Namekian Style Domination!

A little over a month after the release of Panini America’s Dragon Ball Z TCG and already a clear dominant deck has emerged: The Namekian Style (usually Piccolo). It seems to be the topic du jour of the community, with that subject popping up daily on the Retro DBZ Discussion Page and generally erupting every time a new tournament report is posted. While it’s certainly not the first time in the history of the Dragon Ball Z where a deck is overly dominant in the environment (or even just the Namekian Style being bonkers), but it is troubling that this is occurring with the limited card pool of just a single set and Panini America’s uncomfortable silence when it comes to interacting with the playing community.

So what exactly went wrong with the Namekian Style and how easy will it be to fix the issue?

For starters, let’s peel away what is and isn’t driving the Namekian Style to victory through the mastery. We can immediately eliminate the mill effect from playing Dragon Balls. While I’m certain that ability has proved useful in some matches, it’s not a win condition and more often than not I see players completely forgetting this part of the mastery. It’s just fluff, I’m not sure why that effect is there but it doesn’t particularly contribute to an overall deck strategy (which is what masteries should be encouraging/helping/directing), and seems like “just another effect” on the card. Either way, to get back to the point, that effect is not what is bringing consistent victories to the Namekian Style.

Then there’s the effect that prevents your last Dragon Ball from being captured through Critical Damage effects. A pretty decent effect (and the one that concerned most folks before the full set was publicly known), but this is more of a defensive effect than anything else. The nuances of this effect could take up a whole article on its own, but to cut to the point for this article let’s just say the Namekian Style is not winning events consistently because their last Dragon Ball can’t be captured. I’m not discounting this effect or the previous one, as I’m sure both of them have contributed to match victories, I only am pointing out that they are not directly contributing to overall deck strategies and are not the reason why the Namekian Style is a consistent winner.

The way the Namekian Style is consistently winning is through beatdown and the most powerful personality victory, and that’s where the last part of the mastery is coming into play. The whole gaining anger from any rejuvenation or shuffling the deck does is absolutely the part of the mastery that dictates the decks you build and the way you play the Namekian Style. It’s the part that is making the Namekian Style dominant. But here’s the absolute most beautiful thing about this whole situation: there’s another mastery with almost the exact same power! The Saiyan Style! So why is the Namekian Style the one that’s out of control? Well, now we have a style that we can do a side-by-side comparison with.

Both the Saiyan and Namekian Style gain an anger when they Rejuvenate, though in some slightly different ways for both, but in general the same mechanic triggers an anger gain. The Saiyan Style goes a step further and also gives you an anger every time you perform an attack, but also prevents you from winning by MPPV. The Namekian Style does not stop you from winning by MPPV. But taking into account each way each style can gain anger, let’s look at the numbers and see if this adds up between the Saiyan and Namekian Style.

Number of Saiyan Style Attacks: 20

Number of Namekian Style Cards that Shuffle or Rejuvenate: 23

Oddly there is only one Saiyan Style card that Rejuvenates, which is Saiyan Enraged. Saiyan Style cards seem to just ignore that part of the Mastery, whereas the Namekian Style makes its name on it. Further, any card that shuffles or Rejuvenates will activate the Namekian Style which includes Freestyle cards and personality powers. The Saiyan Style however will only trigger if the Rejuvenated card is a Saiyan Style card and only Saiyan Style attacks will gain the anger bonus as a secondary effect. Meanwhile, the Namekian Style has ways to Rejuvenate or shuffle cards while attacking, blocking and during the Planning and Rejuvenation steps.

The Namekian Style has more cards and more opportunities to gain anger through the Mastery than the Saiyan Style, yet the Namekian Style can win by MPPV while the Saiyan Style cannot.

On the surface, it seems like an easy fix would be to just take away MPPV from the Namekian Style. The Namekian Style right now is a bit too consistent for it’s own good, with many cards serving multiple functions (even in the discard pile). What is clear is that something will need to be done in the near future to alleviate the stranglehold the Namekian Style has on the tournament scene, as well as ensuring that in future sets the Namekian Style won’t continue to grow exponentially out of control. Consider the future of sets where the Namekian Style as is either gains more blocks and attacks that can Rejuvenate or alternatively have no cards that can Rejuvenate.

Either way, it’s a slippery slope that needs climbing and I hope that Panini America will address it soon. How do you feel about the Namekian Style? What would you do to fix it, if anything? Let us know in the comments and on our Facebook Discussion Group.

Later, BroZ!

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