Mercenary Tao: Blue Resolute

                                            

Mercenary Tao is an overlooked power house.  He has the ability to control the game and gets rewarded, thanks to Dodon Wave, for passing and doing nothing.

This Tao deck is designed to slowly take advantage from either passing or entering combat.   He seems to find the best fit when played with the Blue Resolute Mastery. The goal is to get to either level 2 or 4 and sit there.  Both levels have great powers, lvl2 to push through damage without having to actually connect and lvl4 to control the state of the game.  This deck isn’t opposed to entering combat just to immediately, especially if you have out a Dodon Wave, or 3.

Lets take a look at a deck list:

Blue Resolute Mastery

Mercenary Tao – Old Foe
Mercenary Tao – Reckless
Mercenary Tao – Armed
Mercenary Tao – Shielded

1x Earth Dragon Ball 7

3X Mercenary Tao’s Super Dodon Wave
3X Mercenary Tao’s Puzzles

1X Blinding Energy Move
2X Villainous Power Ball
2X Flurry of Blows
3X Unleashed
1X Time Is A Warrior’s Tool
1X Tug of War
3X Stare Down
2X Sagacious Strike
3X Playful Punch
2X Visiting the Past

1X Blue Lifting Drill
3X Blue Guard
3X Blue Narrow Escape
1X Blue Terror
3X Blue Neck Beam
2X Blue Shifting Maneuver
3X Blue Deterrence
2X Blue Crouch
3X Blue Slash
2X Blue Smug Punch
3X Blue Head Knock
2X Blue Betrayal
2X Blue Rebuke
3X Blue Dominance

Some card choice explanations:

Unleashed & Blue Dominance – Yes, this is an Unleashed build, but I have found that Tao needs to level jump ASAP.  These cards are necessary to get to level 2 or 4.  Plus, this a deck that is fine with also using Unleashed defensively to lower an opponent.

E. Ball 7, Blinding Energy Move, Tao’s Puzzle – These all end combat when you want.  With Tao, you want to control the state of the game as much as possible.

Mercenary Tao’s Super Dodon Wave – This is the card you want out and just continue to keep it there.  It will either keep banishing a card from your oppnent’s deck every turn or pull a block from there hand (Yes, more than 1 can be attached).  When Dodon Wave gets crit off it goes back to the top of the deck.  When played right you can always mastery to add it back to your hand and re-play it.  Easily the most fun card to use in the deck.

Flurry of Blows – This card is not essential, but works well against a few of the popular personalities being used right now.  Mainly Goku and Vegeta and mainly for Assisted Kamehameha. Being able to stop an AK coming at you for 7 life and banishing 3 cards of there top.  Also, having the ability to make it crit can come in handy.

Tug of War: This card is mainly in here to help with the Gohan Restored match up.  Having access to an ally banishing mechanic is helpful.

Sagacious Strike: I kept this and cut Sinister Choke.  The reason being is Strike can guarantee crit when I need it.  Choke needs to connect and to push through a clean hit, I already have Flurry of Blows.  

Other considerations:

Villainous Energy Sphere – This card was highly considered and can easily be placed in the deck.  It stops threats like Unleashed, Time, and Stare Down/Confrontation.  This deck really doesn’t care if your opponent drops down time as you will continue to destroy/banish the top card of their deck regardless if the attack is stopped and Tao’s lvl 3 makes a non-styled attack unstoppable anyway.  Unleashed can be counter with your own Unleashed. So, the only universally played cards to stop would be SD and Confro.  It’s really a preference choice, though.

Sinister Choke – Another good choice is Choke.  It allows 6 life cards of damage when it connects.  It could be put into the deck if desired as a substitute for Flurry of Blows.

I’ll Dig Your Grave – While the card does allow access to another level jump and unpreventable damage, this deck already fulfills both roles without it. Dig is still a great card and based on play style, could be used here.

Overall,

GOOD: This deck does surprising well against aggressive builds, like Ruthless.dek and Unleashed.dek, and because it’s blue, there is access to a lot of anger control cards. Running it as an unleashed build also gives the ability to counter other Unleashed builds.

BAD: This deck struggles against solid Namekian builds, especially Gohan.  Their ability to Rejuv and DBV can prove to be hard to get around, plus, Gohan’s pool of allies can be very annoying.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.