Hercule’s Close Save – Babidi Saga

Rare – Card #100

Non-Combat

Use when your opponent would win by the Survival Victory. Shuffle the top 4 cards of your discard pile back into your Life Deck. Using this card prevents the Survival Victory but cannot be used in Tuff Enuff. Limit 1 per deck. Remove from the game after use.

I haven’t seen this card get much play, and it is probably because it isn’t that great of a card. It does have its uses though; you just have to find them.

Anyone remember It’s Just Not Worth It! from Frieza Saga? This is pretty much a card to cover the other victory not mentioned, which is interesting. If you ask me, this is a weaker Where There’s Life There’s Hope. Then again both isn’t a bad thing.

I can see this card having a home in those suicide Dragon Ball decks. All they have to do is get all their DBs at the bottom, and use the Earth DBs special drawing abilities and get them all out at once. Close Save can save you a game if you ever end up placing one like EDB 3 last. But, I’d still stick with Where There’s Life There’s Hope first and foremost. The fact that it activates on its own is a plus, and being a non-combat means it will probably be in DBs decks mostly.

But Hercule’s Close Save’s weakness stems from the fact it only protects one victory. What use is this card if you are playing against a Goku Red Anger or a Roshi Earth Blue DB? Exactly. Where There’s Life There’s Hope works all the time, this one works only once. Also, even though Piccolo Namekian Energy is the strongest archtype and it will win by survival, this card won’t save you much. You will get 4 cards back, which won’t be usually the ones you’d want. They probably won’t have endurance because they are most likely ones you just discarded. That in mind, Namekian just needs to hit another energy attack and game over.

Also keep in mind it is a non-combat that is used near the end of a game, so if it comes out early, it will probably be removed way to early.

Don’t get me wrong; this card isn’t bad. I would just rather Where There’s Life There’s Hope and that’s it. Try comboing it with Where There’s Life There’s Hope, and you might be able to last quite a few turns more than you anticipated. This card would be almost a staple in Tuff Enuff decks, but Score was smart and disabled that ability.

Standard: 2.5 out of 5.0 (decent card, but not good enough to be a staple because of how situational it is, works in some decks though) Tuff Enuff: N/A (you can’t really use it… so it gets a 0)