Today, folks, it's all about the Water, or H2O for those of you in the chemical know (at least I think it's chemistry—that wasn't my subject in school). With the release of Invasion of Chaos, Water attribute monsters are getting a huge boost. In fact, they are getting such a boost that I would go so far as to say that they are going to become a tournament-viable archetype with this set release. Until this point, Water decks were just one-trick ponies with the Umi/A Legendary Ocean and Legendary Fisherman/Deepsea Warrior combination being the notable item. Invasion of Chaos gives the intrepid deckbuilder a plethora of new roads to explore, a few of which I will trod down today (did you like all those 50 cent words in that sentence?). This is by no means a comprehensive list of ways to build a Water deck, and I would love to hear and see other successful builds with this theme. Besides being fun decks to build and play, any deck that shows off new cards makes me happy.
Before we launch into the meat of this article and the thoughts behind any of these decks, let us take a quick history lesson (I was a history major in college, so you all will have to humor me for a minute). Don’t worry—by history I don’t mean going back and learning about Alexander the Great or U-Boats during World War I (but you should give those topics a once over). I mean a Yu-Gi-Oh! history lesson, and remembering what A Legendary Ocean does, since it is the crux of every Water deck that we are going to look at.
A Legendary Ocean – Field Spell Card - This card's name is treated as "Umi". Downgrade all WATER monsters in both players’ hands and on the field by 1 Level. Increases the ATK and DEF of all WATER monsters by 200 points.
Everyone got that? Good. For those of you that don’t see the power of this field card, please take a look at it one more time. It has a built in Cost-Down function that reduces by one level instead of two, gives all Water monsters +200 ATK and DEF bonuses, and acts as Umi. This is to Water monsters what the Death Star was to the Imperials: A weapon of mass destruction. (If that analogy lost you, go check out the real Star Wars movies.) It is also searchable by Terraforming, making it that much easier to get out of your deck and into your hand. This card does require some protection, so you may want to consider running a Magic Reflector or two to make sure that your opponent has to use two pieces of removal to get rid of the Ocean.
Deck #1 – Massive Monsters For Skull Thumping
Monsters
3 Gagagigo
3 Sea Serpent Warrior of Darkness
3 Seven Colored Fish
2 Giga Gagagigo
1 Terrorking Salmon
1 Levia-Dragon – Daedalus
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 Witch of the Black Forest
Spells
3 A Legendary Ocean
2 Terraforming
2 Magic Reflector
1 Raigeki
1 Dark Hole
1 Change of Heart
1 Snatch Steal
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Monster Reborn
1 Painful Choice
1 Harpie’s Feather Duster
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heart of the Underdog
Traps
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Imperial Order
1 Ring of Destruction
2 Skill Drain
For the first deck, let’s take a gander at how we can use some of the big hitters from Invasion of Chaos. This set gives the Water deck a much-needed boost in the attack area, with the biggest addition being Levia-Dragon – Daedalus, a 2600/1500 Level 7 Monster that has a pretty sick effect.
Levia-Dragon – Daedalus – Level 7 – 2600 ATK – 1500 DEF - Send "Umi" on your side of the field to the Graveyard to destroy all cards on the field except this card.
Ok, so it's searchable by Witch of the Black Forest, it will only be a one tribute Monster with A Legendary Ocean/Umi on the field, and it can destroy everything simply by sending A Legendary Ocean to the graveyard. Once you obliterate everything, you get a free 2600 damage shot to your opponent’s skull; that's not a bad little effect at all. Two other good beaters are Giga Gagagigo and Terrorking Salmon (which, by the way, has the greatest flavor text ever). Both monsters are level 5 and 2450 and 2400 ATK respectively, and they are both searchable by Witch of the Black Forest (see a theme with her yet?). So once you get A Legendary Ocean on the field, you will have two no-tribute 2650 and 2600 ATK monsters. That's enough to make any opponent’s jaw drop.
If you want to be really tricky, you could try adding in a few Ultimate Offerings to start dropping huge monsters as though they grew on trees. This set also gives Water another good level 4 monster: Sea Serpent Warrior of Darkness, a vanilla 1800 ATK/1500 DEF monster, but every good Water deck will probably run some of these. Remember that with A Legendary Ocean active on the field, this monster becomes a 2000 ATK beater that doesn't require a tribute. That's mighty big. Tribe-Infecting Virus becomes more of an attack threat at 1800 ATK, not to mention having one of the most destructive effects in the entire game.
This deck really needs A Legendary Ocean in play to get rolling (and to get those Giga Gagagigos and Terrorking Salmons out), so three copies of Terraforming are a must, to both search and thin your deck. Since this deck has so many normal monsters, Skill Drain seems like it would be a great fit. The only monsters in this deck that will be affected by Skill Drain are Levia-Dragon – Daedalus and Tribe-Infecting Virus, but with A Legendary Ocean on the field, they will still be 2800 and 1800 ATK monsters, and that's nothing to scoff at. Another interesting card to consider for this deck is Heart of the Underdog. Seeing as how twelve of deck's sixteen monsters are normal monsters, you have pretty high odds of drawing one and then being able to draw an additional card.
Now some of you may be wondering why I haven’t put in The Legendary Fisherman, and I have a perfectly good reason: I'm showing off the new cards. I personally don’t care for the Fisherman, but some people really like it and as we know, deck building is a completely personal thing.
Deck #2 – Who Bugrothed?
Monsters
3 Amphibious Bugroth MK-3
3 Mother Grizzly
3 Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu
3 Gagagigo
1 Giga Gagagigo
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
Spells
3 A Legendary Ocean
3 Axe of Despair
2 Terraforming
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Twin Swords of Flashing Light - Tryce
2 Reload
1 Raigeki
1 Dark Hole
1 Change of Heart
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Monster Reborn
1 Harpie’s Feather Duster
1 Salvage
Traps
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Imperial Order
1 Ring of Destruction
One of my personal favorite deck types to play is Direct Damage, or Burn. There is something inherently fun about obliterating your opponent’s life points without using any huge monsters, something that is seldom seen in Yu-Gi-Oh! Invasion of Chaos gives us Burn players, and Water players in particular, one direct damage monster that has the potential to be one of the most devastating monsters ever.
Amphibious Bugroth MK-3 – Level 4 – 1500 ATK – 1300 DEF - As long as "Umi" remains face-up on the field, this card can attack your opponent's Life Points directly.
When I read this card for the first time, I did a double take. After the shock of reading this card set in, my mind immediately went to combos and how it could be completely abused in the right situations. With A Legendary Ocean on the field, you have a 1700 ATK monster that can attack directly! Put an Axe of Despair on it, and that jumps to 2700! Your opponent has two to three turns to come up with something to stop that strategy or it's lights out. The fact that it can be brought out with Mother Grizzly makes it even more versatile and more dangerous to your opponent. Equip it with Twin Swords of Flashing Light - Tryce and it can attack directly, twice! It's searchable by Witch of the Black Forest and Sangan, and you can bring it back from the graveyard to your hand with Salvage. If you can’t tell yet, I'm very excited by this freaky-looking creature.
One card that you must have in this deck is Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu, to search for whatever equip spell card you put in your deck to punish your opponent. The Mother Grizzly is there to bring out Bugroth or to bring out additional Mother Grizzlies, which serves to thin your deck. Reload allows you to shuffle your hand into your deck and draw the same number of cards that you shuffled in. Once you get Bugroth out with the Ocean active, you could play Reload and maybe draw the equip spell card that wins the game for you. Additional drawing power is of the utmost importance in Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Reload does an outstanding job of getting new cards into your hand. This deck can put an absolute beating on your opponents real fast if they have no response to either Bugroth or A Legendary Ocean.
Invasion of Chaos is going to bring a lot of change to the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament scene, and if my hunch is correct, there are going to be Water decks everywhere soon. These are just two of the myriad possibilities for Water deck builds, and as always, I encourage everyone to get out there and try their hand at their own versions of these decks. To me, there is nothing more exciting in Yu-Gi-Oh! than building a new deck and finding out that it kicks massive amounts of tail, and I envision tons of tail-kicking coming up soon.
Until next time . . .