Yu-Gi-Oh!-verse strategy guide

How to be op in Yu-Gi-Oh!

Local Scale:

The Duel Monsters verse on a local scale has human fighters that are on the lower bound superhuman range, with far higher reactions, able to react to lightning in the labyrinth duel, arguably much higher as they can react to the vastly superhuman duel spirits in combat fine. 

This is buffered by the usage of dark magic which vastly increases the power and abilities of the humans; an example being the dark sorcerer Aknadin who was able to conjure dark lightning to use against the Pharaoh and crumbled a large section of ground against him consistent with Yugi surviving a massive wall of flame and superleaping since chapter 1. 

The current top tiers physically of the local scale fighters are Spirit Pharaoh Atem and Spirit Bandit Thief Bakura, reborn in modern times. 

Both of them are also holders of at least 1 (the latter gathers more over the series) of the 7 great Millennium Items. The 7 are able to seal spirits in cards, and able to turn any competition into the legendary games of darkness (translated into English as "shadow games"), deadly game that drains the lifeforce of any playing. This is most often done to a game of duel monsters, successor to the ancient form of dueling with monster spirits in ancient egypt, however can be done to any competition, even battle. The final duel involves turning the whole universe into a game of darkness between Atem and Bakura. Anyone who loses or cheats at a game of darkness is subject to "penalty game", a graphic punishment often lethal can warp body, mind, or soul. They seem to grant some protection against each others' abilities. The 7 Millennium Items also have unique abilities.

Millennium Puzzle: Grants the "power of darkness" and intelligence, can change destiny.

Millennium Eye: Looks into the mind

Millennium Ring: Acts as a compass to the other millennium items, and can seal fragments of souls into objects

Millennium Scale: Can assess the darkness in a person's soul, and forcibly fuse two things together

Millennium Key: Allows entrance into the minds of others and can change the soul to make them a puppet

Millennium Rod: Can take control of others.

Millennium Necklace: Gives visions into the future and past

As can be seen by this; some resistance against dark magic is needed in some form to survive this verse.

So what are the weaknesses of this verse? 

While stealth may seem relatively unhelpful here, sniping tactics would likely be very effective here, since generally all the powers here are activated abilities rather then passive defenses. The only exception to this would seem to be being a spirit which provides a form of passive defense.

Range in general would likely be a helpful weapon to use, as most of these powers outside beginning a game of darkness seem relatively close range. 

I would not recommend getting into an actual game of darkness and trying to win. The users of the Millennium Items are more experience at games of darkness, and have the superhuman stamina to endure it as well as being massively skilled. Yugi in particular has beaten two game makers at their own games, one of which he had never even played before and had chosen essentially a random selection of pieces to use, not even including his ability to change destiny. 

Instead it's better to focus on a quick victory. Range, traps, magic nullification or sealing, anything to keep them from initiating game of darkness. A telekinetic with the ability to seperate them from their millennium items before they can react would be even better. Some level of mental and astral defense would also not go astray in order to protect against the number of powers of that type in the verse.

So who would be a good counter on a local level?

Kaname Hagiri (Sniper) from Yu Yu Hakusho would probably do really well as a counter. Channeling spirit and demon energy into small objects, he could essentially snipe the DM-verse from far out of their sensory range. His ultimate attack has a weakness of only being effective at 200 meters which is out of the shown range of the Millennium Items.

He also has the ability to detect spirits and spirit energy meaning he should be able to find who his enemies are very easily, and pick them before he gets noticed. He also has telekinesis which would prove helpful if he does get discovered. His spirit energy would also allow him to hit the spirits Yugi and Bakura. 

I considered doing Yu Kaito or Game Master under the logic they may be able to defeat the DM-verse by using their own custom games in their psychic territory but really that's just asking for Yugi to defeat them via destiny changing. Sniper's tactic is just more pragmatic as a psychic counter to the DM-verse. 

Granted this strategy is a bit dangerous as it relies strictly on him hitting them before they can respond. In a more arena style battle (or if his recklessness gets him caught) then he could easily get gibbed. For a more defensive strategy

Syaoran Li would be an even better option. 

Syaoran is highly skilled and trained in magic and would able to identify the types of magic used in the DM-verse. He can affect spirits as seen by his interactions with the Clow Spirits, and the CLAMP-verse has a number of mystic seals and wards Syaoran would have likely learned.

More notably Syaoran like all CLAMP mages has a natural magic resistance, that would protect him from the dark magic of the Millennium Items, just as an example when the Erase did not erase Syaoran when it did almost anyone else. He can also sense magic, meaning he can easily find his opponents even in a large crowd.

Syaoran also has massively higher range and attack area of effect with his element manipulation (primarily fire and lightning). He also, despite his age is physically comparable to the fighters of the verse in pure stats, as he has moved comparable to an arrow and fought physically with the Fight card. 

If Syaoran is given the cards he has possessed, he would do even better with more haxes including freezing, putting people to sleep, duplication and time-stopping, something that normally takes the Yu-Gi-Oh! God Tiers to do. 

However there's another magic-user I think would do even better

Harry Potter would be the best pick against the DM-local scale fighters I think.

Harry Potter has a very strong against mental defense due to his training in occulumency which would allow him to actually use stealth effectively, which he could due with his cloak of invisibility.

His magic power is actually comparable with the tier but he's far more versatile then the tier. He can induce paraylsis which would work theoretically on any of the human fighters of the verse and his primary spell expelliarmus would be a quick disarm of any of the millennium items or he could even summon it to him with accio. If he were bloodlusted not only does he have the forbidden spell, but he can control people with Imperious (even not bloodlusted it's not inconcievable to use that spell) and he has Snape's spell Sectumseptra which would be nearly as effective.

But what about the intangible spirits? He actually has the ability to summon a patronus with Expecto Patronus, a manifestation of positive emotions which can ward off undead and spiritual entities like the dementors, or like the spirits of the DM-verse.

He can protect against any dark magic in the verse with a simple protego (and would think too given his defense against the dark arts training), and can teleport in and out at will with appartation. Basically he has access to defenses of every ability in the verse, can magic from a farther range then anyone currently on this tier and would be an invisible undetectable wizard capable of removing power sources, one-shotting any of the humans, and warding off the spirits with a word or two. 

But the one last thing to note is that many of the Millennium Items have become confused and dealing with Yugi on account of having both light and dark within him, the Hikari Yugi and the Yami Yugi. Harry actually had the same thing, as he had a piece of Voldemort's soul within him from Voldemort's failed assassination, making his soul both of light and darkness, noted within his own verse. If Shadi tried to enter his soul for instance, he would potentially an astral projection of Voldemort in there as he did Yami Yugi. 

City to Planetary Scale:

This is the scale of the actual duel spirits, monsters from the spirit world, severed parts of souls from criminals. These monsters are extremely strong, such that in a simulation in Duelist Kingdom, Giant Soldier of Stone was depicted by the computer as being stronger enough to destroy a card representing the moon. The strongest duel spirits are the Three Egyptian Gods representing three dualities of the world. These are strong enough to remake the world into a world of darkness and scale to be comparable to a monster that covered part of a star requiring likely planetary energy.

Speedwise, even a relatively weak like Megasonic Eye traveled from the edge of the universe, requiring speeds exceeding the expansion of the universe which is 10,000c. Even stronger Deep Eyes White Dragon which at the time had 4,000 ATK, the same as Obelisk flew at millions of times the speed of light from another solar system. 

Many monsters also have effects. The most important ones being the ones controlled by the Egyptian Gods, notably the ability to cause insanity or cause death outright with their curse, being heavily magic resistant, a sense of cosmic awareness, and implied reality-warping. Osiris can weaken the power of other monsters, Obelisk can grow massively more powerful by sacrificing other monsters, and Ra has a number of abilities including self-revival. 

So up to millions of times ftl planet level is the limit and those are the troublesome abilities to deal with. What weaknesses do the Gods have?

The big one is sealing. Duel Spirits have no known resistance to sealing and in fact the ancient egyptian magicians defeated them all the time by sealing them away in stone tablets. Powerful sealing abilities would likely work against them.

In addition they don't seem to be massively intelligent. At most they seem humanlike in intelligence, but vast intelligent characters should have no trouble outwitting them. 

So who would do well against them?

Konron would do very well against them. While he is slower then them at thousands of times ftl, he has auto defenses in the form of dispel bounds, which would be difficult for them to break. Conversely Konron, especially in his Augoeides form, would be able to affect them very easily, as he can affect the eternal atoms; atoms on the physical, astral and spiritual planes of reality.

He should also be easily on their level of power. Even weakened he was 6,600 times as powerful as the planetary shaping Anthrax who could casually create country sized tornados. In his stronger form he could somewhat compete with the Seraphs who could destroy planets. 

While it's possibly that the Egyptian Gods can affect spirits, being themselves duel spirits, it's unlikely they would be able to destroy every single eternal atom of Konron, especially not in the timeframe it takes him to regenerate. 

Konron, as a demon also has as superhuman level of intelligence, wisdom and charisma as well as potent illusion creation and could also likely confuse or disorient the Egyptian Gods. 

Also while human wizards did model their magic after the powers of Angels and Demons, Konron's abilities are not magic, as evidenced by how he can perform them with simple gestures and not invocations, meaning the Gods would not resist it. The Gods would maybe be able to force him to use his Augoeides but he would likely stomp them with it. 

For a counter with sealing abilities but is more animalistic, and almost itself a Dark Egyptian God, just more haxed

The Black Beast from BlazBlue would likely do very well against the Egyptian Gods.

While The Black Beast would also be a bit lacking in speed compared to the Egyptian Gods, it more then makes up for it with sheer hax. 

The Black Beast's psyche is itself it's own reality which trapped Ragna for 2 years, suggesting it could use this power to seal the Egyptian Gods, but even further it can absorb them outright into it's own beings portrayed as absorbing even intangible souls into it's being.

The Black Beast is also essentially a living evil cauldron, which suggests it would have existence erasure abilities which could be used to erase the egyptian gods from existence, nullifying Ra's self-revival abilities.

The Gods would have an extremely hard time even harming it as it is said to exist outside of logic, meaning only at best would the gods reality-warping be able to harm it, but even if they did, it can regenerate so long as seithr exists, which the Gods would have difficult even detecting outside of maybe their cosmic awareness.

Beyond that The Black Beast is smarter then it first appears as it developed a strategy to defeat the Take-Mikazuchi. Also because seithr is absolutely definitely not magic, the gods would not resist it. 

For a combination of the above two tactics

The Throne of Yord would likely work great!

The Throne of Yord has inter-dimensional, inter-planetary capacities, something the Gods have never shown. It's also a semi-conceptual entity, and the Gods arguably would not be able to hurt it.

Beyond that the Throne of Yord has high level of fusion and absorption techniques and would potentially absorb or duplicate the gods attacks of beings themselves. 

The Throne of Yord is also a cosmic intellect, watching over the world for thousands of years, and planning the movements of entire species like chess pieces. There's no doubt he could manipulate the Gods.

He also has high level dimensional transportation as well as sealing as shown when he created a city-sized portal, and when he trapped Tiara inside a forest dimension he conjured. He could likely seal the Egyptian Gods even if he does not absorb them into his being.

The Throne of Yord also transcends magic, as he existed before the mages of guardian world even created the magical arts and was worshipped as their god, meaning his effects would not be resisted in the anti-magic rule.

Stellar to Universal Scale:

At this level there's two real fighters.

One is Zorc described as creator of all darkness in his original appearance far above the Egyptian Gods at his peak. He is a master of the physical realm, able to stop or turn back time, turn beings to stone, turn severed limbs of his into powerful monsters, manipulation of negative energy and so on. He also has the power to create physical avatars like Bakura.

The other is his opponent, the Great Goddess of Light, Ra-Horakthy. She is described as the creator and should easily scale to boosted Blue Eyes White Dragon from the Dark Sides of Dimensions prequel manga, who light up an infinite dimension in terms of power. She has creation abilities, dream manipulation, and all of the abilities of the egyptian gods.

Power limitation is universal and speed limitation is millions of times ftl.

What are the weakness of this scale? Really it's actually similar to the prior one; sealing. Sealing Zorc away is what stopped him initially and Ra-Horakthy can be sealed by sealing the Egyptian Gods or Atem's true name or memory of it. Sealing and Memory Manipulation are the two most important powers. 

Beyond that, it is notable that pretty much all of Zorc and Horakthy's haxes are physical outside of low level soul and mind manipulation Zorc has with his avatar, meaning existing as a non-physical entity means only having to deal with their raw power. 

I have a pretty good counter

Noise from Pretty Cure would be an excellent counter.

Noise is the embodiment of sadness. While he is massively less powerful and fast then Ra-Horakthy and Zorc.....He will simply always return. In fact, because Zorc is comprised of the darkness in human hearts, including sadness, Noise will return simply by Zorc's existence. The sad dark hearts in Zorc will call forth Noise as their sad avenging angel.

Noise will simply always return. Lacking any lifeforce or spiritual essence, the two would not realize the danger Noise presents, as after being sealed by Otokichi, he learned the same ability and could easily seal them away, as well as being able to manifest such sadness around the Pharaoh's name that it is forgotten or turn all who know it to stone, or absorb them into his sad existence.

However this might take a while and could be counted as a loss if he dies once. For a more immediate and thorough counter, there is one character I know who would be an even better counter, namely

Yue from Cardcaptor Sakura.

Yue has roughly the right power, scaling from the Light and the Dark, whose power was significant even relative to Eriol. His speed is a bit low, but existing in dreams means it would be difficult for Zorc to affect him at least, as well as his his manipulation of time and vast CLAMP precognition would give him some counter to this.

Yue, being the clow guardian of the moon, would have his magic not fall under the domain of the sun Ra-Horakthy and thus not be nullified by it. 

From there Yue has a million options on how to fight them. He can eradicate knowledge of the true name of the Pharaoh using The Erase, especially in conjunction with the Sleep and the Dream. He can use The Erase offensively as well, potentially erasing them. 

He would have full knowledge of what they were going to do and how to counter it using prophetic dreams, and could potentially switch their minds with that of any bugs or other weak things he sees with The Change.

And he would also be able to create illusory copies of himself to deceive as to his position. 

Overall Yue would be able to out gambit the Egyptian Gods by existing in the dream world and tricking and out predicting them before hitting them with a durability ignoring hax, or even just his raw power. 

And that's how to be OP in the Yu-Gi-Oh!-Verse