The Duel Monsters card game from Yu-Gi-Oh! needed to have set rules, otherwise, things would have become boring really quickly. If Yugi ended every duel by shooting his opponent in the head or using his magic to crush their minds, then there would be no point in even playing the card game in the first place. Without rules, there is only anarchy, which is why Duel Monsters had guidelines that the players were supposed to follow.
There were a few times when the duelists in Yu-Gi-Oh! decided not to folow the rules and just made stuff up as they went along, however. No one ever got called out for this, which is especially frustrating for the viewer, as it makes it harder to take an already ridiculous show seriously.
We are here today to act like the referees that the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! so desperately needed.
From the time Yugi pulled a Master Roshi and started blowing up moons to the winning move that could have been refuted if Dartz had just consulted a dictionary, here are the 15 Times Yu-Gi-Oh! Characters Cheated To Win Duels.
15. Attack The Moon!
Masashi Kishimoto is the creator of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. He originally intended for Yu-Gi-Oh! to focus on numerous different games, with the original version of Duel Monsters (called Magic & Wizards) only appearing in a single arc.
The popularity of Magic & Wizards led to Yu-Gi-Oh! focusing solely on cards. As such, the early story arcs were being written without consideration for how the rules would work in the actual card game.
One of the biggest examples of a character just making up an attack happened during Yugi and Mako's duel early on in the anime. Mako had managed to flood most of the duel arena and filled the water with his monsters. Yugi had previously played the Full Moon card and he was somehow able to make his Giant Soldier of Stone attack the moon itself, causing the tides to recede and making it possible to attack Mako's monsters.
This move makes so little sense that a card called Attack the Moon was released for the real card game in an effort to explain it. Even if Yugi had played Attack the Moon it wouldn't have worked, as it only allows you to hit your opponent's spell/trap cards.
14. Attack The Floatation Ring!
Mako wasn't the only character who got screwed over by a dodgy ruling during the Duelist Kingdom arc. Attacking the moon makes about as much sense as the move Yugi uses to defeat PaniK.
PaniK was one of Pegasus' Eliminators. These were a group of highly trained duelists who were unleashed upon the contestants of the Duelist Kingdom tournament. PaniK's gimmick was that he used a card called Castle of Dark Illusions to shroud the duel arena in darkness so that the other player couldn't see what monsters he was playing and couldn't retaliate against them.
Yugi defeats PaniK by using his Catapult Turtle's ability to target the Castle of Dark Illusions' floatation ring, causing it to fall on PaniK's other monsters and destroying them. You cannot normally target specific parts of a monster in battle. Yugi should only have been able to destroy the Castle of Dark Illusions while leaving the other monsters unharmed.
13. Kaiba Can't Count
Seto Kaiba's main goal in life was to defeat Yugi (and later, the Pharoah). He only managed to defeat Yugi once and only did this by threatening to kill himself if he lost. Kaiba battles Yugi on several occasions after that and comes out the loser each time. The movie Dark Side of Dimensions was about how Kaiba couldn't let go of the fact that he hadn't defeated the Pharoah, which leads him to create a device that allows him to travel to the afterlife.
Kaiba technically should have defeated Yugi during their duel in Pyramid of Light. At one point during their duel, Kaiba summons the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, which gains 300 ATK for every Dragon-type monster in the graveyard. It attacks Yugi and drops him to 200 life points.
When Kaiba summoned the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, he only added an ATK boost for five of the six dragons in his graveyard. If he had correctly counted all six, then he would have won the duel in that turn.
12. The Mammoth Fusion
Kaiba only won a single duel against Yugi because he threatened to kill himself if he lost. He really should have won that duel through disqualification, as Yugi pulls off one of the most nonsensical moves in Yu-Gi-Oh! history.
In the 24th episode of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, Kaiba successfully summons the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon to the field. Yugi manages to weaken it by combining his Living Arrow card with Polymerization and Mammoth Graveyard. This fuses the undead Mammoth Graveyard with the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, causing it to lose ATK points.
According to the text in the Japanese version of the episode, the Living Arrow card transfers the effect of a spell onto an opponent's monster. That could be interpreted in many different ways and makes no sense in practice.
Polymerization also doesn't work that way. In the actual card game, the Living Arrow is called Spell Shattering Arrow and it destroys the opponent's face-up spell cards while also taking away life points.
11. Ghost In The Kaiba
The first member of Pegasus' Eliminators that Yugi battles is called the Ghost of Kaiba. In the Japanese version of the show, he is simply a master impressionist who uses Kaiba's stolen deck in battle. The American dub changes him into Kaiba's evil sidekick who Yugi had banished to the Shadow Realm in the first episode and had been given a physical body by Pegasus.
You have to feel sorry for Ghost Kaiba, as he was on the receiving end of the Duel Monsters version of the Montréal Screwjob. He only lost the duel due to outside cheating, yet Pegasus never stepped in and helped him out.
While Yugi was battling Ghost Kaiba, the real Kaiba managed to hack into the duel arena and manually lowered the ATK of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards. This is a blatant case of outside interference, yet Yugi just rolls with it and wins the game. He even gives Ghost Kaiba a mind crush for good measure.
10. Obelisk's Trap Breaking Punch
The Egyptian God Cards existed in a category of their own. They each required three tributes in order to be summoned, but they were vastly stronger than pretty much every other monster in the game.
Seto Kaiba was given the Obelisk the Tormentor card in order to keep it safe. He adds it to his deck and decides to give it a whirl during one of the first duels of Battle City. Kaiba faces off against a regular duelist and summons Obelisk to the field. He orders Obelisk to attack, which causes his opponent to activate his Mirror Force trap card. Obelisk was somehow able to punch through Mirror Force and attack the opponent directly.
The rules surrounding the Egyptian God Cards seemed to change every episode. The official ruling regarding the cards states that they cannot be harmed by spells or traps that target a monster. This shouldn't have applied to Mirror Force, as it damages all monsters that are in attack position when it is activated.
9. The Jam Combo
Seto Kaiba wasn't the only one pulling off dodgy moves during the Battle City arc. Yugi got in on the action too, as he cheated in order to win his own Egyptian God Card.
Marik sends one of his Rare Hunters after Yugi. This Rare Hunter was named Strings and he was totally under Marik's control. He had a deck that was built around exploiting the effects of Slifer the Sky Dragon.
Yugi defeated Strings by exploiting a combo involving Brain Control and Revival Jam. Yugi used Brain Control to steal Revival Jam, which was destroyed by Slifer. Revival Jam used its effect to return to the field, which caused Strings to draw cards. This caused an endless loop, which ended with Strings drawing all of his cards and losing via a deck out.
The reason this move shouldn't have worked is because Brain Control's effect should have expired when Revival Jam was destroyed. It should have only worked once, leaving Strings with plenty of cards left in his deck.
8. The Pegasus Substitute
Bandit Keith entered the Duelist Kingdom tournament in order to seek out revenge on Pegasus. He had a legitimate reason, as Pegasus went out of his way to embarrass Keith during a public duel that they had years earlier. Keith doesn't get a chance to inflict revenge, as he loses to Joey and gets dumped into the ocean by Pegasus.
If Duel Monsters had any sort of basic rules at all, then Keith should have won his duel against Pegasus through disqualification. Pegasus gets up halfway through the duel, writes down instructions and gives them to a child, who then takes Pegasus' place and wins the duel using the instructions.
Most competitive games like Duel Monsters would not allow a player to either substitute themselves without notice or offer direct instructions to another player in the middle of a game. Could you imagine someone doing what Pegasus did during a chess match? You certainly couldn't do it during an official Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament in real life.
7. Yugi's Quick Sword
Yugi manages to defeat Kaiba in the first episode of the show by drawing all five pieces of Exodia. Those five cards are thrown into the ocean by Weevil a few episodes later, which means that Yugi cannot rely on Exodia anymore.
Just before the Battle City tournament began, Joey dueled a Rare Hunter who used copies of the Exodia cards. Yugi later faces the same Rare Hunter and quickly works out that he is facing an Exodia .
Luckily for Yugi, he had recently added the Lightforce Sword trap card to his deck. This card allowed him to seal away a card in the other player's hand for three turns, which prevented the Rare Hunter from drawing all five pieces of Exodia before Yugi could drain his life points.
The reason Yugi cheats during this duel is that he plays the Lightforce Sword card directly from his hand. You cannot do that in either the anime rules or the real card game. Trap cards cannot be used on the turn that they are played (except in a few rare exceptions).
If Yugi had played Lightforce Sword properly, then the Rare Hunter would have drawn all five pieces of Exodia and won the duel.
6. The Time Wizard Fusions
Time Wizard is an effect monster that has a risky power. If you use Time Wizard's ability in battle, then you can flip a coin. If you call it correctly, then all of the opponent's monsters on the field are destroyed. If you don't call it correctly, then all of your monsters are destroyed and you take damage equal to half of their total ATK points.
Joey uses the Time Wizard frequently throughout the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. Its ability seems to work in different ways, depending on whatever the writers were thinking of at the time. Joey is able to summon a Thousand Dragon by successfully using Time Wizard while a Baby Dragon is on the field. In the actual card game, you need to fuse Time Wizard and Baby Dragon to create a Thousand Dragon.
Yugi cheats once more, only this time he manages to exploit his opponent's monster. Joey is able to use Time Wizard's effect during his duel with Yugi, which should have destroyed the Dark Magician on Yugi's side of the field.
For some unexplained reason, the Dark Magician actually becomes more powerful when Time Wizard's effect is used, which transforms it into the Dark Sage.
