Demise & Ruin - Failed Cards, Archetypes, and Sometimes Mechanics in Yu-Gi-Oh 

Here before the thumbnail typo gets fixed. "DESMISE"

"With so many bricks, it could build affordable housing across the world" went from destroying the world to rebuilding it, good on Demise

"This deck's bricks make Blue-Eyes look like Dragon Link." Lol. EDIT: Speaking of a bricky archetype that saw play, there was the Monarch series. And that's mainly due to the good effects.

Here before the obligatory Ruin & Demise support gets revealed

They will never take that epic Master Duel soundtrack tho.

The Demise-Doom Dozer-Megamorph OTK deck was how I got my only local tourney win so the card will always hold a special place in my collection. Even when I recently traded in 95% of my cards, I held back those Demises.

You could argue that summoning the Ritual Monster from the hand and/or deck is how the mechanic should've always worked

I've screenshot the typo in the thumbnail. You can run, Duel Logs, but you can't hide.

Demise/Ruin was one of my favorite Ritual decks. Just love Rituals, you don't see them that much.

Demise Didn't fail, The End didn't Occur yet...

Ruin and Demise support about to happen 🔥🔥🔥🔥

I really wonder what they were thinking when they made the field spell. A field spell for monsters famous for wiping the field, that wasn't itself immune to that wipe?

I'm sorry, but the names of the two monsters, "Demise, King of Armageddon," & "Ruin, Queen of Oblivion," are MONEY NAMES. Like, you can't get any more hype than THAT. I want them to make another comeback... I love the artwork for those two in particular.

Mf called her a wallpaper that is too cold.

Oh man, I've been dreading this video. Since I got back into Yu-Gi-Oh during COVID in 2020, Demise & Ruin has been on of my favorite decks to play. I knew it wasn't the best deck. But I still love playing and tweaking it regularly.

Even in Duel Links, with Ritual suppport skills, the limitations of the name replacement plus the lack of a good Shurit substitute has left this archetype floundering.

Thing is, I love this archetype. I still play it in Master Duel. I do wish it was better, yes. But i enjoy nuking the field while Ruin goes nuts with its battle damage.

original Demise has a special place for me because I won the Shadow of Infinity sneak peek with it, and it was my very first yu-gi-oh tournament 🙂

This set was my first pre-release event in a card game and I love the aesthetic both inherent to ritual summoning and Ruin and Demise, so it will always be one of my favorite decks. Even then, I'm not blind enough to ignore their glaring issues, it's a lot of work for very inconsistent payoff. Though, the times I can pull it off, the high is enough to make me forgive all the lows (let's ignore that those highs have only been achieved against my own low-power decks). I really wish they would give them new support, as improbable as it is.

Since we're talking about cards with Solo Modes in Master Duel, Starry Knights would be perfect for one of these. A cool idea that is so close to being halfway decent.

if you were to ask me, i just think Konami was afraid of giving the small ritual monsters the "This card can be treated as the whole tribute for the ritual monster", and i know it won't fix the deck but probabbly will be at least playable

demise bros gonna be eating good when Rage of the Abyss drops july

So Demise’s very early success outside its own archetype ended up being the archetype’s DEMISE as its issues with bricking and problematic ritual setups made it hard to keep it consistent with its later support cards. No wonder the Master Duel Solo Mode for Demise and Ruin was mainly annoying for bricking too much. I do like the idea of ritual summoning from the deck being still used even today with Voiceless and earlier rituals like Megalith. It definitely fixes the issues of bricking when trying to get the monsters set up reliably.

3:14 Until the Demise players realized they could just lie about having their combo pieces in hand when Mind Crush was activated.

The Denise otk deck +the Horus cards make for a fun gimmick deck

Please do the Gusto archetype next. It would be interesting to see your analysis as to how the archetype failed and isn’t good

It is allmost impressive how Konami managed to give demise, one of the most iconic ritual mosters in the game, support that is so terrible in every way that you basicaly can't use the new cards. Demise is one of my favorite cards in the game (hell, seeing new demise cards is what brought me back to yugioh) and "support" this terrible is just heartbreaking. Hell, you even managed to miss a downside of breaking of the world. because the monster in your hand becomes the level of the monster on your field, which is way worse than the other way around.

I feel that Ritual monsters should of been originally extra deck monsters with Fusion back in the early days. Sonic Bird, Sengu and Manju would be the Ritual spell searchers.

Thank you for dropping this video. It helps immeasurably for my fanfic project.

Yeah…DESMISE was definitely a failed archetype, instead of DEMISE.

I remember struggling so hard against this deck in the master dual solo mode when I got back into the game around MD’s release. Now, I pretty much see all the choke points or where to throw hand traps.

_End of All Worlds_ Ritual Spell _(This card is always treated as a “Chaos” card.)_ _While You control a face-up Ritual Summoned “Demise”, “Ruin” or “Chaos” monster, this card you possess is always also treated as a Quick-Play Spell. This card is used to Ritual Summon (From your hand, Deck, Spell/Trap zones, GY or Banishment) "Ruin, Queen of Oblivion", "Demise, King of Armageddon", and/or, if you control either of the above face-up, any other Ritual monster(s). You must also banish cards from your hand, field, GY and/or Extra Deck equal to or exceeding the combined levels of the Ritual Monsters you Ritual Summon._ _Demise, Chaos Emperor of Armageddon_ (DARK) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fairy/Ritual/Effect _You can Ritual Summon this card with "End of All Worlds". This card's name becomes "Demise, King of Armageddon" while outside of your main deck. While this Ritual Summoned card is on the field, your Ritual Monsters cannot be destroyed by battle, and their attacks cannot be negated. If all monsters used to Ritual Summon this card were Ritual Monsters, you do not pay LP to activate the effects of your monsters. You can pay 2000 LP (Quick Effect); destroy as many other cards on the field as possible, and if you do, inflict 200 damage to your opponent, and increase the ATK/DEF of all monsters you control by 200, for each destroyed card they controlled._ ATK/4000 DEF/4000 _Demise, Chaos Empress of Oblivion_ (LIGHT) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fairy/Ritual/Effect _You can Ritual Summon this card with "End of All Worlds". This card's name becomes "Ruin, Queen of Oblivion" while outside of your main deck. While this Ritual Summoned card is on the field, your Ritual Monsters cannot be destroyed by card effects, and their effects cannot be negated. If all monsters used to Ritual Summon this card were Ritual Monsters, All monsters you control can make a second attack per battle phase. If a Ritual Monster you control destroys an Opponent’s monster by battle or card effect: You can inflict damage to your opponent, and/or gain LP, Equal to the Total ATK/DEF that monster had._ ATK/4000 DEF/4000 Basically the idea is to make “Ultimate” versions of “Demise” and “Ruin”, by… ⚪️Giving them a MASSIVELY powerful but potentially expensive Ritual Spell that would let you spam Ritual Monsters as an all or nothing last resort… ⚪️Make the Ritual Monsters beefed up versions of even their “Supreme” King/Queen selves, with a level of 12 and a mighty ATK/DEF stat (Supreme Demise’s ATK/DEF +1000 to be specific)… ⚪️And augment their effects to buff themselves, their partner AND your other monsters, ritual or otherwise, depending on the content of their summon.

It's funny how in lore, seeing one of these two means that you are doomed, everyone you know and care about are doomed, every kind of lifeform in the whole planet is doomed. And for them it's just Tuesday. Meanwhile on the actual card game... you can see the video.

Another video we were all waiting for. Thanks, Duellogs. I personally love Demise. I just love cards that destroy other cards, periods.

Love the Demise deck. I use it in any of the lower powered events in master duel. It’s pretty satisfying ritual summoning both at the same time. Sadly they are underpowered like mentioned with no great searchers or negates. Wiping the field and doing as much damage, followed by xyz summoning Gustav to finish them always put a big grin on my face. I always felt like a link or XYZ monster that uses both Ruin and Demise r10(or ritual raven) that when removed from the field could splash into one of the two materials used would help in the duels I had. It could be a card with both characters on it, with similar protection on the field. Would love to have some worthwhile support since I love any kind of gladiator/berserker monster

I truly believe that they should rework the rules about ritual monsters and basically make them act like all the other monsters from the main deck so make them normal summonable, special summonable even if they haven't been summoned properly, being treated as normal monsters if they don't have an effect (instead of non-effect monsters) so they can benefit from cards related to normal monsters, etc...

I feel like Dogmatika really got the ritual mechanic down perfect. Being able to use your extra deck for the summons makes so much sense for a ritual deck since they already feel like main deck fusion monsters. If the Demise cards ever get new support, hopefully its in the form of Dogmatikas playstyle

9:51 there was an error where you said "Preprep" while showing "Preparation Of Rites". Love your content, surprised no one else spotted it.

Many many years ago I ran Demise OTK with geartown variant with alot of success. This is the first deck I tried to bring back after MasterDuel came out and little did I know the rule change and the geartown trick no longer works.

I have an Idea for the next episode: ARCHFIEND. Did you knew archfiend got actual cards in 2013? Probably not because if you were playing dark fiend back then you were using infernities with a singular copy of Heiress and palabyrinth. Archfiend has never been a solid archetype and the few good cards like though ruler or Heiress were abused by actual decks, most notably infernities, and that's with an amazing support in Tour Guide. The deck was at its best during early 2014, but even then the deck had a problem of struggling to make XYZs due to different levels (Can't decide if it wants level 3, 4, 6 or 8), and synchros were not an option due to a lack of tuners and tour guide not working with synchros. It did not help they were hit from generic support who would have helped its gameplan like monster reborn, heavy storm, solemn judgment or Sangan, and then Dante and burning abyss happened in late 2014, raigeki got back to the game and they limited Tour Guide a few months after, ruining any chance of archfiend to work, a cool deck with lot of problems to extend plays or come back, easy to disrupt and very slow on their combos.

seeing the pair of demise and ruin go from teen to young adult to adult made my inner goslingbro emerge

There should be a Spell or Trap while face-up on the field that when a Ritual spell is activated it can special summon a token with exact levels for the tribute of a Ritual Summon.

It always bugged me why they didn't give Ruin higher ATK than Demise, it's like they didn't even think about balancing these two cards, they made Demise superior for no reason.

10:53 My aren't we modern players spoiled when we expect a field spell to have a floating effect or search. I think the field spells Mausoleum of the Emperor and The Gates to the Dark World are examples of how a field spell should be designed. They have effects that can theoretically benefit the opponent if they have the right deck, but in practice benefit the owner more. At the same time they're still more useful than something like "Umi" (as in Umi itself isn't very useful, cards that benefit if you have Umi on the field are great, but Umi itself is meh)

Yeah, I kind of saw this one coming. If they made the Demise & Ruin archetype have legit useful main Deck monsters that aren't Rituals, I think it would be a solid rouge deck. Example: Demise, Fighter of Armageddon Level 4 DARK Warrior ATK 1800 DEF 1000 Effect: On summon, destroy one card. If this card is destroyed, add 1 Ritual Spell or DARK Fiend Ritual monster from your Deck to your hand. If this card is in the GY, reveal 1 Ritual monster from your hand to SS this card. It is destroyed during the End Phase. (Hard once per turn) Ruin, Mage of Armageddon Level 4 LIGHT Spellcaster ATK 1700 DEF 1000 Effect: On summon, target a monster you control. It can attack an additional time this turn. Once per turn, target one monster on the field, double it's Level until the End Phase. If this card is destroyed, add 1 Ritual Spell or LIGHT Fairy Ritual monster from your Deck to your hand. Not great, but would be helpful.

The next wave of support to follow the pattern looks something like this... 6 new main deck monsters. 2 for Demise 2 for Ruin and 2 for either. The either are both Level 6. the 3rd level 6 is for ruin and the other 3 are level 8. The Demise ones being both 8 means that they each have clunky special summons and WHEN effects... When this card is summoned draw 3 cards and then return one card in hand to bottom of deck. They can be summoned from hand or GY; WHEN your opponent summons during your turn, or IF you send a ritual from your hand to the GY. Then one of them has an effect to add a ritual monster to hand and the other a ritual spell that mentions ruin or demise names like the End of the World and such. so by having both you could get one set. But these effects are triggered IF used for a ritual summon of a Dark Fiend Ritual summon. But only from the field. The Ruin ones have the same generic effects; however the Level 6 is the ritual monster and the level 8 the spell if used for a light fairy rit summon. On top of that They have one other factor; While on the field your Fairy Light Ritual monsters MAY atk directly IF your opponent has more cards on the field then you do; the damage they would inflict from these atks is doubled. But only by paying 1000LP to make each of those atks. Finally the pair for either that are level 6's. Are considered ritual monsters IF used as tributes for the ritual summon of level 10 ritual monsters. If Breaking the World is on the field then they have their other effects. One is if that field spell is in play then return that field spell to your hand to spec summon this from the GY or face up banish. If summoned this way then you may add any 2 cards from your deck that mention a card or cards with Ruin or Demise in their text to your hand. Then IF both cards were added to your hand you CAN Gain 2000LP and draw 2 cards THEN IF you cannot immediately tribute the material and Summon a Demise or Ruin Ritual monster you banish your hand. The separate effects being one draws you a card each time a ritual monster that used this card as tribute declares an atk; while the other lets you draw 1 card for each card your opponent has destroyed by a ritual monster that used this card as tribute. All six help sure... but not entirely; so still not enough. At this point I think a link monster or such that is demise and another that is ruin are prob the best solution. Ones that let you use everything from your deck as a quick effect so that the rituals can be made lightning fast while deck thinning a large number of cards. For example "Luna-C the fanatic of ruinous demise" Link-2 one light fairy and one dark fiend as the link requirements. If summoned from Extra deck and only once while this card is on the field you may summon 1 each of Ruin and Demise Ritual monsters to both points this card point to by using the rit spell and tributes for the spell from your deck or banish zone and sending those tribute to your GY (these cards ignore any effect that would redirect them from the GY). If this link summoned card leaves the field or if this card in the GY or Banish zone is summoned to your field you Can summon up to 2 monsters from your MD that mention Ruin or Demise and one of each (one mentioning ruin and one mentioning demise). All of this to say that Konami would need to go ultra usable to make it work and in doing so make them the bane of TCG and OCG formats the world over..

It hurts to see my favorite cards fail.

I played this archetype when I first started playing Master Duel. Didn't take me long to realize I needed to try a different deck.

I've got a soft spot for Ruin because I was able to splash it into my casual Cyber Angel deck extremely easily with it being a light fairy ritual. Ritual Sanctuary made looking for the right monster/spell a non-issue, while constantly bringing back the searchers. Weirdly enough, I'm not entirely sure if it'd work the same with Demise, who might actually be brickier since he's a fiend and can't be searched.

6:22 Did anyone notice that he said "deal 2000 damage for every card destroyed" and not 200 damage? For a second I panicked thinking this could be the most broken card ever until I actually read the card.

Idea for Level 6 retrains of Ruin and Demise: _Demise, Heir of Armageddon_ (DARK) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fiend/Ritual/Effect _You can Ritual Summon this card with "Cycle of the World". This card's name becomes "Demise, King of Armageddon" while in the hand or on the field. If this card is Ritual Summoned: You can Destroy 1 Card on the field. Once per turn (Quick Effect), You can add 1 card to your hand from your deck that mentions “Ruin” in its name or text. The following effects are applied while this card is face-up on the field or in the GY:_ ⚪️Your Opponent cannot negate or respond to any attacks your Ritual monsters declare. ⚪️Inflict 200 Damage to your opponent for each of their cards that is destroyed. ATK/2200 DEF/1500 _Ruin, Heir of Armageddon_ (LIGHT) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fairy/Ritual/Effect _You can Ritual Summon this card with "Cycle of the World". This card's name becomes "Ruin, Queen of Oblivion" while in the hand or on the field. If this card is Ritual Summoned: All monsters you control can make a second attack per battle phase this turn. Once per turn (Quick Effect), You can add 1 card to your hand from your deck that mentions “Demise” in its name or text. The following effects are applied while this card is face-up on the field or in the GY:_ ⚪️Your Opponent cannot negate or respond to the activation of your Ritual monsters effects. ⚪️If a Monster you control destroys a monster by battle, it can make a second attack in a row. ATK/2000 DEF/1500

I just find it funny that the one with the lower attack gets the battle effect

Oh hey, I've been trying to tinker with a Demise/Ruin deck for the last week and change. What convenient timing!

What this theme of cards need is more cards, specifically main deck mons for Ritual fuel. Witness of Armageddon Lv. 4/dark/fiend/Atk:1000/def: 1000. -if used for the ritual summon of a Dark Fiend Ritual monster, it counts for the full summon. If this was used to ritual summon a 'Demise' ritual monster: you draw a card. Survivor of Oblivion Lv. 4/light/fairy/Atk: 1000/def: 1000. -if used for the Ritual Summon of a light Fairy Ritual monster this card counts for the full summon. If this was used to Ritual Summon a 'Queen of Oblivion' Ritual monster: for every card on your opponents field deal 300 DMG, and increase that Ritual monsters Atk & Def by that same amount. -we can also have 2, or 4 more monsters to aode in actual battle and board presence. As for Spells & Traps, give this theme cards allow for flexible ritual summon with bonus effects depending on which of the pair you summon. Also, give more field support for the deck, protection from mostly enemy card effects + negate monster effects. And finally have a better Field Spell that has a benefit for being popped.

The ritual spell is literally called “END OF THE WORLD”. So tragic that such a cool name was wasted on this guff.

You know say what you want the names of these cards and it's set it's so cool, end of the world sounds awesome

Given that the small rituals were 4s and the big rituals were 10s, the deck could use some level 2 effect monsters to help round out those numbers and search for the other cards maybe.

Demise + Doomdozer OTK was fun as hell back in the day

The fact that Ruin had 2300 attack so she lost against all the monarchs which had 2400 attack was just a huge mistake. If she had 2450 or 2500 attack at least she may have been useable back in 2006-2007. No battle phase protection would still hinder her ability to be a top card though.

Okay but if i was in the anime this would 100% be my deck. Like come on it's so suited for that

The original demise and antispell fragrance carried me through spellbook/dragon ruler format. Oh how the mighty have fallen

good one duel logs! As a kid i only bad Ruin, and I was like man she’s so cool i wish i could play her! But even then knew it was bad lol. Then when the support dropped i was hyped for about 4 seconds before i read them. Why would they be rituals as support???

Its such a shame that rituals cant get a massive overhaul without having to eratta or massivly change basically every card. You could always have rituals to be in your extra deck instead of the main. It would definitely give rituals a large power boost but then it breaks all sorts of support that helps search ritual monsters... What I think would be really cool is to basically create a new extra deck special summoning mechanic that is based upon repated uses of a spell increaseing the spells strengrh and because of this rhe monster summoned. You have it so the spell has different componets required to use it to summon the monster. This could be literally anything from another spell, a trap, a fusion, a level 4, a dark, a warrior, field spell etc etc. you could have it pull from specific areas like hand, deck or gy also. And completing its required cost allows you to summon a spell rank x card. You could also have cards that have no additional cost only grank 1 rank. So let's say its an essy condition and so doing it let's you summon a spell rank 2 monster. You can then use another version of a spell summoning card plus the rank 2 monster to summon a spell rank 4 monster. You can have it so difficult componets give higher ranks to the spell

You know, maybe one way to deal with the heavy resource requirements would be to have some hand ripping effects in the archetype? It would fit the motif of the archetype, and because it's such a clunky archetype, you could justify giving them hand rips, which are normally considered pretty overpowered.

Archetype archive vol2 looking great

Future Demise/Ruin Support that are Continuous S/T or Field should have this effect: "While you control a Ritual monster, this card cannot be destroyed by card effects" Thus won't be wiped by their own boss monster.

I always felt like Ruin's effect should have been focused on preservation than double attacking. She could have had a similar effect like Divine Grace - Northwemko, but instead of being unable to be destroyed as long as X amount of cards remain on the field, Ruin could have had an effect to target cards up to the number of tributes for her Ritual summon and protect them from effects that would destroy them

Demise did revolutionize rituals in general. Failed at its retrains

Man, this one hurts demise my all-time fave. I wish they did him right.

I remember having the ritual spell but neither monster and thinking that spell called end of the world was the coolest thing ever

With the way Konami is making support for odd decks (show of hands, who thought of a new Shark support set?), there's a non-zero chance that Demise gets a support some time in the future.

“Affordable houses can be build across the word” lmaoo

The Fave deck :D nice

Demise, King of Armageddon and Ruin, Queen of Oblivion kind of remind me of Shao Khan and Sindel lol.

If you run a mekk might engine and at least 2-3 Gizmek serpentrons it allows you to have a mekk-indigo to fodder off for the ritual or even easier with Gizmek but at least it helps with super poly plays

Thumbnail typo reminded me of the How to 101 with Chibi Ruin! "Demise DESU!" XD

All they would have to do is errata the support cards to check for "Demise or Ruin ritual monsters" to clear up many of the issues with this archetype.

So do Ritual Raven and Preperation of Rites not do anything to help this deck? Also im gonna go back and look inot this deck. I used this as my MD starter deck. Between those two cards and the Djinn set i wonder what it could become.

now you convince me to build ones

If they can give Demise & Ruin stuff like they gave my Libromancers, we'd be golden. I already love playing Libromancer because I like the aesthetic of the archetype

The card looks super cool

Queen could also attack over and over again before 2018. So she could clear a whole field by herself and a honest

Honestly, at this time I just created some costume cards related to Ruin and Demise. Then when I open my YT, I find this. I hope they are more playable someday.

Enjoyed using the Ruin cards alongside some other stuff in Master Duel, but aside from being a bit clunky at times it continues to spell out the issues with the modern game. The modern game is simply too fast and combo heavy for its own good. Either you win in short order, or you're borderline dead in the water. Getting out a monster like Demise might've been devastating earlier on - and obviously there were other nukes like Black Rose Dragon - but unless you manage to get other monsters out to finish off your opponent after doing so (and assuming they don't have anything to keep you away from them) there's a good chance they'll just fully populate their board again when it comes to their turn.

It may not be "good" but I did have fun playing the deck with the rank 10 trains in Duel Links back when I still played

They should make a DL skill where if your opponent try to destroy Ruin, it summons Demise and his effect become quick-play.

Fiends are just so cool. If I ever came back to play seriously I’m choosing an archetype that features then for sure. Yes I was a pre teen edge lord 😂😂

Now I'm convinced he has a bunch of these saved up and Konami forces him to upload by making random support

I love my demise rank ten deck 😍

9:51 Here, Logs correctly mentions Pre-Preparations of Rites but the editor put a picture of Preparation of Rites.

The artwork on these cards goes hard. Too bad they aren’t that good.

This is definitely anecdotal, but in Tag Force 2 the best npc is Wisteria (light blue pigtails) and she played demise 😂

I could use some ghoti support, it’s my favorite deck rn

You can't deny however, if you played the Single Player mode of Master Duel, demise might not be a gamebreaker, but he can still be a pain in the ass if he gets in succesfully.

Honestly base demise is just a better form of my favorite card, which is just a punch in the gut for me, my favorite being final destiny, :/ discard 5 to destroy all on the field, compared to the pay 2000, i think konami realized field wipes costed too much

Demise OTK was a thing back in the day 😢, btw Desmine xD

I would like this archetype to get a mechanical ettra. Mostly dealing with the names and summons. Have the name effects work in the hand, field, deck, anf GY. Have the ritual spells work with the Hand and field, and require equal to the level or more. To make End of the World more valuable, include the GY. All I am saying is if Necrovally can constantly be updated to modern effects, why not this archetype?

It's always a shame when a historically powerful deck gets support that just makes it brick harder.

We'll never have a Darklords Filed archetypes, won't we?

I think transonic bird is designed for demise agent since they synergize