Getting to the bottom half of the series! This time we’ll take a look at Light, which has decent Core/Welcome cards but not as strong as Nature/War without expansion sets. With the starter cards you would be building an Aggro/Midrange deck depending on which Core cards you get first, but overall the best decks for Light are Aggro and Control (which can get pretty expensive).
Here are some strengths and weaknesses of the Light God:
Strengths
-Variety of creature buffing options to make good trades
-Warded and Protected creatures to keep board presence
-Lots of healing options for both creatures and your God
-Transform effects that will not leave a copy in their void as well as not trigger Afterlifes
Weaknesses
-Low on card generation/card draw
-No reach; if you don’t have creatures, you won’t be dealing damage to your opponent except for a few (non-blitz) relics
-Not many tempo cards; you fall behind on board as Aggro/Midrange and it’s hard to come back
The most popular God Power for Light is Summon Acolyte, as this goes well with the God’s play style of having creatures on the board for buffing. However, for Control decks they have the option to use Heal which can prolong the damage you can endure before dropping your higher mana cards; some decks use this to keep high health minions on the board as well, but the Acolytes are usually more useful for board-based decks. Lysander’s Honor can be used to cripple your opponent’s creatures to do little to no damage, however this has gone out of flavor compared to the other God Powers as it doesn’t do anything if there are no targetable creatures.
As you finish the tutorial and level up, you’ll start collecting Core cards; Light has some good cards which you should sub into your starter decks as soon as possible.
These Core creatures will stay in your deck all the way to Mythic rank: Dryder Sailwaever is a warded 2/2 which provides defense against spells, while Vexing Vicar trades 1 attack and health for Protect to make it even stickier. Felid Janissary is buffs one of your creatures to trade up or survive while killing a creature, and Militant Theist can do the same thing with the added option to debuff an enemy creature, killing any 1 health creature through Ward and Protect. Radiant Embalmer creates good value but is only used in Control decks as its stats are bad for its cost.
Other good creatures that may get cut off as you climb the ranks include Blind Martyr, Devoted Follower, Bright Mage, Holy Enchanter, and Judge Envoy.
Light has some decent relics as well though they lack blitz: Ritual Rod can be a 2/3 if you control a Mystic, which Light has a few of, and Mace of Calling adds a 1-mana 2/2 to your hand. Serene Blade doesn’t allow you to attack but buffs your next 3 creatures with +1/+1 and Ward which is useful against most Gods, however it might be too slow.
Light also has some good spells: Recovering Sigil is used to cycle through cards faster while providing a heal to all characters (used in Control decks mostly), and Light’s Levy provides tempo by transforming an enemy creature into a 2/2 under your possession. Imperious Smite is a direct removal for the strongest creature (be careful and make sure the strongest creature on the board is not yours as this will destroy it!) and Wrong Path basically makes your opponent pay twice the mana for a creature and skip a draw phase.
If you luck into one of the Core Legendaries, a couple of them are great but for their specific decks. Odessa can really slow down or even break your opponent if they’re playing a low-mana Aggro deck or Combo deck and is mostly used in Midrange/Control decks, while Asterius is an auto-include in most Aggro decks since he provides the big buff to your weak creatures that they need for the mid/late game. Triumvirage Prophet isn’t really played; the Chosen One isn’t a very coherent concept at the moment even with a bunch of support cards.
I’ll go over some of the cheaper expansion cards which are good value for your deck; some of them will certainly boost your deck to the next level and are basically considered mandatory. I’ll be focusing on cards for Aggro decks as it’s easier for newcomers to build.
Humble Benefactor (0.35 GODS) is an echo card that can make your creatures survive trades and thus maintain a healthy board presence; the echo means you get another creature with the same buff which is quite useful. Thaeric Extortionist (4 GODS) does the same thing as Light’s Levy but I prefer this in Aggro decks due to the extra body it gives, which means another target for buffing (one of the bodies also gives a -1 attack debuff which is useful sometimes). Vesper of Concession (2) is a good relic removal card in that it’s not bad of a 1-drop even if your opponent doesn’t have a relic since it has Protected so it’s sticky; if they can’t remove it it’ll continuously decrease their relic’s durability if it wasn’t destroyed already. Inquisitor Informant (0.6) gives you an opportunity to catch up on the board by putting an enemy under Order, and it can also be used to bypass annoying Frontlines for a couple of turns.
For spells, Radiant Dawn (1.5 GODS) is board wide buff that will make your small creatures stronger and tougher, and it also removes Sleep from them. Canonize (16) on the other hand buffs one creature with +3/+3 and it gives them Protect to trade up or make it tougher to remove. Chaining of the Gods (21) is versatile but sometimes may not be favorable depending on the board state; the dream is to remove the strongest enemy creature who has 2 health then either buff your whole board or the weakest creature. Note that the order of which you pick the options matter here: let’s say your opponent has a 3/2 and you have a 1/1. If you rightly choose the strongest option then weakest, then your opponent’s creature will be destroyed first and you’ll be left with a 3/4. However, if you did it the other way, first your 1/1 will be buffed to 3/4, then since it’s now the strongest, it’ll get debuffed back to 0/2. Be careful and think when you use this spell! Finally, we have Protective Benediction (1), which provides defensive buffs for your creatures with 2 strength or less; this can set them up nicely for an Asterius in a later turn.
Some other creatures that you may consider are Empyrean Pacifist (6 GODS) which can grow and stay alive as you summon more creatures with Backline to ensure you get to choose who to attack, Olympian Guard (7) which is a 2-mana 2/3 that will grow to a 3/4 if not destroyed before the end of the next turn (and possibly the best opener in a mirror match), and Intimidating Uplifter (0.1) which can give a bigger buff than Theist or Janissary.
Onto the more expensive cards: Thestor (~22 GODS) can be a snowballing machine that can win you games by itself. Sern (84) is an indispensible card used in basically all Light decks regardless of type as it provides Order, Healing, and Draw all in one. Highborn Knight (672) is another card that can be used in Aggro, Midrange, or Control. Finally, Lysander’s Spear (298) is a relic that can continuously buff a creature with +2/+2 if you play Light cards which is amazing.
I’ve provided some example decks here for Aggro Light, from a Welcome and Core deck as you’re first starting out to build towards, then budget Aggro and Control decks; do note that I only included the budget Control version here for you to get a sense of how it’ll work, but without the much more expensive cards like Demogorgon and Thaeriel this isn’t going to be that great. The budget Aggro is much better than it for sure. Finally, I’ll show a more expensive version of Aggro Light. These cards and decks aren’t set in stone; feel free to experiment and check out GUDecks.com for more! There are a lot of cards that can do well which aren’t mentioned here.
This is the 5th part of the series. For Magic, click here. For War, click here. For Nature, click here. For the Introduction and Neutral Cards, click here