Hook Line and Sinker, Gone Fishing

For many years, Fish have been the laughing stock of the Yugioh world (along with Thunder and Sea-Serpents) as the least supported types in the entire game. But now they are getting some noteworthy attention and could make an impact in the future metagame, under the right circumstances of course. Plus, they have been one of my favorite types for years now.

This is Archetype Analysis: Fish

Learning to Swim

Back during the "First Era" of Yugioh, the only Fish that ever saw use was Terrorking Salmon and 7-Colored Fish in ALO Beatdown. The rest were just spares that barely got to anything (Soul Eater, Flying Fish, Tongyo) by being just too weak to even try any kind of beatdown strategy during that era. There were other Fish released with effects, but they were mostly lackluster or not fitting any particular strategy. This was the bane of Fish for many years until we got a miracle in Tactical Evolution.

Tactical Evolution finally brought a meaning for Fish, and that was to cause destruction and have some sort of control. Cranium Fish was meant to destroy face-downs, Abyssal Kingshark dodged non-targeted destruction, and the others somehow just had a level of synergy between them. But all in all, it still wasn't enough to make a solid Fish deck. That is, until the godsend arrived a few packs later.

Super Special Awesome Deepsea King Magikarp is Here!

While it is true that Phantom Darkness brought the game a ton of powerful cards, there was one that was quite overlooked until now. It was where the world came to know of Coelacanth's existence as the boss of all Fish. However, the giant was here, but still barely had an army to lead. The deck by then became a simple swarm-control deck, using Coelacanth and Cranium Fish as the main attackers while keeping the field full of Fish for Golden Flying Fish to destroy. Little did people know that this king of fish was soon going to become a force to be reckoned with...

An Exclusive Ocean, How the TCG Boosted Fish

But even with the presence of Coelacanth, Fish were still feeling incomplete in their arsenal. That is, until TCG Exclusives began spitting out new toys for Fish. They first gave us our first tuner, Royal Swamp Eel. At an instant, the deck turned into an OTK deck just by being able to swarm 4 fish that gave access to 2 level 8 synchros and could go for 8000 damage. But it wasn't done yet, we got the ability to recycle our fish via Metabo-Shark and a way to speed the deck up via Nimble Sunfish.

Frogs and Temples, How Fish are Making an Impact

Once all our support finally arrived, we had a full school of fish at our disposal. And so, we created various versions, but only 2 have known great success: Froggy Fish and Mausoleum Fish.

Froggy Fish consisted in using the Frog engine (composed of 3 Swap Frog, 1-2 Treeborn and 1 Ronintoadin) to not only thin the deck, but also set up tributes for both Coelacanth and Monarchs alike. While it's a slower paced deck, it can be quite explosive under the right setup, but it's always keeping field presence and runs more like a Frog Monarch deck due to this.

And then there's Mausoleum Fish (my current variant). It's more of a control build, allowing for Mausoleum to grant access to cards like Vanity's Fiend, LADD, End of Anubis, and the usual Coelacanth. It tends to use cards like Snowman Eater and Thunder King Rai-Oh sometimes in the main deck to counter strategies directly from game 1. It's a whole lot more explosive than Froggy Fish, but allows for a larger degree of control. Currently it is the newest and fastest growing variant out there, but both Froggy Fish and Mausoleum Fish are strong contenders and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Here's an old video on my old Froggy Fish build, along with a tiny guide of how it plays out. Note: it's a build from the previous format.

And here's my current Mausoleum Build:

Monsters: 21

Coelacanth x3

Vanity's Fiend x2

Gorz, Emissary of Darkness

Thunder King Rai-Oh x2

Royal Swamp Eel x3

Tongyo x2

Metabo-Shark

Oyster Meister x2

Nimble Sunfish x2

Golden Flying Fish

Fishborg Blaster

Morphing Jar

Spells: 16

Mausoleum of the Emperor x3

Moray of Greed

Card Destruction

Terraforming

Giant Trunade

Pot of Avarice

Mystical Space Typhoon x2

Book of Moon x2

Gold Sarcophagus x2

Monster Reborn

Dark Hole

Traps: 3

Call Of The Haunted

Royal Decree x2

Extra Deck: 15

Shooting Star Dragon

Formula Synchron

Stardust Dragon

Scrap Archfiend x2

Mist Wurm

Colossal Fighter

Black Rose Dragon

Magical Android

Goyo Guardian

Iron Chain Dragon

Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

X-Saber Urbellum

Thoughtruler Archfiend