Fusions were the first card type to ever utilise the extra deck zone, formerly known as the “fusion zone”.
With the majority of them requiring Polymerisation to be summoned, they offered a unique summoning method to incorporate into your strategies.
As time went on, entire archetypes and deck cores were released, all based around fusion summoning.
Some of them simply require some monsters on the field, while others have their own fusion spells.
So if you dig the purple hue of fusion monsters, enjoy their play-styles or simply want to try something different, a good fusion archetype might be perfect for you.
All entries on this list are fully playable on their own, a few of them are even competitively viable!
10. Ancient Gear
Used to be the bane of my existence when the epic fusions for Ancient Gears were released, whereas now they’re a bit too slow to keep up with a lot of decks you see today.
Still though, Ancient Gears are decent casually, especially if you can consistently summon the big boss monsters.
Chaos Ancient Gear Giant is a tyrannical monster, capable of straight-up winning you the game through sheer firepower alone.
They have their own fusion card in Ancient Gear Fusion.
9. D/D
Easily the highest skill-cap archetype on the list, and possibly the highest in the entire game.
D/D monsters utilise the effect of Swirl Slime & Necro Slime to summon their fusion monsters, as well as Dark Contract With the Swamp King.
While powerful, D/Ds are ranked so low due to their reliance on other types of monsters.
You can successfully do a ton of fusion summoning, even base most of the strategies around them, but you’ll need to XYZ or Synchro summon to win consistently.
8. Blue-Eyes
Extremely fun deck, sacrificing protection for raw power.
Blue-Eyes got even more support with the release of the above monster, as well as Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.
Capable of bursting through big bosses, or inflicting heavy damage via direct attacks, Blue-Eyes fusion monsters need plenty of back-up in the form of spells/traps/hand-traps to stay on the field.
It’s also worth including Five-Headed Dragon & Dragon’s Mirror for even more epic dragon fusion monsters!
7. Cyber Dragons
One of the most supported archetypes in existence, Konami loves Cyber Dragons and there’s plenty of ways to get them onto the field.
Overload Fusion & Power Bond are their main dedicated fusion spells, but many of them can be special summoned by their own effects, by using monsters on the field!
With tons of cards available to search and protect your Cyber Dragons, they’re an incredibly fun and powerful archetype.
6. ABC
ABC-Dragon Buster used to top tournaments everywhere, in today’s Yugioh it doesn’t see nearly as much play, but it’s certainly a choice for those who enjoy the union/machine typing on their monsters.
The aim is to summon ABC-Dragon Buster ASAP, there it’ll serve to out your opponents main cards, tributing itself if it gets into any trouble.
There’s a high chance it’ll get support in the future and it’s a cheap deck to build, definitely worth picking up!
Union Hangar is almost a 1-card combo to summon this fusion monster, but ABCs currently don’t have any other fusion monsters in their roster.
5. HERO
Many sub-archetypes of HEROs exist:
- Masked HERO
- Destiny HERO
- Elemental HERO
- Evil HERO
- Xtra HERO
They can all work together, or work separately. Many HERO decks you see today will have some form of Links (Xtra HEROs) in them, but they’re perfectly viable casually without Link monsters.
Masked HEROs are some of the best, as they require just a simple Mask Change to summon, very handy.
Elemental HEROs have the most support, while Destiny/Evil HEROs are also pretty good.
They all want Vision HEROs to be more consistent.
How you build them is completely up to you!
You could even build multiple decks and alternate cards as needed.
There are tons of different fusion spells you can add, not limited to:
- Miracle Fusion
- Parallel World Fusion
- Vision Fusion
- Dark Fusion
- Form Change
- Mask Change 2
- Neos Fusion
4. Frightfur
Frightfur monsters combine Edge Imps and Fluffals to make their bizarre fusion monsters.
They have quite different, but strong effects, capable of dealing damage, summoning monsters, or protecting themselves/each other.
With their own spell card by the name of Frightfur Fusion, they’re actually quite fun and strong, but only effective in casual duels.
3. Shaddoll
Shaddoll fusion monsters are particularly easy to summon, due to their low fusion fodder requirements, and the addition of Shaddoll Fusion.
Shaddoll effect monsters are all flip effect monsters, using their effects to flip others face up/down to gain effects to search cards for themselves, or clear your opponent’s field.
Then you have the fusions, which are monstrously powerful for dealing with enemy monsters. If any of them are sent to the graveyard, they return a Shaddoll spell/trap back to your hand too.
Easiest way to get a bunch of the necessary Shaddoll cards is with the structure deck!
2. Lunalight
Currently the bane of my existence as a Sky Striker player, Lunalights are crazy consistent and can summon big boss monsters first turn, even if you hand-trap them.
They used to be meta in the competitive scene until Lunalight Tiger was sent to the forbidden list.
So you basically search the cards you need, using the various Lunalight effect monsters, and get out your big boss, then attack for game.
Not only do these big boss fusion monsters have built-in protection, Lunalights have other effects to negate your opponent’s card effects, or protect their monsters.
You don’t even need Link monsters to dominate the casual scene with this deck, they’re one of the most budget-friendly archetypes in the game!
This archetype comes with Lunalight Fusion.
1. Invoked
By themselves, Invoked aren’t a great archetype to build a pure deck around.
Instead, you’ll want to include them with another archetype deck core.
Most people mix Invoked with Shaddoll for one truly obscene deck, swarming big fusion monsters to delete any monsters your opponent tries to summon, as well as preventing them from using spells or traps 🙂
Aleister the Invoker, paired with Invocation, fits snuggly into almost any other fusion archetype deck build.
No other archetype can pump out as many epic fusion monsters as Invoked!