First up is Lumia. She has the standard judgment of 3, her's being LR1. As with all the Rulers in this set, she has the double-color energize, but it's her Ruler ability that has people hyped. At the end of your turn, you can remove 1 rested resonator you control from the game, then return it to the field (aka "Blink"). Why is that good? Have you ever seen a card that says "When this card enters the field..."? Of course you have, and that's why. Just off the top of my head, some great effects like this come from Lucifer, Celestial Wing Seraph, Captain Hook, and things like that. Even self-rest effects, like Guinevere, benefit from this as she essentially resets them. At worst, Lumia will allow a resonator to attack and then double as a defender. At best, she's going to steamroll with strong effect spam.
Judgmenting her, we get a 1000/1000 body, pretty standard. She's packing swiftness, though, and if you remove "Nyarlathotep, the Crimson Radiance" from your hand when you flip her, she also gets Imperishable and a lifelink effect. I can't say I'm happy to see the "As you Judgment, remove X card for additional Y effect"-type effect spreading from the Luminaries, but at least it does something other than give more counters, so it's excusable. Also, I believe that she'll keep the effect and Imperishable if she dies and re-flips, as it says "removed by this card" rather than "removed by this effect", but I'd wait on an official ruling for that.
She also gets a beefed up version of her Ruler ability. This time it triggers on-attack, so it allows for some shenanigans during your turn, and the resonator doesn't have to be rested, but it returns in the rested state. Thank the heavens we don't have an effect that lets your swiftness resonators attack twice. I'm ready to see someone attack with her, trigger her ability, then have her die just to flip back and trigger the ruler ability at the end of the turn. If you have something like a Hook or Seraph? That's a double proc, triple proc if you played it that turn.
Here we have Nyarlathotep, the Crimson Radiance, that I mentioned above. She's 700/700 for only 2, which is above the max, but she's packing Limit 1 and is a vanilla for her 2-cost, so it's more than properly costed. She has two different Awakening effects, just like Sol's Dragon; one for each of her colors. Her Light Awakening is a mini-Izanagi, removing a resonator from the game on-enter and then return it when she leaves the field. Her Fire Awakening let's you play a 3-cost or less Light/Fire chant from your hand for free. Nyarlathotep -> Flame King's Shout -> Another 3-cost sounds like a pretty strong play, although it's costing you 3 cards in hand. I'm also a little disappointed that she doesn't have synergy with Lumia, what with you being forced to run her and all. All-in-all, she's pretty solid and flexible.
Lumia's Judgment is interesting. It's a chant without quickcast, so no shenanigans, but it's pretty strong nonetheless. It has a base cost of LR, and you can pay any additional void will as X, and it removes all non-Stone and non-J-Ruler cards with cost equal to or less than X. So LR1 removes all 1 and 0 cost cards from the game, LR2 for all 2-cost or less, etc. At minimum, this is a 2-will regalia nuke, which is HUGE value, and it only scales up from there. Against decks that go wide (like Turbo Fiethsing), this can absolutely destroy them for enough will. Against controlly decks, which will likely run Ruler's Memoria, this can wipe their regalia for almost nothing. It's pretty good in a whole slew of matchups, giving both Red and Light some good, flexible removal.
Crimson Ray is... well, Crimson Ray. It's a better Bombardment for LR instead of RR. "It's strictly better for the same cost!? Powercreep!" Well, Bombardment sucks and no one cares. It's Lumia's Shock Rock that takes the cake here. On top of the standard Shock Rock text of entering rested unless you pay 300 life or are running Lumia, counting as both Basic Stones, and producing 2 will, "Awakened Magic Stone, The Earth" will recover when you Judgement a Light Ruler. Not just Lumia, any Ruler. OG Faria and Arla have free Judgments with 2 of these. Millium benefits from it too, as will any future Light Rulers. This thing is bonkers.
Edging into Spoiler #5, we have the final Ruler from the set: Lilias Petal. He rounds out the dual color typings with G/B, giving each color 2 different Rulers representatives. The first thing you'll notice about this guy is that his Judgment is free, and he isn't packing a Ruler ability. Judgmenting him, you'll find that he can't battle, and thus has no stats. Uh-oh, it's R/R 2.0, everyone prepare for your new format definer!
Or not. Lilias is pretty balanced and unique. On top of not being able to battle, he also flat-out can't be destroyed. You can banish a Wind resonator, a Darkness resonator, and a "Killing Stone" to create a Chimera. What's important is that you can play this Chimera from your deck, hand, removed area, or from outside of the game. In official tournament settings, this means your side deck, but you can play cards directly from your side deck. Apparently waiting until game 2 is too casual for this guy. Being able to turn 2 weenies into a Chimera is a huge tempo swing, and being able to do it at instant speed lets you dodge removal. The downside, of course, is that you're losing a stone to do it. Thankfully, he can tap himself to shuffle that stone back into the stone deck. Since he doesn't battle, you can call a stone every turn with him, so you won't have any shortage of those. Plus, Red Riding Hood is a thing, and will net you a stone if you eat her for his alchemy. In Wanderer, Gretel is going to be this guy's best friend.
I just have so much to say about this guy. It's important to note that you're technically going -1 to get the Chimera out, but things like Tama, Messenger Familiar, Monkey Trapped in Life, etc. remedy that. But remember that things like Charlotte's Transformation Magic exist, so your huge Chimera probably isn't going to be on the field for too long. You're also losing a Magic Stone from doing this, which hurts. Loading your deck with low-cost weenies for the sole purpose of turning them into Chimera won't be the best game plan, although it's very possible. The sole fact that you don't have to include any of your huge creatures in your deck in order to play them is just so good, as it removes the possibility of them becoming dead draws.
With this guy's drawbacks out of the way, he has some MAJOR advantages. Riza/Melder are the first thing that come to mind. 8 Green/Darkness stones means they're always going to be live, and we know how impactful that pair is. But this guy just adds an extra layer of death to their combo. They have an answer to them? Just turn them into Chimera. Being able to react to removal effects by transmuting your stuff into strong cards is just incredible.
Even Killing Stone has synergy here. It has all the standard Shock Rock text, but when it is put into a graveyard, you gain 100 life and the opponent loses 100. It isn't much, but every little bit helps, and at least you get something for killing off your own stones. Plus, it shuts Yggdrasil down hard.
Ammit, Beast of Gluttony, is the real conversation piece here. So far, it's the only Chimera we've been shown, and Lilias is only as good as his Chimera are, and boy is Ammit pretty good. 1500/1500 for a total cost of 7 isn't amazing, but you won't ever hard cast it. Turning 2 useless/dying cards into a 1500/1500? Heck yes. On-enter, Ammit will destroy a resonator and then give you life equal to that resonator's DEF. However, the opponent eating the target with Laevateinn will rob you of the life gain, which really waters down the effect. Additionally, the effect isn't limited to targeting the opponent's stuff, but it's a mandatory trigger. So dropping this when the opponent's field is empty, or the opponent clearing their board in response to Lilias' effect, will force you to kill one of your own cards. Still, since Lilias' is an effect you can tailor to the situation, Ammit definitely has strong situational presence, and since you can just have it sitting in your side deck until you need it, it's not getting in the way of anything.
Up next are a couple of Lilias' homies. Messenger of Lilias Petal has the standard 600/600 for 2-cost power, and when it enters the field you can choose any magic stone from your deck and put it on top, guaranteeing you'll call a Killing Stone. Then it can be fed to Lilias to become a Chimera. I honestly doubt this will see any play, but it still looks cute. Lilias Petal's Assistant has a lot more utility, though. 500/500 for 3 is abysmal, but she grabs a 1-cost Wind or Darkness resonator from your grave when you play her. Grab a Tama to draw another card, grab a Sacred Elf for mana, or Messenger Familiar to search some Twelve Apostles. She's a 1-card fuel for Lilias' transmutations, which is pretty dope.
Rounding out the spoiler is Magic Stone Life Form. 300/300 for a 1-drop isn't awful, and it will produce will of any attribute when it dies. Obviously this was made to work in tandem with Lilias' effect, but Incarnating it for Adombrali means you'll get 2 will from 1 card, in addition to the benefits from whatever else he eats. This makes Turn 1 Gwiber even more consistent, but I question if this will actually get played in the deck. They have more than enough Incarnate targets, and this doesn't yield any hard advantage by being eaten, so we'll have to see.
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