I have dire issues with the state of the game, and I'm probably in the minority, at least that's how I see it, or the critiques of others elude me. This article is very subjective, so everything written here is not built on data given by players, but based on my personal experience as a veteran, semi-competitive player. The cover image consists of the cards, which are the worst designed cards in the game imo, and showcase different kind of design flaws.
My main points will be:
deckbuilding
removal
balance
Lack of deckbuilding
Fusion World was never a perfect game. It was to mainstream and simplify Masters, and it overdid this at the beginning. The game was quite barebones in the first sets, and followed a certain philosophy. SCR cards were powerful, but situational cards, like Gohan, which were a 2 of in a deck at max. That made them quite affordable.
Most cards were general and not leader locked, and leaders themselves had a very basic ability, which haven't dictated an archetype around them, like Trunks. Even more specific leaders, which had a few key cards, like Goku Black or Cell could be played with a loose archetype, meaning most of the deck was consisted of good general cards.
This design philosophy changed though in the upcoming sets, some SCR cards became a 4 of (Goku) being so powerful, that eclipsed other cards existing so far. On the other hand archetype-locked leaders become more of a problem, and by FB07 the first true offender appeared: Syn Shenron. Syn Shenron only worked, if almost all of the cards were Shadow Dragon trait cards, meaning that deckbuilding was no longer a thing. You put almost every card in the deck as a 4 of, and the deck was ready. It was an exception at the beginning, but it became commodity. In FB09 Muiku only uses Universe cards, while all the other leaders used 4 off-archetype cards at max. FB10 is no exception, all decks are heavily archetype focused, meaning that all deck contains
3-4 SCR
3x4 SR
4 supercombo
4 searchers at least
around 2-5 general cards
20-30 archetype cards
That means no deck building excitement, no flexibilty, and a very rapid solidified meta, as tournament finalist decks are 90-95% the same decks as most experienced players build even before release.
All decks share the same 2 steps in their evolution: first we build a true archetype deck, and we see what the meta is, we identify the weak point of the deck and what the best deck is, and we put in 1-2 cards, which levels the difference somewhat. Galick Gun and Ultimate Sparking are such cards.
FB05 was the peak for me, as in that set multiple leaders provided an archetype, which was not excluded for them, they merely benefited a bit more from them, than the others, such as Goku or Vegito.
My ideal solution
To have proper deckbuilding we would need the following: less leader restricted cards, and multicolor. I'm aware, that multicolor brings a ton of balancing issues (however that should be handled by specific costs), but that's something the designers should handle, and should not be an excuse. Unfortunately the rule book declares, that the color of the deck derives from the color of the leader, but in my opinion multi coloring should be given to all leaders, and the cards should be created in a way, that they won't break the game. Creating multi-colored decks are a lot more fun, than their singular counterpart. Other games, like Magic, Gundam, Ritfbound, Sourcery handle this aspect way better, than Dragon Ball.
As an example let's say I play Gogeta, and my main color is yellow, but I could select a complimentary color. I could pick green for ramping from 3 to 5, and have my Gogeta sequence one turn earlier (given enough green cards), or have a Goku ds as a finisher, or I could pick another color, like black for marker manipulation, or blue for removal. This kind of decisions could be made for all leaders, and would enhance the game imo.
Balance
The removal plague
Role in the current meta
Removal was always a critical part of the game, but not every deck was good at it. In FB01 Beerus was the removal leader, while blue was the most flexible at it for quite a time. From FB09 a new era begun. Now every deck has really cheap removal, and it's the necessary part of the game, that threats need to be answered immediately. The first offender was Legendary Warrior, a 1 cost extra, which removes anything from the board except for some green cards. That means for 1 cost I can remove a 6 cost card, which is crazy value, and something that must be done over and over to gain the upper hand. If a Brogeta player plays versus a Nameku player, every turn will begin for the Nameku player with removing the 5-6 cost card on the opponent's side. If they can't do it, it could result in a game over.
In FB10, they went all in in that aspect, Genkiku, Vegito and Cell got the 1c removal treatment, and Final Kamehameha is the worst designed removal card in the history of the game so far. For 1 energy it bottom decks basically anything, and it doesn't care about Gogeta's ability, or Cell's ability to not be ko-d. It gets removed, because you are blue. Basically my prediction is, that every single deck will receive this kind of removal in the future, which is tragical for the game, because it results no board state. They might feel this as a necessity due to the evolve mechanics 5-6c cards can be on the board by turn 3, but that is another matter. It's a cool mechanic on paper, but it says a lot that the top decks tend to be evolve decks, and games are often over by turn 5.
Nothing remains on the board for more than a turn, and winning by board state is no longer an option. You need to win by hitting your opponent with everything you got on the board, remove their stuff and gain card advantage, so the same strategy doesn't work on you. The game became a tempo play for all decks, and the top1 deck is, which is the best at it (ss3). Basically the only ability which matters for a card is [On Play], everything should be treated as such. The another world yellow cards are great, because while they k.o. themselves for card advantage, they would die anyway, so who cares.
Removal types
Fusion World has 5 colors, and they wanted to make those colors unique. The main idea was to create 5 types of removal:
red: negating power
blue: bottom decking
green: putting to energy
yellow: freezing
black: putting to combo
There are also 3 types, which are mutual:
k.o
placing to drop
stunning
The main problem is, that the designers don't balance the game properly knowing these fundamentals. They warp the meta. It doesn't matter, that Cell can't be k.o-d, when it can be bottom decked for almost free. Jiren killed a whole color for a 1-2 sets by having a card, which yellow couldn't handle until Frieza was introduced just for that. Meanwhile blue bullied Jiren, because removing a 4 cost for them was childplay.
Why can't the designers create cards in a streamlined, easy manner? Why can't cards say it can't be removed from the battle area for a turn, or once per turn? It doesn't make sense, that they create 85-15 matchups, and butchering the matchup spread with this kind of phrasing. It's arbitrary and contraproductive. Making a game more complicated doesn't make it deeper.
Also this whole thing created another new keyword nobody asked for: barrier. We wouldn't need barrier if removing from the battle area effects would work, and red's negating wouldn't break this rule. Negating to 0 should act as a removing from battle area, and negating it further should act as an additional removing from battle area.
KI mechanic
Introducing counters to a game is a great idea in my opinion, and I had been very glad, that KI was coming to the game. I wanted cards, which could apply an effect this turn, but I could also postpone the effect for a later turn, or activate an ability multiple times spreading out on multiple turns. That would mean less [On Play] cards, and more decisions made in a game. Of course it's hard to do that, when a card doesn't last for more, than a turn, but it doesn't seem, that that is the goal. KI is a leader mechanic right now, either cards give KI to the leader, or the leader uses up KI on the cards. My ideal KI card is Gohan, that is the direction I want this mechanic to go for.
Consistency
The game became too consistent. A good leader plays in the same pattern, a pattern which needs to be followed, and executed. Even leaders, which I like do that, like Vegito, but not combo leaders have the same kind of issue, like the new Vegito.
A game is great between two players, when mind games are also played at the same time, and they need to adapt to the current state of the game. Instead of this mind games are reduced to whether they have a super combo in hand, or do they have all combo pieces. A deck can be easily learned, and then it must be executed in the same manner every time against certain matchups. That's repetitive and not fun. No two games should be the same. It hurts the balance, and the staying power of the game.
My ideal solution
I would streamline removal protection. For that I would declare negating to 0 as a skill removal from battle area, and the same rules would apply to it, than all the other removals in the game. After that all cards would either have 'this card can't be removed from a battle area by your opponent's skills', once, or any times, so Zamasu couldn't be removed, only in battle, Cell couldn't be removed, only in battle for a turn, and Jiren couldn't be removed once per turn. Also barrier would be eradicated from the game, Babidi would have the same effect: it couldn't be removed, only in battle. There would be no target protection, stunning and freezing would apply to all cards.
On the balance side I would stop creating dirty cheap removals, or I would greatly increase the prerequisites for them. Zen-oh is a fine example, it costs 2, which is double the amount, it cannot be spammed and it can't remove active cards. I would create self-sustaining KI cards, like Gohan, which work on their own, and gives player freedom instead of making it a leader gimmick. Evolve cards need to be toned down, at least they shouldn't replace themselves, so there would be a real cost for playing cards cheaper, than normal. Glorio is a perfectly balanced leader in that regard, that is how evolve should work.
And as closure, the consistency needs to be toned down, so playing the same deck wouldn't result in the roughly same experience every single time.
