An expensive card right now but it's being reprinted in the Secret Forces.  It's a staple card for any Ritual Deck with LV7 or lower Ritual monsters.  Particularly, it's a staple card in Nekroz decks which should use 3.
 
Since you get to add 2 cards, a ritual monster and a ritual spell, it's an instant +1.  But early in the game, when you might not have a ritual spell in your graveyard, it's still worth using as a 1-for-1 because you want consistency and a strong opening game.
 
Nekroz decks particularly should use it to search for Brionac (which can search for any Nekroz monster) or Clausolas (which can search any ritual spell you want) depending on what you need for the situation.
 
Strong card all around - no real downsides.
 
4/5

Released way back in Stardust Overdrive, Preparation of Rites is, quite simply, a RotA for a Level 7 or lower Ritual Monster, with the added bonus of also grabbing a Ritual Spell from the Graveyard. An effect like this is quite obviously incredibly useful for any Ritual Deck; the problem is that outside of Herald of Perfection, Ritual Decks have never been relevant.

But now we’re about to get Nekroz, which is not only a relevant Ritual Deck, but will most likely end up being the dominating Deck of the format. Coupled with the fact that they have a Ritual Monster that searches other Nekroz monsters and another one that searches out Nekroz Spell Cards, Preparation of Rites gives you access to virtually every card in the Deck.

This card is extremely solid in the Decks that can use it, but what more can you expect out of themed RotAs?

Rating: 4/5

Preparation of Rites:
 
Sometimes a card that was previously dsregarded, finds its place in the most powerful decks all of a sudden (Vanity's Emptiness?); I don't think Preparation of Rights was ever considered a bad card (a "+1" never is) - there just hasn't been a Ritual deck that needed the card, and made a splash in this construct we call "metagame". The only Ritual decks in the history of this game that had the qualities needed to reign a format, were the "Demise OTK", and "Gishk Hieratic" decks; "Gishki" decks have no need for the search power Preparation of Rites provides - they have an alternative that can be recycled with Salvage - and recycling Ritual spells works differently in the deck. I don't think Prepration of Rites was around to see decks focusing on Demise, King of Armageddon in all its glory - not that it could have supported them...
 
In the meantime, decks that played Herald of Perfection made good use of Preparation of Rites, but I don't think the deck ever reached the level of consistency, or power, to be considered "tier". All in all Preparation is an example of a fantastic card that unfortunately just never hd the time to shine.
 
But everything changed, when Konami announced everyone's favourite cosplayers! Preparation of Rites is an instant inclusion at three copies in the "Nekroz" deck, and it's all because of Nekroz of Brionac - it has an effect on the field, but that's not important; what counts is this: "You can discard this card; add 1 "Nekroz" monster from your deck to your hand, except "Nekroz of Brionac"." You read that right: Preparation of Rites indirectly adds any "Nekroz" monster from the deck to a player's hand, and factoring in the effect of Nekroz of Clausolas, any Ritual spell card. The card's second effect will usually not be of much importance, as "Nekroz" Ritual spells can be banished from the graveyard to add a new Ritual spell from the deck to the hand, but recycling at least saves resources, and Preparation of Rites may be used even if the player controls a monster(s).
 
Archmage of the Nekroz (official name to be confrmed at the time of writing), Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands, Nekroz of Brionac, Nekroz of Clausolas, Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz, the three "Nekroz" Ritual spells, Preparation of Rites, Reinforcement of the Army, the last of which the deck won't even play: the "Nekroz" theme has everything it could ask for to perform as smoothly as possible (did I mention Dance Princess of the Nekroz, Nekroz of Unicore, and Nekroz of Valkyrus? They don't let the player search their deck for cards, but they help!), and with the threat of Nekroz of Trishula available at practically any time when one counts up ll this searching, "Nekroz" will be a force to be reckoned with in formats to come.
 
Traditional: "Nekroz" in the traditional format? Nekroz of Trishula will have no impact on the very first turn you know, and if you let the opponent go first instead, Imperial Order may ruin your day... I'd almost say that one is better of using this card to search for Herald of Perfection here! I don't want to rate this card for play in the Traditional format - don't act like you care dear: no one plays Traditional anyway.
 
Advanced: 5/5. A spell searcher with a bonus effect added! Its targets may be slightly limited, but a themed searcher like this is as potent as it gets - surely if a card that any deck that benefits of its inclusion, mains three copies of, and that one will almost never hate to see in their hand, does not receive a maximum score, than what will?
 
Art: I need your assistance to help make the world blue and turn it into a happy and peaceful society/5.

Preparation of Rites

I’m not going to beat around the bush and talk about all of the random ritual cards that you can use this card with, when it’s fairly obvious that the reason that this will be used in competitive play is the deck which releases in 2 days’ time – Nekroz.

In that deck, this is a power card that can stand to be in every opening hand. It can search for any of 9 cards from your deck (assuming you run the conventional 3 Brionac, 3 Unicore, 1 Gungnir, 2 Clausolas), of course, the ability to search for one of 4 different monsters doesn’t immediately sound as good as it actually is, but Brionac and Clausolas give immediate access to any of your other Nekroz monsters or your Nekroz Spell Cards. So you’ll have access to over half of your deck.

But that’s not all. Preparation of Rites also recovers a Ritual Spell for a handy +1, this might not be the greatest thing in Nekroz due to being able recycle Spell cards anyway, but in other decks this can be a godsend. Even in Nekroz, this part of the effect lets you conserve your resources, so I suppose it’s still win-win.

The most important thing about this card, outside of it being recovery and search power all in one, is that helps you use more than 1 Valkyrus per turn in the mirror match. You can search for Unicore and grab the one you used to clear your field, and you can search for Brionac, and add a second one from the deck. It is therefore a pretty hefty downside that you can’t use this to grab level 8 monsters, but even so Preparation is a very powerful card in the deck and a staple at 3.

Rating 4.5/5

Preparation of Rites
 
In the OCG this card is Limited mostly as a way to limit the power of Necroz, and its quite possible that it may even receive a hit in the TCG somewhere in the future.
 
While Preparation of Rites is able to be used by Necroz far better than it has ever been able to be used by any Ritual Deck that has ever come before it, this card has always been good because of how its been able to be used as well as the fact that it can be used even without fulfilling all of the conditions on the card.
 
Like I mentioned above, you can activate this card without requiring to use its full effect.
Although you can only activate Preparation of Rites if you can actually add a Ritual monster from your Deck to your hand, it is not required for there to be a Ritual Spell card in your Graveyard, and when you do choose the Ritual Spell card you add it to your hand at the resolution of the card.
And furthermore, the Ritual card that you add doesn’t need to be one that can Summon that particular Ritual monster, so the only real additional limitation to this card is that you cannot add any Ritual monster to your hand that is above Level 7… But for the most part, this isn’t really any sort of an inconvenience.
 
Apart from the obvious Staple addition of Preparation of Rites into any Necroz Deck, this is essential in any Relinquished, Sophia, Herald of Perfection, Gishki and any and all other Ritual Decks inbetween.
 
Also the fact that this card is at it’s most basic use a Reinforcement of the Army for Ritual monsters, and at maximum use it’s a card that not only further helps to remove the card cost associated with Ritual Summoning but is otherwise one of those cards that gains that magical plus 1 all on its own, make this card truly essential, or “Staple” for not only any Ritual Deck, but becomes even more essential for Necroz since they are so reliant on Ritual Summoning and really require all the plus 1 cards that they can get!
 
Rating: 5. The real irony I feel with this rating is that before the release of Necroz this card simply would not rate quite so high, however, since Necroz is such a Ritual heavy Deck, this card can truly shine like never before.
A 1 Ritual monster (such as Relinquished or Herald of Perfection) Deck would only play 2 Preparation of Rites, in Necroz it has simply so many targets that you will ALWAYS be running 3 of this… No exceptions!
Expect this card to gain at least a little bit more in overall value.