withheldforprivacy said:
1. Yugi would've lost to Bakura, had it not been for Slifer...
Bakura>Yugi
Fair enough.
2. Yugi beat Kaiba, after the gods went to graveyard, and said there is no difference between their skills and he won because Kaiba denied
his past...
Yugi~Kaiba
Agreed.
3. Marik would've lost to everyone had it not been for Ra. Yugi, however, would've gone down much easier than Joey/Mai did, had it not been for
Kaiba's lent card.
Joey>Yugi
This is baloney and I don't know how the fandom keeps this belief alive. Marik tooled Joey just fine without Ra, he wanted Mai to try to steal Ra from him (obviously, and stated by Yugi) plus he never appeared fazed by anything she did, and it's made apparent throughout the entire duel that he was stringing Yugi along to do what he wanted. Yugi is the only one Marik really took seriously (he only took Joey seriously during the final couple turns). Mai, Bakura/normal!Marik, and Joey for the most part were all playthings to him.
4. Joey technically lost to Odeon
Odeon>Joey
He outright admitted defeat before normal!Marik fucked everything up for Odion.
5. Ishizu would've beaten Kaiba if she hadn't given him Obelisk. Think of it. Her Exchange Of Spirit strategy would be the same, Millenium
Necklace powers or not. Kaiba would have summoned BEWD instead of Obelisk, BEWD would have taken the bomb and Kaiba wold have no
way out of the trap.
Ishizu>Kaiba
Her use of Exchange of Spirit may have remained the same, but do you honestly think she would've played exactly the same had she not seen every single move Kaiba was going to make? She knew every card he would play and in what order, giving her basically the enhanced version of Pegasus' Millennium Eye hax.
6. Mai is an offensive player like Joey; she'd have most likely fallen for Odeon's slow game too...
Odeon>Mai
Definitely agreed here. Even her Feather Duster wouldn't be of much use since he'd be able to counter that or just put down more traps.
7. This is just intuition, but
Bakura>Odeon>Ishizu
I highly doubt that Bakura's Occult Deck could beat Odion's Trap Deck. Odion would have a counter to Destiny Board and Dark Sanctuary activating, and there's nothing Bakura could do about it. Bakura's modified deck he used against Yami Marik would be even easier pickings for Odion to smash.
All in all...
Marik<Yugi~Kaiba<Joey~Mai<Ishizu<Odeon<Bakura
See, this is why I'm becoming more adverse to trying the DBZ way of ranking for this show. The battles aren't dependent on sheer power – they're won through strategy, luck, or broken cards that don't always equate to power either. I said this somewhere else, either here or DBZF, but Alister is a prime example of fluctuating standing. He would've beaten Kaiba in their first match had it not been for Critias (although you can argue Kaiba was misled and therefore unprepared), yet he pretty much offered no threat to Kaiba the second time around beyond out-of-duel shenanigans. A lot of that was due to his deck and strategies. Bakura is similar in that he can take down the King of Games in one duel, get squashed effortlessly against Yami Marik, stalemate Kaiba a hundred episodes later, then very nearly beat Yugi who went on to beat Atem who had all 3 Egyptian Gods. Is Bakura actually the best duelist in the entire show if we subtract OP legendary cards? Probably not, and the show and general fandom wouldn't agree with that either. The show is very clear that Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey are the best around by the later sagas (and GX simply reinforces this if you want to count Pegasus' statement), and everyone else is below them with few exceptions such as Rafael. Even during Battle City or thereafter, nobody wondered, "Gee, that Bakura fella could probably win the tournament if the God Cards weren't around." It was still regarded that Yugi and Kaiba were the best at the time. Granted, Bakura isn't bad at all, but if even he didn't consider himself a real duelist (said as much during his bout with little Yugi at the end), should he really be taken as some outlying god of a man that was secretly better than everyone else but just got shafted each time?
