Ghoti Deck #756589 — Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Deck — Deck Power Evaluation

Final Contextual Deck Power: 60/100 (±8 · Confidence: Low)

• Primary strategy: Combo
• Secondary strategies: Control
• Format: master-duel

Legality

Main 45 / Extra 15 / Side 0 — status: Legal.

Identity & game plan

• Win condition: Synchro and Link boards (Askaan, Ghoti of the Deep Beyond, Swordsoul Chengying, White Aura Whale, Stardust Dragon) built from banish-based Fish plays; Single-copy Super Starslayer TY-PHON Xyz and Accel Synchro Stardust Dragon as conditional backup boards
• Turn 1 (going first): Normal Summon a Fish (Paces, Psiics, Snopios, Beautunaful Princess) to trigger searches and banish-cost specials into a Synchro boss; the guides say this deck needs the first turn and is about one turn slower than other decks
• Turn 2 (going second): Hold Ash Blossom, Ghost Sister and Maxx C for the opponent's starter, then rebuild through Fish banish loops and hand-based Special Summons
• Recovery: Recursion through banished Paces, Shif, Zep and Keaf, plus GY-banish Special Summons and Hop Ear Squadron's opponent's-turn Synchro
• After siding: Not evaluable: the list has 0 Side Deck cards and no post-side data exists

Why it scores here

The deck reliably opens a functional plan: 38 of 45 Main Deck cards are Fish, the archetype core has about a 99% chance of at least one card in a 5-card opening hand (Inferred), and 17 searcher-text cards keep the engine findable. It converts that into Synchro and Link boards through banish-cost specials, with a strong closing tail (Swordsoul Chengying 3000 ATK, Askaan 2700, White Aura Whale 2800 x2). Survival is supported by hand-based specials and recursion (Hop Ear, Ghost Sister, Ash Blossom, Keaf, Paces, Shif), but the going-second hand-trap coverage is only about 53% (Inferred). The score comes from consistency, recursion and closing power on the system, not from Ghoti's popularity, and the individual card scores were not averaged. No recorded boards, combos or tournament results exist, so the combo ceiling and median are text-only inferences and the score's uncertainty is wide.

Dimension scores

How the score was computed

Strategy profile: Combo profile only; Control is recorded as a secondary strategy and not blended into the weights. Structural ≈ 64, Going First ≈ 68, Going Second ≈ 56, Meta = provisional, Tournament Reliability ≈ 58. Modifiers: banlist exposure (-1); engine conflicts (-2). Final formula: 0.80*Structural(63.9) + 0.20*TournamentReliability(58) + ContextModifiers(-3) = 59.7, rounded to 60 (Meta provisional)

Probability & combo summary

• Opening a starter: P(≥1) ≈ 0.99 · key two-card combo ≈ — · full-brick estimate ≈ 0.01 (all Inferred)
• Combo output: best PowerIndex —, median —, board-per-starter —
• Turn order: 0 going-first lines vs 0 going-second lines

Strengths

• High engine accessibility: archetype core and searcher text are both very likely to appear in the opening hand
• Strong recursion and hand-based Special Summons give several restart lines after disruption
• Compact Fish-heavy Main Deck keeps most hands functional
• Strong Synchro closers (Chengying, Askaan, White Aura Whale x2) and a 5-card hand-trap suite

Weaknesses

• No recorded boards, so the combo ceiling and median are unverified
• Going-second hand-trap coverage is only about 53% for the first hand
• No Side Deck, so there is no post-side adaptation
• Low exact-name archetype purity (35%) with a lot of off-archetype tech
• High pilotability cost from timing-dependent Standby Phase banish returns

Critical choke points

• Banish-cost specials need Fish monsters in hand or GY; a hand with only Spells or off-archetype cards stalls
• Standby Phase banish returns (Paces, Shif, Ixeep) delay board development by about one turn
• Going second relies on 5 hand traps being drawn in the first 6 cards

Recommended changes

Evidence & confidence

• Verified: Legal in Master Duel: 45 Main (40-60), 15 Extra (0-15), 0 Side; Three Limited cards (Maxx C, Gold Sarcophagus, Crossout Designator) each run 1 copy, at the legal limit; Composition: 11 Synchro, 3 Link, 1 Xyz; 27 Effect, 13 Tuner, 5 Spell in the Main Deck; Guides: Ghoti is a banish-based deck that needs the first turn and is about one turn slower; Usage statistics: 19 of 25 core archetype cards are present by name when Extra Deck cards are counted
• Observed: Archetype usage statistics available (35 rows), used only for core membership
• Inferred: Opening-hand probabilities from the hypergeometric draw table; Going-first and going-second plans derived from card text; Hand-trap and interaction coverage from text flags; Pilotability and recovery scores from card text and guide descriptions
• Provisional: Meta Power is null: no dated metagame sample; Matchup and format fit (D13) scored neutral at 50 with no tournament data; Post-side dimension (D12) scored low: the deck has no Side Deck
• Data gaps: No parseable combos: combo floor, median and ceiling are text-only inference No tournament link: archetype meta-share and per-pilot match record are absent No win-rate telemetry exists in YGOVN (going-first/second, matchup, brick and starter rates); those signals are Inferred Meta Power is Provisional unless a dated metagame sample is supplied Usage-statistics in this deck flags are false for Extra Deck cards that are in the list (Askaan x2, Ghoti of the Deep Beyond x2, Abyss Keeper, Swordsoul Chengying, S:P Little Knight, Toxic Boxfish, Super Starslayer TY-PHON); the core presence count of 12/25 (48%) therefore understates it, and the recount is 19/25 (76%) by name No Side Deck cards: post-side plan and side adaptability cannot be measured