monster effect).

* Kashtira is a deck focused on swarming the field with powerful Level/Rank 7 monsters with a game plan that involves banishing the opponent's cards face-down, a powerful form of resource denial that is difficult to recover from or work around. The major payoff for their face-down banishment synergy is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Kashtira_Shangri-Ira Kashtira Shangri-Ira,]] which locks out the opponent from using their card zones, and a complement to the strategy is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_89:_Diablosis_the_Mind_Hacker Number 89: Diablosis the Mind Hacker]] who can snipe important answers right out of the opponent's Extra Deck and provide two triggers for Shangri-Ira in one go. Capping things off is [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Kashtira_Arise-Heart Kashtira Arise-Heart]], who has a passive banishing floodgate ability that supplies himself with Xyz Material, and has another banishing disruption effect to make the setup almost impossible to break without HighlySpecificCounterplay. The Kashtira matchup often has a very binary outcome -- either the Kashtira player goes full combo and outright prevents the opponent from playing, or the opponent has the outs that disrupts the combo or breaks open their board, and the Kashtira player loses due to having no follow-up. It's a CurbStompBattle for either player tied to a LuckBasedMission which is not very fun for either player to experience, and Kashtira would quickly fill the power vacuum left behind after the Tearlaments were hit by the banlist. Both the OCG and TCG would go on to hit different pieces of the full Kashtira combo (Fenrir and Unicorn on OCG, Unicorn, Arise-Heart and Diablosis for TCG) to knock it down a peg.

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Firewall_Dragon Firewall Dragon]] has ascended to becoming the most singularly loathed protagonist monster of all time among the card-game-playing fanbase. It has very generic requirements, making it feasible in pretty much any deck, usable stats, and two great effects. The first is a bounce effect that can allow for both getting rid of an opponent's problem cards and recycling your own cards, and the second allows you to summon a monster from your hand whenever a monster it points to is sent to the Graveyard. This makes it an absurdly versatile card, capable of starting combos, keeping combos going, and turning a duel around - and what's more, while the first effect has a use limitation on it, the second effect ''doesn't.'' This last detail makes the card far more powerful than it should be, allowing its effect to be potentially looped and go on forever. The card broke new ground by being the first protagonist ace monster to ever be limited to one, after it was discovered just how laughably broken three Firewalls could be, and even when limited to one, it's still become a deadly cog in the machine of multiple FTK decks. But what pushes it here is that the card is the ace monster of the protagonist of ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'', and survived many banlists while other cards involved in those FTK decks were banned or limited, meaning the fanbase saw it as surviving not because it's balanced, but [[ProtectionFromEditors because Konami wouldn't ban or errata Yusaku's ace]]. It was finally banned in the TCG in early December, becoming the first card of that stature to face the list. It was later released after both effects were given an "only once per turn" clause, and the second effect was nerfed to only Special Summon Cyberse monsters from your hand.

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Future_Fusion Future Fusion]], upon activation, dumped all the materials for a revealed Fusion Monster. The actual Fusion Summon takes two turns, but even if the card was removed before then, you still got free dumping. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Five-Headed_Dragon Five-Headed Dragon]] was a common target for this as you essentially get to mill five Dragons of your choice. The card ended up banned, only returning after an errata delayed the dumping for a turn after activation.

* Fusion Summons using materials from the Deck can be very controversial, whether by making powerful monsters too easy to summon without sufficient drawbacks, or by free milling. To name a few prominent cases:
** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Future_Fusion Future Fusion]], upon activation, dumped all the materials for a revealed Fusion Monster. The actual Fusion Summon takes two turns, but even if the card was removed before then, you still got free milling. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Five-Headed_Dragon Five-Headed Dragon]] was a common target for this as you essentially get to mill five Dragons of your choice. The card ended up banned, only returning after an errata delayed the dumping for a turn after activation.

* At first glance, the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker Sky Strikers]] don’t seem like much as they’re a fairly small archetype, with relatively weak Monsters and Spell cards that only work if the player controls no monsters in their Main Monster Zone. That said, despite their small numbers and low stats, the Sky Strikers are perhaps one of the best and most consistent control Decks in the history of the game. A good Sky Striker deck will be able to maintain complete control over the board, thanks to its powerful Spell cards that allow players to eliminate threats at will, and essentially preventing their opponent from making any plays, all while maintaining a considerable card advantage over them. But what makes this archetype truly ridiculous are [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Mobilize_-_Engage! Sky Striker Mobilize - Engage!]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Mecha_Modules_-_Multirole Sky Striker Mecha Modules - Multirole]], the former allowing a player to search out any Sky Striker card they need (and draw an additional card on top of that), and the latter able to prevent the opponent from activating card effects in response to Sky Striker Spells (at the cost of a card), and allowing the player to reuse any used Sky Striker spells by setting them back on the field. Finally, the Sky Strikers Ace Link monsters are both incredibly easy to bring out and incredibly difficult to get rid of thanks to [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Ace_-_Raye Sky Striker Ace - Raye]], who can Special Summon herself from the Graveyard any time one of the Link monsters leaves the field, then immediately activate her other effect to summon another Sky Striker Ace from the Extra Deck. It speaks volumes that recent Sky Striker support is borderline useless in the actual archetype.

* The most infamous and impactful additions to the 2022 meta in general were the "Adventure" Archtype. It is a small archetype inspired in [[EasternRPG JRPGs]] centered around the "Adventurer Token", a Level 4 EARTH Fairy token with 2000 ATK/DEF, and cards that summons the Token or require it to be on the field to use their effects. The most notorious card out of the bunch, however, was [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Wandering_Gryphon_Rider Wandering Gryphon Rider]], a cheap omni-negate splashable in about every modern deck that doesn't require their normal summon to do their own plays (Read: about 90% of the decks in the modern meta) with good stats. The "adventure engine" ended up rising to the top of the meta right away and becoming one of the most loathed game-engines ever, making even the likes of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Prank-Kids Prank-Kids]] to suddenly become relevant again and fully capable of disrupting opponent's plays in their turn with very little resource investment. This culminated in the OCG banning Wandering Gryphon Rider in the October 2022 listing.

%%* Kashtira is a deck focused on swarming the field with powerful Level/Rank 7 monsters and using their effects to banish the opponent’s cards face down, with a secondary focus on locking zones when cards are banished face down.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Labrynth Labrynth]] may very well go down as one of the best Trap-based decks ever printed in YuGiOh. They are an archetype of DARK Fiends of various levels that are focused around using powerful Normal Traps to control the board and the opponent’s hand, while activating their effects when monsters leave the field via Normal Traps. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lovely_Labrynth_of_the_Silver_Castle Lovely Labrynth of the Silver Castle]] is the deck's main offensive boss monster, able to non-target destroy cards on the field or randomly destroy cards in the opponent's hand whenever a monster leaves the field due to a Normal Trap card, and can target Normal Traps in the GY and reset them back on the field. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lady_Labrynth_of_the_Silver_Castle Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle]] is the deck's main defensive boss monster, being a formidable towers-like monster that cannot be targeted or destroyed by card effects (provided the player controls a Set card), and can set an additional Normal Trap Card directly from the deck whenever a Normal Trap card is activated (regardless of who activated it), and can easily special summon herself whenever a Labrynth card or Normal Trap has been activated. Both boss monsters can be easily Special Summoned from the directly via [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Welcome_Labrynth Welcome Labrynth]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Big_Welcome_Labrynth Big Welcome Labrynth]]. The "Furniture" of the deck, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Labrynth_Stovie_Torbie Labrynth Stovie Torbie]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Labrynth_Chandraglier Labrynth Chandraglier]] both allow the player to set any Labrynth Spell or Trap directly from their deck (at the cost of discarding themselves and another card to the GY) at Quick Effect speed, which when combined with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Labrynth_Cooclock Labrynth Cooclock]] (which when discarded allows Trap Cards to be activated the turn they're Set), allows for Turn Zero plays on the opponent's turn. What makes the deck especially deadly is its synergy with the Normal Trap floodgates, such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dimensional_Barrier Dimensional Barrier]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Different_Dimension_Ground Different Dimension Ground]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Deck_Devastation_Virus Deck Devastation Virus]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Full_Force_Virus Full Force Virus]], and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Eradicator_Epidemic_Virus Eradicator Epidemic Virus]], all of which can single-handedly win you the game against the correct deck. Lady Labrynth can search whatever floodgate you need and Lovely Labrynth can reset every other turn, effectively locking your opponent out of the game.

%%* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Labrynth Labrynth]] may very well go down as one of the best Trap-based decks ever printed in YuGiOh. They are an archetype of DARK Fiends of various levels that are focused around using powerful Normal Traps to control the board and the opponent’s hand, while activating their effects when monsters leave the field via Normal Traps. Lovely Labrynth of the Silver Castle is the deck's main offensive boss monster, able to non-target destroy cards on the field or randomly destroy cards in the opponent's hand whenever a monster leaves the field due to a Normal Trap card, and can target Normal Traps in the GY and reset them back on the field. Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle is the deck's main defensive boss monster, being a formidable towers-like monster that cannot be targeted or destroyed by card effects (provided the player controls a Set card), and can set an additional Normal Trap Card directly from the deck whenever a Normal Trap card is activated (regardless of who activated it), and can easily special summon herself whenever a Labrynth card or Normal Trap has been activated. Both boss monsters can be easily Special Summoned from the directly via Welcome Labrynth or Big Welcome Labrynth. The "Furniture" of the deck, Labrynth Stovie Torbie and Labrynth Chandraglier both allow the player to set any Labrynth Spell or Trap directly from their deck (at the cost of discarding themselves and another card to the GY) at Quick Effect speed, which when combined with Labrynth Cooclock (which when discarded allows Trap Cards to be activated the turn they're Set), allows for Turn Zero plays on the opponent's turn. What makes the deck especially deadly is its synergy with the Normal Trap floodgates, such as Dimensional Barrier, Deck Devastator Virus, Full Force Virus, and Eradicator Epidemic Virus, all of which can single-handedly win you the game against the correct deck.

%%* Labrynth may very well go down as one of the best Trap-based decks ever printed in YuGiOh. They are an archetype of DARK Fiends of various levels that are focused around using powerful Normal Traps to control the board and the opponent’s hand, while activating their effects when monsters leave the field via Normal Traps. Lovely Labrynth of the Silver Castle is the deck's main offensive boss monster, able to non-target destroy cards on the field or randomly destroy cards in the opponent's hand whenever a monster leaves the field due to a Normal Trap card, and can target Normal Traps in the GY and reset them back on the field. Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle is the deck's main defensive boss monster, being a formidable towers-like monster that cannot be targeted or destroyed by card effects (provided the player controls a Set card), and can set an additional Normal Trap Card directly from the deck whenever a Normal Trap card is activated (regardless of who activated it), and can easily special summon herself whenever a Labrynth card or Normal Trap has been activated. Both boss monsters can be easily Special Summoned from the directly via Welcome Labrynth or Big Welcome Labrynth. The "Furniture" of the deck, Labrynth Stovie Torbie and Labrynth Chandraglier both allow the player to set any Labrynth Spell or Trap directly from their deck (at the cost of discarding themselves and another card to the GY) at Quick Effect speed, which when combined with Labrynth Cooclock (which when discarded allows Trap Cards to be activated the turn they're Set), allows for Turn Zero plays on the opponent's turn. What makes the deck especially deadly is its synergy with the Virus Cards, particularly Eradicator Epidemic Virus. As Lady Labrynth and Lovely Labrynth are both DARK monsters with over 2500 ATK, either of them can be tributed to use Eradicator Epidemic Virus, then easily destroy several cards in the opponent's hand with a correct call of Spell or Trap, and since both boss monsters can easily be resummoned back onto the field, the player won't lose much advantage in using EEV.

%%*Kashtira is a deck focused on swarming the field with powerful Level/Rank 7 monsters and using their effects to banish the opponent’s cards face down, with a secondary focus on locking zones when cards are banished face down.
%%*Labrynth may very well go down as one of the best Trap-based decks ever printed in YuGiOh. They are an archetype of DARK Fiends of various levels that are focused around using powerful Normal Traps to control the board and the opponent’s hand, while gaining additional effects when monsters leave the field via Normal Traps.

* A generic Extra Deck monster is appreciated, since it can lend support to multiple archetypes, especially the weaker ones, to support their game plan or compensate for their obsolete boss monsters. But some Extra Deck monsters are ''too'' generic and ''too'' strong, and their existence can lead to archetypes discarding their original game plan to focus on pushing out those new generic bosses, and players bemoan the loss of identity when it happens. The Rank 4 toolbox was one of the earliest examples, and other examples include [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Baronne_de_Fleur Baronne de Fleur]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Borreload_Savage_Dragon Borreload Savage Dragon]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Apollousa,_Bow_of_the_Goddess Apollousa]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Accesscode_Talker Accesscode Talker]], and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Divine_Arsenal_AA-ZEUS_-_Sky_Thunder AA-Zeus]], all of which have a mixture of high stats, removal, and/or negates.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL SPYRALs]] at their launch was a fun and functional if inconsistent deck that focused on knowing what was on top of your opponent's deck to maintain advantage. Enter their new shiny Link Monster [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL_Double_Helix SPYRAL Double Helix]], [[BalanceBuff which fixes all of the deck's problems]] [[GoneHorriblyRight a little too well]]. Double Helix is easy to break out with only two SPYRAL monsters required and is in an archetype with easy swarming, and it can special summon any SPYRAL monster from the deck, such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL_Master_Plan Master Plan]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL_Quik-Fix Quik-Fix]] for easy resource advantage, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL_GEAR_-_Drone Drone]] to rearrange the opponent's top cards of their deck to guarantee a correct guess and stop any top-deck comebacks. Throw in [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL_Resort SPYRAL Resort]], which gives the deck overwhelming amounts of protection, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/SPYRAL_Sleeper SPYRAL Sleeper]], who's card popping effects do not come at any cost with the above field spell in place, and you have Zoodiacs II to the groans of many players. This ended up with emergency action being taken with the November 2017 TCG banlist, which Limited Quik-Fix, and Drone, so while the deck is still powerful, it's no longer untouchable.

** [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tellarknight_Ptolemaeus Tellarknight Ptolemaeus]]: At first glance its nothing special, a Rank 4 with low ATK but high DEF. Except for one thing; it can ditch 3 materials to bring out a Rank 5 monster (provided it isn't a Number). [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Constellar_Pleiades Constellar Pleiades]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Outer_Entity_Azathoth Outer Entity Azathoth]]? Both became staples. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Stellarknight_Constellar_Diamond Stellarknight Constellar Diamond]]? There are now two ways to get it out. '''[[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Dragon_Infinity Cyber Dragon Infinity]]?''' The most infamous combo with Ptolemaeus, summon this bad boy out, use its effect to summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Dragon_Nova Nova]] and then Summon Infinity immediately. And getting the materials for this effect is easy; not only can you use more than 2 Monsters to summon it, but you can also attach a Stellarknight Monster to it as well every End Phase. It also has a more Awesome but Impractical effect of skipping the opponent's turn if you got 7 materials on it.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Firewall_Dragon Firewall Dragon]] has ascended to becoming the most singularly loathed protagonist monster of all time among the card-game-playing fanbase. It has very generic requirements, making it feasible in pretty much any deck, usable stats, and two great effects. The first is a bounce effect that can allow for both getting rid of an opponent's problem cards and recycling your own cards, and the second allows you to summon a monster from your hand whenever a monster it points to is sent to the Graveyard. This makes it an absurdly versatile card, capable of starting combos, keeping combos going, and turning a duel around - and what's more, while the first effect has a use limitation on it, the second effect ''doesn't.'' This last detail makes the card far more powerful than it should be, allowing its effect to be potentially looped and go on forever. The card broke new ground by being the first protagonist ace monster to ever be limited to one, after it was discovered just how laughably broken three Firewalls could be, and even when limited to one, it's still become a deadly cog in the machine of multiple FTK decks. But what pushes it here is that the card is the ace monster of the protagonist of ''Anime/YuGiOhVRAINS'', and survived many banlists while other cards involved in those FTK decks were banned or limited, meaning the fanbase saw it as surviving not because it's balanced, but [[ProtectionFromEditors because Konami wouldn't ban or errata Yusaku's ace]]. It was finally banned in the TCG in early December, becoming the first card of that stature to face the list. It was later released after both effects were given an "only once per turn" clause, and the second effect was nerfed to only Special Summon Cyberse monsters from your hand.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Knightmare Knightmares]] are a small archetype that primarily consist of Link Monsters designed around co-linking, with the eventual aim of facilitating a well-protected Extra Link. Because they have three in-archetype Main Deck monsters at best, they were made really generic, requiring just two monsters with different names. On Summon, they let you discard cards for various effects, such as removal, extension, or recursion, and if they happened to be co-linked, you also draw a card. They turned out to be extremely powerful generic tools -- [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Knightmare_Mermaid Mermaid]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Knightmare_Goblin Goblin]] got banned for enabling easy extensions, and to this day, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Knightmare_Phoenix Phoenix]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Knightmare_Unicorn Unicorn]] still see plenty of play as easily-accessed removal.

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Branded_Fusion Branded Fusion]], debuting in the Albaz Strike Structure Deck, allowed you to make any Albaz Fusion using cards from hand/Deck/field, only restricting you to Summoning Fusion Monsters out of your Extra Deck after resolution. The Albaz Fusions themselves have very loose material requirements, so Branded Fusion effectively becomes a Foolish Burial for nearly anything while also putting out a strong Fusion Monster. If you go into [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Albion_the_Branded_Dragon Albion]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lubellion_the_Searing_Dragon Lubellion]] you can then follow up with their effects to make [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mirrorjade_the_Iceblade_Dragon Mirrorjade]] and threaten the opponent with a Quick non-targeting banish on top of a boardwipe should they answer it. Branded Fusion does so much for so little that Branded hybrids run as many ways to search or recycle the card as possible, and naturally this card is the chokepoint for Branded lines of play. The OCG would go on to Limit Branded Fusion in January 2023 to keep it from overtaking the power vacuum that would result from hitting Tearlaments (not that they needed to do that).

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Branded_Fusion Branded Fusion]], debuting in the Albaz Strike Structure Deck, allowed you to make any Albaz Fusion using cards from hand/Deck/GY, only restricting you to Summoning Fusion Monsters out of your Extra Deck after resolution. The Albaz Fusions themselves are very versatile, since they only specify "Fallen of Albaz" as a named Material, while the other can be almost anything, meaning Branded Fusion becomes a Foolish Burial that puts out a boss. If you go into [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Lubellion_the_Searing_Dragon Lubellion]] you can then follow up and make [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mirrorjade_the_Iceblade_Dragon Mirrorjade]] and threaten the opponent with a Quick non-targeting banish on top of a boardwipe should they answer it, while also setting up your GY. Branded Fusion does so much for so little that Branded hybrids run as many ways to search or recycle the card as possible, and naturally this card is the chokepoint for Branded lines of play. The OCG would go on to Limit Branded Fusion in January 2023 to keep it from overtaking the power vacuum that would result from hitting Tearlaments (not that they needed to do that).

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Union_Carrier Union Carrier]] was likely designed just to support the A-to-Z series of LIGHT Machine Union monsters, but [[NotTheIntendedUse its effect was just broad enough to go well beyond that]]. It can equip any monster (not even restricted to Unions) from your hand or Deck to one you control with the same Type/Attribute, giving it 1000 ATK. One of the more notorious monsters for abuse was [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dragon_Buster_Destruction_Sword Dragon Buster Destruction Sword]], normally only compatible with Buster Blader, allowing any Dark/Dragon monster you control to become an imposing floodgate that completely shuts the opponent out of Extra Deck summons. Union Carrier's effect also abused "leave the field" effects that don't specify leaving from Monster Zone, so cards such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Earthbound_Immortal_Aslla_piscu Earthbound Immortal Aslla Piscu]] could still trigger without needing to Summon it properly. Ultimately, this resulted in its ban in the TCG, but it would take until the October 2022 banlist for the OCG to also follow suit and ban it.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spright Sprights]] focus on quickly bringing out Level/Rank/Link-2 monsters. Controlling a single Level 2 monster allows ''all'' the Main Deck monsters to Special Summon themselves from the hand. While their most potent effects locks you to Summoning Level/Rank/Link-2 monsters for the rest of the turn, that group of monsters, while somewhat lacking in raw power, still have some potent effects that can secure an advantage for the player. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spright_Starter Spright Starter]] got Limited in the OCG for allowing them to casually pump out another Spright from the Deck at no cost and trivial drawbacks. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Spright_Elf Spright Elf]] gives targeting protection to monsters it points to with a Quick Effect to revive Level/Rank/Link-2 monsters without restricting yourself afterwards, while [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gigantic_Spright Gigantic Spright]] pumps out more Level 2 monsters from the Deck with the "drawback'' of locking both players into Level/Rank/Link-2 monsters for the rest of the turn, which means little for Sprights, but restricts the opponent's options -- especially when it locks out Nibiru from punishing them. A particular issue is its synergy with the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Frog Frog]] engine, especially the notorious omni-negating [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Toadally_Awesome Toadally Awesome]], which got banned in the OCG. After seeing how it provides quick extensions for various hybrids, the TCG would instead ban Spright Elf in February 2023, with the OCG following suit in April (and Limiting Spright Blue, their main searcher, for good measure).