Heroes and Villains | Analysis by Kenny Phuong Nguyen and Phoenix Lee

Resident Sydney writer Kenny Phuong Nguyen continues with the Heroes and Villains review tonight, choosing four cards from the new reveals today for an in-depth analysis. Phoenix Lee from For the Players also features with another video on Heroes and Villains. Over to Kenny and Phoenix Lee…

Kenny:

Hello again fellow DBZ fans!

Are we all looking forward to Heroes and Villains? I know I certainly am! After the excitement caused by all the sudden spoilers yesterday, you can’t imagine my glee at seeing even more previews hitting today. I’ll be doing an in-depth review of a few of the cards featured in today’s reveals of Heroes and Villains.

*With an anger gain of 2, Red Destiny is worth a look.*

First, let’s look at my favourite card from among the spoiled cards, Red Destiny, posted on Panini’s blog today. Red Destiny is very comparable to Red Blazing Aura from the Core Set, but there are a few key differences.

Red Destiny is a setup, whereas Red Blazing Aura is an event. One issue I have with Red Blazing Aura is that as an event, it likely takes up a slot in your combat hand. If you draw it on your turn, it makes entering combat safer but less explosive. This isn’t really aligned with what Red tends to aim for: super awesome, combo-tastic combats where you chuck a million attacks and use a tonne of critical effects (at least, that’s what I try to do when I play red :D). Red Destiny, in my mind, therefore compares favourably here – drawing it on your turn means that you’re probably passing, but you don’t lose the effect. Instead, you get to save it for a future turn as opposed to just tossing it in the bin, or holding it in the hopes of using it on your opponent’s turn.

Red Destiny grants you less protection from attacks than Red Blazing Aura, however, the amount of attacks where the damage reduction difference will be relevant are few and far between. When playing against black, -2 Stages / -2 Life Cards is enough to prevent all of one of the damage types, meaning that the -3 Stages / -3 Life Cards is a bit of an overkill. I’d rather have more than not enough, but I don’t think Red Destiny is “not enough” in this case.

Red Destiny grants you 2 anger instead of 1. This is incredibly significant, especially if you’re gearing up for a big combat. Any single card that grants you 2 anger automatically warrants some exploration in my opinion, and is part of the reason why Red Double Strike and Red Right Cross are important presently. If Red is going to succeed, it needs anger, and the more anger you can gain off each individual card, the better.

*Hello, Gohan. So nice to meet all your friends.*

But why compare the two? Why not have both? (Queue fiesta music, and Old El Taco commercial). These cards both shield red from its glaring weakness – poor block choices from the base set and fairly ordinary endurance. Being able to avoid Critical Damage for a turn will certainly help the angry Red player to power up through their MP levels and get to stomping sooner rather than later. I am super excited for this card!

Next up, let’s look at Namekian Confident Burst, also posted on Panini’s blog today.

Clearly this card has been made for Gohan Namekian. In fact, Gohan Namekian appears to be shaping up to be the Heroic Ally deck! The hit effect of this card when playing Gohan is ludicrous! Land one of these babies early, fetch Chi-Chi and Piccolo, and sit behind a wall of blocks. Or fetch out some other allies, like Yamcha, Tenshinhan, or Chaozu, and get your boys to beat up the opponent. If Ginyu has taught anyone anything so far, it’s that allies are awesome. It’s a shame that allies will receive a bit of a smackdown with the upcoming Orange Driving Drill, but that’s not gonna stop me from playing them!

When I first started the game, I played a lot of OCTGN games (I do recommend trying it!). “blinkkite” was my name, Gohan Namekian was my game. After much getting my butt kicked, I gave up on him in favour of Piccolo, but now that all this support is coming out for the young Saiyan, maybe I can look past both my record and his inability to dodge, seeing as though he now has friends who can do it for him!

And suddenly Blue Frieza jumps into deck building contention... — *And suddenly Blue Frieza jumps into deck building contention…*

For my third and final card, let’s have a look at another huge game changer previewed by Panini directly today, Blue Overpowering Drill.

“Overpowering” is a fairly apt name for this beast of a card. Frieza grinned ear to ear (or ear like thing to ear like thing in his case) when this card was spoiled – it was practically made for him. Combined with Blue Protective Mastery and Frieza’s level 1, you can gain 3 anger off of a single block! Imagine stopping a big attack with Frieza, jumping up to level 2, then using Level 2 Frieza’s power to copy that attack, only your opponent won’t be stopping your attack. Overpowering, overwhelming, whatever you want to call it, the next time you see Frieza Blue drop onto the opposite side of the table, you’d best be hoping they don’t draw this bad boy, or you have some way to deal with it, or a very angry Frieza may be ripping you to bits with your own attacks!

Thanks for tuning in! I’ll see you next time, whether it be with more Heroes and Villains previews, or just something else I want to talk about regarding my new, favourite game 😀

Until next time, stomp some faces, Saiyan style!

Kenny Phuong Nguyen

Check out Phoenix Lee’s assessment on For the Players for his new video on today’s Heroes and Villains spoilers.

Look out for the next spoiler reveal from TAK Games tomorrow – to make sure you’re up to date with the latest reveals, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @TAKGames_au.

Game on!
– Kyp (@justkyp).