Battle for the true Ruri [Raidraptor]

[Blake]

3 Fuzzy Lanius
3 Mimicry Lanius
3 Singing Lanius
3 Vanishing Lanius
2 Sharp Lanius
2 Tribute Lanius
1 Necro Vulture
3 Raidraptor - Call
3 Raidraptor - Nest
3 Rank-Up-Magic Soul Shave Force
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Rank-Up-Magic Raid Force
1 Raigeki
3 Icarus Attack
2 Mirror Force
2 Solemn Notice
1 Raidraptor - Readiness
1 Raptor's Gust

3 Force Strix
2 Cyber Dragon Infinity
1 Abyss Dweller
1 Blaze Falcon
1 Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer
1 Constellar Ptolemy M7
1 Diamond Dire Wolf
1 Evilswarm Exciton Knight
1 Ice Beast Zerofyne
1 Revolution Falcon
1 Satellite Cannon Falcon
1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis

Despite my distaste for the deck… I wanted to test something new, and with Ariadne not on salvation yet, to my chagrin, and the D/D/D stuff from the new Structure not being enough to test with… Ruris were the next most interesting choice. So I decided to try them out again.

The deck is a lot better than it was before. It definitely still needs some more to be a truly good deck, but the support it gets here is pure quality. Especially Soul Shave and Call, like holy funk.

The early game is spent spamming Strix like no one’s business in order to amass as much advantage as possible. Middle game is using R4s and possibly Blaze to push the opponent back as best you can, and using your Ruris/support cards to maintain advantage as best you can. Late game is, optimally, Rank-Up-Magics into CDI and company. Soul Shave Force is an absolutely amazing card, like damn. I knew it was gonna be good, but better than I expected.

I guess I’ll go over my opinions on the Ruris one by one for now. Though, I’ll definitely be avoiding some of them that are just unplayable. AKA the Rank 3, Skull Eagle (for now at least), and Wild Vulture.

• Vanishing Lanius is the best monster in the deck. Seriously, the ability to summon all you want is strong, and it's the second biggest reason you win games. It pairs wonderfully with all of the other Ruris, and it's just really strong in the deck.
• Mimicry Lanius is also an MVP. Being able to find Call/Nest is good enough, but it also searches any RR monster and Readiness. The last of which has been increasingly common, despite only running the one, which has surprised me. Not to mention, the level up effect allows you access to Blaze/R5.
• Fuzzy Lanius would be broken if both of its effects weren't RR restricted. Seriously, if it could self-summon while you controlled a Ruri, but didn't lock down your summons, it would do too much. As is, it's a very good card, and it makes the early game much more efficient. Kinda has to be run @3.
• Singing Lanius is a weird choice that I chose to run at 3. But... I chose it because it aids the deck's goal best. It self-summons, albeit with a hard OPT, if you control an Xyz. It's level 4, it's able to help out either early OR late... Sure its stats suck, but at least it's a Winged Beast. I am sad it got the stat nerf (anime had 1800 DEF, iirc), but it's still good, because it directly aids the deck. Sharp and Tribute are just too top heavy, and you really only want to find them when you want to find them, or find Tribute T1 if you didn't find Mimicry.
• Sharp Lanius is a weird one. It helps you play offensive or defensive, but the lack of ability to summon itself or indiscriminately reimburse your advantage hurts. However, it is worth noting that, should you resolve its revival effect, it is a lot of help. It's just, as I said, something you want on your terms, not the deck's, but you need the names.
• Tribute Lanius has always seemed like a 2-of card to me. Even after we got Fuzzy. Sure, it can be good T1, but it's not the best card in the deck, and you mostly just want it for its name. It can help, but it's a suboptimal form of help. And I don't run ny of the Quickplay RUMs, so...
• Necro Vulture is a card I thought looked like sheet... But it's a really good 1-of. Being able to find it when you're running low on cards you really wanna search (usually by your second round of strix searches) means you have an easy to summon "Get back Shave or Raid". Especially relevant with the former. Doesn't directly aid the deck, though, so I only ran 1.
• Last Strix is a card I will reserve judgment on. Depending on what other RUMs we get, what other Xyz we get, what other support we get, etc... It may be good. I don't think it's bad, simply for its second effect, but time will tell if it's good.
• Rise Falcon is the first Xyz the deck got. And it was sheet. Even Fuzzy didn't help it. However, it finally found a niche! It's an out to Kozmo... But then Darkwitch was shown. So yeah, not even there. It's not impossible to summon or the worst card ever, given you will run out of Strix fairly often, but it's just not great. If you really want it, as it can still help against Kozmo, go for it.
• Force Strix came second. 100/2000 searcher, easy as piss to summon and resolve, and puts you ahead. Also, Soul Shave Force. Used to be a 2-3 of, with my opinion leaning to 2, definitely a 3-of now.
• Blaze Falcon is seriously underrated. Both effects are good in different situations, and it's still a Ruri, meaning you can summon it under Call/Fuzzy. It either wins or leads to winning a fair number of games for me in the testing I've done, and that's mostly from summoning it with 2 Ruri + Mimicry. I truly don't understand why people dislike this card.
• Revolution Falcon is good... now that you can actually realistically summon it. The old RUMs are really just crap, and always were, but this guy works well off of double Raid Force OR Soul Shave. It's a Ruri, which is good both for Shaving/being RUM'd into during turns where you're restricted, and it helps against Kozmo (sorta) while being a generally solid card.
• Satellite Cannon... IDK. I may run Kali Yuga over it. I've been in a situation to go Rank 8 an entire 1 time, and I haven't since. And at the time, I'd cut all Rank 8s. So yeah, IDK if it's really worth it, and though you do fill the grave up with Ruris.. .generally speaking, 4 Ruris shrinks anything to 0, so yeah. Unsure here. And unsure on Rank 8 as a whole in the deck. Felgrand exists, too...
• Raidraptor - Nest is a Hell Gate/Qliphort Scout. That's about it. Sure it requires 2 Ruris, but it makes early game setup stupidly easy, is searchable, and is an all-around good searcher. It also recurs dead Ruris. Not a ton to say.
• Raidraptor - Call is a card I'm undecided on. You want to see it early/turns you can play with the Ruri-only restriction, and it's strong, essentially being extra monsters, but I dunno if it's a 3-of. Still testing it, but definitely really good, especially off of a Vanishing.
• Soul Shave Force is a card I could gush about for ages. So, so good. As a side note, I neglected to run Astral Force because... well, why would I want it? The restriction seems really bad here, and it'd be really dead.
• Raid Force is good just for how generic it is. And how it recycles RUM on occasion. I don't use the latter much, but the former lets me turn any Xyz into a Blaze, and that's good enough for me. Also Necro Vulture into Revolution.
• The other Rank-Up-Magics suck. Death Double Force isn't worth it (4->8 is the only reasonable one, but eh), Raptor's Force is situational sheet, Revolution Force is only good in the Xyz Mirror, and only sometimes then.
• Raptor's Ultimate Mace is a joke.
• Raidraptor - Readiness is a good tech, or maybe more now. While an annoying piece of sheet to sit across from, given how it is hard to stop and shuts your plays down, it can save your Ruris, or at least force suboptimal playing around them, in addition to keeping you alive. With Soul Shave, LP are definitely a resource you want to keep solid. And yes, I know I run 2 Solemn Notice, but it's yet to conflict.
• Raidraptor - Return is terrible. It lacks the open ended nature readiness offers, and just gives you a really narrow recovery and search card. The second effect is more likely, but drawing it is AIDS, and Tribute's the only easy way to get it to the grave.
• Raptor's Gust was poor before, but keeping a Ruri on board is easier now, so going to try it out. Undecided.

Icarus Attack is almost 100% live, Mirror Force is just good backrow, MST and Raigeki are things, and that's about it.

For the ED, Tiras seems like the best 2-mat R5, who has put in a decent amount of work, Ptolemy is a tech choice, CDI is the best thing to get off of Soul Shave as a whole, and other choices are just generic R4 and Zerofyne.

[BlackBeartic]

I really like this guide, surprised that Double Death isn't nearly as good as it was meant to be (although you are kinda right, the only reasonable thing is 4 ---> 8, maybe if we had 20 card extra deck?). Although I might still test it at 1.

 

I can't test call because it's not on dev ;_; but I feel like as you said already, early game (especially with a VL) it just speeds you up tremendously.

Soul Shave... it's really good, honestly (although for me it's more of a 2 of. Also i'm really surprised all the LP costs haven't conflicted)

Raptor's force, yeah the card's bad now... At the beginning I found a little use but not anymore so I'll probably replace it with something else. Revolution I'll probably just replace with a 3rd raid's force and all.

 

2 infinity huh.... I think I'll stick to 1 lol. Ultimate Mace is really bad (although I might use it in a joke build/pure shun build lol).

I do want to ask this though. You said you have all these LP costs and stuff while at the same time you had said you're running readiness for the defense. So how come you're only running 1? I mean as you said "it can save you from damage after all of the costs" but maybe that's me. I've always been a 2 of readiness guy.

 

I appreciate the guide a lot, even if nobody else does (because RR seem to be the source of hate recently).  Gonna take notes and implement them into my own build.

[Blake]

I really like this guide, surprised that Double Death isn't nearly as good as it was meant to be (although you are kinda right, the only reasonable thing is 4 ---> 8, maybe if we had 20 card extra deck?). Although I might still test it at 1.

 

I can't test call because it's not on dev ;_; but I feel like as you said already, early game (especially with a VL) it just speeds you up tremendously.

 

Soul Shave... it's really good, honestly (although for me it's more of a 2 of. Also i'm really surprised all the LP costs haven't conflicted)

 

Raptor's force, yeah the card's bad now... At the beginning I found a little use but not anymore so I'll probably replace it with something else. Revolution I'll probably just replace with a 3rd raid's force and all.

 

2 infinity huh.... I think I'll stick to 1 lol. Ultimate Mace is really bad (although I might use it in a joke build/pure shun build lol).

 

I do want to ask this though. You said you have all these LP costs and stuff while at the same time you had said you're running readiness for the defense. So how come you're only running 1? I mean as you said "it can save you from damage after all of the costs" but maybe that's me. I've always been a 2 of readiness guy.

 

I appreciate the guide a lot, even if nobody else does (because RR seem to be the source of hate recently).  Gonna take notes and implement them into my own build.

On call, swap its numbers with Tribute. I was a bit wrong, and it's similar in playability to Skullcrobat Joker, makes strong early game plays. And I somehow open 5 s/t 6 games in a row or so...

 

On CDI... I tried other R6s as I hate duplicates, but none of the others are as good, and Soldda doesn't do enough.

 

I am considering more Readiness now, actually, just idk space.

 

Glad to help!