Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended – #INOV-EN037
You can Ritual Summon this card with “Sprite’s Blessing”. When your opponent activates a card or effect that targets a monster you control (Quick Effect): You can discard this card; negate the activation. When your opponent would Special Summon a monster(s) (Quick Effect): You can return this card to the hand; negate the Special Summon, and if you do, banish that monster(s).
Date Reviewed: April 28th, 2022
Rating: 3.55
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,
Throwback Thursday choice this week is a Ritual Monster that found itself as a Side Deck choice for a hot minute: Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended.
Sauravis is a strong Level 7 Ritual Monster that has great Type and Attribute support. Not part of any archetype in particular, Sauravis doesn’t need any specific Ritual Spell to summon itself, however you can use “Sprite’s Blessing” to do so. The reason why it found itself being in Side Decks were both of its Quick Effects. Targeting negation as a discard: a good 1-for-1 trade, and then the ability to bounce itself back to the hand while negating a Special Summon and then banishing that monster.
So many cards target and Sauravis is a great negation to those effects. You’d like to see “negate and destroy” however if you use Sauravis to negate something like Impermanence then you don’t need the destruction effect. It can eat up a negation and with its bounce back ability you won’t lose out on having Sauravis negated. Bouncing Sauravis back to negate a Special Summon and then banish the monster has broad reach, and in the case of Pendulum Summons, can be a huge wipe out to your opponent, especially with the banish effect instead of destruction.
Both effects are practical and useful. Sauravis second effect will always be something available to players, while the first effect can be narrow in reach it is still something any player can encounter. Sauravis’s second effect also lends to it being discard fodder, another plus for this Ritual Dragon.
Advanced- 4/5- I still see usefulness in this card
Art- 4/5
Until Next Time, KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday this week brings us to one of the most generically used Ritual Monsters possibly ever printed: Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended.
Sauravis is a Level 7 LIGHT Dragon Ritual with 2600 ATK and 2800 DEF. Pretty great stats overall, plus being a LIGHT Dragon is good. The Ritual Spell for this guy is Sprite’s Blessing, a generic Ritual Spell for LIGHTs that needs exact Levels and that’s it, so you might opt to choose other Ritual Spells if you summon this, but that bit was mostly to tie a Ritual Spell to this card back when they were specifically doing that. When your opponent activates a card or effect that targets a monster you control, you get a Quick Effect to discard this card from the hand to negate that activation. Weird having a hand trap effect on a Ritual Monster, but it’s still pretty good. Helps ensure you can get your combo off through an Imperm or Veiler at least on turn 1. Being a Ritual does also make this one of the most searchable hand traps as well, benefiting anyone using Herald of the Arc Light for negation as well to get this in return. Second effect is another Quick Effect when the opponent Special Summons a monster(s), letting you bounce this to the hand to negate the Special Summon and banish those monsters. It’s a pretty good effect still, despite the fact you never really see anyone Ritual Summon this, but at least there’s a benefit to doing so, giving you Special Summon negation and targeting protection afterwards since this goes back to the hand. It’s mainly used for the hand effect, but I do like the effect on field as well. It’d be nice to see more Ritual strategies that can actually Ritual Summon this.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 5/5 Pretty dragon, the blue and white complement each other so well.
Alex
Searcy
Any Ritual likely would’ve fit the bill here for Throwback Thursday, but here is Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended (the and seems a bit redundant, but I digress). Light/Dragon, 2600 atk is fine here (2800 def too) and Level 7, with an alternate Summoning condition, even if it’s just a separate/generic card. It can discard itself, via Quick Effect no less, when your opponent uses a Card or Effect to Target a Monster you control. Protection is always welcome, though odd to see it in this manner on a Ritual, but it makes this card all the better. Another Quick Effect lets this card return to the Hand when your opponent Special Summon(s) a Monster(s) and said Monster(s) is(are) removed from play. There’s your money Effect, and let’s remember too, this guy sits on a solid atk/def too. Counter Fairies should love this, Dragons can obviously make use of it, and I wouldn’t blame many Decks for Teching this if they had room either.
Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 5/5 Gorgeous, the darker blue of the body contrasts not just the brighter blue of the sky, but the white of its own hair and the clouds.
Mighty
Vee
Throwback Thursday hits us with a card before my time: Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended. It’s a level 7 LIGHT dragon ritual monster, so you can grab it with Preparation of Rites (though not Pre-Preparation of Rites). It has 2600 attack and 2800 defense, which is a fine spread for a level 7 monster.
Sauravis lists Sprite’s Blessing as its appropriate ritual spell, though you can still summon it via generic means such as through Impcantation cards or Drytron cards. Neither of its effects are once per turn, which is rather odd but I don’t think either of them warrant being hard once per turn anyway. Sauravis is notable among ritual monsters (at least, for its time) in that it actually has a hand effect that does not require summoning it first, starting a trend of ritual monsters that aren’t complete bricks. By discarding it, you can negate an opponent’s effect that targets one of your monsters. Targeting is pretty common, and it can get past those pesky Effect Veilers, though I wouldn’t count on it for consistent protection. Sauravis’s other effect actually does require summoning it, though it is a much more lethal effect that negates an opponent’s special summon and banishes that monster. This effect is quite strong, though you’ll have to go out of your way to summon Sauravis first, which isn’t very difficult. That said, Sauravis doesn’t really have a meta home right now, as Drytron decks have very tight deck space and would rather play with Megaliths. Still, I think some ritual decks that can afford a slot for a generic level 7 ritual can use it, but I don’t think it’s worth using Sauravis just for the hand trap effect nowadays.
Advanced: 3/5
Art: 4/5 Quite the majestic dragon (no, not that Majestic Dragon!) The mustache truly emphasizes its ancient status.
We’ve been on a Ritual kick this week, so of course our Throwback Thursday choice is an older Ritual Monster who has seen some fringe play every so often. Sauravis is one of those cleverly designed cards that does a lot. I think it’s the direction that Ritual monsters should take in the future going forward.
OK, side rant: the Ritual mechanic has always been very clunky (like most things about early YuGiOh). You need both a Ritual Monster and their corresponding Spell just to get started. After that you still need monster materials to meet the requirements. Out of all the summoning mechanics (excluding maybe Fusion) Ritual Summoning has always been the most resource intensive and least consistent to pull off.
Other Extra Deck Summoning mechanics all require Monster Materials in some way or another (I mean even TRIBUTE Summoning does), so that’s not the problem. The problem is the clunkiness of needing 2 specific combo pieces.
Konami has tried fixing this over the years by adding in tons of searchers and recruiters for Ritual strategies to make gathering their pieces more consistent. This has helped, but I think the last thing they need to do to fix Ritual monsters is do more stuff like Sauravis.
There we go! See my rant got me back Sauravis eventually! But what do I mean by “do more things like Sauravis”? Well, Sauravis is a Ritual Monster, which means he’s a small piece of the puzzle used to Ritual Summon a 2600 ATK Light Dragon. BUT! He’s also a Hand Trap! Sauravis, despite being a Ritual Monster, isn’t JUST a combo piece. He does something on his own.
This is a trend that all Ritual monsters should do going forward. Ritual Monsters are Main Deck monsters, so they need to be able to pull their weight and be useful even outside of combo potential. Many modern Ritual Spells have done this in the form of having a secondary effect (usually involving banishing itself from the Grave to do something).
Phew. Alright, let’s talk about Sauravis specifically. While in Hand, he can discard himself to negate any sort of Targeting effect on your monsters. OK, so not the strongest of hand traps – but it’s something.
While on the field, he’s got 2600 ATK and 2800 DEF. These are decent for a Level 7, but not quite strong enough to go toe to toe with the big boys. Luckily he comes with 1 final effect.
When your opponent would Special Summon, he can bounce himself to negate that summon and banish it! This one is pretty good! He’s a less restrictive Bottomless Trap Hole on legs.
The only real problem I have with this guy is (like with the Trap card we reviewed yesterday) having an effect that involves getting rid of a Ritual Monster is really costly. As I said before, Ritual Monsters are often the most resource intensive summon possible for a Duelist. You shouldn’t be investing 3+ cards into a monster that’s just going to get rid of itself to do 1 small thing. Ritual Monsters – even more so than Fusion, Synchro, XYZ, and Link monster – should be the big bad boss that you bring out to end the game.
In that regard, Sauravis is cool, but he just doesn’t do enough. I respect him immensely and hope to see more cards like him in the future!
Advanced Rating – 3.5/5
Art – 5/5
-CrossFlux
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