Black Gogeta (FB05) Leader & Deck Guide

Heya everyone! If you're a fan of Black decks, then the FB05 FB05-095-gogeta has an interesting playstyle to test out! This deck relies on your having an Energy Marker to get the most out of your Battle Cards, and thanks to our Leader effect, we have the ability to gain an Energy Marker once per turn, making it easier for us to get the most out of our cards. The list I've been playing performed well in a recent tournament, but other lists include more {Another World} type cards, which I'll showcase as well.

The Energy Marker we gain can also speed up our strategy, allowing us to play certain Battle cards a turn earlier and get access to their high Power and strong effects.

I'll explain Black FB05-095-gogeta's gameplan, how this deck works, and the key cards we rely on as part of our strategy. Let's get started!

Gameplan

An awakened FB05-095-gogeta uses 1 Energy to activate his effect, giving you an Energy Marker. You aren't gaining Energy for the turn, but the Energy Marker you get will enable you to activate certain effects. Since having an Energy Marker is a core part of our strategy, going second is beneficial for us for the most part, but if you do happen to first, you can still benefit from your opponent having the Energy Marker thanks to FB04-105-glorio-da's effect.

There are two types of card effects that interact with Energy Markers: some require you to remove an Energy Marker to activate their effect, while others only need you to have one in your Energy. Playing our cards in the correct order is crucial to triggering their effects.

For example, FB03-132-hercule-gt only requires an Energy Marker to be present, whereas FB03-123-para-para-brothers needs one to be removed. If we have 2 Energy available, the optimal sequence is to first play FB03-132-hercule-gt, utilizing one of our other Energy cards. Then, we can use the Energy Marker to play FB03-123-para-para-brothers, ensuring both effects activate.

FS05-03-kakarot-503 is great for the early game if you need the Energy Marker, making it easier to activate early card effects like FB03-125-pan-gt and FB04-105-glorio-da. The Energy Marker can be saved for your upcoming turns, letting us play a higher-cost Battle card a turn earlier. On the downside, you are forced to place a card in your hand at the top or bottom of the deck, so although you're "ramping", you're losing a card resource. Depending on which card you choose, you'll decide whether you want to redraw it on your upcoming turn or get rid of it by placing it at the bottom of the deck.

FB03-125-pan-gt and FB04-114-trunks-gt are early self-damage Battle Cards, getting you closer to 4 Life cards and awaken your Leader. When Attacking, FB03-125-pan-gt activates her effect for 1 Energy, drawing you a card and using an Energy Marker to activate her effect, you can return a 4-cost or less Battle card to the opponent's hand. You're not completely removing the battle card from the game, however, you're weakening the opponent's presence on the field.

As for FB04-114-trunks-gt, he's a defensive card, protecting your other Battle cards from being removed from the Battle Area by your opponent's skills. However, you will need to have an Energy Marker for FB04-114-trunks-gt's effect to activate, but protecting your Battle Cards from removal cards can play a massive role in keeping your win conditions in play against certain decks. This defensive effect usually finds use in the late game, where you have high-cost Battle cards in play that you don't want your opponent to remove easily. You're forcing them to rely on their attacks to KO your win conditions, which you'll often gladly protect to keep the attack pressure going.

Playing FB04-105-glorio-da for 4 Energy is rarely worth it, so we'll go for the cost reduction by having an Energy Marker. We're developing a 25,000 Power Battle Card for 2 Energy, and if your opponent has an Energy Marker, we'll draw a card, adding more resources to our hand. In most cases, we don't get the luxury of getting the card draw effect activated, but still FB04-105-glorio-da is worth playing for only 2 Energy and putting pressure on your opponent.

FB04-104-great-ape-baby allows you to go wide on the Battle Area, cheating out a 2-cost Battle Card like FB04-114-trunks-gt. FB04-104-great-ape-baby is a heavy attacker with his 30,000 Power, but his ability forces an opponent's 3-cost or less Battle Card to be used as a Combo when he attacks, removing it from play so you don't have to commit your attacks at it.

This can be useful if your opponent has an Active Battle card in play that you can't remove through attacks, or if you want to keep playing aggressively, having your attacks threaten a Life card while still maintaining control of the Battle Area.

Cheating out FB04-114-trunks-gt prevents the opponent from easily wiping out our field with a skill, and we can choose to leave FB04-114-trunks-gt Active so they don't get to attack and KO him.

FB03-140-son-goku-gt is one of your strongest mid-game cards, giving you an Energy Marker when you attack, allowing you to make more plays, and at the end of your turn, if you've used the Energy Marker, you get to draw a card. So your opponent is forced to shift their focus to removing FB03-140-son-goku-gt or trying to win the game before the resource gap puts them behind.

We'll often try to protect FB03-140-son-goku-gt from attackers, ensuring we can reactivate his effect for more value.

We have two 5-cost Battle Cards that can act as win conditions but have different purposes when played. FB05-100-son-goku is usually the preferable play when you're still far from winning the game, giving you additional resources in your hand thanks to the 2 card draw, and capable of attacking twice in one turn. You will, though, have to discard a card from your hand to go for the second attack, but a 30,000 Power attack is worth it, you're threatening to drop your opponent on Life cards or forcing Combo plays.

To activate the card draw, you need to remove an Energy Marker when playing FB05-100-son-goku, and thanks to our Leader effect, we're able to consistently activate the draw effect.

FS05-11-bardock-605 is best played when your opponent is on 2 Life cards, creating a win condition with the Double Strike keyword to win the game. If you have the combo Power, you can go for the finisher play on the spot to win the game, forcing your opponent to have the answer. FS05-11-bardock-605 can also be a removal option, activating his effect when you have 2 or more Combo cards in your Battle Area and KOing an opponent's Character.

You're creating a win condition attack, but FS05-11-bardock-605 can also help control the Battle Area by removing a threat from play. Even if your opponent is at 4 Life cards, you can still go for the FS05-11-bardock-605 play to try and drop them down to 2 Life cards and remove one of their Battle Cards from play.

FB03-137-10x-kamehameha and FB05-116-soul-punisher are control Extra cards, KOing opponent's Battle Cards and weakening their presence in the Battle Area. However, to get the most out of their abilities, you must use an Energy Marker when playing them to activate their second effect.

FB03-137-10x-kamehameha is a low-cost Extra to KO a 2-cost or less Battle card. However, if you use an Energy Marker to play this card, you can target 2 of the opponent's Battle cards with a cost of 3 or less. So, usually, we're going for that second effect, removing two Battle Cards for only 1 Energy can be a game changer early in the game.

FB05-116-soul-punisher is best played to remove high-cost Battle Cards that you don't want to attack and waste your Combo cards trying to remove them. Removing an Energy Marker to play FB05-116-soul-punisher allows you to activate the second effect, and KO two of the opponent's Battle Cards, with no limit to their cost.

A defensive Extra to give your Leader or one of your Battle Cards a +20,000 Power boost. It also will prevent one of your opponent's Battle Cards from attacking, weakening their offensive turn if they have multiple Battle Cards to attack.

Techs and Options

FB05-097-gotenks is another control option when played by removing an Energy Marker. You can KO two of the opponent's 2-cost or less Battle Cards, great for removing an attacker or 1-cost that can be used as Combo.

During your turn, if you have an Energy Marker, FB03-119-trunks-gt becomes a heavy attacker, gaining +10,000 Power boost to go for 30,000 Power attacks.

Another World Cards

FB05-107-paikuhan is a self-damage and value card that looks at the top 2 cards of your deck and adds 1 card with Another World in its special trait. You will need to change up the list to have more Another World cards to make FB05-107-paikuhan's draw effect more reliable.

FB05-112-vegeta is a 2-cost Another World that self damages and gives one of your Another World Battle Cards +10,000 Power. He's best played if you're trying to go for a heavy hit.

Both FB05-113-vegeta and FP-033-vegeta are control options but require you to have an Energy Marker to activate their effects. FB05-113-vegeta returns an opponent's 4-cost or less Battle Card to their hand, so they get to keep the card, but at least you're weakening their presence in the Battle Area. Having to use 4 Energy to play that Battle Card again will slow your opponent down.

As for FP-033-vegeta, he can KO a 3-cost or less Battle Card. So even though you're KOing a Battle Card (better than returning to hand), you're limited to a 3-cost unlike FB05-113-vegeta that can target a 4-cost.

FB04-110-son-goten-gt is a potential inclusion in the list, returning a 4-cost or less Battle card to the opponent's hand when he's used as a combo during your turn. So 2 Energy to gain +10,000 Power on an attacker and you're removing a 4-cost Battle card sounds like a good deal.

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General Tips

• Energy Markers are a key part of your strategy, so we want to evolve quickly to start getting access to them without relying on FS05-03-kakarot-503 or FB03-140-son-goku-gt.
• If you have an Energy Marker through your Leader but don't have any plays to use it, you can bank it for your upcoming turn. This allows you to make more plays and even play two cards that require you to remove an Energy Marker.
• You cannot have 2 Energy Markers at the same time. So if you're planning to use your Leader effect, make sure you use the Energy Marker you have first. This also applies to FB03-140-son-goku-gt, we need to have used our Energy Marker before attacking with him to gain another one.
• Thanks to the card draw and control cards this deck has, we can stretch out games, making sure our opponent runs out of resources before we start going for game-winning attacks. FB03-137-10x-kamehameha can slow down your opponent's pace for only 1 Energy Marker.
• FB03-132-hercule-gt is an insanely good draw option, giving you access to FB03-123-para-para-brothers from your Drop to shut down one of your opponent's Battle cards from attacking. This allows you to focus your attacks on your opponent's Leader rather than control their side of the board, going for more aggressive turns to bleed them out of Combo cards.
  Even when trying to close out the game, if you have the Energy for it, you can play FB03-132-hercule-gt to add more combo resources to your hand.

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Mulligan Tips

• If you're going first, having FS05-03-kakarot-503 is great to have access to an Energy Marker before you Awaken your Leader, activating certain effects or even playing a Battle card a turn earlier.
• FB04-105-glorio-da is almost always a good keep, having an early 25,000 Power Battle card in play. If you're going first, your opponent might opt to use their Energy Marker on the first turn to prevent you from playing FB04-105-glorio-da in the early game.
• FB04-114-trunks-gt is matchup dependent, if you're up against a deck that wants to remove your cards through a skill, then having FB04-114-trunks-gt early on can be good.
• FB03-111-son-goku-gt is a self-damage Battle card that gives you an Energy Mark, helping you make stronger plays on your upcoming turn.

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Matchups

• FB04-114-trunks-gt is an important defensive card to protect your Battle Cards from being removed through your opponent's skills. Against FB05-072-janemba and FB04-077-majin-buu-evil, it can shut down FB03-102-final-explosion from removing multiple cards. The same goes for Green FB05-049-son-goku's FB05-071-full-power.
• Yellow can force you to discard cards from your hand, so you'd rather stay at 5 cards or less in your hand. Use your Combo cards offensively to make sure you can KO a rested Character. KOing a 1-cost with FB03-108-giru can make it difficult to activate FB04-093-majin-buu-evil or FB04-095-majin-buu-kid effects.
• With the many control cards in your list, you're not too worried about going against aggressive decks that can go wide on the board.
• With Green decks, you're trying to aggro them down by having multiple attackers in play. You have FB05-116-soul-punisher to remove their high-cost win condition, but if you're trying to be more aggressive on the board, you can shut down their Battle Card from attacking with FB03-123-para-para-brothers.

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Closing Words

Black FB05-095-gogeta has been a fun deck to play on the ranked ladder, relying on Energy Markers to get the most out of your cards, but even gaining the ability to play a high-cost Battle Card on an earlier turn, presenting a win condition that can be tough for your opponent to remove.

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