>>58741834Death Battle being non-canon doesn’t mean consistency stops mattering.
The entire premise of Death Battle is analyzing canon feats and rules, not ignoring them when convenient.
Ash’s “golden electric bird” is:
a visual exaggeration of Thunderbolt,
still an established Pokémon move,
and doesn’t violate Pokémon mechanics.
By contrast, Yugi’s win depends on:
merging Yugi and Atem into one fighter (which is canonically false),
treating duel-only cards as free-use magic,
and applying Life Point–based effects to a fight with no Life Points.
Those aren’t stylistic exaggerations — they’re rule breaks.
If Death Battle can hand-wave duel mechanics, then it’s equally valid to hand-wave Ash just blitzing Yugi physically, which the show didn’t allow because it would end instantly.
Also, Atem did not tank Ra — he collapsed unconscious afterward. That’s not durability, that’s surviving a hit.
So the issue isn’t “Death Battle doesn’t make sense.”
It’s that the logic only stopped applying on one side.
If the game rules are incompatible, then duel-only cards shouldn’t function at all — not ‘sometimes’ when it helps Yugi.
Saying Magic Cylinder could’ve insta-killed Ash is headcanon; there are no Life Points, no duel state, and no canon example of traps working outside a game.
‘Yugi was nerfed’ doesn’t hold when he was given free, instant spell/trap activation and fused with Atem — that’s a buff, not a nerf.
Wobbuffet vs Magic Cylinder isn’t about being tired; it’s about mechanics. One reflects energy physically, the other reflects duel damage. Those aren’t interchangeable.”
