Ritual of Light and Darkness

Ritual of Light and Darkness is one of the premier archetypes from Chaos Origins. This archetype is based off of the deck Yugi used during Duelist Kingdom. This Ritual of Light and Darkness deck plays a heavy control/midrange play style with an incredible, if not theoretically infinite grind game. In this breakdown I will go over different engines, combos, and theory to help you become more familiar with this deck.

Ritual of Light and Darkness

• Activate 'Black Chaos' by discarding it to place 'Mind Shuffle'.
• Use 'Mind Shuffle's effect to add 'Skull Achfiend of Chaos' and discard the 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos'.
• Activate 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos' effect to send 'Light and Darkness Ritual' from deck to the GY to add 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos'.
• Use the 'Light and Darkness Ritual' effect in GY to add 'Black Chaos' back to your hand with 'Light and Darkness Ritual'.
• Activate 'Light and Darkness Ritual' to summon 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos' by tributing 'Black Chaos' from hand.
• Activate 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos' to return the 'Light and Darkness Ritual' to your hand.
• Use 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos' as the full material to summon 'Dark Magician of Destruction' from your Extra Deck.
• Use 'Dark Magician of Destruction's effect to add 'Dark Magician, The Pharaoh's Servant' from your deck to your hand.
• Use the effect of The Pharaoh's Servant by revealing the 'Light and Darkness Ritual' you added back to summon itself and set 'Gaze of Timaeus' from the deck.

This line gives you access to 'The Gaze of Timaeus' + 'Dark Magician of Destruction' for 'Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon' or 'Dark Paladin'(depending on the match up), Pharaoh's Servant which can, as a Quick Effect, destroy all of your opponent's Spells/Traps by discarding a Spell as cost (The 'Light and Darkness Ritual' we added back). It also gives you access to 'Mind Shuffle', which on the following turn can set up the same Skull Archfiend play, but instead adding the Black Luster Soldier to use as interaction during the opponet's turn, alternatively we can search 'Griffoh' to enable access into 'Chaos Mystic Box' or 'Chaos Magical Hats'.

It is important to note that this combo is of a higher ceiling than the deck actually needs to play into. You could stop this combo at the point of getting 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos' on the field and you'll have established a much stronger control game. The combo above illustrates how the deck can extend past the point of establishing 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos' but the deck has a lot more power behind it when playing as low to the ground as possible so you can make large advantage pushes by the 3rd turn of the duel.

I chose to add The Pharaoh's Servant as a part of the 'Dark Magician of Destruction' line because it aids in getting a Level 7 onto the field while simultaniously not compromising our access into 'Gaze of Timaeus'. This one extra step of extension to the typical combo gives us a nice utility piece that works with our deck very well. Aside from 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos', you can also use cards like Phara or one of the Spell Cards set by 'Chaos Magical Hats' to summon 'Dark Magician of Destruction'. These can be a bit more situational but it doesn't compromise your Spell/Trap protection with 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos'

With the other cards we will have in our hand there is also a high likelihood that we will have something that can get us another card in the GY to use Skull Archfiend's effect to shuffle three cards from GY or Banishment back into the deck to summon itself. Being able to do this means we can Link Summon into 'I:P Masquerena' using 'Dark Magician of Destruction' and Skull Archfiend, netting us greater value from 'The Gaze of Timaeus'. Again it is important to note that this is an example of a higher ceiling play the deck can be making, however these pieces can be ultimately unecessary to your win condition.

'Griffoh' is also able to set up a very similar line and because of 'Griffoh's effect it can be used as the full material for the Ritual Summon. Starting the combo with 'Griffoh' comes with the added advantage of being able to recycle it with the 'Light and Darkness Ritual' effect in GY so you can use it on your opponent's turn from your hand to set either 'Chaos Mystic Box' or 'Chaos Magical Hats' which can be activated that turn due to 'Griffoh's effect. 

Additional Engines

From here I will go over some possible additional engines you can play in the deck, and their functionality. These engines can serve to increase consistency, or offer some extra utility to your plays.

Chimera

The Chimera engine can be used to get access into 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos' to search for one of your Ritual Monsters, also giving you access to your Ritual Spell and materials to Ritual Summon. 

• Activate 'Cornfield Coatl' to add 'Mirror Swordknight' to your hand
• Summon 'Mirror Swordknight' and activate its effect to summon 'Big-Winged Berfomet' from deck
• Use 'Berfomet's effect' to add 'Chimera Fusion' and 'Gazelle the King of Mythical Claws' to the hand
• Activate 'Chimera Fusion' to fuse Gazelle + Berfomet into 'Chimera the King of Phantom Beasts'
• Activate the trigger effects of Berfomet to summon back Swordknight and use 'Chimera the King of Phantom Beasts' to chain block the Berfomet and also rip a card from the opponent's hand at End Phase
• Activate 'Chimera Fusion' in GY to add it back to hand
• Use 'Chimera Fusion' again to fuse 'Mirror Swordknight' + 'Chimera the King of Phantom Beasts' into 'Berfomet the Mythical King of Phantom Beasts'
• Activate 'Berfomet the Mythical King of Phantom Beasts' and send 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos' from deck to the GY

This combo gets you into the 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos', which opens up the back half of the Ritual of Light and Darkness engine. It also gives you enough material to summon Skull Archfiend from GY for possible extension, but do remember that we lock ourselves into Fusion Monsters this turn with 'Big-Winged Berfomet's effect, but as 'Dark Magician of Destruction' is the monster we're going for most consistently out of the Extra Deck anyway, this lock hardly matters.

This combo really only gives you more consistent access to 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos' which isn't a play-maker by itself in the deck. This can at the very least give you access to the 'Dark Magician of Destruction' line so you still create a negate for the opponent's turn. This combo doesn't open up too much of the deck so any more layers of interaction to your board will have to come directly from the rest of your starting hand.
As a control deck, ripping a card from the opponent's hand with 'Chimera the King of Phantom Beasts' can be very valuable, as it helps keep them from any further card advantage.

Fallen of the White Dragon / Incredible Ecclesia The Virtuous

• Activate 'Fallen of the White Dragon' sending 'Albion the Branded Dragon' from the Extra Deck to the GY to summon itself.
• Activate 'Fallen of the White Dragon's effect on summon to Special Summon 'Incredible Ecclesia The Virtuous' from your deck
• Synchro Summon 'The Crimson King' using Fallen + Ecclesia
• Activate 'The Crimson King's effect to add 'Crimson Call' from your deck to the hand
• Activate 'Crimson Call' to search 'Griffoh'.

This combo can also be performed even if we draw Ecclesia.

• Summon Ecclesia and activate its effect to send itself to the GY to summon 'Fallen of the White Dragon' from deck
• Activate 'Fallen of the White Dragon's effect and Special Summon Ecclesia back from the GY

With this line you get more consistency to the start of your Ritual of Light and Darkness plays by adding 'Griffoh' which is one of the main play-makers of the deck's engine. Using 'Fallen of the White Dragon' to send Albion from Extra Deck to GY means we can also set a copy of 'The Fallen & The Virtuous' from our deck during the End Phase.

Do keep in mind that you are locked into only being able to summon Level 8 Synchro and Fusion Monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn, thankfully this isn't too impactful as the card we're going for from the Extra Deck most consistently is 'Dark Magician of Destruction' which is a Level 8 Fusion. If we start the combo with Ecclesia, we do not restrict our Extra Deck plays but it could possibly mean using up our Normal Summon if we're going first, however this is also not very negatively impactful as Ritual of Light and Darkness generally does not care about its Normal Summon.

It is worth mentioning that this package can also be slightly strengthened by playing 'Despian Luluwalilith' in the Extra Deck as a target for 'Fydraulis Harmonia'. You send the Luluwalilith to the GY and at the End Phase you can use the GY effect of Luluwalilith to Special Summon Incredible Ecclesia to your field to then grant you access to the Ritual of Light and Darkness engine through the above combo.

Alternatively, if you've opened a copy of 'Fallen of the White Dragon' with something like 'Griffoh' or 'Black Chaos' you could instead use the Fallen engine to get material to Synchro Summon 'The Three Champions of Swordsoul' instead. Using its effect on summon to add a monster from your deck to your hand that has ATK that equals its own defense. With this we can actually search Phara directly so it gives us access into yet another piece of interaction for the opponent's turn. The deck list shows three copies of Phara, but when I play the Fallen engine, I generally run Phara at two copies for both the sake of deck space, as well as the engine making it searchable.

Another benefit of this engine is how easy it is to fill up your GY with cards before you get access to 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos', so all we'll have to do is get anything mentioning 'Light and Darkness Ritual' into the GY alongside it and we can put pieces back to summon out Skull Archfiend. Additionally, 'The Crimson King' is a Level 8 monster, meaning we can use it as the full material for our Ritual Summon, however if we wanted to keep it on field we can also just banish The Fallen and Ecclesia from the GY and put them back into the deck later on with Skull Archfiend.

We can also play 'Red Dragon Archfiend' in the Extra Deck with this package. In response to an opponent's monster effect, you can use 'The Crimson King's effect to summon 'Red Dragon Archfiend', in the process doubling its attack points and making it unable to be destroyed by card effects. In tandem with the 'Crimson Call' in our GY, we can use this as an OTK tool to allow the 'Red Dragon Archfiend' to make a second attack.

Kuriboh - Multiply!

Additionally worth mentioning is the card, 'Kuriboh - Multiply!' as it can help open up the combo by allowing you to search for 'Griffoh'. This card could possibly be played in the Side Deck for going second as its utility is a lot higher going second than first. You can play this alongside 'Detonating Kuriboh' as an additional search target. We can use 'Detonating Kuriboh's effect to negate an opponent's monster for one additional piece of interaction.

Theory

So those are some basic combos of the deck, but now let's get into what makes this deck very interesting, it's infinite grind game. 'Skull Archfiend of Chaos' can summon itself by shuffling any three cards back into the deck or Extra Deck so long as one of the cards being put back mentions 'Light and Darkness Ritual'. This means that cards from the 'Dark Magician of Destruction' engine, any Extra Deck targets for 'Fydraulus Harmonia', and any additional engines, can all be put back into rotation, allowing you to reuse them on later turns. This ability to recur these engines is very strong, especially so with the 'Dark Magician of Destruction' engine and Harmonia as it means over the course of a turn or two you can establish another 'Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon' or 'Dark Paladin' or put your Synchro Monster back into the Extra Deck so you can do the full effect of Harmonia again later which means we don't need to play 'Psy-Framelord Omega'.

Additionally with Harmonia, there is the other synergy of it being a Level 7 monster, which means we can return it back to our hand with 'Mind Shuffle' to summon one of our Ritual Monsters from hand. This means between Skull Archfiend and 'Mind Shuffle' we have infinite uses of Harmonia which can establish a lot of pressure very quickly as it's a functional removal for two cards as well as being a 2500 ATK body which can theoretically translate to removal for three if there's something on field it can destroy in battle.

From here I'll go into the utility of specific cards within the deck and how they can make pretty significant impact on the game state.

'Fydraulis Harmonia': I've already gone into what makes this card so special for the deck. The very important part is that this card can become very consistent pressure you can apply to your opponent throughout the course of the game. Being able to put this card back in your hand with 'Mind Shuffle' and also being able to recycle the resources it uses for its effect, it means you have access to one of the most powerful control tools ever printed.

'Chaos Magical Hats': I've not touched much on the two utility Spells in the deck, but this one is very special. Aside from the obvious ability of allowing you to either dodge effects that target your Ritual of Light and Darkness monsters, or being a functional negate, its biggest benefit is opening up the ability to theoretically search for any Spell Card in your deck. Meaning we can grab non-engine Spell Card staples like Talent, Called By, Fallen & The Virtuous, etc. and when they are sent to the GY we can add them back to our hand with 'Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos'. We can also use it to set 'Chaos Mystic Box' and if the opponent destroys it we can use its effect to summon one of our Ritual Monsters ignoring their summoning conditions.

'Celtic Mystic': This monster can be very useful because its effect to draw three cards and discard two can help fix a clogged hand, or even begin plays by discarding a Skull Archfiend that we either opened with or drew from the effect. It's also a Level 4 Light monster which I find very useful with Skull Archfiend being a Level 6 Dark so you can make a full effect 'Chaos Angel' with both of these.

'Phara the Primordial Goddess': This monster being a Level 8 Dark Spellcaster already has obvious synergy with the 'Dark Magician of Destruction' package, but its effects are very stacked towards this deck in terms of the utility it offers. Aside from being a Level 8 Dark Spellcaster, you can reveal it and a Spell/Trap in your hand and make that Spell/Trap unable to be responded to until the end of the next turn, this means that you can either use this for combo enablers like 'Ragged Records of Rites', high impact Spells/Traps like 'Evenly Matched', and possibly the best reveal off of it, 'Mind Shuffle'.
If Phara is sent to the GY by a Spell/Trap effect you can, as a Trigger Effect, summon it to your field from GY, and permanently take control of your opponent's highest ATK monster with its other Trigger Effect when summoned from the GY. This means that if we discard Phara with 'Mind Shuffle's search effect, we can get it onto our field. This can be somewhat situationally useful during your first turn, but it's very powerful for the opponent's turn, and with 'Gurifoh' in the opening hand it opens up a layer of Turn 0 interaction.

Final Thoughts

The greatest strength of Ritual of Light and Darkness is not any individual boss monster, but rather its ability to continuously recycle resources and re-establish threats. Opponents may be able to answer your board once, but answering the same engine or engines multiple turns in a row becomes significantly more difficult.

This deck is able to make very powerful and potent plays all while having an infinite grind game. Both of your boss monsters have protection that makes them unaffected unless they are targeted, and the Ritual of Light and Darkness engine gives you options to trivialize that opening, with cards like 'Chaos Mystic Box', 'Chaos Magical Hats', and 'Mind Shuffle', you have protection from even targeting as well. 

This deck may not be the easiest to pilot effectively. It takes a lot of familiarity with how different hands can play out to optimize your play patterns with this deck, but once you get past that, you feel almost as unstoppable as the King of Games himself.