Tech It Out

Deck Tech

One of the hardest things players have trouble with is learning how to tech out their decks. For those unfamiliar with the term, it just means choosing which cards to put in your deck to handle specific cards or match-ups.

I played a few more games last night with my Black Nail deck- something I haven’t done in a while. In amongst the fun of card rulings, chatting about the movie-based set, and confirming that the DFW area would, in fact, be getting a regional, I played a few games with the guys.

I had already slipped in a few Wall Breakers and Black Defensive Bursts just to cover some issues I had against anger and physical beatdown decks. Why? Because I play a more offensive Black deck, even if it plays up the mill angle fairly heavily. Naturally, I didn’t face either. I did, however, play against all of the big three. Why does this matter? Because it shows the process.

First, pay attention in your games. Take not when something gives you trouble, and why. If it’s something that you’re continually having problems with or expect to play somewhat regularly, it won’t hurt to put something in. For example, I did well against Black Krillin and Ginyu, though I did notice I had trouble getting rid of allies through crit effects, relying more on banishing from the deck. The same issue came up against Namekian Piccolo- I had a lot of difficulty capturing Dragon Balls from him (I don’t think I got one once from a crit). Clearly, that’s a flaw in my deck that I’ll need to address at some point.

Second, try to find cards that can help you in multiple matchups. Often, cards will have multiple effects that allow them to be good against different decks. Devastating Blow, for example, can double as anger control and discard removal. Others are good against a wide variety of decks just based on the effect, like Orange Stare Down and Blue Betrayal. In my examples, something like extra Nail’s Dashing Attack would’ve helped just because of the auto-crit effect, allowing me to discard an ally or capture a Dragon Ball.

Finally, you really want something that not only covers your weaknesses but also furthers the strategy of your deck if possible. Of course, you won’t always have room to put in everything, but it is possible. For example, Black Foreshadowing not only mills my opponent, it also gives me back some much needed stages when playing against physical beatdown decks, and takes care of that annoying damage bonus from the Black Mastery.

Regardless of what you put in or take out, this tweaking is a continual process. The deck du jour will change as the set gets played more and people come up with more interesting combinations. Even if you tweak it to beat them all, people will just show up with decks that aim to beat yours. It’s a delicate balance, and you can’t win them all, but never stop tweaking and don’t give up!

Red Tien MPPV

A player at my locals was looking into playing a Red Tien MPPV deck. While he’s not the type to use someone else’s deck list, he did ask me to make one so he could see how I ran it to get some ideas. It worked quite well, actually, so I thought I’d put it on here. It’s just a basic skeleton, and you’ll want to make changes based on your local Meta.

Originally, I started with cards that could consistently give anger. I know there are some in Red that will give you more, albeit as a “HIT” effect. I avoided those for consistency. I also had some Red City Destructions and a third copy of Red Burning Rage, but I needed to make room for a little more aggression for those annoying Wall Breakers but still be useful when I’m not Walled- hence the Red Left Bolts. You’ll also notice I just have one copy of Draining Blast- it’s just there to get back Tien’s Preparation should something happen to it, to be honest (though it can also grab Time Is A Warrior’s Tool, Devastating Blow, and, thankfully, Focused Assault)

I apologize for the lack of formatting- I copied it over from OCTGN. I’ll go back and clean it up a bit at some point.

3x Tenshinhan’s Preparation
1x Tenshinhan’s Draining Blast
3x Devastating Blow
1x Time Is A Warrior’s Tool
2x Focused Assault
3x Red Blaze
2x Red Burning Rage
3x Red Destiny
3x Red Blazing Aura
3x Red Blocking Hand
3x Red Energy Defensive Stance
2x Red Sacrifice
2x Red Restraint
3x Red Double Strike
3x Red Heel Kick
2x Red Lightning Slash
3x Red Power Rush
3x Red Should Grab
3x Red Knee Lift
3x Red Energy Blast
3x Red Static Shot
3x Red Surrounded Beam
3x Red Left Bolt

DBH is Born!

One of my favorite formats in Magic: The Gathering is EDH/Commander. For those unfamiliar with it, each player has a deck that, aside from basic lands, has only 1 copy of each card in the deck. Each of those cards matches the “color identity” of the Commander (to oversimplify, if there’s a color on the card that’s not on your commander, the card can’t be included in your deck). This “Commander” is a unique, Legendary Creature that you can play at any point in time, as long as you pay the appropriate cost. (Originally, your Commander was one of the Elder Dragons, hence the name “Elder Dragon Highlander” or “EDH.”)

I have thought for a while about how to make something similar in DBZ (I’ve been referring to it as “DBH” or “Dragon Ball Highlander”). Some of it translates over easily enough that you don’t really have to think about it. We don’t really have the same “Color Identity” issues as Magic but we have MP’s and Masteries, which have a similar effect on deckbuilding- what cards you can include in your deck are determined by your MP and Mastery.

While the card pool isn’t very big right now, comparatively, it can support a singleton format, oddly enough. (Trust me, it can- I’ve already made several decks). As more and more sets are released, the decks themselves would become more and more diverse in terms of card choice. While the actual number of cards included in the deck is subject to change- I’m currently doing 75 card main decks- generally, and on the whole, there’s room for customization, at least to some extent, and decks of the same style can still play differently.

The issue becomes in how to translate over the “Commander.” This was actually one of the first things I thought of, and it’s what actually lead to using EDH as the “pattern” for the format.

When we think of specific characters, often times we find ourselves thinking about their signature attack. It’s one of the first things that comes to mind. It’s hard to picture Goku without the Kamehameha coming to mind, and it’s become a popular reference in geek culture. I don’t think I’ve ever played the Story Mode of a DBZ video game that DIDN’T include Piccolo shooting Raditz with his Special Beam Cannon. And anyone who’s played the card game right now expects to see a Destructo Disk or three when you see Krillin across from you.

We then turn to the issue of how to get it into play, as DBZ doesn’t have a mana system. After a little trial and error, I actually wound up using the leveling system from the GT series of the original Score card game, and it worked well- which was removing 10 cards in your discard pile from the game.

Naturally, I tweaked it a bit. You can do that at any time, rather than just when you power up. This makes for a little more flexibility. Want to press the attack now that they don’t have any cards to defend? Add it to your hand and pummel your opponent. Playing Raditz and need a block? And it to your hand and pitch it. Have to discard and you just have that one, key card left? You get the idea.

I don’t have a name for the “zone” like in EDH (the “Command Zone”) so I’ve just been putting it under my mastery. (This works well visually, as one is horizontal and the other vertical, and it doesn’t really take up any more space). As such, I’m just going to use that term for now in the rules.
After you play the card, you would place it under your mastery. Naturally, there are some odd things that could happen if we don’t phrase the rules correctly on this one, but as you’ll see below- and I’ll explain afterwards- it should work just fine.

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DBH RULES:
The normal deckbuilding rules and restrictions apply, with the following exceptions:
1. You may only have 1 copy of each card in your deck
2. Decks must be EXACTLY 75 cards, not counting your Master, MP Levels, or Signature Move
3. Your Signature Move must be a named card that matches your MP, and it must perform an attack*
4. At any point during play, you may add your Signature Move to your hand by banishing 10 cards in your discard pile
5. When your signature move would be discarded, banished, or returned to your deck (be it placed on topped, rejuvenated, shuffled, etc.) it is placed under your Mastery instead

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*Now, Rule 3 may or may not be subject to change later. For now, at least, it seems to work just fine, but for now I’m trying it with just attacks. That said, if it works well, I might be open to expanding it to be any named card, rather than just an attack.

Rule 5 should take into account the weird issues I was talking about. Black Delay can send the attack back to your hand, and that isn’t an issue here. The card just goes back to your hand. If your Signature Move is then discarded for Black Delay, you just place it under your Mastery after discarding, rather than send it to your discard pile. For something like Nail’s Dashing Attack, you place it under your Mastery rather than shuffle it back into your deck.

I was very careful with the wording to avoid any issues with Raditz’z Offensive Guard, which would normally attach to your MP. You’ll note that attaching doesn’t require you to discard, banish, or return the card to your deck, so you can successfully attach it. In addition, Rule 4 doesn’t require you to add it to your hand from your under your Mastery, so you can still add it to your hand while it’s attached. Finally, it is placed under your Mastery when you change levels, or when you’re hit by something like Focused Assault (and if it’s you don’t bounce it to your hand before an attached card is destroyed for Focused Assault, that attack will still do +3 Life Cards if Raditz’s Offensive Guard is destroyed).

Hopefully, that should all be clear under the rules but as they were the problems that could arise if the rules were improperly worded, I thought should address them anyway.

This is intended to be a fairly casual format, so please feel free to give it a try. Even better, give me your thoughts on it when you can. I know I’ve played it a bit and so far, the decks have been pretty evenly matched, the games have been fun, and combat just EXPLODES the last turn or two. Have fun playing!

Johnny, Timmy, and Spike Go Super Saiyan

For those new to the terms, there was a Wizards of the Coast article sometime back that explored the different types of players and gave them names to personify them- Johnny, Timmy, and Spike. (You can find more details at: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b)

To sum up a bit, Timmy wants to win big. I tend to think of very strong, very expensive cards when I think Timmy, but that’s not necessarily required. A Timmy also tends to be motivated by fun, and just wants to enjoy the game. He’s more concerned with HOW he wins than how often.

Johnny is the creative player, who wants to win his own way. Maybe it’s using cards others don’t or finding an interesting combo, but he likes doing something new and different. He enjoys deckbuilding just as much as playing, and enjoys having his deck go off- it doesn’t matter how many times he wins.

Spike is the competitive player. Spike is the play-to-win, competitive type. They want to win and win often. Spike is the type that will study the game, comb through online decklists, play whatever the top deck is, and be decidedly UNhappy when he loses.

A person doesn’t necessarily have to fit in just one or fit exactly. In fact, the article goes on to discuss combinations of the three. More importantly, cards they designed might be liked by more than just one of the profiles they created. This kind of cross appeal between the different player motivations certainly helps keep things fresh.

When thinking about what styles appealed to what kind of gamer, it didn’t take long to realize that each style has something to offer. Each style has a fair amount of potential to be competitive and the balance of power will ebb and flow with each set. This benefits Johnnies too, since that gives them more room to play around with.

Red and Saiyan can both explode and have turns where it does lots of damage. Timmy likes that big damage and Johnny loves setting them up. Spike loves being able to MPPV just to spite Control decks.

Blue and Black have the combat control that Johnny and Spike like to play around with. Blue has some of the best physicals in the game and can play more aggressivley with fewer blocks, whileBlack has the built in damage modifier and some devastating attacks of it’s own- all of which is right up Timmy’s alley.

Orange likewise can play up for late-game control, to the delight of Spikes and Johnnies, or throw out a bunch of pumped up energy attacks for Timmy.

Namekian doesn’t have quite as many big effects as other styles, but it certainly has some for Timmy. In addition, he can still get some enjoyment out of Dragon Balls, which are absolutely crazy in the style. Spike likes having so many win options and some very powerful effects- there’s a reason why they had to nerf the Mastery. Johnny likes all the effect interactions- rejuvenating, raising anger, playing and recovering Dragon Balls, etc. Namekian has a lot to play around with and can make for interesting combos in play.

Panini has done a GREAT job, I think, in making the different styles enjoyable for a wide range of players. Here’s hoping they keep up the good work. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments about what kind of player you are and the style you favor. Extra brownie points if you tell me why!

Black Nail

In trying to find a Personality/Style that went well together, I looked through several. Some were clearly meant to be just for fun, at least at the initial inception. For example, I made a physical beatdown Orange Nappa just because I thought it’d be something a little different. Others were a little more serious as I wanted something competitive.

I realized that Blue Frieza got a big boost with the newest set, and that seemed like something worth exploring. I started out with a deck focusing on the copying mechanic, realized I was leveling fairly quickly, and switched to a Blue Frieza MPPV deck. It was fun, but I felt it wasn’t quite what I wanted.

In my store’s Heroes and Villains release, I actually wound up playing Black Nail (I got Krillin in my Starter Deck and had passed out sets of the new personalities to everyone just to mix things up a bit more from the Set 1 release). I really enjoyed how it played and felt like I could make a fairly effective “mill” deck from it. I decided to give it a try and so far, I’m pretty happy with the results- I’ve only last one game to Black Krillin, and that was because we’d accidentally lost track of a Dragon Ball (my opponent wound up using Dragon Radar to get the last one and win with 4 cards left in his deck).

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I wanted to go more of a deck destruction route with this deck, so the first thing I did was try to find cards that would destroy or banish the top of my opponent’s deck.

Black Chomp was a card that piqued my interest right off the bat. It increases the number of cards destroyed or banished from my opponent’s deck this turn by +1 as a secondary effect. With Nail’s Level 1 power, I knew I’d get some use out of it regardless, though I usually get more bang for my buck than just that. It may not look like a 3-of at first glance but I got such consistent use out of it and it furthered my main strategy, so I kept it at 3.

Black Capture was a card I had overlooked during the first set. With more control and discard options this set, we can hold out a little longer and maybe keep it in play for a turn or two. The stage cost was a bit high but I don’t run very many energy attacks, so I kept it at three as well. So far, I haven’t had much trouble in playing it when it comes up.

Black Corruption was nice and versatile. I could use it as a block, get more anger towards hitting Level 2, and get a little more control over my opponent’s anger, or I could discard it at the end of a turn or for the mastery to banish a few cards. Another 3-of.

Black Command fills a similar role. It’s good for angering up to Level 2 or discarding cards from my opponent’s life deck. Since I wound up including several cards that banish from my opponent’s discard pile, I usually favor the second effect, oddly enough. It came in at 3 as well.

Black Foreshadowing was a godsend for this deck. It’d going to wind up banishing a fair amount of cards regardless (most games usually end with about half my opponent’s deck banished) so I could get a lot out of the effect. Those extra stages don’t exactly hurt against beatdown decks either. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a dead draw early on. I’ve been running just 2 copies for a while now, and am pretty happy with that number.

Black Searching Technique is a straight banish two of your choice, which also lets you see your opponent’s deck. I’m naturally running three of these.

Black Scout Maneuver didn’t find it’s way into the first iteration of this deck. Why? Because I didn’t really know what people in my area had pulled or bought, much less what they would be running. After week or two though, 3 copies found their way in and I was able to use them fairly consistently.

Black Viewing Drill was originally a 3-of in the deck, as I wanted to make sure I got it out into play. Black can make your opponent discard at least 1 card each turn fairly easily, so adding that destroy effect on top of it just seemed like the natural thing to do. The extra copies wound up being dead draws or pitched to the Mastery, so I reduced them to 2 and that’s worked fairly well.

After I had the basic core playtested it a bit to decide which of the more “tech-y” cards I wanted to work in. I found the only decks I really had issues playing against were some of the local physical beatdown decks, particularly the Saiyan ones due to a lack of anger control. Those matches came a little closer than I would’ve liked. I wound up adding in a couple copies of Black Defensive Burst and Wall Breaker and that seemed to have balanced things out a bit.

Some of the cards from the original iteration that got removed were two copies each (again, these were dead draws early on) of Black Hair Trap and Black Counter Ball. While they worked well with the deck in theory, and could do a fair amount of damage on the rare occasions I actually played them, they found themselves pitched for the Mastery or something similar more often than not.

I also reduced the number of Crushing Beams and Nail’s Dashing attack in the deck by one. Both tend to shuffle themselves back in the deck after use, so a full playset wasn’t really necessary. Crushing beam was nice, as it would banish the cards straight out, but I didn’t want too many 3-stage cost cards in the deck. Nail’s Dashing Attack, on the other hand, was more of a tech card, there for the easy crit.

The rest of the cards in the deck have a purpose, if you’re curious about them. More often than not, it’s there for discard or banish- which combo well with some of the cards already mentioned- or in some cases, I needed blocks and preferred the ones with anger just in case hitting Level 2 was an option.

The deck list at the moment is:

Physical Combat Attacks:
3x Black Chomp
3x Enraged Assault
2x Black Defensive Burst
2x Devastating Blow
2x Wall Breaker

Physical Combat Defense:
3x Black Delay
3x Black Knee Catch
2x Black Upward Dodge

Energy Combat Attacks:
3x Black Capture
2x Nail’s Dashing Attack
1x Crushing Beam

Energy Combat Defense:
3x Black Swipe
3x Black Corruption

Events:
3x Black Scout Maneuver
3x Black Command
2x Black Adaptation
2x Black Foreshadowing
3x Confrontation
2x Nail’s Heritage
1x Time Is A Warrior’s Tool

Setups:
3x Black Searching Technique
1x Black Declaration
1x Heroic Plan

Drills:
2x Black Viewing Drill
1x Black Smoothness Drill
1x Black Targeting Drill
1x Black Radiating Drill

Dragon Balls:
Dragon Ball 3
Dragon Ball 5

Feel free to leave comments or ask questions. I’m happy to go over more of it on request.

Blue Trunks

One of the first decks I made in the DBZ game was Black Trunks. I really enjoyed playing his Cell Saga personalities from the original game (lots of energy blocking), especially with the Trunks Saga Mastery (think physical beatdown). Needless to say, it didn’t work out to well. I vowed I would come back to Trunks every now and then and try to find a deck I could make him work in.

Essentially, I started with a personality I wanted to work with. Picking a style was a little harder. I personally feel that Trunks works best- at least with my playstyle- in a more control-oriented deck. He’s got the stages to be a beatstick in physical decks, however. Thankfully, both Blue and Black fit the bill on both counts, so I had options. I wound up playing Blue for most of Set 1 and decided to try him in that. It’s a style I feel I know well, can build well, and am really comfortable playing.

NOTE: After I’ve covered basic card selection in Deck Building, the starting decklist. Look for it in the next week or two.

Weekend Update #4

Retro DBZ has an article up exploring Orange Ginyu in Set 2. There’s really not much change in the deck list compared to Set 1, which seems to be a trend. A lot of the decks I’ve seen have only integrated a few on the new cards into the list, even though they’ve opened up some very interesting new styles of play. I suspect it’ll be a while before we see anything drastically different. It’s definitely worth a read though, and the author walks you through why he chose the new cards he did. You can check it out at :

http://retrodbzccg.com/2015/03/13/captain-ginyu-orange-heroes-and-villains-deck-list/

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Panini’s newest mailbag sets out the rules for altered art cards a bit more clearly. I’m hoping to see more alters now within the community. I’ve seen people make some absolutely amazing looking cards for various games, and I’m hoping it’ll carry over. I am a little bummed that some of the “side characters” as they call them will only appear as allies, mainly because people will have differing opinions on who is a main character and who’s not. Personally, I’m hoping Yamcha and Videl won’t be stuck on the sidelines. Let me know which “side characters” you’d like to see get an MP!

You can read the mailbag in its entirety here: https://paniniamericadbz.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/z-warrior-mailbag-post-launch-edition/

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Dragon Ball Radio has started a series this week where they examine each style post-Heroes and Villains. So far, they’ve got Orange and Saiyan up. I’ve included a link to both below.

Orange: http://www.spreaker.com/user/7803583/orange-juice-in-your-eye

Saiyan: http://www.spreaker.com/user/7803583/im-just-saiyan

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The first DLC for Xenoverse came out this week. I know it has nothing to do with the card game, but I really enjoy the game. The new content takes place in the GT timeline and I know the fandom has mixed feelings about that particular series. The equipment and unlocks are pretty awesome though, and definitely worth grinding for.

More importantly, it’s DBZ hype. Part of the reason the original card game did so well the first time around was because DBZ was still new to America, and many people were watching it for the first time. It became a bit of a fad. It doesn’t really have that going for it at the moment, so there’s not as much to tie in or hype off of. Anything that’s good for DBZ will be good for the card game too.

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The biggest news this week was that DBZ is trying to get its own circuit started. I’ll be honest, I have very mixed feelings about this. I want to be very clear on one thing- the fact that they’re offering to advertise is great. There are a few big names in the community by now, and they’ve been favoring their own stores with advertising. It’s good for them, but bad for other stores or events in the area. Using their influence to spread things around a bit is a wonderful thing, and one they don’t have to do. When the big names advertise something for you, you’re definitely going to get better attendance.

I’m afraid I have to be a little critical of them however. First, it’s not as “community-driven” as I would like. They’ve set out very specific guidelines for how much you can charge, how much you can pay out, and how you can do so in order to get the advertising. I’m really hoping these are just examples and not strict guidelines. Different places will likely do things differently, and the numbers they’ve chosen do seem somewhat odd to me. I assume that doesn’t prevent stores from giving away more money if they get more players than expected or from adding other prizes to the mix. It’s a little unclear as to how much wiggle room you have, outside of the fact that it HAS to be for cash (which is probably an article in and of itself- I don’t know how comfortable I am with cash tournaments particularly at this stage in the game).

I really do feel like this is an attempt to influence “Organized Play” on their part rather than having it be about the community. While they do have both the ability and the right to do so, I really do believe it’d be better if they just supported the community instead. We’ll have to wait and see how this goes before anyone can pass judgment though. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

You can read the full details at: http://dbztoptier.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3404-introducing-the-dbz-top-tier-tournament-circuit

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As for me, tomorrow I’ll be posting an article on various formats that was originally slated to be posted this past Friday. The first article in our deck building series will be up Monday, which will hopefully tie in with an article tentatively planned for next Friday on deck lists.

Nail-ed It!

When I think of Nail in the original card game, it’s always his Level 1 that stands out to me as his “iconic” card. It was fairly simple, but strong (for when it was released). It was an energy attack (which cost 2 stages by default in the old game) that did 5 cards of damage- but your opponent still took 3 if they stopped it.

Nail’s new Level 1 is, in my opinion, faithful to the original, albeit somewhat toned down. The attack itself will do a minimum of 2 life cards of damage if it hits, or one if it misses. It’s not as powerful as the 5/3 split, but it doesn’t have a power stage cost. His power stages aren’t anything major, topping out at 22,000, but that still gives him the potential to do a base damage of 5 life cards (a nice little homage there).

The physical attack is solid, and you can get some use out of it regardless of what color you’re playing. That said, the deck destruction is iconic Black, and the attack would benefit from Black’s +1/+1 on damage. Even better, Black gets a boost to stages of damage, and you want to keep your opponent low to get the most life cards out of the attack.

At level 2, you’re milling your opponent with each attack you stop and, potentially, with your successful attacks. Again, this seems to be a very Black-oriented effect. It’s also in keeping with the auto-/direct damage of his Score Level 1.

Nail takes a slight shift on his level 3. You still get the extra power stages of damage- which means you’re doing +4 with each attack in Black- but the rest is focused on Dragon Balls. Being able to return a Dragon Ball in play to its owner’s hand does have some combo potential in Black, to be sure, but bouncing or playing Dragon Balls screams for Namekian.

Nail’s Level 4 skips a direct boost in damage and just lets you have an extra card during the Discard Step. It also stacks with Black Smoothness Drill, for now, letting you keep 3 cards in hand. In a color that plays up hand advantage, going into combat with 6 cards is nothing to sneeze at. The physical attack is solid as well, especially since Black puts it at 8 power stages- and we don’t have any personalities with more than 10 above 0 yet. It also lets you use the ability of a Dragon Ball in play if it hits, which can make for some major advantage in any deck that runs them (something common in Namekian).

Nail’s Heritage let’s you stop any attack, and you have the option to either shuffle it back into your deck and reuse it, or use it a second time in combat. This makes it a little easier for  Nail to play a bit more aggressively, and gives you some extra flexibility in combat. I expect it will find a slot in just about every Nail decklist, right next to Time is a Warrior’s Tool.

Nail’s Dashing Attack is considered a Styled Card- you’ll be able to get a little extra use out of it in Blue and Black decks when you use the Mastery and search for it in Namekian Decks with Namekian Overtime. When you combine that with the secondary crit effect- which will trigger the Red and Orange Masteries- it’s another solid card in just about every color. The fact that it shuffles back into your deck when it hits really encourages playing it outright.

I feel like Nail will be a very solid personality, especially in Black. He’ll offer another way of playing Namekian as well- with the bouncing balls and ability activation on Levels 3 and 4- which will spice up the style a bit. It’s not as if he’d do poorly in the other colors either. His abilities are solid and most decks would benefit from the extra damage, and his named cards will be good regardless of color. All in all, I’m very happy with how Nail turned out, especially since he didn’t get much love in the Score game. He might last for more than a set this go round, with any luck.

Weekend Update #2

It’s time for another Weekend Update!

I don’t know about you guys, but it’s been a crazy week for me. We got a surprising amount of snow for the state I live in- which means school closings (which actually creates MORE work for me), icy roads, and some technical difficulties. If that wasn’t enough to keep me busy though, one of the highlights of our week would be- and is!

The new Dragon Ball Xenoverse game came out and I gotta tell you- it’s pretty fun. I feel that the combat isn’t quite as in-depth and complicated as some of the older games, but certainly comes close. The story hasn’t deviated TOO much from the show, in terms of the basic plot, though the underlying plot and the introduction of a new character makes for some interesting twists on fights we’ve all done a dozen times before.

The ability to make your own character is probably the biggest draw for me. I’ve always favored RPG’s, personally, so having a level of customization beyond minor tweaks to existing fighters is like a godsend to me. As nice as it would be to have more interaction on the story level, it does just fine for a fighting game. There’s enough of a setup on the story, as well as plenty of repeatable “parallel quests” that it hasn’t gotten stale or boring yet.

There were a few hiccups though. Apparently the servers are a bit overtaxed on the PC version (and to my understanding, this is an issue for consoles as well) but as long as you’re solo’ing it doesn’t really affect things. At most you just have to log back in every now and then. I honestly just unplugged the internet cord on my desktop and voila, no more problems.

It’s definitely worth a play if you haven’t tried it already. You can check out the game on their website at: http://www.dragonballxenoverse.com/en/

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Panini did an official release of the new Nail personality cards this week and I’m fairly happy with how he was handled. Expect an article from me discussing the new cards to go up sometime on Monday 😉 Until then, you can check them out on Panini’s site here: https://paniniamericadbz.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/card-of-the-week-tough-as-nails/

Panini also did another mailbag this week (https://paniniamericadbz.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/z-warrior-mailbag-calm-before-the-storm-2/) and continues to taunt me with the possibility of more Garlic Jr. cards. I’m hoping he’ll get a new MP, but I suspect we won’t know until later this summer if he’s going to make an appearance in Set 3.

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Endurance Test was probably the first DBZ podcast I came across when I was checking out the new game. It’s probably the one I like the best as well- they just don’t update as often as I’d like. They do have a new podcast up, so I’m excited to see if they’ll start putting out more content again. You can check out their podcast here:
https://paniniamericadbz.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/z-warrior-mailbag-calm-before-the-storm-2/

Don’t forget to scroll down- they have a deck that they’ve previously posted and walk you through how they updated it for Heroes and Villains. I definitely encourage newer players to read through it to get an idea of how to update their own decks next week.

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RetroDBZ has two articles this week that I felt were worth mentioning. First, we have another Theory Crafting article from Dustin where he ranks each style in Set 1. I’m a sucker for charts, graphs, and statistics, so I naturally found it quite appealing. (For those that don’t, feel free to skip through those a bit- he summarizes the info after each table). I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but I haven’t sat down and  gone through the whole set myself, so I can’t say he’s wrong either. In any case, I feel that this type of analysis is beneficial to players trying to find the strengths and weaknesses in their decks.

You can read the full article at: http://retrodbzccg.com/2015/02/27/dustins-theory-craftin-set-1-in-brief/

In addition, Joshman has a little something to say about the new attachments. You can read the full discussion at: http://retrodbzccg.com/2015/02/26/getting-attached-good-dbz-mechanics-or-trouble-brewing/

To sum it up, Josh argues that attachments are essentially a way to get around removal, and that the effects of the attachments could have just as easily found themselves on Drills or Allies. As it stands, the only way to remove them, outside of meeting certain conditions on the card, is through the use of a Heroes Only attack, so I’m inclined to agree with him. We’ll have to wait and see how much of an effect they’ll have on the meta, but a lot of people seem to be liking Wall Breaker, so Set 3 may have to sneak something in to counter attachments.

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Finally, I have to give props to Manabeast. One of my issues with people just posting videos of games is that it does little for the newer players. They don’t always recognize the cards or understand what’s going on in-game. You can certainly cater to the more experienced audience, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’d love to see more videos where they actually explain why they’re making each move. Basically, I think they have a lot of untapped potential as a tool for teaching.

Manabeast definitely made a step in what I feel is the right direction by offering commentary on a game. I’m not suggesting he should do that for EVERY video, but I’d love to see more of this from time to time. He’s also widely recognized as a good player, so whether you agree with his comments or not, his opinion is DEFINITELY one worth listening too. You can find the video in question on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzhu1l4TplE

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I hope you guys have a good week! I’m hoping to have a little more time to myself in the near future, so hopefully I can start making my posts a bit more regular, of a higher quality, and most importantly, shorter.

Don’t forget: Heroes and Villains comes out THIS FRIDAY! May sure to pick up some of the new cards when you can 😉 I know my store is going to be doing a release event, as our most of them. I’d love to hear about yours!

Weekend Update #1

Hey guys, it’s time for your weekend update!

First, Panini has given us an update on the Heroes and Villains release. The official release date is March 6th. They’ll be sending out launch kits, similar to those that came with Set 1, to stores that preordered. These kits will consist of the Trunks’ Sword Slash and Stare Down promos, along with a new playmat.

They’ve also clarified what they suggest for sealed play (noting that each store can mix things up however they like in terms of rules and content), which consists of one starter and 3 booster packs from the newest set. The masteries still work as they always have in sealed, but they specifically stated we can ignore alignment and named card restrictions. Matches would follow the “Best of 1” format with a time limit of 40 minutes.

Apparently they’ll also be giving us Orange Truck Lifts to hand out. I’m sure some people at my store will be happy about that. I handed out the foil versions as a prize one night, though I suspect these will all be non-foil versions. One can hope though!

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DragonBallRadio put up another podcast just a few days ago where they discussed the new Tien cards. I think there seems to be a general consensus in the community- myself included- about how he’s going to play and what he’ll be good in. That said, I’m sure someone will find away to surprise us one the set gets going. They were also kind enough to include decklists, which were read in the podcast and then posted on their forums.

You can check out the podcast here: http://www.spreaker.com/user/7803583/spoilergate-gaston-and-tien
And the decks here: http://www.dragonballradio.com/kunena/deck-discussion

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RetroDBZ posted an article called “Dustin[‘]s Theory Crafting.” I fear some people may have skipped over the article due to the misleading title. Dustin is actually discussing the potential formats for DBZ, and is advocating a rotating format similar to Standard in Magic: The Gathering, and he lays out his argument quite well, in my opinion.

He argues that a rotating format would create more diversity in decks, and the decks themselves will change over time. This allows the designers to get more creative, because you don’t have to compete with, or design around, old cards. It also helps prevent power creep (Professor’s note: a problem in some games and was definitely noticeable in the original Score TCG) and “broken games.” You can view the article on the RetroDBZ website for his complete argument.

Honestly, I can’t say I disagree with him, I’m just stuck in the Old-Z mindset of how they do things. In addition, I suspect that we’d wind up getting both a rotating format and an “eternal” format in DBZ, and I worry that the community is currently too small for that kind of split. Hopefully, it’ll grow over the next few sets.

He also addressed draft and sealed formats at the end of his article. He asked how a draft could work, and I feel I should point out that GT managed it just fine, and I’ve applied the GT deck draft rules to Old-Z starter decks just fine. In New-Z, you’d basically just remove the MP, Mastery, and foils for yourself and shuffle the remaining 50 cards. You then divide them into 3 piles (17, 17, and 16) which are essentially your “booster packs.” You then draft those normally. It’s worked out well for my local so far, and people seemed to have fun. GT went so far as to package the deck itself into 3 packs plus the MP- I have to wonder if Panini will try something like that. As it stands, it sounds like they’re leaning towards making one-color starter decks rather than mixed, which would be counter-productive to drafting.

You can read Dustin’s full article here: http://retrodbzccg.com/2015/02/17/dustins-theory-craftin-an-open-letter-to-panini/

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Two of our big-name communities are DBZTopTier and DBZ Fanatics. And of course, whenever two or more geeks get together, there’s going to a little competition. In this case, the inevitable forum grudge match resulted in, you guessed it, a DBZ match between the two. The match consisted of Jarret McBride of DBZTopTier going up against Brian Valdez (a well-known name in the DBZ World) representing DBZ Fanatics.

I won’t spoil who won, but you can check out the recording at the DBZTopTier Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/dbztoptier/

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On what I consider to be a sadder note, most of the new set has been spoiled. Yes, I know this should make me happy, since we were all looking forward to it, so why’s it sad? Well, it wasn’t an official spoil- the set’s been leaked.

Most games, and the people who play them, have a reputation in the community. I’m sure if you stop and think about it, you have a definite image in your mind of the kind of people who play Magic, Yugioh, Vanguard, etc. That image may vary from person to person and place to place, and it’s not always a positive one.

I feel that much of how we view other games comes from how we view their community. If the players are viewed in a negative light, then people will be put off from wanting to join the community or play. I don’t know how other gaming communities view us yet. Honestly, I’m not sure they care or even know we exist. Regardless, we should always be striving to put our best foot forward.

I feel that the leak shows a certain lack of impropriety on the part of the leakers. I have not seen the initial leak and I don’t know who made it, though I’ve heard plenty about it second-hand. It doesn’t matter who did what or where though, it was unprofessional and unethical. It presents the community in a bad light, even though they may have had the best intentions.

It also harms the community. We may not get spoilers in the future because of this, or if we do, they’ll all be done by Panini rather than fansites. It seems that most sites both upped their game AND got increased traffic from previewing cards. As such, it was beneficial to players on both sides of the preview, and got the community to be more active than it has in several months.

I am thankful, however, that most people seem to be avoiding the leaked cards. Or rather, they’re avoiding talking about specific cards in public and not allowing people to post them in groups and forums. Most of the players seem to agree with this policy as well, and are waiting for cards to be officially spoiled before discussing them. I feel this really shows the character of (most of) the community, and they should be proud of themselves.