To follow up with DBM’s ‘top 10 cards’ articles…I couldn’t believe that he didn’t already have a list for the most underestimated cards out there…these are of course all IMO, but I’ve picked 1 card out from each style and an additional 4 freestyle cards that don’t always get the recognition they deserve…without further ado, here we go…
Orange Obliteration – Kid Buu #64
In other TCGs, the game ends after one obliteration.
A Saiyan Strength Blast for Orange decks – what’s bad about that? Everyone runs Orange Stare Down, but if playing against another control deck, you don’t want them to use Krillin’s Power Tap on your own Orange Lifting Drill, do you? It’s a secondary effect that can work through Majin Buu’s Fury, and even if playing against a beats deck you could just use it as an energy attack for 6 life cards. It also has a hidden defensive power that could be abused if necessary – doing an energy attack for 57 life cards? Oh wait, I’ll just use this and then endurance 1 and prevent all the rest of the damage…shucks.
Saiyan Stop – Kid Buu #29
That's a very questionably shaped object that Trunks is fingering there.
Everyone thinks about Saiyan Brace. Sure it’s a block that gets Saiyan Truce and it gains you 1 anger…it’s good to go off on your opponent on the next turn, but in the heat of battle against another beats deck that already used Majin Buu’s Fury against you, why not use this block and be able to get some stages back and lay the beats down yourself? Granted I think this card has more steam in expanded than Focused Z, but it’s still a great styled block behind Saiyan Brace and Saiyan Planet Explosion. Especially for those Saiyan decks that like to have some beefy energy attacks, this card is some good.
Red Mouth Cannon – Fusion #117
An attack that every young man should be familiar with.
Energy for 6 life cards or…or…or what?!? Am I reading that right?!? Yes sir, you are. This is a card that can, as a secondary effect, lower your opponent 1 personality stage. There are no conditions – it can be used at any time. Your opponent cannot use Trunks Energy Sphere against it as it is an Energy Combat Card as opposed to a Combat Event. It also wouldn’t be affected like various other cards (used to lower your opponent a personality level) by City In Turmoil. The only downside (if you can call it that) is that it is RFTGAU. Still not a reason strong enough not to run at least 1, 2, or even 3 in any red deck…oh wait, it can also be used in Non-Tokui-Waza decks? Oh damn…
Blue Double Blast – Kid Buu #9
I just noticed how Kid Buu's head is the same shape as Megaman's. Neat!
Alright, this isn’t technically underestimated…I think a lot of people know about and use this card…but I’m always partial to energy beats (first competitive deck was Android 19 Orange TS Mastery) and IMO it’s the next best card blue has behind Blue Terror (which is also an energy attack BTW). A Blue Cell deck with Uub’s Energy Drill and Blue Double Blast anyone? Sure I’ll do an energy attack for 11 cards that can be used a 2nd time in Focused Z…or how about Expanded Blue Destruction Pan with Fiesta Pan backed hi-tech level 1…pur of 7 + 1 + 4 (Mastery) + 3 (Blue Double Blast) = 1 stage for 15 life cards twice with no modifiers. Beef.
Black Side Kick – Saiyan #69
Where’s all the love for this card? Everyone talks about Red Blocking Hand in the old days of Non-Tokui-Waza anger and this card gets no mention…it’s practically the same card but not a hard-to-get promo. I can see why Red Blocking Hand was more popular because there were many more people playing generic Red Anger decks than the Black Fanatics Slime Anger deck, but come on. This card is almost as good (less the 2 power stage gain), and if playing the Non-Tokui-Waza version it allowed you to have 6 blocks that gained 2 anger each…insane at the time.
Namekian Style Mastery – World Games #139
It's like the Namekian Style went out of it's way to incorporate Pikkon, but Pikkon couldn't be bothered to have a personality set that worked with Namekian.
When looking at the 4 available Namekian Masteries in Focused Z, it’s hard to find any reason not to use the one from Trunks Saga; the one from World Games, however, has always intrigued me. I always wanted to use the Cell HT Level 1 (with 2 physical attacks) and this Mastery to have 4 extra attacks each combat against my opponent, not to mention the attacks already in my hand when starting combat. It doesn’t hurt either that the Namekian style started to shift more towards physical attacks instead of energy attacks after the Cell Saga, so there were plenty of cards to lay down beats that could be drawn with this Mastery regardless of how many power stages you had. The downside, of course, is that you could deck yourself pretty quick with this Mastery, but not any more so than with the Cell Saga Saiyan Style Mastery. I feel the only real reason this card didn’t see much play (but the Saiyan Mastery still does) is the simple fact that beats decks and anger are some good I hear, and the Namekian Style just never had any cards to gain anger or levels consistently like Saiyan did. It’s a shame because the style has some good ‘tech’ cards and can lay the beats down as good as Saiyan can.
Majin Buu’s Heel Kick – Fusion #11
This card holds the record for having the most Majin Buu forms on it.
It gains you stages as a secondary effect, is one of the few cards that you can pick and choose cards in your opponent’s discard pile to remove, and it’s Freestyle. There’s no negative here if you have the deck space. Tired of City in Turmoil? Play Land in Pain and then Majin Buu’s Heel Kick them out of the game. Tired of Watching From Afar constantly getting recycled by Yajirobe, Retired? Majin Buu’s Heel Kick them away. Getting beat down by physical attacks? Just use this with good timing to gain some extra stages back so you’re not getting pummeled at 0 anymore. It can be used in any deck with available space.
Yamcha’s Good Wishes – Frieza #108
Yamcha's wish in Dragon Ball was to be able to mack on women. Somehow that became this.
This card was often overlooked in speedball decks. It’s a Vegeta’s Physical Stance that can be placed on the field and used when needed instead of from your hand. Sure, it requires setup time, but with the popularity of Yajirobe it could easily now find space in some decks. It even worked its way into some quirky Namekian Piccolo/Cell decks back in the day – with it being RFTGAU you didn’t have to worry about it clogging up your discard pile. In fact, in Non-Combat control decks, that’s really the only downside, that you can’t recycle and abuse it. Plus, have you ever seen a foil version of this card? It’s almost as pretty as a foil Power showing Vegeta grasping a Dragonball.
Big Man on Campus – Cell Games Redemption #CGR3
Wrestling scholarship.
This is a great card for beats decks – most often your power rating is going to be higher than that of a control deck and even against another beats deck if you’re laying it down right, you’re gonna be higher than them anyway. You can discard 2 Allies and 2 Non-Combats with this in a single card. The only negatives are that Trunks Energy Sphere can stop it, and its limit 1 per deck – not so terrible seeing the other cards you would use in its place are Android 17 Smirks, Drills Are For The Weak, and Red King Cold Observation…all of which are Combat Events and 2 of which are limit 1 per deck also. It’s 1 card that could help you with some massive removal at the right time.
Unpredictable – Capsule Corp Power Pack #CCPP5
It looks like they're fighting in front of a Van Gogh painting or something.
This is a card that at first glance would be ignored. Why run this instead of just an attack? I’ll tell you why – Goku Freestyle, that’s why. Goku Freestyle decks (and even some Sword decks) run Speaking With the King Drill and/or Champion Drill to accelerate their deck and draw attacks they need to combo cards and prolong the beats. This card allows you to do 2 things. First, you check the top 5 cards of your life deck to get an attack (a 1-for-1 card exchange, you’re not losing anything); second, you get to setup the remaining top 4 cards of your deck to combo with the 2 drills mentioned above. It may seem situational, but this card can have surprising advantages when used properly. In fact, John Conbere used it in his legendary 2003 GKI 2nd place finish with Orange Tien physical beats to accelerate combats and continue to chain cards on his opponents. IMO it is highly underrated and can find some good deck space in a few different beats decks.
Well, I hope this was entertaining to you because I actually had fun writing it and may submit another article in the future. Maybe you walked down memory lane, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you saw something that sparked a deck idea for you. Or maybe I’m just full of shit with all these cards. Either way DBZ4Life.
I wouldn’t really call Saiyan Stop underestimated, underrated, or even underused. A lot of Saiyan decks use it. And you already admitted Blue Double Blast not really being underrated (it’s more that Offensive Blue in general is underrated).
As for Red Mouth Cannon, it doesn’t get much use because there generally isn’t much leveling in Old Z outside of Broly. Without leveling, it’s just a generic energy for 6.
Majin Buu’s Heel Kick is one of the more highly used freestyle cards, so really don’t see how it’s underrated.
Wasn’t Unpredictable so strong that it ended up either being errata’d or restricted? I don’t think it was until GT, but still.
The Namekian Style Mastery was generally not used due to it being viewed “weaker” than the TS version (discard pile recursion is easier to control/abuse and doesn’t cut “life” out of your deck), and less synergistic – You don’t want to play DB’s with this mastery, it’s harder to setup, etc.
Unpredictable and Big Man on Campus are a staples in any phys beatdown deck. I do think it got restricted in GT, but can’t fully remember.
Black Heel Kick isn’t really used because people don’t go to black for anger/gaining levels. Most black decks stay lvl 1 or use other leveling effects outside of anger.
Like where you are going with the article. =)
This is the card of article that means a different thing to everyone — anyone who played this game seriously over the years probably has their own set of ‘under-rated’ cards.
I love the concept and like you said, shocked I haven’t made one of these yet either! Look for one soon….
I think that the reason a lot of these are “underrated” are because they aren’t underrated at all. They are exactly as rated as they should be, most of them are simply viewed as the kind of card that you know is good, but gets cut in the deck building/revising process because they simply aren’t good enough, or don’t fit the decks needs.
Orange Obliteration is a good card in an energy beatdown deck, but most Orange decks are drill control and use Lifting/Destruction for that job.
Saiyan Stop is a great block, but doesn’t synergize with the style (it’s such a great block that many decks use it anyways)
Red Mouth Cannon is a near-dead card except when you’re against an anger deck…which isn’t particularly widespread.
I could go on, but the point is that these are all good cards that either only shine in lesser used decks, or are on the bubble when many decks are being fine-tuned, and are often cut simply for being less unilaterally useful than a deck’s core cards.
Yamcha’s Good Wishes owns.
Red Mouth Cannon was amazing in Pan Red.
I don’t agree with calling Namekian Style Mastery from WG Underestimated. I have pretty good deck with multi attack combo and piccolo multiform, this deck has a few drills but even without them 12 physical attacks doing 5 power stages are pretty good even if half of them are blocked ( it could be even more dmage with namekian offense or more attacks with namekian combo). I think that Namekian Style Mastery WG is the best for physical beatdown decks because with namekian cards you control which card you will return to the bottom of your life deck and you will draw 2 cards from mastery in 90 percent of combats, it works with physical attacks doing stages damage and life card damage. Personally i think TS Namekian Style Mastery is good only for namekian energy decks.
Ah. Finally some validation. Back in the day I ran a Yamcha deck with a bunch of Yamcha Good Wishes. The purpose of the deck was just to keep blocking and ending combat until my opponent just died of exhaustion. It’s kind of how I imagine Yamcha would actually fight.