A Legendary Ocean decks are some of the most playable attribute-themed decks available. There are a lot of different ways they can be played, either as dedicated tribal Beatdown decks, lockdown decks that use A Legendary Ocean’s effect to let previous level 4 monsters scoot under Gravity Bind, and decks built around Orca Mega-Fortress of Darkness.

Sometimes you can successfully put two of the aforementioned ideas together and create a winning deck, and that’s what Dominik Batenburg did.

Monsters
3 Gagagigo
3 Seven Colored Fish
3 Sea Serpent Warrior
2 Island Turtle
1 Humanoid Slime
2 Torpedo Fish
2 Cannonball Spear Shellfish
1 Orca Mega-Fortress of Darkness
1 Levia-Dragon Daedalus
1 Terrorking Salmon
1 Amphibious Bugroth

Spells
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Raigeki
1 Axe of Despair
1 Reload
1 Wave Motion Cannon
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Butterfly Dagger Elma
3 A Legendary Ocean

Traps
3 Gravity Bind
1 Draining Shield
1 Barrel Behind the Door
1 7 Tools of the Bandit
1 Dust Tornado
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Magic Cylinder

Dominik combines the design of a Lockdown Legendary Ocean deck with a splash of Orca Mega-Fortress of Darkness. Although running just a single Orca Mega-Fortress of Darkness is risky, especially with no deck thinning to speak of, the deck can still work quite well in many European metagames. With some adjustments, it can also be playable in a North American or Japanese metagame.

Gagagigo, Seven Colored Fish, and Sea Serpent Warrior function as the offensive backbone of this deck. With A Legendary Ocean in play, their ATK values all get boosted enough to overcome most other monsters not requiring a tribute to summon. Gravity Bind can protect them in the early game while you try to get A Legendary Ocean or two into your hand and on to the field. Island Turtle and Humanoid Slime provide some defense and give the deck some good opening play monsters, which it would otherwise be sorely lacking, and Magic Cylinder, Ring of Destruction, and Draining Shield also function to protect the deck, especially before the Gravity Bind lock is in place.

Torpedo Fish and Cannonball Spear Shellfish fuel the single Orca Mega-Fortress of Darkness. Levia-Dragon Daedalus and Terrorking Salmon—which would probably be better off as a Giga Gagagigo due to its extra 50 ATK—serve as the obligatory extra tribute monsters, respectively giving a game-winning effect and some extra muscle. Amphibious Bugroth sits behind Gravity Bind and pings the opponent, bolstered by Axe of Despair and Butterfly Dagger Elma. The two equip cards are integral in some ways, as they give the level 4 attackers a way to stomp through large tribute monsters that would otherwise block them and make the Gravity Bind lock near-useless.

7 Tools of the Bandit and Barrel Behind the Door probably would have been best used in the side deck, with some spell negation to protect the lock taking their place, but other than that it’s a pretty good deck. It has some interesting tricks, using Butterfly Dagger Elma to discourage Heavy Storm and Harpie’s Feather Duster, and putting pressure on the opponent with Wave Motion Cannon. It was well suited to the European environment, and with a few tweaks, could do very well in North America or Japan too.

A Legendary Ocean is another deck that will gain a huge boost if your local tournament organizer decides to implement the Forbidden list. If you’re interested in playing A Legendary Ocean, trade for the cards that are necessary now, because they’re probably only going to go up in value.