Hello everyone and welcome back to Preview Season. Of course at this moment, it’s also Hurricane Season so be safe to all of those in the East Coast, especially in the Carolinas. Hole up, fortify the house, play some DBS to ride it out. Anyway, today we get to the Miraculous Revival set proper starting with the Black Cards while also getting the World Tournament SCR. What nuance will Black bring to the table? Can the new SCR make waves or will continue the tradition of SCRs being niche cards? Let’s find out.

World Tournament Secret Rare

Son Goku & Uub, Seeds of the Future

What is still technically the final shot of the Dragon Ball manga and anime (as Super takes place canonically before this), the pairing of Goku and Uub create the first dual character SCR. Now, as is SCR tradition, despite the high casting cost they do have a cheaper way of playing them. However, despite this it’s still the most expensive, Energy wise, cost of a SCR yet. To this point the highest “cheap” way to play a SCR was 5 Energy, now it’s 6 and it’s 6 with a massive restriction, requiring both you AND your opponent to have 6 Energy something that normally only happens in a SS3 mirror and since this requires a WT Leader…well, you can’t use SS3.

What do you get for the big restriction? Well stat wise, 40K Double Strike/Dual Attack is immensely strong, great for ending a game on the spot and would be very pushed at 6 Energy. At 8 Energy…not so much. His ability though should look very familiar, as it’s essentially Infinite Force Fused Zamasu. You don’t get to hit the hand, but you offset by having actual offensive Keywords. He’s a big clock that can kill from even 4 Life out. If the opponent is at 2 Life, they need a couple of very specific outs or they’re guaranteed dead (Mafuba, Time Kicker, and so on).

The question is, will this see play? …maybe? I could actually see him teched in Announcer decks, specifically to fight against SS3 since it’s the only time you can really guarantee the opponent having 6 Energy. It’s a generally harmless main deck since you can only run 1 and SS3 makes up a huge majority of the field. The card honestly feels a lot like Beyond Darkness Demigra where it’s more of a tech choice you’re fine not seeing rather than a build around card. It’s certainly not as flashy as the previous SCRs but it has its place.

Miraculous Revival Black Cards

Black Masked Saiyan/Powerthirst Black Masked Saiyan

A Saiyan with a Black Mask that we’ve certainly never seen before ever. Nope, not recognizable whatsoever. Anyway, front side ability, pretty familiar. Attack, Mill 3 to draw. Do note that it does not need to attack Leaders for once which is a nice change of pace and allows for a bit more advantage gleaning which is good. Untap 2 Awaken (showing that not EVERY Leader will be Wish this block) and to the Awakened Side.

I believe BMS is the first Leader to not have some type of Draw Ability on his Awakened Side, someone feel free to correct me if I’m misremembering. Instead he mills 3 to add a 3+ Black Battle Card back to hand from Drop and get +5K Power. Now, upside, that gives him fantastic quality control in the later stages of the game, turning the Drop Area into an outright toolbox. I enjoy toolboxes and this is a good one. The downside…well the Front Side Mills 3 and Draws, the Awakened Side Also Mills 3. Your deck starts at 36 (8 Life, 6 in Hand). Counting the Draw Step (let’s say going second) and Awakening on Turn 3 you go through upwards of 21 cards (assuming you use both the Front and Awakened abilities on the same Awakening turn which is doable) and that’s without factoring in any other draw or mill abilities you may have played over the course of the game. Simply put, BMS cannot play a long game. One could actually argue not having a forced draw effect becomes a benefit since he can’t potentially bleed himself out by attacking if he doesn’t want to.

Still I’m one to believe the upsides outweigh the benefits, especially since the card doesn’t demand as much Leader Interaction as before. The ability to just sit there, and pluck cards you want from out of Drop has immense upside. Plus he recycles Shenrons, so I’m in.

Adventurous Son Goku

An interesting card specifically for Wish Leaders. It’s extremely reminiscent of the Life Drain Attackers. Getting you closer to flipping while also providing aggression, only instead of the volatility of taking Life (though also losing out on the card advantage), you just dump a Dragon Ball. He’s also a 20K 2 Drop rather than a 1 Drop 15K. I expect this to see play in Wish decks that find Dragon Balls somewhat slowly. In Shenron, might not need him since you usually can find most of your DBs within 2 turns anyway.

Dragon Ball Seeker Bulma

Bulma doesn’t seem like much at first glance, she just dumps a DB every turn. No Card Advantage or anything. But she’s getting you closer to flipping for absolutely nothing while also setting up potential Sparking Effects. Opening two Bulmas in Shenron actually nigh guarantees you to flip on Turn 2 (nigh because it’ll depend on how many DBs are in the Life, if it’s an odd number it messes with the math). What she’ll do for Wish decks is invaluable.

Kami, Global Unifier

Well Bandai did warn us about this type of card showing up. …I should’ve figured they’d be costed like Chronoa. So not only is Kami a cantrip which is always good, but he’s a board wipe in a game that DESPERATELY needed a board wipe that wasn’t just Chain Attack Zen-Oh. It’s extremely cheap at that, since you can actually just throw this out for 3 Energy (while drawing in the process). Part of this makes me uneasy as a 3 cost (or even 2 Cost, though it becomes visible and dodged) board wipe is very cheap. Keep in mind, Wrath of God (or Damnation) are generally the holy grail of board wipes in MtG and they’re 4 cost and you generally don’t see any that aren’t 5+ anymore without major downside.

But then one remembers, this isn’t MtG. We don’t have summoning sickness so we need far quicker answers. However, it does suck for a lot of going wide decks though. That Zen-Oh Maiden deck that had started getting some hype after getting a top at Regional…well, now if it doesn’t win on the turn it hand dumps, they lose nearly their entire board and struggle to rebuild (note, U/R SS3 had already proven to be its worst matchup and…well, we know what wipe it runs). U11 is now forced to be Mill Centric.

On the other hand, you’re no longer as dead staring down a board of 3 Gotens and 2 Videls with Gines out knowing that not only can you not kill the board, you can’t kill the opponent and thus are dead on the crackback no matter what (though B/Y will continue to be strong, this isn’t a Shugesh/Chronoa death knell). Every deck will likely side this if not main it (if you were maining Chronoa, you’ll main this instead).

Dende, New to the Job

While I consider Kami a very necessary evil, Dende is a very big mistake mainly due to the wording on the card. I understand this card is meant to try and curb SS3, but there’s multiple reasons why it fails and then becomes a bad annoyance elsewhere. The reason it fails, absolutely nothing forces SS3 to use his first effect. The SS3 player can just choose to charge normally on Turn 1 and thus Dende does nothing to him. If you have the time to use Dende it’s not like SS3 will have to worry about dying in 2 turns. So against the intended target he’s actually pretty weak unless the opponent plays into Dende.

The issue is, he hoses ALL decks that ramp. And not only just ramp, he also hoses Ultimate Box Vegeta (who also lost his shine due to Forced Ejection being re-ruled to make the Lock unable to work). If you use Objection, Dende ruins it. You wanna use Goku Black Leader? You better never use his Front Side ability. Anything that places an energy down outside of the Charge Phase is open season to Dende.

Dende really needed to state that you had to be behind on Energy at the very least before your Charge Phase in order to use him. As it is now he catches far too much with very little restriction.

Dark Power Black Masked Saiyan

Well that’s an edgelord name if I’ve ever seen one. Anyway, yet another onto the legacy of Life Drain Attackers. But he has the most curious ability of them all. He seeks to hose certain free play options. Now, he ignores Swap and Over Realm (even though those are the ones people hate the most) and instead targets other abilities. The goal I would imagine is to give him a purpose depending on matchup. If you aren’t facing a deck that does that sort of thing, he can be an aggressive attacker and otherwise has this effect which does stack by the way.

The issue…I don’t know how great this is. It may be fantastic against Chain Attack Trunks (well it is, I’m still checking to see the timing when it comes to Chain Attack Zen-Oh. If it’s before Zen-Oh resolves, it’s useless. If it’s after, it hoses it almost completely, obviously a big dichotomy…as of now reading the rulebook I think it’s the latter but I’m not 100% sure). Against Veggies it’s good half the time, useless otherwise. Good against Bodyguard abilities like Raging Spirit Son Gohan. It’s a niche card. It doesn’t hose everything, but it does a little bit to a few decks.

Deadly Defender Son Goku

And now EVERYONE can have Vegito (as Bandai said every color is going to have this effect). It’s essentially Vegito that’s cheaper, -5K Power (though only on defense, I like he keeps the 20K on offense) and no potential to draw. No doubt, this will see play and this type of effect will see play. Black badly needed a way to stem the bleeding.

Temporal Rescue Trunks

A new Super Combo for Black which is…well essentially just the antithesis of their previous one. Instead of only working when you have 5+ in Warp, this only works with 5+ in Drop. Easier to use to be sure. Also note, this is the first Super Combo ever to have Combo Power WITHOUT their effect. Yeah, he’s naturally a 0/10K so even if his condition is not active, you can still combo with him just fine. A huge boon to Black decks.

Power Burst

One of the things I’ve harped on, at least privately, is that Mono-Black had one really bad weakness. And that was defense. Between a terrible Super Combo against an aggro deck, and a Negate that did nothing to help you on smaller energy counts, you generally were just dead to any B/Y deck or U/B Aggro deck before you got to do anything. This set definitely seeks to rectify some of it. First with the Super Combo and now this, the next in the Life Negate Cycle started back in Colossal Warfare. This one has them beat though. Unlike the previous two, it also has an extra effect to grab back a Black 1 Drop which is really fantastic. At its absolute worst, it’s giving you back a card to combo with on defense later. At its best…well now you’re getting back things like Kami or Dende. Yes, it has a Sparking 5 Requirement for the Life Negate but in the situations you absolutely need it, it’s very easy to meet. Even Over Realm Leaders could somewhat easily use this card. An absolute necessity, and an absolute staple for all Black decks.

Dragon Radar

This card is very sneaky strong, mainly for its ability to grab Dragonballs. As we’ll see, grabbing Desire cards are…okay, but Dragonballs are cantrips. Because of that Dragon Radar might as well read “Pot of Greed” (whose effect we still don’t know). I mean…1 Energy, Draw 2, especially in Shenron where it’s basically guaranteed. It even potentially thins the deck for them (though at that point you’re no longer guaranteed 2…or even 1). 4 of in every Wish deck, absolutely no doubt.

Dragon Ball

It’s an Upstart Goblin that Dragon Radar turns into Pot of Greed. I mean…even if they did nothing you’d have to play them in Wish Leaders, I’m just thankful they made them good.

A Child’s Wish

The first Desire Card. I’ll say it’s not bad, best case scenario is that you use it to get a 3 Drop 15K. There thankfully isn’t a TON of abuse you can do with this card at first glance. The money is being able to play Desire Cards for free every turn however. This effect for free, has some gas to it. Still, I think ultimately this is just filler if you want a Desire card. The real value though…

World Peace

Is right here. In most cases, this can grab whatever A Child’s Wish could grab. Again, the goal isn’t to play these cards for their actual cost, but use them for free. This is absolutely INSANE to be played for free. I now don’t have to put my hopes in dreams for Reanimation into To Save a Hopeful Future, now I have this. Honestly the card is good even without being played for free, it’s just slightly worse than TSAHF on Turn 4 but pretty much better every turn afterwards. For free though, SUPREME VALUE. I love this card to death.

Final Thoughts:

The Secret Rare to me was a bit of a let down (…as was a lot of WT, as I’ll probably get into next week), but Miraculous Revival brought it. I’m still uneasy when it comes to Dende but otherwise I enjoyed pretty much every card revealed, which I rarely get to say. Every single card has a use. Next Week, Red Cards and the next Villain Revived.