A beginner's guide to the Dragon Ball Z CCG

 

Last time, I wrote a little something going over the various styles & characters for the Dragon Ball Z CCG.  That was made to help people figure out how they like to play and pinpoint the best way to get into that.  It was fun to write, but I really don't feel like it helped much more than my ego.  This post is for all those right at the very bottom entry level of the game who haven't even played the game yet.  Maybe you haven't even purchased cards and are curious what it's all about.  Maybe you're confused with the rule book.  Whatever it is, I'm here to get you started.

 

What's going on here?

In Dragon Ball Z, you play as one of the characters, master of one of the 6 combat styles available, usually trying to beat your opponent to nothing.  There are many things that make this game unique.  For one thing, your deck is your health.  Every time you're hit with real damage, you discard cards from your deck.  This principle alone makes it a much different beast from probably any card game you've ever played.  There's also (usually) very little reliance on permanents, high amounts of card drawing, and hands are almost entirely dumped every turn.  Combat is a constant exchange of attacks & blocks between players, making for significantly more player interaction than something like Magic & Yu-Gi-Oh.  If you insist on playing slow control, you'll definitely need a lot of blocking cards to stop your opponent from crushing your face while you set up your field.

Here's how it all works.  You start with the first level of your character and your style's mastery card already in play.  Levels 2-4 levels are set aside.  You have a deck of 60 cards.  When your turn begins, you draw 3 cards, then play any cards you drew that are not combat-focused.  After that, your character powers up and decide if you want to enter the Combat step of the turn (if you drew a bunch of non-combat cards, you probably wouldn't do so well that turn).  If you do, the opponent will draw 3 cards with which to defend himself.  You then can attack or do some other action that can take the place of one.  Your opponent can attempt to block your attack, and then they get an opportunity to strike back.  Play continues like this until both players have passed their actions consecutively.  Once that's all done, all players may keep one card in their hand and discard the rest.  The opponent then takes their turn.

That's the turn in general.  Now it's time for what happens in Combat proper.  As I said, when Combat occurs, both players do whatever effects they have that happen "when entering Combat."  After that, the opponent draws 3 cards.  He'll definitely need them to defend himself, but it's entirely possible those 3 cards will contain non-combat cards (so don't overload your deck with them).  The first player has an opportunity to play an attack, play an Event from the hand, activate a Setup in play, use whatever other "Power" ability he has in play (once per turn, unless stated otherwise), or pass (do nothing).  If it was an attack, any secondary effects go off immediately unless it's preceded by "HIT:".  "HIT:" effects only work if the attack succeeds.  The opponent then gets an opportunity to play a Physical/Energy Combat card or Event which stops that kind of attack.  That player then gets to attack back, with the same options the first player had.  This keeps going until both players pass.

The Cards

Physical Combat cards represent the standard punches, kicks, headbutts, whatever an actual person might be able to do.  If a physical attack hits, they will usually compare your character's power level to your opponent with the physical attack table (see below).  Basically, unless you're significantly weaker than your opponent, you'll probably do something on the base damage.  These attacks will usually have something to increase this damage unless they have an otherwise strong effect.  These are far easier to perform than energy attacks, but they have the drawback that your opponent will often be able to at least take a hit without enduring any real damage.  It'll just reduce their power level.  If you can hit enough times though, you can pummel your opponent to 0, and that's where the real damage comes in (unless you're both just constantly punching, then it's two 0's slapping each other).

This is as good a time as any to show you the "main personality" cards that represent your character.  They have a level, alignment, power indicator, power-up rating (PUR) and ability.  Those numbers on the right are used to indicate how powerful your character currently is.  They're called "power stages," and you start at 5 above 0 each game.  Every turn, you'll gain power stages equal to your power-up rating, and as you take power stage damage, you lose that many.  Your power stages are used to pay most costs, usually to perform energy attacks, whereas your actual power level is used to determine how physically tough you are.  Abilities can be constant, or else they can have an effect you may use once each turn.  You start at level 1 when the game begins.  Many card effects can increase your anger, and once you reach 5 anger, you ascend to a whole new level of power, with full power stages!

Energy Combat cards represent the other level of Dragon Ball Z combat, shooting concentrated ki at each other such as Goku's trademark Kamehameha.  Unlike physical attacks, energy attacks work the same regardless of how powerful you are.  These attacks almost all require you to pay some power stages like ammunition.  If you don't have the ammo, you can't fire a shot.  Unlike physical attacks, which require you to pummel the opponent to nothing before you can start doing real damage, energy attacks go right for deck.  This direct damage gets right to the point, but it comes with the tradeoff that you'll have to pay much more attention to your available power stages.  This also provides a bit more realistic potential for weaker characters such as Krillin to have a chance against beefier characters like Frieza.

Events are used instead of performing an attack during combat.  These represents the little snippets that can happen in a momentary lull in the action.  Every card game has this kind of effect.  You just play it, it does its one-shot effects, then it's gone.  Beware of depending too greatly on these effects, though.  Because they (usually) do not attack or block, too many of these can leave you lacking in what you're actually supposed to do in the Combat step.  Additionally, there are multiple cards that cancel an Event or prevent their use altogether.  Of course, those only exist because Events themselves are often very powerful.

Physical Combat, Energy Combat, and Events are all cards that are played during the Combat phase of the turn, as players alternate between attacking & blocking.  Setups are done in the Planning phase, before combat actually happens for the turn.  This is the place where the show's more laid-back situations can shine.  Setups don't actually do anything when you play them.  Instead, they're sit around waiting for you to use them at just the right time during Combat.  They effectively function as an extra card in your hand once you play them.  Considering you will usually only have 3 or 4 cards in your hand when Combat starts, every extra card can go a long way.  Setups are basically the delayed version of Events.  You activate them, they do their effects, and then they go away.

Drills represent significantly more preparation.  Anyone who's practiced real martial arts, or basically practiced anything intensely knows you'll go through routines many times, "drilling" them into your mind so that when the time comes that you need them, you don't think about them.  Drills represent all the time you've committed preparing yourself a certain way.  As a result, many of them apply constant effects for you, just improving you overall.  Many others also have an ability you can use once each turn, without losing the card in the process.  You can only have one copy of a styled Drill in play, but that's plenty for how powerful they are.  When playing with Drills, be careful about your anger.  If you advance (or drop) a personality level, your concentration is shattered to the point that all your drills go away.

Dragon Balls are a bit weirder.  They get played in the Planning phase like the others, but their effects apply right away.  After that, they sit there.  If you can get all 7 Dragon Balls under your control, you win the game.  You don't necessarily need to include all of them in your deck.  You just can't count on winning that way unless you bring them all.  These also need to be protected.  If a player does at least 5 life cards of damage with a single attack, they can do a bunch of punishing effects, including capturing your Dragon Ball!  If it gets captured, that player gets to also use its ability right away!

Allies can come around to help you out a bit.  They can take power stage damage for you as a meat shield.  If you've been beaten down to 0 or one power stage above it, they can perform actions instead of your main personality.  If an ally's ability is constant, it won't even care about your power level.  It will just keep having that ability for you while it watches on the sidelines.  Otherwise, allies will have one-shot abilities like your main personality.  They still can't perform actions until you're at 0 or 1 above, but once you're that weak, getting a squad of allies out can be as beneficial as having that many more cards in your hand!  Allies at this point only have a PUR of 1, so if you're going to rely on an army, make sure you have effects around that can give them power.

The Mastery is an absolutely crucial part of the game.  When the game starts, you'll have all your personality levels and mastery in play.  These cards can never leave play.  Your mastery will have tremendous influence over your capabilities, and will often go a long way toward how your deck functions.  Your deck can only use one style of cards, and they all have to match the style of your mastery.  This makes initial deck construction kind of easy.  Your mastery and MP are telling you something about how the deck should generally act, so theme on that to exaggerate your strengths.

This was obviously just a summary of things.  It was more to give the general feeling of the game.  I still say you should consult the rule book.  Hopefully, this will at least give you a bit less confusion as you do so.  To get a basic idea of how the styles work, check out my previous article: Dragon Ball Z Panini Primer. Good luck to you, and see you on the battlefield!