Most duels in Yu-Gi-Oh! are won by either reducing your opponent’s life points to zero or surviving until they run out of cards to draw. But, thanks to special card effects, there are quite a few more ways to win a game of the TCG or Master Duel.
Since the early days of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, there have been instant-win cards with effects that end the duel once you meet all of their conditions. Exodia is the most recognizable of these cards, allowing you to declare victory when you have all five pieces of the Monster in your hand. Over the years, a variety of cards that you can build an instant-win deck around have been released, including Spells and Traps along with Monster cards.
7 Final Countdown
A simple card to use with a difficult victory condition to fulfill, Final Countdown is a Spell that lets you pay 2,000 life points to start a 20-turn counter. If you can stay in the duel for 20 turns after activating this card — both your and your opponent’s turns count as separate turns — you win. To buy enough time for Final Countdown’s effect to resolve, you’ll want to fill your deck with cards that prevent your opponent from attacking or dealing damage to your life points.
Spells like One Day of Peace and Swords of Revealing Light are good tools to have for this strategy. Likewise, the Trap cards Threatening Roar and Waboku can essentially skip an opponent’s battle phase. Monsters that are difficult to destroy by battle — such as the “Timelord” cards — also work well in Final Countdown decks.
6 Destiny Board
Destiny Board is a Continuous Trap that places a Spirit Message card in your Spell/Trap zone during each of your opponent’s End Phases. You instantly win the duel if Destiny Board and all four Spirit Message cards (“I,” “N,” “A,” and “L”) are on your field at the same time. You can add Sentence of Doom to your deck to speed up this process, since its effect allows you to replace it with a Spirit Message. You can also use the Spell card Dark Spirit's Mastery to easily add Destiny Board to your hand.
Most Destiny Board decks will benefit from the inclusion of Dark Sanctuary, a Field Spell that lets you summon Spirit Message cards as Normal Monsters instead of placing them in your Spell or Trap zone. Dark Sanctuary also prevents Spirit Messages in Monster zones from being destroyed by battle or card effects.
5 Exodia, The Legendary Defender
Other than that they both have an instant-win effect, Exodia, the Legendary Defender has little in common with the original version of the Monster. If you summon this card by tributing five Monsters, its attack and defense stats become equal to the combined attack and defense of its sacrifices respectively. Decks that use Pendulum Summons or rapidly Special Summon weaker Monsters will have an easier time getting the Legendary Defender on the field.
While the Legendary Defender has the potential to win a duel with brute force alone, it can also give you an instant victory if you’re able to attack with it and destroy a Dark Fiend Monster on your opponent’s field. There are a few ways to get a Dark Fiend Monster on an opponent’s field. One option is to use Creature Swap on a Dark Fiend you control, to trade it for an opponent’s Monster. Alternatively, the effects of the Link Monster Reprodocus and the “DNA” Trap cards can change Monsters to the desired type and attribute.
4 F.A. Winners
Although its effect may seem a bit complicated, F.A. Winners is a Continuous Spell card that ultimately requires you to fulfill a single condition repeatedly to win by its effect. Basically, you need to deal battle damage by attacking one of your opponent’s Monsters with an F.A. Monster whose Level you’ve raised by five or more. This isn’t too difficult, since the F.A. archetype is based on increasing F.A. Monsters’ Levels with card effects. If you can manage to deal damage with an appropriately high-level F.A. Monster three times, victory is yours.
Since decks that use F.A. Winners rely heavily on the F.A. archetype, adjusting the strategy is more about making small tweaks to the formula than anything else. If you like building a unique deck from the ground up, an F.A. deck may not be for you.
3 Number 88: Gimmick Puppet Of Leo
Summoned using three Level-8 Monsters, Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo allows you to detach one of its Xyz Materials and then place a Destiny Counter on itself once per turn. You win the duel if Gimmick Puppet of Leo has three Destiny Counters on it. The downside of this effect is that it can only be activated if you have no cards in your Spell or Trap zone. You also have to skip your Battle Phase when you activate Gimmick Puppet of Leo’s effect, but this matters less if you’re going for the instant victory.
A card specific to the Gimmick Puppet archetype, Condolence Puppet, can protect this Monster from card effects with its Graveyard effect. As for battle protection, Threatening Roar and Waboku work well in a Number 88 deck, since they can be activated (and removed from the field) even if your opponent decides to skip their Battle Phase.
2 Ghostrick Angel Of Mischief
With any two Level-4 Monsters or another Ghostrick Xyz working as summon material, Ghostrick Angel of Mischief is easy to get on the field. Once per turn, this Xyz Monster lets you attach one Ghostrick card from your hand to it as material. If this Monster has ten cards attached to it (including those used to summon it), you win the duel.
Ghostrick archetype decks have a number of effects that prevent your opponent from attacking by changing their Monsters to face-down defense position. For example, Ghostrick Scare lets you change any number of your face-down Monsters to face-up defense position, then target the same number of Monsters your opponent controls and flip them face-down. By using Ghostrick cards and other effects that protect your Monsters, you can buy time for Ghostrick Angel to attach ten materials.
1 Exodia The Forbidden One
The original instant-win card, Exodia the Forbidden One has an effect that requires five specific cards to activate. If Exodia, along with the Right Leg, Left Leg, Right Arm, and Left Arm of the Forbidden One cards, are all in your hand at one time, you win the duel.
Most Exodia decks use a mix of cards that help you draw continuously and effects that let you add Forbidden One Monsters from the deck to the hand. For example, Exodia decks with mostly Normal Monsters can use Heart of the Underdog to extend your Draw Phase, increasing the chance of drawing Forbidden One cards. Likewise, Emissary of the Afterlife is a good choice for Exodia decks because it adds a Level 3 or lower Normal Monster to your hand when it’s sent from the field to the Graveyard — and all of the Forbidden One cards can be selected with this effect.