#valeos

Considering how late this deck profile is, Blue Wave’s (and to an extent Aqua Force itself) usage has went down post Star Gate due to Viktor, Deletors and Chaos. So I’m profiling this deck strictly as a vacuum with moderate competitive viability but not entirely directed at it. In other words, it’s not expected to be used competitively at the current moment since there are other decks stronger decks including Thavas, and am only doing this for the sake of Blue Wave’s as a whole.

(Grade 3: 9 Units)

x4 Blue Wave Dragon, Anger-boil Dragon: Anger-boil as stated above is the main Grade 3 because his synergy with the ideal re-stander Tetra-boil is what made Blue Wave a really powerful deck. Being able to stand two rear-guards when the Vanguard attacks, getting an entire column (or two attacks depending on units) is a huge plus in aggression especially if your field is looking a bare or minimal.

x3 Blue Wave Marshal, Valeos: Valeos is simply the alternative ride due to his heartbeat skill to prevent power increase during the opposing turn. Valeos’ also has the benefit to be searched via Beragios if you do not have Anger-boil or a Grade 3, at all, which is why I play him at three as opposed to two. It is a little bit unfortunate to have to ride him especially if you’re lacking rear-guards or are up against control, so you do have to drop a bit more whereas with Anger-boil you can just drop an enabler to your field and work with that and any other units are just increase the power of your attacks. Additionally, many people (myself included) did not think it was wise to really have both Valeos and Anger-boil because some of the newer rears worked better with Valeos as the vanguard and wouldn’t conflict as much as it would with either of Anger-boil’s skill, one of which being exclusive to Tetra-boil, but both requiring a specific attack pattern. I’ve heard people say that because Valeos works on any Blue Wave G Unit, it’s the better heart. Though true, I look at it from the perspective of which Blue Wave G Unit is worth going into or building around. In my opinion, it’d be Tetra-boil since Tetra-boil has two viable hearts as opposed to Flood Hazard only having one, being Valeos himself.

x1 Blue Wave Dragon, Arsenal fleet Dragon: Arsenal fleet is what most would play as a back up to Valeos because he’s an enabler for a counterblast and, his more notable skill, being a recyclable stride cost. However, riding him is a bit of a pain regardless if he’s a Blue Wave and of course Beragios can whiff even if you run 4 Valeos so it’s a bit of hassle that I don’t think it’s worth any extra spots especially since you really want him in your hand to drop for a cost or in the drop zone to pick back up if you’re lacking a grade 3 to stride with on the next turn. If you prefer not to have Arsenal fleet you can completely drop him but I do recommend keeping the next unit in the deck.

x1 Supreme Ruler of the Storm, Thavas: Thavas is the final Grade 3 of the deck. Outside of him being my favorite unit, Thavas is an enabler that can be tutored out of the deck with Nikki. Both Thavas and Arsenal fleet are not units you want to ride simply but if you had to pick a unit, Arsenal fleet would be better for the name/heart consistency. However with Thavas being searchable and Arsenal being in the drop zone majority of the times, having nine grade 3s isn’t as bad since these two are enablers and can be seen as “extra Grade 2s” like most of your enablers.

(Grade 2: 10 Units)

x4 Tidal Assault: Pretty standard Aqua Force staple. He’s free, flexible, really good for the early game. Most Valeos styled decks drop Tidal Assault because he doesn’t have a Blue Wave name which can conflict at times with Flood Hazard’s re-stand condition. However, I feel without Tidal, you’re losing out of major aggression and even having a very cost heavy deck.

x4 Blue Wave Marine General, Foivos: Foivos is just as important of a staple as Tidal Assault is and can be argued if he’s the better of the two. He hits 11k twice on the third battle and doesn’t have the mandatory re-stand clause like Tidal.

x2 Blue Wave Marine General, Medla: Medla is an okay unit. She can be played over by any other Blue Wave enabler like Lucianos or Galleass, however I do like her ability to attack from the back row with an 11k and a constant resist. However, she is an 8k base which is probably not ideal to ride but she only attacks for 11k if she’s attacking the Vanguard, so at times she can be an inconvenience but she’s also handy at other times since she doesn’t care when she attacks unlike other Blue Wave Grade 2s. (Alternatives: Blue Wave Marine General, Galleass | Blue Wave Marine General, Lucianos)

(Grade 1: 14 Units)

x4 Blue Wave Shield General, Yorgos: Blue Wave exclusive sentinel. I prefer this sentinel over Plato because it’s secondary skill to bind itself to give a Blue Wave unit the ability to attack from the back row. Yorgos’ self-binding also works in tandem with Cloris for a free 5k shield and to recycle repeatedly.

x3 Kelpie Rider, Nikki: Standard Aqua Force stride fodder. Can search Thavas but other than that, nothing else to say on it outside of I’d run four if the other cards weren’t as needed, especially since nine Grade 3s.

x3 Battle Siren, Cloris: Cloris is a really niche card for this deck because there is are a fair amount of cards that can work as shields if bound by an effect, including her own effect. She can call cards from the bind zone to guardian and give +5k shield to those units, which is especially good for the new Blue Wave heals to have an extensive supply of counter charging/soul charging when they’re discarded for G-guards.

x2 Blue Wave Soldier, Bright Shooter: Bright shooter is really just for the name and to pick back up grade 3s from the drop zone via boosting 4th attack or higher, especially if you can’t use Arsenal fleet.

x2 Blue Wave Soldier Senior, Beragios: Between this and Bright shooter, either one’s quantity can be played around since they both have their pros and cons. Beragios can try to grab you Valeos at the cost of having to drop units whose grades equal total sum of three (or more) from hand but after that he’s kinda useless outside of being a re-standing booster when the Vanguard stands.

(Starter & Triggers)

Bubble Edge Dracokid: I prefer Bubble Edge for this deck over Dagger Master simply because you have more ways to trigger Bubble Edge and you do want to be able to recover if you’re going for the early aggression. Dagger Master is better if you prefer Flood Hazard as your primary because the Critical+1 does give the final attack enough pressure to be guarded, in addition you are able to draw more with the Dagger than with Bubble. That being said, Bubble works amazing since being compensated for your rush or to draw more on top of Brutal Trooper is always nice.

x4 Blue Wave Soldier, Brutal Trooper: Blue Wave’s infamous critical that made the archetype really potent beyond their wave of attacks. The more you stack, the more you plus especially when Tetra-boil will only have you discard one card to re-stand.

x4 Supersonic Sailor: Standard counter charge critical. To be honest, you can go 6 Critical and 6 Draws since Brutal does recycle itself and hitting draw triggers is pretty cool too.

x4 Blue Wave Soldier, Bluegill Trooper: Standard margal draw but the Blue Wave name is something to note because of Valeos and Artiom’s soul blast cost. If you do go 6D/6C, you can also add Battle Siren, Malika with the same effect. 

x4 Blue Wave Engineer, Refit Soldier: This is Aqua Force’s best heal because being able to counter charge (and/or soul charge but counter charging is more important) is pretty helpful. With Cloris, after Refit Soldier is bound via her cost, you can call her back as 15k shields.

(Generation Zone: 11 Units, 5 Guardians)

x4 Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Tetra-boil Dragon: Tetra-boil Dragon as stated before is the “main boss” and the preferred re-standing Vanguard. My reasoning is simply because Flood Hazard prior to Generation Break 3 is a major minus especially since he loses three drives. As I’ve ranted, I’m not a fan of that because it relies too heavily on Brutal Trooper which strains how you play prior to Stride: you have to make sure your have Brutal Trooper(s), Stride Cost, attackers, and defense (let alone the grades). Even if you G-guard, you’d be better off going into Tetra-boil who won’t cause you to minus super hard and stays consistent with the Twin Drive. While on Valeos, you’re eliminating any damage triggers to cushion your barrage of attacks and while on Anger-boil (ideally), you’re increasing the power of your attacks: making Tetra-boil the more versatile re-stander.

x3 Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Flood Hazard Dragon: While Tetra-boil is the re-stander you’ll most likely be going for majority of the time, Flood Hazard is still a re-standing Vanguard, and at first stride at that. If you do have the pieces to make a powerful first stride break through, then by all means. However, I originally was playing because: again, the most times you stride for a re-stander, you will be going into Tetra-boil, and the game should already be done before you ever need to go to your third re-stander. Though, through testing, I was originally playing Lambros at two - I never went into him at all, so I cut him out for two cards: one being Artiom and the other was a free space, which I decided to give to Flood Hazard for the same reason Thavas plays it, for the Quad-drive effect when you’re kinda in a bad spot. Again, you can simply minus this for Sebreeze or even a second Alexandros: as you see fit. There have also been other times where I would commit to the first stride Flood Hazard and if my hand had really solid cards that I didn’t want to drop to re-stand, I’d end my turn and re-stride into it (or Tetra) and fully complete the skill fully with Quad-check, as a showing of what three Flood Hazard can do. (Alternatives: -1 for Air Element, Sebreeze | Marshal General of Surging Seas, Alexandros)

x1 Blue Wave Brave General, Artiom: Artiom is really played as another first stride specifically if you’re not on a good heart and want to try and replace it. Other than that, if you’re kinda in a undesirable position on your first stride, this is pretty okay to go into since Blue Wave units will get 3k per swing. You can drop this for one of the alternatives from Flood Hazard or even add the fourth Flood Hazard itself or you can remove the 1 Flood Hazard and this for a persona stride such as Lambros or Commander Thavas.

x1 Marshal General of Surging Seas, Alexandros: Alexandros is good on either first stride or later on when you’ve been striding since the accumulated generation break will make for an insane game-ender. It does have some complications with Foivos causing Alexandros needing to attack second for his skill to trigger but other than that, you are giving massive power, so a fair trade off.

x1 Storm of Lament, Wailing Thavas: Personal favorite card in the game, you won’t really go into him too much but if you do and if the field is set up, you can go for a devastating play of retiring the opponents board, a sentinel restricted power lane of over 41k.

x1 Zeroth Dragon of Distant Seas, Megiddo: I did have my reserves about this card but I feel Blue Waves (and Thavas to some extent) would want to see use it if the situation calls for it, Blue Waves especially since they don’t have resist everywhere.

x1 Guard Leader of Sky and Water, Ihoannes: Standard flip G-guard. Can protect rears and can be the strongest shield value. I only really use this to accelerate the Generation Zone for Alexandros or to flip up an extra Galfilia so I can have more counter charge options.

x2 Blue Wave Armor General, Galfilia: Should generally have about 2 of her since she can flip herself face down to unlock or unflip a card. Can even go with three. Her shield does cover Waves 2-3 while Ice Barrier covers Waves 1-4+.

x2 Blue Storm Deterrence Dragon, Ice Barrier Dragon: Nothing really to say except you can minus one for another G-guard of utility purpose like Dizmel, Scyrew, Colburn, etc.

Deck Summary

My approach to Blue Waves is centering the deck around Tetra-boil as the “primary re-stander” or the boss unit so to speak due to how affordable he is compared to Flood Hazard. From there, I decided that Anger-boil would need to be in the deck because Anger-boil does have better synergy with Tetra-boil than Valeos or any other Blue Wave Grade 3 that is currently available to us. However, I did want to keep Valeos in the deck for the Blue Wave consistency and because Valeos himself can be searched and that he also is a great Vanguard to be on if you cannot be on Anger-boil. I also aimed to have this deck be more early game oriented since Blue Waves were originally known for their Tidal and Foivos rush down and also included some very niche cards that wouldn’t conflict with the overall deck since Blue Wave is very flexible with only requiring the Vanguard to be Blue Wave with the exception of a few cards whose costs may require to be paid via Blue Wave units. Compared to the standard Valeos deck: which is very mid-range but with a very explosive burst on first stride, this is really meant to be flexible and stable throughout the game, allowing the player to adjust accordingly and play as they see fit.

Thank you all for reading my deck profile. Again, it was a bit late as I’m sure people are probably over Blue Waves (or Aqua Force post Star Gate), but I just wanted to get this submitted since I’ve been working really hard with the deck to try and figure out what Blue Waves could be doing as an alternative to Valeos, which isn’t to say Valeos is a bad deck by any means, he’s a really good and fun card to use and play with. My objective was simply to explore and expand upon Blue Waves and address the concerns that many people had that left them unsatisfied with Blue Waves. And again, this isn’t meant to say “This is on-par/better than Thavas” since I think both decks and any deck’s potency is relative to the current meta game, which before: it was better for Thavas than it was for Blue Waves due to resist, flexibility, inherent draw engine, and other stuff that Blue Waves were somewhat lacking in. That being said, please look forward to my next profile coming very soon!