Ritual Monsters have been around since the release of Spell Ruler, but in all of Dueling there aren’t that many of them. Thanks to the Gishki monsters in Hidden Arsenal 5: Steelswarm Invasion, Ritual Monsters are back, and better than ever! Here’s a recap on how Ritual Summons work, using the new Gishki cards to explain it all.

Ritual Summons are a kind of Special Summon that you perform by playing a Ritual Spell Card. Before you can begin, you need to have the monster you want to Ritual Summon, and an appropriate Ritual Spell Card in your hand. The Spell Card will tell you what it can Ritual Summon. The Gishki Ritual Spell Gishki Aquamirror allows you to Ritual Summon any Gishki Ritual Monster, so it’s easy to use.

Once everything is in place, activate the Ritual Spell Card. The actual Summon happens when it resolves. For every Ritual Summon, you have to Tribute monsters from your field or your hand whose combined levels equal the level of the Ritual Monster you’re trying to Summon when the Ritual Spell resolves. Some Ritual Spells let you go over that number, others require the Levels of the Tributes to exactly match the Level of the Ritual Monster. No matter what, if you have already selected enough monsters to fulfil the requirement, you can’t Tribute any extra ones.

You could use 1 high-Level monster or a bunch of lower-Level monsters for the Ritual Summon depending on the situation. You could even use an extra Ritual Monster as a Tribute for the Ritual Monster you’re Summoning! An important thing to note is that you can’t use a card like Monster Reborn on a Ritual Monster, unless you Ritual Summoned it in the first place and it later went to the Graveyard.

Ritual Summoning can quickly exhaust your supply of monsters, and you’re limited by how many Ritual Monsters and Spells you end up drawing. Fortunately, Gishki Decks are built with this in mind, and their cards are geared towards recovering monsters and Ritual Spells so you can keep Ritual Summoning. Gishki Aquamirror can return itself to your Deck, and return a Gishki Ritual Monster from your Graveyard to your hand! On top of that, Gishki Shadow can be used as an entire Tribute for a Gishki Ritual Monster, regardless of Level, and it can even search the Aquamirror straight from your Deck. Even if Shadow has been used and it’s in your Graveyard, Normal Summon Gishki Beast and Special Summon Shadow, then use it in a Ritual Summon.

Some especially powerful Ritual Monsters include Demise, King of Armageddon (which can destroy every other card on the field), and Herald of Perfection (which can negate any card effect by discarding one Fairy-type monster). The Gishki Ritual Monsters are strong, both in ATK and effect, and with the help of the other Gishki cards it’s really easy to Summon them. Evigishki Soul Ogre is able to return cards on the field to the Deck, easily getting past monsters like Stardust Dragon and Spirit Reaper, while Evigishki Mind Augus allows you to return up to 5 cards in either Graveyard to the Deck, which can be handy to remove pests like Inzektor Hornet from the Duel.

In addition to Summoning Ritual Monsters quickly and easily, Gishki decks have some of the best Ritual Monsters around. The speed and ease at which Ritual Summons can happen in the Gishki Deck is awesome. Ritual Monsters have made their greatest comeback yet!