An almost lost Yu-Gi-Oh mechanic is tribute summoning.
There is just one deck remaining that dares to make it work: Monarchs. Many decks have entirely abandoned it in favor of speedier summoning techniques.
Nearly as old as Yu-Gi-Oh itself, monarchs are an archetype.
With the help of powerful monsters with 2400 or 2800 attack and their potent on-summon abilities, this deck may utterly shut down an opponent.
How Does Monarch Work in Magic?
At the start of a game of Magic, no player is the king. But a rare set of cards can give you the crown, which has different effects based on the spell that was cast.
Also, no matter how you took the throne, the monarch gets an extra card at the end of their turn, which gives them a powerful hand advantage.
But players can steal the crown by dealing combat damage to the monarch and getting the bonus draws for themselves.
This keeps the game of thrones going back and forth and encourages players to use aggressive tactics.
Even though becoming the monarch is very strong, only a few spells have that trait, and many of them cost between 4 and 6 mana, which makes it hard to play them early.
Which powerful Monarch cards are perfect for your deck out of the many that have been released throughout Yu-Gi-Oh’s history?
The top Monarch cards in the game, as well as the spells and traps required to build the strongest Monarch deck possible, are all broken down in this list.
18. Throne of the High City
Most cards that give you a ruler are creatures, but this royal land is one of the few exceptions.
Like most of its kind, Throne doesn’t cost any resources and only costs one mana to tap, but it has no color.
Still, most spells have at least a few spots for colorless mana, which makes it easy to put Throne into any deck.
When Throne enters the field, you don’t instantly become a noble, but its second ability lets you become monarch if you pay four mana (of any color) and tap and sacrifice Throne.
Paying four mana and giving up a land is a big price, but those extra draws can be worth it, especially if you didn’t need your extra mana that turn.
17. Knights of the Black Rose
These Knights are another Black Rose unit. They need both black and white mana and have the kinds human and knight.
For five mana, you can get a strong 4/4 fighter who, when you enter, lets you become the monarch.
Even if your opponent became the monarch before you did and you haven’t done any damage yet, this effect will still give you their title directly, so you don’t have to do damage.
Better yet, Knights punishes enemies who take your crown.
If an opponent becomes ruler on a turn that started while you were on the throne, they lose two life and you gain two, which tips the scales back in your favor.
16. Thorn of the Black Rose
Thorn is called forth by black waters. For her size, she has a rather low 1/3 (1 power and 3 toughness).
But her deathtouch ability lets her kill any enemy in battle, no matter how tough they are, which helps make up for her low power.
Also, Thorn gives you the title of queen, and she is one of the cheaper cards that can do that.
Since she only needs one black mana, she is also easy to put into multicolored decks.
15. Kuraz the Light Monarch
Kuraz is the monarch who grants your deck the crucial draw power.
When this card is summoned, you can destroy two cards on the field that you choose. For each card that is destroyed by this effect, its owner gets to draw a card.
This is great for two reasons: first, popping your own cards to gain extra cards will give you a big card advantage over your opponent, allowing you to reach your more potent monarchs even faster.
Second, contemporary monarch decks contain a ton of continuous spells and traps.
If you’re not careful, you can end up filling up all of your spell and trap zones. Kuraz is the ideal remedy for this, allowing you to make some space while also drawing some cards.
14. Mithra the Thunder Vassal
You’ll need monsters to really tribute if you’re using a tribute summoning deck, and Mithra the Thunder Vassal fulfills that requirement.
While you can tribute cards from any of the Vassal cards, Mithra is unquestionably one of the greatest options available in this deck.
By providing your opponent a defense position token, you can special summon Mithra to your field. Don’t worry, it only has 1000 defense points, so you can easily defeat it with your stronger monarchs.
If you tribute summon using Mithra after that, you’ll get an extra tribute summon, enabling you to tribute summon into the Mega Monarchs, which are the toughest monsters in your deck.
13. Mobius the Frost Monarch
This person comes to mind when older Yu-Gi-Oh players think of monarchs.
One of the game’s oldest monarchs, Mobius has undoubtedly withstood the test of time.
This character can cast up to two spells or traps upon being summoned, making it exceedingly simple for this deck to clear your opponent’s backrow.
This is a great addition to any monarch deck because it will deal with cards like Bottomless Trap Hole that would otherwise prevent you from calling your more potent Monarchs.
12. Caius the Mega Monarch
The Mega Monarchs are an improvement on the original Monarchs and have an effect that is stronger than that of its predecessor.
In contrast to Caius the Mega Monarch, which only allows you to banish monsters from the field, Caius the Old Caius allows you to banish any card from the field.
Additionally, if you accidentally banished a Dark creature, you can immediately banish all copies of that monster from your opponent’s hand, deck, and graveyard.
And if it weren’t powerful enough, consider this:
Caius is one of the greatest generic removal spells this deck has to offer, and if this card was tribute summoned with a Dark creature, you can target two cards rather than just one.
11. Tenacity of the Monarchs
The introduction of potent spells and traps with Monarch themes, including Tenacity of the Monarchs, was one of the factors that contributed to Monarchs’ rise to metadefining (and metadestroying) deck status.
By revealing one Monarch from your hand, you can absurdly cheaply add any Monarch spell or trap card from your deck to your hand.
The most recent wave of Monarch support included a spell or trap card for almost any circumstance. These cards include field spells that prevent your opponent from using their additional deck and traps that turn into uncontrollable floodgates.
When you need these spells and traps, Tenacity of the Monarchs is a fantastic method to find them, making the deck consistently terrifying.
10. Raiza the Mega Monarch
It’s not surprising that Raiza the Storm Monarch’s retrain is so potent; in fact, non-Monarch strategies like Floowundereeze still frequently use this card in metagame.
You have the option to put one card on top of the deck and return the other to your hand if this card was tribute summoned with the aid of a Wind monster from the field or either graveyard.
How often have you set up a magnificent board just to have your opponent break it with a top deck Raigeki? This is terrific for packing your opponent’s deck with poor cards.
With Raiza, you can prevent your opponent from drawing anything on their subsequent turn and return one of their potent monsters to hand. This effect is excellent for dealing with monsters from the Extra deck that will recur there and require a new summoning at the same cost.
9. Eidos the Underworld Squire
You can use Eidos’ two amazing effects to summon tributes.
First off, in addition to your regular summon, this turn’s tribute summon is added when this card is normally or specially summoned. This gives you the resources you need to tribute summon your monarchs and an additional tribute summon so you may complete the entire process in one turn and prevent your opponent from removing your tribute fodder.
Second, this character has the ability to banish itself from the graveyard in order to special summon a monster from your graveyard with 800 attack and 1000 defense (i.e., one of the Vassal cards), giving you even more resources with which to summon tributes.
Your Monarchs will be able to attack the field repeatedly if you have Eidos the Underworld Squire at your disposal.
8. Edea the Heavenly Squire
In Yu-Gi-Oh, special summoning from the deck is a very potent effect.
Due to the overwhelming advantage it can offer you over your opponent, many of the cards that enable it are restricted, if not outright banned.
Except for itself, Edea the Heavenly Squire summons another Vassal monster directly from the deck when called with a regular or special summon. Although this effect prevents you from using the Extra deck, Monarch decks don’t have a problem with that.
The other squire, Eidos, who gives you an extra tribute summon this turn, is the finest card to acquire off of this effect. You get two materials to tribute summon with right away, so you can immediately use your Mega Monarchs.
Edea the Heavenly Squire also has the ability to resurrect exiled Monarch spells and traps.
One of the finest methods to get powerful cards back is using Edea. Cards like Pantheism of the Monarchs banish themselves from the graveyard for extra effects.
7. Erebus the Underworld Monarch
Erebus, the Underworld Monarch is the cover card for the Monarch structure deck for a reason. He does a lot for this deck and has helped it become the powerful threat it is today.
By sending two Monarch spells or traps from your hand or deck to the graveyard, you can get rid of a card your opponent controls in their hand, graveyard, or on the field.
This is a great way to use Monarch spells and traps more often. There are many cards that can help you get these cards back, or you can just use the effects of these spells and traps that happen in the graveyard instead.
In fact, Erebus has its own graveyard effect: if you discard a Monarch spell or trap, you can bring back one Monarch from your graveyard to your hand. This lets you use the powerful effects that Monarchs have when they are summoned again.
6. The Monarchs Erupt
A floodgate is a key part of any good deck. By far, this is one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh cards.
This trap card can be used over and over again to cancel out the effects of every monster that isn’t called with a tribute.
This isn’t a problem for Monarchs, whose monsters almost always come from tributes.
But what about modern decks that barely ever tribute call at all? It will be hard for them to even play the game, let alone win.
The only bad thing about this card is that it pops itself during the end phase if you don’t control any tribute monsters.
This means that you can’t use this floodgate if you lose control of your Monarchs. But if you have a steady line of Monarchs going out onto the field, this won’t be a problem.
5. Zaborg the Mega Monarch
The Extra deck is by far the most useful tools for a duelist.
It’s where you store your strongest monsters, and 99% of current Yu-Gi-Oh decks can’t play without it. Then what happens if it just goes away?
When the Mega Monarch calls out Zaborg, it can pop a monster, just like the original Zaborg could. The catch is that if the monster that was killed was of the Light type, you can force both players to send cards from the extra deck to the graveyard, up to the level of the monster that was destroyed.
There’s no rule that says Zaborg the Mega Monarch can’t target itself. This means he can get rid of 8 cards from your opponent’s extra deck for the cost of one card.
Also, if you use a Light-type monster as a tribute to call out Zaborg, you can choose which monsters your opponent sends.
This guarantees that you can get rid of every bad card your opponent has in their Extra deck, and from then on, the game is just as good as yours.
4. Ether the Heavenly Monarch
This Monarch is so strong that it was banned for years, and it’s not hard to see why.
First, on a tribute summon, Ether can send Monarch cards or traps from the hand or deck to the graveyard as a cost to special summon a 2400-attack Monarch straight from the deck.
Even though this won’t make their benefits happen when they’re summoned, it still gives you an extra 2400 attack points and gives your other Monarchs more tributes to use.
But this card’s real power comes from its second effect: you can get two extra Monarchs during your opponent’s turn by banishing a Monarch spell or trap from your graveyard.
3. Stormforth of the Monarchs
All tribute-summon decks have the problem that you don’t always have monsters on the field to sacrifice.
Stormforth of the Monarchs fixes this problem and can also be used to get rid of monsters.
This is a quick-play spell that lets you use a tribute to call a monster your opponent controls this turn.
The crazy thing about this card is that it doesn’t target anything. This means that it can quickly get rid of cards that are usually unbreakable.
This card is a must-have in a deck that can tribute summon more than once in a single turn.
2. Pantheism of the Monarchs
Pantheism of the Monarchs is another card that got put on the banned list, and I thought it would never come back.
This card is one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh search spells.
First, you can draw two cards by sending a Monarch trick or trap from your hand to the graveyard. Monarch decks don’t mind having spells and traps in the graveyard, so this card is almost as good as Pot of Greed, which I didn’t think was possible.
When this card is in the graveyard, you can banish it to show three Monarch spells or traps from your deck. Your opponent will then choose one at random for you to add to your hand.
You can even choose the same 3 cards if you want, which makes Pantheism of the Monarchs a sure way to find any Monarch spell or trap you want.
1. Domain of the True Monarchs
This field spell really turns the deck into a machine that can’t be stopped.
As long as you are the only one with a tribute-summoned monster, your opponent can’t use their extra deck at all.
Tribute summoning is very rare in current Yu-Gi-Oh (unless you’re playing Monarchs), which makes this field spell a very hard to deal with floodgate.
Not only does this field spell give your Monarchs 800 more attack points in battle, but it also lets you lower the level of any Mega Monarchs you have in your hand by two, so you only have to pay 1 tribute to call your biggest monsters.
This field spell helps the deck in a lot of different ways, and it is an easy choice for any Monarch plan.
