Ragnaraika Skeletal Soldier – #LEDE-EN047
2 monsters, including an Insect, Plant, or Reptile monster
You can target 1 “Ragnaraika” monster in your GY; Special Summon it in Defense Position. If this card is in your GY: You can target 1 Insect, Plant, or Reptile monster you control; place it on the bottom of the Deck, and if you do, Special Summon this card. You can only use each effect of “Ragnaraika Skeletal Soldier” once per turn, also you cannot Special Summon during the turn you activate either of this card’s effects, except Insect, Plant, or Reptile monsters.
Date Reviewed: June 11th, 2024
Rating: 3.68
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Ragnaraika Skeletal Soldier was the Link Monster mentioned yesterday, and one four so far in the archetype.
Link 2 that is half generic, requiring at least one of the three types that Ragnaraika revolve around: Insect, Plant, Reptile. Special Summon for a Ragnaraika monster in the grave, Skeletal Soldier gets back a Ragnaraika that you likely used for its own Link Summon, making it a link climbing monster. Sure, there’s three monsters in the Main Deck that you can bring back from the grave, and Evil Seed, while making this by itself, cannot activate its effect again this turn. If your opponent has something you want to get rid of, make sure Armored Lizard is in the grave for Soldier to reborn so you can bounce whatever you don’t want on their field. If you are only going for another Link Summon it doesn’t really matter what you bring back, but Beetle can bring back an Insect, Plant, or Reptile though from the grave and when we think Plants, we think Lonefire Blossom. Regardless, getting a body back on board cost-free is always a good thing.
While in the grave, all Ragnaraika Link Monsters carry the ability to cycle a Reptile, Insect, or Plant to the bottom of the Deck to Special Summon itself. There’s no limit to how many times you can bring this back in the game. If you were to link climb into your Link 4 without having used this ability, and had the materials on the field, you could have all three Link Monsters on the field in one turn.
Easy to make, flexible with three different Types of monsters able to be used to summon it, link climbing potential, and ability to reborn itself for little cost, Soldier, like all the Ragnaraika Link Monsters have good things going for it. The real difficulty with the Ragnaraika archetype isn’t their lack of Main Deck monsters, it’s deciding what to surround them with.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 3/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
The rest of the week will be Link heavy considering the archetype has 4, soon to be 5, of them, so we’ll start with the lowest of a Link-2 with Ragnaraika Skeletal Soldier.
Skeletal Soldier is a Link-2 FIRE Plant with 1600 ATK and arrows pointing Bottom Left and Bottom Right. The ATK stat is fine, a FIRE Plant is pretty solid, and the arrows are good. Materials are any 2 monsters, just as long as one of them is an Insect, Plant, or Reptile, so perfect for anything you’re putting Ragnaraika into. First effect revives any Ragnaraika monster in Defense Position. Requiring Defense Position means you can’t revive the Links off this effect, but you can get the Main Deck stuff in order to keep Linking up. The other effect is on all the Ragnaraika Links, letting you return an Insect, Plant, or Reptile you control to the bottom of the Deck to revive itself, which offers for more Link fodder for your bigger Ragnaraika monsters and any other Insects, Plants, and/or Reptiles since those are the Types you are locked into after using either of this card’s effects. Each effect is also a hard once per turn, of course. Skeletal Soldier is good for one of the first Links you’ll go into in this archetype in order to climb into the bigger Links. The revival of your Ragnaraikas gets you at least to a Link-3, and reviving this offers 1 more Link Material compared to the regular monster you shuffled into the Deck. Good for Ragnaraika and anything Insect/Plant/Reptile related, so 1-2 is fine.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 4/5 Another case of “are we sure you aren’t a Zombie?”
Mighty
Vee
The first of many Ragnaraika Link monsters, Ragnaraika Skeletal Soldier is a Link 2 FIRE Plant Link monster with standard bottom left and bottom right arrows. Like Ragnaraika Evil Seed, being a Plant is great for being woven into Plant combo lines, which fits perfectly into its requirements of any two monsters as long as one of them is a Plant, Insect, or Reptile. Skeletal Soldier also has average Link 2 stats, with only 1600 attack to compensate for how easy it is to make.
Skeletal Soldier has two hard once per turn effects, and using either of them will lock you into Plant, Insect, and Reptile monsters for the entire turn, so be careful if you plan to use generic monsters as part of your combo. Its first effect is a simple Monster Reborn, letting you target and Special Summon any Ragnaraika monster in your Graveyard in Defense Position. The defense part is actually very crucial, since that means you can’t revive Ragnaraika Link monsters! Still, all you really need is one Link fodder to climb into their Link 3 anyway. Skeletal Soldier’s other effect is shared by all Ragnaraika Link monsters thus far, letting you place an Insect, Plant, or Reptile monster you control on the bottom of your deck to Special Summon Skeletal Soldier from your Graveyard. It doesn’t take much to realize that this is a fantastic effect for both combos and for longer games, since pretty much any Plant, Insect, or Reptile jobber can bring back Skeletal Soldier and immediately go into Ragnaraika Mantis Monk. Skeletal Soldier is a great card for most Ragnaraika builds, though again like Evil Seed, you should watch out for its lock in Plant hybrids unless you want to lock yourself out of the Therion engine.
+Self-summon is helpful for extending and grinding
+Extremely easy way to make Mantis Monk
-Can’t revive Link monsters
-Makes Therion combo lines awkward or impossible
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 4.75/5 All of the Ragnaraika cards look amazing, but Skeletal Soldier is probably my favorite.
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