Frogs and Fish and …Whatever Elemental Lords Are… Oh My!

December 30, 2012

by Tyler Nolan

Apparently it's supposed to be a Sea Serpent, but I have no idea where that comes from. Anyways, hey guys. I’m back again. First off, I’d just like to wish my competitor, Johnny, good luck in this final round. This week we’re looking at a deck I've been playing with since its release in Abyss Rising, Nimble Frogs. Jeff Jones sent in an interesting take on the archetype. Let’s get right into the list:

Jeff Jones’ Nimble Frogs

Monsters: 29
3 Light and Darkness Dragon
3 Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord
3 Swap Frog
3 Dupe Frog
3 Nimble Sunfish
3 Nimble Manta
3 Nimble Angler
3 Maxx C
3 Effect Veiler
2 Ronintoadin

Spells: 8
3 Moray of Greed
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Heavy Storm
1 Foolish Burial
1 Pot of Avarice

Traps: 3
3 Bubble Bringer

Extra Deck
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Armory Arm
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Gungnir Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 T.G. Hyper Librarian
2 Daigusto Phoenix
3 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
3 Number 96 Dark Mist
1 Shining Elf

The idea behind this deck is pretty simple; it’s a Swap Frog deck much like frog monarchs, except it has a much more powerful angle of attack. The interaction between Swap Frog and Nimble Angler, where you discard Angler to special summon Swap is very powerful, resulting in a loaded graveyard and any rank 2 you want, or tribute fodder for your Light and Darkness Dragons. The deck grinds card-for-card extremely well considering how monster-heavy it is, due to Moulinglacia and Light and Darkness Dragon, eventually killing the opponent in either a gradual grind, or big push with Moulinglacia and rank 2s. Enough about the deck, let’s see what we can do to make it better.

In the monsters, I find myself not liking the hand traps at all in this deck. There is no reason you can’t just play real, higher impact traps, or even just other cards to advance your own gameplan. They also greatly amplify your already big weakness to Macro Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure, as you are unable to activate the hand traps while one of them is on the field. Overall, Maxx “C” and Effect Veiler are just too low impact against the popular decks in the format right now, Wind-Up players who know their deck can easily play around both of them, they do little to nothing versus both the water and dragon decks. The only common matchup where they are actually high-impact is versus Rabbit, and that deck mains Macro to shut them off! I’m cutting all 6 of them.

An interesting addition this deck has that most Nimble Frog lists lack is Bubble Bringer, which allows you to fix your graveyard, making Moulinglacia a more consistent card, it also provides instant tribute fodder for Light and Darkness Dragon. While Bubble Bringer is a situational card, and requires a reasonable amount of setup to be able to activate, it does extremely powerful things, and makes other cards in your deck much more consistent. Even with this though, I’m going to cut the three Light and Darkness Dragons though, to make room for other, higher impact threats(which also utilize the Bubble Bringer tech.) Light and Darkness is best in a deck that makes use of not only his negation effect, but his revival effect. This deck doesn't have much worth reviving.

With those 9 cuts, I’ll go right into the additions, and then I’ll fix up the extra deck after the main.

The cuts in summary:
-3 Effect Veiler
-3 Maxx “C”
-3 Light and Darkness Dragon

I’m going to add 2 copies of Tragoedia. This deck can be a little slow to start some games, and Tragoedia is the best card you can run to stabilize an early game. You often hold onto quite a few cards, so Tragoedia is going to be quite large until you start making your first Swap Frog push, and that push will be killing them outright a lot of the time with another card I’m going to be adding.

I’m also adding 1 copy of Caius, the Shadow Monarch. He’s just a solid utility monster in decks that generate a lot of tribute fodder. We cut the Light and Darkness Dragons, so we have plenty of room. Caius gets you out of a lot of situations, he can clear backrow so you can go off, or just out things you would otherwise have difficulty outing, like a midgame Macro Cosmos, or a Spirit Reaper. The main reason to only run one copy is that since he uses your normal summon, drawing multiple copies can really gum up your hand.

I know Jeff doesn’t like this card, but I’m going to make my case the best I can for adding 3 copies of Lemuria, the Forgotten City. The first thing about this card that makes it worthwhile is the OTK plays it makes, with Swap Frog, Nimble Angler, you can pitch Angler to Swap to send Ronintoadin, then Angler’s effect triggers (since it is an if… you can, rather than a when…you can trigger, it doesn’t miss timing) to summon 2 other nimble monsters. You activate Lemuria, make everything 5, then make either Zenmaioh, or Adreus to clear away whatever you need to, then overlay that rank 5 for Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger bounce Swap Frog to your hand, then pitch another card to special it again, or just normal summon it, sending Dupe Frog, or another copy of Swap Frog to the grave. Remove it to the Ronin you sent earlier, and make a Daigusto Phoenix. Use Phoenix’s effect to let Gaia attack twice and that’s 6700 on the board, add in just about anything else or any prior damage, and it is game.

A common argument against Lemuria is that it is strictly a combo piece for these situational OTKs, requiring many cards, and that just isn't true, especially with Bubble Bringer in the deck. You can replace the Nimble Angler in the above combo with a Bubble Bringer, or even just a couple of Dupe Frogs hanging out. The combo doesn’t require your normal summon, and there are a lot of ways you can set it up. The card also isn't strictly a combo piece, it gives the deck a lot of options, and creates a lot of utility. Swap Frog can suddenly tutor for Ronintoadins who make rank 4s, or if you have double Ronin, you can keep the Swap and turn both Ronins into a Tiras. Lemuria fills the same role as Light and Darkness did, in that it can be used to grind the opponent down, but it also has more explosive potential behind it. To quote an argument Jeff made against Lemuria on a forum we both frequent:

"I don’t like Field Spells unless they have 1 or more of the following things

1) They have a tutor that’s not Terraforming
2) Generate advantage before they are destroyed
3) Generate advantage after they are destroyed"

I’d argue that Lemuria generates advantage before it is destroyed. Lemuria gives you access to cards like Tiras, and Zenmaioh, who generate advantage much better than the Gachis or Dark Mists you’d otherwise have been making. Though really, Lemuria shouldn't be thought of as a field spell, it’s closer to a tribute monster. As I said earlier, it fills the same role Light and Darkness Dragon did. It doesn't exist to generate incremental advantage over time like field spells traditionally do, it fills a different role entirely, and thus shouldn't be judged in the same way as most field spells.

Moving on from that tangent, we've added 6 of the 9 cards we need to, and as I said earlier, I’m going to add in actual traps. This deck isn't Frog Monarchs, where you have Treeborn Frog to worry about, and the deck plays enough backrow in Bubble Bringer, and Lemuria that you aren't just making their Mystical Space Typhoons live. I’m adding 2 copies of Torrential Tribute, for the same reasons every other deck runs it. However, do know that you can trigger your Nimble Mantas off of your own Torrential. Manta’s effect doesn't come up often, but when it does it can be game changing.

The last addition to the main deck is one copy of Mystical Space Typhoon, I’d love to play more, but there really isn't much room in the deck. Without Light and Darkness Dragon in the deck, grinding their backrow down for a push can be difficult, Typhoon helps with that.

The additions in summary:
+2 Tragoedia
+1 Caius the Shadow Monarch
+3 Lemuria, the Forgotten City
+2 Torrential Tribute
+1 Mystical Space Typhoon

Now with the Main fixed up, we need to move onto the extra. With Lemuria added, and Veilers removed, we need to overhaul this extra completely. The obvious first cut is the 5 synchros. Next, we can cut one of the Dark Mists to make room for other things. I’m also going to cut the Shining Elf, the difference between the 1500 that phoenix has, and the 1600 the Elf has is almost irrelevant with the cards people are currently playing. With those 7 slots freed up, we can start adding things.

Starting off, I’m adding one copy of Number 39: Utopia, as the rank 4 of choice. Utopia isn’t the only option, you could play something like Gagaga Cowboy in this slot, but Utopia + Gachi can be a very difficult field to deal with, as a 2900 Utopia deals with most of the big threats in the format. I’m going to add Tiras and Adreus, as well as Zenmaioh for Rank 5s. Zenmaioh and Adreus come up with a lot of the OTK plays, as well as just being solid utility cards, and Tiras is a great grind card. For rank 6, I’m going to add one Photon Strike Bounzer who comes up on occasion to play around Gorz, or deal with a Zenmaines, as well as 1 Inzektor Exa-Beetle, mostly so you can Lemuria into two rank 6s. Then finally, 1 Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger, who is an integral part of most of your OTK plays, is going to round out the additions. Here’s the finalized decklist:

*Doctored* Nimble Frogs

Monsters: 23
3 Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord
3 Swap Frog
3 Dupe Frog
3 Nimble Sunfish
3 Nimble Manta
3 Nimble Angler
2 Ronintoadin
2 Tragoedia
1 Caius the Shadow Monarch

Spells: 12
3 Moray of Greed
3 Lemuria, the Forgotten City
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Heavy Storm
1 Foolish Burial
1 Pot of Avarice

Traps: 5
3 Bubble Bringer
2 Torrential Tribute

Extra Deck: 15
2 Daigusto Phoenix
3 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
2 Number 96 Dark Mist
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis
1 Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
1 Wind-up Zenmaioh
1 Photon Strike Bounzer
1 Inzektor Exa-Beetle
1 Gaia Dragon, Thunder Charger
1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis

As far as the side deck goes, you need answers to Macro Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure, with only 1 Typhoon and 1 Heavy Storm in the deck as easy answers, you need some help for games two and three. The other two copies of Mystical Space Typhoon seem obvious. Since you don’t run Treeborn Frog, Royal Decree is actually a great option to fight off Macro Rabbit and other trap-heavy decks. A lot of people won’t expect it either, as the association with frogs and Treeborn is so great.

Agent is a deck you need to be very careful of, as a single Kristya threatens to lock you out of the game. The sideboard card I prefer for them, while somewhat narrow, is Leeching the Light. If they ever play a Hyperion, you can throw a bunch of frogs/fish on the board and just kill them. It also doubles as an out to Kristya. I've also had success siding the card in versus Chaos Dragon just as another way to kill them. Soul Taker is another reasonable card you can side for both of those decks, as well as Macro Rabbit.

It might be reasonable to side extra deck cards like Steelswarm Roach, or Abyss Dweller for Chaos Dragon and Water respectively if you’re scared of those matchups, though that is probably unnecessary.

Needle Ceiling is a great option for this deck versus Wind-Up, it functions as your third and fourth copies of Torrential Tribute, except you can use it proactively as well. If they go off turn 1, you can still use Needle Ceiling, where Torrential would be dead.

Notable Exclusions/Cards to Consider:

Obelisk the Tormentor: The card is definitely interesting, though it is probably more of a side card than anything since multiple popular decks, notably Water and Agents can answer it so easily. Decks like Wind-up, or Chaos Dragon however, can have a very hard time dealing with it to the point where it quickly takes over the game.

Hydrogeddon: With Lemuria, Hydrogeddon makes Evolzar Solda, as well as Laggia/Dolkka without Lemuria. The obvious problem is space in the extra deck, but if there is a way to make everything fit, Hydrogeddon is definitely an interesting option.

Card Destruction: With Dark World continually losing popularity, other decks with the ability to abuse Card Destruction can afford start playing it again. Card Destruction helps dig for Swap Frog, triggers your Nimble Anglers, and loads your grave for Moulinglacia/Ronintoadin. The card is definitely powerful, though I had no room for the card in the final list here.

Gold Sarcophagus/Pot of Duality: I personally like these cards in this deck, though with the Bubble Bringers, I was unable to find room. Duality helps dig for that ever important first Swap Frog, and Sarcophagus searches for Storm or Moulinglacia to make a push. The deck is good at buying time through Tragoedia, or Gachis that the turns you have to wait aren't much of a problem.

Gorz, Emissary of Darkness: Between Bubble Bringers you're trying to make live, and Lemurias you activate to try to make counterpushes, by the end game that Gorz is usually very powerful in, you often won't be able to summon him. Despite this, in my personal build Gorz and Caius are constantly switching places, basically to fill the role of a 3rd Tragoedia.

Number 11: Big Eye: He is a great option to have in your extra deck, though he doesn't come up very often. I decided the 2nd Dark Mist was more valuable than the Big Eye considering how easy spamming Dark Mists can be in a deck with Bubble Bringers.

The best thing about playing this deck is the number of options you have. When your hand has Swap Frog in it, you have so many potential plays, and get to choose the one that best deals with the current situation. These options give the deck a lot of power, and makes for very interactive games. Of all the decks I've played this format, Nimble Frog has by far been the most fun, and most interesting.

Well, this contest has been a blast, and I hope to be back next week as ARG’s deck doctor. Until next time, remember to play hard or go home!

-Tyler Nolan