Deck Profile: Lightsworn Rulers

I made a few changes to my Lightsworn Ruler deck, here’s my updated build.

Because the deck isn’t really Lightsworn Rulers anymore, it probably would best be called Lightsworn Shaddoll Chaos Rulers, but that’s really a mouthful.

So, I still use Lightsworns, but it’s gone through a lot to get to this completely wonky build I’m running now. As with any deck, it must change and adapt to the current meta to thrive, Lightsworns being no different. The main change is the addition of Shaddoll Fusions and the refining of the Extra Deck.

Monsters: (32)

• 1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
• 2 Judgment Dragon
• 1 Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos
• 1 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms
• 1 Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
• 2 Lightpulsar Dragon
• 3 Darkflare Dragon
• 1 Shaddoll Beast
• 1 Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
• 3 Shaddoll Dragon
• 3 Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn
• 2 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
• 2 Eclipse Wyvern
• 1 Felis, Lightsworn Archer
• 1 Debris Dragon
• 3 Mathematician
• 2 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
• 2 Card Trooper

Spells: (8)

• 3 Solar Recharge
• 2 Shaddoll Fusion
• 1 Soul Charge
• 1 Foolish Burial
• 1 Charge of the Light Brigade

Extra Deck: (15)

Fusions: (6)

• 1 El Shaddoll Shekhinaga
• 3 El Shaddoll Construct
• 1 El Shaddoll Grysta
• 1 El Shaddoll Winda

Synchros: (4)

• 1 Star Eater
• 1 Scrap Dragon
• 1 Michael, the Arch-Lightsworn
• 1 Black Rose Dragon

XYZs: (5)

• 1 Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack
• 1 Number 11: Big Eye
• 1 Castel the Skyblaster Musketeer
• 1 Lavalval Chain
• 1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

Side Deck: (15)

• 2 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
• 1 Shaddoll Beast
• 2 Shaddoll Squamata
• 1 Shaddoll Hedgehog
• 1 Shaddoll Falco
• 2 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
• 1 Shaddoll Fusion
• 3 Mystical Space Typhoon
• 2 Breakthrough Skill

The Addition of Shaddoll Fusion:

Probably the main addition to the deck is Shaddoll Fusion, and it acts as a function with two purposes for the deck. First, it massively punishes the use of the Extra Deck and give me a nice leg up in the Burning Abyss match-up. If the opponent goes into their Extra Deck you can fusion summon a Construct using a Dragon and an Eclipse Wyvern or Wulf, Lightsworn Beast as material and then Construct sends Beast to draw 1. In that instance it acts as an MST to pop with Dragon and a hug bait for cards like Bottomless and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, which Lightsworn really dread. This makes way for the more important Lightsworn or Judgment Dragon plays. Also, when going from the deck you can send Blaster or Redox to make their elemental fusion counterpart in the El Shaddoll line-up. Grysta specifically is nice because he’s Level 7, meaning you can make a quick Rank 7 XYZ play using him, and when detached he’l add back the Shaddoll Fusion and also provide future fodder to summon Blaster.

Shaddoll Fusion also acts a hand fixer of sorts. Many bad hands have too many normal summons in them and you can fusion away the monsters and accelerate the rate at which you get Lightsworn names into the graveyard and setup plays. This acts similarly to a Lightpulsar in the graveyard  except it’s from the hand and will activate Shaddoll Dragon’s effect, and it also summons a more menacing monster.

The main focus of the card though is speed. You may have noticed that Shaddoll Fusion replaced the copies of Needlebug Nest I was previously running. The reason being is that going second and setting Needlebug Nest was way too slow. I needed Spells that I could play immediately on my turn to combat the big 3 decks, or risk getting OTK’d on their next turn. While I miss Needlebug Nest, the necessary change was made to make the deck faster.

How I Play the Deck:

Basically, I just try to OTK as fast as possible. When going second, it’s not completely uncommon for this deck to OTK then and there on its first turn. It’s a much more aggressive play style than I previously used with the deck, but honestly the meta calls for it. Against both Shaddolls and Qliphorts you’re going to want to OTK as fast as possible. Against Burning Abyss the game will probably grind on a bit longer, but you still want to OTK.

Side Deck:

You want to side deck as little as possible when going into game 2 and 3 because changing the ratios for the deck massively alters how the deck performs. The side deck is divided into definitive sections for different styles the opponent may be using or specific cards they may be running or siding.

The additional Shaddolls are for when you the opponent is using a deck that really likes using their Extra Deck. If that’s the case, then it’s probably best to side in the 3rd Shaddoll Fusion and 1 Shaddoll Hedgehog most likely in the place of Card Trooper, Soul Charge or Lightpulsar Dragon in varying amounts depending on the matchup.

The additional Shaddolls are for when you’re playing against a deck where Shaddoll Dragon is less relevant or completely irrelevant, like a mirror match or Frog Monarchs, etc. When you don’t need any Spell and Trap destruction it’s better to have the Squamata, Beast and Falco to defend or play against monster based decks. Other than that I probably wouldn’t side them in.

Gorz is similar to the extra Shaddoll monsters except he’s reserves for OTK oriented decks, such as the mirror once again or a deck like Hieratics. The deck is generally defenseless, and in some matchups that just won’t do.

MST is basically the go to side deck choice for floodgates of any kind. If Vanity’s Emptiness is going to be an issue, then you’ll probably want to side MSTs. More often than not, I can’t find the space to side in all three so I usually only end up siding in two. Only use them for floodgate cards unless you will win by using MST on something else.

Breakthrough Skill is for Artifacts, because they’re really annoying. Don’t side them for anything else, except maybe something very rouge that I’m not thinking of.

QOTW? Question of the Week:

What do you think is going to happen on the upcoming ban list, and what would you like to see happen?

Written by: Kyle Oliver