A “field wipe”, the destruction of everything on the field, is one of the most devastating things that can happen in a Duel. With cards like Black Rose Dragon or Judgment Dragon, many Duelists today have access to a way to instantly clear the entire field. Imagine, if you will, a time there was only one card capable of resetting a field: Final Destiny. Shortly after, there was Huge Revolution. Neither card was exactly easy to play, so Duelists continued to play as many cards as they wished to the field without fear that it could all vanish due to one card. Then, Invasion of Chaos happened.

Invasion of Chaos is famous for a great many things, but there’s one card that stands out. It’s a card legendary for its ease of Summoning, its massive ATK, and its ability to wipe out your opponent’s cards. Yes, we’re talking about Levia-Dragon – Daedalus! (Honorable mention goes to Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End)

Daedalus was just the thing WATER Decks were waiting for: Raw destructive POWER! They’d had a handful of cards to buff their Attribute like A Legendary Ocean, but never anything to really pull it together. Now with Daedalus on their side, they could simply give up Umi or A Legendary Ocean to blow away everything else on the field! Invasion of Chaos not only gave WATER Decks Daedalus, but also cards like Salvage and Amphibious Bugroth MK-3.

Now there was finally a cohesive WATER strategy! By using A Legendary Ocean, WATER Duelists could accomplish either of the following goals:

-First, lock down the field with cards like Gravity Bind and Level Limit – Area B. With A Legendary Ocean reducing your monsters’ Levels, your Level 4 monsters would end up unaffected by your own control cards. You could bypass their monsters with Amphibious Bugroth MK-3, or destroy them every turn with Tribe-Infecting Virus and Sinister Serpent. Since there weren’t Xyz Monsters for every Extra Deck yet, it was a lot tougher to get through Gravity Bind!

-Second, use A Legendary Ocean to play hefty WATER monsters without Tribute Summons. Giga Gagagigo was a true powerhouse with its Level reduced and ATK boosted, and The Legendary Fisherman could only be destroyed by Trap Cards.

Many Decks successfully used one or both strategies, but they all had one thing in common: They loved the fact that Levia-Dragon – Daedalus was only a Level 6 monster while A Legendary Ocean was in play. That meant at almost any time they could perform a Tribute Summon, WATER Duelists could completely blow away the field and still have an ornery 2600 ATK sea monster!

A year after Daedalus’s first showing, Structure Deck: Fury from the Deep leveled him up into the terrifying Ocean Dragon Lord – Neo-Daedalus! You would upgrade to Neo-Daedalus by Tributing the original Daedalus from your side of the field. To make up for that, it would ravage every single card each Duelist had in hand or on the field, except itself! Not even Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End got to stick around after leveling everything in its path, and the damage from Neo-Daedalus’ follow-up attack generally matched or exceeded the effect damage the Envoy would dish.

As time went on, even more useful WATER monsters ike Hydrogeddon and Warrior of Atlantis were released, but WATER Decks mostly stayed off the sonar. It was in Absolute Powerforce that WATER Decks garnered some new attention by revamping some of their classic cards. There was Forgotten Temple of the Deep to act as extra copies of Umi, but even more notable was the newest form of Daedalus itself. This time, it was its baby form, Codarus! Codarus had some awesome advantages over its older self. It didn’t need to be Tribute Summoned, and it also didn’t actually destroy anything – it sent cards to the Graveyard. That was a huge deal, since Stardust Dragon was likely to be seen on the field at any given time.

The Leviathan Rises Again

The times have been kind to Daedalus and his cohorts. Just yesterday, the Realm of the Sea Emperor Structure Deck came out adding a number of new cards that work great in Decks with Daedalus! In particular, Daedalus is fond of Atlantean Dragoons. If you send Atlantean Dragoons to the Graveyard for any WATER monster’s effect, you’ll get any Sea Serpent-type monster (of any Level!) from your Deck to your hand. That gives Daedalus a level of searchability it hasn’t seen since Witch of the Black Forest!

Daedalus is also a huge fan of Call of the Atlanteans, a card that works for him on two levels. First, it’s a quick and easy way to gather Tributes so you can Tribute Summon him if you need to. More importantly, it’s a devastating way to follow up Daedalus’s effect! With a wide open field, Call will let you revive a ton of attackers to finish the Duel!

As one of the first cards capable of unleashing the massive wave of destruction popularly associated with Judgment Dragon, it’s easy to see why Levia-Dragon – Daedalus has had fans for all these years. With some new cards and a little adaptation, Daedalus has shown that some strategies really can stand the test of time!