Now this was a pleasant surprise for me when the Set 9 spoilers were first happening. With Thavas being the main G archetype, and Glory Maelstrom slated for support I wasn’t expecting any new Blue Wave supports. So when the second wave (heh) of Aqua reaveals ended up all being Blue Waves I was pretty damn excited, and also hoping that it wasn’t mistranslated Maelstrom supports instead.

I’m overall pretty happy with what we got for Blue Waves. Not all of it is amazing, as I’ll explain, but overall we got just enough to enhance the deck and help enrich the archetype a bit more. So let’s get into shall we?

Let’s start this off positive with a card I really like Blue Wave Marine General, Damia

Skill: [AUTO](RC):[Soul Blast (1)] When your grade 3 or greater vanguard with “Blue Wave” in its card name attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your vanguards and one of your other rear-guards, those units and this unit get [Power]+2000 until end of turn.

I believe Damia was among the first Blue Wave units to be spoiled when the supports started leaking. I was pretty damn happy when I read her effect, and also praying that she wasn’t a mistranslated Blue Storm unit. One of the problems with Aqua Force sometimes is defensive triggers can just ruin our day. A lot of our attacks are small pokes, building up to a big final push. It’s always the worst feeling in the world when I go for FINALU TURN, but fall short because my opponent decided to take a trigger as their first damage. With Damia now the problem of defensive triggers wrecking a turn can be mitigated to a degree. On my Tetra-Boil bonk turns now I can use her in conjuction with Anger Boil’s stride skill to get Foivos to 16k before triggers. This is a huge asset because it gives me leeway to work with my board if my opponent hits an inopportune trigger. My experience playtesting her, both proxy and on Area, have yielded positive results so I’m quite thrilled with this.

Moving into a card I am less thrilled about Blue Wave Marine General, Lucianos

Skill: [ACT](RC) [1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1)-“Blue Wave”] If you have a grade 3 or greater vanguard with “Blue Wave” in its card name, until end of turn, this unit gets [Power]+2000, and “[AUTO](RC) Wave-2nd time only (Active during the specified battles of each turn):At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a vanguard, [Stand] this unit.”.

I don’t want to say this card is bad he’s really not he just doesn’t fit into the Tetra-Boil bonk turn which is one of the deck’s best combos. The Wave 2 condition for his restand completely kills his viability with Anger Boil. Beyond that he’s a decent card to use. Wave 2 is easier than Foivos’ Wave 3 if you’re behind. You can target him with Eason’s position swap or Commander Thavas’ back row attack to make extra rushes. He also makes trying to get to Lambros or Wailing Thavas less awkward. But with Tidal Assault and Stacia both in the deck there’s already a reliable safety net for your Wave requirements. My play testing so far hasn’t pushed my opinion of him positively either. Most of the time I drew into him I found I already had a good field setup with Damia/Tidal, Foivos and Stacia. I still plan to tech him in at 2 when the set releases though, maybe the extra rush potential outside Tetra turns will sway my opinion of him.

Next up we have our new strider unit Blue Wave Marine General, Eason

Skill: [AUTO](VC):During your turn, when your G unit with “Blue Wave” in its original card name Stride, choose up to one card with “Blue Wave” in its card name from your hand, call it to (RC), choose one of your rear-guards with “Blue Wave” in its card name, and until end of turn, it gets “[AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a vanguard, choose one of your other rear-guards in the same column as this unit, and exchange its position with this unit.”.

So…why the hell doesn’t this card have a second skill? Most revival striders like this have some sort of GB1 or GB2 skill that lets them do things if you happen to get stride locked so why doesn’t he get one? Is it because you’re meant to swap him out with Artiom? What if that fails? It might not be a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but it kinda annoys me. Give him something else like :AUTO (VC): When this unit attacks choose one of your rear guardsand give it +3000 power, choose another rear guard in the same column as that unit and exchange their positions. That wouldn’t be that broken, especially since Anger-Boil gets to restand a unit and give it 10000 power with his GB2.

Rant aside, this guy’s kinda meh. He’s better than being stuck on Tetra-Drive and not having any skill but the position swap is rather meh. The main thing is likely allowing silly position swapping antics with Lucianos, but again that’s awkward as hell on Tetra Boil so Artiom would be the only efficient target for this. Playtesting on Area I’ve been miserable anytime I end up riding into this guy. I never had the right cards to make the skill worthwhile and there were a few times I got stride locked and wished he were Tetra-Drive instead. I think for now I’m gonna stick with Anger-boil and Tetra-Drive as my G3 lineup so I have an early rush counter.

And last but not least our new stride unit Blue Wave Valiant General, Artiom

Skills:

[AUTO](VC):When your rear-guard with “Blue Wave” in its card name attacks, that unit gets [Power]+3000 until end of that battle.

– and-

[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Soul Blast (1)-card with “Blue Wave” in its card name] Look at seven cards from the top of your deck, search for up to one grade 3 card with “Blue Wave” in its card name from among them, place it on your (VC) as a heart, and shuffle your deck. If you placed one or more cards, put all of your heart cards other than the card placed with this effect into your drop zone.

So this guy has 2 different skills, both of them are pretty sweet. The first skill gives all your attacking Blue Wave RGs +3k. This, like Anger Boil’s stride skill, can be combo’d with Damia for 16k Foivos which is very good. His second skill allows you to soul blast 1 Blue Wave to deck top 7 for a new G3 to be your heart. This is pretty damn great. Anger Boil is still the unit you wanna be on because he makes the best Tetra turn, and has a good enough GB2 to still be offensive if you’re stride locked. If you run Eason it allows you to get the position swap so you can combo the power boost with position swappy shenanigens to try and rush down your opponent, and still have the chance to switch off to Anger Boil to make your FINALU TURN what it was meant to be. If you run Tetra-Drive instead it makes your heart card not dead. Beyond fixing your ride first stride he’s a good pocket stride.If you blow all your resources on a bonk turn, but didn’t finish the game, the power gains might be just enough to steal it for you.

There were also a couple of G1s in this set but frankly they’re both garbage and I don’t want to give them the fancy analysis treatment. Blue Wave Dragon, Submerge Dragon is a back row attacker that only works with 2 Blue Wave VGs. He’s completely dead if you want to use Commander or Wailing Thavas, and is outclasses by Stacia either way. Blue Wave Soldier, Cimon gives himself and another unit +4000 but he costs a counter blast and soul blast. In a deck that’s already counter blast heavy that’s completely useless and like Submerged dragon he only works with 2 Blue Wave VGs.

Finally there is Blue Wave Recruit, Giotis. You CB1 and chove him in soul to stand a RG and give it +2000. Decent, but Dagger Master just does so much for you. I can’t really justify replacing him with Giotis.