CDP: Post-TW01 Ritual Beast in 2023, with Nemeses
21Did you hear - WIND is out, LIGHT is in.
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Welcome back for another CDP, this time taking the Ritual Beast archetype out for its first spotlight profile on my channel. Up until the Terminal World Set, the Ritual Beast archetype consisted of WIND monsters that aim to Fusion Summon by banishing its two materials from your field. For the base Fusion monsters, you need to banish 1 "Spiritual Beast" monster and one "Ritual Beast Tamer" monster, hence the theme name "ritual beast" which is included in both strings. For example, Ritual Beast Ulti-Apelio follows the above materials. These Fusion monsters also have a cool secondary effect - during either player's turn, they can be returned to the Extra Deck to Special Summon 2 of your banished Ritual Beasts, 1 Tamer and 1 Spiritual, to your field. What this theme is most known for is to abuse the Special Summon effect of the Thunder Fusion monster, Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk, by looping it as many times as possible. You see, Ulti-Canna's first effect is return 2 banished Ritual Beast cards to the GY to tutor a Ritual Beast card, but if you chain the two effects together, you really only need to send 1 to the GY to get the search. There is one major limiting factor on this loop - each of the main deck Ritual Beast monsters carries the condition that they can be Special Summoned only once per turn. And that's where this deck becomes a giant puzzle - how do you Special Summon in the correct order to make the most of your combo potential.
Speaking of the baby Ritual Beast monsters, let's meet a few. The strongest monsters are those that banish or send more Ritual Beast monsters to the GY, so first up is Spiritual Beast Cannahawk. This Thunder monster can banish 1 Ritual Beast card from your deck to add to your hand during the 2nd Standby Phase. In other words, Canna is all about priming your banished monsters with more Ritual Beasts to summon. On the other hand, Spiritual Beast Rampengu is a Beast that can banish a Ritual Beast from the Extra Deck, then send a Ritual Beast to the GY with the same Type. Not only does this fuel an Ulti-Canna search down the line, but it also gets your GY ready for future plays. The rest of the monsters are pretty awesome in their own right, but I'll leave those to you to discover during the replays.
This brings us to the most important part of this description: The new cards. First up is Spiritual Beast Tamer Lara, the second monster to span both sub-themes of the Ritual Beast archetype. When this LIGHT/Psychic monster is banished, you get to Special Summon any Ritual Beast monster from your deck, plus, it can be discarded to let you immediately Normal Summon a Ritual Beast. Both effects are amazing for the deck, but the best part of Lara is that it turns a sole copy of Cannahawk into a full combo to tutor multiple copies of Ritual Beast Steeds. Next up on the new cards is Ritual Beast Inheritance, the theme's first Continuous Spell. It does three things: 1) Debuffs the ATK of your opponents' monsters; 2) Tutors a Ritual Beast by revealing one with a different Type in your hand; and, 3) Changes the battle position of a monster on the field when 2 monsters are Special Summoned at the same time, such as via the effect of a Ritual Beast Fusion. Each of these effects gives you a bit of latitude for skill expression, which I love. As for the final two new cards, first up is Ritual Beast Ulti-Nochiudrago, which is the first Ritual Beast Fusion to banish materials from the field or GY, which is its main claim to fame. Then finally, the theme recieved a new LINK-4 monster, Ritual Beast Ulti-Reirautari, which prevents Tributing to activate card effects as well as granting you even more combo potential by returning a banished Ritual Beast monster to hand before immediately Normal Summoning a Ritual Beast monster.
All things considered, this is a very heavy combo deck that can take years to fully master. While I don't think I can claim that title for myself, I tried to showcase a variety of different combo lines in the profile to show you just how cool the new cards can be, and how the theme tends to operate. Oh, and before I sign off - one more thing - the Nemeses engine. Since this deck loves banishing so much, I've found that the Nemeses monsters, specifically Archnemeses Eschatos, can be especially potent at banishing your Ritual Beast monsters of various Types from the GY to continue your combo, as well as Nemeses Flag to recycle a banished monster. Embrace the winds of change with the Ritual Beasts, now featuring LIGHT monsters!
NOTE: Imagine my standard disclaimer here.