Different card games have different ways to deal with cards that are too strong.
In some card games, old cards are taken out of play by rotating the set.
Most card games have some kind of list of things that you can’t do.
But Yu-Gi-Oh! try doing something different.
Errata is sometimes used to fix broken cards.
This is where the real text of the card is changed so that its effect is less broken and the card can be used again.
Whether you like it or not, this is how some of the most powerful cards in Yu-Gi-Oh’s past have been weakened.
This list goes over some of the most nerfed cards of all time.
12. Crush Card Virus
Which, in the TCG, was known as one of the hardest and most expensive cards to get for yourself because it was first released as a Shonen Jump prize card and was only available as a gold rare from the limited release (original) Gold Series until just before it was banned.
Even though the impact of the card and how hard it was to get one both affected the price. Its effect made it so that many decks couldn’t play monsters that, even to this day, it’s easier to list what decks it wouldn’t affect.
The card was so good that anyone who was lucky enough to have one would play cards (usually Sangan and/or D.D. Crow) just so they could use it against their opponent.
As a result, the card was eventually banned and stayed on the list for years until it got an erratum that changed the 3 turn duration to the opponent getting to destroy up to 3 monsters from their deck with an ATK of 1500 or more and making the opponent immune to damage until the end of the next turn after it was used.
11. Exchange of the Spirit
A card that was already banned in the TCG before it was allowed to be played there.
Even though it gave you a turn (if you count going into your draw phase as a turn), it was still very bad because you could easily win by milling your deck to decide whether or not to search for the card you wanted, ending your turn, activating the trap, and milling your opponent’s entire deck to the graveyard, which forced your opponent to draw.
The only reason it wasn’t banned was because of an erratum that said both players had to have 15 cards in their Graveyards before Exchange of the Spirit could be used and that it could only be used once per Duel.
This turned Exchange of the Spirit from a powerful OTK/FTK card into a mostly useless gimmick (you can still OTK with Exchange of the Spirit, but it requires milling the opponent’s entire Extra Deck, which is very hard to do).
10. Firewall Dragon
Firewall Dragon was meant to be Yusaku’s boss monster in the first version of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS.
But Firewall Dragon’s effect was so strong that it could end the game, so it was barely mentioned in the anime to make room for other cards.
The original effect of Firewall Dragon was that you could send any monster from your hand to the graveyard as a special summon if any monster this card points to was sent to the graveyard.
Sending monsters from the field to the graveyard is part of link summoning, so it’s easy to see why this card quickly became a strong combo piece in any link-summon deck.
With the new changes, you can now only use this ability to special summon Cyberse monsters.
Because of this, Firewall Dragon is just as good for Cyberse decks as it is for other decks, and pretty much useless for others.
I think this hit was fair, and I’m just happy to see Firewall Dragon back in the game.
9. Catapult Turtle
If you used to play old-school Yu-Gi-Oh, this card will give you chills.
Catapult Turtle was the key part of an OTK with Magical Scientist that was incredibly strong.
You’d use Magical Scientist to special summon a lot of fusion monsters from your extra deck.
Then, you’d use Catapult Turtle to deal a lot of damage by sacrificing them all at once.
Since then, Catapult Turtle has been changed.
You can now only sacrifice one monster per turn, so you can’t use this power to kill your opponent all at once.
Since then, Magical Scientist, this guy’s partner in crime, has been banned.
I don’t think he’ll get off the list of people who can’t do something soon.
8. Dark Magician of Chaos
The monsters of chaos changed. This guy also plays Yu-Gi-Oh the way we know it.
When this card was first brought into play, you could quickly add a spell from your graveyard to your hand.
This meant that if you summoned this guy with a card like Monster Reborn, you could just bring back Monster Reborn right away and use it to call another monster.
That’s like getting two monsters for the price of one, which is enough to quickly kill your opponent.
This ability to quickly reuse spell cards was too powerful for the game to handle, so the card text had to be changed so that you got the spell card at the end of the game.
7. Sangan
It would be hard to find a GOAT style deck that doesn’t include this card.
In fact, Sangan was so good that for a long time, each deck could only have one copy.
When Sangan was sent to the graveyard, its original effect let you put any monster from your deck with 1500 attack points or less onto your hand.
The best way to use this card was to put it together with cards like Dark Hole, which can kill your own monsters, and then look for the other parts of your combo whenever you need them.
Due to the mistake for this card, this is no longer possible.
You can’t use monster effects or create monsters with the same name as the card you searched after you’ve searched.
That is, it’s almost useless until your next try.
This change made Sangan, who was a great searcher before, a slow, clumsy monster whose influence was just okay.
Since then, it hasn’t really been used in any games.
6. Destiny Hero – Disk Commander
The Destiny Heroes were way cooler than the Elemental Heroes, in my view.
Not only does all of their art have a dark, scary theme, but their effects are way scarier and more fun to play with.
Disk Commander was by far the best Destiny Hero game that has ever come out.
When this card was first made, it let you draw two cards every time it was brought back from the dead.
There were probably a lot of different decks that took advantage of this effect and drew a crazy number of cards in one turn.
To make up for this, you can no longer special summon this card from the graveyard in the same turn it was sent there. Also, its effect can only be used once per fight.
This is one of the worst changes to Yu-Gi-Oh!Oh, this card kills all plans that involve it. But it was definitely a change that had to be made!
5. Sinister Serpent
Sinister Serpent used to be a wall that was hard to get past.
The original effect of this card said that you could put it back into your hand if it was in your graveyard during your standby phase.
So you had a monster to defend yourself every turn, which meant that your opponent would have to work twice as hard every turn to even touch you.
This endless defense was just too strong, and when this card came out, there weren’t many other cards that could handle it.
So, the text of the card was changed so that you could only use this ability once before it left the graveyard on its own.
4. Temple of the Kings
Temple of the Kings was broken when it was first built because of two things.
First, you could play as many traps as you wanted on the turn you set them, not just one. As long as this card was on the table, you wouldn’t have to wait to use a trap card.
At the time, traps like “Imperial Order” and “Call of the Haunted” were allowed, so this led to some very powerful combos.
And here’s the second reason it was broken: you could special summon any monster you wanted from the extra deck.
At the time this card was made, the only monsters to choose from were fusion monsters.
Since then, Yu-Gi-Oh! has had synchro monsters, XYZ monsters, pendulum monsters, and link monsters, all of which could have been hit by this effect.
I could never have imagined how many OTKs this would have caused. So, this card was changed so that it can only be used to special call Fusion monsters.
3. Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End
Chaos Emperor Dragon was the first card in Yu-Gi-Oh’s history to be banned because it was so bad.
This is because it is so easy to call (you just have to get rid of a light monster and a dark monster from your graveyard) and has a game-winning effect.
You put every card on the field and in both players’ hands into the graveyard. For each card you remove, your opponent takes 300 damage.
If that didn’t kill your opponent, this left them with very few life points.
You’d just need to draw a monster with a good attack number, and the game would be just as good as yours.
Since then, Chaos Emperor Dragon has been changed so that you can’t use any effects on the same turn as this card and your opponent only takes damage for each of their cards that get destroyed.
This almost halves the amount of damage they would take, and it also means you can’t use your other powers to kill your opponent in one turn.
2. Crush Card Virus
Crush Card Virus was without a doubt one of the best trick cards Yu-Gi-Oh has ever made.
At first, this card was only made as a prize for a Shonen-Jump competition, so you had to have a lot of skill (and money) to get your hands on one.
For this card’s effect, you could kill all monsters with 1500 or more attack points that your opponent had in their hand, on the field, or in their next three draws.
This was a very hard thing to get over:
If you got a Crush Card Virus, it was likely the end of the game right then.
Then, this card was changed beyond recognition.
With the new text, you not only can’t look at your opponent’s next three draws, but your opponent also can’t take damage until the end of the turn.
And they also get to destroy three monsters from their deck that they choose.
This lets them put as many cards as they want in their graveyard, which could set them up perfectly for the next turn.
As it is now, Crush Card Virus is almost impossible to play.
Which is kind of sad, considering how much this card ruled the game when it was around.
1. Future Fusion
You know the trick Foolish Burial, which puts one card from your deck into your graveyard?
A card so good that you can only have one of it in your deck?
What if I told you that in the first version of Future Fusion, you could send five monsters at once?
The original Future Fusion let you send monsters from your deck to the graveyard to fusion summon a monster in two turns.
The problem with this card was that there were monsters like the Five-Headed Dragon, which needed 5 dragons to fusion summon.
This let you put a lot of powerful monsters into your graveyard at once.
To make Future Fusion a little more fair, you now have to send those cards to the graveyard during the next rest phase after using this card.
This means that your graveyard gets stronger monsters, but you can’t use them right away. This gives your opponent a chance to at least get ready for the worst.
Even though this change was needed to keep the game fair, it is by far the most damaging errata in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Future Fusion went from being a main deck standard that helped you fill up your graveyard to a rare fusion spell that no one uses.
This is exactly what Konami wanted to happen.
