Gateway to Chaos 

I’ve felt for a long time that Chaos Soldier (Black Luster Soldier) has gotten the shaft from the very beginning. It just lacks a feeling of being real and patiently thought out. Like, how does Gaia the Fierce Knight even relate to BLS? Is he sort of like the Gearfried to Gearfried the Swordmaster? Is BLS just Gaia in advanced form? Or are they just connected because of Yugi? 

I don’t know but it’s super confusing, and the monsters still don’t make the best sense. All the Gaia iterations are level 7 and BLS in all his forms is level 8, and those still haven’t been reconciled, even with more and more support coming out. They need to figure this business out. But I digress, we are looking at Gateway to Chaos, a card that doesn’t necessarily have to be used only in Chaos Soldier decks. For the theme, if you want to call it a theme, it works great. It’s a plus one, so you could stop right there. A cantrip is a cantrip, which makes any other effect a bonus, even if it’s the worst effect in the world. And the second effect is not great. Getting three monsters into the grave on a consistent basis isn’t the easiest thing in the world, especially in this kind of deck. Would you have to minus yourself just to search? Most likely. There’s so much spell/trap removal in the game at the moment. Even so, you’re running this in triplicate if you’re trying to build the deck. 

But as I mentioned before, it could potentially be run in other ritual decks. I’m pretty sure you’d have to have a search target to activate, which means running either a Gaia or BLS ritual in the deck, but there’s still some future potential. Searching for ritual spells is an effect that is a must for any ritual-based deck. This does that. Enough said. But overall, Gateway is a good card for a bland, and dare I say it, lazy theme. 

Advanced: 3/5
Future Potential: 2/5 

Compared to what a modern Field Spell Card can do, Gateway to Chaos comes up short. Obviously Black Luster Soldier can utilize this well, but it might do better in a Chaos Max Blue-Eyes deck. It is a free once per turn search of a Black Luster Soldier Ritual Monster or a Gaia the Fierce Knight monster. If you can keep it on the field long enough, it will eventually gain you advantage. 3 Spell Counters equals one Ritual Spell Card to the hand. But those Spell Counters are only effectively generated through Ritual Summons. At least it gains Spell Counters from each monster sent to the grave from the hand or field. Honestly, this just needed a graveyard banish to search effect to be worth it. Oh well. 
 
Score: 2.5/5
Art: 1/5
 
-WarlockBlitz