Exodia the Forbidden One is one of YuGiOh’s most infamous cards. Join us as we break down Exodia deck’s most valuable cards to build your own

Exodia the Forbidden One is arguably YuGiOh's most famous card. With the simple win condition of assembling all 5 pieces in your hand, you win the game. But if there are only 5 cards you need to win, how can you get them out of the field and have a speedy victory? Well here's a deck guide to help you build your very own Exodia deck!

What is an exodia deck and how does it work?

All Exodia decks are built around one concept: Drawing cards. As you are only allowed one copy of each of the 5 pieces of the forbidden one, you need to go through 35 cards as fast as possible to assemble the pieces. So, the deck revolves around doing anything to draw cards from your opponent gaining life points to you discarding your hand. As long as you assemble the pieces, nothing else matters.

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There are different variations of the Exodia deck which use different methods to draw cards. Some utilize Toon World to draw cards and take up space, while other decks use Blue-Eyes cards to capitalize on cards like "Trade-in" to draw.

Essential cards for building Exodia

With all the variation in Exodia decks, there are a couple staple cards that are essential to assembling the 5 legendary pieces of Exodia. We've put together a list of some of the most important cards for an Exodia deck:

Royal Magical Library

This old-school card is a great pick for your Exodia deck. Each time a spell is activated you get 1 spell counter on this level 4 200 defense spellcaster monster. Once you have 3 counters, you can draw 1 card. This synergizes with the rest of your deck, as it will mostly be comprised of spell cards to help you draw.

Magical Mallet

Another staple of the Exodia deck is Magical Mallet. This spell card lets you refresh your hand by shuffling any number of cards from your hand to the deck and drawing the same amount. This card is great as it helps you cycle through your deck as you search for the pieces.

Chicken Game

This field spell is great for drawing. Each turn for the cost of 1000 life points you can draw a card which can't be negated. Additionally, the player with the lowest life points takes no damage. So on top of the free draws, you take no damage. Typically decks run 3 copies of this and a pseudo-space which mimics a field spell for the turn.

Upstart Goblin

Another great drawing card is Upstart Goblin. Its a free draw as your opponent just gains 1000 life points. But although the price seems steep, even if your opponent has 1,000,000 life points they will still lose once you have all 5 pieces of Exodia.

Other useful cards

Any of the new pot cards: Pot of Prosperity, Pot of Extravagance or Pot of Duality

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Since the ban of Pot of Greed, the have been a ton of new "Pot" cards that have been introduced with similar effects. Pot of Extravagance allows you to banish 3 or 6 cards from your extra deck at random to draw either 3 or 6 cards. Pot of Duality lets you excavate 3 cards and add 1 to the hand while shuffling the rest back into your deck. Last but not least, Pot of Prosperity allows you to banish 3 or 6 cards from your extra deck to excavate the same amount and add 1 to your hand and shuffle the rest.

Ledger of the Ledgerman

The spell card Ledger of the Ledgerman lets you keep the drawing going. Similar to the old school Golden Sarcophagus, you can banish 3 cards from the top of the deck. Then, after 3 turns you get to add them to your hand. This lets you easily clear out 3 cards and keep thinning out your deck for those 5 pieces.

One Day of Peace

This simple card allows for a full turn of both you and your opponent to stall. The spell card allows both players to draw 1 card and take no damage until the end of the opponent's next turn. This card is great for postponing that one extra turn to draw that extra card.

Vortex Trooper

A underrated and uncommon monster card for sure, on an normal summon Vortex Trooper lets you shuffle 2 cards from your hand into the deck and draw 2 cards. Then, when the monster is destroyed, you get to draw one card. Vortex Trooper is a great tool to have in your deck to draw and cycle through cards.

An Example Exodia Deck

Although there are tons of variations of Exodia decks, a great starting one is a Blue-Eyes variant. This Exodia deck utilizes cards like "Trade In", "Cards of Consonance" and some of the Blue-Eyes cards to help go through your deck.

Full card list:

Monsters:

  • Right Leg of the Forbidden One x1
  • Right Arm of the Forbidden One x1
  • Left Leg of the Forbidden One x1
  • Left Arm of the Forbidden One x1
  • Exodia the Forbidden One x1
  • Blue-Eyes White Dragon x2
  • White Stone of Legend x3
  • Royal Magical Library x3
  • Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon x1

Spells:

  • Upstart Goblin x3
  • Toon Table of Contents x3
  • Terraforming x1
  • Magical Mallet x1
  • Trade In x3
  • Cards of Consonance x3
  • Pot of Duality x1
  • Chicken Game x3
  • Pseudo Space x2
  • Cursed Bamboo Sword x3
  • Golden Bamboo Sword x3

Total Crafting Cost:

  • Normal: 240 (8 cards)
  • Rare: 120 (4 cards)
  • Super Rare: 480 (16 cards)
  • Ultra Rare: 360 (12 cards)

There are tons of more cards that different decks use to help them draw cards to assemble the pieces of Exodia. However, it's duelist-dependent. You can explore the tons of Exodia combinations out there and see what works for you! For more YuGiOh! Master Duel content, check out our other guides, and stick around on Esports.gg!