Summary
Mai Valentine is one of the most fearsome and fashionable duelists inYu-gi-oh!, and her deck is reflective of that, featuring clever trap cards, beautiful female fighters, and unique spell cards that bolster her monster’s power. Her strategy revolves around multiplying her forces on the battlefield and overwhelming her opponent with attacks, or sacrificing one of those Monsters to summon something more powerful.
Yu-gi-oh!is a worldwide hit anime based on the manga written by Kazuki Takahashi, about the players of a popular card game called Duel Monsters. Based on ancient Egyptian magic, Duel Monsters is a strategy game that brings Monsters to life on a holographic battlefield as two players take turns attacking, setting traps, or casting spell cards.
She may not be the strongest or most-decorated duelist, butMai Valentine’s deck contains some of of theYu-gi-oh!franchise’s most iconic cards.
Which Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime Deck Should You Use According To Your Zodiac Sign?
What archetype would better fit each of the Zodiac Signs based on their personality, likes, and play style?
10Harpie Lady/Cyber Harpie
Monster Card/Effect Monster Card
Harpie Lady is Mai Valentine’s signature monsteraround which she builds her entire deck and strategy. The winged beast is a beautiful female humanoid with feathered wings and razor-sharp claws, and can be outfitted with a number of spells that boost its attack power, like Cyber Shield and Rose Whip. Harpie Lady appears in every battle Mai fights in the course ofYu-gi-oh!’s story, and Cyber Harpie is its own unique version that includes the power-up advantage provided by Cyber Shield, without having to draw and equip the Spell Card.
Mai first appears inYu-gi-oh!in season one, episode #6, “First Duel” battling Joey Wheeler.She dominates the battle with Harpie Lady, amping up its power with a Field Power Bonus and Cyber Shield. However, she is outmaneuvered by Joey when he uses Time Wizarad to age his Baby Dragon into Thousand Dragon, which Mai’s harpies are no match for.
9Elegant Egotist
Spell Card
One of the strongest Spell cardsto pair with Harpie Lady is Elegant Egotist, which allows Mai to bring an additional Harpie Lady onto the field, or summon the winged beast’s sisters to battle. When the Harpie Lady Sisters are on the field, they have stronger attack and defense than a single Harpy Lady alone. Since the sisters can only be summoned to the field by using Elegant Egotist, and the spell card doesn’t work with any other monster cards, Mai has to be very strategic about how she builds her deck.
In her first duel with Joey, Mai can seemingly predict every card she draws, which makes pulling specific cards like Elegant Egotist a breeze.She uses the Spell to summon all three Harpie Lady Sistersbefore Joey pulls off his trick with Time Wizard, and the three winged creatures dominate the battle for a while. It turns out Mai’s precognitive abilities were a trick, using perfumes to identify specific cards without having to look. While this is technically cheating, it is a clever way to compensate for Elegant Egotist’s limited scope.
8Mirror Wall
Trap Card
Mirror Wall is one of the most-used Trap cards inYu-gi-oh!and it’s one that Mai uses in each battle. The effect of this card halves the strength of the attacking Monster, which means instant destruction if it doesn’t exceed the target’s attack or defense. The card has a continuous effect and remains on the field until it is removed by a Spell, Trap, or Effect Monster.
During Mai’s first battle with Yugi in season one, episode #30, “Duel Identity Pt. 2”,Mai’s Mirror Wall has theKing of Gameson the ropes, unable to attack without destroying his own Monsters. Sadly, Mai is outmaneuvered by Yugi, who uses Brain Control to seize one of Mai’s Monsters, then uses Catapult Turtle to destroy both the Mirror Wall and the stolen Monster. This masterful move does not decide the battle, but it does give Yugi a foot in the door.
7Amazoness Chain Master
Effect Monster Card
Although her deck is initially built around Harpie Lady cards,when Mai returns for Seto Kaiba’s Battle City Tournament, she adds Amazon cards to the mix. These female warriors are each themed with different specializations, like sword-fighting and archery, and many have built-in effects that activate under certain conditions. It’s good to see Mai abandon her cheating tactics and focus on more complex strategies in battle.
In season two, episode #41, “Mind Game: Mai vs. Marik Pt. 2”,Mai faces an uphill battle against the season’s main antagonist, Marik Ishtar. She sends Amazoness Chain Master to the field, which Marik destroys in his next turn, but that activates the card’s effect and allows Mai to steal a card of her choice from her opponent’s hand. The blonde duelist chooses Marik’s Egyptian God Card, The Winged Dragon of Ra, and seemingly gains the upper hand in the battle.
6Fairy’s Hand Mirror
Fairy’s Hand Mirror is a Trap Card that is activated when the opponent targets a single Monster with a Spell Card, and allows the user to redirect the Spell Card’s effect to another Monster. This can be very useful when the opponent utilizes Spell Cards to enhance their Monster’s attack, by redistributing the advantage which undermines the opposing strategy.Curiously, Mai only uses Fairy’s Hand Mirror once, and it is in a flashback scene.
In season four, epsiode #8 “My Freaky Valentine Pt. 1”, Mai recounts a duel with an unknown competitor as she duels with Joey. In that flashback, Mai is under attack from Tri-horned Dragon, which it’s user enhances with the Spell Card, Rush Recklessly. Though the Spell boosts the dragon’s attack by 300, Mai quickly activatesFairy’s Hand Mirror and reassigns the advantage to her Cyber Harpie, raising its attack higher than Tri-horned Dragon’sand handing her a decisive victory.
5Gravity Bind
One of the factors to consider when dueling is the star value of the Monster, which indicates the effort needed to summon it. The higher the star rating, the stronger the Monster is and the more conditions that must be met to summon it, like sacrificing another Monster, or special-summoning it with a Spell card.Gravity Bind is a simple Trap card that prevents Monsters with four or more stars from attacking, as long as it remains active on the battlefield.
Mai uses Gravity Bind to slow down the battle between her and Marik during the Battle City finals.With this trap card in play, Marik’s Monsters shouldn’t be able to attack, giving Mai time to outlast the effects of her opponent’s Spell Card, Swords of Revealing Light. Despite the sound strategy to use Gravity Bind, Mai places the trap too late, and Marik successfully summons The Winged Dragon of Ra. The golden God depletes Mai’s life points, and banishes her to the Shadow Realm inone ofYu-gi-oh!‘smost unfair duels.
4Harpie Lady Phoenix Formation
The Spell card, Harpie Lady Phoenix Formation, is a powerful enhancement to Mai’s Harpie multiplication strategy. When activated, if Mai controls three or more Harpie cards on the field,Phoenix Formation allows her to target and destroy every Monster in play on her opponent’s side, and attack their life points directly.
In the fourth season ofYu-gi-oh!,Mai is plagued with insecurity after being tortured in the Shadow Realm during Battle City. She joins up with the season’s main antagonists, Dartz and his henchmen, and allows herself to be corrupted by the Seal of Orichalcos.Forced to battle Joey in a life-or-death duel, Mai floods the field with Harpiesand when she finally pulls Phoenix Formation from her hand, she uses it to destroy his three Monsters on the field and drain his life points down to the brink of defeat.
3Nightmare Tri-mirror
The trap card, Nightmare Tri-mirror,creates a copy of the user’s active Monsters on the field for every Monster their opponent special-summons. This capability is especially advantageous for Mai, as it allows her to multiply her Harpie cards, consolidating more and more power on her side of the field. With each additional copy in play, Mai can meet the number of Harpies required to activate powerful Spell and Trap cards, like Harpie Lady Phoenix and Sparrow Formations.
In season four, episode #34, “Fighting for a Friend Pt. 4”,Mai activates Nightmare Tri-mirror in her final duel with Joeywhen he special-summons four Monsters. The Trap card creates four additional Harpies to the field, tipping the battle in her favor. Although Mai has the upper hand, she hesitates to deliver the final blow to her friend, but he collapses from exhaustion anyway and Mai is declared the winner, trapping Joey’s soul in the Seal of Orichalcos.
2Harpie’s Pet Dragon
Dragons are one of the most prevalent monster types inYu-gi-oh!,among them are the iconic Blue Eyes White Dragon and Silfer the Sky Dragon. Never one to be left out, Mai’s deck has a dragon of her own, Harpie’s Pet Dragon, a powerful monster that gains 300 Attack and Defense points for every active Harpie card on the field. Given Mai’s strategy of multiplying her Harpies, the addition of the pet dragon can be a decisive move in battle, if done correctly.
Harpie’s Pet Dragon is consistently one of Mai’s heavy hitters, appearing in many of her battles inYu-gi-oh!. In season one, episode #29, “Duel Identity”, Mai summons the dragon in her fight against Yugi in the Duelist Kingdom Tournament’s semi-finals. Harpie’s Pet Dragon, powered-up by the Harpie Ladies on the field,easily destroys some of Yugi’s most iconic fighters, likeSummoned Skulland Dark Magician.
1Harpie’s Feather Duster
Harpie’s Feather Duster is a powerful spell card thatallows the user to destroy all of their enemy’s Spell and Trap cards on the field.This is extremely useful in dueling, as it eliminates any nasty surprises lurking under the face-down trap cards, and clears a path for unrestricted attacks. The card is so powerful that until recently it was banned from the real-life official card game, ending its 16-year ban in 2020.
Mai uses Harpie’s Feather Duster in each of her battles shown inYu-gi-oh!,and with good reason. Theoverpowered Spell cardcomes in handy in Mai’s duel with Marik in Battle City, when the latter plays Jam Breeding Machine, which employs a multiplication strategy similar to Mai’s, creating Slime Tokens that can be sacrificed to summon one of the Ancient Egyptian God Cards. Jam Breeding Machine nearly defeated Yugi at the beginning of the season, but Harpie’s Feather Duster allows Mai to take it out with one move.
