History LowTierLetdown / YuGiOh

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast Mecha Phantom Beasts]] are designed around Summoning their Level 3 0/0 Tokens which protect the cards and can be used for their secondary effects. Their first wave of support was built around Xyz Summoning and their main playmakers involuntarily increase their Levels with each Token they summon, while subsequent waves added Tuners to open them up to Synchro Summon. The involuntary Level increase made it awkward to get to the Ranks you want if you have too many Tokens, the Synchro Monsters are a bit too hard to access due to the Tuners needing other MPB assistance to generate Tokens to get a play started, and the S/T support didn't help the game plan due to needing you to Tribute too many resources for their effects. The deck seems based around an assumption that the player will have perfect control over how many Tokens you have at any given time, but lacks the ability to reliably get them out and has too many cards that use them as a cost. All in all, the archetype is remembered for its individual cards rather than as a whole -- [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast_Dracossack Dracossack]] was used as a tanky Rank 7 in Dragon Rulers, while [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast_Auroradon Auroradon]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast_O-Lion O-Lion]] are used as parts of a generic value engine.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast Mecha Phantom Beasts]] are designed around Summoning their Level 3 0/0 Tokens which protect the cards and can be used for their secondary effects. Their first wave of support was built around Xyz Summoning and their main playmakers involuntarily increase their Levels with each Token they summon, while subsequent waves added Tuners to open them up to Synchro Summon. The involuntary Level increase made it awkward to get to the Ranks you want if you have too many Tokens, the Synchro Monsters are a bit too hard to access due to the Tuners needing other MPB assistance to generate Tokens to get a play started, and the S/T support didn't help the game plan due to needing you to Tribute too many resources for their effects. All in all, the archetype is remembered for its individual cards rather than as a whole -- [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast_Dracossack Dracossack]] was used as a tanky Rank 7 in Dragon Rulers, while [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast_Auroradon Auroradon]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mecha_Phantom_Beast_O-Lion O-Lion]] are used as parts of a generic value engine.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Petit_Moth Petit Moth]]/[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cocoon_of_Evolution Cocoon of Evolution]] line of cards they can summon were very notorious for not being worth the effort, even for the fanfare they received as Weevil's first trump card.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Melodious Melodious]] archetype is wielded by the ARC-V deuteragonist Yuzu. As an early ARC-V anime archetype, though, it was initially sorely lacking in Extra Deck bosses. A number of Melodious monsters gain effects when Special Summoned, but the archetype has a bit of difficulty initiating that without external help, and it didn't even get its own Pendulum cards which would have facilitated this strategy. They did get some Fusion Monsters later on, but the better Fusions want the clunky high-level Maestras as material. The best game plan is to Special Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Aria_the_Melodious_Diva Aria]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elegy_the_Melodious_Diva Elegy]] so that you had a board of indestructible monsters that can't be targeted, but you'd find that Aria protects your board from being targeted by ''your cards too'', blocking off any targeting support that would be beneficial to your NighInvulnerable board. What's most painful is that Melodious support vanished in the middle of ARC-V (due to Yuzu being DemotedToExtra) and the archetype would continue to be starved of legacy support as the years went on, leaving it sorely outclassed for an anime archetype that belonged to one of the more promising female protagonists of the franchise. Meanwhile, Yuzu's dimensional counterparts got much more support for their Decks (Lunalights, Windwitches, and Lyriluscs) that actually allowed them to see a fair bit of competitive play well after ARC-V, despite the latter two in particular getting far less screentime. The knife is twisted further by the later introduction of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solfachord Solfachords]], who share the same motif of musical female Fairies, but with an actual focus on the Pendulum Summoning that Yuzu's dimension was supposed to represent.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vendread Vendread]] archetype is another foray into experimenting with the Ritual Summoning mechanic, featuring cards that [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Revendread_Origin can Ritual Summon from the Graveyard and also use in-archetype monsters from the Graveyard as a resource.]] The problem is that this archetype was offset by too many counterbalancing factors (probably to prevent it from reaching Nekroz-tier strength) that it fell into mediocrity despite the number of cards populating the archetype. The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Revendread_Slayer Ritual Monsters]] often had mediocre battle-focused effects, and the non-Ritual Monsters bestowed powerful effects to their Rituals but only if Tributed ''from the field'' for this Summon, meaning you cannot benefit if you use them from hand or Grave. The non-Ritual Monsters also had ways to recur themselves from the Graveyard, but banish themselves if revived that way, restricting the player's ability to use them to their fullest. The rest of their effects or support also loved banishing each other from the Graveyard as costs with very little way to reclaim the banished monsters, so the archetype tends to drain its resources faster than it can replenish them. Players often theorize that these counterbalancing factors arose from the designers overestimating the strength of generic Zombie support that can move their cards in and out of the Graveyard with ease. Vendread moved from "unplayable" to "decent" with ''Power of the Elements'' introducing [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Scar_of_the_Vendread a couple]] of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ravenous_Vendread good cards]] to the archetype, but in the wake of Tearlaments that were introduced in that very same pack, it's evident that Vendread isn't going to be a contender any time soon.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Earthbound_Immortal Earthbound Immortals]], fellow ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds''-era Field Spell-focused villainous boss monster archetype, have not seen much more luck and for pretty much all the same reasons. A lineup of Level 10 Dark monsters based on the [[LandmarkOfLore Nazca Lines]], they do boast some unique benefits (they can't be attacked and can attack the opponent directly), but share the same downsides as Malefics (they die without a Field Spell and you can only have one out) without the special summoning condition that would at least turn them into easy big beatsticks; they don't even have any kind of way to generate tribute fodder. Each one does at least have a personalized effect, but most of those effects are flat-out bad, either consuming additional resources, only activating when the Earthbound Immortal gets destroyed by something else, or just being too hard to pull off. While Malefics had a bad Field Spell, Earthbounds straight-up didn't have one initially, meaning they were meant to be a series of stand-alone alternate boss monsters (like how the Dark Signers used them) without having any strong support to make it easier. Malefics at least got enough support to function later on, but when Earthbound Immortals got their BalanceBuff, it was a complete mess, attempting to fuse the deck with Rex Goodwin's "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Inca Incan]]" monsters for a bizarre strategy that used Synchros as Tribute material. Their central Field Spell, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Earthbound_Geoglyph Earthbound Geoglyph]], is scarcely better than Malefic World. It's quite telling that the closest thing the archetype has ever been to meta is various OTK and FTK decks that abused [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Earthbound_Immortal_Aslla_piscu Aslla piscu]]'s floating effect in combination with cards like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Union_Carrier Union Carrier]]--a strategy that is ''definitely'' NotTheIntendedUse.

** The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex Genex]] archetype is built around using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Controller Genex Controller]] and their Genex Synchros to support cards and themes of various Attributes, like the various Duel Terminal archetypes it was released alongside. The archetype has a lot of supporting monsters and even two sub-archetypes in "R-Genex" and "Genex Ally" which have a swarming and Attribute-modification subtheme respectively, but the effects weren't very cohesive, the boss monsters weren't worth summoning, and it lacked any in-house Spell/Trap support. It ''is'' capable of a few decent plays and combos, such as changing the name of "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Recycled Genex Recycled]]" to get bigger bodies with "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machine_Duplication Machine Duplication]]" for a big Synchro Summon, but the rest of the archetype is generally pretty bad. They would be RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap by a legacy support wave including [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Repaired_Genex_Controller Repaired Genex Controller]], which effectively gives the deck infinite Normal Summons thanks to the R-Genex searchers and thus allows it to Synchro spam to its heart's content (though it can only be summoned once per turn, so if it's removed or has its effect negated the player's turn comes to a screeching halt) and a decent boss monster in the form of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Arms_of_Genex_Return_Zero Return Zero]].

* Two very early monsters with the same effect, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Swordsman_from_a_Distant_Land Swordsman from a Distant Land]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zone_Eater Zone Eater]], are pretty widely considered contenders for the worst monsters ever made. The good news, they can destroy any monster they attack after a certain amount of time. For the bad news, how long does it take? ''Five turns''. Even in the early days of long, slow duels, that was still way too long to be of any use, and even then there were much faster and easier ways to get rid of troublesome monsters anyway. Hilariously, Swordsman wasn't released in the TCG until 2014, when the game was already getting into the RocketTagGameplay era when most ''duels'' don't even last five turns, to say nothing of the combo-heavy style meaning players usually don't let their ''own'' monsters stay on the field for more than one or two.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Digital_Bug Digital Bugs]] are notoriously regarded as one of the worst-designed sets of cards in the game, primarily due to a game plan that actually ''interrupted itself''.[[note]]The archetype's main deck monsters are all level 3 Insects that give extra effects to any Xyz Monster that uses them as Material, but the deck has only [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Digital_Bug_Scaradiator one rather weak Rank 3]], and if you go into the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Digital_Bug_Corebage higher-rank]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Digital_Bug_Rhinosebus Monsters]] by Ranking Up your lower-Rank monsters, the bonus effects don't transfer. You also need to detach 2 Materials to Rank-Up so you have a net loss of Material with each Rank-Up unless you bend over backwards to add more.[[/note]] Even when [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Digital_Bug_Registrider Digital Bug Registrider]] was introduced five years down the line to streamline access to their higher-Rank monsters, they suffer from restricting themselves to an absurdly limited pool (Rank 3, 5, and 7 Insects, of which there are seven in the game), most of their main deck cards require themselves to be switched into Defense Position to do anything (the series has two ways to accomplish this without outside support and one is Registrider), and once you've thrown all your work into summoning that Xyz, you realize that nearly all Digital Bug offensive effects are based on position-changing or Defense Position in some way, meaning that ''any'' Link Monster is immune to 90% of the archetype, and frequently aren't all that great otherwise. It's even worse because their artwork and theming is interesting (computer bugs personified as actual electronic insect beings), but the deck in no way lives up to it. And to add insult to injury, the concepts of one-card Xyz Summoning and Xyz monsters inheriting the effects of their materials ended up being incorporated into ''Zoodiacs'', which are a HighTierScrappy for a very good reason.\\
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Digital Bugs also have the unusual honor of coming from an era where Field Spells were often designed to be the centerpiece of a deck, while having possibly the worst archetypal Field Spell in the game: [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Bug_Matrix Bug Matrix]]. For comparison, there were [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Mausoleum_of_White four]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Amorphous_Persona other]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Deskbot_Base Field]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Fire_King_Island Spells]] in the same set, and they all had at least three effects. Bug Matrix has two. The first, attaching materials to an Insect-type Xyz from the hand, is effectively a -1 that doesn't advance anything but making the deck's convoluted rankup easier ''and'' is hard-once-per-turn for some reason. The second is boosting Insect ATK by 300, a whole 100 points more than [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Forest cards released in 1999.]]

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vendread Vendread]] archetype is another foray into experimenting with the Ritual Summoning mechanic, featuring cards that can Ritual Summon from the Graveyard and also use in-archetype monsters from the Graveyard as a resource. The problem is that this archetype was offset by too many counterbalancing factors (probably to prevent it from reaching Nekroz-tier strength) that it fell into mediocrity. The Ritual Monsters themselves had mediocre battle-focused effects, and the non-Ritual Monsters bestowed powerful effects but only if Tributed ''from the field''. The non-Ritual Monsters themselves had ways to recur themselves from the Graveyard, but banish themselves if revived that way, restricting the player's ability to use them to their fullest. The rest of their effects or support also loved banishing each other from the Graveyard as costs with very little way to reclaim the banished monsters, so the archetype tends to drain its resources faster than it can replenish them. Players often theorize that these counterbalancing factors arose from the designers overestimating the strength of generic Zombie support that can move their cards in and out of the Graveyard with ease. Vendread moved from "unplayable" to "decent" with ''Power of the Elements'' introducing three good cards to the archetype, but in the wake of Tearlaments that were introduced in that very same pack, it's evident that Vendread isn't going to be a contender any time soon.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Duel_Link_Dragon,_the_Duel_Dragon Duel Link Dragon, the Duel Dragon]], aside from [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment a fantastically redundant name]], earns a lot of scorn for being seen as one of the worst cards of the ''VRAINS'' era. It's meant to be a homage to [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ultimaya_Tzolkin Ultimaya Tzolkin]], a rather popular card based on the FinalBoss of ''Manga/YuGiOh5Ds manga'', which, befitting its status as the ruler of the Duel Dragons, could summon strong Dragon-type Synchros almost for free. This was tragically made far more limited by Link Summoning rules, meaning Duel Link Dragon was widely seen as a potential PoorMansSubstitute... and unfortunately, it ended up looking more like spitting on Ultimaya's grave. Duel Link Dragon is a Link 4 (meaning it requires a minimum of four monsters to be brought out), of which one of those monsters needs to be a Synchro (so actually five monsters). What do you get for all that effort? Well, it has no stats, but it can summon Tokens by ''banishing high-level Synchro Dragons from the Extra Deck,'' at which the Tokens gain the stats of the banished Dragons and nothing else, and Duel Link Dragon gains limited protection while its Tokens are out. So you gave up a minimum of three Extra Deck slots and five summons, all to bring out one or two beatsticks with 3000 ATK at most and no effects, and a 0-ATK monster with protection that goes away when the beatsticks die. This is a card released in 2019 that's almost strictly worse than using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ancient_Rules Ancient Rules]] to summon Blue-Eyes, and keep in mind, Ultimaya could be [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sea_Monster_of_Theseus summoned off]] a single [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Instant_Fusion Instant Fusion]] and any Level 5, and could yield a fully-powered [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Crystal_Wing_Synchro_Dragon Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon]] for the price of setting one card. In fact, you could easily just summon Crystal Wing the old fashioned way for monumentally less effort than making Duel Link Dragon, not to mention the plethora of high-Link boss monsters like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Borrelsword_Dragon Borrelsword Dragon]] that are infinitely more threatening than whatever this card is supposed to do. The result is a card so notoriously awful that people were actively ''happy'' when it became a tournament prize card outside of Japan, since it meant this thing wouldn't be clogging up packs in the TCG anytime soon.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Aileron Aileron]], the RobotBuddy of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Ace_-_Raye Raye]], was given a card adaptation with the release of ''Manga/YuGiOhOCGStories''. As the first Sky Striker card in a long time since [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Mobilize_-_Linkage! Linkage]], players were curious... only to find that Aileron absolutely failed to live up to the hype. With 0/0 stats he's meant to be equipped to your Sky Striker Aces as an equip, but only gives a paltry 400 ATK boost, and 1900 ATK is not sufficient to beat over threats you can't out normally. When he is destroyed, he also gets to mill a Sky Striker Spell, but that's something that [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Ace_-_Hayate Hayate]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial_Goods Foolish Burial Goods]] can already do proactively.He's a "Sky Striker" card, but not a "Sky Striker '''Ace'''" so he can't serve as an alternate material for Sky Striker Links. Worst of all, using one of his effects restricts you from using the other for that turn, even though getting to use both effects in a single turn already produces mediocre results. Disappointed players made him the laughingstock of the archetype.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo-Spacian Neo-Spacians]], introduced in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', were an early experiment in Extra Deck summoning outside of standard Fusion. They could summon their Fusion monsters without the use of Polymerization, instead being based on "Contact Fusion" that merely required you to return the relevant monsters to your deck. Unfortunately, Konami apparently felt so tentative with this strategy that they decided to add balancing factors... and then they kept adding them until the deck was unusable. The Neo-Spacians themselves had terrible stats and generally unimpressive effects, and the only monster they could fuse with was [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Neos Elemental HERO Neos]], a high-cost monster with low stats for its level and no effects. Getting both Neos and a Neo-Spacian on the field and keeping them alive for a Contact Fusion was surprisingly risky, and a lot slower than regular Fusion. You'd expect the Neos fusions to be game-winners to make up for all this effort, but instead, they not only possessed similarly lackluster stats and effects, but unless you had a specific (and similarly unimpressive) [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo_Space Field Spell]] out, ''they returned to the Extra Deck at the end of your turn'' and left you with nothing, meaning that accomplishing the goal of the Deck usually left you with spent resources and an empty field. The deck had almost no synergy with standard [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO Elemental HERO]] builds despite Neos's presence, it had multiple sub-archetypes such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/NEX NEX]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Chrysalis Chrysalis]] monsters that did nothing to help it, and being used by protagonist Judai Yuki meant it kept getting cards released to the end of GX's lifespan, none of which actually fixed the deck's massive issues. The nails in its coffin came when Konami released the ''second'' Contact Fusion-based archetype, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gladiator_Beast Gladiator Beasts]], which handily fixed every problem that Neo-Spacians had and proceeded to become one of the most fun and effective decks of its time, showing just how much potential the Neo-Spacians could have had if they were designed properly. The Neo-Spacians were so hated that [[NeverLiveItDown they've even colored appraisals of their user]], Judai Yuki, with detractors naming the deck as a reason for him being "the worst protagonist", and fans of the character cursing the deck for making the cards of their favorite character nearly impossible to use. Thankfully, ''Savage Strike'''s support has led to the deck being RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap, with cards like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo_Space_Connector Neo Space Connector]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Contact_Gate Contact Gate]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neos_Fusion Neos Fusion]], and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Cosmo_Neos Cosmo Neos]] finally making the deck viable, even in casual play.

* In what might be one of the meanest cases of PowerCreep in the modern game, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Duston Dustons]]. They were designed as a LethalJokeCharacter deck, similar to the older [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ojama Ojamas]], that would fill up the opponent's field with useless monsters to lock them down. Duston monsters had detrimental effects, bad stats, and couldn't be used for Tributes, Synchros, Fusions, or Xyz, and they could be summoned easily to the opponent's field en masse, so on paper the deck worked, and though far from meta, it could be a nasty surprise if your opponent got off [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/House_Duston House Duston]] and then [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Goblin_King Goblin King]] or [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Starduston Starduston]]. But then Link Summoning became a thing, and filling up your field with lots of monsters became such a fundamental strategy that Scapegoat came back into fashion - and Dustons had no protection from being used as Link material, when Links were now being run basically everywhere. Activating House Duston's effect and tossing four Dustons on the opponents field went from a real detriment to the card game equivalent of handing your opponent a loaded gun.

* Unlike the Neo-Spacians, fellow GX main-character archetype [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Vehicroid Vehicroids]] are considered similarly bad, but are mostly just forgotten (likely due to their weaker designs and less popular user). Where Neo-Spacians have an intriguing concept with colossal drawbacks, Vehicroids are largely remembered for having no concept whatsoever, with [[MasterOfNone a great variety of effects, but no real focus or unifying strategy.]] The majority of their monsters are passable at best for their time period, but very few have effects that synergize with each other. Only a few saw any kind of play outside of the most casual decks, and though they had a few powerful cards, they had almost no way to actually make use of them. The biggest indicator of how useless the archetype was would probably be the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Speedroid Speedroid]] archetype, which, despite being fully able to take part in Vehicroid support thanks to their shared name, almost entirely shunned them in favor of their own support because the Vehicroids were just that pathetic. They were given a ''colossal'' balance buff in the ''Legendary Duelists'' pack, with several cards with massively bloated texts being released to try to finally make them a functional archetype; general consensus is that the resulting archetype is barely playable, especially given that it still requires you to run the now horribly outdated originals, but it's at least objectively better than whatever it was before.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/CXyz CXyz]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C Number C]] cards, which are used by many ZEXAL characters, are dependent on [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rank-Up-Magic Rank-Up-Magic]] cards to evolve Xyz monsters into stronger versions that are otherwise impossible to Summon. Frequently the process involves too many steps for a lackluster payoff, especially when there initially was no way to search for the Rank-Up-Magic spell. It was far more easier to just go with the [[BoringButPractical ubiquitous Rank 4 toolbox]] or use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Dragon_Infinity cards that Rank Up without needing a Spell]]. Not helping matters was the presence of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Utopic ZEXAL]], a very powerful floodgate that can be Summoned by discarding a Rank-Up-Magic card and using a Utopia Xyz monster as material. To keep that card from being too accessible, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rank-Up-Magic_Argent_Chaos_Force Argent Chaos Force]] saw some time on the banlist, and Konami was reluctant to print any RUM searcher, which in turn made it hard to support the CXyz and Number C cards. It's telling that after Utopic ZEXAL got banned, it opened the doors for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Ascended_Sage RUM]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zexal_Construction searchers]] to enter circulation and help support the strategy.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo-Spacian Neo-Spacians]], introduced in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', were an early experiment in Extra Deck summoning outside of standard Fusion. They could summon their Fusion monsters without the use of Polymerization, instead being based on "Contact Fusion" that merely required you to return the relevant monsters to your deck. Unfortunately, Konami apparently felt so tentative with this strategy that they decided to add balancing factors... and then they kept adding them until the deck was unusable. The Neo-Spacians themselves had terrible stats and generally unimpressive effects, and the only monster they could fuse with was [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Neos Elemental HERO Neos]], a high-cost monster with low stats for its level and no effects. Getting both Neos and a Neo-Spacian on the field and keeping them alive for a Contact Fusion was surprisingly risky, and a lot slower than regular Fusion. You'd expect the Neos fusions to be game-winners to make up for all this effort, but instead, they not only possessed similarly lackluster stats and effects, but unless you had a specific (and similarly unimpressive) [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo_Space Field Spell]] out, ''they returned to the Extra Deck at the end of your turn'' and left you with nothing, meaning that accomplishing the goal of the Deck usually left you with spent resources and an empty field. The deck had almost no synergy with standard [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO Elemental HERO]] builds despite Neos's presence, it had multiple sub-archetypes such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/NEX NEX]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Chrysalis Chrysalis]] monsters that did nothing to help it, and being used by protagonist Judai Yuki meant it kept getting cards released to the end of GX's lifespan, none of which actually fixed the deck's massive issues. The nails in its coffin came when Konami released the ''second'' Contact Fusion-based archetype, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gladiator_Beast Gladiator Beasts]], which handily fixed every problem that Neo-Spacians had and proceeded to become one of the most fun and effective decks of its time, showing just how much potential the Neo-Spacians could have had if they were designed properly. The Neo-Spacians were so hated that [[NeverLiveItDown they've even colored appraisals of their user]], Judai Yuki, with detractors naming the deck as a reason for him being "the worst protagonist", and fans of the character cursing the deck for making the cards of their favorite character nearly impossible to use. Thankfully, ''Savage Strike'''s support has led to the deck being RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap, with cards like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo_Space_Connector Neo Space Connector]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Contact_Gate Contact Gate]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neos_Fusion Neos Fusion]], and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Cosmo_Neos Cosmo Neos]] finally making the deck viable, even in causal play.

** [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jurrac Jurracs]] are an archetype of FIRE Dinosaurs with battle-oriented effects, which meant that they would not take too kindly to PowerCreep over the years. They had a good playmaker in [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jurrac_Guaiba Jurrac Guaiba]] which could proactively Summon a Jurrac from the Deck and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jurrac_Aeolo Jurrac Aeolo]] which can revive a Jurrac from the GY, but most of the rest of the archetype used mediocre stat-boosting effects, had triggers that relied on their monsters being destroyed by battle, or generally struggled with furthering card advantage. Not helping matters is that FIRE and Dinosaur were lacking in generic support that would have propped them up at the time, they were also missing functional Spell/Trap support,[[note]][[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jurrac_Impact Jurrac Impact]] is more of a costly boardwipe than something that helps them establish a board[[/note]] and their biggest boss monster, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Jurrac_Meteor Jurrac Meteor]], was a boardwipe that erased ''everything, including itself''.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ursarctic Ursarctic]] archetype was released as a counterpart to the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Drytron Drytron]] archetype. Both archetypes focused on being a MechanicallyUnusualFighter -- Ursarctics made Synchro Monsters by subtracting the Materials' Levels instead of adding them, while Drytron made Ritual Monsters by matching the total ATK score of the Tributes instead of their Levels. Drytron saw a lot of success since their base monsters can easily put themselves on the field from hand or Graveyard by Tributing each other or their Rituals from hand or field, and coincidentally could put out [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Herald_of_Ultimateness Herald of Ultimateness]] as a fearsome negator. Ursarctics, on the other hand, consisted of Level 7 or higher monsters that Special Summon themselves from the hand by Tributing other Level 7 or higher monsters from the hand, and even though they have support cards that substitute or replenish these resources, they ended up being way too costly. They leaned a little too hard into their NumerologicalMotif, as their best Synchro Monsters are Level 7 but needed a Level difference of 7 to Summon, meaning you had to either use their unique Level 1 Synchro Monsters as Material or go out of your way to include other Level 1 monsters to supplant the strategy. They also restrict you from Summoning Xyz or Link monsters that would support their strategy, and their Levels are often too cumbersome for a traditional Synchro Summon on their own. The archetype is so bad that even [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Ursarctic_Radiation a card that lets them draw a total of 7 cards]] could not save it, when that kind of asset would be absurdly strong in any other archetype.
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock War Rocks]]. A TCG-premiere archetype introduced in ''Blazing Vortex'', War Rocks were dead on arrival and considered one of the bigger missteps in the SEVENS era. The archetype relies heavily on the Battle Phase, which in the Link era had lost much of its importance, as at that point monsters were typically removed by card effect in the Main Phase rather than destroyed by battle. While the archetype on the surface promotes an aggressive, beatdown strategy, its cards don't accel at even that as their effects are often underpowered or hit with needless restrictions, sometimes both. Many cards boost the ATK of War Rock monsters, but only by 200 ATK, which is rather low, and only until the end of the opponent's turn, so they can't even build up their ATK over time. The Level 4's, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Fortia Fortia]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Gactos Gactos]], and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Wento Wento]], can float into a Level 5 or higher War Rock, but only when sent to the Graveyard by an opponent's card effect, meaning they can be run over in battle by an opponent's monster with no punishment for doing so (except for Bashileos, more on that later). And without the Level 4's, the Level 5 and higher monsters have a hard time summoning themselves, as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Mammud Mammud]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Orpis Orpis]] can only Normal Summon themselves out of the hand, making it impossible to swarm the field with them, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Bashileos Bashileos]] relies on an EARTH Warrior being destroyed by battle to Special Summon itself from the hand or Graveyard, and is the only effect in the archtype to punish the opponent for destroying a War Rock by battle, but banishes itself if it would leave the field afterward, meaning it can't be done repeatedly. [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Mountain Mountain]] can summon a War Rock from the hand, but only if it has a different name from the ones already on the field, and send itself to the Graveyard to protect a War Rock from destruction by battle, an effect that would be much better on a card that didn't have a swarming effect that the archetype desperately needs. Both [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Skyler Skyler]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/War_Rock_Spirit Spirit]] can summon War Rocks from the graveyard, but bizarrely prevent that monster from attacking directly that turn, and even preventing some other monsters from attacking directly (Skyler) or negating the effects of the summoned monster for the turn (Spirit, but only if summoned in Attack Position). Overall, the archetype feels like a time capsule from the ''GX'' era or even earlier, with its focus on the Battle Phase feeling not only completely outdated in the SEVENS era, but also outdone by other archetypes such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Amazoness Amazoness]]. The archetype is widely remembered for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXU2i0-Zrjg a duel]] that showed a War Rock deck with its first wave of support losing to ''Goat Control'', a deck that was over fifteen years old at the time.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZW_- ZW]] archetype is a group of monsters focused around equipping to and supporting Yuma's "Utopia" monsters, but they lack the ability to put enough bodies on the board to create Utopia by themselves. Some of them are even Level ''5'' to build to their own Xyz boss monster [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZW_-_Leo_Arms Leo Arms]] but that's also mostly dead weight when you don't already have Utopia. Even when you do get to building up Utopia, several of the ZW monsters merely have battle-oriented effects. It's evident that the ZW monsters are a product of NewPowersAsThePlotDemands, each one created by Yuma's Shining Draw and having the right abilities to bail him out of various tough situations his opponents put him in. At best, a few of them were effectively used as glorified Equip Spells for Utopia. It took a couple of ZS cards -- [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Armed_Sage Armed Sage]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Ascended_Sage Ascended Sage]] -- to support the ZW archetype by turboing out Utopia and it's Rank-Up forms and searching other ZW monsters to push the archetype to playability, fringe as it may be.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo-Spacian Neo-Spacians]], introduced in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', were an early experiment in Extra Deck summoning outside of standard Fusion. They could summon their Fusion monsters without the use of Polymerization, instead being based on "Contact Fusion" that merely required you to return the relevant monsters to your deck. Unfortunately, Konami apparently felt so tentative with this strategy that they decided to add balancing factors... and then they kept adding them until the deck was unusable. The Neo-Spacians themselves had terrible stats and generally unimpressive effects, and the only monster they could fuse with was [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Neos Elemental HERO Neos]], a high-cost monster with low stats for its level and no effects. Getting both Neos and a Neo-Spacian on the field and keeping them alive for a Contact Fusion was surprisingly risky, and a lot slower than regular Fusion. You'd expect the Neos fusions to be game-winners to make up for all this effort, but instead, they not only possessed similarly lackluster stats and effects, but unless you had a specific (and similarly unimpressive) [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo_Space Field Spell]] out, ''they returned to the Extra Deck at the end of your turn'' and left you with nothing, meaning that accomplishing the goal of the Deck usually left you with spent resources and an empty field. The deck had almost no synergy with standard [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO Elemental HERO]] builds despite Neos's presence, it had multiple sub-archetypes such as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/NEX NEX]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Chrysalis Chrysalis]] monsters that did nothing to help it, and being used by protagonist Judai Yuki meant it kept getting cards released to the end of GX's lifespan, none of which actually fixed the deck's massive issues. The nails in its coffin came when Konami released the ''second'' Contact Fusion-based archetype, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gladiator_Beast Gladiator Beasts]], which handily fixed every problem that Neo-Spacians had and proceeded to become one of the most fun and effective decks of its time, showing just how much potential the Neo-Spacians could have had if they were designed properly. The Neo-Spacians were so hated that [[NeverLiveItDown they've even colored appraisals of their user]], Judai Yuki, with detractors naming the deck as a reason for him being "the worst protagonist", and fans of the character cursing the deck for making the cards of their favorite character nearly impossible to use. Thankfully, ''Savage Strike'''s support has led to the deck being RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap, with cards like [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neo_Space_Connector Neo Space Connector]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Contact_Gate Contact Gate]], [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Neos_Fusion Neos Fusion]], and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elemental_HERO_Cosmo_Neos Cosmo Neos]] finally making the deck viable, even in competitive play.

** The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex Genex]] archetype is built around using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Controller Genex Controller]] and their Genex Synchros to support cards and themes of various Attributes, like the various Duel Terminal archetypes it was released alongside. The archetype has a lot of supporting monsters and even two sub-archetypes in "R-Genex" and "Genex Ally" which have a swarming and Attribute-modification subtheme respectively, but the effects weren't very cohesive, the boss monsters weren't worth summoning, and it lacked any in-house Spell/Trap support. It ''is'' capable of a few decent plays and combos, such as changing the name of "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Recycled Genex Recycled]]" to get bigger bodies with "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machine_Duplication Machine Duplication]]" for a big Synchro Summon, but the rest of the archetype is generally pretty bad. %%There's upcoming Genex support, but let's wait to see if it puts out any results.

* What happens when you staple together [[ScrappyMechanic coin flip effects]] and an all-risk-small-reward factor onto an archetype? You get the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Arcana_Force Arcana Force]], which are all based on doing coin-flips to gain a beneficial effect when landing heads, and dish out a detrimental effect onto their player when landing tails. Needless to say, playing the deck is a LuckBasedMission in which heads results yield an underpowered and slow deck with underwhelming monster effects, and tails results quickly degrade into an automatic loss. While they do have powerful beatsticks in the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Arcana_Force_EX_-_The_Light_Ruler EX]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Arcana_Force_EX_-_The_Dark_Ruler Monsters]], they require three tributes to summon, when most of the time Arcana Force is lucky just to have one monster survive the opponent's turn. The only card that saw some play was [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Arcana_Force_XXI_-_The_World Arcana Force XXI - The World]] for its ExtraTurn-lock down effect, but it was used in faster decks that went as far away as possible from the monster's lineage. The real nail in the coffin with the Arcana Force archetype is simply the chance isn't worth taking. In Yu-Gi-Oh, for players to take the chance with effects, the benefits had to be worth the risk; but the Arcana Force monsters had effects that barely benefited the player at best or severely crippled the player at worst.
** The reason for this baffling card design is that this archetype is entirely based off it's appearance in the GX anime. Anime characters tend to employ much more simple and slower strategies compared to tournament players for viewability and pacing reasons. Discounting the MagicPokerEquation and similar factors, a anime duelist would almost always lose to a "real" duelist. As such, what would be considered an effect worthy of risking it blowing up in your face in the anime is almost always slightly above average at best in the real world. This is all without mentioning that the character that employed this archetype was literally capable of controlling fate, so they barely suffered from the issue of getting tails.

** The reason for this baffling card design is that this archetype is entirely based off it's appearance in the GX anime. Anime characters tend to employ much more simple and slower strategies for viewability and pacing reasons. Discounting the MagicPokerEquation and similar factors, a anime duelist would almost always lose to a "real" duelist. As such, what would be considered an effect worthy of risking it blowing up in your in the anime is almost always slightly above average at best in the real world. This is all without mentioning that the character that employed this archetype was literally capable of controlling fate, so they barely suffered from the issue of getting tails.

** The reason for this baffling card design is a a multitude of factors, the most significant that it is a incredibly faithful port of an anime archetype tied very heavily to a major villain. Said villain could literally ALTER DESTINY AND FATE ITSELF TO CHANGE THE RESULTS OF COIN FLIPS. As to why nobody asked the question "is this even remotely playable if you don't have the powers of god or cheat like hell?" Who knows.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Aileron Aileron]], the RobotBuddy of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Ace_-_Raye Raye]], was given a card adaptation with the release of ''Manga/YuGiOhOCGStories''. As the first Sky Striker card in a long time since [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Mobilize_-_Linkage! Linkage]], players were curious... only to find that Aileron absolutely failed to live up to the hype. With 0/0 stats he's meant to be equipped to your Sky Striker Aces as an equip, but only gives a paltry 400 ATK boost, and 1900 ATK is not sufficient to beat over threats you can't out normally. When he is destroyed, he also gets to mill a Sky Striker Spell, but that's something that [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Sky_Striker_Ace_-_Hayate Hayate]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Foolish_Burial_Goods Foolish Burial Goods]] can already do proactively. Worst of all, he's a "Sky Striker" card, but not a "Sky Striker '''Ace'''" so he can't serve as an alternate material for Sky Striker Links, and you can only use one of his effects per turn instead of once each. Disappointed players made him the laughingstock of the archetype.

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guardian The Guardians]], one of the very first archetypes ever introduced, is also widely considered one of the worst as well. They are defined by being impossible to summon, period, without having a specific (and decent to mediocre) Equip card on the field. As Equip cards can't be played by themselves, this makes Guardians impossible to use by themselves. And even once they had been summoned, most of the Guardians were nothing special, and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guardian_Elma one of them]] became outright unusable after [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Butterfly_Dagger_-_Elma their Equip Spell]] was banned for [[NotTheIntendedUse reasons that had nothing to do with the archetype.]] The only Guardians to be even mildly well-regarded are [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guardian_Eatos Eatos]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guardian_Dreadscythe Dreadscythe]], who were released years later and were clearly designed to be as independent as possible from the rest (including having the summon restriction removed), and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Guardian_Grarl Grarl]] had a very short window of popularity at the beginning of ''Duel Links.''[[note]]The game pulled a ResetButton on the card pool, which meant that a 2500 ATK beater that could Special Summon itself became a rare and powerful effect that made it ladder viable despite needing to control [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Gravity_Axe_-_Grarl Gravity Axe]], which itself was viable due to position freezing being a good effect in early Duel Links. It was quickly outclassed by more consistent options, but it was at least satisfying to use rather than completely unwieldy.[[/note]] Bizarrely, this archetype would go on to appear in the anime, which [[MerchandiseDriven saw fit]] to make Guardian-user Rafael the first character to fairly break [[InvincibleHero Yami Yugi's]] [[BrokenWinLossStreak winning streak]].

* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark Cyberdarks]] are another GX archetype that got the shaft upon their release. Their gimmick is equipping Level Three or lower Dragon type monsters from the Graveyard to boost their ATK by the Dragon's ATK points and use them as protection from battle destruction. The problems begin with the fact that they are ''all Machine-type'', forcing a player building a Cyberdark deck to awkwardly juggle between two types of monsters which makes for an inconsistent mess of a deck that has next-to-no synergy between cards[[note]][[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Limiter_Removal Limiter Removal]] would boost your Machine-type monsters, but not your Dragon-type monsters[[/note]]. It doesn't help that very few Level Three Dragons even existed at the time of their release[[note]] This led to the unimpressive [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Hunter_Dragon Hunter Dragon]] or [[http://yugipedia.com/wiki/Twin-Headed_Behemoth Twin Headed Behemoth]] being auto-includes, along with the throw-in of Dragunity cards when you are better off making a pure Dragunity deck[[/note]], and that the main deck Cyberdark monsters all have the laughable ATK points of 800 without equips along with having battle effects that are completely forgettable. Topping off the train wreck is that their Extra Deck boss monster [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_Dragon Cyberdark Dragon]], while easy to Fusion Summon with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_Impact! Cyberdark Impact]], has a measly 1000 ATK points without equipping a Dragon (at least it is of any level), and has no protection outside of battle, meaning that something as simple as [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Dark_Hole Dark Hole]] can make all the effort put into Fusion Summoning it and powering it up go down the drain with no chance of recovery. The end result is a GlassCannon deck that needs a meadow's worth of four-leaved clovers to fire, and needs the opponent to tip over a diner's supply of salt shakers to actually land a hit. After over a decade, Cyberdarks finally [[BalanceBuff got some TLC in the form of Legacy support]] with the introduction of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_Cannon Cyberdark Cannon]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_Claw Cyberdark Claw]] which are Level Three Dragon-type monsters with versatile Graveyard-dumping effects and card draw/searching, along with [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdarkness_Dragon Cyberdarkness Dragon]], a new boss monster that can equip both Dragon and Machine monsters and can negate and destroy any card by dumping any equipped card. While not enough to make them competitive, as you still need to run the outdated original cards, the archetype stopped being a laughing stock and became playable with the new support that fixed many of the archetype's problems. By fan demand, they then proceeded to get ''another'' wave of support (including [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Attachment_Cybern more]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_Chimera setup]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_Realm tools]] and a [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyberdark_End_Dragon formidable finisher]]), which [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap solidly redeemed them]].

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZW_- ZW]] archetype is a group of monsters focused around equipping to and supporting Yuma's "Utopia" monsters, but they lack the ability to put enough bodies on the board to create Utopia by themselves. Some of them are even Level ''5'' to build to their own Xyz boss monster [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZW_-_Leo_Arms Leo Arms]] but that's also mostly dead weight when you don't already have Utopia. Even when you do get to building up Utopia, several of the ZW monsters merely have battle-oriented effects. It's evident that the ZW monsters are a product of NewPowersAsThePlotDemands, each one created by Yuma's Shining Draw and having the right abilities to bail him out of a pinch. At best, a few of them were effectively used as glorified Equip Spells for Utopia. It took a couple of ZS cards -- [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Armed_Sage Armed Sage]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Ascended_Sage Ascended Sage]] -- to support the ZW archetype by turboing out Utopia and it's Rank-Up forms and searching other ZW monsters to push the archetype to playability, fringe as it may be.

** The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex Genex]] archetype is built around using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Controller Genex Controller]] and their Genex Synchros to support cards and themes of various Attributes, like the various Duel Terminal archetypes it was released alongside. The archetype has a lot of supporting monsters and even two sub-archetypes in "R-Genex" and "Genex Ally" which have a swarming and Attribute-modification subtheme respectively, but nearly all the effects involved were incredibly mediocre even in their time. It ''is'' capable of a few decent plays and combos, such as changing the name of "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Recycled Genex Recycled]]" to get bigger bodies with "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machine_Duplication Machine Duplication]]" for a big Synchro Summon, but the rest of the archetype lacks cohesion, especially without any Spell/Trap support. %%There's upcoming Genex support, but let's wait to see if it puts out any results.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/CXyz CXyz]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_C Number C]] cards, which are used by many ZEXAL characters, are dependent on [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rank-Up-Magic Rank-Up-Magic]] cards to evolve Xyz monsters into stronger versions that are otherwise impossible to Summon. Frequently the process involves too many steps for a lackluster payoff, especially when there initially was no way to search for the Rank-Up-Magic spell. It was far more easier to just go with the [[BoringButPractical ubiquitous Rank 4 toolbox]] or use [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Cyber_Dragon_Infinity cards that Rank Up without needing a Spell]]. Not helping matters is that while [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Number_S0:_Utopic_ZEXAL Utopic ZEXAL]] was playable, Konami was reluctant to print a Rank-Up-Magic searcher to keep Utopic ZEXAL from being too easy to access, and even [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rank-Up-Magic_Argent_Chaos_Force Argent Chaos Force]] saw some time on the banlist due to Utopic ZEXAL's presence. It's telling that after Utopic ZEXAL got banned, it opened the doors for [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/ZS_-_Ascended_Sage RUM]] [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Zexal_Construction searchers]] to enter circulation and help support the strategy.

* The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Melodious Melodious]] archetype is wielded by the ARC-V deuteragonist Yuzu. As an early ARC-V anime archetype, though, it was initially sorely lacking in Extra Deck bosses. A number of Melodious monsters gain effects when Special Summoned, but the archetype has a bit of difficulty initiating that without external help, and it didn't even get its own Pendulum cards. They did get some Fusion Monsters later on, but the better Fusions want the clunky high-level Maestras as material. The best game plan is to Special Summon [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Aria_the_Melodious_Diva Aria]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Elegy_the_Melodious_Diva Elegy]] so that you had a board of indestructible monsters that can't be targeted, but you'd find that Aria protects your board from being targeted by ''your cards too'', blocking off any targeting support that would be beneficial to your NighInvulnerable board. What's most painful is that Melodious support vanished in the middle of ARC-V (due to Yuzu being DemotedToExtra) and the archetype would continue to be starved of legacy support as the years went on, leaving it sorely outclassed for an anime archetype that belonged to one of the more promising female protagonists of the franchise. Meanwhile, Yuzu's dimensional counterparts got much more support for their Decks (Lunalights, Windwitches, and Lyriluscs) that actually allowed them to see a fair bit of competitive play well after ARC-V, despite the latter two in particular getting far less screentime. The knife is twisted further by the later introduction of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Solfachord Solfachords]], who share the same motif of musical female Fairies, but with an actual focus on the Pendulum Summoning that Yuzu's dimension was supposed to represent.

** The [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex Genex]] archetype is built around using [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Controller Genex Controller]] and their Genex Synchros to support cards and themes of various Attributes, like the various Duel Terminal archetypes it was released alongside. The archetype has a lot of supporting monsters and even two sub-archetypes in "R-Genex" and "Genex Ally" which have a swarming and Attribute-modification subtheme respectively, but nearly all the effects involved were incredibly mediocre even in their time. It ''is'' capable of a few decent plays and combos, such as changing the name of "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Genex_Recycled Genex Recycled]]" to get bigger bodies with "[[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Machine_Duplication Machine Duplication]]" for a big Synchro Summon, but the rest of the archetype lacks cohesion, especially without any Spell/Trap support.

* When one thinks of [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evol Evols]], they usually think of their boss monsters [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evolzar_Laggia Evolzar Laggia]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evolzar_Dolkka Evolzar Dolkka]] but not really the rest of the archetype. The problem is that the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evolsaur Evolsaurs]], which boast reasonable statlines, had effects that relied entirely on being summoned by the [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evoltile Evoltiles]], and the Evoltiles themselves were pretty weak and struggled with proactively bringing out the Evolsaurs. They have [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evo-Force Spells]] and [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evo-Instant Traps]] to facilitate putting the Evolsaurs on the board, but the Evolsaurs would have no effects if Summoned that way. The fact that you're juggling Reptiles and Dinosaurs meant that both facets of the Evol archetype could not benefit off mutual generic Type support. The result is that the Evolzar boss monsters saw plenty of play... to the exclusion of the rest of the archetype, especially when [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Rescue_Rabbit Rescue Rabbit]] was used to set up an effortless Evolzar Xyz Summon. Even an [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Evo-Singularity effectively one trap card Evolzar xyz-summon]] proved insufficient to make them anything more than a rogue strategy at best.

!! Anime cards

[[AC: Duel Monsters]]

[[AC: GX]]

[[AC: 5D's]]

[[AC: ZEXAL]]

[[AC: ARC-V]]
* [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Performapal Performapals]], being the pioneer of the Pendulum mechanic, were glossed over for being inconsistent, due to having a wide variety of monster Levels and Pendulum scales that may lead to bricky hands, and their own effects are generally underwhelming. However, as time went on, they got increasing amounts of support that really polished how they play, giving them plenty of search power to compensate for the costs of setting up a Pendulum Summon. This peaked with the addition of sister archetype [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Performage Performage]], and birthed the loathed [=PePe=] deck which swung to [[HighTierScrappy the polar opposite of this trope]] and required an emergency banlist to rein in.

!! Other archetypes

!! Single cards / Miscellaneous