Hello all and welcome to a pretty hefty day of Preview Season. We have a lot to talk about to the point that I actually have to separate it into a couple separate blog posts but I promise I will get to all of it. In this article, we finally have the World Tournament Super Rares. Hopefully these all live up to previous SR hype. Also, we’ll be doing something a little different this time. I’m going to be using the SPR Art for the SRs because all SRs have SPRs this set and…well, the Links look much cooler (and they finally mentioned that Link is the proper term…no Firewall pls).

Supreme Showdown Vegeta : Supreme Showdown Son Goku

We begin with Red taking a cue from Blue when it comes to WT. Get Vegeta on board to play Goku for free. Of course, in this instance it has to be in the same turn AND Vegeta must activate his ability first so you also have to have another Battle Card on board to sac. That’s a few hoops to jump through, is it worth it? Well it’s hard to argue with two 35K Triple Strikers coming in with no ability to Block. They also are Cheap Combos (what I’ll call the 0/5K Combos from now on) which makes them less cloggy. I think the main thing that really helps these two out though is that, as we’ll see soon enough, they’re the only SRs in the set that can be used with Announcer Leader. All the others require their color WT Leader. That gives these two a big edge up because they can be used in the best Leader of the set. If a WT deck can truly get there, I can see these two headlining it as solid top end.

Pan, Proudest Daughter : Hercule, Proudest Grandpa

…Wouldn’t it have made sense to make Pan the proudest granddaughter instead? Meh, oh well. Anyway, this design is more typical of the early Link cards we’ve seen. Two cards that do nothing on their own but have potency when one is played after the other. In this case, Drawing 2 Cards, untapping an Energy and then having a 25K Dual Attack Double Strike. Problem is the same as before though, takes up multiple turns to do and honestly I don’t even know if the payoff here is all that great. Simply better ways to draw cards and untap and Pan is generally easily dealt with. Worst of all though…you’re forced to use Uub if you want Pan to go off. And she’s a Heavy Combo at that because…reasons? If you want to torture yourself with Uub, go for it.

Destined Conclusion Hero : Destined Conclusion Piccolo Jr.

Okay I have to ask again, why is WT Goku getting all this hand control? It really seems antithetical to the Leader. Anyway, again, old philosophy comes up though I think compared to the previous Link, this grants far bigger payoff. In this case, 25K Crit, 30K Triple Strike, one of your opponent’s cards dead (most likely) AND 3 Cards out of their hand. Of course the downside, outside of needing to be run with WT Goku, is that this will basically be a one shot deal compared to the previous Link where you could just keep dropping Pans. You’re killing off your Hero for Piccolo’s ability, and then Hero does nothing until you play him out and then play out Piccolo again (you could just kill off Hero again if you want the Triple Strike alone though). I think that WT Green is a bit more tightly built than the other colors in the sense that there’s a unifying strategy. I only worry that Goku just doesn’t fit it…but it’s possible that a Goku that did synergize might’ve been too much. We’ll see.

Unyielding Victory Jackie Chun : Unyielding Victory Son Goku

The Last SRs and ironically enough, actually the first ones we saw back at Gencon. I had a fair bit of time to ruminate on these two, on top of seeing the cards coming with them. Ultimately, I like the Link a lot. 20K Double Strike/Triple Attack is very nasty especially when the opponent is at 2 Life and the Link gives you a security blanket in the form of a Barrier/Blocker and an Untapped Energy at EoT should your attempt fail. It’s also much easier to continuously play a 3 Drop Goku to keep attempts going each turn compared to most other Links that want the higher cost card to be played. I think this is great top end for Jackie Chun, don’t know how competitive but Yellow always finds a way it seems.

Final Thoughts:

Nothing too groundbreaking this go around compared to last time. Nothing too outright terrible either. I think all 4 will find play in their respective decks, though I would still say to avoid Uub at all costs. This set overall, pretty…whelming. I don’t see a ton of competitive impact coming from it outside of a few specific cards.

Until Next Time, Keep Fighting Because If You Don’t, Who Will?