Secret Rares are usually the talk of the town for a majority of players. This is either from collectors due to their value or players for their meta relevance. Today we'll be looking at cards that flopped in most levels of play and are generally undesirable. There are some exceptions to the rule of course, as a few of these cards are still expensive. This is the first edition of Renren's Rarity Research, let's dive right in!
Special thanks to the r/Yugioh Discord Server for helping a lot in making this article possible, feel free to check the place out here!
The Original Secrets
This would be from Legend of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon up until Ancient Sanctuary. A few of the sets before the start of the GX era didn't contain Secret Rares as such they were not included. Normal monster secrets have been excluded too, since that felt like cheating.
In any case, I do hope you enjoy these three that have been selected!
A Losing Motion
Aside from being "cool anime moment cliché" number 47, Diffusion Wave-Motion really doesn't have a lot going for it. Except for causing Frightfur Factory and Synchro Fusionist to mention it a la "Frog the Jam" clause, of course.
The first-gen of Yugioh has no shortage of amazing secrets, putting cards like Jinzo and Chaos Emperor Dragon into the spotlight. Most spells and traps were no slouch either. You had big hitters in the likes of Imperial Order, Ring of Destruction, and even Magic Cylinder.
Unfortunately, DWM's effect is a tad bit too specific to pull off and the payoff is certainly very low. Very rarely will you ever win with the thing to begin with. Your opponent can easily stop your attempts at going for a big push with this thing by either negating it or removing your Spellcaster monster.
You have to attack everything as well! This means you can get screwed over big time by a lot of factors out of your control.
Cards that can attack all monsters your opponent controls can be quite good if designed well (see cards like Invoked Purgatrio and Ultimate Conductor Tyranno) but DWM is not an example of that.
Even in Speed Duels, this card sees very little play, if at all. Pulling this over Dark Magician Girl in Magician's Force was also a giant kick in the shin, for what it's worth in terms of Secret Rares.
Funny Shiny Cardboard
It's big! It's chunky! It has crazy stats and good typing, it's your boy Guardian of the Gates. Quite formidable, ain't it? Well, to be frank, no. Gate Guardian has always been a meme card for the entirety of its lifespan, and that has never changed. On the other hand, GG's quite an expensive card so as a collectible it has some good merit.
For "actual" uses, it has seen a few comedic stints in various levels of play. One example is comboing off with Zubaba General. With the Rank 4 equipping it from your hand, it gets a meaty 3750 ATK boost! That's still not good, but it's something!
Another more hilarious and downright ridiculous thing you can do with Gate Guardian is using it as a core combo piece in this idea. Credit is given to Anonymous Acclaimed Aspiring Author Artorigus as the creator of this concept.
Get to any two warriors and summon Isolde, Two Tales of the Noble Knights. Use her first effect to add Gate Guardian to your hand, and her second effect to get Gagaga Caesar to your side of the field. Now, find a way to pitch GG out of your hand. Barricadeborg Blocker is an acceptable choice, for example.
Use Caesar's effect to banish GG to make it Level 11. With the help of other Gagaga shenanigans and extenders, you're able to bust out Gagaga Sister which then will use her effect to make herself and Caesar level 13. Bust out three other monsters and finally use Onomatopickup to make your whole field Level 13.
Finally, overlay all 5 of them to Xyz Summon Number iC1000: Numeronius Numeronia. It'll only have its last effect, but it's quite a hilarious display of unintended mechanics and cards pulling off unthinkable feats.
Maze of the Era
MD's effect is pretty cool in theory but just falls apart in practice and in terms of playability. You need to open a specific combination of cards to pull it off and even when you do, it's likely that Mazera will eat an Effect Veiler or Infinite Impermanence for your trouble. The card also has seen no relevant competitive play whatsoever.
Mazera does have a cool design though, so at least there's that I suppose. It's also the least terrible out of the three, so plus points for that! You can definitely make a dedicated deck out of this, but in terms of actual Secret Rares at the time, this was pretty sad to get.
Generation Next!
GX is a bit of an oddball as there were no Secret Rares up until the later end of the series. However, that won't stop us from figuring out a few of the worst secrets in that timeframe. Let's get into it!
Dark Wrongs
Dark Rites is a sadly disappointing piece of work, despite the great art and name to boot. At the time this card came out, there were a lot more powerful Equip Spells already present such as United We Stand and Mage Power. Not only were they less picky to use, but they also gave bigger and better boosts.
Not exactly exciting, considering you could've gotten Volcanic Rocket or Eradicator Epidemic Virus in FOTB. The former was an amazing TCG-exclusive support card for the fiery lads, while the latter is a heavy option that tore through many decks with a lot of Spells and Traps.
Even compared to the other Tribute based secrets, Sword of Dark Rites is easily the worst among the bunch.
Not Grandmaster
Imagine back in the day you guys were about to get Strike of Neos! The GX set that marked the return of Secret Rares and had a lot of interesting cards and strategies such as The Six Samurai! And you get...this. Well, shoot.
For Radiant Jeral, the best thing about is it's defense stat which was barely serviceable in the year 2007. Just don't bother with this one, it's not good in any way, shape, or form.
Big Money Little Viability
Dark Magician has some great support cards in its arsenal, but Magic Formula is not one of them. There's no reason to ever play it, as both the ATK boost and the LP gain are mediocre at best. This card was also responsible for taking up one of your Ultra Rare slots in Duel Overload boxes and packs, which is a huge bummer.
Hey, at least the secret rare from Gladiator's Assault is extremely expensive and can be used as a nice coaster, right? Or maybe send it off Isolde for the BM.
4D + 1!
The 5Ds era is a weird time for secret rares as there was a lot of experimentation going on. Occasionally you'd get a really good card like Skull Meister or Maxx "C", or some weird Anime or Manga import card. Unfortunately, the bulk of GX and Yugioh-R stuff was left to the 5Ds sets.
Not Very Cool
Yugioh GX's manga is a great read for sure and has a lot of epic moments and iconic cards such as Masked Hero Dark Law (which was weirdly a vanilla monster), and an arguably better handled Chazz.
However, Alexis' deck and character were not very handled well, and Ice Master plus the whole Ice Counter gimmick is both terrible and unremarkable. Not only do you have to go for an unholy amount of minus just to summon this thing, it only places one measly counter on ONE monster.
To add salt to the wound, you had to sack it for its payoff which could've been done by Smashing Ground.
Just a waste of a Secret Rare slot, in all honesty.
Steer Clear From this One
This one's a bit of a stinker, having no easy way to bring itself out. Clear World also isn't exactly very good to begin with and would make this spot, but the dragon's even worse. It can protect itself from card effect destruction, but folds from any light breeze if attacked. Beating over stuff is cool, I guess.
Dying to Normal Summon Sangan is not, however. Pulling this over Kristya or Eatos, both very good and relevant cards for the time, is also a massive loss.
It's not even worth much to boot, so there's just not a lot of redeeming factors to work with.
Can't Activate This
Drawing 2 cards is historically one of the strongest effects in history. Being tied to a card that's impossible to activate is not great news though. More often than not, either your opponent doesn't have a Synchro Monster at all, or their Synchro monster interacts with you in a way that Greed Grado just flops altogether.
Adding salt to the wound, this was a TCG-exclusive card. Quite the big yikes on their part.
Onwards to Zexal
We're at the latter half of the article, so let's check out what not so great Secret Rares were running around in the Xyz era!
Finger Kickin' Good (not)
Kickfire has some amusing art inspired by the old Backfire. One could also infer that it's clear that they at least tried with the card. However, it's sadly way too slow and way too specific to even pull off its burn victory.
If the effect to gain counters wasn't stuck on a once per turn clause, this would be at least halfway decent and see some fringe play. Alas, that one downside and the specificity on getting the counters really makes this card unplayable.
Neither player will be getting a kick out of seeing this, that's for sure. If it's any consolation, The Kick Man over here will be giving us fuel to keep the roast going.
Converting the Spirits
Spirit Converter is another manga card, one that was meant for Hunders and for supporting Thunder Spark Dragon. Well, that's not really good, to begin with.
One was better off playing Hunders as intended since it didn't rely on bad gimmicks such a this. By doing so you get better R4NK options, so no spirits to be converted, sorry to say. The name and the artwork also don't make much sense either.
DEE BOIS
D-Boyz is Kevin Tewart's favorite card. It's a funny meme Secret Rare card that has some amount of value and merit within the community.
Usually a lowkey choice though, not really beaten to the ground unlike What does Pot of Greed do? or Have you read Misc? With that in mind, it feels a lot more authentic and less in your face.
In any case though, D-Boyz isn't really viable and hasn't seen serious play, but is somehow less awful than most of the things in here. If you're looking for epic gangster fiends, look no further than D-Boyz.
Fifth Arc
Despite ARC-V being a mess at times and DUEA power creeping the game to another level, the core booster Secrets were handled pretty well, with only a few stinkers in the pile of generally good to playable cards. A common theme with these is that they were just on the verge of playability. Shall we head on over and check them out?
I Choose this Reference!
AWMA is pretty neat in theory but is unfortunately way too restrictive to be any practical to use. Still, being in the ARC-V era, a lot of the Secrets here are fairly well thought out and have some half-decent purpose compared to the rest of the bunch.
So while this card may not be great as a Secret in comparison to what was around, it's a lot better than most of the things here (similar to D-Boyz, but in a more serious manner.)
The card needing to be in the hand to be summoned and locking you out of summons is also quite bad, in all honesty.
Interesting targets to look at include: Judgment Dragon, Infernoid Onuncu, and Ultimate Conductor Tyranno.
It's NOT a PHASE!
Nekroz of Sophia was almost good, but it's too restrictive and ends up hurting you more than it helps. The first effect to pitch itself seems broken in theory, until you read the very last line. Until the end of this Phase. Which means your opponent can just move to Main Phase 2, and you've negged super hard for a one phase Artifact Scythe.
But Ren, what if we do it on their first turn? Well, you'd have to open both Nekroz of Sophia and a Nekroz Spell card, which doesn't seem likely. You also still suffer the issue of going hard minus just to pull off the gimmick, instead of just using traditional hand traps. Summoning it also isn't very helpful when it restricts other summons, is a pain to even bring out and only has an okay effect for the trouble.
Not so Plus Ultra
"You mean to tell me I can Fusion Summon, and get the materials back? Well, sign me up! This has got to be the best Fusion Spell ever!"
Much to the players' dismay, it sadly is not. Ultra Polymerization is pretty mediocre in a lot of ways. Having to pay 2000 LP isn't the worst thing ever, but is definitely a nuisance.
The text specifying two monsters you control is the biggest downside of the card which pretty much kills its viability. While it's not an impossible task to put two fusion materials on the field, it's more trouble than it's worth most of the time.
"B-but you can get the materials back! Clearly, it's worth it! And they can't respond to the spell!"
Should a monster targeted by UP's second effect be removed from the field, you don't get to summon the materials back. Not being able to respond to Ultra Poly tends to be a non-factor when they could just interrupt you after that.
With no consistent recovery and an asinine activation condition, Ultra Polymerization simply asks for too much while giving too little in the process. Other Fusion Spells do a lot more for less effort and even have better recoverability. Never run this card in a serious setting, even if your life depended on it.
Link to the Present
And here we are at the final section of this Holiday Special, focusing on the VRAINS era. SEVENS is just a tad bit too recent to work on, and we only have 2 main sets out right now. The secrets here are rather notorious for being intentionally spiteful or purposely comedic at times.
Reminder Bottom Text
This card is another meme prequel on what happens to our good friend Cannon Soldier before he gets obliterated in Blasting Fuse.
Aside from that and the reminder text that prevents cards like Junk Collector from using it, it's not good and a bunch of other generic Trap cards do the job way better.
Play Raigeki Break if you really want targeting 1 for 1 destruction on a trap card, I guess.
Fuse Line was reprinted again as a secret in the Mega-Tins which is not great to hear. Instead of pulling an actual decent one in the set, you get this, another yikes to the table.
Dreading the Quality
The gimmick is cool in theory, but utterly abysmal in practice. You can only go for monsters that have levels, you get a wimpy token that has the audacity to lock you into Vendreads. Adding to that, you can't even make use of that token during their turn.
Completely embarrassing and it doesn't help that Vendread themselves already struggle a lot and this card fails to address any of their issues.
For the first wave of a ritual based TCG exclusive archetype, this is a travesty.
Failed Ignition
Lastly, we have Sales Pitch. A rather unassuming Secret Rare from a very lackluster set, Ignition Assault.
Cards that rely on your opponent to do specific actions generally aren't worth it, and this card is no exception. If you were able to activate the card you just added, it would've been nice. But no, you don't get that luxury and have to instead wait a huge amount of turns just to pull this off.
Even if you do get the chance to pull it off, it's very likely you'll be getting met with an Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, or your opponent has already depleted most of your Life Points before you get access to your coveted card.
This Sales pitch was a financial failure, if you ask me. Not great when the only secret in the set worth something was Lightning Storm.
Conclusion
There you have it, folks! This was definitely a long read but I hope you enjoyed our Holiday Special article. Feel free to comment down below on which bad Secret Rare is your favorite, or if you think I missed one that should've been here. Whatever it is, let us know down below! Until next time, Renren out!
