The Best Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards That Reduce Attack

If you’ve played Yu-Gi-Oh at all recently, then you’ve probably faced (or even played) cards that can’t be destroyed by card effects and have an unbelievable amount of attack.

Not being able to be destroyed by card effects is one thing.

But having a high attack is just the nail in the coffin.

So what can you do in these scenarios?

Well, from all the solutions out there, one of the best is to reduce that monster’s attack and destroy them by battle.

And if you’re looking for options, here’s our compilation of all the best cards that do just that. So let’s get into it!

15. Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts

The longer Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts stays on the field, the more effective it becomes.

Unfortunately, given how fast-paced most games can be, this card only fits in certain decks.

Here’s how it works:

If this face-up monster gets destroyed, you can put it in your spell and trap zone as a continuous spell. Then during each standby phase you can place a Pumpkin Counter on it.

For each Pumpkin Counter on this card, your opponent’s monsters lose 100 attack and defense.

Over 3 turns, this is 600 attack and defense, which admittedly is a bit slow.

In case your opponent doesn’t want to destroy your monster, you can also destroy it yourself, with a trap like Oops!

14. Black Rose Dragon

Blackrose Dragon is an iconic monster from the Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s anime, but it does require specific decks to play in a viable manner.

Once per turn while you have Black Rose Dragon on the field, you can banish 1 face-up plant monster in your graveyard & then target a defense position monster controlled by your opponent – change it to attack position and make its attack 0.

Obviously, you need a way to change your opponent’s monsters to defense position, since there won’t be many chances of your opponent having a defense position monster with Black Rose Dragon on the field.

To accomplish that you could use a card like Earthquake, which would turn all your opponent’s monsters to defense position.

13. Zero Force

Zero Force might be a little hard to use if you can’t satisfy its activation condition.

But if you can, then it becomes a great card to stall with.

When a monster you control is banished, you can activate Zero Force to change the attack of all cards on the field to 0.

If you’re playing a stall deck, this is a great addition since you probably don’t care about the attacks of your own monsters.

To banish your own monster easily you can also use a trap like Interdimensional Matter Transporter, which can banish your own monsters until the end phase.

Or use a monster like Cyber Valley to banish itself.

12. Burden of the Mighty

Burden of the Mighty could’ve been an amazing card, if only Xyz and Link monsters had levels.

This is a continuous spell card and while it’s on the field, all your opponent’s monsters lose 100 attack for each of its own levels.

For example, a level 8 monster will lose 800 attack.

While 100 attack per level might not seem like much, the most common win conditions are all level 8. So an 800 attack decrease is actually quite significant.

In addition, if you have 3 of these cards on the field then a level 8 monster will lose 2400 attack in total – which pretty much makes most monsters powerless.

11. Wightprincess

Wightprincess is pretty much the same card as 3 Burden of the Mighty’s put together – if they only lasted a single turn.

Unlike Burden of the Mighty, however, Wightprincess is a monster.

While Wightprincess is in your hand or on the field, you can send it to the graveyard and decrease the attack of all monsters on the field by their level multiplied by 300.

Obviously, this will also affect your monsters.

So I’d only recommend playing this card in a deck mainly composed of Link monsters.

Even with that in mind, I still rate it above Burden of the Mighty since the 300 attack decrease per level is just too good to give up.

10. Borrelsword Dragon

Borrelsword Dragon is just an all-around amazing card.

So you might consider using it even if you don’t care for its ability to reduce damage.

But with its effect, Borrelsword Dragon can literally destroy any monster in battle no matter the other monster’s attack.

Aside from having powerful effects like being unable to be destroyed by battle, when Borrelsword Dragon declares an attack on a face-up monster, the attack of that monster is halved, and Borrelsword Dragon gains that attack.

This means your Borrelsword Dragon will always deal at least 3000 damage to your opponent whenever it successfully destroys a monster and inflicts damage.

9. Mini-Guts

If you’ve watched the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, you might recognize this card from Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal when it was used by Yuma.

And it turns out this card is pretty good in real life as well.

With Mini-Guts can tribute one monster, then target a face-up monster your opponent controls and make its attack 0.

Then this turn, when the monster is destroyed by battle, you can inflict damage equal to the original attack of the monster to your opponent.

This is quite an underused card. So your opponent most likely won’t expect it, which makes it all the more effective.

You can also use Lair of Darkness to tribute your opponent’s monster instead.

8. Fairy Box

Your mileage with this card will vary.

But if you’re known for your luck, you should definitely add this card to your deck.

While your opponent declares an attack, you can activate this continuous trap to flip a coin.

If you call it right then your opponent’s monster’s attack becomes 0 until the end of the battle phase.

However, you do have to pay 500 life points during each of your Standby phases to keep this card on the field.

The reason why this card is so great is that your opponent has to attack first before finding out if their attack is reduced to 0. Moreover, if you pair this card with Second Coin Toss you can increase your chances of calling the coin flip correctly.

Lastly, you can supplement the 500 life point loss with a monster like Number 49: Fortune Tune if that’s an issue for you.

7. Archfiend’s Staff of Despair

Archfiend’s Staff of Despair is going to be the first equip spell on this list – and is a simple but effective card.

You can equip Archfiend’s Staff of Despair to one of your monsters. Then once per turn you can make all your opponent’s monster’s lose attack equal to half the attack of the equipped monster.

So the stronger your monster, the weaker your opponent gets.

A very effective card to pair this spell with is Utopia Double.

You can use Utopia Double’s effect to special summon a Utopia with 5000 attack, and equip this card to Utopia.

All of your opponent’s monsters will lose 2500 attack, and you’ll have a Double or Nothing! To easily OTK your opponent with.

And as for the cherry on top, if you pay 1000 life points, you can add this card from your graveyard back into your hand.

6. Cursed Armaments

Cursed Armaments is quite literally a curse that never leaves for your opponent.

And this can get quite annoying.

You can equip Cursed Armaments to any of your opponent’s monsters, and that monster loses 600 attack for each monster you control.

With potentially up to 6 monsters on the field, this is a possible 3600 attack decrease.

However, if this card is sent to the graveyard, you can then target a face-up monster that your opponent controls and Cursed Armaments that monster.

To quickly flood your field you can try using Scapegoat to instantly drain 2400 attack from one of your opponent’s monsters.

5. Linkmail Archfiend

Although it’s a bit hard to summon, Linkmail Archfiend’s ability to decrease another monster’s attack is on another level compared to some of the cards on this list.

When Linkmail Archfiend is special summoned, you can target any ritual, synchro, Xyz, or Fusion monster in your graveyard or field. Then all of your opponent’s monster’s attacks are decreased by that monster’s attack.

Since Linkmail Archfiend requires at least 1 Ritual/Fusion/Synchro/Xyz to be summoned, there shouldn’t be any problem using its effect to decrease your opponent’s attacks.

Alternatively, if you’re playing a Dogmatika deck, you can send an extra deck monster to the graveyard pretty easily with Dogmatika Maximus.

4. Darkworld Shackles

With Darkworld Shackles, any monster becomes extremely weak and can be destroyed by almost any monster.

You can equip this card to any monster and once you do so, that monster’s attack and defense become 0.

On top of that, whoever controls the monster that this card is equipped to, takes 500 damage during each of your Standby phases.

There isn’t much to complain about with this card, since it not only makes an opponent’s monster very weak, but it also deals some damage to them, which quickly stacks up after a few turns.

3. Forbidden Droplet

Forbidden Droplet is a very pricey card.

But if you can get your hands on a copy, it is definitely a card worth using.

Using Forbidden Droplet, you can send any number of cards from your hand or field to the graveyard, and target the same number of effect monsters on your opponent’s field to negate their effects and halve their attack.

Moreover, your opponent cannot activate any cards that are the same type as the cards you sent to the graveyard from this effect.

For example, if you sent a trap to the graveyard, your opponent can’t activate a trap in response to this card’s effect.

2. Wonder Balloons

If you play this card in a deck like Exodia (which draws an insane number of cards), I’d be surprised if your opponent even had any attack remaining on their monsters.

Wonder Balloons is a continuous spell where once per turn you can activate its effect to send any number of cards from your hand to the graveyard, and then place a counter on this card for each one you sent.

Your opponent’s monsters will then lose 300 attack for each counter on this card.

This means that over time your opponent’s monsters will just get weaker and weaker, and eventually they’ll have no attack left on their monsters.

1. Number 39: Utopia Beyond

Utopia Beyond is a part of the beloved Utopia archetype and is arguably the best card to use to decrease the attack of your opponent’s monsters.

When Utopia Beyond is summoned to the field, the attack of all of your opponent’s monsters instantly becomes 0.

You can easily summon Utopia Beyond in a Utopia deck using Rank-Up-Magic Astral Force.

Plus you can easily perform a game finishing combo using these cards and a spell called Stoic Challenger.

As long as you can get Utopia Beyond on the field with at least 2 materials attached to it, you can equip Stoic Challenger to Utopia Beyond and easily deal over 8000 damage in one turn – since all of your opponent’s monster’s attack would be reduced to 0 anyways.