When I got back into Yu-Gi-Oh for the first time since my childhood, the first deck I ever picked up was a Performapal pendulum deck. I was so amazed by the new pendulum summoning mechanic, and it’s that interest that reignited that love of Yu-Gi-Oh for me! Pendulum monsters are half-spell cards and half-monster cards. You can either play them as a monster, and gain their monster abilities, or you can play them as spell cards in the pendulum zone to gain their spell effects. If you’re a returning player to Yu-Gi-Oh then you may be a little confused by the mechanics of pendulum summoning. I’d really recommend getting to grips with them though, as there’s such a great range of pendulum decks to play, each with their own amazing and flexible strategies. So let’s go over some of the best pendulum monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh so far.
15. Deskbot 007
If you’re unfamiliar with what pendulum monsters are and what they do, then I’d give Deskbots a look. Deskbot 007 gains 500 attack for each Deskbot monster in your graveyard. The whole strategy of Deskbots is to absolutely fill your field and graveyard with Deskbot monsters, giving each of them an insanely high attack stat! Seriously, these monsters can easily get up to 5000 attack and more. On top of that, Deskbot 007 has piercing battle damage, meaning your opponent is going to have a seriously hard time defending against this guy. Deskbot 007 also has a fantastic pendulum scale of 10. This means you can pendulum summon pretty much every Deskbot monster in your deck.
14. Rescue Hamster
Rescue Hamster is a fantastic generic pendulum monster for pretty much any pendulum deck. You can tribute this face up card to special summon two level 5 or higher pendulum monsters from your deck with the same name as a pendulum monster in your extra deck. While their effects are negated (and they’re destroyed in the extra deck), this is a fantastic way of getting additional resources for extra deck summoning on the field. For example, you could use those monsters as link material. Or maybe even overlay them for an XYZ summon.
13. Qliphort Scout
This card was so good for Qliphorts that it actually was on the ban list at one point. Qliphort Scout was even the source of a meme called “Pay 8 to feel great”. Its pendulum effect allows you to pay 800 life points to search out any Qliphort monster from your deck. There are a whole bunch of insanely good Qliphort monsters to choose from, meaning with this guy in your pendulum zone, you’re bound to have a good turn no matter what.
12. Amorphage Goliath
Amorphages are a deck that completely locks your opponent out of doing anything. All Amorphage monsters have the same monster effect too: while they’re face up on the field, neither player can special summon monsters from the extra deck. In a modern format like this, where summoning from extra deck is vital for most decks to play, this effect is absolutely devastating. While it’s in the pendulum zone, it effectively acts as a one-sided Macro Cosmos. Any card that isn’t an Amorphage card is banished when it leaves the field, not sent to the graveyard! This’ll make the game extremely hard for your opponent, as once their monsters are gone, they’re gone for good.
11. Endymion, the Mighty Master of Magic
Fun bit of trivia: this card has the most amount of text on a single card in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! So, to give a brief summary to this mini novel of a card: Its monster effect allows you to negate spells and traps your opponent activates by removing spell counters from the field. Endymion decks are all about filling the field with spell counters, so these aren’t in short supply either. While this guy has spell counters on it, it’s also pretty much indestructible to card effects, meaning you’ll have some serious negating power for quite some time. If your opponent does manage to destroy this card in battle, not only can you search a normal spell from your deck & add it to your hand, but you can also just pendulum summon him back next turn.
10. Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon
If it weren’t for me trying to be un-biased here, I’d put this guy at number 1 simply for nostalgia reasons. I have two whole binder pages of just this card in its different rarities and alternate artworks! Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon inflicts double battle damage to your opponent when it attacks a monster. And you can use cards like Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon to reduce your opponent’s monster’s attacks, meaning this card can get in for some serious damage. This card’s pendulum effect is also really handy in a pinch: You can destroy this card in the pendulum zone to search any pendulum monster with 1500 or less attack from your deck & add it to your hand. This can give you the exact pendulum monster you need to complete your scales next turn, meaning you can summon Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon right back.
9. Zefraath
The Zefra archetype has some seriously cool lore surrounding it, combining the Qliphorts, Nekroz, Shaddolls, and more! It was all explained in the Duel Terminal series, and I’d recommend giving it a look. This guy is the boss monster for Zefra decks, and it is insanely powerful in that deck. While it’s in the pendulum zone, you can send any Zefra pendulum monster from the deck to the extra deck to change this card’s pendulum scale to match that monster’s. Not only are you loading up your extra deck with more monsters to pendulum summon, but it also means that no matter what other card is in your pendulum zone, you can always find a way to complete the scales. Although this guy’s monster effect is the real selling point. It requires 3 tributes to special summon, but when you do, you can conduct another pendulum summon during your turn! You can then tribute any one of those monsters to special summon a different Zefra monster from your deck. This means you’ll be getting the exact monsters you want, when you want.
8. Supreme King Dragon Darkwurm
You’d be hard pressed to find a pendulum deck that doesn’t run this card. While it’s in your graveyard and you control no monsters, you can special summon it for free! The main strategy with this card is to send it to the grave with something like Dragon Shrine or Foolish Burial on your first turn, giving you a free monster. You can then use it for link summons, synchro summons, XYZ summons, whatever takes your fancy. When it’s special summoned, you can also add a Supreme King Gate monster from your deck to your hand. The Supreme King Gates were pendulum monsters with pendulum scales of 0 and 13 respectively. With these cards in your pendulum zone, you can literally pendulum summon any level possible!
7. Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer
As someone who was playing Performapals at the time this card came out, I have bittersweet memories of this card. At the time of this card’s release, there was an insanely powerful deck in the meta known as “Pepe”. Due to how much Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer helped this deck, the price of this card shot up into the hundreds, and I couldn’t afford that in the slightest! His pendulum effect boosts the attack of all of your Performapal monsters by 1000, which leads to some seriously high-power attacks when combined with cards like United We Stand. And when Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer is special summoned, you can tribute cards you control to search out different Performapal monsters from your deck. This is a great way to search out those exact combo pieces you need, and it gives Performapals some much needed consistency.
6. Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon
This card is unusual in that it’s an XYZ-pendulum monster. You need to summon this card as an XYZ monster first, and then for all intents and purposes it acts exactly like a Pendulum monster. And if this card is XYZ summoned using an XYZ monster as material (you’ll need cards like Xiangsheng Magician and Xiangke Magician to pull this off), you can activate two effects. Firstly, it can attack twice during the battle phase. With an attack stat of 3000 this is pretty decent! Secondly, you can detatch 1 XYZ material from this card to destroy every single card your opponent controls, and have this card gain 200 attack for each card destroyed. The crazy thing about this effect is that because it only costs 1 material to activate, you can actually do it twice! This means even if your opponent can somehow recover after losing every single card, you can destroy their field all over again.
5. Odd-Eyes Arc Pendulum Dragon
Easily the best card in a pure Odd-Eyes deck, this allows you to bring out a whole range of different Odd-Eyes monsters. Here’s what it does: When an Odd-Eyes monster you control is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can summon another Odd-Eyes from your hand, deck, or graveyard. Combine this with cards like Sky Iris which destroy your own cards to search out Odd-Eyes monsters, and you’ve got a powerful effect on your hands.
4. Harmonizing Magician
This card took Pendulum Magician decks from okay to fantastic. When it’s pendulum summoned from the hand, you can special summon another Pendulum Magician from your deck in defense position – but its effects are negated. This is great for setting up extra deck summons. I’d recommend summoning some of the Supreme King extra deck monsters off of these cards. They require two dark-type pendulum monsters to summon, which this card fulfills all by itself. For example, Supreme King Clear Wing destroys all monsters your opponent controls when it’s synchro summoned. This turns Harmonizing Magician into a Raigeki that you can play 3 copies of!
3. Amorphage Sloth
This card actually saw play outside of Amorphage decks, as it only costs one tribute to normal summon. It has the same monster effect as other Amorphages, shutting your opponent off from the extra deck. The strategy was to do a whole bunch of extra deck summoning during your turn, then right at the end slap this card down so your opponent can’t use their extra deck. In Pure Amorphage builds you can also make use of this guy’s pendulum effect: While you control an Amorphage monster, neither player can add cards from their deck to their hand, except Amorphages. In Modern Yu-Gi-Oh, being able to search out your best cards is what separates weak decks from strong ones. Being able to shut down searching entirely will seriously curveball your opponent, and they’ll have to think of a new strategy pretty quickly to overcome this.
2. Wisdom Eye Magician
Hands-down the best card in the Pendulum Magician arsenal. While you have another Pendulum Magician in your other pendulum zone, you can destroy this card to put any Pendulum Magician from your deck in its place. This gives you the exact pendulum scales you want whenever you need it, making pendulum summoning a breeze. Wisdom Eye Magician also works fantastically with cards like Star Pendulumgraph, which allow you to search your deck for Pendulum Magicians whenever one of them is destroyed, turning this card into a double search.
1. Chaos Emperor, the Dragon of Armageddon
As if the old Chaos Emperor Dragon wasn’t strong enough, they made a pendulum monster sequel to it that’s just as powerful. It’s summoned in the same way as the original: by banning a light and a dark monster from your graveyard. And when it’s on the field, you can then pay half of your life points to send all cards you control to the graveyard, and then the same number of cards from your opponent’s field. Your opponent then takes 300 damage for every card they lost – which can be more than enough damage to finish the game. It’s also worth noting that monsters in the extra monster zone aren’t destroyed, meaning you may still have a monster left to demolish your opponent with. This card also has the added bonus that you can use its pendulum effect to bring back some of your banished dragons, which if you’re using cards like Dragon Mirror in your deck, can be seriously helpful!
