The Many Intricacies of Light and Darkness Dragon – Yu-Gi-Oh!

Light and Darkness Dragon

quote Effect

This card cannot be Special Summoned. While this card is face-up on the field, its Attribute is also treated as DARK. When a Spell or Trap Card is activated, or the effect of an Effect Monster is activated, that activation is negated and this card loses 500 ATK and DEF. When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, select 1 monster in your Graveyard. Then destroy all cards you control, and Special Summon that monster.

Light and Darkness Dragon is one of, if not the most difficult cards to understand. There are simply so many intricacies to its effect that having a deck based around the guy is often more annoying than fun, as unless you’re dueling someone else who fully understands it, they’re going to try and tell you that you can’t do half of what you’re doing with him.

So, I’ve decided to put together this thread to tell you all about the many aspects of this fabulous card. Sit back, and enjoy the ride!

The Basics

First, we must understand the basic functions of the card.

quote Effect

This card cannot be Special Summoned.

Simple enough to understand. The only way to get this guy out is by Tribute Summon. In most cases, 2 monsters. You can also do it by tributing Totem Dragon, who can be used as 2 Tributes for a Dragon type monster, or by tributing Kaiser Sea Horse, who can be used as 2 Tributes for a LIGHT attribute Monster. Simple enough. Decks most likely to bring him out are Frog Monarchs (or any deck that focuses on Treeborn Frog), Pure dragons, who utilize Totem Dragon, or the more recent archetype, Dragunities (certain builds equip him to Leyvaten in order to bring into play the loop they create).

quote Effect

While this card is face-up on the field, its Attribute is also treated as DARK.

Light and Darkness Dragon, while on the field, is treated as both a LIGHT and DARK attribute monster. Anywhere else it is only a LIGHT attribute monster. This effect is the least utilized part of the card. Some things to note about it though are that if a card calls for a LIGHT attribute monster, it can be used for that, and likewise with any card that calls for a DARK attribute monster (face-up on the field). When facing Catastor, Catastor will recognize it as a DARK attribute monster and attempt to activate its effect, which Light and Darkness Dragon will then attempt to negate. When Gozen Match is activated, Light and Darkness Dragon will always be sent to the grave (if it has already run out of negates). However, as it is only a LIGHT attribute Monster while in the hand, it can still be Tribute Summoned/Set while Gozen Match is on the field, but it will be sent to the Graveyard as soon as it is Summoned/Flip Summoned.

quote Effect

When a Spell or Trap Card is activated, or the effect of an Effect Monster is activated, that activation is negated and this card loses 500 ATK and DEF.

And now we come to the main part of the effect. When a Spell, Trap (except counter traps), or Monster effect is activated, Light and Darkness Dragon negates it by losing 500 attack and defense points. This is a mandatory effect, and will be activated even on your own cards! Light and Darkness Dragon’s original attack and defense provide him enough points to negate 4 cards. After the first negation it’ll have 2300 ATK/1900 DEF, the second 1800 ATK/1400 DEF, third 1300 ATK/900 DEF, and fourth 800 ATK/400 DEF, at which point it does not have enough defense points to give up to make any more negations. However, Light and Darkness Dragon’s effect will still activate each time a Spell, Trap, or Monster effect is activated, it just won’t be able to negate it. Remember this, as it will be important later on.

quote Effect

When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, select 1 monster in your Graveyard. Then destroy all cards you control, and Special Summon that monster.

Ah, the next most important part of the effect. When this card is finally destroyed, you select 1 Monster in your Graveyard, destroy all cards on your side of the field, then Special Summon the selected monster. Notice that you must make the selection before destroying all cards on your field, so you are unable to Special Summon any monster that was on the field at the time Light and Darkness Dragon is destroyed. You make your selection, destroy all cards, then Special Summon. By all accounts, this is certainly a very nice part of its effect, because just as your opponent finally gets Light and Darkness Dragon out of the way, they now have to deal with his replacement! But do notice that this effect can only go off if Light and Darkness Dragon is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard. If it is removed from play, Tributed or sent to the Graveyard, the destruction and Special Summon effect will never activate.

Kill it with Fire!

Alright, now that we have a basic understanding of how Light and Darkness Dragon works, it’s time to get into the many facets of playing with and against this card. So now we’ll discuss how to kill it!

The fastest and easiest way to take it out is to negate it’s summon. Solemn Warning! Solemn Judgment! Don’t even let that guy hit the field! Oh but wait, we’ve just run into one of the many tricks Light and Darkness Dragon has up its sleeve! When it is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, its final effect goes off. Incidentally, Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment destroy and send it to the Graveyard. As a result, your opponent’s side of the field is nuked and they get to Special Summon a monster from the Graveyard! Thanks Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment! Couldn’t have done it without you!

The next most popular way of destroying Light and Darkness Dragon is to start activating card effects until it is weak enough to be run over with one of your Monsters. Alternatively, if you have no Monster to deal with it, you still might drain it down to 800 ATK/400 DEF, so your card effects aren’t negated anymore. A fine plan indeed!

A more favorable way of taking out Light and Darkness Dragon is to outsmart it with chains!

No, no, no! That’s not what I meant at all!

What I mean is, suppose Light and Darkness Dragon declares an attack on you. You activate Mirror Force. Light and Darkness’ mandatory effect activates to negate it, and you chain your Raigeki Break! You discard a card, and destroy Light and Darkness Dragon! You see, Light and Darkness Dragon can’t negate card effects that happen later in a Chain than he does. He’s good, but he’s not that good. Light and Darkness Dragon is destroyed, your opponent’s field is nuked, and they get to Special Summon a Monster from the Grave! Job well done, my friend!

Another way to take out Light and Darkness Dragon is quite simple. Suppose your opponent attacks your Caius the Shadow Monarch with their fully powered Light and Darkness Dragon. All you have to do is activate a trap card – any trap card – and Light and Darkness Dragon will negate it, bringing itself down to 2300 attack, unable to stop itself from committing suicide on your 2400 attack Caius! Of course, it would be very foolish of your opponent to do something like that, unless there was something in their Graveyard that they want on the field more than Light and Darkness Dragon. Make sure you’re prepared in just such a situation! When Light and Darkness Dragon hits the field, always be aware of the Monsters in your opponent’s Graveyard, so you know what you’re likely to have to deal with once you get rid of it!

Perhaps the best way to deal with Light and Darkness Dragon is by only using one card to do it, and not even having to give up that one card. For example, Treeborn Frog. As its effect activates during the Standby Phase, Light and Darkness Dragon will negate it, thus keeping it where it is in the Graveyard. However, it’s still the Standby Phase, so you can just keep activating the effect and Light and Darkness Dragon will keep negating it until it no longer has the points to give up! What’s more is you can then bring Treeborn Frog to the field and it gets to stay there! The same goes for other similar cards such as Totem Dragon, or Naturia Pineapple. There are other cards that can drain Light and Darkness Dragon all by themselves. Any Spirit Monster, for instance, can do the job just fine, as their effect to return to the hand during the End Phase is mandatory, and will keep activating even after Light and Darkness Dragon negates it! Any card with a trigger effect that can be activated more than once per turn can also drain Light and Darkness Dragon as well. Honest, for example, has the effect that allows it to return to your hand during the Main Phase. So all you have to do is keep activating that, and Light and Darkness Dragon will keep negating it! This is made possible by the fact that Light and Darkness Dragon only negates, and does not destroy.

But watch out! There are some cards that people think will drain Light and Darkness Dragon, when in reality they cannot. Battle Fader, for instance. Some people think that when you attack they can just keep trying to drop Battle Fader until Light and Darkness Dragon is unable to negate it anymore. This is not true. Battle Fader cannot activate its effect more than once for the same attack! The most it can do is try to Special Summon itself once for that attack, get negated, and the attack will go through. It’s the same story with Gorz the Emissary of Darkness.

You may have noticed that all of these methods for getting rid of Light and Darkness Dragon allow its final effect of Special Summoning a Monster from the Grave to activate. But have no fear, an answer is here! After draining Light and Darkness Dragon of all negations, you can get it off the field without setting off its effect. There are several ways to do this. One is to remove it from play with a card like Caius the Shadow Monarch, Dimensional Fissure, Macro Cosmos, etc. Another is to have it sent to the Graveyard, by a card like Dark End Dragon or Gozen Match. Of course, it can be Tributed without its effect going off, but that’s usually out of your control unless you have a card like Soul Exchange or Lava Golem on hand.

That’s All Cool, But I Want to Start Abusing This Guy Now!

Definitely! There are many ways to use Light and Darkness Dragon to your advantage, even after he’s used up all of his negations!

First off, ways around the field nuke! There will be cases where you don’t want your field to be nuked. Perhaps you’ve got a nice setup on the field and losing it would hurt you pretty bad. Well, there is an answer! Several, in fact!

Synchro Summon of course! Simply summon Dread Dragon, and Synch for the all-powerful Trident Dragion! Synchro Summoning sends Light and Darkness Dragon to the grave, so its effect will not be activated.

Tribute Summon! Tributing does not destroy, so feel free to bring out that Caius! You save your field, and take something away from your opponent!

A very interesting way to get around the field destruction is Burst Breath or Deck Devastation Virus. You can even do it when Light and Darkness Dragon still has the points left to negate! Why? Because both Burst Breath and Deck Devastation Virus tribute him as a cost. The tribute part is what gets you around the field nuke, and the cost part is what stops Light and Darkness Dragon from negating it! See, paying a cost cannot be negated. And because Light and Darkness Dragon is the cost, it will be removed from the field before it can negate the effect! Do note that when using Deck Devastation Virus, you have to use it when Light and Darkness Dragon still has more than 2000 attack and is face-up, because only then is it treated as a DARK attribute monster.

Another way to get Light and Darkness Dragon off the field without nuking it is to remove it from play to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon! You have absolute control over when Light and Darkness Dragon leaves the field!

Now, I know what you’re saying: “But Kaiba, I’ve run out of negates but I want more!” Don’t worry! There’s a solution to this as well! Just activate Book of Moon! This will reset its stats! Simply flip summon it and start negating again! “Alright Kaiba, but what if I want to reset its stats while it still has negates left?” Simple! Remember what I said about chains?

Damnit, I said no!

What you can do is, after your opponent activates a card (or you activated one of your own), once Light and Darkness Dragon tries to negate it, chain Book of Moon, and it will get flipped, resetting its stats again! What’s more is that the originally activated card gets to resolve normally, as Light and Darkness Dragon is no longer face-up to negate it. So if, say, your opponent attacked Light and Darkness Dragon with Stardust Dragon, and you activate Mirror Force, Light and Darkness Dragon will try to negate it, allowing you to chain Book of Moon to flip Light and Darkness Dragon. And like I said, that first activated card (Mirror Force) gets to resolve. Do you know what that means?

“Chains?”

What it means is that Mirror Force will resolve, destroying all face-up monsters on your opponent’s field, and Stardust can’t do anything about it! Why is that? Because of the chain!

Hooray for chains!

You see, Stardust would have had to be activated in response to Mirror Force, but it couldn’t, since Light and Darkness Dragon, being a mandatory effect, automatically places itself at Chain Link 2, while Stardust, as an optional effect, has no choice but to sit there and wait to die! Careful, because this works against you as well! Your opponent can have their own Mirror Force, or any of their cards, resolve by chaining Book of Moon to Light and Darkness Dragon’s negation effect!

Something else to be aware of is the fact that Light and Darkness Dragon’s Special Summon effect occurs during the Damage Step (assuming it was destroyed by battle), so your opponent cannot chain Royal Oppression.

And now for the most nasty and perhaps most uncommon aspect of Light and Darkness Dragon that makes him a bitch to play against. Even when it no longer has enough points to give up to negate effects, its effect still activates. Of course, it doesn’t negate anything, due to the lack of points to give up, but as a mandatory effect, it will still try to negate cards. It just won’t negate them. But how is this nasty? Well, let me give you an example: You’ve got Light and Darkness Dragon on the field, and it’s down to 800 ATK/400 DEF. It can no longer negate anything. You then decide to Special Summon a monster by an effect. For this example, let’s say you are removing Red-Eyes Wyvern from the grave to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Your opponent activates Solemn Warning, hoping to negate the Summon. Unfortunately, they can’t. Why? Because of Light and Darkness Dragon. While it cannot negate Solemn Warning (both because it’s a counter trap and LaDD no longer has the points to give up for negations), it still must activate its effect. Light and Darkness Dragon’s effect is mandatory, while Solemn Warning is optional (whether or not to activate it, that is). As a mandatory effect, Light and Darkness Dragon automatically places itself at Chain Link 2. This happens before the opponent is allowed to respond. Light and Darkness Dragon places itself at Chain Link 2, attempting to negate Wyvern’s effect (it is then unable to, as it doesn’t have the points to do so), and your opponent can then only respond to the activation of Light and Darkness Dragon’s effect, with a card such as Divine Wrath. So, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is successfully summoned to the field. It’s the same story with Royal Oppression. Light and Darkness Dragon will place itself at Chain Link 2, therefore causing Royal Oppression to “miss the timing”. But this also means that you can’t negate summons like these either!

And finally, I feel obligated to mention the Leyvaten-LaDD Loop. When Leyvaten is summoned, it can equip to itself a Dragon from the Graveyard. Suppose Light and Darkness Dragon is selected. While in the Spell/Trap Card Zone, none of its effects work. It cannot negate any card effects. However, if it’s destroyed and sent to the Graveyard (Mystical Space Typhoon or similar, or Leyvaten leaving the field) it will nuke the field and allow you to Special Summon a monster from the Graveyard. This is where the loop comes in. If Leyvaten was sent to the Graveyard, Light and Darkness Dragon is then destroyed, allowing you to select Leyvaten, nuke your field, Special Summon Leyvaten, who can then equip Light and Darkness Dragon to himself again. However, if Light and Darkness Dragon was destroyed by a card effect and Leyvaten remains on the field (Mystical Space Typhoon, Gravekeeper’s Descendant, etc.) you cannot start the loop with Leyvaten, as its still on the field when you have to select a Monster in the Graveyard that will be Special Summoned, then the field will be nuked. So unless you have another Leyvaten in the Graveyard, in addition to the one still on the field, you will have to choose a different Monster, and will be without the loop.

I am sure there are many more intricacies to Light and Darkness Dragon, but I either don’t know of them, or don’t remember them, and I daresay this thread is long enough. So I’ll end it here, and you all can feel free to make comments and ask questions about anything I’ve gone over here, or about anything you want to know about how Light and Darkness Dragon works.

Light and Darkness Dragon is one of, if not the most difficult cards to understand. There are simply so many intricacies to its effect that having a deck based around the guy is often more annoying than fun, as unless you’re dueling someone else who fully understands it, they’re going to try and tell you that you can’t do half of what you’re doing with him.So, I’ve decided to put together this thread to tell you all about the many aspects of this fabulous card. Sit back, and enjoy the ride!First, we must understand the basic functions of the card.Simple enough to understand. The only way to get this guy out is by Tribute Summon. In most cases, 2 monsters. You can also do it by tributing Totem Dragon, who can be used as 2 Tributes for a Dragon type monster, or by tributing Kaiser Sea Horse, who can be used as 2 Tributes for a LIGHT attribute Monster. Simple enough. Decks most likely to bring him out are Frog Monarchs (or any deck that focuses on Treeborn Frog), Pure dragons, who utilize Totem Dragon, or the more recent archetype, Dragunities (certain builds equip him to Leyvaten in order to bring into play the loop they create).Light and Darkness Dragon, while on the field, is treated as both a LIGHT and DARK attribute monster. Anywhere else it is only a LIGHT attribute monster. This effect is the least utilized part of the card. Some things to note about it though are that if a card calls for a LIGHT attribute monster, it can be used for that, and likewise with any card that calls for a DARK attribute monster (face-up on the field). When facing Catastor, Catastor will recognize it as a DARK attribute monster and attempt to activate its effect, which Light and Darkness Dragon will then attempt to negate. When Gozen Match is activated, Light and Darkness Dragon will always be sent to the grave (if it has already run out of negates). However, as it is only a LIGHT attribute Monster while in the hand, it can still be Tribute Summoned/Set while Gozen Match is on the field, but it will be sent to the Graveyard as soon as it is Summoned/Flip Summoned.And now we come to the main part of the effect. When a Spell, Trap (except counter traps), or Monster effect is activated, Light and Darkness Dragon negates it by losing 500 attack and defense points. This is aeffect, and will be activated even on your own cards! Light and Darkness Dragon’s original attack and defense provide him enough points to negate 4 cards. After the first negation it’ll have 2300 ATK/1900 DEF, the second 1800 ATK/1400 DEF, third 1300 ATK/900 DEF, and fourth 800 ATK/400 DEF, at which point it does not have enough defense points to give up to make any more negations. However, Light and Darkness Dragon’s effect will still activate each time a Spell, Trap, or Monster effect is activated, it just won’t be able to negate it. Remember this, as it will be important later on.Ah, the next most important part of the effect. When this card is finally destroyed, you select 1 Monster in your Graveyard, destroy all cards on your side of the field, then Special Summon the selected monster. Notice that you must make the selection before destroying all cards on your field, so you are unable to Special Summon any monster that was on the field at the time Light and Darkness Dragon is destroyed. You make your selection, destroy all cards, then Special Summon. By all accounts, this is certainly a very nice part of its effect, because just as your opponent finally gets Light and Darkness Dragon out of the way, they now have to deal with his replacement! But do notice that this effect can only go off if Light and Darkness Dragon is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard. If it is removed from play, Tributed or sent to the Graveyard, the destruction and Special Summon effect will never activate.Alright, now that we have a basic understanding of how Light and Darkness Dragon works, it’s time to get into the many facets of playing with and against this card. So now we’ll discuss how to kill it!The fastest and easiest way to take it out is to negate it’s summon. Solemn Warning! Solemn Judgment! Don’t even let that guy hit the field! Oh but wait, we’ve just run into one of the many tricks Light and Darkness Dragon has up its sleeve! When it is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, its final effect goes off. Incidentally, Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment destroy and send it to the Graveyard. As a result, your opponent’s side of the field is nuked and they get to Special Summon a monster from the Graveyard! Thanks Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment! Couldn’t have done it without you!The next most popular way of destroying Light and Darkness Dragon is to start activating card effects until it is weak enough to be run over with one of your Monsters. Alternatively, if you have no Monster to deal with it, you still might drain it down to 800 ATK/400 DEF, so your card effects aren’t negated anymore. A fine plan indeed!A more favorable way of taking out Light and Darkness Dragon is to outsmart it with chains!What I mean is, suppose Light and Darkness Dragon declares an attack on you. You activate Mirror Force. Light and Darkness’ mandatory effect activates to negate it, and you chain your Raigeki Break! You discard a card, and destroy Light and Darkness Dragon! You see, Light and Darkness Dragon can’t negate card effects that happen later in a Chain than he does. He’s good, but he’s not that good. Light and Darkness Dragon is destroyed, your opponent’s field is nuked, and they get to Special Summon a Monster from the Grave! Job well done, my friend!Another way to take out Light and Darkness Dragon is quite simple. Suppose your opponent attacks your Caius the Shadow Monarch with their fully powered Light and Darkness Dragon. All you have to do is activate a trap card – any trap card – and Light and Darkness Dragon will negate it, bringing itself down to 2300 attack, unable to stop itself from committing suicide on your 2400 attack Caius! Of course, it would be very foolish of your opponent to do something like that, unless there was something in their Graveyard that they want on the field more than Light and Darkness Dragon. Make sure you’re prepared in just such a situation! When Light and Darkness Dragon hits the field, always be aware of the Monsters in your opponent’s Graveyard, so you know what you’re likely to have to deal with once you get rid of it!Perhaps the best way to deal with Light and Darkness Dragon is by only using one card to do it, and not even having to give up that one card. For example, Treeborn Frog. As its effect activates during the Standby Phase, Light and Darkness Dragon will negate it, thus keeping it where it is in the Graveyard. However, it’s still the Standby Phase, so you can just keep activating the effect and Light and Darkness Dragon will keep negating it until it no longer has the points to give up! What’s more is you can then bring Treeborn Frog to the field and it gets to stay there! The same goes for other similar cards such as Totem Dragon, or Naturia Pineapple. There are other cards that can drain Light and Darkness Dragon all by themselves. Any Spirit Monster, for instance, can do the job just fine, as their effect to return to the hand during the End Phase is mandatory, and will keep activating even after Light and Darkness Dragon negates it! Any card with a trigger effect that can be activated more than once per turn can also drain Light and Darkness Dragon as well. Honest, for example, has the effect that allows it to return to your hand during the Main Phase. So all you have to do is keep activating that, and Light and Darkness Dragon will keep negating it! This is made possible by the fact that Light and Darkness Dragon only negates, and does not destroy.But watch out! There are some cards that people think will drain Light and Darkness Dragon, when in reality they cannot. Battle Fader, for instance. Some people think that when you attack they can just keep trying to drop Battle Fader until Light and Darkness Dragon is unable to negate it anymore. This is not true. Battle Fader cannot activate its effect more than once for the same attack! The most it can do is try to Special Summon itself once for that attack, get negated, and the attack will go through. It’s the same story with Gorz the Emissary of Darkness.You may have noticed that all of these methods for getting rid of Light and Darkness Dragon allow its final effect of Special Summoning a Monster from the Grave to activate. But have no fear, an answer is here! After draining Light and Darkness Dragon of all negations, you can get it off the field without setting off its effect. There are several ways to do this. One is to remove it from play with a card like Caius the Shadow Monarch, Dimensional Fissure, Macro Cosmos, etc. Another is to have it sent to the Graveyard, by a card like Dark End Dragon or Gozen Match. Of course, it can be Tributed without its effect going off, but that’s usually out of your control unless you have a card like Soul Exchange or Lava Golem on hand.Definitely! There are many ways to use Light and Darkness Dragon to your advantage, even after he’s used up all of his negations!First off, ways around the field nuke! There will be cases where you don’t want your field to be nuked. Perhaps you’ve got a nice setup on the field and losing it would hurt you pretty bad. Well, there is an answer! Several, in fact!Synchro Summon of course! Simply summon Dread Dragon, and Synch for the all-powerful Trident Dragion! Synchro Summoning sends Light and Darkness Dragon to the grave, so its effect will not be activated.Tribute Summon! Tributing does not destroy, so feel free to bring out that Caius! You save your field, and take something away from your opponent!A very interesting way to get around the field destruction is Burst Breath or Deck Devastation Virus. You can even do it when Light and Darkness Dragon still has the points left to negate! Why? Because both Burst Breath and Deck Devastation Virus tribute him as a cost. The tribute part is what gets you around the field nuke, and the cost part is what stops Light and Darkness Dragon from negating it! See, paying a cost cannot be negated. And because Light and Darkness Dragon is the cost, it will be removed from the field before it can negate the effect! Do note that when using Deck Devastation Virus, you have to use it when Light and Darkness Dragon still has more than 2000 attack and is face-up, because only then is it treated as a DARK attribute monster.Another way to get Light and Darkness Dragon off the field without nuking it is to remove it from play to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon! You have absolute control over when Light and Darkness Dragon leaves the field!Now, I know what you’re saying: “But Kaiba, I’ve run out of negates but I want more!” Don’t worry! There’s a solution to this as well! Just activate Book of Moon! This will reset its stats! Simply flip summon it and start negating again! “Alright Kaiba, but what if I want to reset its stats while it still has negates left?” Simple! Remember what I said about chains?What you can do is, after your opponent activates a card (or you activated one of your own), once Light and Darkness Dragon tries to negate it, chain Book of Moon, and it will get flipped, resetting its stats again! What’s more is that the originally activated card gets to resolve normally, as Light and Darkness Dragon is no longer face-up to negate it. So if, say, your opponent attacked Light and Darkness Dragon with Stardust Dragon, and you activate Mirror Force, Light and Darkness Dragon will try to negate it, allowing you to chain Book of Moon to flip Light and Darkness Dragon. And like I said, that first activated card (Mirror Force) gets to resolve. Do you know what that means?What it means is that Mirror Force will resolve, destroying all face-up monsters on your opponent’s field, and Stardust can’t do anything about it! Why is that? Because of the chain!You see, Stardust would have had to be activated in response to Mirror Force, but it couldn’t, since Light and Darkness Dragon, being a mandatory effect, automatically places itself at Chain Link 2, while Stardust, as an optional effect, has no choice but to sit there and wait to die! Careful, because this works against you as well! Your opponent can have their own Mirror Force, or any of their cards, resolve by chaining Book of Moon to Light and Darkness Dragon’s negation effect!Something else to be aware of is the fact that Light and Darkness Dragon’s Special Summon effect occurs during the Damage Step (assuming it was destroyed by battle), so your opponent cannot chain Royal Oppression.And now for the most nasty and perhaps most uncommon aspect of Light and Darkness Dragon that makes him a bitch to play against. Even when it no longer has enough points to give up to negate effects, its effect still activates. Of course, it doesn’t negate anything, due to the lack of points to give up, but as a mandatory effect, it will still try to negate cards. It just won’t negate them. But how is this nasty? Well, let me give you an example: You’ve got Light and Darkness Dragon on the field, and it’s down to 800 ATK/400 DEF. It can no longer negate anything. You then decide to Special Summon a monster by an effect. For this example, let’s say you are removing Red-Eyes Wyvern from the grave to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Your opponent activates Solemn Warning, hoping to negate the Summon. Unfortunately, they can’t. Why? Because of Light and Darkness Dragon. While it cannot negate Solemn Warning (both because it’s a counter trap and LaDD no longer has the points to give up for negations), it still must activate its effect. Light and Darkness Dragon’s effect is mandatory, while Solemn Warning is optional (whether or not to activate it, that is). As a mandatory effect, Light and Darkness Dragon automatically places itself at Chain Link 2. This happens before the opponent is allowed to respond. Light and Darkness Dragon places itself at Chain Link 2, attempting to negate Wyvern’s effect (it is then unable to, as it doesn’t have the points to do so), and your opponent can then only respond to the activation of Light and Darkness Dragon’s effect, with a card such as Divine Wrath. So, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is successfully summoned to the field. It’s the same story with Royal Oppression. Light and Darkness Dragon will place itself at Chain Link 2, therefore causing Royal Oppression to “miss the timing”. But this also means that you can’t negate summons like these either!And finally, I feel obligated to mention the Leyvaten-LaDD Loop. When Leyvaten is summoned, it can equip to itself a Dragon from the Graveyard. Suppose Light and Darkness Dragon is selected. While in the Spell/Trap Card Zone, none of its effects work. It cannot negate any card effects. However, if it’s destroyed and sent to the Graveyard (Mystical Space Typhoon or similar, or Leyvaten leaving the field) it will nuke the field and allow you to Special Summon a monster from the Graveyard. This is where the loop comes in. If Leyvaten was sent to the Graveyard, Light and Darkness Dragon is then destroyed, allowing you to select Leyvaten, nuke your field, Special Summon Leyvaten, who can then equip Light and Darkness Dragon to himself again. However, if Light and Darkness Dragon was destroyed by a card effect and Leyvaten remains on the field (Mystical Space Typhoon, Gravekeeper’s Descendant, etc.) you cannot start the loop with Leyvaten, as its still on the field when you have to select a Monster in the Graveyard that will be Special Summoned, then the field will be nuked. So unless you have another Leyvaten in the Graveyard, in addition to the one still on the field, you will have to choose a different Monster, and will be without the loop.I am sure there are many more intricacies to Light and Darkness Dragon, but I either don’t know of them, or don’t remember them, and I daresay this thread is long enough. So I’ll end it here, and you all can feel free to make comments and ask questions about anything I’ve gone over here, or about anything you want to know about how Light and Darkness Dragon works.