Lightsworns (LS) are a deck-type that deals with profiting off of tossing
tremendous numbers of cards from your deck into the graveyard. They are all Light Fairy monsters meaning
they can abuse Honest. The #1 goal is to
be able to summon Judgment Dragon to clear the field and then swarm for the
game. Because of this, I’d first like to
highlight some pros and cons of the LS deck:
Pros:
-You can summon 4-5 monsters to the field without breaking a sweat
-You can OTK rather easily
-Either way, your duels will be short
-You have field control of both spells/traps and monsters.
-You can choose to either play aggressively or wait and decide when you
feel it is best to dive in
Cons:
-If you aren’t careful (or if you’re unlucky) you can easily overextend
(wind up with no cards in your hand)
-Has very little in the way of defenses
-Due to the high level of structure of the deck it does not perform as
well in match play due to being unable to vary the deck much with your side
deck without damaging the structure of the deck.
-The only synchro summoning you’ll be doing is by using Monster Reborn on
an opponent’s tuner/synchro monster.
Next, let’s move on to the cards that you need to know:
Celestia, LS Angel:
5 stars, 2300/200
When you Tribute Summon this card by Tributing a “Lightsworn”
monster, you can send the top 4 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard to destroy
up to 2 cards your opponent controls.
Celestia makes for a wonderful beatstick while also having an effect that
basically clears the field. Not too
shabby at all.
Garoth, LS Warrior:
4 stars, 1850/1300
Each time a card(s) is sent from your Deck to the Graveyard by the
effect of a "Lightsworn" monster you control, except "Garoth,
Lightsworn Warrior", send the top 2 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard.
Then, draw 1 card for each "Lightsworn" monster sent to the Graveyard
by this effect.
Garoth is 1 of your choice draw engines and will keep you from
overextending your hand on occasion. Do
note that if he is on the field with too many other LS monsters during the end
phase, you need to account for the fact you’ll be discarding 2 extra per each
other LS who discards AND you’ll be drawing cards potentially so don’t deck out
by using him unwisely. He works best
early on when there are only 1 or 2 other LS monsters on the field and at 1850
ATK he makes for a good beatstick that can swing over cards like E Hero
Stratos.
Lumina, LS Summoner:
3 stars, 1000/1000
Once per turn, you can discard 1 card to Special Summon 1 Level 4 or
lower "Lightsworn" monster from your Graveyard. During each of your
End Phases, send the top 3 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard.
Lumina is your all-purpose swarming agent. She is like the Zombie Master of the LS deck
with the only downside that she has only 1000 ATK.
Lyla, LS Sorceress:
4 stars, 1700/200
You can change this card from face-up Attack Position to face-up
Defense Position and destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card your opponent controls. If
you activate this effect, this card's battle position cannot be changed until
the end of your next turn, except with a card effect. During each of your End
Phases, send the top 3 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard.
Lyla is your spell/trap control and at 1700 she also makes herself a
decent beatstick. Just swing with her
and then use her effect when you’re done or use her effect 1st to
clear the field so you can feel safer swarming the field for an OTK!
Ryko, LS Hunter:
2 stars, 200/100
FLIP: You can destroy 1 card on the field. Send the top 3 cards of
your Deck to the Graveyard.
Ryko is a good 1st move since he can disrupt your opponent’s
strategy while also getting you started with sending cards to the grave. He doesn’t need to be maxed by any means, but
having 1 or 2 can be helpful.
Wulf, LS Beast:
4 stars, 2100/300
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. When this card is sent
from your Deck to the Graveyard, Special Summon it.
This guy needs to be maxed in any LS deck! He allows you to completely profit off of all
the milling the deck does with multiple free 2100 ATK beatsticks, and if you
happen to sadly have him end up in your hand he can be discarded by Lumina,
Beckoning Light or Solar Recharge.
Judgment Dragon:
8 stars, 3000/2600
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be
Special Summoned except by having 4 or more "Lightsworn" monsters
with different names in your Graveyard. You can pay 1000 Life Points to destroy
all other cards on the field. During each of your End Phases, send the top 4
cards of your Deck to the Graveyard.
This is your ultimate monster.
Toss a bunch of LS into the grave, if he gets tossed Beckoning Light can
bring him back, then summon him, clear the field, and swing for the game. You can OTK without him, but he makes the OTK
that much easier.
Honest:
4 stars, 1100/1900
During your Main Phase, you can return this card from the field to
it's owner's hand. During either player's Damage Step, when a face-up LIGHT
monster you control battles, you can send this card from your hand to the
Graveyard to have that monster gain ATK equal to the ATK of the opponent's
monster it is battling, until the End Phase.
This card is a god to all decks that use Light monsters. He will basically allow you to win any battle
that involves 1 of your attack position LS monsters and he can also aid you in
your OTK. 3 of these is a must!!!
Necro Gardna:
3 stars, 600/1300
Remove from play this card in your Graveyard to negate 1 attack from
a monster your opponent controls.
With all the milling you’ll be doing it is nice to have more cards that
profit from being in the graveyard.
Charge of the Light Brigade:
Normal Spell card
Send the top 3 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard. Add 1 Level 4 or
lower "Lightsworn" monster from your Deck to your hand.
Put an LS monster in your hand while milling cards just like you
want. Awesome, no?
Solar Recharge:
Normal Spell card
Discard 1 "Lightsworn" monster. Draw 2 cards, then send the
top 2 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard.
So, you get to put an LS in the grave, draw cards from your deck, and
then send more cards to the grave? What
more could you want out of a card in an LS deck?!
Beckoning Light:
Normal Trap card
Discard all the cards in your hand to the Graveyard, then select a
number of LIGHT monsters from your Graveyard equal to the number of cards you
discarded, and add them to your hand.
You know, there are some cards that we don’t want in the graveyard. Use this to retrieve Honest and Judgment
Dragon! Your opponent declares an
attack, you activate Beckoning Light and retrieve a couple Honest. During the damage step you use 1 or both of
them to completely dessimate your opponent!
Well, that pretty much gets through the individual card discussions. Let’s move on to the actual deck now, shall
we? Now, there are other versions of
this deck that, for instance, deal with trying to neutralize Skill Drain which
can be deadly to LS decks or that attempt to abuse Card of Safe Return, but for
the deck I’m going to show the focus is going to be more purely on control,
clearing the field, and swarming for the kill.
Here’s what we’ve got:
Monsters(22):
2x Judgment Dragon
2x Celestia
2x Garoth
3x Lumina
3x Lyla
2x Ryko
3x Wulf
3x Honest
2x Necro Gardna
More than the average 18-20 monsters are in here so that all of that
milling does indeed result in more monsters than spell/trap cards being
milled. It’s the monsters you want in
the grave, not the spells and traps. You
can play around with the numbers of each monster, but this is how I like it.
Spells(12):
3x Charge of the Light Brigade
3x Solar Recharge
1x Monster Reborn
1x Heavy Storm
1x Giant Trunade
3x Cold Wave
Keeping it sweet and simple. Giant
Trunade and Heavy Storm can clear the field before you go for an OTK. Charge of the Light Brigade and Solar
Recharge kick off your milling and prep early OTK’s with Lumina, Wulf, and
Judgment Dragon. Cold Wave keeps the
opponent from interfering with your OTK and because LS depend mostly on monster
effects, you don’t need the use of your own spells and traps when it comes to
swarming the field.
Traps(6):
3x Beckoning Light
3x Solemn Judgment
Some may ask what has happened to Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute and
Bottomless Trap Hole and all that other protection. As I said in the beginning of this article,
LS is an extremely aggressive deck-type.
The only protection you’ll be needing will be Solemn Judgment because
the duel is going to be over in just a few turns either way. Sometimes I even prefer taking out 1 of the
Beckoning Lights to add in a 3rd Garoth or Celestia.
Again, a word to the wise is be careful not to deck yourself or
overextend your hand too far when playing the LS deck-type. Also, be very careful when attempting to use
this deck in a match play tournament setting because the deck pretty much falls
apart if you attempt to side in more than just 2-3 cards, and the deck does
have serious weaknesses against many side-deck favorites such as Royal
Oppression, Skill Drain, Light-Imprisoning Mirror, and Thunder King
Rai-Oh. If you’re going to side
something in I would suggest having Mobius ready for your 2nd and 3rd
duels and having Mystical Space Typhoon sided as well. Your worst fear as an LS duelist is running
into those dangerous Trap cards.
I hope you all took something from this article. Until next time may your duels be mush and
your brains exciting, or was it the other way around? xD
Subject: Lightsworns - Either deck your Opponent or Deck out! 
Thu Dec 31, 2009 12:51 pm
