Nightmare Fuel / Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game

Caution: Unmarked spoilers ahead!

The Shadow Realm is the least of your worries right now.

• The "Gimmick Puppets" are generally considered the archetype with the creepiest art. All of the monsters within the archetype are evil looking-puppets, like "Gimmick Puppet Nightmare."◊
  • The original artwork of "Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll"◊ depicts a childlike puppet covered in bloody bandages while sitting in a coffin, with black bloodstains everywhere and even an empty eye socket - the international artwork◊ removes the bloodstains.
  • Gimmick Puppet Terror Baby looks like a possessed infant doll in a demonic stroller with teeth and several parts made of doll limbs. Its effect can revive one of its fellow Gimmick Puppets and make it so the opponent can't stop their effects for a turn, which can be devastating in the right circumstances.
  • "Gimmick Puppet Shadow Feeler"◊ is a design reminescent of The Human Centipede: First Sequence.
  • If you think the basic Cannon Fodder Gimmick Puppets are bad wait until you see a few of their boss monsters hit the field. The only thing more horrible than their gruesome looks are the way that they attack their foes. Naturally, this was one of the many things the English version of the game toned down as can be seen with the Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll edit above.
• Ladies and gentlemen, Appointer of the Red Lotus, a scowling, red-skinned demonic figure that just looks straight-up uncanny with its misshapen head and bizarrely human-looking mouth.
• Several of the images on cards could be counted as this. For instance, the card Final Countdown has twenty flames floating in a circle in the sky as a malevolent face forms in the clouds.
  • In the same boat as Final Countdown, but arguably even creepier, is Invasion of Flames. Not helped by the fact that the face looks like it's bleeding from the eyes.
• Some cards have images that are strange, grotesque, or just plain WTF. Some notable examples are "Eternal Rest", "Spirit's Invitation", and "Life Absorbing Machine".
• There is the implication in the story behind the cards that Invader of Darkness is some sort of Evil Overlord who is something like Darth Vader. And that, going by the number of cards searching for him, he probably did something unspeakably horrific. And there's how he probably did in Gagagigo, leaving the poor guy for Kozaky to repair, who probably has a Evil Plan of his own going... yeah, Invader is the Big Bad.
• Magic Drain. Naked white haired vampire sucks a guy's blood and it looks VERY rape-ish.
• Parasite Paracide. TCG Artwork: a simple insect with a few worm-like tentacles. Pretty tame as long as you're not an entomophobe. OCG Artwork: the same insect embedded in a guy's face, with its tentacles protruding from his face and mouth. Ewww.
• Tribute to the Doomed shows a old, ragged mummy taking a living person and mummifying him alive.
  • Then there's Graverobber's Retribution.
• Dark Jeroid has a lot of Vagina Dentata going on, its real head is on its crotch, and one gets the feeling the weakening effect is the opponent monster being squicked.
• The trap card Tragedy. In the OCG, it shows a guillotine. In the TCG, it's 'censored' to show a lass who looks distressed, with an evil looking chap looming behind her, from the darkness. Said evil chap has a blood red moon behind him, which happens to be full, which happens to have an effect on him...
  • Another example, although much less scary than the above, of censorship making things worse is the monster Mystic Tomato. The original artwork makes it look like a Jack-O-Lantern, but in the TCG, it's a tomato with a bit-too-realistic monster face.
• Some say that the creepiest card in existence is Il Blud. Il Blud is an evil.... thing with a dark, small face (with glowing red eyes) wearing a jail suit, complete with ball and chain attached to its leg. This wouldn't be so scary, save for the huge fucking rip in its stomach with a giant, distorted face staring at you like something out of a creepypasta!
• Many of the earlier cards were REALLY unnerving, but one of the worst was Sorcerer Of The Doomed. It basically looks like an aged corpse with a malevolent expression and a body suit of horrified faces. The flavor text also helpfully states that it is a master of life-extinguishing spells.
  • Another such card is Doma The Angel Of Silence. What the hell where the creators thinking putting this in a card game aimed at children?
  This fairy rules over the end of existance.
  • Much of this comes from earlier cards being based directly on Kazuki Takahashi's designs from the manga. Compare the original Manga to shows like ZeXal, and you'll realize that the manga treads much, much more heavily into the Horror genre than any subsequent iteration of the franchise.
• The Evilswarm archetype in the Duel Terminal packs. Where their 'predecessor', the Steelswarm, were just ruthless invaders without purpose or cause beyond wanting to destroy everything, the Evilswarm archetype is introduced with the reveal that the Steelwarm may not have been in full control of their senses . . . as the Evilswarm archetype consists of various monsters from other Duel Terminal archetypes — every other archetype, in fact — twisted and warped from their original forms by the the Evilswarm virus, a Hate Plague that renders their victims not only distorted but also unable to convey their thoughts, rendering them either a prisoner of their own bodies or at the very least no longer themselves — to wit, the flavor text on the only Normal Monster among them is BACKWARDS just to show how hard it is to understand them and their line of 'thought'.
  • For extra fun, among the monsters they've infected are some from the previous story arc in Duel Terminal — monsters that had previously died, including the one that had ENDED the world previously by freezing it solid, though he's not as broken as he used to be. However, as these monsters were effectively killed through said deep freeze and other, previous disasters of varying scales of lethal, it's pretty obvious what the Evilswarm virus really is — though, oddly enough, none of their monsters have the in-game type for that, though they've certainly got all the tropes in order.
  • The Shaddolls are the successors to the Evilswarm archetype. They're basically puppets controlled by El-Shaddoll Construct. However, they may be corpses of the fallen. Shaddoll Lizard is a puppet version of Satellaknight Unulkalhai. El-Shaddoll Winda is a puppet version of Winda. A pixiv user did a speculative transformation sequence for Winda and it is terrifying.
    • The reality is even more unnerving; they Came Back Wrong and think even more differently than the Evilswarm.
• The Wicked Worm Beast. Look closely at its card. Is this thing a humanoid monster with worm tendrils... or (more likely) a human corpse being controlled by a monster worm parasite?
  • In the manga, this card killed Kaiba when Yami Yugi gave him the Experience of Death penalty game.
• The army of Monster Clowns. Mystic Clown,Dream Clown,Crass Clown,Saggi The Dark Clown... the list goes on...
• Pumpking the King of Ghosts. Can you imagine seeing this thing in a pumpkin patch? A huge one-eyed pumpkin with jagged teeth giving you an evil eye. Shudder.
  • In the old console games, he's even worse. Take a good look at him in the Falsebound Kingdom.
    • Who says you need the old games to get spooked by Pumpking? Try summoning him as Bonz in Duel Links to get a special animation of Pumpking rising from the depths of the earth, surrounded by candles implying you've given Pumpking what he needs to complete a ritual to bring himself to life.
• Necroface has a freaking porcelain horror movie doll with some freaky tentacles smashing out of its face, not to mention that bubbling mass coming out of one of its eyes.
• The OCG artwork for Axe of Despair, featuring a grisly looking skull-like face with an axe blade sticking out the side of it. In fact, Dueling Network, a simulator that always uses the original artwork, uses the TCG version of that card.
• Dark Hole, which shows an extremely creepy black hole-looking thing. What makes it creepy is if you look close, it resembles a giant eye, which causes Fridge Horror to make you wonder, is this a hole or some other being's eye?
  • Well, if you look closely, there appears to be stars surrounding it, suggesting that it is an Unrealistic Black Hole.
• Relinquished. Even its effects are unnerving (It steals the opponent's monsters to power itself, if you do damage attacking it, it deals the damage back to you as well, and it sacrifices whatever monster it equips to itself it would be destroyed, hence the OCG name of the card, Sacrifice). And when it merges with the Thousand-Eye Idol...
• Fiend Comedian's TCG artwork looks slightly creepy with that grinning host. Its OCG artwork, on the other hand, makes them look uncomfortably realistic and downright deranged. There's a good reason the TCG version redraws them in a cartoony style.
• Ultimate Offering's◊ OCG artwork gives off a very disturbing cult vibe.
• In mid-2014, some images of Korea's Judge Mats were revealed. The reactions to Outer God Nyarla's artwork can be summed up as: "Oh my GOD, WHAT IS THAT THING?!"
  • The now banned Outer Entity Azathot isn't any better either.
• Infernoids are demons sealed under the Naturia Sacred Tree along with the Qliphort. In an attempt at obtaining the tree's power, Winda accidentally released them. The Infernoid and Qliphort immediately burned the Naturia Forest in blue flames and sealed her into a battery cylinder to power themselves up. They possibly turned Construct's marionetting powers against her, as seen in Shekinaga's artwork.
  • And as we later see, even after turning Construct into Shekhinaga, they weren't done with Construct yet. Infernoid Lilith, who is apparently in charge of the Infernoids, forces a Fusion on a frozen Shekhinaga - most likely done by Shrit as Nekroz of Trishula - and tricks him into trying to freeze her too in order to seize the Trishula power and become El Shaddoll Anomalilith. Possibly meaning the Shaddolls' Heel–Face Turn may be reversed by force, and the Shaddolls, irony of irony, forced into service to mechanical demons bent on creating their own Sophia.
• There's just something incredibly... off about the figure in Stygian Dirge.
• The "Amorphage" archetype may be just as nightmarish as the aforementioned Gimmick Puppets, if not more so. Lore suggests they are the result of an alchemic process used by "Vector Pendulum" that turns innocent animals into draconic abominations with eye-like ... things in various places of their bodies. Sounds scary enough, right? Now take into account that each and every card associated with this archetype depicts said innocent animals in MID-TRANSFORMATION. And to cap it all, some of them even look as though they're decaying or outright MELTING.
  • Amorphage Lysis is a trap card that, apparently, afflicts decay and disease on all non-Amorphage monsters, and has some of the most grotesque card art ever devised. It depicts the Amorphage monsters outright melting away as one of Vector's artifacts glows, possibly signalling that area for more Amorphages to show up. Vector Pendulum, boss of the year.
    • It gets worse when Vector fuses with an existing Amorphage monster◊ and becomes Amorphactor Pain, the Imagination Dracoverlord.
• The fates of the Dragon Horn Hunter and the girl present in the "Forbidden" series of quick-play spell cards. Turned into Humanoid Abominations for trying to provide medicine for her village and stealing. Crosses over with Tear Jerker.
• Metamorphosis. Depicts a creature mutating into a different one in a freakish manner, looking like the new creature is growing from the old one's back and taking it over. The fact that there's an eye and mouth visible in the mutation doesn't help.
• The art of Call of the Grave shows a large, freakish zombie with glowing eyes and sharp fangs and fingernails.
• Wall of Illusion is disturbing and downright strange. It's some kind of wall made of bones and what looks like flesh with a woman's creepy face growing out of it...
• The equip spell card Falling Down, which shows Warrior Dai Grepher undergoing a Painful Transformation into Dark Lucius LV 4, certainly qualifies. Blue skin? Check. Visible veins? Check. Horns pushing through skin? Check. Glowing Eyes of Doom? Big check!
• Jawsman. Jesus Christ. It's some humanoid figure with a bunch of mouths with razor sharp fangs all over its body.
• Due to their otherworldly appearances, the Arcana Force Archetype monsters can be pretty creepy. Oh, and they were inspired by Silent Hill. One particularly creepy one is The Moon, which can best be described as an alien-like creature with a huge brain piloting a masked biomechanical construct.
• Corroding Shark, A zombie shark with its flesh rotting and tearing off, revealing its bones. Oh, and the Japanese artwork features this thing bleeding profusely, with its organs visible. You can probably see why that wasn't included in the international release.
• Bottomless Trap Hole, in both artwork and effects. The artwork shows a monster falling down a bottomless pit inhabited by what appears to be leering malevolent spirits. The implications are made worse by its OCG name: "Pitfall of Naraka". You're condemning the victim straight to an eternity of torment in hell.
• Malice Doll of Demise straight up looks like something out of a horror film. A doll with crazed eyes, a creepy smile, and worst of all, it's hunched over from holding an axe that's about the size of the monster itself.
• Gate Deeg is disturbing even by the standards of the really old cards and almost seems like a precursor to Il Blud. Its stomach is ripped open, being held together by sticks, and within the inside is several monsters, all with glowing red eyes...
• The story depicted in the Eldlich series. A group of mages attempted to create a Philosopher's Stone to summon forth great wealth... only for the wealth to be revealed to be sentient. The gold and jewels transformed into Eldlich the Golden Lord, an undead evil, who then coated parts of the mages' bodies in gold, allowing him to take control of them while their exposed flesh slowly rotted away. He then covered the entire land with gold to tempt others to come to take the treasure... then convert them into his golden undead servants and made to kill more treasure seekers. The card art depicts living people screaming as their flesh becomes encased in liquid gold and then later their half-rotting corpses forced to serve the vain Golden Lord.
• Most cards in the TCG with artworks that may seem too frightening or have blood get censored, however there are a few cards in the TCG such as Snake Fang, which has a lovely close up of a snake's mouth open and it's teeth in a dark background with blood on the teeth, and it didn't get censored in the TCG version probably via oversight.
• The only reason people still remember the two Twin Long Rods monsters are their creepy designs. Twin Long Rods #1 (which is currently and OCG-exclusive) Twin Long Rods #2 are serpent-like... things with bulging eyes on the sides, exaggerated lips curled around a toothy mouth, and two tentacle-like tails that it can use as weapons. The first Twin Long Rods has a more "strained" expression that borders on Slasher Smile.
• Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmare depicts several unfortunate individuals about to be eaten by a grotesque Giant Spider, an antlion and a pitcher plant, and the cute girls that form the monsters bearing hollow Slasher Smiles. Sweet dreams!
• Speaking of traps there are a pair of old trap cards designed to kill low power monsters that are both highly unnerving. First, there's Eatgaboon which pops a 500 or lower ATK monster when it is normal summoned that depicts a live rat getting eaten alive by some bizarre mutant mouth thing with tentacles or guts or something ensnaring its hapless prey. The second, House of Adhesive Tape is much less graphic with its art but no less disturbing. It depicts what looks to be a sentient human sized roach motel (complete with several struggling humanoid figures) that destroys a monster with 500 DEF or less. Both are pathetically weak even by early game standards but that grim and gruesome artwork more than makes up for their shortcomings.