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Introduction:
Continuing this two-week series we now have the
WATER civilization. It is by far my personal
favorite. Head over to the DMRealms or Pojo message
boards and you will see a strong representation of
the Water civilization in almost all competitive
decks out there. But why is there such a sharp
contrast in playability between yellow (see Monday
review) and blue? Today’s civilization actually has
fewer cards at one-hundred-six released thus far.
That breaks down to 86 creatures and just 20 spells.
As a whole the blue civilization is
fairly neutral in the “Duel Masters war”, though it
does loan support to both Light and Darkness.
Because DM is largely based on Magic the Gathering
we have a nifty little tool called the Color Wheel
(check out the following website). Colors next to
each other are allied, while opposites are enemies.
This is not an absolute rule. It just means
that Water tends to work better with yellow
and black, while it does not work as well with green
and red.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering
Top Cards:
Following the same format as before, this section
will cover all strengths and weaknesses associated
with the Water civilization. Let’s start by quickly
reviewing some of the top cards.
- Aqua Hulcus
(4.75)
- Corile
(4.75)
- Emeral
(4.75)
- Illusionary Merfolk
(4.25)
- Crystal Paladin
(3.75)
- Thrash Crawler
(3.50)
- Spiral Gate
(3.91)
- Energy Stream
(4.00)
- Crystal Memory
(3.67)
Those ratings come from past CotD or
my own opinion if that card had never been done
before. Together the top blue cards have an average
rating of 4.15. That’s more than half a point higher
than yellow! Now you can see why there is such a
wide gap in playability between the two. Creatures
come in ranked at a high 4.29, while the spells are
strong at 3.86.
One of the main Water themes shown
here is draw power. No other civilization can rival
the pure hand advantage available here. Often
whoever can take control of the hand size battle
will in turn take control of the field, and then the
game. The importance of drawing cards is a big
reason why Water as a whole is so power and commonly
used. For a while here at GQ we even debated banning
Merfolk due to its insane draw capabilities.
Another major blue ability is
bouncing. The term simply means to send an opponents
creature back to his hand. While the effect has
become less powerful since its glory days back in
Base Set, cards like Spiral Gate can still have an
impact. Corile takes the bounce idea and takes it
one step further. By adding a creature to your
opponent’s deck, that not only removes a threat, but
also effectively takes a card out of their hand.
Bounce can be powerful when you least expect it.
Aside from bounce and draw, Water has
many less prevalent themes as well. Another that has
become less potent is since Base Set is the
unblockable status. Some cards like Crystal Lancer
can still use it effectively though. You will also
come across some shield manipulating, some mana
tricks, and some decent blockers. If Water has a
weakness, it would have to be a glaring lack of
four-drops.
Underrated Picks:
These cards are ones that could see more play than
they do. Each has potential and a certain fun
factor. Try out a couple copies to spice up your
otherwise cookie cutter decks. I’m going to skip the
review of those three since I need to hurry up and
finish.
- Splash Zebrafish
- Aqua Surfer
-
Teleportation
Overall:
Water has to be one of, if not the, single most
power civilization. The explosive draw power alone
is more than enough. Many decks will use blue as the
anchor civ with about 14-20 cards. Mono Blue is also
one of the more powerful single civ options. Here
are the updated standings:
1. Water (blue)
2. TBA
3. TBA
4. TBA
5. Light (yellow)
Well that’s all for now. We cap off
this week on Friday with the Darkness civilization,
then finish up next week. Props to those of you who
actually read everything I wrote and didn’t just
scroll down to the end. :P
Steven Cantrell
Smcman7@aol.com
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