La-ki-oh
Duelist Soul

Review of ...

Meet the Blue-eyes White Dragon's Warrior cousin. Black Luster Soldier is at a substantial 3000 ATK and 2500 DEF which is exactly matching to those of the aforementioned dragon. That is a very beefy statistic.

Black Luster Soldier is a simple card. He has no additional effect other than the fact that he is a ritual monster. Being a ritual, he gets to be summoned for a spell card, and a tribute of 8 stars. In ritual terms, that's not a good thing. If you use a lot of level 4 and lower monsters, you'll need 2, or maybe even more monsters to offer for this. That's not good, even if it is coming from the hand.

Obviously, this monster is best kept as a ritual in a deck with another lever 8 or higher monster that can be used as a tribute. That makes it nice and simple to summon, plus now you might have high-level monster to summon from the graveyard. Regardless that is still a pretty large risk to take for a single summon. Although it's a special summon, the likelyhood of HAVING another monster left to set is depressingly low.

Another negative note I have to make about this card is that before it, there have been more powerful attack ritual monsters, even one that has an effect in addition to it's massive strength. The only positive side is that this card is MANY times easier to get than those that are better than him; he's in a starter deck. That and there's some nice cards to help your warrior types. Other than that, he's just a nice strong monster that's a risk.

Beginners may take great advantage of this card, but experienced play will slowly drive it away. I guess that makes it perfect for a starter deck.