Who knew that putting half of your cards in the graveyard could be a good move?
One of the most unique Yu-Gi-Oh! characters are the Lightsworn.
Almost all of them “mill” your deck in some way, sending the top few cards to the graveyard.
Milling can cause some very strong effects that could help you win the duel, especially if you have these guys on your side.
What Are the Lightsworn Monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh!?
The Lightsworn archetype is made up of several monsters with different types that have both light and dark attributes. Their special powers are activated by destroying (or “milling”) your own deck.
Most Lightsworns have abilities that move cards from your deck to your graveyard and give you something in return.
You might think that the fact that you don’t know what’s on top of your deck would make this a hard series to play, but there are a lot of great supports and a lot of members, so it’s actually a pretty stable group.
17. Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
Lyla’s level four, like Jenis’s, lets you use your extra deck, and she has a strong 1700 ATK.
But Lyla’s main job is to remove spells and traps, which is something that few low-level Lightsworn can do.
During your main phase, you can move Lyla from the attack position to the defensive position, even if you just summoned her.
This lets you destroy a spell or trap that your opponent has used. But if you do this, Lyla can’t be moved again until the end of your next turn, so she’ll be stuck with her weak 200 DEF until then.
Even if she loses, having Lightsworns in your graveyard gives other members more power, and Lyla will have done her job.
Still, after using her ability, she makes great xyz, synchro, or link material, and Lyla mills the top three cards of your deck at the end of your turn, filling your graveyard and making your other Lightsworn abilities work.
16. Jenis, Lightsworn Mender
Jenis is a level four monster that can be used to cast both Minerva and the archetype’s signature synchro monster.
This is because level four monsters can combine with the level three tuner, which we’ll see soon.
Even though Jenis’s ATK is only 300, her DEF is 2100, so try to trick her into defense position with a special call or wait until you can manually shift.
Jenis awards your hard work with her ability to be tempting. If a Lightsworn card sent a card from your deck to the graveyard this turn, you deal 500 damage to your opponent during the end phase (including theirs) and gain 500 life points.
This increases the damage from effects and heals you at the same time. In this series, it’s important to keep your life high because two of the strongest monsters have powerful powers that drain your LP. Jenis makes sure you don’t run out of resources.
15. Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
Let’s start with something easy and look at Jain, the Lightsworn Paladin.
This card has a base attack of 1800, which is a shockingly high number for a level 4 monster.
Also, Jain can make her strikes even stronger every time it’s her turn. This is how:
When this card hits a monster your opponent controls, it gives the attacking monster 300 attack until the end of the damage step. All of that is a Cyber Dragon on a single level 4 monster.
This card has a mill effect, like most Lightsworn cards.
During your end phase, you must send the top two cards of your deck to the graveyard. This might seem like a high price, but if you look at some of the other Lightsworn cards on this list, you’ll see how useful milling can be.
14. Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
Even though flip effects aren’t the most popular right now (except for Shaddolls, which is one of the best fusion decks out there! ), Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter is an exception because he has two flip effects that are very strong.
When this card is turned over, you can do two things at the same time:
You can remove any one card on the field and then shuffle the top three cards of your deck into your deck.
When this card came out, Ryko was a popular choice in almost every deck because it could be used to get rid of a lot of different things.
It can fight monsters, cast magic, and avoid traps… whatever you needed to do to get the job done.
Most decks paid the mill 3 to get rid of some great cards. But this ability was very helpful in a Lightsworn deck to put more Lightsworn monsters in the graveyard.
13. Realm of Light
Now is the time when milling half of your deck makes a huge difference.
Realm of Light is a field spell that gives you the following:
You can put a “shine counter” on this card every time a card from your deck goes to the graveyard.
Every Lightsworn monster on the field gets 100 attack for every shine counter this card has. Since this deck can easily mill 5 or 6 cards per turn, your monsters will become very powerful very quickly.
This field spell also has its own defense built into it. Because if this field spell would be destroyed by a card effect, you can just take off two shine counters from it instead, leaving it safe to use to help your monsters for the rest of the fight.
12. Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, 2000 base attack for one gift isn’t too bad.
But this guy is more than that:
This card gets 300 attack for each Lightsworn monster with a different name in your graveyard.
When you combine that effect with the field spell Realm of Light in this deck, you can easily get this monster’s attack to be well over 4000, all from a monster with only one attribute.
Gragonith also does piercing battle damage, which means that if it hits and destroys a monster in your opponent’s defense position, your opponent takes the difference in LP damage.
When you have monsters like Gragonith on your side, it’s easy to see why this deck is so powerful.
11. Michael, The Arch-Lightsworn
During the GX era of Yu-Gi-Oh, Lightsworn decks came out for the first time. Lightsworns also tried out synchro summoning.
This card gives the Lightsworn plan two very important tools.
First, you can pay 1000 life points to target and get rid of any card on the field. This is a great way to get rid of cards without damaging the deck.
Second, when this card leaves the field, you can move Lightsworn monsters from your graveyard back into the deck, giving you 300 life points for each one.
In a milling-based deck, it’s very important to have a card that keeps you from running out of cards.
Because it’s too easy to mill too hard, and before you know it, you won’t be able to draw for turn.
10. Curious, the Lightsworn Dominion
When link monsters were first revealed, a lot of new monsters of different types were made. In fact, we got so many that in the Link mode, pretty much any deck could play.
This is the Link monster for Lightsworns, and boy, is it a good one.
When you first bring this card into play, you can send any card from your deck to the graveyard. If you send the right card, this can set up some very powerful combos, and either way, it will give you more Lightsworns to use later.
But on top of that, when a card is sent from the deck to the graveyard (once per turn), you can mill the top three cards of your deck.
His first effect sets off his second, which lets you put a total of 4 cards from this card into your graveyard.
9. Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn
In Yu-Gi-Oh, level 4 tuners are worth their weight in gold.
They make it very easy to use synchro summons up to level 8, and they can also be used for rank 4 XYZ summons.
Raiden is one of the players who helps the mill plan the most.
You can discard two cards once per turn. If this effect sent any Lightsworn monsters to the graveyard, you can give Raiden up to 1900 attack.
Raiden also has the standard end-phase mill effect that forces you to mill two cards.
This gets rid of 4 cards, which should make your graveyard ready for whatever comes next.
8. Felis, Lightsworn Archer
When it comes to level 4 tuners…
Felis is such a flexible card that many decks that weren’t Lightsworn chose to play it. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given how broken her ability is.
When a monster’s effect sends this card from the deck to the graveyard, you can special summon it right away. Isn’t that pretty helpful?
You can either use it to match summon some very powerful monsters from your extra deck, or you can sacrifice Felis to use its second effect:
By paying tribute to this card, you can choose a monster your opponent controls and kill it. You can also mill your deck for three cards.
Felis is one of those cards that you always want to be milling off of another Lightsworn, no matter what plan you use. Any type of Lightsworn deck could run 3 copies of Felis without much trouble.
7. Solar Recharge
In current Yu-Gi-Oh, draw power is the most important thing a deck needs to do well.
It’s great to be able to draw a lot of cards, but if you don’t have any playable cards in your hand, it will be hard to get any monsters out.
This style has never seen a better draw card than Solar Recharge.
You can draw two cards from your deck and trash two by getting rid of a Lightsworn monster.
From a card advantage point of view, this is basically a +0 with a free mill. You can trade in “bad” Lightsworn cards for better ones from your deck and add more Lightsworn cards to your bin to use later.
6. Celestia, Lightsworn Angel
In current Yu-Gi-Oh, tribute summons don’t happen very often, but Celestia is one of the few monsters that is worth the cost.
By using a Lightsworn monster as a tribute to summon this card, you can destroy up to two cards your opponent owns by milling the top four cards of your deck.
This is (yet again) a great way to fill up your graveyard and add some general removal to your deck.
This effect can get rid of any card on the field on its own, giving you the freedom to get rid of whatever else is stopping you from winning.
5. Charge of the Light Brigade
This is by far the best card that lets you look in any Lightsworn deck.
You can add any Lightsworn monster level 4 or lower from your deck to your hand by shuffling your deck for 3 cards.
Lightsworns have so many strong level 4 monsters that this card on its own can set you up for a lot of different plays.
Charge of the Light Brigade is a must-have for your main deck if you want to play with a Lightsworn deck.
4. Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
When you’re milling cards, you always want this guy to go to the graveyard.
Here is why:
When this card is put from the deck to the graveyard, you can bring it to your side of the field for free with a special call.
I’m not one to turn down a free 2100 attack beater, especially when field spells like Realm of Light can boost it even more.
The only bad thing is that you can’t normal summon Wulf, the Lightsworn Beast if you get it in your starting hand.
Because of this, I’d play this card with only one or two copies in my deck… Possibly 3 if you’re lucky!
3. Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior
Garoth takes this deck’s churning power from being good to being great.
Whenever another Lightsworn monster causes you to mill a card from your deck, Garoth joins in and mills two more cards for you.
On top of that, you can draw an extra card for each Lightsworn monster you mill with this effect.
The strange thing about this card is that it doesn’t do anything once per turn.
Garoth will mill and draw cards for you every time one of your Lightsworn monsters does.
Garoth is by far the best way to draw a lot of cards with this deck, and he might even be one of the best Lightsworn monsters ever!
2. Minerva, The Exalted Lightsworn
As someone who loves to play Lightsworns, I can tell you that the wait for this card was terrible.
It was first given away as a YCS prize card in 2015. So, if you wanted a copy at that time, you had to go to an official event, win most of your games, and then find a way to get this card.
It was later included in a Battles of Legend set, so my deck could finally be at peace.
All of this being said, Minerva is an XYZ monster that is ridiculously strong.
It works like Garoth in that you can mill the top 3 cards of your deck by removing an XYZ material and drawing a card for each Lightsworn monster that was milled this way.
But on top of that, when this card leaves the field because of a fight or your opponent’s card effect, you can again mill your deck for 3 cards. This time, for every Lightsworn monster you mill, you can destroy a card on the field.
1. Judgment Dragon
The most important card in the Lightsworn set is the Judgment Dragon.
Even though it isn’t called a Lightsworn monster, you’d be crazy not to add this guy to your Lightsworn deck.
What it can do is:
While you have 4 or more Lightsworn monsters with different names in your graveyard, you can special summon the Judgment Dragon from your hand for free. Already off to a great start.
When this guy shows up on the field, your opponent is in a lot of trouble, because Judgment Dragon has one of the best ways to get rid of cards in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh.
You can destroy every other card on the field for just 1000 life points.
This doesn’t even happen only once per turn. So, if your opponent has annoying cards that can only be destroyed once per turn, you can just pay another 1000 life points and get rid of them the second time around.
In true Lightsworn style, this card also gets rid of 4 cards from your hand at the end of the end phase.
There’s no card in Yu-Gi-Oh! that’s as dangerous as Judgment Dragon, which makes him an essential Lightsworn enemy.
