It feels really bad Getting OTK’d in Yu-Gi-Oh! But in this list, we don’t care about feelings. Here we’ll be be taking a look at some of the best OTK cards across the entire game. Some are banned, but some are still useable to this day. So if you want to make sure the only one getting OTK’d is your opponent, I’ve got you covered!
10. Exodia The Forbidden One
You can’t talk about OTK’s without the most famous of them all, and one that even features in the official rules of Yu-Gi-Oh! In case you aren’t aware how this OTK works: If a Duelist has all 5 pieces of Exodia The Forbidden One in their hand at any time, they automatically win the duel. This is remarkably hard to pull off, with many of the best draw cards in the game being banned – and each piece of Exodia limited to one. But it is still a legal win condition, and has been from day one.
9. Last Turn
This card is low on our list because it throws the duel down to a game of chance. As a side note though, if you wanted to see the most absurd card in Yu-Gi-Oh, this is probably it. Last Turn is a banned Trap Card that you can only activate if your Life Points are below 1000. You select one monster on your side of the field and every other card in play goes to the graveyard. After that, your opponent special summons any monster from their deck. And whichever monster wins in a battle decides the duel. This can OTK your opponent, but there’s a reason there’s never been another card quite like it.
8. Gren Maju Da Eiza
A LVL3 monster that can have more than 8000ATK sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Well, it’s real, it’s unlimited, and it’s strong enough to have seen competitive success. Gren Maju Da Eiza has an effect that gives it an extra 400 ATK/DEF per card in your banished pile. On its own, that doesn’t sound like much. But with cards like Gizmek Orochi that can banish 8 cards at a time, Pot Of Desires that banishes 10, and Eater Of Millions that can banish 15, it’s very easy for this monster to have enough ATK to win the duel in a single hit.
7. Magical Explosion
If burn damage is your OTK flavor of choice, then this card is worth looking into. Magical Explosion is not currently on the ban list. But ‘Chicken Game’, the card that enabled this OTK consistently, is. Magical Explosion inflicts 200 damage for each spell in your graveyard. Combined with Chicken Game, this allows you to reduce your own life points followed by Life Equalizer – which can make both players’ life points 3000. And you only need 15 spells in the graveyard to kill. If your deck is built around this strategy, this is surprisingly easy to pull off.
6. Transcode Talker
‘Cyberse’ is a popular card type, and it covers some really strong archetypes like Salamangreat. If you use a Cyberse deck yourself, there’s a strong and legal OTK available to you. Transcode Talker is a Link-3 and has an easy OTK combo if it’s summoned using Update Jammer as material. Any monster using Update Jammer as a material can attack twice, and Transcode Talker can also bring Update Jammer back from the Graveyard and give both 500 extra ATK. Transcode Talker attacks for 2800 LP twice, and Update Jammer attacks for 2500 LP, for a grand total of 8100 LP damage! Is it complicated? Sure. But once you’ve got this memorized this is a scarily consistent OTK.
5. Samsara Lotus
There are a few cards that make this specific nasty OTK combo work. But Samsara Lotus is the one that got banned for it! The part that we care about is Samsara Lotus’ effect which lets you special summon it during the end phase if you control no Spells/Traps. With a combination of Topologic Bomber Dragon, Trickstar Black Catbat, and Knightmare Unicorn, you can destroy Samsara Lotus again, triggering its effect to bring it back over and over. And every time you do, Trickstar Black Catbat deals 200 Burn damage. In 40 loops of this effect, that’s 8000 damage. And this was not only an OTK, it could very well be an FTK as well.
4. Yata-Garasu
This card was so broken that it got put on the first-ever North American/TCG ban list for the game, and has stayed there ever since! Yata-Garasu is the main card in the infamous Yata-Lock strategy. This card only has 200 ATK/100 DEF, but if it deals battle damage, your opponent skips their next draw phase. This card also returns to your hand during the end phase. The strategy is to play cards to empty your opponent’s field and hand, then you attack with Yata-Garasu. Your opponent skips their draw phase so they still have no cards, end their turn, then you summon and attack with Yata-Garasu over and over until you win.
3. Substitoad
This card is one of a few OTK/FTK strategies that uses the top card further on this list… But this one famously won a Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship – and it was banned right afterwards. For this OTK to work, you need Substitoad, Ronintoadin, and Mass Driver or Cannon Soldier (those are coming up in our ranking!) Substitoad lets you Tribute a monster to Special Summon a frog from your deck. You can repeat this over and over until your graveyard is loaded with Frogs. In the Graveyard, Ronintoadin can banish a Frog in the Graveyard to Special Summon itself – and you can use it as ammunition for Cannon Soldier/ Mass Driver. You can do this loop until the duel is won, or until your opponent has walked off.
2. Cannon Soldier
If you look through the dark pages of Yu-Gi-Oh! history, you’ll notice that one card pops up on OTK and FTK lists more than any other. Cannon Soldier is a LVL4 monster with 1400 ATK/1300 DEF. It allows you to tribute a monster and deal 500 burn damage to your opponent. This doesn’t sound great on its own. But it has been used in decks that can endlessly loop monsters from the graveyard and back to the field, like with the Frog FTK strategy. And it may surprise you to learn that Cannon Soldier is banned in the OCG, but (as of this writing) is actually unlimited here in the TCG.
1. Mass Driver
If Cannon Soldier has any weakness, it’s that it’s a bad monster card with no protection that costs your normal summon for the turn. Mass Driver, on the other hand, is a Continuous Spell card with no costs to play. And it has a similar effect to Cannon Soldier in that you can tribute a monster on your side of the field to deal 400 damage to your opponent. This card can be used to OTK your opponent when played in a deck that can loop cards from the graveyard back to the field. Since you can repeat the process until your opponent runs out of life points, or throws their deck at you! Mass Driver deserves both its place on the ban list, and its top spot on this list.
