Both on Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s and in real life, Crow Hogan’s Blackwing deck has seen more than it’s fair share of victories. For fans of the game and anime, it makes perfect sense—they’re a deck with tons of answers to nearly every situation. They have search power, draw power, the ability to modulate attack, destroy plenty of the opponent’s cards, and they special summon plenty.

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But at the same time, there’s no such thing as a deck with only good cards in them. And while the Blackwing cards of recent releases have been great, for a long time they were known as a deck that kept getting new cards, but only their original wave was any good. With this list, we’ll be looking at some of the worst Blackwing cards in Yu-Gi-Oh, monsters, spells, and traps.

10 CARDS FOR BLACK FEATHERS

The anime version of this card would probably have gotten banned months after its release because it was so good. It merely required players to send a Blackwing to the grave to draw two cards, something which had synergy with other cards like Vayu and Blizzard. But the actual version of the card places so many additional restrictions that it’s not just no longer worth it, it’s a legitimately bad card. Banishing a Blackwing instead of sending it to the grave is one thing, but then making it impossible to special summon means the cards a player’s drawn are essentially useless.

9 ABROLHOS THE MEGAQUAKE

Giving Blackwings a main deck boss monster is a pretty cool idea. But making it so it can’t be special summoned is already a mistake. It requires two tributes, meaning you’ll have to somehow keep two monsters on the field long enough to summon it, only for it to have a Neo-Spacian Grand Mole type effect that sends monsters back to hand once they battle with it. Lastly, it can lose 1000 ATK to return the opponent’s Spells and Traps to the hand. Not only was Giant Trunade, a card which does the same thing, legal when this released, it was able to do it without costing two Blackwing monsters.

8 KOCHI THE DAYBREAK

Kochi the Daybreak was so close to being a decent card. It could have been a vanilla monster and been better than it is with it’s “effect,” which says if it’s special summoned it can’t be used as Synchro Material. That means it can’t interact with Blizzard at all.

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Konami was so eager to keep Blackwing players from having easy access to level 8 synchros that they turned a decent card into absolute garbage. It’s understandable, as they had a hard time getting Japan to stop playing the deck, but in hindsight even without the effect this card would have only been “okay” instead of a must have.

7 BLACKWING - BOOBYTRAP

Cards like these are why following anime strategies never work. Blackwing Boobytrap activates if its destroyed, giving the player a single card. It also deals 1000 damage should the player control a Blackwing. These are both somewhat decent effects, but one question: ...what happens if the opponent doesn’t destroy it? It just….sits there, forever. The fact that it relies on the opponent to do something over the player being able to use it makes it utterly worthless. Players can’t even destroy it themselves, meaning it’s not even something players could use with Icarus Attack. It also becomes a dead card on the player’s field, making them stuck with one fewer spell/trap card zone than their opponent.

6 BLACK-WINGED STRAFE

This card goes against the core philosophy of Blackwing cards even when the deck was brand new. It’s effect causes players to send a Blackwing to the graveyard to target a Defense Position monster their opponent controls and destroy it. So in a deck with monsters like Gale the Whirlwind which halves ATK and DEF, and Bora the Spear and Blackwing Armor Master that do piercing damage to monsters in DEF position...Black-Winged Strafe destroys Defense Position monsters? Why? Even if it’s immune to battle destruction, that just means Bora and Armor Master can keep hitting it for free damage. This card helped no one.

5 GHIBLI THE SEARING WIND

If Kalut the Moon Shadow is the Blackwing version of “Honest”, then Ghibli the Searing Wind is the Blackwing version of Battle Fader. But unlike Kalut, which remains a staple in Blackwing decks a decade after their initial release, Ghibli wasn’t ever good.

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It special summons itself if the player’s opponent is declaring a direct attack, which is good. It can also switch it’s own ATK and DEF until the End Phase, which...is almost good. It’s ATK is 0 and it’s DEF is 1600. If it were closer to the range of 1900-2100 it could have been a decent card, but instead it’s just something Blackwing players use briefly before becoming better at the game.

4 BLACKBACK

Blackback takes a Blackwing with 2000 or less ATK in the grave and brings it back to life, but at the cost of not being able to Normal Summon or Set. This card isn’t bad, it’s just a waste of time. It’s restriction is unnecessary considering it doesn’t do anything more effective than Call of the Haunted or Pinpoint Guard. It also only brings back Blackwing monsters, meaning players with more varied extra decks are stuck.

3 DAMASCUS THE POLAR NIGHT

Someone was asleep at the wheel when this card was created. At any point during either player’s turn, Damascus can be discarded to grant a Blackwing 500 ATK until the End Phase. This would almost be a good card...if Kalut didn’t exist, and didn’t grant three times the ATK with a near identical activation window. This card’s existence is baffling; Kalut’s not some expensive Secret Rare and this is a cheap version. They were released in entirely different eras, someone just tossed some Blackwing cards into a set just so people could be mad when they opened a booster pack.

2 SOHAYA THE RAIN STORM

Level 5 Synchro monsters were at one point the Blackwing deck’s bread and butter. Cards like Armades or Ally of Justice – Catastor have been important parts of the Blackwing’s extra deck for years. So it’s disappointing that Sohaya the Rain Storm isn’t a particularly crucial part of the deck. It’s effect allows it to special summon Assault Blackwing monsters from the grave, or banish other Assault Blackwing monsters while this card is in the grave to special summon itself. It’s needlessly restrictive, holding it back from retrieving other, equally important monsters like Nothung.

1 HILLEN THE TENGU-WIND

This card is an absolute mess that definitely should’ve been printed with a different effect than the situational one given from the anime. When the player takes 2000 or more damage from a direct attack with this card in the grave, they can select a level 3 or lower Blackwing in the grave to special both it and this card. So a player has to be hit with an attack that’s a fourth of their life points or more to special summon two monsters. As if the opponent won’t find a way to destroy them during their turn too. Adding insult to injury, this effect can be used once per duel...like people even want to use it that many times.

NEXT: Yu-Gi-Oh: 10 Most Powerful Blackwing Cards