Howdy all,
After doing a Saiyan set review last week it really got my creative juices flowing. Before I get into the deck lets talk about combo. In Magic the Gathering and TCG’s in general combo describes a specific type of deck. This type of deck is often looking to setup a certain board state (maybe draw certain cards or cast certain spells) that leads to an unfair and usually game winning turn. One of the most powerful combo deck in the history of Magic is storm. Storm cards copy themselves for each other spell played in a turn, combo-ing with cheap/ free spells for a huge one turn victory out of nowhere.
Not only do I think that there may be a powerful combo deck in DBZ, I think that a storm may be lurking in DBZ. This deck tries to setup a big turn were it plays as many cards as it can in one turn and hopefully kills your opponent in the process. I present this with a word of caution. This is theory crafting and I have no idea how good this deck is without some real testing. It might be terrible or it might be fantastic but more likely it falls some where in between.
The Little Engine that Could:
Ok lets get start. Any good combo deck has to have an engine. These are the cards that make the deck work. These cards often look terrible on the surface but when added into the right mix you got dynamite.:
Each card works to make your attacks hit just a little bit harder. By themselves the bonus is small and insignificant but when enough combine together each attack will hit for huge chunks of life. Your plan is to assemble 2 or more of these cards in a single turn and than follow up with a huge barrage of attacks to try to take advantage of the damage bonus. Gohan (lvl 1 or 2) the dragon ball and Saiyan Offensive Rush can stay on the table and not take up a card in you hand. This is important as you want to maximize the number of attacks you can play in the turn you decide to “go off”.
Putting the Pieces Together:
The next key part of a combo deck is card draw/ card manipulations. You want to be able to draw the engine cards early and draw the gas (the cards that combine with the engine) later. Although Saiyan has a limited number of card draw effects will wok with what we have now:
The point of these cards is to dig into what you need. Saiyan enraged is especially good allowing you to have additional cards in the turn you decide to go off. As I said you have limited options here but luckily there is one more card that can help fuel you engine:
By most accounts battle pausing is a bad card. Although it looks like cards advantage is often is just a 2 for 2 plus pumping your opponent up to punch you in the face. In this deck it can do much more. On the turn you decide to go off this card can return a couple of key cards to greatly turn the tides in your favor. The main targets for this spell Saiyan Energy Toss, Saiyan Elbow Drop, and Saiyan Multi-Blast. If nothing else you can trade it those extra engine pieces when you don’t need them for any 2 random attacks.
The Gas:
Attack, attack, attack and attack. Your deck wants a ton of attacks. In fact you want so many attacks that when you decide to go off you hope you have 4 attacks in hand and even a couple more on top of your deck to draw into. This means that we are going to have to build this deck much differently than your standard 10ish setups, 15-20 blocks and 30 ish attacks. Due to the limited card pool this will lead to using a lot of filler attack cards to fill up the deck but there are a couple I would like to highlight.
Saiyan Elbow Drop
This is one of the best cards in the deck (and in Saiyan in general). With only Gohan and a single Saiyan Offensive Rush this card will deal 5 life cards and +3 at stages twice. That’s around 20% of there deck in a single attacks. Combined with a few more engine pieces this card can easily shred your opponent apart all by itself.
Saiyan Multi-Blast
Free attacks are extremely powerful especially when getting a huge boost in damage. The main danger here is that this card draws on hit. Overall its a high risk, high reward card that can be huge if unblocked. Play it late and hope to avoid blocks.
Saiyan Energy Focus,Saiyan Domination, Saiyan Surprise and Saiyan Pinpoint Blast
These are you leading attacks. Depending on the situation these cards can shut down the various on board/ event based blocks that you opponent is holding onto. You are trying to maximize your damage in one turn and these cards help with limiting you opponents options to stop you big turn. Enough talk already lets put it all together:
Gohan Goes BOOM!!
Personality
Gohan Resilient Child
Gohan Young Warrior
Gohan Determined
Gohan Armored
Non-Combat-13
Namek Dragon Ball 1 x 1
Saiyan Enraged x 3
Saiyan Offensive Rush x 3
Visiting The Past x 2
Saiyan Preparation x 2
Battle Pausing x 2
Blocks-4
Saiyan Focus x 2
Saiyan Lightning Dodge x2
Attacks-43
Gohan’s Masenko x 2
Saiyan Acute Rapid Slam x 3
Saiyan Cheap Shot x 3
Saiyan Direct Strike x 3
Saiyan Domination x 3
Saiyan Elbow Drop x 3
Saiyan Energy Focus x 3
Saiyan Energy Rupture x 2
Saiyan Energy Toss x 3
Saiyan Gut Kick x 3
Saiyan Left Kick x 3
Saiyan Multi-Blast x 3
Saiyan Pinpoint Blast x 3
Saiyan Surprise x 3
Saiyan Uppercut x 3
Notable missing cards:
Gohan’s Power Punch
This is not a styled cards and it raises your anger 2. Usually raising your anger is a bonus but this decks wants to stay at Gohan lvl 1/2 as long as possible, which is hard enough with all the Saiyan attacks.I have considered Empowered Flying Kick to keep your anger in check but Gohan’s power is so weak that the cards is pretty bad.
Saiyan Power Up
Although I mentioned this card earlier, I feel that it is strictly worse than Visiting The Past. I may be wrong as Gohan is fairly soft and may need the extra stages to begin his chain of energy combats (the mastery powers you up with each attacks).
Saiyan Clothesline
One of the best cards in Saiyan but as i mentioned before Gohan doesn’t have the power stages to take advantage of this card.
Confrontation and Time is a Warrior’s Tool
I didn’t include these because I don’t own them and i don’t think they are essential to the list. Time could definitely replace a block but confrontation is a give or take. You would likely have to cut an attack for confrontation making it only so-so for the deck. If you are striping a block, confrontation feels fantastic, but if you miss , you could be missing out of 8 life cards of damage or more.
Blocks
This deck runs 4 block as you want to maximize the number of attacks in the deck. It might be more correct to run one time is a warrior’s tool and no block at all but I included these for two reasons. There are some attacks you will badly wish to block, so hold onto these for emergencies. Last, the draining of there stages is very relevant with the power matters cards in Saiyan.
The general flow of the deck should go something like this:
-Assemble engine pieces (2 or more if possible w/ Gohan)
-Try to build up on board advantage (Saiyan enraged and Visiting the past)
-With a hand full of attacks pull the trigger, play you leading attacks and damage advantage effects and chain out into and elbow drop to try finish you opponent off all in one turn.
-Rinse and repeat
Please let me know how the deck works for you. It looks great in my mind and on paper but until a few testing games are played you never know.
I like the sound of this deck, I want to try it out when I get home.
Let me know how it works out for you. Like I said this is all in my head I would love to see how it works on the tab;e.
I built a similar deck but a rules question came up. I was at four anger. Played an attack and use the lvl 1 to add two. Mastery kicked in I went up a level, now level two gives two more life cards. Is this correct that both levels are adding +4?
Yes, you are correct on the +4. Gohan’s lv.1 allows you to add damage through deck destruction when the attack is performed, which in game state happens prior to the use of immediate effects (like raising your anger). You can apply the up to +2 from his level one, raise your anger from the immediate effect, then apply his +2 from level two during damage calculation.
I find it hard to believe that you would get the +2 from his lvl2 power after playing the attack on his lvl1. That’s like saying I play a card while at lvl3 Krillin that levels me up to 4 and NOW it can’t be stopped. Similar with lvl1 Vegeta- if you’re at 4 anger and play an attack that raises your anger 1 and its successful, you don’t get his lvl1 “hit” effect.
It should work both ways. Great ruling question though, need to get an official ruling on it from Richie/Aik.
The reason you don’t get the hit effect is because it’s a HIT effect. Immediate effects such as damage boosts and other things apply throughout the attack. Hit effects are after damage.
Yes, you currently have a total of 4 if the card is Styled.
The level one locks in that Damage enhancement when it is used.
Then the level 2 will add a static 2 on top of that.
Going to make it now and play around with it
Well I just put it together and am going to see how it tests out. The only difference I have is I don’t have two masenkos so I put in a time to cover the difference
So just my thought on the Saiyan Power Up and Visiting the Past. Past can give you Card Selection or Advantage and Selection while Power up gives you some stages and replaces itself. Plus Power Up is a Saiyan Styled card for other cards that care about that (Gohan lvl 1, Saiyan Enraged). I feel over all Visiting the Past will do more work for you in setting up the deck while the Power Up will be better in the situations that it is necessary in. I’m putting the deck together as I was always a combo player in MTG and this appeals to me. Plus its playing what is thought of as a bad personality to good use. I do feel like maybe trying to fit in that last Masenko could be something to think about to keep us at lvl 2. I will be doing some testing so I will let you guys know what that results are.
Ya I would say that if you want to you could replace the blocks with Saiyan Power Up. This is a bit suicidal but you could have even more on board draw to make for huge combo turns.
As a former Z player and MTG player. I picked this up with ease. I’ve created a red deck that I have not lost a game with. I have won 5 games on turn one via damage and comboing off on unlucky opponents. If anyone else has seen a turn one victory I won’t post the list but if I am the one with the game shattering deck list…I kind of want it out here so you guys can all help me confirm and also…I kinda want the credit for the best deck out there.