The Legend Of Blue Eyes White Dragon was the first-everYu-Gi-Oh!set released all the way back in 2002. The set featured both cards featured in the anime as well as completely original ones.
RELATED:Yu-Gi-Oh!: Older Archetypes That Still Need Support
Although many of the cards featured in the set have fallen victim to power creep and are generally weaker now, many powerful cards from Legend Of Blue Eyes White Dragon still see play today. Since Yu-Gi-Oh! does not feature set rotation, cards from the very first set can still be played in the modern game, so long as it is not forbidden on the ban list.
10Man-Eater Bug
Although the power levels of Man-Eater Bug have fallen drastically over the years, it’s still one of the most iconic cards from the early days of the game. Despite not being too strong in the modern game, Man-Eater Bug is a fine choice in the popular Goat format variant (where sets before The Lost Millennium are legal).
Man-Eater Bug is one of the most well-known flip effect monsters, and despite its simplicity, it is still a fantastic choice for formats utilizing the early card pool and fan-created draft environments.
9Polymerization
Back in the day, Polymerization was the only way toactually fusion summon monsters. While in the modern game, plenty of decks have their own (often stronger) fusion spells, Polymerization still has a role.
Fluffals, for example, still utilize Polymerization to great effect. There are plenty of ways to search it out directly from the deck, allowing you to use the many searches as a way to thin the deck. Polymerization is one of the easiest cards to find out of the deck, and in a game like Yu-Gi-Oh! where consistency is important, this is a fantastic trait to have.
8Swords Of Revealing Light
One of the most iconic spell cards in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Swords Of Revealing Light was a star of the early metagame. It’s a fantastic stall card and lets you force your opponent’s flip monsters to flip and potentially lose their effectiveness.
RELATED:Yu-Gi-Oh!: Classic Monsters That Deserve An Upgrade
Although there’s too much spell and trap removal in the modern game for it to see much play, in Goat format, it’s so strong that it’s limited to one card per deck. Since Mystical Space Typhoon is also limited, it has few answers in that metagame, making it so strong in early-Yu-Gi-Oh! formats.
7Exodia
Exodia, The Forbidden One, as well as the four other pieces, were all featured in the first set of the game. It was thefirst alternate win conditionand remained one of the strongest. Though inconsistent, Deep Draw Exodia has performed well in the past, even placing in the top eight of the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships in 2012.
Often, Exodia decks are all or nothing on getting all five pieces before your opponent can play, and with how much draw power has been added over the years, it only gets stronger.
6Dark Magician
While normal monsters don’t often appear anymore, Dark Magician is one of the rare exceptions. Theentire Dark Magician archetype is built around itand has a plethora of ways to cheat it out onto the field for free. Dark Magician is one of the few normal monsters that still has a place in modern Yu-Gi-Oh! as a part of rogue decks.
Dark Magician was also featured as one-half of the Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon engine. Although its viability there has been hurt by the banning of Predaplant Verte Anaconda, in dedicated Dark Magician decks, it’s still fantastic and makes them a viable threat.
5Blue-Eyes White Dragon
The ace monster of Seto Kaiba, Blue-Eyes White Dragon is widely considered one of the (if not most) iconic monsters in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! Despite its age, it is still around in the modern game, with Blue-Eyes decks viable thanks to multiple waves of support.
RELATED:Yu-Gi-Oh!: Every Blue-Eyes Extra Deck Monster, Ranked
It has even seen play as a draw engine as a discard target for Trade In. Blue-Eyes decks often bring out multiple copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon with ease, which can turn into powerful extra deck monsters created with them in mind. It was even the winning deck of the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships in 2016.
4Dark Hole
One of the best board wipes in Yu-Gi-Oh!, much ofDark Hole’s life was spent on the game’s ban listin one way or another. It was restricted to one copy per deck on the original ban list before being outright banned a couple of years later. It eventually became fully unrestricted in mid-2019 but remained a fantastic card.
There are not many unconditional board wipes in Yu-Gi-Oh! Even though it affects your side as well, you may activate Dark Hole before you actually play any of your creatures, so it only hurts your opponent.
3Raigeki
Like Dark Hole, Raigeki spent most of its lifespan either limited or banned but is currently completely unrestricted. It isoften considered one of the best board wipes, as it is one-sided. Unlike cards like Lightning Storm, Raigeki has no activation requirements and destroys every monster, so long as it can actually be destroyed.
Even if it gets negated, it’s something the opponent has to negate or risk losing the game. This gets rid of a negate so that you are clear to get your play-starters going without having to worry about your opponent shutting you down.
2Monster Reborn
Monster Reborn is an unconditional revival spell that lets you bring back a monster from either graveyard. It is a fantastic extender, so much so that it has been limited on the ban list almost its entire life (even briefly banned on and off between 2004-2010).
With how graveyard-centric Yu-Gi-Oh! tends to be, Monster Reborn allows for a ton of options. It gives you fodder for yourlink monsters to easily link climb, as well as bring back a boss monster that your opponent managed to get rid of.
1Pot Of Greed
Pot Of Greed is not just the best card out of Legends Of Blue Eyes White Dragon, but one of the best cards of all time. Its effect is deceptively simple, draw two cards. Card advantage is incredibly important in Yu-Gi-Oh! as is consistency.
Pot Of Greed makes it so you are essentially playing a smaller deck, as there is no downside to using it, and it gives you two cards in your hand for the price of one. It was a must-run in every deck, has been banned from the game since late-2005, and is unlikely to ever return.
