This article just about wraps up my series on the six different attributes of the game. Closing out the list is the Water deck, which features not one, but two nifty field spells that can alter the game. The two in question are Umiiruka, from Dark Beginnings 1, and A Legendary Ocean, from Dark Beginnings 2.

Some of you may be asking why anyone would run the field spell that only boosts monsters’ values by 200 ATK, as opposed to the one that boosts them by 500 ATK. However, the comparison is not that simple. A Legendary Ocean has the ability to boost your monster’s DEF as well, meaning you don’t have to simply settle for an offensive push. Its ability of downgrading your monster’s levels by one also enables all sorts of powerful summons. You can splash Gravity Bind and use level 4 monsters, or simply put powerful monsters like Giga Gagagigo into play for no tribute cost!

If a 2650 ATK monster with no tribute cost sounds like your type of delectable delight, the Water deck just might be for you. The combination of a solid defense and powerful monsters provided by A Legendary Ocean makes it the choice for our Water deck!

Constructing a Solid Water Monster Lineup

The elemental searcher for this attribute is Mother Grizzly, the only Water/Beast-Warrior in the game. It will allow you to search for a diverse array of effect monsters, including Yomi Ship and Poison Draw Frog. My initial article on the new-school Water deck, written before the new Advanced format Forbidden list, allowed Mother Grizzly to bring out the now-forbidden Sinister Serpent. Without the Serpent, the Water deck loses quite a bit of advantage, so we must make do with either draw power through Poison Draw Frog or monster removal through Yomi Ship.

Of course, you’re mainly running A Legendary Ocean because of its ability to downgrade monster levels. Therefore, the obvious choices for this deck are B.E.S. Crystal Core and Giga Gagagigo. Of these two, Giga Gagagigo might seem better, based on its raw ATK value alone. However, keep in mind that Crystal Core boosts an impressive 2300 ATK when combined with the field spell and can destroy pesky Spirit Reapers with priority. The sheer chance of hitting that monster with the effect lets you run one B.E.S. Crystal Core and two copies of Giga Gagagigo. Throw in one copy of Mobius the Frost Monarch and you’re set.

The next key is to help aid a solid defense with good opening turn sets. Along with three copies of Mother Grizzly are a handful of Nightmare Penguins, which form impenetrable 2000 DEF walls and also have the nice secondary effect of returning any card to your opponent’s hand. These suit the purpose of the deck quite well.

Finally, we can round out the list by including a few copies of Aqua Spirit, which works extremely well to halt an opponent’s battle phase. If you ever leave an opponent’s monster on the field, Aqua Spirit should disable it nicely. It will also destroy Spirit Reaper, which is a problem for most decks in general.

Monsters: 18

1 Mobius the Frost Monarch

1 B.E.S. Crystal Core

2 Giga Gagagigo

2 Nightmare Penguin

3 Mother Grizzly

3 Yomi Ship

1 Poison Draw Frog

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Magician of Faith

2 Aqua Spirit

1 Sangan

The monster lineup packs numerous monsters with solid ATK and DEF values, and the only non-themed monsters are vital to the deck. Magician of Faith will bring back your copies of A Legendary Ocean and other key spells, Sangan will lead to Grizzlies, and Breaker the Magical Warrior needs no explanation.

By dropping 2650 ATK monsters with no tribute cost, you’ll put your opponent in a very difficult situation. Often, he or she will be unable to break through Giga Gagagigo without some help in the form of spell or traps. Because Yomi Ship can handle almost all monsters, you’ll receive a clear field to attack into more often than not.

Also, remember the timing on Poison Draw Frog. Like Jerome said in an earlier article, you can’t tribute it, so you should be very careful when you’re using it. Most likely, you’ll want to move it to defense position and simply set another monster. It’s used for drawing purposes, but it can miss its timing through almost every card in this deck.

Spells: 12

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Snatch Steal

3 A Legendary Ocean

1 Terraforming

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Smashing Ground

1 Confiscation

The spells of the deck are obvious. While I usually don’t like any copies of Terraforming, because they can alert your opponent to your strategy, it’s pretty crucial here. The deck is simply filled with numerous vanilla tribute monsters if you can’t get A Legendary Ocean into play, so make sure you can! The deck should always have strong monsters to play or set, though, so you can definitely take your time when you’re deciding what to play.

The trap lineup must help out the deck, and I have some special surprises in store to make sure that everything flows smoothly. You must ask yourself—what trap works well with a monster lineup that’s composed of all graveyard effects and normal monsters? If you guessed Skill Drain, you’re absolutely right!

Traps: 12

2 Dust Tornado

1 Call of the Haunted

2 Skill Drain

1 Robbin’ Goblin

3 Sakuretsu Armor

2 Magic Drain

1 Solemn Judgment

As you can see, the presence of Skill Drain effectively nullifies your opponent’s threats while allowing almost all of your monsters to retain their effects. You no longer need to fear Mobius the Frost Monarch, which is one of the biggest opposing threats. In fact, all you really have to fear is Heavy Storm, since it might single-handedly take out A Legendary Ocean, Skill Drain, and a defense position monster.

In this regard, it is absolutely crucial that you only play Skill Drain and A Legendary Ocean when you can get at least one card’s worth of advantage out of it. For example, flipping Skill Drain to negate Spirit Reaper means you just received a +1 advantage (the card you would have discarded). Turning around and destroying it gets you a +2 advantage, since it wouldn’t have been destroyed otherwise. At this point, even if you set another spell or trap, Heavy Storm will net no advantage for your opponent, since Skill Drain has already paid its own cost many times over.

This principle can extend to A Legendary Ocean, which is something I’ve harped on in this entire article series. If you play it to get the 200 ATK boost, which then enables you to destroy a Jinzo that you couldn’t have otherwise destroyed through battle, it nets you a +1 advantage. Now, you don’t have to fear Heavy Storm or Breaker’s effect as much.

Because the deck has the tendency to cluster a bunch of spells or traps together, you must be very careful to have the key cards pay for themselves first before putting them in play. Otherwise, a single Heavy Storm can absolutely destroy your resources.

The Magic Drains are in here to help mitigate the effects of damaging cards like Smashing Ground, which wipes out your 2650 ATK monsters, and Heavy Storm. The one copy of Solemn Judgment should only be used in the direst of circumstances, and you’ll generally never want to open with more than one spell or trap in your zone.

A good opening play would be something like a set Mother Grizzly and a set Dust Tornado or Sakuretsu Armor. Remember to only play those Skill Drains and A Legendary Oceans when the opportunity to generate advantage shows. Playing A Legendary Ocean right before you crash Mother Grizzly into a spent Breaker the Magical Warrior is a great choice, as is using it on B.E.S. Crystal Core to trade with a Chaos Sorcerer. Play your cards right, and the Water deck will prevail.

It was a lot of fun creating these elemental-themed decks. These are by no means the best decks of each attribute—they’re merely great examples for duelists, both advanced and beginning. Obviously, I didn’t have the time to playtest these as much as true die-hard fans of each attribute would, so there’s plenty of room for improvement. Hopefully, with a few tweaks, we can see these themed attribute decks show up in Shonen Jump Championship Top 8 decklists!