If you’ve played Yu-Gi-Oh recently, you’ve probably seen (or even played) cards that can’t be killed by card effects and have an insane amount of attack.
It’s one thing to not be able to be killed by card effects.
But having a big attack is the last thing that will kill you.
So, what can you do when these things happen?
Well, there are many things you can do, but one of the best is to make that monster’s attack less powerful and kill it in fight.
And if you want choices, we’ve put together a list of the best Cards That Reduce Attack.
So let’s get into it!
18. Golden Ladybug
Golden Ladybug works like Solemn Wishes in that you can use it once per turn from your hand to get 500 Life Points.
Again, it’s a great way to get those valuable Life Points back.
Golden Ladybug can’t pair with draws like Solemn Wishes can, but because it stays in your hand, it’s much harder for your opponent to destroy.
You can also put this monster in defense position to stop an attack if things are getting bad.
17. Solemn Wishes
Here’s one that’s easy. When you draw, Solemn Wishes gives you 500 Life Points. Each time it’s your turn, you draw a card.
This means that 500 Life Points will turn into thousands over time, giving you a much bigger margin of error.
This works really well with cards that let you draw more.
Use it with the continuous magic Supply Squad, which lets you draw a card when one of your monsters is killed (once per turn), and you’ll have a powerful way to draw cards and get more life.
16. One Day of Peace
First, a magic card that lets both you and your opponent draw a card. Neither player will take damage until the end of your opponent’s next turn.
One Day of Peace is a great way to add to your hand and protect yourself, but remember that it also protects your opponent.
To get around this, play it during your Main Phase 2 (which comes after your Battle Phase), so you can attack and deal damage on your turn before using the defense magic.
15. Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts
Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts is more useful the longer it stays on the field.
Because most games move so quickly, this card can only be used in certain decks.
How it works is as follows:
If this face-up monster is killed, you can put it as a continuous spell in your spell and trap zone.
Then you can put a Pumpkin Counter on it during each holding phase.
The monsters of your opponent lose 100 attack and defense for each Pumpkin Counter on this card.
This gives 600 attack and defense over 3 turns, which is a bit slow.
If your opponent doesn’t want to kill your monster, you can kill it yourself with a trick like “Oops!”
14. Black Rose Dragon
Blackrose Dragon is one of the most famous monsters from the Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s series, but it only works well with certain decks.
If you have Black Rose Dragon on the field, you can send one face-up plant monster from your graveyard to the discard pile once per turn.
Then, you can target a monster your opponent controls that is in defense position and switch it to attack position and make its attack value 0.
Having Black Rose Dragon on the field makes it clear that you need a way to change your opponent’s monsters to defense position, since it’s unlikely that your opponent will have a monster in defense position.
To do that, you could use a card like Earthquake, which would put all of your opponent’s monsters into defense position.
13. Zero Force
Zero Force might be hard to use if you can’t meet the condition that makes it work.
But if you can, it’s a great card to use to slow down the game.
When a monster you control leaves the field, you can use Zero Force to make all cards on the field have 0 attack.
This is a great addition to a “stall” deck, since you probably don’t care about your own monsters’ attacks.
You can also use a trap like the Interdimensional Matter Transporter, which can send your own monsters away until the end of the phase, to get rid of them quickly.
Or use a monster like Cyber Valley to make it go away on its own.
12. Burden of the Mighty
If only Xyz and Link monsters had levels, Burden of the Mighty could have been a great card.
This is an ongoing spell card, and while it’s on the field, all of your opponent’s monsters lose 100 attack for each of its own levels.
A level 8 monster, for example, will lose 800 damage.
Even though 100 attack per level might not seem like much, level 8 is where most wins happen. So a drop of 800 attacks is a pretty big deal.
Also, a level 8 monster loses 2400 attack if you have 3 of these cards on the field. This pretty much makes most monsters useless.
11. Wightprincess
Wightprincess is pretty much the same card as three Burden of the Mightys put together, if each one only lasted one turn.
Wightprincess, on the other hand, is a monster, not like Burden of the Mighty.
While Wightprincess is in your hand or on the field, you can send it to the graveyard to lower the attack of all monsters on the field by their level times 300.
Your monsters will, of course, also be affected.
So I would only play this card in a deck where most of the monsters are Link monsters.
Even with that in mind, I still put it above Burden of the Mighty because the 300 attack reduction per level is just too good to give up.
10. Borrelsword Dragon
Borrelsword Dragon is a great card in every way.
So you might still want to use it even if you don’t like how it lowers damage.
But with its effect, the Borrelsword Dragon can kill any monster in fight, no matter what attack it uses.
Borrelsword Dragon has powerful effects, like the fact that it can’t be destroyed by battle, and when it declares an attack on a face-up monster, that monster’s attack is cut in half and Borrelsword Dragon gets that attack.
This means that every time your Borrelsword Dragon kills a monster and does damage, it will always do at least 3000 damage to your opponent.
9. Mini-Guts
If you’ve seen the Yu-Gi-Oh show, you might remember Yuma using this card in Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal.
This card is also pretty good in real life, it turns out.
With Mini-Guts, you can sacrifice one monster, then target an opponent’s face-up monster and make its attack 0.
Then, when the monster is killed in battle this turn, you can deal your opponent damage equal to the original attack of the monster.
This card doesn’t get used very often. So your opponent probably won’t be ready for it, which makes it even more powerful.
You can also use Lair of Darkness to sacrifice a monster that belongs to your opponent.
8. Fairy Box
Your experiences with this card will be different.
But if you have a reputation for being lucky, you should add this card to your deck.
You can use this ongoing trap to flip a coin while your opponent is making an attack.
If you guess correctly, the attack of your opponent’s monster drops to 0 until the end of the fight phase.
To keep this card on the field, you must pay 500 life points during each of your Standby stages.
This card is great because your opponent has to hit first before they can find out if their attack is lowered to 0.
Also, if you combine this card with “Second Coin Toss,” your chances of calling the coin flip right will go up.
Last, if the loss of 500 life points is a problem for you, you can add a monster like Number 49: Fortune Tune to make up for it.
7. Archfiend’s Staff of Despair
The first attach spell on this list is the Staff of Despair from the Archfiend. It’s a simple but useful card.
One of your foes can be given Archfiend’s Staff of Despair. Then, once per turn, you can make all of your opponent’s monsters lose attack equal to half the attack of the armed monster.
So, as your monster gets bigger, your opponent gets weaker.
Utopia Double is a very good card to use with this spell.
You can use the ability of Utopia Double to special summon a Utopia with 5000 attack and then put this card on that Utopia.
All of your opponent’s monsters lose 2500 attack, and you get a Double or Nothing! To quickly kill your opponent.
The cherry on top is that you can put this card back into your hand from your graveyard if you pay 1000 life points.
6. Cursed Armaments
Cursed Armaments is a curse that stays on your opponent forever.
And this can be very frustrating.
You can add Cursed Armaments to any monster your opponent controls, and for every monster you control, that monster loses 600 attack.
With up to six monsters on the ground, this could make their attack go down by 3600.
But if this card is sent to the graveyard, you can use Cursed Armaments on a face-up monster that your opponent controls.
Use Scapegoat to take 2400 attack from one of your opponent’s monsters right away. This can help you fill your field fast.
5. Linkmail Archfiend
Linkmail Archfiend is hard to summon, but its power to lower the attack of another monster is better than some of the other cards on this list.
When you special summon Linkmail Archfiend, you can choose any ritual, synchro, Xyz, or Fusion monster in your graveyard or on the field to attack.
Then, the attack of that monster lowers all of your opponent’s monsters’ strikes.
Linkmail Archfiend can only be summoned with at least one Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz, so it shouldn’t be hard to use its effect to make your opponent’s strikes weaker.
Dogmatika Maximus makes it easy to send an extra monster from your deck to the graveyard if you are playing a Dogmatika deck.
4. Darkworld Shackles
When a monster wears Darkworld Shackles, it becomes very weak and can be killed by almost any other monster.
You can put this card on any monster, and when you do, that monster’s attack and defense become 0.
On top of that, during each of your Standby stages, the person who controls the monster this card is attached to takes 500 damage.
There’s not much to worry about with this card, since it not only makes an opponent’s monster very weak but also does some damage to it, which quickly adds up over a few turns.
3. Forbidden Droplet
The Forbidden Droplet card is very expensive.
But if you can get a copy, it is a great card that you should use.
With Forbidden Droplet, you can send any number of cards from your hand or field to the graveyard, then target the same number of effect monsters on your opponent’s field to cancel their effects and cut their attack in half.
Also, your opponent can’t play any cards of the same type as the ones this effect sent to the graveyard.
For example, if you sent a trap to the graveyard, your opponent can’t use a trap as a reaction to this card’s effect.
2. Wonder Balloons
If you play this card in a deck like Exodia, which draws a crazy number of cards, your opponent’s monsters probably won’t have any attack left.
Wonder Balloons is an ongoing spell that lets you send any number of cards from your hand to the graveyard once per turn. For each card you send, you can put a counter on this card for each one you sent.
The monsters of your opponent will lose 300 attack for every counter on this card.
This means that as time goes on, your opponent’s monsters will just get weaker and weaker until they can’t attack anymore.
1. Number 39: Utopia Beyond
Utopia Beyond is part of the popular Utopia strategy and might be the best card to use to stop your opponent’s monsters from attacking.
When Utopia Beyond is brought to the field, all of your opponent’s monsters lose their attack right away.
With Rank-Up-Magic Astral Force and a Utopia deck, it’s easy to call Utopia Beyond.
Also, you can easily win the game by using these cards and a spell called Stoic Challenger in a certain way.
As long as you can get Utopia Beyond on the field with at least two materials connected to it.
You can equip Stoic Challenger to Utopia Beyond and easily deal over 8000 damage in one turn, since all of your opponent’s monsters’ attacks would be reduced to 0 anyway.
