Winged Beast

Winged Beast (鳥ちょう獣じゅう Chōjū "Bird Beast") monsters represent creatures of flight such as birds or bats. The "Harpie" archetype, one of the most renowned, is comprised primarily of Winged Beasts. The "Blackwing" archetype is composed of DARK Winged Beast monsters that were first released in Crimson Crisis, with further support in Raging Battle and Ancient Prophecy. Winged Beasts commonly have effects related to removing cards from the field, especially cards in the Spell & Trap Card Zone, although some are designed instead to take advantage of an opponent without any cards in their Spell & Trap Card Zone once it has been cleared by the others. One fine example of a card making use of Winged Beast monsters is "Icarus Attack", being extremely popular in the aforementioned "Blackwing" Decks.

Few Winged Beasts are considered to be powerful cards although some of the best are "Stealth Bird", "Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys", "Simorgh, Bird of Divinity", "Earthbound Immortal Aslla piscu", "Earthbound Immortal Wiraqocha Rasca", "Dark Simorgh", "D.D. Crow", "Blackwing Full Armor Master", "Raiza the Storm Monarch", "The Atmosphere", "Windrose the Elemental Lord", "Simorgh, Bird of Ancestry", and "Raidraptor - Rise Falcon". Interestingly enough, very few of the strongest Winged Beasts are of the WIND Attribute.

While most Winged Beasts are WIND Attribute monsters, there are some exceptions, such as the DARK Attribute "Blackwing" and "Raidraptor" archetypes, "Firebird", "Fushi No Tori", "Dark Simorgh", "D.D. Crow", "Battlestorm", "Fire King Avatar Garunix", "Fire King High Avatar Garunix" and others like them. Until Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy, there were no WATER Winged Beasts. To date, only 7 exist: 6 of them were used by the Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL character Rio Kastle (who also introduced the first Winged Beast Xyz Monster: "Ice Beast Zerofyne"), and are characterized by an Ice motif; while the other one ("Sirenorca") was released in Legacy of the Valiant to aid her Deck work in the OCG/TCG.

Winged Beasts are most notably used by Mai Valentine, Atticus Rhodes in the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga, all incarnations of Crow Hogan, Rio Kastle, the Obsidian siblings Shay & Lulu, and Trapigeon.

Winged Beasts feature in Structure Deck: Lord of the Storm and a number of them are present in Dragunity Legion Structure Deck.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom, Winged Beasts are treated as Beast Monsters.