Even three Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s could not beat the all powerful, all mighty, unstoppable monster; Exodia the Forbidden One, as Yugi showed Kiaba. Once-upon-a-time when you could play 3 of each piece of Exodia, getting all 5 pieces of Exodia in hand was doable especially with Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest running amuck. It is actually pretty cool how you can put all 5 pieces together to get a whole monster.
 
With the release of One Day of Peace, this deck type has actually become viable again. You can run a deck that has Exodia as the main win condition or a deck that has Exodia as an alternate win condition. For a pretty good list of deck types you can visit the following web site: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Exodia_OTK
 
Personally, I think if you are going to play Exodia, you should make a deck dedicated to just drawing Exodia. I also believe that a deck that does not give your opponent a chance to respond to your plays will be more successful. This type of deck does not use monsters that need to be on the field, traps, field spells, or anything that needs to be set. It runs all spells with ether a Dragon or Destiny Hero engine. I prefer Dragons as they can search and have more draw power. They also have Super Rejuvenation with Reload.
 
With all of the draw power in the game, getting all 5 pieces of Exodia in hand can be done in one or two turns making it a deck to be reckoned with. It used to be, “Oh you are playing Exodia? Easy win.” Now its, “Oh you are playing Exodia? I better win quickly or I’m dead.” One Day of Piece gives Exodia a tremendous life by giving you draw power and preventing your opponent from attacking.
 
Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 3/5
All time great cards: 5/5

Ok, when I saw that we were review Exodia, I didn't know if we were reviewing, like Exodia's head, or one of his legs. I assumed it was Exodia entirely after a while. Just like in the anime or manga, Exodia equals game over, period, no ifs ands or buts. You get all five pieces in your hand, you win. There are 5 monster pieces, all are DARK/Spellcasters 4 of them are normal types, and the Head of Exodia that tells you if you have all five parts in your hand at any given time, you win. An Exodia deck is not that hard to make. Stall and Draw is the key. Monsters like Spirit Reaper, Marshmallon and those with high DEF will keep your opponent from getting at you while Emissary of the Afterlife, Sangan and Deep Diver can lend a hand as well. You use spell cards such as Upstart Goblins, Gold Sarcophagus, One Day of Peace and  Hand Destruction to speed up drawing into Exodia. Traps can be used in almost the same manner, with Jar of Greed and Reckless Greed. You can use cards like Feather of a Phoenix, Dark Factory of Mass Production and Monster Reincarnation in case a piece of Exodia or two has to go to the grave. Overall, Exodia is still a very good and tough deck to beat. It is still seen sometimes in tournaments and I hope to see more played. You can't put a price on the look on your opponent's face when you show them all 5 pieces in your hand.
 
Traditional: 3
Advanced: 5 *In it's own deck of course*
Tomorrow: How to make 1 monster out of 2, 3, or even 5.

SEALED ONE: EKUZODIA
HELLFIRE’S RAGE: EXODUS FLAME OBLITERATION

In the game, Exodia is revered as being the first card to offer an alternate method of winning and even had the honor of having its effect explained in early official rulebooks (as of today, there exists seven other different cards that can win the game using an effect). In the franchise, Yugi is recognized as the first person ever to summon Exodia in the card game, using it to annihilate Kaiba. It was the first of the “holy” cards to be seen, if you count something such as Egyptian Gods, Sacred Beasts, Signer Dragons, Numbers, etc. as holy. But…in real life, is it actually any good?

Honestly, in the professional field, Exodia isn’t used as often as something such as Inzektors or Evolzars. When it does get used, the most popular variant is using as many draw cards as possible to try and draw Exodia on the very first turn, usually with a Destiny Hero theme on it. Personally, I prefer a Dragon themed Exodia. The classic stall variant (not trying to draw your entire deck in one turn, but rather using your natural Draw Phase to win slowly but surely) is the one I recommend beginners to use. It is also possible to combine the both of them

When trying to summon Exodia, cards that can recycle it out of the Graveyard (A Feather of the Phoenix, Transmigration Prophecy, Backup Soldier, Dark Factory of Mass Production, Monster Reincarnation, Dark Eruption) are obviously helpful in case, you know, one of the five pieces touches the Graveyard. Of course, cards that add the pieces straight to your hand (Deep Diver, Sangan, Emissary of the Afterlife, Compulsary Evacuation Device) help put Exodia into your hand. In your Side Deck, you may want to include cards that save Exodia from being banished (Imperial Iron Wall, Burial from a Different Dimension, Escape from the Dark Dimension), as for most decks, one piece being banished means an instant loss for the deck. These kinds of cards aren’t usually bothered with the FTK deck because it just slows it down. There are also many combos that can provide “infinite draws,” but most of them are Traditional only.

There are other ways to play Exodia. Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord is one of the “seven other different cards that can win using an effect.” By using Exodius, your method of winning is to put the Exodia pieces in the Grave instead of in your hand; this makes for an interesting strategy, although I do not recommend trying to rely upon both in the same deckbuild as they are so different from each other. I have made an Exodia Necross Deck before, which relies on the Exodia pieces much more than Exodius does (Exodius is capable of winning a duel with brute force rather than its effect). I have tried my very best to give Exodis Necross a fighting chance by combining it with Spellcaster and Ritual support, but even then it’s still very weak.

Granted, the strategy to successfully summon Exodia isn’t very complicated, but I do say it does require a degree of skill, because it takes a smart player to know how to not mess up the combo. Exodia isn’t broken, but you’re joking if you say it rarely wins.

P.S. Most people despise playing against Exodia, ESPECIALLY the OTK and stall variants, because, well, it just really isn’t all that fun and it’s hard to stop once it gets rolling. It’s funny sometimes, but when you want a professional game or just an honest-to-goodness all-out duel, Exodia kinda lames out. It’s like trying to have fun by guessing the flip of a coin.
P.S.S. Every once in a while I meet an Exodia player, and usually they do not have an Extra Deck. I do not recommend this. Even if you run no Tuners, it is still possible to take them from your opponent with a card such as Monster Reborn, so it still helps to include some Synchros and Xyzs (and some monsters would be extremely useful, such as Daigusto Emeral and Lavalal Chain). There are cards out there that punish the opponent for using a larger Extra Deck, but those cards are not worth using.

Trad: 4/5 (not exactly the most effective win method out there, but it is still an effective Deck and benefits greatly from broken draw combos)
Adv: 4.3/5 (definitely better than the Dark Magician or Red-Eyes Decks)
Awesomeness Factor: 4/5  Remember back during our Hieratic Dragon period I talked about Osiris? How he was the Egyptian god that gave people their sentienence (taught them how to make a living and created the pharaoh kingdom) and his brother Set sliced him up into pieces? That’s really similar to Exodia, Protector of Egypt. And after Set killed him, Osiris became in charge of the afterlife, sorta like Exodia Necross. It’s nice to see that after over ten years, Exodia still functions mostly the same and hasn’t really gotten any worse or better. However, if you don’t count when Exodia was summoned “for real” in the Ancient Egypt chapter, I find it ridiculous that Yugi vs. Kaiba was the first instance of Exodia ever being summoned. The way Pegasus designed the game, only one monster could attack per turn, so someone could played monsters in Defence all game long until all five pieces were drawn. Besides, Exodia would be summoned once more again (by the Rare Hunter) and was used several times in GX.

Philosophy Corner: Assuming you only have one each of each Exodia piece in a 40-card deck, there is a .000002% you will get all five in your opening hand. This is expressed by the formula 40 x 39 x 38 x 37 x 36 (40 is the total amount of cards and you multiply it by a lower number by each card you’re supposed to draw). Then you take that and divide it by 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 (the amount of cards you’re supposed to draw, multiply it by a lower number all the way until get down to 1). That’s how many different possible combinations of 5 cards out of 40 there are. Then you take the number 1 (for one possible five-card combination, in this case Exodia) and you divide the WHOLE THING by it. In math, the exclamation mark is used to indicate “take this number and multiply it again and again with a lower number each time until you get down to 1.” You will learn this in high school.
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