The weekend saw two more Local Championship events decided, with Jono C. coming out on top on the Gold Coast with Red Garlic, and Blair S. taking out Perth with Blue Protective Ginyu. A tournament report for the Gold Coast is available on our blog here. Jono stuck with Red for his choice of preview while Blair upgraded to Saiyan. These cards definitely fit nicely with a few of the Vengeance MPs revealed thus far.

Red Android Palm Blast is bound to make some players who are keen to explore Android 13 a little bit more excited. Firstly, being a card with “Android” in the title, it fits nicely with some of his MP powers. On level 1, it will feed your anger to press for higher levels at a faster rate. On level 2, this card could be rejuvenated from the banished zone. And then finally, with his level 4, hopefully these powers and cards have maxed out your damage buff to help press home your advantage in the final stretch.

The card also has a great effect when combined with the Red Enraged Mastery, if it gets destroyed from your deck. Note that it is only destroyed and not discarded so the effect would only trigger off effects that say destroy. Generating a critical damage effect will help you generate more anger and potentially slow down your opponent. However, the Red Enraged Mastery may not obtain the full benefit of the card.

The attack itself isn’t going to push out damage for you, but when you team it with the Red Ruthless Mastery, you could combo out some nice attacks. With the damage being minimal, it’s likely that you will get close to full value for the hit effect. So that ineffective card in your hand, could turn into the best attack out of the top 3 cards of your life deck.

All in all, a nice solid card to add to potential Red Android decks.

Saiyan Terrifying Strike is going to strike some fear into opponents who were thinking they may be able to mitigate some of the damage Broly promises to mete out by gaining stages back with effects.

This card is a pure damage machine. If your opponent has tried to play around your damage output, the attack becomes unstoppable. And given the attack is AT +4 stages – the damage you can dispense will have significance.

With both masteries, you can also net yourself an anger gain of 2 from the attack hitting, so it could help you press for higher levels on those great Saiyan MPs.

There’s no tricks to this card, just straight out terrifying damage.

The last two Local Championships are due to play out this weekend, with Ballarat on Saturday (pre-register now) and Newcastle on Sunday (pre-register now). We have two more Orange style cards from Vengeance to preview this week as well as an exciting update on the Regionals scheduled for this Australian Organised Play season.

To stay up to date with the latest TAK Games Vengeance reveals and organised play news, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @TAKGames_au.

Game on!

– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent) and Kyp (@JustKyp).

After putting together a nice win in the first TAK Games Local Championship for 2016 in Launceston, Grant D. put forward his request to see a Red styled card previewed next.

Vengeance keeps pushing forward with some great card effects, and today’s preview is no different. Red Integration continues adding to Red style’s ability to tutor drills, and it can help in multiple ways.

The strongest synergy this card will have is with the Ruthless Mastery. While being a setup, it does still provide fodder for the mastery effect with a cool effect to go with it. With being revealed from hand, mostly through the mastery effect, it allows you to bring out a styled drill from the discard. So if your game plan has been to jump levels, or if you lost that all important Red Forward Stance Drill or Red Despair Drill you have a way to get it back while cycling the Red Integration back into your deck for use later.

The Power on the card has a bit more scope to the drill tutor. It allows you to pick out a drill of your choice from the life deck or discard, which could be especially helpful for those potential Red Sword decks getting access to Aggressive Sword Drill.

A small bonus of endurance rounds out the card to make it something that could fit nicely in a drill based Ruthless deck. Maybe Trunks with his new level? Maybe Ruthless Android 20 gets a leg up?

Looking to play in serious organised play before Vengeance hits? Check out our Local Championships circuit, where you could win a great travel stipend to help you on your way to Nationals and beyond. Our tournament winners of this weekend’s Local Championship events will help select our next Vengeance previews!

To stay up to date with the latest TAK Games Vengeance reveals and analysis, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @TAKGames_au.

Game on!

– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent) and Kyp (@JustKyp).

Our Dragon Ball Z TCG Perfection previews continue with an appropriately themed red style card in honour of Valentine’s Day. Make sure you keep up to date with all the reveals on other fan sites, including our friends at Next Level Z, Dragon Ball Z TCG Wiki, Retro DBZ, DBZ Top Tier, Fanatics Gaming Network and more.

Trent takes a look at Red Sword Stab:

The promise of a new deck archetype awaits with the launch of Perfection – Sword decks. The introduction of Aggressive Sword Drill places emphasis on styled and freestyle cards needing Sword in their title.

Red Sword Stab, when examined alone, looks underwhelming. It only raises your anger 1 as an immediate effect. The damage, while decent, doesn’t match up to the potential of a successful Red Shattering Leap. But when you combine it in a deck that takes advantage of the new sword mechanic, it can be a great tool.

If you can keep these in your deck to search out with Aggressive Sword Drill when required, Red Sword Stab can give you access to some decent damage to supplement the other attacks in your hand. With the Red Ruthless Mastery and getting Red Sword Stab in hand for a +1 card advantage, you could really push for some big damage in a single combat.

The endurance on the card also assists to provide some mitigation against critical damage into the deck. Overall, Red Sword Stab should see play in Red Sword decks as potentially a 2-of inclusion to help supplement damage.

To stay up to date with the latest TAK Games Perfection reveals and analysis, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @TAKGames_au.

Game on!

– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent) and Kyp (@JustKyp).

The excitement for the next Dragon Ball Z TCG expansion Perfection is building rapidly with the reveal of Master Roshi with some nice callbacks to the original Score game on display. Make sure you keep up to date with all the reveals on other fan sites, including our friends at Next Level Z, Dragon Ball Z TCG Wiki, Retro DBZ, DBZ Top Tier, Fanatics Gaming Network and more.

Trent‘s analysis follows:

The Red Ruthless Mastery has given a new lease on life to Red style decks after the release of Evolution, with Red Ruthless Turles and Ginyu impacting on the environment. Red Chest Pierce, with its banish after use requirement, offers these players a way to help manipulate their discard pile to set up for the use of the Red Ruthless Mastery within combat. Its big bonus, however, lies with its hit effect.

Red Chest Pierce’s secondary effect allows you to look at your discard pile and strategically choose to remove those cards at the top preventing you from achieving maximum potential damage in your next action. While the damage this attack generates is unlikely to bother your opponent, even if modified by Red Ruthless Mastery, the hit effect means it becomes a must block for nearly every other deck in the current environment.

The ability to get rid of threats in your opponent’s discard pile helps to limit your opponent’s options when using cards like Visiting the Past. It can also help against pesky named cards (bye, bye, Krillin’s Destructo Disk) and allies waiting to be brought back into the game. It also assists in managing your own discard pile – with only styled cards to call on, you don’t need to delay entering combat to help take advantage of Red Ruthless Mastery‘s When entering… effect.

For our second reveal, we’ve asked Harry, a Victorian player from Team Power Up Gaming to help weigh in with a second perspective. His analysis of Red Chest Pierce follows:

Red Chest Pierce is an interesting toolbox card for Red Ruthless Mastery decks. With the ability to banish unwanted cards in your discard pile, coupled with the fact that it is banished after use, it is ideal for setting up the next attack you wish to reuse.

Furthermore, the hit effect is great not only for removing all the non-styled cards that would affect the when entering effect of RRed Ruthless Mastery, but can get rid of those annoying Piccolo’s Weighted Clothings, free style drills and other named cards in the opponent’s discard pile The downside is the same for you, so this card should be used sparingly in ruthless Krillin or Piccolo. Finally, the damage may only be four stages, but coupled with the mastery, it increases to a straight six. Playing Turles – Shadowy bumps this to eight. Ultimately, Red Chest Pierce is a handy tech card for setting up the right attacks at the right time, while providing discard advantage. Though not a staple, running one or two could mean the difference between winning and losing a game.

To stay up to date with the latest TAK Games Perfection reveals and analysis, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @TAKGames_au.

Game on!

– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent) and Kyp (@JustKyp).

Before taking a look at the remaining regional winner decks (Nathan W.’s Orange Krillin and Carl’s Namekian Piccolo), we wanted to highlight a regional finalist’s deck showcasing some of the versatility in deck choices available in the meta environment.

Nathan Ash – Red Piccolo

Nash piloted Red Piccolo all the way to a Top 4 showdown and proved Piccolo isn’t just a one trick pony with a Namekian deck. It is true, however, that some of the synergy between Piccolo’s personality powers and an MPPV victory remains just as valid in Red style as it does in Namekian. But the Red varient utilises some burst anger that only Tenshinhan can reliably match.

Piccolo does some great work from level 2 to 4, and uses those powers to his advantage to max out his anger either by directly using a critical damage effect or giving Piccolo the tools to generate one through damage. His only drawback in Red is his Level 1. With no anger gain other than cards drawn, this can sometimes leave Red Piccolo vulnerable early game. By maxing out on Red’s cards that gain 2 anger with secondary or hit effects, this helps to mitigate some of those problems.

I’m particularly impressed by the use of the sole Red Tactical Drill in the deck. On face value this might seem like wasted space, but when you team it with Red Stop which can grab the drill back to potentially help conserve anger it can put in some great work. This also adds to the flexibility of the defensive package in the deck. A vulnerability present is the reduced amount of pure energy blocks in the deck, which leaves you open to having your anger reduced via critical damage effects generated by your opponent’s energy attacks. Red Energy Defensive Stance is the favoured second energy block I see in most Red decks to help with anger.

Having the Dragon Balls in deck as well to give a back up win condition is a great part of this deck. By making your opponent choose between you keeping your anger, or keeping your Dragon Balls, you keep some of the power on your side of the table.

The attacks used in the deck are all very solid. By focusing on using a majority of physical attacks to gain anger, you leave your opponent unable to stage lock you into not being able to play your attacks. When teamed with physical blocks being slightly less prevalent in the environment, it gives the deck some great tools to press on with a Survival Victory if it catches someone unprepared to halt the chain of attacks Red has the potential of bringing to the table.

With only 14 cards in the deck that can’t be used during the defender phase, it represents a good balance to help ensure you can pin your ears back and go for your wins either as the attacker or defender in most draw phases. And with multiple ways to help cycle cards in and out of your hand, the deck shouldn’t be as susceptible to bricked hands like some other Red decks can be.

If I was looking at this deck for ways to improve it, I would like to see cards like Red Left Bolt or Red Heel Kick added into the mix to help keep combats going. The longer you keep your opponent in combat, and generating anger through critical damage effects or pure secondary effects the better. Both these cards offer you ways to keep setting up your combats. Red Left Bolt isn’t going to get you the same value in Piccolo as it would in a Tenshinhan build, but you can always make sure that the card on the bottom of your deck is going to keep the anger train rolling.

These types of decks add some great variety to the meta, keeping everyone honest in their own deck building to be mindful of a burst anger deck that they might not see coming. As Nash showed, you can get some good success with Red in a meta that might be expecting more of the usual players in Ginyu, Krillin and Namekian Piccolo.

Good luck and game on!

– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent) and Kyp (@justkyp).