MetaZoo Water Tower Guide: Part 1 – Beasties

We are less than a month away from MetaZoo’s first Tower tournament and people like to keep information a secret.  Well, ladies and gents, I’m going to give those people a news flash….someone already knows about it!  MetaZoo has less than 100 unique Water pages, so your tech isn’t special and your idea isn’t unique.  Hiding information in a game that doesn’t have a lot of event results and less Meta changes means that you’re usually going into a blind metagame.  Why not share information so that you can influence a metagame and then break that meta?  People that know me will attest to the fact that I’m against hiding information when it’s so far out from a tournament.  With that being said, here’s what players need to know when it comes to the ‘sauce’ of the Water Tower.  Here’s the MetaZoo Water Tower Beastie Guide!

The beastie pages mostly everyone will be playing.

First thing’s first, Terra bonuses being three times what they normally are warps how Water decks will be played.  Most decks will play 30 or so of the same pages and then the rest will vary.  Here’s a list of what a vast majority of spellbooks will be playing in the maindeck.

1. Manaia

Many know by now that Manaia is extremely good.  Bouncing a beastie back to the owners hand at any time for only one Water aura is normally really good, but in the Tower format it’s absolutely broken.  Since a vast majority of beasties will be high attacks, the format is about trading one card for another and whoever can have the most favorable trades will win.  Thus, making tempo extremely important. Manaia allows you to bounce a beastie your opponent controls at the end of their turn, so they must wait until their following turn to play it.

Manaia can bounce any Water beastie except for Wallowa Lake Crustacean.  In some cases, you will use Manaia on your own beasties to save them in combat or so you can replay them after they were a victim of a Loveland Frogman.  Manaia’s utility in this format makes this a strong inclusion into any Water deck that is not splashing for another color, which most decks will be mono-Water.

2. Wallowa Lake Crustacean

Wallowa Lake Crustacean, or better known as ‘Crab’ is one of the best three aura cost beasties in the game. Having a 3x bonus on its Lake and River Terra bonuses makes it practically unstoppable in this format.  Crab has a 100 Attack Power and 115 LP with its Terra bonuses.  The 115 LP is effectively 230 LP because it halves any combat damage it takes.

Being able to attack for 1/10th of your opponent’s starting LP is really nice, but being able to block and survive anything that isn’t a Chessie or a big beastie with Powerup Red makes Mr. Crabs a staple for any Water spellbook in the tournament.  It can fall victim to Paralyze from a Frog, Water Baby or another Crab, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that with how high the power level is of this page.

I highly recommend playing a full play-set of four copies, but a minimum three if you aren’t going with four.

3. Water Baby Of Massacre Rock

Water Baby is absolutely crazy in the Tower format.  With the 3x Terra bonus it has a whopping 90 Attack Power with Paralyze on the attack as well.  The low 10 LP is fine since you get to bookmark a page as long as you control only Water pages, which is another reason to not splash another aura type in your deck.   Water Baby also has a spellbook limit of six, so you will get to draw a card when it dies, unless it’s Paralyzed.

Water Baby serves an important role because it’s one of the few pages that can help deal with an opposing Crab by Paralyzing it.  I’m not a fan of attacking into a Crab because you’re relying on a 50/50 chance of hitting Paralyze, but sometimes you gotta just take a chance.

One of my favorite things about Water Baby is that you can play it on turn one and force your opponent to hold their artifacts like Mermaid Scales or make them use a Lightning In A Bottle on their own Water Baby to deal with it.  Trading a Water Baby for an opposing Lightning In A Bottle is a trade I’ll be happy to make all day long.

4. Fog Hog

In a regular constructed format, you wouldn’t take a second look at Fog Hog, but in this format it’s insane!  In the Tower format Fog Hog serves as a true tempo-swing beastie.  For three aura you get a body in the arena with 95 Attack and LP (out of Water Baby range), and more importantly, you get to bounce an opposing beastie.  When you bounce an opposing beastie, just like with Manaia, you force them to have to replay it again.

Unlike Manaia though, you get to play this beastie while bouncing an opposing beastie, and that my friends is exactly what gaining tempo is.  Casters will be playing beasties such as Chessie and Altamaha-ha for four aura and you’ll be making them replay them the next turn.  Most of the time players won’t be playing more than four to five aura per game, so when you bounce a four drop it’s like gaining an extra turn.

I highly recommend playing the max spellbook limit of Fog Hog in every deck, this beastie is too good!

5. Altamaha-ha

When we first heard of the Water Tower, we all thought Chessie would be THE win condition of the format and we were totally wrong.  Due to the River Terra being active, Altamaha-ha has Invisibility as well as a whopping 150 Attack boost from the 3x Terra boost.  Alta basically will be attacking for 190 damage most of the time and it cannot be attacked or blocked due to the Invisibility.

Another effect that is very useful is the Destroyed effect that allows you to place Alta on the bottom of your spellbook when it dies.  Most games will go fairly fast, but if it becomes a grindy matchup, Alta may see it’s way back to your chapter in the late game.

Alta is most certainly this format’s big win condition beastie.  Since most decks will be playing Lightning In A Bottle, I can see Alta attacking multiple times in a turn for the win.  Decks that play Alta should definitely play two, it’s just THAT good!

6. Ug-Wug

Ug-Wug is most certainly a staple in this format due to a few reasons.  The first reason would be that it enters the arena awakened and has a big 70 Attack Power.  This allows you to be aggressive and kill early an early Water Baby or aura generating artifact.  Just imagine if you’re going first and you play a Water Aura and pass the turn.  Your opponent then plays a aura and then a Aurafact and on your turn you play Ug-Wug and attack the Aurafact and destroy it.  Those plays set your opponent back most of the time and you’ll build up a good board presence and be ahead on tempo in those important early turns.

Ug-Wug is also a trap, so you can place it under beasties that you want to save (I’m looking at you Frogman).  With 95 LP, Ug-Wug is a solid damage soaker and can be utilized fairly well as a trap.  It does gain First Strike, but most beasties can live through the damage.  Ug-Wug is another way to deal with a Crab though since it does inflict Scared and that can bounce a Crab since it’s not an opposing effect.

7. Loveland Frogman

A true classic, Loveland Frogman will make its way into a large percentage of the spellbooks in the tournament mainly due to Lightning In A Bottle being a format staple. Loveland Frogman is one of the only ways to deal with Wallowa Lake Crustacean, and I think most people will take that into account and play the Frogman.

Personally I think the format is too fast for the Frog and I don’t see it playing a very large role in winning decks.  I will say that the new Frogman Ornament that searches for one and puts it into your spellbook is extremely good, especially when you bookmark from it when a Frog is already in the arena.  This may push it over the edge and we could see even more Frogs than I think at the Tower, but I still thinks it’s too slow and too reactive for how proactive most spellbooks will be.

I’m very interested in seeing how many Frogs make it to the top spots as it’s still one of the best Water pages ever printed.

8. Bandage Man

I have been a fan of this beastie for a long time and even included it in my Archive in the last Caster Cup.  Bandage Man was good in a few matchups in a regular format, but in this format it’s an absolute brick wall!  With 190 LP and he only costs one aura to contract, Bandage Man finds himself as a beastie I would most certainly have in my spellbook or archive.  He does only have a 10 Attack, but he has Frozen (3) and you get to bookmark when he deals damage.

One of my absolute favorite things about Bandage Man for this format too, is that it survives pretty much any attack.  He also punishes Water Baby due to the Infectious Trait.  Infectious allows you to make a 10 Attack and 190 LP token when Bandage Man destroys a beastie in combat.  Bandage Man survives combat with everything except for Altamaha-ha and Chessie, but if they attack into it while it’s a trap, it has First Strike an Frozen (3) will make sure that beastie will not be attacking next turn.

I recommend playing some number of Bandage Man in your Spellbook or at minimum your Archive.

9. Bloody Bones

Bloody Bones makes the list barely as I’m still on the fence about this beastie because it does have the Fear trait, 85 Attack Power, 115 LP and can potentially allow you to contract another water page during combat.  Oh….and it’s a trap!

The problem here is that it was extremely powerful in this format when you could contract a Water page with the effect, but due to a new update to the rules, any effect that would have you contract an aura page has to specifically say aura and Bloody Bones does not.  The new update is something I don’t think really makes much sense, but it could be because of certain effects coming in future sets.  Another upside is that the attack does have the Scared status effect, so you can potentially get a Crab to bounce from it.

 

10. Mishipeshu

Mishipeshu has a whopping 150 Attack Power and First Strike……but that’s not all!  It also has the contract ability to let you draw cards until you have four in hand.  The 10 damage per card isn’t very relevant since everything is so big, but it can kill some Water Babies.  Mishipeshu is also a trap…….and I love traps!

Notable Mention – Chessie

Some of you may think I’m crazy for not mentioning Chessie, but I just don’t see it being better than most of the options since it only has 80 LP.  You can make an argument for playing it if you’re playing 5x Lightning In A Bottle in your spellbook as a one-turn-kill, but if you’re not doing that it dies to everything in the format.

 

Well, that’s it for the beasties you’ll see in a extremely large percentage of the spellbooks at the Water Tower.  In the next part I’ll be going over the non-beastie pages and there’s some spicy ones that some of you may not have thought of yet.  Thanks for reading and keep flipping those pages!