Dartz is a very overrated character and fighter. In the world of yugioh, the entire franchise is largely filled with villains and heroes and side characters deciding the consequences of their problems and settling any conflict with a card game. So that is the deciding factor of who can be considered the strongest.
And he did not appear to be a very good villain since it was revealed that his body was just a puppet for the orichalcos god, he was being mind controlled himself. Dartz was more of a positive supporting character not a villain.
But many ignorant fans who are not open to rethinking believe that Dartz is the strongest duelist, best villain etc. I will do my best to prove this belief to be wrong.
As a duelist;THE MAIN THING
I am going to first explain the weaknesses of his deck, then after that i will slowly reveal which duelists can beat him in a duel. But i wont include Atem/Yugi in it (the list).
Dartz's decks weakpoint:
1 - Orichalcos Shunoros. It has 20 thousand atk points... but thats not a great achievement as it cant do much harm to any notable opponent. Once summoned Shunoros could easily be destroyed by a trap card like "Bottomless Trap Hole" or "Trap Hole" each can destroy any monster with more than 1500 ATK points. Shunoros is still vulnerable to spells, traps and monster effect's.
Don't forget that Shunoros can only be summoned if Kyutora is destroyed.
And that Shunoros does not really have 20,000 atk points. The true atk points of Shunoros are decided only based on how much damage was consumed by Kyutora before it's destruction.
If Kyutora abosrbs only 500 points than Shunoros would have just that, and maybe 1000 (cause the seal of orichalcos increases it by 500 atk). All in all Shunoros was only powerful if Kyutora absorbs enough damage.
2 - Kyutora absorbs atk damage not effect damage, it is not a impenetrable shield! Against a burn deck this monster card would be useless, any damage from card effects is still a threat to Kyutora's owner in a duel.
3 - Divine Serpent Geh can only be summoned after Orichalcos Shunoros is destroyed. So not only are the chances of Shunoros's summon low but the chance of it being destroyed is lower so the divine serpent is not very useful in duels it can only be summoned through a certain circumstancial situation.
4 - The Divine serpent's biggest weakness (once its on field) is that it forces the owner (in this case Dartz) to discard the top 10 cards of his deck in every turn/phase he has. And the owner also has to draw a card, so this means he would lose 11 cards per turn. Back then (pre-GX) the rules were that a player needs at least 40 cards (a minimum) to start a Deck but the maximum is 60 cards, so you cant have more than that.
Example:
Dartz will draw 6 cards for his first turn, then 1 each turn after that. Next when he summons divine serpent geh (which only gets summoned after Shunoros and Kyutora) are sent to the cemetary means he lost 3 cards from his deck, so that means he has 51 left at most. Then his deck loses 11 cards per each turn after that. He wont last for five turns in a duel once he summons the Divine Serpent. Its cons outweigh the profit the Serpent gives to the table by a great amount.
Once a player loses cards in their deck they automatically lose the duel, those are the rules. A deckout is a win. And the 3rd layer of the Seal is Tritos but it only stops trap effects from being used against Dartz players can still use those trap effects to protect their own monsters and raise their LP.
Now i could go on about his weaknesses but i wanna mention points in other people's favor. Basically i wanna start talking about the characters who would pose a threat to Dartz.
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All characters before GX who could beat Dartz.
1 - Dark Marik
2 - Rishid Ishtar
3 - Regular Marik
4 - Mai Kujaku
5 - Yako Tenma
6 - Seigfried
7 - Bakura
8 - Reiko Kitamori
9 - Seeker
10 - Leon Von Shroeder
11 - Seto Kaiba
12 - Jonouchi (joey)
Virtual World characters.
First ill explain why these three guys can win then later ill focus on all other characters that i listed (the above twelve individuals). Noah Kaiba (seto's brother), Lector (Daimon), Gansley (the guy who clearly had atem beat unlike Dartz).
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13 - Noah
Though he was a powerful character im afraid he was only a better villain than Dartz but not a better fighter. It is debatable whether he could win or not. Contrary to popular opinion Noah actually did play by the rules. If we ignore the deckmaster (Shinato's ark/Shinato king Of a higher Plane) then Noah's deck is definitely playable in real life. His spirit deck would be tougher to use in certain situations but it had the benefit of LP restoration. But the deck he used against Kaiba (seto) was entirely made up of an easy to use deck.
He had "kairon the mage" which could destroy facedown (set cards) and still attack. He also had "fissure" a decent spell based card which could send any monster to the GY. Though most of his monsters had low ATK points, so it would be difficult for him to compete with Dartz's deck in this case. Though the spirit monster deck is harder to use (due to their weakness of returning to the hand after every battle) they have better atk power. So even with both decks i would say its more likely for Noah to lose than win against Dartz, its a bad match up.
But yet if Dartz was trapped in the virtual world and had to duel Noah by that rulebook then he would lose to Noah (even if he had Orichalcos cards to help him) because Noah would have aid from his deckmasters (the ark and king of higher plane).
14 - Gansley
It is true he used a deckmaster but even ignoring his deckmaster Gansley's tactic was to prevent a enemy duelist from drawing a card properly, they can not conduct their draw phase's their turn can be skipped as well. So it would be tricky for Dartz if he got into a duel with him. Gansley is a tough opponent. Dartz can't win with the five to six cards he draws in his first turn, to make sure his strategy works dartz has to draw cards from his deck that he can use.
15 - "Daimon" (Lector in the dub).
Canceling out his Jinzo deckmaster the man still had a LP restoration strategy, satelite cannon, and a "injection Fairy lily" whose atk can reach 3400 continously. Its clear his deck had a weakness of needing to constantly tribute LP but for that to be exploited Dartz would have to do multiple attacks. Since "mirror knight tokens" only duplicate as many monsters that are on the opposing field if Lector summons just one or two monster cards this tactic of Dartz will fail.
Lector also had the powerful "Cyber Jar" whose card effect can send all monsters to the GY including Dartz's Kyutora, Shuneros, Gigas, Divine Serpent Geh etc.
Now ill start explaining why they can win.
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Kaiba was nerfed in his duel with Dartz;
He did not use "Crush Card Virus". He didn't use these either "Virus Canon" "Deck Devastation Virus" "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon" "Lord of Dragons" "Soul Exchange".
How Kaiba could've beaten Dartz in the duel:
1 - if he used Ring Of Destruction on the monster card (Orichalcos Gigas) instead of the crystal. That way dartz would lose atleast 2 thousand lifepoints depending on how tough Gigas became at that point in the duel, and it would work cause Kyutora can not absorb effect damage. Then to prevent himself from taking damage Kaiba could use Ring of Defence.
2 - he could have utilized the power of "Soul Exchange" to either tribute the mirror knights of Dartz or tribute his Kyutora and Gigas, then in turn he could summon any monster between levels 7 and 8. kaiba has such monster cards left in his deck.
3 - kaiba could have used the OP Virus Cannon to make Dartz discard ten of the spell cards in his deck or hand, one of them could have been the second or third layer of the Seal of Orichalcos, and it would be a successful move as these cards are not impervious to destruction or card effects when they are still in your deck/hand, they only work on the field thats where their immunity lies.
4 - if he was at full power with obelisk the tormentor in his deck then he would use the ability that destroys all monster cards on Dartz's field, including Kyutora & Gigas.
5 - lastly if kaiba just summoned the monster card "Vorse Raider" & equipped it with "Negative Energy Generator" (spell card) then his monster's atk would literally triple... That means Vorse Raider would be at 5700 attack points. Enough to beat any monster card in Dartz's deck.
Also he could have used a trap card called "Final Attack Orders" which lessens the number of cards in Dartz's deck to three. Since its a filler arc he can also use the other trap "Last Turn" which has a instant win condition attached to it.
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PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT KAIBA AND HOW THEY STACK UP AGAINST DARTZ.
1) Why Bakura could beat Dartz fairly.
This Bakura character is very underrated. I won't bother comparing his duel record to Dartz as Dartz only dueled once while Bakura has multiple duels in both anime and manga, some of the duels he wins are offscreen. But i will make a analysis based on his tactics, cards, strategy etc.
- "ouija board" its the same strategy that had a "instant win condition" similar to Exodia but more difficult to activate. Dartz is vulnerable to this as he only prepared for the legendary dragons nothing else.
- Death spirit zoma is trap card monster.
[QUOTE] "inflicts damage to the opposing player equal to twice the ATK of the monster that killed it." [END quote]
if it was used after orichalcos Shunoros or Divine Serpent Geh destroyed it then... Dartz loses also if Zoma is in defence mode while destroyed Bakura takes no damage.
- counterbalance is a spell card Bakura used in his last duel, it can cause Dartz to lose by deck outage.
- Ectoplasmer is another spell card. Bakura can use it by tributing his monsters to deal card effect damage on Dartz.
- the card called "just desserts" will deal 500 points of effect damage to Bakura's enemy for every monster on Dartz's field. If Dartz carelessly swarms the field with 4 mirror knight tokens, the crystal, orichalcos gigas & kyutora then he would take 3500 points of damage as kyutora is not able to absorb damage through card effects and Dartz has 7 monsters, so it would be a huge weakness for him.
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2) Why Reiko Kitamori can do it.
A manga only exclusive character, Reiko used a mill deck based on winning through the "deck out" strategy. This is a tactic that Dartz has never been put up against or shown handling. He can not counter this.
Reiko owned at the very least two copies of the spell card "Battlefield Tragedy" its effects force any player who used an attack to send the top five cards of their deck to the cemetary. It is also a continous spell.
A scenario like this could happen, Dartz draws six cards, leaving at most 54 in his deck. Then he attacks but Reiko activates 2 battlefield tragedies, forcing dartz to discard 10 cards, then he draws for his next turn, leaving Dartz with 43 cards. In a few turns he will eventually end up with 0. Losing the duel. His only opponents (atem & kaiba) lasted more than 5 turns against him.
More; Reiko has other cards that practically force Dartz's hand to make a attack move.
3) Why Odion (aka Rishid) can do it.
Explanation; this may take alot longer to explain but ill try keeping it short.
First of all he has a better record, a much much superior win loss record than Dartz does.
Odion won 12 locater/puzzle cards in the preliminaries, that means he beat at most 12 duelists, at the very least 3 duelists
(as marik claims "you must've challenged
everyone"), before his duel with Jonouchi (
joey).
The reason i went as far as 12 is become Kaiba though Odion was Marik, he did not know his real identity so this means that Odion entered the tournament illegally & had to get his first locater card either by dueling someone or stealing it. But since Marik believes that Odion dueled instead that is what we can conclude.
All Dartz ever did was win against a nerfed Kaiba. And Kaiba did not beat a single duelist in the preliminaries besides Nagumo who used a untested deck that he was no familiar with. The tag team duel win can not be credited to Kaiba as thats a group effort.
For strategies that he can use against Dartz;
- the trap card "eye of ujat" can control orichalcos gigas and make it attack dartz's other monster (in this case "Kyutora")
- the trap card "judgement of Anubis" can negate the effect of one spell card that Dartz uses, and then deal damage to his LP equal to half their combined atk, even destroying all those monsters
Just imagine if Odion had to confront the "mirror knights" and "twin bow centuar" he would easily destroy Dartz if he was atems partner instead.
- his spell card "swords of revealing light" will stop Dartz from attacking for 3 turns.
- lastly.. Odion's "mystical beast of selket" would be able to consume and absorb many of Dartz's monsters and gain half the sum of their atk.
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4) Why Seeker (ghoul that uses Exodia) can do it.
Simplicity; anyone with all five pieces of Exodia in their hands will automatically win the duel because its a instant win condition in the rule book of the game. Seeker had a legit stall type deck and was quite successful in his strategies.
People will insult him and accuse him of cheating but the truth is Seeker only cheated with on factor and that is the paint on the backs of his cards which only allow him to recognize what card is on the top of his deck
before he draws it himself. Its not a big advantage if you think about it. There fore it would be unfair to claim Seeker is a cheater.
Respect the king of Exodia decks more than the king
of atlantis (dartz).
5) Why Yako Tenma can beat Dartz.
If anyone thinks that Dartz is an overpowered duelist with a OP deck then i think they should check out "the wicked gods" which are owned by Yako Tenma the villain from a manga that continued the story of the original YuGiOh series.
Points;
I - The Wicked Dreadroot (can cut the atk/def of all monsters of Dartz into half.)
II - The Wicked Avatar (will always be stronger than the atk of a monster it battle's).
III - 'Divine Evolution' (a equip spell that can increase a monsters atk by 1000).
V - All monsters in hsi deck that are levels 1 through 6 can not attack this monster:
VI - If summoned with 3 tribute's "Beast King Barbaros" can use a card effect to send all cards on Dartz's field to the GY:
VII - When "Orichalcos Shuneros" and "Divine Serpent Geh" are summoned in any way or form they can be copied by Yako Tenma:
EIGHTH point - Can summon a level 10 or higher monster card (Wicked God Card) from his hand without any tribute or sacrifice if Dartz summons Divine Serpent Geh or Shuneros:
6) Why Siegfried can defeat Dartz.
He has a OTK (One Turn Kill) strategy he can utilize with "Ride Of The Valkyries" he was definitely designed as a villain to be an upgrade to Dartz as he was far more well rounded and superior to a lower ranked player like Dartz. Just being the next villain does not alone make him better.
Other tactics of Siegfried:
Siegfried the king of Europe's duelist club.
A) He can skip the turns of Dartz, Atem, Kaiba with this spell card:
"Skip 1 turn, to your turn's Battle Phase."
Conclusions - he is a better duelist than the overrated gang.
B) He can manipulate which cards his opponent's (Pegasus, Dartz, Atem) will draw from their decks:
"Once per turn, you can look at the top 3 cards of your opponent's Deck and return them to the top of the Deck in any order."
C) He can make it so that the orichalcos gigas, kyutora and the calling krystal can never attack:
"Your opponent cannot attack with monsters that have 2000 or less ATK. When a monster is attacked, destroy this card."
D) No divine serpent or orichalcos shuneros will be able to do any battle damage to him so hes safe from those chump's:
"Remove from play 1 "Wotan's Judgment" from your Graveyard. You take no Battle Damage this turn."
E) Can beat any dragon whether thats the 5 headed one or the Blue Eyed Ultimate etc, nothing can counter him:
"If the equipped monster battles a Dragon-Type monster, destroy that monster at the start of the Damage Step, without applying damage calculation."
F) Can get upto 2500 more LP added to his score:
"Destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on your side of the field. Increase your Life Points by the number of destroyed cards x 500 points."
Conclusion; because the limit is 5 zones where you can place those cards, so 5 x 500 is naturally 2500.
G) Can get an additional 1500 LP with this card:
Analysis - 500 for the spell he used, 1000 for the effect of the card.
H) He has a card which would force Dartz to discard divine serpent geh or Orichalcos Shuneros:
"During the equipped monster's controller's Draw Phase, its controller draws 2 cards instead of 1 for their normal draw. If a Monster Card(s) is drawn this way, they must discard 1 of them."
I) Can banish divine serpent geh or orichalcos shuneros with this card:
J) Can attack Dartz, Pegasus, Kaiba etc directly:
Select 1 face-up "Valkyrie" monster, and halve its ATK. It can attack your opponent directly this turn.
K) Another ability to do direct attacks:
"Once per turn, while equipped to a monster by this card's effect, you can halve the equipped monster's original ATK this turn. If you do, that monster can attack your opponent directly this turn"
Points - dartz's kyutora is not able to prevent damage from direct attacks.
L) Could easily destroy any monster card of Dartz with this monsters effect (including the infinite atk serpent):
"When this card is Summoned, select 1 monster your opponent controls, and destroy it."
M) He can copy the atk power of Shuneros & Divine Serpent:
"Once per turn, you can remove from play 1 monster from your opponent's Graveyard. This turn, this card's original ATK becomes equal to the original ATK of the removed monster."
7) Why Either of the 2 Mariks can do it.
Ignoring the filler duel wher he impersonated Bandit Keith & cheated but used duelist kingdom rules (where a direct attack wasnt allowed) still this version of Marik used 2 different decks, one when he possessed Joey, the other when he used Slifer.
He could pull off impressive sh!t, like making his monster's atk increase to 13,000Can inflict many times effect damage to Dartz using the "Hinotama
" magic card. Interesting fact about his loss to Atem; Marik had at least 13 to 14 cards in his hand before atem used 'brain control' to turn Revival Jam into a weapon that can deplete mariks deck. If the writers didnt make marik play idiotically then Marik as the smart leader of rare hunters would have placed at least two face down cards to be prepared for a spell card like brain control.
He could have used de-spell or "magic jammer" or even "dust tornado". Marik's sure to have access to these as a rare hunter and hes sure to use them considering his intelligence. So he only lost slifer to atem due to plot armor, plot induced stupidity/strength aka "PIS".
But against Dartz, in a fair legit duel, with no bad writing, just realistic gameplay Marik with slifer wins and Dartz with Orichalcos loses.
Dartz can not take 28,000 atk points of Slifer.
Other than that you have to take into account several other factors like the "Hinotama
" spell card that creates a burn effect damage. And the Kyutora of Dartz is impotent against effect damage. --------------------------------------------
8) Why Mai Kujaku can also win against Dartz.
This lady has multiple strategies and tactics under her belt.
- Harpies Phoenix Formation is a spell card which can deal effect damage equal to the combined atk of monsters on a enemy's field. And Kyutora does not absorb damage from a card effect, it simply can not.
- her Mirror Wall trap card will stop the attacks of Gigas, Malevolence, the Divine Serpent, mirror knights and even orichalcos Shuneros, it will also cut their atk powers in half.
- Amazoness Chainmaster snatched away Ra from Dark Marik so it can also snatch away The Seal of Orichalcos from Dartz.
- Amazoness Spellcaster is a card that can swap/switch the atk points of 2 targets. So if "Orichalcos Shunoros" gets to 20,000 atk somehow then mai can switch it with her amazoness swordswoman's attack strength, making the swordswoman rise to 20 thousand while shunoros lowers down to a very low 1500.
- Mirror Wall is one more among the trap cards that Mai has. This can stop a monsters attack and cut their atk power in half.
Also her amazoness Swordwoman when destroyed inflicts the battle damage to Dartz instead saving Mai from any damage, if Orichalcos Shuneros defeated Amazoness Swordswoman then Dartz would be the loser of the duel.
And if Dartz tries to spam the field with monster cards mai can use
gravity bind to stop him from
attacking. Only way Dartz can win is if he uses the third layer of the Orichalcos (Tritos).
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9) Leon Von Shroeder can prove a fatal enemy for Dartz.
- he can take control of a monster that Dartz has on his field.
- can destroy 1 spell or trap Dartz controls.
- can decrease the atk of any monster Dartz owns.
- with a combo he can deal at least 1300 points of direct damage to artz
- can destroy Kyutora or any other monster temporarily with this spell (even if its "dexia" "gigas" "shunoros" "divine serpent" etc)
- depending on the right circumstance this card would be able to destroy any single monster Dartz has (divine serpent, dexia, shunoros, kyutora, gigas, mirror knights etc) and boost LP of Leon
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10) Dark Marik.
This character is tougher. I saved one of the best for the last.
He is also an expert at inflicting damage through card effects rather than battle damage, so he nullifies the effects of Dartz's Kyutora.
He's capable of doing upto 3500 or more points of effect damage to Dartz. Kyutora would die cause of "Malevolent Catastrophe" so would "gigas" and "mirror knight calling/crystal" (a ritual monster card). Marik also has many LP raising strategies.
Like when he used "
Joyful Doom" on Bakura then it was Dark Marik who had the highest LP in the first 100 episodes of yugioh.
Other than that he can use a monster effect to increase his LP in a more effective way than Dartz, 1,000 when a monster is summoned. Another card up his sleeve is
Newdoria it can destroy any monster on Dartz's field by using a card effect.
Apart from this Dark Marik has more tricks that can pulverize Dartz.
Plasma Eel - drains an enemy monsters atk by 500 per turn, cant be destroyed by battle either.
Byser Shock - returns all facedown cards back to owners hand. Both players are effected.
Holding legs:
Why even with a infinite atk serpent & orichalcos shuneros against him Dark Marik can beat Dartz is mainly due to "Spell of pain" (magic card) which transfers any amount of damage he takes to Dartz instead, so marik would take 0 damage but Dartz would take thousands if not more points of damage. If divine serpent attacked Gil Garth or if Shuneros attacked "Juragedo" then Dark Marik can use "Spell Of Pain" he'll win the duel easily.
Lava Golem can also be summoned by Dark Marik if he tributes Dartz's 2 monster cards, either the "Mirror Knights" (tokens) or Kyutora & Gigas. Or even the two monster cards released to protect Shuneros.
This's the guy that gave Obeliskaiba headaches, unlike Dartz who couldnt even beat a nerfed Kaiba in a fair duel. ---------------------------------------------
Bonus) Jonouchi aka Joey Wheeler.
Joey can use his trap card "Chasm Of Spikes" to deal 5 thousand points of damage to Dartz and destroy his monster (Orichalcos Shuneros) if Shuneros got to 20 thousand.
He could do worse to Divine Serpent Geh so if Dartz uses that infinite atk monster its way worse for him.
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Which versions & continuities of these characters am i using?
I am talking about and using the anime & manga versions of all characters. I do not count any of the new duels they had in real life between voice actors as none of those voice actors are voicing their respective character's in the Japanese anime and none of those real life duels happened in the manga or anime so they are not canon duels.
Atem, Kaiba etc never had Xyz monsters and neither had blue eyes solid dragon or blue eyes chaos max dragon or Horakhty (which isnt a real card in the manganime). But filler in the anime can be incuded also the Egyptian move (before darkside of dimensions).
I am willing to count the movie (before "darkside dimensions") & extra manga (Yu-Gi-Oh! R).
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How many can beat him?
In no particular order.
- Seeker (a ghoul)
- Regular Marik (slifer deck)
- Odion Ishtar
- Dark Marik
- Bakura (mill deck or Ouija Board deck)
- Seto Kaiba
- Mai Kujaku
- Yako Tenma
- Reiko Kitamori
- Seigfried Von Shroeder
- Leon Von Shroeder
- Jonouchi (katsuya the king).
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you guys think just cause kaiba and atem (not yugi) decided they would duel together and work as a team against dartz that means they believed dartz was either stronger than them (individually) or they viewed him as tougher than everyone else they faced before...
Better than shuneros & divine serpent geh cause Thienen (anubis's monster card) does not have the discard cost.
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