Preview Season Never Sleeps. Welcome back and we have more product to talk about, this time the ULTIMATE Box. In the ULTIMATE Box, we have a bunch of cards (30 to be precise) and a bunch of tokens to talk about. I don’t know if the box is worth the MSRP (right now at $100, yeesh) but it does come with playsets of everything, a bunch of cards and a binder. What would really make it sell are good cards. Will they be enough for the price? Let’s find out.

Kefla/Explosive Power Kefla

We have ourselves a new Universe 6 Leader, and of course it’s the “iconic” combination of the previous two U6 Leaders. On her front side, we’re coming to a new theme. Now we have Hirudegarn’s ability for everyone, but more restricted. She needs U6, no doubt about that but she also lets you dig deeper and helps you set up for Over Realm. Well, at least everyone is on a new ability to share so that’s nice I guess. The Untap 2 Awaken is appreciated right now, and I would argue has become the preferred way to Awaken.

On her backside, she’s reminiscent of Champa. By reminiscent I mean, her ability is almost the exact same but again, more restricted. She can only target a U6 card (or herself) for the Double Strike, but it does add an extra 5K Power. But the main thing that puts her a step below Champa with this ability…is that it’s only Once Per Turn. What can make Champa so terrifying in end game scenarios is that he can not only put Double Strike on anything, he can do it as many times per turn as he wants. If you’re at 2 Life against Champa, everything is swinging for Lethal. At the same time though, that was also his downfall. If the opponent could drop himself to 1 Life, Champa was effectively blank. Kefla at least provides a pump as well, though obviously it’s not good for the cost.

Ultimately…Kefla is fine but suffers a lot from what Saiyan Bond Vegeta suffered from. Simply put, why not just use something like Pan instead? Though in this case, it’s also a matter of why not just use Champa instead?

Ghost Combo Gotenks

We now gain more Low Hand Size payoff cards, this time with Gotenks. If played normally, he’s a generic 20K with Double Strike. That’s nowhere near good enough to hang right now. If combo’d, if you have the Low Hand Size, you get a Ghost Token in Rest Mode. So basically, he’s a Bodyguard that scales upwards…but only if your hand size is low. That’s…not very good actually. Honestly I think there would’ve been nothing wrong with not having the hand size restriction at all. Having a Bodyguard 15K Body (with no combo power mind you, that’s a bigger deal than it seems) or a generic 20K Double Striker later on would’ve been solid flexibility to have that doesn’t break the game. Instead, the restriction just maims the card.

Virtuous Strength Gohan

I mean…this is outright a better version of Vegeta, Powerful as Ever. Yeah you need a Red Leader but…chances are you would’ve used that Vegeta with a Red Leader anyway so that’s nigh irrelevant. The ability to attack Active Mode Battle Cards and get the burn from it is MASSIVE, especially in this format. With weenies flying everywhere, this card has the potential to actually be relevant. This is a sleeper, do not overlook him.

Umbral Blade Dabura

One thing to note from this Box is instead of trying to make new deck archetypes outright, instead its doing its best to bolster older decks whether good or not good. Now I’ve made no secret about it, Babidi is BY FAR the worst Leader in the game. He’s just outright terrible in every sense of the word with no upside to him whatsoever. Babidi’s Battle Card is obviously much better, but post-errata just way too slow for meaningful competition. This Dabura is supposed to bolster those two. I mean…if he goes off, a 35K Double Strike Dual Attacker is fantastic pressure. But you have to either be playing the WORST LEADER IN THE GAME or a card that is just immensely slow.

If we ever get a new Leader Babidi that’s good, this jumps up the rankings almost immediately. For now, shiny binder fodder.

Rampant Evil Majin Buu

It’s a miracle, a Majin Buu card that actually incentivizes you to play a Buu package with the Buu Leader. In one of my first Leader Guides I noted how the Majin Buu Leader gave you absolutely no incentive to play any real Buu cards (yes Energy Boosted but every Blue deck plays that!) with him, and it really depressed a lot of people it seemed. It seemed to depress a lot of people, so this looks to be trying to make up for it. I won’t lie, a Super Saiyan Gotenks that also has Triple Strike and Deflect is FANTASTIC. Consider the fact that in my Buu Leader build, I run the actual Super Saiyan Gotenks so this is obviously great for me to see. For a top end for a Buu Leader deck, I greatly enjoy this card.

Capricious Destroyer Champa

Not gonna lie, first time I read this I completely dismissed it. “It only kills the weeniest of weenies, this card is terrible”. Truthfully in most formats, that line of thought is 100% correct, you don’t gain much from killing a bunch of cantrips. However in THIS format, we’re not just dealing with a bunch of cantrips. Against the U/R Aggro deck (or R/G), the ability to kill off the Cabbas, the Trunks, the Gohans all at once for cheap is absolutely huge. Admittedly in most cases you’d rather have Masked Saiyan do the job for you, but considering the card is annoying to get and does also take up OR space, I could see legitimate side deck space in a U6 deck for this card. This is a definite format specific sideboard card.

Vegeta/Explosive Power Vegeta

Well hey, we got a U7 Vegeta that actually supports U7! Now the question is, can he get out of the shadow of U7 Gohan? Well his front side is better than U7 Goku’s. His “restriction” to get the +5K is much lighter and a Leader swinging in for 15K and a draw every turn is always good, especially on Front Side. It gives you great incentive to get out to an early lead.

His Awakened Side is one of the most unique abilities we’ve seen on a Leader to date in the game, which I’m jazzed as hell for. Well, the pump isn’t all that unique but as we’ve seen, 20K swings are pretty good too. But the ability to pick an Energy back up and replace it with something else is extremely intriguing. At its worst, where you don’t want to place anything different back in Energy, it’s a simple Untap 1 Energy which has proven to be fantastic as it is. So at Vegeta’s worst, he’s a SLIGHTLY weaker Soul Striker Goku but with more front side card advantage. At his best though…honestly it might still be that, but it allows you to be a lot more cavalier with what you charge early in the game. Your Energy almost becomes a Toolbox you can use as you please. You can charge a Super Combo early with no fear, you can get it back. Charge a big card, get it back when you can actually play it. Don’t need a negate right now? Pass it off.

I would actually liken it to the Item Box in the Resident Evil series. Dump off cards you don’t need early, then switch them back in for cards you don’t need later. The amount of possibilities for this card are endless. Does this break out of U7 Gohan’s shadow? Well I won’t say he’s better, but I think he’s far unique enough to see his own play. I sure as hell am gonna mess with him.

Awe-Inspiring Intimidator SSB Vegito

Geez that card name is a mouthful. Anyway…he’s a new Bergamo. The question though, is he better? I’ll be honest, he’s DAMN close. Stats are about the same, though he has better Combo Power. He gains Barrier on his own, which means outting him becomes MUCH tougher. He also locks the opponent’s Leader from swinging at yours, something Bergamo can’t attest to (without his own Leader’s help). He also draws a card if you’re at 5+ Energy which is a nice bonus. “Well damn, he sounds better in every capacity!” Not so fast. Two things allow Bergamo to stay quite relevant over this Vegito. One, he gains +5K every time he’s attacked (including the first attack) which puts immense pressure on the opponent to dump a lot of cards to kill him on the first swing. Vegito is always a static 20K, which is much simpler to deal with. Secondly, two Bergamo is a Battle Card Lock in which only the opponent’s Leader can swing. Two Vegito creates no such lock and also doesn’t stop the opponent from swinging at your other Battle Cards, which Bergamo could protect.

I’ll say, against faster decks Bergamo is just outright better. They often lack removal so having no Barrier isn’t a huge deal, and the amount of resources and time they have to burn to get rid of him will immediately stabilize the board and win you games compared to Vegito who they can get rid of a bit easier. Against slower decks, Vegito is probably king. He has a relevant effect for when games go long, the Barrier is annoying and forcing just one swing on himself is just fine.

Determined Time Leaper Trunks

So now we have a Future Trunks that searches more Future Trunks. Sadly, Future Trunks is arguably the worst type of Trunks right now (GT has two of the best cards in the game, Kid Trunks has Unyielding Spirit and a Super Combo, Xeno has Time Patrol among other utility). I imagine this is to build up the Father/Son deck they keep subtly pushing. I mean I guess it could, but it’s still gonna be a hard sell. Obviously though, much better as we get better Future Trunks cards.

Nightmare Scythe Goku Black

So…Terror Scythe with Barrier for Zamasu and Goku Black Leaders. I mean…sure, I guess but honestly the subtle thing that would’ve made Terror Scythe great for the intended Leads is that it could also search out Zamasu which is very understated how good that effect would be for this deck. Obviously generic decks liked the Tokens just fine. I don’t even know if this card would see play in current ZamaFu builds. Probably finds a home in Goku Black decks though.

Undying Link Zamasu

So Joyful Strike Goku Black Rose but cheaper, no offensive keyword, and honestly a less relevant name. The thing is, being cheaper isn’t all that helpful when you’re untapping all your energy anyway, and because he requires 5+ Energy he’s only a turn faster at most (and if you’re playing ZamaFu, you still need 6 Energy anyway!). If you’re playing Goku Black, you probably don’t even need extra Zamasus. So yeah, not feeling this card at all.

Indiscriminate Obliteration Sidra

So we have an eclectic mix of abilities here. A bit of Piccolo, the Strategist, some self-awaken and a Blocker. I don’t think he’ll see play over Tapion for Self-Awaken purposes (unless you just want more God targets), and obviously isn’t as effective for removal as Piccolo. So his main home is in Universe 9, which could always use another good U9 target and he’s pretty solid for the wolf gang especially with how much they can ramp ahead.

Son Goku/Explosive Power Son Goku

Another Green U7 Goku. Please be better than the last one which annoyed me. It already starts off better by NOT RESTRICTING HIM TO ONLY U7 CARDS. Honestly he’s arguably already better just based on that. On top of that, he has the same front side ability just requiring a U7 Battle Card already on board, not like that’s hard. So already off to a better start.

His Awakened Ability also makes a lot more sense with the type of deck U7 Goku seems to be going for. A static pump and Double Strike. Now one could argue we’d rather have the extra defense but…since we no longer have to fill half the deck with chaff and we can use legitimately good defensive cards (not to bag on Roshi, Roshi’s great…just not alone) he has that filled just fine. He brings a lot more End Game pressure than his predecessor.

Simply put, this is just better all around than the previous U7 Goku.

Last One Standing Son Goku

A 5 Drop U7 Goku that is NOT Yellow is actually a bigger deal than one would think. Less Yellow that U7 decks have to run, but also Fusion Warrior Vegito finally gets to play around with the big U7 Goku cards. Not to mention he provides removal which both Vegito and U7 were pretty desperate for (better than the last 5 Drop Goku for Vegito since it’s every turn)

Now his second effect is all for U7, trying to establish itself beyond the current 5 Drop Goku we have. 9 or more U7 in the Drop, he becomes huge, hits like a truck and can’t be stopped by anything but a Blocker (or CBL/Crusher). Now, getting 9+ U7 in the drop isn’t hard for both Gohan and Frieza. However…it does conflict with the Awakened Power who would prefer the opponent to be at a high life total. It also doesn’t play nice really with the EX-Evolve plan in general. This Goku aims to be a stand alone threat. Frieza…doesn’t really want him I imagine. He either wants to go into The Awakened Power…or just go into the Emperor if he can’t. Gohan would probably prefer more value plays. Beyond those two, I don’t see U7 dumping enough cards to really make this live all that often.

I can see him getting play in Ult U7 Goku and probably Ult U7 Vegeta as a removal option, alongside maybe Vegito. Beyond that…eh.

Vile Replication Cell

I mean…he’s alright. But Prince of Speed Vegeta hasn’t seen any play in a couple of sets, Cell replaces the offensive keyword with more restriction on Leader Choice and some combo power I guess. Unless we get token strategy help, this isn’t very good at all.

Deathless Warrior Broly

They REALLY want to sell Broly as the Evolve King. Now thankfully, unlike most Broly cards, this card doesn’t need to Evolve to be decent. He’ll either kill something or discard two. Of course the issue is the opponent gets to choose, which means they get whichever option is better for them (unless their board is empty obviously). His biggest downside though is that he requires Broly Leader. Now, we don’t know what the Promo Broly Leader from the Movie Giveaway will be so this can turn on its head REAL fast but for now I have to go by the one Leader we actually know. For that Leader, Evolve strategies are terrible because you have to sac off your board on swing unless you have Caulifla. If you have Caulifla…your time is just better spent with the Veggie Package. The usefulness of this card will all depend on that promo I imagine.

Limitless Energy Android 17

I mean…yeah, I like it a lot. More removal for Ult U7 Goku, more generic good cards for Green. Arguably better than the Promo Gohan right now due to the Barrier/Blocker combination. 3 Drop in the Android Twins deck, which is outright fantastic (and definitely replaces his 5 drop compatriot). Compared to Kami’s Power Piccolo I’d say this is a great Midrange card. Immediately flips the board in your favor that the opponent can’t answer all that well. Like this card a lot.

Elegant Assistance Heles

Okay, we’re going to ignore this being a Maiden Leader because screw the Maidens. Instead, we’ll talk about this being a Super Combo for the Gods. Leader Gods are Champa, Vados, Beerus, Zamasu, Goku Black, Zen-Oh and U7 Piccolo (at least at the time of this writing). Demigra doesn’t count on the count of being a Demon God and not just a God. I can see Champa appreciating this, as an aggressively leaning Leader. Vados maybe as well. Piccolo will have to choose between a 5 Life Super Combo or this. The Blue Leaders, hard choice as well. I like the card a lot though, more Super Combo choices are a good thing for the game as it allows more deck creativity and identity.

Jiren/Explosive Power Jiren

Badass front side art…questionable back side art (though it looks better zoomed up). Anyway, looks like all that “mill” U11 support we have been seeing have actually been leading up to this, a new Jiren. It’s actually ironic as I had been seeing a bunch of people trying their hand at the Mill U11 deck with a focus on boarding Set 4 Jiren. Now we have a Leader dedicated to it. This isn’t about boarding your U11 cards, it’s simply about dumping them and then hitting REALLY hard with the Awakened Side. This + Set 4 Jiren threatening Quad Strike is dangerous. I’ll say that his Awakened Side’s ability though is a backup plan/last resort. Unlike his SR predecessor, he can easily be blocked or negated (and he’s an Activate: Main so the opponent will see it coming, not like they have anything else to use their negate for). You don’t main him specifically for the Awakened Side ability, but rather his front side which provides more digging while filling the drop and allows you to use the U11 Super Combo along with Toppo and 3 Drop Jiren to fill out your U11 ranks better.

The question is, will the Go Wide U11 Deck be better, or the Mill U11 Deck be better? Well…they both have a weakness to aggro (while you can use more defense in Mill…you still have to live until Turn 6 or risk your Leader ability early). Go Wide is better against Midrange, Mill is better against Control. Should be interesting to see which one ultimately reigns supreme.

Indomitable SS Son Goku Jr

Eh… This card is basically there to try and skip your Swap steps to get up to Height of Mastery (or himself) if you’re in a pinch. Problem is that, this is still a minimum of 6 Energy (5+1 spent on Grandpa Gohan…not Bardock unless you are exactly at 2). If you’re at 6 Energy and your board isn’t already prepared for the 8 Drop you’re probably dead anyway. It’s a failsafe…but not a very good one. So nothing new for Goku’s Lineage which is fine because the deck is strong enough without a failsafe.

Space Pirate Chilled

Hey, Chilled support! As a former player of Chilled, this makes me very amused. And it does fix one of the problems of Chilled decks, which is Token generation was REALLY slow. Now it can easily board extra tokens really easily. …That’s where the fun times end though as it fails to address the other weakness of Chilled (besides being stuck on 10K Awakened). The Tokens are nigh worthless outside of Turn 5 when you have the bigger Chilled on board. 10K doesn’t get anywhere. The deck desperately needs a pump for them besides the periodic once per turn 5K on a single battle card. Still…I’ll hold out hope…

Elite Bloodline Cooler

One way to think about reviewing a card is to say “Would I play this if we assume its conditions are met all the time?”. The reason I bring this up is for this Cooler. Let’s assume he had no conditions and he was just a 3 Drop 20K Dual Attacker. Would you play it? My answer is…no, no I wouldn’t. It doesn’t do enough. If it attacked Active Battle cards, maybe. If it was bigger, maybe. If it had Crit or Double Strike, DEFINITELY. Maybe provided advantage. But it doesn’t do any of that. The worst part is…it’s not even conditionless. So no, card is not good, hardest of hard passes.

Frieza, Obsession of the Clan

I mean…sure, negation on a stick always has at least some potential. Ditching a Frieza Clan hurts a fair bit though since it really restricts what you can afford to discard, especially since you can’t even toss a Frieza! Has to be Cooler, King Cold or Chilled. On top of that, you need a Frieza Clan Leader and…most don’t get a ton of use out of this card. Again, even thinking if it lacked conditions I don’t know if I’d play it. A 20K Battle Card that requires a discard to negate something once per turn isn’t bad but…at 4 it faces stiff competition. Plus Yellow already has a bunch of good defensive cards. So yeah, another hard pass.

Clownish Destruction Belmod

Just when I thought Yellow was just gonna have to be completely hosed on this one, we get freaking Belmod. Belmod is just outright fantastic, the generic 4 Drop Yellow was searching for. As we’ve seen, the 4 Drop 20K Barrier/Double Strike suite is quite solid. His ability though is just beautiful for utility. He either gets to dig for a useful card, or he gets to kill a rested card. You can play him proactively or reactively and always get value for him. He’s never dead. He also has two relevant traits. God Trait is always good for searachability and he has U11 trait! U11 LOVES to have this guy in the build.

There are a couple of archetypes he won’t see play in (Apes, already 4 drop heavy. Goku’s Lineage, no room and no time to drop non-GL cards. Golden Frieza, not Frieza’s Army) but otherwise I see him getting a ton of play in anything that can have Yellow in it.

Zen-Oh/Zen-Oh, Ruler of the Universe

Well we finally got the most terrifying boy in existence as a Leader. I actually thought he was a Blue Leader before but hey, new Black Leader. Now the downside, he’s just like ToP U7 Goku in restricting deck building which irks me greatly. At the very least he lets you use cards from all Universes with no color identity issue so it’s nowhere near as bad a restriction, though the loss of good Extra Cards sucks. He also doesn’t have a particularly unique Front Side ability, it’s the same one we saw for Xeno Trunks and Mira from Cross-Worlds though he does get to choose how much he mills. Now the question one should ask is “Wait, there aren’t any Over Realm cards with Universe Traits, what’s the point of milling?”

That would be the point of the Awakened Side. He gets to Warp 10 Cards out to force a Discard 2. That’s…fine I guess. It does help that he has access to cards like Heles which let him fill the Drop without having to go Mill heavy. Still is the payoff really worth it? At best you’re running a hodge-podge of a bunch of different Universes with not a lot of synergy and if you try to go single Universe, other Leaders simply do it better. I like the flavor, but I don’t think Zen-Oh is all that great. Who knows, maybe I’ll be proven wrong.

Forced Absorption Demigra

Well the card effect is immensely stupid. It’s a board wipe every single time he attacks, which is absolutely insane. His condition is immense though. 15 Black Cards in the Warp is legitimately a lot. Think about it this way, chances are you’ll Awaken Demigra…Turn 3 (and I’m being generous with it being that late). So you’ll have milled 9 Black cards, and you’ll need another 6 afterwards. Demigra’s Awakened Side no longer provides extra cards into the Warp, and instead does the opposite so you’ll need to dump 6 cards on your own time and then OR them out of there. What I’m saying is, this condition actually is a bit tough. If you have it though, you pretty much outright win the game. So yeah, I think he goes in at a couple of copies since that ability is just far too potent to not attempt to use.

Forced Ejection Masked Saiyan

When I read this at first I, like a lot of other players, immediately thought this card was busted. But then you think about it for more than 10 seconds and realize this is actually a pretty fair card. It’s only really good in two matchups. SSJ3 Goku, and Ramp in general. But you still need to be on the Draw. If you’re on the play, you’ll be equal with them on Energy (unless in Ramp’s case, Whis starts getting dropped or extra Objections). This is a sideboard card through and through and honestly it might not even make the Sideboard. It looks for EXTREMELY specific matchups, one of them not even seen all that often, and only when going second in those matchups.

Smiling Madness Towa

So in Mira (you’re not playing Towa outside of Mira, stop it) you get the chance to combine a discard effect with Towa’s usual hijacking. I mean it’s fine. But Towa has struggled to really see play so that will obviously drag this Towa down.

Forced Destruction Mira

So if you’re running a Mono-Black Mira deck for whatever reason…this is actually outright better than Mira, Creator Absorbed since you don’t have to jump through the Union-Absorb hoops plus he has Triple Striker permanently rather than just one turn of Double Strike. If you’re running literally any other variant of Mira, then this card will never actually hit the 10+ Black Card mark and this isn’t good. Idk if this is enough to make it worthwhile to go that route, but at least it gives legitimate payoff for it.

Toppo Unleashed

The final card revealed today and possibly the most surprising, we got ourselves some evil Toppo finally. But more importantly, even MORE payoff for Mill U11 but also great utility just for any U11 deck. This card is absolutely fantastic to make use of Ally of Justice Toppo since after you get his effect, he usually doesn’t get anything. It says something that at his worst…Toppo Unleashed is still a Barrier/Blocker at 25K Power. That is a hefty amount. But if you have 8+ U11 in the drop you get an immediate Draw 2 (fantastic) and Double Strike and Critical. So on the turn he’s played he’d be…

Double Strike/Critical/Barrier/Blocker

If you’re using ToP Jiren, you literally get the full effect of all 4 or those Keywords. Card is absolutely insane, love it to death. Will be going into my decks for sure.

Final Thoughts:

I’ll admit, I was down on a lot of these cards when I first read them but after giving some thought, there’s at least a bit more here than I gave credit for initially. There’s certainly quite a bit of chaff to this. But there’s some good help for some archetypes. Now for U11 players (sadly like myself), this is probably a must buy assuming the singles don’t come cheap because Jiren/Belmod/Toppo all have legitimate reasons to be played (Belmod and Toppo definitely, Jiren for testing). There’s at least one decent to good card for every color. I still think the Box comes in a little bit pricey, especially when you consider you can buy Booster Boxes for far cheaper. Still, if every card in the box is at least $1, you’ll make your money back and then some on top of the Tokens and Binder. …now for me to hold all the Belmods…