The Umi Control deck in Pokémon Unite is a floodgate control type deck that uses the effects of Ocean Dragon Lord Kairyu-Shin to control the board in such a way that the opponent cannot. It is one of the fairest floodgate decks we’ve seen in a long time, and it is outclassed by cards like “A Legendary Ocean”, “Lemuria, the Forgotten City”, ” Pacifis, the Phantasm City”, and ” Sea”.
The skill provides the Buff/Debuff as Umi describes, but the card Sea Stealth Attack does not recognize Mystic Depths as Umi. As a result, SSA does not activate to play the Mystic Depths from the GY onto the field. Umi Control is one of the fairest floodgate decks we’ve seen in a long time, and it mainly uses the effects of Ocean Dragon Lord Kairyu-Shin to control the board in such a way that the opponent cannot.
While ALO builds can rely on ALO itself to let Kairyu hit the field easily, PAC builds rely on the second new card – Physalia (YGOrg Translation), which sends a Umi. Once per turn, you can select and remove 1 face-up Level 4 monster from play.
Mystic Depths directly supports Citadel Whale and Sea Stealth Attack, removing the need to include Umi or any other spell/trap that may be used. As a Gishki SSA player, I can confirm Cosmic Cyclone will happily me royally. If they use Mystic Depths, banish the Umi as SSA can’t pull Umi back on to the field.
📹 How Fast Can I Get To Diamond 1 With UMI CONTROL???
It’s time for the literal floodgates Hardleg tries to see how far he can get on the competitive Master Duel ladder with Umi Control, …
📹 KAIRYU-SHIN UMI – One Take Testing
RIP Pacifis, now second best Umi. Merch: ▻https://streamlabs.com/mbtyugioh/merch Buying cards on TCGPlayer? Use my …
I can’t help but feel that the free-will discussion might have worked better with a deck that actually involves more decision-making outside of deck building. Maybe a topic to come back to, should you play say a more involved control deck for a future ladder climb. Until then, continue being existential Hardleg. Anyway, always nice when a new episode drops, I really enjoy seeing how the decks change between iterations. These are always a nice watch/listen, especially when they involve unexpected topics.
Man, I’d really like to see what a Hardleg ladder climb with Labrynth would look like. That’s a deck that can run a ton of builds that might work better or worse at different points in the ladder. Playing Tenyis without immediately going into Swordsoul could also be interesting, as those have synergy with both the other Wyrm stuff and non-effect monsters.
As someone who plays this deck a bunch, I’ve really grown to love Pacifis over A Legendary Ocean. Yeah, it’s a bit harder to search, but those tokens are really valuable. Plus, you get to play Phantasm Spiral Power, a searchable Imperm! Also, SSA+Pacifis, for whatever reason, is really hard for Despia to break down, haha.
Yay floodgates. And ones that use actual WATER for once! I’d normally puke at this egregious display of Stun strats, but they way it’s done in this almost looks tolerable if you understand how it works enough to deal with it. Though more importantly was how entertaining the pack pulling was. Ocean Man indeed.
Would’ve kept Sea Stealth Attack at 3. Really protects backrow and monsters when needed, and recurs your “Umi” from GY. Also some interesting interactions with Foolish Burial Goods. Warrior of Atlantis at 2, since 3 can get bricky. Sea Stealth II at 2, since you need as many “Umi” as you could get. Ice Barrier at 2 because lol. Also pairs well with Icejade Tremora… 2x Icejade Tremora for when you brick, or when your Physalia gets negated but need to summon Ocean King. ALSO, an Ice Barrier target.
I don’t really see Kairyu-Shin as a traditional monster floodgate, like VFD for example, because by itself it doesn’t do anything aside from searching making Umi Control a pretty balanced deck. I mean it leaves so many ways to counter it since Jellyfish is typically your only negate all your opponent has to do is remove Umi (preferably via non-destruction). Also leave Leafplace Plaice alone! He’s trying his best.
I think you’re somewhat misconstruing determinism. That free will doesn’t exist doesn’t mean that you, right here and now, can actually predict the future: to do that you may lack the necessary understanding of the world (complete comprehension of every process) as well as the means to apply it (the tools to assess and/or manipulate every detail of the world to any desired accuracy). There exists randomness in the world, even in computer programs such as Master Duel to some extent (I’m not a programmer but I gather there are two options: either MD uses an algorithm to generate pseudo-random numbers, or derives random numbers from some physical measurement inside the machine).
I initially didn’t play the Whale either. But whale is too good not to play. Attacking directly while they can only control 1 monster is great, some threats can be answeared by baiting it’s bp effect. And attacking directly for game while they can’t stop it is amazing. It’s win more, but not by much. Especially when your strategy does not have that high of an attack. Also, play a normal monster. It comes up 7 times out of 10
play needle ceiling over torrential, torrential is so buns in master duel its horrific… the only other you things you could play are treacherous, get out, although they limit capability severily, but even book of eclipse could work at least toward non-link just to mass threaten their need to kill quickly… torrential is most live turn 1 and gets most value turn 1, it could be live later on, but that doesnt mean it should become live or will get its worth value… (at that point your playing in situations where torrentialing isnt whats going to have you win or stop losses…) needle ceiling is live turn 1 and post turn 2, and it gets the most value that torrential would have at any time, and it require a summon like torrential or attack like mirror force… if needle ceiling isnt live, torrential most likely wouldnt have helped prevent a loss, nor be the factor in winning you the game… the best trap honestly rn, which does treacherous and get outs job better and multiple times throughout the duel in more varying ways, is of course dogmatika punishment to send n’tss… thats a 2500 or lower opponents monster pop, and a generic pop anywhere, although the n’tss pop is on a new chain… its still something…
Hey Joe congrats, I use umi control and you didn’t use the whale to its full potential. When it’s destroyed by battle or card effect you can summon a lv 7 or lower warrior water monster to the field or add it to your hand. From my experience you can either use it to summon legendary fisherman 2, and when it’s destroyed get legendary fisherman 3. Or you can summon General raiho of the ice barrier. If he gets destroyed, you can just keep cycling between the whale and raiho as long as you have sea stealth 2. Raiho makes it where you opponent has to discard a card to activate monster effects on the field otherwise its negated, and its not once per turn.
I am a real sucker for water archetypes so umi control is one of my new favourite decks, but i gotta say, it also combines with one of my favourite archetypes of all time, Swordsoul, pretty well. also, the sheer number of players who have no idea what the second effect of Sea Stealth Attack is will always make me laugh
I believe, your “free will” is determined by your preparation. I dont know if there is a “go second” deck version of umi control, but i am sure, there is a way to optimize this deck or use it as an engine to go into more serious stuff, whenever the situation demands it to. So in the perspective of oneself being in an certain situation, the free will seems not apparent. For me, an mtg player, free will is what determines most of the matches, because decisions and reading your enemy is what mostly determines the outcome of an game (when both have the same financial conditions to play under).
I’ve had the existential crisis about the illusion of choice in Yu-Gi-Oh! ever since Despia came out, I feel like every game is decided on the first draw phase and it keeps being reaffirmed to me every day I play this game, just in the last few days I setup a pendulum board with an omni-negate, 3-mat apollousa, 2 pops and a monster negate and they were playing infernoid and drew Grass + Monster Gate + Reasoning, lost a coin flip against 60 card Eldlich, they set 2 and I draw a hand that can play through basically anything, except the set Skill Drain (at 2 btw) they have, every single time I’ve hit the “Win this to rank up” for the first time on a rank I lose the coin flip to some floodgate deck and don’t draw Duster, every time I need my starter to resolve they have Ash and the few times I draw Called By or Crossout they also have Maxx “C”, I haven’t drawn the out against Maxx C once and my Maxx C only ever resolved against backrow decks, I got hit by Nibiru more times in the last week than I had since the game came out (Nibiru isn’t even good in this format), besides that, every other game I lose the coin flip, draw no handtraps and the opponent’s board has the exact number of interruptions to nullify my deck or I win the coin flip and draw the exact hand of 2 one-of high level monsters, 2 of the same handtrap (that won’t resolve) + Duster, I’m actually considering recording every single one of my games and schizo cataloging why I didn’t get to play in a spreadsheet, calculating the odds of getting that exact game and crunching the numbers, even on the statistical anomaly that I get to play the game I’m always so irrationally angry I lost a couple of games from not paying attention to what I’m doing and clicking the wrong thing.
Umi Control. The more I play YGO, the more I realize I am a wonderful person who enjoys floodgates. The biggest problem YGO players have is playing YGO. Decks like Umi Control, help solve the problem, by not allowing your opponent to play YGO. You are helping to solve the addiction that too many members of the community suffer from. Keep doing such good work to help the YGO community stop suffering under the yoke of YGO.
Around the time Terrorking Salmon was a thing, Giga Gagagigo was as well, which, combined with A Legendary Ocean became a 0 tribute 2650 beatstick, which was cool for like 2003 playground stuff. The first time ANY card beat that, so the first time they printed a 5* 2500 attack water monster, was Dinomist Spinos.
So I looked it up. If you want a normal monster that technically isn’t a garnet, you’ll want a Level 5 since it can be normalled without tribute under ALO with the strongest option being Giga Gagagigo at 2450 (sorry salmon, 50 matters). If you want a normal monster that’s never a garnet, that’s Megalosmasher X at 2000. If you want a garnet that only ever requires one tribute, that’s Frostosaurus at 2600 and if you want the ultimate garnet, that is indeed Gogiga Gagagigo at 2950.
My friend tells me that whoever gave you that build set you up for failure. You need to run Kraken, damn it; you only have one copy of Sea Stealth II; why the hell are you running Duality; where is Fury and Torrential Tribute and why are you running three copies of Rage; and why do you have three Kairyu-Shin of the Reef when you only have eleven monsters?
Sea Stealth II is really good if you already have Sea Stealth Attack up. You can Special Summon a monster at the start of the battle phase, then banish it with the trap, and then it doesn’t get sent to the GY. I think the Fortress Whale retrain is a decent inclusion as well. And maybe Torrential Tribute since it’s literally searchable in this deck.
I just wanted to throw this out there, nekroz monsters have a clause on them that stops you from ritual summoning them with a monster of a certain level (like unicorn not allowing you to use level 4 monsters for it), but with a legendary ocean in play that effect becomes rather irrelevant. Plus, it allows you to send something like n’tss with kaleidoscope.
Ngl this kind of deck is exactly what I’ve been waiting for since I officially started playing yugioh a few years back, a very competent and seemingly viable deck centered around A Legendary Ocean. For a long time, I had Daedalus and Neo Daedalus in my collection and always looked at them and thought “gee these along with aLO would be really cool to make a deck around” but these days I no longer think there’s much of a place for those 2 monsters to be viable anymore, but aLO definitely seems strong enough still to be able to make work, it was just about waiting for the right water/umi centric cards to be released.
I think you play Terrorking because it’s the biggest 5 star so you can normal summon it with Legendary Ocean if you have it in hand 🤔 Nvm, yeah, giga gagagigo is 2450ATK and there’s no Fish payoff on the maindeck whatsoever, maybe with that new Fish link it makes more sense the Salmon just because it is also a Fish?
4:06 ACTUALLY terrorking salmon (whilst not the correct pick) is still more valid than Gogiga Gagagigo. Whilst both the traps that summon normals dont specify a level, there is a slim but not zero chance you might end up drawing your normal monster, therefore, for the EXTREMELY CORNER CASES where you need to summon a body to the field and have nothing else in your hand (like those with garnet), the best play is to use a level 5 water normal as they have substantially more power than their level 4 equivalents whilst still being easily normalable thanks to a legendary ocean. So the CORRECT target isn’t Terrorking Salmon OR Gogiga Gagagigo. It’s Giga Gagagagigo, which has exactly 50 more attack than terrorking.
I think I might have missed this article until now? But, if you’re trying to get Kairyu-Shin Leviathan onto the board on your turn (and don’t mind notes on a month-old article), did you look at Mithra the Thunder Vassal at all? It locks you out of the extra, but you aren’t going into the extra much anyway, especially on turn 1, and meanwhile it gives you tribute fodder for when you don’t draw your Legendary Ocean outright and puts a non-water token on your opponent’s side of the field which locks them out of all non-Water summons, even those that would use said token as material because yugioh is interesting sometimes (and this includes Nibiru, interestingly enough! Although I somewhat doubt you’re summoning quite enough monsters to run into Nibiru anyway). If you’re special summoning Leviathan, you could even put it in defense to stop your opponent just crashing and using Main Phase 2, but even without that, it limits their plays much more.
This is my deck list using the new water support feedback is much appreciated 3×Icejade Tremora 3×Atlantean Dragoons 2×Atlantean Heavy Infantry 2×Deep Sea Diva 2×Deep Sea Minstrel 1×Fishborg Launcher 3×Ice Knight 3×Kairyu-Shin – Leviathan 1×Lappis Dragon 1×Mermail Abyssnerei 2×Mermail Abyssmegalo 2×Neptabyss, the Atlantean Prince 3×Physalia 1×Called by the Grave 1×Nibiru, the Primal Being 1×Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring 2×Crossout Designator 3×Magellanica, the Deep Sea City 2×Infinite Impermanence 2×Moray of Greed Extra Deck 1×Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess 1×Crystron Halqifibrax 1×Linkuriboh 1×Marincess Coral Anemone 1×Adamacipator Risen – Dragite 1×White Aura Dolphin 1×Mermail Abyssalacia 1×Crystron Quariongandrax 1×Deep Sea Prima Donna 1×Herald of the Arc Light 1×Tatsunoko 1×White Aura Whale 1×Armored Kappa 1×Bahamut Shark 1×Toadally Awesome