A Guide to Lady of Lament

Lady of Lament is a series of Level 3 DARK Fiend monsters who have effects that deal with Tributing monsters, Setting/Recycling Normal Trap Cards, and that deal with Fiend monsters whose combined ATK/DEF equal 2000.

Lilith, Lady of Lament - A Promising Start

Lilith was released in the Lair of Darkness Structure Deck and is their first card and overall poster child. Her role in the Structure Deck was to set Virus Traps and other Normal Traps from the Deck by Tributing a DARK mosnter which had synergy with the Deck's centerpoint, Lair of Darkness, which allowed you to Tribute your opponent's monsters instead of your own.

With her being the first Lady of Lament card, future Lady of Lament monsters followed in her stead of having effects that deal with Tributing monsters and interacting with Normal Trap Cards. However, Lilith remains as the main playmaker of the Deck as well as the best card in the Deck with her ability to set 2 Normal Trap Cards from your Deck (1 on your turn and 1 on your opponent's turn with her being a Quick Effect). She is an automatic 3-of in any Lady of Lament Deck for this reason.

Malice, Lady of Lament - A Dissappointing Follow-up

Malice was released in Eternity Code and was the second Lady of Lament monster to be released. This was a little over 2 years since the release of Lilith in the Lair of Darkness Structure Deck and the whole concept of Lady of Lament as a series of cards that would synergize together had yet to be realized. Malice is the product of that failure to recognize the potential of these cards being able to work together which is why she is objectively the worst Lady of Lament monster to this day. 

Malice is a Quick Effect to Tribute 2 monsters to target 1 of your Normal Trap Cards that is banished or in your graveyard in order to set it to your field and return it to the bottom of your Deck when it leaves the field. This effect effectively makes Malice a failed attempt to create Lilith 2. Lilith would set you a Normal Trap from Deck while Malice would set a Normal Trap from grave or banished. However, the cost to Tribute 2 monsters in order to do so makes this card unplayable. Even if you place it in a Deck with a card like Lair of Darkness, you would only able to Tribute 1 of your opponent's monsters due to Lair's effect and you would have to Tribute 1 of your own monsters as the second Tribute. While her effect is cool, it is just too costly the consider playing it in any capacity.

Alice, Lady of Lament - The Tie That Binds 

Alice was released in Battle of Chaos and was the third Lady of Lament monster to be released. A little over a year and a half after Malice was released, Lady of Lament was finally a realized strategy. Alice completely ties the Deck together with her having synergy with Lady of Lament monsters, Traps, Tributing, and Fiends whose combined ATK/DEF totalling 2000. And with Lady of Lament being recognized as a series of Level 3 DARK Fiends with Alice now in the mix, Ties of the Brethren is now a mainstay in the Deck to get the necessary monsters from your Deck onto the field.

On Normal Summon, she can Summon back a Lady of Lament from GY. This recoups the loss from you having to Tribute your monsters (for Lilith or your Normal Traps) and can get you back Lilith to set more Traps from Deck or make a Rank 3 play. If she is in hand, she can banish a Trap from hand or GY to Special Summon herself, and if she is Tributed or is destroyed by your opponent's card, you can add a Fiend Monster whose combined ATK/DEF equals 2000 from Deck, excluding herself. Her ability to Summon herself is not used too often, but it can definitely come up for extra Tribute fodder or Link/Xyz Material. As for her search, this can search any Lady of Lament other than herself, but there are many other monsters that also fit the bill with the most prominent ones being Labrynth Stovie Torbie and Gemini Imps.

Loris, Lady of Lament - A Sufficient Continuation

Loris is the most recent Lady of Lament to be released, having arrived in the game in Power of the Elements, not long after Alice in BACH. Contrary to Alice, who focuses a lot on the monster aspect of the Deck, Loris focuses solely on the Normal Trap aspect of the Deck. 

She can target 3 or 6 or  your Normal Traps in grave or banished to place them on the bottom of the Deck in any order and draw a card for every 3 returned. Also, if a monster(s) is Tributed or a Normal Traps in your possession is sent to your GY by your opponent's card effect, you can target 1 of your Normal Traps in grave and set it. Loris is practically a better alternative to Malice. She can also set a Normal Trap from grave and she has a better way to recycle Normal Traps. However, she is a 1-of at best. Loris cannot start your plays like Lilith or Alice can. Neither can she provide follow-up like Alice's searching effect. At best, you would play 1 copy of Loris in order to potentially have her recycle Normal Traps later on into the game or have her be a Summon off of Ties of the Brethren in order for you to set a Trap from GY after Tributing a monster on your opponent's turn. But even that is a stretch. You can choose to play the 1 copy or leave her out entirely.

Level 3 DARK Fiend Gang

As stated, the Lady of Lament monsters are all Level 3 DARK Fiend monsters, and with no cohesive in-archetype way to effectively get them onto the field, you will need to play Ties of the Brethren in order to Summon your Ladies from Deck. In which case, you need to play some other Level 3 DARK Fiend monsters in order to act as targets and Summons from Deck.

Tour Guide From the Underworld is hands down the best Level 3 DARK Fiend to be playing alongside your Lady of Laments. On Normal Summon, she can Special a Level 3 Fiend from hand or Deck, but negate its effects. For one, she can give you an extra body to Tribute for an effect if your Normal Summon her while also acting as a Level 3 DARK Fiend target for Ties to get Lady of Laments out of the Deck. Second, she gives you the choice of going straight for a Rank 3 play when you do not see Ties or any other way to get to your Lady of Lament monsters. Third, the Fiend she Summons can be something like Sangan or Doomdog Octhros to search for other cards when they leave the field.

Sangan can act both as Level 3 DARK Fiend for Ties or as a Summon from Deck for Tour Guide. If it is sent from field to grave, it can add a monster with 1500 ATK or less from Deck to hand and preventing you from activating cards or effects with that name for the rest of the turn. This allows you to search for follow-up in Alice or Tour Guide, or it can search for a play on your opponent's turn in Labrynth Candraglier. It also gives you the ability to play Fusion Deployment to reveal Sanwitch in your Extra Deck and get Sangan straight from Deck. And while it does lock you into Fusions from the Extra Deck for the turn, but you rarely go into the Extra Deck turn 1 and it gives you a target on field for Ties while saving your Normal Summon for something else.

Doomdog Octhros is another target for Ties and a Summon off of Tour Guide. If it is sent from field to grave, it is a mandatory effect to add a Level 8 Fiend monster from Deck to hand. This allows you to search for Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle which can Summon itself from hand to act as a large body that cannot be targeted or destroyed by your opponent's card effects while also being able to set a Normal Trap from Deck when a Normal Trap is activated.

Labrynth Chandraglier is only used in Labrynth builds of Lady of Lament. It is a target for Ties and it can set a Labrynth Spell/Trap from hand or Deck as a Quick Effect by sending itself from hand/field and a card from hand to grave, and it can add itself back.

Torment Tokens are the Tokens that Lair of Darkness Summons during the End Phase if a monster(s) was Tributed. Surprisingly, they are alose Level 3 DARK Fiend monsters which means that they are also targets for Ties on field.

Versago the Destroyer is a Level 3 DARK Fiend target for Ties and it can act as a subsitute for a Fusion Material listed on a Fusion Monster. This makes it good for Necro Fusion builds of Lady of Lament. With Necro Fusion being a Normal Trap, it can easily be set off of Lilith and Ties gets you to Versago who can be Tributed by Lilith and put into the GY to be used as Fusion Material with Necro Fusion. You can Summon Fusions like Colorless, Chaos King of Dark World, Grapha, Dragon Overlord of Dark World, and Granguignol the Dusk Dragon. Colorless destroys all cards your opponent controls on Fusion Summon and is a Quick Effect to make a face-up card you control untargetable by discarding a card. Grapha can replace a monster effect or Normal Spell/Trap Card become "Your opponent discards 1 card" which protects you against backrow removal (i.e. Lightning Storm, Harpie's Feather Duster, Evenly Matched, etc.) And Granguignol sends a Level 6 or higher LIGHT or DARK from Deck or Extra Deck to GY like Garura, Wings of Resonant Life for a draw or Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair to put it into rotation so that it can Summon itself back from GY when a DARK monster you control is Tributed. Also, Granguignol can also banish itself to Summon a Despian Proskenion from Extra when a monster is Specialed by your opponent's activated monster effect which then can Special back a Fusion Synchro, Xyz, or Link from your opponent's grave or banish it instead.

Main Deck Bigguns

With your Deck consisting primarily of Level 3 DARK Fiends and Traps, you need some large bodies that are easily Summonable to help protect your Life Points and/or provide other benefits such as being a large wall in general, something to help you with follow-up plays, removing threats on your opponent's board, and protecting your own board.

Lord of the Heavenly Prison can reveal itself from hand until the end of your opponent's turn, and while it is revealed, Set cards cannot be destroyed by card effects. Then, if a Set Spell/Trap is activated you can Special Summon it from your hand, and if it was revealed, you can reveal and set a Spell/Trap from Deck and banish it during the End Phase of the next turn. Lord gives your Set Traps protection against your opponent's destruction-based backrow-removal, and it can also Summon itself from hand as a 3000/3000 body and possibly even set a Trap from your Deck for the next turn.

Lady Labrynth of the Silver Castle can Summon herself from hand in Defense the turn a Labrynth card/effect or Normal Trap was activated. While you control a Set card, she cannot be targeted or destroyed by your opponent's card effects. Also, when a Normal Trap is activated, she can set a Normal Trap with a different name from Deck. She is a very easy large, untargetable and indestructible body you can Summon which is also searchable off of Doomdog, a card that is fully playable in the Deck. Not only that, but she can also grab you a Normal Trap for next turn.

Unchained Soul of Sharvara can Summon itself from hand as a Quick Effect by destroying a Fiend or Set card you control. If its sent to grave off of something like Archfiend's Ghastly Glitch, it can set an Unchained Spell/Trap from Deck. This card by itself grants you access to the Unchained Extra Deck monsters which can Link Summon using a monster your opponent controls to Link climb. That gives you a pretty good type of removal while you benefit off of the additional effects of the Unchained Link Monsters such as Unchained Soul Lord of Yama, Unchained Soul of Anguish, and Unchained Abomination. Realistically, 1 copy is enough to search it off of Yama.

Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair is another card I will mention here, but I won't 100% recommend playing it. It cannot be targeted or Tributed by your opponent and it can Summon itself from hand or GY when a DARK monster you control is Tributed. Here is the issue with this card. You cannot Summon it by its own effect if you Tribute your opponent's DARK monster via Lair of Darkness. Yes, it is still a decently good card to play, but it just does so little compared to the other monsters mentioned here and it cannot even interact with one of the best cards that supports Tributing DARK monsters. If you do play it, you'd play it at 1 copy. 

The Extra Deck

Aside from Dogmatika Punishment and Ultimate Slayer targets (i.e. Elder Entity N'tss, Garura, Wings of Resonant Life, Fossil Machine Skull Wagon, Fossil Warrior Skull Knight, Golden Cloud Beast - Malong, Wind Pegasus @Ignister, Mereologic Aggregator, Evil★Twin's Trouble Sunny, and Tri-Brigade Arms Bucephalus II), you also need some monsters to go into on turns you do not activate Ties of the Brethren and are able to Special Summon.

Usually, if you are playing another archetype alongside Lady of Lament like Z-ARC or Dinomorphia, you would play the cards that go with their strategy like Supreme King Z-ARC, Supreme Celestial King Odd-Eyes Arc-Ray Dragon, and Crystal Clear Wing Synchro Dragon for Z-ARC Lady of Lament or Dinomorphia Kentregina, Dinomorphia Stealthbergia, and Dinomorphia Rexterm for Dinomorphia Lady of Lament. Etcetera, etcetera. However, there are other more generic cards that you can go into utilizing your Lady of Lament monsters, Fiends, and Level 3's. 

The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief and Ghostrick Alucard line with Ghostrick Shot into Number F0: Utopic Future and then into Number F0: Utopic Draco Future is very possible off of 1 Tour Guide of the Underworld or any 2 Level 3 monsters. This gives you a body that cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects who is also a monster negate that can steal your opponent's monster if it was on the field. Backing that up with Trap Cards going first is not a bad play at all. It does require you to play some Main Deck cards as in Shot, but it is pretty good on turns where you do not see Ties of the Brethren or any way to get multiple Lady of Laments on field. 

As mentioned before, Colorless, Chaos King of Dark World, Grapha, Dragon Overlord of Dark World, and Granguignol the Dusk Dragon are very playable in the Necro Fusion build of Lady of Lament with Versago the Destroyer. They give you a variety of plays to choose from while being able to do all of this on your opponent's turn, dodging the Special Summon restriction of Ties of the Brethren.

For generic Rank 3's, you have Number 49: Fortune Tune and Number 47: Nightmare Shark which allow you to easily make Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder going second. The same goes for D/D/D Stone King Darius, but in addition to being able to make Zeus with it, you can also Rank it up into D/D/D Deviser King Deus Machinex Turn 1 which is a once per chain effect to attach a opponent's monster card that activated its effect to it as Material. This guarantees you at least 2 activations of this effect, giving you good interruption and removal options on a 3000/3000 body. Then you have other Xyz Monsters like The Phantom Knights of Break Sword for removal and Downerd Magician to make a Zeus with more material. 

For Links, there are a couple of options that you could play. Salamangreat Almiraj is good for Linking off a Sangan or Doomdog Octhros in situations where you do not have access to Ties of the Brethren or do not have Lilith in hand to start with. Muckraker From the Underworld is another card you can play, but it would be only be there in instances where you could make it later on into the game as you functionally just want to focus mainly on Lady of Lament plays early on. Then, you have the Unchained Links. Unchained Soul Lord of Yama adds an Unchained monster from Deck on Special Summon, primarily Sharvara, and it can banish itself from GY when a card(s) you control is destroyed by battle or card effect to Summon a Fiend from hand or GY. This makes it another good send for Ultimate Slayer as it can bring back any Fiend from grave. Unchained Soul of Rage and Unchained Soul of Anguish both can add back a Fiend from grave if they are destroyed while Rage is able to Link Summon with an opponent's monster on their turn while Anguish can Link Summon using an opponent's monster on your turn. Unchained Abomination is a monster that you could theoretically Link climb into with the smaller Unchained Links and it pops a lot of cards every turn, making it a good way to clear your opponent's field later on in the game. 

The Side Deck

For the side Deck, cards like Kaijus or a non-Normal Summon reliant Tribute-based removal like Santa Claws are a good option to get rid of threats that you are unable to deal with on your opponent's board, especially in a Trap deck. Dinowrestler Pankratops, Kashtira Fenrir, and Alpha, the Master of Beasts are all free Summons from hand which can deal with a threat on your opponent's board without you having to commit to your Normal Summon. Ultimate Slayer is another good way to deal with threats on your opponent's board while also being able to send a card from your Extra Deck for potential bonus effects. Dark Hole, Raigeki, and Book of Eclipse are all cards that pretty much demand a response from your opponent before their monsters are either removed from the field or set face-down, preventing them from being able to be used. It ensures that if there is something that can interfere with Lilith or Ties, it will at least be dealt with before you commit to anything much. Solemn Judgment and Solemn Strike are good ways to deal with your opponent when you are going first. If you know your opponent will side into backrow-removal, Judgment resolves that issue, and if they plan to try to combo off, Strike is another way you can interrupt their plays. Floodgates don't really have much of a space in this Deck aside from Anti-Spell Fragrance as you are not expecting to do much with Spells other than on Turn 1. Evenly Matched is good removal and is very searchable by Normal Summoning Lilith and Tributing itself to reveal 3 copies from your Deck, proceeding to the end of the Battle Phase, and clearing your opponent's board. The other cards I would recommend siding are alternative Normal Trap cards for different match ups. Virus cards, siding Dogmatika Punishment in the instance where youa re actively wanting to be using the Extra Deck, or literally any other applicable Normal Trap.

Future Releases

There are quite a few cards to look out for in the future for Lady of Lament. For Normal Traps, you have Transaction Rollback which can pay half your Life to copy the effect of a Normal Trap in your opponent's grave and it can also pay half and banish itself from your grave to copy the effect of a Normal Trap in your grave. This allows you to access the effects of some Traps you've already gone through and that you maybe have no more copies of in Deck if you are not playing Loris to recycle them. Miracle of the Supreme King works in tandem with Soul of the Supreme King to destroy a Z-ARC you control, placing it in your Pend Zone, to get out a Supreme Celestial King Odd-Eyes Arc-Ray Dragon which can add a Performapal Five-Rainbow Magician from Deck on Summon or it can scale itself when destroyed with its scale effect being able Summon itself and the other Pend in your Pend Zone, that being Z-ARC, popping your opponent's whole field. Also, there is the fact that Z-ARC's Pend Effect is Skill Drain for your opponent's Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz Monster and can pop a card they add to hand. Seishou Ruten can bounce a Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Link on field and Special a monster from either grave depending on what type you returned. Some people call it bad Compulsory Evacuation Device, but for Lady of Lament, it helps you get more bodies on field to wall up.  Loka Samsara banishes a face-up Visas Starfrost you control until the End Phase to Summon a Heart monste rwith 3000 ATK from the Extra Deck (i.e. Scareclaw Tri-Heart, Tearlaments Kaleido-Heart, or  Kashtira Arise-Heart b/c you surely are not Summoning Mannadium Prime-Heart which is functionally a vanilla if you do so) , banishing it during the End Phase. And if your opponent Specials from the Extra Deck while its in the grave, it can re-set itself. This gives you access to Bagooska (but not Bagooska) in Tri-Heart, a shuffle in Kaleido-Heart, or Macro Cosmos in Arise-Heart. It's something interesting you could do with the issue being that you have to banish a Visas you control, but it's still pretty cool. In monsters, you have Arias the Labrynth Butler which is a Quick Effect to discard itself to set a Normal Trap from hand with you being able to activate it this turn. It's cool, but more importantly, it gives you greater access to either Arianna the Labrynth Servant for Labrynth plays or Labrynth Chandraglier for a Level 3 DARK Fiend in Labrynth Lady of Lament. Three-Eyed Ghost can send itself from field to add a Level 10 DARK monster from Deck. This is basically a Level 3 DARK Fiend and a searcher for Lord of the Heavenly Prison, but it can also get something like Raviel, Lord of Phantasms or Raviel, Lord of Phantasms - Shimmering Scraper. So there is some tinkering that needs to be done there. Lastly, we have Earthbound Prisoner Line Walker which adds an Earthbound Prison from Deck on Summon. More importantly, its a Level 3 DARK Fiend which also turns on the on-destruction effect of Earthbound Prison. Perhaps a Deck running Metaverse to go into Earthbound Prison?

The Deck below is what I view as a pretty standard Lady of Lament Deck, but you can pretty much mix and match any good Normal Trap or even splash archetypes with good Normal Trap cards to see if what you make is interesting or not.