Deck Analysis 3.

Looking at the Water Deck.

 

By ~ShineSoldier~

 

Hey, ya’ll.

I’m back with a new article in the Deck Analysis series and this time, we’re going to look at the Water Deck. The Water deck has ‘A Legendary Ocean’ as it’s main card.

 

A Legendary Ocean

Spell / Field

 

“This card's name is treaded as "Umi". Downgrade all WATER monsters in both player's hands and on the field by 1 level. Increases the ATK and DEF of all WATER monsters by 200 points.”

 

This is just an amazing card. First of all, you treat it like Umi. Note that this means you cannot run 3 ‘Umi’ and 3 ‘A Legendary Oceans’ in one deck. Secondly, it downgrades all Water-monsters’ levels by 1, meaning you can summon a 5-star Water monster without tributing. And finally, it increases their ATK and DEF by 200 points. Not that much, but still very nice.

Now what is it that Water-monsters do best?

First of all, you’ll notice that they’re pretty good at beatdown.

Why? Because of these monsters:

 

Gagagigo

Water / Reptile

Normal

4*

 

“This young evildoer used to have an evil heart, but by meeting a special person, be discovered justice.”

 

ATK 1850 / DEF 1000

 

Giga Gagagigo

Water / Reptile

Normal

5*

 

“In order to fight tremendous evil, he gained formidable power through body reconstruction, but lost his heart and his redemption.”

 

ATK 2450 / DEF 1500

 

Abyss Soldier

Water / Aqua

Effect

4*

 

“Discard 1 WATER monster from your hand to the Graveyard. Return 1 card on the field to the owner's hand. You can only use this effect once per turn, during your Main Phase.”

 

ATK 1800 / DEF 1300

 

Let’s take a closer look at them one by one.

Gagagigo is a normal Water-monster with a nice 1850 attack. His true power is unleashed when ‘A Legendary Ocean’ is on the field. With it, he becomes a 3 star 2050-attacker, which is definitely awesome.

When we look at it’s big brother, we see another strong card. Normally, he’s a 5 star monster with a nice 2450 attack. However, with ALO (I’ll be referring to ‘A Legendary Ocean’ with this in the rest of my article) he becomes a 4 star 2650 attacker! Now, I’ve never seen such a strong monster that can be brought out without any sort of tribute.

Our third card is Abyss Soldier. 4 Stars, 1800 attack and 1300 defence...Not bad for a level 4 monster. With ALO he gets 3 stars, 2000 attack and 1500 defence, another perfect stats.

Besides all that, this card has an effect. At the cost of discarding a Water monster from your hand, you can return ANY card on BOTH sides of the field to the owner’s hand. With this ‘Bounce’ effect (returning cards to owners’ hands), he can set up for a direct attack. Unfortunately, you only get to use this effect once per turn.

 

Like Abyss Soldier, there are more cards with ‘Bounce’ effects among the Water-monsters. Penguin Soldier and Nightmare Penguin come to mind really quickly.

 

Penguin Soldier

Water / Aqua

Effect

2*

 

“FLIP: Return up to 2 monsters on the field to the owner’s hand.”

 

ATK 750 / DEF 500

 

Nightmare Penguin

Water / Aqua

Effect

4*

 

“When this card is flipped face-up, return 1 card on your opponent's side of the field to the owner's hand. As long as this card remains face-up on the field, increase the ATK of all WATER monsters on your side of the field by 200 points.”

 

ATK 900 / DEF 1800

 

Penguin Soldier is an ordinary Flip Effect monster: weak stats, low level. His effect is rather nice. When he’s flipped, he’ll return two monsters on the field to the owner’s hand, which means he can return himself. That’s right, and that means you can use his effect multiple times to annoy your opponent very badly.

Nightmare Penguin has nice stats. Not a really high attack, but with ALO out, he’ll have a rock-solid 2000 defence. When he’s flipped, he can return ANY card on your opponent’s field to his hand. And anove that, he’ll power up your Water-monsters even further, so with this + ALO, your Water-monster will get a 400 attack boost. Now that’s awesome.

 

Well, we’ve discovered that Water-monsters are very good at bouncing too. The problem with Bouncing is that it won’t lower your opponent’s amount of cards, since they’ll be moved from the field to their hand.

That’s why we are going to find ways to make good use out of these Bounce effects. When returning a face-up card, you will know the name of that card. Now you will probably think: ‘what does it matter?’ Well, it DOES matter.

That’s because I’m planning to add a couple of Mind Crush and Trap Dustshoots.

 

Mind Crush

Trap / Normal

 

“Declare 1 card name. If your opponent has a declared card(s) in his/her hand, discard all of the declared card(s) to the Graveyard. Otherwise, you randomly discard 1 card from your hand.”

 

Trap Dustshoot

Trap / Normal

 

“You can activate this card only when your opponent has 4 or more cards in his/her hand. Look at your opponent's hand. Look at your opponent's hand, then select 1 Monster Card and return it to its owner's Deck. The Deck is then shuffled.”

 

Just a first note: If I’m not mistaken, you are allowed to look at your opponent’s hand with Mind Crush also, since you are allowed to verify if your opponent discarded ALL copies of that card.

Bearing that in mind, you can use Mind Crush really well in this type of deck. The only problem is, that when you have ‘bounced’ face-down cards back, you will not know their name, which renders this card’s playability. However, knowing one card is enough to use this effect.

Trap Dustshoot could be a better or a worses choice than Mind Crush. It depends most of all on your play style. ‘Bouncing’ your opponent’s cards will increase their hand size, meaning you will meet the requirements for this card often. Then, you can look at their hand and discard ANY monster. Unlike Mind Crush, you can choose what to discard after you’ve seen their entire hand.

My personal favorite is Trap Dustshoot, but that’s just me.

 

Well, back to the Water-cards.

Let’s take a look at the Spell Cards that support this deck theme.

 

Salvage

Spell / Normal

 

“Add 2 WATER monsters with an ATK of 1500 or less from your Graveyard to your hand.”

 

Big Wave Small Wave

Spell / Normal

 

“Destroy all face-up WATER monsters on your side of the field. Then Special Summon WATER monsters from your hand up to the same amount of monsters destroyed by this effect.”

 

Personally, I dislike Big Wave Small Wave, since Water decks have a fair amount of cards that will generate –1 disadvantages. Big Wave Small Wave is above that far too situational for my liking.

Salvage is a really nice card, though. It gives you an instant +1 advantage, which is good. It gets back your lost Penguin Soldier, Nightmare Penguin, or some other nifty cards.

Getting back more Water monsters can also feed your Abyss Soldier, so that he can ‘bounce’ more cards. However, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to use Abyss Soldier’s effect more than once or twice, since you will lose too many cards then.

 

Now that we’ve looked at the Spell Cards, let’s head on to some other monsters that are made specifically for a Water deck.

 

Levia Dragon – Daedalus

Water / Sea Serpent

Effect

7*

 

“Send ‘Umi’ on your side of the field to the Graveyard to destroy all cards on the field, except this card.”

 

ATK 2600 / DEF 1500

 

Mermaid Knight

Water / Aqua

Effect

4*

 

“As long as ‘Umi’ remains face-up on the field, this card can attack twice during the same battle phase.”

 

ATK 1500 / DEF 700

 

Amphibious Bugroth MK-3

Water / Machine

Effect

4*

 

“As long as ‘Umi’ remains face-up on the field, this card can attack your opponent’s Life Points directly.”

 

These three cards all require ‘Umi’ to be out. Since ALO’s name is treated as Umi, you can also have that card on your field.

Levia Dragon Daedalus is the real powerhouse of the Water Deck. His 2600 can beat almost anything that’s commonly played right now and the best thing of all: He becomes a 6 star monster when ALO is out! That means you can blow up the whole field, just by tributing a monster and ALO! Now that IS great!

Mermaid Knight and Ambhibious Bugroth both have 1500 attack, 1700 with ALO. Mermaid Knight can attack twice with ALO and the Bugroth can attack directly. Two pretty good effects if you ask me. They can also brought back to your hand by Salvage, which is good too.

Mermaid Knight fits into the Beatdown theme perfectly, simply because she can inflict 3400 damage in one single turn.

The Bugroth can be really annoying, passing all your opponent’s monsters and attack for 1700 damage...that’s pretty nice.

 

Now we will look at some other support cards for Water decks. We’ll skip the Traps since there are no worthy traps that are made specifically for Water decks.

The first other support card is Terraforming.

 

Terraforming

Spell / Normal

 

“Search your deck for a Field Spell and add that card to your hand. Shuffle your deck afterwards.”

 

Very, very nice. Helps you to get that ALO a lot faster, which is absolutely necessary in a Water Deck. And besides that, it also thins your deck, making it a must for Water Decks.

 

Then, we will need some protection for ALO.

Usually, I use Magic Reflector for  protection, but since Water-decks can’t afford more –1 cards, I’ll stick with Solemn Judgment.

 

Solemn Judgment

Trap / Counter

 

“Pay half of your Life Points when your opponent either activates a Spell or Trap Card or summons a monster (including Special Summon) to negate the action and destroy the cards involved.”

 

Like I said in my previous article, this card is just the ultimate negation and protection card. It does cost a lot of Life Points, and therefore you should use it only when it’s absolutely necessary.If you don’t like the Life Points cost, use Magic Drain or something like that.

 

One other card that wasn’t made specifically for Water Decks, but works really well in it (just like in almost every other deck) is Mobius the Frost Monarch.

 

Mobius the Frost Monarch

Water / Aqua

Effect

6*

 

“When this card is succesfully Tribute Summoned, you can destroy up to 2 Spell or Trap cards on the field.”

 

ATK 2400 / DEF 1000

 

Now that we’ve looked at all the Water cards and their support, it’s time to construct the Water Deck itself.

 

Monsters: 18x

Levia Dragon Daedalus

Giga Gagagigo

Giga Gagagigo

Mobius the Frost Monarch

Mobius the Frost Monarch

Nightmare Penguin

Nightmare Penguin

Abyss Soldier

Abyss Soldier

Gagagigo

Gagagigo

Gagagigo

Penguin Soldier

Penguin Soldier

Mermaid Knight

Breaker the Magical Warrior

Tsukuyomi

Morphing Jar

 

Spells: 16x

A Legendary Ocean

A Legendary Ocean

A Legendary Ocean

Terraforming

Terraforming

Brain Control

Snatch Steal

Salvage

Salvage

My Body as a Shield

Premature Burial

Scapegoat

Dark Hole

Heavy Storm

Mystical Space Typhoon

Nobleman of Crossout

 

Traps: 9x

Torrential Tribute

Call of the Haunted

Mind Crush / Trap Dustshoot

Mind Crush / Trap Dustshoot

Sakuretsu Armor

Sakuretsu Armor

Solemn Judgment / Magic Drain

Solemn Judgment / Magic Drain

Dust Tornado

 

Total Cards: 43 cards.

 

 

Final Explanations:

-                     Breaker the Magical Warrior is a staple. And besides that, this deck needs S/T removal, so Breaker is an obvious choice

-                     Tsukuyomi is for the abuse of Nightmare Penguin and Penguin Soldier so that you can cause massive bouncing and clear the path to their Life Points to strike them with Mermaid Knight or something.

-                     Morphing Jar is needed in this deck, since your hand could be full of tribute monsters or two useless copies of ‘Terraforming’. Great with Tsuku too.

-                     Brain Control is there to summon all the tribute monsters easier.

 

The rest is pretty obvious.

 

One Final Note: You could bounce your own cards with Abyss Soldier (not recommended) and Penguin Soldier, in order to get them from the field to avoid the destruction of Levia Dragon – Daedalus.

 

I hope this was useful to you and that you all enjoyed it.

If anyone has something to say or wants to submit their own deck ideas and let me work it out, feel free to mail me at slam25@hetnet.nl

 

‘Til next time,

~ShineSoldier~