So after the January 2014 banlist was revealed way back on December 13, I spent a pretty decent amount of time looking for a new honorary Water deck to play since I falsely believed my Nimble Atlantean deck to be dead at the time. One of the decks I ended up toying around with for a while was a Codarus variant, and while I was pretty sure that it was something I didn't want to fully commit to, I was really surprised at how workable the deck could be at times. This month I began working on the deck again, and came up with this updated version pretty quickly.
This is probably not a deck you can take to a Regional or higher, or even a highly competitive local tournament. But the fact that it even worked at all seriously shocked me, and as such, I felt that it'd be a fun thing to profile here. So, without further ado...
3 Codarus
3 The Warrior of Atlantis
3 Genex Undine
2 Genex Controller
2 Mother Grizzly
1 Atlantean Dragoons
1 Atlantean Marksman
1 Atlantean Heavy Infantry
1 Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls
Spells: 17
3 A Legendary Ocean
3 Pot of Duality
3 Upstart Goblin
3 Forbidden Lance
2 Soul Charge
1 Salvage
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
Traps: 6
3 Threatening Roar
2 Skill Prisoner
1 Forgotten Temple of the Deep
Extra Deck: 15
1 HTS Psyhemuth
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Gungnir, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Leo, the Keeper of the Sacred Tree
1 Wind-Up Zenmaines
1 Number 49: Fortune Tune
1 Ghostrick Alucard
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Number 47: Nightmare Shark
1 Bahamut Shark
1 Daigusto Emeral
1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1 Gagaga Cowboy
1 Number 101: Silent Honor ARK
1 Evilswarm Exciton Knight
Side Deck: 15
1 Atlantean Marksman
1 Atlantean Heavy Infantry
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Oh F!sh!
2 Royal Decree
2 Mind Drain
2 Waboku
1 Needle Ceiling
1 Torrential Tribute
So there's the list. Let's cover the reasoning for many of the card choices:
[1] We're running a full Undine engine here (3 Undine, 2 Controller, 1 Allure) because Undine accomplishes so much for this deck. Here's a short list of the plays that, in my opinion, justify running the full boat (pun intended):
a. Dumping Codarus to retrieve it with Salvage
b. Dumping Codarus to revive it with Soul Charge
c. Dumping Dragoons to search Codarus straight from the deck
d. Dumping any Atlantean period
e. Dumping Tidal
f. Dumping random Waters to help fuel Tidal
Typically, if you have no other play taking priority, you'll want to prioritize dumping Tidal over Codarus since there are plenty of ways to get Codarus to your hand but not very many ways to get Tidal into the Graveyard. Tidal does a LOT of the heavy lifting for this deck by providing simple raw attack power, letting you kill monsters when you either don’t have a Codarus play ready, it gets stopped by your opponent, or you need to save it for something else.
[2] If you aren't familiar with Warrior of Atlantis, then you might be confused as to why this deck doesn't run Terraforming. Since Warrior of Atlantis is a monster and can attack (with 1900 ATK points!) in addition to being fuel for Tidal, I find him to be flat-out better that Terraforming here. Back on the other side of the combo, I'm running double Mother Grizzly to help search out Codarus. However, I'm not running three because of the lack of other good summons for it - basically, the only other decent ones are another Grizzly or sometimes Atlantean Marksman. This is also the primary reason why I found it unnecessary to play Fire Formation – Tenki for helping get to Grizzly more reliably.
[3] Speaking of Atlantean Marksman, we're only using one copy of each Atlantean. This is mainly because of the lack of triggers for them if you were to draw them. You'll usually have to rely on either drawing Tidal, your opponent letting him return to your hand, or having some kind of access to Gungnir, since literally nothing else in the entire deck triggers them from the hand. Thus, running only one of each helps to minimize that chance, while still keeping a loaded gun in your deck to maximize Genex Undine's flexibility and usefulness.
[4] Pot of Duality and Upstart Goblin are absolutely huge here. Remember, the main foundation of the entire deck is simply to blow up cards with Codarus. This easy two-card combo (Codarus + Umi substitute) doesn't require Special Summoning, and it really benefits from having more draw cards to help you pull the pieces together both more quickly and more often.
However, both of them do come with some small drawbacks. Even though this deck doesn't do too much Special Summoning, Duality does notably conflict with Tidal, who we’ve established before to be pretty important at times. Also, this deck's lack of ability to dish out large amounts of damage quickly and consistently definitely makes Upstart Goblin feel a lot more real here. However, the consistency given by both cards is really not something to take lightly.
[5] Once I heard that Soul Charge would be released in Dragons of Legend, I went ahead and replaced my two copies of Call of the Haunted with two of them. Soul Charge can’t help you bring back Tidal for attacking when you don’t have enough Waters to revive him with his own effect, but it does make bringing back Codarus much simpler. For the low, low cost of 1000 Life Points and a Battle Phase that you probably didn’t need anyways, you can revive the deck’s star monster and make it that much easier to pair him with your Umi substitutes. It can also give you a range of powerful Synchro and Xyz plays to help swing games back in your favor, and that’s a great asset in a deck that can play cards like Gungnir, Leo, and Bahamut Shark.
[6] Let's cover the trap lineup a bit. Firstly, triple Threatening Roar is an idea that comes from Inzektors. Codarus and the Inzektor deck both share the ability to wipe out entire fields of cards with little effort, so it's good to let your opponent build up a play to try and kill you only to have all their cards cleared away next turn. I once considered using Construction Train Signal Red, but right now I think Threatening Roar is better because it can protect you from multiple monsters. Double Skill Prisoner helps to protect Codarus from Effect Veiler, which is a very simple and effective answer to your main gameplan.
We're only using one Forbidden Temple of the Deep for a few different reasons. Firstly, you don't want to run so many Umi substitutes that you end up having a bunch of dead cards whenever you don't have a copy of Codarus ready. Secondly, the card is inherently slow since you've got to set it and wait a turn to flip it before Codarus can get to use it. And lastly, its effect just isn't very helpful. At least with A Legendary Ocean you get a little stat boost (and a neat interaction with Atlantean Dragoons), but this card doesn't really do anything relevant when it's not paired with Codarus.
Actually, you might be wondering why we're even running the one copy at all. You've got to keep in mind that the number of Codarus effects we can resolve is finite, and in my opinion, three is not quite enough for a single duel. From my testing, four potential Codarus blasts seems better right now. Plus, it raises the chance of drawing an Umi substitute from 6 cards out of the deck (3 ALO + 3 Warrior) to 7, and as you know, the deck doesn't really work without Codarus pairing with a substitute.
[7] The Extra Deck is mainly standard choices for what you’d expect based on the Main Deck. There are a few Synchro options to make the most out of Genex Controller, and Rank 3s like Leviathan Dragon and Nightmare Shark help to take advantage of Bahamut Shark while giving you a neat little play with Atlantean Marksman from time to time. Ghostrick Alucard can help to clear backrows before making your fundamentally fragile plays, and cards like Number 49: Fortune Tune and Daigusto Emeral help you by recycling Genex Controlllers if you’re put in the position to really need to resolve Genex Undine’s effect. Beyond that, there are just some basic Rank 4s to help deal with a wide range of different situations.
[8] The Side deck is only experimental at this point, so don't take it too seriously. It's just a few basic ideas that appear to work only from theory, and they do not have much real testing behind them unlike the rest of the deck. They are pretty neat, though - how many decks do you know of that can side into double Oh F!sh!, anyways?
So, that's the deck! If you have any questions, be sure to leave a comment. Thanks for reading.
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