Why Nobody Plays Exodia Retrains 

Imagine going through all the trouble of summoning Exodia Necross, only to lose it by attacking into Man-Eater Bug or Night Assailant because it doesn't stop monster effects

I do appreciate Konami have tried a couple times to turn Exodia into an actual deck that can have some back and forth as opposed to a different flavor ftk or a bad stun deck.

My favorite throwback to Necross is that my friend tried to play it at a locals, he didnt have cards like painful choice to get them to the grave but had the draw cards to get them to his hand and then cycle them with costs. problem is that he didnt want people to know what he was doing most of the time so he would amass them in his hand instead of dumping them early. This caused him to accidently win by getting all 5 pieces to his hand and so after 3 games of that happening in a row he decided to take out the Necross and just play standard janky exodia. Funny part is that he could never quite get the luck he did when Necross was in his deck and couldnt win after that. 🤣

I'm sad you didn't mention True Exodia, which would have been the perfect way to end the video. "No one plays True Exodia because it literally loses you the game."

I personally adore Exodia, the Legendary Defender because it is just so full of flavour. The card's artwork shows Exodia being released to fight Zorc (The final villain of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga), and its effect says that if it manages to defeat Zorc (a DARK Fiend), you win the duel. I know it isn't a very good card, but in terms of the story the card tells, it is a very cool one.

As much as I love Master Saga and Roulette I'm really glad you keep making these. I know they take a lot of work, but I love them

We only need a "Commenters don't Understand" and we complete the Dzeeff Cycle

I absolutely love exxod I remember as a kid my grandpa bought me that structure deck and now that he’s no longer with us I will never be able to see that card or any of the sphinx cards without thinking of him and being grateful for my time with him

Exodia necross should've been a ritual. It acts exactly like one, and could benefit from ritual searchers.

I agree with Joseph in that the Exodia pieces could go back to 3 and nothing would come of it. You might cheese a win here or there, but all you are doing is tripling the amount of garnets in your deck.

I noticed a prominent theme with Exodia. He’s a necromancer. Here’s how I believe his story went: Exodia was originally a powerful man known as Exodd. Exodd was trusted by Atem and became his chief bodyguard. However, he began to dabble in necromancy. He found a way to serve his master forever by making his soul immortal. The more his soul was offered, the stronger he became. But, Pharaoh Atem began to fear Exodia as some of his other sorcerers had turned on him. The pharaoh promised Exodia his freedom only when Zorc returned. Wanting only to serve, Exodia agreed to be imprisoned. Atem and his sorcerers cut Exodia’s soul into 5 pieces and sealed them away. On their own, the soul pieces are weak. But together with proper spells and monsters, Exodia could be called forth to defend the Pharaoh. Sometimes his body was released and bits of his soul returned to him. Sometimes he was revived as a zombie by making a contract to summon his reanimated corpse. But ultimately Exodia was released in his full power and finally got to fight Zorc again, but he dies defending his master. But I imagine in another timeline, he was victorious.

Legendary Exodia Incarnate is BY FAR my favorite version of Exodia. If I'm ever building with Exodia, it's that version. The art is so cool, and it's genuinely pretty reliable compared to a lot of the older ones. I like that it gives you two routes to victory; either a giant beatdown or by assembling Exodia. A deck that's focused on one or the other will surely be more effective, but it's nice to have the option of multiple plans for victory. And it feels the most like a "proper" Yu-Gi-Oh deck, as opposed to Solitaire Speed Exodia or Full Lockdown Draw One Card Per Turn Exodia. If Incarnate has 100 fans, I'm one of them, if it has ten fans I'm one of them, if it has one fan it's me, if it has no fans I'm dead. Exodia Incarnate is just fucking cool. Every single other version of Exodia is fucking dogshit.

Exodia the Ultimate Defender is what happens when you poorly adapt a moment from the manga.

For what it's worth, Exodius also sees a fair amount of play in Combo Frogs in modern Edison format

Really didn't expect World Chalice to be the best representation of Exodius! As someone who came back to Yu-Gi-Oh playing that deck, it felt super good to summon 6 shineballs in a turn off of Venus + Exodius, the boards you could put up were much better when you drew him.

Love the new background music, and I’m glad to see the discussions again!

I miss the card discussion videos. Glad to see they are making a comeback!

Finally, some good content.

The tribute 5 monsters thing appears to be optional. You can tribute summon it with just two monsters and still gain it's effects. Makes a better but not by much.

Gratz for hitting the 200K mark Dzeef and I'd love to see more of this type of content. Going through archetypes or retrains that never worked or saw competitive play.

Ah, the ol' classic series. Your Egyptian God episode of this was the one that re-ignited my interest in this series back a few years ago after having been an anime only fan in my childhood just casually collecting cards, and kept me watching all the way to Master Duel's release where I found out how much I can enjoy myself with the "actual" game. Thank you for pulling me into this community.

Exodius is the key point of one of my personal favorite jank decks I've made. Exodius combined with Diffusion Wave-Motion is an OTK. Main strategy revovles around Ojama Trio to get three hits to get him to 3k, and beat over anything else the opponent might have on their field. Working on finding other ways to fill the field effectively, Black Garden with Sky Strikers was the plan but apparently the ? ATK freeze rule makes it hard to do since I'd need to get rid of BG before summoning Exodius

I've used Exodius in my stall deck which eventually had an Exodia side Win Condition, combined with Final Countdown and Self Destruct Button. Needless to say, it was eventually banned and limited into oblivion.

Love the return of these videos and love the new editing style. Great work Doug your discussions are super insightful and thought provoking! Here's to the next 100k subs in 2023 🍾

Love these kinds of videos, super informational and easy to understand. Dzeeff has a knack for this.

6:33 I thought he was useless. Thanks for explaining his effects. Time to add this card to a deck.

Dezef there is a strategic play that synergizes with the spellcaster theme of the exodus, that will make incarnate impervious to attack as well. And that is with the claw of Hermes spellcaster fusion monster- the mallet one. It has a the effect to banish the attacking monster for the number of turns shown by the dice roll. And since incontinence affect doesn’t prohibit being equipped with cards, it gains the effect of the fusion monster. Then you just need to make sure it can’t be KaiJu-ed away and it’s a slow and painful what to get your exodia. I use a similar strategy in duel likes and have a 98% win rate with that deck.

I was really missing these type of videos, more edited, scripted and elegant, if you will I know they take longer to make, but they're definitely the reason that you're one of my favorite yugitubers

Crazy how good these videos have gotten. Congrats on the 200k brother you deserve it

no mention of the legendary "true exodia" ?!

You can just tribute 2 monsters for a normal summon of exodia the legendary defender, it still gains the combined ATK/DEF but doesnt grant you the instant win effect

Glad to hear your channel is going well, I think I subbed around a year and a half ago or something either way keep on that grind! Happy holidays.

I was actually planning on making adamancipator earth rock deck with Exodd, just cause I like shooting actually good decks in the foot. I do hope it can meme a few wins on MD

i imagine exodia necross being a fusion monster in your extra deck would help it out a ton "if all 5 pieces of exodia are in your graveyard, fusion summon this card" you don't need to draw/search it, and it's not a dead card in your hand you don't need to draw the spell either, and it ALSO wouldn't be a dead card in your hand tho the effect itself still really isn't that good, maybe if it allowed you to draw from your graveyard instead of deck when it's on the field? so if you get it out early it's like "draw 5 cards and you win" idk i feel like that's a cool idea that sticks with the whole graveyard zombie exodia thing

I used Exodius the forbidden lord as a tech grab for my gladiator beast deck to come back in when Bestiari and Laquari, were both in the grave or countered, he also served as a great target for a quick xyz paired with metal reflector slime, dropping Skypalace Gangarida or Gustav Max, fun card with some niche uses.

IMO, the biggest problem with Exodia Incarnate is that you need an exodia piece to Summon Incarnate to the field. This is no different than using "Contract with Exodia" in the sense you need yet another card to summon it. If someone is going through all the huge effort to send 5 pieces of exodia to the graveyard, then Exodia Incarnate should just be able to summon itself. Exodia Incarnate isn't viable until you have at least 3 pieces of Exodia in the graveyard. 3000 ATK is minimum needed to for a boss monster to survive. Plus Exodia weakens itself each turn by losing 1000 ATK and sending to exodia pieces from the graveyard to the hand. So players are already going though a lot of effort to summon and keep Exodia Incarnate alive. The least it can do it summon itself. Especially in 2016 where summoning 4000 ATK monsters isn't that hard.

Finally another discussion video. :) Thanks Doug. I enjoy the work your doing now, but this is that good good. That shit that got me in the beginning a few years ago. :)

Something that Exodius has been used for more recently is Pendulum Magician decks. By making 2 Timestar Magicians without using any spells/traps you can search out Exodius and Dimension Shifter. After which you summon Exodius, emptying your GY, after which you're free to activate Dimension Shifter, go into F0 and maybe some more link shenanigans with the Exodius and whatever you were able to spit out during that turn

we STAN exodia the legendary defender in this house

its funny, despite Necross function basically just like a ritual monster, being a ritual would've actually been a benefit, since you could search it or Contract With Exodia with preprep.

Obliterate is also a good way of making exodus useful after it's on the field, since you can use it as on your main turn when exodus is on the field already, then you have 2000 from one turn, then becomes 3000 opponents turn, and then 4000 your turn. Pretty high just two cards, and you can stop set up for like 3 rounds

Grats on 200k!

-Huge amount of work to summon Exodia Necross. -Dies to man-eater bug.

Nice video ! My question is what about the other god cards do they have similar modernisations ?

They definitely need to release more cards like "The Legendary Exodia Incarnate" and "Obliterate" to create some sort of Control Deck that builds up the Exodia wincon in a way that does not really fill your hand only with useless monsters. Maybe one more card (like a Field Spell?) that can add 1 piece each Turn, paired up with a Spell that searches exodia Monster/Spell/Trap support just like Ra does.

Please keep making these style of videos! As a casual yugioh player this stuff is super interesting.

It was also used in Hieratics to make Gustav Max with REDMD and was part of an OTK in that deck.

Okay analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

I've been around since the great boom of the Egyptian God video, and when I first started watching you, I was really pissed and offended, but fascinated by your reasoning, and continued to watch you until it really started to make sense. You've taught me so much about Yu Gi Oh for YEARS, I'm glad to see your channel hit 200,000 my man.

an exodia archetype could be interesting, each search would either be to help build a board or going towards your wincon

I love the oldschool style dzeeff vids!!! Perhaps my favourite yugitube content

Had some fun with Incarnate and future fusion in DL. Once you get all the peaces in the grave you can get some back with dark factory. The your opponent will have a hard time removing incarnate from the field.

I like exodius as a tech in casual decks. Back when artifact dagda + DPE was making its rounds I liked running a single copy of exodius for when the deck would run low on gas. I kept trying to use pot of avarice before exodius and just got ashed to frequently

I was using exodd with sphinx set and rock types(flip effects eg: mine golems) with yugioh GX type deck, it was awesome when things played out well

Congrats on 200k man!

Really glad to have a discussion video again

Been a while since I've caught a Dzeeff video, I like your knew mic 👍

I might try running exodius in my dark world deck considering that you can wind up putting a ton of your monsters in your gy. I never even thought about using him, and I have 2 copies from when I built my Exodia deck.

ITS BACK! I love this series. Its literally what got me interested in yugioh.

If the effect of the legendary defender was "tribute a total of 5 monsters (even if you dont control them) on the field to special summon this card" it would be quite interesting, Like a ra sphere mode but quite massive cause you can use one of your own monsters and 4 opponent's or any combination to make them a total of 5, then you use Radian Kaiju on the other enemy monster and tada, you did a nice wombo combo cleaning the field and winning the duel. Still you had to search it in some way ot why not, release some support to search Exodia effect monsters, 4 out 5 pieces are normal monsters so a searcher for exodia effect monsters could be cool. Sadly the effect is not worth for how specific and costly is.

Missed this videos. Thanks, Dough

Thank you . I love watching your videos.

Love this series. Even though I'm the type of player that will still try and make exodia, and the god cards work, I enjoy these videos, and they help me brainstorm

I agree with your assessment of Legendary Exodia Incarnate, though I would like to say it does have a lot of potential to be good if Konami ever prints additional Forbidden One support to let it do what it's going for. It is hard to maintain a reasonable attack when your entire archetype consists of 4 vanilla monsters and a single effect monster all limited to one after all.

Thanks for shouting out my boy, Exodia Incarnate. People just skip over the "Unaffected by other cards' effects" and waste cards on trying to remove it. Also, Obliterate!!! is just an insane card. I love it. If a card has not one, not two, but three exclamation points in it, you know it's a good card.

i hate how legendary defender specifies "Owned by your opponent" instead of "controlled by". Because while it would still be trash, atleast it would have potential as a fun jank option with the dark fiend kaiju.

I'm glad you keep making these "why nobody plays videos" it takes me back... I've been following this channel for a long time, who knew this series all began with sparks... I do like roulette and saga as well but this is the original content I had subscribed for and I thought I would never get to see a new one so this truly means a lot to me. Thanks Doug.

Exxod’s burn effect with earth flip monsters makes me wonder if you could add it to a Morphing Jar deck so you can be really cruel and burn and mill your opponent at the same time 🤣

11:08 I use this card frequently in my deck and the moment I get it on the field I win. In EVERY instance that I’ve had the chance to summon exodia the legendary defender I won I personally think it’s the best exodia retrain. But hey, it’s just my opinion I can’t do much about what other people say. All I can do is say what I believe.

Nice to see a vid like this after so long. Also why no one uses exodia retrains cuz a lot of them want you to send exodia pieces away. When you would rather just get them to hand for a instant win

I played a deck with Exodia Incarnate and Obliterate in it, it was lit. It had Secret Village, the Kinka-Piper combo, rank 10s and rank 1's, and even Last Strix and Skip Force. I loved that deck. I think Ruri's cards would be nice in it today.

Love you Doug, never stop being you and so on and so forth

I tried making Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord for its own merits in Master Duel (and not purely as a recycling machine). It was uh... not a great time since there's just so much that can go wrong while you're trying to resolve its alternate win condition. It also takes approximately 100 years.

More discussion vids pls

I used incarnate as a deep draw stall deck that dumped all the cards into the grave. that either killed them with a 5000 beater who cant get touched other than combat, since I use obliterate or discard draw cards to keep the limbs in the grave. then if in a tight spot, i fit 2 dark factory spell cards to give me access to drawing all 5 cards out of my grave in one turn if needed. wouldn't work now with some of these wall breakers we have now, but it was fun. I kept it to help teach new players about how "OP" cards can easily be outed.

How can you not put 3 of Exodius in your deck? It's like having the Foolish Burial card in there! It's such a good card for getting monsters into or out of the graveyard.

Card discussions AND Why Nobody Plays? We really back in 2018. Time for some Structure Deck reviews after this.

I could see playing the last 1 in a Rockett/Borraload deck because even if your opponent gets rid of it you could just summon 5 more Rockett monsters at the end of your turn

They really should make a retrain that does the same exact thing as the original 5 pieces but requires some wombo combo to summon and win so it's not uncounterable. Like have one card that if it's summoned, you search your deck and graveyard for other pieces essentially winning the game but make it so that card has strict summoning conditions and can only be pulled off in dedicated Exodia decks.

I always saw Necross as the back-up plan of an Exodia deck; if one or pieces couldn't be recovered you an option to win, even if it's not a great one.

Exodius (the one that shuffles back all your GY monsters) is actually pretty useful in decks that tend to run down on deck resources (like dark world and saryuja turbo shenanigans)

Congrats on 200k cant wait to meet you irl

These look so cool tho! I only heard of one of them so far tho

The sequel we waited years for

And then Solomon Muto shows up in Duel Links with Exodia Incarnate as a reward and voice lines for all the retrains, even Exxod. (also True Exodia's win condition for some reason, even though it's impossible in Duel Links) "Left arm of the forbidden one attack! ...I guess... "

Exodia Necros is really neat because its clearly a flavor card.

The only reason I know about Legendary Defender is because it was part of that scripted Yami vs Kaiba duel from the World Championships

I was waiting for the next installment of this

Tried playing around with a Silent Swordsman/Exodia Incarnate deck in Master Duel, the former covering the field for common spell effects while trying to make the big boy. My main gripe with Incarnate is that the effect that adds a card to your hand from the graveyard during the end phase is mandatory. Even if I get a 4000 Incarnate out once my turn ends it becomes 3000 which is enough for plenty of cards to run over it, without any guarantee that I can Obliterate the piece back into the GY. Still really fun to try and find ways around these flaws and build a deck regardless.

Id love more commentary videos again!

Incarnate is an awesome card that I hope we see more support for in the future. Why try to win with Exodia's effect in hand when you can beat your opponent's face in with an invincible 5000+ ATK monster instead? Together with Obliterate it plays like a blue deck in MtG.

You should make this a series

Exxod used to be in my deck starting out and now I use Exodia the Legendary Defender, but I'm never using Exodia Necros or The Forbidden one though I do have them and I lack any other instant win cards.

we love you douglas zeef, never stop making content

Great vid Dzeef for one of yugiohs most iconic cards you'd think they'd have made more support.

Personally I have been trying to come up with different ways to incorporate Exodia into a competent deck for several years now as it is the only 'archetype' that I really enjoy in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Alternate win conditions are what I live for, and so far the only decent success I've seen with a deck that holds my 5 favorite appendages is either an add-on to an endymion control deck that can occasionally pull an ftk or in link-chaining spellcasters into predaplant anaconda to fusion summon quintet magician. Constant work in progress, but it's hilarious to see how many ways opponents fail to remove Incarnate or deal with Obliterate! properly, so it's currently worth it.

Well earned. Best Master Duel content out there.

if defender had the "unaffected by other card effects" ability i think requiring 5 tributes would be fine. b/c you could use trap monsters or something like tricky if your opponent went first and flooded the field. etc etc there are a bunch of token creating cars that summon tokens with 1000atk that you could use and tributing 5 of them would give it 5K atk

I'm hopeful that one day Konami will release a decent Exodia structure deck.

I remember having Necross when I was little. Sadly, not only did I not have the ritual card but I didn’t have any Exodia cards either.