Shinobirds are a Ritual Spirit Deck that references the tale of Orihime and Hikoboshi and their love, they focus on bounce effects that help you bring Spirit monsters forth from your Hand or Deck.
(Note: Spirit monsters share the following Effects "Cannot be Special Summoned" and "Once per turn, during the End Phase, if this card was Normal Summoned or flipped face-up this turn: Return this card to the hand." I won't be bringing these up unless its necessary.)
Main Deck: Spirits/Shinobirds
- Let's start with some of your Fodder and Starters, Aratama on Normal Summon fetches you any of your Spirit/Ritual monsters, being your best Normal Summon, one of the cards it searches is Sakitama the newest Tama which lets you reveal itself to then Normal Summon one of your Spirits in Hand and when Tributed he can add back one Spirit from your GY. These guys allow you to make your Ritual Summons or XYZ into Zoodiac Chakanine > Zoodiac Boarbow > Attack directly > Overlay for Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder to clear pesky boards or Tornado Dragon to deal with Backrow Decks or to fizzle cards like Kashtira Birth.
- The only other Spirit you will be running is Amano-Iwato you might know this guy from Master Duel or if you play OCG Runick Stun being paired with Sales Ban, Amano is an incredible board breaker in this Deck cause while its Face-up on the Field only Spirit monsters can activate their effects, so basically your opponent's board gets shutdown and considering a lot of Decks lack removal from their backrow its quite a pain to out, it also prevents your opponent from using Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring on your Field Spell, unfortunately it shuts down your Dogmatika engine so be aware of that.
- Some other Spirits you can consider are Nikitama which gives you an extra Normal Summon for a Spirit monster and when sent to the GY while you control another Spirit you can draw 1, I'd pair him with Salamangreat Almiraj to get more value out of it. Shinobird Crane can be used to chain-block or more officially using multiple Trigger effects that activate at the same time that ordered in a way prevent some interactions. Fenghuang could be used to Harpie's Feather Duster the opponent's backrow or you can use Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi/Yamata Dragon to handrip your opponent and to restart your Hand respectively.
- Getting to the Ritual Monsters now, let's start with the Level 8s Shinobaron Peacock on ritual summon he can bounce up to 3 Monsters your opponent controls and then he Special Summons 1 Level 4 or lower Spirit Monsters, which when Special Summoned lose their Effect to return to the Hand during the End Phase. And during the End Phase the Baron goes back to your Hand leaving behind 2 Shinobird Tokens (Winged Beast/Wind/Level 4/ATK1500/DEF1500). These Tokens can be used later on to Ritual Summon on the opponent's turn or to make Harpie's Feather Storm/Enemy Controller live. Shinobaroness Peacock works like Baron but instead of Monsters she bounces Spells/Traps and if she does she Special Summons 1 Level 4 of lower Spirit Monster from your Deck, to get more value of that Effect going first you can run Vaylantz World - Shinra Bansho and Vaylantz World - Konig Wissen to give your opponent a Field Spell, this also means you can get more value of Set Rotation in the Deck.
- Their newest support are two Level 4 Rituals depicting them as Kids or their Offsprings, not sure about that, but the kids treat themselves as the Barons in the Hand or Field and during the Standby Phase of the next turn these guys are Banished they Special Summon themselves back onto the Field this is meant to synergize with their Ritual Spell, Shinobaron Shade Peacock can fetch any Spell/Trap that mentions a Spirit Monster, the best targets would be your Field Spell, Ritual Spell, Continuous Spell and Trap which I will talk about later, Shinobaron Shade Peacock on the other hand can Tribute himself to add a Spirit Monster and a Ritual Spell from your Deck. These guys generate insane ammounts of advantage and come back to the Hand later on for more Ritual plays.
Main Deck: Spells/Traps
- Shinobird's Calling is your average Ritual Spell but it can also Banish Spirit Monsters from the GY as Tribute, which helps getting the Shades Banished to come back next turn.
- The Himorogi where Stars Align is their newest card and is C R A Z Y. Ritual Summon from Deck with a Soft Once Per Turn, also twice per turn it can Set Stars Align across the Milky Way or add back 1 Spirit Monster or Ritual Spell that is in the GY or Banished which is BIG. Being able to recylce an Aratama means you can go full combo again + setting up for Milky Way by adding back a Ritual Spell.
- Shinobird Power Spot is a Continuous Spell that boosts your Spirits for 500 ATK/DEF, and if a Face-up Wind Monster goes back to your Hand you can add 1 Spirit Monster or Ritual Spell from your Deck to your Hand. Basically sets-up Milky Way and generates advantage every turn including the opponent's.
- Shinobird Salvation Destroys a Card whenever a Face-up Spirit bounces back to your Hand, giving the Deck some removal. And if your opponent declares an Attack you can Banish 1 Spirit from your GY to negate it and end the Battle Phase, this helps you protect your Amano Iwato from your opponent just crashing into it.
- Stars Align across the Milky Way Can reveal a Ritual Monster from your Hand to add one with the same Level but different name from your Deck meaning you can cycle between the Barons or add Magician of Black Chaos MAX to do some funny locks. You can then Banish this card from your GY to send a Ritual Spell from your Hand to Ritual Summon during the opponent's turn for interruptions.
Main Deck: Additional Dogmatika Engine
- These offer the Deck better going first options and more staying power/consistency, Nadir Servant can send a Garura, Wings of Resonant Life to make you Draw 1 while also adding Dogmatika Maximus or Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous, the first can Banish the Garura to Special Summon himself from your Hand, and then make both players send 2 Monsters with different names from their Extra Decks, you will be sending Herald of the Arc Light and Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom the first adding a Ritual Monster/Spell and the second Drawing 1 and putting back in your Deck a card from your Hand, this can be used to put your bricks back where they belong. Ecclesia can search the Maximus or Dogmatika Punishment to give you more removals, Elder Entity N'tss, Fossil Warrior Skull Knight, Fossil Machine Skull Wagon, Wind Pegasus @Ignister or Golden Cloud Beast - Malong can be used to remove cards, Mereologic Aggregator to negate a Face-up Monster and Tri-Brigade Arms Bucephalus II to send another Garura.
Final Thoughts:
The support sure helps the Deck, for a combination of two of the "Worse types" ever the Deck became a lot more functional and threatening with a good resource game. Probably not going to be Meta relevant but at least its a fun rogue'ish Ritual Deck with a fun gimmick and interesting lore behind it. Maybe next year we will get more support due to Tanabata.