There are 6 overall summoning mechanics in Yu-Gi-Oh as of 2021: Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, and Link. Out of all 5 mechanics, Rituals have had the least competitive success in the Yu-Gi-Oh metagame. The mechanic has issues with its summoning requirements. Not only do you need a Ritual Monster and corresponding Spell in hand, but other monsters to sacrifice for the Ritual Summon. This high resource cost has slowed down Rituals from entering the metagame too often. With all that said, few strategies have figured out ways to make up for the high resource requirement. They either found different ways provide resources to Ritual Summon or had powerful effects to make up for the high cost. Today, I will go over the few Ritual strategies that have found any sort of competitive success.

Introduction to Rituals

Ritual is one of the oldest summoning mechanics in the game, only behind Fusion Summoning. The mechanic debuted in Magic Ruler with several monsters and corresponding Ritual Spells. You also had a few support cards like Sonic Bird and Senju of the Thousand Hands in the set. The best Ritual of the first batch was Relinquished, but it wasn't good enough to consistently enter the competitive metagame. The mechanic later gained some support like Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands and Advanced Ritual Art. The latter card finally helped Rituals enter the metagame for the first time in the nearly 5 years the mechanic has been in the game.

After the first hit, it would take a few more years to find a Ritual that would see any sort of competitive success. The next relevant Ritual strategy came along and barely had any competitive time in the game due to quick ban list hits. It took until 2015 to find the first Ritual Deck to have dominant representation in the meta. After that, the only other Ritual Deck to have high competitive success took another 5 years to arrive. Despite the short history, these Decks do still leave a legacy on the history of the game.

Demise OTK

We start with the first ever competitive Deck to use the Ritual mechanic: Demise OTK. Demise, King of Armageddon is a powerful Ritual that nukes the field at a 2000 LP cost. The only negative on release was you had to play End of the World and draw your fodder. Upon the release of Advanced Ritual Art, that all changed. 

Now, you could send the materials from Deck to summon Demise from hand, they just had to be Normal Monsters. The chosen monsters were Insect Knight and Neo Bug. These were used to help summon Doom Dozer from hand for another 2800 ATK on board. Or if you can't summon Doom Dozer, you can send Metal Armored Bug for Demise and revive your bug with Premature Burial. With 2800 and 2400 ATK on board after cleaning the board with Demise, you just need to find 2800 more damage for game.

The Ritual to the OTK

Overall, you had two options to help finish the game out. First off, you could Metamorphosis to summon Cyber Twin Dragon and get a 2800 ATK monster that attacks twice. You could also Megamorph your Doom Dozer or Metal Armored Bug to double its ATK to 5600 to get the 8000 damage. Your LP would likely be lower anyways after paying 2000 LP to trigger Demise. You could consistently get to your Demise side with cards like Manju, Senju, and Sonic Bird. You just needed to get to the other OTK pieces, which is why you stalled the game.

Cards like Swords of Revealing Light, Gravity Bind, and Mirror Force helped stall until you got the final pieces you needed to finish the game. The Deck was explosive in finishing the game and good at the time for holding off until you got all the pieces needed. The Deck was a big reason Advanced Ritual Art was Limited and Semi-Limited for 8 years. It was also the cause to get the first Ritual Monster to be limited.

Herald of Perfection (and Friends)

After Demise in 2006, it took 4 years to find another Ritual to find any sort of meta success. Herald of Perfection is one of the more interesting Rituals we've ever received. Its negation effect was very powerful as long as you had a Fairy in the hand, considering it had no once per turn clause. Its Ritual Spell was pretty good as well, being one of the early ones to have a graveyard effect.

Dawn of the Herald helped you recover whatever you used to Ritual Summon your Herald of Perfection. That was helpful to keep resources for your Herald if you weren't using Advanced Ritual Art instead. At this time, we also had Preparation of Rites to search your Herald of Perfection and recover your Ritual Spell.

The Herald of Perfection strategy went through several evolutions to keep up with the metagame. You had Advanced Ritual Art to send multiple Fairies to summon Herald. Then, you used Dark Factory of Mass Production to recover those vanilla monsters. 

Later, we had Cyber Angel Benten to search a Fairy for your Herald while the Dawn of the Herald you likely used would recover your Benten. There was the consistency of the regular Ritual generic goodstuff, and whatever you supplemented your Herald with. You had Impcantations, Agents, and Star Seraphs sometimes seen with Herald. The card never took over the metagame, but it's evolved and seen some success over the years, and it isn't done yet.

Gishki Handloop and FTK

It took until 2012 and the Hidden Arsenal series to get the first official Ritual archetype: Gishki. This is an interesting case, considering how little time Konami gave Gishki in the metagame. You had Evigishki Gustkraken and the powerful handloop it can do for 2012, but the card was hit early in its lifetime. Evigishki Mind Augus helped also for deck out FTKs, but Augus was also limited about a year after Gustkraken. Gustkraken was a powerful handloop with the Hieratics considering tributing them let you summon a vanilla Dragon from Deck to make a Rank 6.

You used Constellar Ptolemy M7 to recover your combo pieces to continue the handloop while Gishki Aquamirror looped your Gustkraken. The combo had little to no time at full power in the TCG because Gustkraken went to 1 almost as soon as Hidden Arsenal 5 dropped.

Mind Augus FTK was focused around trying to Deck the opponent out by deep drawing into your Deck and making the opponent do the same. Card Destruction, Dark World Dealings, Hand Destruction, anything to let you and the opponent draw. What made the FTK work was the fact that Mind Augus kept putting cards back in your Deck while you and the opponent draw to prevent you from decking out. Any FTK isn't fun, so Konami had no issue having Mind Augus join Gustkraken on the Limited list.

Other Gishki Ritual Stuff and the Modern Combo

It was never competitive, but it's fair to mention how fun Gishki Zielgigas OTK can be for how easy you can summon. Cards like Gishki Shadow and Gishki Vision are mandatory for Gishki for their searching and being able to be a full requirement for a Ritual Summon. Nowadays at least, we finally have Evigishki Gustkraken and Mind Augus at three. They just don't do well competitively anymore due to their consistency not holding up as well, plus the fact they lose to a hand trap. It's feasible to achieve at full power in modern Yu-Gi-Oh, but that's because the game evolved to counter it.

Nekroz

And now the Crown Jewel to the Ritual Mechanic: the Nekroz archetype. This archetype is easily the greatest success story to the Ritual Mechanic. This is due to the high consistency the archetype has. Outside the generic Ritual cards, the archetype had several ways to search cards. Nekroz of Brionac could be the monster searcher in the archetype. On the other hand, Nekroz of Clausolas got you to the Spell/Trap lineup... or I guess just the Ritual Spells. They also had the recovery via Nekroz of Unicore to get cards back from the grave. You could also use Unicore on field as a floodgate against Extra Deck monsters. All the Ritual Spells in the archetype could also search another Ritual Spell by banishing itself and another Nekroz monster from grave.

The Ritual Spells were pretty versatile overall. Nekroz Cycle helped summon your Rituals from the graveyard. Nekroz Kaleidoscope let you use the Extra Deck for Ritual fodder. Then, you got Nekroz Mirror to let you use the graveyard for Ritual materials. Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz is also great to be the entire Ritual fodder from hand, and tributing it searched some of your Nekroz. It could get you to Brionac and Clausolas, or the ever so powerful Nekroz of Trishula and the power it mimicked from the original Trish. The Deck also had stalling power and draw power via Nekroz of Valkyrus. The Deck was consistent and powerful to be a Tier 0 force at one stage and later remaining Tier 1.

Djinn Lock

The first variant of Nekroz was the Djinn Lock. This used Djinn Releaser of Rituals as material to summon your Nekroz, which then locked your opponent from Special Summoning. Since Djinn could be used from the graveyard for a Ritual Summon, you saw Lavalval Chain often to get Djinn to the graveyard as quick as possible. 

The combo was so powerful and oppressive that you saw cards like Book of Eclipse, Bull Blader, and various other subpar cards you only ran to out the lock. This thankfully didn't last too long with Djinn Releaser of Rituals getting banned a few months after Nekroz was released. It was also the straw that broke the camel's back to get Lavalval Chain banned. For the little bit of time it was around, it was easily the best Deck and the best Nekroz variant during its lifetime.

Performages Arrive

One of the next variants of Nekroz made use of the Performages once we finally got rid of Djinn. This provided a good Rank 4 package to try and use Daigusto Emeral over and over to recover your Nekroz resoruces. It also provided enough LIGHT monsters to justify a Brilliant Fusion package. 

Getting to Gem-Knight Seraphinite is useful in a Deck that likes to Normal Summon cards like Manju and Senju, which are also Level 4 for Rank 4 plays. You also had Instant Fusion into Elder Entity Norden around the time of this Deck to help Rank 4 some more. Outside Emeral, you could make cards like Abyss Dweller or Diamond Dire Wolf as some of the Rank 4 toolbox. Performages could also potentially help summon Performage Trapeze Magician to help OTK as well. It was a great way to go out as Nekroz's last variant during their prime.

The Banlist Hits and Modern Nekroz

The archetype caused several hits besides the Djinn and Lavalval Chain ban. Nekroz of Brionac was quickly semi-limited after release and was later limited. Nekroz of Unicore also joined Brionac in the limited section, while Shurit took a ban. Preparation of Rites was also limited for a while because of Nekroz. Nowadays, the archetype is at near full power. 

We just have 1 Daigusto Emeral, no Djinn lock, and the Performage engine isn't as good anymore without Brilliant Fusion and Norden. Instead, we have the Impcantation archetype to add insane consistency to the archetype if you choose that route. It isn't the meta force it once was. With that said, it left its legacy on the game as the Coup de Grace for Rituals.

Drytron

We reach the final Ritual Deck to see the meta, and it's well known right now if you're reading this in 2021. Drytron, out of all the Ritual Decks, brings the biggest spin on the mechanic. Instead of focusing on Levels for a Ritual Summon, you instead look at ATK value. Drytrons are great monsters to look at ATK value for with all of them being 2000 ATK. They also Special Summon themselves by tributing another Drytron or Ritual Monster from the hand or field. Getting your Rituals in grave isn't that big of a deal since you can Ritual Summon from the grave. Meteonis Drytron is a great Ritual Spell using your Machine monster's ATK for Ritual Summoning from hand or grave, and it recovers itself as well.

Drytron Alpha Thuban is one of the better Drytrons, being able to search any Ritual Monster. You then got Dyrtron Zeta Aldhibah for your Ritual Spells. Drytron Gamma Eltanin revives your Drytrons for free to make a Rank 1 easy, mainly Lyrilusc - Assembled Nightingale. This is used to get quick and easy access to Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder. Accessing any Drytron you need is easy with Drytron Nova, which is searchable off of Drytron Fafnir. Drytron Mu Beta Fafnir also gets whatever Drytron in the grave that you need, while also letting you use its Xyz Materials for Ritual Summons.

The Ritual Toolbox Versatility

Overall, Drytron has several different routes it can try. The one you will always see is Cyber Angel Benten to be tributed off a Drytron for a search for any LIGHT Fairy. This play was so powerful, it got Benten limited early into Drytron's lifetime. This card could search several strong cards like Vanity's Ruler, Eva, or Herald of Orange Light.

You can also get more Ritual stuff like Herald of Ultimateness or Perfection to abuse your Eva, Cyber Angel Idaten to get Ritual Spells with great ease, or Cyber Angel Natasha to steal the opponent's monsters. You could also use Megaliths and use the power of Megalith Phul for its Level modulation and ability to Ritual Summon as a Quick Effect from hand or Deck, mainly into Megalith Bethor. 

Drytron also have two Rituals themselves you could use. Drytron Meteonis Draconids is more common, but Drytron Meteonis Quadrantids is an option as well. They aren't the most common vs other Rituals, but you see Draconids come up enough. Being in the archetypes prime right now, outside only 1 Benten, we don't know how the Deck will evolve or what will take it out of the metagame.

Outside losing 2 copies of Benten, they lost Union Carrier combos to abuse Dawn Knight as well. Mu Beta Fafnir at least took over that role instead at least. They also gained Diviner of the Herald in the TCG to abuse Herald of the Arc Light. It's one of the viable options in the metagame today and it'll take a few hits or power creep to take it out of the meta, but more support could be on the way. The future is unknown for Drytron, but it has left a mark on the game.

Conclusion

The impact Rituals have made on the metagame is rather minimal, but also not in a sense. We've only had 5 meta Ritual strategies, with 3 actual archetypes, despite one getting cut off at the legs on release. For a mechanic that has been in the game almost as long as Fusions, you'd hope for more success. The weakness of the mechanic has allowed for powerful generic cards like Manju, Senju, Preparation of Rites, Pre-Preparation of Rites, and many more. 

The Future of Rituals

We at least live in a metagame where a Ritual strategy can top as of writing this, but it's unknown how long Drytron will last. Magikeys look fun with their Rituals and using the other Extra Deck mechanics like Fusion, Synchro, and Xyzs. The future of Rituals is unknown, especially as to if we ever get another meta archetype.

It's a beloved mechanic and has its pros and cons, it's interesting to note however that almost every meta Ritual Deck bypassed the original downfalls that the mechanic had on its debut. Hopefully the mechanic isn't going to disappear from the meta after Drytron. This is a series I could always revisit like Pendulums. I just hope to see more from Rituals in the future. Another generic card like Refined Ritual Art is a nice step in the right direction.