What’s up Ballerz?! Today coming at you hot with what I think is the most underrated deck from Set 13, Chilled, the Pillager. Being a cute pirate with a bit of a tummy, I’ve always enjoyed Chilled’s aesthetic. Now with so many good Green engines, I wanted to give him a shot and talk about some interactions. For more great articles check out my Lessons series!
The List
For full disclaimer, and with respect to the tournament the deck won, we were playing as if the Leader could gain Revenge, which we now understand it cannot (FAQ Below. Super Lame). That being said, I don’t think there would’ve been a huge difference one way or the other in any of the games I’ve played (outside of testing) as I had hand advantage in every game I’ve won. I still think the leader is good, he just isn’t snapped/the best Green Leader in the game, which is what I was thinking prior to learning that Leaders can’t gain revenge.
Cards that didn’t perform as well as I wanted were Paragus the Sacrifice, Cabira 1 Drop, and Tapion got occasionally cloggy if I drew into them all at once so could go down to 3.
Regardless, this is a very fun and interesting leader that rewards good tempo play and will help you learn looping and efficiencies while you play. The cards look great, as a bonus. By dropping Dormant, Zamasu, and the Ape SCR you can severely budget this deck, the best part is none of those cards are really needed.
Leader
Front side is terrible, and if you are bad at resource management he can have trouble because you can starve yourself while giving your opponent too many cards, it has to be measured swings. It’s important to note you have to play a token on swings, and the tokens gain a skill so they aren’t skill-less. I typically only swing with my leader twice on the unawakened side. You want to awaken as fast as possible typically, because the backside is where this leader really shines. The awaken is at 3 life draw 2 untap 1, like Syn and Reboot Gohan, which is very strong! It lets you get a bit more of a hand size and a play extension.
So what makes him good? His activate main. Because it gives 2 “Chilled’s Army” cards +5000 power and revenge until the end of your opponent’s next turn. That’s right, you become a 20K Leader! BUT UNFORTUNATELY YOU CAN’T GIVE YOUR LEADER REVENGE, WHICH IS WHACK, BUT OH WELL. That’s wild. Otherwise he’s the same but he draws now.
You typically want to awaken on the turn you can push your opponent to awaken as well, you want to push your opponent by when your opponent is at 10K swinging on them first with your tokens, then with your unison, then with your awakened leader, than you can give the token your leader plays and your leader +5k from the activate main and either pressure again with the token or leave it in active for potential blocks with Cabira, the Beseiger which we’ll get to next.
Chilled’s Army Engine
The Unison is both your self-awakener and finisher. It is also surprisingly tanky. You don’t really want to play it if you know its going to get cracked on, it can be a good turn 1 play and after you start boarding your blockers its very decent. It’s +1 takes a life and plays a token at the end of the turn, then its permanent can ditch the token instead of taking damage.
Cabira, Feigned Greeting is another self awakener that gives him +5k (also making him a Cabira the Beseiger target for crit, yay!) Great to play on your awaken turn. Cabira the Beseiger is nutty, I’m debating bumping him up to 3. If you are on the front side of your leader or at 10K for whatever reason he can be a free senzu bean if you combo with him, giving your leader +5k for the turn. Otherwise he can be a great tool to give a token critical or blocker for pressure or defense. Very, very underratd card. If your opponent starves you or stalls you, its also decent to play Cabira for 2 and give your leader crit/+5k on his front.
Chilled the Assailant is a fun barrier removal card that doubles as a green “Obuni’ buffing 2 tokens a turn. In practice I haven’t played him more than once but he’s excellent on theme barrier removal.
Looping Healing Pod
Because we don’t draw on the front you realistically want to play a resource game. A huge boon here is Healing Pod, typically you want to turn 1 healing pod, then afterwards play Zarbon by discarding Ribriannes and draw 1 or use the Tapion activate main to draw 1, then at the end of the turn play him from drop to draw 1. Draw 2 and 15k blocker for 1 energy, or draw 1 and 5k blocker that makes your opponent discard for 1 energy, and then sitting back on a 20K leader is very powerful. A reason we want to run the Paragus supercombo is to get deeper deck-digs and to filter out dead/non combo cards from hand.
As a bonus, you can use “Paragus, the Sacrifice” to pop Zarbon, draw, then make your opponent discard, then play Zarbon again and draw from healing pod in slower matchups!
Ending the Game
You really have to grind with this deck, if everything goes as it should, by turn 4/5 your opponent should have less than 7 cards in hand, and you should start outpacing them, when your opponent has 5 cards or less is when you want to ‘go in’, the best way to do this is by using value engines and trying to keep a few tokens on board so you can -3 on your unison, give your tokens +10k and randomly make your opponent discard, and then go in. Cards that help you grind are Zamasu, Ribrianne (especially good with looping Zarbon), and Cell’s Earth Destroying Kamehameha, which can be tossed on a token for a huge threat or be used defensively which when combined with your leader skill can get you to 35k.
So between the Leader being able to Draw 1, play a token, and then give himself +5k for your opponent’s turn on the awakened side at no disadvantage to hand size, I think Chilled is really underrated!
Alternate Build Considerations
A skill-less build with Pan to give the Leader blocker and gain a bunch of markers could be decent, especially if there’s good new spirit boost support. Basically, you can get a free 20K block every turn when you awaken to defend your battle cards or unison, and then keep your hand size up by adding back skill-less cards. Alternatively, the DB3 Hirudegarn Engine might be a good fit, although I don’t know if the deck draws enough… The Green Hirudegarn engine does a lot of combo and filtering, which can get wasted a lot of times because the beaters in the deck already have pretty good attack power, this way you can combo your cards like Tapion that ko’s Hiru and Hoi on tokens to make them more threatening. Basically any green engine will be good in this Leader. I’ve tested this and a much larger ‘core’ Chilled Army build and I don’t think the Chilled Army cards get you enough value. I’m intending to try Machine Mutant tokens and Planet M2 after I get tired of the hand control build!
Matchups
I believe in this tournament I played against Majin Vegeta, Android 21, and Mecha Frieza. I know I played the deck again 2 days later and played in another tournament where I went 1-2 losing to Dark Broly and King Vegeta. Unfortunately, the deck struggles against lists that can amass a large hand quickly while controlling your board. King Vegeta and Dark Broly were both deleting multiple tokens per turn, clearing my unison, and attacking me with big cards early game. Unfortunately Chilled needs some set-up so these matches are not favourable.
Conclusion
Don’t always write off a deck! This one flew under the radar, has access to a 1 energy +5k for your opponent’s turn, a free ‘senzu bean’ skill on the unawakened side, and a number of good support cards. Also, spamming tokens is crazy fun. Till next time, Keep Ballin’.
Border City BallerZ 