Hello everyone. As I was actually able to make it out to ARG Nationals, I was able to both observe the Invitation and compete in the Circuit Series. My personal Tournament Report and Deck Profile will be on a separate article because throwing it in here would make far too unwieldy an article. Here though I’m going to discuss the many things I observed during the day, both good and bad pertaining to the DBSTCG as a whole.

For the most part, there’s a decently diverse metagame.

Not talking about the Leaders for a second (oh boy, we’ll get there don’t worry), the actual decks played were pretty varied up until the very end of the Swiss at Invitational. Here’s notes of what I saw. Mono-Blue Control, U/G Control, SS3 Kefla Midrange, SS3 R/Y Midrange, U/R Hirudegarn, Trunks Lineage (though Lineage did see play in a few Leaders today), SS3 Apes, Apes and Taxes (that was quick to show up), GT, Cell Chain, even Kale Veggies. While things did eventually settle down in the end to mostly Midrange and Mono-Blue Control with a smattering of Trunks Lineage and U/R Hirudegarn it was nice to see that honestly a lot of these decks be able to hang tough and hold their own at the top tables. More than likely there’s a deck for you out there. That being said though…

SS3 Goku is truly showing to be a problem…a HUGE problem.

Now, for those who have read my article on SS3’s arrival on the watch list they’ll know I was on the fence about whether it should be touched or not. Well I’m not on the fence anymore, something has to be done. It absolutely dominated the top tables at both the Invitational and Circuit Series. I believe the final tally was 27 out of Top 32 for the Invitational using SS3 (please someone correct me if I’m incorrect) and I believe 6 out of Top 8 for Circuit Series. It did turn out that I was correct that SS3 Goku was ultimately not as good an Aggro Leader as Trunks or Hirudegarn…so it just instead decided to double down on Midrange and Control which it did to absolute absurdity. The defensive capability of the Leader is just far too high. Every match with him often becomes a slogfest, just trying to get any damage in edgewise against 3+ Untapped Energy and a plethora of big combos and Negates. And the Errata I had of making it only work on Blue simply won’t cut it anymore considering Mono-Blue Control’s extremely strong performance as well.

You have a problem on your hands Bandai, but don’t rush either. Truly sit down and think how you want to approach this. Anyway, moving onto the actual decks played again…

The Aggro Format turned out to not be so Aggro in the end, huh?

Like I said, 27 SS3 in Top 32, 6 in Top 8 of CS. A great majority of all of those decks were Midrange or Control variants. Unsurprisingly, good players adjusted to the speed of the format. Decks running a metric crap ton of negates and generally anything to keep their survivability until they turned the corner and stabilized. Once they hit that 4+ Energy mark, the pain came. Foreseeing Hit, still one of the nastiest cards in the entire game. Saiyan Onslaught Kefla, who I’ll talk a little more about later. Jiren getting some play. Piccolo, the Strategist. At All Costs Vegeta made a big splash. Fu, Shrouded in Mystery provided that fun win button play. Even freaking Dragon Fist SS3 Goku, a card I outright dismissed as being too slow, made an impact (including to my own face T_T). Even the Ribrianne Package showed up in top tables (I knew I wasn’t crazy!). But there was one card I definitely overlooked too much.

Ultimate Box Vegito made a massive impact.

Now I’ll say it again, in a faster format I still believe Bergamo to be better, and to be sure, Bergamo got his fair share of play this weekend. However, as the tides of the format turned back towards Midrange and Control…as I mentioned, Vegito became an absolute terror to deal with. Even moreso when backed up by 3+ Energy as per usual, thanks for nothing SS3 Goku. You’d have to spend a crazy amount of resources just to attack into him, and hope it’d get through and the Barrier made sure that there weren’t too many easy buttons to get it off the board. It was in every Mono-Blue Control deck basically and even some that weren’t like Kefla Midrange. Multiple games I saw multiples of this on board and just wrote off the game as either an inevitable win, or a draw (or a save me Chain Attack Zen-oh!). Just a card that played fantastically for a lot of people over the weekend, I hope you got your playset.

Blockers are becoming more and more valued.

Remember in Galactic Battle where outside of the random teched King Kai you’d basically never see Blockers anywhere? Here we are a year later and every single set besides Galactic Battle had a Blocker of their’s represented at top tables. And I’m not just talking about cards with fantastic effects that just HAPPEN to be Blockers at the same time, Fearless Pan! But cards put in very specifically because they Block and thus stem off even more aggression. I imagine we’ll see more and more of this trend. As a matter of fact, we have a subsection to this.

Free Blockers are EVERYWHERE.

It used to be that you’d use some Free Blockers in Leaders that they supported, mainly Mai for Trunks. But now cards like Bardock, the Progenitor are so pushed, that something like Gine can come for free and do work. The trend didn’t stop there though. Videl was also seeing notable play alongside a few Gohans. It makes sense though, easy blocks to deal with early aggression or can themselves be extra attackers on the cheap. It’s definitely interesting to see something so initially dismissed now becoming more and more a part of the regular format.

Dual Attack is a lot more valued of a Keyword.

With players taking their life to their limits to push out every last bit of aggression, now Dual Attack (and similar effects that emulate it, like Digging Deep Vegeta) is becoming far more valued of an asset. Before it was mainly okay, just as a way to either get value out of certain effects or trying to slip in a bigger keyword during an extra swing like Double Strike. Now it’s arguably the most important keyword in the game, or at least the most important offensive one. Now the last little thing I want to talk about is more about tournament decorum.

When playing in official events, do your best to properly communicate with your opponent.

I saw multiple judge calls happen where players weren’t communicating properly, so plays got assumed and it led to a lot of confusion, frustration and usually arguments. When in a tournament, make it absolutely clear everything you are doing. Do not assume that the opponent will understand certain hand motions, or mumbling words in a usually loud venue. Speak clearly, and repeat if you have to. Also don’t be afraid to ask your opponent explicitly to repeat something if you aren’t sure you heard correctly. It’s one thing to sit through a judge call because of a missed trigger or an misunderstood interaction, those things happen. It’s another thing to have to, or to be disadvantaged, over something that could’ve been easily avoided.

Final Thoughts:

I had a ton of fun with the event. It was cool to see a whole bunch of deck types around, even if the specter of SS3 was hanging over the tournament. I certainly saw a LOT of players frustrated with the Leader, even the ones winning with him, going as far to call him the Training Wheels Leader and one can certainly see their point.

Next Article, the long awaited Deck Profile and Tournament Report.