Tuesday

Djinn, Releaser of Rituals, an interesting little monster that almost makes you want to throw a Deck together around any Ritual monster just to see if this would actually work. We have a Level 3, Dark attributed Fiend, with 1200 attack and 2000 defense.

You probably aren't attacking with this card...ever. You want the card to be in the Graveyard for the effect, so the 2000 defense can actually hurt a little bit. Anyway, you can remove this card from your Graveyard for a Ritual Summon, which is a unique effect.

Now, for the fun part, as long as the monster you Ritual Summoned (involving this card) stays face up on the Field, your opponent can't Special Summon. It could be a lot of fun, using Zorc or Demise, something powerful to prevent your opponent from Synchro and other Special Summons, plus you have a powerful monster on your side and you can still Special Summon.

Ratings:

Traditional: 1.25/5
Advanced: 2.25/5
Art: 3/5

Djinn, Releaser of Rituals …

A funny card, this one is … Not because of the card itself, but because of the theme it is destined to support.

The card itself? – Flat out good. Dark. Fiend. Excellent. Those parts are easy. Level 3 – actually a good thing. It helps to create those off kilter uneven synchro summons, if that’s what u decide to do with it, and it slips under Gravity Bind if, for whatever reason, u run into one. 1200 ATK – fair enough for its level. It can fight over Sangan and dish out respectable enough damage if it is called upon to swing directly. 2000 DEF – awesome.

But then its effect? – It’s an excellent one. It helps u shortcut for Ritual Summons, and even better – If she IS used for the Ritual Summon – your opponent cannot special Summon anything while your Ritual Monster is face-up on the field. How spectacular is that? The stronger your monster is, the more reliant upon special summoning your opponent will be in order to help them out of the fix u just set up for them.

But the only problem that makes her lose point is that she is supporting a relatively lacking deck type. Ritual monsters. To the game’s credit, they are trying to reinvest in them as of late, and Djinn and her brother (tomorrow’s card) are very strong efforts on this end … But its just not enough yet. Emphasis on the word “yet”. A good spell on the level of Advanced Ritual Art could be all it takes to swing things back in the corner of Ritual Monsters … But until then, Djinn ROR just can’t live up to her full potential.

Traditional: 3/5
Advanced: 3.5/5 (if and when Rituals get more support, she’d probably be a “4/5”)

- FREEZA

Folks, this card makes ritual monsters a huge threat. Imagine a Relinquished that prevents your opponent from special summoning. Being able to absorb a monster while preventing special summons. I gotta say that could really set the opponent back. Especially since when Relinquished would be destroyed in battle, the monster you absorbed gets destroyed instead. Djinn Releaser of Rituals is a solid 2000 defender, a decent attack for a low attack monster, 1200 and you can use Burial from a Different Dimension to recycle it for future ritual summons. I honestly think this is a must for any ritual based deck.

Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 4/5

Djinn Releaser of Rituals:

     Finally some more ritual support!  Anybody else thinking "it's about friggin time"?  Anyways...  I actually had a chance to play against a dark ritual deck a few nights ago on yvd and I have to say that this card can be extremely frustrating.  I happened to be using a deck that was completely dependent on special summoning but almost all competitive decks are now-a-days so that's not a great excuse.  Obviously the idea is to dump this guy to the graveyard along with the other one from the set (The Presider) and then ritual summoning becomes much less hand/field crippling.  And that really is the problem with rituals:  they take a whole mess of cards to get them to the field.  Ritual monster + Ritual Spell + X amount of monsters equal to level of ritual (or ritual raven).  That's usually going to come out to 4 cards to put 1 card on the field.  So once you get them to the field, you want their effects to be by-God worth it.  Sadly though, most rituals fail in that regard.  Use Djinn and it not only keeps cards in your hand and on the field, but it also adds a Vanity's Fiend type effect (applied only to your opponent) to whichever ritual monster you decide to summon.  There are plenty of ways to get Djinn to the field or the grave considering it is a 1200 atk dark monster:  tomato, sangan, armageddon, grepher, etc.  A much needed card for Ritual decks.  The biggest shame is that this one is the level 3 and Presider is the level 4 because the Releaser's effect is much better than the Presider's and level 8 rituals are typicaly better than level 7s.  Who doesn't want a Demise that also stops special summons?  Still possible though, just harder.

Traditional:  1.5  (does anyone still use rituals here?  seriously?)
Advanced 2.5