This is where it all began, people!
The first Yu-Gi-Oh booster set was called Legend of Blue Eyes.
At the time, Konami wasn’t sure where the balance would be, so this set has some cards that are still used today…
Plus, there were other cards that were never played again after Metal Raiders 2 came out.
So let’s look at the LOB booster pack and see how some of its best cards work in the modern version.
15. Red-Eyes Black Dragon
I still think this is the best art for Red-Eyes Black Dragon that has ever been made. At just over 27 dollars, the LOB-070 original is selling faster than Dark Magician, so I’m not the only one who thinks that.
I love the Pharaoh’s Rares from Magnificent Mavens, but I really wish this artwork had been given to the Pharaoh’s Rare Red-Eyes instead of the GFP2 Ghost Rare.
You can’t win them all, but at least the new LC has the fan-favorite art.
14. Pot Of Greed
Pot of Greed is not only the best card in Legends of Blue Eyes White Dragon, but also one of the best cards ever.
It looks easy because all it does is let you draw two cards. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, having a card edge and being consistent are both very important.
Pot of Greed makes it seem like you are playing with a smaller deck because it has no downside and gives you two cards for the cost of one.
It was a card that had to be in every deck. It was taken out of the game in late 2005, and it is unlikely to ever come back.
13. Dark Magician
Normal monsters don’t show up as often as they used to, but Dark Magician is one of the few that still does.
It is the core of the Dark Magician archetype, and there are many ways to get it onto the field for free.
Dark Magician is one of the few normal monsters that can still be used in rogue decks in current Yu-Gi-Oh!
Dark Magician was also one half of the engine for Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.
Even though the Predaplant Verte Anaconda ban hurts its usefulness there, in Dark Magician-only decks, it’s still great and makes them a real threat.
12. Polymerization
Back in the day, Polymerization was the only way to create monsters through fusion.
Polymerization is still useful, even though many modern decks have their own (often stronger) fusion cards.
Polymerization is still used very well by Fluffals, for example.
There are a lot of ways to find it straight in the deck. You can use the many ways to find it to thin the deck.
Polymerization is one of the easiest cards to pull from the deck, which is great in a game like Yu-Gi-Oh! where regularity is key.
11. Man-Eater Bug
Even though Man-Eater Bug has lost a lot of power over the years, it is still one of the most famous cards from the beginning of the game.
Even though Man-Eater Bug isn’t very good in the current game, it’s a good choice in the popular Goat format variant, where sets from before The Lost Millennium are allowed.
Man-Eater Bug is one of the most well-known flip-effect monsters, and despite being simple, it is still a great choice for formats that use the early card pool and fan-created draft settings.
10. Skull Red Bird
At the time this set came out, Skull Red Bird, a level 4 monster with 1550 attack, was one of the best cards in it.
At the time, this was the most attack you could get from a normal summon with no tribute, so if you wanted to win at Yu-Gi-Oh, you had to run 3 copies of it.
But it didn’t take long for this guy to fall behind.
As more sets came out, better regular monsters with higher attack stats came out, and this card was soon no longer used.
But to give credit where credit is due, this guy was for a while the meta game.
9. Mystical Elf
Since they came out, 2000 defense monsters have been a mainstay in Yu-Gi-Oh!
Most normal-summoned monsters won’t have the attack to beat this amount of defense, so your opponent will have to tribute summon (or fusion summon, but this is 2001 Yu-Gi-Oh, when fusion summoning was rare!) to get past it.
There were also other choices, depending on the theme of your deck.
Giant Soldier of Stone was another great 2000-defense monster, and if you wanted a more “tough”-looking deck, this guy was for you.
I love having elves, fairies, and wild spirits in my deck, which is why Mystical Elf is always in my old-school deck!
8. Blue Eyes White Dragon
The fact that this guy isn’t number 1 shows how strong some of the cards in this set are!
At least in the main deck, Blue Eyes White Dragon really set the limit for how high attack stats could go.
This guy has a huge 3000 attack, which is enough to beat just about anything.
Tribute summoning costs two monsters, which is pretty expensive in modern Yu-Gi-Oh, let alone in old-school Yu-Gi-Oh, where special summons were almost never used.
Since this card came out, a lot of Blue Eyes help cards have also come out.
Blue Eyes is now a full-fledged deck with a lot of ways to call on extra-deck monsters and a lot of ways to call on Blue Eyes himself.
7. Fissure
If you want to win the fight, you have to get rid of the monsters your opponent has brought.
And if you really want to hurt your opponent, you should make sure they don’t have any monsters left to use as defense.
Fissure gets rid of your opponent’s weakest monster, which is the one with the lowest damage on their field.
Getting rid of the smaller monster might not sound like a good idea, but it does help in some ways.
Most of the time, the cards with the best defense have the worst attack numbers, so Fissure is a great way to get rid of monsters like Mystical Elf that have good defense but weak attack.
6. Trap Hole
When a danger appears on the board, Trap Hole gets rid of it right away.
You can target and kill a monster with more than 1000 attack that was called normally or with a flip. Simple as pie.
If your opponent wants to win (and why wouldn’t they? ), they’ll play the best monsters they can.
How likely is it that they’ll normally call up a monster with less than 1000 attack?
Since Trap Hole could get rid of monsters as soon as they were called, it was a very important card for a long time.
It was later replaced by bigger and better versions of this card, like Bottomless Trap Hole, but this original card is still sometimes played in decks like Traptrix.
5. Swords of Revealing Light
The game just doesn’t go your way sometimes.
You may have pulled in a lot of monsters that need a tribute to be called, but you don’t have any monsters left to use as a tribute.
Or, you might have a hand full of spells and traps but no monsters to play.
With Swords of Revealing Light, you can buy the time you need to heal.
Your opponent can’t hit you for 3 whole turns because this card stops them from doing so.
Hope you can draw something better in those 3 turns and turn the game around.
This card is great in current Yu-Gi-Oh! decks that move slowly.
You can slow down your opponent’s faster plans while building up your own without worrying about getting hurt.
4. Dark Hole
Dark Hole is a great way to clear the ground and start over.
When this card is played, you kill every monster on the field.
Monsters with their faces up, monsters with their faces down, your monsters, and your opponent’s monsters are all gone in an instant.
Even though this will also kill all of your own monsters, in current Yu-Gi-Oh! this can be a very useful move.
A lot of monsters now have effects that happen when they are killed, so Dark Hole may cause some of the effects you need to win the battle.
Dark Hole is also a great way to end the game if you have a way to bring foes back from the graveyard.
3. Monster Reborn
When it comes to bringing monsters back to life, Monster Reborn is the best way to do it.
You can bring any monster from either player’s graveyard to your side of the field with this powerful card.
This means you can take all of your opponent’s big boss monster if you just killed it.
Monster Reborn is also great for “cheating” monsters.
Let’s say you want to call a Blue Eyes White Dragon but don’t want to pay the payment summon.
All you have to do is get rid of it with a card effect (Tribute to the Doomed works great!) and then use Monster Reborn to bring it back for free.
What a bargain!
This card can only be in one deck at a time, but it is an important part of any deck that uses the graveyard.
It works best in Link decks because it gives you the extra material you need to do a link call.
But really, Monster Reborn is a great card to have in any deck. It has a lot of promise!
2. Exodia the Forbidden One
Since the first Yu-Gi-Oh! show, hasn’t everyone wanted to play with an Exodia deck?
Most likely, these cards are better known than Yu-Gi-Oh itself.
You win the game when you have all 5 pieces of Exodia in your hand. Instantly.
The parts of Exodia just scream power, so it’s not surprising that people still play them today.
There are a few decks that are based on this approach alone.
You fill your deck with cards that let you draw (like Reckless Greed and Jar of Greed) and cards that can slow down the game (like Swords of Revealing Light and Mystic Mine), then you just sit back and wait for the pieces to show up in your hand.
1. Raigeki
If there’s anything better than killing every monster on the field, it’s making sure none of your monsters die in the process.
It’s easy to see why Raigeki was on the list of banned cards for many years.
In fact, when this was written, it had just come off of it!
Still, you can only have one of these cards in your deck. Considering how broken it is, it’s easy to see why.
Raigeki is different from Dark Hole in that it lets you keep all of your powerful monsters while leaving your opponent helpless.
Because of this, Raigeki is the best way to finish the game.
This card is a mainstay in Yu-Gi-Oh’s main deck, and Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon’s best card.
And you might be shocked to learn that this LOB version of Raigeki was only a super rare in this set.
