Hey all, this is Corey. So today I wanted to take a bit to talk about one of the more under looked aspects of deck building, the skeleton. I see posts on the Dragon Ball Super Discussion page where people are struggling with deck building. I think one of the main issues is that people are so focused on having the “spicy” new tech, or wanting to be the smartest person in the room with their 50 that they look over the basic building blocks of deck building.Sometimes people are easy to give up on a deck when all they need is to streamline their list. A lot of this will come off as common sense, but it is often overlooked. In this article I will go over the process of building a skeleton, and considerations for building out more of the list.





A deck skeleton to me is a discussion over the essentials, and the non-essentials. When looking at the essentials of a deck we are talking about the cards that are absolutely necessary in order for your deck to function the way you want. When looking at the non-essentials this is when we get into “tech” type cards for specific match ups, or additional consistency cards. Depending on the deck, the skeleton can be anywhere from 30-35 cards. Once this is hammered out you can keep this skeleton, and just adjust the remaining cards of the list for the specific event you are attending then change it from event to event, Please don’t get me wrong tech cards absolutely have their place, but I believe that they need to come at the end of the deck building process. Overall consistency is one of the core building blocks of deck building, and I think embracing the deck skeleton can help you achieve that.





Personally I enjoy the deck building process, and find it pretty simple especially in this game. I get asked pretty regularly to consult with people on their lists. The first thing I typically ask is “what are you trying to do with your deck?”, and once we figure that out we move on to the actual building process. So the first thing that I recommend is conceptualize your deck, or come up with a plan. Once the plan is figured out we build around it. An example that I will use for today is the Starter Broly archetype since it is pretty straight forward. With Broly we are looking to build a deck that is very aggressive, and capable of dealing lots of damage quickly. When building the skeleton of Broly it is pretty laid out for us.









4x Broly Unrealized Ambition

4x Broly Berserker Origins

4x Broly Power Unleashed

4x Broly Limits Transcended

4x Defending Father Paragus

4x Paragus, Rampage Trigger

4x Paragus the Sacrifice

4x Shocking Death Ball

4x Broly Control Mechanism

1x Broly Ultimate Agent of Destruction .





Now right off the bat this gives us 37 cards that I find to be essential to building Starter Broly. If we were to stop right here I think this would be a solid Starter Broly skeleton, and great launching off point leaving us with 13 cards to play around with. Now moving forward in building the list we can take into account the cards we currently have, and their abilities. Our leader lets us search out our Broly Unrealized Ambition at the start of the game, and Paragus Rampage Trigger lets us search out Broly Control Mechanism this allows us to cut these numbers down if you want giving us potentially 2 more open spots.

Now obviously Starter Broly is a pretty basic example of using the skeleton method, but I think it paints a pretty good picture of what we are talking about. Moving on with our list personally before i start adding tech options I always prefer adding consistency cards. For the deck we are building we have a few options





Frieza’s Call

Tragic Awakening

Paragus Deadly Premonition









All of these cards directly help us with consistency, and numbers can come down to preference. Now Frieza’s call is the first off color card we are introducing, and by adding this to our list we will have to add more yellow cards in order for it to be beneficial to us. This is something that needs to be thought about before adding something blindly, regardless of how good the card is. When adding off color cards to our skeleton we need to look over how heavy our essential cards in our particular color are. Fortunately for Starter Broly all of the cards we are actually planning on hard casting from hand only need a single green for their specified cost. This is huge for us because it means we really won't be handicapped by charging an off color early in the game. This is something to also consider in the off color cards we plan on adding. With how high our essential card count is we need to (if at all possible) keep our off color cards lower on the specified color costs. Frieza’s Call opens us up to a ton of consistency overall for our deck it lets us play Broly Unrealized Ambition, Paragus, Rampage Trigger and, Paragus the Sacrifice straight from the deck essentially giving us up 8 outs to each of these cards which is fantastic for consistency. All three of these cards are crucial to the engine of our deck, and for a card like Paragus Rampage Trigger it allows us to play a 2 drop card for 1 netting us energy. For overall consistency I feel like Frieza’s call is an instant 4 of for the deck strictly based on the value it provides us.









Moving on to Tragic Awakening while I do think it is a great card overall, and does help with consistency I view it differently than Frieza’s call. For one Tragic Awakening costs 3 which is somewhat heavy for us. It also makes us lose an energy in order to play it. Tragic Awakening gives us the ability to either recover our engine battle cards, or ramp up into a second chain. Another thing to consider is that Tragic awakening is an extra card, extra cards are a key aspect of the game, but certain extra cards are useless to us during the combo phase. This is something to really consider when deck building as too many extra cards can handicap us for a large portion of the game. In several decks this is not a huge disadvantage, but we have to consider our leader. Our leader has the ability to refill our hand, but it limits us to six cards in most cases defensively. This is a huge thing to consider when adding extra cards to our list specifically. WIth this in mind we need to make sure that the extra cards we include can either help us on defense (as in a negate) or are so crucial to our overall consistency that they must be included (frieza’s call). Tragic Awakening is a card that while useful, I feel like is something we can play at lower counts. Traditionally Tragic Awakening is played at a two, or three of I feel that this is appropriate for us.

The next type of cards that I like to look for in the deck building process are leader specific utility cards. These are the cards that we have access to based on our leaders Character Name, Special Traits, or Color. Super Combos also somewhat fall into this category, but as we will never not include super combos in a list I will not go into much detail here other than to note we do have several that are available to us with our Saiyan, Green, and Frieza’s Army tags. Now taking those tags into consideration there is one card specifically that I would like to bring to attention.





Cold Bloodlust









Bloodlust is a card that only Frieza’s Army leaders get access to. It is one of the best cards in the game that we have access too currently. Important to note that it is off color for us based on our skeleton. As we discussed earlier when looking at off color we need to pay attention to how specific color heavy the card is. Bloodlust only requires one yellow in order to play which is exactly where we want to be. Similarly to Frieza’s Call, Bloodlust is a card that can serve us in multiple ways over the course of the game, and we never have to go out of our way in order to charge for it. As with Frieza’s call I feel that Cold Bloodlust is a card we want as much access to as possible so I consider it an instant 4 of in our list.

So reviewing what we have added to our skeleton we have





3x Broly Unrealized Ambition

4x Broly Berserker Origins

4x Broly Power Unleashed

4x Broly Limits Transcended

4x Defending Father Paragus

4x Paragus, Rampage Trigger

3x Paragus the Sacrifice

4x Shocking Death Ball

3x Broly Control Mechanism

1x Broly Ultimate Agent of Destruction

4x Frieza’s Call

2x Tragic Awakening

4x Cold Bloodlust





This leaves us at 44 cards so we are already almost finished with our list. As you will notice I have adjusted a few of our numbers (-1 Broly Unrealized Ambition, -1 Paragus the Sacrifice,-1 Broly Control Mechanism) this is based on the addition of Frieza’s call which as mentioned earlier improves our overall consistency allowing us some room. In terms of an actual list this is where I will leave you to finish out the list based on your own preferences. I will leave you with some considerations that fall in the “tech” space.

Some “tech” options to consider





Goliamite the new breed

Paragus Deadly Premonition

Flying Nimbus

Bad Ring Laser

Crusher Ball

Master Roshi Forged of will

Minus Kili Zone

Furthering Destruction Champa/Hidden Power East Supreme Kai









All of the cards listed serve different purposes, and are great considerations for our list. More yellow cards are something I would consider first so to help our overall yellow numbers in the list. Flying Nimbus is a great negate that can help us against swarm/aggro strategies. Bad Ring Laser is a card that serves some utility offensively, and defensively. Crusher Ball is a great defensive option. Master Roshi Forged of will is a utility card that can serve as a negate, or a combo piece. Minus Kili Zone protects our bomb cards from counter play, and lets us dig in the deck. Goliamite allows us to push more offensively. Deadly Premonition is a consideration if you feel the need for more overall consistency. Champa/Kai allows us to push offensively to close out games.

While six cards may not sound like a lot of “tech” options it really is a solid number. Techs are cards that serve a purpose in any list, but should be used with some caution. We never want to build our list around “techs” but when used in conjunction with a solid skeleton can really push a list over the top.









This is where I will leave you for today, hopefully you can find some of the information helpful. Deck Building is one of the great aspects of card games, and can become a game in and of itself. Keep the beginning of your lists simple, and streamlined so you can maximize consistency, but have fun with it.



