Frieza is the new black

If the title isn't any indication, this is all about everyone's "favorite" villian that can talk for 25 episodes in the last 5 minutes of a planet's destruction.. Frieza!

It wasn't until recently I was trying to come up with a new "out of the box" deck that I stumbled across him. He is just amazing for at least my playstyle.

Powers of Frieza

Level -1 Whenever you stop an attack, gain an anger
Level -2 Power: Discard a card from your hand to perform the last attack against you this combat, it gets an additional +2 power stages of damage
Level -3 Your attacks deal +3 stages of damage and you can use your level 1 power
Level -4 Power: Destroy the top 4 cards of your opponents life deck, search your life deck for a frieza named card and put it into your hand, you can also use your level 2 power.

Umm... YES PLEASE! 

Now, why is frieza so good? well, his level 1 and 3 are designed to help him get to his level 2 and level 4 personalities fast. his level 2 is amazing. The wording on the card means you perform the last attack, secondary effects and ALL because you are basically copying the last attack.. So, if you are playing against say, orange ginyu and they throw a staredown just to do damage.. ditch a card in your hand and banish their guldo or burter.. Playing against red or saiyan and they just did one of their multi hit attacks? copy it and do it again later.. least til it's ruled other wise.

What's even better is that you don't even have to let the attack go through. you can block it and still perform it on your next turn by ditching a dead card in your hand.

Named cards of Frieza

His physical attack has an added benefit when being ditched. It's normally a physical that does AT stages, but when ditched from your hand it raises or lowers a players anger. So, ditch it to do frieza's level 2 power and gain an anger in addition to all the effects on the card that was just played (because you are performing the last attack after all) Win win

The money card tho.. is SUPERNOVA!!!!! (yes, with added exclamation points). It's an energy attack that costs 3 stages to perform, but it's damage is 5 life cards + X where X is equal to  3 times the number of frieza named cards in your discard pile. remember all those captive strikes you discarded to do his level 2, or those early supernovas that are sitting in your discard pile?add em all up and do a big supernova for half their life deck. Base damage on the last supernova comes to 20 life cards of damage in one attack.. and that's not including modifiers from mastery, drills, etc. That;s a huge chunk of damage.

Styles of Frieza

There are really only 3 styles of frieza that I would consider workable. Red, Black, Orange.
Frieza blue is a trap. Sure, you can get off level 1 easy but you'll be hard pressed to get past level 2..

Red seems to be the popular choice as a lot of the red blocks gain you anger so getting to level 2 and level 4 will be a snap. It's also more physical with multi attacks that raise your anger on each bounce and help you hit the MPPV condition really fast.

Orange is the middle ground, and a personal favorite of mine. it's drills ramp up the damage to make that supernova do even more damage when you blast them to the dome with it. it also has on table blocks and the style itself is very defensive, a counter and blast type move.

Black.. the Ideal, in my opinion, choice for Frieza. There's just so much manipulation inside of black and a ton of the cards in black do bonus stuff when you discard them..Also, Cards like Black searching technique, and black scout maneuver, can really mess your opponent up.. Playing against namekian? take out all his hybrid defenses and energy blocks with two cards, then counter with your big super nova.. you can also get even more copy cating thanks to Black reflection. That good card they used that banished? use it and gain all the benefits of the card. Black also has a ton of anger generation in it so you can get up to level 4 very fast and just mill your opponent to the brink of destruction.

So, there you have it. A brief overview of Frieza.
I plan to have a few decks pop up over the next couple of days once I start to work out the kinks like ratio of damage to energy, why this card over that, etc.

All is not created equal.

This one is going to be a little different from my usual blogs that discuss decks or strategy. This is going to be basically my opinion on the current state of the game, and how to fix it.

After some massive play testing today, I've noticed a major flaw in at least 2 of the masteries for the DBZ CCG as well as some other things.

First up, Orange and the orange mastery. There are two flaws in this mastery. The first flaw is in the play style itself. It's very non combat oriented and when you get stuck without blocks or with low energy you're kinda SOL. The non combat oriented revolved around your drills, that can easily be banished, removed, or just plain discarded. It also limits you to one of three personalities to even get off the ground, Krillin, Goku, or Frieza.

The second flaw in orange, is how to get the drills back and in play. Built into the mastery it says that at the end of combat where you performed critical damage, you can put a drill from your discard pile back into play.. It doesn't say from your banished pile, just discard. getting a critical damage effect in combat is very hard in orange without the drills, especially through damage prevention, yet banishing a drill is easy as all styles have access to easy banishes.

Fixes for orange could be easy. Just add to the end either Banish or discard for a drill when you get a critical damage effect. This way you have drill protection without having to rely on your main personality.

The Second mastery with a huge flaw is red. Red was the ultimate anger generation back in the score-z era. Now, it's very bipolar.you have attacks that raise anger, attacks that if you lower your anger it does something, attacks that only raise your anger on a hit.. it's like, decide what the hell you're suppose to be, an anger deck, or a deck that keeps you at a certain stage with just enough to outlast all the blocks. In its bi polar state it also tends to stall out and have no real consistency, even when you are doing your "go big or go home" style of attacks. It's very easy for your opponent to throw a wrench into your plans. stop one of the instances of the multi attack blocks or lower your anger and boom, combo broken.

Fixes for red would be cards that grant critical damage effects to let you use the effect even if the card is stopped.  It would make red shoulder grab a much needed card, and would give red the consistency it needs to maintain it's anger.

Now, onto the masteries that SHOULD be nerfed.

There's really only one in this category.. I'm looking at you namekian.

First off, this mastery is really broken beyond believe and I am surprised that it got past play testing in this current format. Do not tell me that oh it's easy to beat because it's not. First off, interactions between the mastery and the deck need fixed. A dragon ball should only make you discard the top card of your deck if it is played on their side, not through placed, or anything else that just makes dragon balls magically appear like a leprechaun to a rainbow.

Second, You should not be able to gain multiple anger through single card usages. It's regeneration anger effect should only be usable once per turn. Reason I say this, 99% of the cards in namekian rejuvenate. I know that none of of the cards in namekian say raise your anger X and that regeneration is their form of anger, but it's a little out of control. Oh look, I touch my deck because I didn't do anything, I gain an anger. I'll just sit here, block, and do nothing and get to level 4 because I rejuvenated or shuffled in a card that gained me 2 anger and then another anger. Oh yah, you can't banish any of my cards because I have them all in my deck, oh did I mention I stacked it with all these blocks that rejuvenate themselves over and over again..

If they don't limit it, they really should have said you can't win by MPPV like the saiyan mastery, or have some of the blocks banish after use because it's really unfair to see Hybrid defense 8 times in a game vs every other decks limited blocks.

This has been a brief rant about the state of balance on a few of the masteries. I should have some more decks playtested with dbzfanatics in the near future and some reviews, tips and strategies.

Orange Trunks, No not the swimming kind.

I'm going to start what I like to call Deck Theory that WORKS. This is going to be combinations in dbz that may not be considered Top Tier A class decks that surprisingly work in theory and in practice if played right.

This topic, as if the card up top is any indication of a spoiler, is about Trunks and combining him with ORANGE!

I know, I know, some people will call me crazy and say, oh if you play orange do it with Ginyu or Goku as they are designed for it, but actually trunks works out very well..

First, the Deck

Main Personality:
Trunks, Energy Charged
Trunks, Inquisitive
Trunks, Resolved
Trunks, Young Super Saiyan

Mastery:
1 x Orange Adaptive Mastery

Dragon Balls:
1 x Namek Dragon Ball 1
1 x Namek Dragon Ball 2
1 x Namek Dragon Ball 5
1 x Namek Dragon Ball 6

 Drills:
1 x Orange Aura Drill
1 x Orange Burning Aura Drill
1 x Orange Devouring Drill
1 x Orange Empowered Drill
1 x Orange Energy Dan Drill
1 x Orange Energy Phasing Drill
1 x Orange Focusing Drill
1 x Orange Guardian Drill
1 x Orange Hiding Drill
1 x Orange Steady Drill
1 x Quickness Drill

Setups:
1 x Orange Celebration
 2 x Orange Escape

Events:
3 x Orange Destruction
2 x Orange Excavation
3 x Confrontation
1 x Time Is A Warrior's Tool

Physical Combats:
1 x Orange Cover Up
3 x Orange Overhead Smash
2 x Orange Refocus
1 x Orange Uppercut
2 x Orange Quick Dodge
3 x Trunk's Sword Slash

Energy Combats:
2 x Orange Energy Catch
2 x Orange Energy Evasion
3 x Orange Offensive Strike
3 x Orange Power Point
3 x Orange Precise Shot
3 x Orange Stare Down
3 x Overpowering Attack

Allies:
1 x Bulma, Genius
1 x Yamcha, Action Ready


Why Trunks.

Since the re-release I've always been drawn back to my favorite character in all of Z. His ability is one of if not the best power in the game. Stage 1 you look at the top 4 cards of your life deck and put them back in any order at the start of combat and banish the top card in your opponents discard pile.
Stage 2, you can do that to Either deck, AND you pick the card to banish.
Stage 3, you look at the top 6 cards and put them back in any order, then draw a card (effectively giving you a 4 card draw)
Stage 4, look at the top 6 of EITHER deck and place them back in any order.

Why do I think this is the best power in the game?
You will never have a bad hand when your opponent enters combat, and on stage 2 and 4 you can almost guarantee your opponent will draw crap, or at the very least know what your opponent has in his hand.

How it plays

It plays well very Defensively, that is, don't attack every turn unless you can almost guarantee massive damage or that most of your cards will go through. 

It goes through the typical progression of orange. put all your drills in play, protect them Orange Focusing Drill (cards that banish or destroy your drills can only hit that drill), get them back when they are discarded thanks to the mastery or one of the other cards. Orange Precise shot can get that key card in the discard to banish later,

Key "Tech"
The stand outs are of course Trunk's Physical attack aka the Sword Slash. What it does is in addition to it being a physical attack, with trunk's already high stages can be a big damage boost. It lets you banish 6 cards from the discard pile, and on a hit it makes your next Styled energy attack a success. Timed with the right energy attack could be devastating for your opponent. Orange Power Point can get that drill that you need as well.

Bulma is also tech. Once you have that key card in your opponent's discard pile, Throw bulma out there to take it so it can't be played. Namekian Hybrid defense got you down? Put it on bulma. Blue cards that are annoying? Bulma says NO!  Sure she can be discarded, but that's what overpowering attack is for. Bring her back out, and put a different card on her.

Yamcha. He is under utilized for how awesome he is. On a hit he can shuffle an ally, drill or setup into it's owners deck from play. With orange you're going to be spending stages to do energy attacks so you can get down there. with Confrontation and knowing what your opponent is going to draw, you can plan around getting down to those ally using stages and then using him to shuffle that unkillable thing.

Orange Destruction. Take a huge chunk of unstoppable (minus an Ultra rare) damage to the face. With the full force of the drills in play you can have at most a 12 card discard, Averages out to 6-7 damage per card use without all the drills. Sure, you can't use a critical damage effect, but it can easily mill your opponents deck down.

Orange Excavation is excellent for getting back your drills into your deck. It also allows you to draw the bottom card of your discard pile in combat.

Questions:

1) Why so little physical combat cards to take advantage of Trunk's high power levels and stages?
A) Because when it all comes down to it, Orange is energy and drills. Take out the stop energy attacks and you can win the battle.

2)How does it respond to a Saiyan beatdown deck?
A) It has the key physical stops, ability to get to it when needed, AND has the ability to end combat at a whim thanks to orange escape and the massive number of drills

3) Why No Ultra rares?
A) It's in my opinion that ultra rares, barring the Villain one, are not staples in any deck. Sure an energy sphere can be useful for taking out an event, but Really, you'd save it for Confrontation/Stare down (which accomplishes the goal of the card to discard a card from their hand) and if you have 3 of them in a deck, that's 3 less cards that could be useful as attacks or other things that could improve on deck consistency. The Villain one that discards double the damage of what you just took from an attack is nice, but that's a one out of 60 card chance that you'll get to use it, and if your opponent is playing black, they can choose to use it thanks to one of their energy cards.

4) Is confrontation really needed for this deck with the ability to control your opponents combat hand on levels 2 and 4?
A) It's not needed, but It's very nice. You have to get to level 2 first, and you will never know what's really in an opponents hand. They're also cards that "Fetch" other cards in the game as well. The look on your opponents face after he fetches that card that might turn it around for him only to be discarded is priceless. Do I recommend opening with it? No, Wait a bit behind your blocks and drills and then destroy his hand.

5) Is this a "Top Teir" deck?
A) It needs more playtesting but it's on the verge of being one. In initial testing I forgot a few things like the mastery, order of drills, what the drills do, etc. but the potential is there. Recursion was amazing and using things like confrontation 4 times in a game thanks to said recursion helped out a lot. A lot of the deck will work better over the course of more games, but I think this might be one of the decks that can finally claim the top spot over Namekian Picc's and Blue Ginyu.