Only One Rampengu?

Players hate change. This was highlighted by the divided reaction from our community when Sebastian Crawford revealed that he was only playing a single copy of Spiritual Beast Rampengu in his top 16 deck profile. Obviously this was no fluke as Crawford has been successfully playing Ritual Beast since release. So, what was his reasoning? In short -- The card does not do any thing on its own. Unlike Spiritual Beast Cannahawk who actually adds a card to hand after your second Standby Phase, Spiritual Beast Rampengu only gives you the illusion of having resources. By placing the card at one Crawford is not saying that the card is bad, he's just acknowledging its inherent reliance on other cards.

While not as extreme as Crawford, I have been playing Spiritual Beast Rampengu as a two of for the last year or so. Though I understand its value is deprived from external factors, I can not justify placing it at one. This discrepancy could stem from conflicting play-styles as I have always leaned towards slower variants of the deck. The slower nature of my play-style allows me to favor cards that do not yield instant results. Spiritual Beast Rampengus' ability to set up my graveyard for Ritual Beast Ambush paired with my ability to protect him with power traps has earned it a spot in my deck at two.

Does this mean you should never play three Spiritual Beast Rampengu? Well, yes and no. In a standard build I would recommend you stray away from three; however, in the Zefra and field spell build it gets iffy. Both of these builds play a very risky style of play which requires them to either combo off turn one or typically lose. This makes it very difficult to give a blanket answer -- Spiritual Beast Rampengu is the second best Spiritual Beast behind Spiritual Beast Cannahawk. So, if your build requires you to have a Spiritual Beast in your opening hand I would recommend maxing out on the two best ones.

-Caleb Webb