Today’s Dragons of Legend 2 preview heralds yet another Joey Wheeler day, this time focusing on his brief foray into the art of Ritual Summoning!

You can Ritual Summon this card with “Red-Eyes Transmigration”. Once per turn, during either player’s turn, when a card or effect is activated, except “Lord of the Red”: You can target 1 monster on the field; destroy it. Once per turn, during either player’s turn, when a card or effect is activated, except “Lord of the Red”: You can target 1 Spell/Trap Card on the field; destroy it.

Do you need to read that again? No, your eyes do not deceive you. The words printed there are actually Lord of the Red’s card text. Yes, it is really good.

Any time any card or effect is activated, except the Damage Step, Lord of the Red can destroy one monster or one Spell or Trap Card. And it can do both in a single turn, during either player’s turn. It doesn’t matter who activated the card to start with, Lord of the Red will blow stuff up. You can allow your opponent to do the work and destroy cards for zero effort, or you can be proactive and use a card – any card at all, even a simple Mystical Space Typhoon – to trigger Lord of the Red’s powerful effect. It’s a fantastic monster for either turning the tides of a Duel that’s not going your way, or stopping your opponent from trying to mount an offensive of their own.

It’s important to note that even though the text says “Once per turn,” they also say “during either player’s turn.” That makes them Quick Effects, not Trigger Effects, so you must directly Chain them to the other card or effect that was activated. They can’t Chain to each other. That also means that you don’t have to wait until the current Chain ends to use the effects – you can blow away a Continuous Spell/Trap Card as soon as it’s activated to make sure its effect never takes hold.

As a Level 8 Ritual Monster, you’ll need to Tribute a total of 8 Levels worth of monsters to Ritual Summon Lord of the Red. How fortunate for you that his Ritual Spell Card, Red-Eyes Transmigration, makes that an easy task!

This card is used to Ritual Summon “Lord of the Red”. You must also Tribute monsters from your hand or field, and/or banish “Red-Eyes” monsters from your Graveyard, except “Red-Eyes B. Chick”, whose total Levels equal 8 or more.

Red-Eyes Transmigration works much like any other Ritual Spell, allowing Lord of the Red to be played in any Ritual Deck. However, in a Red-Eyes Deck the Tribute can also be substituted by banishing Red-Eyes monsters from the Graveyard! If you banish the original Red-Eyes B. Dragon, that’s already 7 Levels toward the Ritual Summon of Lord of the Red. You’ll typically want a lot of Red-Eyes monsters in the Graveyard anyway, so you could use them with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Red-Eyes Wyvern, and Return of the Red-Eyes. Red-Eyes Transmigration gives you one more way to make use of those Dragons in your Graveyard.

One good combo is to banish a powerful monster like Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon with Transmigration, then activate a card like Escape from the Dark Dimension or D.D.R – Different Dimension Revival to bring it back. That’ll let you use your Lord of the Red to pre-emptively clear out a card to make sure Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon lands on the field, and then afterwards you can clear out another card when you use your Darkness Metal Dragon’s effect!

Lord of the Red wasn’t the only Ritual Monster Joey used, though. He had another one that plays perfectly with his favorite cards, the Paladin of Dark Dragon!

You can Ritual Summon this card with “Dark Dragon Ritual”. At the start of the Damage Step, if this card attacks a Defense Position monster: Destroy that monster. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 “Red-Eyes” monster from your hand or Deck, except “Red-Eyes B. Chick”. You can only use this effect of “Paladin of Dark Dragon” once per turn.

This guy is the counterpart to the classic Paladin of White Dragon, but (and it pains me to say this as a Blue-Eyes fan), it totally blows the other Paladin away.

First, where the Paladin of White would automatically destroy a face-down Defense Position monster it battled, the Paladin of Dark will automatically destroy any Defense Position monster it battles! Dark already has a bit of an advantage here.

The second effect is where it gets insane. You can Tribute Paladin of Dark Dragon to Special Summon any “Red-Eyes” monster you want, from either your hand or your Deck, with the exception of Red-Eyes B. Chick (that hatchling hasn’t matured enough to be a true “Red-Eyes” monster). You’re only limited to using this effect once per turn.

Other than the Chick, you can get literally any Red-Eyes monster! Naturally, you’ll bring Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon straight from the Deck. And of course, you’ll use its effect to Special Summon any Dragon you feel like from your hand or Graveyard, such as Red-Eyes B. Dragon. And since Paladin of Dark Dragon wants to stand out from the old Paladin of White, it doesn’t even restrict the newly Summoned monster from attacking! This very simple play puts 5200 total ATK on the board! Next turn, you can have REDMD bring back the Paladin and use it to get yet another Red-Eyes monster!

And that’s not all! Paladin of Dark Dragon’s Ritual Spell Card, Dark Dragon Ritual, has a handy effect of its own!

This card is used to Ritual Summon “Paladin of Dark Dragon”. You must also Tribute monsters from your hand or field whose total Levels equal 4 or more. During your Main Phase, except the turn this card was sent to the Graveyard: You can banish this card from your Graveyard; add 1 “Red-Eyes” Spell/Trap Card from your Deck to your hand.

Since Paladin of Dark Dragon is a Level 4 Ritual Monster, it’s very easy to bring him to the field. Simply get either Paladin or Dark Dragon Ritual in your hand, then Summon Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands to search for the other one. Use Manju as the necessary Tribute, and you’re good to go!

Once Dark Dragon Ritual is in the Graveyard, you can put it to use a second time. By banishing it, you can add any one Red-Eyes Spell or Trap Card from your Deck to your hand! Right now, there are two options. First, the Continuous Trap Card Return of the Red-Eyes, which will bring more monsters from the Graveyard to your field. And second, Red-Eyes Transmigration, so you can Ritual Summon Lord of the Red! In the future, you’ll start to see even more Red-Eyes cards, so Dark Dragon Ritual will have greater utility.

These Ritual Monsters can make a great addition to any Red-Eyes Duelist’s Deck. To find them, just look for Dragons of Legend 2, starting on July 17^th!