Even "going all out" all three lost and had to give up their gods though- yugi may not have tried to exploit every ability they all have, but he was the rightful keeper of the gods and used them for good instead of bringing out their fullest power for his own gain which makes him more than worthy of quite literally taking them to the grave

To be fair. Yugi didn't have a deck that supported Slifer. Kaiba's deck was built to get out big monsters so Obelisk worked at least passably well in it. And Marik jad a deck specifically made for Ra, so his would definitely work... And an extra note Marik's Slifer deck was also specifically made to optimize Slifer. Looking at it that way it makes sense that all of the god cards were wasted in his deck. It wasn't built in any way to optimize play with any of them.

He fused all three god cards during his time back in Egypt so he actually did bring their full power out

They were more required to get his memories back rather than his aces. In Atem's duel with Yugi, they were a sign of his position and if Yugi couldn't beat them then he had no chance against Atem when he's more serious with his other cards mainly Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl. Ultimately, they were in his deck as a skill check.

Out of the three, Atem arguably used Obelisk to it's fullest, especially if you include it's feats in the Yu-Gi-Oh R manga where he evolved Obelisk into The Progenitor using Divine Evolution

In Atem’s defense he did use them to destroy the embodiment of pure darkness. I’d say he used Obelisk and Slifer well. Ra well he used its phoenix mode in the memory world..

To be fair, if you're solely referring to the show, he didn't have them for long (if you take out the filler). The Pyramid of Light movie, he litterally Pseudo, merged them. Also, he was the "King of Games" before he got them, so they were just if anything trophy pieces.

Life shaver is a generically alright card against most duelists, discarding your opponents cards is always a plus in that era of the game.

"The Jack of All Trades is a Master of None, but is still better than a Master of One."

Why did he use Life Shaver? Simple: before playing Exchange, he told Kaiba he knew he was planning to use Slifer against him. Life Shaver was his backup plan in case he never drew Exchange. Now why did he not set it before playing Exchange? That I’m unsure of, though it was Kaiba’s turn, so he couldn’t set cards at that given moment. Maybe before ending his previous turn, he was afraid Kaiba would MST it? Idk.

We just going to forget the Pyramid of Light movie? Kaiba’s computer said his deck was unbeatable with the god cards and we’ve seen that computer use sass and e-TNT to take down Industrial Illusion’s cyber security. You don’t want to need with it.

Let's be fair here, Marik made a deck specifically dedicated to Slifer and Ra. Kaiba played his normal deck, which fit Obelisk's beatdown play style. Yugi's deck is a hodgepodge of random cards with the DM as his primary ace And even at their best when in dedicated decks they had weaknesses, a slifer themed deck can mean nothing if you deck out and your opponent stalls. Ra almost lost to a token and lucked out cause game mechanics were weird and he had ro use a very specific card to avoid losing his 1lp. Obelisk was shown to be weak to traps like Blast from within and Yugi using shatter axe and a card to drop obelisk's atk. So when Atem had all 3 god cards in his deck under normal circumstances he would have won, but yugi played around by using their own powers, specifically Slifers atk reduction eff against them. Also bring up Atem's duel and says he did nothing is missing the point of why he brought them out and used them They werent the final challenge, Atem WANTED to see if Yugi could beat them all because if Yugi couldn't, then it showed he still had a ways to go and would match Atem. The whole point of the ceremonial duel was to show how Yugi grew and how he predicted Atem's strategies, the ceramonial duel was made to be in 2 stages almost like a boss fight. Stage 1 was challenging, but if yugi played right he could beat them. Stage 2 was against Dark magician and since atem only had 1 ace to focus on, his deck from there could focus its support on DM instead of maintaining 3 cards

Kaiba was able to summon Obelisk because he too was a Pharaoh in his past life.

Yugi/ Atem always had multiple strategies rather than focusing on one which made for good tv. If you count Yugioh: The Movie Yugi uses Obelisks infinite strength power to win and almost won using that against Marik

I'd like to believe he ran life shaver and exchange, as a counter to Monster reborn for Marik. And we've never seen Kaiba bring obelisk back from the graveyard. the one time it left his hand he really couldn't do anything (lifeforce sword) or never anticipated the likelihood of it happening.

All three gods had different playstyles and strengths. He took them from decks that mostly catered to their strengths and tried to fit them all in one deck, being the concept of a generalist that used all three instead of a specialist that fully brought out the power of one. How well that was executed, I won’t give an opinion on, but the concept was there

I know that this was a bit unrelated, but Atem did sacrifice Osiris and and Ra to make his Obelisk beyond OP in a movie. Disappointed that this was not replicated in the main DM series

I think something to remember is Yugi doesn’t have the cards to build around the use of the God Cards, he kinda just adds them to his existing deck, at least as far as Battle City goes, he’s in a tournament, so it’s possible he’s only allowed to switch out cards for ones he’s earned throughout the torment. We also need to remember that there isn’t really a lot of time after this for him to get new cards to build around the god cards with after the BC tournament either. In the Anime it goes directly into waking the dragons, where they get stolen from him and he doesn’t have them all season, and in the manga it goes into the Pharos memories, so idk when he’s suppose to have the time to get the cards to remake his entire deck

I think it was only until when Atem had to make a deck for his final duel that he built a deck that somewhat surrounded the god cards but still didn't rely on them like other decks did.

he did he used slipher the executive producer come on lol

Well first off they have protection built in in the show. In the actual game only obelisk has the protection effect and can't be negated. The other two only have the can't be negated effect. Ra and slifer where screwed out of the other shit and ra basically got his other stuff in the form of other cards. And a few ways to search them making him now the next best one next to slifer unless you play the trap.

He barely played them so yeah of course he didn’t bring out their best

It’s because their decks were subsequently built around those god cards though. Yuki’s wasnt. I’m sure he’d display the same prowess if he did

Even in the real game, due to consistency reason, it's better if you just focus on 1 god card instead of all 3. For Atem/Yugi to make a deck to bring out the full potential of all 3 god cards, he has to basically take out all the other cards from his deck and replace them with cards that would support the god cards. Soo basically, no Dark Magician and his support, or any other unnecessary cards that won't focus on swarming the field with monsters that would be used as either tributes for the summon of a god or to activate the effects of the gods. He would also need cards that add cards from his deck to his hand so he can either draw the gods faster, or keep slifer's ATK points as high as possible. Considering that in the anime, they played 40 cards, you can't possibly build a deck that can do all of that, and then also have space for cards that can either protect your monsters or stop your opponent from doing a certain action. Let's take Marik for example, when he played Slifer. His entire strategy was to spam tokens and protect them with revival jam, until he got enough monsters on the field to tribute for slifer. And he had just enough space to add a strategy that would also enable him to draw cards while he does that, and keep them in the hand. However, because he was confident that his god card would not be defeated, he didn't add cards that would stop his opponent from playing spell or trap cards. His god was already immune to most cards, so all he needed was something to stop that 1 card that MIGHT work on a god, and he didn't have that, and thus, Atem exploited revival jam to use Slifer's ability against Marik's revival jam, to deck him out. Kaiba changed his deck a lot from what it was in duelist kingdom. Cards like Battle Ox or Hitotsu-Me Giant where never seen been played by Kaiba after duelist kingdom. When the story transitioned to battle city, what he left from his build in the duelist kingdom was the cards he needed for his virus combo, his blue-eyes and the cards he needed to summon ultimate dragon, and La Jinn with the Ancient Lamp, so he would have an easy combo to spam monsters he could use for tributing. He took out everything else and proceeded to add cards that either spams more monsters, or allow him to tribute his opponent's monsters. He also added cards that enables him to take cards from his opponent, so he could use them. He also made sure to prevent his opponent from summoning strong monsters by adding cards that either half their ATK or outright destroys them. Kaiba changed a lot about his deck between Duelist Kingdom and Battle city, and all of that so he could dominate his opponents with powerful card combos and enable him to get easy access to his god card. But he wouldn't have been able to utilize slifer if he had to also add cards that enable him to draw cards. Sure, card of demise would've done a good job, but then in 5 turns when Kaiba has to discard his entire hand, then suddenly slifer becomes weak AF. When Yami Marik finally appeared, despite him making his deck so he could torture his opponents, he still made sure that the deck focused on bringing out RA and giving him resources to either tribute monsters or gain life points, to add both to RA's ATK and DEF or to just use phoenix mode. When it comes down to it, when Atem and Yugi finally played against each other, you can see that Atem had to not play the magnet warriors and Buster Blader among other cards, so he could add more cards to help him summon the god cards. However, because of that, he barely had any cards to help him protect himself or his gods, and Yugi exploited that to use Slifer's abilities against the other 2 gods, and also go around the protection effects of the gods so he could use cards that do not affect them directly, thus still being able to weaken them. In the Manga, Atem only summons Obelisk and later brings back Slifer from the GY which Yugi stops the same way he did in the anime. This shows that in the Manga, Atem didn't even try to play Ra, as it was already too difficult to summon even 1 god card, not to mention all 3. Plus, Manga god cards are way more OP due to the hierarchy effects, soo if Atem summoned RA, Yugi would have been unable to beat it.

Counter point for the yugi final duel atem didnt expect yugi to force the other 2 out

Little Yugi would've had an amazing Slifer deck with his Queen's knight/silent magician decks

Isn't that the point though? Mario and Kaiba abused the powers of the gods whereas Yugi respected it and did the opposite.

Absolutelly correct. Never liked the way he played them, then again the other cards in yugi’s deck are so fun to watch being played

That first Sliyfer the Sky Dragon deck with Revival Jam was crackkkkkk I loved it

Bro his final duel with Little Yugi was symbolic. Symbolic of beating the ghosts of the past gods

Because the anime adds fillers turns and cards Yami Yugi never used Ra at all in the manga And he refused to use any God cards against people to make sure they won't get hurt. the author himself wasn't even directly involved in the production of the anime. Otherwise it wouldn't have been such a meme galore

Ah yes, Marik's slifer combo, the one combo so mighty that it makes fucking brain control seem like the most op card ever, truly a masterpiece of strategy

God Cards: Boss mode In Yugi's Deck: The nerfed version

I think the reason he failed was less to do with his inability to use it and more the fact that Yugi already had counters prepared... Remember, for Battle City, Yugi had no time to set up counters for the cards.... he barely learned about them when he had to face them....

With great power comes great responsibility. He wanted the cards to regain his memory not for power.

Of course it was never meant for Yugi as it for meant for his other half, Atem. Remember the deck they're using is a fused one with half of each other's preferred cards in it. When it was split for the final duel between them, Atem's deck is now optimized and built to support the 3 Egyptian God cards where as Yugi's deck is made to counter them.

They canonically belong to him so this is all irrelevant

To be fair, anime Life Shaver would be a kinda cracked card outside of just how it affected slifer. Being able to rip a card out of your opponents hand is so good that GOAT format is warped around Delinquent Duo, and Shaver has the ability to rip even more than that if you let it sit around (which would very much be possible in the older pace of YGO.)

Imagine that 3 god cards can be bricky in your deck if you have drawn them all in first turn

That is due to deck construction. Marik built his decks around using Ra and Slifer which while optimized their power did prove to be his downfall. Kaiba's deck was always built around brining out powerful monsters so Obelisk was right at home with it. Yugi never built his deck around those cards and instead had versatility to deal with a wide array of problems and combos which many times proved to be to his benefit.

Yugi respected the ancient Egyptian gods, hence he choose to not use them as weapons to destroy his enemies ,but to save his grandpa and friends.

Not bricking with the 3 god cards is already an impressive feat

Yeah Atem was tired and wanted to go to the afterlife. I might’ve let them get torn apart in the ceremonial duel too 😂.

When kaiba summoned obelisk even though it was seal was kinda actually badass and accurate considering how kaiba had him longer than yugi did

The yugioh zexal theme playing in the background.😂😂

If the egyptian god cards weren't meant for Yugi, then who were they meant for? (spends the next 3 hours explaining why they were meant for Joey)

It is very difficult to create a deck for the three gods together, everyone who used one of them had a deck based on the same thing, the one that Yugi summoned all of them together is very special

Was I the only one thinking how pretty Atem looked in the intro😭

Yugi took advantage of that infinite loop combo making Marik's pupet draw cards everytime that slime came back and make him lose due to not being able to draw anymore. So it backfire on Marik.

When the boss joins your team after defeating them

That’s the thing though, if you notice there is a lot of times in which something would happen that took the cards out of the equation for Yugi. Throw in the fact that in order to properly utilize all three cards abilities, he would need a whole new deck. As somebody that literally made dozens of decks all specifically to themes. I very easily understand that if you wanted to use any of the God cards, not just the original three but the ones from GX you needed specific decks in order to utilize their powers better.

Back in the day, Jam defender stalled out long enough for me to draw exodia. Good times

Kaiba obelisk was like a kid showing off a brand new toy that the other kids couldn't have.

That revival jam strat would be dope if it actually worked.

Yugi: Hold multiverse universe I did use sielfer best abilites its second mouth . 😂😂😂

the infinite combo for slifer is a 3 card combo. very inefficient. slifer is best used as a floodgate obelisk is best used as a biard wipe and wall Ra is an otk. yugi uses them as these kind of tools.

In the manga he didn't even plays Ra. Only in the memories. In the final duel against Yugi, Atem only uses Obelisk, and to summon the tricky he discards Osiris(Slifer) so he can resurrect it at the end.

The reason is that Yami Yugi using God card as high strength card, his deck mostly consist of bring Dark Magician, also support it, hand traps such as Kuriboh, tbh, his deck also support GOD card such as the magnet warrior which allows him to have a quick tribute summon. The tricky which also do the same. Card of sanctity, Pot of Greeds to power up slifer, the 3 knights which for Obelisk effect and there's also support for Ra

The pharaoh was destined to save the world .. but marik definitely gave us smoke legendary duels🤧🔥

Should read the manga. Atem really knows how to use the God Cards there.

In Yugi’a defense he didn’t design the deck around the god cards in the ceremonial duel, his Battle city deck just kinda had slider in it to combat the other two floating around with Obelisk being added in much the same way. His Pyramid of light deck was actually better at gos swarm and could’ve supported him using them more proactively as his deck fell apart with them removed from play during the film, and he only won due to plot convenience (really he did in that film). The ceremonial duel only focused on getting them out to test if Yugi could defeat them as a symbolic gesture, and when he summoned slider by Monster reborn he was put to rest with Yugi countering the spell. And the deck was more dark magician centric

The thing with Atem is that his deck is not made specifically to support god cards. Its an all rounder deck and his ace card is dark magician. Kaiba uses brute force and high ATK monsters and brute force. Thats why Obalisk works with him regardless if he loses obalisk he doesnt need it bc he has blue eyes. Then for Marik his ace and deck focuses on Ra which we have seen yet the most formidible.

He didn't utilized them against Yugi, he just summoned them lol

He has the heart of cards on his side, my boy Atem could literaly draw cards that maybe even where not in his deck, just because he needed them

He could’ve used life shaver trap card to make kaiba discard Obelisk but story plot forbid him

That's how it always works. The bad guy is a total monster, brutal and powerful beyond imagining, and it takes everything the protagonist has to defeat them. Then, as soon as they join forces, the former "bad guy" suddenly gets nerfed, while the protagonist continues growing in power to face the next baddie, and the cycle continues.

If Yugi had started to build his Deck around supporting those 3 Gimmicky card, being that his Opponents specialized in them, would have also ment they would Know how to counter those particular strats

Atem did the best he could while also keeping his usual win con of dark magician, fusions and rituals, otherwise he would have to throw out a lot of other cards to build a deck that revolves around the three god cards

Atem never used all 3 in his Duel with Yugi in the manga

I agree 😂😂, in the end he never maximized the support for the god cards in Yugi/Atem's deck, so bassically he just uses. 3 egyptian god card just for his emergency plan, he actually focused more on supporting his dark magician than the 3 gods

I like to have my own theory on that. Marik and kaiba both use the God cards to their fullest extent, but use them in a "corrupted" manor, I believe. The God cards were the defenders of Egypt and Order. I feel like the natural use of the God's cards abilities (instead of something like the infinite slime jammer hand) shows that, instead of using their "God" abilities for chaotic reasoning.

I prefer to say that the others made a deck focused on the cards, while Yugi just added them to the deck

I don't really think he was intended to use them as weapons in a duel, but rather needed the cards only so he could put the gods to rest with him in the afterlife, as creating the cards awoke them unintentionally like how Atem was by the puzzle.

I mean in Ra and Slifer case, Marik didn’t use it to the fullest. He used Slifer in the dumbest way possible by giving his opponent and extra win con. The conditions for the loop weren’t exactly hard nor was getting Marik to deck out hard either

I don’t think Atem likes to “flex” but he knows what he is capable of.

in the end yami was holding back due to the full power of the god cards due to them being able to kill someone there are only rare phew that survived there full power simply using the Egyptian god cards will change not just weather and etc but can cause massive destruction in there wake so i agree with this

Well in the anime, Yami Yugi only had the God Cards for a short time. After winning Battle City they were stolen by Dartz

They knew yugioh was gone be op with his insta heart if the cards plot point tho and also u gotta understand who he took the cards from ( his rival and the top 2 best boss villains in yugioh history

to be fair the cards that would "bring out the best" of the god cards had yet to be invented or thought of

Yeah, their other masters utilized their effects better. Maybe it’s because their desire to surpass others. Plus Atem’s memories were still hidden when he received them, not to mention other events (Doma, KC Grand Prix) prevented him from fully tapping into their power before the memory world saga.

I think yugi, marik and kaiba each wielded their respective god cards the best as for the final battle with little yugi that was a case of him knowing the weaknesses of the god cards and exploiting them.

But that's a thing the people that were utilising the cars that are devastating abilities were villains atem is not a villain after all and the only reason he used them to their full abilities against yugi is because he wanted yugi to prove to him that he was fully worthy of standing on his own

I just realised, kiaba’s god card would have the highest attack points of any god if they used real cards. Marik’s would go to 3900, never passing 4000. To get yugi’s to 5,000 one must play either pot of greed(banned) or card of sanctity(which doesn’t work like that)

Even if Yugi COULD bring out the potential of Slifer, he couldn't. That one combo that Marik did was a detriment than anything.

What I love is how he could’ve used obeslik or Ras ability once and won the duel lol

ah, the first instance of running meta staples because they fit in your deck and not because your decks built around summoning them 😂

Because he didn’t build his deck around them, they just were there. The others had decks that were purposely built to support the God cards. And that’s just not the way he duals.

He also used all 3 god cards in the pyramid of light movie

That's just it though, that was their hidden weakness in plain sight. Their own power. Either you had to have a deck that completely relied on them, which basically means your fresh out of luck if they're gone or you can distribute their attack strength to still astronomical heights and maintain a deck that can stand its own. Though their potential is infinite the deck they rely on was not. Battle city, set the stamdards to refine the gamr by never before by showing not telling, that the reign of power in its purest essence had come to a close, as an absolute determinant pf the victor. By unironically using ancient beasts heralded as the mightiest inntheir era. Evenmtheir master unferstood this with his sentiment of, "attack points aren't everything". He wasn't just being humble, it was a fact, no one knew absolute power like Atem. Thus no one knew the weakness of absolute power like Atem. It is unsustainable.

Atem sent the Obelisk attack points to the moon though

love the lofi remix of the zexal op

That combo was also the reason marik lost slifer

Because if you watch the Anime its clearly that Atem deck isn't build to maximize his egyptian gods but its build for Dark Magician different case with Marik Ra or Sliffer when he really dedicated his each own decks to maximize their full potential .. Meanwhile for Kaiba case it just happen that Obelisk are a better fit to his beatdown decks so he doesn't need to change his playstyle that much because obelisk doesn't have special requirement that had to do with his atk/def when he get summoned, had he has sliffer for examples he will change his playstyle a lot.

To be fair, I still don’t think it’s possible to build a deck with today’s cards that would support all three and utilize them to their full potential

Being the proper owner and being the best user are usually not the same thing

I think it's for the show

Ich bin einfach so gespannt darauf, wie Ashened weiterhin aussehen wird

Why would Atem use the infinite loop combo that Marik used with Osiris (Slifer) when in that same duel he showed the fatal flaw of that strategy? And there's not much he could have done with Ra that he didn't already do, he was trying to beat Yugi not kill him. Atem showed responsible restraint with Ra and the ability to learn from his enemies with Osiris. He's demonstrating maturity and growth and not just throwing everything at his opponent mindlessly.

Atem needed the God cards to access his memories not be the strongest duelist.

These guys that exploited every ounce of the god cards powers also were consumed by them and lost them