Notes & Combos

TCG-exclusives, Reptiles, Rituals... Konami hasn't given them much love in the past 25+ years. Each is not often seen and not often very good. Sure there's been standouts over the years, but for every Burning Abyss and Drytron, Konami's made a dozen Asheneds and Magikeys. Now have a new TCG-exclusive Reptile Ritual archetype in Mitsurugi, hot off the heels of full-power Maliss. Are these sword serpent Rituals the real deal? Indeed, they certainly are.

If you're not already familiar with Mitsurugi, it's an archetype of DARK Reptiles that focus on Ritual Summoning. Here's what makes them so good:

Excellent 1-Card Starters

• Habakiri's hand effect is one of the best 1-card starters in the entire game. There's a reason it's once per duel.

A Fantastic Boss Monster

• Murakumo is a really strong boss monster. On summon, it's a Raigeki, and there are a lot of ways to summon it on your opponent's turn. What's more is that the deck has a lot of ways to chain block this effect and dodge targeted disruption, so it's hard for the opponent to stop their monsters from being destroyed.

Incredible Board Breaking Potential

• Since Murakumo is easy to summon and hard for the opponent to stop, it can very well wipe out an entire board just from being summoned. Murakumo is not the only in-engine board breaker since there's also Wousu. Wousu is like an in-archetype Kaiju as long as you also have a Ritual in hand. There's also the fact that Murakumo has a massive ATK stat and how Habakiri has a continuous effect that lowers the ATK of the opponent's monsters. There's even searchable cards like Magatama for targeted destruction.

Tons of Extra Deck Space

• If played pure, Mitsurugi actually doesn't need that many Extra Deck cards to build a board. This leaves room for a lot of generic Xyz and Link monsters or even a Super Poly package if you want.

Impressive Grind Game

• No worries if you lose your board. Cards like Prayers, Mirror, Kusanagi, and Purification make it easy to bring your monsters back from the GY.

Splashability in Other Decks

• Other than Wousu, Mitsurugi has no archetypal locks, so decks like Ryzeal and Orcust can play Mitsurugi as an engine to great effect.

Pure Mitsurugi is a Dominus Impulse Deck

• I don't think I need to say anything else.

With Maliss and Ryzeal dominating the recent formats, Mitsurugi is looking to stand right along with them at the top of the metagame. Better slot in your Drolls if you value your board.