Super-Dooper Super-Sayians: Part II

Got a few more games of Dragon Ball Super Card game in, made a few more purchases and think I'm finally getting the rules at least 90% right. A couple of new mistakes were using characters in the "Battle Zone" to combo and a couple of interpretations of rules based on playing previous games. As luck would have it, my opponent didn't bring his decks, so he used my Android 13 deck; Ryan is actually a much better card player than me, so him using the "worse" deck made for pretty even matches. In both games, my Red GT Goku came out on top, but it was close each time. 

The combo in the Red GT Goku is working fairly well, essentially enabling me to draw more cards when I need to to boost the critical attacks. In contrast, Android 13 discards any characters in his opponent's Battle Zone, so that deck can win with weight of numbers. Because I've never really been much of a card gamer, I prefer it when my decks have a straightforward strategy, rather than needing a undergraduate course to play properly. 

What's keeping me interested at this stage is that there really seems to be no such thing as a "dead" card in this game; meaning that, no matter what's in my hand, I have a way to use it, even if it's just to play it as a resource or combo with it. In most other card games that I've played, cards can accumulate in a player's hand that really have no use, because the opportunity to use them has past, usually. I know some card-gamers will dispute that, but I've run events, I've seen top-tier players not get the cards they need, no matter how good their deck is; two of my Pokemon League regulars, back in the day, were national champions at one time. Android 13 is struggling with that a little at the moment, but I've ordered some cards and that deck will transition to Goku Black at some stage soon. 

Many miniature wargamers that I know resist playing collectable, blind-packaged games like DBSCG, because the cost can blow out quickly, leading to the player willing to spend the most winning more games. Thankfully, I'm winning more games at the moment and, since being reduced back to casual work, I'm buying maybe 2-4 packs after playing a few games with each deck, which I get to do perhaps once a fortnight. Of course, I'm not playing in tournaments or other events, though I've had a look at a couple, and whilst the community seems pretty neat, there is a constant complaint that all of the newer cards supersede the old ones and I'm not keen to go down that rabbit hole. 

This is something you may not know if you've never played too many card games or worked in a FLGS, but most "booster packs" come with roughly the same amount of cards (between 8-20), for more or less the same price ($4-$9AUD). There are outliers, but that's the price point designers tend to aim for, as it gives value to the casual buyer. Games like Magic the Gathering and Pokemon have a big enough secondary market that buying booster cases is more efficient, because a canny consumer can make their money back. Another reason I'm liking DSBCG is that most of the "rare" cards that I want to build my decks are under $2USD on the secondary market. There are more expensive cards, but, again, as I'm not playing in events, I don't need to go to that expense to have fun and win games.