[MW] A New Mitsurugi Tech Has Appeared In The OCG!

How many times can we mention Mitsurugi this week?

This past week has been crazy for the game, as many cards have been shifting in the market with new techs popping up through both the Genesys format and OCG formats. We will be recapping what has happened and what to expect for the future this week.

The first stop is one of the most surprising techs I’ve seen Mitsurugi try out, which was discovered in the OCG. Majespecter Draco – Ryu is being utilized by Mitsurugi Fiendsmith in the OCG as a way to fully Hand Loop the opponent with Droll & Lock Bird and Artifact Durendal, with all being able to be done off of the Special Summon effect of Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi. Despite not being legal in the TCG, with Moon of the Closed Heavens being Forbidden, this combo also utilizes Number 63: Shamoji Soldier to force each player to draw 1 card during the opponent’s Standby Phase. This combo was very interesting to watch but can be easy to interrupt with well-placed Hand Traps, but only time will tell when TCG gets a hold and tries this combo out to solve the issue due to Closed Heavens not being currently legal.

A combo opening with Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi is as follow:

1.  Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi 2nd effect, reveal itself as cost, Special Summon Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji from deck, then tribute Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji from field.
2. Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji 1st effect, add Mitsurugi Ritual from deck to hand.
3. Mitsurugi Ritual 1st effect, Ritual Summon Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi from hand, by tributing Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Aramasa and Night Sword Serpent from deck.
4. Chain 2: Night Sword Serpent effect, Special Summon itself from graveyard.
5. Chain 1: Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Aramasa 1st effect, add Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi from deck to hand.
6. Normal Summon Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi.
7. Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi 1st effect, add Mitsurugi Ritual from graveyard to hand.
8. Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi + Night Sword Serpent → Majespecter Draco – Ryu (EMZ)
9. Mitsurugi Ritual 1st effect, Ritual Summon Ame no Murakumo no Mitsurugi from the deck, by tributing Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi from the field.
10. Chain 2 Majespecter Draco – Ryu 1st effect, Detach Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi to Special Summon Droll & Lock Bird from deck.
11. Chain 1 Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi 3rd effect, add Mitsurugi Prayers from deck to hand, then Special Summon itself from graveyard.
12. Mitsurugi Prayers 1st effect, tribute Ame no Murakumo no Mitsurugi, Add Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Aramasa from Deck to hand, then pay 800 Life Points Special Summon Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi from the GY to your field.
13. Chain 2 Majespecter Draco – Ryu 1st effect, Detach Night Sword Serpent to Special Summon Droll & Lock Bird from deck.
14. Chain 1 Ame no Murakumo no Mitsurugi 3rd effect, add Mitsurugi Prayers from deck to hand, then Special Summon itself from graveyard.
15. Droll & Lock Bird + Droll & Lock Bird → Number 63: Shamoji Soldier.
16. Number 63: Shamoji Soldier 1st effect, Detach Droll & Lock Bird, apply At the start of your opponent’s next Standby Phase, each player draws 1 card.
17. Majespecter Draco – Ryu + Number 63: Shamoji Soldier → Moon of the Closed Heavens
18. Moon of the Closed Heaven → Fiendsmith’s Requiem.
19. Fiendsmith’s Requiem 1st effect, tribute itself as cost, Special Summon Lacrima the Crimson Tears from deck.
20. Lacrima the Crimson Tears 1st effect, sends Fiendsmith Engraver from Deck to GY.
21. Ame no Murakumo no Mitsurugi + Lacrima the Crimson Tears → Fiendsmith’s Sequence.
22. Fiendsmith’s Sequence 1st effect,  Moon of the Closed Heaven + Fiendsmith’s Requiem → Fiendsmith’s Lacrima.
23. Fiendsmith’s Lacrima 1st effect, Target Fiendsmith Engraver in GY, Special Summon it to your field.
24. Fiendsmith Engraver + Fiendsmith’s Sequence + Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi → A Bao A Que, the Lightless Shadow.
25. A Bao A Que, the Lightless Shadow 1st effect, discard 1 card to banish this card, then Special Summon Lacrima the Crimson Tears from your GY.
26. Lacrima the Crimson Tears + Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi → Tellarknight Ptolemaeus.
27. Fiendsmith Engraver 2nd effect, Shuffle Fiendsmith’s Sequence into the Extra Deck, Special Summon Fiendsmith Engraver from GY.
28. Fiendsmith Engraver + Fiendsmith’s Lacrima → Constellar Ptolemy M7
29. Constellar Ptolemy M7 2nd effect, detach Fiendsmith Engraver and target Droll & Lock Bird to add from the GY to the hand.
30. Set Mitsurugi Prayers
31. Declare to go to the End Phase
32. A Bao A Que, the Lightless Shadow returns to the field
33. Tellarknight Ptolemaeus 3rd effect, attach 1 Stellarknight, Stellarknight Constellar Diamond, card from your Extra Deck to this card as a material.
34. Tellarknight Ptolemaeus 1st effect, detach 3 materials from this card to Special Summon 1 Xyz that is 1 Rank Higher than this card, except a Number Monster. Tellarknight Ptolemaeus → Artifact Durendal.
35. Opponents Draw Phase.
36. Opponents Standby Phase, resolves Number 63: Shamoji Soldier to make each player draw 1.
37. Chain 2 Droll & Lock Bird.
38. Chain 1 Artifact Durendal to shuffle all cards in both players hands into the Deck.

Thanks to rum117 from discord for providing a combo route

With Ryu missing out on a reprint in the 2025 Mega Tins, the sales for the Ultra Rare and Quarter Century Secret Rare have gone up as the news of this combo spreads. Many wonder what Konami has in store for this card in the future and the future of this combo going forward.

With the new format, there has been plenty of “Mitsurugi this” and “Mitsurugi that,” but as long as it is one of the best Decks and Engines in the game, Mitsurugi will still be around and playable. Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi has been going up in price with how popular the theme is to play in the current metagame with how much power it has. Being one of the best starters for the Deck, you can reveal it from your hand to Special Summon 1 Mitsurugi monster from your Deck, then you have to Tribute 1 monster you control. This can trigger plenty of cards from Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji (which allows you to search for any Mitsurugi Spell/Trap), or Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Aramasa (which allows you to search for any Mitsurugi monster). For cards you can Tribute with Habakiri, it can be the monster you Summon, or if you are playing this Deck as an engine, you can Tribute cards like Diviner of the Herald, as after it is Tributed, you can Special Summon a Level 2 or lower Fairy from your Deck. The possibilities are endless with this engine, from being able to somehow FTK players with Exodia to even being able to get a guaranteed Droll & Lock Bird in hand thanks to the previously mentioned Majespecter Draco – Ryu.

Mitsurugi has shown what the TCG is capable of with making new themes and world premiere cards; let’s hope in the future we see a new theme that can top Mitsurugi.

With the new Dragunity support revealed for Terminal World 3, both Dragunity Remus and Dragunity Legatus saw a massive spike in sales, as they are a couple of the Dragunity cards that haven’t seen a reprint yet. Dragunity Remus is one of the most important cards in the deck, as it allows you to directly search for Dragon Ravine by discarding Remus itself. While Remus is in your GY, and you control a Dragunity monster, you can Special Summon Remus, but it is banished when it leaves the field and locks you into Dragon monsters for the rest of the turn after you activate the effect. Remus is a great starter and extender for the Deck, and this was the perfect piece of support for Dragunity from the last 4 years.

With Dragunity Legatus, it is still useful and can be important to the deck, as if you control Dragon Ravine or a Dragunity monster, you can Special Summon Legatus from your hand. If you control a Dragunity Monster Card(s) in the Spell/Trap Zone, you can target and destroy 1 Spell/Trap card on the field. This is always useful to have in a deck, as Legatus is purely an extender to access your Level 6 Synchro Monsters like Dragunity Knight – Vajrayana, which can let you extend into a Dragunity Knight – Barcha or Dragunity Knight – Gae Dearg, the latter of which lets you add any Level 4 or lower Dragon or Winged Beast monster from your deck to your hand and discard 1 such monster of any Level.

Despite both only being from Ghost from the Past, the new announcement of the Dragunity Support made Remus’s price shoot up, and Legatus’s price is slowly rising as well. The place we can safely predict these cards could be reprinted is in the 2026 Battles of Legend set, unless Konami changes their patterns of importing cards in the future.

On the Time Wizard side of things, My Body as a Shield has been seeing more use in Edison Format as a way to combat effects that would destroy a monster(s) on the field. We’ve seen this plenty of times over the years, especially back in 2017’s Zoodiac Format against Zoodiac Drident, or even powerful Spell & Trap Cards like Dark Hole, Interrupted Kaiju Slumber, Raigeki, Torrential Tribute, and Mirror Force. At the cost of 1500 LP, you can negate the activation of these cards and destroy them. This halts progress from your opponent breaking your board, but in the case of Edison Format, it was used in a Frog OTK Deck piloted by Mattia Conte that got top 8 out of a 370-player tournament in Berlin. It has always been a card to consider in Main and Side Decks since its release, and maybe in the future, it could be useful again in the modern game.

With all of its prints going up in price, it shows how powerful this card can be in certain formats. Hopefully we will see a new print of this releasing in the future!

Sorcerer of Dark Magic has been on my radar with the recent announcement of the Elvennotes (YGOrganization Translation) Deck from Burst Protocol. This Synchro Deck consists of Level 6 Spellcasters that can Special Summon themselves to the center Main Monster Zone, along with utilizing Medius the Pure to its fullest potential with the new Theorealize Liberation (YGOrganization Translation). Now you all may be asking, why Sorcerer of Dark Magic of all cards? Well, this card can only be Special Summoned, from your hand, by Tributing 2 Level 6 Spellcasters on the field. While it is face-up on the field, you can negate the activation of any Trap Card and destroy it, and this effect can be used in the same Chain multiple times, which could be extremely useful against Infinite Impermanence, Dominus Purge, Impulse, Spiral, Songs of the Dominators, and the many different Floodgate Continuous Trap Cards that are currently being run. Even though this card can be labeled as a niche tech for Elvennotes (YGOrganization Translation), some players had the same idea and got a copy or two recently to test out and try with the theme.

With only 3 total printings, Sorcerer of Dark Magic is an iconic final Boss Monster from the Pyramid of Light movie, with plenty of listings from the Movie Promo Set, but with Duelist Pack: Yugi and Legendary Collection 3: Yugi’s Worlds copies dwindling slowly. Hopefully we see a new reprint of this card in the future with an upgraded rarity higher than Super Rare.

Finally, In Genesys Format, many players have gone to using Ghost Fairy Elfobia in their Radiant Typhoon Decks. This old card from Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy always had a history of receiving buyout after buyout, but this time there is no difference. Once per turn, you can reveal 1 WIND monster in your hand, and until the end of your opponent’s next Main Phase 1, monsters with a higher level than the revealed card cannot activate their effects. This is a great way to gain an additional turn and hope the opponent cannot invest into their board to break yours. Being a Psychic monster helps, as you can Special Summon this card from your Deck with Emergency Teleport.

Even if this card has 1 print, its price has slowly been dropping over the past couple weeks, and we can only hope to see this card see a reprint soon in some upcoming reprint sets.

This past week has been interesting to see the developments in all aspects of the game. From OCG and Master Duel, finding a tech option with Majespecter Draco – Ryu, and plenty of other cards rising in price due to hype from past formats, Genesys, and the current Master Rule Format. What will be the next innovation to show up? We will see what the future has to hold.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon