Make FanZ Great Again

There has been a lot of bluster over the last several days, mostly pertaining to the Legacy Bonus, its associated restrictions, and what this all means for the future of ‘competitive’ FanZ.

We want to be very clear — Black Devious Mastery & Red Enraged Mastery are extremely powerful and would put the game into the point-of-no-return, well beyond the current power of Masteries such as Orange Retribution & Saiyan Empowered.

The FanZ Dev Team would’ve loved nothing more than for these Masteries to stay Frozen, but after all, FanZ is a fan service, by fans.  It’s about creativity, options, variety, and fun for those who continue to play a game no longer supported by its parent company.  The overwhelming discussion and opinions on the internet in the days prior to the Final Panini CRD led us to believe we could make a compromise — give the fans of these Masteries access to them again, while enacting simple and clean rules to keep them balanced.  We also try our absolute hardest to adopt Panini’s rulings, errata, and guidelines into FanZ.  After all, that’s our roots.  This change, however, had to be mitigated due to the design of cards during Awakening that never would have happened if these Masteries were still allowed to be used in tournaments.

In the yet-to-be-announced “Set 10”, we will be debuting new Masteries.  We are extremely excited about developing these cards and their various supporting cards — and we are also excited about the possibility of shaping the meta with a new Frozen List.  With the first official FanZ OP season wrapping up at the end of the summer, we will have an opportunity (as originally communicated during the roll out of OP & the first FanZ CRD) to create a new Frozen List that keeps the meta fresh and allows these new Masteries to take hold with the fans.  Black Devious, Red Enraged, and others from Premiere and Evolution are being watched very closely, and will more than likely fade into the sunset with Set 10’s arrival.  But, you never know.

This latest CRD is designed to carry us all through the end of the OP Season.  It’s not an indictment of Panini, or a dictator demanding that you all play the way we say.  FanZ has always been about offering — not mandating — structure.

We thank all of you that have shown unwavering (and sometimes scary) support for our efforts.  It makes continuing to design, playtest, and deliver the game we love really worthwhile, even in the shadow of Bandai, MetaX, and other competitive games vying for everyone’s attention and leisure time.

We can’t wait to see what decks you all cook up for the final OP events of the year.  Have fun, compete hard, and Make FanZ Great Again.

-The FanZ Dev Team

 

Legends Easy-Print PDF

You can download the Easy-Print PDF of Legends here.

More Legends Revisions

We have updated the text of Orange Grimace and Namekian Malicious Intent.  You can find the images here and on the Legends checklist.

A Cold Reception

We have updated King Cold – Caught Off Guard from Celestial Tournament to reflect his true intent.  Kudos to all of you that used him in unique ways as a “Named” card for different MP’s!  For balancing and intent purposes, he now acts as a Named card only for his kin — Cooler, Frieza, and the newly released Chilled.  You can find the updated image here, on the Celestial Tournament checklist, and in the newly updated CRD as well.

Yes, ANOTHER CRD Update

We are admittedly imperfect — especially when trying to balance our workaday demands with getting you fans content as quickly as possible.  We definitely missed some overpowered interactions with Red Enraged Mastery and the Legacy Bonus, so we are adding some more cards to the restricted list — including one card that is sure to elicit some dissenting opinions:

• Red Flourish (Awakening U94)
• Red Driving Knee (Awakening C41)
• Unleashed (Vengeance UR142)

Red Flourish has redundant interactions with the classic Red Shoulder Grab, and was not created with Enraged Mastery in mind.  We felt it best to restrict this card as opposed to Grab, which is really a staple in a wider variety of Red decks than Flourish is.

Red Driving Knee just has too much raw explosive potential with Red Enraged Mastery, generating up to 3 anger without any other effects in play.  We felt it needed to be restricted.

Unleashed has been a troublesome card since it’s release, splitting the community.  Some love it, some hate it.  We are using the Legacy Bonus for the remainder of the season as a proving ground for this restriction, and ultimately may introduce cards in “Set 10” that support most of the positive aspects of Unleashed without some of the negative ones.

We have also made a change to the text of Red Scanning Drill (Awakening U95), in order to prevent an infinite loop with Bardock.  We understand that this goes against our normal “FanZ errata before PanZ errata”, but in the interest of letting Bardock stretch his legs for the rest of the OP season, we are going to make this small change and revisit it after the season is over.

You can download Panini CRD 1.4 here

Legacy Bonus & More

FanZ Faithful –

All Legends revisions are now uploaded on the checklist.  If you catch any we missed – don’t hesitate to leave a comment here on on Facebook!  We have also created revised images for Orange Bicycle Kick and Orange Meditation with their new text.  You can find them on the Celestial Tournament checklist, and below:

We have been receiving a lot of questions about specific Legends cards and rulings.  There are two that we felt needed addressing on a large scale.  Please read below.

Question? My opponent is at 4 stages above zero, can I dealt critical damage via Chilled’s personality powers?

Answer! Yes you can, here are a few examples of it.

1) You are at 4 stages above zero and need to take 5 stages of damage. You lower to zero and convert the last stage into life cards. You physically took 4 stages and 1 life card. Effects that look for stages dealt will see 5 stages dealt. Effects that look for life cards dealt will see 1 life card dealt.

2) You are at 1 stage above zero and need to take 6 stages and 4 life cards. You lower to zero and convert the remaining 5 stages into life cards. You take all 5 life cards without finding any Endurance. Then you begin taking the remaining 4 life cards of damage. On the first card, you see Endurance 3 and banish it to prevent the remaining 3 life cards of damage. You physically took 1 stage and 6 life cards. Effects that look for stages dealt will see 6 stages dealt. Effects that look for life cards dealt will see 6 life cards dealt.

3) You are at 1 stage above zero and need to take 6 stages and 4 life cards. You lower to zero and convert the remaining 5 stages into life cards. You take the first life card and see Endurance 3 and banish it to prevent 3 life cards. You still have 1 converted life card left to take from the stages of damage and take that life card of damage. Then you begin taking the remaining 4 life cards of damage. On the first card, you see Endurance 2 and banish it to prevent 2 life cards, then you finish taking the last life card without any more Endurance. You physically took 1 stage and 4 life cards. Effects that look for stages dealt will see 3 stages dealt. Effects that look for life cards dealt will see 4 life cards dealt.

Question? Will FanZ be adopting the final panini CRD in full, main the Legacy Thawing Bonus?

Answer! Yes with two small additional rules to the Legacy Thawing Bonus Rule. Decks that use the “Legacy Thawing Bonus” may not include cards from any FanZ release such as “Celestial Tournament” or “Legends”, and some cards will be restricted if you use the Legacy Thawing Bonus.

Example 1) A deck consisting of the Black Devious Mastery and the Frieza MP may not include cards such as: Friez-Resident of HFIL, Frieza’s Arrogance, or Black Punt.

Example 2) A deck consisting of the Red Enraged Mastery and the Krillin MP may not include cards such as: Krillin’s Kamehameha, Red Team Fire, or Olibu-Legendary

You can read the updated CRD, along with the Legacy Bonus Restricted List, here 

Summer CRD Update

It’s time for the mid-season CRD update, with 3 Kai events in the rear-view mirror following the release of Celestial Tournament.  Just a reminder for the remaining events this year:

South Kai – Orange – July 15, Showcase Comics & Collectibles Slidell LA
Supreme Kai – Saiyan – July 29, Paradox Comics-N-Cards Fargo ND
Grand Kai – Namekian – Gencon 2017, Indianapolis IN

We’ve listened to a lot of fan feedback, and have been testing some changes for the past few weeks.  While the changes included in the CRD aren’t designed to completely turn the meta on its head, there were a few cards that were repeatedly being abused and re-used during games at the Kai events.  Additional cards are under review and will be considered for changes at the end of the Kai season before we launch the next wave of Organized Play.  The card updates that go live as of this moment are:

• Orange Checkup Drill is now Limit 1 Per deck.
• Orange Bicycle Kick gains “Banish after use”
• Orange Meditation gains “Banish after use”

We also have a rules change taking effect immediately for all official FanZ events.

• Drills now have “memory” (you can read a full description of this rule change in the CRD file, updated in the link at the top of the page)

The Frozen List is not receiving any updates at this time, but will more than likely have some additions when the next season kicks off.

Get ready to enjoy Legends, releasing in just a few days on July 1st!

You can download a copy of the CRD here: FanZ CRD 1.2

 

Inception of Legend

Admittedly, I had no idea who Chilled was until several months ago — assuming he was some non-canon or fan-made creation.  His role as the progenitor of the “Legendary Super Saiyan” tale passed on to his descendants King Cold, Frieza, and Cooler definitely helps bring a sense of completeness to Bardock’s tale.  The fact that Goku’s father becomes the first Legendary Super Saiyan after being sent back in time from Frieza’s blast is very neat, as any mythos that deals with time travel tends to be.

It would’ve been very easy to shoehorn Chilled into the Named card/Frieza archetype that was reinforced with Frieza’s new level 1 and the King Cold ally in Celestial Tournament.  But we wanted to make sure Chilled had his own place in the meta, and saw the opportunity to create a very unique beatdown personality as the final MP in Legends.

Big life card attacks are game-ending fuel in DBZ.  As power creep took hold throughout the game, 4 life cards became 5, then 6, and the number kept creeping up.  When 1 attack can be dealt for more than 1/10th your Life Deck, it was considered a powerhouse card that had to be included in most builds.

So why convert the life cards into stages?  Isn’t that counter-intuitive?  We had to build some rewards into Chilled’s MP stack to make this trade-off worthwhile.  Right off the bat, you have an instant power that supports the constant with a Critical Damage effect, and a burst of 2 anger.  While his POWER doesn’t necessarily support the damage conversion, it’s a solid draw/discard effect (giving you more choice than a similar discard/draw) that rejuvenates 1 as well.

Chilled – Space Pirate offers more cohesive synergy with the constant effect.  Not only does the constant start buffing damage by 1 stage, but Chilled now has his own Physical Attack for 5 stages (6 with the buff) built in.  It has immediate anger and rejuvenation, and will automatically deliver critical damage if it hits.

Chilled – On the Move ….. wait, no — Chilled – Pissed starts to turn up the heat on your opponent.  The damage buff is gone, but now all of your attacks that deal 5 or more stages of damage are considered to do critical damage.  As a nod to the Red Enraged Mastery (should we rename it the ‘chilled’ list?), you get 1 anger every time you use a critical damage effect.  Chilled’s physical attack gets a major upgrade here, with 1 immediate anger (and 1 more upon hit if it deals all of its stages), rejuvenation of 2, and a powerful HIT effect that will banish an opponent’s Setup, Drill, or Ally from the game.  You might find yourself not using the free anger from his constant in certain matchups, preferring to stay on Level 3 as long as possible to control the board.

Chilled – Prophet is a critical damage machine.  All of your attacks that deal a measly 2 stages of damage now enable you to use a critical damage effect.  On top of that, Chilled channels Evolution‘s Hidden Power Drill and caps all Personalities at 5 above 0.  Now that this effect is on a character and not a Drill, it should prove much more difficult to navigate.  Chilled’s POWER helps him avoid hurting himself too much with his constant, gaining 3 stages and taking 3 away (or perhaps milling) from an opponent.

Chilled’s Enraged Volley is a quality card, even just from the fact that it becomes a ‘must-block’ due to the HIT effect keeping it on the table to be used again.  Combine that with its quality immediate effects – 1 anger, a Nappa’s Energized Strike-esque power stage drainer upon leveling (I hear decks like to level these days), and a floating effect that can stack with multiple uses to drain additional stages every time you use a Critical Damage effect – and you have a card that can devastate your opponent.  Oh, and 2 endurance makes this card even better.

Chilled’s second named card, Chilled’s Prescience, already catches your eye with 3 endurance.  While it may feel like Cooler’s Rebirth, it plays differently and has flexibility all the same.  The parenthetical is very unique, allowing you to surprise your opponent after an attack becomes successful with critical damage, while also replacing itself with a freshly drawn card.  The event’s POWER rejuvenates a solid 3 cards, while also draining any personality in play 3 stages.  Which effect of this card do you like the most?

Chilled is the final MP to be revealed for Legends, which releases in just a few days on July 1st.  Stay tuned to the blog and all of our partner sites/content providers for some final previews leading up to the big day.

Under The Sea

Spam is typically something that players don’t love in DBZ – whether its decks that generate action after action, cycle the same Dragon Ball multiple times a turn, or lay their entire hand full of allies, setups, and/or drills on the board during their Planning Step.

One of the Ultra-Rares in Legends, Amphibious Exploration Drill, tackles the issue of the Planning Step spam.  It’s no fun when your opponent drops 3 Dragon Balls on the first or second turn of the game, or when 3 Allies hit the board.  This drill allows for a new kind of control deck to be built; perhaps one driven by Android 20 with his ability to tutor this card on his Level 1?

To make this card worth running, the parenthetical will let you filter it out of your hand to gain stages in a pinch.  While not as powerful as some other filtering effects, it still lets you ‘save it for later’ while generating a benefit.

How will you use this card to drive your opponent crazy?

 

TRAIN INSAIYAN

Drills are love-em or hate-em for most players of DBZ, but no one can doubt their power.  Whether you’re an Orange Style fan and love using your Drills as much as possible, or you’re a control player just looking for an edge in Black or Namekian, there’s usually something to be excited about when it comes to new Drills.

Enjoy these new Styled Drills from Legends, officially releasing July 1st!

We have one more Drill to share — a freestyle Ultra Rare that’s Limit 2 per deck!  This card will absolutely devastate decks that try and spam the board, so check back in Friday for the reveal.

 

I Am Legend

The following breakdown of Bardock was crafted by Phil McGrath.  Enjoy the long awaited debut of the Father of Goku!

 

 

It could be said that the entirety of the Dragon Ball universe is set in motion on a day many years ago, when Bardock made his best Jor-El impression and strapped an infant Kakarot into a ship that would one day take him to Earth. This is the only interaction we see between Bardock and his son. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Goku doesn’t seem to have any parenting skills himself. But today, in honor of Father’s day, we celebrate Bardock anyway!

Bardock possesses some unusual powers for a Saiyan, and his iconic personality stack in the Score era reflected this. One of our design goals was to capture both his essence as a character, as well as the nature of his original stack.

Bardock level 1 kicks things off by picking through your opponent’s deck and removing particular threats, as well as providing critical deck knowledge in the beginning stages of the game. His power also grants a peek at your opponent’s hand, a nod to his original level 1. This comes at the cost of a little bit of self-destruction, however there are ways to mitigate the cost (or turn it into a positive!) for those players out there with a keen perception. Additionally, Bardock possesses a unique constant that will guarantee 1 anger per turn in tandem with his power, and escalate quickly against decks like Orange Retribution or Restored Gohan that are repeatedly searching for things. Players can get the most mileage out of this power by utilizing other effects to pick through the opponent’s deck such as Surprise Attack and Black Scout Maneuver.

 

Bardock masters the ability to peer into the soul of his opponent at level 2, gaining a full hand reveal at all times. His constant continues to provide a source of anger, this time triggered by mill effects. In order to reach the upper levels of Bardock’s power, recurring mill sources such as Blue Waiting Drill, Orange Energy Dan Drill, and Black Perceptive Mastery will be a huge boon. This level also contains a familiar hand filtering power that Bardock can utilize both to permanently remove the very threats that his level 1 targeted, as well as control the flow of combat.

At level 3, Bardock retains his mental abilities while sharpening his deck destruction focus. Although this level can only target styled cards, repeated uses can pick apart an opponent’s strategy with terrifying speed. On top of the ability to sculpt your opponent’s deck into the opposite of a fine oiled machine, his power provides a little bit of combo potential in multiple styles. Red Ascension and Blue Resolute have obvious synergy with this effect. This ability is strong on its own, but when coupled with hand and deck knowledge, it is especially potent!

Bardock finally ascends to legendary status and his personality powers reflect that. He once again retains his hand knowledge. This time, he gains a vaguely familiar constant effect that heavily amplifies your opponents deck weaknesses. With full knowledge and persistent hand advantage (both in quality and quantity) he is a force to be reckoned with. His power also provides a moderate flow of stages and a decent sized mill effect with some additional utility. It’s not hard to imagine situations where Bardock could mill his own styled setups into play in a pinch!

The ability to see beyond time surely presents some unusual choices, and this premonition will force both players to make difficult decisions based on what outcome they want! The card is an immediate +1 to hand advantage in Bardock’s favor, as well as a combo tool with certain Black effects.

Bardock’s Spirit Javelin searches for, and destroys, a card from your opponent’s deck. This triggers his constant effects on both level 1 and 2. It also provides a lot of unusual utility. The effect will be unwieldy, and it is easy to imagine scenarios where it will not be especially strong, but against combat oriented decks it gives Bardock access to your opponent’s full arsenal of immediate effects. Critical effects, tech, and anger will be at Bardock’s disposal, if only for a moment in time.

Stay tuned for further spoilers from all corners of the community, including a third MP reveal on the way!

-Phil McGrath-