Getting the cards you need to win isn’t always easy.
Some decks, like Exodia, need to wait as long as possible to draw all 5 pieces.
If you want to play a plan that’s more of a slow burn than a one-turn knockout, you’ll need a few of these cards to move the game along at your own pace.
Cards that slow down the game are often called Stall Cards.
This can be done by stopping your opponent from hitting you or by stopping them from using certain effects.
If your opponent can’t do what they normally would, they’ve been stalled.
So let’s stop putting things off and start… putting things off by digging into this list.
15. Scapegoat
Scapegoat is a quick-play trick that can be used on the turn of your opponent, just like trap cards.
This old but good card lets you bring four mini monsters onto the field, each of which is ready to block a hit.
That’s a lot of shield monsters, and it’s nice that you can link this card to an effect that would kill it and use its effect before it goes away.
The sheep tokens can’t be used as tributes to call sheep, but they can be used as synchro materials and other things.
Also, you can’t call any other monsters the turn you use Scapegoat. This shouldn’t be a problem, though, since you’ll want to use it on your opponent’s turn anyway.
14. Tornado Wall
Tornado Wall does need to use a unique field spell, Umi, but many cards have effects that change their name to Umi, so that’s not a problem.
So, if you don’t want to use Umi, you can use a copycat card like A Legendary Ocean instead. Most of these cards help water-themed decks.
When Umi isn’t out, Tornado Wall will destroy itself. But while Umi is out, you don’t take any fight damage!
Your opponent can try to hit you as hard as they can, but you won’t even get a scratch. Tornado Wall also works if Umi is anywhere on the field, even on the side of your opponent.
13. Red Screen
The first line of this card tells you everything you need to know: your opponent can’t make an attack. Sorry, Blue-Eyes Adjective Dragon, but you’ll have to wait a while.
The drawback is that it costs you 1000 life points during each of your standby stages, but that’s a fair price to pay for such a powerful effect.
If Red Dragon Archfiend is already on the field, you can destroy Red Screen to bring a level 1 tuner from your library onto the field.
12. Messenger of Peace
Is your opponent using a Blue Eyes White Dragon to crush you?
Or using a Summoned Skull to look at your life points?
This guy stops that, and for 100 life points per turn, monsters with an attack higher than 1500 can’t announce an attack.
Even though this sounds like a huge hole in your defenses, how many decks even bother to play monsters with less than 1500 attack?
I can’t think of a single card in my decks that has an attack low enough to get through this block.
As long as your opponent isn’t using a deck full of tiny monsters, Messenger of Peace is a great way to buy more time without being attacked.
11. Gravity Bind
It happens quite often in Yu-Gi-Oh! that as your level goes up, you get stronger.
An Obelisk the Tormentor at level 10 is stronger than a Kuriboh at level 1. And that just makes sense!
Monsters of level 4 or higher can’t attack while Gravity Bind is active.
This means that most high-damage attacks won’t hurt you, and if your opponent wants to do damage, they’ll have to look through their deck for lower-level monsters or remove Gravity Bind.
Watch out for XYZ monsters when using this card.
Because XYZ monsters don’t have levels, they have ranks instead. Because of this, Gravity Bind has no effect on them at all.
10. Level Limit Area B
What you’re thinking is this:
I’ve pretty much mentioned the same card twice. If Level Limit Area B and Gravity bind do the same thing, how can Level Limit Area B be better?
Well, the thing about big, strong monsters is that they often make up for their huge attack stats by having a defense that is laughably bad.
Look at Summoned Skull. For a level 6 monster, it has a big attack stat of 2500, but its defense stat is only 1200.
Level Limit Area B lets you put all of your opponent’s bigger monsters in a weaker position, so you can play your own XYZ monsters to get rid of these dangers.
9. Waboku
The battle?
What part of the battle?
If your opponent decides to attack, Waboku makes it so that nothing happens.
No damage, no monster destruction. It’s as if the battle part never happened.
This gives your monsters an extra turn on the board, so you can attack with all your power on the next turn.
8. Marshmallon
This soft, squishy boy is a brick wall of defense (maybe the Marshmallow has gone off).
Marshmallon is not only fully unbreakable in battle, but if your opponent attacks him with his back to them, they will take 1000 damage.
You can use his burn ability over and over again if you play it with Savage Colosseum, which forces your opponent to attack, and Book of Moon, which lets you keep flipping your Marshmallon back down.
7. Battle Fader
When the game isn’t going your way, this is the best card to stop the game.
If you are directly attacked, you can special summon fight Fader from your hand to end the fight phase right away.
This not only keeps you from taking a lot of damage on that turn, but it also gives you something you could use to tribute call!
For one tribute, you can call up some really strong monsters. That is, any Monarch at level 6.
Caius My favorite is the Shadow Monarch, but any of them will give you a brutal effect that will help you get an edge.
This means that with this one card, you can totally change who is in charge of the game.
6. Majesty’s Fiend
Yu-Gi-Oh! is not easy to play. when almost every monster you control has become a regular monster.
And Majesty’s Fiend does the same thing to your opponent.
Even though this also stops you from using monster effects, Majesty’s Fiend gives you a lot of time to find your good monsters because it slows down play.
When you finally have monsters with good powers, you can just trade Majesty’s Fiend for another monster and move on.
5. Anti-Spell Fragrance
As a pendulum player, I’ve never been so scared by a trap card.
This amazing trap card makes players treat spells like traps. They have to be set up first before they can be played.
This is especially effective against pendulum decks, since pendulum monsters can’t be set as spell cards.
Before they can do anything, your opponent will have to get rid of Anti-Spell Fragrance. This will leave them unable to do anything and scrambling for replies.
You will also have to cast magic because of this. But when you’ve caused this much trouble, you can take as long as you want.
4. Swords of Revealing Light
I think this might be the most famous Yu-Gi-Oh stall card.
Swords of Revealing Light has saved more duelists than I could count from certain death.
SoRL protects you from attacks for three turns, giving you three chances to draw the right cards to change the course of the fight.
The best thing about this spell card is that, unlike many other stall cards in Yu-Gi-Oh, it only slows down your opponent.
This means you have 3 turns to get back at them, and nothing can stop you from destroying their life points.
3. Vanity’s Fiend
Special summons is what Yu-Gi-Oh is all about now.
There are combo decks with card after card after card that are more like solitaire than Yu-Gi-Oh.
This is stopped by Vanity’s Fiend, which makes it impossible for either player to special summon.
Play this in a deck like Monarchs, which can cause trouble with just one call per turn, and your opponent will stop playing while you keep going as if nothing is wrong.
If the limit on special summons ends up being a problem later on, you can always sacrifice Vanity’s Fiend for another monster or send it to the graveyard for a link summon.
2. Mystic Mine
Mystic Mine is by far the most powerful field spell in all of Yu-Gi-Oh. It will shut down any player who isn’t ready for it and give those who are a damn good fight.
Even though you control fewer monsters than your opponent, they can’t attack or use any monster effects while you have less monsters.
Those cards that look when they are called? Nope.
The really useful monsters are those that can destroy magic or traps that are annoying. Definite nope.
Mystic Mine can only be avoided by drawing spells and traps that destroy them, which is not as common as it may sound. Who is in charge of Mystical Space Typhoon now?
If your opponent isn’t ready, this move can hold them back for the whole game.
Mystic Mine works better and better the less monsters you play. If you only play spells and traps, this lockdown will last until the end of the game.
1. Wall of Revealing Light
And a wall is the best card for putting up a defense wall.
This is a good version of a famous Yu-Gi-Oh! card that will always be good as long as the game is around. It will never lose its power.
It has been illegal for most of its history, and only lately has it been limited.
You can pay life points in multiples of 1000, and your opponent can’t attack you unless they have a monster with a higher attack than the LP you lost.
Even though you lose your life at first, you get security that will save your life in the long run.
If you paid 4000 life points, even Obelisk the Tormentor, an Egyptian God card used by the King of Games himself, won’t be able to hurt you.
Your opponent will have a hard time getting past 4000 attack, which is a very high limit. You won’t be able to be hurt until they do.
