All right so, my Winter Break is almost at an end so before I return to the wonderful life of 3 hour art classes and working in a part of the Library people don’t know exist I want to address my plans going forward and also finish up something I’ve been putting off for about 2 weeks now, which is deck profiles for Aqua Force.

This next section is me talking shop for the blog, so if you’re reading this from the future skip down a bit for the Aqua Force.

So first talking shop. If you’ve been following my blog the past few days you’ll notice that I had made a barrage of posts all within days of each other. It was pointed out to me in the last of these posts that, vomiting out 3 different posts in 2 days is kinda silly and I could probably stagger them out at least 3-4 days. This is fair. Vomiting out info like I did causes a bit of an overflow on both ends. Readers get spammed with a bunch of shit all at once, and I myself risk running out of steam too quickly.

Going forward I’m gonna try making updates to this blog once a week on Saturday or Sunday PST. I think this strikes a good balance between having regular updates (to keep myself from slacking) and having enough distance to keep myself from losing too much steam. I am gonna give myself a little leeway on this either because life gets in the way sometimes or something may come up to warrent an immediate response, like the Honorary Professor Supports. These updates could be set analysis (if I’m interested I don’t like talking about decks I don’t know at risk of sounding dumb), reactions to new reveals, deck profiles (like today), or just random musings from that week.

I’ve only been doing this blog thing for a month as of this writing but I’ve gotten pretty positive respone so far so thanks all for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy my content.

Anyways onto the Aqua Force. While I originally promised both Blue Waves and Thavas, since my comparison post was between those 2, I am only covering Blue Waves in this post for the sake of brevity. Next week Trinity Dragon releases in Japan so I’ll be covering that since I have a stake in OTT supports. I’m gonna be covering 2 decklists here. The first is the “standard” Blue Wave deck that I’ve been running with and the second is a Blue Wave/Skyros mix I’ve been theory crafting though it is untested at the moment.

Standard Blue Wave:

G0:

SVG Dagger Master Dracokid/Bubble Edge Dracokid

4x Brutal Trooper (crit)

4x Supersonic Sailor (crit)

4x Battle Siren Mallika (draw)

4x heal (any will do)

G1:

4x Perfect Guard (some may prefer Plato for the unflip but any PG will do)

3x Kelpie Rider Nikki

3x Battle Siren Stacia

3x Recon in force Seagull Solider/ Blue Wave Soldier Bright Shooter (personal preference as I will explain)

G2:

4x Blue Wave Marine General Foivos

4x Blue Wave Marine General Damia

3x Tidal Assault

2x Blue Wave Marine General Lucianos

G3:

3x Blue Wave Dragon Tetra-Drive dragon

4x Blue Wave Dragon Anger Boil Dragon

G4:

2x Storm Dominator Commander Thavas

2x Marine General of Heavenly Silk Lambros

2x Storm of Lament Wailing Thavas

4x Blue Wave Marshall Dragon Tetra-Boil Dragon

1x Blue Wave Valient General Artiom

1x Blue Storm Dragon Ice Barrier Dragon

1x Guard Leader of Sky and Water, Flotia

2x Dark Element Dizmel

1x Metal Element Scryew

This is the lineup for Blue Waves I’ve been testing for a while now. The general idea with this decklist is to take advantage of your strong early game to put a lot of high aggression on your opponent and end things quickly. However, the deck does also have a pretty good late game with access to options to 3 different finishing strides as I’ve explained before. Deciding whether or not you will try and leverage your early game versus playing slower and safer depends on the matchup and your luck. If you’re playing a slow deck that can’t aggro quickly then the early rush puts on a lot of really strong pressure than be difficult to recover from. However, decks that can counter the rush easily can snipe your rear-guards and cripple your stride turns which could be deadly. A slower game means your opponent has the opportunity to get ahead or stay on even grounds with you, but you run less of a risk of your rear guards getting taken out early which can make the difference if you need to make a big turn. Control is a pretty bad matchup for the deck since it doesn’t have a lot of easy responses to it. Depending on how fast the deck comes active the best decision would be to either just damn the consequences and try to beat reources out of them quickly, or to play your cards close to your chest and stall till you think you can go for a quick finish.

For the choice of which forerunner to use it depends largely on whether you value early draws to recover your hand or if you value getting an easy crit on your vanguard. Bubble Edge has the advantage of getting you an extra draw from your G2 rush, making it easier to recover from board wiping. Getting out of the way quickly means even if you can’t maximise his effect you have the option of getting something as opposed to nothing from being locked/retired. Dagger Master has the advantage of being build for Tetra-Boil, who is our main stride, and having synergy with Wailing Thavas. A fairly easy crit on top of Thavas’ glory skill means you can make him deadly pretty quickly if you play your cards right.

You’ll notice that I don’t recomment Yoitis in this deckbuild. So far when I’ve tested I haven’t found a good time to use his skill. Tidal is an awkward target because of the -5k and +2k isn’t enough to fix that without committing some power buffs to him. Foivos and Lucianos both create weird attack patterns due to their wave restrictions and can easily be shut down by a defensive trigger. While he can extend your combos, you make very awkward attack patterns and many times I’ve found him just sitting there not really contributing anything. However I will acknowledge that he can be used if you misrode Tetra-Drive and need an emergency restand to get your waves off. I think he has potential in a different decklist, but for this deck I find drawing back resources is more beneficial so Bubble Edge or Dagger Master are the go to choices.

8 Crit 4 draw 4 heals is a pretty standard lineup for Blue Waves I think. Both criticals serve purposes to the deck. Brutal Trooper synergizing with Tetra-Boil to draw 2 extra cards, and Supersonic gives some much needed counter charges. Draw triggers are useful because the deck can find itself lacking in hand size, so any little bit helps. Mallika is the choice here because the +3k is extremely helpful for buffing Stacia or Tidal Assault. And heals of course keep you in the game. Alternative options are running higher amounts of draws, or more criticals. Extra draws help recovery from board wipes, and 12 crit just helps win games. I would not recommend Stand Triggers. Stands do not mesh with any of the finishing strides in this deck. Tetra’s awkward attack pattern means checking stands is often times not useful, Wailing would rather just see crits to try and end the game, and Lambros stands rear guards anyways.

In the G1 lineup, Nikki and 4 PGs are a lock in because striding is pretty important and PGs keep you from dying. The debate over whether you want to use Plato (the unflippy PG) or generic PGs comes down to preferance. PGing rear-guards isn’t something that important anymore with Dizmel so having a generic isn’t as imperative anymore. At the same time the deck needs any unflips it can get so Plato can be a source of that. But Plato is also expensive and it’s not so essential that you need to worry about breaking your bank for it. Aftert that we have Stacia. Stacia’s already a great combo piece because Anger Boil’s skill can get her to 12k on Tetra turns. At the same time now we also now have Wailing who can leverage the extra wave into more power. She’s also just a damn good safety net for when you need that extra wave to get skills off. The choice of Seagull Soldier or Bright Shooter comes to personal preferance. Bright Shooter nets you stride fodders, while Seagull can stretch your offence and return to hand to become a shield. Seagull does fight with Damia for soul sometimes but I’ve been able to manage it personally.

Damia and Foivos are the MVPs of our G2s. The two of them together on a Tetra-turn makes pretty easy columns and allows Fovios to hit 16k unboosted. Foivos also works pre-gb so he’s one of the pieces esential to making the G2 rush turn work. Lucianos being Wave 2, as I explained before, makes him awkward on Tetra turns. However, outside of that he’s pretty good for expanding the amount of attacks heading towards the Vanguard on any other stride. I still put him at 2 though because his especial counterblast can be annoying sometimes and the deck being CB heavy means he won’t always go off by the time he’d be preferred over the other 2 generals. Tidal assault at 3 because he also helps enable the G2 rush and like Stacia he’s a strong safety net to make waves,

Anger and Tetra all the way for our g3 lineup. Eason is garbage and doesn’t have very much practical application. His stride skill is awkward and tries to shove postion swapping in a deck that doesn’t need it. The lack of any kind of secondary skill outside the on stride kills any chance of an offensive push if you get stride locked for whatever reason. Anger Boil is build to support Tetra-Boil which makes him the obvious preferred ride. Even if you find yourself in a position where you can’t stride his GB2 is pretty strong and can make a decent push in an otherwise weak turn. Tetra-Drive being a LB4 restander is ideal backup for Anger-Boil. If your opponent tries to early rush or gets sloppy retaliating with a restand early game can just end the match right then and there. At the same time if you get stride locked you have the capability to make a decent offenive push with the restand.

We run all of the finishers in our G-zone Lineup. This is mainly just for options. Tetra is arguably still the correct choice in most cases just due to how strong the turn is for the deck. Wailing Thavas can be a pressure option to try and divert resources away from counter cards like Denial Griffin or Heteroround Dragon. Lambros is mainly a “oh god I’m running out of CBs” panic button. Commander Thavas is mainly used as first stride, there are enough available options that running 2 is usually enough. Artiom I only run at 1 because he’s only okay offensively. The extra power’s nice but not enough to make a difference against triggers. Spending 2 turns trying to fix your heart isn’t worth weakening your offence it’s better to just roll with the wrong G3 and try to work it out.

We use 5 G-guards because Ice Barrier is awkward and many times doesn’t come in handy because of that 3rd Wave gap so Scryew is ther to fix that. Dizmel is at 2 cause we gotta protect that Foivos.

And now onto our theory crafted Skyros/Blue Wave deck. I just want to give full disclosure that I haven’t tested this build yet, but since addressing control is important I’m making this decklist to try and make the hybrid more viable. Instead of a full grade breakdown I’m just gonna explain the logic behind my choices.

Hybrid Decklist:

G0:

SVG Blue Wave Recruit Yoitis

4x Brutal Trooper (crit)

4x Supersonic Sailor (crit)

4x Battle Siren Mallika (draw)

4x heal (any will do)

G1:

4x Perfect Guard (some may prefer Plato for the unflip but any PG will do)

3x Kelpie Rider Nikki

2x Battle Siren Stacia

3x Blue Wave Soldier Bright Shooter

G2:

3x Blue Wave Marine General Foivos

2x Blue wave marine General Damia

2x Blue Wave Marine General Lucianos

3x Tidal Assault

3x Magnum Assault

G3:

4x Jocky of the Great Sea Skyros

4x Blue Wave Dragon Anger Boil Dragon

G4:

4x Storm Dominator Commander Thavas

2x Marine General of Heavenly Silk Lambros

2x Storm of Lament Wailing Thavas

2x Blue Wave Marshall Dragon Tetra-Boil Dragon

2x Blue Wave Valient General Artiom

1x Blue Storm Dragon Ice Barrier Dragon

1x Guard Leader of Sky and Water, Flotia

2x Dark Element Dizmel

So you’ll notice in this revised list, I suggest Yoitis as the starter over either Dracokid. This is because you’re very likely to be on Artiom first stride to get the Bue Wave name as you want to ride Skyros in this build. Because Artiom gives power to Blue Waves it makes Yoitis’ restand less awkward in comparison to the standard build where Thavas is arguably a better choice. In addition I modified my lineup to include Magnum Assaults in my G2 lineup. We’re keeping anti-control in mind so you’ll definately be playing this slower and Magnum gives a generic unit to use if you’re on the wrong name. For this reason we’ve also bumped up commander to 4 and Tetra down to 2. The 5k and back row attack can help resuscitate inert Blue Wave units while Magnum puts in work on the other side. In order to maximize the potential to re-ride the correct unit we definitely use Bright Shooter to grab dropped Anger Boils.

Again this entire deck list is theory crafted based on what I think are logical decisions for the deck so feel free to modify and test other units as needed.

As always I hope you enjoyed reading! Leave a comment if you have questions or critiques and I’ll try to answer them, though I can’t guarantee it. Check back next week for my thoughts on Trinity Dragon (mostly OTT)