Let’s Build with the new Chaos Ritual strategy!
Background:
The Chaos Ritual strategy has received some excellent new support cards in the upcoming Chaos Origins core set, so prior to starting this article, be sure to check out the new cards here if you haven’t seen the news: YGOrganization | The Legend Returns in “Chaos Origin”
Starting with the Light and the Darkness:
For today’s Creative Deck Strategy Article, I’m going to break down the new cards, tell you while they are so exciting to build with, provide a few sample decklists, talk about tech options that synergize, and showcase each of these hybrid variants in their own CDP video – so let’s dive right in with the Ritual Spell at the center of the new support, Ritual of Light and Darkness (YGOrg Translation). This truly has everything going for it for a Ritual Spell: 1) It names both of the new Ritual Monsters for the theme; 2) It can be used to Ritual Summon multiple times in a turn; 3) It can banish fodder from the GY when Ritual Summoning, no exact levels needed; and 4) It can recover itself and any other card that mentions it back from GY to hand. Why are all important? Well, Pre-Preparation of Rites is one of the best Ritual support cards for a reason, plus the other factors give it functionality even with themes that couldn’t normally support the high resource costs of performing a Ritual Summon!
Speaking of Ritual Summons, let’s meet the two new Ritual boss monsters that lead this theme, serving as retrains of Black Luster Solider and Magician of Black Chaos, respectively. First is Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness (YGOrg Translation) and second is Black Chaos the Dark Chaos Magician (YGOrg Translation). Each has a Continuous Effect to be unaffected by your opponent’s activated effects, unless they target the card, each has an effect when Special Summoned, and each has an effect associated to a prior iteration of the monster – for BLS, it borrows the ability to attack again with 1500 extra ATK after destroying a monster by battle, and for BCDCM, it borrows the effect of Chaos Scepter Blast to banish an opponent’s card face-down. The duality of these boss monsters is core to its identity – ideally you will summon both during a turn to trigger both the banish and a Spell Card recovery – all while leaving you a boss monster that can be difficult to rout from your board, regardless of which you sit on.
To ensure consistent access to either boss, the theme has a few core consistency pieces. First up is Skull Archfiend of Chaos (YGOrg Translation), a Level 6 DARK Fiend that when sent to the GY, sends a Ritual Spell to the GY then tutors a Ritual Monster named on it. Of course this works with in-theme support, but it also can be used as a bridge to any other Ritual deck that is supported by Pre-Preparation of Rites. To trigger this, Mind Shuffle (YGOrg Translation) exists, a Continuous Trap that tutors a monster that mentions Ritual of Light and Darkness then discards a card. Being a Trap is no problem, as both Gurifoh (YGOrg Translation) and Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman (YGOrg Translation) can place it into your backrow to prepare it for immediate use!
Now there is one additional engine that I consider absolutely core to the deck, and that is the new Dark Magician support cards that just made their TCG-debut in Maze of Muertos this past week: The Gaze of Timaeus and Dark Magician of Destruction. If you haven’t read these cards – you should, as Destruction can be summoned by banishing any Lv6+ DARK Spellcaster you control, as long as you’ve used a Spell Card or effect earlier in the turn. Then, when summoned, it tutors a copy of any card that mentions Dark Magician, in most cases Gaze, which allows you to Fusion Summon any monster that mentions Dark Magician by solely shuffling that copy of Destruction back into the Extra Deck from your Field or GY. Yes, this means any deck with a big Spellcaster can make Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, but with the free recovery of resources brought to the deck when summoning Skull Archfiend of Chaos via its effect, this deck can ensure the summon of Dragoon every single turn. Due to this innate synergy, you’ll see that I counting this as part of the core line-up, but we’ll cover this interaction further whenever we get to the Hybrid build centered around Dark Magician!
The Core Line-Up:
Regardless of hybrid build, I’ve found there to be a few key tenets of building a deck using this new Chaos Ritual support, so let’s cover the core first. Below is what I consider to be minimally required to reliably leverage this theme:
- 3 Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman
- 1 Skull Archfiend of Chaos
- 2 Gurifoh
- 1 Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness
- 1 Black Chaos the Dark Chaos Magician
- 3 Pre-Preparation of Rites
- 1 The Gaze of Timaeus
- 2 Ritual of Light and Darkness
- 1 Mind Shuffle
These choices should be fairly self-explanatory, but it largely revolves around ensuring access to all of the base consistency plays for the theme. In a deck of 40 cards, this line-up gives you a baseline of 50% of starting hands giving you access to that live copy of Mind Shuffle, to then trigger Skull Archfiend of Chaos, to then be able to Ritual Summon your first Level 8. Of course you could throw a bunch of hand traps and staples in to fill out the deck, and while that wouldn’t be Creative or fun, you actually would be leaving a ton of potential on the table, since this theme is open to so many synergies. Across all of my testing with the theme, there are three standout rules to follow for the rest of the deckbuild that gives the Chaos Ritual strategy all it needs to thrive:
- Every build needs to have at least:
- 1 non-theme way to get Skull Archfiend of Chaos to the GY without requiring the Normal Summon
- 1 non-theme way to get 8 Levels of monster(s) to the GY, to banish for your first Ritual Summon, without requiring the Normal Summon
- 2+ ways to field a Level 7+ Main Deck monster, that doesn’t mind being left on board, that you would also like returned to hand.
That may seem restrictive at first, but each rule is a lot easier to follow than it sounds. For the first, it means you should probably run a copy of Foolish Burial at the minimum, but there are plenty of other tools to achieve a similar outcome, as you’ll see in the sample hybrid builds. The second rule is covered by endless options as well – and let’s face it, your opponent isn’t always going to draw into Dimensional Shifter. The third rule is where it can get tricky, but even if you can’t immediately think of something obvious, you can always turn to a hand trap like the new Fidraulis Harmonia (YGOrg Translation) that appreciates being re-used!
Now that you’re familiar with the core deckbuilding requirements, it’s finally time to meet the Hybrid builds that I want to present to you today. The first is what I perceive to be the intended pairing for the theme, by matching Chaos Ritual with Dark Magician and Kuriboh support cards. The second may become the most competitive variant of this deck, featuring Chaos Ritual with Red Dragon Archfiend support cards. The third takes the most advantage of Ritual Support by pairing Chaos Ritual with Archfiend Emperor and his Ritual Archfiend support suite. And finally, there’s my favorite pairing, which combines Chaos Ritual with Hecahands and other Illusion support cards. Without further ado, let’s get into the variants!
Variant One: Chaos Ritual with Dark Magician and Kuriboh
Replays:
If the embedded video does not function properly, check out this video on YouTube.
Strategic Summary:
I’ve hinted at the innate synergies for the first build, but let’s talk about them more explicitly now that you’ve made it this far. First, Dark Magician support cards pair nicely with a theme that already has multiple high-level DARK Spellcaster monsters at its disposal. They also have a great new Extended Art Card coming their way in Dark Magician, the Pharaoh’s Servant (YGOrg Translation), a Level 7 Spellcaster that reveals a Spell Card to summon itself from hand and set an S/T that mentions Dark Magician. It’s also treated as Dark Magician on field and in GY, giving you another option to use as material for The Gaze of Timaeus. On the other hand, the Multiplying Kuriboh! (YGOrg Translation) Extended Art Card becomes a serarchable hand trap, summoning itself from the hand when an opponent’s monster effect is activated or their monster attacks, if either action happens while it is on field, it tutors or summons a Dark Magician from your Deck/GY, and changes the ATK of the opponent’s monster to 0.
The other primary synergy here is that the Dark Magician support already naturally have Ritual Monsters of their own in Illusion of Chaos and Magician of Chaos, both Level 7, and a Ritual Spell in Chaos Form that mentions Dark Magician. This means that the Chaos Ritual theme has yet another option for accessing its monsters, even if your opponent manages to stop your Ritual of Light and Darkness in its tracks. Of course the bigger win here is that Preparation of Rites can be used since you have Level 7 Ritual options, giving you the ideal Spell to recur back from the GY with your new Dark Chaos Magician, since it gives you +1 in card advantage each time and doesn’t have a hard Once-Per-Turn effect!
As for my rules, you’ll see that this build uses Foolish Burial to cover the first, then all the Dark Magician combos and the Ritual Monsters to cover the second and third, so just go checkout the list already!
Sample Decklist:
Open the spoiler below for the full decklist!
Spoiler
Monsters:
3 Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman
2 Dark Magician, the Pharaoh’s Servant
1 Skull Archfiend of Chaos
2 Mystical Celtic Sage
3 Multiplying Kuriboh!
2 Gurifoh
1 Magicians’ Souls
1 Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness
2 Black Chaos the Dark Chaos Magician
1 Magician of Chaos
1 Illusion of Chaos
Spells:
3 Pre-Preparation of Rites
1 Foolish Burial
3 Preparation of Rites
1 Chaos Form
3 Ritual of Light and Darkness
2 The Gaze of Timaeus
1 Mystic Box of Chaos
3 Chaos Hats
2 Gateway to Chaos
Traps:
1 Waking the Dragon
1 Mind Shuffle
Extra Deck:
1 Starving Venom Wing Dragon
1 Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon
1 Master of Chaos
2 Dark Magician of Destruction
1 Blue-Eyes Ultimate Spirit Dragon
1 Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis
1 Firewall Dragon Singularity
1 Four Charmers in Profusion
1 Selene, Queen of the Master Magicians
1 Dyna Mondo
1 Miasma Necromancer
1 S:P Little Knight
1 Cross-Sheep
1 Linkuriboh
Variant Two: Chaos Ritual with Resonator, Red Dragon Archfiend, and Branded Support
Replays:
If the embedded video does not function properly, check out this video on YouTube.
Strategic Summary:
The second variant features what is possible whenever you have consistent access to that initial copy of Gurifoh, which happens to be even more frequent with the BLZD support wave for the Red Dragon Archfiend strategy. In short, Soul Resonator is the key bridge here, since it tutors any Level 4 or lower Fiend when Normal or Special Summoned, a.k.a. Gurifoh. If you already have Gurifoh, great, because it can tutor Vision Resonator instead, allowing you to go for better summoning combos and not wasting your search with The Crimson King (YGOrg Translation). Making this even sweeter is that Power Vice Dragon (YGOrg Translation) now exists, allowing you to start your turn with a freely Special Summoned Level 5 Dragon, tutor your Soul Resonator, then begin your combos. And, since it mentions RDA, Power Vice can also be searchable itself with Crimson Gaia!
If that much extra starting potential wasn’t enough, there’s also a lot of extension possible in the build, due to additional potential synergy with Branded Lore support cards. You see, the Chaos Ritual strategy doesn’t need a lot of its Extra Deck, so running Albion the Branded Dragon and The Fallen & The Virtuous can be quite easy to justify. Even better, this deck can also accommodate running Dogmatika Maximus and a playset of Nadir Servant, allowing you to make the most of the other Extra Deck space that isn’t needed for your base RDA/Resonator combos. Even with a subpar hand, the deck should have enough consistency to back up your hand traps with a few disruption options, and under ideal scenarios, you’ll create nigh-impossible boards to break.
Looping back to my three rules, the first is covered by both Foolish Burial and the non-theme access to Mind Shuffle via Gurifoh that is offered by any of your RDA starters (a 75% chance with the current build). The second rule is not only met by any combination of monsters for an RDA Synchro Summon, but it also happens to synergize with the deck due Ritual of Light and Darkness banishing monsters from your GY, for you to bring back to the board via Bystial Dis Pater. Then lastly, the third rule is met by Fidraulis Harmonia and Dogmatika Maximus, since both are so easily summoned to enable the second effect of Mind Shuffle.
Sample Decklist:
Open the spoiler below for the full decklist!
Spoiler
Monsters:
3 Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman
1 Dogmatika Maximus
3 Fidraulis Harmonia
1 Skull Archfiend of Chaos
3 Power Vice Dragon
1 Soul Resonator
2 Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring
2 Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion
1 Vision Resonator
2 Gurifoh
2 Droll & Lock Bird
1 Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness
1 Black Chaos the Dark Chaos Magician
Spells:
3 Nadir Servant
3 Pre-Preparation of Rites
1 Foolish Burial
3 Ritual of Light and Darkness
1 The Gaze of Timaeus
1 Called by the Grave
3 The Fallen & The Virtuous
1 Mystic Box of Chaos
1 Crimson Gaia
Traps:
1 Red Zone
2 Mind Shuffle
Extra Deck:
1 Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon
1 Dark Magician of Destruction
1 Albion the Branded Dragon
1 Garura, Wings of Resonant Life
1 Bystial Dis Pater
1 Chaos Angel
1 Black-Winged Assault Dragon
1 The Crimson King
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 Black-Winged Dragon
1 Ecclesia and the Dark Dragon
1 Wind Pegasus @Ignister
1 Golden Cloud Beast – Malong
1 Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis
1 S:P Little Knight
Variant Three: Chaos Ritual with Ritual Archfiend
Replays:
If the embedded video does not function properly, check out this video on YouTube.
Strategic Summary:
This third variant is pure fun, taking some of the core synergies from each of the first two variants, and adding extra power bombs on top of it! You see, the new Archfiend strategy has a lot of moving parts, but more than anything, they have so many ways to search Archfiend cards. Once you add in Ritual of the Matador and Archfiend Matador on top of Throne of the Archfiends and Archfiend Emperor, you may notice that this build also happens to be chalk full of Ritual Spells that name Level 7 or less Ritual monsters – meeting both Pre-Preparation of Rites and Preparation of Rites! Then, between Archfiend Emperor and Doom Regina Archfiend (YGOrg Translation), this build also has monsters that can drop out of the Extra Deck to banish the opponent’s whole board, serving as a great foil to the targeted banishing capabilities of the Chaos Ritual support.
You know what else this hybrid approach does extremely well? It doesn’t just rest on its laurels of relying on its monsters, since it can also turn to Archfiend Traps to swing the duel in your favor. Of course this includes Archfiend’s Ghastly Glitch – which can trigger Skull Archfiend of Chaos – but it also includes Archfiend’s Fervor and Red Dragon Archfiend’s Chain (YGOrg Translation) to negate your opponents’ effects! Combine these with both Stars Align Across the Milky Way and Archfiend Usurpation (YGOrg Translation) to Ritual Summon during the opponent’s turn, and you have plenty of ways to disrupt the opponent, no hand traps required!
Closing out this variant on the rules, the first is covered with all of the search power for Archfiend Cards, as Skull is a lot easier to get to GY from the hand, and it also is covered by Duke Archfiend and Ghastly Glitch sending it directly to the GY. The second is met simply by the monsters the Archfiends send to the GY when Ritual Summoning, plus Archfiend Emperor can Special Summon its Fiend from the banishment if you happen to need to banish something you want to use later. Then lastly, the Archfiend Rituals themselves don’t mind being returned to hand for Mind Shuffle, or in a pinch, you can always return that Invader of Darkness you summoned with Emperor!
Sample Decklist:
Open the spoiler below for the full decklist!
Spoiler
Monsters:
3 Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman
1 Invader of Darkness
3 Royal Archfiend
1 Skull Archfiend of Chaos
1 Duke Archfiend
3 Highness Archfiend
1 Archfiend Heiress
2 Gurifoh
1 Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness
1 Black Chaos the Dark Chaos Magician
2 Archfiend Emperor
2 Doom Regina Archfiend
1 Archfiend Matador
1 Miracle Raven
Spells:
3 Pre-Preparation of Rites
2 Readying of Rites
3 Preparation of Rites
2 Throne of the Archfiends
1 Ritual of the Matador
2 Ritual of Light and Darkness
1 The Gaze of Timaeus
3 Archfiend Usurpation
1 Mystic Box of Chaos
1 Archfiend Strategy
Traps:
1 Archfiend’s Ghastly Glitch
2 Stars Align across the Milky Way
1 Urgent Ritual Art
1 Archfiend’s Fervor
1 Red Dragon Archfiend’s Chain
2 Mind Shuffle
Extra Deck:
1 Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon
1 Master of Chaos
1 Dark Magician of Destruction
1 Chaos Angel
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
1 PSY-Framelord Omega
1 Super Starslayer TY-PHON – Sky Crisis
1 A Bao A Qu, the Lightless Shadow
1 Accesscode Talker
1 Four Charmers in Profusion
1 Selene, Queen of the Master Magicians
1 Masterking Archfiend
1 S:P Little Knight
1 ASHLAN U1000
1 Cross-Sheep
Variant Four: Chaos Ritual with Hecahands Illusion
Replays:
If the embedded video does not function properly, check out this video on YouTube.
Strategic Summary:
The fourth and final variant is my favorite, as it meets each of my rules in quite the unique fashion. While there isn’t so much of a direct bridge between the themes, there is definitely an indirect one in The Zombie Vampire, a R8NK Xyz Monster that mills the top 4 cards of both players’ decks. Even though I’m running a condensed Hecahands engine here, Vampire is quite easy to access due to Hecahands Jauzah and The Hidden Hecahands, especially once you steal one or two of your opponent’s monsters with Breus or Gaigas.
Now the other big benefit to this variant is that this approach to the strategy can run both Foolish Burial and Nightmare Hand to get eventually your Skull Archfiend of Chaos into the GY, due to the existence of Transient Masquerader of Illusion (YGOrg Translation), a Level 8 Illusion monster that not only can Special Summon itself from the GY, but also send any Fiend, Illusion, or Spellcaster from your Deck to the GY. Since it is Level 8, it also serves as another option to leverage for Ritual Material, or as the second material for your Vampire Xyz Summon – it’s versatile, what can I say. As for the final deckbuilding rule, the Hecahands have those high-level monsters to bounce, especially if you happen to send Hecahands Ibtel to the GY during your turn as well!
Sample Decklist:
Open the spoiler below for the full decklist!
Spoiler
Monsters:
3 Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman
1 Transient Masquerader of Illusion
1 Hecahands Breus
1 Hecahands Gaigas
1 Skull Archfiend of Chaos
1 Hecahands Yadel
3 Nightmare Apprentice
1 Hecahands Makibel
1 Hecahands Ibtel
1 Mystical Celtic Sage
3 Gurifoh
1 Black Luster Soldier – Soldier of Light and Darkness
1 Black Chaos the Dark Chaos Magician
Spells:
3 Pre-Preparation of Rites
3 The Hidden Hecahands
1 Foolish Burial
3 Ritual of Light and Darkness
2 The Gaze of Timaeus
2 Nightmare Hands
1 Hecahands Tartaros
1 Mystic Box of Chaos
1 Chaos Hats
Traps:
2 The Black Goat Laughs
1 Sinful Spoils of Slumber – Morrian
2 Mind Shuffle
1 Yad’al-Hecahands
Extra Deck:
1 Hecahands Xeno
1 Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon
1 Master of Chaos
1 Dark Magician of Destruction
1 Hecahands Jauzah
1 Hecahands Dandalos
1 The Zombie Vampire
1 Underworld Goddess of the Closed World
1 A Bao A Qu, the Lightless Shadow
1 Four Charmers in Profusion
1 Selene, Queen of the Master Magicians
1 Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy
1 S:P Little Knight
1 I:P Masquerena
1 Cross-Sheep
Alternative Tech Options:
- The other Chaos Ritual Support cards
Mystical Celtic Sage (YGOrg Translation) – This gives you additional draw power and can be a great capstone to your first turn; however, I found that he is best when you’re able to leverage Cross-Sheep pointing to both a Ritual and Fusion, so I’m not confident that Sage fits into every Chaos Ritual Build.- Mystic Box of Chaos (YGOrg Translation) – This may be a great Quick-Play Spell for dodging targeted interaction, but I often found myself picking between the Spells when deciding what to include in the final decklist(s), especially since the second effect of Mind Shuffle already lets you dodge your opponents’ effects!
- Chaos Hats (YGOrg Translation) – Similar to the above, it is extremely strong on paper; however, it can be difficult to resolve fully, as you need 3 open Monster Zones. That said, if you manage to have this ready to counter an opponent’s hand Trap going 1st, it can easily give you enough of an upper hand to just straight up win the duel immediately.
Other Engines to get Skull Archfiend of Chaos to the GY:
- Fiendsmith via Aerial Eater – Execute the standard Fiendsmith combo, and you have your access outright. This also comes with the benefit of potentially being able to add additional forms of disruption to your endboard, such as with D/D/D Wave High King Caesar.
- Radiant Typhoon via Cherubini, Ebon Angel of the Burning Abyss – Any Radiant Typhoon starter that branches into the others, will allow you to field two Level 3 monsters, make Cherubini, then Cherubini can effectively mill Skull Archfiend with the scenic route through Fiendish Rhino Warrior.
- Chimera Fusion via Berfomet the Mythical King of Phantom Beasts – You can even use one of Yugi’s other retrained decks to send your Skull Archfiend of Chaos from Deck to GY… quite frankly, the possibilities are endless!
Outro:
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for humoring me by taking the time to enjoy this new strategy. At the end of the day, the Chaos Ritual strategy can synergize with the gameplan of many other themes, especially since it doesn’t conflict at all with Extra Deck lock, and hopefully this article inspires you to try out some of the others that are out there. Even though this new support may still be a way off from release to TCG, it can’t hurt to start thinking ahead, no? Anyways, one last thank you for reading, and catch you next time when I return with my normally scheduled CDP content!
Note: This article revisited the style of Creative Deck Strategy articles that I used to write, designed to provide an indepth analysis of a theme to give you a greater understanding of its potential applications. That said, if you wish to see more CDS articles like this re-added to my normal content stream, please drop a note on the YGOrg Discord server, the comments section of any of my YouTube videos, or just post a comment in response to this article with your thoughts/feedback! On most YGO-related communities my username is Quincymccoy, so feel free to reach out. Current pending requested CDPs include: Crystal Beast, Suship, Rokket, Learning Elf, Artmage, Power Patron, F.A., RDA, Archfiend, Malefic, Chain Burn
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1 Comment
That was a beautiful job, thank you