The 'ritual pile' is a storied archetype in Yugioh, first coming about with the advent of the Impcantations back in the Vrains era. There was enough crossover between things Ritual Monsters did, and the cards that searched them, that building layered boards using these tools seemed to be an obvious idea, albeit bricky and fragile. Currently, arguably the best deck in the TCG is a Ritual strategy, and a TCG Exclusive at that, being Mitsurugi. Mitsurugi is potent, self-recursive, and plays wonderfully through interaction, so relying on it as a backbone may just resuscitate that older 'pile' philosophy. Coupled with the brand-new Miracle Raven in Duelist's Advance, and the defacto second best Ritual deck in the format, being Voiceless Voice, there's a case for these snakes to eschew Ryzeal, and return to their Ritual roots. Presenting: DUAD Voiceless Mitsurugi.
First and foremost, let's cover the three new cards printed in DUAD that makes this strategy tick: Miracle Raven, Readying of Rites, and ASHLAN U1000. Miracle Raven is our third-ever Ritual Pendulum, able to Special Summon itself from the Pendulum Zone, count as the entire Tribute, and crucially search for any Ritual Monster when Tributed for a Ritual Summon. While both Mitsurugi and Voiceless Voice Ritual Spells only allow the use of Reptiles and LIGHT monsters, respectively, Saffira, Dragon Queen of the Voiceless Voice does not; combining that with the ritualistic Raven allows us to bridge the gap between these archetypes. Blessing of the Voiceless Voice similarly allows us to use any Tributes, allowing for reactive Special Summons that then search on our opponent's turn, helping to fight back against Droll & Lock Bird. Coupled with the Pendulum bird is Readying of Rites, a tailor-made search Spell that unfortunately locks us sometimes, meaning it's worse than Preparation of Rites in multiples, hence its single copy.
While Raven can of course serve as a relevant tutor, it's also notable for being excellent Link Material for two of the deck's most potent options, Dyna Mondo and ASHLAN U1000. Each of these in their own way helps to break boards and port between either side of the strategies within your list. Ashlan in particular is incredible, allowing you to reveal any of your Voiceless Voice Rituals and add Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi, for full combo. You can also reveal Ame, finding a Sauravis in order to insulate your combo, or with a Voiceless Voice, add Miracle Raven himself to trigger in-hand Tribute effects of cards like Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice, Diviner of the Herald, or even your Mitsurugi monsters. Raven is the most important pivot point in the entire deck, and functionally enables you to access both halves with 1 fewer garnet. That's right, by sending Herald of the Arc Light with Diviner, you can add Raven, Tributing Diviner to trigger her second effect—this finally rids the deck of having to play Trias Hierarchia, one of its worst soft garnets.
If you thought that's where the gushing about Miracle Raven was going to end, though, there's one more thing to note: It makes Odd-Eyes Pendulumgraph Dragon represent one more piece of interaction than it ever has before. Odd-Eyes already saw some play in Voiceless Voice as a LIGHT Dragon Ritual, but its best target to Summon following its Spell negate, Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon, rarely got full use. Vortex does bounce a monster on Special, but to get its negate online, you'd need a face-up Pendulum Monster in your Extra Deck to shuffle...such as our beloved raven. After Droll, if your endboard with Raven live is just Pendulumgraph Dragon, you still manage to put up ~2 Spell/Trap negates and a bounce, which is far more than should be expected from an all-in Ritual strategy! Raven truly improves the ceiling, consistency, and floor of this type of deck, so what can't it do?
The actual answer: Find space for itself. I was entirely unable to fit this package into a 40-card list, and even at 50 I found myself squeezed on non-engine. Yes, to make this pile work, much like the good old days, we're on a full 60 cards. This helps to minimize the impact of garnets, such as Mitsurugi Mirror, etc, so it's not all bad. Still, your consistency can be hampered if you don't see one half of the deck + Raven, which otherwise gates you from using both sides in a given turn.
For that reason, we’re on an absolute ton of searchers, which does squeeze us against Droll without the ability to open with Pendulumgraph Dragon. Cards like Pre-Preparation of Rites, the original Preparation of Rites, and our swath of searchers for each archetype mean we’re shockingly consistent against all but exactly Droll. We even have the ability to make the Mitsurugi package a true 1-card with Night Sword Serpent, tagging in with a Level 4 to make King of the Feral Imps and continue the combo while only being on 1 copy of each Main Deck name.
Compared to Ryzeal, this deck does lack the inherent flexibility of going second, as cards like Ext to send Mereologic allow you to deal with boards before you even commit. That being said, what we possess in its place is the potency of having two complete decks in our singular build; if an opponent deals with our Voiceless Voice, we shrug and use the spare tools for Link Material before pivoting into Mitsurugi. Better still, our new cards from DUAD, covered above, can even bridge us back into the engines that were disrupted earlier on, by triggering things like Lo’s resummon or a Mitsurugi’s Tribute effect.
There’s not a lock in the entire deck outside of Readying of Rites, and that can be dealt with by using the Token it Summons for Raven. Between Mirror and Sauravis, Dragon Sage of the Voiceless Voice however, we never run out of resources or names, given we have several ways to not only recur them but also shuffle them into the Deck to make our searches live once more.
The non-engine in this list is very straightforward, with Mulcharmies, Drolls, Nibiru, and a few Bystials. Magnamhut has the added benefit of accessing our Voiceless Voice line, although if we just need another Bystial, Druiswurm is also here. It’s kind of funny seeing the second best Bystial being Limited, but I suppose it just came down to their modern capabilities as extenders for Maliss. Speaking of, I would definitely be careful about taking this to premier events at the moment without getting some practice with playing around Artifact Lancea, as your Saffira lines suffer immensely if that effect resolves. Crucially, it stops your most obvious pivot from Voiceless Voice through Raven into Mitsurugi, so it may be wise to try and bait your opponent game 1 into thinking the Voiceless Voice is a smaller engine than it actually is.
Overall I’m extremely happy with this list, but the standouts really come for Voiceless Voice. Turning Pendulumgraph’s second Summon into a live Vortex feels amazing, and tributing stray Los or Diviners in hand is just gravy for the bird. I don’t know how much I like Mitsurugi here in the long term, as I fully expect it to get hit on the banlist with its recent performances in mind, but for now it’s the defacto ‘second Ritual engine that doesn’t hard lock you’ to play in a pile like this. Nekroz could also be worth exploring, with their new Main Deck monsters, but it’s hard to say.
For the Extra, the three cards of note not yet mentioned are Evolzar Lars, which can be made with 2 6s (often a spare Bystial), The Zombie Vampire, made with 2 8s if you absolutely must mill into a Voiceless Voice play, and the brand-new Gorgon of Zilofthonia, a fantastic target for I:P that I suspect might challenge even the great S:P Little Knight for slots in certain decks.
With that, we close the door on Voiceless Mitsurugi! Do you think the new TCG-Exclusive Ritual support is actually good? I wasn’t a believer til I got a chance to test it, frankly! Is there a chance Mitsurugi becomes the first TCG-Exclusive archetype to be hit on the banlist in years? Let me know in the comments below!
