He’s probably the only duelist who could even hold a candle to Yugi Muto, and his deck has some of the best cards: from the legendary Blue Eyes White Dragon, a monster as famous as Yu-Gi-Oh itself, to cards like Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End, so powerful that they changed the entire way the game was played! So let’s break down the best cards ever used by Seto Kaiba in the anime!
15. Possessed Dark Soul
I thought I’d start this list off with one of the more unusual cards used by Kaiba – Possessed Dark Soul. This powerful fiend allows you to take control of all level 3 or lower face-up monsters your opponent controls, by tributing Possessed Dark Soul. In Yu-Gi-Oh, if monsters aren’t tribute summoned, they typically tend to be level 4. So the value of this card really varies depending on who you’re playing it against. If you’re up against a water deck, for example, which tend to use lots of low-level monsters to swarm the field, then Possessed Dark Soul may be the perfect way to turn the tides of battle! Other decks, this guy’s a little limited.
14. Luster Dragon #2
Kaiba’s deck was all about dragons. He dabbled in a few other monster types, occasionally splashing in a machine or fiend-type here and there, but we all know Kaiba’s real passion was for his dragons. Luster Dragon #2 is one of the best one-tribute monsters out there, with a staggering 2400 attack! This is enough to rival any non-tribute monsters and having this guy on the field will force your opponent to use their strongest monsters. Also, the artwork on this card is absolutely stunning. A dragon made entirely out of emerald crystals, with a huge full moon looming over it? Someone in the Konami art department is putting in overtime!
13. A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon
This card is exceptional for dragon-based strategies, especially Blue-Eyes decks (funny that!) By returning one level 5 or higher dragon from your field to your hand, you can destroy all spells and traps your opponent controls. Being able to destroy all your opponent’s spells/traps all at once will give you an unimaginable advantage. There are some seriously powerful ones that can mess you up in Yu-Gi-Oh (looking at you Magic Cylinder…) So being able to get rid of them all at once will ensure your dragons a safe passage to victory.
12. Lord of D.
While Lord of D isn’t himself a dragon, you’d be mad not to include this card in a dragon deck. While Lord of D. is on the field, all of your dragons are protected from card effects. This protects you from all sorts of threats; from monsters that destroy other monsters, to spells that can outright steal your dragons, Lord of D. is an amazing way to provide yourself with some blanket protection. And last but not least, this guy’s name is pretty funny.
11. Vorse Raider
Vorse Raider really set the bar for how powerful vanilla monsters could be. While a 1900 attack normal monster may not sound impressive by our modern standards, back then this guy completely changed how decks were built! If you didn’t have Vorse Raider in your deck, you’d lose. Simple as! It was one of the most powerful monsters you could normal summon outright, meaning your opponent would have to tribute summon to overcome this guy. In current Yu-Gi-Oh, there are certainly better cards to choose from. But this guy is definitely worth a spot if you’re building a more retro deck.
10. Spear Dragon
This was one of the first monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh to have piercing battle damage. So if you attack a defense position monster with this card, you can inflict the difference in attack and defense as damage to your opponent’s LP. This is great for sinking some damage into your opponent, especially if they’re walling up with a bunch of defense-position monsters! The downside to Spear Dragon is that after it attacks, it’s changed to defense position, where it has a whopping 0 defense. Still worth it for the piercing damage though!
9. Y-Dragon Head
Even when Kaiba branches out into machine monsters, they happen to be dragons. Are we really surprised, coming from the guy who travels around in a Blue Eyes White Dragon-shaped jet?! I’ve chosen Y-Dragon Head here as it’s one of the 3 X, Y, Z monsters (not to be confused with actual XYZ monsters… who said Yu-Gi-Oh was hard to understand?). These three specific cards can be fused together to make different machine monsters, depending on what combinations you fuse together. In fact, with the introduction of A, B, C monsters, in addition to these guys, the deck actually became meta! In 2016, there wasn’t a player around who wasn’t playing ABCXYZ turbo – and the deck still sees some fringe play even to this day!
8. Fang of Critias
This is one of those spell cards that acts totally different in the anime. And sadly the real life version just doesn’t compare. Fang of Critias allows you to fusion summon monsters using trap cards! There are currently 4 options to choose from, depending on what trap card you choose. Personally, Doom Virus Dragon is my favorite: the embodiment of Crush Card Virus. It has the same effect as the original overpowered trap card, with the added bonus that it has an attack stat to smack your opponent with – wins all round!
7. Flute of Summoning Dragon
Flute of Summoning Dragon used to be the best way to spam your field with dragon monsters. We’ve seen a few better options now that Yu-Gi-Oh has gotten faster, but this card is definitely still a force to be reckoned with! While you control Lord of D. you can special summon 2 dragon monsters from your hand. This used to be a pretty situational combo, having to wait for both Lord of D and Flute of Summoning Dragon to show up in your hand, but we recently got a card that fixes this problem. King of D. acts as Lord of D while it’s face-up on the field, with the added bonus that you can actually search Flute of Summoning Dragon straight from the deck using its ability. That way you can pop this spell card off immediately, and your field will be full of dragons before you know it.
6. Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
Now this is a card that old-school players will recognize. Yes, it’s that fusion monster we all wished we could summon, but barely any of us did: Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon is one of the most iconic fusion monsters out there! With the power of 3 Blue-Eyes in one big dragon, this ferocious dragon was used by Seto Kaiba in the very first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! It was only beaten by the unstoppable Exodia – and if that doesn’t speak for its power, I don’t know what does.
5. Crush Card Virus
Just like Fang of Critias, this is one of those Yu-Gi-Oh cards that hasn’t translated well into real life. Konami initially tried to release this card at full power, but it was simply too powerful to last. It was pretty quickly banned, and later on it had its text changed to make it more balanced. The original version of Crush Card Virus would let you search your opponent’s entire hand, field, and the next 3 cards they draw, destroying any monster with an attack of 1500 or more. Pretty great! If you have an oppressive monster on your side of the field, this could literally prevent your opponent from making any sort of a comeback, and the game would be as good as yours!
4. Ring of Destruction
This trap card used to be the best way of forcing a draw when a game was on the ropes. Its original text allowed you to destroy a monster on the field, then simultaneously inflict damage equal to that monster’s attack to both players. By destroying a high attack monster while both players have low life points, this ensures that you definitely don’t lose the game – forcing it to end in a draw! This ability to completely change the tide of battle made it too good for competitive play, and the text had to be altered to make it fair.
3. Blue-Eyes White Dragon
We couldn’t make a list about Kaiba’s best cards without mentioning this unstoppable engine of destruction. Blue-Eyes is as iconic as Yu-Gi-Oh itself. The very first Yu-Gi-Oh set to ever exist was named after this card. It was here that a lot of us got our first introduction to Yu-Gi-Oh, opening packs to try and get that elusive Blue-Eyes White Dragon (or a Raigeki or Dark Hole or maybe an Exodia limb…) Since then we’ve seen a lot of support released for this card. There are a whole bunch of monsters that have improved the Blue-Eyes White Dragon strategy: from powerful new versions of Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon to entirely new Blue-Eyes monsters that make use of the synchro summon mechanics! This card is easily well-known among Yu-Gi-Oh fanatics and kids who grew up in the late 90s, and for that reason, it’s at #3 in our list.
2. Obelisk the Tormentor
Speaking of iconic Yu-Gi-Oh cards known far and wide, let’s talk about the Egyptian God cards. Obelisk the Tormentor is the Egyptian God that Kaiba played through the Battle City tournament, until it was won by Yugi Muto (of course) who ended up with all 3 cards. Personally, this God card is my favorite out of the 3, at least in terms of their TCG adaptations. Obelisk has an insanely high attack of 4000, which will crush anything that stands in its way! By tributing 2 other monsters you control, you can also destroy all monsters that your opponent controls! While Obelisk can’t attack the turn you activate this ability, it’ll certainly finish your opponent off the turn after – not many duelists can take 4000 damage straight to the face and survive it!
1. Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End
This card is borderline infamous in real life Yu-Gi-Oh, and weirdly barely mentioned in the anime… Seriously, this card got mentioned in 2 episodes of the original series, one of which was it being shown in a briefcase! Certainly not the treatment befitting of a card that completely changed how we played Yu-Gi-Oh! Chaos Emperor Dragon was so good, it was the first ever card to be banned! It later had its effect changed to make it more balanced, and I’m glad to say you can finally play 3 copies of this guy again. The main reason why this card is so insanely powerful is that it’s incredibly easy to summon – you don’t have to tribute summon it like most powerful monsters. All you need to do is banish a light and a dark monster from your graveyard. When this guy hits the field, you can then pay 1000 life points to send every single card from both player’s fields and hands to the graveyard, inflicting 300 damage to your opponent for each of their cards destroyed. This is a huge amount of damage, and easily enough to finish your opponent off. So this is definitely a card Kaiba would be proud of: a dragon so powerful it warped the game beyond recognition. Way to go, Chaos Emperor Dragon!
