Marincess is a female anime archetype that first appeared in Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains. Aoi Zaizen used this archetype after she acquired the Water Ignis. Konami based the monster designs on various sea creatures. This is evident in their names (e.g. Marincess Marbled Rock is based on the Marbled Rockfish).

Marincess is an interesting yet controversial archetype. They were an archetype with huge potential, but Konami never delivered on that potential. The TCG Team recognised this potential and even advertised them as the "Water Salamangreat." This article will review Marincess's gameplay and support. It will also look at the hate surrounding the archetype. Let's see whether they deserve the title of "Water Salamangreat". 

Gameplay

Marincess's gameplay involves quickly summoning your Link 3 or 4, then protecting it with hand traps. This is quite easy for this archetype since they have a one-card Link 3 combo (Marincess Sea Horse and Marincess Blue Tang). In fact, the TCG Team marketed Marincess for this attribute alone. 

The archetype also has many ATK boosting cards. Their field spell, Marincess Battle Ocean, grants at most a 2000 ATK boost. In addition to that, it turns any Marincess Link Summoned using Marincess Crystal Heart into a Tower.

The archetype excels in resource management. Marbled Rock, Blue Slug and Coral Anemone allows players to recover their resources from the Graveyard. Therefore, Marincess has an above average grind game.

Marincess had the makings of a viable meta deck. They have a one-card combo that summons a Tower-like monster effortlessly. They have a great unique hand trap (Marincess Wave). Why didn't they make a bigger splash in the competitive scene?

Weaknesses

Marincess has many weaknesses. The Reddit user, Juan776, made a diagram showing all of the Marincess flaws. 

Susceptible to Hand Traps

Marincess's one card combo is their main selling point. However, it's also their main weakness. Konami built Marincess around that one-card combo. This means if the opponent stops their combo, they have no other plays to get their Link 3 or 4 out.

If the player drops Ghost Ogre on Blue Tang or Blue Slug, the turn is over. If the opponent somehow removes Sea horse from the Graveyard with cards like Called by the Grave, the turn is also over. A well-timed Effect Veiler or Infinite Impermanence on Coral Anemone or Blue Slug ends the turn. A Solemn trap card on any of the Link Monsters ends the entire combo for Marincess. Don't get me started on Nibiru. The worse thing about this is that the one-card combo is very reliant on the Normal Summon. Unless you can somehow Normal Summon again, you won't be able to continue your turn.

Who would have thought this resourceful one-card combo for Marincess is also their main weakness.

No Interactions or Removals

We live in an era where a deck needs to interact with the opponent in order for it to become meta. When I mean "interaction," I mean things that can disrupt the opponent's play (e.g. negations). Unfortunately, Marincess just isn't good at that. Furthermore, the deck also needs to have a decent amount of removals. This is to remove tricky cards that can't be removed by battle. Unforunately, Marincess doesn't have any of these abilities. They have Marincess Wave, but it's just one card and it's barely searchable.

Majority of the time, a Marincess player literally sits there as their opponent breaks their board. They can't really do anything to stop it since they have no interruptions. It's also very difficult for Marincess to break established board. This is due to the archetype lacking removals.

Monsters Do Nothing

As mentioned earlier, Marincess has a very resourceful one-card combo. It's great that they can pump out a Marbled Rock easily. 

Unfortunately, the Extra Deck monsters in this archetype don't really do anything. This results in them clogging up Extra Deck space. Blue Slug is there for the one-card combo. Coral is great, but it's also just there for the combo. What can Marbled Rock do? Protect your monsters from destruction and recover a Marincess card? Wonder Heart is too battle-orientated and relies heavily on the Field Spell. Sea Angel exists only to fetch Marincess Battle Ocean. Marincess Great Bubble Reef's effect is slow and the ATK-gaining effect is barely usable. Crystal Heart is just sacrificial fodder.

This is also the same for the non-Extra Deck monsters. Sea Horse, Blue Tang, Pascalus and Mandarin exist for the link combo. Compared this to Salamangreat monsters, and you'll notice how bare Marincess monsters are. For example, let's look at Salamangreat Foxy from the Salamangreat archetype. It has an effect like Blue Tang. However, it can also Special Summon itself and destroy a Trap/Spell on the field.

The monsters that DO do something do not accomplish enough. Crown Tail is bad. Her level makes it worse. Marincess Sea Star is useless considering Battle Ocean exists. Basilalima needs to be in the grave to do anything.

Too Many Directions

Marincess is plagued with bad and inconsistent support. They suffer from what I like to call "pack curse." This is where Konami made the pack's supports to work with each other rather than with the archetype.

The first wave introduces the importance of graveyard recovery. All the support in this pack is designed to be recovered back from the Graveyard. This pack also illustrates that Marincess was going to be an archetype that excels in hand traps.

The second wave abandoned the hand trap aspect and turned them into a semi-stall/aggro deck. All the support in this pack completely ignores the previous gameplay. Marincess Sea Angel doesn't even search Traps. Wonder Heart doesn't do anything with the Graveyard or traps. 

The third support wave completely ignores all previous support as well. Great Bubble Reef's ATK gaining effect is random considering we have Battle Ocean. Her effect of Special Summoning banished monsters is nice. This is until you realise that you barely banish your Marincess monsters. Basilalima only protects monsters from destruction. We have cards like Battle Ocean, Marbled Rock and Wonder Heart already. What Basilalima should have done is protect all Marincess Cards (e.g. the field spell). Its trap searching works in conjunction with past support, but then it brings up another problem.

Bad Support

Marincess have many supports that do not help the archetype at all. Crown Tail and Sea Star are notorious for being useless in the archetype. Why did Konami think we need cards for an archetype that can build a giant beatstick that also prevents damages? In addition to that, they also have weak traps. Their only good trap card is Marincess Wave, but it's practically unsearchable. Basilalima searches for Marincess Wave, but it forces the players to play the other traps. Marincess Sea Angel really should have been a trap searcher.

Easily Removed

Bad support doesn't mean the death of the archetype. I mean Marincess can make a terrifying high attack Tower. However, the problem is that the opponent can destroy the board quite easily by getting rid of the Field Spell. This isn't usually a problem, except when Knightmare Pheonix is a thing.

The Deck is also extremely susceptible to Kaiju monsters. This is because Marincess usually ends their turn with one monster. The Deck loses automatically to Mekk-Knight Crusadia Avramax.

The Hate

Quite a lot of hate surrounds the Marincess archetype from players, anime fans and old-school players alike.

The first hate is from the TCG fanbase. This is due to Marincess's high rarity in the TCG set. The TCG players are annoyed that the archetype doesn't do enough to justify high rarity and cost in the TCG set. With how the archetype turned out, several fans were annoyed that they have spent a lot of money on such a low turn out.

The second hate is from the Trickstar's fanbase for ending supports for theTrickstar. Many fans were annoyed that Marincess took the spot of the main heroine's deck. Trickstar were more competitively viable with a unique playstyle. Quite a few fans were upset that Konami replaced them with an inferior link climbing deck.

The third hate stems from old school players who hate anything passes the DM era.

Conclusion

So do Marincess deserve to be called "Water Salamangreat?" No, not at all. They are not even close to Salamangreat's level of competitiveness. Unfortunately, the archetype is one of those decks that do one thing right, but so many other things wrong. In saying that, they have a working engine and the archetype that is very resourceful. They have the potential to be competitive. They need a trap searcher, stronger link monsters and a better lineup of traps. Seeing how Vrains is officially over, we probably won't see anymore support for Marincess. There is a chance that we'll get legacy supports for Marincess, but they will have to compete with Trickstar.