The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series never gives Joey Wheeler the respect he deserves. He goes up against some of the best duelists in the world, constantly improving himself along the way. He doesn’t have any special ancient magical items or plot armor that requires him to keep pushing past antagonists, he just keeps getting the job done.

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During the character’s time on the series, he proves himself to be a bad-ass time and again, fearlessly challenging people who are better than him, and occasionally even against people who are legitimately dangerous. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses, but he’s rarely ever discouraged and always tries to keep pushing forward.

10 SACRIFICING HIMSELF TO HELP YUGI BEAT BAKURA

Every time Yugi and his friends ran into Bakura it tended to mean bad news. While Yami was a decent person, the other personality inside of Bakura certainly wasn’t. Bakura challenges Yugi to a Shadow Game where all of his friends are trapped inside of cards. Bakura’s no stranger to murdering people if he has to, so all of them losing would absolutely mean the end for them all. Still, even dying as monsters in the game meant experiencing a kind of “death.” Unfortunately, when Yugi needed to sacrifice a monster to use Horn of Heaven, it meant one of them would need to sacrifice themselves. Joey bravely decided to be the one to do so, which aided Yugi in eventually winning the duel.

9 BEATING BANDIT KEITH

Joey had a rough go of it on Duelist Kingdom, though in the end we saw a new legend formed. He took down multiple high-level opponents during Duelist Kingdom and attained the ten star chips to make it to the top tables. Eventually he found himself up against Bandit Keith, the American champion of the game. Despite Keith cheating at literally every available option, Joey managed to walk away with the win. This victory cements Joey as one of the best duelists in the world, even if Battle City pretended it never happened.

8 SAVING MAI FROM DOMA

During the Waking the Dragons arc, we see a number of supporting cast members resurface under the control of DOMA, but none more important than Mai Valentine. In a desperate attempt to wake Mai up from her brainwashing, Joey winds up in a duel with Mai involving the Seal of Orichalchos.

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As is usual for games like this, Mai gradually begins to come back to herself, but it’s already too late. With Orichalchos activated, it costs the loser their soul. Unable to remain in the game after multiple important duels, Joey passes out and it costs him the victory, though it finally breaks Mai from her alliance to the DOMA organization.

7 WINNING RED EYES BLACK DRAGON

Joey had no business on the island for Duelist Kingdom. He had zero experience, and initially his wins were partially because of Yugi and his expert advice. But Joey earned his spot when he went up against Rex Raptor and his army of dinosaurs. He was forced into a corner after being told Yugi couldn’t help him for once, but that wasn’t enough for Rex to walk away with the win. Instead, Joey smartly managed to take Time Wizard and use it’s (show only) effect to age Rex’s dinosaurs into nothing while transforming his Baby Dragon into Thousand Dragon, getting him the win and Red-Eyes Black Dragon.

6 SURVIVING RA'S WRATH

After making it to the quarter-finals of Battle City, Wheeler found himself in a duel against Odion masquerading as Marik. The two of them wind up in an exciting back and forth duel that eventually leads to Odion nearly winning. But when Joey calls him out and refuses to believe he’s Marik, Odion changes his play and decides to go for playing the Winged Dragon of Ra to prove his identity. Because Odion has a fake Ra card, the two of them are both struck by Ra’s lightning, knocking them both out. But Joey’s willingness to stand because he believes in his friends having his back wins him the duel.

5 DIVING INTO THE WATER TO SAVE YUGI'S EXODIA CARDS

The truth is, Yugi getting Exodia against Seto Kaiba was a one in a hundred chance, and probably wouldn’t have helped out in a lot of the battles on Duelist Kingdom. But to Weevil Underwood’s credit, he was taking no chances and decided to eliminate any wins based off the most random win condition in the game, stealing Yugi’s deck and flinging the pieces of Exodia into the ocean. Without thinking, Joey rushes overboard and tries to retrieve the cards. Though he needs saving in the end, this is a kind of selflessness that we see multiple times in the character from then on.

4 NEARLY BEATING MARIK

Though Joey beat Odion, it was pretty much entirely because of his iron will to get back up after being hit with Ra’s power; he’d been outplayed in the duel. This wasn’t quite the case during his match with Marik, as despite Marik summoning the true Winged Dragon of Ra against him, Joey was still almost able to win.

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Marik cheated and used the power of Ra to inflict the same damage Joey’s monsters felt to Joey, but Joey was still able to remain standing against the Egyptian God’s power for the second time. Joey only loses when he can’t make the last attack to wipe out Marik’s life points—because it’s hard to snatch a W in a card game when you’ve been attacked by a god. Twice.

3 BEATING UP ONE OF YUGI'S BULLIES

Season 0 was entirely different from the rest of Yu-Gi-Oh, as the series barely even focused on actual dueling in the first place. In the episode “Completed!! The Ultimate Game Land” of Season 0, Yugi has his Millennium Puzzle stolen by a man named Dragon. He thinks to make off with it entirely until Joey shows up and demands it back. Dragon challenges Joey to a combat game on a slender pipe, but despite Dragon even pulling out some nunchaku he was still incapable of coming close to harming Joey. By spraying Dragon in the face with a soda, he distracts him long enough to get the puzzle back and win the game.

2 SAVING YUGI'S LIFE

Joey doesn’t really have a great time with the water. In Battle City, Joey gets brainwashed by Marik and forced to duel against Yugi. As most of Marik’s machinations happened to be, the duel was a lose-lose situation for Yugi and Joey. Whoever lost would be dragged into the ocean by an anchor attached to their legs, while the winner could get a key to save themselves. Not only was Joey able to break Marik’s mind control, but he refused to allow Yugi to die, diving into the water to unlock the brace holding Yugi to the anchor, saving them both.

1 TALKING YAMI INTO BEATING DARTZ

During the DOMA/”Waking the Dragons” arc, Yami got into a battle against the second in command from Dartz’s group, Rafael. Yami wound up in a duel that for once actually had no stakes...until he forced them by using the power of the Seal of Orichalchos. Caught in a losing duel for once, Yami lost his other half Yugi during the battle. Angry and despondent at losing his other self, it was up to Joey to talk him into getting back into the battle to get Yugi back. Slugging the King of Games is something few people can claim to have done without getting challenged to a Shadow Game, but Joey did what had to be done.

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