It’s a World Debut Gladiator Beast, so you’ll just want to see it right away anyway.  Here's the new Gladiator you'll find at the Crossroads of Chaos Sneak Previews.

Gladiator Beast Retiari

When Retiari is special summoned by the effect of a "Gladiator Beast" monster, you can remove from play one card in your opponent’s graveyard. At the end of the battle phase, if this card attacked or was attacked, you can return it to the deck to special summon a "Gladiator Beast" monster from your deck, except "Gladiator Beast Retiari".

Now that you’ve read the text and re-read it to make sure you didn’t miss anything important, let me talk to you a bit about the card. Gladiator Beast Retiari is certainly not as powerful as other TCG exclusives like Test Tiger or Allure of Darkness, but it certainly gives a boost to the Gladiator Beast theme by allowing them to return to a slow-paced control deck.

Gladiator Beast Retiari is basically a tag-out to D.D. Crow. D.D. Crow is an amazing card, but it’s most useful because it can be used from your hand at any time (Retiari needs to be tagged in for its effect to go off). However, D.D. Crow needs to be in your hand in the first place in order to be used. Retiari can be pulled from the deck by any Gladiator Beast monster, so access to graveyard removal is now readily available for Gladiator Beasts.

That’s big news considering the current competitive metagame. TeleDAD and Lightsworn are tearing it up, and both rely heavily on their graveyard to further their own gains and to hurt Gladiator Beasts. The former problem comes in the form of Destiny Hero - Malicious, Judgment Dragon, Dark Armed Dragon, and Stardust Dragon. Those monsters pose the biggest threat to the Gladiator Beast game plan. Removing Darks and Lightsworn from graveyards to prevent big scary Dragons from coming down is awesome, and even with only one copy of Retiari, you should be able to remove at least one monster in your opponent’s graveyard from play a turn, so long as you aren’t tagging out for other Gladiators.

This shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Opponents usually only let you tag out if they have an answer to Gladiator Beast Bestiari or Gladiator Beast Darius, so doing that won’t be productive anyway. Retiari, on the other hand, doesn’t exactly warrant a Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, but can drop down and remove Malicious or Necro Gardna from play. (Gardna is how both TeleDAD and Lightsworn defend against Gladiator Beasts.) The deck is built entirely around supporting the battle phase, and Gardna can just sit in the graveyard to stop the most optimal battle possible. It’s hard to win when you’re faced with that kind of problem. Rather than actually needing to solve the problem itself, Retiari will force opponents to play their Gardnas early. That’s good news for you. It means you get your Gladiator Beast Gyzarus battles through.

Speaking of Gyzarus, that’s one of the best ways to use Retiari’s effect. Often you’ll be able to use one of Gyzarus’s special summons to get Darius, and then use Darius’s effect to special summon Laquari. From there it won’t really matter what else you special summon with the remainder of Gyzarus’s effect. Gladiator Beast Equeste can be useful, but if you don’t have Gladiator Beast War Chariot in the graveyard I’d suggest taking Retiari. Dropping your opponent from one Dark monster to zero can win games. Imagine if your opponent has Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, Destiny Draw, Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude, Dark Armed Dragon, and Dark Grepher in his or her hand. That’s enough to break Gladiator Beast Heraklinos if that player already has one Dark in the graveyard. But use Retiari to drop that count to zero and the hand is suddenly dead to Herk.

Other optimal ways to use Retiari include Gladiator Beast Hoplomus and Gladiator Beast Secutor. Hoplomus is particularly useful since it can jump a Retiari to your field as early as your opponent’s first turn. You know what happens a lot these days? Elemental Hero Stratos -> Destiny Hero - Malicious -> Destiny Draw, Stratos attacks your face-down card. Players don’t want to remove Malicious yet because they want to see what the face-down monster is. Then those players run straight into Hoplomus and you spring Retiari to the field to take care of the Malicious. Contact Fuse for Gyzarus next turn for best results.

Secutor is the other way to drop Retiari without exposing it as a weak ATK monster. Usually Secutor and the two monsters it summons make Heraklinos, and once again you can use Retiari to help protect your Herk by throwing your opponent off of his or her Dark count. Usually a Secutor play happens early in the game via Test Tiger, so you probably don’t have an Equeste target. Retiari might even be able to tag a Malicious.

The biggest reason to not run Retiari is because of its 1200 ATK. Most players already know the woes of drawing Gladiator Beast Murmillo and Gladiator Beast Secutor, and adding Equeste and Retiari to the deck only increases poor draws. However I believe Gladiator Beasts are supposed to be more of a slow-paced control deck right now anyway. That means you can support the smaller guys with spells and traps. I also believe that Gladiator Beast’s Respite has belonged back in the deck for quite some time now, and adding Retiari only gives me more of a reason to play that card.