Tag: Rahi

With the sonorous rhyme of pottery, we enter the final article of Rahi investigation, just in time to start actually working on the update.

The remaining topic is simply all those archetype support cards that provide basic utility and are meant to be played in different strategies regardless of Type or focus, to avoid reimplementing a certain core lineup of effects over and over again.

See also:

• The Rahi Spreadsheet – The data all of this is based on
• The Shapes and Sizes of Rahi – Overview of all Rahi groupings

Initial Considerations

Our scholarly journey so far has uncovered that it makes sense to group the multitude of Rahi species into a few major Types focused around distinct playstyles. Beast, Winged Beasts, and Beast-Warriors who climb into massive Synchros and win via beatdown. Aqua, Fish, and Sea Serpents who use removal and disruption effects to control the board without centering on singular boss monsters. Reptiles running a focused strategy of moving monsters, particularly Pendulums, between the front and back rows. And Insects, who provide somewhat splashable swarming of small critters and a toolbox of larger ones. All rounded out by the occasional wildcard that’s a Dragon or something.

Now if we want a reusable “Rahi core”, it’s important for it to be smoothly compatible with all of those major strategies, but at the same time it shouldn’t have too much direct synergy with any one of them, as it would just make them feel suboptimal when used in the rest. Also, anything we can put on the intentionally splashable Insects and the various standalone Dragons should be on a good path towards filling the kind of role we are aiming for here.

Other than that, a very simple and straightforward way for a card to support all available Types without belonging to any of them is for it to not have a Type at all – in other words, Spell and Trap Cards. The Rahi archetype already contains several of them, so making use of those slots effectively could lift a lot of the burden off the monster lineup.

But in any case, what needs to be established first and foremost if we want our generics to handle the universally required groundwork is this: What mechanics are actually common to all Rahi strategies, and what can be done to support those in a simple, easy-to-use manner? Here are some thoughts on that.

• Synchro Summoning! While I have planned Fusions, Links, Xyz, and even Rituals for certain special cases, the primary representation for combiners and other large Rahi is supposed to be Synchros. Beasts & co go in extra hard on this aspect, but some basic access should be guaranteed and supported for everyone.
• Pendulums with GY and banishment effects. One of my earliest Rahi observations on this site was about that design making it so they inhabit every niche of the gameboard ecosystem, which really suits their nature as wildlife. So I’d like to preserve that aspect, and since it doesn’t especially connect to any of the proposed playstyles, it’s probably going to end up a shared trait.
• Support Spells/Traps with an additional effect in the GY. Nowadays, this is pretty common, but back when the first version of BCOR was made, it was meant to be a special trait – not of Rahi, but of Makuta. That’s why cards like Rahi Swarm or Rahi Hive Showdown were deliberately themed after instances of Makuta using the Rahi as a tool to attack the villages of Mata Nui. Be that as it may, the concept is still somewhat appropriate for the Rahi archetype in general, since milling and discarding are going to be major ways to actually get your Pendulums into the GY. So it’s possible additional Rahi backrow in the long term will also function like this, and as mentioned before, non-monster cards are a good vehicle for utility across Types.

Assuming I didn’t forget anything, all mechanics beyond that should be specific to a certain Type or other subgrouping of the large Rahi pool. So that restricts the focus for generic support to a few key areas: stuff like searching, revival, and maybe removal that archetypes generally tend to have, Synchro Summoning, and the specific mechanic of getting Rahi monsters, Spells, and Traps into the GY or banishment. Let’s talk about the options we have for each.

Support Directions

Searching

A very straightforward example I tend to think of when I talk about not wanting to repeat universally applicable effects across multiple subgroups is searching, i.e., adding a specified card from your Deck to your hand. Obviously, having a card that just says Add 1 “Rahi” monster is better than having one that lets you Add 1 Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast “Rahi” monster, plus one that lets you Add 1 Aqua, Fish, or Sea Serpent “Rahi” monster, plus one that lets you Add 1 Reptile “Rahi” monster, and so on. While we do not quite have such a searcher in the style of ROTA, there are a few cards that get reasonably close.

Rahi Swarm

Spell

If your opponent controls a monster and you control no monsters: Add 2 “Rahi” monsters with the same Type, but different names, from your Deck to your hand. For the rest of this turn, your opponent takes no damage. You can banish this card from your GY; Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY, but it cannot attack, also it is destroyed during the End Phase. You can only use 1 “Rahi Swarm” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

One is Rahi Swarm, a double searcher in which a very early flash of Type-based strategy planning can be seen. That is, it searches regardless of Type, so long as both of your targets belong the same one. However, it doesn’t quite get all the way to fitting the current iteration of the concept, since it fails to account for the multi-Type groups around Beasts and Fish. What it does still cover are the Normal Pendulum Pairs for which it was originally designed, and so it will probably continue to work that way in the new version, meaning we should keep in mind that monsters you want in your hand together benefit somewhat from having the exact same Type.

Gukko-Kahu, Hawk Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 2500 / DEF 1000

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
If this card is Synchro Summoned: Draw 1 card. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: Add 1 “Rahi” monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Gukko-Kahu, Hawk Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Gukko-Kahu gives us a search of just one, but on an Extra Deck monster … when it’s sent from the field to the GY. That’s a bit nonstandard, but basically the idea is to search extension or followup while you use it as material to climb higher. Not out of tune with how Beast-ish Rahi are supposed to work, but may need some more specific limitations to avoid crossing streams with other Types.

Nui-Rama, Fly Rahi

Normal Pendulum MonsterLevel 5 | Scale 3/3 | WIND Insect | ATK 1800 / DEF 1700

Pendulum Scale = 3
[ Pendulum Effect ]
While you have a Level 5 Insect “Rahi” Pendulum Monster Card in your other Pendulum Zone, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated in response to the Pendulum Summon of a “Rahi” monster. You can target 1 “Rahi” monster you control; Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster with the same Type and a lower or equal Level from your Deck, but it cannot attack this turn. You can only use this effect of “Nui-Rama, Fly Rahi” once per turn.
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[ Flavor Text ]
A harsh buzz fills the air…a rustle of wings…a dark shape flying out of the sun…the warning signs of a Nui-Rama attack.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Nui-Rama offers a different kind of search by Special Summoning from the Deck, and like the Rahi Swarm that references it, it does so by matching another monster’s Type. In principle, this being an Insect does qualify it for being used by everyone and everything, but I kind of see the high-Level Normal Pendulums as something meant to specifically go into the native Type strategy, and their Insect member should be no different. Might end up restricting this one a bit more, but as a Level 5 brick with no monster effects it’s probably not worth running outside of Insects anyway. Side note, the Nui-Kopen also gets something from the Deck, but does it in a weird probabilistic way, so can’t really consider that one seriously.

Encounter in the Drifts

Counter Trap

When your opponent Summons a monster(s), except during the Damage Step: Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster whose Level is less than or equal to the highest Level among those monsters from your hand or Deck. Cards and effects cannot be activated in response to this Summon. You can only activate 1 “Encounter in the Drifts” per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Trap Encounter in the Drifts serves a similar purpose and also does it in a weird reactive way, but as a non-monster I’m much more inclined to preserve it for universal use. The thing is, this kind of Summoning in response to something usually works best when the monsters you bring out actually do stuff immediately when they hit the field, and how much that applies to Rahi is going to vary by strategy. Not sure yet how and where this card is going to be integrated, and in a redesign of the effect it might also be interesting to link it with The Drifts a bit more.

Next up, a known trio of troublemakers makes not trouble, but its return.

• The Dragon
• The Scorpion
• The Duck

The Dragon

Hikaki, Dragon Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | FIRE Dragon | ATK 1900 / DEF 700

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
When a “Rahi” monster(s) is Special Summoned: You can add 1 “Rahi” Tuner from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Hikaki, Dragon Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
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[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
● When a Trap Card is activated (Quick Effect): You can shuffle 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck into the Deck; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Scorpion

Kofo-Jaga, Scorpion Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | FIRE Insect | ATK 1300 / DEF 1900

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
When a “Rahi” monster is Normal Summoned: You can add 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Kofo-Jaga, Scorpion Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
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[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
●When a monster effect is activated (Quick Effect): You can shuffle 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck into the Deck; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that monster if its ATK is lower than the ATK of the monster you shuffled into the Deck.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Duck

Taku, Duck Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 1400 / DEF 1700

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
During your End Phase: You can add 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck to your Extra Deck face-up. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
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[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
● When a Spell Card is activated (Quick Effect): You can shuffle 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck into the Deck; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Hikaki searches Tuners when you Special Summon, the Kofo-Jaga searches Pendulums when you Normal Summon, and the Taku just puts stuff straight into the face-up Extra Deck. This is all in service of a little mini-engine that stacks bonus negates on a Synchro Monster, but I don’t think I’ll be keeping that around as it lacks any basis in the lore whatsoever.

So, can we at least apply their functionality as searchers generically? The two most relevant ones do happen to be a Dragon and an Insect and are therefore not strictly tied to one strategy, but I think the search utility they offer right now isn’t sufficient to make up for the Type mismatch of including them. They’d need to be cleaned up into something that’s not necessarily stronger, but easier to use and providing a service that’s hard to replace otherwise.

The Taku is out, sorry. Winged Beasts have their own thing going on, and I’m sure it will find an appropriate use over there without needing to fly into other decks.

Mahi, Goat Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | EARTH Beast | ATK 700 / DEF 1500

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
(Quick Effect): You can send 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck to the GY, then destroy this card. You can only use this effect of “Mahi, Goat Rahi” once per turn.
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[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can add 1 Level 3 or lower “Rahi” monster from your Deck to your hand. If this card is banished: You can add 1 of your banished Level 3 or lower “Rahi” monsters that was not banished this turn to your hand. You can only use 1 “Mahi, Goat Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Similarly, the Mahi searching low-Level Rahi (the handtrap Tuners, mainly) doesn’t really make too much sense for a Beast – those barely even have small ones among their ranks, for one thing. So this is another generic search we’ll end up losing in favour of supporting a specific sub-strategy.

Ghekula, Amphibious Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | WATER Aqua | ATK 1550 / DEF 1400

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
During your Main Phase: You can add 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck or GY to your hand, except “Ghekula, Amphibious Rahi”, and if you do, take damage equal to its original ATK. You can only use this effect of “Ghekula, Amphibious Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
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[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
●Once per turn, if you take effect damage: Gain LP equal to the damage you took, and if you do, inflict the same amount of damage to your opponent.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Ghekula is a weird one that only searches because I couldn’t think of anything else useful to include in its Pendulum Effect, where the main point is actually dealing damage to yourself. Once again, it’s Aqua, those aren’t supposed to be generic, and thus there is no need to consider it here any further.

Takea, Shark Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | WATER Fish | ATK 1800 / DEF 900

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
At the start of the Damage Step, if a “Rahi” monster you control battles: You can double any battle damage your opponent takes from that battle. You can only use this effect of “Takea, Shark Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
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[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
●If this card inflicts battle damage to your opponent: Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster from your Deck with ATK less than or equal to half the damage inflicted, but it cannot attack this turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Similar things can be said about the Takea, which summons from Deck in the weirdest, most roundabout way possible. Will definitely end up changed into something that meshes with its Fishy friends better.

So, final tally, it looks like we’ll just have three cards – a Spell, a Dragon, and an Insect – that can be used to add search power to any and all Rahi decks. Should be enough since there can always be Type-specific consistency cards to further boost it where needed; we just have to make sure these three slots are used effectively without huge redundancy. For example, if Rahi Swarm takes care of searching monsters, maybe the other two could be variants of Spell/Trap searchers. We don’t have those at all right now, and it kind of makes sense they’d be generic when the backrow is too.

Revival

Oh look, it’s Rahi Swarm again.

Rahi Swarm

Spell

If your opponent controls a monster and you control no monsters: Add 2 “Rahi” monsters with the same Type, but different names, from your Deck to your hand. For the rest of this turn, your opponent takes no damage. You can banish this card from your GY; Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY, but it cannot attack, also it is destroyed during the End Phase. You can only use 1 “Rahi Swarm” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The GY effect on this card is indeed a revive, so it fits two of the categories we’re looking for here. That’s perhaps not a bad approach to take generally, since it will help us keep the package of reusable utility small and in turn leave more room for each deck’s own gimmick. One thing I would change about this is making the revival also dependent on matching Types somehow, to keep that theme consistent.

Husi, Ostrich Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | EARTH Winged Beast | ATK 1700 / DEF 1100

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
If a card in your Pendulum Zone is destroyed: You can Special Summon 1 face-up Level 4 or lower “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck. You can only use this effect of “Husi, Ostrich Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
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[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
●If this card is destroyed by a card effect and sent to the GY: Target 1 “Rahi” monster in your GY with a lower Level than this card; Special Summon it.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Husi has revival locked behind a floating effect granted to a Synchro Monster, so even if it wasn’t mostly disqualified by virtue of its Type, using that probably wouldn’t be realistic.

Ussal, Crab Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | EARTH Beast | ATK 1000 / DEF 1000

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
Once per turn: You can reduce the Pendulum Scale of the card in your other Pendulum Zone by 1 until the End Phase; this turn, while this card is in your Pendulum Zone, you can also Pendulum Summon “Rahi” Pendulum Monsters from your GY, but monsters Summoned this way are destroyed during the End Phase.
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[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower EARTH monster from your GY, except this card. If this card is banished: You can Special Summon 1 Level 3 or lower “Rahi” monster from your GY. You can only use 1 “Ussal, Crab Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Ussal lets us revive stuff in the fanciest way possible, by rewriting the rules and Pendulum Summoning from the GY. I kind of want to keep that just for the novelty, but it may be refined with a Beast(-ish) lock and more Synchro focus. There’s also a second avenue of revival in the monster effect for EARTH monsters specifically, which kind of bleeds into other Type decks at random points, but this effect, as well as its counterparts for other Attributes, will require careful planning of their interaction with all kinds of decks anyway.

The Makuta

Ritual Effect MonsterLevel 2 | DARK Fiend | ATK 1500 / DEF 1500

You can Ritual Summon this card with “I am Nothing”. Must be Ritual Summoned, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. If this card is Ritual Summoned: Return all Special Summoned Level/Rank 5 or higher monsters on the field to the hand. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster from your hand, Deck, or GY whose Level is less than or equal to the number of monsters in your GY. You can only use this effect of “The Makuta” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

And finally, we should at least mention The Makuta one time. The overlord of the infected Rahi can get any of them to the field from almost anywhere, but I don’t really see that as Rahi support. Instead, you’re meant to use it to easily access Rahi in a deck focused around Makuta, which is something that will have to be worked out in lockstep with the Rahi update as a whole.

Synchro Support

Okay, what does that even mean? There isn’t really a specific phrase I can search to filter the cards that apply, so I guess the play is going through the potential categories of universal support and finding the stuff that interacts with Synchros. For what it’s worth, though, I can already say that none of the currently implemented cards explicitly mention “Rahi” Synchro Monsters.

Siege of the Rahi

Continuous Spell

Once per turn, when your opponent Normal or Special Summons a Level 4 or lower monster(s): You can change 1 of those monsters to face-down Defense Position. During your End Phase, if you do not control a Level 5 or higher “Rahi” monster: Destroy this card. If a Level 5 or higher “Rahi” monster you control would be destroyed, you can banish this card from your GY instead.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Of the Spells/Traps, the one that gets closest is Siege of the Rahi, which acts as disruption if you control a high-Level Rahi, and as protection for that same group. That does include a lot of Synchros, but not all Synchros are high-Level and not all high Levels are Synchros, so it’s only tangentially relevant.

Since Synchro Summoning is a pretty monster-centric process, I’m not sure backrow can meaningfully contribute to that anyway, outside of general stuff that gets you more monsters. An alternative way they could take advantage of Synchros being used by all Types is gaining additional or stronger effects while you control a Synchro Monster. Something like Devastation of the Rahi may get to blow up additional cards in that case, for example.

One thing that more directly helps us with Synchro plays is, of course, Tuners. As those tend to be at low Levels, Insects may be of some assistance.

Fikou, Spider Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 1 | EARTH Insect | ATK 600 / DEF 400

You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 Level 3 or higher “Rahi” monster you control; reduce that target’s Level by 1, then Special Summon 1 “Fikou, Spider Rahi” from your hand or Deck. You can only use this effect of “Fikou, Spider Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

If the Normal Pendulums were the first prototype of Type-specific Rahi support, then the Fikou was the original Type-independent support card to go with them. It’s purpose is simply to duplicate itself next to a high-Level Rahi to enable a Synchro play, which is kind of the key thing we’re going to need for all the different Synchro-based strategies: An easily Special Summonable Tuner.

The rest of the little bug dudes – the Hoto , Electric/Lightning Bug , and Cliff Bug -do not currently satisfy this requirement, instead acting as handtraps with no inherent way to get them on the field for Synchro plays. That leaves the Fikou in an unfortunately load-bearing position, and has just now started bothering me aesthetically because all of these monsters even have different Attributes! They’re missing DARK and WIND, but the powers afforded to me by The Spreadsheet let me know those slots can be filled later with something like Niazesk and Protodites, so really these guys are just asking to be grouped together. Will probably redesign them all so they can get themselves on the field for some Tuning, maybe with a small hint of their original disruptive effects, and possibly change them to Level 1 as well.

If you have your Tuners and non-Tuners assembled, you’re ready to perform a Synchro Summon … if the stars align. Swarming the field won’t help you if you can’t get the right sum of Levels, so ways to modulate those also fall under the category of Synchro support. We’ve already seen the Fikou do it as a drawback that could be cleverly worked into a combo, but there is another card that gives you this ability with much more freedom.

Dikapi, Ostrich Rahi

Synchro Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 5 | EARTH Winged Beast | ATK 1000 / DEF 1650

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
When this card is Synchro Summoned: You can choose a number from 1 to 4; reduce this card’s Level by that number, then take damage equal to that number x 300. When using this Synchro Summoned card as a Synchro Material, you can use 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster in your Extra Deck (and no other monsters) as the other Synchro Material.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Dikapi is not only a Synchro Tuner, but can also lower its Level to whatever you need to make the numbers work out. As a Winged Beast, it couldn’t be in a better place to provide that kind of help to its native deck, but meant to be splashable in other Types it is not. As it is right now, I wouldn’t build a Rahi deck without using this, so to keep things orderly it will need some restrictions added.

Where, then, are we to get our Level modulation? Well, for one thing we could simply make sure the Levels on the Synchros and their materials natively line up so that isn’t necessary, just like plenty of archetypes have managed already. But with how much variation there is in Rahi sizes, it might not end up feeling right to strictly tie the best size indicator we have to gameplay maths, so I’d like a plan B just in case. And the most suitable choice for that are probably the Insect Tuners, since you’ll need them for Synchro plays anyway, and the Fikou already changes Levels anyway. My second preference would be the Spells/Traps, where you can cheaply include a bonus Level change as a GY effect or something.

Graveyard/Banishment Support

This last one is actually really important to have freely available with minimal investment, so as to enable smooth operation of the schizoid design choice that is “Pendulum Monsters with GY effects”. In an age where regular monsters can access their postmortem shenanigans simply by becoming Link Material, we can’t afford to jump through any major hoops just to trigger the ones we have on our Pendulums. That means effects, or even better costs, that send from hand/Deck/Extra Deck need to be nearly as accessible as basic game mechanics.

Kirikori-Nui, Locust Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 3 | WIND Insect | ATK 1400 / DEF 1000

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
When this card is Synchro Summoned: You can send 1 “Rahi” monster from your Deck to the GY; this card gains 500 ATK. You can banish this card until the End Phase of your next turn; destroy 1 card on the field. You can only use this effect of “Kirikori-Nui, Locust Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Kirikori-Nui offers such functionality from the Insect side, sending straight from Deck to GY as cost. You just need to pull of a Level 3 Synchro Summon, which is going to be a bit tricky without the Level modulation covered in the previous section. As of right now, this is meant to be made by using the Fikou on one of the Level 3 Rahi, which are the ones concentrating all the GY/banish effects. Maybe with a softening of those established statlines, a legitimate Level 2 non-Tuner may also pop up somewhere.

Daikau, Floral Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | WATER Plant | ATK 1500 / DEF 300

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
You can send 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck to the GY; all monsters your opponent currently controls lose ATK equal to that monster’s ATK, until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Daikau, Floral Rahi” once per turn.
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[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WATER monster from your GY, except this card. If this card is banished: You can discard 1 “Rahi” card, then target 1 monster with 2000 or less ATK on the field; destroy it. You can only use 1 “Daikau, Floral Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Daikau’s Pendulum Effect is a Main Deck example of milling a Rahi for cost, though with the drawback that the associated effect requires your opponent to have a monster first. Its misfit Type of Plant looks like something we’re looking for at first glance, but keep in mind that this is an actual plant and not technically a Rahi – which makes its future inclusion in the archetype dubious. As of right now, I would not count on having this available in this form after the update.

Moa, Bird Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 1300 / DEF 600

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
You can banish 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck; this card’s Pendulum Scale becomes the same as that monster’s, and if it does, destroy this card during the End Phase. You can only use this effect of “Moa, Bird Rahi” once per turn.
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[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can shuffle 1 of your banished “Rahi” cards into the deck. If this card is banished: You can Special Summon 1 Level 3 or lower “Rahi” monster from your hand. You can only use 1 “Moa, Bird Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

And the Moa is the counterpart to those two for banishing, while requiring nothing but itself on the field to be usable. Unfortunately, it’s a Winged Beast, so we don’t actually want it to be overly generic. That said, I believe birds having a bit of a native banishing focus is an idea that has come up before, so this effect might be worth keeping with some anti-splash restriction.

A brief mention goes to various Beasts that help us bin or banish stuff, but in ways that aren’t really good enough to be worth keeping. The Mahi sends from Extra Deck to GY as its entire Pendulum Effect, the Brakas lets you banish for free if you happen to draw a Rahi while it’s scaled, and the Vako gives you a draw you can discard (thus putting it in the GY) for a stat boost.

Hoto, Firebug Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | FIRE Insect | ATK 600 / DEF 300

(Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your hand or field and 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY, then target 1 Spell/Trap your opponent controls; banish that target. Your opponent cannot activate the targeted card in response to this effect’s activation. You can only use this effect of “Hoto, Firebug Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

More interesting are the Level 2 handtrap Tuners, many of them Insects. The banishing costs on these were initially meant to be how you get the banish triggers, but that idea was always weak on account of requiring Pendulums in the GY first. I don’t see anything wrong with a simple fix of letting you also banish from the face-up Extra Deck, so that’s likely to happen for their update – maybe combined with a way to more easily get them on field as Tuners.

Finally, a stealthy one.

Dikapi, Ostrich Rahi

Synchro Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 5 | EARTH Winged Beast | ATK 1000 / DEF 1650

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
When this card is Synchro Summoned: You can choose a number from 1 to 4; reduce this card’s Level by that number, then take damage equal to that number x 300. When using this Synchro Summoned card as a Synchro Material, you can use 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster in your Extra Deck (and no other monsters) as the other Synchro Material.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Dikapi’s additional ability to use Pendulums in the Extra Deck as Synchro Material does cause them to go to the GY by game mechanics, making it the closest equivalent we have to “just linking them off”. As noted previously, this is supposed to be a card exclusive to the Beast strategy, which has two key implications for me. One, there will have to be some (Winged) Beast Rahi that do stuff in the GY to take advantage of this, and two, I might need to come up with a generic equivalent if this really does turn out to be the absolute best Extra->GY mechanism.

One plan I can reveal in that direction already is that the Rahi Nui, big multi-Type Contact Fusion monstrosity that it is, will also come with a kind of Fusion Spell, and that one will allow using materials from hand, field, and/or face-up Extra Deck. So at least there’s going to be an option that can theoretically work in any deck, if it’s willing to run Rahi Nui stuff.

Conclusion

In summary, the following areas in need of generic support have the following cards that can potentially fill that role right out of the gate:

• Searching: The Rahi Swarm Spell, the Dragon-Type Hikaki, and the Insect-Type Kofo-Jaga; matching Types may be relevant for monster searches, and a way to search Spells and Traps would certainly be helpful.
• Revival: Rahi Swarm again … but nothing else currently, outside the Synchro Spam of the Beast strategy. Maybe we should provide something in the Extra Deck, but whether that’s generic or not and whether that’s part of the initial wave or not is still up in the air. Pendulums do kind of have this built in anyway, but then we send ours to GY and banishment, not to mention the Tuners tend not to be Pendulums at all …
• Synchro Support: A way to universally ensure access to Synchro Monsters is implementing various small Insect Rahi as Tuners that can Special Summon themselves. A way to take advantage of having those Synchros everywhere is letting generic Spells/Traps access bonus effects in the presence of Synchro Monsters. Level Modulation is something we might need, but do not currently have a solid home for – may be the Insects as well.
• GY/Banishment Support: Methods exist to get Pendulums where we want them in the form of costs, several on them even on cards that are appropriate to be made generic. However, like with the searchers, a way to do this with Spells and Traps is absent and should be added.

Overall, I think it’s best to limit the use of generic Main Deck monsters to key engine-driving features like searching and tuning, as otherwise it will be hard to justify including them despite mismatched Types. Everything more involved should be either Extra Deck monsters, which are easier to fit (but do need to be designed around when it comes to Type locks and such), and Spells/Traps that can trivially go anywhere. There are a few already existing backrow cards like Infection of the Rahi that have not been mentioned here yet because they do absolutely nothing relevant, so certainly those could be reworked to do stuff we’re missing. Not to mention that new ones can be made at any time if I can just find some Rahi-related object/place/event/concept to base it on. A lot easier than monsters.

More precise design decisions will have to wait until the update is further along, because the really challenging part is going to be simultaneously streamlining these generic cards in each and every one of the different strategies. One can only hope that 10 full articles of yapping about Rahi have sufficiently prepared me for this task.

Boo! Bet you didn’t expect another one of these! What, you obviously did because there are several unaddressed items left in the overview? Shut up and pretend otherwise for the sake of my joke, because this is the Ambush Predator article.

Much like an ambush, this should be relatively quick since it’s such a small group, but let’s see what there is to cover.

See also:

• The Rahi Spreadsheet – The data all of this is based on
• The Shapes and Sizes of Rahi – Overview of all Rahi groupings

Concept

The reason I’m specifically highlighting this one as a “behavioral grouping” in addition to those that go by card properties is that it appears prominently in the traits of a few different Rahi, and translates fairly nicely to card game mechanics. So naturally, it would be nice to have a somewhat consistent way of representing ambush predation, though we may need to differentiate based on the broader deck types each Rahi is meant to play a role in. Today’s goal is getting a handle on exactly that.

The Rahi Who Predate Ambushingly

An early and already implemented example of an Ambush Predator is the Tarakava, as evidenced by its flavor text.

Tarakava, Lizard Rahi

Normal Pendulum MonsterLevel 6 | Scale 3/3 | WATER Reptile | ATK 2600 / DEF 1200

Pendulum Scale = 3
[ Pendulum Effect ]
While you have a Level 6 Reptile “Rahi” Pendulum Monster Card in your other Pendulum Zone, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated in response to the Pendulum Summon of a “Rahi” monster. When an opponent’s monster declares a direct attack: You can destroy this card, and if you do, Special Summon 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck.
—————————————-
[ Flavor Text ]
The first thing to remember about Tarakava is that even if you can’t see them, they are always there.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

What’s relevant here is the Pendulum Effect that Special Summons in response to an attack, “ambushing” the opponent with a monster they couldn’t see – but it was always there. Never mind that they could technically see it in the Pendulum Zone, we can’t exactly give a Normal Monster a hand effect.

This effect implements the idea of a sudden Tarakava attack, but also somewhat ties into the broader planned Reptile Rahi playstyle that’s supposed to be all about moving monsters back and forth between Monster and Pendulum Zones (and a future overhaul would probably align with that even more closely). A Beast-Type employing the same hunting tactic, by comparison, may have received a version of the effect that doesn’t mess around with Pendulum Zones in the same way.

We should probably consider a quick statistical rundown of the remaining Ambush Predators, which I have marked as candidates for the “Flip” subtype in the spreadsheet. These make up a modest total of 5 Rahi, consisting of 2 Insects, 1 Reptile, 1 Beast and 1 Winged Beast.

On the Insect side, the general plan calls for making them weird and toolboxy, with the option of integrating them with other Rahi Types or the established Insect pile. The latter has its own prominent ambush predator in Infinite Antlion, popping out of the hand and then popping the opponent’s cards during battle. We could use this as reference, however we must keep in mind there’s a significant difference between this Level 3 and the substantially larger 5- and 6-star Rahi noted down as ambushing Insects.

One is the Chute Lurker, a Visorak combiner that could also be Aqua because it’s amphibious and could also get away with being a Level 4, but my instinct from just looking at it leans more towards a high-level Insect. Its ambushes take the form of grabbing prey that comes flying around curves in the Le-Metru Chute System, so the exact implementation of its effects will hinge on how we end up representing that stuff. In any case, the Flip idea where it would be triggered by the opponent attacking it sounds much too slow for such a speedy context, so more likely it’d be something from the hand again. Maybe related to some measure of speed like when your opponent is drawing/summoning/activating too much stuff in a short period of time.

By comparison, the Tunnel Stalker’s wait-and-lurk approach to hunting would actually go well with it sitting face-down, “under the sand”, and assaulting whatever dares walk over it. The tricky part is also providing enough general utility to be worth playing when your chances to get off the battle effect as planned aren’t exactly going to be high, but I imagine we could just have it offer a weaker version of its gimmick from hand and/or GY as a less high-roll alternative.

There’s actually a third maybe-Insect, which also happens to be our first probably-Beast. You see, typing tends to be a bit uncertain on shapeshifters like the Archives Beast, so my two main options are to go with what’s mentioned in the name or the kind of animal most known for mimicry. Either way, the unique method of ambush by shapeshifting means we’re probably combining the element of surprise with one of copying properties of other cards – maybe more than just monsters, given that its part in the story had it posing as a room. As an Insect, this would probably be implemented in a fairly simple and straightforward manner to work as a standalone tool, while as a Beast, I could see it being more of a inherited effect in the same vein as the current Level 4 Pendulums, aiding that Type’s goal of climbing into big Synchro bosses. And if it’s instead a Reptile – could be – then it might do something like destroying a Spell/Trap to take its zone and then assault monsters from there.

As a sister Type to Beasts, the Winged Beast representative Vahki Hunter would likely be worked into the same Synchro climb strategy, but might up being itself one of the mid-tier bosses since it’s pretty damn big. As previously noted, its diet of mostly machinery should manifest in some kind of bonus against Machines, but the broader effect representation of its ambushing tactics should be generically usable to have any relevance. It attacks the tail end of passing Vahki squads, so maybe something “at the end of the Battle Phase”, to somewhat keep with the beatdown theme?

And finally, the Swamp Stalker is a Reptile that hunts much like a crocodile … which is just the Tarakava all over again. Except this one doesn’t punch and is smaller, even more so when it’s not a mutant specimen. I struggle to think of anything super original it could do while aligning with the scale manipulation gimmick, so maybe the Reptiles just need to cook a bit more before we settle on something here. It’s from Karda Nui, so there’s ample time.

Conclusion

I definitely don’t get the impression that my very first idea of making the Ambush Predators a cohesive Flip-based strategy has any chance of panning out at all. The different types they span simply have too widely varying needs and gimmicks, and mechanics based on ambushing aren’t a strong enough focus to easily work as a completely standalone thing with so few members.

Instead, what’s probably going to happen is that they all end up as unrelated pieces of their own native strategies, offering different takes on ambush-based effects depending on what most helps the decks they’re supposed to go in.

But maybe, just as a little gag, we could set things up so eventually a support card can be made that works for specifically those scattered Rahi? Like by making them all Flip monsters after all (that don’t necessarily rely on flipping), or using a common statline, or have an effect pattern that could be referenced by a “that has an effect that …” clause. We’ll see, not like it matters too much.

A little addendum to the Rahi Type groupings that were recently completed, because for some reason I neglected to go over generic support cards that already exist for each Type – even though those should play a major role in any design decision, whether you want to ensure synergy or deliberately conflict for balancing reasons.

We’ll go over this for each of the major Types that contain a lot of Rahi, which means this article can also double as a collected recap of the results previously reached for each of them. The minor Types that only contain a few Rahi can be disregarded since they either don’t cover enough cards to matter much, or they have a very specific playstyle that will have to be engineered from scratch once we get there anyway.

Beast

Main Article

Playstyle: Beatdown with big Synchro bosses

One option that immediately comes to mind is Tri-Brigade, a Link-spamming engine of the three Types Beast, Beast-Warrior, and Winged Beast. Now this is already kind of at odds with the concept of the Beast Rahi as an aggressive Synchro spam that should eventually end on the massive Tahtorak, but perhaps a free Link monster somewhere could be a useful bonus. The Tri-Brigades do not technically lock us out of any Synchro plays, for what it’s worth.

In fact, their proper Beast member Kerass does something that lines up pretty well with how Rahi currently function: It discards a monster from hand to Special Summon itself, which is one of the ways to trigger the GY effects on our Pendulum Rahi. And the effect to cheat out a Link that all Tri-Brigades share has a cost to banish, so that’s the trigger for the other standard Rahi effect right there.

Another classic support card is Obedience Schooled, a mass Special Summon of Level 2 or lower Beasts from the Deck. The low Level cutoff, effect negation, and strict Beast lock prevent the card from working too well in most recent Decks that use Beasts, and similar issues apply to Rahi – for one thing, the Beast Rahi start at Level 3 currently, and by current design patterns, all Level 2s would be Tuners anyway. Though if that last point were to change, this card would be easy Synchro access up to Level 6 …

Still not as easy as Cattle Call, however, because that just trades any Beast for a Beast Synchro of any Level, or another Extra Deck monster of the same Type. It’s not allowed to do anything, of course, but being easy fodder for an Accel Synchro might already be enough value by itself if you’re trying to do a Tahtorak combo. That said, there’s one thing to be careful about: This card sends from field to GY as cost, which means it straight up doesn’t work with Pendulums. That might be an issue.

What doesn’t fall into this trap is Tributing, which brings us to Cocatorium. Of course, the real point of this one would be the effect that banishes from your Deck as cost, providing pretty much the best way to trigger those on-banish effects. Sure, it’s technically a Winged Beast, but not after it resolves the effect. And we might join those Types together a bit anyway, considering the whole Tri-Brigade shtick.

Other options like Melffys and the Mystical Beasts suffer from the same Level 2 or lower issue we saw on Obedience Schooled, so they probably won’t be usable.

Aqua/Fish/Sea Serpent

Main Article

Playstyle: Board control via removal effects

Looking at the Types mixed together here and the strategy they’re supposed to be following, the first and foremost thing to come to mind is the non-archetypal series of cards colloquially known as “Generation Fish“. After all, it consists of small Level 3 Aqua, Fish, and Sea Serpent monsters that use their effects to remove stuff from the field and gradually inflict damage, with the added element of banishing themselves … a thing that Rahi very much also do.

Numerous support cards such as the beautifully named Counter Trap Oh F!sh! or Fish and Kicks further reinforce the idea that getting banished is what you’re supposed to do under the seas, so going into that direction almost seems to be the only reasonable choice. Of course, most of these cards are pretty old, so they might not be useful directly, but the general design pattern continues to be used to this day – just look at Minairuka, a card from <the current year> of 2023.

Also recent and related, though only to the Fish third, is the whole Ghoti archetype. In their case, banishing facilitates Synchro plays, making the connection to another of the general properties Rahi have – in contrast to the Generation Fish, which were more made for Xyz. Now the unfortunate part about these is that they only work with Fish, so mixing them into the deck might run into some conflicts. Maybe the Extra Deck ones would work fine though, that could be interesting to try.

A similar one-Type support card is the iconic Deep Sea Diva, though she should be comparatively easy to integrate since you don’t need a critical mass of Sea Serpents or anything – just one good low-level Sea Serpent Rahi somewhere in the Deck would be enough to get value. Which, looking at the analysis again, is actually not certain to ever exist. But if it does after all, this would be a good way to get to it.

And while we’re on the topic of classic moist monsters already, can’t forget the whole Mermail and Atlantean archetypes, with their members spread across just these three Types. Rather than banishing, these cards like to have WATER monsters sent to the GY, especially from the hand. That, once again, is something Rahi in their current state also enjoy being involved in, so it’s looking more and more like the Aqua/Fish/Sea Serpent segment especially should stick with the focus on those particular mechanics.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that the Mermail and Atlantean gimmick is based on the WATER Attribute rather than any Types, so the synergy might be limited to only a (fairly large) part of the Rahi under consideration here – maybe there will be multiple ways to build decks depending on what support you want to align with.

Insect

Main Article

Playstyle: Broad toolbox that can be mixed with other deck types

Insects are kind of known for having a long history of support that somehow all works together in a big pile (kind of like Dinosaurs), so let’s see if we can make it through all that.

Starting with the gross ones, the “C”s have special synergy with Insect decks, specifically those that fit Contact‘s requirement of EARTH and <1500 ATK. Among the Rahi, our beloved Fikou already falls in that range, and the spreadsheet lists a lot of other tiny EARTH critters that eventually could. But in an environment where the Maxx one is banned, the roaches probably aren’t the most relevant support cards.

Sticking with the Contact-searchable EARTH Insects, there’s also Resonance Insect, a monster with one effect when sent to the GY and another when banished … wait a minute that’s just a Rahi. Maybe the real mid-Level Insect Rahi were the generic support cards Konami made along the way. Gokipole fits too, to some extent, despite our lack of Level 4s in the Rahi archetype proper. Level 5 and up for Resonance has some options though, and the part where it mills an Insect is always going to have its uses.

Another card that can do that, and is often used with the ones mentioned before, is Giant Ballpark. It can send any Level 4 or lower Insect, which covers most of the Rahi that might be relevant, and gets a bonus for Normal Monsters, which unfortunately doesn’t work because our only Normals are Nui-Jaga and Nui-Rama , merely one Level too high. I don’t think it’s worth wasting a slot on a low-Level Normal Insect Rahi just to enable that litte bit of extra swarming.

We’ve already seen that the generic support covers the GY/banish aspect of mid-Level Rahi monsters, but what about the Synchro stuff? Well, there are some good Insect Tuners available as well, such as Dragonbite or Fairyant – once again, a Level 3 and a Level 4, just the area where Insect Rahi are scarce. Given that the generic Tuners are here as well, it might make sense to have some non-Tuners among the various small Insect-Type Rahi monsters.

Speaking of Fairyant, that card is shared support for Insects and Plants, which is actually a pretty common combination. Hell, it even has its own Dragon Ruler in Beargram, who would be pretty fun to use for a Rahi build as well. Plant Rahi were already discussed in the article about the weirdly Typed ones, with the conclusion that there’s at most one of them, so there won’t be a lot happening on that front. Luckily Beargram works even with just Insects.

That more or less covers the generic pile stuff, but we’re far from done yet. Because now, there are still various Insect archetypes, most of which interact and mix with the pile in some way. The shit you have to put up with just to properly design some bugs.

Battlewasps are the main representative of Insect Synchro in the actual game, though I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen anyone in the wild playing them as an archetype. For the most part, their relevance is anchored entirely by the fact that Pin the Bullseye is a free Special Summon that aligns conveniently with time rules at tournaments, so we might be fine ignoring them. Maybe not entirely, since the fact that Rahi also make Synchros (if Insects end up following that) might make these cards fit in better than they usually do.

With some more relevance in the current decade, we have Beetroopers, a well-disciplined army of insects that literally does not even know what a Synchro is. Instead they spam Links and sometimes Fusions, which is of some interest for Rahi purposes since we already said Insects might not actually be a Synchro-based strategy and instead branch out in the Extra Deck a bit. Even without that, there’s interesting things in the Beetrooper Main Deck, be it free summons or the searchable Counter Trap.

And since we’re going through the Extra Deck Types already, Xyz have Digital Bugs. I guess. They’re a Rank 3-7 LIGHT Insect strategy with a gimmick of changing battle positions (also built on by other Insects like Cicada King). Given the general lack of Insect Rahi in those middle Levels, I feel like we wouldn’t be able to make these work even if we did go in an Xyz direction. Plus they specifically need LIGHT Insects, of which we don’t have many in the spreadsheet either.

Finally, a special mention goes to Inzektors for being a DARK Insect archetype, which is a typing we have already strongly considered for Visorak in particular. However, they themselves don’t really interact with the DARK Attribute in any special way, so their gimmick of equipping monsters to each other might be of interest for other Insect builds as well. For example, Picofalena is often used to set up Resonance Insect’s effect, so maybe similar Rahi effects could also benefit – except you can’t get Pendulums to the GY that way …

Overall, I don’t get the feeling there’s going to be much success integrating the existing generic support into such a thing as an Insect Rahi deck. Those engines and combos are already so complete that going out of our way to align with them would more likely just make our Rahi work in service of the standard Insect pile. Now I do want to do something with banishing since that has historically been a Rahi thing and Beargram is too juicy to pass up, but beyond that I’ll probably not go out of my way to connect to anything here.

But also, given the idea of Insect Rahi as a portable toolbox, it’s possible they’ll be given the role of generic shared Rahi support rather than being their own strategy. And in that case, having a second life as part of an unrelated big bug spam deck may prove entertaining.

Reptile

Main Article

Playstyle: Midrange deck with backrow/Pendulum Scale manipulation gimmick

Alright, here’s Snake Rain. The fact that triggering 4 GY effects at once is always just one unsearchable Spell and a discard away is pretty much a key design guideline for all Reptile archetypes. Basically, you want to get some use out of this card without breaking it, so while Reptiles do frequently have GY effects, they’re either not too impactful or apply relatively heavy restrictions to make up for the ease of access. I guess we’ll be sticking to that too, and make sure to make at least 4 names we want in the GY.

Another nice things Reptiles have is an Extra Deck searcher in King of the Feral Imps, and it comes with the added “benefit” of being an Xyz, thus detaching even Pendulums to the GY. Looking through the spreadsheet, the medium Reptiles tend to be Level 4 more than Level 3, so in light of Snake Rain as well, we might break with tradition and make the 4s the ones that want to be dumped in this case. Also, if you add a card to hand you generally want to use it, so there should be Reptile Rahi that do something in hand even after investing in a whole Xyz.

The most recent Reptile archetype I can think of is Ogdoadic, very clearly built with Snake Rain in mind and thus designed around the principles described before. If we also want to follow those principles, it might make sense to mix and match with whatever these guys are supposed to be, but there’s just a teensy little problem: Ogdoadic supports LIGHT and DARK Reptiles. Barely any Reptile Rahi are LIGHT or DARK. Not zero though, so maybe a crossover point can be found.

Reptilianne are a purely DARK Reptile archetype that likes monsters with 0 ATK on both sides of the field, which I suppose could be arranged with all the frogs and slugs and maybe worms on our schedule. The main issue is again the DARK Attribute, but we do actually have some critters that could slide in there, like the Spine Slug or the Night Creeper. Also, Reptiliannes are a Synchro archetype, so maybe their actually quite good modern tuners like Lamia can be put to work.

And for the pure LIGHT Reptile archetype, there’s Worms, with the main point of interest probably being the generic support card W Nebula Meteorite. It flips monsters, draws cards, and then summons a big LIGHT Reptile from Deck. Great.

In fact, the only LIGHT Reptile Rahi we have – Red Serpent and Crystal Serpent – are pretty large, so this could be a good enabler for them if we can just find fodder to flip. Those two are actually key to the whole “scale manipulation” gimmick, so more ways to get to them are certainly nice.

From these archetypes, it has become apparent that having mostly EARTH/WATER/FIRE/WIND Reptiles among the Rahi actually limits our options quite a bit, which is in some way a good thing because it gives us more freedom to make good cards without worrying what they could be combined with. Perhaps a clause like “non-DARK/non-LIGHT Reptile” could even make an appearance somehwere.

One last side note before moving on:

Specifically the Rahi known as Red Serpent spawned the idea of a gimmick where monsters are shoved into backrow and/or Pendulum Zones, and looking back that sure is reminiscient of the Snake-Eyes, an archetype of serpentine FIRE monsters that shove monsters into the backrow. I would just like to document here that a) they’re not actual Reptiles, so not relevant to the topic and b) the original Reptile article was in March and these came out in July in Japan, so Konami actually owes ME royalties.

DO NOT check the release date on Sinful Spoils of Subversion. That is all.

Winged Beast

Main Article

Playstyle: Combination of multiple small, efficient combo lines

The Tri- in Tri-Brigade stands for the three Types it consists of and supports. Given that we’ve already talked about having the few Beast-Warrior Rahi mixed into the Beasts, I’m strongly considering going all the way by including Winged Beast Rahi in that group as well. In that case, Tri-Brigades and other Tri-Typed support would work perfectly. Might really be a good idea to provide a Link of our own in that case too … (there may or may not be something planned for MoL already).

As for dedicated Winged Beast support, we have a very strange one in Floowandereeze. These migrating birbs embrace the spirit of old-school Yu-Gi-Oh by not Special Summoning at all … and then throw it out by Normal Summoning a million times instead. The strict restriction on every effect makes it hard to combine with an archetype that doesn’t follow the same alternative lifestyle, but historically, unrelated high-Level Main Deck Winged Beasts have made good bosses here, so maybe that’s worth keeping in mind?

The Simorgh archetype is also interested in Normal Summoning, but not quite so obsessive about it – they still do a bit of Special Summoning on the side. There are also some weird gimmicks of mixing DARK and WIND and wanting your opponent’s Spell/Trap Zones to be empty, but the main draw is probably that Bird of Perfection is Mathmech Circular if you squint really hard, and it works with all Winged Beasts.

Speaking of empty Spell/Trap Zones, Harpies are pretty good at accomplishing that. They’re not exactly an archetype that can be mixed into stuff easily since they tend to need a lot of each other, but Cyber Slash Harpie Lady is generic for Synchro decks and has a decent bounce effect that can even trigger by activating Pendulum Scales. And she enables Feather Storm from hand, which is funny. Theoretically the synergy could be taken further by having Rahi Spells/Traps/Pendulums that like to be destroyed, but I’m not sure it would pay off.

Continuing the theme of birds with faces, Lyrilusc are a Rank 1 Xyz archetype of Winged Beasts. That means their poopy little Levels don’t exactly lend themselves to Synchro or Pendulum Summoning, but they already swarm like crazy by themselves and their bosses can do some neat stuff like attacking directly 5 times and then making a big Zeus, so this is another thing that could work as an independent engine. However, the lack of Level 1s in the spreadsheet probably means the synergy is very limited.

And then there’s them, of course. The DARK Winged Beasts. Blackwings and Raidraptors. Two unrelated archetypes that both happen to revolve around the same Attribute/Type combination, but one of them is Synchro and the other Xyz, meaning they aren’t generally played together anyway. The question is, can we do anything with Rahi to benefit from the existence of these cards?

Blackwings of course have their fair share of Tuners to contribute if we’re hurting for those, but since Rahi also have a Pendulum side to them, I think good old Zephyros may actually be the most relevant thing. Bouncing scales can be useful for resetting something, and we could be cute and provide effects that trigger off the self-damage, particularly on our DARK Winged Beast Rahi. Currently that’s on an Aqua , funnily enough.

As for Raidraptors, while Xyz Summoning and the whole Rank-Up searching that particular archetype does isn’t really part of the Rahi gameplan, these birds also offer shockingly strong support to the general category of exactly Level 4 DARK Winged Beasts. Which means if we make sure to hit just that Level/Attribute/Type alignment, we can use Force Strix and Wise Strix to get them straight from the Deck – and neither of those locks us out of Synchros!

Overall, I’m not convinced the Winged Beast archetypes are really worth designing around much, with the exception of simply making the DARK ones Level 4 to unlock all that Raidraptor support. The spreadsheet currently has some for Level 3 and Level 5, so we’d only need to take a bit of creative liberty to allow that. And of course, linking (haha) up with the Beast Type for that Tri-Brigade engine is probably a good idea.

Conclusion

I know I JUST repeated this, but my biggest takeaway from this probably is that Beast/Beast-Warrior/Winged Beast should be joined together for the Rahi as well. Other than that, it’s nice to see that there are several specific points of synergy for the GY and banish gimmicks I currently have on Rahi – that’s a good sign for maybe being able to keep that focus intact on at least some Types. And identifying certain statlines that align with existing support, such as low-Level Beasts, high-Level Insects, or Level 4 DARK Winged Beasts, is exactly what I was hoping to get out of a list like this.

Finally, seeing all these cards that have huge potential if played in a Deck that sticks to their respective Type(s) has once again made me feel confirmed in my decision to separate the Rahi out this way. Can’t wait to figure out all the possible builds that might be able to use this stuff. On the other hand, that design goal will be difficult to balance with the wish for a generic support lineup that avoids the pitfall of needing to clone the same utility effects for each Type, so that should be the next thing we look at in this series.

Having pondered in some detail the various monster Types that are found commonly among Rahi, what now remains must be, by process of elimination, only those that are uncommon. Here go the leftovers.

See also:

• The Rahi Spreadsheet – The data all of this is based on
• The Shapes and Sizes of Rahi – Overview of all Rahi groupings

General Stats

The major Types we have covered so far include 152 of the Rahi in the spreadsheet, or 91.56%. The remainder we are about to deal with makes up a mere 28 entries, or 16.87%. Huh? That clearly adds up to more than 100%? Because in many cases, more than one Type is under consideration, and if one of those is common and the other not, the Rahi in question counts for both.

Interestingly, only 2 of those 28 have been implemented so far, so segmenting by “current” and “potential” members probably makes no sense here. Instead, we’ll go Type-by-Type.

Beast-Warriors

In general, most of the rare humanoid Rahi could go in here, however the argument for it is not all that strong when cards like Danger! Bigfoot already show Beasts can perfectly well be humanoid as well.

Speaking of which, the Bigfoot of Bionicle is Keetongu, so that’s a prime example right there. Back in the Beast article, it was noted that his healing abilities suggest a defensive focus that is otherwise not how Beast Rahi operate, so if that difference is at odds with the playstyle more than it supplements it, a class change to Beast-Warrior would be an easy way to circumvent the issue entirely. Having a rare Type would also serve to highlight Keetongu as special, similar to how the story doesn’t really treat him like a Rahi at all. It’s just the idea of having the two Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) in different Types that makes me a bit uneasy about this …

On the other hand, minotaurs and centaurs are pretty consistently Beast-Warrior, and since the Artakha Bull is somehow both, it seems like a perfect fit. They’re even legendary beings much like Keetongu, making it thematic by our own logic as well. There were some ideas of possible Beast synergy back in the other article, but also there’s no rule saying you can’t play a Beast-Warrior in a Beast Rahi deck – maybe that’s not a bad route to go.

The last strong candidate, who may not even get implemented for lack of relevance, is Mutran’s hybrid of Rahi and shadow Matoran – practically a Beast-Warrior by definition. With Keetongu (and maybe the Bull) being LIGHT and this one obviously DARK, that even gives us an opportunity for chaos stuff, but “Chaos Beast-Warriors” isn’t exactly a term that rings a lot of bells.

A less relevant LIGHT-DARK pair consists of the Visorak’s Colony Drones (vaguely humanoid creatures enslaved as cattle against their will; probably just going to be Beast on account of how ordinary the are), and the Dark Hunter Minion (humanoid result of a Rahi experiment; dubious if he’s even to be made part of the archetype, and I’m leaning towards no). Both fairly unlikely to actually end up as Beast-Warrior Rahi.

Conclusion: We are going to have between 0 and 3 monsters in this Type when all is said and done, with the only “relation” being that two of them are kind of mythical and considered highly intelligent. As a result, I could see them serving as a special class of boss monsters in a Beast deck, but in that case I might decide to just make them Beasts after all. Depends on what works in practice.

Dinosaur

We never made it to the actual Dinosaurs of Bota Magna in the Bionicle story, but that means the Type is perfectly free to be used for particulary ancient and/or dino-like Rahi. In fact, a similar design approach was already used for the technically-not-Rahi Gahdok and Cahdok a while ago.

When it comes to true Rahi that are also Dinosaurs, though, none have been implemented as of yet. So what are the candidates? Well, the first pair actually hails from the BPEV expansion that is currently under development.

The Rahi Nui – never officially depicted beyond its Nui-Jaga tail – is a DARK amalgamation of the five main Rahi of 2001 (i.e., the Normal Pendulums), which already provides two good reasons to make it a Dinosaur. One, being a hypothethical mega-combiner of multiple large sets certainly gives it the size one associates with those creatures, and two, it needs a Type distinct from its Insect/Beast/Reptile components to make clear it’s a mashup, not an upgrade of just one of them. The latter point is also important gameplay-wise, since currently it’s planned as a Fusion that inherits the Types of its materials on top of its native Type – obviously using the canon materials should provide maximum effect rather than having one of them be redundant.

In relation to that, the Subterranean Worm is another Dinosaur candidate, for reasons of gameplay more than lore. There is that one bit where Turaga Whenua tells Onua that “This creature has existed on Mata Nui longer than either of us”, but that doesn’t have to mean much with Bionicle’s general weird timeline. No, I mainly want to make this one a Dinosaur because the Rahi Nui should also be getting a contact fusion procedure that requires DARKs, the Subterranean Worm would be a DARK Rahi Synchro (thus always accessible), and so having it be a Dinosaur provides a natural drawback to that convenient method of access since it basically gives you -1 Type on the big guy. I’ll have to test if this pans out, but the idea sounds nice to me.

The other area of high Dinosaur probability are the First Rahi, those primordial sea creatures created directly by the Great Beings in the time before time. I already went over them in the Sea Serpent article and sketched out the idea that they (and their Matoran buddy Mavrah) could be a little self-contained mini-archetype using some kind of “ancient” mechanic design like Ritual Summoning. So aside from the way the Dinosaur Type obviously lines up with their age, it would also serve to make them more isolated from the more modern Rahi species since they wouldn’t share Types with most of them. Even the Rahi Nui overlap would probably be irrelevant if they’re not DARK. However, if Sea Serpent synergy actually ends up fitting them really well, that other option absolutely is still on the table.

And with much lower probability, there’s the Rock Raptor and the Troller mentioned in the spreadsheet – the former because of its name, and the latter because it’s supposedly really big. Neither is a very compelling reason, and with everything else so far clearly painting Dinosaurs as a very rare and unique class of Rahi, we probably shouldn’t pollute the pool. Consider those two rejected.

Conclusion: The BPEV DARK Dinosaur Rahi, Rahi Nui and Subterranean Worm, are pretty much already confirmed since the weird uncommon Type has actual gameplay significance for them. I mean, I could also make them Wyrms or something, but that’s even more random thematically. The non-DARK Dinosaurs that might join them in Metru Nui have yet another totally different playstyle planned for them, so I guess you could say Dinosaur is just what we use for big dudes that are intentionally meant to sit apart from all the broader Rahi Type groupings.

As a side note, being built to work in specific and unusual ways by themselves will also make these monsters harder to incorporate into the general Dino pile of Yugioh, which in turn makes things easier in the design phase because we don’t have to consider all those interactions too much.

Dragon (and Wyrm)

Speaking of piles, D R A G O N S are up next. Here we actually find one of the two currently implemented examples, the Hikaki.

Hikaki, Dragon Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | FIRE Dragon | ATK 1900 / DEF 700

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
When a “Rahi” monster(s) is Special Summoned: You can add 1 “Rahi” Tuner from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Hikaki, Dragon Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
● When a Trap Card is activated (Quick Effect): You can shuffle 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck into the Deck; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

This is explicitly and evidently (look at its cute little wings) some kind of miniature dragon, and also one of the most generically useful Rahi monsters in the current arsenal. The Pendulum Effect searches you a Tuner to go with that Rahi you just Special Summoned, and a Synchro Monster made with this card gets a bonus Trap negation effect. This, of course, is part of the package it forms with the Insect Kofo-Jaga and the Winged Beast Taku – a group that was assembled based on no particular reasoning I can recall. Arguably, the Hikaki is the most interesting out of them all because not being tied to any of the major Types makes it very suitable to be reimagined as a general-purpose shared utility for any kind of Rahi deck, something that will probably be needed to avoid making the same basic effects over and over again. But more about that another time.

Another small dragonic Rahi is the Phase Dragon, a fire-breathing speed freak that avoids crashing into things by becoming intangible. For the latter ability, I also have it under consideration for a Wyrm-Type – because what could be more “Phantom Dragon” than a dragon phasing out of reality? But since that’s the only time Wyrm appears in the spreadsheet, it should probably be a Dragon just so there’s a few other companions in the archetype, unless there’s some unique benefit to be gained out of having exactly 1 Wyrm. In any case, the lore on this one is well positioned to be another generic utility thing, such as a searcher temporarily banishing itself for cost.

The Cable Crawler that was already considered for Beast and Reptile could also be a mid-sized Dragon, because I have no idea what it’s supposed to be and there’s fire coming out of its butt. Probably not though, just the presence of a Rhotuka effect already runs counter to the idea of widely usable Rahi support I’ve been building up in this section so far.

And with that, we’ve reached the actual big legend-class Dragons, such as Kardas. This final boss of 2006 was previously seen in the DARK Rahi article, following the logic that it should match the Attribute of the Fenrakk it mutated from, and as noted there, making it a Synchro would tie in well with all the DARK Dragon support from the approximate direction of Red Dragon Archfiend.

On the other hand, being a mutation rather than a natural Rahi also raises the possibility of a non-Synchro Extra Deck type, and if it was FIRE we could maybe have all the Dragon Rahi with the same Attribute ….

Because this last one sure is FIRE as hell.

The Kanohi Dragon is THE giant dragon of Bionicle lore, once requiring an entire extra-large Toa team including four Toa of Ice to defeat. It also happens to be part of the “Kanohi” archetype, but I’m not sure there’s a way or even a reason to make that relevant, considering in-universe it’s only called that because its scales kind of look like masks.

Both of these could just serve as generic top-end bosses for all kinds of Rahi, slightly less useful than the Type-specific options but still powerful. That way, the dragonic spirit of sharing remains intact even at the largest scale.

Conclusion: Much like that era of Yugioh where every deck had to have a Dragon somewhere, Dragon Rahi are well positioned to provide splashable support to all Rahi regardless of Type, be it through Main Deck utility cards or large Extra Deck boss monsters. My only worry is how they need to be simultaneously strong enough to be worth using everywhere and weak enough to not overshadow the actual stars of each deck, but surely a sweet spot for that can be figured out in testing.

Machine

Yep, there’s a Machine Rahi. Maybe.

The Toa Terrain Crawler is more like a Sea Serpent in its naturally occuring state, but the specific one that appears in the story is so heavily mechanized it probably qualifies for a Type change. And there’s even more weird things going on with it, from being part of a “vehicle Rahi” subtheme already covered in the Sea Serpent article to technically belonging to the “Toa” archetype (well, I guess we can put on the Exo-Toa clause).

Conclusion: It’s just one thing and already belongs to a weird subtheme that doesn’t really need to interact with other Rahi at all, I don’t think it even matters if it’s Machine or not.

Plant

Yep, there’s a Plant Rahi. But not really.

Daikau, Floral Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | WATER Plant | ATK 1500 / DEF 300

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
You can send 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck to the GY; all monsters your opponent currently controls lose ATK equal to that monster’s ATK, until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Daikau, Floral Rahi” once per turn.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WATER monster from your GY, except this card. If this card is banished: You can discard 1 “Rahi” card, then target 1 monster with 2000 or less ATK on the field; destroy it. You can only use 1 “Daikau, Floral Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Daikau has already been implemented as part of the Rahi archetype along with most of its fellow Quest for the Toa enemies, but technically speaking that is not accurate. This isn’t a Makuta-made Rahi, but rather some weird semi-sentient plant thing with no clear lore explanation, born from the Energized Protodermis based disguise function that created the whole island of Mata Nui.

Should it therefore not be archetypal? There’s precedent for that with the Vatuka , a similarly non-Rahi enemy mob from the same game, but instead it belongs to a subtheme of Trap Monsters I have previously called “Elementals“. The Daikau doesn’t go in there either, so it’s in a strange position of its own.

Thematically, I could see this being some form of Trap Monster anyway, what with the whole carnivorous plant chomping whatever walks into it, and perhaps one that works well with Rahi without being part of the archetype. But such a change would need to be coordinated with everything else, since the current effects are clearly built around stuff Rahi currently do, and in particular the GY one is the WATER side of the recurring revival series.

Conclusion: It’s certainly a plant, but its fate is uncertain to the point where we can’t even say yet whether or not it will remain in the Rahi archetype. Either way, it’s once again just one single card and thus won’t have much of an impact.

Psychic

Yep, there’s a Psychic Rahi. Maybe two.

Krahka, antagonist of a cool little novel-only Metru Nui sidequest, would be pretty hard to pin down to a Type on account of being a shapeshifter. But that’s some kind of special power, and on top of that in this case it even includes partially copying the mind when impersonating a sentient being, so Psychic seems about right … or maybe Illusion is the best fit now that it exists?

In any case, given the story role, this would most likely be a standalone boss monster, and the original Type shouldn’t matter too much since changing shape ought to overwrite it with the target’s. Mechanically, I’m pretty settled on this being an Extra Deck monster (because it’s even a combiner) with a standard stat and effect copying ability, so how it interacts with the archetype doesn’t seem all too relevant – you just make it to do all kinds of fancy stuff.

The other candidate is the Kratana, a vision-granting creature that looks like a cross betweene Kraata and Krana – so it could be a Psychic, a Fiend, or a Zombie. I’m most inclined to go with the first option because it actually describes its nature rather than just its looks, but what are the implications of that? It’s certainly not a boss monster like Krahka, so presumably it would have to find its way into a Main Deck as some kind of little guy, and thus it would be off-Type in just about any kind of Rahi deck. Might be fine depending on how much I plan to integrate general-purpose Rahi that can be shared between Types, but otherwise, there’s also the option of having it be something like a low-Level Synchro or a Link-1. Hell, since it just appears one time as a plot device, it might as well be a Spell Card that just does some vision-y thing.

Conclusion: There are possibly multiple monsters here, but still below the critical mass that would allow them to have a dedicated playstyle, and with not enough connection to any other Type to ride along there. These would have to be fairly splashable general-purpose cards, or alternatively niche options that you build a deck around with no regards for Type synergy.

Pyro

The lone Pyro Rahi is really more a representative of the aforementioned Elementals, but since it has been decreed a Rahi by the mighty power of SSGS (i.e., Some Shit Greg Said), we might as well include it. The Fire Entity, I mean.

Being an Elemental in all but technical classification, this will probably go somewhere near the Trap Monster lineup, maybe simply a member of it with a Rahi name so you get a direct link into the archetype. Or a regular Rahi monster that acts as support for the other Elementals.

Conclusion: Yet another standalone that has its synergies cut out for it by lore, and thus doesn’t require much hard thought in advance.

Rock

There are actually quite many, and by that I mean 5, entries in the spreadsheet for the Rock Type. But before you get your hopes up, all but one have it as a secondary option with exactly Beast as the primary. Let’s start with the definite Rock, I guess.

On the island of Xia stands what is simply known as The Mountain, a gigantic Rahi acting as a man-eating landmark of cultural significance. It’s a bit arguable if this is really a Rahi and not some other kind of lifeform that just happens to come from a Makuta lab, but assuming it is, it would be the largest Rahi by a significant margin. So large, in fact, that including it in the usual Level hierarchy for denoting size seems incorrect. Maybe a Link or Xyz would be the way to go.

The other option we should consider for a moment is making it a Field Spell, since it is basically part of the island. That would, however, mean it has neither Type nor Attribute, so Rock Rahi might not exist at all. On the other hand, it gives us an excellent excuse to provide a Rahi Field Spell, though with the varying needs of many Rahi subthemes and how late in the game it would show up, it’s hard to imagine that being very practical. As it stands right now, I much prefer the idea of having it be an Extra Deck monster without a Level. Maybe including different stages of its growth could even result in a whole Link climb strategy in the same vein as Sunavalon?

The question for the shakier candidates then becomes whether or not they could nicely support something like that. Starting from the smallest, we have a Rock Ussal, which should probably be some kind of offensive tool since that’s the main thing contrasting it from the regular variant. Which, by the way, is firmly in the Beast Type, so I don’t feel too good about diverging for this one. Moving on, the Rex Rock Raptor is already somewhat larger and also feels more at home in Beasts since most of its ecosystem interactions are with other Beasts. The potential sole exception would be the even bigger Spiny Stone Ape, but well, if that one’s a Beast as well it still works out. Finally, the Rock Lion, as cool as FIRE Rock sounds, is also too large and boss-like to really go with a Link climb or anything like that just trying to ladder into a big Mountain.

Conclusion: Despite many candidates, I really feel like it would be best to keep this exclusive to The Mountain and put everything else in Beasts. However, the idea of including multiple developmental stages of The Mountain does still open up a way to get a little subtheme out of this Type.

Thunder

Once more an Elemental sneaks into the Rahi archetype, this time with the Avohkah, living bolts of lightning that the Toa Mata exterminated from Karda Nui in the time before time. Not exactly the biggest claim to relevancy, but I always thought these sounded super cool and would very much like to include them. However, with the second Elemental now having revealed itself to be a Rahi, I also find myself seriously questioning if we shouldn’t just include all of them just for consistency’s sake. The Vatuka is the main exception and also the only currently implemented one, and it actually has a confirmed non-Rahi origin related to Energized Protodermis, so things are weird on multiple Levels here. Difficult.

Conclusion: Whether we formally recognize this as a Rahi or not, it’s going to be first and foremost a part of the Elementals and thus a Trap Monster, meaning the Type matters very little, as with previous similar cases.

Zombie

There are exactly three candidates for this Type. One is the Kratana, as previously explained because it’s similar to a Krana; and as previously explained, I’d rather make it Psychic to reflect its actual nature. The other two are the lich-like Cliff Screecher and the questionably canon “Worm“, but since the alternatives of Winged Beast and Insect respectively are such large groupings, they’re probably much better off staying in there and benefiting from the free support. Maybe the Cliff Screecher could turn itself into a Zombie via effect, that seems neat.

Conclusion: Among all the candidates, there is not one for which I actually prefer the Zombie Type over the other options, so I expect it won’t end up being used for any Rahi after all.

?

One Rahi for which I couldn’t find a Type at all, and which actually isn’t even counted in the statistics I wrote at the start, is the Sand Screamer. Look, what am I supposed to do with a creature whose entire gimmick is that nobody knows remotely what it looks like or what it does other than scream in the desert? I guess the combination of being predators and their place of residence makes me think of some kind of desert antlion thing, so Insect may be on the table. Or the move might just be to represent them with a Spell/Trap and dodging the issue of Monster Card properties entirely. If I even consider implementing them, that is – not like they’re relevant to the main plot in any way.

Conclusion: Well we can’t not give it a Type if we make it a monster, so either it gets whatever I feel like or it won’t be a monster. Simple as that.

Overall Conclusion

Well, well, well, looks like some of these actually have a good reason to exist. Here are once again the verdicts in summary:

• Beast-Warrior: Likely yes – for some special cases related to the Beast strategy.
• Dinosaur: Yes – DARK Dinosaur very soon, a few more probably later.
• Dragon: Yes – splashable utility and/or boss monsters.
• Machine: Maybe – only example is too much of a special case to matter.
• Plant: Maybe – it already exists, but might not actually be a Rahi.
• Psychic: Likely yes – Rahi with mental powers, meaining unique effects.
• Pyro: Likely yes – related to Elementals, exact synergy to be determined.
• Rock: Yes – only The Mountain, possibly different stages of its growth.
• Thunder: Likely yes – see Pyro.
• Zombie: No – all possible members are better placed elsewhere.

In general, we can say that these Types are going to be either splashable support for all Rahi decks, slightly weird add-ons to previously defined groups, or standalone strategies of a few monsters united by more than just their Type.

And now that we’ve figured that out, all that’s left to cover are some more ways to group the Rahi we’ve already seen, but this time without taking into account their typing – stay tuned for that. The Rahi Update draws ever closer!