Light of Destruction generated more buzz than any set before it—not even Phantom Darkness created so much talk and speculation amongst duelists. And while Lightsworn, Gladiator Beasts, Batterymen, and the rest are certainly all very promising, there’s one card that’s gotten mostly negative press, and I’m not really sure why. But before I get to that, let’s take a quick look at an important trend.
Flip-effect monsters became a thing of the past over the last year. Top decks were steadily gaining speed ever since the release of Card Trooper and Destiny Draw in the second round of Duelist Packs, and as the average pace of play got faster, flip-effect monsters became less and less popular. The Forbidden status of Magician of Faith (what was that—the third time that card’s been Forbidden?) really seemed to put the last nail in the coffin, and even Gravekeeper’s Spy gave up the ghost in the face of Dark Armed Return. Flip-effect monsters just weren’t worth using: it was too hard to get their effects to work.
But the mid-format changes to the Advanced list fixed that. Read the feature matches from Shonen Jump Championship Nashville, and you’ll see that most of them are actually fairly long, with players jockeying for position turn by turn instead of just unleashing five monsters for free or looping burn damage. A host of "slow" monsters made main-deck showings in the Top 16, including Gravekeeper’s Spy, Legendary Jujitsu Master, Morphing Jar, Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, and Treeborn Frog (unaccompanied by Foolish Burial in both of its main-decked appearances). Sure, those aren’t all flip-effect monsters, but they are all monsters you’d always set from your hand instead of normal summoning. The moral of the story? It’s definitely safe to play flip effects again, and anyone who believes otherwise is going to be missing out on some incredible options.
This trend is timed perfectly, considering that Light of Destruction brings us arguably the best flip-effect monster ever printed. Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter is a Beast-type Old Vindictive Magician on steroids, and as good as it looks at first glance, I promise you that it’s even better than you think.
First, Some General Points
No matter what deck you play Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter in, some basic tactics will always apply. First, if you set Ryko against an open field (say as your opening move on turn 1: an ideal play) and your opponent makes the right read, he or she doesn’t have much of a choice—your opponent will almost always have to summon, attack Ryko, and give up a monster before doing anything else. If your opponent doesn’t do that, he or she is almost always going to get roughed up: a set monster or a set card to each zone means that the opponent is losing a card for sure while Ryko will remain on the field. If he or she sets one or more cards to the spell and trap zone before attacking, Ryko will destroy one of them to clear the way for a likely attack on the turn that follows: an even greater loss for the opponent.
This means two things: first, your opponent will pretty much always have to give up field presence to you when you play Ryko. In addition, if he or she makes the wrong read and believes you set Ryko when you actually set Morphing Jar, then making the "smart" play (the one intended to protect spell and trap cards, as well as overall game position) will come with dire costs. Forcing good players to make bad moves is a major underlying theme of the Lightsworn, but Ryko can bring that element to any deck it’s played in.
Ryko is good at virtually any point in the game. Whether it’s defending you by blocking an attack and destroying another would-be attacker, or letting you capitalize on a beatstick by blowing away a card that might stop your onslaught, it’s extremely versatile. As a turn 1 play it’s even better, because it forces your opponent to either relinquish field presence, or lets you pin him or her into a bad situation on turn 2. Being able to destroy any card on the field means that you can steal momentum and dictate the pace of play with ease.
This card is the ultimate problem solver for a surprising number of decks, and I want to look at some of them individually to help you get a complete idea of what makes the little pup so amazing.
Let’s Start With Lightsworn
There’s been a lot of talk about Ryko being "too slow for Lightsworn," and having played hundreds of duels with a Lightsworn deck I can’t understand why. Sure, Ryko doesn’t rack 
up damage on its own, but you weren’t going to be attacking on turn 1 anyway. In fact, I think Lightsworn decks should have one goal on their first turn, and Ryko accomplishes it perfectly.
That goal is to dump cards into the graveyard. Whether or not you open with Judgment Dragon in your hand, you want to bring the threat of Judgment Dragon into the game as quickly as possible—doing so keeps your opponent from over-committing to the field, which then makes it easy for you to dominate with lower-level attackers. In addition, feeding your graveyard means more versatility for Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner, Glorious Illusion, and any copies of Monster Reincarnation that you may be playing. Summoning Wulf, Lightsworn Beast for free is never a bad thing either.
With that said, there are only so many ways to get Lightsworn into your graveyard. Solar Recharge is probably an auto-play if you have it, but that’s not always the case, and from there things get a bit tougher to call. You really want to get at least three cards into your graveyard. Jain, Lightsworn Paladin only sends away two cards, while Lyla and Lumina will be left vulnerable if they’re normal summoned.
Set Ryko instead and any sense of risk is non-existent. There’s virtually nothing seeing play nowadays that will destroy Ryko without being destroyed itself, meaning that while you lose a monster, your opponent will lose a card too: an even trade, and quite a good one considering how well Lightsworn does in topdecking situations. Ryko is your ideal turn 1 play in this deck, not just because it gives you a tactical advantage due to field presence on turn 2, but because it makes so many other cards in your deck better.
I’m sure a lot of people showed up to St. Louis with Lightsworn decks that didn’t play Ryko—if they did, and Lightsworn didn’t win the tournament, then I’m not surprised. There 
is no better or faster way to kick-start Lightsworns into gear.
From that general point, let’s look at some specific moves. Want to bring down Judgment Dragon for game, but find yourself confronted by face-down spell or trap cards? Lyla can blow one away, but so can Ryko, doubling the number of ways you can secure the field before dropping your finisher. Combo Ryko with Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior to draw as many as two cards while destroying one too, or flip it before summoning Lumina: Ryko will load the graveyard for Lumina’s effect and clear away a card that may be Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute.
The fact that Ryko is in fact a Lightsworn itself naturally means that it feeds Judgment Dragon’s summoning threshold, and on the rare occasion when it isn’t useful you can always discard it for Solar Recharge. Ryko works wonders for the Lightsworn’s Macro Cosmos matchup too—I’ve honestly had little to no problem with the supposed "silver bullet" answer to Lightsworn because of it. Since Ryko sends cards to the graveyard after it destroys its target, it’s a great way to recover against Dimensional Fissure or Banisher of the Radiance.
Ryko is an incredible card in Lightsworn, giving the deck unsurpassed removal power as well as a strong answer to problems like Gladiator Beast Heraklinos and Jinzo. The Lightsworn are pretty big for monsters that can be normal summoned, but they can’t match the muscle of some of today’s top tribute monsters with ATK alone—three copies of Ryko goes a long way toward patching up that weakness.
Honest-ly, It’s Just Kind Of Nuts
Ryko’s synergy with other Light-attribute cards doesn’t become apparent until you see the card in action in Counter Fairies. I’m writing this before Shonen Jump Championship St. 
Louis, but over the weekend you may have seen Jerome McHale playing an impressive Counter Fairy build packing three copies of our resident wonder dog.
The sheer defensive power this card can give really shines here for several reasons. As an early game play, it buys time against aggressive strategies that would otherwise keep you from holding counter traps until you drew into Artemis. If the opponent lets you flip Ryko on your own turn, even better: you’ll destroy a card of your choice and a wise opponent would be smart not to attack into it. If an attacker goes after Ryko, it could be destroyed in battle quite easily thanks to the deck’s three copies of Honest. Ryko is, after all, a Light monster.
This is all good news because there’s one exceptionally strong reason for Counter Fairies to value the type of spot-removal Ryko brings to the table: Royal Decree. Decree is the easiest and most common side-deck choice to make against Counter Fairies, and in the past there was very little one could do against it if it were successfully flipped. Now the solution’s pretty simple: just let Ryko eat that offending trap and go about your business.
Note that Ryko’s second effect is valuable in this strategy too. Sending cards to the graveyard from the top of the deck means more counter traps to reuse with the effect of Harvest Angel of Wisdom, speeding up your reverse toolbox. It also means more Light monsters in the graveyard to fuel Freed the Brave Wanderer, a card that Jerome regularly uses to destroy my Lightsworn monsters two at a time.
Again, Ryko fills the role of problem solver while creating a lot of synergy with cards this deck would already run anyway. Jerome and I have actually dropped Van’Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord to fit this in, and neither of us has looked back since.
Big Monkeys Need Pets Too
Okay—I admit it: I didn’t devote a ton of time to that header line. But that’s just because I can’t wait to talk about how good this card is in Beast decks.
Beasts and Beast-Warriors are two of the most savagely under-supported monster types in the history of dueling. And me? I can’t get enough of them. Rescue Cat, Gyaku-Gire Panda, and Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest are three of my all-time favorite monsters. I rejoiced when Green Baboon was released, but now it’s been a year since Beasts have gotten any new cards.
So it’s Ryko to the rescue! Again, Ryko provides precise removal in order to eliminate cards that would devastate your strategy (say, Bottomless Trap Hole). But it provides two more strong assets to the Beast deck as well. First, it helps you get Green Baboon into the graveyard. Then, when Ryko is destroyed, you’ll be able to summon Green Baboon because Ryko is a Beast type.
If your opponent attacks Ryko when Green Baboon is in the graveyard, you’ll each lose one card—Ryko will get destroyed and it’ll take something of the opponent’s with it. Baboon can then explode out of the graveyard, turning what would normally be a card-for-card trade (your on-field Beast for Baboon) into a straight-up mathematical loss for your opponent. And since Ryko destroys a card on the field, you can protect the Baboon from other attackers like D. D. Warrior Lady, or remove-from-play cards like Bottomless.
While Beasts don’t stand at the forefront of dueling right now, they may get some more power from the upcoming booster set The Duelist Genesis. In Japan, that set gave Beast decks a big push. Whether or not we’ll see similar trends over here in UDE territory is anybody’s guess, but for now, Ryko is a great addition to any Beast duelist’s arsenal.
The fun doesn’t really stop there. Any deck that wants to load its graveyard, or that plays Light monsters, can probably benefit from Ryko. It may be a great choice for Batteryman builds, since piling cards into the graveyard lets that deck use powerful stuff like Portable Battery Pack and Batteryman Industrial Strength. You can play Honest there too and reap more synergy from Ryko’s Light attribute—just toss it into a build like Jerome made a couple weeks back. Looking for new tech for your Zombie deck? Ryko will help you deal with that new Zombie Master ruling. It can even help you fill you graveyard with Darks for Dark Armed Dragon, and from there the sky’s the limit. This underrated monster can be an effective side-deck card, an integral part of any reverse toolbox strategy, or a potent piece of tribute bait for a Monarch strategy.
Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter is the kind of card that gets better with time. Don’t get the wrong impression though: it’s amazing right now, too. Give it a shot yourself, and you might be surprised to find that flip-effect monsters are better than ever before.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer