Blue-Eyes White Dragon
Generation 1:
Duel Monsters
User: Seto Kaiba
Original Artwork:
Latest Artwork:
Imagine having a card with such a reputation as the strongest card ever that there's a written rule on Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh! Design Team that states that no other normal monster can ever match the strength of that card. A card whose design, name and anime appereances have created thousands of references and memes. If there is one card that goes beyond being associated with "Yu-Gi-Oh!" it has to be this one. Your friends might not know a thing about this game, but they have heard the name before.
A powerful engine of destruction, virtually invincible. Blue-Eyes White Dragon is a level 8, Light, Dragon-Type Normal Monster that boasts the highest attack among all normal monsters in the game, 20 years of new cards and mechanics cannot strip him of the title of strongest normal monster, it has 3000 ATK. And a solid 2500 DEF.
Blue-Eyes artworks are all freaking great (with the exception of it's mandatory god-awful
"Stone Tablet" version), but it's the original artwork the one that I think made this card what it is. Despite the fact of the original artwork being a Blue-Eyes Blue Dragon the artwork immediately pulls your attention towards it's signature feature, it's eye. The pose of the card, the colors, everything works to make that blue-eye as striking as possible, even the little wrinkles on the creature's eye-socket focus on making it stand out. And it works. You feel as if that dragon is staring directly at your soul. The rest of the creature feels a bit cartoonish at times, which is why I feel the card's
second artwork tried to make him look more menacing and while I don´t hate it. I think simplicity worked best this time.
That said, I cannot not give a shoutout to Kazuki Takahashi's simply beatiful anniversary artwork for the card, it's absolutely breathtaking and my favorite artwork for the creature
The fully drawn background does wonders to sell this as a living thing that inhabits another world. The lack of detailed backgrounds is one of the main sins of YGO artwork, and this card is a testament of what could be.
Unlike Dark Magician, Blue-Eye's design remains consistent even with the previosly mentioned coloring issues that make it look blue at times, no matter how many artworks this card gets, it never gets old. You can even throw the fucker
in space and it will still look majestic. But that simple first artwork is undeniably what made the card an icon.
Blue-Eyes is well worth it's 2 tribute requirement to hit the field, but again, it was outclassed by "Summoned Skull" as the go to beater of Yu-Gi-Oh's early days, why wait until you have 2 monsters when you can just use 1 and get a 2500 beater that you can equip with axe of despair? Why risk running 3 of those fuckers and brick your deck for the unlikely event that you'll be able to fuse them into Ultimate Dragon?
In modern YGO the times have changed, and thankfully for Blue-Eyes, it's enormous batch of support geared into turning the deck into a Synchro-focused deck that also has access to great fusions monsters and have made it a force to be reckoned with in the casual circles of the game.
The lore behind the support is creative as hell, it's basically an order of Blue-Eyes worshippers that do everything in their power to get their master to the field. Even the egg of the dragon itself became a card to help you bring out the engine of destruction as fast as possible
Together with many new forms for the creature itself to take and disrupt the opponent with quick effects and non stop attacks
And even amazing Spell support
Blue-Eyes' level 8 even makes it able to make use the Xyz monsters of one of the many "-Eyes" Dragon themes inspired by it, my personal favorite "Galaxy-Eyes"
Even if not a tournament winner, Blue-Eyes is a beloved deck, one that makes it worth the pain of finding a good price for it's rarest cards.
Blue-Eyes is the card that started it all really, even the very first expansion set of the game is named after it. There's few bad things to say about it. The reason why I consider "Dark Magician" to be the face of YGO, is because I firmly believe Blue-Eyes White Dragon goes above and beyond that.
Trivia time!I In the manga and anime the spirit of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon is supposed to inhabit originally a human egyptian girl named Kisara. This piece of lore inspired the creation of "Maiden with Eyes of Blue"