Ragnaraika
| Ragnaraika | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Three "Raika no Marikoube" in the artwork of "Raika Ryouran Kuruizaki" Three "Raika no Marikoube" in the artwork of "Raika Ryouran Kuruizaki" | |||||||||
| Japanese |
| ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Lists | |||||||||
Raika (
Design
Etymology
The name "Raika" can be read as meaning "Budding Calamity" which can infer that these cards pose some kind of threat with their arrival.
Members
Playing style
The "Raika" theme is made up of 3 Monster Types (Plant, Insect, and Reptile) that work to support of one another in a similar vein to how "Tri-Brigade" supports the Beast, Beast-Warrior, and Winged Beast types. The deck carries a natural resource loop through all 3 Main Deck monsters having the shared effect to Special Summon themselves to the field by discarding, banishing, or returning to the bottom of the deck 1 Plant, Insect, or Reptile monster in order to make progressively stronger Link Monsters through the theme's natural ability to Link Climb. This effect is further amplified by a shared effect of the theme's Link Monster while in the GY to Special Summon themselves to the field by returning a Plant, Insect, or Reptile monster from the field to the bottom of the Deck with the majority preventing Special Summoning aside from their main 3 types. As a result, the theme has explosive board presence and with the correct moves can jump all the way from a few monsters on the field to making both the LINK-4 "Raika no Kusarigami", with its effect to prevent both players from using the effects of monsters from the hand for the rest of the turn, as well as the LINK-5 "Raika no Daiouga" that is able to destroy any 2 monsters on the field whenever the opponent Special Summons a monster from the Main Deck or Extra Deck.
Due to the flexible nature of the deck and its effects, there are several directions to take when making a "Raika" decklist depending on which of the 3 Types one would like to focus on. For Plant builds, one can mix the theme with archetypes such as "Aroma", "Rikka", and "Sunavalon" to name a few themes that would benefit from the theme's Link Climb playing style. For Insect decks, "Beetrooper" and "Traptrix" may provide a strong addition to support the theme with further materials for Link Climbing or more disruption options. And for Reptile decks, the main cards that would benefit the theme belong to the "Ogdoadic" and "Reptilianne" archetypes.
