Big Wave Small Wave is a normal Spell card.  As such, it probably would be nicer as a Quick-Play, but that’s not exactly a huge problem.

 

This is great for Water decks, shock of shocks.  Nuke a bunch of low level cannon fodder to Special Summon your big guns from your hand.  As long as you are at least getting one beneficial Special Summon (thus saving your normal Summon for something else), you break even.  Now, there are times when that wouldn’t hold true: if you are being shut down by Gravity Bind, Messenger of Peace, or Level Limit-Area B, and have A Legendary Ocean out on the field, your Abyss Soldier and two copies of Amphibious Bugroth Mk-3 are probably going to be much more useful than three Suijin.  On the other hand, once you’ve made use of your two copies Abyss Soldier in play to clear the opponent’s field, feel free to nuke them to Special Summon two Gogiga Gagagigo that are strong enough to win you the game.

 

Since I am low on time, I’ll give just one good combo, which as far as I can tell should work.  As long as it would be otherwise legal, chain a set Scapegoat to your opponent’s End Phase.  Assuming that goes through, activate DNA Transplant and declare Water.  Long as all that worked; now sack your four or five Monsters in play with Big Wave Small Wave for a huge swarm.  Brilliant?  Maybe not.  Useful?  Maybe so: if you can work DNA Transplant and Scapegoat into a good Water deck, sounds good to me.

 

Big Wave Small Wave, in my opinion, is a Staple for Water decks…though not at a full three; more like two.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 3/5-Obviously this is only for Water decks.  It’s a great card, but Water decks, let alone swarming, is much harder and riskier here, since we still face Dark Hole, Raigeki, and several other nasty cards.

 

Advanced        : 4/5-Again, this rating is only for Water decks.  In this format, Water based decks are much more formidable (even if they aren’t tops), and this card is more or less essential for them.

 

Limited            : 1.25/5-Why so low?  Well, when I checked, I found one Level 4 Water Monster in this card’s set, and although it (Unshaven Angler) is a common and solid Monster for this format, note that the only high level Water Monsters it can be used to summon are… Mobius the Frost Monarch and Neo Aqua Madoor.  So while you might be able to special summon them without tribute… usually you’re going to want to Tribute Summon/Set them: to trigger Mobius’ effect or so have Madoor set so that an opponent has to worry about crashing into it.