Well, we finally reached the last (canon?) numerical Android in this yearly write-up of some of the most fun personalities in the game. Android 20 is my personal favorite character in the show for being such a crotchety old man who somehow ended up creating some of the biggest villains and heroes in the series. Seriously, the multiverse was saved and the Earth almost destroyed because this old man got big mad at a ten year old.
In the Retro DBZ CCG, he is one of the more playable Androids though he unfortunately falls into the “gimmick” deck category with his Android ally centric powers. There are a max of seven different Android personalities of wildly varying usefulness that good old Dr. Gero can run, the perfect number for a Z Warriors Gather. Unfortunately, their lack of synergy with each other and as allies in general makes Android 20 an odd ally deck where the Main Personality ends up doing most of the work.
Let’s take a look at what we’re working with.
The Level One from the Androids Saga is not useful at all and simply outclassed. With the amount of cheaper ally tutors available and a steep cost that will be at its most useful if you are five or six stages above zero to get into ally range, not to mention the lackluster choice of Android allies, makes this card essentially unplayable.
The Cell Saga Level One on the other hand is great as both a Main Personality and an ally. It’ll always do at least five life cards, and can get as powerful as twelve life cards of base power (and that’s not counting any Androids your opponent might be playing). While not the most flashy or even the most powerful, it does provide solid damage that can (and should be) scaling upwards.
For some reason, Android 20 got left out of getting a Level 1 and 2 HT from the Cell Saga Wrapper Redemption, so this is the only Level 2 that he gets until Dragon Ball GT. It’s okay, until you realize that the power only applies to attacks made by Dr. Gero himself and not from any of your allies due to how Constant Combat Powers worked in Retro DBZ. If Android 20 isn’t in control of combat, then the power isn’t active.
It’s levels like this that really make Android 20 lean into the weird Android Ally build where the allies are just there to trigger effects while the Main Personality does the big boy damage. With enough allies in play to pump this power up, you could rack up some damage chaining Android 13’s Prepared Stance into an Android 19’s Energy Burst or something. Personally, I’d rather another attack here to balance out how much of your deck that you’re devoting to allies that aren’t pulling their weight. Sigh, they really captured that part of being a criminal mastermind into this game.
Here’s the money level. No, not the Hi-Tech card. An eight life card attack for no cost is respectable, but no one is building a deck just to get access to that Level 3 power.
I rated Android 20 the Schemer as one of the best Level 3 powers in the game. At its absolute best, this attack can swing for +24 life cards of damage. TWICE. That’s 48 life cards (not counting any PAT damage) if you are caught unprepared. Android 20 sitting on a Goku’s Farewell is a huge threat that can take you out from little over half your life deck, especially if you make the smart play with Android 13’s Prepared Stance and grab an Android 18’s Stare Down.
Android 20’s Level 4 is… there I guess. Not really worth running unless you plan on staying parked at Level 1 since Level 3 is really where you want to be and you don’t want a Level 4 getting in the way of your Goku’s Farewell. The power is decent, but not for a Level 4 and not after The Schemer. Honestly, this would’ve been a pretty cool Level 2 power.
Ok, let’s move on to Android 20’s named cards which, like many Androids, runs the gamut from staple to garbage.
Let’s start at the top. This is THE Android 20 card. So simple, so effective, a literal common card and no “Villains Only” alignment lock. I could write paragraphs of platitudes for this card, so let’s just leave it as one of the best (if not THE best) defensive cards in the game.
We went from staple to total garbage. I cannot think of a single situation where you would put this in your deck, even in a draft format this is one of the first cards to go. If you’re anticipating taking an energy attack, why wouldn’t you run Android 20 Absorbing Drill instead? If you need to power up a personality to full, there are already much better Non-Combat cards like Power Up The Most! to choose from.
Ok, I guess. A recursion card that doesn’t remove itself from the game is always worth a look, but probably not seeing any use outside of a Lord Slug deck. Oddly enough Dr. Gero’s minion was able to combine this card and the worthless Android 20 Powers Up into the much more attractive Android 19’s Distress.
Here’s a nice card that doxes Yamcha and sees some use every once in a while. The effect is slight, but in the right deck and with the right call the fallout could be massive. Many Dragon Ball Victory decks ran this card to defend against Huh???. I’m a fan of this one, though admittedly I seldom found room for it in my decks.
Let’s move into some attacks. Energy Dive and Energy Burst are very similar. They’re alright, I might have packed Energy Dive in a deck at some point before newer sets pushed these cards to obsolescence. They are very okay cards that just don’t really make the cut.
Lastly, there’s this card. Nothing to write home about. With quite a few energy attacks costing two stages and dealing six life card, this one isn’t that cost efficient and I never saw it outside of sealed events.
So there is one last thing that we can look at. Android 20 did get a new stack in Dragon Ball GT.
The later levels still straddle the line a bit with Android 20 being an ally personality, but I actually ran a pretty fun beatdown deck with him at the last Score GT event using Orange Pinpoint Mastery. The idea was to enter combat and activate an Orange Berate or I’ve Got What You Want and then immediately lock the opponent into combat with a Majin Buu’s Fury or Gohan’s Kick and then go to town. It did okay, but both me and my opponent got DQ’d in the final round of Swiss for messing up our decklists and that’s how my last official Dragon Ball tournament ended.
If you liked this article, be sure to check out similar write-ups on Android 17, Android 18 and Android 19.
Do you remember using any of these cards? Let us know in the comments, in our Facebook group or on social media (links below).
Later BroZ!
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I don’t suppose any deck lists for this guy are floating around anywhere, are they? He certainly looks like he could have potential, particularly with the Android support we got in the Super Android 13 subset. Either way, great article and a fantastic read- thanks for writing this one up!