I remember in my young days when the game was active, there were a lot of cards that seemed so good to me, that i later on found out were really bad i competitive play. I went to tournaments every week, and it wasnt until a little after DM10 came out, that i really started to become better. Before DM10 i always thought power was the way to go, just to use a lot of creatures with high power. Using more copies of all the cards in my deck for consistency never crossed my mind, and draw power didn't seem so important either. Ofcourse i was a noob at card games at this point, as well as being a young kid. But now i want to go back and take a look at some of the cards i thought were really good, but that are actually not nearly worth using in a serious deck.

Its not just creatures with a lot of power, but also some smaller ones with effects that seemed good to me at the time. Ofcourse this list could potentially be endless, but i will try to pick out cards that still today may seem good/decent at first, just to prove that they are bad if you playtest them. And no, i am not going to include Billion Degree Dragon, Death Cruzer or Headlong Giant. They are the biggest creatures in the game, but they are absolutely horrible due to their mana costs and effects or lack of effects.

- Kuukai Finder of Karma



Kuukai Finder of Karma is a card i always thought was great, and some people probably still do. At first look it may seem like the king of blockers, that can block all your opponents attacks. While yeah it can, why would you want to summon an evolution creature, that will do nothing to win the game for you? Unless you are using a Diamond Cutter deck, Duel Masters is about breaking your opponents shield and then finishing them. Blockers should only be used to protect your own shields and creatures, so that you can win before your opponent does. Kuukai is a card that implies that you can use blocking as a strategy, but that doesn't really do anything for you. And besides Kuukai's bait creatures are all trash. The only half-decent bait it has would be Ur Pale Seeker of Sunlight, who only gets its full power if you run mono light... All the other Mecha Thunder are either more expensive than Kuukai or just bad. But lets say everything goes well, still all your opponent has to do if you summon Kuukai, is just play a Terror Pit, Corile, Surfer, Natural Snare or any other good staple removal that pretty much every deck runs. And down the drain it goes, and you went through all that hazzle for nothing. Play cards that help you win, dont play crappy cards like Kuukai  


- Death Smoke



This is a card i always thought was a true staple in any deck that used Dark.. I believed this through the entire lifespan of the game, and up until around 5 years ago. The card seems useful because its cheap and it destroys any untapped creature regardless of power. The card is not directly bad, but i never make room for it in any competitive deck anymore. The fact that you can play it already on turn 4 is also irrelevant, as the first few turns you want to build up your hand and/or field. If your opponent summons a random creature on his 3rd/4th turn, and you just destroy it with Death Smoke. Sure its dead, but then he summons a new creature on his 4th/5th turn, and so what did you really accomplish? Nothing You just nullified both yours and his turn, without doing anything to build up your chance of winning. Removal cards are mostly for lategame, and for major threats like finishers and big evolutions etc. Death Smoke will never touch evolution creatures, nor speed attackers or any other creature that is on the offense. You are just much better of sticking to Terror Pit, which can destroy anything and is a trigger, or even Hopeless Vortex if you want additional Dark removal. Just don't bother with Death Smoke, its not worth it guys!


- EVERY VANILLA BEATSTICK IN THE GAME!



This is not just about Deathliger Lion Of Chaos. The game is exhausted with vanilla beatsticks, which are just creatures with high power and no additional effect. There is one vanilla creature in the game that is worth using, and that is Gonta, because it is super cheap and has the highest highest power of any non evo 2 drop. ALL other vanilla creatures in game however, are not worth the paper they are made of in a duel. Cards like Deathliger, Hanusa, Billion Degree Dragon, Astrocomet Dragon, Roaring Great Horn, Abzo Dolba, Ultracide Worm, Ultimate Dragon and the list goes on and on. All these cards have high power, they break several shields, they can probably work to some extent in low level play, but they have NO ADDITIONAL EFFECT. They need to be summoned, stay alive for one turn and then attack before they start giving you any value. This also goes for smaller cheaper creatures that dont have any effect. For cards like this to be good, you need time, which you do not have in high level play. Every turn is important, and you want to make sure you make good use out of every turn. Summoning a creature with no effect and ending your turn, does absolutely nothing to affect the game before it is your turn again and it can attack. You want to play creatures that immediately impact the game in some sort. If a creature has blocker, speed attacker or an effect that triggers when summoned, then it will have an impact as soon as you play it, which provides value. There are ofcourse exeptions like Bolmeteus Steel Dragon, Bluum Erkis Flare Guardian, Cryptic Totem etc. But these are not vanilla creatures, they are creatures that have effects that provide so much value when getting them off, that it is actually worth risking. Their effects are so dangerous, that just summoning them creates a huge sense of urgency for your opponent to deal with them before they kill him. But for a creature with no effect? Nope, never worth waiting for. Even if there was a 6 drop creature with 10 000 power and triple breaker, i still wouldn't use it in any competitive deck. Make sure every turn has its impact, and your deck will be better.


- Ladia Bale, the Inspirational



This takes us back to the previous spot, which is "dont use vanilla beaters". Since Ladia Bale is a blocker, people think tend to not treat it as a vanilla creature, which on paper it actually isn't. But if you evolve one of your guardians into a 9500 power double breaker, are you not going to attack with it? Did you do all that just to have it sit there and block attackers? Well if you did, why didn't you just summon Gran Gure Space Guardian instead and keep the evo bait?Ladia Bale is a vanilla beater in disguise, you play it to attack with it, hence its blocker ability is irrelevant. If your opponent has an Überdragon Bajula on the field, and you have to keep Ladia Bale untapped so it can block Bajula, you are in deep crap anyways and Ladia Bale will not get you out of it.

But hey, didn't i say in the last spot that speed attackers were worth it? And Ladia Bale like all evos is a speed attacker right? Well yeah, but its an evolution, and you just gave up whatever you used as bait to play it. So it is still -1 card advantage, as 2 cards become 1. And you didn't improve your number of attackers either, you just used an extra card to increase the power of your 1 attacker. Its just a losing game against a player with a deck who gets value out of all his cards, so just dont bother


- Cruel Naga Avatar of Fate



So the last card i want to talk about in this post, is Cruel Naga Avatar of Fate. When DM 12 came out, everybody thought all the Vortex Evolutions had to be so good. Probably blinded by the fact that they are super/very rares, they have seemingly great effects and they have high powers. In the end it turned out only 1 of them were great, and that is Wise Starnoid Avatar of Hope. Yes Wise Starnoid is amazing, and Aura Pegasus and Soul Phoenix can also work in the correct decks. Death Phoenix has the by far best effects of them all, and would be one of the better cards in the game if it's bait cards didn't suck so badly. But unfortunately they do.....

Anyways, lets talk about the worst of all of them which is Cruel Naga Avatar of Fate. This is the only one of the Vortex evos i would never even try to build a good deck around, for the simple reason that it is not neccesarily your friend even if you are the one using it. For a Vortex evo to be useful, its needs to provide incredible value when successfully summoned. Summoning them is effectively -2 card advantage, as 3 cards become 1. This means you have to take a risk when trying to bring them out, and why on earth would you do this and lose 2 cards to bring out a creature that has a 50/50 chance of screwing you over more than your opponent? Sure Cruel Naga is big unblockable (kind of similiar to Crystal Lancer), but it is its nuke effect that is the issue. You can never safely have the advantage over the field if you have Naga on your side. If your opponent has any sort of removal to hit it with, that also means you lose everything else you have on the field. Does this sound safe in a game where like every deck spams Coriles, Terror Pits, Surfers etc? You are basically holding a bomb and giving a detonator to your enemy.

Even if Cruel Naga was just a regular evo, or even just a 6 drop you could just summon, it would still not be consistent. So when considering the fact that you need to build up and sacrifice 2 race specific creatures to summon it, it becomes pretty clear that the card is terrible. Yes it is terrible, and never worth using in any deck. Its bait is also not the best. While its chimera baits like Gigabalza and Gigaslug are actually very good cards, its Merfolk bait is terrible and never something you would use if it wasn't for bait. So this means your deck will also be affected negatively by the Merfolk bait cards, which further explains how awful Cruel Naga is.

Its sad though, because Cruel Naga is a super cool card. But it is just never worth using for anything other than fun. Dedicating a deck to a card that is just as likely to screw you over is just wrong Especially when comparing it to its brother Wise Starnoid, which has everything going for it. It has great bait cards like Emeral, Corile, Kolon etc that are great cards you would use regardless of Starnoid. It is also 1 mana cheaper, has the same power and not to mention an absurd effect that is guaranteed to provide you atleast 2 shields (making up for the -2 cards when summoning it). It has everything Cruel Naga lacks, putting them on complete opposite sides of all rankings.


So there you go! Those are some of the examples of cards that seem good, but in reality are never worth using. If you have other examples or you disagree with any of these picks, please comment and we can discuss!