I am Arcsine and welcome to a new weekly series of overviewing and introducing people to the current decks in the metagame. If you like what you see and want a more in-depth discussion on the deck, I am also writing about specific meta matchups with every deck I post about. Potentially, coming to a soon to be made Metafy. Please let me know if you have any comments, questions or concerns.
Power creeping its FB05 counterpart, Namek(2)u makes an appearance in the FB08 metagame. Having explosive games, on par with FB08’s “Burnhan”, ending before either player reaches 5-6 energy. Here is an overview on what to expect when playing with or against Nameku.
The Core
The whole deck revolves around hitting hard and hitting often, so setting up a 4-cost piccolo chain is paramount to your success. You can most definitely win without it by playing even more aggressively and killing them before they kill you but having piccolo is a good lifeline. Sometimes you can setup piccolo as early as turn 2 but be careful, if you don't have all the pieces already in hand, you may get punished for being greedy! The primary purpose of this Piccolo is to recover your life after your leader’s effect but has the added side effect to cycle a card.
The 3-cost Goku promo from the first wave of Nameku support is also a key card to see on-curve. This card is always asking for a response from your opponent, if this Goku stays on board for more than a turn, your chances of winning have gone up significantly. If this is not played on your 3-energy turn, this deck has fallen behind.
Guru is the secret sauce that brings the deck together. Being able to beef up your leader or 3-cost Goku promo you are able to swing twice, like a truck. The correct way to use Guru is to buff either of the previously mentioned targets and swing at your opponent’s life to get that 3rd and/or 4th life off of them, setting you up for the double striker next turn.
Some other cards that are fairly self explanatory and usually seen are FB05-064 Muri, SB02-045 Vegeta, and FB05-062 Bulma.
The Gameplan
Your goal as a Nameku pilot is to get to 4 life as fast as possible. Awakening by your 3-energy turn with your 3-cost Promo Goku is ideal. If you reach 4 life on your turn you can do a similar play that Buuhan did in its glory days. You can attack on the front side, awaken, leader effect - restand, swing again. Adding at least 4 cards in one turn can definitely turn the tide in any match.
Despite having a Piccolo that heals your life, you never want to be below 3 life unless you are going for game that turn. Being within double strike range in a meta that has a 4-cost double striker that swings at least for 55k before combo is never an ideal place to be in.
You also want to position yourself to have your opponent go down to two life so you can dump your hand into the DS Goku. There are a couple of ways to get this done, swinging early with cards such as Vegeta who is a 20k body if you took a life that turn or even your nail before it sends itself for piccolo. Once your 3-cost promo goku is on board, you can have guru buff it for the turn and attack for 40k twice, asking for at least 2 cards, one of which being a super combo. On the second attack you can combo your Guru to get it up to 50k which asks for at least 3 cards, unless they have two supers in hand.
When your opponent plays their engine pieces, as long as they do not impede your lines to swing at their leader, you can effectively ignore them. The game will be over before they should start paying off. The biggest Nameku struggles against is blockers. If they can be KO’d or expended early, you can slow down your gameplan for a turn in order to still clear a way for your DS. Some options you can consider for removal options is A Warm Greetings or Gohan from the first Nameku support wave.
The Matchup Spread
I feel Nameku has a very good matchup spread, being able to beat most decks consistently. It also is able to get over most problems that 20k leaders encounter is being walled off by 25k leaders such as Broly by buffing itself to 30k. Additionally, it doesn't really care about getting crit by leaders like Caulifla or Beerus because it will force them to awaken fast enough for the hand disparity to become significant. The biggest problem this deck faces is blockers and mass removal. The most prominent mass removal cards are Final Explosion and 10x kamehameha. Your best bet against these decks is to play into it and ask for as many cards as you can that turn so their following turn is that much weaker.
Summary
Nameku is a very skill expressive leader to play because it requires a lot of foresight, metagame understanding and most importantly math on the fly. There is no linear game plan for this deck because it adapts and positions itself the best it can against its opponent. You can never go wrong with swinging at leader and playing the 3-cost promo goku. Finally, make sure that you have a <<Planet Namek>> card on board before you activate leader effect, even your own deck skill checks you.