Swords of Revealing Light
Normal Spell Card
SYE-039, Common

"Flip all face-down monsters on your opponent's side of the field face-up. This card remains face-up on the field for 3 of your opponent's turns. As long as this card remains face-up on the field, your opponent cannot declare an attack."

Here's another card that at times has been assigned near-staple value and has appeared in countless deck lists. Swords of Revealing Light is the most powerful temporary attack forbidding card and is limited to one per deck. It combines two effects in one, revealing all the opponent's face-down monsters and stopping them for hopefully three whole turns.

It is worthy to note that Swords of Revealing Light can be very dangerous to its own user if played at the wrong time. Since it does not negate flip effects, setting off multiple flip effect monsters on your opponent's side of the field could be lethal. Especially terrible to catch with the Swords is Fiber Jar, which effectively negates this card by returning it to your deck. Fortunately, with the next card, Nobleman of Crossout, and with the relatively new Trap card Mind Haxorz, which allows you to see your opponent's hand and all face-down cards on his/her side of the field, there are chances to eliminate some or all of this risk in a combo.

Played at the right time, Swords, like all stall cards, allows you to recuperate or to prevent the loss of resources. It is very aggravating to the opponent to make a big move and then watch it evaporate after three turns of nothing. Best of all, Swords doesn't shut down your own Battle Phase, making it one-sided. This makes it great in both defensive and offensive decks.

I give Swords of Revealing Light a Good classification. The danger of playing it at the wrong time and the ever-present threat of it being removed from the field after activation make it not quite as great as it could be (say, if it set up as a state the condition of no attack for three turns and instantly destroyed itself like most normal Spell cards). Still, Swords is a strong card. It sees play in the majority of my virtual and real decks.

I'd like to note that we in the US are still waiting (im)patiently for the lesser brother of this card, Nightmare's Steel Cage, which forbids either player from attacking for two of the opponent's turns. When decked along with Swords, this provides a total of 5 turns of stalling power. Playing them back to back is purely lethal. However, since we are apparently not going to receive Starter Deck Marik, the chances of us receiving this card in an easily acquired form are slim to none, and that is a big disappointment for me.