Judgment Dragon..... Guh.

[Toffee.]

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having 4 or more "Lightsworn" monsters with different names in your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. You can pay 1000 Life Points; destroy all other cards on the field. During each of your End Phases: Send the top 4 cards of your Deck to the Graveyard. You must control this face-up card to activate and to resolve this effect.

Never really noticed this, but JD's artwork looks beautiful with all those rainbow stars on it.
Disregarding the meta, if your going to use it as a contrast, but let me prompt this question;
We all know how badly designed this card was made, but is there, any way possible, that one can justify this card as being balanced design? And no, it's not the fact it relies on luck. As that's a negative point, not a positive one. If you can't come up with a reason why, that's ok, as I won't hold anyone against it, since we are all likely thinking the same thing about this card. And don't bring Mich into this, as that's another story.
Discussion, go.

[evilfusion]

I never liked that type of rarity in the BPs. Maybe JD does look okay with it.

 

Let's see...justifications for balance...hmmm...how many Lightsworn existed in LODT? No, that's a bad argument. There was at least 4, and Lyla and Ryko were good. The best answer is that after the stuff with PTDN and DAD, they wanted to make something comparable in power. In other words, they deliberately power-creeped it. The advent of Synchros is what really accelerated power creep, though.

 

I really cannot think of this card as balanced design, and am forced to assume it was DELIBERATELY bad design.

[Kingdom Xathers]

As Pure Lightsworns are my main (and practically only) Deck I use IRL, I will say... that yes, he is far too easy to drop (especially in multiples), even in a Mixed Deck like Twilight/Chaos and what have you; as such, he is also too easy to use, due to his "cost". Personally, I think that its Summoning Requirements should have involved *banishing* 4 different Lightsworns from the Grave, so as to at least keep Multiple Summons of this in one turn from happening too frequently (since Beckoning Light is an option in Lightsworns). As for Nuking? Either a heftier cost than 1000 LP, or at least make it more like Black Rose Dragon in that it would destroy itself as well.


... but, yeah, Jesus Dragon should not have been able to visit. There's hardly any way for anyone to justify this thing's existence....

[Toffee.]

Long story short; I've had a long night, and idiots insist on proving they are idiots. /irrelevant.

I really cannot think of this card as balanced design

Never said you had to assume its bad design, but every time we discuss it it always comes to that point, regardless of how we try to analyze it.
So I'm just curious if its at all possible for someone to try and justify this card. If they can't, it's fine.

[The Warden]

I don't think it even IS possible to justify JD as good design, because it's not. There is literally no way to justify a card that has what can be considered the easiest summoning condition for any boss in existence (I'm ignoring Grapha, as technically his is a cost), and that it doesn't even have a negative setback beyond destroying your own cards, for what little you still have.

 

See, the problem is largely not just for how easy the cost is, but also because he still gets to attack. He gets to nuke and attack, and that is the major problem with him. If in exchange for his nuke you couldn't enter your Battle Phase, JD would actually be balanced; well, NOT balanced, but a lot less degenerate.

 

But, as he is, he's just a deliberate bad design for a deck whose mill was supposed to be a bad thing. But all the Lucksworn ever proved was that mill is a very good thing for most decks, and also proves that you cna play like a complete retard and still win.

 

It just doesn't help that he's @3 in a format where most of his outs are Limited or crap.

[Azuh]

On the topic of Starfoils. I reckon Pokemon did it a lot better with its Radiant Collection set

[Jirachibi]

It is one of the most unbalanced cards in the game and there's not really much to say about it that hasn't already been said.

[TheTurtleOnceCalledGod]

[Sarcasm Mode Activated]
This card and the meta in general were not designed to be balanced. They are designed to have a fun experience for those that are playing and those that are being played against. Unfortunately, this card and many others are one-sided towards self-gratification at winning. The weakness of Lightsworns is that we have banishing methods to counter them, or various stalls that do not require being on the field, and we totally like those types of anti-meta and non player to player interactions, right? Counterability does not mean that a card is balanced or not, though it does help justify its continued existence in the meta. In the end, this is a game meant for fun, and to support the lives of the employees of shops that sell the cards and Konami.
[/Sarcasm Mode]

[Lonk]

Konami was high when making this.  Why isn't this card banned?  Sacky bosses should be banned because the player doesn't deserve the win just because they topdecked a field nuker that they can summon easily because they milled out 4 different LS cards.  It's stupid.

[Maeriberii Haan]

Why cards with Judgment in its name almost always deliberately made to have a bad design.

[NeoRWBY65]

The first time I encountered this, my opponent had only 600 life points left. He still kicked my butt with it even then.

[TheKaitoKid]

The first time I encountered this, my opponent had only 600 life points left. He still kicked my butt with it even then.

yeah that's cause this card has an absurd 3000 ATK, And on top of that ridiculous ATK stat, his DEF is beefy as hell. I hate this card.

[SuperbX]

I remember a time I used to think this card was balanced, I do not wish to go back to that time. This card should really be Limited, especially with all the new Lightsworn support coming out.

[heraldry_lord]

Why cards with Judgment in its name almost always deliberately made to have a bad design.

 

"Judgment" implies you're about to have the fear of whatever God or Spaghetti Monster you revere brought down upon you. 

 

Judgment Dragon is horrific design, but he's competitively irrelevant due to the archetype he's tied to. 

[newhat]

There are myriad reasons why this is powerful, but the most basic one is that most Decks cannot undo your opponent's Graveyard progress.

[hexcalibrate]

judgment dragon, not exactly the weakest card when it comes to ATK, DEF, Level, Type, Attribute or Effect (pretty much every aspect of the game) but there is one major weakness that this card has that I have yet to see with any other, predictability

 

this is without a shadow of a doubt the easiest card to predict in the entire game, not once I have ever sat there and thought to myself "my opponent is using lightsworns and milling cards from their own deck... on purpose?! this unusual but it couldn't possibly be leading up to anything". most people as soon as they see lightsworns expect JD and tend to prepare a counter for it, it is a level 8 light dragon effect monster with a badass ATK, now if you don't have a counter for at least one of these factors in your deck and you aren't doing well in the duel, then you can't really blame JD.

 

p.s. just incase anyone thinks this is stupid and flawed argument then may I also just say "there is always Lava golem"

[AGATHODAIMON BANGTAIL COW]

<Something about how beautiful JD's whiskers are> most people as soon as they see lightsworns expect JD and tend to prepare a counter for it, it is a level 8 light dragon effect monster with a badass ATK, now if you don't have a counter for at least one of these factors in your deck and you aren't doing well in the duel, then you can't really blame JD.

 

p.s. just incase anyone thinks this is stupid and flawed argument then may I also just say "there is always Lava golem"

But Decks DO run counters to JD: BTH, Torrential Tribute, Solemn Warning, Raigeki Break, and probably PWWB to delay for a turn. It's just that this is a card game, and what cards you get are beyond you, because you can't search those traps (well, BTH can be searched by Mesmerizing Maneaters or whatever they're called now, but you are not running that Deck now are you?). And then, those cards are only going to stop only one JD Dragon. Why? Because that one is gonna nuke the everloving tar out of the rest of the field before you realize that your opponent has ANOTHER JUDGMENT DRAGON WHYYYYYYY and then OH GOD THERE IS A THIRD ONE.

 

And Lava Golem? It's completely nonfunctional if your opponent plays with only one monster on the field, and can still beat you senseless with its own 3k ATK. Plus, it doesn't help you stop JD, it helps you get rid of it, and its method of doing so relies on you actually having survived that turn. As a random anti-JD counter, I would rather run Black Horn of Heaven.

 

 

OT: Coming out of nowhere and blowing up everything is really frustrating. It doesn't help that so many random weirdos in DN are running Lightsworns when I'm trying to have fun with Lycanthrope. It would be nice if Lightsworns could move past their reliance on sacky bosses that hit the field and screw you over, and JD either becomes unusable in 3-or-less-Lightsworns (probably never going to happen) or just gets its own judgment in a nice little spot somewhere between Goyo Guardian and baby Lightning.

[Sleepy]

In JD's defense, there is really nothing I can say. Playing against it back in the day was what made me stop believing that the designers actually wanted a balanced game where I could just train myself with my favorite deck and be able to win just like with any other.

 

He's gone over a variety of combos that he would not have been able to best if he wasn't so badly designed.

Someone nuked my field with Des Gardius once, causing me to take control of JD, only to have another one dropped and nuke again.

Stardust would never be a decent incentive without Waboku and the like to go along with it.

He's pierced through all of Maestroke's protections in a single turn and still attacked directly with it's twin.

 

Konami had previously made a similar card, Demise. It had 600 less ATK, it costed twice as much, it needed to be Ritual Summoned (and all drawbacks that can imply), and still, I think both this card and the Ritual Spell used for it were in the list for a long while after that.

Konami also decided to mock the fanbase by giving it Blue-Eyes stats but 100 more DEF. It was deliberate.

 

It also too obviously and notoriously showcases how Konami was not having a clear judgement of what is balanced and what deserves to be in the list more. Having JD at 2 or 3 all the years Demise was gone. 

Demise's deck could not drop a second Demise costlessly from the hand, it's deck made it more possible that the player would take Battle Damage and lose advantage, and combined with it's nuke's cost, you could only really nuke around 3 times per Duel, unlike JD's sometimes 3 per turn.

JD had an archetype that covered the best of it's generation:

A Breaker, a Zombie Master, a more destructive Monarch, Honest (for god's sake), a Man-Eater Bug that destroyed anything, 

Especially in the past. Hey guys, remember back in the day? Foolish Burial x2, Necro Gardna x3, Lumina x3, Card of Safe Return x1, Monster Reborn x1.

 

It was bad that Konami refused to ban archetype cards in the past for some reason.