Since the series’s inception, there have been numerous revisions to the notion of banishment in Yu-Gi-Oh.
To begin, the term “banished” was never used; instead, the phrase “removed from play” was used.
The word “removed from play” used to make a little more sense, but then we got archetypes like D.D. that could really retrieve these cards, and now it just sounds weird.
And it may come as a surprise that many cards actually gain from being removed from play. As an example, consider Gren Maju da Eiza, a monster that grows in strength with every card you discard.
But supposing you’re intent on expelling specific cards… What would you utilize for that purpose?
Here is a list of some unusual Best Banishing Cards that can be added to your deck as a means of eradication.
18. Valkyrie Erda
Erda’s 2000 ATK may seem low for a level-8 monster, but when summoned by the effect of another Valkyrie, she continuously reduces opposing monster ATK by 1000, making her deceptively hard to overcome in battle.
She can also switch to 2200 DEF mode when needed, and her awesome effect only banishes cards sent to your opponent’s graveyard, leaving your own discard pile unscathed.
17. Retaliating “C”
If your opponent uses a trick that summons at least one monster during either of your turns, you can special summon C from your hand, and when he is cast in this manner, he banishes all cards sent to the graveyards.
Although his ATK and DEF of 1400 aren’t particularly impressive, if C is destroyed, you gain another earth-attributed insect-type monster from your deck, which helps you maintain a healthy supply of monsters to link or sacrifice.
16. Banisher of the Light
Banisher, despite having a paltry 100 ATK and a respectable 2000 DEF, has the ability to prevent any card, even your own, from being put into the graveyard.
That’s a potent effect, but it can be difficult to keep up since if you summon him in attack position, he’s open to assault, but if you set him in defense position, he’s face down and can’t use his ability until you flip him over.
To get around this, you can either use a special summon to get Banisher into defense (pendulum summons are ideal) or you can delay your enemies until he has switched to defense mode.
15. Gizmek Orochi, the Serpentron Sky Slasher
This card has the benefit of expelling many cards at once, but at the cost of your own.
By discarding the top eight cards of your deck, you can special summon this card from your hand or graveyard to the field in a single turn.
In addition, he can destroy any face-up monster on the field by banishing three more cards from your extra deck.
That’s an incredible effect for a banish deck approach, but it’s not great for most decks because it only gets rid of 11 of the cards you control.
14. Topologic Trisbaena
A clever approach to prevent your opponent from using a monster zone is with Topologic Trisbaena.
The process is as follows:
If a monster (or monsters) is summoned to the zone this card points to, its controller may instantly banish it and all other cards from the field, dealing 500 damage to their Life Points for each card exiled.
I don’t know what else could be said to discourage your opponent from using that monster zone for summoning.
If you wish to get rid of their spells and traps quickly, you can also use this card to summon a monster to one of the zones diagonally below it.
Your monster will be gone in no time.
However, it may be worthwhile if it means expelling your opponent’s entire back row at once.
13. Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
Kycoo is the first card in Yu-Gi-Oh to make effective use of the banishment mechanic.
This guy’s base attack of 1800 is insanely high for a level 4 monster, making him a fantastic choice for your turn’s normal summon.
You may exile two cards from your opponent’s graveyard whenever Kycoo deals combat damage to them.
This is a fantastic strategy for thwarting your opponent’s attempts to revive their deadliest monsters.
We’ve all been in games where we thought we were going to win, but then our opponent played a Monster Reborn from the top of their deck and we lost.
Well, Kycoo helps stop that, so he’s a good inclusion to any deck, whether or not you plan on doing a lot of banishing.
Kycoo is the first card in Yu-Gi-Oh to make effective use of the banishment mechanic.
This guy’s base attack of 1800 is insanely high for a level 4 monster, making him a fantastic choice for your turn’s normal summon.
You may exile two cards from your opponent’s graveyard whenever Kycoo deals combat damage to them.
This is a fantastic strategy for thwarting your opponent’s attempts to revive their deadliest monsters.
We’ve all been in games where we thought we were going to win, but then our opponent played a Monster Reborn from the top of their deck and we lost.
Well, Kycoo helps stop that, so he’s a good inclusion to any deck, whether or not you plan on doing a lot of banishing.
12. Necroface
For banish-focused decks, Necroface is an excellent beat-stick.
Necroface gains 100 attack for each card shuffled back into the deck once this card is regular summoned.
When used in a banish deck, this can provide Necroface frighteningly high attacks (almost as frightening as the tentacles and broken doll head…) at the expense of all your hard work banishing him.
However, if Necroface can be removed from the game in any way, all players must remove the top five cards from their decks (or all of their cards if they have fewer than five).
This refills your discard pile to a minimum of 10, allowing you to play more powerful cards like Gren Maju da Eiza without worrying about using up your discard pile.
11. D.D. Warrior Lady
This card singlehandedly altered how players viewed the battle phase, and it caused many to think twice before attacking a monster with its face down.
After damage has been calculated in a battle in which this card was either the attacker or the defender, you can choose to banish both this card and the monster it faced.
When in the face-down defense position, this might be a nasty surprise for your opponent if they try to charge in with their huge monsters.
10. Eater of Millions
At the time of writing, this guy, Eater of Millions, is the main focus of the most played banish deck.
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set.
Only when 5 or more cards are exiled from your hand, field, or extra deck (face down) may this card be special summoned, and it gains 100 attack for each card banished in this way.
Typically, decks that employ this tactic will include an additional 15 cards of pure garbage, which can be banished all at once to enhance this guy’s attack by 1500 points when it enters play.
The Eater of Millions gains power with each fight it takes part in.
Because if this card battles once per round, you can instantly banish your opponent’s face-down monster, increasing this card’s attack by one.
9. Soul Release
Tossing your opponent’s cards from their graveyard is easy with the help of Kycoo and similar cards.
However, sometimes damage can’t be dealt even if Kycoo isn’t around. Also, what if your foe has more than two cards they can bring back to life?
Using Soul Release to remove graveyard threats from your opponent’s deck is the most effective strategy.
It’s a regular spell, so it can target either graveyard and remove up to five cards. It has also been around for quite some time, and among anime aficionados, it is likely one of the more recognizable cards.
This card is incredibly versatile, letting you discard any number of cards and even banishing your own.
There are a few useful cards that can be removed from play.
To remove Necroface from play, for instance, you must have all players discard five cards from their decks.
If you combine that effect with Soul Release, you can get rid of 15 cards in one turn.
8. Masked HERO Dark Law
At the time of this writing, Masked HEROs are the newest HERO deck to be released.
And unlike most fusion monsters, which call for Polymerization and the appropriate fusion elements, these call for a HERO monster with a certain attribute, in addition to their quick-play spell card Mask Change.
So, this is a remarkably suffocating abyss.
If your opponent would put a card from their hand into their graveyard while it is face up on the field, instead that card is removed from play.
You’re free to do anything you want with the graveyard, while your opponent has no recourse.
Searching is a prevalent tactic in current Yu-Gi-Oh, but it can be easily stopped with the help of Masked HERO Dark Law.
Outside of the Draw Phase and the Damage Step, if your opponent adds a card from their deck to their hand, you may discard a card at random from their hand.
Although you may not discard the card your opponent just looked for, you should have them rethink digging deep into their deck.
7. Pot of Desires
In Yu-Gi-Oh, draw power is crucial.
There has been a prohibition on Pot of Greed for a very good reason.
If you’re looking for a modern equivalent to Pot of Greed in Yu-Gi-Oh!, your best bet is Pot of Desires.And I think the price is fair.
You can get a two-card draw by discarding the top 10 cards in your deck.
In Yu-Gi-Oh, having a few more cards to play with can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
You may draw cards that can trigger a whole combo chain, or maybe you’ll draw a hand-trap that will completely shut down your opponent. There are so many potent cards worth drawing that discarding 10 of them could be a wise move under pressure.
You can get a two-card draw by discarding the top 10 cards in your deck.
In Yu-Gi-Oh, having a few more cards to play with can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
You may draw cards that can trigger a whole combo chain, or maybe you’ll draw a hand-trap that will completely shut down your opponent. There are so many potent cards worth drawing that discarding 10 of them could be a wise move under pressure.
6. Gandora the Dragon of Destruction
One of Yugi Muto’s most iconic cards, this is almost as potent as the duelist himself.
As long as this card is in play, you can pay half your life total to destroy and exile all cards from the field, except for this one.
The more cards you can remove from play in this way, the more powerful Gandora becomes at the expense of your opponent.
This is a terrific way to do damage to your opponent this turn, and it can be especially effective when their health is low.
5. Macro Cosmos
Due to its overwhelming effectiveness, this trap card has been restricted to a single copy per deck, and I don’t expect this restriction to be lifted very soon.
Any card put into the graveyard while this continuous trap card is face up on the field is instead removed from play.
This is a fantastic choice for any deck, not just those looking to exile opponents.
In modern Yu-Gi-Oh, the graveyard is like a second hand from which you can draw numerous spells, traps, and monsters.
In this light, the ability to prevent your opponent from using the graveyard is incredibly powerful.
And if you turn this card over at the perfect time, you might just win the whole thing.
4. Bottomless Trap Hole
One of the most recognizable trap cards in Yu-Gi-Oh is Bottomless Trap Hole.
It was incredible when it came out, and it’s incredible now.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the ‘hole’ card, here is how it functions:
If your opponent summons a monster with 1500 or more attack, you can destroy and banish it by turning this card face up.
A banishment removes a monster from your opponent’s control indefinitely, but it does not cancel the summon itself like other traps (such as Solemn Warning or Solemn Judgement).
If the monster you use this on comes from the extra deck, it will do a lot of damage.
The removal of a monster from a player’s extra deck can severely hamper their tactics for the remainder of a duel, since many players want to avoid using multiple copies of the same card.
3. D.D. Crow
Due to the current metagame’s emphasis on graveyard effects, D.D. Crow has seen significant play.
And the procedure is as follows:
If you discard D.D. Crow, you can quickly remove a card from your opponent’s graveyard.
This is fantastic for preventing your opponent from resurrecting their best monsters and for effects that trigger when a specific creature is in the graveyard (such as Plaguespreader Zombie).
These graveyard tactics are crucial to the continued effectiveness of many combo decks.
So, if you use D.D. Crow at the appropriate time, you can effectively silence them.
You should seriously consider adding D.D. Crow to any deck you’re building.
And if it’s not in your primary deck, it might be in your auxiliary one.
2. Dimensional Fissure
The only difference between Macro Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure is that the latter is a continuous spell card rather than a trap, so it doesn’t require setting the card and waiting a turn for the banishment to take effect.
As befits one of the best banning cards ever printed, this formidable floodgate is also restricted to a single copy on the ban list.
Whether you’re using a banishment plan or not, your opponent will have a hard time keeping up if you play this card.
Even in pendulum decks, this card shines.
Monsters with pendulum effects are never sent to the graveyard when they are destroyed; instead, they are placed face-up on the top of the extra deck.
Your opponent will be hampered by the inability to use a graveyard, while you can continue with your game plan unabated.
1. Evenly Matched
You won’t find a more devastating trap card in all of Yu-Gi-Oh than this one.
And it’s the easiest way to get rid of a whole stack of cards your opponent has in their hand.
If your opponent has more cards in their hand at the end of the battle phase, you can use this card to have them remove cards from the field (face down) until their hand size is exactly the same as yours.
Furthermore, as if it wasn’t shattered enough:
You can play this trap card from your hand only if you have no cards under your control.
This altered the entire significance of who goes first or second in a duel.
Most Yu-Gi-Oh players agree that it’s ideal to go first so you can flood the board with negates and force your opponent to play around them.
The inclusion of Evenly Matched in the meta makes this choice considerably more complex.
You run the risk of having your entire board wiped out if you go first, as your opponent can simply skip to the battle phase, use Evenly Matched, and win.
