What Is The Best Yugioh Deck Historically?

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

I Know

[@Honest-King]

The 4 allure of darkness?

[@honu_of_Tarlach]

Tear ishizu is easily the best deck in history. What you are actually asking is which tier 0 deck dominated their specific format

[@djsedam123]

Magic had something like that happen called Combo Winter. Early game was the die roll, midgame was the mulls, late game was turn 1

[@mwael3600]

​@@honu_of_Tarlach Remove the banlist on each old deck to make it as strong as its prime time, make 2 AI duel against each other best of 9 not 3, the best is the one doing the best in its prime form Ishizu has the highest probability on paper but we need them in practical, Artifact scythe in HAT format can make it knightmare for Ishizu to win

[@noodletornado309]

@@mwael3600AI isn’t smart enough

[@rocapbg9518]

I think Zoodiac had a 100% top cut representation at one point. Though those were all different decks using the Zoodiac engine.

[@The_One_And_Only_PudgyPenguinx]

Zoodiac while dominant for a short time. It was quickly out of the spotlight. Its by far from the best drck ever.

[@kaydll]

​@@The_One_And_Only_PudgyPenguinxZoodiac is the literal longest dominator in yugioh history with an entire year being about them what are you saying

[@ricmord1881]

​@@kaydllI mean in ocg right now tear has Been meta for over a year

[@EizaYgo]

Na Zoo time was also master peace time, abc and pendulum

[@kaydll]

@@ricmord1881 meta, not absolute best Deck no contest like Zodiac prenerf

[@googleisacruelmistress1910]

Ahh, remember when Stardust Dragon was considered a boss monster? Good times...

[@sinfulmatrix543]

Merely😆 then again I flat out skipped 5Ds😅

[@edgardiaz690]

@@sinfulmatrix543it was good. I think the early XYZ era was the best.

[@alanschroeder]

when i played my old dragunity variant stardust saved my ass more times then i can count

[@strawberrysherbet96]

Still pretty good tbh can protect decks that lockdown opponents

[@YeahTheDuckweed]

@@edgardiaz690 yeah there was a point in time when decks were playing generic synchros and generic xyz like stardust and utopia at the same time just because there was nothing else to play and it was really cute there was another point in time when this was true. like, last year i think. lol. so like 10 years between stardust/utopia and baronne/zeus or ty-phon or some shit iirc

[@stephen4006]

Another way to look at it is longevity. Decks like Mermail, Fire Fist, and Tri Brigade were on the edge of meta relevance for years after their prime, which is very impressive. In terms of raw power though Tear takes it home

[@stanleynente7924]

I mean for longevity it's sky strikers. TOSS alone is almost a year. Then it's always between rouge and tier 3 until now and after the banlist some people say it's could be around the level of post banlist purrley.

[@mrjghostbell3807]

This is if talking bout non ftks tho several decks destroy tear tbh

[@Psyckonautic]

It’s easily burning abyss if we’re talking longevity, the most recent top that mattered was an Australian national in 2020, BA came out in 2014, that’s SIX YEARS

[@mrjghostbell3807]

@@Psyckonautic nah 80% of BAs tops were not BA they Were PKFire which were Phantom Knight with BA support so PK carried them far.

[@Psyckonautic]

this is definitely not true, a lot of ba tops were pkfire for sure, but ba has had other variants that have topped much more recent than pkfire, like danger BA, block dragon BA and a pure sekka's light version, the deck was helped by phantom nights but was never the reason it was good for over half a decade supposed to be a reply to @ArchfiendJ

[@lamarlatimore7802]

The non banned tournament in Japan had multiple Zoodiac and Tear 0 Ishizu for the top spots. Even with Multiple FTKs They were still the best deck.

[@maxmucci3170]

Tbf, FTKs are not that impressive at this point of the game, with hand traps in the discussion

[@NNRedemption]

​@@maxmucci3170the Problem still IS that this ftks are so fcking consistent that handtraps doesnt Help If you dont have 3 in starting hand. I remember a Match against rescue Cat ftk, in the Tournament WE Play with pre Errata cards, where i got Ash and droll and couldnt Stop him

[@maxmucci3170]

@@NNRedemption it's not that different from an unbreakable board of negates. "Oh but blowouts" yeah that can still get negated by any non-monster or even monsters if it's not No More. I see your point btw. Also Pre-errata format is completely different (ergo: more degen) than Unlimited.

[@NNRedemption]

@@maxmucci3170 Most unlimited tournaments Play with pre errata

[@princesscrystal6410]

That was China. And secondly, Zodiac wasn't in the top 8.

[@UncleJrueForTue]

I like the idea behind playing 4 Allure of Darkness. Increasing your odds of opening it by 10% really helps over the course of a tournament.

[@lamarlatimore7802]

Gladiator Beast winning 13 Straight Events Zoodiac being able to go in a tribrage from Boar and still can go full zoo for no normal summon would be stupid.

[@jeffmtz2491]

Also tears got so many things banned and they still see play. A video about which extra deck mechanic with more formats could be fun.

[@ExclusivePokeLife]

Pepe literally took 30 out of the top 32 spots in the atlanta ycs and had a emergency ban list like a week after release which hit 90% of the engine so pepe definitely needs to be on the list also full power Adamancipator

[@nnnp634]

Full power Adamancipator is nowhere near best decks

[@NNRedemption]

And Zoo had 32 of 32 in pittsburg

[@traplover6357]

​@@nnnp634there was no YCSes during COVID so no one would know

[@nnnp634]

@@traplover6357 There were plenty of online tournaments, LCS, some Remote Duel Extravaganzas and similar. Some of these tournaments were played by highest caliber of players as well, and even had 1000 participants. I wouldn't call them as prestigious as YCS, but they some seem bigger than Regionals. Apart from earliest small tournaments, Adamancipator was always more-less equal to Eldlich and when Dragon Link got new support they had even less representations. Also not a single LCS won is pretty crazy. That might have been the best deck, but it was nowhere near tier 0 status. While the deck could afford a hand-trap and/or a board breaker here and there and had a good native going 2nd options it was often not enough to stop other decks which could make equally crazy boards with Halq of their own. Even if it was a better deck than Eldlich, DLink and especially Infernobleknights it could always lose to them as well so it is nowhere near being the most dominant deck of all time. As for being the strongest deck of all time, most newer deck would have no issue with it and IshTear obliterates it.

[@YeahTheDuckweed]

@@traplover6357 even if there were, i could've sworn covid format was split between adamancipator and eldlich

[@juliankirby9880]

As a person who started playing yugioh when teledad was new and relevant. I played it. I can truly confirm that it was top deck, cheese to victory. Literally, a person could run tele monarch, and still wreck the other competitive decks consistently. Then the black wings came out, and it was even faster and more consistent.

[@anonyme4881]

Blackwing were never better or more consistent than Teledad full power. Teledad deck is like full draw full searcher you can nearly draw every card in your deck until you set up your combo In fact after Teledad (and a very small XX saber meta) was banned it was actually one of the most balanced format ever with the Edison format where 10 different deck were tier 1, with blackwing being the best of those deck by a very very very small margin It was a very strange meta as slow deck banking on flip effect card avantage were actually very good despite combo deck lile blackwing in the format BACK IN THE DAY (format shifted a lot in 2024) Edison format lasted until gates of the Six Samourai was released and broke the game. It was banned a month after, and we got the plant tengu format, which was also tier 1

[@specialsomeones]

The commentary on the pod save clip is top notch. Excited for the video so I can share it!

[@lordpepper6932]

"Creating a format where you either go first or dont play the game" Oh you mean Yugioh for years now

[@NNRedemption]

Lol no

[@thecomradewarda]

That just wrong like a duel can last 7 turn or even higher most of mine last 5 .

[@lordpepper6932]

@@thecomradewarda in Yugioh, if a game lasts more than 3 turns, something went wrong or your deck sucks, It's unfortunately true about the card game nowadays where you can play 50 cards in 1 turn

[@thecomradewarda]

@@lordpepper6932 that just wrong and also like I’m on master duel in diamond and I use sword soul and have had 20 turn duels with other competitive deck and have one many of them .

[@lordpepper6932]

@thecomradewarda your just lying to yourself, this game hasn't been fun to play for years, Turns take 20 real life minutes PER TURN and unless you play master dual you gotta constantly shuffle, (also btw im also Diamond in Master dual, it's fucking easy, and I play fucking Amazons) If a game goes past turn 5 it means someone got negate fucked and noone can do anything and then your on Draw

[@vampman87]

I give my vote to the first incarnation of Chaos decks. If you have to make a ban list specifically to get rid of two specific cards, then that means those cards are the GOAT. Sure, they're both obsolete NOW, but anyone who knows the game knows how absolutely evil Chaos Emperor Dragon and Yata Garasou were in their heyday.

[@virust5941]

Yata garasu would be a card that gets old and it did But chaos emperor? Nah bro deserves his name 💀

[@kookou13]

Pre errata chaos emperor would 100% still see play espically with how searchable it is.

[@FormerRuling]

I was an "old school" player, and its hard to imagine anything modern really upheaving the game in the same way Chaos did. Imagine a tcg meta where *every single viable deck* ran the same core. The chaos core was just too good if you could justify having even 1 light and 1 dark monster in your deck you ran it.

[@Rekora_Wulf]

​@@FormerRulingI won a regional back in the early 2000's. I was the first person in my region to win undefeated after goat control was banned. I remember that, and when Blackwing, teledad, and lightsworn were the big 3, Yugioh was at it's peak. Id give anything to go back.

[@White-Yaksha]

They totally ruined all tournaments when they came out, win chances where small if you didn't have them. I remember 80% of all decks on big tournaments had chaos decks with similar monsters.

[@ZaneTruesdale007]

Teledad was awesome when i was playing. Loved lightsworns as well.

[@toomuchsauce3389]

Ishizu Tearlaments in it’s prime was OP and would beat any other top meta deck in yugioh history

[@xmangle5382]

I think either True Draco or Zoodiac would fold Tear if all fought at full power

[@tommibrandi4824]

​@@xmangle5382haha nice joke

[@xmangle5382]

@@tommibrandi4824 Have u ever seen a match between them?

[@whateverdot]

The most mordern deck would usually be better

[@ExoflareKng]

​@@xmangle5382we have seen a tournament without banlist in ocg, tear was killing them all

[@baritonetenor]

Pepe is so goated

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

That deck is surprisingly still decent in modern yugioh.

[@baritonetenor]

@@MonkeyFightTCG the extra deck space would be so tight but the extensions would be crazy. Have you ever seen the crazy Pepe flowchart?

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Yes I have, funnily enough it should be in my pepe short

[@NNRedemption]

​@@MonkeyFightTCGwithout the pendelum Nerf IT would be the Most broken dexk

[@VerniasAugoeides]

​@@NNRedemptionIshizu tear still more broken

[@sakulhd8189]

Dragon Rulers and Spellbook are also hot contenders imo, they only don't fit the bill because of existed at the same time

[@mooncalf_4534]

FR Dragon Rulers were making modern-style boards of 5 boss monsters every turn with almost perfect consistency. Like actually much more consistent at making full boards than most modern decks due to the amount of negation/counter tools you can brick on in modern decks. It just lacks the counterplays and negation of modern play. The only reason it wasn't a giga tier 0 format was because Spellbooks were already busted, and had a card that read "choose 5 cards in your deck, draw them for free" to make them better. And even then, plus the fact they were basically a counter-dragon ruler deck, they were still worse. Dragon Rulers were TURBOBUSTED.

[@theburden9920]

@@mooncalf_4534 ah yes the super rejuv draw 10 cards at the end of the turn

[@pokclaymonmaster5286]

I could argue between Zoodiac and Dragon Rulers. When both were at full power either deck was a nightmare to face

[@roycereinhart-brown2549]

The BEST dueling deck of ALL TIME!!!!??? well that depends on which one you had the most fun with. For me it’s my Gladiator Beasts. I love the tag out mechanic, I love the contact fusions, the fact that all their cards synergize well together, I like that there is a Gladiator Beasts for any scenario- but there’re also fair - especially when compared to todays Omni negate super summon stupid boss monsters. You have to survive the battle phase, you have to have a Gladiator Beast to tag out for a Gladiator Beast, you need to have cards in your hand to discard for Sagitari or Heraklinos, and they have really fair spells and traps and are all tribal. So I love my 100% true tribal Gladiator Beast deck. It’s by no means the strongest deck out there on duel links or master duel, but I’ve had that deck from high school (2010) I put my heart into it, and it makes me very happy to play. And at the end of the day, that’s what Dueling is all about!

[@damionvoorhees149]

There wasn't many official tournaments back then so you can't find statistics on it, but pre ban list aka traditional format chaos decks with both chaos emperor dragon and BLS with witch and sangan with yata garasu, full pot of green, graceful charity, painful choice, mirage of nightmare, harpies feather duster ect deck was hands down the best deck ever in yugioh. If you didn't play chaos, you could not compete. Period. And it ruled formats for years to come after the fact of the ban list as well in watered down versions. That is the reason why some cards have yet to ever become unbanned since the start of the banlist.

[@White-Yaksha]

So true. At first I liked the IOC set, but I quit playing after everyone got the same deck at some point.

[@White-Yaksha]

So true. At first I liked the IOC set, but I quit playing after everyone got the same deck at some point.

[@justanaverageyoutubeaccoun342]

I remember first getting into competitive yugioh during zoodiac format. I cannot understate how much of a menace they were in thier prime.

[@sailornibiru626]

obligatory pendulum LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Pepe was close to being included in this list. but between time constraints of youtube shorts and pepe's win percentages just being a little lower, forced it out of the video.

[@fabrizioorpianesi6670]

​@@MonkeyFightTCG a shame. Pepe was the very deck that brough us the first EMERGENCY ban list, which is honestly just a wild feat

[@ExclusivePokeLife]

@@MonkeyFightTCG you mean taking 30 out 32 spots at a ycs wasn’t enough to make the list? also having a emergency ban list a week after release hitting every card in the deck?… i guess taking 93% of the meta isn’t enough

[@BLSoldier00]

​@@fabrizioorpianesi6670Thete have been two emergency ban lists prior to PePe's takeover. One was to ban Cyber Stein in December 2006 shortly after a Cyber Stein OTK handily won a Shonen Jump Championship. Another was to kill Dark Armed Dragon Return decks in May 2008 (the strongest, most overpowered deck at that time) by banning Dimension Fusion, limiting Return from the Different Dimension, and semi-limiting Allure of Darkness. This irked some players as DAD was still unlimited.

[@NNRedemption]

​@@MonkeyFightTCGwrong. The First emergency bannlist was in 2008 we're WE lost Dimension Fusion. And WE Had an unofficial bannlist were makyura came to US and was banned without a bannlist

[@WesleyParksTTV]

Blind 2nd Spyral winning a YCS is what got me back into competitive

[@NosstheBoss]

OG Red-Eyes Fusion Turbo. Never failed me. Surprised its still consistent. So back in like what 2004. It was mostly three ofs but your targets were tweo of the easiest fusion monsters to summon outside of the strongest fusion B.U.D. -- Meteor B. Dragon and B. Skull Dragon complete with a hand ful of walls and traps and lets say a few Equip spells for the other beat stick monsters we had in there.

[@shinmo2131]

Seeing so many cards I actually recognize & understand in Tele-Dad, feels so nostalgic & good. 🥰 Haven’t played in YEARS, & I don’t even recognize the game nowadays lol

[@juliorebelo124]

Damn Tele-Dad with the 4 allures, the deck really was built different

[@SaltymanGaming]

In TCG it was Tearlaments, in OCG it was Exodia FTK, and in Master Duel... It was Necroface FTK. That deck had like a 100% consistent deckout and could win on turn zero during tear format. It's still a super consistent FTK with 2 Necroface and no Ishizu millers the biggest issue is actually the timer.

[@orchidquack]

adamancipator didn't get events, but definitely deserves a mention

[@tylord96]

Exactly no other deck on this list was near its power level it unfortunately came out at a time where there were no events taking place and got quickly slapped by the ban list

[@cavejohnson9158]

TeleDad was especially broken because it had that 4th copy of Allure in there

[@evilkingstanley]

Probably GOAT actually. The entire dormat was just 1 deck but it's still so enjoyed that it has become its own side format

[@shanegurney8951]

Did anyone else notice that in the tele dad list there are 4 copies of allure of darkness

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

the engagement bait is working lmao

[@blazesaber1383]

The best deck in history is what ever deck yugi has at the time. Some say it has every card known to man and he just draws the cards he needs to win every time

[@Zetact_]

Something else that might be important to consider is how insulated the deck is to banlist hits. How likely is the deck to be identified as a problem deck such that it immediately gets hit? How ingrained are the deck's engines with the rest of the meta such that hitting key cards in it would hurt adjacent decks? If it does get utterly reamed by the banlist, can the deck pivot its strategy and still remain competitive? Gut instinct is telling me that with this in mind, it would be Dragon Rulers, because they were just SO versatile that the only way to actually limit their power was to outright ban them all. TeleDAD might also go into this since a lot of its key pieces could be shuffled around if they got hit and none of the individual ones seemed so broken to deserve a ban getting things like the Extra Deck's options hit would hurt the opponents to TeleDAD as much as they hurt TeleDAD, and DAD even at 1 was strong.

[@Red-qv4nb]

Running exodia spam with a crap ton of redraws on them before they knew you were only allowed to have 3 of the same card was pretty fun

[@XionSteel]

The best answer is just any full powered Pre-errata deck that either did everything, or else took full control of the game with only a handful of boss monsters at the end of their summon chain.

[@abysslight2490]

I know Tidal was in the video but I’m surprised Dragon Rulers didn’t get a mention. Has any other archetype had all of its members totally banned at one point? Also back in the day Rank 7 was ridiculous and got way too much support.

[@Dori_Dorifto]

Sad pepe noises

[@PrototypePlatform]

"best" is subjective. spiral required little to no improv, and teledad was dominant because of powercreep over other cards. and although tearlaments was also something that powercrept, it still required insane amounts of skill to pilot in mirror matches. tear always managed to tell you who was a greater player and a lesser player based on who was winning because the deck was 100% universally the same AND was hard to pilot.

[@jcw034]

Old school chaos will always be my favorite with Yata lock and delinquent duo forceful sentry and confiscation crushing decks. I also maintain that if this was pre errata those cards in the chaos deck still beat any modern deck

[@EflowNivek]

Nah Old School Yugioh was too slow with too few GY effects to really hold up to today

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Well pre errata cards couldn't be responded to due to old card speed rules

[@vinhnhu9381]

@@MonkeyFightTCG yeah just activate CED and watch tears go + infinite

[@kevinfrench9753]

Man, remember 30-card Fusion Decks?

[@mwael3600]

I think HAT format was the peak of yu gi oh because simply there was a massive diversity of what you can play, you can play fusion xyz synchro, also the meta deck of that format was named HAT (handtraps artifact traptrix) which was a good deck buy if you played skillfully enough with decks like Constellar Geargia or any other deck you can win with skills, probably the best format in my opinion, this video didn't show that period when HAT format was available due to the diversity of what players choose

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

this wasn't about what format was the best to play. this video was about what the strongest deck was at their respective times.

[@mwael3600]

@@MonkeyFightTCG I know the strong deck in a certain format removes diversity in deck building

[@GearGuardianGaming]

​@@mwael3600 it wasnt handtraps. It was hands. Namely fire hand and ice hand, and their xyz giant hand. Hand, artifacts and traptrix.

[@aVo_001]

HAT really was peak Yugioh.

[@mwael3600]

@@aVo_001 I wasn't playing the meta of that Era and still got wins against the Meta, using Constellar Artifact deck (Tier 1)

[@EngCenturion]

TeleDad will always have special place in my heart.

[@vishmaster09]

The way I would determine strongest decks is how good they can handle other decks. spyrals was tier 0 but that was because mr4 crippled all meta decks whilst spryals managed to take advantage of their link monster. also at that time any deck with triple grinder golem and triple firewall dragon would have been meta and spryals could include this aswell. they wouldn't be able to compete that well against decks from other eras. Pepe and zoodiacs are better at dealing with decks of other eras like orcust or salamangreat or Adamancipators

[@NNRedemption]

For fair comparing WE need an official unlimited Tournament where the best Players are playing

[@undeadinside3571]

When he got to teledad, i noticed he had 4 allure of darkness

[@thepokeystormtrooper3585]

I personally would say zoodic they may not have had the highest percentage of play when they were teir 0 but the fact they did make it to tier 0 is already a strong indicator, but unlike other tier 0 decks, and the reason I say their the strongest in history of yugioh, is even after they were gutted by the ban list they were able to come back as a tier 1 deck, as far as my knowledge that is something no other tier 0 deck has ever been able to do that

[@djkenway4871]

Tbh if dragon rulers were at full power today with the modern cards it be a scary deck but tbh I think spyral was a very scary deck back then along with zoo

[@thomash8513]

No it’d be bricky asf at best pure rulers is like ariseheart pass and still wouldn’t be as kash

[@rikacomedyletsplays2581]

Dark armed dragon a card so famous IRL that once they showed it in the anime the money nerds used its gx example of *this card is so rare people would only see it once in a lifetime* to guess that dad and any other future "super strong card or extra deck card" WOULD COST AS MUCH AS A HOUSE considering gx made it seem as if it was close to blue eyes rare.

[@kozaky6584]

Good old Tele-DAD, where someone going first could show me their hand and declare GG in locals and I would just have to hold the L.

[@Guessedsteak16]

Depends. If it was a huge tournament with every meta relevant deck, it would either be Tear, Kashtira, or Floowandereeze in their primes. Kash and Floo because they have incredible power against other decks, and the macro cosmos would be a huge problem, and they have an amazing game against Tearlaments.

[@COOLTiKK]

Nekroz comes to mind, that deck is still probably one of the most consistent decks ever created, and it took years for some of the main engine to get unbanned, and was constantly winning. Only reason why it's not being played is because Djinn lock is still banned after 9 years... The deck totally dominated anything it went against.

[@derschattenpoet]

TeleDad was the breakingpoint of YGO as we used to know it and the start of the newschool. Depending on who you ask, it was either a revolution or straight up the death of the game.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

I mean the current Era of yugioh didn't really start untill 2015 with the release of duelist alliance

[@BenBePlayin333]

Dragon Rulers before ban has left the chat

[@NNRedemption]

Dragon rulers lost many matchups against Zoo, spyral etc. Even with all today Support Like guarddragons

[@philbuttler3427]

In my time playing, it definitely felt like Djinn Lock Nekroz.

[@Shirou_Atsuya_Fubuki]

Full power isuzu can eat ALL of the previous deck, because is the only deck that can play on your opponent’s turn

[@kaydll]

Full power adamanzipator is by a long shot the best deck of all time, not tear ishizu

[@bhvnshunteredits]

Tear simp and a dum one

[@tinynekoking6488]

I’d just like to know the deck with the highest win/loss ratio for each respective format of each year.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

I really wish we had the numbers for that. Unfortunately it's just a reletively new thing to track data that in depth. best I could get is like 2010-14 onwards.

[@ssgundam40]

Full power exodia pre errata, it’s a 100% Ftk and the only real out is going first. It was the cause of a legit one deck format and caused major overhauls to the game which layed the foundations of modern play.

[@forevergenin]

Was that 4 allure of darknesses?

[@renzoe.v9484]

I still have some rough flashbacks from Tele-daddy duels

[@scorpiophoenix2778]

I would also give a mention to Dragon Link. They used a bunch of strategies to follow through with a combo that leads to an end board of powerful monsters. On Master Duel, I have seen this weird Rock monster deck that is kind of like it but without linking too much. Also E Heros are annoying lol if you can't stop the Vision heroes, its over.

[@Gamer_Girl_Noire]

i feel as if it would be zoo. the deck was an absolutely cracked deck as either pure or an engine. absolutely could out resource anything as the ways to out it spent more than they put in and it always have followup. plus it's sheer resilience to the banlist till spyral happened was amazing. ishzu tear was good from a pure power perspective but it dies to ways that the decks that could play the outs didn't care because it didn't hinder them and in some cases even helped them make plays as it also helped them.

[@timaeusdelpueblosecretodel6801]

Didn't spyral play machine dupe or am I high?

[@deadpancrickets6881]

Bro the speed of the game has progressed SO FAR I am BEGGING for Full Power Dragon Rulers to come back. They will change literally nothing about the meta but the mechanics of babies directly summoning their older parents is just too sick to keep in the banlist!

[@Human-hv1qb]

What I was personally curious about is what was the best deck for the longest amount of time? Like which deck was best for the most amount of time.

[@dely9999]

TeleDAD i s I'm not wrong it was the META deck for the entire Synchro Era

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Probably zoodiac. They had almost a year.

[@annemarieangue6727]

Im a simple man. I see Hero cards use in one of the best deck of all time, im smile

[@BehindTheDuelDisk]

There were some errors in that tele dad list

[@guestb8389]

What if we were to hypothetically predict which deck would be best if there was no ban list?

[@aron7496]

The best deck would easily be exodia, with 3 pot of greed, graceful charity, upstart, and other banned draw card

[@Uteno432]

Crazy thing is they actually did this and Japan and tear won

[@leonlk]

It would be tear ishizu because it plays on turn 0

[@dudono1744]

​@@aron7496The deck dies to droll tho

[@aron7496]

Wow, i didnt play Yugioh for a year and i never thought Exodia deck would be beaten, damn powercreep :)

[@tylord96]

Adamancipator is arguably the strongest deck of all time but was unfortunately released during a time where there weren’t any active events going and got hit pretty hard by the ban list before events started up again.

[@leonlk]

Yeah but does it play turn 0 like tear ?

[@tylord96]

@@leonlk it prevents your opponent from playing at all its negate after negate, their first normal summon is a negate, it’s hand trap proof and can recover from any board wipe and any amount of disruption. Tear does nothing to adamancipator except help them

[@nnnp634]

They did nothing in the OCG so one Maxx C obliterates them. Even without that, LCS were probably the biggest tournament we had, and Rocks had grand total of 0 victories. It is arguably the best youtube deck of all time, but no where near the best deck of all time

[@tylord96]

@@nnnp634 that’s factually incorrect. They completely dominated remote duels the only other viable deck in the format was synchro eldlich at a distant second. And ocg has zero relevance on tcg, maxx alone is responsible for that not to mention their vastly different card pool.

[@ayasusa1258]

Tournament topcuts don't exactly pinpoint if a particular deck is the best (of all time). It's difficult to determine which (full power) decks are the GOAT. I would choose between either Peformapal (Emergency ban) or Full power Zoodiac. It's honestly a coin flip with (depending factors).

[@virust5941]

To be honest telly dad was a nightmare to face

[@dubber889]

True Draco Zodiac hands down the best deck that makes your head explode when you face it.

[@aaronashcaster5875]

Going with dragon rulers causing emergency banlist

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

well so did pendulums and cyberstien OTK. so are they also the best deck ever?

[@epiclord7039]

I feel like full power Pepe with links would be the strongest.

[@anthonybehner7449]

This is why I like the cross ban list cup that lithium 2300 runs for these what ifs

[@Owenbot3000]

Wasnt there a no banlist tournament where the top 2 decks in usage were tearlament ishizu and zoodiac?

[@generalowen4344]

wouldn't turn 1 exodia be the strongest?

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

It's actually ties with some other decks for tournament representation. And it loses to tearlament ishizu in cross ban list

[@marcusjihansson]

Tearlaments Ishizu is by far the best deck. If you play it vs Spyral do you have so many hand traps to disrupt your opponent. Just by the simple fact that you have 9-12 Bystials, 3 Havnis, 3 Kelbek and 3 Orange Light. Also 3 Maxx C by Ocg standard. This could make it hard for Spyral to do a full combo

[@dekina1198]

"creating a format where you either went first, or didn't play the game." Me, as a non ygo player getting this short in his feed: isn't this ygo in general?

[@garrec3]

I mean, why not have First to 5 Tournament wins (to lower the influence of external factors on results) Multi-Tournament between all historical Tier 0 decks at their unrestricted best? (Like, no forbidden list, or at least the list of thier best era, but with any newer helpful cards allowed also.) That would admittedly take a bit of time (and decent pilots for the decks), but would give a fairly conclusive answer I feel.

[@BramLastname]

I mean if you look at what deck survived the most bans, I think Dragon Rulers might have a shot at being the best deck.

[@aVo_001]

They had to outright ban the whole archetype. I don’t know what equivalent there is to that.

[@BramLastname]

@@aVo_001 it's really funny to me that the Baby Rulers were still too good.

[@jurtyt4514]

Imma go with Vorse Raider beatdown

[@Wet_Noodle209]

Grave keepers are a solid deck. They won’t give them anymore support because it’s so strong, but you give decks like blue eyes bitch dragon, galaxy eyes, and Kashtira support.

[@mekahans3678]

Historically i will say DAD But for power lever maybe between Tear and Zoo

[@HuhJuhWuh]

OG goyo was unbelieveably good, by far the best lvl 6 synchro and easy to access since it didnt always need an earth tuner and the lack of lvl 4 tuners made it a crazy turn 1 threat. 5Ds was the best.

[@mooncalf_4534]

It was literally as good as the level 8s other than Stardust lol. It had the statline for level 8s and a solid ability. Honestly so stupid it got put in level 6.

[@nuraqilasidek-qk7zp]

Everyone that I taught playing this game always make a shortcut by asking what's the best deck ever? Well, this game is a complex rock-paper-scissors, if you keep winning with scissors, someone are bound to show up with rocks and the cycle just keep repeating with new releases, so there's never an exact right answer to it .__.

[@aaron_lopes]

Except when the deck is a gun in rock-paper-scissors, none of those will be able to beat the gun without some insane luck. The gun is tearlaments ishizu.

[@nuraqilasidek-qk7zp]

@@aaron_lopes - La Jinn the mystical genie of the lamp was the strongest lvl 4 monster and was the staple of every deck until effect monsters became a staple - Dragon rulers were overpowered and ramming everyone until Konami limit them - Chaos emperor dragon and Yatagarasu combo was a tier 0 deck until ban hammer came along - Neo Spacian Aqua dolphin was useless until handtrap become a thing - Adventurer was a token-based solid deck until someone figured out Token Collector can wipe it out And I can go on with it, you kinda missed my point there, if a card or deck gets too powerful Konami is going to either print something to counter them eventually or banning them or limiting them in the future to balance the game out, or someone is going to come up with a mix n match combo that has multiple archetypes in it that combos well to bring it down, things never stay the same forever in this game

[@aaron_lopes]

@@nuraqilasidek-qk7zp at this point in time, tear is the strongest deck of all time, no amount of tinkering with the existing cards will change that, new releases, yes, current existings cards, no.

[@nuraqilasidek-qk7zp]

@@aaron_lopes Well shet, that's not a gun, that's a handcannon

[@aaron_lopes]

@@nuraqilasidek-qk7zp well, that's just how they built tear ishizu

[@KnüppelPolitur]

Tele-DaD was in 2008!

[@retroprogamer7009]

I would probably say Dragon Ruler was way more overpowered at the time

[@johnprobert6618]

Zoodiacs and dragon rulers dude. Best historical decks to ever see play in yugioh hands down

[@mr.meeseeks2310]

I played Spyral for its entirety…best combo deck easily. Full power Zoo…absurd consistency

[@aVo_001]

I still have nightmares from the Dragon Ruler era.

[@jk844100]

Dragon Ruler wasn’t that bad of a format, it certainly was a tier 0 format at least.

[@NNRedemption]

​@@jk844100IT wasnt BC of judgement. IT was a 2 deck format

[@jk844100]

@@NNRedemption I meant “wasn’t”

[@Basulisk]

How come the second dark arm dragon deck had 4 copies of that one dark monster pot of greed?

[@vo1ce147]

I think zoo like it's probably the best deck at full power with current pool we has for card, remember 1 draident and then back to the ban zone.

[@mkt6r407]

For me it’s these 5 in no particular order: Tear, Zoo, Spyral, Pepe, Magical Scientist FTK

[@pledgedbridge3757]

The strongest deck in history vs the strongest deck of today

[@ZdsZodyrus]

If Im playing someone in yugioh, and they beat me on turn 1, im packing up and leaving the event cause thats just plain unfair

[@SloopYGO]

i wonder if zoodiac with broadbull and ratpier unbanned could compete with tear ishizu

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

they tried this in a series of no ban list tournaments in the OCG and it was still a tearlament blowout. tearlaments were even better than no limits exodia with 3 pot of greed and friends

[@Quasartist]

Sorry in advance for the absolute wall of text I'm throwing at you, but I've put a lot of thought into full power pure Zoodiac in today's meta and to me it kind of depends on a few factors. In theory Zoodiac is the most consistent archetype in the game's history because it's a true 1 card combo to get a lot of their stuff going, but that 1 card combo can be achieved multiple different ways via Tenki, Terrortop into M-X Saber Invoker (remember, examining Zoodiac at true full power), Ratpier itself, etc, but due to power creep Drident or Broadbull by themselves don't really cut it anymore so it would be very dependent on the support they are backed with. MBT had 2 masochist ban list tournaments - one this year and one last year, which gave Zoodiad a lot of tools back - and the power creep was immediately evident. Last year Zoodiac nearly won the whole thing, but this year they lost 0-2 in the first match of the whole tournament to True Draco, a deck that was out at the same time, just with better support. Granted this year they built the Zoodiac deck to go first or second which hindered more than helped, but the optimal path would be Zoodiac + a ton of floodgate traps. If that had been the case, then how much of the deck's theoretical success be credited to (pure) Zoodiac and not the floodgates? I think Zoodiac is strong, but if they came back today they would be a splashed engine to land on Drident for a free negate and used to prop up a different stronger deck, or used as a quick and easy Link-2 or 3 engine. Zoo already got arguably power crept by Ultimate Conductor Tyranno + Misc only a few months later, and a lot of mid tier decks run over Dinosaurs now too. Not to mention they lose extremely hard to Nibiru so you'd either have no choice but to either Broadbull or Drident + backrow and pass turn or else basically lose outright with only 1 extremely weak token on the board. Zoodiac had their time in the sun, but I think it's relatively safe to say they've been outshined now. I don't think Ratpier can come back though, not because of Zoodiac, but because it would end up in a similar situation as Destiny Hero Malicious. It would be too easy to make strong Link plays for nearly free. Just some thoughts I've been tossing around for a while in my head lol sorry again for the text wall.

[@AlexanderLarkovsky-tg5to]

​@@Quasartist one of the best informative wall texts i had this year, thank you dear sir

[@Quasartist]

@@AlexanderLarkovsky-tg5to lol I'm glad somebody found it useful. Zoodiacs live rent free in my head so I spend a lot of time examining them. Another thing I failed to mention earlier is that they have some of the most consistency in the game's history, but consistency does not necessarily equate to strength. For example, like I said Drident + a few backrow and passing turn just to play around Nib is not an acceptable board in 2023 because of how hard the power creep hit them. Droplet, Evenly, Imperm, Droplet, DRNM, TCBOO, the aforementioned Nibiru, any Barrier Statue you can fit in your deck, El Shaddol Winda turbo, D-Barrier calling Xyz, and even older cards like Forbidden Chalice and Ghost Ogre, etc. so many things to completely wall Zoodiac out of the game at this point, and those are just the generic cards, not accounting for cards that are archetype specific, thus typically being searchable answers. If you negate any of their effects for a turn, they don't have the staying power of a big body like Ultimate Conductor Tyranno or Ehther the Heavenly Monarch, or any other easily summoned big boss monster. These factors compound on top of the fact that everybody has been steamrolled by Zoodiac or has watched it unfold so a lot of people know when to use their interruptions like Nib or they know when to Ash and such. Being as infamous as they are paints a giant lingering target on their back. They are consistent, that's for sure, but they lack raw strength alone, and on top of that they were also kind of the turning point for the game. This same concept is how/why Spellbook of Judgement was seen as such a crazy card for so long, even though the cards it lets you add to hand don't mean anything if the opponent can just build a better board or kill you outright the next turn. For Spellbooks, ending your turn with 7 cards in hand means almost nothing because of the deck's overall low ceiling compared to even a few sets later. The Jowgen lock is part of why Spellbooks were so good but as a Mermail, then Harpie, then Monarch, then Dinosaur player, I could just go through my normal Mermail or Monarch plays and/or normal summon 75% of my Harpie or Dinosaur monster base and beat over Jowgen and combo off from there. This is anecdotal but you get the picture I'm trying to paint. Meanwhile Zoodiacs find themselves in a similar boat by having plenty of resources, but with no way to pivot into and commit to a defensive gamestate while they recover resources. They don't get a possibly free setup turn through the Jowgen lock or other factors like that, aside from possibly the random 1-off One Day of Peace. They thrive on a hyper offense strategy but other than their unsearchable trap card, Daigusto Emeral or Pot of Avarice, they don't have much in the way of a comeback mechanic, so they only ever need to be knocked down once for any competent deck to take the win. The field spell provides some coverage but without a dedicated searcher either and Terraforming at 1 I doubt it would pull much weight at all. Yugioh as a whole has evolved to a point where every meta relevant archetype in the last handful of years has taken a lot of what Zoodiac did and cranked it up to 11, with nearly everything except true 1 card combos, so the tools to deal with special summoning spam, or swarming in general, in today's meta are honestly borderline overkill against a pure Zoodiac build. Even regular Skill Drain can dismantle them to a point. Which can be said for a lot of decks of course, but you get what I'm saying. A deck like Mermails falling off in today's meta is nowhere near as jarring as watching Zoodiac struggle to keep pace. And because of the deck's infamous reign of terror, Konami will likely never print direct support for the archetype again, just like how we never saw the Light or Dark Dragon Rulers. Zoodiac was simply too good too early in the game's life.

[@Quasartist]

​@@CudaWudaShuda I'm clearly not the guy you were replying to, but get what you're saying. But lots of people do those kinds of things for fun with their community right here on KZbin. MBT and Farfa and a few others have had no-banlist tournaments before, or extremely loose and unrestrictive banlist tournaments, as well as Lithium2300 doing those cross-banlist tournaments, and every year the current meta decks always do better and better than old banned legacy strategies that got their good cards back. MBT's tournament last year had Zoodiac nearly winning, but this year Dragon Link destroyed everything in its path with almost no resistance meanwhile Zoodiac lost to pure True Draco, and went 0-2 at that. Also there will never be enough conclusive evidence because there is no reason for many people to push any deck to their breaking point with no banlist, considering how niche it is and people playing it generally want to beef up their own decks that they're already playing or bust out an old favorite like you said, so it's going to be 10% results, 90% theorizing. I think conversely you have to think about what a non-historical gamestate would look like for consistently having no banlist. I had a (late) epiphany a while ago that I call it the Graceful Charity theory, just because it's the card I was talking about with a friend when I had the realization. Think about Graceful Charity. It's very good and needs no introduction. Draw 3, stack your graveyard. Arguably better than Pot of Greed in a myriad of decks. I thought for the longest time that Graceful Charity being legal would put Shaddolls and Dark Worlds in top tier territory by itself. But after putting a little more thought and playtesting a bit with some friends with Graceful Charity as legal, it became clear that the advantageous card wouldn't do anything of relevance, because the decks that already beat Dark Worlds or Shaddolls would ALSO have access to Graceful Charity. So it doesn't exactly make Dark Worlds any better by comparison. In a vacuum, yes it does because both decks want to draw and discard. Every deck likes to draw more cards for sure, and most decks have something they want in the grave, so GC wouldn't make most decks any better compared to the decks they already lose against. What would Dark Worlds with Graceful Charity do against Tearlaments who also have Graceful Charity, and already beat Dark Worlds pretty comfortably most of the time? It doesn't narrow the power gap between the decks if both decks can benefit from it, which is nearly a universal "yes" across every deck. It elevates any deck's ability to play and consistency with popping off, but without the muscle to deal with newer things, which Dark Worlds and Shaddolls simply don't have to the same degree or consistency, there's no way they would keep up. Shaddolls might be a more fair case since they also enjoy most of the supports that Tearlaments enjoy but you get the point I'm trying to make. With this being said, I think that it can reasonably be argued that it's almost more fair and balanced to look at things from a historic lens rather than an all-encompassing one because putting every card on the table for every deck only magnifies the power creep seen in later years. Magical Scientist FTK, Frog FTK, Magical Explosion FTK, can be stopped by Ogre, Veiler, Nib, Ash, Imperm, Droll, etc, and they'll be running 3 Maxx "C" for sure, and no matter what crazy new cards the older decks can pump out because the cards they rely upon are extremely weak compared to what the baseline standard for a competitive deck is today, but what would Magical Scientist FTK do against full power Dragon Link or Bird Up or any deck that can summon a Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon? Or like I described in earlier comments about Zoodiac as a whole. Unbanning Drident and Broadbull wouldn't do nearly as much because the game has adapted to what they can pull off. Even now, BLS is at 3 and it does nothing, despite being one of the "strongest cards ever printed" just 10 years ago. Cyber Stein got unbanned, and by itself it wasn't doing a whole lot, and got banned again because newer, stronger, better cards made it abusable. TLDR: power creep is an unavoidable thing in the game, and having no banlist at all helps the already good decks be better than the older, slower decks, because the newer decks have more to work with right out of the gate. I think Cyber Stein is the prime example of this in action honestly.

[@The_Juggla]

Chaos Return was pretty huge

[@EflowNivek]

Exodia in JP with pre-erratum to Witch and Sangan. It ran triple Graceful for God sake.

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

Thats definitly up there especially if we consider the ocg which i didnt for this video. It's funny beacuse in cross banlist events or in no banlist events it doesn't perform super well. Between droll and lock bird and decks that can play on either turn, the deck can just get blown out. Somehow we've powercreept the game that hard.

[@EflowNivek]

@MonkeyFightTCG oh yeah I definitely agree handtraps have really ramped the power level. There's just no other deck that I'm aware of that required an emergency erratum since

[@MonkeyFightTCG]

pepe also had an e banlist of 4 and a half cards but it's definitely not as bad as exodia, which literally created the ban list

[@christianobermiller3225]

Why is there 4 Allure of darkness in the TeleDAD pic?

[@emereldmaster3334]

I mean CED was the first banned monster for a reason edit:Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest was a few weeks before and CED was tied with yata but STILL CED was a menace

[@julioblandino5774]

What about hand control with yata lock

[@tevincollins2869]

They killed all the other deck before Spyral became full power