The Water Deck Discussion (General Water Decks)
May 25, 2014 0:39:46 GMT -6
ragda and oooxp like this
Post by oooxp on May 25, 2014 0:39:46 GMT -6
Welcome to the Water Deck Discussion Thread.
This is where you can discuss about various kinds of water decks ranging from the meta a.k.a. Mermails to something that is not so meta;
-Frogs
-Umi variants
-Ice barrier
-Fish
-Gishkis
-Atlanteans w/o the mermails
-Any other deck with water attribute that is not played that often
So now you are probably wondering, why make this thread when there is already one relevant water deck and that is Mermails. Well think about it this way; does water always stay in one shape or form?.....Of course not, it changes and moves towards a different direction. It shifts with the meta and evolves to more adaptive style suited for the format. The fact that there is all these varieties of water decks is a statement that there is a many ways to achieve victory and not always the extreme aggro swarm that we see going right now.
Now if you are water deck lover, adaptive player, strategist or just interested in seeing what this discussion is about. Feel free to drop by and put a comment. You are more than welcome to contribute and discuss or ask for help.
About the author:
In most forums or networks for playing the card game, I am known as oooxp. In terms of Yugioh, I have been in out of it over over eight years. I am technically dedicated to one deck...you guessed it, its a water deck, but its not a mermail deck, in fact its not even frogs variants which seen some play for a sometime, its a Umi variants that mixed with Atlanteans some ago. Here is a brief history of the Deck.
2004: when i first became dedicated to a water deck after Levia Dragon Daedalus came out, Field card was "A Legendary Ocean"
2008: touched synchros for the 1st time. Water tuners such as Deep Sea Diva, Ice barrier tuners were valuable assets. Synchro monsters like Gishinoldon were valuable.
2010: Codarus came out, now an mini Daedaulus that is easily to bring out, avoids stardust, bottomless and many other shinnegans have come to play. Also salvageable.
2011: use of Dewloren and Ice barrier synchros. Became very focus on clearing field with codarus then summoning one along with lines of backrow like call of haunted or fiendish chain to lock some down
2012: touched exceeds although not as impactful as synchros at that time
2013: mixed with atlanteans, access to better exceeds became open. Synchros and exceeds became equally viable. Usage of Lemuria
2014: Undine engine and tidal for me.
In a sense, I am a retrospective player who have much experience with how cards work in the past. While my knowledge can be very helpful at times, one should not always take it for granted as I can be very biased or conservative based on my playstyle. However I am more than willing to help you with whatever you need.
Here is the current version available in both dev pro and dn.
Now enough about me. Tell me more about yourselves or decks that you like to talk about or require help on. I will start by giving you a brief amount of knowledge on the water decks currently known.
Mermails
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Mermail
The meta deck of the format representing the water element. It shares some aspect of the recent water decks, in which, involves swarming. However they do massive swarming in a very consistent and scary way. They are well supported with search cards such as Abysslinde, Abysspike(even I am using one since it is so powerful), abyss-sphere. In most cases, they mixed themselves very well with the Atlanteans another water archetype. While the deck is monster heavy, it can run lots of traps making of very difficult deck to deal with both in terms of offense and defense. When dropping down Abyssteus and then following up with another Mermails, pray that you have something to stop them as they could reduce your life points fast easily and efficiently. Right now ways to stop it includes using extreme removal cards such as Dimensional Fissure or Macro Cosmos. Things that prevent special can do the trick too.
Frogs
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Frog
This deck appears from occasionally, but can just be as competent in doing its job in the right hands. In the past when the archetype first came out. It had the use of the powerful Substitoad which eventually got banned due to the otks it was creating in the tcg format and the world series alongside Ronintoadin. A fun fact was that Frog Ftw won a world series. Now it is mainly used with monarch due to the easily dumping of Treeborn frog into the grave. At three its even better since that means there are more targets to summon your elemental lords. Additionally, this could be played as a pure frog deck, in which Swap Frog continuously dump frogs into the grave, use them to fuel the summoning of Ronintoadin. These little amphibians swarm the field to create a wall of Gachi Gachi to buy time for summoning the terror in your hands!. With the addition of Sea lancer, Ronintoadin can summon itself indefinitely. Like Mermails, this deck can be weak against heavy removal cards. It usually don't have much cards left so using cards that lock that graveyard can be a huge advantage ex: D.D. crow, Abyss Dweller,. If you could also prevent the summon of Swap Frog, it can slow or even shut their engine for the duration of the game
Umi Variants
I will not give a link for this as I do not feel they are as knowledgeable about this deck as I am. The first water field card that came out was Umi. Although it was not that great, its name is still relevant to future field cards dedicated to water decks. The next one that came out was Umirukua (not very important). The 3rd would be A Legendary Ocean. With this, things such as amphibious bugroth Mk-3 with gravity bind was potent especially since most people were concern with high attack monsters at that point. Alongside Daedalus, you could blow up the field anytime you want. However like many decks of the old, these strategies die out with time. Now with the new field card, some of the old strategies such as sending the field card to the grave is still used, but along with others. Now it makes usage of controlled swarming in which you special summon a certain amount of times to deal with the biggest threat at the moment. However I could be lying if I said that is the main thing it does. Umi variants are actually diverse as any water deck can make use of the level modification so the usage of the Field Card is immense.
Ice Barrier
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_Barrier
While this archetype is not play much due to the overlooked abilities of the main decks. The synchros are a different story. Of the four synchros, two are banned while one is currently limited. This deck requires multiple monsters to be on the field in order to lock down an opponent. The effects can range from not being able to attack, returning cards to hand, using spell/traps once per turn, price for using effect monsters and so on. The big monsters such as Gantala have effects such as special summoning an ice barrier from the grave or helping one self. The problem with this deck is not because it is weak but because the meta has evolve beyond it and many of the decks we currently see being played is op. This is at best considered balanced as it does not swarm much and its abilities are all over the place making it difficult to autopilot. Because it lacks a universal theme, this may make it one of most versatile decks with less answers. Even macro cosmos are not real answers to this decks. One fact to note, no one has yet to make a theme of ice barrier that plays consistently. Playing well is one thing, but playing in a sense to make it feel it has a theme is difficult.
Fish
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fish
This I believe would be the first water deck that involve swarming. It came out around the time of the emergence of synchros. Its strategy involved summoning Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth, using its effect to summon four fishes. These became folder for large monsters such as stardust dragon and the infamous dark strike fighter which could end you right there if you had an open field. Now due to the hits on certain cards and emergence of "Maxx C" and "Effect Veiler". This deck has became more of a control-swarm utilizing its resources to bait out the opponent's answer before unleashing its torrent. It also is attempts to find better ways to get out their boss Fish monster. At the moment in the OCG, the fish are making use of Sharks which has it own fish types and Exceeds to answer the current issues of the game. I have not seen this deck for a while, but like the other variants, its vulnerable to heavy removal. In addition, find ways to counter their Deepsea King. With the Sharks coming out, it can be up to anyone to guess what they will do.
*This is a subarchetype written by another member of the site. Credit goes to Meat~Product for this Section.
SHARKS are an archetype of WATER fish-type monsters based on swarming and Xyz summons, with the downside of attribute requirements. Shark based Decks come in 4 main varieties, 3-Axis, 4-Axis, 5-Axis, and 4.5-Axis.
3 Axis Shark decks focus on the swarming powers of Bahumat Shark and Full Armoured Black Ray Lancer, while being able to drop other rank 3s with the use of Shark Stickers, Hammer Shark, and Bubble Bringer while protecting their monsters with Friller Rabca. While not having access to the strongest of monsters, 3 Axis Sharks do not have the limitations set by the higher level Sharks of their Xyz summons being WATER only, giving 3 Axis access to a wider range of extra deck answers.
4 Axis Sharks have 2 different build paths, the first being an Xyz +1 build, which uses Doublefin and Silent Angler with recursion to drop constant Silent Honour ARKs and Abyss Dwellers and win through attrition. The other is an OTK build, based around Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth, Phantom of Chaos, and Xyz Remora to make 2 of the "boss" Shark Number 32: Shark Drake and OTK by constantly beating a weakened monster.
5 Axis Sharks are based around Eagle Shark, Panther Shark, and Gazer Shark, and summoning a Rank 5 monsters. These Sharks, like 3 Axis Sharks, do not usually have the WATER only limitations and thus have access to the generic Rank 5 Xyzs. 5 Axis also has the game plan of making a Rank5 WATER attribute, and then overlaying into Full Armoured Crystal Zero Lancer.
4.5 Axis Sharks is a combination of the 4 Axis Xyz Sharks and 5 Axis Sharks, using Saber Shark and Wind-Up Shark to manipulate levels and make WATER Rank 5s as material for Full Armoured Crystal Zero Lancer, as well as having easy access to Abyss Dweller and Silent Honour ARK through Doublefin and Silent Angler. 4.5 Axis really feels the attribute limitations, but takes those limits for access to both Rank 4 and 5 Xyz monsters.
Gishki
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gishki
This deck can be well...annoying. While it also swarms and creates otks, its main focus is summoning rituals to answer the opposing sides threats. This involves using their Aquamirror ritual card to summon them and utilizing cards such as salvage, Gishki abyss, Gishki Beast, Gishki shadow....Basically almost their entire deck is a search engine. Some power cards include Zielgigas who has 3200 attack which can draw cards and remove a threat on the opponent's field, Gustkraken which was known for the infamous hand loop and Levianimi another high beater with ability to draw cards. At best they can be easily stop from searching, summoning.. and searching again if you have a "Maxx C" or "Effect Veiler". At worse, you probably have to wait 2-3 mins before they end their turn with some threats on the field. Like the other decks, heavy removal works. However stopping or taking out their main card such as Aquamirror can be a devastating strategy. Because the entire deck is a search engine, summoning a Rai-oh could stop them dead on their tracks.
Atlanteans
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Atlantean
This archetype by itself is very hard to use. Most of its monsters such as Marksman, Dragoons, Infantry require something else to trigger it. As they usually do not trigger themselves, they are found mostly in another decks mainly Mermails since that is what is seen. They have a boss monster Poseidra that can clear the field yet the summoning cost is very great. Thankfully they make use of other cards that gives it huge advantages such as Call of the Atlanteans and Salvage. While it has not seen much play by themselves yet, the above mention had make a huge impact on the current game. They are vulnerable to heavy removal and cards that prevent the graveyard from reacting such as Soul drain
Honorable Mentions that any water deck should look at if not put in deck
-Barrier Statue of Torrent: Only water monsters can be special summon
-Spiritual Water Art - Aoi: Information is always great
-Aqua Spirit: A summon that can be used as a synchro folder, exceed folder or an all purpose field monster
-Salvage: +1 for any deck that runs 1500 and lower
-Moray of Greed: Hand Modifier
-Tidal, Dragon rulers of waterfalls: the dragon ruler represent water monster, huge beatstick that can revive itself at little cost
*If there is any water decks you want to mention, please do, I will be more than happy to put it. If anything please feel free to visit the discussion and talk with fellow members or help each other to create water decks of all sorts.
This is where you can discuss about various kinds of water decks ranging from the meta a.k.a. Mermails to something that is not so meta;
-Frogs
-Umi variants
-Ice barrier
-Fish
-Gishkis
-Atlanteans w/o the mermails
-Any other deck with water attribute that is not played that often
So now you are probably wondering, why make this thread when there is already one relevant water deck and that is Mermails. Well think about it this way; does water always stay in one shape or form?.....Of course not, it changes and moves towards a different direction. It shifts with the meta and evolves to more adaptive style suited for the format. The fact that there is all these varieties of water decks is a statement that there is a many ways to achieve victory and not always the extreme aggro swarm that we see going right now.
Now if you are water deck lover, adaptive player, strategist or just interested in seeing what this discussion is about. Feel free to drop by and put a comment. You are more than welcome to contribute and discuss or ask for help.
About the author:
In most forums or networks for playing the card game, I am known as oooxp. In terms of Yugioh, I have been in out of it over over eight years. I am technically dedicated to one deck...you guessed it, its a water deck, but its not a mermail deck, in fact its not even frogs variants which seen some play for a sometime, its a Umi variants that mixed with Atlanteans some ago. Here is a brief history of the Deck.
2004: when i first became dedicated to a water deck after Levia Dragon Daedalus came out, Field card was "A Legendary Ocean"
2008: touched synchros for the 1st time. Water tuners such as Deep Sea Diva, Ice barrier tuners were valuable assets. Synchro monsters like Gishinoldon were valuable.
2010: Codarus came out, now an mini Daedaulus that is easily to bring out, avoids stardust, bottomless and many other shinnegans have come to play. Also salvageable.
2011: use of Dewloren and Ice barrier synchros. Became very focus on clearing field with codarus then summoning one along with lines of backrow like call of haunted or fiendish chain to lock some down
2012: touched exceeds although not as impactful as synchros at that time
2013: mixed with atlanteans, access to better exceeds became open. Synchros and exceeds became equally viable. Usage of Lemuria
2014: Undine engine and tidal for me.
In a sense, I am a retrospective player who have much experience with how cards work in the past. While my knowledge can be very helpful at times, one should not always take it for granted as I can be very biased or conservative based on my playstyle. However I am more than willing to help you with whatever you need.
Here is the current version available in both dev pro and dn.
Now enough about me. Tell me more about yourselves or decks that you like to talk about or require help on. I will start by giving you a brief amount of knowledge on the water decks currently known.
Mermails
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Mermail
The meta deck of the format representing the water element. It shares some aspect of the recent water decks, in which, involves swarming. However they do massive swarming in a very consistent and scary way. They are well supported with search cards such as Abysslinde, Abysspike(even I am using one since it is so powerful), abyss-sphere. In most cases, they mixed themselves very well with the Atlanteans another water archetype. While the deck is monster heavy, it can run lots of traps making of very difficult deck to deal with both in terms of offense and defense. When dropping down Abyssteus and then following up with another Mermails, pray that you have something to stop them as they could reduce your life points fast easily and efficiently. Right now ways to stop it includes using extreme removal cards such as Dimensional Fissure or Macro Cosmos. Things that prevent special can do the trick too.
Frogs
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Frog
This deck appears from occasionally, but can just be as competent in doing its job in the right hands. In the past when the archetype first came out. It had the use of the powerful Substitoad which eventually got banned due to the otks it was creating in the tcg format and the world series alongside Ronintoadin. A fun fact was that Frog Ftw won a world series. Now it is mainly used with monarch due to the easily dumping of Treeborn frog into the grave. At three its even better since that means there are more targets to summon your elemental lords. Additionally, this could be played as a pure frog deck, in which Swap Frog continuously dump frogs into the grave, use them to fuel the summoning of Ronintoadin. These little amphibians swarm the field to create a wall of Gachi Gachi to buy time for summoning the terror in your hands!. With the addition of Sea lancer, Ronintoadin can summon itself indefinitely. Like Mermails, this deck can be weak against heavy removal cards. It usually don't have much cards left so using cards that lock that graveyard can be a huge advantage ex: D.D. crow, Abyss Dweller,. If you could also prevent the summon of Swap Frog, it can slow or even shut their engine for the duration of the game
Umi Variants
I will not give a link for this as I do not feel they are as knowledgeable about this deck as I am. The first water field card that came out was Umi. Although it was not that great, its name is still relevant to future field cards dedicated to water decks. The next one that came out was Umirukua (not very important). The 3rd would be A Legendary Ocean. With this, things such as amphibious bugroth Mk-3 with gravity bind was potent especially since most people were concern with high attack monsters at that point. Alongside Daedalus, you could blow up the field anytime you want. However like many decks of the old, these strategies die out with time. Now with the new field card, some of the old strategies such as sending the field card to the grave is still used, but along with others. Now it makes usage of controlled swarming in which you special summon a certain amount of times to deal with the biggest threat at the moment. However I could be lying if I said that is the main thing it does. Umi variants are actually diverse as any water deck can make use of the level modification so the usage of the Field Card is immense.
Ice Barrier
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_Barrier
While this archetype is not play much due to the overlooked abilities of the main decks. The synchros are a different story. Of the four synchros, two are banned while one is currently limited. This deck requires multiple monsters to be on the field in order to lock down an opponent. The effects can range from not being able to attack, returning cards to hand, using spell/traps once per turn, price for using effect monsters and so on. The big monsters such as Gantala have effects such as special summoning an ice barrier from the grave or helping one self. The problem with this deck is not because it is weak but because the meta has evolve beyond it and many of the decks we currently see being played is op. This is at best considered balanced as it does not swarm much and its abilities are all over the place making it difficult to autopilot. Because it lacks a universal theme, this may make it one of most versatile decks with less answers. Even macro cosmos are not real answers to this decks. One fact to note, no one has yet to make a theme of ice barrier that plays consistently. Playing well is one thing, but playing in a sense to make it feel it has a theme is difficult.
Fish
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fish
This I believe would be the first water deck that involve swarming. It came out around the time of the emergence of synchros. Its strategy involved summoning Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth, using its effect to summon four fishes. These became folder for large monsters such as stardust dragon and the infamous dark strike fighter which could end you right there if you had an open field. Now due to the hits on certain cards and emergence of "Maxx C" and "Effect Veiler". This deck has became more of a control-swarm utilizing its resources to bait out the opponent's answer before unleashing its torrent. It also is attempts to find better ways to get out their boss Fish monster. At the moment in the OCG, the fish are making use of Sharks which has it own fish types and Exceeds to answer the current issues of the game. I have not seen this deck for a while, but like the other variants, its vulnerable to heavy removal. In addition, find ways to counter their Deepsea King. With the Sharks coming out, it can be up to anyone to guess what they will do.
*This is a subarchetype written by another member of the site. Credit goes to Meat~Product for this Section.
SHARKS are an archetype of WATER fish-type monsters based on swarming and Xyz summons, with the downside of attribute requirements. Shark based Decks come in 4 main varieties, 3-Axis, 4-Axis, 5-Axis, and 4.5-Axis.
3 Axis Shark decks focus on the swarming powers of Bahumat Shark and Full Armoured Black Ray Lancer, while being able to drop other rank 3s with the use of Shark Stickers, Hammer Shark, and Bubble Bringer while protecting their monsters with Friller Rabca. While not having access to the strongest of monsters, 3 Axis Sharks do not have the limitations set by the higher level Sharks of their Xyz summons being WATER only, giving 3 Axis access to a wider range of extra deck answers.
4 Axis Sharks have 2 different build paths, the first being an Xyz +1 build, which uses Doublefin and Silent Angler with recursion to drop constant Silent Honour ARKs and Abyss Dwellers and win through attrition. The other is an OTK build, based around Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth, Phantom of Chaos, and Xyz Remora to make 2 of the "boss" Shark Number 32: Shark Drake and OTK by constantly beating a weakened monster.
5 Axis Sharks are based around Eagle Shark, Panther Shark, and Gazer Shark, and summoning a Rank 5 monsters. These Sharks, like 3 Axis Sharks, do not usually have the WATER only limitations and thus have access to the generic Rank 5 Xyzs. 5 Axis also has the game plan of making a Rank5 WATER attribute, and then overlaying into Full Armoured Crystal Zero Lancer.
4.5 Axis Sharks is a combination of the 4 Axis Xyz Sharks and 5 Axis Sharks, using Saber Shark and Wind-Up Shark to manipulate levels and make WATER Rank 5s as material for Full Armoured Crystal Zero Lancer, as well as having easy access to Abyss Dweller and Silent Honour ARK through Doublefin and Silent Angler. 4.5 Axis really feels the attribute limitations, but takes those limits for access to both Rank 4 and 5 Xyz monsters.
Gishki
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gishki
This deck can be well...annoying. While it also swarms and creates otks, its main focus is summoning rituals to answer the opposing sides threats. This involves using their Aquamirror ritual card to summon them and utilizing cards such as salvage, Gishki abyss, Gishki Beast, Gishki shadow....Basically almost their entire deck is a search engine. Some power cards include Zielgigas who has 3200 attack which can draw cards and remove a threat on the opponent's field, Gustkraken which was known for the infamous hand loop and Levianimi another high beater with ability to draw cards. At best they can be easily stop from searching, summoning.. and searching again if you have a "Maxx C" or "Effect Veiler". At worse, you probably have to wait 2-3 mins before they end their turn with some threats on the field. Like the other decks, heavy removal works. However stopping or taking out their main card such as Aquamirror can be a devastating strategy. Because the entire deck is a search engine, summoning a Rai-oh could stop them dead on their tracks.
Atlanteans
yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Atlantean
This archetype by itself is very hard to use. Most of its monsters such as Marksman, Dragoons, Infantry require something else to trigger it. As they usually do not trigger themselves, they are found mostly in another decks mainly Mermails since that is what is seen. They have a boss monster Poseidra that can clear the field yet the summoning cost is very great. Thankfully they make use of other cards that gives it huge advantages such as Call of the Atlanteans and Salvage. While it has not seen much play by themselves yet, the above mention had make a huge impact on the current game. They are vulnerable to heavy removal and cards that prevent the graveyard from reacting such as Soul drain
Honorable Mentions that any water deck should look at if not put in deck
-Barrier Statue of Torrent: Only water monsters can be special summon
-Spiritual Water Art - Aoi: Information is always great
-Aqua Spirit: A summon that can be used as a synchro folder, exceed folder or an all purpose field monster
-Salvage: +1 for any deck that runs 1500 and lower
-Moray of Greed: Hand Modifier
-Tidal, Dragon rulers of waterfalls: the dragon ruler represent water monster, huge beatstick that can revive itself at little cost
*If there is any water decks you want to mention, please do, I will be more than happy to put it. If anything please feel free to visit the discussion and talk with fellow members or help each other to create water decks of all sorts.
