Ranking every FINAL BOSS DUEL in Yu-Gi-Oh!

Let’s rank all of the end of show boss duels we have seen so far in Yugioh! From DM - VRAINS. I hope you all enjoy!

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EGYPTIAN GOD TIER
Stella Sky

DIAMOND TIER
Jesse Wood
Latrell Smith
Pegasus Seiya
Brandon Gomez

PLATINUM TIER
Jorge Carrillo
Horace Maye
Goosey Q
Vincent Van Der Veen
Panther J
SmiFF620
Jorge Leon
Blue Maiden 28
Jarrett Buller
Nero
Aura Dragon

[oresti]

Zone was a good villan but I am still dissapointed that he wasn't a future version of Yusei but It was just a Yusei fanboy

[Za_Lup]

"Getting his friends back from Purgatory was cool"

Why this sounds so normal about a card anime?

[antoinecoleman]

What got me with Zone was at the end he reflected on what he did to his friends chose to sacrifice himself because of his sins and saved Yusei. I didn’t see that coming. Not any other villain did the right thing at the end he was a unique villain who ultimately saved Domino city, because he realized he was wrong.

[Shiny]

zone is like reverse flash in my i see similarties at least would def be cooler if he was future yusei tho

[asterism]

"Z-ARC vs. Lancers" Don't you mean "Z-ARC vs. Pretty Much Every Single Relevant Character"?

[thesnesgeek]

But Dylan, Sawatari beating Zarc was the highlight. He bypassed Zarc’s strategy completly.

[DQMaster]

6. Zarc VS Lancers : Smiles saves the day
5. Darkness VS Judai : Agree with you on this duel
4. Don Thousand VS Yuma and Shark : Really cool and unique interactions in the duel itself
3. Yami Bakura VS Yugi : Great for Yugi's development, although I could see this and number 4 being swapped
2. Z-One VS Yusei : Great thematic during the duel, the duel itself is long but keeps my interest
1. AI VS Playmaker : This is an emotional and fitting end to AI and his witty banter. Can't wait to watch this duel again once it gets dubbed.

Nice video :)

Top ten non-duel moments attempt 2

[cameraredeye]

Z-ARC's big battle being #6 is perfectly understandable. This whole duel was executed poorly, the last few turns of the duel were HORRIBLY rushed, and in the end, like you said, Dylan, he lost to the SAME EXACT CARDS he was supposed to beat this time. You want to talk anti-climatic? That ending is literally the apex of anti-climatic. The fact that 9 of the 11 people Zarc faced started at just 2000 LP (because of the stupid Intrusion Penalty) while he had 6000+ for most of the duel was really unfair, and worse, none of them did anything significant until Reiji started laying into him -- but even HE went down in 1 turn! Like, Sawatari actually had it right from the get-go, but even he didn't get to shine, which made this duel still worse. I think many people can sympathize with this.

Judai vs. Darkness at #5? Okay, sure. I can see why that would be the case. Like, aside from all the stuff Dylan mentioned, all you really needed to do was give Judai a Jinzo and the bulk of Darkness's control strategy would be gone forever. He'd have to bring out Darkness Neosphere to deal with it since his traps would be null and void...

Yugi vs. Bakura is actually a great test for the innocent little Yugi we've all come to know and love, and the fact that it literally came down to a Heart of the Cards moment with the final topdeck just made Gandora's appearance all the more awesome. (Side note: Kenichi Hara, the star animator for Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's, also animated the episode in which Gandora appeared, and he did quite the good job of it.)

It was kinda tough seeing Yusei vs. Z-one at #3, especially since it didn't seem like any of Yusei's efforts in Synchro spamming were of use until he whipped out Shooting Quasar Dragon. Z-one literally nullified EVERYTHING Yusei did in the duel up until that point, but seeing Yusei strike back with his friends' dragons as one entity was quite satisfying, and well worth the wait. It also had a bit of a reference to Gurren Lagann (Anti-Spiral vs. a multiversal scale Giga Drill Breaker) behind it, which was cool.

Don Thousand at #2 is well justified. The fact that Mizael faced him first and didn't see him do shit, yet still got YEETed by his own cards, was a bit hilarious and also makes for one of the biggest WTF moments in Yu-Gi-Oh anime duel history. It wasn't until Yuma tried to summon Utopia on turn 2 of the big duel with D.T. that he and Nasch finally got some info as to how D.T. was able to just rewrite Mizael's card that would have forced a tie into something that made him commit suicide, and even then they STILL were not guaranteed to win. Why? Because from the moment Don Thousand started actually making use of his turns, he was breathing down the heroes' necks with the threat of lethal damage on EVERY TURN! That whole duel was a mighty fine way to solidify Don Thousand's power as an actual god.

Now, Ai vs. Playmaker as the Grand Battle (yes, I said GRAND BATTLE, because it's that damn good) of Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS was just amazing to see. Poor Ai did not deserve to go through any of the heartache and misery he experienced over losing his entire Ignis family at Bohman's final defeat. Every time he dueled up to that point, he let bits and pieces of that misery slip out here and there, but when it finally came time to face his former partner (who would never have survived up to that point if not for Ai's own help), he was finally free to let it all out. The fact that both Bohman _and_ Lightning got into his head didn't help things at all, and the moment he whipped out The Arrival Cyberse @Ignister was one of the most emotional summons ever. And the last turn... HOLY SHIT that brought me to tears, as did the ending. Being forced to kill a beloved partner just to save the world and bring an end to the story is a choice no one should ever have to make, and is also a straight-up reference to Elfen Lied (which had an inherently sad ending as well). Great pick for the #1 spot, Dylan.

[DungeonBricks]

6-Darkess vs Judaai; no payoff poorly constructed leadup to it
5-Zarc vs Lancers; not 6th just because the battleroyale mechanic
4-AI vs Playmaker; emotional payoff but, as you said in a previous video, there was no love for Vrains, so the aftereffects of it fall flaat to me.
3-Don Thoousand vs Yuma and Shark; honestly just because the sheer numpers (badabum tss) trown in this duel
2-Yami Bakura vs Yugi: Before DSOD this was one of the best character moments for little Yugi.
1-Z-One vs Yusei, although I do agree that Z-One is not tthe best boss (that title goes to AI), the duel is just broke from the beggining. Each time I seee it I find myself saying the chants and the attaks. Is perfectly executed IMHO

[Shiny]

ik the other protags arent in the arc v universe or whatever but i think z arc vs old protags would been goated ngl

[te-jay]

1. Ai: Most emotional battle. solid build up throughout the whole series.

2. Darkness: I freaking loved the darkness archetype and eventhough the character was rushed, the whole duel had by far the best atmosphere. Darkness is a god in that world and felt like THE ultimate threat.

3. Bakura: This duel is one of the few times, where yu-gi is kind of a badass (when he summons gandora). Bakuras deck was really interesting and I love Yami-Bakuras cruel character. Second best atmosphere

4. Zone: A nice duel, but I'm not that big of a fan of timelords and Illiaster always felt like a minor problem compared to the dark signers.

5. Don: Completely over the top. This duel is like bad fan fiction.

6. Zarc: Same problems the video already mentioned. And there is nothing worse for a final duel, when you can predict almost every move.

[bigduelssevens]

Ai Vs Yusaku whas my favourite out of the boss Duels

[oresti]

My ranks
6 zarc vs Lancers (if we exclude the akabas sawatari was the best part of that duel he almost beated zarc)
5 jaden vs darkness
4 Yusei vs zone
3 bakura vs yugi (this is higher than Yusei vs zone because of nostalgia reasons and because I like Yami bakura more as a villan)
2 Don thousand vs yuma and shark ( I am actually surprised that this is my second favorite final villan duel I really liked Don thousand more than I thought I will the duel was great to and the best part is when the ghost of Kaito returns to help shark and Yuma)
And number 1 is playmaker vs the legend himself AI

[ute_yuto]

1. A.i.
2. Z-ONE
3. Darkness
4. Don Thousand
5. Bakura.
6. Z-ARC

overall Yugioh's strength almost never relies on the final "boss" or "villian" imo.

[kaynight]

In my view:
0. Yuma vs Nash. (I understand why Don Thousand is seen as the final boss, being the mastermind behind the scenes, but Nash's parallel to Yuma was impressive and this is just one of the best duels of Zexal)
1. Yusei vs Z-ONE (This duel is just epic, with many twists and turns and a lot of meaning to it.)
2. Playmaker vs Ai (Another great duel between parallels, like Yuma and Nash. The monsters and effects are really cool, but some of the scripting annoys me)
3. Yuma and Nash vs Don Thousand (great 'invincible final boss' feel, extremely cool deck combinations, but Don 1000 doesn't feel like much of a character)
4. Zarc vs Lancers (Epic duel, bad ending, enough said)
5. Yugi vs Yami Bakura (Great character development, not really 'boss'-like. Mill is a bit annoying as a strategy)
6. Judai vs Darkness (Boooring, Darkness' deck is not very interesting.)

[supersaiyanmikito]

I understand what they were doing with Zarc but it felt like things got rushed and just fell through. Like when you think about it, Zarc himself has a lot of neat references to GX that really could have been expanded more. He was someone people really liked who went bad, his main archtype is "Supreme King" and he turns into a human dragon monster. He is basically an amalgamation of Judai and Yubel, but they never went anywhere with it. So what would have been neat for his battle is if after fusing his parts he basically turns into the Supreme King but with Yuya wearing the armor with yellow eyes. He would start calm and dark and one by one OTK each person with his individual dragons. Finally when Reiji comes in, he actually is able to fight back which angers Zarc so he then using Super Polymerization to fuse his dragons and himself which corrupts him and turns him into the dragon form. Finally once Ray joins, she begins playing a bunch of cards that have seeming no purpose and just stalling. After a couple turns, her cards suddenly start going off and she adds En Flowers from the graveyard and plays it. Zarc negates and destroys it again but Ray does the combo again and adds it again. Zarc finally realized she has him trapped because she created an infinite loop of effects that lets her bring them back as many times as she wants. Zarc burns away all his cards and all his life points trying to negate them over and over again but in the end En Flowers goes off and ends the duel. In the end, she would make a comment about how if he had simply accepted defeat for once he might have survived the En cards but in trying to fight back, he destroyed himself and lost everything.

[godsstrength]

Can you do "How Yugioh arc v Should've ended"

[bladersmosh]

I'm one of those who genuinely likes the Z-ARC duel. It wasn't perfect like most, Z-ARC's characterisation could be better developed, the bracelet girls could've had some action, a bit predictable, Leo could've done so much more but it had great moments; Shingo nearly beating Z-ARC, Noh Gil Boh's animation of EP 138, Reiji naturally, music, summoning of Supreme King Dragon Z-ARC, showed lots of action between users of each summon methods, Ray got some decent action at the end with the En cards and the final moments with Yuya and Z-ARC was good etc. Moments like that is what makes it fun to watch.
Anyone agree with me to a degree?

[arrowstrike]

If I could change one of these, it would be Zarc. I would extend each duel by another episode or two, and as each individual enters, they start remembering their alternate self, and later, when they're about to lose, they find cards they didn't have in their decks before. Those cards being ones from their other self like Kite drawing Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon and the spirit of Mizael giving him Tachyon Dragon, then the duelist evolve even further, combining their power into something even larger, like Kite summoning a Rank 12 or higher monster using all three Neo Galaxy-Eyes Dragons, or Jack summoning Red Super Nova Dragon or another powerful dragon monster. I would still have Zarc defeat each one to show just how powerful he is, but he would have to work harder to do it, rather than OTKing everyone. To defeat him, those four cards wouldn't beat him, they would summon doors. Through those doors would be the previous protagonists, and they would put everything they had into defeating Zarc. As they fought, other characters from each Era that weren't in Arc-V would appear for a turn, assist however they could, and die to Zarc. The four protagonists would duel Zarc until they were on the edge of defeat, but as Zarc laughed at their efforts having gone to waist, he would reach for a card only to discover none left in his deck.

Zarc gets angry, but before he destroys anything, he freezes. In his soul, the four that he split into have challenged him. As the duel goes on, the four use each other's dragons to summon more powerful versions of their own, and in the end, Yuya defeats Zarc and regains control of his body.

This would probably have to be another season entirely, but I think it would have been awesome.

[zeptier]

The thing I love about Zarc is his dub voice. It is so stupid but I love specifically for one interaction
Professor: Zarc!
Zarc: WHAT?
It made me laugh so much harder than it rightfully should have