It all starts with CDS: Whitewater:

This article is a continuation from my ‘Creative Deck Strategy – Whitewater’ posted back in 2018. As most of the information in that article still applies today, I wanted to continue the story with how to optimize the build with current deckbuilding practices and new cards, allowing for a more robust White Synchro build to be revealed here. If you missed that article or want to skim it over for a refresher, click the image above or the link here.

Secondly, I will be heavily heavily using technical terminology for this ‘advanced’ article, so here is a quick primer in case you haven’t read one of my articles of this type before. To dive into discussions on more of the technical side of the game, consider requesting the Student role on our Discord server. Additional information can be found on our “Rules-You-Read-First” Channel.

• Starter – This term refers to cards that initiate your combos. You can identify these cards by wanting one of them in your perfect opening hand. Of these starters, a limited number should require your Normal Summon to function properly, as you only get one of those per turn.
• Extender – This term refers to cards that let you continue your plays, especially in the case when your main combo is disrupted. These cards gain this name because they ‘extend’ your play before you have to pass the turn over to your opponent.
• Removal – Options that can remove barriers or floodgates to allow for you to play the duel. These cards should be selected to best support your deck in getting over its worst obstacles.
• Core Engine Requirement – An updated term for cards that you are only running due to their impact in a certain engine. This can refer to a ‘Garnet’, such as Gem-Knight Garnet when running Brilliant Fusion, or it can refer to something like Sangan, who is best unlocked when deployed alongside Tour Guide from the Underworld.

Strategy Overview:

Searching for Starters:

Let’s talk probability for a short segment. Imagine the problems of running a deck with 40 starters. See the problem already? You don’t want to over-invest in your starters, as that can lead to reducing your ability to extend your plays, especially when faced by an opponent who is definitely running disruption of their own. Taking a less extreme example into account now – what happens when you draw 2 starters in the same opening hand? Does that mean one of your cards is just useless for the turn? Now there is a balance between running enough starters to consistently open with one and running few enough to minimize multi-starter hands. While the jury is still out (as it is an ongoing math problem over in the Classroom of our Discord), current projections indicate about 4 starters are appropriate for a 40-card deck, so I’m going to shoot for that for this article’s build.

Extending your Plays with Extenders:

As noted previously, this deck truly shines whenever it has a chance to continue the flow from one monster to another, allowing for a continuous chain of Link Summoning into Synchro Summoning. While many of this strategy’s original extenders have continued to play an important role, such as White Stingray and Nimble Angler, we’ve also picked up a few other important options. Before that, let’s also highlight the tuner extenders that make a Synchro-based Fish strategy possible!

The last major extender that has been added to the lineup since the first article is White Mirror (YGOrg Translation). This Fish support option gives you not only recovery of a Fish monster from your GY, but it also searches an additional copy of that monster from your Deck. This adds to the possible combinations to trigger Nimble Angler multiple times in the same turn, in addition to being able to be used with most other Fish in your Deck! All together, these fish are ready to turbo through a bunch of different plays, so here are some replays of the strategy in action!

Replays:

If the embedded video above does not work, click here to view the replays on YouTube.

Bosses from the Deep:

While past variations of this strategy may have required White Aura Bihamut as a boss monster, we now have some additional tools to allow for a diversity of Fish across the spectrum of our Extra Deck. You definitely saw most of these throughout the replays above, but let’s break down our core win condition. I’ve categorized these essential WATER Synchros into the following three types: Disruptors, Removal, and Extenders.

This category is new to the WhiteWater strategy, as we haven’t had any WATER Synchro monsters that could significantly disrupt the opponent until the release of a powerful Rock monster! That’s right, WhiteWater can make full use of Adamancipator Risen – Dragite! While Dragite’s removal ability cannot be exploited by a deck running 0 other Rock monsters,  its ability to negate a Spell/Trap card or effect once per turn can be extremely useful in keeping control of the duel. On your turn, this gives your plays a bit more protection to ensure that they go off. Also, in limited matchups, this can even be used to completely shut down an opponent’s plays if they are reliant upon a specific Spell or Trap resolving properly!

First, Coral Dragon offers an alternative form of removal, which I denote as ‘Spot Removal’. Basically, this option can destroy one card your opponent controls, at the cost of a discard. This allows for targeted removal to get the top tier threat off of your opponent’s board. This capability is also offered by a similar option, Ravenous Crocodragon Archethys, just Crocodragon can be used during either player’s turn and requires 2 discards!

You didn’t think extenders for your plays was just contained in the Main Deck, did you? This is the primary category for a pair of Level 7 WATER Synchros, one tuner and one non-tuner. White Aura Monoceros is a returning player for the WhiteWater strategy, allowing you to summon any Fish monster from your GY whenever it is Synchro Summoned. As a result, you should employ Monoceros to climb to the Synchros you need using your GY in the case that you only have 7 Levels available on your board for a Synchro Summon. Alternatively, you can look to Deep Sea Prima Donna as an extender option that pulls a monster from your deck! Prima Donna also works extremely well with the aforementioned Deep Sea Artisan, allowing even more of an extended play!

All together, these Synchros serve as the core functionality for our theme. With that, let’s cover the decklist and just keep swimming onwards!

Sample Decklist:

Check out the decklist in the spoiler below!

Monsters: 31
||| Mermail Abyssteus
| Mermail Abysspike
|| Deadreef the Ephemeral Fish (YGOrg Translation)
||| White Stingray
| Fishborg Doctor
| Mermail Abyssnerei
|| Crusadia Arboria
| Sea Archiver
| Fishborg Archer
||| Nimble Sunfish
|| Nimble Manta
||| Nimble Angler
||| Deep Sea Diva
||| Fishborg Launcher
| Deep Sea Artisan
| Beautunaful Princess

Spells: 9
| One for One
|| White Mirror (YGOrg Translation)
| Deep Sea Aria
| Foolish Burial
| Monster Reborn
||| Whitefish Salvage

Extra:
| Crystron Quariongandrax
| Ravenous Crocodragon Archethys
| Adamancipator Risen – Dragite
| White Aura Whale
|| White Aura Monoceros
| Deep Sea Prima Donna
| Coral Dragon
| Crystron Quandax
| Tatsunoko
| Celestial Double Star Shaman
| Marincess Coral Anemone
| Mermail Abyssalacia
|| Crystron Halqifibrax

Strategic Shift Between WhiteWater1 and this Strategy:

Additional Tech Options:

Outro:

Shake off the excess WATER, because you finally made it to the depths of this article! I hope you enjoyed this renewed look at a non-archetype aligned strategy, instead focusing on meshing a bunch of cards together that tend to work extremely well! For now, thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you next time with a new CDS coming soon!

A variation of this build is currently participating in The Creative Deck Strategy Showdown, Part 2 in Group D! Be sure to check that out!

Reminder, I also take suggestions for future CDS articles! I really want to see some input from you! If you wish to see a CDS article about the archetype, theme, or strategy you love, feel free to private message me on the YGOrg Discord server or just post a comment in response to this article on our Facebook page with your ideas to keep under consideration! On most YGO-related communities my username is Quincymccoy, so feel free to reach out

I’ve also launched the Creative Deck Profile series of articles (CDP), where I take a requested archetype or strategy, posting a build with some replays. These are hosted on my YGOrganization YouTube channel, located here. Be sure to subscribe, as I upload replays for upcoming articles there before they are officially posted to this site!

As of now, I have a couple of outstanding requests that I am looking into: Witchcrafter, Sky Striker, Shaddoll, Krawler, Superheavy Samurai, & Simorgh.