Frozen Fish | MetaZoo Gameplay, Strategy & Deck Tech

Frozen Fish | MetaZoo Gameplay, Strategy & Deck Tech

Frozen Fish

Fish are friends… unless a Black Demon is around.

How do I play it?

Frozen Fish is lead by a fleet of Water and Frost aura beasties with a focus on frustrating what your opponent is trying to due.  These frigid fish in combination with Loveland Frogman create a pretty heavy control feel with a the ability to deny and dampen enemy attacks on you or your beasties.  Iliamna Lake Monster's are great low cost beasties with nice abilities which can help your Loveland Frogman flourish.  Both Beavershark's and Ug-Wug's can play a hand in protection or be utilized for low cost quick attacks via Ug-Wug ability to gain fleet with scuba gear as a 4th Wall effect.  Chessie can overwhelming the board at any time with the number of water pages in the deck and it's probably a wrap if you're able to get your Alakan Ice Monster out as it is unbelieveable hard to destroy and does not allow attacks or spells on any other beastie Fish you control.
The combination of Water and Frost spells will keep your opponent off balance while you try to set-up your board to deal with their beasties.  Dampen, Icy Path, and Sudden Camouflage all act as nullifiers to what your opposing caster will be trying to build towards, while the combination of Water Submergence and Chessie when played timely will swing gameplay into your favor for sure.

Beastie Breakdown

Fish of all different abilites build out the beastie roster lead by a few of my favorites, Ug-Wug, Ilamna Lake Monster, and Beavershark.  Ug-Wug is the most versatile here as it can be played as a trap, gains First Strike ability when flipped, and also can be played face up for a cost of two and gain fleet with 4th wall enabled swinging for 25HP+ Fear.  Last, but not least it also has an ability, a la Laser Beam Gun Upgrade, which will allow your Ug-Wug to reduce LP from spirit's and flyers making it a great counter.  Similary, Beavershark can be played early to get on the board or as a low cost trap to help set-up your board which will end combat when flipped, simliar to a Smokey Spirit.  Last, but not least the Lake Monsters are scary dudes to defend against because of their ability to gain fleet if there is already one of the same beasties in the arena, as well as it's attack effect to end combat after dealing HP.  All these fishes abilites combined will help you control the board, draw out the game a little longer until you can crash your Chessie waves on them.
Loveland Frogman and Chessie need no introduction and prove as further evidence Cryptid Nation beasties still reign supreme from a power/meta standpoint.  Not to get side tracked, but the beefiest beasties in every deck I've made on here or in real life revolve primarily around getting to the Cryptid Nation driven destruction.  Anyways, Frogman is nice because you could theoretically nullify all spells from opposing casters if you get the Alaskan Ice Monster on the board at the same time. 
Speaking of Chessie's Grandpa the reason he shows up in the spellbook aside from a good family story is it's ungodly 160LP, regeneration ability, and amazing arena abilities which state all other beastie fish you control cannot be targeted by attacks or spells, meaning all of your Ug-Wug's, Beaversharks, and Lake Monsters can start taking bites out of opponents undisturbed. It doesn't stop there, as the Alaskan Ice Monster also has the ability to be fatigued to awaken another fish and if you decide to utilize it's attack and damage opposing caster will be able to bookmark another card from spellbook.

Spell & Potion Breakdown

Like a lot of the trap pages and protection options in the beasties, the spells are flavored similarly.  Icy Path is going to nullify opposing attacks and deal additional unexpected damage to themselves, while Dampen will ruin an ususpecting spell, and Sudden Camouflage can be contracted at anytime and will allow any beastie fish or dinosaur (so basically everyone but Frogman) to be invisible until the end of next turn.
Agua Pura is another unique draw spell in Water's arsenal which I think has some potential here given almost half of the pages are non water.  It's effect is similar to Fresno Nightcrawler's contract ability which will allow you to shuffle as many non-Water pages (non-Cosmic in Fresno's case) into your spellbook, shuffle, then draw as many as you put back.  While it doesn't guarentee the cards you need, when you need them, it will give you an easy way to ditch some cards you don't currently need and get another chance at a few you might.
Last, which we previously mentioned is the powerful Water Submergence.  This spell will need to be set-up to unleash it's power  most effectively, but is going to allow you to do a few things to swing momentum.  First you'll be able to bookmark one, next it will change all beasties in the arena into water beasties, which will depending on how many opposing beasties are in arena will buff you Chessie +10LP/10HP each, with the kicker being all your beasties gain Water type advantage for the turn which is an additional +20HP each given the spell also just turned everyone into Water beasties.  Killer Dude, Surf's up.

Artifact, Aura, & Terra Breakdown

Permafrost plays perfect in this dual aura deck consisted of Water and Frost aura and can hopefully get your ramp up a little quicker given this is more of a control and less of an aggro spellbook.  Of course, we include the pair of Prism Aura in the build to ease the aura burden, as well as Neutrality Totality given the playbility with Lake Monester, Chessie, Dampen, and Water Submergence.  Last we leaned heavier on the Water side of the aisle hear given the majority of pages are Water with five Water aura and three Frost Aura to cap it off.

4th Wall Items

  • Liquid water
  • Scuba Gear

Weaknesses / Archive Options

Similar to most Water decks, if you can't get enough protection for your Frog's or fishes your going to suffer a slow death.  The tough part about waiting it out is knowning you can't just through out a single Loveland Frogman or Ug-Wug on a turn knowing you're essentially feeding it to an opponent beastie, so sometimes you have to keep waiting it out for something that never comes or maybe comes a bit too late.  Hopefully the extra trap ability on things like artifacts or Frogman can afford you the time you need, but sometimes opponents can rush the board or kill off a few of your key beasties spelling real trouble.
This spellbook has gone through many different revisions and is far from perfect, but hopefully can spark some inspiration in your mind, which really is the whole point of any of this in the first place.  There are lots of different beastie Fish to build this kind of idea around and you could also adjust the number of beasties we have already represented given you can have up to ten Lake Monsters and six Ug-Wugs.  I'll touch on a few inclusions we have playtested and will playtest, but Black Demon is a potential crazy booster thanks to it's ability to destroy a fish you control to gain +20LP/20HP for all fish you control, then is awakend again and if paired with Alaskan Ice Monster to awaken an additional fish means a ton of potential damage stacked if you have fish spamming the board.  The other is Fur Bearing Trout due to Alaskan Ice Monster’s ability to have all beasties with ‘Trout’ in their name gain Fish Tribe, meaning they cannot be targeted by attack or spell.

Budget Options

This deck is definitely on the lower end of the budget garnering a 1/5.  The priciest cards aside from Prism & Neutrality Aura, which are replaceable, will probably be Loveland Frogman or Chessie which can be found in CN2 version for a little cheaper and only needing two of each should be difficult to swing, especially because you will play these two in basically any water deck you put together.  The other main beasties and spells in the build are cheap and avaliable. 

Card List (40 Cards Total)

Beasties

  • Beavershark x3
  • Iliamna Lake Monster x3
  • Ug-wug x3
  • Loveland Frogman x2
  • Chessie x2
  • Alaskan Ice Monster x1

Spell / Potion

  • Powerup Red x1
  • New Beginnings x1
  • Bookmark x2
  • Dampen x1
  • Agua Pura x2
  • Icy Path x2
  • Water Submergence x2
  • Sudden Camouflage x2

Artifact / Aura / Terra

  • Permafrost x2
  • Neutrality Totality Aura x1
  • Water Aura x5
  • Frost Aura x3

 

Back to blog

Leave a comment