15 Strongest Yu-Gi-Oh! Monsters, Ranked

“Yu-Gi-Oh!” is one of the longest-running anime of all time. Not too shabby for a show where characters play card games the entire time. It’s like if Go Fish became a cultural phenomenon (albeit a version of Go Fish where there’s a non-zero chance your soul winds up in another realm).

“Yu-Gi-Oh!” sees characters create the strongest decks possible, using trap, spell, and monster cards to defeat their opponents and become a champion. Yugi Mutou (Shunsuke Kazama/Dan Green) himself would probably tell you brute strength doesn’t matter so much as how one puts certain cards together, utilizng the different card types in a way that brings out a monster’s true power. But let’s be real, we all want to see the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters in action.

There are quite a few ways to define strength. There’s also the tricky matter of diving deep into the card game where many powerful cards exist to the point where several have been banned from gameplay. For the sake of simplicity, we’re focusing mostly on the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters that have some kind of appearance in the anime and are plenty powerful even without special spell cards. 

Here are the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters, as far as we’re concerned.

Abiding by the correct order to watch the “Yu-Gi-Oh!” anime, the first season’s Duelist Kingdom arc ends with Yugi battling Maximillion Pegasus (Jirou Jay Takasugi/Darren Dunstan). Relinquished may not seem like much initially with Attack and Defense stats of 0 each, however, that’s when its special ability comes into play.

Once per turn, a player can have Relinquished take on the Attack and Defense stats of an opponent’s monster. The opponent can choose to have another monster attack Relinquished after it’s assimilated something else, but that’ll only result in the absorbed monster getting destroyed. To add further insult to injury, the opponent is the one who takes damage to their life points. 

With assimilation the name of the game, Relinquished is basically the Borg from “Star Trek,” one of the best villains of that series. It’s as powerful as whatever it can absorb, and if you play your cards right, your opponent may wind up doing themselves in by the end of a match. 

Shinato, King of a Higher Plane boasts an Attack stat of 3,300 and Defense sitting at 3,000. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s certainly not at the higher echelon of what some of the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters are capable of. For Shinato to make it onto this list, we need to look at its special ability. 

As showcased in Noah’s (Chisa Yokoyama/Andrew Rannells) duel against Yugi and Seto Kaiba (Kenjiro Tsuda/Eric Stuart) during the season 3 digital universe arc, Shinato can cause damage even against monsters in Defense position. As any “Yu-Gi-Oh!” fan could tell you, a monster in Defense position can still get destroyed, but if that happens, it doesn’t alter the user’s life points. That goes out the window with Shinato. 

When Shinato destroys a monster in Defense mode, you subtract that monster’s Attack points from the user’s life points. This could end a battle far more quickly than expected, and it might even force the opponent to put other monsters in Attack mode to try to mitigate the damage. 

“Yu-Gi-Oh! GX” picks up with a new crop of duelists, led by Jaden Yuki (voiced by “Little House on the Prairie star Matthew Labyorteaux in the English dub). However, season 4 never received an English dub, so if viewers missed that outing, they wouldn’t have seen Jaden take on Dr. Crowler’s (Hiroshi Shimizu/Sean Schemmel) Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem. 

With an attack stat of 4,400, Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem is tough to take down even in the best of circumstances. But like Shinato, King of a Higher Plane, this card does damage to an opponent’s life points even when the monster it’s attacking is in Defense mode. On top of that, the opponent can’t activate any spell or trap cards while Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem attacks. Those would normally come in clutch with such a powerful adversary, but they’re largely useless here. 

Finally, even if the other person manages to defeat this card, the user can summon Ancient Gear Golem from the graveyard directly onto the battlefield. That’s a card with a 3,000-point Attack stat, so even if you lose this beast, you’ll still have a powerful monster on the field. 

Supreme King Z-ARC has Attack and Defense stats of 4,000, which would be enough for most “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters, but this card has a host of special abilities that makes it almost impossible to stop. This dragon instantly destroys any card your opponent has on the field, opening the door for it directly targeting the player’s life points. Special effects are useless on it, and when Supreme King Z-ARC destroys an opponent’s monster, you’re able to summon a Supreme King Dragon onto the field.

It’s the very definition of a final boss, and the only drawback to using it is that it’s extremely difficult to get into play. You have to fuse together four Supreme King Dragon cards all at once. Given that sacrifice as well as its ability to summon additional Supreme King Dragons, a duelist would be best off specifically tailoring their deck to trying to Supreme King Z-ARC into action. Once that happens, the duel is yours to lose. 

There’s no scarcity of great movies about dragons to show how powerful they are, so it’s probably coming as no surprise to see that many of the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters ever are dragons. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon is basically the mascot of the franchise, next to the Dark Magician. However, in the anime’s first season, Seto Kaiba shows how his signature beast can get even stronger by fusing three of them together into the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

At the time, fans had never seen a monster so powerful within the series, boasting an Attack level of 4,500. That’s enough to put it on the same plane as the Egyptian God Monsters. However, a crafty player might want to consider summoning Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon onto the field and then using a De-Fusion spell card to get three Blue-Eyes White Dragons onto the field at once, which would give you a combined attack power of 9,000 and three separate attack turns. 

Who would’ve guessed a card game would eventually lead to someone traveling back in time to prevent said card game from ever existing? That’s the twisty plot of the movie “Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time,” which sees the protagonists from three separate shows — Yugi from “Yu-Gi-Oh!,” Jaden from “Yu-Gi-Oh! GX,” and Yusei Fudo (Yuya Miyashita/Greg Abbey) from “Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s” — fighting a character named Paradox (Atsushi Tamura/Sean Schemmel), who travels to the past to kill Pegasus. Yes, the villain’s name in a movie about time travel is Paradox; this show isn’t subtle.

But the centerpiece of Paradox’s deck is Malefic Truth Dragon. With an Attack power of 5,000, it’s even stronger than the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and it can destroy a ton of monsters at once. If Malefic Truth Dragon defeats a monster in battle, then any other face-up monsters on the field also go to the graveyard. “Bonds Beyond Time” may not be among the best time travel movies of all time, but it’s the only time you’ll see Malefic Truth Dragon in action, and for franchise fans, it’s fun to see three “Yu-Gi-Oh!” heroes team up. 

Following the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yugi, Kaiba, and their friends enter the virtual world to battle KaibaCorp’s board of directors, known colloquially as the Big Five. It’s not unlike “Digital Estate Planning,” one of the best “Community” episodes, but there’s far more melodrama and people shouting about cards. Considering there are five board members, it makes sense they would all team up to summon the Five-Headed Dragon, which requires fusing together five dragon cards. 

Like any fusion monster, it’s tough to get on the field, but once there, its 5,000 Attack stat packs a punch. There’s also the little matter of its special power, which prevents any Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, or Dark type monster from eliminating it. With 25 different monster types in the game, there are still 20 that serve as viable options for trying to defeat it, but it does significantly kneecap any effort depending on what types of monsters an opponent has chosen to focus on. 

Of course, Yugi and Kaiba manage to defeat Five-Headed Dragon in their duel against the Big Five, so it only makes sense to include the monster responsible for its destruction directly ahead of it: Dragon Master Knight. This creature is a result of Yugi and Kaiba working together to fuse together Kaiba’s Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and Yugi’s Black Luster Soldier. Together, they create a monster with an attack stat of 5,000, enough to rival Five-Headed Dragon.

However, this monster gains an additional 500 Attack points for every dragon on your side of the field, so theoretically, it could be much stronger. The anime juices this ability a little bit by saying how Dragon Master Knight gains extra attack power for every dragon on the field, including an opponent’s, as well as any dragons in the graveyard. This was probably done so it could instantly win the duel by destroying Five-Headed Dragon with an overwhelming Attack power of 9,000. The anime often differed from the traditional card game, but even ignoring that, it’s a plenty powerful monster. 

Orichalcos Shunoros might have a name that’s impossible to pronounce, but its power level demands attention. Once again, this is a case where the version of the monster seen on the anime is significantly stronger than the card version, as its summoned with an attack stat of 20,000. This is justified by saying that its attack power is equal to the damage absorbed by Orichalcos Kyutora, but the card game plays by a different rule.

Orichalcos Shunoros’ card has a question mark next to the Attack stat. That’s because its true power is equal to the number of monsters the opponent has multiplied by 1,000. That makes it nearly impossible to get to the 20,000 stat showcased in the anime (unless an opponent somehow got 20 monsters on the field). Technically, Orichalcos Shunoros could be pretty weak in a normal battle, but when used at the right time, it’s a powerhouse. It’s a literal wild card that forces an opponent to be tactical about how many monsters do put into play at any given time. 

Season 2 of the mainline “Yu-Gi-Oh!” series introduced the Egyptian God cards, which were one-of-a-kind monsters that could annihilate anything an opponent threw at them. They’re wildly overpowered, making them among the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monsters around, but there has to be a weakest of the three, and that’s Slifer the Sky Dragon, the one Yugi gets early on in the Battle City storyline.

Slifer’s Attack stat is equal to the number of cards the user holds multiplied by 1,000. With a Pot of Greed and other spell cards that allow for multiple drawings, its attack can grow wildly out of control. Additionally, any monsters an opponent summons automatically loses 2,000 Attack points, and if the number then reaches 0, it gets destroyed. It goes to show how overpowered these monsters are when even the weakest can still do a lot of damage. 

In terms of actual gameplay, promotional cards for each Egyptian God were released that are unusable in sanctioned duels. However, legal versions eventually came out that were cleared to use. You’ll know which is which because the illegal cards read: “This card cannot be used in a duel.”

The Winged Dragon of Ra is the epitome of a monster card from the anime absolutely breaking all of the rules to be as powerful as possible. A player has to sacrifice three monsters to summon Winged Dragon of Ra onto the battlefield, which is the case for any high-leveled monster. However, Ra’s Attack points become equal to the Attack power of the monsters sacrificed. A user can also supe up Ra’s Attack stats even more by sacrificing as many life points as they want. 

When it comes to the anime, these aren’t just playing cards. There’s literally a god inside of the legendary cards, so when one of these beasts attack someone, it’s not just a matter of losing life points. People are in literal danger. Of course, when it comes to the actual card game, Ra had to be taken down a few notches, but rest assured, it’s still plenty powerful to be worth of its rank as an Egyptian God card. 

The “Yu-Gi-Oh!” anime makes a point to refer to the Winged Dragon of Ra as the most powerful Egyptian God. But for my money, Obelisk the Tormentor is the one to fear most. This is the one Seto Kaiba puts in his deck to get an advantage, and it’s incredible. 

Whereas Slifer the Sky Dragon and the Winged Dragon of Ra have nebulous Attack stats, which can change based on various outside factors, Obelisk has a baseline Attack and Defense level of 4,000 each. However, when Kaiba (or eventually Yugi) sacrifices two monsters on the field, Obelisk’s attack grows to infinity, so any attack results in an instant win. 

Of course, this power needed to be nerfed in the actual card game, so in the real world, sacrificing two monsters results in all of an opponent’s monsters being destroyed. But whether it’s the anime or a real-world tournament, Obelisk does a lot of damage all at once, and it’s even harder to defeat considering spell and trap cards have no effect on it. 

Following the season 2 Battle City arc, the “Yu-Gi-Oh!” anime still needed to up the stakes and introduce monsters that made the Egyptian Gods look tame by comparison. One such beast is Divine Serpent Geh, brought into light during the same battle Yugi faces Orichalcos Shunoros. After that card gets beaten, Divine Serpent Geh is automatically summoned to the field with infinite Attack points. 

Again, this is a case of the anime playing fast and loose with the rules, as a Divine Serpent Geh card is a lot harder to become infinitely powerful. Its attack power can still reach whatever the highest attack on the field currently is, and it’s resistant to any effects an opponent’s monster might have. Yugi emerges victorious in his battle against Divine Serpent Geh in the anime, as he basically pulls a move to say, “Oh yeah, your card’s infinity? Well, mine’s infinity plus one.” It may be nonsense to anyone who plays the game in real life, but it does make for an exciting watch. Considering this one duel took six episodes to complete, it should stand amongst the top anime fights of all time. 

Having one Egyptian God card is pretty much enough to win any duel, but if you manage to get all three into one deck, you’d pretty much be unstoppable. Add into the mix Holactie the Creator of Light, and you have the most overpowered deck known to man. Holactie can only be summoned by sacrificing the three Egyptian Gods: Slifer the Sky Dragon, Obelisk the Tormentor, and the Winged Dragon of Ra. After that, it’s literally game over, as summoning Holactie the Creator of Light instantly wins the user the game. 

Such an overpowered card only made it into the anime once toward the tail-end of the original series. Appropriately enough, it’s summoned to combat Zorc Necrophades, who’s the ruler of darkness and creator of the Shadow Realm. However, that doesn’t mean much when the Pharaoh has the ultimate trump card. Duelists can only take solace in knowing this card can only emerge when someone has three Egyptian Gods in play, but hey, an automatic win needs to be hard to get. 

The first episode of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” introduced the strongest, most epic monster of all, and nothing else has quite managed to top it. Yugi battles Kaiba, completely out of his element. However, his grandfather’s deck has a secret weapon: Exodia, the Forbidden One. The creature consists of five separate cards, but when Yugi gets all five in his hand, he instantly wins the duel.

Exodia set the tone for the entire series. Even if Weevil Underwood (Urara Takano/Jimmy Zoppi) ripped up Yugi’s Exodia later, it showed how you never knew what could turn the tide of the battle. You don’t even need to play the individual Exodia pieces on the battlefield to get this to work. You just need them in your hand, so as long as your opponent doesn’t make you discard any pieces prematurely, Exodia is the perfect secret weapon. 

Exodia may just be a bunch of cards jumbled together, but it really is one of the strongest characters in all of anime. If you asked most people on the street what the strongest “Yu-Gi-Oh!” monster is, they’ll probably tell you Exodia.