Jeremy enjoys dueling in between working as a chemical analyst and campus building manager.

Card Art in Yu-Gi-Oh

While spells and traps have their place, monsters form the backbone of most Yu-Gi-Oh decks, assaulting players' effects and attacks. And sometimes visuals—with thousands of monsters spanning over 20 monster types, not everyone's a beauty queen.

To be clear, we're not talking about card art quality, but the image depicted—which duds will most boost your self-esteem? These are the 30 ugliest monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh!

30. Yellow Duston

ATK: 0
DEF: 1000

Don't you hate it when Cubone fuses with a slice of cheese? And Duston is annoyingly stubborn, refusing to be tributed or used as fusion, synchro, or xyz material, so his ugly mug can't be used as fodder for anything besides link monsters.

29. Hane-Hane

ATK: 450
DEF: 500

With his disembodied hands and huge nose, Hane-Hane's repeated name is an obvious ploy for attention. His flip effect returns a monster to hand, but it's far outclassed by "Penguin Soldier", who can bounce two, leaving this guy mercifully out of sight and mind.

28. Centerfrog

ATK: 100
DEF: 2000

No, you nose-picking frog, I don't want to draw you like a French girl. Thankfully, you can toss Centerfrog at your opponent, giving them control of him. Do this with two copies and you'll steal any monsters positioned between them. Yea, I'd switch sides too if this guy showed up.

27. Brain Jacker

ATK: 200
DEF: 900

I hate to say it, but Brain Jacker's effect is kinda cool, flipping to equip to an opposing monster and gain control of them (giving them 500 life points at their standby phase), like a monster version of "Snatch Steal". You've probably shattered some mirrors and scared the kids, but at least you got a new creature in the process.

26. Great Long Nose

ATK: 1900
DEF: 1700

Finally some honest advertising, Pinocchio here returns to your hand at the end of your turn if normal or flip summoned. But if he inflicts battle damage to your opponent's life points, they skip their next battle phase, a unique defense that can heavily stall aggressive themes.

25. Chu-Ske the Mouse Fighter

ATK: 1200
DEF: 0

I love Bruce Lee as much as the next martial arts fan, but he doesn't pull off the Chuck E. Cheese look very well. He's also oddly earth-attribute despite his flavor text repeatedly mentioning fire.

24. Mormolith

ATK: 1000
DEF: 900

Mormolith can tribute an earth monster to destroy all face-up monsters with DEF less than the tributed card's ATK. Sacrifice himself to get this uggo off the field as soon as possible, hopefully taking down some foes along the way.

Thunder Kid

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23. Thunder Kid

ATK: 700
DEF: 600

This guy is like some horrible cross between Marvel's Venom and Pokemon's Pikachu. But if you prefer purple abominations over yellow, check out his counterpart "Electric Lizard" instead.

22. Absorbing Kid From the Sky

ATK: 1300
DEF: 1000

"You should have seen it coming, my Blue-Eyes Dark Paladin Metal Girl is OP and your deck sucks."

Sure, Kid will give you life points when he destroys a monster in battle, but since his ATK is a mediocre 1300, playing him is little more than a taunt to your opponent's honor.

21. Griggle

ATK: 350
DEF: 300

Wasn't this a McDonald's character? Anyway, like many of today's cards, your goal is to get rid of Griggle; when control of him changes (through other effects), you gain 3000 life points, teaching kids the important lesson of shunning ugly people.

20. Worm Ugly

ATK: 100
DEF: 100

Hey, you said it, not me. Ugly is from an outdated archetype and has an outdated effect, summoning himself to your opponent's field when used as tribute for another Worm. This gives you an opening to attack and inflict some battle damage, but it's a niche use that does little to modernize the theme.

19. Tongue Twister

ATK: 400
DEF: 300

Thanks for animating the little saliva droplets on this tongue monster, Konami, really appreciate that attention to detail. And again, we see the advantages of exiling uggos; a tribute-summoned Twister will banish himself when sent to the graveyard and draw you two cards.

18. Spherous Lady

ATK: 0
DEF: 0

Hearing "Spherous Lady", you'd expect a somewhat rotund woman, and nothing wrong with a couple curves. But somehow you get this monstrosity, a weak normal monster who looks like a serpent and claims (according to card text) to be a vampire. So she's probably reptile or zombie type, right?

Nope, somehow she's rock, making her not only a bad card, but a misleading one.

Djinn Prognosticator of Rituals

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17. Djinn Prognosticator of Rituals/Djinn Releaser of Rituals

ATK: 400/1200
DEF: 300/2000

Djinns are great supports for ritual decks, able to be used as material from the graveyard and supplying various effects to the ritual summoned monster. I'd banish myself too if I woke up every day and saw these faces in the mirror.

The Kick Man

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16. The Kick Man

ATK: 1300
DEF: 300

Is this supposed to be the guy from equip spell "Big Bang Shot"? If so, I really didn't need to see the other angle, even if the cards work well together; Kick Man can equip a spell from your graveyard when special summoned.

15. Humpty Grumpty

ATK: 1400
DEF: 0

If only this nightmare fuel would have a great fall. Pretty lame effect; he can flip himself face-down and increase ATK by 800 when flipped face-up, underwhelming abilities that don't make up for the psychological damage inflicted.

14. Baobaboon

ATK: 1200
DEF: 1000

Baobaboon's giving us the side eye, trying to approach but be coy about it. If that weren't creepy enough, he brings friends, summoning other copies of himself from your deck when destroyed.

13. Gimmick Puppet Egg Head

ATK: 1600
DEF: 1200

Lord Farquaad here actually belongs to the Gimmick Puppet archetype, who never really took off but have a couple decent cards. Egg Head can discard another Puppet to inflict 800 damage or change his level to 8, helping summon high-rank xyz monsters and mercifully leave our field of view.

12. Hyosube

ATK: 1500
DEF: 900

This card's text says Hyosube leaves much to be desired when defending, but I think it's more just in general. Hyosube are real (well, mythologically real) Japanese folk monsters, so I see where the card stems from, but it still looks like a grotesque chicken turtle who can't fit his own tongue in his mouth.

11. Avatar of the Pot

ATK: 1200
DEF: 1300

Look, no amount of muscles are going to convince me that "Pot of Greed" is an eligible bachelor., especially when he's running around in a Tarzan loincloth. And since his effect relies on "Pot of Greed", which is banned, he's pretty useless competitively.

10. Dark Desertapir

ATK: 1100
DEF: 300

Bearing a face even a mother couldn't love, you're yet again rewarded for exiling the aesthetically-challenged; banishing Desertapir lets you special summon a level four or lower beast from your graveyard.

9. Kiseitai

ATK: 300
DEF: 800

Great, I always wanted my lower intestines given the card representation they deserve, even if it's hard to stomach. Laughably bad effect too, attaching to an opposing monster when attacked and gaining you half its ATK as LP during their standby phase.

That's a huge delay before getting a meager benefit, giving plenty of time for your opponent to use the monster as material, for you to destroy it, or for your opponent to not care because they can still attack for more damage than you heal.

8. Inmato

ATK: 1400
DEF: 800

Boy, I thought "Mystic Tomato" was ugly, but at least he's not in jail. Maybe Inmato's on death row because you apparently want to kill him; drawing two cards by tributing him when another plant you control is targeted by an opposing spell/trap.

7. Dharma Cannon

ATK: 900
DEF: 500

Don't judge books by their cover, unless they're ugly like this card, indicating not enough time was put into them. And uh, those are some suggestive cannon placements.

6. Blindly Loyal Goblin

ATK: 1800
DEF: 1500

If there's something blinding about this goblin, it sure ain't his loyalty. But no matter how much you want to, you'll never be able to exchange him for an opposing monster, as his effect prevents control of him from changing, so not even a "Creature Swap" can cleanse your field.

5. Ojama Yellow

ATK: 0
DEF: 1000

Much as I want to ridicule this card's terrible stats and lack of effects, the Ojama archetype has several tricks to make use of them. But like any good bully, I'll default to physical mocking when needed, and boy does Yellow deserve it.

Can you believe this guy (yep, he's male) was actually the spirit card for Chazz Princeton in Yu-Gi-Oh GX? And he'll pop up in a variety of random card arts...

4. Man-Thro' Tro'

ATK: 1000
DEF: 1000

Two uglies for the price of one, take your pick: drooling speedo-wearing imp or overweight cross-eyed troll? Thankfully, Tro' lets you tribute normal monsters to inflict 800 damage, putting these mutants out of their misformed misery.

Twin Long Rods 1

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3. Twin Long Rods 1/Twin Long Rods 2

ATK: 900/850
DEF: 700/700

Why print two cards that are basically the same thing? No effects, same type and attribute, almost identical stats—heck, Rods 2 is weaker than 1, did we really need a second? All 2 did is get slightly weaker and even creepier. Thanks, Konami.

2. Dice Jar

ATK: 200
DEF: 300

Yu-Gi-Oh has the strangest obsessions with jars, pots, and droopy tongues. But even as we try to purge this abomination from our minds, I have to admit his flip effect is interesting, having each play roll a d6 (re-rolling ties). The loser takes damage equal to the winner's result times 500, unless it was a six, in which case they take a massive 6000 damage.

Potentially lethal, but heavily luck-dependent unless you're using die-altering effects.

1. Ooguchi

ATK: 300
DEF: 250

Looks like someone fusion summoned Shrek with Donkey and Dragon, giving us the crossover we don't need and really, really don't want. Not even monsters will touch this one; Ooguchi can attack directly, sparing defenders the trouble of engaging him.

Better-Looking Yu-Gi-Oh Cards

As much as we've bagged on today's outcasts, sometime it's fun seeing the wacky shenanigans Konami cooks up, mixing some light-hearted artworks in with the more "serious" monsters.

Thankfully, the game has plenty of good-looking gals and dragons to showcase its artistic highlights, but for now, as we await Konami's next set of unseemly creatures, share your pick and I'll see you at our next Yu-Gi-Oh countdown!

© 2020 Jeremy Gill