After a nerf in his home turf, the Elden Ring DLC's notorious final boss has seemingly invaded Yu-Gi-Oh, but I have bad news for him: he kind of sucks

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Denial Deity Dotan reminds me of someone, I just can't put my finger on it

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree final boss Radahn stares into the camera, holding a sword in each hand.
(Image credit: FromSoftware)

Following up on an apparent line of Dark Souls and Demon's Souls homages from earlier this year, the new Yu-Gi-Oh TCG set Rage of the Abyss seems to have taken cues from the final boss of Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Say hello to Denial Deity Dotan, the spitting image of Promised Consort Radahn. 

This is a real Radahn/Miquella Yugioh card being released from r/Eldenring

A tan, hulking warrior dual-wielding greatswords with an angelic figure riding on his shoulders, flowing hair billowing out like a cloak? That's Consort Radahn, all right. To hammer it home, this is a fusion monster formed from one Light monster and two other monsters – perfect stand-ins for Radahn, the corpse of Mohg, and our oh-so-sweet Miquella, who all come together to make the Promised Consort. 

Without the Elden Ring crossover, this card wouldn't normally get much attention. If Radahn was hoping to clean house under an assumed identity in Yu-Gi-Oh after eating a nerf in Shadow of the Erdtree, he's out of luck. Denial Deity Dotan isn't very good, hence why the common-rarity card costs about $0.02 on TCG Player. 

I'll readily admit to being a Yu-Gi-Oh boomer, but even without playing the modern format and instead watching it from afar like some TCG safari, I don't see Dotan getting any play. Trading three monsters plus a fusion trigger for one 3000 attack beater is a terrible deal, and despite battle protection and situational destruction immunity, Dotan is quite easily removed through a variety of common effects. Banishing, flipping, negation – you name it. The card's gimmick of avoiding shared monsters with your opponent is also a bit awkward given the popularity of neutral hand trap monster cards.  

I'll give Dotan one thing. Assuming this isn't all just some absurd coincidence, he might be the coolest FromSoft Yu-Gi-Oh card to date.

Elden Ring patch 1.16 fixes a number of Shadow of the Erdtree bugs, but good luck figuring out what they are 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.