Part 0 – Why Gishkis

This article is part of an ongoing series about the Gishki Archetype and the interesting directions they can be taken. This first article is a short explanation of what makes Gishkis superior to other ritual monsters, and a little about why I think they’re cool. You’ll see them every Wednesday and Friday.

Why Gishkis?

As you know, if you have listened to our Gishki podcast, this archetype is Water-themed and focused on providing quick access to Ritual Summoning.

It’s an interesting concept right? Ritual monsters are generally not popular, unless they have effects that severely limit the interactions between players like:

Relinquished, of course, everyone’s favorite ritual monster. It has power in a non-destructive way. It can snatch an opponent’s monster and hold it hostage. Should it be attacked, your opponent takes all the battle damage you would have taken and Relinquished is not destroyed.

And then there was Demise, King of Armageddon. An OTK surrounded this monster.

Finally, there’s Herald of Perfection, the literal definition of limiting interaction.

These monsters have really powerful effects, but each share downsides consistent among all ritual monsters:
The ritual spell is useless without the ritual monster in hand.
Each ritual monster has its own ritual spell.
The ritual monster cannot fulfil its purpose until it hits the field.
Searching your deck for the ritual card is tedious, disadvantageous work.

Certain cards have been released, like Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands, Advanced Ritual Art, and Preparation of Rights, that make the ritual process more consistent and viable. They are very relevant and we will be getting into those in a lot of depth later.

But what Gishkis do, amazingly well, is allow you to eliminate each of those negative aspects, while bringing an archetype with a ton of consistency and depth.

Gishkis promote the use of their ritual boss monsters by allowing you a lot of control over your hand, deck, and graveyard. They also fit perfectly into the vast amount of Water support that already exists.

Most of their monsters fetch you more cards. This mitigates the drop in hand count that you’d feel if you were using standard ritual monsters. It also means you can quickly plan how you’re going to get your ritual monsters, the very versatile ritual spells, or your ritual materials.

The Gishki monsters take their speed seriously. Their ritual spells are used to summon any of the Gishki ritual monsters, and there are three different spells. This means three different styles of summon: one that requires tributes, one that requires life points, and one that takes your opponent’s monsters as material. It’s like you were invited to a gunfight. Everyone else brought one gun, but you brought three. Three really big guns. They’re so big that they shield you from other gunfire and, out of boredom, you just start beating people in the face with them.

So, ritual summons can be done with one of three possible ritual spells, and the other monsters of the Gishki archetype try to make that summon happen fast, and with minimal resources. Incredible plays happen just by using another ritual monster as the tribute. What really matters, of course, are the ritual monsters. Are they worth it, can they win?

In future segments, I’ll be discussing the Gishkis that are available up until Hidden Arsenal 5, including the two ritual monsters: Evigishki Soul Ogre and Evigishki Mind Augus, as well as mentioning the vast amount of support that is accessible.

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