Water decks have been some of my favorites to dabble in with this format. With Spirit Reaper now Limited, Water is definitely the control attribute of choice and there are plenty of Water-specific spells, traps, and monsters that do nothing but mess around with the opponent’s field or hand. Some are so good that they give you an immediate advantage as soon as they hit play, rewarding the specific priorities you’ve decided to adopt by committing to a heavily themed strategy.
Reader Simon M, from parts unknown, has made an excellent Water deck that seeks to abuse some of the game’s best control monsters. It’s notable not only for its lack of Treeborn Frog, but also for its admirable focus and clever strategy! Here’s what he had to say about it.
Jason,
The point of this deck is to try to use the full power of Fenrir by turning it into the Yata-Garasu of the new format. The deck controls the opponent’s hand via Drop Off and Robbin' Goblin and maintains an aggressive edge with Rush Recklessly and Umiiruka. In the monster lineup, Mobius the Frost Monarch and Abyss Soldier control the field while three Hydrogeddon cards and three Mother Grizzly cards maintain field presence. The deck chooses not to use Premature Burial, Call of the Haunted, or Pot of Avarice because of the three Fenrir cards that will keep removing Monsters from the game.
—Simon M.
Here’s what it looks like!
But Not a Drop to Drink—40 Cards
Monster: 20
3 Mobius the Frost Monarch
3 Abyss Soldier
3 Hydrogeddon
3 Fenrir
3 Mother Grizzly
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Sangan
1 Magician of Faith
1 Spirit Reaper
Spell: 12
3 Rush Recklessly
2 Umiiruka
1 Smashing Ground
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Graceful Charity
1 Confiscation
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Book of Moon
1 Terraforming
Trap: 8
3 Drop Off
2 Robbin' Goblin
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Ring of Destruction
Note the brevity of Simon’s e-mail: he knows what everything in his deck does, and each piece of the puzzle performs a particular function that’s part of a greater plan. The deck is certainly playable as-is, but I think with some tweaking, we can take it to new heights.
First up, despite the fact that we’ve got plenty of special summoning power, three Mobius the Frost Monarch cards seems like overkill. An opening hand of Terraforming, Mobius, Umiiruka, and two other cards is like a kick in the stomach, and we need to do whatever we can to avoid weak early games. This deck needs to take control from the beginning of a duel and never let go, so I’m going to cut the three Mobius cards down to just two. It’s a subtle change, but over the long term the worth of this alteration will be high.
Next, D. D. Warrior Lady and Spirit Reaper will be removed. Problematic monsters are D. D. Warrior Lady’s forte, but we already have plenty of monster removal in the form of removal spells and traps, and Abyss Soldier. The Lady is a great card with high utility, but she doesn’t have the synergy this deck seeks to establish. She just isn’t necessary here. The same goes for Reaper. Duelists are packing more and more monster hate, so the defensive potential of Reaper isn’t that high any more. Though it’s a great control card that fits the overall “wreck the opponent’s hand” theme, it’s a dead card once it hits the graveyard and this deck needs all the Water attributes it can get.
I’m confused as to why the deck is using Terraforming. Simon’s down to 40 cards, so perhaps he’s trying to thin his deck by one card through the use of this spell. In so doing, he runs the risk of drawing his two Umiiruka before Terraforming, and then drawing nothing but a dead card when Terraforming comes out of the deck. That’s a pretty costly risk to take for so small a payoff, so I’m going to remove Terraforming in favor of a third Umiiruka.
Finally, all three copies of Drop Off will be removed. If this deck’s core strategy is working and Fenrir is hitting a monster each turn, Drop Off is nothing but a dead card: what’s the point in depriving the opponent of his or her draw phases if you’re practically doing the same thing to yourself? Sure, once the opponent is out of monsters, Drop Off would become useful, but you’ve usually won the game by then. Drop Off is a great card if you can take control early on, but this format is very aggressive in and of itself, so we can’t rely on that happening. In addition, a huge number of Treeborn Frog cards are seeing play, and Drop Off is wasted if it hits one. The deck will fare better without them.
That’s it for cuts. The first thing I want to accomplish by adding cards is to give those three Grizzlies something to search for. They can’t special summon Fenrir, and (at least in Simon’s build) they run out of things to summon once you’ve brought out all three bears. Not being able to search for something with your third Mother Grizzly is pretty poor, so I want to add some more monsters. That way we’ll keep monsters on the field, while also loading the graveyard with more fodder for Fenrir.
The first “must-add” monster is Yomi Ship. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically a Water version of Newdoria with 800 ATK and 1400 DEF. It can take down troublesome monsters that might be able to attack over Fenrir, and when it hits the graveyard, it becomes fodder for more special summoning. Two of these seem like a smart choice, controlling the field and keeping our key player (Fenrir) safe. It’ll even clear the way for attacks with Robbin’ Goblin!
Robbin’ Goblin makes Submarineroid a blast too, allowing you to score a direct attack every turn regardless of what monsters the opponent might control. If you get that combo going and the opponent can’t wipe Submarineroid away, you’ll have the game as good as won within a couple of turns. One Submarineroid is enough, since we’ve got three Mother Grizzly cards to search it out.
Moving away from monsters, Water decks have access to one of the best attribute or type-specific support cards in the game: Salvage. It’s a normal spell card that lets you grab two Water monsters from your graveyard with ATK of 1500 or less and add them to your hand. It’s exceptionally good, especially when you’re reusing a pair of Yomi Ship cards or getting back a Mother Grizzly to search your deck for Submarineroid. While Simon has built this deck to use his graveyard only as Fenrir fuel, we’ve added several more Water monsters to his original build. When you need to remove monsters for special summoning, just be sure to remove the ones that can’t be used for anything else first: Mobius, Abyss Soldier, and Hydrogeddon aren’t compatible with Salvage, while Yomi Ship, Mother Grizzly, Submarineroid, and even Fenrir are.
Finally, one more Smashing Ground answers the threat of big monsters, and Dust Tornado lets us set Robbin’ Goblin in the opponent’s end phase right before we wish to use it. It also fills some of the gap left by the removal of one Mobius. Both of these additions will make it easier to go on the offensive and score direct (or at least damaging) hits with the Goblin.
So, here are the changes I made to the deck:
-1 Mobius the Frost Monarch
-1 D. D. Warrior Lady
-1 Spirit Reaper
-1 Terraforming
-3 Drop Off
+2 Yomi Ship
+1 Submarineroid
+1 Smashing Ground
+1 Salvage
+1 Umiiruka
+1 Dust Tornado
The final build is as follows!
But Not a Drop to Drink—Jason’s Fix—40 Cards
Monster: 20
2 Mobius the Frost Monarch
3 Abyss Soldier
3 Hydrogeddon
3 Fenrir
3 Mother Grizzly
2 Yomi Ship
1 Submarineroid
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Sangan
1 Magician of Faith
Spell: 14
3 Rush Recklessly
3 Umiiruka
1 Salvage
2 Smashing Ground
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Graceful Charity
1 Confiscation
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Book of Moon
Trap: 6
1 Dust Tornado
2 Robbin' Goblin
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Ring of Destruction
This deck is an improvement on the submitted version because it can kick out (and sustain) a lot more offense. It’ll have fewer dead cards like Mobius and Terraforming, access to more attackers through Salvage, and more control over the field thanks to Dust Tornado, Smashing Ground, and Yomi Ship.
It wants to be played aggressively, and its ideal opening set is Mother Grizzly. If Grizzly is attacked, it really gets the ball rolling, providing you with field presence on turn 2 (searchable at that), as well as a Water monster in your graveyard. Yomi Ship is also an acceptable opening, and Submarineroid and Sangan work in a pinch.
From there, you need to constantly stay mindful of your graveyard’s contents. Always manage your graveyard carefully and play aggressively, even if you haven’t drawn into Fenrir yet. The added field presence and draw manipulation Fenrir offers will all be worth it sooner or later, and Salvage can make aggressive over-extensions a bit safer.
Take special care to get Hydrogeddon onto the field and resolve its effect if possible. In any deck running Hydrogeddon, its field presence can be overwhelming. Here, even if the Hydros get wiped out a turn or two after they’re special summoned, they thin your deck and provide you with your special summoning condition. The fact that Umiiruka lets them trade with Cyber Dragon is just icing on the cake. Hydros are very versatile here, and using them effectively is key.
Be frugal with Abyss Soldier’s effect, but remember that discarding Water monsters has two big advantages. First, you can always get them back with Salvage, and that can be incredibly valuable. Second, you’ll often win games by bouncing something with Soldier, getting a second Water monster into the graveyard, and then dropping Fenrir plus a normal summon for the win. Abyss Soldier is highly versatile, and while his effect represents a serious investment, it can create victory scenarios that wouldn’t exist otherwise. When Robbin’ Goblin hits the field he becomes even better, because suddenly your discards are being matched by the opponent’s while his or her life points suffer!
Water decks are certainly viable in this format, and there are plenty of ways to run them. In fact, there are too many great Water cards to fit in just a single deck: note that things like Nightmare Penguin, Penguin Soldier, Treeborn Frog, and Spiritual Water Art - Aoi are nowhere to be seen here. It isn’t because they’re bad cards: they’re all awesome. There are just so many options that we can’t use them all, so finding synergies and balancing them becomes an issue of skill and personal preference. This is one example of a very competitive Water build, and if you’ve been looking to try one out, this list offers a sophisticated entry point for the experienced duelist.
Thanks for sending it in, Simon!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Working on a deck for the new Advanced format? Looking for some help, or just want to see your creation right here on Metagame? Send it to me, and you might see your deck featured in an Apotheosis column! I’m Jason (at) metagame (dot) com, and I’m always looking for cool new decks to write about.