Before my first match against Kelly Dennis, he asked “Why Ruthless?” In early testing with the Universal Clash expansion, I was most excited to play Red style because of the incredible new toys it received. Red Distracting Shot, Sundering Strike and Charged Beam are all wildly powerful cards, and I wanted to play all of them in a single deck. However, try as I might, I could not escape the fact that Relentless Mastery was relentlessly terrible. In every single game I played, I found myself wishing I was using Ruthless Mastery instead. The anti-anger and hand filtering were just too good to pass up. I then tried to craft a deck that countered what I expected the early set meta to be. Ginyu leapt out to me immediately, thanks to a strong ally suite that included the ability to abuse Nappa. The deck exceeded expectations in testing immediately; in every OCTGN match I played, I blind-loaded into a favorable matchup that I won handily. After some last-minute tinkering, I played the list you see here:
The Boys: 9
Events: 9
3x Captain Ginyu's Reflexes
Time Is A Warrior's Tool
Energy Attacks: 7
Overpowering Attack
Blocks: 9
The original version of the list was a few cards different. Self-testing revealed that Meditative Raditz could easily remove Nappa and destroy me. Red Restriction and Stomach Crusher had to go in in order to guarantee the win in those matchups, costing me Red Desire among other things. Sobering Hammer had to go to 3 to let me get Nappa as quickly and often as possible. Red Gambit was also cut, as the MPPV wincon came up far more than I expected. Static Shot went in instead, as it still gained anger and helped me deal unpreventable damage. Speaking of, I couldn’t run Dig as my non-styled count was too high. Cards like Static Shot and Aerial Assault served multiple functions of boosting damage, gaining anger, AND being Styled, so they were chosen instead. I essentially tried to compress as many roles as possible into each card and run as much tech as I could bear. Every single card in the list proved its worth over the course of the tournament, so I don’t regret a thing. Now onto the games!
Round 1 vs. Kevin Dennis (Relentless Broly)
I was excited to be paired against my friend, and even more excited when I saw he was playing Relentless. Relentless aggro is a very favorable matchup for me. Kev himself groaned and assumed the game was lost from the get-go. However, Broly’s Eraser Cannon is insane against Ginyu and Kev was able to grab it with Distracting Shot in the first combat to clear my board after I’d used Captain Ginyu's Reflexes. But luckily for me, I drew Reflexes again later to build my board back up. Ruthless’ anti-anger kept Kev pinned on level 1 most of the game and I was able to threaten both MPPV and survival. He scooped shortly after whiffing on a Relentless banish while I was level 3 with anger and a huge life card lead.
Round 2 vs. Don Short (Ruthless Hero Vegeta) (MPPV)
While Ruthless’ anti-anger and Vegeta’s Prideful Challenge are incredibly strong, I was even less afraid here because he didn’t have access to a card like Eraser Cannon. I was able to search tons of allies early, including Zarbon and Nappa to basically completely wrap the game up even though I was doing no damage (He ended the first combat at 55 cards). I gained tons of anger and in the final combat not only did enough damage to completely swing the deck count around, but I used Ginyu 4 to banish cards out of my own pile so Recoome could draw Static Shot for the MPPV win.
Round 3 vs. Ryan O’Malley (Resourceful Superku)
My allies apply an insane amount of pressure in this matchup, but I knew Nappa had to be prioritized above the rest. I waited until Ryan used a Betrayal before searching him, and he remained in play for the entire game while Ryan controlled a full field of setups. I definitely got lucky by having Ryan not see another Betrayal or Decap, but my hands were so good that I held the Time I drew turn 1 throughout the entire match without playing it. We both played weirdly defensively, and most combats involved me looping Red Forceful Strike to clear board instead of really pushing damage. Ryan was able to control my anger well despite being forced into playing passively by Guldo, but I finally got one big combat to push through and kill him.
Round 4 vs. Kelly Dennis (Tag Googeta)
While this was yet another favorable matchup for me, Tag Vegeta is basically a better Ruthless Turles. You can destroy it for almost the entire game and then lose because of one bad hand. Luckily, my hands were fire. My first draw was more or less the best possible hand: an ally, a Styled card to banish with Ruthless, and the single copy of Red Energy Blast. When Kelly entered I also sacked into a Stare Down, revealing his hand of OPA and mostly blocks. I banished the Goo immediately, and while I did have to play carefully around the possibility of him returning, the rest of the game was hugely in my favor.
There were two plays of note: First, when I used Sobering Hammer I chose Nappa over my damage allies because I knew Kelly played Stylish Pose. After two turns of passing, Kelly played Pose and it sat dead for the rest of the game. Then in the penultimate turn, I read that Kelly had Time and threw a Focused Red Distracting Shot (Frog Ginyu has Namekian trait!) to get through it, and make Jiece’s follow-up energy Focused as well. Distracting Shot also revealed to me that I had Stare Down coming, so when Kelly passed to bait me into over-extending I simply passed as well. I drew Stare Down on his enter and killed Time for the win.
Top 4 vs. Austin Binstock (Ascension Trunks)
This was the first matchup I didn’t feel favored in. Looking at the list of tournament entries, I think Austin might have been the only player in the whole tournament I didn’t have a great matchup against. I won my only die roll of the tournament here, and on my second or third turn I beheld a hand of Stare Down, Sundering Strike, and Reflexes (I think the fourth card was an ally, but I could be mistaken). I STRONGLY considered entering, knowing Asc. Trunks runs enough dead draws to let me punish him hard, but ultimately I passed. Austin dropped Red Destiny and entered. I was distraught, and became even more so when his mastery hit Red Deterrence to kill an ally while I drew a completely dead hand, including Nappa just a turn too late. The next combat he swept my board with multiple Trunks - Frenzied crits and revealed he was running Premiere 3. I had to enter the next turn, but he drew Time to stymie my damage completely. I pushed to 3 myself and set up many allies, but things were grim. He entered the next turn on level 4 with anger, and mastery’d to skip and go for game.
He whiffed.
Not only did Austin whiff, but he entered with no blocks. I proceeded to stage-lock him with a 9-stage Red physical to lower anger, and throw a billion lifecards of damage. I extended to the moon with Recoome and Ruthless mastery, passing when he was at 2 cards to force him to draw out. Red Ascension Mastery is the worst mastery in the game.
Finals vs. Kelly Dennis
After what might have been the luckiest game of my entire life, I was back to facing Kelly. I desperately wanted to win, just to avoid the terrible feeling of winning in swiss and losing when it mattered most. Kelly won the roll again, but Tag Vegeta cannot enter on Ginyu turn 1 in almost any world. I didn’t draw the first-turn Red Energy Blast, but I DID draw the first-turn Red Restriction. Knowing Kelly had discarded Stare Down his first turn BUT left Gallic Gun on the bottom of his pile instead, I predicted he would enter with a second SD and so held Restriction.
As expected, Kelly entered and my Restriction was met with stunned silence. In one of the craziest sequences of the tournament, I played Red Distracting Shot to get Red Distracting Shot, shuffled my deck to search an ally, then played Red Distracting Shot to get THE THIRD Red Distracting Shot. Guldo was live on every attack, which let me push serious damage. Even so, the life deck count was close all game. When we were both under twenty cards, I drew Red Restriction again and noted Kelly had SD on the bottom of his pile. I entered with Restriction, and Kelly scooped shortly afterward.
Thus concludes the report! I had a ton of fun playing and hanging out with so many cool dudes. Winning is nice, but friendship is even nicer. If you didn't get to play in this tournament, I hope to see you in another event soon!
-Seth
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