Sky Striker Ace - Raye
Sky Striker Ace – Raye

Sky Striker Ace – Raye – #RA04-EN026

(Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 “Sky Striker Ace” monster from your Extra Deck to the Extra Monster Zone. While this card is in your GY, if a face-up “Sky Striker Ace” Link Monster you control is destroyed by battle, or leaves the field because of an opponent’s card effect: You can Special Summon this card. You can only use each effect of “Sky Striker Ace – Raye” once per turn.

Date Reviewed:  October 9th, 2025

Rating: 4.00

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.

Reviews Below:


Crunch$G Avatar
Crunch$G

Throwback Thursday this week brings us the face of the Sky Striker archetype and a card we somehow never reviewed before: Sky Striker Ace – Raye.

Raye is a Level 4 DARK Warrior with 1500 ATK and DEF. Fine-ish stats on a Level 4, and DARK Warrior makes far more sense for her than it does for a burger. First effect is a Quick Effect to tribute herself in order to Special Summon a Sky Striker Ace from your Extra Deck to the Extra Monster Zone, able to dodge removal or negation that would target her and get you straight to Kagari, Shizuku, or Hayate. It would be nice if we also had Combination Maneuver – Engage Zero! in the TCG, but we’ll still wait on that. She can also prevent a draw from Mulcharmy Fuwalos that is chained to her summon since you’ll summon your monster from the Extra Deck before Fuwa resolves. Also while this card is in your graveyard and your Sky Striker Ace in the Extra Monster Zone is either destroyed in battle or removed via an opponent’s card effect, you can Special Summon this card, giving the archetype great recovery considering it is a Deck meant for the grind game with all of its Spells, but could also OTK potentially as well, which Raye’s effects can help with. HOPT on both effects, of course. Raye isn’t just the face of the Sky Striker archetype, she’s the heart and soul of the Deck. While you do have Roze and Hornet Drones to help summon your Link Monsters, you want Raye to be the one in circulation as fast as possible since she keeps the grind game going with her revival and can dodge threats by tributing herself to summon your Links. Sky Striker has always played 3 Raye in pure variants, and I don’t fathom that ever changing.

As for Genesys, Sky Striker Spells are useful in Genesys for potential board breaking, but the monsters do nothing since the Links aren’t legal, so while I could technically rate Raye a 1/5, it wouldn’t be fair considering it’s due to the cards she works with being unplayable in the format.

Advanced Rating: 4/5

Art: 3.5/5 for the orignal, 3/5 for the OCG Stories art, and 5/5 for the new alt art that makes her look the coolest.


Mighty Vee
Mighty
Vee

You know her, you love her, or you love to hate her, Throwback Thursday brings us one of Konami’s golden children of modern Yugioh, Sky Striker Ace – Raye in preparation for tomorrow’s card, which you can probably guess. Raye is a level 4 DARK Warrior monster, so Reinforcement of the Army can search it as usual (and get a Spell in your Graveyard!), but you’ll also want to be accessing it with Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage! and the new boss monster if necessary (please do not bother with Area Zero). Raye’s stats are a clean but middling 1500 for both attack and defense, which ironically enough is quite relevant for your OTK lines.

Before we get to Sky Striker’s polarizing history, let’s just breeze through Raye’s effects, both of them hard once per turn. The first is a Quick Effect that will let you Tribute Raye to Special Summon a Sky Striker Ace monster directly from your Extra Deck to the Extra Monster Zone. In the past, this was a hated effect because it let you dodge Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence, much to the chagrin of many. Now, while it’s still relevant for that, it’s much more relevant for cheating out their new boss monster, which actually is a Sky Striker Ace monster and doesn’t have the silly Link Summon restriction. This effect is also key for OTK lines– Sky Striker isn’t known for its offensive presence, so often you’ll be tagging out during the Battle Phase for some extra damage. Raye’s other effect triggers if one of your Sky Striker Ace Link monsters is destroyed by battle or leaves the field by your opponent’s card effect while Raye is in the Graveyard, simply letting you revive Raye. As always with these enemy-dependent effects, you won’t want to count on it as a combo extender, but it’s nice for getting back in the game when you’re on the defensive– and prolonging the game has always been Sky Striker’s specialty! Anyone familiar with modern Yugioh has probably heard praises and scorn for Sky Striker. The deck was a paradigm shift away from building big boards with strong monsters, instead focusing on bombarding your opponent with disruptions while you constantly recycled your own cards and gained advantage yourself. We still need Sky Striker Ace – Camellia for the deck to reach its full potential in the TCG, but for now, it’s still a solid rogue pick thanks to the Duelist Advance support. Since Raye is your main combo starter, naturally you will run 3.

Raye will be my first monster with the rating of 0.25 in Genesys, as while the monster itself is technically playable, the deck itself is utterly unplayable without Links. Sorry, Raye!

Advanced: 4/5
Genesys: 0.25/5
Art: 4.25/5 (Original) I’ve outgrown my high school brawler anime phase, but Raye does remind me a lot of that design trend, down to the obligatory katana.
4/5 (Alternate, Manga) More or less the same, though I don’t think the manga style suits her too well.
4.75/5 (Alternate, Kagari) Utterly immaculate, now this is the Pokemon tier alt art people are expecting!


KoL's Avatar
King of
Lullaby

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