by Overview
It’s time to shine in this Archetype Spotlight for these rotund ritual support fiends: Djinn! These big-bellied brawlers, numbering only six, are unique monsters that lend themselves to generic ritual support from the Graveyard! With powerful effects, but limited use, these frightening fiends have had a fragile history. Let’s take a look at what these Djinn can do!
All of the Ritual Djinn have one effect in common that links them together: when you Ritual Summon a Ritual Monster, you can banish the Djinn from the GY as one of the monsters required for the Ritual Summon. Being able to banish a monster from the GY as part of the required materials for a Ritual Summon is a useful and powerful effect on its own, but it doesn’t stop there. Each of the Djinn also have effects that give your Ritual Monster a floating effect in addition to that monster’s own effects.
The Djinn
Djinn Presider of Rituals is a Lv. 4 DARK Fiend monster with 1800 ATK and 1400 DEF. In addition to its GY effect: “If the monster Ritual Summoned using this card destroys a monster by battle, the controller of the Ritual Monster draws 1 card.” Being able to draw cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! is a HUGE advantage. Even so, this effect can only be applied when your Ritual Monster destroys an opponent’s monster in battle, which is less helpful in moderns Yu-Gi-Oh! than it used to be.
The other Lv. 4 monster in this archetype is Djinn Cursenchanter of Rituals. With 1700 ATK and 1000 DEF, this guy is a decent monster on his own. When you use this monster to Ritual Summon: while your Ritual Monster is on the Field, Synchro Monsters’ effects are negated. A great floodgate effect, but limited to only the effects of Synchro Monsters, this is a powerful, if situational, effect. Keep in mind that this effect is not limited to your opponent’s Synchro Monsters, but yours as well. While this effect can be very good, it’s only useful if your opponent is using Synchro Monsters. For this reason, Cursenchanter often finds itself in the Side Deck rather than the Main Deck.
Next, the Lv. 3 axe wielding Fiend: Djinn Demolisher of Rituals! Demolisher has the floating effect: “If a player Ritual Summons using this card, that Ritual Summoned monster cannot be targeted by the card effects of the other player.” Targeting effects are very common in Yu-Gi-Oh!, so protection from targeting is a helpful form of protection. However, your monster is still vulnerable to non-targeting monster removal like Dark Hole, Mirror Force, or Mirrorjade the Iceblade Dragon.
The next Lv. 3 Djinn on the list is Djinn Prognosticator of Rituals. This card is the counterpart to Djinn Presider of Rituals. Instead of allowing you to draw one card when your Ritual Monster destroys a monster by battle, Prognosticator forces your opponent to discard one card. While arguably not as good as drawing a card yourself, forcing your opponent to discard a card can still be useful. However, in modern Yu-Gi-Oh!, many cards have GY effects. So, even if your opponent discards a card, there is still a good chance that they will discard a card with a GY effect, making the effect of Prognosticator much less dangerous. If the effect sent a random card from your opponent’s hand to the GY, it would be better, but, unfortunately, your opponent gets to choose the card they discard.
Of all the Ritual Djinn monsters, Djinn Releaser of Rituals is the most broken. Released in 2009, Releaser was not considered broken, even though its effect is incredibly powerful. The reason: Ritual Summoning was a very clumsy and ineffective mechanic. Ritual Monsters were not powerful and Ritual Summoning was convoluted and inconvenient. That is, until the release of Nekroz. The Nekroz ritual archetype changed the game for Ritual Monsters. Importantly, Nekroz Ritual Monsters have effects that can be used in the hand. A gamechanger! In general, Ritual Monsters in the hand were useless bricks on their own. But, that was not an issue for Nekroz. As such, the Djinn, particularly Releaser, became much more potent. Why? Releaser’s floating effect is, “If a player Ritual Summons using this card, the other player cannot Special Summon while that Ritual Summoned monster is face-up on the field.” This effect turns your Ritual Monster into Vanity’s Ruler, a very powerful monster. And, it just so happens that Nekroz has a Lv. 3 Ritual Monster that can use Releaser as its sole material: Nekroz of Clausolas. Using these two cards together, combined with the hand effects of the other Nekroz Ritual Monsters, created a lockdown that was too powerful to ignore. For this reason, in 2015, Djinn Releaser of Rituals was placed on the banlist, and it remains there to this day.
The last of these Djinn is the Lv. 1 Fiend, Djinn Disserere of Rituals. Disserere, when used as a monster for a Ritual Summon, grants your Ritual Monster immunity to Trap Cards effects. A nice little touch of protection! If it were Traps AND Spell, then it would be much better! But, as it is, it can be a nice little addition, especially when stacked with the other effects of the Djinn monsters.
The Djinn Today
On paper, the Ritual Djinn are pretty good. They all have the ability to be used as a material for a Ritual Summon while in the GY, they have the ability to bestow fairly potent floating effects to your Ritual Monsters, and they have decent stats on their own. But, they just don’t see play. For one, Ritual Summoning and Ritual archetypes are typically weak and inconsistent. While the floating effects of the Djinn are powerful, they are also too situational to be generally useful. And there are just so few Ritual archetypes that can actually use the Djinn effectively. Non-archetypal Ritual Monsters are motley garbage, and most all Ritual archetypes generally want to stick to their own archetype rather than relying on generic support. There was a brief time when the Djinn saw play in Relinquished decks, but when Relinquished received additional support, the Djinn were abandoned. As mentioned, the Djinn did see play in Nekroz decks, and there were even some Herald of Ultimateness builds that used the Djinn. But, overall, the Djinn are just not quite good enough to make their way into modern ritual decks. Being DARK Fiends, there is some synergy with cards like Tour Guide of the Underworld, Fiendish Rhino Warrior, and Dark Grepher, but it’s not quite enough, still.
These mischievous, grave-dwelling goblins are unique, and they have potential. But, for now, the Ritual Djinn will remain in the graveyard waiting for the day when they can participate in the magic of Ritual Summoning.