Hello everyone! This week’s preview is very special. We’ve got a World Premiere card on our hands and I’ve been charged with revealing it to you. This card was a winning design in the 4Kids Entertainment competition dubbed “Design Your Destiny,” and now it’s been turned into a real, playable card . . .

Without further ado, here’s Skreech!

Water / Reptile / Effect

Level 4

ATK 1500/DEF 600

When Skreech is destroyed in battle and sent to the Graveyard, select two Water monsters from your deck and send them to the Graveyard.

I really like this monster. Think about that effect for a while: I believe it makes Water attribute decks a lot more playable than they used to be.

What Can Skreech Do?

At 1500 ATK, Skreech gives your Mother Grizzly a nice boost in playability. Theerasak Poonsombat gave us a preview of how good Water monsters could be when he played Water Monarchs at Shonen Jump Baltimore. By using Mother Grizzly, Crystal Seer, Elemental Hero Ocean, and Treeborn Frog, he created an excellent spread of Water monsters to combo with Spiritual Water Art - Aoi. This group of monsters worked especially well in the Perfect Circle variant he piloted that day.

You can deviate from his concept: take out the Destiny Hero monsters and convert the deck into an even more dedicated Water Monarch strategy. Skreech and Mother Grizzly will give you quick access to Treeborn Frog and Mobius the Frost Monarch. No one likes drawing into a Call of the Haunted or Premature Burial without any targets, right? Skreech can solve that problem in the first few turns. Crystal Seer works great in this kind of strategy, since (together with Skreech) she helps you manipulate your deck, allowing you to draw what you need for the turn.

Skreech enhances the power of Pot of Avarice. Since we’ve been blessed with a Semi-Limited status for the Pot, you can generate some serious card presence in a matter of turns. Speedy draws and extra cards lead to easy ways to pay for cards like Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, Lightning Vortex, and Back to Square One.

Creature Swap and Skreech have excellent synergy as well: card presence isn’t everything. Take your opponent’s monster, attack your own Skreech, and throw your Treeborn Frog into the graveyard. This combo speeds up your Pot of Avarice requirement by giving you three monsters in the graveyard in just a single turn, and nets you a monster to work with.

If you’re not the Monarch type of player, don’t worry. Skreech can provide excellent speed for a true Water deck. Keep in mind that it works really well with Levia-Dragon - Daedalus. Larger Water monsters like Daedalus and Gogiga Gagagigo can be thrown into the graveyard for easy access via Premature Burial and Call of the Haunted. Include a few copies of A Legendary Ocean and you’ve got yourself a speedy way to activate the Dragon’s effect.

Perhaps you’re not that type of duelist either. Maybe you prefer more card presence, more speed, and more control. You want it all. Skreech can make a certain powerful theme card more playable than it already is: Salvage.

It’s a simple concept to build a speedy “control” deck with smaller Water monsters and draw effects. Several key Water combos would work well together in such a strategy. Creature Swap blends with Mother Grizzly, Treeborn Frog, Skreech, and even a flipped Crystal Seer. The classic combo of Hydrogeddon and Shrink gives a deadly aggressive tone while protecting your smaller monsters, and Spiritual Water Art - Aoi ties it all together. You could even use Abyss Soldier or Fenrir to get more mileage out of your theme. Throw in a few copies of Salvage, Pot of Avarice, and some control cards like Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, and you could have a pretty effective deck.

Use Skreech to throw Mother Grizzly and Treeborn Frog into the graveyard. Then use Salvage to retrieve both. Then summon Abyss Soldier and discard Treeborn Frog to the graveyard to use the Soldier’s built-in bounce effect. On the defensive side, you can keep Mother Grizzly as a precaution against your opponent’s aggression next turn. You can chump-block a few attacks and then search for another Skreech for more deck-thinning. On the aggressive side, Treeborn Frog can be special summoned next turn and then tributed for Raiza the Storm Monarch or Mobius the Frost Monarch.

Effects on the Average Metagame

The “theme” of Skreech, for me, is definitely a mix of speed, synergy, and more speed. It’s really tournament viable. Water decks stand to benefit from this card’s release along with popular archetypes like Perfect Circle, but it definitely helps the innovative deckbuilder too. The Water attribute has been pretty restrictive in terms of what you can do with it in the past. Skreech gives it a bright future.

Will Water decks make an impact in the competitive metagame? Absolutely. The Water attribute has many different monsters and card effects that you can exploit with Skreech. 1500 ATK was the perfect strength to give to this monster. It’s just low enough for Mother Grizzly and just high enough to destroy popular recruiters in battle. Versatility is the name of the game with the release of Skreech. There isn’t a drawback to having this monster destroyed in battle. I know I’ll be testing a few builds and trying to make it work.

Thanks for reading. Good luck at the Gladiator’s Assault Sneak Preview!