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).

Like everyone else, we can’t wait for the Dragon Ball Z TCG’s next expansion Perfection to hit. Preview season is well underway with some amazing cards popping up all over – the hype on the much-awaited Cell reveal was all too real, and there have been other gems from other sites, including reveals from our friends at Next Level Z, Dragon Ball Z TCG Wiki, Retro DBZ, DBZ Top Tier, Fanatics Gaming Network and more.

Our first preview for Perfection is a great addition to Black Style that has the potential to help it in a few tricky match ups.

Including Black Sidestep in your deck will very much be a choice based on your local meta. Black as a whole doesn’t have a lot of effects that can deal with an opponent’s Dragon Balls, and Black Sidestep thus helps in some way to bridge a gap for the style. Currently, Black Style’s best bet to deal with Dragon Balls is to generate a critical damage effect. When you’re coming up against a triple threat Namekian with MPPV to keep an eye on, or another dedicated Dragon Ball victory deck with mass endurance, this can be hard to rely on consistently.

If your opponent is getting a little too greedy with their Dragon Balls in play, this is a great answer. With energy attacks like Optic Blast, Crushing Beam and other styled attacks like Namekian Double Strike that help make up a large part of the included attacks in opposition decks, it’s safe to say having this card as a bluff to draw upon and keep your opponent guessing can be a great way to force your opponent to potentially make a crucial misplay.

When compared to Black Style’s existing set of amazing energy blocks including Black Corruption, Black Swipe and Black Resistance, it’s not an auto-include, but it may fit in a meta where you need to tech around Namekian or pesky Dragon Ball victory players.

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).

We were finally introduced to Android 18 and the new Black Style Mastery today and the time seemed right to examine what else Android players might have at their disposal once Evolution launches. We welcome back Tobye with analysis on two new Android-themed cards.

Android 17 – Beckoning

Another Android ally to play with!  When I first read his power, my mind ran wild thinking of all the ways to abuse it and deliver game changing damage each turn, with a huge setup count.  Then I remembered the new Black Perceptive Mastery.  Hmmm. He will be somewhat more challenging to use and abuse.

Android 17 – Ally will be great in some extremely board-heavy blue builds, where you block like a brick wall while playing allies and setups, protecting them with Blue Belly Smash.  Then once established throw out a Blue Draining Blast, and unload with a one-turn-kill.

The less logical side of my brain wants to use his bracketed effect to rejuvenate an Android card, in a mad Lord Slug Namekian ally deck.  Running all the Android cards he can with Android Presence, and the old Namekian mastery, you will be levelling up in ludicrous ways.  Not sure what it will achieve after getting to level 4, but hey…

Android Presence

Known for their brazenness, Android Presence sets out to make sure everyone knows and fears the Androids. It is not only powerful, like all cards that allow you to level up, but adds a mental element to a lot of match-ups.

For example, if you are playing a physical beatdown deck, you really want to keep an opponent’s Android 18 on level 1. So if you see 4 Android cards in their discard pile, and have discard pile removal in your hand (say, a Devastating Blow), you will feel compelled to enter combat to banish those cards. Even if the rest of your hand is rather lackluster. This fear can play into the hands of Android players, who may not even be running Android Presence in their deck.

What is also interesting is you do not need to be an Android MP to use this card. While there are not many non-named Android cards for non-Android MPs to run, it’s still possible to get a free level with this card, and there may be some builds that find a way to take advantage of this.

I am very fond of cards like this which are potentially very powerful, versatile, add skill and fear to plays even when not in a hand or even in the game, and are thematically accurate to boot!

As we get closer to Evolution’s release, I am seeing a whole lot of fun and interesting interactions to do with the Androids, and expect Android ally decks to be varied and legitimate contenders.

– Tobye.

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

Game on!

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