The Masked Beast
Dark, Level 8, [Fiend/Ritual]
ATK: 3200, DEF: 1800
DL2-001, Super Rare

"This monster can only be Ritual Summoned with the Ritual Spell Card, 'Curse of the Masked Beast'. You must also offer monsters whose total Level Stars equal 8 or more as a Tribute from the field or your hand."

I've heard it said that if you're going to run Ritual monsters, the two to run are Relinquished and The Masked Beast -- the first for the awesome effect, and the second because it's the most powerful Ritual monster in the current US metagame. I happen to think he's pretty cool, so I picked up a copy for a good price.

I won't deny that Ritual is slow, but there IS a lot of support for it. Even if you don't have Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands, which I now do, there's Senju and Sonic Bird (the latter of which comes in both the Pegasus and Yugi Evolution starter decks, so everyone should have it). For Relinquished you can also exploit Witch and Sangan, but unfortunately that doesn't work here. Ritual monsters are big, cool, and they tend to scare up the less experienced players (see my High-Defense Relinquished deck review for more on that). That, in a nutshell, is why I like them.

A lot of people will tell you this card promotes bad hand management. I suppose that's possible, but if you put him in a deck as tech and not as what you absolutely rely on to win a duel, you can compensate for his weight. And after all, it only takes 2 level 4 monsters to get him onto the field, and they can come from any combination of the field and your hand. This is arguably better than a level 7 tribute monster, except you need to play a spell card to get him out. Granted, in the tournament scene that would be an unacceptable liability, but in casual play, I've never yet had a Ritual magic card negated. I kinda wonder if a lot of amateur players even think to play their negation against a Ritual -- they seem too worried about the big monster that's coming out ^_^

Anyways, I'll give this card a fair 5.8/10. He has great stats, but no effect to back up his thunder, leaving the work to the rest of your deck. Great as a "you have no idea what you're up against" card in casual play, and that's it I think.