In honor of all the Androids Virtual Cards that we have been previewing, I felt like sharing my Android 18 “Soccer Mom” deck that I used at Gen Con last year. It’s largely the same deck and you may have seen me bust it out on the stream. I originally wanted to run it Hero Freestyle so I could get Caught Off Guard Drill, but losing Android 19’s Energy Burst, Android 18’s Staredown and Vegeta’s Jolting Slash was just too much. If I was going to a regional, I’d probably make it with the cheap Orange MBS Mastery, but I find that mastery to be boring to play with and against in casual games.
The basic premise of the deck is similar to Vinegar HT decks: Use Android 18’s unstoppable attack and pump it up as much as you can. Though you have to work for it a bit more to make your power unstoppable, I feel that Android 18 is a better personality to run the deck engine off of. Let’s take a look.
Sensei Deck
Non-Combat – Drills (13)
Non-Combats (13)
3x The Car
Locations (3)
Dragon Balls (1)
Allies (3)
Combats (16)
Energy Combats (17)
3x Krillin’s Heat Seeking Blast
3x Majin Buu’s Energy Detonation
Physical Combats (13)
3x Tien’s Block
Because I played this in our tourney at Gen Con, I actually bothered to fill out the Sensei Deck. The You’re Inviteds are actually important for Energy Lob, but other than that I might side in Huh??? if I suspect a ball deck and Black Scout Maneuver if I see Piccolo or an Orange Vegeta’s Assault deck. I have been known to sensei Power of the Cookies on occasion, as I find them invaluable for trashing City in Turmoil.
Speaking of City, that’s obviously a huge weakness of the deck. I run Winter Countryside as a counter land, and Gohan’s Nimbus to speed that along. Alt. Dende Ball 3 is amazing, and if your opponent isn’t running a lot of drill hate then the ball and Goku’s Capturing Drill will shut down the City. It’s also convenient how City “turns off” Black Water Confusion Drill if you happen to have that out already. If there’s no city, I usually won’t play the ball at all.
The next biggest weakness is physical beats. This deck has been caught with Non-Combat heavy hands and obliterated in a single turn. That’s why the deck skews very heavily toward anti-physical beats. Usually a few Android 20 Absorbing Drills will keep energy decks at bay.
The rest is pretty simple: get out The Car and build up your drills. Android Attack Drill kicks so much ass, especially with Android 14. Remember you can Krillin Power Tap those, and off of a single AAD and KPT you can do 11 life cards with Android 18’s power and a physical for +7 life cards every time you use Android 14 (don’t forget to include Master Roshi Sensei). Not too shabby! The rest of the attacks are just utility, and the Heat Seeking Blasts are an obvious choice for the deck. Majin Buu’s Energy Detonation is a great energy attack, it’s focused and it can recur itself, so it got my approval to go in.
With Android 18 hitting the average deck for around 10% of the cards in it every combat, you’ll see things go down real quick for the opponent. The level two isn’t terrible with The Car out, but stick on level one and pile on the damage to an attack your opponent can do nothing about.
that’s a lot of powerful energy attacks. it’s easy to think focused Z is going to be slower and have less power creep than GT (which of course, it is). Decks like this make you reconsider being nonchalant about taking damage.