Dogmatika Ritual (June 2023 MD)

A deck I once tried way back before Alba Zoa even released, now made a functional strategy with Climax of the Showdown! Dogmatika Ritual was once pretty bad, with being bricky and not even having great payoffs for the Rituals on their own.

That era, is no longer. Alba Zoa and Dogmatikamatrix have ushered in a new era of anti-ED dueling, and while not meta this deck packs a significant punch and can play with the big boys with the right tech (and a good hand). Let's start with the main engine:

• 3x Ecclesia, as we need to search all the useful Dogmatika engine somehow. She herself can be searched via Nadir Servant, and the second search of Dogmatikamatrix can do so as well.
• 1x of the original main deck bosses of Dogmatika, Fleurdelis and Maximus. They're still good cards, but Maximus only bolsters good boards and Fleurdelis' negate only activates if you have a second Dogmatika on the board so we don't want to just draw into them on their own. Cut Maximus if you want to.
• 3x Dogmatikamatrix. Searches a Dogmatika Ritual, whether a monster or spell, and if your opponent has a monster on field you get to search any Dogmatika card. Also lets you scout your opponent's extra if you control a Dogmatika Ritual, giving you the ability to comfortably decide whether you want to use Alba Zoa's effect, or you can just dump something from your extra to proc useful effects.
• 3x Dogmatikalamity, our primary Ritual spell. It can use a Fusion/Synchro monster from the Extra Deck as material for your Ritual, meaning the inherent minus of Ritual Spells is now closer to even (or even a plus, depending on what you're sending and how you can benefit from it). Make sure you have at least one Level 12 for Alba Zoa.
• 1x Dogmatikamacabre, our secondary Ritual spell. This is usually used to summon White Relic, since you'll typically have a Level 4 in grave to banish and you'd have probably spent your use of Dogmatikalamity for the turn.
• 1x Branded in Central Dogmatika, enables you to further benefit from Ritual summons by dumping an ED monster of your choice from either players ED. Can be cut, it's only good for further bolstering good hands.
• 3x Dogmatika Punishment. One of the best Trap cards ever printed in general, so of course we run it in its namesake deck.
• 1x Dogmatika Alba Zoa. Alba Zoa, the corrupted form of Maximus, is a crazy powerful boss monster... with a few asterisks attached. For starters, his protection only applies to Extra Deck monsters, and only to activated effects. Which means he is unable to do anything about Spell/Traps, main deck monsters, or lingering effects (like, say, Mirrorjade's field wipe effect). However, if you can get it onto the field, you'll be able to force your opponent to dump 7 cards from their Extra, discard from their hand, or if they have no Extra Deck left shuffle all their ED monsters back. Combine that with his tremendous 4k/4k statline, and some decks just plain don't have an out to him.
• 1x White Relic of Dogmatika. Aside from being cute, she's Alba Zoa's biggest supporter by removing one of his weaknesses (being destroyed by things bigger than him) and our OTK enabler. She also dumps a monster of your choice from your opponent's ED if your opponent summons from it, making things harder for your opponent. Her main role though, is to buff herself to 4.5k with Alba Zoa and beat your opponent to death with him.
• 1x Nadir Servant. Not technically a Dogmatika card by name, but important for the archetype. I run one due to economics, run as many copies as you can. Searching literally any Dogmatika while dumping a monster from the ED is just good (note that the only monster with over 4k we have is Five-Headed Dragon, who is our only target for summon Alba Zoa with Dogmatikalamity, so just be careful with how you do your combo).
• I don't run White Knight as I don't want to brick on Rituals any more than I already do and I find I'm never going for it over Alba Zoa or White Relic, but it is a strong card that is more proactive with playing on your opponent's turn.

For side engine stuff, we run Bystials to deal with other LIGHT/DARK decks, Diviner of the Herald as a NS to send Arc Light, and Shaddoll Schism to summon Winda. Everything else is just tech cards from the basic MD handtrap suite to boardbreakers, which can be switched as you desire to suit the meta.

The ED:

• 3x Herald of the Arc Light. We're playing a Ritual deck that dumps cards from ED to grave, of course we're playing this. It's technically possible to summon this under an extremely narrow circumstance (having both Diviner and Maxx C on field), but realisitically speaking you won't be summoning this.
• 1x Elder Entity N'tss. We're playing a deck that dumps ED cards, of course we run one of the best Dogmatika Punishment targets. More copies are a good idea, I only own one so I just run one.
• 1x Fossil Warrior Skull Knight, Fossil Machine Skull Wagon, Mereologic Aggregator, Garura Wings of Resonant Life, Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom, Granguignol the the Dusk Dragon, other things to dump. There's plenty of other targets you can pick to dump, these are just the ones I went with.
• 1x of Apkallone and Winda, our method of using the Schism engine. Dump Apkallone, grab Schism and discard, make Winda next turn and floodgate your opponent.
• 1x Five-Headed Dragon as a Dogmatikalamity target to summon Alba Zoa. Can be replaced by any Level 12, but a DARK one is preferred for the Bystial and Schism engines. Despian Lulawalilith would probably be the best option, but not in MD yet.
• 1x Barrone de Fleur just because we have a tuner and could occasionally summon it. Entirely replacable.
• 1x Linguriboh as my out to Iblee, as otherwise this deck would simply keel over on the spot if Iblee is summoned. Also replacable, we're not in an Iblee meta right now so it doesn't matter that much, but I had the space and noticed the weakness so I corrected.

And that's the list. As always, feel free to ask questions, I'll try to answer to the best of my ability. Goal is generally to just turbo out Alba Zoa as quickly as possible and then do other shit from there with the rest of your hand hoping that your opponent doesn't have an immediate out to Alba Zoa.