LightswornRulerF

Lightsworn Chaos Rulers

As I said in my previous article, I’m quite short on ideas. Lots of cards coming out in the future that I have almost no cares about and other present interests keeps me at a lack of creativity. For now I’ve just been toying around with Lightsworn Rulers.

I decided to add the “Chaos” tag into the name of the deck now since the Chaos Dragons do play quite a crucial role in the deck. Originally, when the deck was incepted it didn’t contain any Chaos Dragon elements, besides Eclipse Wyvern, so naturally it didn’t have “Chaos” in the deck name. Now I figured it makes sense to update that since I’ll likely be using the Chaos Dragon engine in the deck for most of its existence.

I’ll start off with my current deck list:

Monsters: (36)

  • 3 Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos
  • 3 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms
  • 3 Lightpulsar Dragon
  • 3 Darkflare Dragon
  • 2 Eclipse Wyvern
  • 2 Judgment Dragon
  • 1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
  • 3 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
  • 3 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
  • 3 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
  • 1 Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon
  • 1 Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
  • 3 Necro Gardna
  • 3 Dark Dragon Collapserpent
  • 2 Light Dragon Wyverburster

Spells: (6)

  • 2 Sacred Sword of Seven Stars
  • 3 Solar Recharge
  • 1 Charge of the Light Brigade

Extra Deck: (11)

  • 1 No.11: Big Eye
  • 1 Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack
  • 1 No.74: Master of Blades
  • 1 Constellar Ptolemy M7
  • 1 Starliege Palidynamo
  • 1 Queen Dragun Djinn
  • 1 Lavalval Chain
  • 1 Diamond Dire Wolf
  • 1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
  • 1 Leviair the Sea Dragon
  • 1 Constellar Hyades

The deck count is at 42, and I’d love to make it 40. I’m currently testing a whole bunch of things though so its hard to cut it down, nor am I trying particularly hard to because of testing purposes. I was running even more cards for a while and it still ran quite fluidly, but in order to get more consistent mills and combo draws I’ve been cutting cards. I was running 3 Sacred Sword, More Dragon Rulers, a 3rd Wyverburster, Allure of Darkness, Bacon Saver and Jain each at some point and I’ve been working my around which cards are worth running in the deck.

Notable changes since you last saw: there are more Dragon Rulers this time around, 6 instead of 4. The jump isn’t particularly significant, but the reasoning is this: It allows the use of Sacred Sword (which I just recently got my hands on for the first time, thus the testing) which serves the purpose of speeding up the deck as well as increasing the odds of drawing Solar Recharge and a Lightsworn monster on the first turn, which is ideal. Second, 3 of each Dragon Ruler increases the odds of me getting 2 of each so I can use their discard effects. Blaster in particular aids against Side Deck hate like Skill Drain. I tested out 2 Blaster, 2 Tempest, 2 Redox as opposed to 3 and 3, and I think I like running the additional copies more. The ban list has a good chance of forcing me to run 2’s though, mayhaps even 1’s?

The reasoning behind Tempest instead of Redox, which I previously ran, is kind of interesting I think. I’ve dropped all the EARTH monsters I was running in the past to make room for the baby chaos Dragons. So, no Card Trooper or Super-Nimble Mega Hamster. Them being EARTH made Redox the most logical Dragon Ruler since he’d be more easy to summon and could potentially get his effect from the hand. With those gone all he becomes is a 3000 DEF monster, which isn’t desirable in such an offensive deck. You’d think Tidal would be better than Tempest simply because of his 2600 attack, but the I’m running Tempest so that I get used to it for the future, when I’ll inevitably be running Debris Dragon in order to make the Lightsworn Synchro monster. Tempest also has the nice bonus of being able to search any of the multitude of Dragon monster from my deck with its hand effect.

Speaking of the Synchro monster, I’d like to give a small introduction of him for all those unaware. The Lightsworn archetype will receive a Synchro monster at an unknown time in the future. The OCG will obtain it shortly, that’s how we know of its existence. This monster is a Level 7 Dragon-type Synchro that requires a LIGHT non-tuner to be summoned. It has 2600 ATK and can banish a card on the field once per turn, so it’s very good. It also mills 3 in the End Phase and has Lightsworn in its name (so it counts for Judgment Dragon’s summon condition), all good things. The reason I’d want Debris Dragon in the deck, is because you can summon this Synchro monster with Debris Dragon reviving the monster Shire, Lightsworn Spirit.

Shire isn’t particularly great, she is a 400 ATK monster that gains 300 for each Lightsworn in the graveyard, so with 4 she’s at 1600 and 5 makes 1900, which is respectable but also unlikely. She also mills 2 in the End Phase. Besides the Debris Dragon facet, she also allows more easy Lumina Rank 3 plays since you can do Lumina into Shire to make a Rank 3. I’d likely drop 2 of the Rykos for 2 Shires if I where to put her in, and we’ll see where I put the Debris Dragons later. I’m expecting to drop Collapserpent to 2 and Wyverburster to 1 and that’s likely where I’ll find space. In recent testing, even without the Lightsworn Synchro, this Debris Shire engine is extremely beneficial, and with the Lightsworn Synchro I can only imagine it being stronger.

I’ve also thought about running Jenis, Lightsworn Mender. First I’ll say, Jenis is pretty bad too like Shire. Jenis is a Level 4 with 2100 Defense and no mill effect. Her actual effect is negligible. The 2100 Defense is nice, it can potentially allow Rank 4 plays more easily if she survives and also provides an extra Lightsworn name for Judgment Dragon. The real reasoning though is she also is a target for Debris Dragon, allowing Debris Dragon to make a Rank 4 XYZ plays. The play that comes to mind is this:

  • Blaster banish Tempest to summon Blaster, search Debris.
  • Debris summon Jenis, XYZ for Queen Dragon Djinn.
  • Queen Dragun revives 2nd Dragon Ruler.
  • Make a Rank 7 XYZ.

It seems pretty good, and at little cost to deck space to allow it. If I where to do this, I’d only run 1 Jenis though. Jenis also plays some mind games with Ryko. Most people consider every face-down monster a Lightsworn deck may set as a Ryko so frequently they attack that monster with weenies or floaters allowing them to die or the try to destroy your face-down monsters with effects before they flip face-up. All this works generally in Jenis’ favor since she likes being attacked by weenies because of her big booty and I don’t really care if she’s destroyed because she sucks.

The future also holds some other interesting aspects, specifically Raiden, Lightsworn Assailant. He will essentially replace all extraneous Lightsworn names in the deck, aka Ehren, Jain, Gragonith etc. He’s not amazing or anything, but he certainly better than all the bad Lightsworns, so it’s more like a very small boost to the deck with his existence. Minorly increased consistency and the potential for Synchro plays with Lumina, all good things. As it currently stands, if I where to summon a Lightsworn and end my turn just to get some milling going, then Lyla or Ehren would be my best options, but with Raiden’s release he becomes the optimal monster to waste since he so expendable and he technically mills 4, more than any other Lightsworn monster.

Other things of note, I’m not maxing out my Extra Deck at the moment, because I’m trying to work with less space so that when I put in some Tuner monsters I’ll have some space for some Synchros. Right now I’m thinking of dropping Lavalval Chain and Maestroke since I almost never use them anymore. Maestroke was for the purpose of Evilswarms, but I don’t play them too often, but in theory it’s fantastic in combination with the baby Chaos Dragons. Laval Chain was kind of this last ditch effort to make Judgment Dragon live, but I think I’ve become efficient enough to not require that anymore since Darkflare Dragon setups can usually fix the graveyard for you, since you can send Gragonith, a Dragon Ruler or Eclipse Wyvern with Darkflare, which are the same things I’d send with Chain.

Something Different:

I’ve said that I prefer the Chaos build, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t another plausible build without Chaos monsters. I like to call this build Bogus Sworn or other dumb things like that because by far this is the “sackiest” build that could’ve been made. That brings up a discussion we had at my locals though, which was about sacky decks. Is a deck that consistently sacks, sacky? Is it no longer sacking if your deck always does it? I would say its no longer a sacky deck. I think this deck build falls into that category. Your opponent will certainly feel as if they got sacked by this deck (an for that matter most Lightsworn decks) simply because the basis of the decks movement requires randomness, that is milling. I’d agree that yes, milling is based on luck and randomness, but since the deck uses that element so much it becomes unlucky if they do not get setup when milling. Also, the decks build facilitates milling since almost every card is allowed to be in the graveyard bar Judgement Dragon and Spells and Traps. In that sense, more accurately you’re being sacked when a Lightsworn player doesn’t mill well with this particular build. With that, here’s another deck list:

Monsters: (30)

  • 3 Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos
  • 3 Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
  • 3 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms
  • 3 Eclipse Wyvern
  • 3 Judgment Dragon
  • 3 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
  • 3 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
  • 2 Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
  • 1 Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior
  • 1 Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
  • 1 Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
  • 1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
  • 3 Necro Gardna

Spells: (7)

  • 3 Sacred Sword of Seven Stars
  • 3 Solar Recharge
  • 1 Charge of the Light Brigade

Traps: (4)

  • 3 Needlebug Nest
  • 1 Sixth Sense

The card that makes the wheels turn for this deck is pretty obvious, or maybe not: Needlebug Nest. Needlebug Nest is a Normal Trap that simply mills 5 from the top of your deck. Inherently this is a neg one, but with the combination of cards that benefit from being in the graveyard it’s very easy to make advantage with this card. The Dragon Ruler count is far larger, being 9. We also run 3 Eclipse Wyvern and 3 Judgment Dragon instead of 2 apiece. Their’s also Necro Gardna. Lastly, the re-addition of Wulf, Lightsworn Beast back into the deck. That makes 17 cards in the deck that are fine getting milled, not counting the other Lightsworn monsters which is just less than half the deck. (about 41%) That means you have an extremely high chance of milling something good with Needlebug Nest. Not to mention that their’s also 3 copies of Nest so you could easily draw multiples with the powerful draw engine the deck employs.

An honorable mention also goes to Sixth Sense. Of course this card is amazing in this deck as well, but it’s almost better to get Nest because it ensures you mill a lot, while Sixth Sense does not. Drawing a bunch of cards is good, but only if you get more draw cards in this deck. With that I decided to, instead of calling 5 and 6, call 2 and 3. The reason being I’d rather mill the high numbers if I can. 2 and 3 still result in a plus in terms of drawing, but I prefer the advantage gained from milling 5 and 6 as to drawing that many. Simply put, their’s not much you can do with 5 or 6 Lightsworn monsters if you draw them except discard them in the End Phase.

Another important part of this deck is it uses the “as many Lightsworn names as possible” strategy, in which you run a ton of Lightsworn monsters just so that when you mill you mill a lot of differently named Lightsworns for Judgment Dragon. The goal is to be able to summon Judgment Dragon by at least your second turn, sometimes your first if you draw enough Solar Recharges, so it is ideal that you run as many different Lightsworn names that will fit.

QOTW? Question of the Week:

Is it okay for a deck to be sacky? If Yu-Gi-Oh! where someone made into the perfect form of itself, if it where a perfect format, would their still be any sacky elements, or is that an essential part of the game?

Written by: Kyle

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