After reading the article my roommate Fresko posted about his opinion on the Sensei Deck poll, I decided that people should have a look at the opposite side of the coin. Sensei decks brought two new things to the game. The first was that you had an extra ability that started in play (unless you were Piccolo Sensei.) The second was that for the first time, you had the ability to have a sideboard. While some may say that the way the Sensei deck mechanic was designed was inherently flawed, I’d like to make a case for showing why it was actually a well thought out idea.
Dragonball Z was not the first game to have sideboards, and it wouldn’t be the last. Games like Magic the Gathering made great use of the sideboard. There is one key difference with it though. At the start of the game, you have no idea what your opponent is running. Because of this, you won’t automatically know what to sideboard into your deck. Now, Magic is a game that is played in a best 2/3 format. But even if your opponent gets to know exactly what to put in game 2, if you’re already up 1-0, then it isn’t nearly as much of a drawback. In Z, with the proposed changes, your opponent gets to Sensei in exactly what they need knowing full well what deck you are running.
Should Sensei cards be a sideboard with an effect or an effect with a sideboard?
Fresko made a point about the Orange MBS Gohan deck that he and Joey Dicarlo designed for Worlds. He listed his Sensei deck and that he only had room for one real Meta call after he put in the “Sensei Deck Staples.” There’s just one problem though. From the way he described the deck, it seems like between what he ran in the main deck/Sensei deck, he pretty much had an out for every matchup. I see no conclusive argument that this deck would have been any better with an expanded sideboard.
As for the Diecon story, yes, what he Sensei’d out hurt. But when you Sensei in 12 cards with the game mechanics working like they do, part of that is on you. You’re removing 1/7th of your deck from the game… Of course you are going to lose things that you need.
I like the Sensei deck being a risk reward type thing. If you are getting the free ability to put cards into your deck in order to help you vs. an opponent your natural deck just didn’t prepare for, then you should have to worry about losing something vital to your deck. If you don’t want to risk that, then run your tech main deck.
One of the great things about Z is the ability to out think, out play, and out tech your opponent. If Sensei decks are opened up the way people are proposing, then it becomes a much more stale game. People can run very streamlined versions of their decks, and never worry about losing anything they need. I don’t have to make critical decisions on if I have room to tech a bad matchup. As it stands now… My deck will lose to anger. I have no room to run anything to get around that. With the change, I can’t see any deck losing to anger. There’s no reason not to put tech into every sideboard from that point on.
In addition, I believe the amount of usable Sensei cards would decrease with this change. As it stands, there are multiple Sensei cards that are used. North Kai, South Kai, West Kai, Piccolo Sensei all have valuable uses. With the proposed changes, Piccolo becomes useless and North Kai becomes the dominant Sensei. The ability to shut off a Mastery is not only a fantastic ability, but you also have the option of running ANY 13 cards you want as tech. Sure West Kai is nice, but why bother when I can have an extra 6 cards in my sideboard to deal with drills.
All in all, I’m not completely against change. If people feel that any card should be runable in Sensei decks, I can understand that. But with that, I still want to see the risk/reward of having to Sensei cards in. If we want to see a better, more fun game of Z… Then I think the best thing that can be done is to deal with a few problem cards that make the game less fun for everyone (Long Journey…).
I agree a lot stronger with this viewpoint. If you can’t plan your deck well enough to deal with certain other decks, you shouldn’t get a free pass to reassemble your deck. I liked the way the sensei mechanic was made.
Very good arguments from both sides. Very interesting to see this discussion 5+ years after the final set. =)
I think we should have an old-school SNL-style debate…I can hear “Shaun, you ignorant slut!” already.
^ already been said!
Though, to quote Shaun from last night, “Honestly, if you wrote an article titled ‘I Like Toast’, Id probably write an article about why I dont.”
Ha ha, I did say that. Though I actually do believe in what I wrote here. But who am I kidding, I love toast.
i think the toast debate should be the first panel at gencon.