Supa Dupa Supa Sayains - 4

Last time I gave a brief run-through of the FuZion format of the Dragon Ball Z Card Game, how decks go together and that kind of thing. This time, I'm going to steer away from the technical aspects of the game and talk more about what it's like to play. I play several card games here and there, probably the one I play the most is Magic the Gathering, in the multiplayer "Commander" format, which I do with a select group of friends who are fun to play with. If I had my choice of what to play, however, it would certainly be FuZion, as I prefer the mechanics and am more interested in Dragon Ball than what passes for the metaplot of Magic. I mean, sure it's kind of funny when I beat down a giant dragon wizard with a Mob of Squirrels, but playing a FuZion game where Future Gohan fights Janemba tickles my nerdy fancy a little more. 

Currently, I have two "complete" decks for FuZion, Garlic Jr and Gohan, and they're complete in that they don't require too much more modification right now. Garlic Jr is Black Styled, able to access the Most Powerful Personality, Dragon Ball and Beats win conditions, hence my referring to it as a "Triple Threat" deck, or, when I'm feeling cheeky; 'Garlic Jr Beats Salty Balls'. My Gohan deck works pretty differently, in that it can only win through Beats, as several cards, namely Goku Sensei, my Sayian Mastery and Transformation advance Gohan's level quickly, but prevent a MPPV. This is done so that I can get to my Level 5 card, Gohan Earth's Protector, as quickly as possible and do more damage to my opponent. Although my Gohan deck is more straightforward, it is actually less consistent, because it really only has one trick and is therefore easy to circumvent. 

When I play card games, I tend to enjoy playing "toolbox" decks; decks that enable me to find the cards I need when I need them. One of my DBZ decks from the previous format, Trunks Freestyle Sword, was a good example of this, and I loved playing it, so much so that I still haven't started dismantling it and rebuilding it for FuZion. Same goes for my Goku Freestyle Dragon Balls deck (Goku Freeballin'), but for both I'm just having trouble making them work with the limits on deck building imposed by the FuZion rules. That's part of the challenge of a new game or updated rules set that I'm pretty familiar with as a wargamer and recovering 40k player, however. What I'm really struggling for right now is a reason to build more decks, as I only have the one regular opponent. There's something about wargamers that many seem put off by the idea of card games, so growing the community is tricky. 

As many of the Dragon Ball cards are out of print, and some only exist digitally, the appeal is limited to card gamers, who typically like to own the cards, especially the foiled versions, which is all but impossible for many FuZion deck builds. As mentioned above, tabletop wargamers aren't as into cards, typically, I think it's because of the cost; not that it's any more expensive than miniatures, but the value "feels" lower because the money is going on a slip of cardboard rather than something more tangible. I know people tend to be more impressed when I show them a $50 miniature rather than a $50 card, not that I have many cards worth that much. Years ago, I wrote my first article on this blog about playing card games, and I mentioned that the depth of strategy is a good learning experience for other games, and that is still something I believe, and why I'm willing to keep playing new a different card games, even if they're not what I really want to be doing. 

Hopefully, the wargamers reading these articles will take some inspiration and maybe give something different a go, even if it's not miniatures based. The Chrono Clash Godzilla Card Game looks pretty interesting, and it's not collectable, so there's that?