Jason Grabher-Meyer
11/16/2009

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I had to think long and hard when I was deciding what I was going to name this article, and what approach I was going to take to today's subject matter. Calling something “the best card” in a given set is kind of a risk. I try not to make absolute statements like tht as a general policy, because what if the card never sees play? What if it's not everything my mind made it out to be? What if I'm actually just totally wrong?

I think too often in life we refuse to commit to things; usually out of fear. Fear of failure, fear of where the future may lead, fear of looking foolish. We've all been there. Maybe you refused to commit your self-worth, and go for that tryout or audition, or didn't apply for a job you wanted. Maybe you refused to commit money, and missed out on a trip or something you wanted. Maybe you couldn't find the nerve to approach that girl (or guy) who smiled when your eyes met. Or maybe you did, but after a few dates you couldn't bring yourself to offer something deeper and you broke it off. Whatever it is, fear kept you from committing.

Well you know what? Today I'm committing. And while we're not exactly talking about a long term relationship, I do have a lucky girl in mind, and the lady in Question is none other than Archlord Kristya.

Archlord Kristya
Level 8 / LIGHT / Fairy
2800 ATK / 2300 DEF
If there are exactly 4 Fairy-Type monsters in your Graveyard, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. If you do, add 1 Fairy-Type monster from your Graveyard to your hand. Neither player can Special Summon monsters. If this card would be sent from the field to the Graveyard, return it to the top of its owner's Deck instead.

Yes, make no mistake – as far as I'm concerned this is flat-out the best card in Stardust Overdrive. Kristya is truly awesome, and if enough people realize that fact we are in for a whole new era of dueling.

And It All Starts With A Very Special Summon
Kristya is huge. With 2800 ATK and an effect that lets you special summon her for no cost, she can dish out some serious hurt. Combined with even just an average normal summon, you can throw down 4000 damage or more really easily in a single turn. She's not a “nomi” though, so you can still tribute summon her or even bring her back from the graveyard with Call Of The Haunted.

No matter how Kristya gets to the field, her continuous effect is always going to kick in once she hits the table. That effect keeps both players from special summoning monsters, locking out Dark Armed Dragon, Judgment Dragon, Vayu summons, Lumina, Wulf, Synchro summons, and countless other threats. This effect is the core of Kristya's strength, and it's what makes her so deadly. The top three decks right now are Lightsworn, Blackwings, and Destiny Hero Zombies. None of them can lift a finger when they're pinned down under Kristya's effect, and most of their answers to a monster of Kristya's size require special summons in the first place.

More than that, when you do special summon Kristya with her effect, you get to return a Fairy card to your hand for free. I have no idea why. Was it meant as some sort of limiting drawback, keeping you from having the four Fairies you'd need to summon Kristya again when her fourth effect kicks in? And if that was the intent, did The Powers That Be just forget about Honest? Kristya can bring back cards like Dimensional Alchemist, Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, Bountiful Artemis, and any other number of top-notch Fairies, but most of the time, you'll be taking a copy of Honest. That Honest then protects Kristya herself and helps you score a guaranteed 2800 damage, while easily heading back to the graveyard if you need to re-summon her a turn or two later.

Which brings us to that fourth effect: the one that sends Kristya back to the top of your deck when she would be sent to the graveyard. Smashing Ground, Lightning Vortex, Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute, and even big monsters that somehow get through Kristya's effect to destroy her through battle – they don't get rid of her permanently. They just set her back on top of your deck where you can draw her again next turn. From there you could special summon her a second time, or even discard her for Trade-In. She is Level 8, after all.

Speaking Of Numbers…
…Let's go a bit deeper. A lot of Kristya's strength is tied with her relationship to card presence. On one hand, you can eliminate a lot of your opponent's options with Kristya's “no special summon” effect. That alienates cards in a way that's useful, but not something you'd factor into the actual math of card economy. On the other hand though, the card Kristya sends back to your hand when she's special summoned with her ability is very real, and can provide a big advantage even if your opponent has answers to Kristya herself.

For instance, while Bottomless Trap Hole can destroy Kristya and remove her from the game (keeping her from returning to the top of your deck) your opponent has to give up Bottomless to do that. You'll lose Kristya in the trade, but her effect will still resolve, returning a Fairy of your choice back to your hand. That's a straight +1 in terms of card economy – you and your opponent each lose a card (Kristya and Bottomless), but you get a card back from your Graveyard. And since you didn't invest your normal summon for the turn this isn't a conservative play – you can keep pressing immediately.

Solutions like Honest, Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, or Dimensional Prison are all 1-for-1 trades, but when applied to Kristya, you wind up getting an extra card out of the deal. Turning Kristya face-down with Book of Moon might turn off her special summon restriction, but it's a -1 in the short term, and her 2300 DEF can make it really tough to destroy her. If you summon Kristya, take back a Fairy, and your opponent has to Book of Moon her without taking her down, you're up a card while you're opponent's down one.

Even if your opponent does destroy Kristya, she can just come back next turn. When she does you'll get another Fairy for free, getting multiple pluses off the same Kristya (while you abuse Honests and lock down special summons). That's before we consider the obvious fact that her 2800 ATK means she'll be destroying monsters in battle, too. The list of cards that shut Kristya down without demanding card loss themselves is very short: think Solemn Judgment, Royal Oppression, and to some extent Skill Drain.

And the Lady Likes to Travel
There are plenty of decks you can play this multi-talented wonder in. You could build a Dimensional Alchemist variant like the one Ryan Spicer played in the Top 8 of SHONEN JUMP Championship Austin – it's already got Dimensional Alchemist (a Fairy), and it can run Shining Angel to search out Alchemist and feed Kristya. Since you can tribute summon Kristya too, you could build Counter Fairies with Overwhelm. You could play Chaos Fairies with Sorcerer, Dark Valkyria, and Light Fairies, or play a recruiter deck with a string of Shining Angels and Nova Summoners that you could blow through in a single turn to get to the four Fairies you need.

There are a ton of possibilities, but the one that I'm the most excited about is Lightsworn. They already come packing Celestia and Honest, and the deck is really good at quickly getting cards into the graveyard – it's easy to see the potential. I've gone for something a little more radical though, and without tooting my own horn I'm pretty happy with the results. Check it out:

TKL – Turbo Kristya Lightsworn – 43 Cards
Monsters: 24
3 Archlord Kristya
2 Judgment Dragon
2 Celestia, Lightsworn Angel
1 Shire, Lightsworn Spirit
3 Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
2 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
2 Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior
1 Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
1 Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid
3 Honest
3 Necro Gardna

Spells: 13
3 Charge of the Light Brigade
3 Solar Recharge
3 Trade-In
1 Heavy Storm
1 Cold Wave
1 Smashing Ground
1 Lightning Vortex

Traps: 6
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
3 Beckoning Light

I really haven't been this pumped about a deck since I figured out Elemental Hero Prisma in Gladiator Beasts. The goal? Do everything Lightsworn does, but add two new elements courtesy of Krissy: the ability to shut off special summons, and the pressure of having five huge special summons instead of just two. In the early game Kristya will lock out your opponent, boost your card presence over your opposition's, and dish out some big damage. In the late game she can combine with Judgment Dragon and Lumina to make for massive pushes and crushing finishes (just remember to do the rest of your special summons first before unleashing Kristya).

The deck is cool because it fills the graveyard so quickly, while giving you levels of control that are unparalleled in Lightsworn variants. Trade-In lets you dig deeper towards those big opening plays like Lumina / Garoth, while turning dead copies of Judgment Dragon and Kristya into new cards. You can retrieve them later thanks to Beckoning Light, and as a result it's really not uncommon to make plays like “Beckoning, discard three cards, take back Judgment Dragon, Judgment Dragon, Kristya for game.”

Beckoning Light is key, because if a game runs long, it helps you control your graveyard. Kristya can only be special summoned when you have exactly four Fairies yarded. If you have five or six Fairies in the graveyard, Beckoning solves that problem and clears them out for Kristya. That's not a problem, especially if the Fairies you're retrieving are multiple copies of Honest. The deck's ability to reuse Honest so easily means you can play fast and loose with them, which means more damage and a tougher time in battle for your opponent.

There are some really cool tricks here, too. For instance, if you're holding Trade-In and can special summon Kristya, getting a second copy of Kristya from your graveyard gives you the discard you need to draw two more cards. If you're holding Solar Recharge, bring back Celestia or Shire. Either way, you turn that extra card Kristya gets you into another draw, instantly. If you discard your fourth Fairy for Lumina's effect, then special summon Kristya and take back the Fairy you discarded, the monster you summoned with Lumina's ability was basically summoned for free.

Consistency and the fear of dead draws was a concern in building this deck. When I first started testing it, one of my top concerns was Trade-In – I was worried that playing Trade-In (especially three copies) might create too many dead cards and land me with bad hands. But even though I was adding three copies of Trade-In and three copies of Kristya to a traditional Lightsworn framework I didn't run into any problems. By eliminating Wulf, Lightsworn Beast, and replacing the Synchro hate of Black Shiny “C” with Kristya's generic special summon hate, I really mitigated that concern. The fact that Kristya and Trade-In can both be chucked for costs like Lumina's and Lightning Vortex's helped too, as did the third Beckoning. As a bonus, the lack of Wulf means you'll never find yourself field-locked and decking out with five monsters. Remember, you can always tribute two Lightsworn that are decking you out to summon Kristya.

The concern for live draws also led to the inclusion of the World Premier monster Shire, Lightsworn Spirit. Shire may not have adequate ATK in the early game, but unlike Celestia, you can normal summon her without tribute. She's the only Fairy you can search out with Charge of the Light Brigade, and you can discard her with Solar Recharge to get her where she needs to be. Once she's in the graveyard, you can pop her out with Lumina's effect, too – and that makes it easier to special summon Kristya when Fairies start stacking up. This deck started off running three copies of Celestia and no Shire, but testing revealed that two Celestia and one Shire was a surprising, superior choice.

This deck is deadly. If you're a Lightsworn fan I'd urge you to try it out, because it's great in the mirror match and really stomps on Blackwings. It's fast, flexible, and with added draw power tempered by Beckoning Light, it just feels more precise than the Lightsworn decks you're probably used to playing. Thanks to Trade-In this deck can send more cards to the graveyard in its first two turns than a standard Lightsworn build, and that means it's easier to score Necro Gardnas and easier to put together game turns with Beckoning.

Hardened Armed Dragon, Valhalla – Hall of the Fallen, Gellenduo, Proof of Powerlessness – there are countless combos you can build around to create your own Kristya variant. I think the Lightsworn deck outlined above is really something noteworthy, but that's just what I put together, and there are thousands of Duelists out there who'll hopefully experiment with this card. As the ideas and the builds become more and more refined, Kristya could very well become a format-defining card over the coming months.

In my opinion, Archlord Kristya truly is the best card in Stardust Overdrive. That's one statement I have no fear of committing to.

-Jason Grabher-Meyer