DBM Unbinds Bojack – Tournament Report

The last time I was at Gencon, it was 2004.  I was playing in the Dragonball GT Expanded Worlds, using a deck that nobody really took notice of until the last couple of rounds of swiss.  A few of my playtesting partners from the old IRC days were very helpful in putting the deck through its paces prior to the event, and I liked me chances.  Sadly, bad luck intervened (as it often did in my case in top cut) and I lost in Top 8 to the eventual champion.

But playing that Black Chi-Chi deck, gaining some additional notoriety for it, and having some moderate success in the final worlds made the Black Style stick in my mind over the last 8 years.  Sure, myself and Brian Valdez had success a decade ago with Fanatics Black, but that deck had become old and underpowered in Expanded.  Focused Z with the “Retro Rules” really opened up possibilities to bring back some Black Hybrid Ally beats for the Retro event at Gencon this year.

I got back into the game earlier this year after talking with Garrett and Josh for the first time in ages.  I was fascinated and excited to see them start up this gaming community and give life to the dead game.  I used to write articles about DBZ for Scrye and Inquest back in the day, so I offered my services to the site.  My “top 10 tournament cards” articles have been popping up here and there (Cell Saga is coming soon).  In the Trunks Saga edition, Chipmunk made a comment along the lines of ‘when was the last time you saw someone win with the Black Style Mastery from TS?’

That was the motivation behind building this deck.  I immediately thought about Bojack, being one of the lucky Kid Buu Saga playtesters and having a lot of fun building decks with him and his cronies back when he was ridiculously overpowered.  I strongly believe that Black is the best style in the game, especially with the final boost it received in Kid Buu Saga.  I also refused to play something tired and boring, I always loved playing decks that nobody had seen before (even if it meant my eventual failure in the event).

So here’s the decklist and my tournament report.  I can’t believe to describe how much fun I had seeing everyone for the first time in 8 years.  Thank you to Garrett, Josh, and Chippy for running a great weekend.  I look forward to watching this community continue to grow as we race towards next Gencon!

Black Bojack

• Bojack
• Bojack, the Villainous
• Bojack, the Notorious

Black Style Mastery (TS)

South Kai Sensei

• You’re Invited
• Black Pivot Kick x3
• HUH???

Allies

• Zanya
• Bido
• Bujin
• Kogu
• Guldo

City In Turmoil x3

Attacks

• Black Body Destruction x3
• Black Turning Kick x3
• Black Swivel Attack x3
• Black Chaos Detonation x3
• Black Right Kick x3
• Gohan’s Kick x3
• Majin Buu’s Fury x3
• Bojack’s Extreme Assailment x4
• Bojack’s Double-Palmed Blitz x4
• Bido’s Charge x3
• Kogu’s Dual Strike x3
• Zanya’s Leaping Rush Down x3
• Triple Torpedo x3
• Android 19’s Energy Burst x3
• Krillin’s Heat Seeking Blast x3
• Kid Buu’s Prepped Crash x3

Blocks

• Bojack’s Defensive Aura x3
• Black Buffer Block x3

Combats

• Android 18’s Stare Down x3
• Trunks Energy Sphere x3
• Time Is A Warrior’s Tool
• Android 17 Smirks
• Gathering of Heroes x3
• Unexpected Allies x3

Dragon Balls

• Earth Dragon Ball 3
• Earth Dragon Ball 5

Deck Analysis

Looking back at this list, it’s a very clean deck.  I built it in one shot, on excel, and only made 1 change as a result of playtesting (originally had Black Physical Focus x3 and no Black Right Kick).   As you can see most cards are run x4 or x3, meaning that one bad discard probably wouldn’t ruin my match.  This is important because the deck doesn’t run many blocks – it relies on the knowledge that my damage output per combat is easily going to be greater than yours, barring a stop-all.   Although it is critical to notice that the deck runs 3x Black Body Destruction, 3x Black Turning Kick, and 3x Kogu’s Dual Strike in order to supplement its defense.

In all honesty, I didn’t really consider the metagame too much when building this.  I had been out of the game for a long, long time and was more concerned with running a cool deck that I found to be fun.  Of course, I made sure to have answers to a lot of various things (ally, drills, Dragon Ball), but didn’t compensate for any type over another.

Round 1 – Android 16 (CS) Black TS beatdown (Nick)

I needed to read his power; and realized that it was really good!  My gameplan was to be really careful about completely killing my hand when entering combat on him, so that I wouldn’t only have 2 cards next turn to his 3-4.  Once I started landing physical attacks, he struggled with keeping stages, which hurt his mostly energy-based deck.  The game was over in a few combats.

Most Valuable Card: Allies – allowed me to not worry as much about my hand and just smash him from the board.

Round 2 – Fat Buu (Defensive) Black TS beatdown (Fro)

Tough match if only due to the confusing nature of all the modifiers on the board: my power, black TS mastery; his power, black ts mastery, master roshi sensei.  Was able to eke out a few DB captures due to Master Roshi’s power not affecting power stages converted to life cards (in conjunction with Fat Buu’s power), and actually made it to Level 3 before winning the game!  Only later did I find out that Focused Attacks would not be prevented by Fat Buu’s power, meaning I short-changed myself a couple of times during the match.

Most Valuable Card: Earth Dragon Ball 5 – we kept passing that thing around, allowing me to extend combats and get to Level 2 & 3.

Round 3 – Yamcha The Amazing Red MBS Energy (Pickens)

Had to play this one carefully, due to not really knowing what he had in store for me.  Cool deck with custom-made card images (including Yamcha from Dragon Ball Evolution!)  Sensei’ed in 3 Black Pivot Kicks for no reason, and treaded lightly while beating him down as much as possible.  He did a great job keeping my allies at bay with Red Energy Blast, removing Kogu in the second combat.  However, I was able to Bojack’s Extreme Assailment, shuffle him back, and then land a Bido’s Charge to play him and use his power again.

Most Valuable Card: Bojack’s Extreme Assailment – only time I actually used this to shuffle back allies all tournament.  However, looping Kogu twice in one combat proved to be deadly.

Round 4 – Gohan (MBS) Black CS Ball/Carpet (Preston)

I still feel overwhelmed when I think back to this match.  Even though most will say that my Top 8 match against Didier’s Vegeta Freestyle was the most ‘epic’ match of the event, my Round 4 vs. Preston was easily the most difficult.  I did my typical first turn South Kai-for-an-ally-enter-smash-your-face-please, but ran into an immediate problem because I had no idea that Gohan MBS prevented all discards from his hand (from my effects).  I remembered the elective non-discard from the CRD, but not the first part.  Crap!  I entered with a useless Android 18’s Stare Down and proceeded to do some minor damage and scrub out of combat.  Next turn was where things got very interesting; he knew I sensei’ed in HUH???, so he played Alt Namek Dragon Ball 3 to retrieve a Black Searching Technique from his discards.  He played it, and with only 2 cards in hand, entered combat.  First thing he did was BST for that HUH??? —  too bad I had drawn it into my hand!  Now, in most matchups vs. most players that would’ve been ‘good game’, but he was able to discard my hand and keep HUH??? from hitting the table.  Of course, I stole his Alt Ball 3 a turn later and re-drew HUH???, making him go for a Stop! followed by a recapture and removal of HUH??? from my discards. Outstanding work, getting rid of that major threat.  The next couple of combats I was able to enter and immediately kill a couple of Goku’s Capturing Drills with Android 19’s Energy Burst.   Preston did a great job holding back the massive amount of drill hate in my deck; Caught Off Guard Drill hit the table for Black Pivot Kick and City in Turmoil (Pivot Kick being an automatic double removal due to Gohan’s power working against him).  He also ran a ton of physical blocks to stop Bido from discarding drills.  But, I was able to squeeze out a well-timed Bido’s Charge to capture another Dragon Ball and discard a drill; followed by a very lucky combat a few turns later where I entered with Android 17 Smirks and wiped his board.  I can easily say that if I didn’t hit that Smirks, I would’ve lost this game.  The rest of the combat went ‘back to normal’, with him drawing a clunky hand of Non-Combats and getting beat down hard.  Amazing game, I felt very proud to win it.

Most Valuable Card: Android 17 Smirks – removed 2 Caught Off Guard Drills and an Android 20’s Absorbing Drill to end his drill threat once and for all.  Huge.

Round 5 – Dr. Willow Black TS (Joel Glasser)

Scary match, I had heard that his Willow Kamehameha (didn’t know much beyond that) was tearing people up as it was 4-0 at this point.  We were the top ranked match going into Round 5, and I was concerned over Dr. Willow’s awesome powers.  He made it to Level 2 very quickly, as Dr. Willow does, but I was able to do some serious damage with a Majin Buu’s Fury (before his power could go off).  The next combat, he had a Hercule’s Dream Sequence down.  I managed to enter and get Bojack to 0 stages so that the Allies could bring the beats.  I did about 50 life cards in that combat; and he managed to Kamehameha me for about 16 (with 6 rejuv), but the Allies attacks were too strong and he was decked out the next turn.

Most Valuable Card: Majin Buu’s Fury – who knows how that combat would’ve played out if he was able to use Willow’s Level 2 power?  While I don’t think he could’ve crippled the deck, it sure would have been annoying and kept me on my toes.

Round 6 – Fat Buu (Defensive) Black CS Ball/Carpet (Phil – Dropped)

Not much to say other than that I was feeling very optimistic about this matchup, after managing to beat Preston, who was piloting a similar deck with a far worse MP matchup.  Not to mention, would’ve been a rematch 8 years in the making (t8 expanded worlds 2004).  Oh well, maybe next time!

Most Valuable Card: Chiaotzu’s Physical Defense

Top 8 – Vegeta (PROMO) Freestyle Energy/Anger (Didier Greenleaf) (VIDEO)

Most of you saw it in person; the rest of you watched it online.  This was a crazy match that took many twists and turns that I never would’ve suspected.  I had been tipped off to the Vegeta Is Lurking/Level 1 combo earlier, but that didn’t do me much favors as I sensei’ed out a City in Turmoil and Kid Buu’s Prepped Crash.  I also forced him into combat with a second-turn You’re Invited, and drew my worst hand of the entire tournament – EDB5, Zanya, and an energy attack.  When you only run 9 non-playable cards in your whole deck and draw 2 of them, that hurts.  He didn’t do much damage to me, thankfully, but I definitely felt the burn of the wasted combat.  I remember getting very frustrated in this match, due to really sub-par draws.  Once we hit that ever-important combat where I got him down to 1 life card, the game became much more frantic and fun.  The amount of rejuvenation he was able to perform was amazing, but I kept plugging along hoping for that 1 big combat to break through and wipe him out.  Once again, it was Android 17 Smirks to the rescue, as I was able to destroy his Android 20 Absorbing Drill and start peppering him for major damage.  I was also able to end his threat in the last combat by fishing for Bujin and locking him out of Energy Combat cards (he landed an Energy Focus, making my usual method of stage deprivation useless).  I definitely had the adrenaline pumping through me during most of this match, so big shout out to Didier for an amazing game, and the Retro guys for making it a featured match!

Most Valuable Card: Android 17 Smirks – allowed me to break through his defenses and start smashing face with Bojack’s Double-Palmed Blitz.

Top 4 – Evil Buu Red TS Beatdown/Anger (Jonathan Greenleaf)

My first fear was some sort of poetic justice – Brother avenging brother, that sort of thing.  But if I had to take down a family in order to make it to the finals, so be it.  Jonathan’s deck was infinitely more straightforward than Didier’s – Majin Buu Red TS Anger.  I go first, drew an AMAZING hand, and entered combat.  I got a couple of attacks off, then much to my dismay he threw a Red Face Slap on the table, shutting off my personality powers – including Bojack’s.  Allies could still take control and pay for attacks/absorb damage if Bojack was at 1 or 0 stages, but obviously he chopped my legs off with that move.  The sad thing is, my hand was so good, I would’ve ended the combat with all 5 of my allies in play and have performed over 10 attacks.  Oh well, save it for next combat, right?  Wrong.  He entered combat, drops a Battle Pausing, and Red Face Slapped me again.  He made it all the way to Level 3 that turn!  I was able to chip away 1 or 2 anger levels thanks to a couple of Bojack’s Extreme Assailments (setting him back to 2 anger when he was at 3 or 4 – hey, every bit counts).  Finally, turn 3 I was able to get into combat and lock him down with Bujin (on physical combat).  Great!  He was at 2 anger, so mastery wouldn’t let him level, and he couldn’t play physical combat cards.  Sounds like I had this in the bag, until he played Red Double Strike!  He would’ve easily got to level 4, and broke out of Bujin’s spell.  Thankfully, I had trusty Trunks Energy Sphere in my hand to end his threat and finish the game that turn.

Finals – Evil Buu Red TS Beatdown (Merckle) (VIDEO)

Merckle and I were sharing a room at the con, and thankfully that meant we got a good amount of games in before the event.  His Majin Buu deck was one of the only decks I’d seen at the event that could pump out more damage per attack than mine.  Thankfully, my knowledge of how his deck worked (drills, drills, drills) allowed me to make sure I didn’t ignore my drill hate as I went through my deck (including the 3x Black Pivot Kick I sensei’ed in each game).

These two games are a blur, but I do recall one pivotal sequence from I believe the first game – Merckle enters early in the game, and I shut him down that turn by destroying his hand.  I proceed to also do some very solid damage with my allies/ally searchers.  The combat went on for a bit, and then when it finally ended and switched to my turn, someone over my shoulder remarked “Holy shit, it’s HIS turn now?”  Gotta feel good about that kind of momentum going into your turn.

He definitely got his damage in, but he couldn’t really dig deeply into his deck enough to get his Ally hate – which was abundant, mind you.  At the end of the day, you’re still only going through your deck 3 cards at a time in Old Z, and time isn’t on your side vs. Bojack.  Great match, great finals, and great opponent – very proud to have been victorious over a strong and diverse field!

Once again, thank you to Garrett, Josh and Chippy for arranging an awesome event.  I had a lot of fun just hanging out, playing cards and talking about random stuff with everyone.

Looking forward to next year!