Let’s take a look at a versatile new addition to Namekian’s drill line up: Namekian Unburden Drill.
Do you ever have too many useless cards in your hand? Tired of taking a ridiculous amount of damage when staring at a grip full of board cards? Then, boy, do I have a treat for you.
Oh, wow, look, Android 18 is throwing another energy attack. You, a dignified slug being from another planet, would like to protect your life total and your precious dragon balls, so you ditch a dead card from hand to soak up some damage. An easy card for a card trade off. Plus, if it’s your last card in hand, you can 5 stages thanks to the new Desperation mechanic.
Obviously, Piccolo, Lord Slug, Kami, and Nail benefit from this card the most since they can fully stop an attack rather than just prevent the damage. There are several ways to deal unpreventable damage, so the natural-born Namekians can best utilize this new card.
There is also the resurgence of the old Score mechanic: Focused. Any attack that is Focused can only be stopped by physical or energy combat cards.
With this defensive permanent in play you can expend your blocks in hand against Focused attacks or whenever you want the glorious secondary effects of a Namekian block while saving Unburden Drill for a good opportunity.
The Discard
The cost of this Drill can often have some side benefits. The most obvious thing to do would be to discard a Dragon Ball (especially if you have more than 1 in hand). The ball stays out of your discard pile and goes to the bottom of your life deck just like it would have at the end of combat anyway all while stopping some damage from your opponent.
As a Namekian, you may just want to fuel your discard pile with this card early on, too. You could ditch physical blocks against an energy deck or vice versa. Namekian’s rejuvenation game is so strong that you could easily recycle the cards that you ditch with this drill. Though, I imagine that most of the time you would discard Planning Step fodder with it.
How about cards with parenthetical effects that trigger when they’re discarded? Several of such cards only trigger when discarded via a Mastery effect, but let’s look at some that could pair with this drill.
Another FanZ creation, Namekian Rebuke Drill from the Showdown set, might be my favorite combo piece for any Namekian deck that has slots dedicated to a drill package. With both drills in play, discarding a Dragon Ball yields several positive results. 1. The incoming attack is stopped. 2. Draw a card.
The longer a deck can sustain having this combo set up, the more value they would squeeze out. Naturally, this combo likely fits best when paired with Radiant Mastery and the underpowered earth balls, but we also have new Dragon Balls this set.
The other major contender that you’d want to discard with this effect is Namekian Determination. We have a board card that is otherwise dead in your hand on defense that can be dropped into the board state while stopping an attack. While it’s in play, you can pop it to replace the discard cost from Unburden Drill.
I’m personally looking forward to some new Namekian brews. How about you?
Collision Point 