Welcome to the Anime Walk of Fame, a series of retrospectives on the many characters of the anime world. You'll see all your favorites along with a few that deserve more than their reputations give.

So sit back relax and enjoy the show.

Mai is a Terrible Duelist

No excuse for any duelist to lose to Mai.

For much of the season, Mai was the lone female duelist but she's a terrible player, she relies too heavily on cheap tricks, buckles when her strategies fail and only duels players so low ranked you wonder how she got so far.
To compare against other female characters of the season.
Anzu - Doesn't know what she's doing but somehow was the only duelist to have zero losses.
Serenity - Not really a duelist.
Rebecca - Duels competently despite having a lousy win/loss record.
Vivian - I honestly forgot she was in the show but she was introduced as the Asian champion so she at least has some skill.
Ishizu - Best female in the show and should've had more duels.
The history of female duelists hasn't exactly been that strong, even later seasons have introduced argubly better duelists but their impact on the show has been very little, even Asuka and Akiza have had their roles shortened as their season went on, if you don't start your female characters strongly you don't grab that demograph and Mai set a very poor standard that is still being felt today.

Did Anyone Care About Esper Roba?

The original series of Yu-Gi-Oh produced some interesting rivals, while you can argue that Haga and Ryuzaki (Weevil and Rex) are fairly credible threats while Kajiki and Kotsuzuka (Mako and Bonz) were at least interesting, then there's Esper Roba.

Roba was introduced in Battle City as one of many duelists Jounouchi had to defeat to progress to the last eight, he gave the impression that he had clairvoyance and was able to see everything in Jounouchi's hand, unfortunately for the green haired duelist, Roba was exposed as a fake, his younger brothers spying for him and reporting through radio.
A generic design that would barely pass for a background character by Yu-Gi-Oh standards, probably the most annoying dub voice I've ever heard as he has no indoor voice and his motives were basically to stop bullying by making Roba seem invincible, while admirable it does require Roba to actually get away with it, being exposed won't make the bullying stop.
His only redeeming feature is that he has Jinzo which was portrayed better by one of the big 5 and the fact that Roba had to give up Jinzo to Jounouchi.
You could replace him with an actual psychic and they would've been far more tolerable, for a series that prides itself on having the most wild anime designs, this is a big miss for them.

Haga is the Only Villain to Piss Off the Pharaoh

We've got a bumper crop of characters lined up today starting with Insector Haga.

Haga or Weevil in the dub by looks and role is very much a B-Villain yet he holds on to some surprising roles in the story.
To start with, he was the one to get rid of Exodia from Yugi's deck, for a while afterwards he continued in that role until the Orichalcos arc where he duels the pharoah shortly after he lost to Raphael.
Haga being the calculating and manipulative person that he is, triggers the Pharaoh into such a rage that what followed was the biggest beatdown for a single Yu-Gi-Oh character in history when the pharaoh triggered his monster to endlessly attack Haga even long after his life points hit zero.
The meme drawo monsta cardo was born, even when Anzu finally stops the Pharaoh and Haga's soul is taken, the Pharaoh is still willing to use violence.
Kaiba and Bakura wish they could trigger Pharaoh like that.