Ritual Beasts are the latest group of cards that use Fusion Monsters as their boss monsters! But unlike most Fusion Monsters, Ritual Beast Fusion Monsters don’t require you to use Polymerization or a pseudo-Polymerization to Summon them. Like the Gladiator Beast Fusion Monsters that dominated the Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME many years ago, Ritual Beast Fusions simply require that you to control the Fusion Materials on your field in order to Summon them. That makes Ritual Beasts a versatile theme that’s fun to play and easy to learn.

The Secret Forces introduces 3 new Ritual Beast Tamers, 3 new Spiritual Beasts, and 3 Ritual Beast Ulti- Fusion Monsters. It also introduces a new Ritual Beast Spell Card and new Ritual Beast Trap Card that you can use to fill out your Ritual Beast Deck.

The Ritual Beast Tamers

The Ritual Beast Tamers are low-Level monsters that will get your Ritual Beast Deck up and running. You can only Special Summon each Ritual Beast Tamer once per turn.

Ritual Beast Tamer Lara is a Level 1 monster that lets you Special Summon a Ritual Beast from your Graveyard if it’s Normal Summoned. Ritual Beast Tamer Elder is a Level 2 monster that lets you Normal Summon an extra Ritual Beast during the turn that you Normal Summon Elder. Finally, Ritual Beast Tamer Wen is a Level 3 monster that lets you Special Summon one of your banished Ritual Beast monsters if Wen is Normal Summoned. All three of these monsters will help you assemble the components you need to Summon your most powerful Ritual Beast Fusion Monsters.

The Spiritual Beasts

The Spiritual Beasts are the Level 4 Ritual Beast monsters that provide muscle to the Ritual Beast Main Deck. These monsters’ effects won’t help you swarm the field, but will help you assemble the cards you need in your hand, and assist in keeping your opponent’s field under control. You can only Special Summon each Spiritual Beast once per turn.

Spiritual Beast Apelio has 1800 ATK and lets you banish a Ritual Beast monster from your Graveyard during either player’s turn to increase the ATK and DEF of all of your Ritual Beasts by 500 for the rest of the turn. Spiritual Beast Pettlephin has 2000 DEF and lets you banish a Ritual Beast monster from your hand once per turn to return an opponent’s card to his or her hand. Finally, Spiritual Beast Cannahawk lets you banish a Ritual Beast card from your Deck once per turn, and then add that card to your hand during your second Standby Phase after activating Cannahawk’s effect. Note that Spiritual Beast Cannahawk’s effect isn’t restricted to grabbing monsters from the Deck – it can also gather Ritual Beast Spell & Trap Cards, including Ritual Beast Ambush from Secrets of Eternity.

The Ritual Beast Ulti- Monsters

Each of the 3 Ritual Beast Ulti- monsters in The Secret Forces can be Summoned from the Extra Deck by banishing any Ritual Beast Tamer and any Spiritual Beast from your field. In addition, during either player’s turn, each of the 3 Ritual Beast Ulti- monsters can disassemble, allowing you to return that monster to your Extra Deck and Special Summon a banished Ritual Beast Tamer and Spiritual Beast in Defense Position. This nifty ability will help your Ritual Beast Ulti- monsters dodge the effects of cards that target them and increase the count of “Ritual Beast” monsters on your field, which becomes important later.

Ritual Beast Ulti-Apelio has 2600 ATK and is unaffected by other cards’ effects until the end of the Damage Step if it attacks. That makes it the perfect offensive card. Ritual Beast Ulti-Pettlephin, on the other hand, has 2800 DEF and can’t be destroyed by card effects, making it the perfect defensive card. Finally, Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk has an ability that lets you return 2 of your banished Ritual Beasts to your Graveyard to search your Deck for a Ritual Beast card and add it to your hand. This effect lets you to reap an immediate benefit from your Fusion Monster, before disassembling it to create Ulti-Apelio or Ulti-Pettlephin later on.

A basic play would be to Summon Ulti-Apelio, attack, then split Ulti-Apelio back up and use the same 2 monsters to Summon Ulti-Pettlephin to defend during your opponent’s turn.

Ritual Beast Spell & Trap

There’s one new Ritual Beast Spell Card and one new Ritual Beast Trap Card in The Secret Forces.

Although you can combine your Ritual Beast Tamer with a Spiritual Beast to Summon your Ritual Beast Ulti- monsters without using any sort of Spell Card, Ritual Beast’s Bond can make Summoning your Ulti- monsters even easier. Ritual Beast’s Bond is a Quick-Play Spell Card that lets you banish 2 Ritual Beasts you control to Special Summon a Ritual Beast from your Extra Deck, ignoring its Summoning conditions. In addition to letting you Summon your best Fusion Monsters on your opponent’s turn and during your own Battle Phase, Ritual Beast’s Bond also allows you to combine 2 Ritual Beast Tamers or 2 Spiritual Beasts together to Summon your ace monster, expanding your Deck’s flexibility.

Finally, the Ritual Beast Steeds Trap Card lets you destroy monsters on the field up to the number of Ritual Beast monsters you control. As long as you have enough Ritual Beasts on your field, you can use Ritual Beast Steeds to wipe out all of your opponent’s monsters and clear the way for direct attacks!

Ritual Beasts are a fun and exciting theme that uses strategies unlike any we’ve seen in recent years. You can start building your Ritual Beast Deck after the release of The Secret Forces!