The Regional season for 2016 kicked off in style, with 49 players turning up to the Celtic Club in Melbourne to fight it out for the honour of the first Regional Champion title.

Style and MP Breakdown
Black Devious – 15
Red Enraged – 9
Red Ruthless – 2
Orange Adaptive – 6
Blue Protective – 2
Blue Tag – 3
Saiyan Empowered – 5
Namekian Knowledge – 7

Cooler – 9
Yamcha – 8
Master Roshi / Piccolo / Broly – 6
Android 13 – 5
Frieza – 2
Krillin / Ginyu / Android 16 / Android 18 / Nail / Goku / Gohan / Cell – 1

The day kicked off with a bang, and Round 1 saw some ferociously fought out matches, with no one wanting to give up that first game and put themselves on the back foot. Reigning National Champion Fahad notched up a win, with Harry K., and Ben S., other notable contenders for the race of the first World Championship invite winning in the first round.

The day was a tale of decks made on meta predictions not working as they had intended, and a real sense that anything could come out on top over the course of the 6 rounds.

Action on table 1 was electric throughout the day. David S. and Ben S. duking it out in Round 2, with Ben’s Black Krillin pushing Red Roshi all the way. The Life Deck counts were uneven, but it always felt like Roshi could have pulled something in the death to steal the game as he always finds a way to do.

And in the final Swiss round, the two undefeated decks, Karl F. with Red Cooler, and Ben S. with his Black Krillin squared off. The match was always tightly poised, with Cooler seeming to push forward on all three win conditions, and Krillin trying to hold them off and push through some damage. Decisions on plays held massive weight, as Dragon Balls were exchanged, and pressure mounted. In the end, Karl showed that Red Cooler is here to stay finishing off his undefeated record in Swiss.

And then we  cut to the final 8 of the tourney.

Karl F. – Red Cooler
Ben S. – Black Krillin
David S. – Red Roshi
Luke P. – Black Cooler
Bryan M. – Orange Yamcha
Matthew D. – Red Yamcha
Harry K. – Red Roshi
Barry D. – Namekian Piccolo

With a mixture of long term campaigners, and first time players in top cut, things were always going to get interesting.

Karl showed Barry’s Namekian Piccolo who the new triple victory deck is on the block. Ben had to keep Harry’s Red Roshi in check. Luke chalked another regulation win up with his Black Cooler.

In the top 4, things only got more interesting. Ben came up against another Red Roshi against David S. and things just didn’t go Krillin’s way this time. While pushing out some early damage, Roshi does what he always will mid game and built up a board to close out the game with Ben unable to capitalise. Black vs Red was the flavour of the other top 4 match, as Karl and Luke fought it out. Having the ability to complete a triple victory proved too much for Luke to overcome with Black Cooler. Top 4 deck lists are available for review here.

In the end, it was Red vs Red. Both decks capable of winning on all three fronts, and both players needed to keep their wits about them. Game 1 was taken out by David S., with his seemingly endless chain of cards with critical damage effects allowing him to gain all 7 Dragon Balls. Then in Game 2, Karl was able to get his own back, pushing back with some tidy game decisions to win by Dragon Ball Victory as well.

It came down to a tense Game 3. Dragon Balls were traded back and forth, both players pressing hard for the win. Near the end of the game, David seemed close to victory and came within one action, one critical damage effect of gaining all 7 Dragon Balls. But he didn’t count on Karl having not one but two Red Knee Lifts in hand. If there was a true MVP of the day, that card would have to go out as the one that generated the biggest swings.

And so Karl rounded out the day with a great win to Red Cooler. Melbourne has set the tone for this Organised Play season, and the gauntlet has been thrown down to those that want to leave their mark.

The leaderboard has been updated for the third World Championship invite, and can be found here: http://www.tak-games.com.au/organised-play/2016-tak-games-dragon-ball-z-regionals/

Game on!
– Trent (@TAKGames_Trent) and Kyp (@JustKyp).

After all the Local Championship events have concluded, the results have been tallied and we have a new leading champion on the hunt for that elusive World Championship invite. The leaderboard is accessible on the Local Championships information page.

Congratulations to Juliano Stadlmann from Queensland who is on top with 26 points.

However, it’s a tightly fought race and with five Regional Championship events on the horizon and an all-new meta to work through, who will prevail?

47 eager Z-Warriors have braved a frosty winter’s morning to smash down in style at Guf Ballarat. Streaming is live on our Twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/takgamesau with Karl (Orange Android 20) facing off against Nikita (Black Garlic Jr) in Round 2.

As for what styles are present, it seems a shift in the meta is evident with 13 players representing Orange style, 10 Red, 9 Black, 7 Namekian, 5 Saiyan and only 3 representing Blue. Despite the shift away from Namekian style, Piccolo is well represented with 7 players, six players are playing Android 20 and Krillin, 5 players are hoping Cell’s recent CRD changes don’t nerf his chances and 4 players each representing Yamcha and Garlic. Turles, Goku, Ginyu, Roshi, Trunks, Android 18, Dr Wheelo, Tenshinhan, Android 16 and Lord Slug are also present.

Who will prevail? Tune in to Twitch to find out!

With Vengeance a little over a week away, the hype levels are well and truly over 9000 now. Our last previews make for some sound additions to Orange style and will hopefully see some play after release.

Orange Fierce Attack offers some really great effects for an energy attack that costs only 1 stage. The immediate effect is quite solid, in making your attacks unpreventable. This immediately shuts down endurance, Master Roshi, and other popular prevention methods. Team this with Orange Aura Drill in play, then a sequence of Orange Offensive Strikes, you are going to be leaving your opponent with at least a good chunk of damage taken.

The hit effect adds to something that can be Orange’s Achilles Heel. Both anger gain, and control your opponent’s anger are hard things to come by in Orange. Outside of Orange Devouring Drill, leveling in Orange can be a little bit harder than a lot of other styles due to the small incremental raise effects it has. Hopefully this card can add to its arsenal.

The attack also has a decent endurance attached to it, so the value of the card increases again. So hopefully this is one for Orange players to get excited about.

Next up, Orange Intimidating Drill adds a little more bite to the Orange Adept Mastery camp. Orange Intimidating Drill can team up nicely with the Adept Mastery to help leverage another potential action during combat to press advantages.

There are also clear uses with MPs like Set 1 Goku Level 3 who create effects to rejuvenate a drill during combat. It also brings back into play some cards like Orange Energy Evasion that rejuvenate drills from the discard as well.

So you can team these cards up nicely to have some great synergy with some existing cards to help push forward some potential new combinations and further your game.

Don’t forget, this weekend marks the last of our Local Championship events. Pre-registrations are still open for Guf Ballarat and Good Games Newcastle.

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

Game on!

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

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).