Depiction of Decking out in the anime
A Deck out (Japanese: デッキアウト Dekki Auto) is a loss due to having no cards in the Main Deck when that player would draw a card. Mill Decks, such as "Laval" or "Runick", use this as their primary victory condition.
A Deck out can only occur when a card would necessitate drawing specifically; being unable to reveal (including excavate), look, add, send, banish, etc. cards from the Deck will not result in a loss.
In the anime[]
In the anime, a Deck out has occurred only three times:
- In Episode 27 in the first series, Pegasus used "Doppleganger" to copy Kaiba's "Crush Card Virus" and use it to render every monster card in Kaiba's deck unusable, except for "Saggi the Dark Clown". After "Saggi the Dark Clown" is destroyed, Kaiba had no more monsters to play, resulting in his defeat.
- In Episode 67 in the same series, Yugi used "Brain Control" to take control of Strings' "Revival Jam", forcing "Slifer the Sky Dragon" to destroy it due to its effect. When "Revival Jam" resurrects by its own effect, this activates Strings' "Card of Safe Return, making him draw three more cards, and "Slifer the Sky Dragon" destroys "Revival Jam" again. This forces Strings into a continuous loop where he must keep drawing until there were none left in his deck, thus winning Yugi the duel.
- In Episode 72 of the GX series, while dueling Howard X Miller, Jaden used the effect of "Neo-Spacian Glow Moss", which he had summoned to his opponent's side of the field with "Common Soul", to cause Miller to lose via deck out (which was ironic due to Miller's strategy revolving around getting his opponent to deck out).
Duelists such as Seto Kaiba, Ishizu Ishtar, Anubis, Zigfried von Schroeder (through Leon von Schroeder), Yami Bakura, Howard X Miller, Sartorius, Mr. Armstrong, Shadow Drone Trudge, Breo, Jean, Vector, Eliphas, and Buff Grimes have attempted to cause their opponents to deck out, albeit unsuccessfully (though in Ishizu and Jean's cases, they abandoned their strategies to focus on different ones).