The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime has a long history of creating oddly specific cards that would only work under the rarest of circumstances. These are usually made for dramatic effect as a key to finish the episode's duel, although why less specialized cards aren't used is never addressed. These strangely specific cards are simply an accepted part of Yu-Gi-Oh! history.
Where things become particularly messy is when some of these cards wind up leaving the anime and becoming a part of the legitimate card game. General-use cars such as Raigeki and Pot of Greed, which have good effects that are always usable, are generally considered better than situationally useful cards. When a card that is only useful in a single scenario is printed, it will almost never find a place in any serious deck, especially not one of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s more competitive meta decks.
While a lot of great cards came from the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, some were clearly never meant to be used outside of the episodes that introduced them. Although they may exist in real life, they will rarely find play for this very reason. As crude as it may sound, some cards may have been better off remaining in the anime.
Burst Return is a restrictive card with a weak effect. If the player has Elemental HERO Burstinatrix on the field, then they can use Burst Return to return all other Elemental HERO monsters on the field to their owners' respective hands. Considering the activation requirement, it is clearly meant to be used in an Elemental HERO deck. However, unless the opponent is also running Elemental HEROes, this card would likely only return the user's monsters. This card does little to help Elemental HEROes, not even helping them perform Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Fusion Summons, which are the archetype's main combos. While this could theoretically be used to dodge a destruction effect such as Raigeki, Burst Return is a normal spell that cannot be chained to anything. As a result, the user would just be returning their own monsters for little reason.
In the anime, this card was used in Jaden's duel against Blair, who used a monster called Maiden in Love to take control of Jaden's monsters. She managed to take Avian and Sparkman before Jaden summoned Burstinatrix and used Burst Return. This shows one of the only possible uses for the card, to take back monsters that the opponent took control of. However, most opponents would use said stolen monsters as tributes for their own combo plays, leaving no opportunity for Burst Return to bring them back. Even for beginners making their first Yu-Gi-Oh! decks, Burst Return is overshadowed by more useful HERO cards.
The Maiden in Love duel is admittedly mostly comedic, so such an odd setup and resolution makes sense. However, that makes it doubly baffling as to why Burst Return made it into the real card game. There are is a countless number of better cards for returning monsters to the hand, making Burst Return completely unneeded.
Berserker Soul can only be activated when the user successfully inflicts 1500 or less damage with a direct attack. They must them discard their entire hand and draw a card from the top of their deck. If it is a monster, they discard it, inflict 500 damage to the opponent, and repeat the process until they either draw a non-monster card, or they use the effect seven times. With the exception of Atem's monstrous incarnation in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, Berserker Soul was the pharaoh's biggest display of brutality, making the anime scene famous for that reason.
In the anime, Yami Yugi used this card to end a duel against Weevil Underwood. In this duel, Weevil was acting even nastier than normal, having turned into an actual villain and tricking Atem into believing that he had sealed Yugi's soul into a card that he tore up. Infuriated, Atem used Berserker Soul and had his monster attack Weevil repeatedly in a rage, even after his life points had dropped to zero, until Tea managed to calm him down. It should be noted that this version of Berserker Soul allowed repeated attacks rather than 500-point shots of damage.
With the steep cost of activation and the possibility of it doing nothing, Berserker Soul is not worth the trouble to use. While not as improbable as drawing five Yu-Gi-Oh! Exodia pieces on the first turn, it still leaves too much to chance for the cost. However, it more than played its role in Atem's hands. There's little question why that duel against Weevil was Berserker Soul's only appearance. In that moment, it was a channel for Atem's rage.
Feather Shot is yet another one of Jaden's Elemental HERO support cards, as his deck had a disproportionate amount of oddly situational cards. Its effect is simple. If the player has an Elemental Hero Avian on the field, then that turn, Avian can attack as many times as the player has monsters on the field when the card resolves. However, Avian cannot attack directly that turn. This removes what would have been the card's biggest strength, since Avian's 1000 attack won't defeat many monsters. However, the card was put to use in one of Yu-Gi-Oh GX's strangest duels.
In a duel against a tennis player named Harrington, the game is tied at 1000 life points apiece when Harrington activated Deuce, a Yu-Gi-Oh! card that never appeared in real life. Deuce makes it so that each player can only attack with one monster per turn, and the first player to deal damage twice in a row wins. By getting three monsters on the field, Jaden is able to use Feather Shot to have Avian attack three times, destroying Harrington's even weaker monster and dealing damage twice to win.
Feather Shot was more or less made for Jaden to escape from this specific strange duel setup, and although it made it to real life, the card that it countered was not. Granted, Deuce is even more ridiculously situational, which explains why it stayed in the anime. Even if Elememtal HEROes are one's favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! cards to build a deck around, Feather Shot likely will not make the cut. While Feather Shot may not be quite as situational as previous cards mentioned, it is still difficult to find use for.
While some of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s anime-only cards had good reason to stay in the anime, several made a baffling jump to real life. Of course, cards of all sorts have been put to use by skilled and creative players. However, in the case of some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, it will take a lot of effort to find a use beyond their specific anime role.
