Lightsworn - Not on Top

A small discussion on Pojo.com, as to why Lightsworn will not rule this metagame:


A few reasons why lightsworns will not rule this format:

• 1) Kaiser Colosseum

• 2) Inconsistency: The deck fizzles on it's ability to get judgement about 20 percent of the time (1 in 5 games), and thus can't keep up it's win streak consecutively.

• 3) Divine Wrath: Completely shreds the best parts of this deck apart. 2 or 3 divine's in a deck, played right, can take apart a lightsworn deck unless they can double judgement, or judgement and double honest throughout the course of the game.

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Their response:

royal decree will take care of the divine wraths and twisters for kaiser colosseums.

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My reply:

The average lightsworn player will draw 1, maximum 2 decrees per game.

Yet their average opponent will get their mystical, twisters, heavy, or any other counter measures.

It's a lot easier for a regular deck to take a decree out, than it is for lightsworn.

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Btw, I welcome the day Lightsworn Drops beckoning in place of decree, just makes it that much harder for them to get judgement.

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It's a win win either way, and i don't see Lightsworn being able to tech against it.

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Someone else responds with:

That's why some of us mess around with larger deck sizes which give us more options to switch out

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My reply:

Larger deck size = harder to pull cards you need to win games.

If it's only minimally larger, there will only be a minimal gain.

If it's significantly larger, there will be a significant loss, and inability to draw the right cards you need, to go for game.

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It's why most decks are most efficient at 40 cards, they get what they need faster than others.

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Kazedes says:

i wouldn't call 2-4 more cards in LS a significant increase especially if in my case
would range between play test of Shrink,Glorius,Gragonith,Half or Nothing, Book of Moon, and even Waboku.

Someone infers more asking:

What do you define is "significant".

5-10% is not significant? What is?

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My reply:

Then as mentioned before, it would be a minimal gain with the addition of 2 or 3 cards.

If you get in the 5-6 card range it starts to become very significant, and will hamper the deck.

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Someone else says:

This is somewhat pointless really. Lightsworns have already proven to be a good deck, despite what people call them as inconsistent lucksacks. Honestly, the deck itself is solid for making plays that make them what they are; however, other decks like Monarch and Gladiators simply are better for consistency.

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My reply:

I agree on some of those points.

Lightsworn is a solid deck and I'd give it a rating of 8.9/10.

There is a difference between a very very good deck though, and one that dominates the metagame.

It's a great deck, but we shouldn't call it the best right now and as time goes on it'll become clearer and clearer.

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Kazedes Mentions:

about 7% deck increase which is 42 to now 44-5 isn't that painful for LS considering what you add in. It slows down the deck as i've mentioned many times before but it's the same reasoning behind running wulf x3 under my jurisdictions. High reward over Slight problem and personally the cards I listed is 100x better than running Cosr that alot of try to use without much avail since garoth does it better.


I'm sure we all know its a good deck and as I also mentioned before It's not the best out there. It will be up there somewhere but definitely not the best. We don't have enough side deck space to make it that way unfortunately

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My Reply:

It's important to mention though that a good lightsworn player with the appropriate side deck is deadly in this format.

There will be a huge surge in creativity, with the loss of metagame, and as a result a new player class.

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In my area alone I've seen a few new decks pop up that I'd never expect to contend.

Now take that ingenuity, put it in the hands of a lightsworn player, give him a good side deck, and he'll run over most decks 80-90% of the time.

The sad truth is I find most lightsworn players don't analyze their decks enough.

They could learn a thing or two from Kazedes.

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Analysis:

How lightsworn does will mostly be up to the player.

The innovative players who know how to be creative, and work their side decks, will do very well in this format.
They probably will dominate their areas as well, abusing the power of Lightsworn.

But as for the format as a whole, and the player base as a whole, Lightsworn will not dominate the meta.