So a month or so ago, a man called Daniel Nunnally hit top 8 in the Minnesota Regional Qualifier, using one of the strangest concepts I've ever seen in the entire history of the game. He worked using a Chaos Ritual deck, using Tour Guide from the Underworld to summon Djinn Releaser of Rituals directly from the deck. He'd then place Hymn of Light onto the board, and using the Releaser he brought into play via Tour Guide, he would summon Saffira from his hand, turning the Queen of Dragons into a 1-sided Vanity's Emptiness with 2500 attack, and an extremely disruptive effect, which generates constant card advantage, and generally leaves the opponent struggling to keep up. The lack of special summoning for your opponent ensures that Shadoll can't get an efficient hold on the board, Satellaknight gets left flopping around helplessly and Burning Abyss drops like a stone. He backed up Saffira with Honest, Veiler and Royal Decree, and his concept worked like a charm.

And I was both stunned and mesmerised...

Okay. So Saffira has three effects that kick in during the End Phase of any turn a Light monster was sent from the hand or deck to the graveyard. All three are deadly, and all three result in a +1 in card economy each time they're used. The first effect is a smaller Graceful Charity, allowing you to draw 2 cards, then ditch 1 from your hand. The second allows you to pull a random card from your opponent's hand, and the third allows you to take any Light monster from your grave and pull it back to your hand. The third one being the most important one of all, this allows you to ditch an Effect Veiler or Honest, then at the End Phase, add back the exact same card. If neither of those appeals to you, or you already have them, or just don't WANT them, you can always pull back a Manju of Ten Thousand Hands, or that BLS your opponent negated the summon of 2 turns ago. Or if THEY don't appeal to you either, you can still draw 2 cards and ditch 1, or randomly swipe one of the cards in your opponent's hand. If you ditch Hymn of Light, that has the awesome effect of acting like Bujingi Hare in the grave, saving your Ritual monster from one destruction that turn. Saffira's an awesome hand fixer, and she works just as well as a beatstick.

Card advantage, disruption and aggression can combine in this deck to de-throne even the toughest things in the current meta. And this deck's now even more viable than when it topped: One of the worst things to see using this deck is an early El-Shadoll Nephilim, but Shadoll got hit hardest by the new banlist. Satellaknight and Burning Abyss can't so much as touch you without special summons, so having access to none means their chances of a win are slim to none.

But here's the thing:

As much as I love the concept that Nunnally made, I don't think he executed it very well. I find what he did inspiring, but he ran a fair few cards that I believe conflicted with each other, when there was no real need. He played Doomcaliber Knight and Thunder King Rai-Oh, for instance, and as good as they can be, they don't really fit the theme of the deck. They're excellent cards for stopping your opponent dead in their tracks, but they're equally good at jamming your own moves, and can REALLY get in the way on occasion. He played triple Royal Decree, but then tried to slot in a copy of Gorz, and he also played 2 Tragoedia, who fade completely during the mid-game and leave you irritated, wishing you'd drawn something useful. But beyond that, there's another, slightly more blatant issue:

Consistency.

You need three cards to pull off the combination I mentioned earlier: Saffira herself, Hymn of Light to put her onto the board and Tour Guide from the Underworld to get the necessary levels onto the field, as well as searching out Djinn Releaser of Rituals. He played Preparation of Rites to search Saffira, whereas Manju of Ten Thousand Hands could take either Saffira or Hymn of Light and put it straight to the hand. That's a grand total of six cards you can draw to get Hymn on the spot, or nine to search Saffira herself. However, he only played three copies of Tour Guide from the Underworld, and one Djinn Releaser of Rituals, meaning even though he could get the tools to SUMMON Saffira fairly consistently, getting the desired stun effect was fairly rare, and oftentimes he simply wouldn't have the necessary levels to summon her.

So your main issue is getting to Tour Guide consistently. Hmm... If only there were a card that could search her...

Scarm was an obvious pick. It's a great card through and through, and it allows you to get to your Djinn Releaser early game that much easier by snatching Tour Guide from the Underworld from the deck. Perfectly capable of serving as a defensive wall early game, or even late game, should all else fail, it's ideal for any strategy that uses Tour Guide as a core element, boosting the amount of cards I can see early game to reach her from 4 to 7, or potentially even 10 with the addition of Graff.

A Burning Abyss engine opens up a LOT of options for this deck. Dante can help you mill a copy of Hymn of Light, which can be revived by Preparation of Rites, giving you yet another way to gather it to your hand. He brings back used copies of Scarm, and provides fodder for chaos summons: The deck focuses on a LOT of Light and Dark usage, so it's not surprising that cards like Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning and Chaos Sorcerer have seen play. If you're going second, you also have the option to place Downerd Magician on the board on your first turn. Since, in my opinion at least, the stun cards conflict with the deck so badly, there's plenty of things to remove, too, so Scarm's not just a logical tech: He's an essential one. The Burning Abyss monsters even allow for tribute bait, which makes the two copies of Caius the Shadow Monarch that bit more viable, and since you run very few trap cards, there's next to no point in the game where you won't be able to play them.

Oh, and Saffira's Level 6. Using Djinn Demolisher of Rituals to place her onto the board takes up 3 of the levels, but the other 3 can be used to drop a Scarm (Or Graff, if you choose to run him) into the graveyard for a guaranteed copy of Tour Guide again next turn, effectively making your second half of the cost of summoning the Queen a whole lot less costly. And you can even dump a stray Burning Abyss monster from your hand if you use the "Draw 2, ditch 1" effect.

I personally think we could have a ritual deck that's capable of winning a tournament, and isn't Herald of Perfection. Honestly, I'm delighted by that prospect, but I guess we don't know yet. Only the upcoming weeks will tell. Feel free to build your own variants of the deck, though. As always, it's been Alice, and take care ^.^