Zero Turn Kill

A Zero Turn Kill, abbreviated ZTK, is a situation where a player wins a Duel without ever having a turn; the player's opponent must go first, and then the player must win during the opponent's first turn.

While it is theoretically possible to engineer ZTK combos with card effects that can be used in the opponent's turn, ZTK combos in general do not form coherent Deck strategies due to their extreme dependency on luck and/or cooperation of the opponent. (For example, the opponent could attempt to Empty Jar FTK the player only to run into the player's "Jackpot 7", or the player could draw "Dragonmaid Ernus" and "Laundry Dragonmaid" in their opening hand followed by activating Quick Effects from the Graveyard.)

During Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel's Extreme Duel 2 event (where players started with exactly 2024 LP), ZTKs occurred with some frequency. For example, the player could open with "Fire Cracker" and "Eco, Mystical Spirit of the Forest", and the opponent could attempt to open with "Tremendous Fire", causing the opponent to take 2500 damage on their own first turn.

In the anime

A number of ZTKs have made appearances in the anime.

Successful ZTKs

• In Yu-Gi-Oh! episode 09898: "A Virtual Nightmare", a simulated Duel was shown where Seto Kaiba Summoned "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon" on his first turn, then used its Deck Master ability to immediately attack directly in an FTK attempt. However, his opponent used their own Deck Master ability, paying 1000 LP to destroy the attacking monster. As Kaiba's Deck Master was destroyed, he lost the Duel before his opponent ever had a turn.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX episode 08484: "Generation Next", Sartorius used the effect of "Intervention of Fate", discarding it when his opponent Prince Ojin Summoned "Satellite Base", in order to activate "Ace of Sword" against Ojin's "Satellite Cannon", which had been boosted to 4000 ATK. This inflicted 4000 damage to Ojin on his own turn, winning the Duel before Sartorius ever had a turn. This was the only instance where the term "Zero Turn Kill" was specifically mentioned.
  • Notably, Ojin had two turns while Sartorius had none, thanks to "Mischief of the Time Goddess" skipping Sartorius' first turn.

Similar examples

• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's episode 09191: "Clash at Crash Town, Part 1", Kalin Kessler threatened to pull off a ZTK against Lawton using the effect of "Infernity Doom Slinger": If Lawton chose to apply the effect and Kalin revealed a monster card from the top of his Deck, the effect of "Infernity Doom Slinger" would inflict 4800 damage to Lawton before Kalin ever had a turn. Lawton opted not to apply the optional effect of "Infernity Doom Slinger". However, the top card of Kalin's Deck ("Dodge Roll") wasn't a monster card, so the ZTK attempt would have been unsuccessful either way.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL episode 138138: "The New World", Don Thousand pulled off an outcome close to a ZTK against Mizar, activating "Numeron Network" from his hand at the start of Mizar's turn through its effect, then using it to activate "Numeron Spell Revision" from his Deck, which in turn forced Mizar to activate "Card of the Dragon King", inflicting 4800 damage to Mizar during his first turn. This was not a true ZTK however, as Don Thousand did have a turn before winning, although he passed it without making any play.

See also

• First Turn Kill
• One Turn Kill