It’s a snow day here at Retro DBZ, and while I look at the winter countryside outside my window I figure it’s as good a time as any to talk about Battlegrounds and Locations in the Dragon Ball Z CCG. This concept hasn’t made it into the Panini America version yet, but with how the card type ended up in Retro DBZ I’m not sure I would want it to. At the end of Retro DBZ, your deck could basically fall into one of two categories: Those that ran Winter Countryside and those that ran City in Turmoil.
First, a brief history of Battlegrounds and Locations in the game. The two card types were first introduced in Androids Saga, and functionally are the same exact thing. The reason why they were made into two separate card types is a classic example of a licencor issuing a mandate that ends up having ramifications in the game. In this case, the licencor wanted a distinction made between places where battles happened and places where no fighting occurs. I have no idea why this came up or why the distinction needed to be made (there’s no distinction between characters who are fighters and those who are not fighters for instance), but this is why there are both Battlegrounds and Locations as two different card types that are really the exact same thing.
This ended up having a huge impact on the game and we actually discussed merging the two into one card type for Retro DBZ events. Since very few cards that affect Battlegrounds and Locations will affect BOTH Battlegrounds and Locations it became very annoying when building a deck that needed a Battleground but found mostly Location support, or needing to counter a Battleground but finding only Location support. Running a card that was anti-Battleground might end up being useless in a match-up against a deck that ran Locations.
And this became the other problem with Battlegrounds and Locations. They were notoriously difficult to get out of play. As I mentioned before, removal cards usually affected either Battlegrounds or Locations so they often weren’t worth running, even the supremely underrated Battleground remover: Land in Pain! Since only one Battleground or Location could be in play at a time, the best counter to a Battleground or Location became playing another Battleground or Location.
This set the stage for the Dragon Ball Z CCG to irrevocably be split into two deck types: Those that ran City in Turmoil and those that ran Winter Countryside.
City in Turmoil was just devastating to a wide variety of decks. So many decks were dependent on Non-Combat cards (which included Drills in Retro DBZ), and combining the difficulty of getting a Battleground out of play just made this a bomb card. As a result of running this card though, most survival and anger victory decks started shedding their Non-Combats and Drills from their decks, reshaping how those decks were constructed until the end of the game.
On the other side, stasis decks generally did not want to level up (especially those that ran Drill cards), so their counter for City in Turmoil became Winter Countryside. But not only did Winter Countryside provide an adequate counter for City in Turmoil, but it also eliminated future threats like Aura Clash and Straining Jump Kick Move from potentially wiping all their Drills out or sending them to a useless Level 2. While certainly not every deck used Winter Countryside as their City in Turmoil counter, it sure did go hand in hand with a stasis strategy and was the most popular choice.
Just the overall power of City in Turmoil forced decks to run a Battleground/Location as a counter, while outside of Winter Countryside there were not many very good alternatives that wasn’t a potential detriment to yourself, that benefited your opponent just as much or simply just didn’t have a power that made it playable.
In Panini America’s Dragon Ball Z, City in Turmoil has been reincarnated as Nappa – Space Traveler, which is a bit more manageable (in theory) than a Battleground and I doubt Nappa will start a trend in how decks are built from here on out. Battlegrounds and Locations were a neat idea, but in the end it just forced the game to split with only the most narrow use of the card types possible.
So did I get it right? Let us know what you think in the comments, on Facebook or Twitter!
Later, BroZ!
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One of the big bonuses in the Panini version of Z is it’s regard for interactivity. That’s the reason why Namekian needed a nerf; not because it was too good, but because it created a non-interactive play style.
Nappa is effectively City in Turmoil, but with new things to do with Critical Effects (anger Lowering and Ally removal) you aren’t put in a place where you can’t interact with that card type.
I don’t have a problem with them adding in Battlegrounds in general. They have done a good job with the Namekian Dragon Balls. They are less powerful that old school Dragon Balls, but also feel more relevant as well, which is very nice. Namekian Dragon Ball 1’s +1 Life card effect is subtle, but noticeable. If they take an even handed approach like this with a small sampling of Battleground type cards, I won’t complain too much.
Keep them out of the game. They made me feel like I had no choice but to play them. It’s like a non-combat that you can’t remove. I would have to run them in decks that wanted no non-combats. The games better without them.
My biggest problem was a location that prevented the use of Named cards. As a Tien player this single card crippled my deck.