Expert Gameplay FAQ: FTK (First Turn Kill)

A First Turn Kill is similar to a One Turn Kill, but this is pulled off in the player's first turn. "Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End" was capable of this when it was not forbidden if you had the right cards to go with it such as "Graceful Charity" and "Card Destruction". It is also possible to win on your first turn by obtaining all five "Forbidden One" pieces during your first draw phase, but this is unlikely to happen.

Other "First Turn Kill" decks are the "Magical Scientist First Turn Kill" and the "Dark Magician of Chaos First Turn Kill". The "Magical Scientist First Turn Kill" Deck consists of mainly Spell Cards that utilize the Summoning of "Catapult Turtle" and "Magical Scientist". "Dark Magician of Chaos First Turn Kill" abuses "Dimension Fusion", "Spell Economics" and possibly "Toon Cannon Soldier", "Cannon Soldier", "Catapult Turtle" or "Mass Driver". The "Magical Scientist" First Turn Kill" no longer exists in the Advanced Format as "Magical Scientist" is Forbidden.

New "First Turn Kill" and "One Turn Kill" decks are available after the release of "Cyber Valley" in the booster Phantom Darkness. New tactics like Rescue Cat Burn and Banisher Mill innovate in the field of FTKs with complex new strategies.

These kind of Decks are considered "broken" and frowned upon by many duelists because of the absence of skill involved with the duels themselves, especially at a high rate of success. First, FTK users either have to hope they go first and kill their opponent that first turn or they hope they survive and try again. This relies a lot more on luck than on skill on the FTK user. Second, it completely ignores both the opponent's Deck and the Side Deck. They can have the best deck in the metagame or all the tech cards to counter the FTK, but the chances of success for the opponent is still slim.

One of the most used cards to counter FTKs and OTKs (especially in decks with Synchros) is "Effect Veiler", as not only it has the ability of negating a monster's effect until the end of the turn by sending it to the graveyard (rendering most of those strategies useless), but also is a level one Tuner monster, making space on the Extra Deck for monsters like "Formula Synchron" or "Life Stream Dragon".

Here are some First Turn Kills:

Butterfly Dagger - Elma OTK (Traditional only)
Dark Magician of Chaos OTK (Traditional only)
Magical Explosion FTK
Magical Scientist Deck (Traditional only)
Frog Burn FTK (Traditional only in most of its forms)
Spell Counter OTK
Gallis the Star Beast FTK