Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi – #ALIN-EN092
You can Ritual Summon this card with “Mitsurugi Ritual”. Monsters your opponent controls lose 800 ATK. You can reveal this card in your hand; Special Summon 1 “Mitsurugi” monster from your Deck, then Tribute 1 monster you control. You can only use this effect of “Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi” once per Duel. If this card is Tributed: You can add 1 “Mitsurugi” card from your Deck to your hand, except “Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi”, then you can Special Summon this card. You can only use this effect of “Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: August 8th, 2025
Rating: 4.58
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi wraps up the week look at Mitsurugi and is one of the big reasons you see Mitsurugi as a tech choice.
Ritual Summon with Mitsurugi Ritual or any of the other Ritual Spells within the archetype. You won’t lose advantage in Pure Mitsurugi, but you are likely giving up a monster alongside a Mitsurugi in a combo archetype that won’t give you advantage immediately. That really doesn’t matter when you Ritual Summon a 2400ATK beater that drops all opponent monsters by 800ATK, making them likely weaker than Habakiri. Habakiri’s low ATK is balanced by that previously-mentioned effect, but it as a combo-starting card really propels it as a top card. Revealing it to Special Summon a Mitsurugi monster from the Deck and then having you tribute a monster you control doesn’t lose you any real advantage. Thankfully you have to “control” the monster you tribute after the Special Summon from the Deck, if it allowed you to tribute from hand it would not have been fair. Sure, if you reveal to summon Saji from the Deck to then tribute Saji, you get Saji’s search and a deck thin via Habakiri Special Summoning Saji, but you still don’t have a monster on the field. That would be the only way I see you not gaining advantage…but you’d still have whatever Saji searched.
If you tribute Habakiri (here’s where all the Ritual Mitsurugi Monsters become unfair), you get a Mitsurugi card from the Deck to the hand, then Special Summon Habakiri back to the field. While that may not seem as deadly as Murakumo, you are still faced with Habakiri that drops all your monsters by 800ATK and your opponent just got a Mitsurugi card for the tribute. Not only that, this is an end-around to summon both Murakumo and Habakiri in the same turn for the price of a Mitsurugi Prayers: Summon Saji, search Prayers, play Prayers and tribute Habakiri to summon Murakumo, then Special Summon Habakiri back and search a Mitsurugi card. As if getting around that 800ATK drop and the constant card advantage wasn’t bad enough…
Not as destructive as Murakumo, Habakiri facilitates combos by keeping you stocked with resources. Its ATK drop ability is underrated as its ATK is just above where you’ll drop most monsters in the game. If you lose advantage through Habakiri you are playing wrong, dreadfully wrong. It has been a mainstay in the tech part of the Mitsurugi archetype within other archetypes and won’t be leaving anytime soon.
Advanced- 4.5/5 Art- 4.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
The week ends off with the 3rd Mitsurugi Ritual that really pushed the archetype over the edge by making it easier to start the archetype’s combos: Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi.
Habakiri is a Level 8 DARK Reptile Ritual with 2400 ATK and 1800 DEF. Okay-ish stats, but DARK Reptile is always cool. You can of course Ritual Summon this with Mitsurugi Ritual, which I still wonder if lines of text like this are necessary when you can use any Ritual Spell that can Ritual Summon these monsters? Oh well, monsters your opponent controls lose 800 ATK while you control this, so the 2400 ATK isn’t looking as middling when the opponent’s monsters get an 800 debuff, meaning they need something with 3300 ATK or more to get over this. The main effect of this card lets you reveal it in the hand to Special Summon any Mitsurugi from your Deck and then you tribute a monster you control. It’s fine to tribute since you can just tribute the monster you summon so it can trigger its effect anyways since the Mitsurugi names you’ll likely summon trigger their effects on Normal/Special Summon or being tributed, and they wouldn’t otherwise be able to trigger their on summon effects if they are no longer on field after the resolution. This summons any of the 3 main Level 4 Mitsurugi names that will most help you kickstart Mitsurugi combo to try and make some Rank 4s, 8s, and Link-2s potentially or to keep Ame no Murakumo on the field for his effects. Once per Duel on this effect of Habakiri, otherwise you’ll constantly be using this effect and never really Ritual Summoning it unless you have extra copies. Finally, if this card is tributed, you can search for any Mitsurugi card that isn’t itself, then you can revive it (if properly Ritual Summoned first of course). Same thing as the other two Rituals, giving you even more searching power and strong fodder for tributes to get to more pieces in the Mitsurugi Deck like Prayers, Magatama, Great Purification, or the Ritual Spells. HOPT on the last effect, so it isn’t too good of tribute fodder. Habakiri is insane for Mitsurugi and why you see it ran as an engine, being able to kickstart your combos by summoning your Mitsurugis from Deck, even if to immediately tribute them. Play 3 and hope to see it in your opening hand or a way to get to it if you play Mitsurugi, it’s how the whole combo can get started.
Advanced Rating: 4.5/5
Art: 4.5/5 Art feels like this would have been more like a boss monster than it is, instead of being okay on the field and great in the hand just to start combos.
Mighty
Vee
Most of the Mitsurugi cards in this wave are quite strong, but 1 card stands above the rest, and that’s the bombshell card of this wave, Ame no Habakiri no Mitsurugi, a level 8 DARK Reptile Ritual monster. As I mentioned earlier this week, Pre-Preparation of Rites is an excellent way to access it, but there are many, many ways to search it, between Mitsurugi Prayers, Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Aramasa, the Hands monsters, anything that sends Herald of the Arc Light to the Graveyard, Tributing the other Mitsurugi Ritual monsters, and of course, the notorious King of the Feral Imps in any deck that can make Rank 4s. Habakiri’s stats are a bit underwhelming for a level 8 Ritual, with only 2400 attack and 1800 defense, but that’s still more than enough to strike fear into the heart of the average player.
Habakiri’s recommended Ritual Spell is Mitsurugi Ritual, as expected, though sometimes you might want to summon it from the Graveyard with Mitsurugi Mirror as Link material or for Rank 8 plays. While it’s on the field, Habakiri will drop the attack of all of your opponent’s monsters by 800, giving it an effective 3200 attack– pretty high! Not that Mitsurugi was begging for more offensive pressure, though. The effect everyone is talking about is Habakiri’s first effect, a notably once per duel effect to reveal itself in your hand to Special Summon a Mitsurugi monster from your deck, then Tribute a monster you control. At first I thought this effect being once per duel was silly, but seeing it in action made me realize it’s still overpowered; this will access all of your level 4 Mitsurugi monsters (and Wousu, if needed), and Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji is the most popular target since it’ll search Mitsurugi Ritual. You’ll then be able to use Ritual and Tribute Habakiri to field Ame no Murakumo no Mitsurugi and, conveniently, trigger Habakiri’s other effect. You’ve already seen this one before; it’s shared by all of the Mitsurugi Ritual monsters, a hard once per turn effect that triggers if it’s Tributed to let you search any Mitsurugi card, then Special Summon itself if it was properly summoned beforehand. After you summon Habakiri once, you’ll basically be able to summon it over and over again, though its main function in your bread and butter combos is being a search that you can count on. Usually, you’ll be grabbing Mitsurugi Great Purification early on for your more conservative combos, but if you want to be more aggressive, you can always search Mitsurugi Prayers or one of the level 4 Mitsurugi monsters (you probably haven’t even Normal Summoned yet at this point!). Habakiri’s true power is not just that it is a 1-card starter and an amazing combo piece; it’s the fact that it’s insanely searchable, which completely outweighs the drawback of it being once per duel. If you’ve been following the TCG meta last format, Ryzeal Mitsurugi has edged out other hybrids, as the Ryzeal package can easily make King of the Feral Imps and search Habakiri without your Normal Summon. Orcust, bafflingly, has been running a Mitsurugi package by Overlaying Girsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight and Orcust Harp Horror. Needless to say, pure builds should run 3 copies regardless of it being once per duel, because it’s just that safe of a combo starter; I’d even argue hybrid builds should run 3 too. Nothing stings more than throwing all of your interaction against combo pieces only for your opponent to reveal Habakiri after all of that. Even though Mitsurugi has fallen to the wayside in favor of Yummy and Vanquish Soul K9, I can still see Habakiri getting Semi-Limited or Limited on the next banlist, or even King of the Feral Imps getting banned if they really hate Mitsurugi’s guts. We shall see!
+Unbelievably powerful combo starter and extender that enables the entire Mitsurugi deck
+Very easy to access in many decks
-Special Summon from deck is once per duel
-Underwhelming as a monster on the field
Advanced: 4.75/5
Art: 4/5 Sure, it looks suspiciously similar to Cyber Dragon Infinity, but it’s a snake! Completely different.
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