It's been a few weeks since we got the new Marincess support in Duels from the Deep. The results are fairly surprising, as the deck has been making a few waves with some National and Regional results! While it's not a Tier 1 contender or anything, the deck is capable of holding its own against the best of them. Today I'm here to help you in learning, playing, and building Marincess. Without further ado, let us literally dive right in!
As another quick disclaimer, the deck has a couple of cards that are not the greatest due to being an Anime Deck. We won't be covering those in this piece. Some cards are better never to resurface.
Special thanks to OzoneTCG, Yugipedia, and my fellow Marincess teammates Griff and Solar for their assistance in this article.

Linked Bodies of Water

Since Marincess is a Link-based deck, it's only proper for us to start with their Link-1s! Both Blue Slug and Sea Angel look harmless, but they're quite the powerful +1s. Blue Slug shows off one of the deck's core strengths: its excellent grind game! Being able to add back almost any Marincess monster from the GY to your hand is great. This lets you Link climb efficiently and manage your resources well. If you're in hot water, you can also use it to recycle back other Links back to the Deck.
Sea Angel is another solid card, as it gets you direct access to some really important cards for free. Its arrow can be a little awkward to work with, but it's not too big of an issue. With that in mind, there are times when it's better to Slug first and then Angel later to make your plays smoother. This comes up if you start with Sea Horse in particular. Regardless, the two available Spells the Deck has are quite good so Angel pulls in her weight. Battle Ocean allows you to set up high ATK numbers, get your recursion going, SEGOC effects, and even enable one of your strongest boss monsters! Marincess Dive on the other hand extends like no other and makes it so opening 1 Marincess can go pretty far.
Most, if not all of your turns will consist of summoning both Link-1s to get the ball rolling and go from there! It's important to run 2 copies of each of these links. The second Angel and Slug help a lot vs hand traps and are important for your grind game, respectively.

Coral Duology

Continuing with our Aquarium exploration, we have two of the most important monsters to go into while laddering with Marincess Coral Anemone and Marincess Coral Triangle!
Anemone is a powerful Link-2 that revives any WATER monster with 1500 or less ATK from your GY to a zone it points to. While you're normally reviving Marincess monsters, you can get creative and revive stuff like a used-up Splash Mage or a WATER extender like Silent Sea Nettle. In addition to that, it fully pays for itself by also having a strong floating effect, letting you add back any Marincess card from your GY to your hand. She just so happens to link nicely into the next monster we'll be covering.
Coral Triangle is part of the latest support and has two very important effects that give the deck some water to swim on. The first effect now gives you access to your strongest archetypal trap, Marincess Wave! At the cost of a measly send of any WATER monster, Triangle gives you Infinite Impermanence on steroids that also protects your entire field of monsters. Wave is not once per turn either, sweetening the deal. There are a lot of decks that'll struggle to out your Marincess monsters once they become unaffected. Not having it susceptible to backrow removal is the icing on top. Once you've gotten Wave, you're free to link off Triangle for any of the two Link-4 bosses.
Triangle's other effect is no slouch either. Even if your opponent wipes you out completely, she can banish herself to put you back into the game! Revive Coral Anemone and any Link-1 of choice, Anemone can then revive and float again and feel free to continue your plays from there. It's why as long as they don't manage to OTK you, Marincess' crack back is unparalleled.
All in all, the accepted ratios are 2 Coral Anemone and 1 Coral Triangle.

Niche Fishes

These two are a lot more specialized, so you won't always be going into them in every game you play. Despite that, both are great to have in the ED as 1-ofs.
Marincess Crystal Heart has a couple of nice applications that come to mind. If you have some spare WATER extenders, you can go into this Link-2 and then set your big Link-4 up to be protected by Crystal Heart. If you have the Field Spell up, that monster is now unaffected by all your opponent's card effects. This is an amazing luxury to have, as short of a Kaiju, your high ATK Marincess boss is safe from harm. No longer will something like Super Polymerization, Infinite Impermanence, Forbidden Chalice, or Dark Ruler No More be an issue for it. In some instances, it's also not a bad idea to go for early Crystal Heart to try and insulate versus Nibiru. An underrated line would involve making Heart, making Anemone with it, and then reviving the same Heart.
Marincess Marbled Rock is a Link-3 to go into every now and then if you get harassed by too many HTs, or need to recover stuff for turn 3. Recycling Marincess Wave is one of her best uses, as Anemone can't always afford to add it back while trying to rebuild the board. Her last effect can help keep your monsters afloat, as battle is the only thing to worry about after Wave resolves.

Plan A for Argonaut

Marincess Aqua Argonaut is the new end goal of Marincess post-support, and she's quite the card! This beefy Link-4 climbs to an astonishing 4300 when paired with Battle Ocean. Not only that, she comes with actual interruption! Argonaut is able to shut down activated Spell/Trap cards or effects on the field. This is only on your opponent's turn, so keep that in mind. Negating for free would've been great, but Argo also summons an equipped Marincess while doing so! While this lowers her attack by a bit, the value you get off this is crazy. That monster won't have to worry about being run over either. Argonaut makes it so she's the only one that can be attacked while in the EMZ. Lastly, the bounce effect helps you pick apart the board with ease. You can even bounce herself to make use of Coral Triangle if needed.
1 Argonaut is more than sufficient enough. Space is quite tight, and the deck can put it back into the Extra Deck when needed.

Plan B for Bubble Reef

In times where Sea Angel gets stopped or if your hand can't get to Argonaut with Battle Ocean, Great Bubble Reef makes for a great plan B!
Reef brings a lot of things to the table which makes it worth considering. During each Standby Phase, she can both boost herself for the turn and net you an extra card. Hand Trap heavy builds appreciate this, giving you good odds to draw into an extra way to stop the opponent. This gives you an added bonus of boosting her ATK by 600 for the turn. This Link-4 manages to keep herself beefy even without the Field, making her difficult to run over. Pair that with Wave, and Reef boasts a lot of sticking power. This means you get another draw and can snowball the game from there.
An underrated part that not many people talk about Reef is how easy she is to actually summon. Three of your main starters are able to do it all on their own, netting you Reef + Wave + a draw 1 for your troubles. Last but not the least, the on-field effect lets you recycle banished Marincess and push for huge damage.
Like with Argonaut, you'll only ever need 1 copy of Bubble Reef.

Main Deck Star(fishe)s

Let's briefly go over the Main Deck Marincess monsters and their recommended ratios. There are quite a lot of them!
Blue Tang is one of the best starters around, getting any Marin monster you need directly to the GY. Her other effect can net you extra cards and help SEGOC effects like Sea Angel, which is a nice bonus. Always max out on Blue Tang, as you will want to see this card.
Springirl is another 1-card starter that doubles up as a pretty nifty extender. Since she happens to be Level 4, you get access to some sick XYZ plays such as Bahamut Shark, Number 4: Stealth Kragen, and Abyss Dweller. Once again, the other effect allows you to pull off some SEGOC shenanigans and could possibly even win in time! 3 copies are recommended here.
Marincess Sea Horse is the OG starter/extender and another 3-of for the deck. She's able to do it all and even get to both Link 1s in the same turn all by herself. The GY effect doesn't come up until turn 3 but is good to remember nonetheless. One cool play to do with it is to make Argonaut's bounce effect free.
Pascalus is an oddity as she isn't exactly a 1-card starter. Even so, she works well to bait out hand traps, set up Rank 4s, unclog Marincess monsters, and eke out some extra value with them. For example, Sea Horse and Spring can special summon themselves out for sure, but with Pascalus you can afford to do that later when they inevitably get added back to your hand by either Blue Slug or Anemone.

Pascalus is another way the deck guarantees follow-up, as she can be banished to add back a crucial Marincess Spell or Wave from the GY to your hand in a later turn. People are a bit divided on how many to run, but 2 is a safe number.
Mandarin is a conditional extender that comes up if you're on a version that has Abyss Shark, as she's needed for the Tang + Abyss combo. There are some other cute interactions you can do with her, but she is the most cuttable of the bunch.
Sleepy Maiden is a decent extender that comes up in peculiar game states. The main thing that she can pull off is to act as a pseudo-Field Spell, letting you equip something onto Argonaut when the Field isn't accessible. If you go for Reef + Argonaut setups, you'll definitely be wanting Maiden in rotation. Lastly, she can help push for damage when paired with Reef. You get two boosts, one from Reef and the other from the Field Spell.

Sample Plays and Builds

With that being said, how about we take a look at two sample Marincess builds to get you started? These should act as fine skeletons for aspiring players out there.
Build 1 features the Abyss Shark package, which lets you do a lot of crazy R4NK shenanigans! One combo lets you safely Toad early enough to try and contest Nibiru. If you want to check out some of the combos for the deck or some games in action, I've compiled a bunch in my own personal spreadsheet, free of charge. This should hopefully supplement the article well. Check it out here!
The second build opts out of the WATER extenders to focus a lot more on hand traps and extra consistency with Cynet Mining, which is another way people have been building for. Other options that are plenty viable but were not discussed are the likes of Silent Sea Nettle and Gozen Match. The deck is fairly flexible with its generic spots, it's just a matter of trying to fit everything or what you want to focus on more.
For your Extra Deck options, both Stealth Kragen and Abyss Dweller compete for a spot as of now. Should the format call for Dweller, feel free to bench Kragen for now and vice versa. Eria the Water Charmer, Gentle is a nice way to convert a Primal Being Token into something usable.

Conclusion

And that concludes our quick introduction to Marincess! I hope this article helped you understand the deck and figure out some lines, techs, interactions, or ratios that you might've been missing out on. Marincess isn't going to be the next Tier 1 meta threat, but it's a decent option that can compete at a fairly high level. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them down below! Until next time folks, Renren out!