In Yu-Gi-Oh!, “Hand Destruction” is an unofficial name for when a card takes a card from an opponent’s hand and either shuffles it back into the deck or sends it to the Graveyard (or sometimes Banishes it).
There have been cards with “Hand Destruction” powers since some of the game’s earliest Sets.
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, having more cards in your hand is very important, so losing cards from your hand can end the game.
Because of this, a lot of Hand Destruction cards are hated, and there are a lot of them on the banlist right now.
They’re very powerful, so whenever Hand Destruction can be used, a deck will.
If you can get that big boss monster in your hand when your opponent is looking weak, you’re on your way to winning.
So breaking the cards in your opponent’s hand is a surefire way to stop them from getting the upper hand.
But which ones should you run?
Let’s take a look.
18. Number 85: Crazy Box
Number 85: Crazy Box is a Rank Four Monster that only needs two Level Four Monsters as general materials.
It can’t attack, but it has a great wall with 3000 Attack, which makes it hard to kill in fight. When a piece of material is detached, one of six things will happen.
You roll a die, and getting a one or a six is bad, but everything else is great. If you roll a 3, the other player has to throw away a card.
Even though it depends on luck, Number 85: Crazy Box has enough variety and is easy to make to make it a great card.
17. Phantasm Spiral Wave
The Phantasm Archetype has many Equip Spells, and Phantasm Spiral Wave is one of them.
The Archetype is built around Normal Monsters that can easily wear their in-Archetype Spell Cards, which can only be used on Normal Monsters.
Phantasm Spiral Wave is one of these. It protects the Monster you have equipped and lets you special call a Phantasm Spiral Dragon from anywhere except those you have banished.
When you do this, Phantasm Spiral Wave makes the other player throw away a card. You can play more than one Phantasm Spiral Dragon, which lets you use this effect every turn.
16. X-Saber Airbellum
Thanks to Rescue synergy, X-Saber Airbellum was once the most powerful force in the game.
Even though it’s not as well-known as it used to be, X-Saber Airbellum is still a great card. It has a good Attack score of 1600, and since it is Level 3, it can use help from other players.
X-Saber Airbellum forces the opponent to throw away a random card whenever it gives damage to a battle by a direct attack.
It’s not unusual to have more than one X-Saber Airbellum on the field, which lets you loop your opponent’s hand before going to Rank 3 Monsters.
15. Drastic Drop Off
This card starts by getting rid of a specific card, and then it stops your opponent from adding a card from their deck to their hand.
This is good for two reasons:
First, you can make sure your opponent can’t use a strong card they just found by searching through their deck.
If they need that one card to start their plays, too bad for them!
You can also stop your opponent from drawing to start his or her turn.
This means that if they think they can beat your strong monsters by drawing a card, they can’t.
14. Present Card
Even though the name sounds nice, this card can be anything but a gift if it is used right.
When your opponent already has the best hand, Present Card is the best card to play.
Either they played a lot of cards that can be used to find other cards, or they just got lucky.
Either way, this card means that their hand is over, no matter how good it is.
This is also great if your opponent’s deck has a lot of draw power, like an Exodia deck.
Most of the time, these decks will have 8 or more cards in their hands. With Present Card, you can get them back down to 5.
13. Royal Tribute
A card that kills every monster in both your hands?
Doesn’t that hurt everyone a lot?
Not quite.
This card is made for Necrovalley, a strong field spell in Gravekeeper decks.
While that field spell is in play, your opponent can’t put cards into the graveyard. This means that any cards that get thrown away by Royal Tribute are gone for good.
Gravekeepers have a lot of cards, like Rite of Spirit, that can get these cards back from the graveyard. This makes Royal Tribute a pretty useful card.
Only because it can only be used in Gravekeeper’s decks does it not rank higher.
Even though Gravekeepers are not a deck to be taken lightly, we’re looking for the best way to get rid of hands in general.
12. Mefist the Infernal General
For a level 5 monster, this guy’s attack number isn’t too bad.
But the real killer here is the piercing fight damage.
When Mefist does damage, which is easy to do with an attack of 1800, your opponent has to throw away a card.
Combine this with other outfit cards that make his attack stronger, like United We Stand or Megamorph, and you’ll be sure to reduce your opponent’s hand every turn.
The only bad thing about this card is that it’s a level 5 monster, so you’ll have to pay a tribute if you want to normal summon it.
You could also throw this card away or use Foolish Burial to send it to the graveyard.
You could then use a card like Monster Reborn to bring it back from the graveyard for free.
11. White Magical Hat
Even though White Magical Hat has a lower attack number than Mefist, it still does a better job.
Why?
This magical hat, on the other hand, doesn’t need an honor to bring it out.
That is, putting this on the board is a lot easier.
Even though his attack score isn’t the best, it’s pretty easy to make it better.
And if you do, this guy will hit you hard.
10. The Forceful Checkpoint
What’s better than stopping damage in battle?
What if you could stop damage from a fight, see your opponent’s whole hand, and then destroy one of those cards?
There are no bad things about Forceful Checkpoint.
This is a very useful card to think about because it can be used in almost any deck.
9. Magic Drain
This card works the same way as Forced Checkpoint.
It’s a great deal! (we love a good deal)
Your opponent has to decide if the spell they just cast is stronger than the one they have in their hand.
They will lose a card either way. And you are getting the upper hand.
If they choose to keep the card, you know they are saving up something good.
And that would be the best time to use one of the other cards on this list to make things really bad.
8. Spirit Reaper
Spirit Reaper might seem small when it attacks.
But what he does more than makes up for it.
This thing can’t be destroyed by battle, to be more exact. And each time it does damage, you can make your opponent throw away a card.
This guy works well with your other big monsters.
Because you can use your big monsters to run over your opponent’s field and then finish with Spirit Reaper to make them even weaker.
When this card first came out, it was played a lot, and for good reason!
Spirit Reaper’s only weakness is that it dies when a card effect targets it.
So, if you want him to win the game, you might also want to run some spell/trap denial.
7. Doom Virus Dragon
Here’s a dragon that lets you kill all big monsters on the field, in your opponent’s hand, and in their next three draws.
Which is a crazy amount of damage.
With this, your opponent won’t have any powerful monsters of their own, so you can use yours to take them out.
The main problem with the Doom Virus Dragon is that it is a fusion monster that can only be called with the spell card The Fang of Critias.
So this card can only be used in decks with Dark Magicians.
But this result is so crazy that it is this high on the list.
And if you can call it, you will almost certainly win.
6. Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
Monarch tribute monsters have always been some of the most powerful in Yu-Gi-Oh!
Even as late as 2016, they were a meta deck.
And this Monarch card lets you get rid of a card from your opponent’s hand, which could hurt them.
When you add that to the huge attack number of this Monarch, you have a card that can go in any deck.
5. Mind Crush
If you can remember the name of a card in your opponent’s hand, you can use this trap to get rid of it.
At first glance, this seems like a wild guess. I mean, shouldn’t you be hiding your hand?
But a lot of these cards let you see what they have in their hand. And putting the two together can give you good card control.
Mind Crush is also good if your opponent has been looking for a specific card in their deck. You can now stop those obvious combo decks from working!
Also, this card was very cool in the anime, and playing it may or may not make you feel like Yugi Muto…
4. Crush Card Virus
In the past of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Crush Card Virus has been one of the most powerful cards.
In order to make it more fair, the card writing had to be changed.
This lets you destroy all big monsters your opponent has in their hand, on the field, and on the cards they draw for the next 3 turns.
You might remember this from the earlier Doom Dragon combination.
This impact will take away their resources and leave them with few good ways to deal with your monsters.
The only bad thing is that your opponent can then get rid of any three cards from their deck.
And when you destroy some cards, they can give you great benefits, so be careful with this one.
3. Eradicator Epidemic Virus
Basically, it’s the same as Crush Card Virus, but for magic and traps.
Spells and traps are some of the most powerful cards in Yu-Gi-Oh!
So it’s best to make sure your opponent doesn’t have access to too many of these at once.
This card is especially good against Paleozoic decks, Fusion decks, and other decks that depend on their spells and traps.
The only bad thing about this is that you have to sacrifice a strong monster, and it has to be a dark monster.
2. Hand Destruction
Yes, it does what it says on the box and is one of the most strong cards on this list for real hand control.
This card was banned until 2018, and even though it is no longer on the list of banned cards, you can only play one copy of it.
Hand Destruction not only makes your opponent’s whole hand useless, but it also lets you throw away your whole hand.
So basically, you can get rid of cards that aren’t useful whenever you want.
One thing to remember is that you must both throw away your whole hands.
So make sure you’ve played all of your good cards before you play this.
1. Robbin’ Goblin
Robbin’ Goblin is one of the oldest Hand Destruction cards in the game. It came out in the second set, Metal Raiders, and is one of the oldest cards in the game.
It’s a Continuous Trap Card that makes the opponent throw away a card every time they take damage in battle.
Even though the card is slow by today’s standards, if it ever goes off, it’s not unusual for Robbin’ Goblin to totally destroy the opponent’s hand if it ever goes off.
It does pick the card that will be thrown away at random. But since the affect doesn’t happen once per turn, this usually doesn’t matter because you’ll hit enough to cause a full discard.
