We all know the dangers of the ocean. Shark attacks, ship wrecks, drowning. In fact every year we all learn news of many human casualties to the sea. And yet, despite all that, a certain TCG continues to indulge and support that body of water in a most biased way.
During the early stages of the game of yugioh, we had a series of type supporting field spells released. Those were Forest, Mountain, Sogen, Wasteland, Yami and Umi. All of them were released in the same set, the very first TCG set, Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and they would all do more or less the same thing, increase the ATK and DEF of certain monster types by 200 points, while some would decrease the ATK and DEF of other certain types by 200 again. Despite all those similarities, most of them quickly fell into obscurity. All but one. And that one was "Umi"...
While all other field spells remained without support, just 3 sets later it begun... With Deepsea Warrior in Pharaoh's Servant, Umi got its first direct support. But of course Deepsea Warrior was a bad card, 1600 ATK for a lv5 monster, even with spell immunity under Umi, isn't something you'd want. However in the same set they got an even better card, The Legendary Fisherman. The Legendary Fisherman not only did have 1850, which made it at least able to win some battles at the time, but was also unnaffected by spellcards and could not be targetted for an attack under Umi. Of course not anything too special yet.
But the relief was short lived as 1 set afterwards new Umi support arrived, with Labyrinth of Nightmare, in the form of Tornado Wall. Tornado Wall was a stall card that would allow you to not take any damage while it was on the field, and it could of course only work with Umi on the field. This means that unless you were able to take out either card, you could not do any damage, which with only 5 sets in the game, had meaning.
Thankfully the rest of the Umi support wasn't good enough since they were both lv5 monsters, ergo, required 1 tribute. However one set later, Legacy of Darkness, brought A Legendary Ocean, and changed that... A Legendary Ocean was to be treated as Umi, not just on the field but even in the deck, being able to completely substitute for that card (and being forced to do so). Then it would do 2 things. It would increase the ATK and DEF of all WATER monsters by 200, giving an effect similar to Umi, but then most importantly it would decrease the level of all WATER monsters on the field AND in the hand by 1, making The Legendary Fisherman and Deepsea Warrior instantly playable without tribute, bringing back Umi with a vengance.
However it remained a fact Umi or Legendary Ocean could not occupy more than 3 spots in the deck combined, meaning with only 3 copies and Terraforming not out yet, it was still a highly inconsistent strategy. But it didn't take long for Umi to strike again... Again 1 set later and with Pharaonic Guardian, and even along with the release of Terraforming, Umi got Maiden of the Aqua. A 2k defender that would make the field be treated as Umi, allowing for more chances to use the supported cards...
Here we were at the 7th TCG set, and knowing the 10th set to be IOC we can deduce that in the coming Chaos era all that would be child's play. But Umi would not give up without a fight... Fast forward to 3 sets later and that very Invasion of Chaos... Umi support blowout with many new cards. Firstly we had the directly supported small ones, Amphibious Bugroth MK-3, Cannonball Spear Shellfish and Torpedo Fish, with the former 1 being a 1500 (1700 under Umi) direct attacker and the other 2 small monsters unaffected by spell cards. But in the same set we got Orca Mega-Fortress of Darkness, a lv5 WATER monster with 2100 ATK (therefore instantly summonable with Legendary Ocean with 2300) that was able to destroy monsters by tributing Torpedo and S/T by tributing Cannonball. But the biggest guy was the last support released in the set, Levia-Dragon - Daedalus. Daedalus was a lv7 monster (lv6 with legendary ocean therefore needing only 1 tribute) at 2600 ATK that by destroying 1 Umi on the field it could destroy all other cards on the field save from itself. Umi's first boss arrived...
That of course was not the last we saw of Umi. Just in the next set, Ancient Sanctuary, another monster, Mermaid Knight the double attacker, appeared. But of course that was not much. So a while later we got the 4th Structure Deck, Fury from the Deep, a deck centered around Umi featuring re-prints of old cards as well as new cards such as Ocean Dragon Lord - Neo Daedalus, the ultimate Umi boss monster. Ocean Dragon Lord - Neo Daedalus, despite its initial umi-biased misprint not stating it is a nomi monster, is indeed a nomi monster that needs to tribute its younger counterpart, levia dragon, to be special summoned. It stands at 2900 and with a fearful effect. By sending Umi to the graveyard, both players set all cards in their hands and on the field, except from this card, to the graveyard, leaving Neo Daedalus to rule the gamestate alone, almost a win condition.
But the first series was over along with the first series of boosters, and old cards were left behind. Now we are in the GX era of new cards. But a single card came just to give us a slap from reality, and break some rules. Enter Force of the Breaker bringing us Warrior of Atlantis, a 1900 beater with the only effect that it can fetch A Legendary Ocean from the deck by being discarded to the graveyard. One might ask, how is that possible when A Legendary Ocean's name is being treated as Umi, even for deckbuilding and along with the fact it cannot be declared by prohibition, exactly because A Legendary Ocean does not exist. But such is the bias for Umi, rules for it are irrelevant...
And after that one can wonder, how far can Umi go? And while we were thinking we were done with Umi, we see it to our surprise yet again in the synchro era of 5Ds, with Forgotten Temple of the Deep in Ancient Prophecy and Codarus in Absolute Powerforce later. Forgotten Temple of the Deep was yet another additional Umi card, without the deckbuilding name Umi however, it only was called Umi while on the field meaning it could be played alongside 3 copies of A Legendary Ocean. It was a trap card that other than being treated as Umi it could remove from play at spell speed 2 a monster of the watery variety and return it in the end phase to avoid all sorts of effects and protect it. Codarus on the other hand was a monster, little brother to the Daedalus brothers, at level 4 with 1500 ATK it was able to send 1 Umi to the graveyard to sent 2 cards the opponent controls to the graveyard (in an era rules by stardust, sending instead of destroying was very important).
The question to pose at this point is, has sogen, forest, yami or any of its fellow field spells received such treatement? No, they have all been forgotten, every one of them was left into obscurity after the very fist TCG set while Umi continued to rise along to glory, always with the help of Konami of course. And have they stopped at all that?
No, they have not... In the year 2012, right into the Xyz era of Zexal, with the new OCG set we see the signs of new Umi support on the horrizon with the set Abyss Rising.
Forgotten Capital Lemuria
Yet another card treated as Umi, with the deckbuilding name Umi this time around. And despite the claims of wikia, by shriek that is a Xyz supporting card... That is the answer to how far they will go...
But they can only go as far as we will let them go! We can stop the unfair advance of Umi, if we all stand together as one and never again support Water based decktypes! We can claim originality but we will not be original by using the biased Umi support! 2012 is the year we stop Umi!
MAKO 2012
STOP UMI!
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Well, that crap aside, it's getting really interesting for WATER. Right after their brand new structure deck with the introducing of the atlantean archetype, we get what seems to be a WATER set with a new Umi card, the Mermail Archetype and all sorts of support. It should give some decent decks at least out of all those cards. Generally WATER hardly ever was good alone, it would be support for others most of the times or it would do gimmicky stuff like OTKs with external support again. Gishki was decent for pure WATER decks, but then they were mixed with Hieratics. Let's see what happens this time.
