In the wake of the Pokémon TCG, the trading card game market experienced it’s second boom period. From the turn of the millennium through to the late 00s, the market was flooded by games, both original and from established properties. Few survive till this day, though many still have a special place in their player’s hearts, including the topic of today, the Dragon Ball Z CCG by Score Entertainment.
“Score Z” as it’s since been dubbed retroactively, was popular from it’s inception in 2000 through to 2002 with the release of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Dragon Ball Z: Collectible Card Game survived into 2006 in various forms. Score Z’s most iconic card type was the Personality card. A personality represents a character from Dragon Ball. It is a requirement to play the game.
Furthermore, the Personality being the character from the series that you choose to play as or have as your ally in combat. Most personalities have a variety of levels from 1 to 5 and to play as them you must have sequential levels of that character. A deck needs levels from 1 through 3 at minimum or a maximum of 1 through 5.
In this list we will be looking at the top 10 personality cards in the Score Dragon Ball Z CCG. We evaluated each personality for its power level, power, and synergy with cards. These ten personalities made a major impact in Dragon Ball Z: Collectible Card Game.
1. Supreme West Kai
This list begins with another character you’d be forgiven for not even remembering if you weren’t familiar with the game or deep into Dragon Ball lore as she turned up so briefly in the series, the Supreme West Kai.
Supreme West Kai is also the culmination of the repeated issues regarding functional card errata in this list; a card with a multitude of unwritten rules regarding deck building and functionality that could only be found on a pack insert from the set she came from, Fusion.
On face value, the Supreme West Kai allows you to shuffle 5 cards from your discard pile into your Life Deck when entering combat. This is actually fairly useful, selectively add to your deck, increasing the likelyhood that you would draw cards you need for that specific situation.
Then you see the true face of Supreme West Kai via that insert;
When your opponent performs either a physical attack, focused physical attack, energy attack or focused energy attack, he chooses “odd” or “even” and then discards discards the top card of your Life Deck. If your opponent’s choice matches the card number of the discarded card, the attack is successful. Otherwise, the attack is stopped.
You cannot play or use cards that stop attacks and/or end Combat at any time and she cannot be used as an ally.
Supreme West Kai was much like Android 18 before her; if she could run it, she made that deck better. You don’t need to worry about defensive cards since she’s not only going to cover that via her unwritten power, but also recover your discard pile. She also never mentions preventing damage, meaning Endurance, a mechanic where in cards discarded as damage prevent further damage, is still on the table. Even further, if a dragon ball is discarded, if it’s not in play, it goes to the bottom of the deck. She was nigh unkillable, filtered her Life Deck with just what she needed and easily achieved victory conditions.
This was at the tail end of the game’s life, but she received two errata to tone her down;
Supreme West Kai cannot prevent damage.
The card discarded from the top of your deck is removed instead.
This was in an effort to make her a little easier to deal with. She loses Endurance and with the card being removed, it makes Dragon Balls super risky as if she hits one with this effect, it’s gone and on top of that, she can’t shuffle these cards back into her Life Deck.
This ultimately didn’t matter much. Supreme Kai West still was able to block most everything with her power, run control packages and recover from what damage she did take easily enough along with whatever attacks she performed. After the game’s demise, Supreme Kai West would eventually be banned by the fan community. Her ban makes her the only banned personality card.
2. Tapkar
Tapkar is something of a nothing character in the anime of Dragon Ball, being an inconsequential character in the Other World Tournament filler arc. It is rather surprising that he even received a personality set. The set of the World Games Sage contained a lot of these forgettable and filler characters at the rare slot.
Tapkar isn’t so much here for one individual level, but his entire personality set. Each level has an power when he enters combat. He draws cards, removes cards from his hand, then raises his anger. Anger being a mechanic used to advance personality levels. Raise your anger to 5 to advance a level and set your Anger to 0.
Tapkar’s powers could also chain with his levels. This meaning that he could be on Level 1 with 2 Anger, draw 4 cards, remove 2 cards from his hand, gain raise his Anger 3, advance to level 2, then Level 2 will draw 6 cards, remove 3, raise his anger 4. He now has 8 cards minimum to his opponent’s 3 to 5. His final level giving him an additional 3 cards, instant recovery from decks inflicting stages of damage. All three levels, due to how they function, also gave Tapkar massive amounts of hand filter so that he had the perfect extra large hand.
The hand in Score’s Dragon Ball Z: Collectable Card Game is of similar importance to Yu-Gi-Oh! in how much advantage you gain from additional cards, so Tapkar was dominating out of the gate. He just gained so much momentum and options in any given turn. The resulted in each and every level in Tapkar’s stack getting an errata so that you may only use these effects when entering combat as the defender and he can only any of his personality powers once per turn. This errata effectively killed him, but he lived on as a legend.
3. Android 18
Android 18’s Level 1 from Cell Saga is one of the most interesting personalities on this list as it influenced a mechanic in the expansion / reboot hybrid, the Dragonball GT CCG. Not only that, but her effect only happened because promotional material from the prior set, Android Saga, said she could change the future.
When entering combat, look at your top 6 cards of your Life Deck, place them back in any order, then draw 1. This card changes a lot depending on who’s turn it is; on your turn, you get a selective +1 to get at least 1 really advantageous card, but on defense it gets even better, the power is set off before you draw. You get to create the best hand of 4 from a possible 6 cards, more if you’re holding onto 1 card from a prior turn.
Android 18 was most commonly used in Orange and Black decks, but completely dominated the metagame for quite a while. She became the be all and end all of competitive play, eventually evolving into a dragon ball deck while nothing else was even really worth attempting to play.
Like many cards on this list, she would receive an errata to tone her down. In her case, she can now only use her power when entering combat as the attacker. With her defensive capabilities removed, she slid out of the metagame, but her presence was felt again as the top 6 rearrange became part of the rule set for the Dragonball GT CCG.
4. Piccolo The Trained
The best era of the DBZ CCG is commonly thought to be the span of four sets in the middle of the game; Trunks, Android, Cell and Cell Games Sagas, as these sets ‘finished’ Jim Ward’s original sloppy, broken and at times incoherent original design. As we saw with Master Roshi and will see again, this era wasn’t perfect and Piccolo the Trained was another dent in it’s reputation.
Piccolo the Trained’s power is much like Vegeta, Settled Down, a floodgate. In Piccolo’s case, your opponent may not use any Personality Powers. Neither normal nor Constant, not their Main Personalities nor Allies. Piccolo reduces the game to the Mastery and the Life Deck, though that isn’t exactly true. Just like Vegeta, he’s a lopsided floodgate; he never mentions your personality cards.
In time, Piccolo the Trained would actually become more powerful with Namekian Strike and Namekian Focus, both of which were a +1 in card advantage and Trunks Saga Namekian Style Mastery giving a +1 and full stage recovery. With World Games Saga, Piccolo would get a strong Lv2 in Piccolo the Mentor, a card with a strong energy attack for base cost and recovers stages, so if they force Piccolo the Trained to level up, the Piccolo player still has something to fight with.
5. Master Roshi
“When entering combat, look at the top 10 cards of your Life Deck and place them back in any order, and if you declared a Red Tokui-Waza, raise your anger 2 levels.”
Score Entertainment was unusual as a company in that the majority of the heavy work on their card games past the second set of Score Z, Frieza Saga, was done by teenagers and young adults brought in for some form of testing. This lead to the game’s best era from Trunks through the Cell Games Saga with a series of 4 sets, However, this direction also created its share of issues such as Score repeating their own mistake with far worse consequences.
Master Roshi comes from the Capsule Corp Power Pack, a small set of all foil cards released in a storage box and is a redux of another problematic card; Android 18. While Android 18 was dominating the meta by allowing the player to rearrange their top 6 cards then draw 1, the teens at Score saw fit to remake Android 18, but much better, with a supposed downside that wasn’t really.
Master Roshi allows the player to rearrange the top 10 cards of their life deck when entering combat, where as Android 18 rearranged 6 and drew a card. While he didn’t get the +1, his pool was increased by over 33%. This came with the supposed further downside of being very weak statistically and if you delcared a Red Tokui-Waza, had a fully Red and Freestyle deck, he raised his anger 2 each time. Not really a downside if you just don’t declare a Red Tokui-Waza and either use another style or don’t declare one at all.
The last option is where Roshi would ultimately go, then use a variety of combat ending cards and dragon ball support cards to win via Dragon Ball Victory. If that failed, since he didn’t have a Tokui-Waza, Cosmic Backlash from no where as a backup plan.
All of this resulted in Roshi receiving an errata like Android 18, but he just became a slightly weaker version of the original text for Android 18, where his power to rearrange the top 10 was reduced to 6.
6. Vegeta, Settled Down
Vegeta has some very viable options on every level, ranging from raising your anger after taking damage to a built in variant on Android 18’s Stare Down that is set off when entering combat. Less we forget the promo combination of Super Saiyan Vegeta and Vegeta is Lurking, allowing players to reuse a card that searches for 3 Named cards, of which Vegeta has some particularly good ones.
Amongst all that, Vegeta Settled Down, the Lv2 from Kid Buu Saga, still manages to take the cake. All of your attacks deal +2 life cards of damage and your opponent cannot play or use combat cards. As the TCG medium evolved, this type of effect would be called a ‘floodgate’, an effect that prevents players from doing a specific action or using specific effects
Combat cards are some of the most annoying and powerful cards in the game, many of the staple cards for the DBZ CCG are combat cards, so a floodgate to just stop them gives Vegeta quite the advantage. No Android 18’s Stare Down or Confrontation, so your hand is safe. No Time is a Warrior’s Tool to stop all of your attacks. No Energy Sphere to stop your Combat cards. No Super Saiyan Effect to stop all physical attacks preemptively.
The last point is actually very important as this is a lopsided floodgate, only your opponent has this restriction placed upon them. You’re free to play whatever combat cards you want. If you’re so inclined, use Android 18’s Stare Down to remove their only cards of use from them and leave them with a dead hand while you have your way with them.
7. Majin Buu
Majin Buu is unique among the entire game in that he had two different hitech cards in the Majin Buu Saga Starter Decks; one focused on offence and one focused on defense. Of these two versions of Majin Buu, the defensive one turned out to be quite viable to run competitively.
Majin Buu has two powers, one constant and one normal. The constant prevented 2 life cards of damage from your opponent’s attacks, while the normal power allowed you to shuffle the top 2 styled cards from your discard pile into your Life Deck.
Majin Buu was commonly played in Orange with the Majin Buu Saga Orange Style Mastery as they paired quite nicely together. Orange has a lot of defensive Drills and Majin Buu Saga Orange Style Mastery can both tutor 2 Orange Drills from the Life Deck for the cost of discarding 1 in play, then place the top Drill of your discard pile on the bottom of your Life Deck during your Rejuvenation Step. Majin Buu can get back your attack cards and you can go from there.
Oh and after you’ve built a wall of Drills, feel free to use Orange Vegeta’s Assault to turn them all into Physical Attacks dealing +3 stages of damage to just end the game there. Blue is also an option for Majin Buu with Majin Buu Saga Blue Style Mastery to use your discard pile as another way to prevent damage.
8. Bojack
(NOTE: Zangya is errataed. Her name is incorrect on the card.)
There is something of a running theme in the Dragonball Z films for the main villain to have their squad of goons, starting with the first film and Garlic Jr, but Bojack from Movie 9 was the first time this concept was really expressed in the card game.
Bojack doesn’t so much have a power himself, but allows his squad to use theirs as his allies at any time and empower your attacks for each Ally you have in play. This effectively turned Kogu, Zangya, Bujin and Bido into reusable card advantage that, while they can be answered, can easily be brought back.
But it gets even better, every single one of the Bojack Squad’s attacks do something on top of being powerful attacks hitting for a base of +5 Stages or 6 Life Cards and +1 Stage for each Bojack Ally you have in play; they all have a form of control built in. Hand discard, ally destruction, Drill destruction and an effect that could only really be described as some type of floodgate. All effects that need to be successful, but a great way to drain blocks.
Bojack’s interesting on this list as his Style choice doesn’t really matter, though Black Trunks Saga Mastery is preferred as it gives a passive buff to both stage and life card damage. This is because that, by the time Bojack released, the game evolved to a point where every style did everything, so Ally support existed in every color, meanwhile Bojack and his gang just offers so much by himself.
9. Android 19
Android 19 has a lot of quirks to his design; irregular amount of power stages, locked to a style for maximum efficiency, highly flavorful, an actually coherent design across all three of his original levels and arguably the best energy attack in the game, but lets focus on his Level 1.
Android 19’s Level 1 has 12 power stages over the usual 10. His number of stages means he can not only take more damage but also discharge more energy attacks. He also has a built-in energy stop that if you declared an Orange Tokui-Waza. A deck comprised of Orange and Freestyle cards would cause him to gain 3 stages. This strategy gives more fuel for energy attacks or resilience against attacks dealing stages of damage to Android 19.
The orange lock isn’t even a negative thing. Orange has some great control tools like Orange Stare Down and blocks like Orange Fist Catch. As a villain you gain access to a suite of great villains only cards, but one of Android 19’s named cards, Android 19’s Energy Burst is a villain’s staple due to it’s ability to remove Drills from the game.
Android 19 is typically played as an aggro deck with Orange Style Mastery from Trunks Saga to give either a buff or cost reduction to all of your energy attacks or both in the case of orange energy attacks. Orange being the premier style for energy attacks. There is also an argument for Orange Style Mastery from Majin Buu Saga with it’s ability to tutor Drills and the other part of Orange’s main identity being Drills, some being incredibly beneficial to Energy Beats.
10. Broly, Super Saiyan
Broly was one of those characters where the flavor and mechanics lined up beautifully. He was the best choice for Saiyan Style Beatdown with the Lv3, Broly, Super Saiyan, being the “Kill Switch”. He has a strong power and a high power level.
Broly, Super Saiyan, has a respectable E bracket for his top power level, power levels using a chart to determine how much damage they inflict, but the real damage comes from his power. A strong +4 stage physical attack that, if the first time you use it you have a Saiyan style card as the top card of your discard pile, allows you to use it a second time that combat and all of your attacks inflict 2 Life Cards of damage for the remainder of combat.
2 more actions, a modifier to break past stage recovery. That’s a lot already, then you account for what Saiyan has; cards like Saiyan Beef or Trunks Saga Saiyan Style Mastery to keep your opponent’s stages down to deal maximum damage along with Trunks or Cell Saga Saiyan Style Masteries and Saiyan Destiny to gain even more card advantage. All of this on top of Broly’s own powerful exclusive cards and staple freestyle cards.
Broly isn’t oppressive in ways similar to other cards on this list. He just does the DBZ CCG at it’s best; good old fashioned beatdown and he’s very good at it. Some might say this personality is “Legendary”.
The Final Word:
All in all, Score created many powerful Main Personalities and Allies in Dragon Ball Z: Collectible Card Game. Cards such as Android 18, Piccolo the Trained, and Supreme Kai West made a major impact in the game. They truly dominated many eras of the game. Players continue to enjoy these cards after the game’s conclusion.
This was our list of the top top personalities in Score’s Dragon Ball Z: Collectible Card Game. Please share your top ten list in the comments. We look forward to see your list.
