Yu-Gi-Oh! Cool Rares and Promos

This cool promo from the Japanese manga "Weekly Shonen Jump" features two of the most popular characters from the show on the card, Yugi Mutou and Katsuya Jyonouchi! (Joey Wheeler in the American series) Here's the card's effect:

"Offer to shake hands with your opponent. If they accept, decrease both your Life Points by half of your current Life Points. If you have the card 'End Unity' in you hand, you can show it to your opponent and they must shake your hand."

The second card in this promo set is just as cool as it predecessor! It features Yugi, Jyounouchi, Anzu (Tea), Honda (Tristan), and Otogi (Duke) on the card and has a cool effect of it's own:

"Select one face-up monster on your side of the Field. Increase the DEF of that monster by the total DEF of all face-up monsters on your side of the field."

This is by far the coolest looking card from Japan! It features Yami Yugi as the Pharoah and works with the other two promos as well:

"Pay half of your Life Points and activate one of the following effects:
If you have 'YU-JYO' in your Graveyard, your opponent cannot Summon, Flip Summon, or Special Summon any monster for the turn this card is activated.
If you have 'End Unity' in your Graveyard, your opponent cannot activate, play, or Set any Spell or Trap Cards for the turn this card is activated."

Remember how annoying most Warrior decks were because of Freed the Matchless General? Now Spellcasters get their chance at being just as annoying. Introducing the Magician's Valkryia, from the Limited Edition 5 Yugi set. She's looks just like her counterpart, the Dark Magician Girl, but with a slightly cooler effect:

"As long as this card is face-up on the field, no other Spellcasters can be the target of attacks except for this card."

Think we would do cool rares and promos without taking a look at one of the three Egyptian God Cards? This is Yugi's Egyptian God, the mighty Slifer the Sky Dragon, which only comes in the Japanese version of "Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition" for the Game Boy Advance. Because there is no effect text or a way to Summon this awesome card, it is forbidden to play in tournaments. But here is the effect of the card if you want to use it against your friends:

"This card can only be Summoned by offering three monsters on your side of the field as a Tribute. This card's ATK and DEF is 1000 times the number of cards in your hand. When your opponents Summons a monster (including Flip Summoning and Special Summoning), decrease the ATK or DEF (depending on the position the monster was Summoned) by 2000."

One of the most long awaited cards was finally released in the Magician's Force set a few months back. The Dark Magician Girl is one of the best cards Yugi uses. It's really good if you run a Dark Magician or Spellcaster deck. Make sure you can power her up with your Dark Magicians!

One of my favorites from the Magician's Force set, the Chaos Command Magician stops a lot of Monster Cards from either destroying it or taking control of it. With this card, you no longer have to fear those Man-Eater Bugs or lose it to a Relinquished. The only drawback is that Effect Monsters that target multple Monsters like Cyber Jar still destroys this card.

Another cool card from the Magician's Force set, this is the fusion of Dark Magician and Buster Blader. Not only does he act like two Buster Bladers (500 ATK for Dragons in both Graveyards), but is a constant Magic Jammer as well! And just for a collector's tidbit: This picture was an error for the 1st Edition printings of the Booster Pack versions and was only intended for the version released in the Duel Master's Guide. So if you have a 1st Edition one of these, hold on to it!

Not the most powerful of Trap Cards, but it does work great. This card comes as a promo from the disappointing game "The Sacred Cards" for GBA. This card is great when you want to put together a Seto Kaiba deck.

This is another card from "The Sacred Cards." This card was only seen once on the show, and it was played by the Labyrinth Brothers (Para and Dox in the English series). Unlike the show, it doesn't add the ATK points to your Life Points, but to your monster, which is just as good!

One of the best cards out there, she comes from the set Legacy of Darkness. What makes her great is that she not only gets around Gravity Bind, but because her effect only applies during the Damage Step, you don't have to fear Magic Cylinder! She makes her first appearance in the show by being played by Jinzo (aka Big 5 or Lecter) against Kaiba, even though it looks like she has a big Crayola instead of her needle.
(Note: Injection Fairy Lily is Forbidden from Japanese game play)

One of the new cards from the Dark Crisis set, this card helps a lot, especially in Warrior decks or if you play Marauding Captain. Basically, you turn all your one Tribute monsters into a non-Tribute monster for the turn you played Cost Down! So you can play cards like Jinzo, Summoned Skull, Dark Magician Girl, and Vampire Lord without having to Tribute for them! And since it decreased all monster levels by two in your hand, you can also Tribute one monster to bring out cards like Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician!

Not much to say about the ol' Red-Eyes. This was a card released with the 1st Anniversary issue of Shonen Jump. Other than the picture looks cool, there's nothing really special about this Red-Eyes Black Dragon. However, a lot of people like it, so I guess it's cool.

Here's a new card from the Invasion of Chaos set and one of my favorites. Basically, this card is the non-Ritual version of the Magician of Black Chaos (which has not yet been released in America). This card rocks for two reasons: 1) You get a Spell card back when you Summon this card in any way and 2) He doesn't have any specific Summoning requirements! Although he does have the cool effect of removing any monster he destroys, he is also removed when he's removed from the field or destroyed, so that's a downer. Unfortunately, he does not power up Dark Magician Girl because he is neither Dark Magician or Magician of Black Chaos, but he's a good substitute for when the true Black Chaos comes out. By the by, look for the Spell Card "Dedication Through Light and Darkness" if you want to make summoning him easier.

Another cool card from Invasion of Chaos, Chaos Emperor Dragon is one of the two Envoy cards. (The other being Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning) This card is a really big beater for not only its attack and defense, but because of its effect! For every card destroyed by Chaos Emperor Dragon's effect, your opponent takes 300 damage. If you can time it correctly, you can make this end the game immediately. That's why you can only have one per deck.

Originally from Kaiba's Structure Deck, Vampire Lord hit the states when Dark Crisis was released. It's attack and defense isn't much, but it has two great effects: 1) When it does damage, you can make your opponent discard one type of card from their deck and 2) It returns to the field when destroyed by your opponent's Spell and Trap Cards! This card is necessary to any Kaiba deck or Zombie deck.

Tired of having Soul Release used on you? Love using the Envoys? Then you should use Dimension Fusion. There are many combos that work with Dimension Fusion, and all it costs is a mere 2000 Life Points. I've seen it used to where you can end the game immediately if used right.

One of the three promos from the newest Game Boy Advance game "World Championship Tournament 2004," Slate Warrior proves to be the best of the Level 4 1900 attackers. If he's Flip Summoned, he becomes a Level 4 2400 attacker. If he's destroyed, the monster destroying him loses 500 ATK and DEF. There's no real drawback in using this monster, and you can have three in a deck!