It was a type with a lot of in-built synergy, with each psychic monster gaining attack boosts or special abilities when other psychics were on the field. They also tend to pay life points to unlock their effects, while their synchro monsters specialize in gaining you those life points back (and then some!) Since then, a couple of psychic decks have actually made their way into the meta game. Who could forget Kozmo, the Star Wars inspired deck that took every single tournament by storm? Or Mekk-Knights, the archetype that actually made us think about what column a monster was in? So if you’re interested in incorporating some of these powerful monsters into your strategies, then check these cards out. Here’s our top picks for the absolute best psychic monsters in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!
12. Overdrive Teleporter
Overdrive Teleporter is absolutely fantastic for any deck that doesn’t mind tribute summoning. It’s a one tribute monster with 2100 attack, which is a pretty decent payoff. When he’s on the field, you can pay 2000 life points to special summon two level 3 psychic monsters straight from your deck! Unlike a lot of other cards that special summon monsters from the deck, these cards don’t have their effects negated, and they aren’t automatically destroyed during the end phase. Probably one of the best plays to go into off of this card is to special summon a tuner and a non-tuner, then synchro summon into level 6, 9, or maybe even 12!
11. Re-Cover
This weird looking spell-book is the perfect level one tuner that’s easy to access. While your opponent has more cards in their extra deck than you do, you can special summon this card from your graveyard. This gives you a level one tuner monster that you can use for all sorts of synchro summons. This is great in two situations. If you’re playing against a pendulum deck then the chances are that your opponent has loaded up their extra deck with pendulum monsters, meaning you can special summon this card whenever you like! And Re-cover is also great if you play the latest draw spell Pot of Prosperity. This card allows you to draw by banishing cards from your extra deck, which means you extra deck will almost certainly be smaller than your opponent’s!
10. Destructotron
Spell and trap removal is absolutely crucial if you want to do well in Yu-Gi-Oh! Some of the most powerful strategies revolve around trap cards that can negate summons and card activations. If you can destroy these before they even get a chance to activate, then you’ve got a great shot at winning. And here’s how Destructotron can help: By paying 1000 life points, you can destroy any set spell or trap card on the field. The amazing thing about this ability is that it’s not once per turn at all. As long as you’ve got life points to spare, you can just keep on destroying your opponent’s backrow.
9. Kozmo Tincan
Kozmo decks absolutely rocked the meta game when they were first introduced. Not only are they one of the coolest decks out there (being based off of the Star Wars movies), but they have some of the most powerful effects out there too. Each small monster brings out much bigger and scarier monsters, and Kozmo Tincan is a prime example of this. Either you can banish this card from your field to spell summon any level 2 or higher Kozmo from your hand, or you can reveal 3 Kozmo cards from your deck and get one randomly added to your hand, while the rest are sent to the graveyard. Who could say no to a free search and a Foolish Burial chucked in too?
8. Mental Seeker
This card is quite unique in that it only gains its effect when it’s special summoned from being banished. There are certainly plenty of cards that’ll do just that, making this card a nice psychic monster for many decks. When he’s special summoned, you can look at the top 3 cards of your opponent’s deck and remove one of them from play. This ensures that your opponent won’t be pulling any surprises on you in the next turn. And if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll banish some of their most important combo pieces! If you know your opponent is playing “one-offs” in their deck, then I’d definitely include a copy of Mental Seeker.
7. Psy-Framelord Omega
This is probably one of the best level 8 synchros out there, Psychic type or otherwise. During the main phase you can banish both this face-up card and one card in your opponent’s hand, until the next standby phase. This allows you to deprive your opponent of much needed resources, and to get a vague idea of what plays they’re about to try. The fact that you can do this every single turn to your opponent is absolutely crazy. And they’re certainly going to have a hard time keeping their hand a secret when this card is on the field! If this card is eventually destroyed, all you need to do is shuffle one card from your graveyard into the deck, then Psy-Framelord Omega returns to the extra deck ready for you to summon all over again.
6. Psychic Lifetrancer
Psychic Lifetrancer was one of the most widely-played synchro monsters of all time when synchros were still relatively new. It’s a generic level 7 synchro monster with a pretty decent attack stat than can bag you 1200 life points for banishing a psychic monster from your graveyard. At the time, there was a certain level 2 psychic tuner that was used a lot to summon this card. And as such, Psychic Lifetrancer was pretty much a guaranteed life point gain! This monster is exponentially better in pure psychic decks. You’ll have plenty more psychic monsters to banish, and some monsters actually want to be banished, like Mental Seeker!
5. Psy-Framegear Gamma
Psy-Framegear Gamma is a fantastic staple hand trap. When your opponent activates a monster effect while you control no monsters, you can negate the effect and destroy that monster straight away. As if that wasn’t good enough, you can then special summon a Psy-Frame Driver from your hand, deck, or graveyard, giving you two monsters for free that you can use for extra deck summons. The only downside to this card is having to run Psy-Frame Driver in your deck, which is a level 6 normal monster. Great for old-school Yu-Gi-Oh, but pretty useless in Modern formats if you end up drawing it.
4. Hyper Psychic Blaster
Hyper Psychic Blaster gives psychic decks an important way to win: a big ol’ beat stick. This monster deals piercing battle damage, meaning if it attacks a defense position monster with a lower defense than this card’s attack, your opponent takes the difference as damage. Not only that, but you actually gain life points equal to the difference between this card’s attack and the opposing monster’s defense. Nice little bonus there. Especially great since Psychic decks tend to run low on life points. A lot of the main deck monsters have abilities that cost life points, and so if you’re not careful you can run out pretty quickly. Hyper Psychic Blaster keeps your life points topped up, and your opponent’s life points nice and low.
3. Magical Android
As another great generic synchro monster, Magical Android is a level 5 synchro monster that can bag you tons of life points. During every single end phase, you gain 600 life points for every face-up psychic monster you control. At a minimum, this is going to be 600 every turn since Magical Android triggers itself. But this effect gets seriously strong as you get more monsters out. At a maximum, you’re looking at 3000 life points during the end of every single turn. Your opponent will have to have a seriously lucky break to try and bring that down.
2. Krebons
I would argue that Krebons was one of the best tuners Yu-Gi-Oh has ever seen. You can pay 800 life points to ensure that this guy isn’t attacked. And this isn’t a once per turn effect, meaning if Krebons is targeted for multiple attacks, you can negate every single one of them. One of the hardest things I find with synchro summoning is keeping a tuner on the board long enough to bring out my non tuners. Krebons makes sure that whenever you need that level 2 tuner, he’s there. And this card is also great for reducing the damage you’d be taking from attacks. 800 life points is way better than 3000 to the face from a Blue Eyes, that’s for sure!
1. Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit
This card is easily the best psychic monster in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, and certainly the most played. When a face-up card on the field activates its effect, be that monster, spell, or trap, you can discard Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit to destroy that card on the field. One of the main reasons this card is so powerful is because of how versatile it is. You can get rid of all sorts of threats all at once, without having to side deck separate cards for dealing with spells, traps, and monsters. This card is also great in the current format where field spells are crucial to so many strategies. Dragon Link, one of the most powerful decks around right now, wouldn’t function in the slightest without its field spell Boot Sector Launch. No matter what kind of deck you’re playing, I’d recommend a copy of this card in your main deck – and possibly a couple more in your side deck!
