Hey BroZ,
Happy (belated) new year! We thought we’d take this time to look back on 17 and the effect it had on the card game. Not the year mind you, the year kinda sucked (even for DBZ card games). We’re talking about one of the most overlooked Androids from the Score game: Android 17!
Poor old 17 never really rose above being a niche or gimmick character in Retro DBZ. Most of his personality powers revolved around The Car, and beyond that they were largely lackluster attacks with no additional effects beyond damage. For some reason, the designers thought some of these powers were so nice, they made them twice!
Android 17 has gotten some love in the most recent arc of Dragon Ball Super. If we were still putting out virtual cards for Retro DBZ (or decided to in the future…), we’d almost certainly give this guy some more love as well as making him a Rogue Personality without question. To be fair though, he did get a little love in DBGT.
So what did Android 17 have going for him in Retro DBZ? Well, he did have some “decent” LV. 1 personalities. For starters he was an Android with an attack on a LV. 1, which made him a go-to for any Android gimmick ally deck and a contender for being in a few villain ally builds.
His LV. 1 from Android Saga had potential to make Android 17 an MPPV personality, unfortunately that dream was cut short when his MP stack came out in the set that introduced LV. 5 personalities to the game (not to mention his LV. 4 was only available as a redemption promo a bit later). He did have potential as a Dragon’s Victory personality… until his CCPP LV. 1 was released.
If Android 17 saw any play in the Retro DBZ days, it was with the CCPP LV. 1. Having an anti-combat card power made him versatile in a few decks like the aforementioned Dragon’s Victory deck, as a villain ally deck by keeping your posse somewhat ironically safe from Cell’s Presence, and if you were lucky enough to have Ultimate Champion, well…
The downside to the CCPP Android 17 was just the simply lackluster collection of Android 17 named cards. Sure you had the villain staple of Android 17 Smirks… but it could be used by any villain, was limited to one per deck and was removed from game after use.
There were only two Android 17 specific cards in his arsenal that were worth considering, though both only had limited uses. The first was Android 17’s Back Bash, with the always useful ability of having the opponent skip their next attack phase… if Android 17 had any way to capitalize on that (he rarely did in stasis heavy environments).
And there was the slightly more useful Android 17’s Left Blast (with it’s amazing card art), which had decent damage output as well as a secondary effect that could help with Dragon’s Victory or (god help you) MPPV. At the end of the day though, it was an Android 17 named card.
I was originally going to end the article there, but I realized there was just one more Android 17 card, so I might as well cover that. Here it is. It does an extra two stages if you’re Android 17. Wow! There is something to be said about reliable damage, though being removed from the game after use doesn’t do much for CCPP LV. 1 (probably the only reason you’d be running this).
That’s it, BroZ. Hopefully 2018 will be a great year for us all. Later!
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Awesome article! Thanks for posting
Do people still play this game because I have an assisted Kamehameha card (UR) and I was wanting to sell it, but I don’t know if people still play it or collect.
People still play here and there. There are a few facebook groups where people buy and sell cards.