Primo

Placido is one of the Three Emperors of Yliaster and one of the primary antagonists in the World Riding Grand Prix arc of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. As one of the Three Emperors, he is working on completing the Infinity Circuit. He defected from Yliaster though to attempt to force the Circuit with his own strength by attacking the WRGP preliminaries with the Diablo Riding Roid Army. Yusei Fudo though thwarted the invasion by defeating Placido, and after being repaired started supporting José's plan by joining Team New World. Placido is one of the few left-handed duelists in Yu-Gi-Oh, along with Paradox, Lucciano, and Bruno.

Design
Placido is a man that is appears to be the middle man between José and Lucciano in terns of appearance. He is between their height, and while not old, he is not a child or a teenager either. Under his hood, Placido has red eyes, is pale, has wild and spiky gray hair except for a small bald spot just above his the patch over his eye. Underneath his left eye, Placido has a scar that runs down his cheek. More mysterious though is that underneath his skin, Placido is mechanical. It is unknown what parts of him could be human.

About average height, Placido, like the other emperors of Yliaster, wears primarily white. He has a gray patch (his covers his right eye) and has a green gem on the middle of his forehead; it's actually off-center towards the left. Also, he has a white hood as well, but unlike the other emperors, Placido's hood has decorative gray lightning bolts that point backwards like horns. In addition, the other color that Placido primarily wears besides white is black, excluding his gray armor, which covers his shoulders, runs down his back, and has armor plates on both sides of his waists. His armor on his waist also holds up a white cloak that Placido uses to cover his legs, which are also covered by the thigh high white boots he wears. On his arms, Placido wears arm length black and white arm bands that also have red gems on them.

The most unique aspect of Placido though is his sword, which he keeps at by his right waist (because he's left-handed). Gold with an infinity symbol added between the hilt and the blade, the sword serves to create portals, as a duel disk, and as the key that allows Placido to combine with his Duel Runner: the T-666 Terrible Omen.

After Placido returned from his defeat in 5D's - Episode 110, Placido has a new red mark underneath his left eye painted on, and in 5D's 119, it was also revealed that Placido has a similar red mark to the left of his scar going down his cheek.

The only time that Placido has significantly changed his appearance though is when he went undercover as Lucciano's butler. Although he still had red eyes, his scar, gem, and patch were all gone, and instead of his usual Yliaster outfit, he wore a black suit with a red ascot. Instead of having wild gray hair, he had short, black hair slicked back.

Personality
Placido's most noticeable quality is strong sense of pride. Taking the assignment of fixing the future serious, Placido worked with all his intelligence to get the job done. However, Placido's pride also leads him to taking actions too far, leading to arrogance, disrespect, impatience, and being short tempered. Of the negative qualities though, disrespect is the most noticeable. Placido refused to follow José or his commands because one of the premises of the plan was that the three emperors, including Placido, were not strong enough to complete the Infinity Circuit on their own. He also disdains humanity as a whole because their unnecessary evolution has created a catastrophic future, and even goes as far to take his rage out on what he believes to be the symbol of that future: Synchro Monsters.

Placido is also short tempered, being easily offended by Lucciano's jeers and threatening Lazar with a sword whenever he steps out of line. Yusei Fudo angers Placido more than anyone though because he interfered with Ghost, Team Five D's thwarting of Hidden Knight -Hook- (which resulted in Placido attacking with the Diablo), and later Yusei received a tablet from Yliaster's God.

One of the more unique aspects of Placido's personality is his adherence to determinism, or the belief that actions are pre-destined to take place. This view feeds his disdain for humanity because he believes that even if humanity wanted to change, they were poisoned with a destiny that humanity could never possibly overcome. Feeling above this poisoned destiny, Placido feels no shame in putting lives in danger or threatening to destroy an entire city because humanity is doomed either way.

The First in Action
Placido first appeared alongside his fellow emperors, José and Lucciano when a tablet crashed outside of New Domino City. Placido was pleased that the tablet belonged to him, and used the opportunity to tell José and Lucciano that they would not get a chance to fight because he do it all. Lucciano grumbled at the prospect, but José commented that he was just glad that the tablets would come to them. But then Sector Security arrived on the scene, including Lazar. José recognized Lazar as the Yliaster operative they were suppose to meet earlier, and Placido is glad because he needs they're help moving the tablet. But Lazar does not recognize them and demands to know who they are, ordering them to clear the scene. Placido though returns the disrespect by pulling his sword and pointing at Lazar's face. Lucciano explains that they're the new directors of Sector Security, and realizing his error, Lazar immediately apologized and complies with Placido's commands. While on site, Placido immediately decided that he would need to test out his new monster.

So to test out his new monster, Placido stole a prototype Riding Roid from Sector Security and took direct control of it and loaded it with his own deck. Placido then began attacking Turbo Duelists at night with the Riding Roid, and the Roid became known as Ghost. After about a week of attacks, Sector Security started hunting for Ghost, and eventually Trudge was found by Ghost, but Trudge lost in a brutal match and crashed. Yusei Fudo, Jack Atlas, and Crow Hogan immediately set out to hunt down Ghost, and Yusei eventually was eventually approached by Ghost. They engaged in a Turbo Duel, which Placido quickly took the upper hand by tricking Yusei into destroying Wise Core, allowing Ghost to summon [Wisel|Machine Emperor Wisel Infinity]], and then pushed Yusei into a corner by using Wisel's central effect to absorb Stardust Dragon. Here, Placido revealed through Ghost that he believed Synchro Monsters to be a waste of human evolution, one that he intended to remove from human history. Yusei was confused, but Ghost did not give Yusei a lot of time to think on the matter when he played Wisel Attack 3. Yusei held off Wisel for a couple of turns with Scrap-Iron Scarecrow, but eventually Placido started bypassing it with the trap Battle Return. Yusei was going to lose, but then then he got a last minute help from the Crimson Dragon, allowing him to play Majestic Star Dragon, and Yusei won.

Following the match, Ghost wrecked, but Placido appeared at the crash site before anyone else, retrieved his deck, and glancing at Majestic Star Dragon, promised that this would not be the last time they faced each other.

An Evening to Remember
Placido later reappeared at the WRGP opening dinner with Lucciano and Jose. The three of them remained behind the scenes of the dinner though, watching the guests from a back room. Placido did not understand Jose's plan to use the WRGP participants to fulfill their goals of completing the Infinity Circuit because Placido thought their own strength was enough to force the Circuit to completion. Jose though disagreed, arguing that their strength was not enough, and they needed the participants to complete it. Placido looked away to hide his disgust at the idea that they needed to rely on humanity to complete their work.

The evening though continued, and the party was crashed by Bokuru, who started running his Duel Runner through the party because he thought that Turbo Duels were not meant to be displayed for mere entertainment. Placido at first saw this as the party finally getting entertaining, but after Akiza Izinski chased Bokuru off with her powers as a Psychic Duelist, Placido was disappointed in Sector Security's inability to catch up to Bokuru. So Placido took it upon himself to go after Bokuru and set out on his T-666:Terrible Omen. As he streaked passed Security, since his Terrible Omen was not registered in the Sector Security database, Security concluded that the unidentified duelist was the return of Ghost. Placido meanwhile caught up to Bokuru and challenged him to a turbo duel, and Placido summoned Machine Emperor Wisel Infinity and attacked ruthlessly, ignoring Bokuru's pleas to stop, until he crashed Bokuru into a wall.

Placido returned to Lucciano and Jose following his victory over Bokuru, but when he arrived, a Turbo duel was brought to all three of their attentions. Placido immediately recognized Yusei Fudo because he had defeated Machine Emperor Wisel the first time, but no one recognized the opponent, an unidentified turbo duelist. Placido watched the turbo duel and in the middle of the match, the video feed was lost when the unidentified duelist caused a bright flash of light, which made it impossible to see. None of the emperors saw what happened, but after the feed was restored, they continued watching the match until the unidentified duelist threw the match. Lucciano commented that the whole duel was a waste of time, but Jose realized it was not because the duel had completed a circuit on the Infinity Circuit. This immediately alarmed Placido, who wondered what had happened in that light.

So he decided to ask the source and set out after the duelist. Placido quickly caught up with him and wanted to know what he had just done, but the turbo duelist answered him that he had come to stop them. Placido was shocked that he knew who they were, and demanded to know exactly who he was. The duelist refused to answer, which was an answer that Placido did not like. The unidentified duelist then told him that he would make sure they were undone by the Accel Synchro Summon, which bewildered Placido. Before he could try to get anymore information out of the duelist, the duelist rammed Placido because he was about to run over a kitten in the middle of the road, and as a result, the mysterious duelist lost control of his duel runner and crashed off a cliff and into the ocean. Placido then just shrugged the matter off, assuming the guy to be dead.

Being Lucciano's Butler
Following the WRGP dinner, the three emperors went to their thrones and monitored the duel lanes from there. Following Akiza Izinski passing her Turbo Dueling Exams, Placido watched Yusei turbo duel with her. However, the duel was not activating circuits on the Infinity Circuit, so Lucciano called the duel a bore, but José figured that when the time came, the Signers would fulfill their purpose in his plan. José though interrupted José, asking him if he was so certain. Jose did not know what Plácido was talking about, so Placido clarified that the Crimson Dragon still posed a threat, adding it's what ruined Rex Goodwin's plans, and it could be the undoing of their plans. Lucciano asked Placido what he intended to do about it, to which Placido responded that he would duel Yusei Fudo, defeat him, and then take Stardust Dragon from him. Lucciano though just laughed at the idea, pointing out it was ridiculous. Placido became apprehensive as Lucciano pointed out that Placido had already lost to Yusei once; a fact that angered Placido, but the issue was dropped because Lucciano's tablet arrived. Lucciano cheered that he knew that Placido could not have been enough to complete their plans on their own, a statement that just got a grunt from Placido.

Placido assists Lucciano's plan to complete the circuit by duelingLuna. Placido used an illusion to disguised himself as Lucciano's butler. He wears a black suit, white shirt and a red ascot, with slicked back black hair while he is in this disguise.

While Lucciano and Luna meet Placido at a mansion. Placido greets both with a bow, and is asked to prepare some refreshments and snacks for their guest. He dissappears into the mansion to do so, and watches on a security camera as Leo climbs the gate and enters the grounds of the mansion. Placido prepares two drinks (but no snacks) that he brings out to the courtyard to Lucciano and Luna. He spots Leo as he crosses the courtyard but says nothing. As he brings the drinks to Luna an Lucciano, Lucciano apologizes to him for making him serve them as a butler. Placido replies that it's fine, and that he subjected to this becasue he wanted to see the signer with his eyes. Lucciano asks him about Leo, and Placido informs him that leo has already left.

Returning with a Twisted Past
Placido later watches the duels between Team Taiyo and Team Five D's and the duel between Team Ragnarok and Team Five D's. Placido, along with Lucciano, seemed surprised by the appearance of Red Nova Dragon.

Powers
Like Lucciano, he is able to inflict real damage and pain in a duel. He also seems to be able to control machines with mystic bolts from his hand, as seen in episode 81 when he turns on and programs a Duel Robot to stall Yusei using these bolts.

His sword appears to have a special ability, seemingly creating portals, appearing by him using a sword slash. As well, the sword doubles as a his personal Duel Disk with the hilt stretching form the disk itself with energy streams which Placido controls through unseen (almost telekinetic) means.



In Episode 107, it is revealed that he was an android, given his transformation and merging with his D-Wheel as well as his own destruction (into many pieces) after the end of his duel with Yusei in Episode 110.

Like Dark Glass, he is able to use a strange computer code (very similar to the "Fractal Code" of Digimon Frontier) to transform (or "henshin") into a battle/dueling form with his armored clothing, although his version uses a red code in contrast to Dark Glass/Bruno's green code.

In episode 108, Placido shows to at some extent control the weather as he releases a lightning storm onto Neo Domino City.

Based on what Bruno said about controlling Momentum using Clear Mind, it is possible that Placido is capable of Clear Mind and was using this power to recreate Zero Reverse.

Deck
Placido pilots the Wisel archetype consisting of Machine Emperor Wisel Infinity and its various pieces. His general strategy, like Lucciano is to summon all his Machine Emperor parts through the use of Wise Core.

This strategy would revolve around destroying Wise Core through card effects, with cards of his own or his opponents. He carries a hefty Trap lineup to protect his monsters and throw off the opponent's plays.

He was only briefly seen using the deck against Bokuru, but used the Riding Roid Ghost to test the deck in Turbo Duels with Trudge and Yusei Fudo.

During his duel with Yusei, he secretly sneaked some of Skiel's parts from Lucciano to power-up Wisel. Also, when the Skiel parts were used, they changed from blue to white. His deck was taken by Lucciano in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's - Episode 110.