Hello Yugioh Community! YCS Seattle has taken place and I have a feeling that it was wetter than ever in the rainy state of Washington. While I can’t say for sure that Atlantean/Mermail (I will refer to this deck as “The Water Deck”) was the winning deck, I do have a feeling they had a positive showing for their debut YCS. The deck is extremely powerful, versatile, and can have openings that leave a water bender’s opponent very few options for success. For those of you who haven’t figured it out, I am writing this article a few days in advance so it can be posted shortly after the tournament’s conclusion. I wanted to let you guys in on what I used, but with specific focus on the side deck I came up with. With the lack of deck lists being posted on Konami’s official blog coverage site, I wanted to make-up for that and still give you guys an inside look on what I am trying to do.
Question of the Article: Are you surprised at the deck that won YCS Seattle?
Don’t forget to answer the question of the article in the comments down below!
Why did you become a Water Bender?
It has been a long time since I have had this much fun learning and testing out a deck. The Water deck is full of synergy (all of the cards work well together) which results in some fairly consistent openings and has the power to back it up. At times you have to be thinking turns in advance to make sure you are searching out the right cards from your deck to finish off your opponent quickly or find a way to survive long enough to leave your opponent with no options but to admit defeat. The versatility of plays and sheer number of powerful combos this deck can spit out is what I feel make it the right choice to use currently. It has been ages since I felt there was a best deck in Yugioh, but the Water deck is about as close to that as we have had in this game for a while. The deck is fairly skill-intensive and inexperienced players can be severely punished if the slightest mistake is made. Like all decks however, there is a “sack factor” and there will be hands that no one can mess up, but for the most part the right plays can be very rewarding and the wrong ones could end in tragedy. I have been a top-level player for a while, but I still have put hours and hours of practice into this deck and still feel that I have room to grow. I am going to go ahead and show my main and side deck, but since Jeff Jones is also writing an article that will focus on the main, ours will be very similar, I am only going to discuss how my side deck came about and what goes in and out in most match-ups.
The Main Deck
Total: 40
Monsters: 25
3 Genex Undine
3 Deep Sea Diva
3 Atlantean Dragoon
2 Genex Controller
2 Mermail Abyssmegalo
2 Mermail Abysslinde
2 Mermail Abysspike
2 Atlantean Heavy Infantry
2 Atlantean Marksman
2 Tragoedia
1 Moulinglacia The Elemental Lord
1 Gorz, The Emissary of Darkness
Spells: 10
3 Salvage
2 Pot of Duality
1 Monster Reborn
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Avarice
Traps: 5
3 Abyss-Sphere
2 Raigeki Break
I don’t want to go into too much detail on the main deck since Jeff Jones is going to have most of that covered. Normally I like to play fairly trap-heavy decks and even though I only use five traps total including three copies of one trap, it is basically a Swiss army knife when it comes to its abilities.in other words, Abyss-Sphere can act like almost any trap card in a lot of scenarios. If I have a Sphere set and a Marksman in hand it is like a better end phase Mystical Space Typhoon. When your opponent attempts to go to their end phase, you flip Abyss-Sphere during the main phase still to grab Mermail Abysslinde and if they decide to continue to the end phase, your Sphere will go to grave taking Linde with it and triggering her effect. You then special summon Mermail Abysspike and his effect is triggered upon his special summon. You pay his cost to discard Marksman to search for any level 3 water monster, most of the time Genex Undine is the optimal choice. Marksman will trigger to destroy your opponent’s face-down back row giving you free range to annihilate your opponent on the upcoming turn. If you have an Infantry in your hand and your opponent makes a monster you want to get rid of, feel free to activate Abyss- Sphere and just grab Mermail Abysspike from the start, even though his effect is negated, you can still pay the cost when his effect is triggered and ditch Infantry to destroy the problem. This is not the most effective way to maximize advantage over the opponent, but having the option to get rid of a major threat is always nice to have. While all of these scenarios are two card combinations, the Water deck has many ways for the Water bender to set these situations up since all of the cards are searchable, even the Abyss-Sphere!
NEW EDITION: It is 12:05 am central time on November the 16th and my flight to Seattle leaves in a mere 6 hours! I wanted to take the time really quick to put my updated list, even though I wrote this article a few days ago, I have made some changes. The main alteration I made was the addition of Raigeki Break to my deck. I woke up yesterday morning with a text message from my friend Mike asking me my thoughts on this card. In the past I haven’t been a fan, but with some though the idea grew on me. I tested it out and found out it worked quite well fairly quickly. It’s a great out to anything and an effective way to make sure my Genex Controller isn’t so useless. This deck is great at generating advantage with cards like Salvage and Genex Undine so Raigeki Break fits in just perfectly.
Side Deck: 15
2 Skill Drain (oh yes!)
2 Gemini Imps (I really do not like playing against Dark World!)
2 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror (Did I mention I do not like playing against Dark World?)
2 Gozen Match (Welcome to my realm!)
2 Maxx “C” (If you are going to plus, so am I!)
2 Deck Devastation Virus (Yes my Deep Sea Diva is a Dark monster with more than 2000 attack!)
2 Trap Stun (Your Starlight Road won’t protect you now!)
1 Malevolent Catastrophe (Thanks Jeff!)
The first thing you probably noticed about my side deck is the first card I listed, Skill Drain. Throughout all of my research and networking while building this deck I have not found anyone who sides this card in the water deck, someone may have the same idea, but I haven’t seen anything about it up to this point. Like most ideas I come up with for my decks, it is all thanks to random occurrences, chance, and my drive to find the cards that will give me the edge to win. Here is some history behind some of the obscure cards I tried out and turned out to be quite good. Before I decided that Plants were going to be the deck I was going to use at YCS Toronto 2011 and eventually win, I listened to my friend Jessy Samek, and tested out a Destiny Hero deck that utilized Reborn Tengu and Cyber Valley. It didn’t take long for me to realize however that the destiny hero engine was not the most effective that format and every game I would win during testing was because of Reborn Tengu and Caius the Shadow Monarch, but I would lose when I drew the Destiny Hero engine. Since I had Cyber Valley and Destiny Hero Plasma in my deck I also had a copy of Scapegoat to best abuse these cards. I ended up taking out the entire Destiny Hero engine and just replaced them with the Plant engine (Lonefire, Spore, Glow-up Bulb, etc.). During my first game of testing this deck against Samuel Pedigo, I drew scapegoat in my opening hand and my first thought was “Oh, I forgot to take this out, I’ll just take it out after this game.” I also had a copy of Lonefire Blossom in that hand and I saw the synergy. Scapegoat turned out to be one of my favorite cards in the deck and helped me win countless duels on my road to back to back championships. This simple mistake of forgetting to take out Scapegoat when I removed Plasma and Cyber Valley turned out to be one of the best things that I could do for my deck.
What does this have to do with The Water deck?
Ever since that random event that led me to using Scapegoat, I have tried to pay close attention to everything and test out any card that could sound good in my head. The first weekend Abyss Rising became legal for tournament play I attended a regional in San Antonio, Texas. Round six I faced a Dark World opponent and after our match he showed me that he sided out his Skill Drains, at first I was surprised seeing as how effective it is against Deep Sea Diva, but the more I thought about it I had an epiphany that Diva was the only card it really stopped. Skill Drain can be very effective against popular decks like Wind-Up and I instantly knew I should try it out. Most duelists will even side out their Heavy Storm against the Water deck because of its low trap count and use all of their Mystical Space Typhoon on my Abyss-Sphere, so once I bait out their MSTs, they will have a lot of trouble dealing with Skill Drain. This lucky encounter at the regional made my whole trip worth it! Skill Drain will negate my Genex Undine effect to add Genex Controller to my hand, but I will still have to pay the cost, which will trigger whatever monster I choose to send abilities. The Water deck can generate plusses quickly and then Skill Drain will come in to make sure my opponent cannot mount a comeback.
How I plan on siding vs. the Meta!
I have seen many discussions on how to side in and out with The Water deck so I decided to “Brake” down exactly how I side in most cases. This is what I do in general and the cards can vary from situation to situation depending on the deck variant and play style of my opponent.
Vs. Wind-Ups
In: 6
2 Skill Drain
2 Maxx “C”
2 Gozen Match
Out: 6
3 Deep Sea Diva
2 Tragoedia
1 Allure of Darkness
Vs. Mirror Match (Water Deck)
In: 4
2 Maxx “C”
2 Deck Devastaion Virus (Ally of Justice Catastor/T.G. Hyper Librarian)
Out: 4
2 Pot of Duality
1 Heavy Storm
1 Allure of Darkness
Vs. Dark World
In: 5-7
1 Malevolent Catastrophe
2 Gemini Imps
2 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
(2 Trap Stun)
Out: 5-7
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz, The Emissary of Darkness
1 Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord
1 Allure of Darkness
(2 Pot of Duality)
Vs. Hero
In: 3
2 Trap Stun
1 Malevolent Catastrophe
Out: 3
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Moulinglacia The Elemental Lord
1 Deep Sea Diva (if they use Skill Drain)
Vs. Chaos Dragon
In: 4
2 Gozen Match
2 Maxx “C”
Out: 4
2 Pot of Duality
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Heavy Storm
Vs. Dino-Rabbit
In: 5
2 Gozen Match
2 Trap Stun
1 Malevolent Catastrophe
Out: 5
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz, The Emissary of Darkness
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Moulinglacia The Elemental Lord
Vs. Geargia (Machina version)
In: 4,6,8
(Everytime)
2 Skill Drain
2 Maxx “C”
(Going first)
2 Deck Devastation Virus
(If their build is trap heavy)
2 Trap Stun
Out: 4,6,8
(Everytime)
1 Gorz, Emissary of Darkness
1 Allure of Darkness
2 Tragoedia
(Going First)
1 Moulinglacia The Elemental Lord
1 Pot of Duality
(Trap Heavy Builds)
(Really comes down to exactly what the opponent is trying to do with their deck)
Conclusion: YCS Seattle is over and hopefully the ever-so-powerful Water deck prevailed! It is one of my all-time favorite decks to pilot and hopefully I am able to find success with it. Since Jeff Jones is going to cover the main deck I wanted to mainly discuss my side-decking strategies and how I came up with the unconventional idea to side Skill Drain. I gave you guys a look-in on how I feel I am going to go about siding versus a lot of the most popular decks in the game currently, but remember you have to be able to make changes and adapt in order to fully side deck properly!
I hope you enjoyed this article! Feel free to leave any suggestions, thoughts, or just answer the question of the article in the comments down below! Thanks for reading!
-Billy Brake
-YCS Toronto and Columbus Champion 2011
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