Raidraptors have been around for more than a year now, but as the namesake of Wing Raiders, they’re about to get a whole flock of new cards that’ll let you hatch even more ingenious plots and maneuvers than ever before!

The Raidraptors are primarily Level 4 DARK Winged Beast-Type monsters. They excel in Xyz Summoning Rank 4 monsters and using “Rank-Up-Magic” Spell Cards to upgrade them into Rank 5 and 6 forms that offer punishing effects against Special Summoned monsters. The first Xyz Monster that you’ll want to Summon in each Duel is Raidraptor – Force Strix, a Rank 4 monster with 2000 DEF that can detach 1 Xyz Material to add another Level 4 DARK Winged Beast from your Deck to your hand each turn.

To do that, you’ll need to field two monsters. There are many different combinations of cards that will result in the monsters you need. The most basic combo is to start by Normal Summoning Raidraptor – Vanishing Lanius and then using its effect to Special Summon another Level 4 Raidraptor from your hand. You’ll achieve the same thing if you start with Raidraptor – Fuzzy Lanius and any other Level 4 Raidraptor, as Fuzzy Lanius can be Special Summoned from your hand if you have another Raidraptor on the field.

The second monster that becomes Xyz Material for Force Strix is extremely important because it’ll determine how strong your follow up plays will be. Ideally you want either Raidraptor – Mimicry Lanius or the new Raidraptor – Tribute Lanius. Mimicry Lanius can be banished from your Graveyard during the same turn it was sent there to add any “Raidraptor” card from your Deck to your hand. If you use it as Xyz Material for Force Strix, you can detach it right away to add another Raidraptor to your hand, then banish it to grab another card from your Deck. With Tribute Lanius, you can send Mimicry Lanius straight from your Deck to the Graveyard before you Xyz Summon, achieving the same thing as you would if you drew Mimicry Lanius.

The endpoint of the Raidraptor Rank-Up strategy used to be Raidraptor – Revolution Falcon at Rank 6, but now the cap on the power of Raidraptors has been raised up to Rank 8 with Raidraptor – Satellite Cannon Falcon! Xyz Summoning it with a “Raidraptor” monster as one of its Materials, even by a Rank-Up, lets you destroy all of your opponent’s Spell/Trap Cards without them being able to Chain anything! Further, Satellite Cannon Falcon can bombard the ATK of any monster by detaching an Xyz Material during either player’s turn. When you do, you’ll drain 800 ATK from the enemy monster for each “Raidraptor” monster in your Graveyard, and the amount drained will increase with each activation as you send more “Raidraptor” Xyz Materials to the Graveyard. To get there, you have a few options, including a pair of new ones from Wing Raiders!

Rank-Up-Magic Astral Force upgrades an Xyz Monster by 2 Ranks. Starting from Force Strix, using it twice will get you to Satellite Cannon Falcon, and Astral Force can recycle itself each turn to make sure it happens. The new Rank-Up-Magic Doom Double Force lets you skip straight from Force Strix to Satellite Cannon Falcon if Force Strix is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard! Finally, Rank-Up-Magic Soul Shave Force costs half of your LP, but lets you take a “Raidraptor” Xyz Monster from your Graveyard and Rank it up by 2 Ranks. The best part about Doom Double Force and Soul Shave Force is that neither of them limit you to only Summoning “Raidraptor” Xyz Monsters, so you could jump from Force Strix to Divine Dragon Knight Felgrand or Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis using Doom Double Force, or jump from Force Strix to Cyber Dragon Infinity using Soul Shave Force!

You can try out these new additions to the Raidraptor Armada when Wing Raiders launches on Friday!