Raidraptor - Tribute Lanius has some good stats which makes me happy with this first monster of the week. It is a Level 4 Dark Winged-Beast-type monster with 1800 Atk and 400 Def. Level 4 is still the best Level for all decks. I don't believe Raidraptors want to be banished, but it is nice to have a deck that can utilize Allure of Darkness. Blackwing support is real and works with this and other Main Deck Raidraptors. I'm even happy with 1800 Atk since it needs to win battles to get one of its effect. 400 Def is bad and tribute doesn't make sense in the name, but otherwise a nice assortment of stats.
 
Raidraptor - Tribute Lanius has 2 effects that can only be activated once per turn. The first is to send any Raidraptor card from the deck to the grave during the turn it is Normal or Special Summoned. This is useful to dodge some traps that might want to activate when it's Summoned because it can just wait to activate its effects until after you destroy them. It is also nice that this effect can be used in either of your Main Phases, again to dodge some traps. I don't know of too many Raidraptor Spells or Traps that want to be in the Graveyard, but some Raidraptor monster effects will activate after being sent to the grave. That makes Tribute Lanius an excellent opening card already. 

The second effect also provides some battle advantage. During your Main Phase 2, if Tribute Lanius destroyed a monster by battle, you can search a Quickplay Rank-Up-Magic Spell Card from your deck to your hand. This effect does lock you out of Special Summoning everything except Raidraptor monsters. You can avoid dealing with that issue just by setting it and activating it during your opponent's turn. Most of the available Quickplay RUM Spells are going to involve Raidraptors anyway, so Tribute Lanius does not really work in other decks. I also wish it was 1900 Atk to really take advantage of the second effect. 
 
Score: 3/5 
Art: 3/5
 
-WarlockBlitz

Deck-thinning for the win! Tribute Lanius helps you draw better cards faster with two effects: 1, when he's summoned, you can dump a "Raidraptor" card from the deck to the Grave (assuming you'll revive it later); and 2, if he manages to do destroy a monster in battle, you get a free "Rank-Up Magic" quick play spell from the deck. And all of this could, theoretically, happen in one turn! He has 1800-ATK, so it's plausible to pull these effects off early in the game. Swarming the field is where it's at, and this Lanius is built for it! .....Heh, see what I did there?
 
Score: 4/5 for Raidraptors; would've given it a higher score, but the second effect is tough to pull off without added support like Rush Recklessly or forcing an enemy monster into DEF mode.