Winston Fairwinds |
[Tidal Assault]
Now here's a card that knows how to
maintain relevancy. History time~
Back in 2014, Set 13 dropped. Before then, it was Glory
Maelstrom or bust, but LB5 could be danced around.
Thundering Ripple, Genovious, did not require 4th Wave*,
but he was a Persona Blast and therefore not the most
reliable. (And the Ripple subclan wasn't busted until
G-era.) Trans-core came out in Set 11, but he still
hadn't had a truly remarkable partner in crime. The
moment set 13 dropped, Aqua Force became a major threat
with the Tetra-drive/Trans-core deck. And the workhorse
of that deck was Tidal Assault.
Before Tidal Assault, if you wanted
to enable 4th Wave for your Vanguard's effects, there
were three Storm Riders at your disposal: G3 Diamantes,
G2 Basil, and G1 Eugen. Eugen was only cute when your
opponent was at Grade 1, and Basil only hit for 10k. Not
many people ran around with 10k vanguards, so Basil
mostly amounted to enabling effects but not actually
being a threat. Diamantes actually hit 11k when he
attacked, so of course he was a staple. However, he took
up some of your Grade 3 space. If you only had him in
hand when it came time to ride to Grade 3, you weren't
the happiest of campers.
Tidal Assault was a breath of fresh
air. Call him to RC once you hit Grade 2 and you had
instant pressure. Battle Siren, Mallika also came out in
Set 13, so you'd hand 3k to Tidal, swing unboosted, then
boost him for a later attack to make for a truly deadly
Breakride turn.
Nowadays, Aqua Force does have a
decent amount of cards that enable multiple attacks.
However, most are attached to Gen Break and/or are
attached to an archetype. Tidal Assault now supplements
those cards by being Aqua's aggressive early beater and
assisting the new guys in making like a bajillion Waves
later on into the game. Thavas and Blue Wave definitely
welcome their old brother Tidal, because their Stride
zones can compensate for his -5k power drop. Ripples
don't need Tidal though, cause they're busy spamming
other things, and Maelstrom likes to swap units around
with its 11k and 12k beaters.
Unless they make a strictly better
version of Tidal Assault, he'll always find his way into
Aqua Force deckbuilds.
4/5
*(The Wave keyword didn't exist
back then, I know that)
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