Why Water never broke out ?

    Water (or skull water) is a highly defensive deck. It is turning around Water Technique, Shinotsukuame which turns all your monsters into big walls. When we see White Dragon Hermit, Nanase turn into a free Sieger, it is legitimate to think that this deck will be huge. Eventually, nothing happened...
    Why ? I will review all those weaknesses, and what we can learn from it.

     In a nutshell, Water combos Shinotsukuame and Return to the underworld to have a 8k defense Moss Wall, Fudogame each turn. Whith that beeing said, we understand that Water needs set up. That creates a lot of problem : the first two are the consistency and the slow If Cat Shadow, Aoihime does her best to fixe consistency, it doesn't fixe the slowness of the deck if it doesn't get the combo in the oppening hand.

     Water also lacks ressource management. Hundred Demons' Tome of Judgement is not a reliable draw engine, especially in a world which have a lot of self burn and no heal. Hundred Demons Sorcery, Akkishoki cannot be played because of the Hundred demon clause. The only way to create advantage is with Return of the underworld, which only grab monsters, and only on the field.
     A lot of decks are doing fine without good ressource management. But water's set up needs you to invest 2 cards which really expose this issue.

Three cards for one zone
    What does shadow cat do ? She enters the field, help placing the set up, then sits on the center while waiting to be destroyed. What does Fudogame and Nanase do ? They have very high defense with Shinotsukuame; they are design to stand on the center and protect you.
    All three of these monsters can only be called on the center (and they are ones of the bests in the Water deck). If they are called on the side, they will simply be ignored.
    Side zone monsters need to put pressur to draw the attention of the opponent.
     Crazed Surging Waves, Makaizou 's 3 crits are nice. Unfortunatly the monster dies by the end of
the battle. And there is no  Yamigitsune to play around it. Also it cannot be played from the hand because it will be a -1 by the end of the turn, which you cannot afford. It is restricted as a silver bullet when you have Return to the underworld.
     Runaway Female Ninja, Yukishiro is very good. As long as she stays on the field, your opponent will risk to see his main spell canceled.
     Third Omni Water Lord, Miserea is so strong. With it's double attack, your oponent cannot afford to ignore him. Sadly, it is a Dungeon world omni Lord, chich means that he is restricted to one here.
     Fang Style Ninja, Kibashachi is an aggresive card. But as a size 3, you cannot call him to the side or you will be forced to play a size 0 to the center. Which is the opposite of a good defensive option.
      In total, we have one Makaizou, 4 Yukishiro and one Miseria. 6 side zone options. This is simply no enought.

    The last drawback, is the defensive spell line up. Art of Body Replacement stops single attack.

Demon Way, Oborogenbu stops link attack. Demon Way, Shienrekka doesn't work on all of your monsters. Demon Way, Geppakugiri is conditional. Ninja Arts, Snake Gaze stops double attack, but burns you. Hundred Demons Sorcery, Hyakaryouran is random. Demon Way, Fool's Festival needs you to place one of you wall on the side, which is not optimal.
monsters.
    We end up with a very diverse line up which fail on beeing effective and reliable. Compare this to DDW : Death grips stops non size 3 attacks, Black dragon shield block any direct attack and Dark energy protect your own monsters. With only three cards, you cover every possibility in a much more effective way.
     Icing on the cake : because of the lack of ressource management and the set up cost, you will quickly loose your defenses and have no way to get them back.

    The article comes to an end. For thos who like water, don't worry. Buddyfight is not an elitist game : you can have fun with less competitive
decks.  If you want a decklist, here is the one I tested.
   For those who don't plan on playing the deck, what can we remember from this ? First of, it highlited the need for monsters that draw the attention of the opponent to fill the side. Whether it is by giving you an advantage each turn (Shiden), or it hit hard (3 crits, double attack...). The second point is, don' t play too much differents counters. Prefer playing 5 differents counters that covers 90% of the possibilities than playing 10 counters to cover everypossibilities. Because you only risk getting into the wrong counter at the wrong time.

    Thank you for reading. This Water playtest has given me inspiration for another article. So I hope to see you for my next article, next week.