LightswornRulerF

Post Ban List Lightsworn Stuff

We saw the ban list, and who would’ve thought, but Dragon Rulers got hit! This of course effects Lightsworns as well, so we need to change some things.

So, pre-ban-list dropping, I had just about the slickest Lightsworn Ruler deck I could’ve had and I was really confident in it. No surprise, it was reliant on Dragon Rulers in multiples and Sacred Sword, it also ended up using the Shire and Debris engine pre-Lightsworn Synchro. Ban list arrives, Dragon Rulers to 1, Sacred Sword to 1 and even Debris to 1. Thus, I must rework things. I have a ton of changes in mind now for the deck. I still have a very fluid and working build, but since I posted a build last week I decided I’ll keep it all theory-Oh! this week.

The first question that arises is what to do with all the Dragon Ruler space? In what I’ll refer to as my “Ideal Build” I ran 8 Dragon Rulers total at a 2:3:3 ratio, and now I’m left with a maximum of 4 Dragon Rulers. In my most lean build I ran a 2:2 ratio with 2 Redox 2 Blaster, but that doesn’t really work since with 1 of each Dragon Ruler, I can’t use them to banish each other and search. I’m obviously not going to completely remove the Dragon Rulers either because they’re essential to the Eclipse Wyvern searching engine. So here’s the main idea I came up with:

  • 1 Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos
  • 1 Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls
  • 1 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms
  • 1 Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
  • 1 Dragon Ice
  • 1 Debris Dragon
  • 1 Mythic Tree Dragon
  • 1 Sacred Sword of Seven Stars

At first this engine seems kind of stupid. It’s basically one of each Dragon Ruler, and one search target for each bar Blaster. (I looked through the list of FIRE Dragon-type monsters and the only one of any value for a Lightsworn deck was probably Trigon for the Debris play, and with only 1 Debris and Shire being simply better than Trigon, I decided not to use a Blaster target) It took me a bit to get used to, but I actually find this engine quite fascinating.

Initially, I still wanted to play Dragon Rulers just like they used to, but they are simply incapable under the ban list’s restriction. That being said they still keep their ability to push an incredible amount of damage on the board at the tip of a hat with only the investment of Dragon-type monsters in the graveyard, which Lightsworns already possessed. The downside is they no longer provide the search power or imminent draw power (namely Sacred Sword). With the engine minimized, it plays distinctly similar to Plants in their hay day. It provides many 1 time power plays with the right card setup. We’ve still got all the old plays we’ve seen before, like any Dragon Ruler banishes Tempest to summon itself, search Debris and make an Ancient Fairy so you can make a Dracossack. This play is still incredibly powerful, but now it only works once. So one time only you’re provided with a free Rank 7 up your sleeve, which is certainly a good play. There’s also the similar Tidal banish Redox to search Tree Dragon. Tree copies Tidal and then you make a Rank 7, making a 2nd Rank 7 play up your sleeve. Tree Dragon is also a Debris target to make any easy Rank 4 play into Queen Dragun Djinn once the graveyard is more setup. Dragon Ruler banish Tempest search Debris. Debris revive Tree Dragon make Queen Dragun revive another another Dragon Ruler make a Rank 7.

The Dragon Ice is a little more in-obvious, and because of that I didn’t think of it until later. I actually was running Dragon Ice in my most preliminary builds of Lightsworn Rulers back when I still ran Wulf and only Tidal. The idea was I could use it to discard Wulf and Necro Gardna while also allowing me to XYZ with Celestia (whom I never ever got to summon). That was alright I guess, a little naive about how Lightsworns work, but certainly not completely a horrible idea. Now, it’s a little more relevant. I need a search target for Tidal, it is that first and foremost. It still helps pitch Necro Gardna, Eclipse Wyvern, Lightsworn names and whatever else. It allows for Rank 5 XYZ plays while I have Darkflare Dragon, who’s infinitely easier to summon and more helpful than Celestia. It also allows for Rank 5 XYZ plays in combination with Tree Dragon, giving Tree Dragon 3 purposes and not so dead. It also gives me another defensive option, which this deck practically has none of to begin with. All things are plusses.

The extra targets for each Dragon Ruler also ease the use of Sacred Sword. My initial thought was to not use Sacred Sword at all, because it’s a pretty garbage card unless you get the plus by banishing a Dragon Ruler. In order to fix that I have extra targets for each Dragon Ruler except Blaster, who’s really painful to banish anyways since more often than not he’s the one you’ll be summoning because he’s so powerful. Also, to go along with Sacred Sword (Sacred Sword keeps making me think of Pokemon) I thought it made sense to add even more level 7 monsters. Normally, for cards like Sacred Sword, an example being Allure of Darkness its new kin, you want more than 4 targets in order to run it. The other targets I also elected to run where Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness and Dark Armed Dragon.

I think Gorz may fall back into favor since Dragon Rulers don’t exist as a deck, and it was horrible against Dragon Rulers. I’d also like to hope that Evilswarms will see a drop in play because of a lot of the new decks relying mostly on lower leveled XYZ monsters, but I could be wrong. Gorz also aids the maimed Dragon Rulers in making Rank 7 XYZ and gives me another layer of defense, which I had forgone long ago.

Dark Armed Dragon is really interesting. It simultaneously meets so many requirements of the deck it seems flawless, but the main issue I have with it is it’s very hard to get 3 DARK monsters into the graveyard. Pros: it’s a Sacred Sword target, it’s an Allure of Darkness target (so is Gorz, I’d like to mention)and it’s also a Eclipse Wyvern target. Obviously it also is incredibly powerful and like Gorz it aids in rank 7 XYZ summons. I’m trying to test out some more DARK monsters in the deck so I can support it, which I’ll talk about next.

There’s 3 DARK monsters I wanted to test out to facilitate Dark Armed Dragon: Tour Guide From the Underworld, Chaos Sorcerer and Divine Dragon Apocralyph.

The first two where spurred on by the new ban list. Not that 3 Tour Guide is much better than having 2 in my opinion, especially in a deck that mills, but it certainly has a place in any Chaos deck. It provides Chaos food with itself and its XYZ and it recycles stuff with Leviair. The downside is it provides nothing more than fodder and doesn’t make much forward motion without a lot of setup, which doesn’t help much. The deck usually does fine already once setup, so pre-setup is the main issue making Tour Guide slightly invalid.

Chaos Sorcerer is a little more interesting. Black Luster Soldier is great, but I’d likely run the two Chaos Sorcerers before I ran BLS. In testing, BLS provides very little for this deck, which is very combo setup oriented. It provides no setup, no help to other parts of the deck and no combos it is completely stand alone, which results in inconsistency. You summon BLS and it sits their being BLS, which has its benefits, but I prefer the consistency of not running it, which is why I don’t run it in the first place. Chaos Sorcerer on the other hand has some special benefits. Chaos Sorcerer is DARK, making it much more beneficial to mill, since the deck usually struggles most with getting DARK monsters in the graveyard. It is extremely common for me to banish a Necro Gardna to make a Chaos play because I have no better DARK monsters in the graveyard. Chaos Sorcerer also supports Allure of Darkness, one of my fixes for the 3 Sacred Swords. Chaos Sorcerer is also level 6, meaning it can combo once its mission is complete into a rank 6 XYZ which I already run, and potentially will run more of now that the ban list is here, being Constellar Ptolemy M7. M7 gets back JD and other ludicrous power cards, and with the combination of Chaos Sorcerer, Lightpulsar Dragon, Gragonith and even Debris plus Ryko into Orient Dragon it’s pretty dang easy to summon. Fantastic…

Divine Dragon Apocralyph is pretty cool too; it kind of acts as a more efficient but less powerful M7. It’s DARK, which I already explained I wanted. It revives Judgment Dragon, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Dark Armed Dragon, and anything else if I’m desperate for a Sacred Sword, Allure or Solar Recharge target. It’s a Dragon so it’s dump-able via Darkflare in order to make Dark Armed plays. It discards cards to graveyard correct more effectively. For the most part though, it will likely just reset the REDMD Lightpulsar loop with just itself and 1 other card, which is pretty nice. It can also be revived with REDMD to recycle things nearly infinitely, which is neat I suppose.

With all these additions to recur-ability I’ve been thinking of changing my Eclipse Wyvern line-up too. At the moment I’ve been testing 2 Eclipse, 1 Dark Armed, 1 REDMD and only 1 Judgment Dragon. It’s been showing a lot of promise, but I’ll give a more helpful update when I have more solidified theory-Oh! about it.

The last thing I have to say is more of an interesting concept I’ve been toying with, it’s the idea of using Darkflare Dragon as a search tool. Technically it already searches things using Eclipse Wyvern and Dragon Rulers. With Darkflare on field and either Eclipse Wyvern or any Dragon Ruler in hand you can use Darkflare to discard one to send the other and search any Eclipse Wyvern from your deck. The most lame thing you can do is send Eclipse to send Blaster and summon Blaster to get a REDMD. REDMD banishes Darkflare and then revives anything with at east 2400 attack making a field of 8000 damage with almost no effort. Back to searching though, Darkflare can send a Dragon Ruler with its effect as a cost and banish that same Dragon Ruler. This means you can effectively change what happens to “discard a Dragon-type monster to search you deck for Debris Dragon” or something like that. The most valuable application I could think of was Darkflare + either Tempest or Tree Dragon. Darkflare can discard to the first to send the second and then banish the Tempest. Tempest then searches Debris which you can normal summon to revive the Tree Dragon. Then you can make a Rank 4 XYZ, probably Queen Dragun Djinn, my Rank 4 of choice. If I ran Trigon that play would work using a either Trigon, Tree Dragon or Tempest plus Darkflare to make multiple interesting plays.

Time to continue testing! Tell me if you’d like to see a deck list, or maybe even some duel videos because I can do that!

QOTW? Question of the Week:

What deck are you most interested in trying under the new ban list and why? I honestly want to try to make a Dragon Ruler deck, because I still think it would be really interesting using them with cards like D.D.R. and Dragoncarnation.

Written by: Kyle

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