Our first low level Ritual appears!
RD/AP01-JP084 Tide Ride Bluefin
Level 4 WATER Fish Ritual Effect Monster
ATK 1600
DEF 1600
【REQUIREMENT】 During the Main Phase this card was Ritual Summoned.
【EFFECT】 Send the top 2 cards of your Deck to the GY. If there was a Fish monster(s) or Spell Card(s) among them, then you can choose 1 Spell/Trap on your opponent’s field and destroy it.
RD/AP01-JP085 Bluefin Oath
Ritual Spell Card
【REQUIREMENT】 If you have not Special Summoned a monster this turn.
【EFFECT】 Ritual Summon 1 “Tide Ride Bluefin” by sending face-up monsters from your field to the GY whose combined Levels total 4 or more as materials. (You cannot use more monsters than necessary as material.)
12 Comments
The first Level 4 Ritual in Rush, with stats comparable to the strongest Level 4 Main Deck monsters in the format. Bluefin’s requirement is slightly more restrictive than other Rituals right now (only on the turn it is Ritual Summoned), but it sets up your GY for Wave Fusion and the other cards that recover your key pieces. There is a really good chance at destroying backrow since Surging Waves is a monster/Spell heavy deck. It is likely Level 4 since several Surging-Wave extenders are Level 3, preventing it from being too easy to summon in theme. As a WATER Fish, Bluefin can also meet Wave Fusion’s requirement, and can be sent to the GY by Fish Depth Charge, Fish Missile Launcher, or Golden Flying Fish. 1600 ATK is also deliberate to avoid being recoverable with Salvage.
Bluefin Oath is the first Ritual Spell in the format with a requirement (you cannot Special Summon before you use it that turn), almost certainly to make up for Bluefin being Level 4. It also only uses face-up monsters on your field but does not restrict the Types of the monsters used as Ritual material and how (unlike the Grace Princess or Blaze Fiend Ritual Spells). Surging-Wave doesn’t really Special Summon outside of their Fusions or Grand Extreme since most of their key pieces are Level 4 or below or can be Normal Summoned without Tribute (Cyber Shark). But the lock does prevent you from repeatedly Ritual Summoning Bluefin multiple times a turn and repeatedly milling/destroying backrow.
strongest main deck lvl 4 are 1700
What part of “comparable to” not “exact” did you not understand?
So basically, it’s guaranteed to pop a backrow. I’m conflicted on whether to tear into the pointlessness of requiring to mill either a monster or spell, or take jabs at the fact it’s a fish but looks like a battleship.
That’s if you’re playing it in a fish deck, it has generic summoning requirements so a spell heavy non-fish deck could also consider it.
first ritual spell with requirement
I didn’t expect Bluefin to receive a Ritual Monster, much less a Low-Level Monster.
Although the Ritual Spell Card screams generic, these cards work best in a Fish Deck (ironically, this makes Surging-Wave the first Deck that can use Fusion and Ritual in the same Deck)
dark magician already uses both fusion and ritual what
You know what that means
FiSH
Remind me, but… How many Ritual Fish Monsters do we have in the OCG/TCG in total?
I think there are few.
Few is selling it short
We have one, “Fortress Whale”. Because all the gishki ones are aqua or fish, and we have none other fish-adjacent archetypes that do ritual summons.
Bluefin… B.F… like Black Feathers… are we witnessing the origin of Rush’s Blackwings?