Structure Deck X03: Arctic Birds

[Donsheo]

Hey guys. I did another Custom Structure Deck today. This time, the theme is Penguins! They got some really good supports, while a lots of reprints. Also, Bolt Penguin got its first appereance at TCG.

Now, let's see the Decklist!

[quote]1 Salasi Pre-Historic Penguin (*)
1 Penguin Scout (*)
1 Little Blue Penguin (*)
1 Nightmare Penguin
1 Penguin Knight
2 Penguin Soldier
1 The Great Emperor Penguin
1 Abyss Soldier
1 Cold Enchanter
1 Crystal Seer
1 Cyber Shark
1 Deep Sea Diva
1 Ice Master
1 Lost Blue Breaker
1 Reese the Ice Mistress
1 Spined Gillman
1 Treeborn Frog
1 Bolt Penguin
1 Flying Penguin

1 Penguin Nest (*)
1 Big Wave Small Wave
1 Book of Eclipse
1 Book of Moon
1 Book of Taiyou
1 Moray of Greed
1 One for One
1 Salvage
1 Surface
1 Terraforming
1 The Shallow Grave
1 Umiiruka
1 Water Hazard

1 Arctic Wings (*)
1 Aegis of the Ocean Dragon Lord
1 Gravity Bind
1 Solemn Warning
1 Spiritual Water Art - Aoi
1 Threatening Roar
1 Trap Stun[/quote]

Then the cards:

Salasi Pre-Historic Penguin
Monster/Effect
Aqua
WATER, LV8
ATK 3000
DEF 2700
Eff: Cannot be Special Summoned. The Tribute Summon of this card cannot be negated. Each time a "Penguin" monster is flipped face-up: return 1 card on your opponent's side of the field to its owner's hand. When this card leaves the field: Special Summon up to 2 "Penguin" monster from your Graveyard in face-down Defense Position.

Penguin Scout
Monster/Effect
Aqua
WATER, LV4
ATK 1500
DEF 1000
Eff: When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard: Special Summon 1 "Penguin" monster in face-down Defense Position from your Deck to your side of the field.

Little Blue Penguin
Monster/Effect
Aqua
WATER, LV1
ATK 100
DEF 100
Eff: While you control no monsters and you have no any monsters in your Graveyard that are not WATER monsters: you can Special Summon this card from your Graveyard. If you do: banish this card when it leaves the field.

Penguin Nest
Spell/Field
Eff: Once per turn: if you Tribute Summon a Penguin monster; you can treat 1 "Penguin" monster as 2 Tributes. This card cannot be destroyed by card effects while you control any face-up "Penguin" monsters. Once per turn, activate one of the following effects:
*Flip 1 face-down Defense Position "Penguin" monster to face-up Attack Position: return 1 card on your opponent's side of the field.
*Flip 1 face-up Attack Position "Penguin" monster to face-down Defense Position: draw 1 card.

Arctic Wings
Trap/Counter
Eff: Activate when your opponent Summons a monster: negate the Summon and return that monster to its owner's hand; then Special Summon 1 "Penguin" monster from your Graveyard in face-down Defense Position OR face-up Attack Position. During this turn, your opponent cannot Summon a monster with the same name as the negated monster.

[b]PROMO[/b]
Caesar Penguin
Monster/Exceed
Aqua
WATER, Rank 4
ATK 2100
DEF 1000
Eff: 2 Level 4 "Penguin" monsters
Face-up "Penguin" monsters cannot be attacked (except this card). Once per turn: You can detach 1 monster from this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Penguin" monster from your Deck in face-down Defense Position. (This card cannot attack if you activated this effect.)

[Time Psyduck]

It doesn't look bad - all the Penguins should be as high up as possible, as well as Normal Monsters, so Bolt and Flying should ideally be directly after the new cards. Some of the other options seem out of place. I can understand the reasoning behind the rabbit, although I'm not sure how useful it would be without Xyzs, when it's targets have minimal attack. Veiler, however, just feels like it was put in to give it a reprint. Most cards in structure decks share a common type and/or attribute - anything wildly different needs a specific reason to be present.

Diva should have more than one target, since one makes it about 50/50 you draw Diva before it's target. Spined Gillman or Mermaid Archer would both fit well with the theme of the deck.

4 different fields seems bad. Given that you want to promote the new cards, you should ideally just use it, with maybe one other field at most, and then 1 Terraforming. Book of Eclipse and/or Book of Taioyu would fit nicely here, and then maybe an older staple, since more reprints are always nice, especially for newer players.

On the cards:
Salasi should either be a special summon with 2 penguins, or be tribute summoned with 1, otherwise it's too slow. It should lose 200 ATK - 3000 is generally the upper limit for anything that can be normal summoned. Other than that it's very good.

Scout is pretty simple, but works very well with the theme. Maybe limit it to 4 or lower, unless you intend it to search Great Emperor.

Little blue seems a bit problematic. It's highly searchable, but the SS effect is unreliable, since you'd probably want to use more than just penguins, and the double-tributing could be built into the Salasi or the field spell.

Penguin Nest is nice, giving an extra flip and a bonus. If you don't want to put it on the boss, add a reduction in the tributes for penguins - adding it here also helps Great Emperor.

Arctic Wings is very powerful, since it gives you another Penguin (and so probably at least one more return to the hand; it should at least limit to level 4 or lower penguins) and prevents the summon of the same monster. I'm split on whether or not it should be limited to special summons: On the one hand, it's free negation, since Knightmare and Salasi in particular have significant staying power, and the opponent will be facing a lot of bouncing as it is. On the other hand, it is somewhat situational, and they'll still have their card next turn. Maybe make it normal or special summons, which would let a flip though.

Overall though, the deck looks nice.

[NumberCruncher]

Salasi should be a Special Summon that requires either the Tribute of 2 Penguins or the return of a monster to your opponent's hand be the effect of a "Penguin monster(your choice)

Scout looks nice. Very Super-Nimble-To -Long-A-Name Hamster-esque

Blue Penguins Tribute ability only worked with one card, and it was a card that shouldn't need to be tribute summoned. There aren't enough Penguins released for the SS effect to be helpful. Make it specify you must have only Water monsters instead.

Field Spell is nice. Helps the archetype and gives advantage, but not in an excessively broken way.

Arctic Wings is a little too powerful. Get rid of either the Penguin Special Summon part or the opponent can't play monsters with the same name part. Remove the Special Summon part if you want to prevent the card from netting you ridiculous field advantage. Get rid of the can't Summon part if you want the Penguin player to be tactical about when he uses this card.

As for the deck itself, I would replace Mausoleum with Wetlands, Cyber Shark with Killer Frilled Shark, and Umiruka with Star Boy. I like the addition of quite a few of my favorite cards, so all in all 8/10.

[Donsheo]

Updates:

Arctic Wings doesn't need a face-up Penguin anymore, but the opponent can still Summon the negated monster.
Penguin Nest can now treat 1 Penguin monster as 2 Tribute - once per turn.
Little Blue Penguin now returns if you have only WATER monsters in your Graveyard (still thinking about it, if it'd be better to make it "Aqua-Type" only or keep it as WATER only)

And also modified the Deck: removed the non-related cards, like Rescue Rabbit and Effect Veiler and added others. The added cards: Cold Enchanter, Crystal Seer, Ice Master, Reese the Ice Mistress, Spined Gillman,

[Time Psyduck]

You could Arctic Wings require a Penguin in the grave to use - you'd want to summon it anyway, so it wouldn't matter much, except perhaps in the first turn or two before one of your penguins hits the grave, but it ties it better into the theme (otherwise it may get run elsewhere to deal with cards that summon themselves from the grave). It's not needed though.

Without Rabbit, double Flying and Bolt Penguins seems a bit of a raw deal, since they're both less than impressive and lack effects. Drop 1 of each and add another frog or two, Tayiou/Eclipse, or maybe Mermaid Archer, which looks as though it could work with quite a few things in here.

[Donsheo]

[quote name='Time Psyduck' timestamp='1316645665' post='5531502']
You could Arctic Wings require a Penguin in the grave to use - you'd want to summon it anyway, so it wouldn't matter much, except perhaps in the first turn or two before one of your penguins hits the grave, but it ties it better into the theme (otherwise it may get run elsewhere to deal with cards that summon themselves from the grave). It's not needed though.

Without Rabbit, double Flying and Bolt Penguins seems a bit of a raw deal, since they're both less than impressive and lack effects. Drop 1 of each and add another frog or two, Tayiou/Eclipse, or maybe Mermaid Archer, which looks as though it could work with quite a few things in here.
[/quote]

I've already thought about the first, maybe I'll add that requirement to the card.

Even without the Rabbit, those 2 Vanilla Penguins are required. All of the supports can bring back Emperor, which can Summon both of them for later use.

[Time Psyduck]

You can have the Vanillas, just not duplicates of them. One of each would still give you 8 usable targets for great emperor, which is enough for the deck as it comes. If you feel you need another penguin, swap one for a second nightmare penguin.

[Donsheo]

Ok, dropped the 2 vanillas for 2 books: 1 Book of Taiyou and 1 Book of Eclipse.

[Donsheo]

Bump. Also, this project got its own (Special Edition?) promo card: Caesar Penguin.

[NumberCruncher]

Nice promo. The only flaw is that it needs 400 more ATK.

[Donsheo]

[quote name='NumberCruncher' timestamp='1316905547' post='5537957']
Nice promo. The only flaw is that it needs 400 more ATK.
[/quote]

Maybe, or maybe not. However, +200 ATK won't hurt this card. Oh, and thanks.