The Sidekick: A Krillin Red Anger Deck

I decided to run a slightly more serious deck for The Mr. Popo Invitational than I had for other events in the history of Retro DBZ events. I went for a more straightforward and simple deck, yet with a personality and strategy only possible in the Retro format, yet again one that has yet to make a significant splash. I went with the fan favorite, Krillin.

Sensei Deck

You’re Invited

Breakfall

Huh!?!?!

2x Black Scout Maneuver

Kami Fades

Guru Fades

 

Physical Attacks:  (34)

4x Krillin’s Quick Kicks

3x Red Axe Heel Kick

3x Red Face Upheaval

3x Red Overhand Slash

3x Red Lightning Slash

3x Red Face Slap

3x Red Whiplash

3x Red Overbearing Attack

3x Red Double Strike

3x Red Eye Laser Assault

3x Majin Buu’s Fury

 

Energy Attacks: (20)

Trunk’s Makes Himself Clear

3x Red Energy Blast

3x Captain Ginyu’s Energy Attack

3x Red Commander Red’s Command

4x Krillin’s Destructo Disk

3x Red Energy Surprise

3x Red Static Shot

 

Blocks: (14)

Vegeta’s Physical Stance

3x Red Blocking hand

3x Red Passive Block

3x Energy Ricochet

3x Goku’s Flight

Time Is A Warrior’s Tool

 

Combat Cards:  (7)

Super Saiyan Effect

Battle Pausing

3x Confrontation

2x Dragon’s Victory

 

Battlegrounds: (3)

3x City in Turmoil

 

The strategy isn’t hard to guess: win by anger. It’s a full 85 card deck, so we can play a little loose on the defense, otherwise most of the cards in the deck will gain you two anger or provide a decent secondary effect and give you one anger. As with any deck that I play where I consistently gain anger, I do like to include Dragon’s Victory for a slight backup win condition. Since this deck has only three cards in it that lower anger, it’s easy to catch another anger deck or something with slime anger at three or four anger (you can even help this a little with Goku’s Flight).

As for Krillin the personality himself, he does little for your anger victory. While the terrible looking TS Krillin Lv. 1 has the only Krillin power to raise anger, and a high PUR for a level one, the extra card you get with the Saiyan Saga Krillin HT Lv. 1 is the way to go. The level two is kind of a tossup. I went with the Majin Buu Saga Krillin Z-Warrior for my level two only because his power could lower that opponent’s anger if I faced another MPPV deck (as mentioned before, the deck is really low on ways to lower anger). I almost went with the Trunks Saga Krillin Enraged for his impressive four PUR, and feel he would be just as good in the deck (assuming anger wasn’t prevalent). In either case, unless you need to lower the opponent’s anger or think you can steal a Dragon Ball, I wouldn’t recommend wasting stages on using Krillin’s Lv. 2 power.

I use the Trunks Saga Krillin the Warrior as the Lv. 3 only for his high PUR, as the build of this deck needs all the power stages it can get. Probably the second most useful Krillin Lv. 3 would be the Saiyan Saga Lv. 3 that can selectively heal a whopping one card (but loses two PUR). A case could be made for Krillin the Great’s power being used to clean up the discard pile for a quick Red Style Mastery activation, but don’t be swayed by the allure of the extra damage as this deck won’t make good use of it. The promo Saiyan Saga Krillin Lv. 4 is amazing, and in most cases activating his power should get you enough gas to reach level 5 that turn or put you only a Red Style Mastery activation away from it for the next combat.

Krillin’s only real advantage as an anger personality are his named cards, in particular Krillin’s Quick Kicks and to a lesser extent Krillin’s Destructo Disk. The three anger gain from Krillin’s Quick Kicks is arguably the best anger raising non-mastery card in the game, and Krillin’s Destructo Disk not only gifts you with an anger but also provides some measure of protection against beatdown decks and control.

I chose the recently unerrata’d West Kai Sensei, since many of the biggest dangers to Red Anger come in non-combat form. While you can always keep it in reserve for other dangers, many beats decks run minimal non-combats, most notably just a You’re Invited and a Victorious Drill. Because of that, if I don’t draw any other drill kill, I can usually feel safe taking away the Vic Drill with the Sensei first turn and clear the path for future combats. I really don’t think any other Sensei will be as consistently beneficial to you as West Kai Sensei.

Unless I need some anti-Dragon Ball cards, I really have no intention of bringing in any cards from the Sensei Deck. The only choice in the Sensei Deck that I feel I need to explain is Breakfall. I keep a copy of it in there only because I want to remove it from the game with Energy Ricochet. What do I accomplish by doing this? Well I make myself immune to being Dazed, as the card has no effect on a player who has Breakfall in their discard or removed from game pile (it’s written right in Dazed’s text). Yes, I have caught people completely off guard with that, it’s a nice surprise from Krillin.

Running the deck itself is kind of straightforward. The deck does have many cards that need power stages, and since nearly all Krillin personality cards fall in the “B” bracket on the power chart, you’ll need to manage your power stages wisely. This is why I chose mostly the Krillin’s with the highest PURs for my personality stack, and don’t be tempted to waste power stages on using energy attacks built in to any Krillin personality card you may decide to use. While possible, winning by beatdown is an uphill battle, use your resources to stay the course and take the win through anger.

Later BroZ!

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