This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy something we may get a small commission at no extra cost to you. (Learn more).
Shaddolls are easily one of the best fusion archetypes Yu-Gi-Oh has ever seen.
They made their debut over 7 years ago now in Duellist Alliance – and yet they still see play in tournaments to this day!
This deck has one of the most fun strategies I’ve ever played. Each of their monsters has two effects: one that activates when they’re flipped up, and one that activates when they’re sent to the graveyard.
So if you’re looking to dip your toes into the mystical art of Fusion summoning, or if you’re simply looking for a fun new deck to try, give these cards a shot.
15. Shaddoll Hedgehog
Shaddoll Hedgehog is one of the best searchers in the Shaddoll arsenal, allowing you grab pretty much whatever you like from the deck.
When it flips face-up you can add any Shaddoll spell/trap from your deck into your hand. This is perfect for grabbing a fusion spell, allowing you to immediately fusion some seriously powerful monsters.
And when Shaddoll Hedgehog is sent to the graveyard (maybe by fusion summon with that spell you just searched!) then you can add any Shaddoll monster from your deck to your hand.
Then you can either set that monster, or if you’ve got another fusion spell, you can use it summon yet another fusion monster!
14. Shaddoll Falco
This guy is the best at giving you board presence.
When it’s flipped face-up, you can target any Shaddoll monster in your graveyard and special summon it to your side of the field in face-down position.
This sets up your Shaddoll monsters to be flipped face-up and trigger those effects, or to be sent to the graveyard for a fusion summon.
Furthermore, when Shaddoll Falco itself is sent to the graveyard, you can immediately summon it in face-down defense position.
This means even if you use it for a fusion summon, you can bring it straight back to the field, giving you 2 monsters for the price of one!
13. El Shaddoll Apkallone
This monster is hands-down the easiest El Shaddoll to fusion summon, requiring only two Shaddoll monsters of different attributes.
But let’s get to its effects:
First of all, Apkallone is completely indestructible in battle. Meaning if your opponent wants to get through this card they’ll have to resort to card effects.
If they don’t have that, you won’t be taking damage any time soon.
And when this card is special summoned you can target any face-up card on the field and negate its effects. Permanently.
This can be amazingly helpful for dealing with field spells.
So many decks utilize one or two powerful field spells, so keeping a copy of Apkallone in your extra deck is a great way of dealing with loads of decks all at once.
12. Qadshaddoll Keios
One of the most powerful Shaddoll cards in the game (El Shaddoll Construct) requires a Shaddoll monster and a light attribute monster.
For the longest time this forced players to play random light monsters in their decks. But not anymore!
Qadshaddoll Keios is a light Shaddoll monster, with some amazing effects to boot!
When it’s flipped face-up you can special summon any Shaddoll from your hand in either face-up or face-down defense position. This is a great way of flooding the field with more Shaddoll monsters quickly, getting those flip effects ready to pop off.
Then if you send Qadshaddoll Keios to the graveyard by card effect, you can send any Shaddoll monster from your hand to the graveyard to have all monsters you control gain attack equal to its level x 100.
This is a great way of powering up your monsters, and also triggering the graveyard effects of the Shaddoll monsters in your hand.
11. El Shaddoll Fusion
Polyermization is cool and all, but what if you could make it better?
El Shaddoll Fusion is one of the best fusion spells ever printed, allowing you to fusion summon any Shaddoll monster from your extra deck at quick effect speed!
There are loads of great effects that trigger on summon.
Just take a look at El Shaddoll Apkallone, who can permanently negate the effects of any face-up card when it’s special summoned.
Being able to trigger these effects during your opponent’s turn is a sure-fire way of shutting down your opponent – and before you know it, the game could be as good as yours.
10. Shaddoll Construct
The initial rules of Link summoning meant that you could only fusion summon into the extra monster zones, or any zone that a Link monster points to.
Naturally, this completely killed the Shaddoll strategy, since it’s a deck that summons multiple fusion summons at a time.
Shaddoll Construct was the Shaddoll link monster to help fix this!
While the rules have since been changed, we can still make use of this incredibly powerful Link monster.
But here’s the gist:
You can use this card as its own fusion spell, allowing you to fusion summon any Shaddoll monster using monsters from your hand/field as the materials.
The best thing about this card is that it’s a light monster, too. Soit’s a great target for summoning this deck’s boss monster: El Shaddoll Construct.
9. Shaddoll Squamata
Whenever you’re sending cards to the graveyard for a fusion summon, you’ll want to be sending Shaddoll Squamata.
When this card is sent to the graveyard by a card effect, you can send any Shaddoll monster from your deck to the graveyard.
This gives you access to an entire deck’s worth of graveyard effects.
You could bring out a copy of Shaddoll Falco, or special summon monsters with Reshaddoll Wendi, the options feel truly limitless.
8. Helshaddoll Hollow
Until recently, Shaddolls lacked a main-deck boss monster.
It’s all well and good to have great monsters in your extra deck, but sometimes you just need a boss monster in your main deck that’s big enough to smack your opponent!
Then we got Helshaddoll Hollow, who has a whopping 2900 attack – the perfect beat-stick for this deck.
On top of stats, this card has some amazing effects too.
When it’s flipped up you can send one Shaddoll monster from your extra deck to the graveyard to target and banish an opponent’s monster, providing they have the same attribute.
Shaddolls have a fusion monster for every single attribute, meaning you’ll be able to remove your opponent’s pesky monsters no matter what deck they’re playing.
7. Neshaddoll Genius
If you want to survive in modern Yu-Gi-Oh, there’s one thing your deck absolutely needs:
Negate power.
There are some seriously powerful monsters lurking in the current metagame (just hearing the words Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon sends shivers down my spine).
And if you want to stand a chance of beating them, you’ll need a way to negate their effects.
By sending Neshaddoll Genius to the graveyard by a card effect, you can target an effect monster on the field, and make it so that neither player can activate that card’s effect on the field for the rest of the turn
For maximum power, use a card like El Shaddoll Fusion to send this card to your graveyard during your opponent’s turn, negating their monster effects before they even get a chance to use them.
6. El Shaddoll Shekinaga
Shekinaga is the Earth fusion monster in the deck, requiring one Shaddoll monster and an Earth monster to fusion summon.
While Shaddolls don’t natively have any Earth-type monsters, you can put a few copies of Mathematician in your deck to take care of that.
But with that said, Shekinaga is one of the best negation cards ever made.
When an opponent’s monster activates its effect while you have a Shaddoll card in your hand, you can negate the activation, destroy that monster, and send that Shaddoll card from your hand to the graveyard!
So not only does this card provide you with amazing quick-effect negation/removal, but you can also trigger a Shaddoll monster graveyard effect straight from the hand!
All Shaddoll fusion monsters also have the same effect when they’re sent to the graveyard themselves – allowing you to bring back any Shaddoll spell or trap from your graveyard to your hand.
This is great for bringing back your powerful fusion spells, allowing you to fusion summon again and again.
5. Reshaddoll Wendi
So this is easily the best main-deck Shaddoll card ever printed, allowing you to make some seriously powerful boards.
Both its flip effect and graveyard effect allow to special summon any Shaddoll monster you like in either face-up or face-down defense position, straight from the deck.
This allows you to set up any flip-effect you like!
You can bring out Helshaddoll Hollow for some monster removal, Shaddoll Hedgehog to grab your fusion spells out of the deck, there really is a Shaddoll monster for every situation.
4. Shaddoll Fusion
This fusion spell is so ludicrously powerful that even decks that aren’t primarily Shaddoll decks will splash this card in.
Shaddoll Fusion lets you fusion summon any Shaddoll monster from your extra deck using monsters from your hand or field as the fusion materials – pretty standard so far.
However, if your opponent controls a monster that was special summoned from the extra deck (and in modern Yu-Gi-Oh your opponent will almost certainly have multiple extra deck monsters on the field) then you can use monsters from your deck as the fusion materials!
So not only do you get to fusion summon a monster without having to use any monsters from your hand or field, but you also get to activate the graveyard effects of any 2 Shaddoll monsters straight from the deck by sending them to the graveyard as fusion materials.
Nice!
3. Shaddoll Schism
Speaking of powerful cards that enable fusion summons, Shaddoll Schism is one of the lesser-seen fusion trap cards.
To fusion summon a Shaddoll monster with this card, you have to banish monsters from your field or graveyard.
It’s incredibly easy to setup your graveyard in modern Yu-Gi-Oh, so pulling off this fusion summon isn’t a challenge at all.
On top of that, you can then send one monster your opponent controls to the graveyard, as long as it has the same attribute as the fusion summoned monster.
This is an incredibly powerful piece of removal, allowing you to even get rid of monsters that can’t be targeted by card effects.
If you can get your hands on this card, you should absolutely play it in your Shaddoll deck.
2. El Shaddoll Winda
A great way of keeping your opponent in check is with floodgates – cards that prevent your opponent from doing certain actions.
El Shaddoll Winda is one of the most oppressive floodgates ever printed (well, excluding the old-school cards like Royal Oppression which are rightfully banned).
While this card is on the field, neither player can special summon monsters more than once per turn.
So if you summon Winda at the end of your turn, you can special summon all you like, while restricting your opponent.
Given how important special summoning has become in Yu-Gi-Oh (check out any Rokket deck and you’ll see just how much they can pop-off), Winda is the best way of absolutely demolishing your opponent’s gameplan – and should be played in any Shaddoll deck.
1. El Shaddoll Construct
El Shaddoll Construct is easily the best Shaddoll card ever printed, and it’s easy to see why.
When this card is initially summoned, you can send any Shaddoll card you like from your deck to the graveyard.
This allows you to activate any graveyard effect you like, pretty much straight from the deck.
And if this list has proven anything, it’s that Shaddolls have some crazy powerful graveyard effects.
What’s more, when this card battles any monster that was special summoned, you can immediately destroy it at the beginning of the damage step.
This means it doesn’t matter how powerful that monster is – if it was special summoned, it’s getting destroyed.
El Shaddoll Construct never says the word “target” in its effect, meaning monsters that can’t be targeted by card effects are also going down when this hits the field.
Rob Myers is a physics student from England, who spends his time looking at space and turning it into numbers. In his free time he enjoys playing card games, reading the Discworld series, and working his way through his never ending video game library.
