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Lightsworn Dragon Rulers 2014, deck update

Just another update on this deck. I hope you’re not bored of it! Tee hee.

I think I said on the podcast that I would make an article about the Behemoth the King of All Animals, but that’s not gonna happen this week. I decided to hold off on that for two reasons. One, I kind of got overwhelmed with work this week and couldn’t get to it and two, it made more sense to do it after the next week’s podcast since we’ll be doing it on Beast support and that will allow me more extensive testing, which I welcome. With that I bring you back to your regularly scheduled article.

Now, every time I get back around to making an update on this deck I feel like nothing has changed with this deck build, but when I go back and look at the last deck list I posted, way more changes have occurred than I remember. The same goes for this week; previously I had a lot more emphasis on Chaos type cards, such as Tour Guide from the Underworld, Dark Armed Dragon, Gorz the Emissary of Darkness and Allure of Darkness, but I’ve forgone a lot of that stuff, which I’ll talk about later I suppose. Here’s my current list:

Monsters: (33)

1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
2 Judgment Dragon
1 Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos
1 Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls
1 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms
2 Lightpulsar Dragon
1 Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon
3 Darkflare Dragon
1 Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
3 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1 Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
2 Eclipse Wyvern
1 Debris Dragon
3 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
3 Necro Gardna
1 Shire, Lightsworn Spirit
2 Card Trooper
2 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2 Rainbow Kuriboh

Spells: (4)

3 Solar Recharge
1 Charge of the Light Brigade

Traps: (3)

3 Needlebug Nest

Extra Deck: (14)

1 Star Eater
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
1 Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack
1 No. 11: Big Eye
1 Constellar Ptolemy M7
1 Queen Dragun Djinn
1 No. 101: Silent Honor ARK
1 Diamond Dire Wolf
1 Starliege Paladynamo
1 Lavalval Chain
1 Constellar Hyades
1 Ghostrick Alucard
1 Leviair the Sea Dragon

Side Deck:

I don’t really like posting side decks since mine changes far too often. But, so that you know, I always side the maximum number of Rykos and 1 to 2 Super-Nimble Mega Hamster. I also side 2 to 3 Mystical Space Typhoon and up to 2 Forbidden Lance. I also like siding Breakthrough Skill for decks like Constellars and Evilswarms. Recently I’ve been testing Dark Hole and Smashing Ground in the side because Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer is such a nuisance. Kycoo is generally sided in against this deck particularly in Prophecy decks. I’ve sided Royal Decree before but I don’t really like it that much, but it is a very good answer to Skill Drain, which is a card this deck is worried about. In general the following cards are an issue for this deck game 2 and 3 and should be sided for accordingly:

Evilswarm Ophion
Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
Skill Drain
Imperial Iron Wall
Light-Imprisoning Mirror

Anything other than that is usually negligible, things like Maxx “C” and Effect Veiler aren’t really an issue if you know how to play around them.

Legacy of the Valiant:

With the new cards that came out, only 3 cards really affect how I’ve built the deck: Rainbow Kuriboh, Silent Honors ARK and Evilswarm Exciton Knight.

Rainbow Kuriboh is a fantastic addition to this deck, it allows you to protect some of your weaker first turn setups, such as when you have to normal summon a Lyla to start milling. The 1700 ATK is pretty measly, but this can be saved by negating one monsters attack in most cases with Kuriboh. It also puts the opponent in a really bad situation when they rely on attacking over your monsters with an exact amount of monsters, such as if you have Lumina and Lyla turn 1 and they attempt to attack over both with only two monsters you can pretty much ruin them by saving one of them, or potentially OTK if Lumina survives extra turns.

Rainbow Kuriboh also pretty much ends most attempts to OTK you with highly OTK reliant decks. Decks like Hieratics and the like generally put just enough damage on the board to win the duel, meaning if their highest attack monster can’t attack because of Rainbow Kuriboh, then you wont get OTK’d and then they’ll have all their cards invested in the board for you to dismantle. The same goes for when it’s in the graveyard allowing you to negate 1 attack to prevent OTKs. I like to call Rainbow Kuriboh and “OTK ender” because as long as you run a fair amount of it, OTKs are out of the question.

It also nicely synergizes with the deck. It provides valuable defense in the hand, but is equally viable as a discard for cards like Lumina. It also is effective when milled in preventing game losses and also providing potential Chaos food because it’s a LIGHT mosnter.

Silent Honors and Exciton Knight are both new additions to the extra. This deck can make Rank 4 XYZ, so it’s an obvious choice to add them to the extra deck. You’ll notice I did put Exciton Knight into the actual deck list. The reason for this is because I don’t have one and I never plan to get one until it’s reprinted unless it falls into my lap. Say I open my 5 packs for a Regional event and get one, then sure I guess I have one, but other than that it’s a no go.

Things I Took Out:

Since my last deck list I’ve dropped the following:

Tour Guide from the Underworld
Dark Armed Dragon
Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness
Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
Allure of Darkness

Tour Guide really didn’t provide any setup other than for Chaos Dragons. This made the deck ironically more inconsistent. When I opened Tour Guide is was almost completely useless unless I also had a Darkflare Dragon and a Dragon-type mosnter in hand. Which was a little too tall an order to be worth running. Along with the Tour Guides I took out a couple Rank 3 XYZ which only makes sense.

Dark Armed Dragon was really fun to have, but without the Tour Guides providing enough DARK monsters to facilitate its summon it’s really worthless. As of now I only have 7 DARK monsters total in the deck, with the potential of Queen Dragun Djinn and Ghostrick Alucard in the extra to provide DARKs, which isn’t a whole lot. If you where to take this deck list and play with it, I’m sure a lot of people would find the amount of DARK monsters low for the amount of Chaos Dragons they have in hand, making them frustrated. It really comes down to play style in order to get used to what I think is a very lopsided DARK and LIGHT count. This makes it very essential that you manage your graveyard resources effectively without wasting Dragons and DARK monsters too quickly.

Gorz… I never wanted it, that’s what I’ll say. Whenever he resolved it was lackluster, and I wanted to add different cards into the deck, so it only makes sense to cut the lackluster cards for the par to great cards.

Allure of Darkness naturally gets cut once all of the DARK monsters are cut.

Redox is a little bit of a different story. I was documenting in my mind the reason I as getting a “bad hand” in a lot of my games, and one of the most frequent reasons was that I drew all Dragon cards, specifically multiple Dragon Rulers which are really not beneficial to open with in multiples. This deck has to mill a lot turn one in order to make effective 2 Dragon Rulers, and this is even more unlikely to occur when you only have 4 other cards to start milling that effectively with. Redox is also the least important Dragon Ruler. I tested to see which one was the most helpful and found that the only reason I would summon a Redox is because I was going to XYZ with it or immediately summon a Judgment Dragon after summoning it and blow up the field. I never once summoned it in defense mode to save myself, because that was generally a waste of my Dragon-type graveyard resources. At the time of this testing I also was not running any EARTH monsters making him easier to summon like in previous builds where I mained Maxx “C”, Super-Nimble Mega Hamster and Card Trooper. I didn’t add back Card Trooper until recently.

Things I Added:

I added back in Card Troopers, which I had taken out a long while back. I had taken it out previously because people would just summon Crimson Bladers on turn 1 back when I ran it, and that kind of sucked. It also doesn’t ensure you get a Lightsworn name into the graveyard, which hurts a little bit. The reason I added it back in though is because of my “bad hand testing” I was referring to earlier. I often got bad hands from too many Dragons in my hand. The reason this was bad because with only Dragon cards it’s impossible to establish a graveyard to support them, meaning I need to fill the graveyard in some way and then that hand can potentially become a good one. There was also another problem, that I needed to mill on my first turn more often. I’d frequently open hands without the ability to mill very effectively and I’d rather not add any more of the Lightsworn monsters into the deck, since most are bad and Card Trooper is pretty great.

Card Trooper does what it always really has, it provides milling and doesn’t lose advantage. It also makes an excellent Debris Dragon target, making it more live then ever before. It’s especially nice to do Debris into Card Trooper because this allows you to mill before summoning Ancient Fairy Dragon or Black Rose Dragon.

I’ve also added in a second Ryko. The format is slowing down quite a bit, making Ryko a much more valuable asset. There’s one catch though, Ryko is pretty stinky against Fire Fists, which are shaping up to be the best deck this format. Besides that deck though, Ryko really thrives. I’d like to fit a third one in their, but all the other pieces of the deck as of now seem more valuable than a third one. With the additional Ryko you could potentially be running a copy of Iron Chain Dragon or Orient Dragon for Debris plays. This can make some easy Rank 6 plays for Constellar Ptolemy M7. The plays aren’t that great, but I figured I’d mention them.

If you have any questions about any of my card choices, like why only 2 Lightpulsar or maybe why Needlebug Nest, or anything for that matter, feel free to leave a comment asking me something! I’ll take suggestions too, I’m pretty willing to try stuff out with this deck. I mean I’ve tried things as weird as Magical Stone Excavation and Bujintei Kagatsuchi, so throw anything at me!

QOTW? Question of the Week:

Now that the format is shaping up to what looks to be a format filled with Fire Fists and some other decks like Mermail, Prophecy and Hieratics as side contenders, how do you feel about it? Is it bland, is it interesting? Tell me more!

Written by: Kyle

8 Responses to "Lightsworn Dragon Rulers 2014, deck update"

WorldsFastestDuelist says:

February 11, 2014 at 8:20 am

I like you build its looks odd but i cant really find a card that dosent have synergy with the deck, and the needle bug nest is strait dirty. Are you goin to seattle and/or coming back to spokane in april? I wana discuss theory in the deck as im running a version of it too. Or u can p.m me whatever works. Id ask why you dont run trag (i love what it brings to the deck) but needle bug nest kinda makes it inconsistant. As far as the meta is concerned FF is good, really good but i dont see it much as only 2 ppl here have the complete deck there are others with partial decks or the 3-axis builds, that said card car plus tensu and bear is retarted good turn 1. I think mermail suffers from the best decks bein rank 4 heavy and we all know what abyss dweller does to water. Fire kings and geargia are great budget deks. The meta overall is fun in my opinion because at a large event there are a legit 15 decks you could play so it makes your side very important.

Last have you ran into the problem with this deck that it blows out ppl who havent played it, but once ppl play you enough times they figure you out a bit? Ive found HUGE success with it early on but now that my build is out there ppl side for me. That isnt the case at regionals because lightsworn is considered rogue and not really sided for and you are likely to play 9 ppl that have never see your deck in action and that means most if them dont figure out whats goin on until its too late.

Reply
1. Kyle says:
  
  February 11, 2014 at 9:48 pm
  
  I suppose it’s true with just about every deck that once you’re opponent understands it they have a easier time against it. This is especially true for non teir 1 decks such as Lightsworns that tend to have a larger exploitable weakness. (which decks like Fire Fist don’t really have, which is why it’s tier 1) After playing with this deck for quite some time now, the way I counteract this is with consistency. I will do anything in my power to get the deck to force itself into the situation in which it thrives, which gives way to a lot of my card choices and omissions.
  
  The main weakness I find the deck has is its required setup phases so I try to avoid that with how I build it. Without any setup the deck is left with exactly 1 move every turn which is normal summoning a Lightsworn monster and nothing more. So the most in-optimal place for the deck to be would be going second against an opponent who plays a great amount of traps, you having no cards that mill turn one, of which there’s only 4 realistically. (Solar and Charge; this can be increased partially by the 3 Needle Ceiling to 7 cards. I’ve also thought about adding Upstart Goblin and Duality to further increase the odds of milling on your first turn) The advantage of milling is it of course opens up all of the potential Chaos Dragon and Dragon Ruler plays which allows you to bait out the desired cards to force through the normal summon monsters such as Lumina and Lyla that end up devastating them, instead of relying on your one normal summon to carry your turn.
  
  People who know about these issue will do things like Compulsory an Ehren upon its summon or a set Ryko, because they know you not milling sets you back plays for another turn. A player who doesn’t know how the deck works will only have to miss 1 turn against this deck to allow you to setup, and it’s nearly impossible to play the one for one removal game versus the Dragons once properly setup, so if you can bypass setup as quickly as possible you can more easily be ignorant of your opponent’s knowledge of the deck and win anyways.
  
  Of course with every deck in the game, there’s hate cards that are continuous spells and traps that totally ruin the deck, Lightsworns are no exception. These cards are usually more of a nuisance at locals than larger events, because people at locals know what all the best players are running and can side specifically for them. A card like Light-Imprisoning Mirror is a good example. It’s unlikely to see such a direct hate card at a high level event when there aren’t any Light based decks in the main meta, but at locals if someone knows you run Lightsworns they might side it. You do have to watch out for side cards that hurt you really bad you know people are siding regularly, like Skill Drain. The best bet against that is MST, Forbidden Lance, Twister and Royal Decree. People like to randomly anticipate Decree at my locals though so I never side it. (I played a Gravekeeper player who sided in MSTs and Twister because he thought I would side Decree)
  
  I’m rambling… so I guess I’ll stop. I can also make my comments on Trag if you’d like?
  
  Reply
  1. WorldsFastestDuelist says:
    
    February 11, 2014 at 10:30 pm
    
    By all means continue, ive built my deck the exact same way. Its set up so every mill is made as optimal as possiable i only run 7 cards main deck that are dead mills (the spells, 2 trag and honest) and ive found it as consistant as ever. I love trag its an otk stopper, it can be beefy because as you know this deck can keep a big hand if you want and its effects to level change and steal monsters by discarding cards and as my build runs more lv4’s and lv4’s are huge now it forces out alota cards that may otherwise be used on a lumina or lyla and if it goes thru you can make whatever xyz you want, i perfer lavaval chain it is amazing in my version of the deck as ill send a name a wyvren or a necro depending on what play is optimal at that time. And ill do that before i summon to bait as much as possiable and force my opponet into a spot where they cant recover. I also main effect veiler but thats more of a locals meta call. Im considering dragon ice, i believe u ran it in earlier builds, but im gna try it and it may be worth re-visiting for you are u are running 5’s. Ive ran kidmodo as well i like how versatile it is and serves many useses in my build it seems as u could mill it turn 1 and drop a lightpulsar, darkflare or any big dragon for free to give you that added field presence or a giant meat shield its a a debris into blackrose target banishable for dragons.
    
    I also agree on set up for this deck unless u open the nuts you need that 1 maybe 2 turns to get the ball rolling and warning, bottomless and esp skill drain destroy your ability to do that. Ill list my build below id like imput on what you like and dislike.
    
    3-JD
    3-Lyla
    3-Lumina
    3-Wyvrens
    3-Necro
    2-Ryko
    2-Garoth
    2-trag
    2-veiler
    2-card trooper
    1-blaster
    1-redox
    1-tempest
    1-tidal
    1-kidmodo
    1-jain
    1-erin
    1-gragonith
    1-debris
    1-honest
    1-redmd
    
    The 4 spells
    
    Reply
    1. WorldsFastestDuelist says:
      
      February 11, 2014 at 10:35 pm
      
      I also considered upstart too because udc about LP as when u win its usually with 10k on board so whats an extra 1,000 here and 1,000 there
      
      Reply
    2. Kyle says:
      
      February 11, 2014 at 11:23 pm
      
      While I agree, Tragoedia does provide all of those things and they are nice, I think that what it provides is simply unnecessary because none of those things are productive towards the deck’s major goals. If you open with Tragoedia it’s just one less card that allows you to setup essentially making your hand worse. If you can setup and you have a Tragoedia it doesn’t provide any protecting for your major strategy and synergizes with very few pieces of the deck, even less with your build seeing as you run no Chaos Dragons. The best I can say it does it provide OTK stopping which I feel I’ve never seen as an issue with Necro Gardnas alone, and specifically in that instance Rainbow Kuriboh is better for that role plus it provides additional utility for protecting monster from being destroyed and being millable and discard fodder for Lumina and Lightpulsar. I suppose Trag can be used to bait cards, but the there’s only 4 cards I usually am trying to bait with this deck: Bottomless, Warning, Torrential and Fiendish Chain, because once they’re gone JD can nuke without fear and Lyla and Lumina can be summoned without fear. None of those can really be baited with Trag except Warning, but that’s such an awkward reason to play Warning, so I feel baiting with it isn’t helpful.
      
      Opinions on your deck:
      
      I don’t like Honest for just about the same reasons as Trag. It doesn’t help you setup and it doesn’t help your win condition. When I draw it I rarely used it and when I mill it it’s very bad because it makes the opponent play very aggressively. The omnipresent threat of its existence because it hasn’t been milled, even if you don’t run it, is more powerful than the card alone in my opinion.
      
      I only run Gragonith because I’m running Darkflare Dragon, so I don’t think I’d run Gragonith in a more pure Lightsworn build because drawing it hurts me bad. Lightpulsar also aids in getting it out of hand. For your build if you draw it you’re out of luck unless you have Solar Recharge or nothing better to discard with a Lumina. In most cases though Lumina should be discarding Eclipse, Necro or a Dragon Ruler instead.
      
      I also wouldn’t run REDMD without the Chaos Dragons because I rarely find a good opportunity to summon REDMD from the hand without them. Banishing a Dragon Ruler to summon him isn’t very helpful and last ditch summoning of him using Debris, Eclipse or Kidmodo is exactly that “last ditch” and not something you should be betting on. The best play I can think of for it in your build is to banish a JD that got Veiler’d or Fiendish Chained to summon it, but that alone isn’t wroth running it for in my opinion. It can also be summoned on the off chance you do a Kidmodo play, but then you can’t attack so it kind of defeats the purpose of summoning it since it pretty much just gives the opponent a big target. Its real relevance is with Lightpulsar since, even if REDMD is milled he’s live and a threat.
      
      Speaking of Kidmodo, I don’t like it at all, sorry. :-/ There are 3 ways to activate its effect: Mill it, Synchro with it, and discard it with Redox. Milling it is alright, but that’s assuming you haven’t entered the battle phase or special summoned any non dragon-type monsters the turn you milled it. Even in that scenario, I kind of hate the idea of special summoning a Dragon monster from my hand during the end phase just for my opponent to kill it next turn. The only effective monster to summon would be Lightpulsar and that assumes I have REDMD or Darkflare in grave. Synchro with it is nice, but I almost always Synchro for Black Rose and plan to summon a non-Dragon afterwards in the form of Big Eye or Dracossack and I’d rather bring back Trooper for the mills. (Debris either gets Veiler’d and no Kidmodo or Black Rose gets Veiler’d and I want to XYZ with it, or I Black Rose and I want to attack with a bunch of Dragons, which I can’t do if I Kidmodo) Redox discarding it is kind of silly because I’m probably wanting to bring back a Lumina or Lyla with Redox, meaning I can’t activate Kidmodo’s effect because I’d be special summoning a non-Dragon.
      
      Garoth is super sacky. The only time he’s optimal is when you open with wombo combos, ex. Solar Recharge plus Garoth into Lumina revive Garoth. Those hands completely wreck the opponent, yes, but I always try to rely as little as possible on wombo combos because they’re inconsistent, that’s why I eventually cut Garoth from my build. I’ll admit he’s very fun to use though. The more consistent version of him would probably be Needlebug Nest.
      
      Veiler is an interesting card, I always want to run it, but it’s always really “meh” in my opinion for this deck. It gives that added defense during your turn and that’s great, but it’s another card that makes your opening hands worse. I also would probably run Breakthrough Skill over it just because it’s more helpful against your nightmare cards: Ophion and Fossil Dyna. I do like the option of reviving it with Debris though for the Star Eater plus Stardust play.
      
      Gotta run that Needlebug Nest fo’ sho’!
      
      Reply
      1. WorldsFastestDuelist says:
        
        February 12, 2014 at 6:31 am
        
        I do agree with REDMD, Honest (bolth win more cards) and garoth (i only run 2 because i need that name same with gragonith) and running shire i believe over kidmodo is tempting, it has that lightsworn synergy witch i like alot and if i recall correctly is a debris dragon target. Ive considered the chaos dragons, but it seems ud suffer from those epic bad hands a lil more often with all the high level monsters? I accutually wana try rainbow dude i just dont have any and dont test cards i dont own, because ive no platform to do so. But im gna test needle bug nest, most likely by dropping a garoth, redmd and honest. Have you considered fiend comeadian? I havent tried it but a guy at locals swares by it, but it seems like a sacky card too me. I will prob also swap kidmodo for shire and test it that way. I completely agree about veiler i hate main decking it but geargia is the endless sea of machines that is my locals, so ive been forced into it to stop game 1 otk wambo combo. Id prob drop it to side for regionals.
    3. josh says:
      
      July 7, 2014 at 2:11 am
      
      I run 2 breakthrough skill just in case they’re
      deck shuts down my gave
      
      Reply
Dragon Story Egg Chart 2014 | RMS Mobiles says:

March 15, 2015 at 9:09 pm

[…] Lightsworn Dragon Rulers 2014, deck update | The … – Just another update on this deck. I hope you’re not bored of it! Tee hee. I think I said on the podcast that I would make an article about the Behemoth the King of …… […]

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