Rift Respite

[Guest BGMCANN0N]

Rift Respite
[Normal Trap]

Banish any number of other cards you control, but return them to the field during your next Standby Phase, also any damage you take until your next turn is halved. If your opponent activates a card or card effect that would destroy, shuffle, or banish 2 or more cards on the field, you can activate this card from your hand.

[The Nyx Avatar]

Not sure if the hand activation helps at all. But on the off chance that your opponent uses Raigeki, some other form of mass removal, or just getting rid of a vital piece of your setup, it's an interesting way to respond. And there's that halving of damage, so you're not entirely in trouble. Plus, if you banish everything temporarily, you can get away with stuff like Gorz or the Gyakuteno Megami retrain.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

(Except the Gyakutenno retrain is still bad because you can't have a hand for it to trigger; Gorz is a maybe.)

 

As a whole, it's useful enough to banish stuff before opponent can target it for an effect (*cough* most removal nowadays), or yeah, sweep destruction (Scarlight, Raigeki, Gandora, etc). In the case of ED monsters, guess you can also remove them temporarily so they return to the Main Monster Zone under MR4 (which also includes monsters with side Link Arrows). The hand trap condition is fine for the most part, though nowadays, the triggers for it are generally limited (either you have other problems with them, or a handful are banned like the Jars, CED, etc).

 

Also doesn't hurt to not have this getting sniped via backrow or the like though. Same with halved battle damage (well, except if the opponent can still OTK regardless if you don't have enough to survive otherwise, but that's a rare case).