Historical Introduction
Ritual Beast is an oddity of the past - its last big tops were from Jarel Winston and Miguel Soto piloting the decks to top 8 in the NA WCQ in 2015. After this, the deck dropped off a cliff in competitive representation. Ritual Beasts features two paired archetypes, the "Spiritual Beasts" and the "Ritual Beast Tamers". Spiritual Beasts get banished and sent to the GY, while the Tamers summon the Spiritual Beasts. These two archetypes can also Fusion Summon by banishing themselves. The Fusions all share the ability of returning to the Extra Deck to summon back a Beast and Tamer.
Ritual Beasts in the past focused on a combo of Ritual Beast Tamer Elder and Spiritual Beast Cannahawk. This combo resulted in a search for Ritual Beast Ambush and Ritual Beast Steeds. However, this combo is inconsistent by modern standards. The once-great power of Steeds to destroy without targeting is not also as impressive as it once was. Looking forward now, two years later, Ritual Beasts are finally receiving a new card in Ritual Beast Ulti-Kimunfalcos. Ulti-Kimunfalcos is a Link Monster that allows for an extra Normal Summon, and the banishing of Ritual Beast cards from the GY. While it doesn't directly impact the consistency of the main deck, Ulti-Kimunfalcos opens up many new combos. It also provides stronger results for the deck's pre-existing combos.
Technical Aspects
For reference, this is an example of decklist for Ritual Beasts with Ulti-Kimunfalcos. Compared to builds like Jarel Winston's, it's much less control oriented. This is due to the increased power and consistency of Cannahawk and Rampengu combos. Together these combos make a more midrange variant viable instead of the deck needing to stall until it draws specific combo pieces.
A few technical aspects need to be explained for the uninitiated, as Ritual Beasts have many hidden aspects. Most important of these is a key word on Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk.
"You can target 2 of your banished 'Ritual Beast' cards; return them to the GY, and if you do, add 1 'Ritual Beast' card from your Deck to your hand."
"Them" is a vague word in Yu-Gi-Oh!, but one thing is for sure: it does not specify a particular amount of cards that need to be returned. This means that as long as one of the banished monsters returns to the Graveyard you can still search. By targeting one of the cards you're returning with Ulti-Cannahawk's second effect to summon out banished Ritual Beasts, you can search with Ulti-Cannahawk more times than you otherwise would be able to.
What's new?
As mentioned before, the deck's combos have increased in power drastically. They gain more resources, are safer, and have better board presence. Even weaker interactions such as Ritual Beast Tamer Elder + Spiritual Beast Rampengu now can result in at least minimal protection. Furthermore, going first the deck can now search two Steeds instead of one Steeds and one Ambush. This makes it virtually impossible to bait out both Steeds. On top of that, with newer additions like Winda, even board wipes won't stop each Ambush from destroying 2-3 monsters. Finally, turn one Ritual Beast Ulti-Gaiapelio, a walking Solemn Judgment, is possible to achieve with combos that gave much weaker results before.
Combo and End Result Comparison
As an example of what Ulti-Kimunfalcos can bring to the table, here is a sample of the new Elder + Rampengu combo. Its end result ends up being as potent as the deck's main combo, Elder + Cannahawk.
- Normal Summon Ritual Beast Tamer Elder, and use his effect to Normal Summon Spiritual Beast Rampengu.
- Activate Rampengu's effect, banishing Ritual Beast Ulti-Gaiapelio (Psychic) from the Extra Deck, and sending Spiritual Beast Tamer Winda from the Deck to the GY.
3. Contact Fusion for Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk by banishing Elder and Rampengu.4. Activate Ulti-Cannahawk's (1) effect by targeting the banished Ulti-Gaiapelio and Elder.
5. Chain Ulti-Cannahawk's (2) effect by targeting Elder and Rampengu.
6. Resolve the chain backwards; (2) Return Ulti-Cannahawk to the Extra Deck, and Special Summon Elder and Rampengu from Banished.
7. Send the remaining targets of (1) to the GY (Ulti-Gaiapelio), and search your Deck for Ritual Beast Tamer Lara.
8. Activate Rampengu's effect, banishing Ritual Beast Ulti-Apelio (Pyro) from the Extra Deck, and sending Spiritual Beast Apelio from the Deck to the GY.
9. Send Elder and Rampengu to the GY to Link Summon Ritual Beast Ulti-Kimunfalcos.
10. Activate Ulti-Kuminfalcos' effect, banishing Winda from the GY, and Normal Summoning Lara.
11. Activate Lara's effect, Special Summoning Spiritual Beast Apelio from the GY.
12. Activate Apelio's effect, banishing Ulti-Gaiapelio from the GY.
13. Contact fusion for Ulti-Cannahawk by banishing Apelio and Lara.
14. Activate Ulti-Cannahawk's (1) effect by targeting the banished Ulti-Apelio and Lara.
15. Chain Ulti-Cannahawk's (2) effect by targeting Lara and Winda.
16. Resolve the chain backwards; (2) Return Ulti-Cannahawk to the Extra Deck, and Special Summon Lara and Winda from Banished.
17. Send the remaining targets of (1) to the GY (Ulti-Apelio), and search your Deck for Ritual Beast Steeds.
18. Contact Fusion for Ulti-Cannahawk by banishing Lara and Winda.*
19. Activate Ulti-Cannahawk's (2) effect, targeting the banished Lara and Rampengu.
20. Send the targets of Ulti-Cannahawk's (1) effect to the GY, and search for a second Ritual Beast Steeds.
21. On the opponent's turn, activate Ulti-Cannahawk's (2) effect on their Standby Phase, returning Ulti-Cannahawk to the Extra Deck and Special Summoning Apelio and Winda from banished.
*Alternatively, instead of contact fusing for Ulti-Cannahawk, you may contact fuse for Ulti-Gaiapelio by banishing Ulti-Kimunfalcos, Lara and Winda. This variant provides negation instead of quick-play destruction, but is weaker to removal.
What are the end results, and how much better is it than the old combo?
The first picture details the ending board of our new combo that relies on Ulti-Kimunfalcos. Because we gain an extra Normal Summon, we may search for Lara and use her effect to extend the combo. And because we have the added protection of Ulti-Kimunfalcos being able to tag out, we can search for two Steeds instead of Steeds and Ritual Beast Ambush.
In the combo without Ulti-Kimunfalcos, to achieve a second search with Ulti-Cannahawk, we must send banished Ritual Beasts needed to tag out. This leaves Ulti-Cannahawk vulnerable, and so we are forced to activate Ambush to Special Summon Apelio, who in turn must banish a Spiritual Beast from the GY to tag out. This leaves us with four Ritual Beast monsters on field that are susceptible to removal, and one Ambush - an overall weaker state.
A Change of Deck Type
Pre-Link era Ritual Beasts only had OTK potential by using Ritual Beast's Bond. These combos were unsafe as they required sacrificing several monsters to summon Ulti-Gaiapelio. They were also easily stopped by hand traps and on-field negation. However, with Ulti-Kimunfalcos, Ritual Beast's Bond is no longer necessary to perform an OTK.
This truly shows the deck's new beatdown potential as Ulti-Kimunfalcos' and Apelio's attack boosts together make 7800 damage on field. Before Ulti-Kimunfalcos' inclusion, it was difficult to flood the board without using your Normal Summon. However, you can now Normal Summon even on your opponent's turn. This increases the amount of names on field for both OTK purposes and destroying more monsters with Steeds. With this potential, the deck transforms from a pseudo-control deck to a solid midrange beatdown that can end games on turn 2.
