Exodia the Forbidden One was the first official Duel Winner in the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card game. Duel Winners are cards that have victory conditions different to the standard winning conditions of the game i.e. your opponent decking out or their life points reaching zero. Exodia is easily the most famous of the Duel Winners, of which there are now 15, and yet he has faded into obscurity. We will explain the lifecycle of the Exodia archetype and their usage in the current Meta.
Table of Contents
- The Exodia Mythology
- The 5 Pieces of Exodia
- Exodia Necross
- Exodia, The Legendary Defender
- The Legendary Exodia Incarnate
- Exodd Master of The Guard
- Archetype Support Cards
- Other Exodia Cards
- The Forbidden One in Gaming
- Is Exodia Still Playable?
The Exodia Mythology
Exodia was an ancient being so powerful and fearsome that his very existence posed a threat for all life. Leaders of the time split Exodia into five separate parts with each part sealed and chained so as to contain his power.
In the anime series Exodia was infamous for never having been played successfully, until Yugi was able to do so against Kaiba in the first episode (that didn’t last long…).
While he was often attempted in duels, It was not until episode 216 that we would see Exodia again where he fought Zorc the Evil God at the end of the series. Exodia lost because his power was linked to one moral man, Shimon, whereas Zorc drew his power from the darkness of all people’s hearts.
Its interesting to see the level of godlike fame Exodia got given he appeared so infrequently in the series. He has such a level of awe by the characters and even the viewers at home. It is most likely because, as described earlier, he had the first ever alternate victory effect.
The 5 Pieces of Exodia
The 5 pieces of Exodia are as follow:
- Exodia the Forbidden One
- Left Leg of the Forbidden One
- Left Arm of the Forbidden One
- Right Leg of the Forbidden One
- Right Arm of the Forbidden One
Exodia the Forbidden One was the only effect monster of the 5 pieces. The others being normal monsters. When all five cards were in one’s hand, Exodia’s effect would trigger and that player would win the duel. The fact that most pieces were low level, low stat, normal monsters actually made them quite easy to find in the deck with cards like Foolish Burial and Armageddon Knight
Exodia Necross
Exodia Necross was the first Exodia alternate we had ever seen before. Summoned by the spell card Contract With Exodia one could summon Necross when all five pieces of Exodia were in the graveyard. At its release it was quite powerful. It gained 500 ATK per standby phase. It was unable to be destroyed by spell cards, trap cards, or battle. However, it was almost as hard as Exodia himself to use. Contract with Exodia could only summon Necross from the hand, so you needed to get the monster into your hand, you needed all five pieces in the graveyard and you needed to find the spell card to summon Necross as well. It required a lot of set up
Necross also suffered from a few other issues:
- Necross is a risk to your life points. It began with 1800 ATK, so you could continue to take battle damage even though it would not be destroyed.
- Necross is a Slow Burner. Even at the time, monsters like Blue Eyes were not uncommon. It would take Necross 3 Standby phases to have more attack, when you consider monsters in the modern Meta with 4000 or more attack, it would take 5 turns to overpower them.
- Necross is easy to remove. First, it can be affected by monster effects, its just not destroyed specifically by battle. Second, as soon as a piece of Exodia is removed from the graveyard, let’s say with Monster Reborn, Necross is destroyed and all the set-up is wasted.
It was the first leap into exploring what Exodia alternatives could do, but it did not really work.
Exodia, The Legendary Defender
Exodia, The Legendary Defender offered an alternative win condition to Exodia. If The Legendary Defender destroyed an opponent’s dark fiend monster you would win the duel. While it was a fun little mechanic, it requires a specific monster type to work limiting its utility. There are Monster and Spell Cards that can change enemy card types, but it needs additional set up from your side.
The set up cost of this card is simply too high. Summoning requires you to tribute 5 monsters and gain their attack. It is hard to summon 5 monsters of any real value, the price of the tribute is far too high and in the fast pace of modern Yu-Gi-Oh, simply not possible. Furthermore, it has no protection affects, your opponent could use a simple trap card, like Trap Hole to destroy it.
The Legendary Exodia Incarnate
The Legendary Exodia Incarnate is, by far, the best re-train of Exodia. It is so powerful simply through one little line “[This card is] unaffected by other cards effects”. It gains 1000 ATK for every Forbidden One piece in the graveyard and at the end lets you add a Forbidden One piece to your hand. Essentially, it acts as a way to get all the cards into your hand letting you win by Exodia’s original effect.
Unfortunately, this card can still be destroyed by battle and its effect reduces its ATK every turn as pieces are cycled back to your hand. Fortunately, the continuous trap card Obliterate was added at the same time and allowed you to send one Forbidden One card back from your hand to the Graveyard.
Exodd Master of The Guard
Exodd Master of The Guard was the cover card for the structure deck Invincible Fortress in 2006. It is not the worst card in the world, but it requires you to tribute one sphinx card to special summon it. Cards that requires specific summoning conditions are innately worse than cards that do not. In addition, its effect: Inflict 1000 damage for every flipped earth card, is a bit lacklustre. Again, with no innate protection, the card is easy to remove.
Archetype Support Cards
The best 5 support cards for traditional Exodia are as follow:
- Dark Factory of Mass Production – Add 2 Normal Monsters in your graveyard to your hand. Cards like Foolish Burial will get the normal Forbidden One cards into the Graveyard
- Gold Sarcophagus – Essentially lets you seek out any card in the deck and after a delay add it to your hand
- One Day of Peace – Allows you to stall your Opponent. Its unlikely you will draw Exodia on the first hand, you will need to survive as many draw phases as possible to win.
- Sangan – Allows you to add the effect monster, Exodia The Forbidden One from your deck to your hand when Sangan is destroyed.
- Pot of Duality – A classic card advantage card that allows you to excavate the top three cards on your deck
Other Exodia Cards
We wanted to add one final section discussing two other Exodia cards that did not have enough use to mention by themselves, but we would regret leaving out.
True Exodia is a card only in the Original Card Game, it was never adopted into the Trading Card Game. It is a bit of a gimmick card and actually leads you to losing if you play it in the majority of scenarios.
Exodius The Ultimate Forbidden Lord is actually used outside Exodia archetypes. It works better as a mechanism to recycle cards from your graveyard back into your deck rather than having any value as an Exodia re-train.
The Forbidden One in Gaming
While there were several Japanese only Yu-Gi-Oh playing card games, the first world wide release of Exodia was on the PlayStation 1 in the game Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories. It was both incredibly hard and incredibly rewarding to summon him in this game. Drawing cards was a slow process and the mechanics of Yu-Gi-Oh were not completely ironed out.
Alternatively, in the game Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum summoning Exodia was not actually an instant win. Instead, he acted like a normal fusion summon that caused massive damage. In fairness, the monster was so strong that you had essentially won the match if you managed to summon him.
Is Exodia Still Playable?
Yes, the forbidden one can still be played in casual matches. The only thing that makes it barley possible is the addition of The Legendary Exodia Incarnate and support cards over the years. Alternative win conditions are meant to be hard, very hard, otherwise everyone would do it. Over the years some alternative win conditions have even been banned because they were too easy to achieve. Ultimately, it is a great feeling to blow someone away with Exodia, so why not give it a go?
