Duality – #BLMR-EN036
Tribute 1 LIGHT or DARK monster; Special Summon 1 LIGHT or DARK monster from your hand or Extra Deck with the same original Type and Level, but a different original Attribute. During your Main Phase: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 LIGHT and 1 DARK monster in your GY; shuffle both into the Deck, then draw 1 card. You can only use each effect of “Duality” once per turn.
Shadow’s Light – #BLMR-EN037
Target 1 DARK monster you control; Special Summon 1 LIGHT monster from your Deck or Extra Deck with the same original Type and Level. You can banish this card from your GY; during your Main Phase this turn, you can Normal Summon 1 LIGHT or DARK monster in addition to your Normal Summon/Set. (You can only gain this effect once per turn.) You can only use each effect of “Shadow’s Light” once per turn. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate either of this card’s effects.
Date Reviewed: August 22nd, 2023
Rating: See Below
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
A two-for-one Tuesday special here with two cards that act similar.
Duality has been a hyped card though it hasn’t found itself into top decks that are seeing playing time.
Tributing a LIGHT or DARK monster you control to get a free Special Summon of the opposite Attribute that you tributed, but from the Main or Extra Deck is a pretty good effect if you can line the effect up. As a Quick-Play it gives you a lot of flexibility to use it either turn to avoid interaction with your opponent and stack another attack during your Battle Phase. Restrictions limit you to same Type and Level, and that can be a deal breaker. Many monsters can’t be Special Summoned without fulfilling a requirement, Xyz and Link monsters are excluded for obvious reasons, and you often times players are running one Attribute and not a combo of Attributes, and if they are they are usually tech cards like Hand Traps.
Banish Duality in the grave for a LIGHT or DARK recycle from the grave and free draw is an easier effect than the first one to come by. Both effects can be used in the same turn so the potential to plus off of this straight-away is high.
You can use Duality as a means to get to another monster in your Main Deck, but you have to run multiples of the same Level, and then you have to go opposite the DARK or LIGHT Attribute, which eliminates several archetypes from consideration. This is meant to get something out of the Extra Deck that doesn’t have any specific drawbacks to being Special Summoned rather than being Fusion or Synchro Summoned. The smaller the level the easier it will be to Special Summon, and some levels are harder to come by when matching Type and then the opposite Attribute. For something like Winda you’d need a Level 5 LIGHT Spellcaster, Dragoon would need a Level 8 LIGHT Spellcaster but wouldn’t get its burn ability. Any Blue-Eyes Level 8 would get you to Borreload Savage but it wouldn’t get the attach ability which is what makes Borreload good.
Duality can be a good card. Not every deck can play it, not every deck needs it either. If you don’t care about missing certain effects out of the Extra Deck and only care about stacking another attack then this card can work for you. I want to see someone break this card though.
The counterpart to Duality seems like Shadow’s Light.
Normal Spell, making it slower than Duality. You lose the interchanging ability of either LIGHT or DARK, Shadow’s Light requires only DARK on your field, but you don’t have to give up a monster for your Special Summon. Same restrictions as Duality on the summon, just a slower, but this first effect is a +1 vs a 1-for-1. Slower Duality but better value best describes the first effect.
Banish in the grave like Duality but instead of a cycle back for a draw, you get another Normal Summon of a LIGHT or DARK monster during your Main Phase. The last restriction is what makes this card less viable than Duality: no Battle Phase. Where Duality was about damage as well as potential effect(s) from the summon it grants you, Shadow’s Light is only about effect(s). You get another summon and in decks that need to Normal Summon and are DARK and to a lesser extent, LIGHT, this card is better than Duality.
No Battle Phase isn’t a killer anymore, players want to get as many effects off as possible to build up their field. Shadow’s Light focuses on keeping monsters on the field and getting you those effects. Both cards force a less flexible approach to using them, but can be very useful.
For Duality:
Advanced-3/5 Art-3/5
For Shadow’s Light:
Advanced-3.5/5 Art-2.5/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
A double feature today for you LIGHT and DARK fans that help transform your monsters to the opposite Attributes, whether you use Duality or Shadow’s Light.
Duality is a Quick-Play Spell that lets you tribute any LIGHT or DARK monster to summon a LIGHT or DARK monster with the same original Level and Type, but the opposite original Attribute. There’s a lot of cute things that can be done with this, mainly in Branded letting you tribute something like Granguignol to go into Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon or maybe Dragonmaids swapping a House Dragonmaid for a Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss. Thankfully this doesn’t summon from Deck like the other card, or the ban on this thing would be swift. With that said, this effect still offers some access to interesting Extra Deck monsters or maybe something you could hard draw, but most likely the former. We also got a graveyard effect during your Main Phase to banish this card from the graveyard to target a LIGHT and a DARK monster in said graveyard to shuffle them into the Deck for you to draw a card, which is nice recycling and draw power for any strategy using both Attributes. Hard once per turn on each effect, as is expected. Duality can be a pretty powerful card for anything LIGHT and DARK related, letting you get access to some monsters certain Decks couldn’t previously get to. Branded makes solid use of it right now and I’m sure more Decks in the future can find a purpose for a card like this.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 2.5/5 Not ugly, but very lazy.
Now for Shadow’s Light, we got a Normal Spell that lets you target a DARK monster you control to summon a LIGHT monster from your Deck or Extra Deck with the same original Type and Level. Now we got access to any LIGHT monster from the Deck just as long as their Level and Type match up with a DARK monster that exists in the game. Another solid card for Chaos strategies, though a bit harder to use since you got to target a DARK to summon a LIGHT, though vice versa might get a little out of hand with how strong DARK monsters are. We also got a graveyard effect on this card to banish it in order for you to be able to Normal Summon a LIGHT or DARK monster in addition to your Normal Summon or Set that turn during the Main Phase (with this being an effect you can only gain once a turn). Extra Normal Summons are always nice, so one for the two best Attributes in the game potentially should open up some powerful combos at your disposal. Hard once per turn on each effect and you cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you use either, which the first part is standard and the second seems like a major balancing point in fear of summoning an entire Attribute from the Deck. Still, another solid card. Duality is better for being able to summon DARK monsters as well, even if you give up the Main Deck as an option. Shadow’s Light can still find some good use in the right strategy, I just don’t know what that is as of right now.
Advanced Rating: 3.5/5
Art: 2/5 Allure of Darkness at home.
Mighty
Vee
Despite the poor reception to the ill-fated Chaos Synchro series, Konami continues to print Chaos support, and today we’re doing a double feature of Duality and Shadow’s Light. Duality is a Quick-Play Spell with two hard once per turn effects. By tributing a DARK or LIGHT monster, you can Special Summon any LIGHT or DARK monster from your hand or Extra Deck with the same Type and level but a different Attribute (basically, a more restricted Metamorphosis). Like Shadow’s Light, this card was considered broken on paper, though thankfully, it’s not as strong as it looks. Not being able to summon from the deck hurts the card’s combo potential a lot, so you’re pretty much limited to cheating out strong Extra Deck monsters. Decks with level 8 LIGHT Spellcasters, like Dogmatika or Branded through Granguignol the Dusk Dragon, can use it to easily bring out Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, and Golden Cloud Beast – Malong is a popular choice if you run a large amount of Bystial monsters. Branded decks have seen success with it as well, cheating out Herald of the Arc Light using Aluber, the Jester of Despia and turning Albion the Shrouded Dragon into Albion the Stigmata Dragon. Furthermore, since it’s a Quick-Play, you can use it to dodge hand traps for some starters as long as you have an appropriate monster to summon (which is more restrictive than you would think). Duality’s other effect can only be activated during your Main Phase, banishing itself and shuffling a LIGHT and DARK monster in your Graveyard back into your deck to draw one card. This effect is simply a nice bonus to recycle some monsters while getting advantage out of it. I think Dogmatika, Branded, and Dragon Link are the best users of Duality, but I don’t think it’s reliable enough as an extender to justify it being a must-run. Experiment with it to taste!
Advanced: 3.5/5
Art: 2.5/5 It looks fine, but kinda uninspired?
Shadow’s Light has a similar but more restrictive effect, having two hard once per turn effects as well (albeit as a Normal Spell this time). Shadow’s Light will tribute any DARK monster to Special Summon a LIGHT monster with the same type and level from your deck or Extra Deck. In general, this is much better than Duality as an extender, since combo pieces are generally found in the Main Deck, not the Extra Deck, though having to share the same Type is still quite restrictive. Shadow’s Light has much more applications in Dragon Link, since any of your level 4 Rokkets will be able to go into Starliege Seyfert and kickstart the Chaos Dragon engine. Shadow’s Light’s other effect is also more conducive to extending than Duality, banishing itself from your Graveyard to grant an additional Normal Summon for a LIGHT or DARK monster. As a consequence, you can’t conduct your Battle Phase the turn you use either effect, which isn’t an issue going first, but it can be a liability going second, especially with a deck like Dragon Link that can easily OTK if given the opportunity. I think Shadow’s Light is better than Duality in general, though the decks that use Duality well use it much better than Shadow’s Light. It’s not a bad inclusion to a primarily DARK deck with LIGHT combo pieces, though it’s not a must-run by any means.
Advanced: 3.25/5
Art: 1.5/5 Okay now that’s just a light.
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