Resident Sydney writer Kenny Phuong Nguyen joins us on the TAK Games blog today to analyse the Heroes and Villains preview cards released so far. Fellow Victorian Phoenix Lee from For the Players also makes a special vlogger appearance looking in detail at Tenshinhan. Over to Kenny and Phoenix Lee…

Kenny:

Hey fellow Dragon Ball Z fans! If you’re like me, you’ve been holding out for this personality preview. When I woke up at six this morning, first thing I did was look for it. To my dismay, it had yet to be updated. However, since that crushing sadness at 6 AM, not only have we received a personality preview from Panini, but six other cards have been spoiled! Let’s have a gander at them and see what the next Dragon Ball Z TCG expansion Heroes and Villains has to offer us.

Tenshinhan (his friends call him Tien) seems to be a fantastic personality. Levels 1, 3 and 4 all offer us some kind of card advantage. Let’s mix it up a bit and look at Tien from back to front.

Level 4 Tien gives us a significant boon, reading “The first attack you play each combat stays in play to be used a second time that combat”. Holy moly, where to begin. Remember all those HIT effects that are super awesome, but require you to actually “hit”? Why not use them twice, pretty much guaranteeing their juicy backloaded effects? Hell, if you hit the first time, all the better! Get them twice!

What about all those other non-hit effects? Orange Stare Down, Red Left Bolt, Overpowering Attack, Red Heel Kick… the list goes on! The amount of power Tenshinhan’s ability gives you is insane. If I am interpreting it correctly, it will only work on cards played from hand, not printed abilities on characters or setups. This brings us to his level 3.

And what a level 3! 5 life cards of damage in a free energy attack? Why yes Tien, I do like to threaten critical damage for free. Oh, what’s that? Banish 8 cards to gain 6 anger and level up to that super juicy level 4, which you can use in the same turn? Looking real smooth right now, Tien. Even if you just stay at 3, 5 life cards a turn is no joke, especially when combined with Orange or Black!

Level 2 reads, “Your attacks do +1 life card of damage. Once per combat after using a critical damage effect, you may search your discard pile for a non-Styled card and Rejuvenate it.” and is, in this writer’s opinion, the worst. This level leaves us with much to be desired; +1 life card is decent, but nothing to write home about. The once per turn when you deal critical damage effect is a slightly improved version of Gohan Level 2. In fact, Tien is very similar to Gohan at Level 2, but Gohan hits harder. You’re also not guaranteed a rejuvenation with Tien, which could be awkward.

Now we reach Level 1. It reads “Power: Banish the top card of your life deck to search your life deck for a Named card and place it in your hand”. Without even seeing the named cards, this power is very comparable to that of SDCC Godku – take a damage to have an extra card. Whereas Godku could draw you a dud or something awesome, Tien’s ability is consistent in that it will always get you one of two cards, and always the one you want. But just what are those cards?

Set your eyes to stunned.

What. On. Earth.

Tenshinhan’s Preparation makes a really good run at being the best named card in the game so far. Both players take 2 damage, you get 2 anger, helping you push towards those better higher levels, your opponent loses 2 anger, this goes back into your deck, then you draw a card? What am I missing? 9 times out of 10 I am grabbing this card at level 1, and I think the presence of this card will be part of the reason why Spheres get even better than they are currently. I know what I’m naming with Black Scout Maneuver!

And yet, if I do happen to name it, they can grab Tenshinhan’s Draining Blast instead and bring it back, still drawing a card in the process! Not to mention smacking me for 5 life cards! Oh, and it costs no power stages to perform. You do have to banish 3 cards from the top of your life deck, but who knows; you may hit Tien’s Preparation, which you can then Rejuvenate to draw a card!

Overall, I think Tien is a personality that works well in any colour. He’s flexible enough ability wise to fit just about anywhere, and his named cards are just fantastic! Whilst his average power-up rating and abysmal power level (currently the worst in the game) will certainly make him road kill against physical beat down decks (waiting for Nappa Smash!), I’m actually most looking forward to using him in a Red deck; I feel like he may have actually been the personality Red needed to succeed due to his guaranteed anger gain at level 1 due to his power, and the inherent card advantage that comes with it. He won’t punch hard, but he sure may be able to combo well (like that time he locks up Cell 2. He tried hard and didn’t do much damage, but he achieved his goal).

Good work Panini! I can’t wait to Ki Beam Haaaaaaaaaaaa! some people into the ground!

A few other cards were previewed on community sites around the web too, nothing too special though…

Oh, wait a minute, there was this little gem from DragonBall Radio – Orange Driving Drill.

Nice knowing ya Ginyu. It was fun. I would not wanna be piloting Captain Ginyu against an Orange Deck any time soon…or ever, really. This card alone is going to completely rattle the current “stale” (note the inverted commas) format. Its mere presence will make people think twice about piloting Ginyu and his goons into a tournament, which is great for the health of the game overall. Meta cards are conducive to a healthy game, and I am glad that Panini have printed such a card. It does seem a little too convenient an answer though. Especially in a colour that is able to search for and recur its cards so easily. Overall, a great addition.

Whilst less mind blowing, some of the other spoiled cards included:

Fanatics Gaming previewed ally Piccolo-Waiting: Realistically, this ally will see play only in a Gohan deck, much as Chi-Chi will only see a lot of play in Goku, Gohan and Goten decks. However, it does provide a fairly needed boost to the underwhelming personality, allowing Gohan to have Piccolo save his bacon from energy attacks (until he learns to dodge), as well as soaking up stage damage on his behalf. Good old punching bag Piccolo.

The Panini Dragon Ball Z News page on Facebook previewed Red Overpower: Another solid addition to red. 3 stages is a fair cost for 5 life cards. The ability to lower your MP a level (thus drawing a card due to the mastery) in order to tank up by giving all your cards Endurance 1 does give Red some sorely needed survivability. I’m not 100% sold on it yet, but it’s not bad by any means.

That’s it for today, folks. Until next time!

Kenny Phuong Nguyen

Check out Phoenix Lee’s assessment on For the Players for his verdict on the Heroes and Villains spoilers so far:

TAK Games will be joining the Heroes and Villains spoiler reveal with our first exclusive preview 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).

February is shaping up to be a big month of TAK Games Organised Play Summer Season events. Affiliated stores are holding events all over Australia in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. We have been thrilled to see all the great comments and the great times people have been having with the game, and hope to see more. So that you have a good view of what’s planned for the month we thought it would be best to give you an run down of who has tournaments when.

As part of this, TAK Games is happy to announce the addition of a few new stores to help you get your fix of DBZ TCG action. You will find regular tournaments at Anime Exchange (Ipswich, Qld), Good Games Brisbane (Spring Hill, Qld) and Good Games Melbourne (Melb CBD, Vic) to add to the list of great places already holding awesome tournaments.

How is your meta fairing? Is Captain Ginyu making an impact, or has something come out of left field that has you stumped?

Places near you will be;

New South Wales

Good Games Burwood – Events fortnightly on Sundays

Queensland

GUF Brisbane – Sunday 15th of February
Anime Exchange – Saturday 21st of February
TAK Games – Saturday 28th of February

Victoria

TAK Games – Sunday 8th of February
Good Games Box Hill – Events fortnightly on Saturdays
Good Games Melbourne – Fortnightly from the Saturday the 15th and Tuesday the 24th
GUF Werribee – Saturday the 21st of February
GUF Ballarat – Events every Tuesday evening

 
We look forward to seeing more results before the next set hits!

Game On!

-Trent (@TAKGames_Trent)

Saturday the 17th of January was the day Brisbane took its turn to show what it has to offer the constructed environment and by all accounts no one was left disappointed. We had a great time with 12 players enjoying

another round of Panini DBZ. It is safe to say a lot of the Brisbane players are sticking close to the Meta at this time, with Blue Ginyu’s and Namekian Piccolo’s running around in decent numbers.

Our own Trent Betts took some time to work out some of the kinks in his Blue God Goku Dragon Ball deck with some mixed results, just to show that there can be some variety in competitive builds even at this early stage. There is great potential out there as was shown in Melbourne, for something to come out of left field and throw itself into the mix.

Winners were;

1st – David M. (Blue Ginyu)
2nd – Luke R. (Piccolo Namekian)
3rd – Michael L. (Piccolo Namekian)

Lucky Door Prizes

SDCC Playmat – Brenden P.
SDCC Promos – Russell A.
Confrontation Promo – Jono C.

Don’t forget to keep in touch with us via Facebook and Twitter to make sure you get all the latest news on events held all around Australia in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Regular events are now in swing, with the second set just around the corner in early March.

Brisbane’s own Luke Hill also added his point of view to the event to give people a more hands on account of how it went;

With Panini’s return of the Dragon Ball Z TCG I thought I would take the time to write up a first hand account of the first Constructed event in Brisbane. TAK Games has given us the chance to have the game in an Organised Play setting for us to enjoy and this was how the day played out for me.

12 Players running a mixed variety of decks

1 Vegeta (Red)
2 Piccolo (Namekian)
1 Gohan (Namekian)
1 Krillin (Black)
1 Trunks (Saiyan)
2 Captain Ginyu (Blue)
3 Goku (Blue)

If you can see a recurring theme here, it’s that Blue and Namekian are heavily supported.

I personally love a good control deck, so I played Red Vegeta. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, Red Vegeta has no control, and yes, you are correct. I didn’t want to play control so I played something highly aggressive which is capable of quick games in either a win or a loss. It’s not the most stable deck, but it’s one of the more enjoyable decks in the format right now. In the moments before the event, I decided to add 3x Red Jump Kicks for an experiment to see how it holds up, and considering how much fun I had with it, I do not regret it. I did not expect to win any games given the massive amount of Blue and Namekian around including one of the hardest decks for Red to deal with… Black.

Round 1 : Blue God Goku “Brickwall Bob” (Brendan)

Great, Round 1 and I get a good friend and a Blue deck, and of all of them God Goku. I know his deck, and I know it has a very high chance of thumping me into the ground. So straight off the line I was on the back foot.

Unfortunately, it did not go well for Blue Goku. 3 Consecutive combats I draw amazing hands for dealing with Blue Goku (One hand was double Staredown to pick all the cards I needed gone). Eventually I draw into a hand of Red Shoulder Grab, Red Double Strike, Red Heel Kick and Red Static Shot and just went for it. His luck really hit a rock bottom, upon drawing a hand of setups and dragon balls leaving him helpless as I made it up to level 3 and start unleashing damage consistently in small doses, eventually piling up to end the game with him conceding defeat at that point. Our decks were polar opposites, and the match up favoured him heavily, but it just did not work with him that day and unfortunately, the rest of the event. His deck was REALLY solid and I have had much trouble in the past with it, but that is how the cards a dealt. Dev Blows picked off all the combo cards he required to win and just kept on attacking.

Red Vegeta 1-0

Having surprised many people with a Red deck beating a Blue Goku, we moved onto round 2.

Round 2 : Blue Ginyu “Ultratarantula” (Russell)

(Insert More Sarcasm) Great, yet another match up which I despise. Red does have critical hits, but the allies are notorious for coming back over and over again so I had very low hopes for this game.

Going first, I draw a hand of Red Shoulder Grab, Red Energy Blast and Red Double Strike. So, I go for broke and enter combat with Shoulder Grab which he immediately blocks. Ginyu’s power which I take for Guldo which I shortly after Red Energy Blast away and it set a mood for the next few combats. Every combat, an ally dies when it entered play until I ran out of luck and starting to stop drawing the cards to deal with the problems.

Eventually Blue Ginyu started levelling up, and I had no real way of slowing him down. He was missing 3 Ginyu force allies which kept him stuck at level 2 for several turns, but it was to no avail and eventually I was destroyed by head knocks and other big attacks. It came down to the final combat I had to option if being able to do, and well, yeah. Didn’t get much in the way of answers for Ginyu and was beaten back by his power for the game. I did get Blue Ginyu down to less than 10 life cards, and kept him from getting his allies out. So I can take a very positive feeling from being able to give the deck a very hard time.

Red Vegeta 1-1

Round 3 : Piccolo Namekian “Dressel” (Lawsy)

So, more challenging fun for me. Lawsy’s Namekian deck is really solid and it was always going to be a hard fought battle, if I was able to get the upper hand. Let’s make this one short, I didn’t. Go wrecked and well… yeah. He got to level 4, never got a Red Jump Kick to hit. None of my major attacks were ever drawn. Just a plain and simple train wreck of a game.

Red Vegeta 1-2

Round 4 : Gohan Namekian “Rad Brad” (I would assume Brad)

Another Namekian which made me roll my eyes back into my skull and slide down my spine. However, this was the standout game of the event for me. The Deck finally pulled off some major combo work to basically go off properly and give people something to worry about, including other matches who saw what was being done.

Red Jump Kick became the key to this match. Vegeta Level 1’s power to keep the anger flowing, and then pop back down with a well-timed Red Jump Kick to get some more cards. Yes, I know Vegeta’s power level is something to be desired, but when I was able to do a stupidly large amount of damage in small bites, it’s something I personally wanted to see happen. He has Dragon Ball 2 and ?? in play, not 100% on the second one now)

Red Shoulder Grab from 3 anger, to 4 and then Vegeta’s level 1 to 5 anger. Get to Vegeta level 2, Red Mastery to turf a random junk card and keep the Red Jump Kick. Vegeta’s level 2 power hits (1 anger from Shoulder grab previously). Red Jump Kick back to level 1. Draw a card. Red Heel Kick (2 anger to 0 anger, and 2 more from power and critical) to Red Static Shot to get 4 anger to ping a level. Draw and Discard. As the critical hit, steal DB2 to level myself down and draw a card. Red Double Strike to level again….

It may have only been small pieces of damage, but it all added up. It was nice to see a small chain of events fall into place in the deck.

Red Vegeta 2-2

In the end, I didn’t place very well, due to the players I beat, did even worse than I did. But for a first time in a constructed event, it was fun to play something left field because I am not 100% happy with the current game meta with Captain Ginyu and Blue keeping their eyes on all the top places. I had a heap of fun running Red Vegeta and for me that is what counts in the game.

Pros:
Trent and TAK Games for bringing the game here, and organising the events for us here in Australia
Red Jump Kick : It just worked
Minsey for winning
Not having to play against Black.

Cons:
Not getting a lucky door prize….. again…..
Blue for being Blue

Game On!

– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent)

It’s 2015  – and that means more chances to play sealed at different locations around Melbourne. Good Games Box Hill was the first to kick off the new year with an event on the 3rd January. Ten Z Warriors braved the 41 degree Celsius heat to battle it out.

The results from the event are:

1st – Jason S., 4-0 with Black Krillin.
2nd – Kyp, 3-1 with Red Vegeta.
3rd – Kuan L., 3-1 with Black Ginyu.
4th – Daniel P., 2-2 with Blue Frieza.

Pre-event banter was focused on which personality and mastery combination would prove strongest in this sealed event. I had my fingers crossed for Krillin with Black Style Mastery or Piccolo with Namekian, but was foiled when I pulled Vegeta Saiyan out of my starter. Saiyan seems significantly weaker than other masteries in sealed, so I was actually relieved (for once) to see Red Style Mastery appear as one of my booster pack rares.

With an Angry Vegeta Red Style build completed, it was time to see how it would run…

Round 1 – Kuan with Black Ginyu – 1-0
Marvelling at the good luck that allowed Quan to pull a complete Ginyu set, it got even worse for Vegeta with Ginyu’s friends making an appearance. Some lucky draws saw me discarding three Allies in one combat thanks to critical effects and managing to banish them before they could be retrieved. Beatdown victory with perhaps 8 cards to spare – a very lucky escape!

Round 2 – Daniel with Blue Frieza – 2-0

Had to play aggressively to get any damage through multiple layers of protection that Daniel had packed in, including general blocks, drills that stopped attacks and the Blue Mastery. Managed to complete the game just as time was called with Daniel decking himself out on the additional turn provided. Another close one!

Round 3 – Al with Namekian Piccolo – 3-0

After an envious gaze at Piccolo (Al was seated next to me in deck construction – missed it by that much!), we settled in to battle. Piccolo rejuvenated, hit, and rejuvenated some more. Again, aggression paid off with two combat declarations resulting in Al drawing mostly unusable cards. Unfortunately for Al (but happily for me) that coincided with reaching Vegeta Level 3 and holding four attacks that gained anger in hand… another narrow beatdown victory!

Round 4 – Jason with Black Krillin 3-1

So close and yet so far! Krillin’s critical effect on Level 1 certainly slowed down Angry Vegeta. It was my turn to have a combat with unusable cards, and it was a tough road back from there. Despite that, I managed to get to Level 4 Vegeta and almost stole victory from the jaws of defeat. Alas, it was not to be…

A solid performance though from the angry Saiyan – it fared better against the Namekian and Black decks than I would have anticipated. The next round of tournaments will be constructed events, so check out http://store.tak-games.com.au/ if you need any singles or email us a wishlist. We’ll hunt down anything and everything Panini DBZ-related you need!

Game on,

-Kyp (@justkyp)

Proving that whatever Brisbane can do, Melbourne can do better, 15 eager Z warriors turned up for Melbourne’s first sealed event at Wadham House on the 14th December.  It was great fun to see and play against so many returning players, and awesome to welcome new players that were, in their own words, only a year or two old when the original game was released.

The all-important results of the first sealed tournament follow –

1st – Marcus R., undefeated with Blue Frieza, receives full bragging rights for the first Melbourne win.
2nd – Harry K., honourable in defeat with Black Krillin.
3rd – Al C., also piloting Black Krillin.
4th – Kyp with Blue Frieza (notice a running theme here?)

Marcus received an alternative art Time is a Warrior’s Tool promo and $10 store credit for his victory, while 2nd through 4th place received store credit and door prizes comprising of random SDCC promos and another alternative art Time is a Warrior’s Tool promo were awarded to Michael Z., Luke W., and Quanny.

Thank you to everyone for showing exceptional sportsmanship and contributing to what was a most enjoyable event! Our next event will be a constructed event on Sunday, the 11th January when we return to Wadham House. It’s time to start thinking about how to build the strongest deck possible – if you need any singles to complete your deck, check out http://store.tak-games.com.au/ or email us a wishlist. We’ll hunt down anything and everything Panini DBZ-related you need!

Game on,

-Kyp (@justkyp)