WATER
1First Penguin
Archetype:
Penguin
ATK:
100
DEF:
100
View:
1496
If you control no face-up monsters, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). If Summoned this way, treat this card as a Tuner. You can discard 1 card, then reveal 1 WATER Synchro Monster in your Extra Deck; add 1 WATER monster from your Deck to your hand with the same Type but 1 Level lower than the revealed monster, then you can change this card to face-down Defense Position, also you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except WATER monsters. You can only use this effect of "First Penguin" once per turn.
First Penguin — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 60 ± 8 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 57 · Deck: 61 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Searcher/Tutor · Secondary: Starter
Why it scores here
First Penguin is a Level 1 WATER hand-summon that turns a dead hand card into a WATER monster from the Deck with one level less than a WATER Synchro in the Extra Deck, and it can become a Tuner for that Synchro. Its value comes from reliable access and a cheap, card-neutral search, not from its 100 ATK or 100 DEF. It scores modestly because the hand summon needs an empty field, its search is card-neutral rather than advantage, and it brings no opponent interaction.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 72 | Hand-summon needs no face-up monsters, but 400 of 400 sampled decks run it at an average of 2.73 copies and it is live in opening hands (observed, deck data). |
| Combo & Conversion | 55 | Its Tuner status and WATER monster search can enable a WATER Synchro, but no combo boards were recorded, so the conversion is text-only inference (inferred). |
| Resource Economy | 50 | Discarding one card to add one from the Deck is card-neutral overall, a conversion of a dead card rather than a true advantage gain (verified, from card text). |
| Effect & Interaction | 5 | No effect targets or negates the opponent; the face-down DEF change is positional only (verified, from card text). |
| Material Utility | 40 | A Level 1 WATER body that is a Tuner only while the effect applies, so it loses that role if negated (inferred, from text). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 30 | The hand summon is limited to an empty field, and a single negate removes both the Tuner status and the search (inferred, from text). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 80 | Generic 3-copy staple across 48 distinct archetypes with no garnet or lock cost (observed, deck data). |
Calculation
Weight profile: 0.7 Searcher + 0.3 Starter. Intrinsic ≈ 57, Deck ≈ 61, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: none. Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Live in opening hands and present in every sampled deck, so access is reliable
- Cheap, generic Level 1 body across 48 archetypes with no deckbuilding cost
- Converts a dead hand card into a WATER monster search and a Tuner
Weaknesses
- Hand summon requires an empty field
- Search is card-neutral, not card advantage
- No effect against the opponent
- Tuner status and search are lost to a single negate
Counters / choke points
- Negation or hand-trap interaction during the summon or search
- Opponent monsters on the field, which block the hand summon
Best use
Opening-hand Tuner and WATER monster searcher. Decks: Penguin, Atlantean, Mermail, Ice Barrier, Icejade. Suggested copies: 3.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Hand summon only with no face-up monsters you control; Discard 1 to add a WATER monster of the same Type one Level lower than a revealed WATER Synchro; Once per turn; Extra Deck Special Summons blocked except WATER for the rest of the turn
- Observed: Present in 400 of 400 sampled decks, average 2.73 copies; Usage statistics show 50% to 100% inclusion across 14 archetype-gameplay pairs
- Inferred: Card-neutral search converts a dead hand card into a live WATER monster; Tuner status enables WATER Synchro plays when summoned this way; Single negate removes both Tuner status and the search
- Data gaps: no combos supplied — combo conversion is text-only inference no guides supplied no banlist token — assumed 3 copies (unlimited)