Lightsworn Babble

So, Lightsworn Rulers is pretty much non-existent, what next?

As you may have seen on the upcoming ban list, Lightsworns obtained 2 copies of Charge of the Light Brigade, hooray! But with that comes terrible news, the Dragon Rulers have been banned. With that the entire impetus behind my Lightsworn Ruler deck is completely gone. So what should Lightsworns, as far as a more pure build, be doing with there lives now? Here’s a handful of things I’ve been thinking about.

Naturally, the first thought I went to was how can I replace the Dragon Rulers, which essentially boils down to this: how do I now banish Eclipse Wyvern to backwards toolbox Judgment Dragon? I came up with the following as the primary options:

• Lightpulsar Dragon
• Darkflare Dragon
• Chaos Sorcerer
• Black Luster Solider – Envoy of the Beginning
• Lightray Diabolos
• Black Dragon Collapserpent
• Ghost Ship
• Freed the Brave Wanderer
• Phantom of Chaos
• Soul Release
• Castle of Dragon Souls

Of those options, the most interesting to me was probably a combination of Dragon-type monsters plus Castle of Dragon Souls. You could utilize the Chaos Dragon engine plus Wyverburster and Collapserpent and Castle of Dragon Souls to have a floater engine and Lightsworns as a base. Inevitably it would be far worse that the Dragon Ruler build which makes me kind of tentative. Thus I came up with this second idea as an alternative possibility for a completely different deck.

Another card that allows you to banish Eclipse Wyvern from the graveyard would be the Ritual Spell card Luminous Dragon Ritual, which is used to summon Photon Paladin Dragon (Photon Paladin Dragon is a Level 4 LIGHT Warrior that draws a card when it destroy a monster by battle and another non-relevant effect). Here’s the text of Luminous Dragon Ritual:

This card is used to Ritual Summon “Paladin of Photon Dragon”. You must also Tribute monsters from your hand or field whose total Levels equal exactly 4. You can banish this card from your Graveyard; banish monsters from your Graveyard whose total Levels equal exactly 4, and Special Summon 1 “Paladin of Photon Dragon” from your hand after that. (This Special Summon is treated as a Ritual Summon.)

The benefit of this card, much like Dragon Rulers, is that it allows you to mill into the way you banish Eclipse Wyvern. It also can be played out of the hand and then immediately played from the graveyard, but this requires two copies of Photon Paladin Dragon. The good news on that front is that Photon Paladin Dragon is really easy to search, being a Ritual Monster and also being a Level 4 Warrior. This allows a more synergistic addition of Reinforcements of the Army and potentially The Warrior Returning Alive.

A couple of other interesting ways I thought of that this interacts with Lightsworns is the addition of Djinn monsters for their mill-ability, but more importantly the addition of functional ways to Synchro summon Herald of the Arc Light. Herald of the Arc Light is a generally good card but also lets you search your deck for Paladin Dragon or Luminous Dragon Ritual. It can be re-used using Soul Charge as well as Elder God Noden (once it comes out) for maximum searching (by the way prepare for Deskbot Nekroz plus Noden to be way too good). Herald of the Arc Light can be summoned using Mathematician plus Glow-Up Bulb or just milled Glow-Up Bulb plus any level 3 for that matter, for instance a Lumina. A simple play would be Lumina discard Glow-up to revive a Level 4. Synchro for Herald then XYZ for a Rank 4 of choice then detach the Herald to search.

Another thought I was having about the deck is the new ways I would change the deck’s core to combat the meta. My most immediate thought going into the beginning of the format is that Lightsworn Monk, Ehren will be worth main decking as one of the main names. 2 of the “hot” decks out of the gate are Nekroz and Burning Abyss. Burning Abyss classically leave monsters that want to go to the graveyard on the field in defense; Ehren is probably at its best in regards to that match-up. As for Nekroz, Ehren is one of Lightsworns potential outs to the Djinn lock. Ehren can attack into the Djinn affected Clausolas and shuffle it back into the deck (assuming they don’t have Valkyrus). With the addition of 2 Charge of the Light Brigade it’s much easier to simply grab it from the deck when you need it.

Speaking of other cards to break the Djinn lock, there’s Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter. It’s an out to the Djinn lock (bar the appropriate counter of course, just like everything else) and is a fairly difficult card to deal with now. Previously you where looking at a lot of Shaddolls or Qliphorts and Ryko was pretty unhelpful and slow there, but against Nekroz it pretty much forces a Trishula play if they don’t want Ryko to resolve (I mean Trishula is obviously a really good option, but it forces there hand meaning you can predict them more easily). It’s also very relevant versus Satellarknights, though it was a previously almost un-winnable match-up before so I wouldn’t keep my hopes up now with a worse version of Lightsworns.

Raiden is still your go to guy for Lightsworns names, but I suspect that Lyla will fall even more out of favor and I might start only running 1, leaving my predicted build to be this:

• 3 Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn
• 2 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
• 1 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
• 1 Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
• 1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
• 1 Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
• 1 Felis, Lightsworn Archer

• 3 Solar Recharge
• 2 Charge of the Light Brigade

Naturally to go along side the Felis would be Mathematician and potentially even 3 Kuribandit. With all the new milling action though, one of what I think the most important additions to Lightsworns will be the new card Peropero Cerperus. Cerperus allows the deck to more recklessly mill and cover there own butt for defense. It rewards reckless milling meaning you can simply make large risky pushes at the opponent and potentially have them fail and fall back on Cerperus’ defense or simply blow the opponent out with your risky play. One could potentially run a weird Beast-sworn build utilizing Super-Nimble Mega Hamster to summon Rykos and Cerperuses.

Another couple potentially interesting card I saw from the future sets where Jar of Avarice, Yuki Usagi, Galaxy Cyclone and the obvious Elder God Noden. Jar of Avarice caters to the recklessly aggressive Lightsworn deck because it recoups the graveyard from a reckless push. Yuki Usagi is just a good hand trap but is also a LIGHT monster that dumps itself catering towards a more Lightray centric build and provides a similarly destructive disruption much like Cerperus.  Galaxy Cyclone, naturally being completely late to the party now that both Vanity’s Emptiness and Skill Drain are limited to 1, is an amazing out to floodgates for Lightsworn/milling decks. It has a good in hand effect plus an extremely beneficial graveyard effect for games 2 and 3 of a match. Noden just combos for days with every deck that runs Yugioh cards in it.

QOTW? Question of the Week:

Once the new ban list is active, what fun deck ideas do you have that you want to be running? Comment below!

Written by: Kyle Oliver