July 1, 2025 Banned/Restricted Meta Analysis & Decks

Starting July 1, 2025 for tabletop and July 3, 2025 for the digital version, FB01-056 will be banned and FB04-085 will be restricted to just one copy in a deck. Check out the announcement below for details and our guide to the changes.

Announcement

In this game a deck used in a tournament is generally permitted up to 4 copies of a card with the same card number. Cards that are exceptions and to be limited are noted in the "Banned/Restricted Card" section.

This is divided into "Banned Cards" and "Restricted Cards". For cards that are designated as "Banned Cards" no copies of the card are permitted in the deck. For cards designated as "Restricted Cards" only 1 copy of the card is permitted in the deck.

Cards with the same card number and different illustrations are still considered the same card.
Cards on the “Banned/Restricted Card” list may be removed and the list updated when the game environment changes, so please be sure to check it regularly for updates.

TCG ver. Change Date:
July 1, 2025

Digital ver. Change Date
July 3, 2025

Banned Card

FB01-056 Pilaf

This card has no deck limitations and can be used effectively from the early to late game, so it was used very frequently in blue decks in general. In addition, the frequent use of tactics that utilize combo power by recovering cards with the same name has led to excessive card manipulation during matches, which also caused matches to become longer.

In order to prevent the movement of blue decks in general from becoming fixed and to prevent matches from becoming excessively long, this card will be banned.

Restricted Card

FB04-085 Babidi

This card can be played at a cost of 0 when combined with cards with the special trait “Majin” in the “FB04-077 Majin Buu: Evil” deck, making it easy to secure a KO target for its "KO your own Battle Card" skill. This allowed gaining an advantage with its [When KO'd] skill for each card played.
In addition, the hand destruction effect of the [When KO'd] skill is particularly powerful against decks that tend to have few cards in their hand, creating too much of a difference in deck compatibility. In order to prevent unreasonable differences in the number of cards in hand and to prevent the outcome of the game from being decided by deck compatibility, this card will be designated as a Restricted Card.

Meta Impact

These two changes focus on limiting the power of two leaders in particular, both being at the top of the competitive world since FB04 Ultra Limit. FB04-077 was traumatizing everyone with its ability to discard anyone with more than five cards in hand, while its heavy hitters, particularly FB04-095 and FB04-094 were almost impossible to defend against with such a low amount of cards available.

At first, the deck struggled to dominate, due to some counters being available, such as FB03-001 or FB02-036. Yet, since FB05-120 joined the party, even the best defensive decks started to struggle as well. Only one deck managed to keep up with FB04-077 all this time, the other deck targeted with those nerfs: Satan City.

Elected most difficult deck to play in the game, FB03-027 has the ability to get very low on cards, and refill its hand through various abilities. Amongst those abilities was the now banned FB01-056, ruler of perfect energy usage no matter the stage of the match.

With both nerfs, Bandai aims to limit both leaders' ability to control the card flow, and create a big card advantage as the game progresses. There is just one problem here : Banning FB01-056 impacts the entire blue color, up to the point many believed it was dead until we saw the cards from SB01. On the other end, limiting FB04-085 might sound like a big deal, but not only it solely impacts one leader in the yellow color. It just so happens the Manga Booster set will feature Buu as the yellow leader once again. As such, FB04-077 is getting a flurry of new cards to synergize with, more than enough to replace the three copies of FB04-085 it has to take out of the list.

Blue Decks to Play Post Ban

A Japanese streamer, sorry for not remembering their name, has been testing Satan City without Pilaf on the digital client already. I could only catch five games, but the experiment was very convincing already. Indeed, they went 5-0 while playing in God rank, the highest in the game.

There will be an infusion of power for a lot of other leaders, while Satan City won't receive any new tool in the incoming set. As such, the deck can only get worse in the near future. The question we have to ask then is: Was Satan City so far ahead it can still perform once the ban and the new set will go live?

I believe it will, but not in a dominant fashion like it does at the moment. Plus, FB06-025 could very well become the new front-runner for the color, considering all the support it receives in SB01.

Another leader to consider is FS07-01, the other solid blue leader in FB06. Just like Satan City with FB03-052, this deck has a draw engine in FB06-036 to limit the impact of losing FB01-056. Plus, this deck's midgame is quite formidable, able to throw pretty much any card at the bottom of your opponent's deck. Sure, we are losing quite a bit of combo power alongside the ability to play defense with a hand that never truly empties. Still, this deck should be able to switch towards a more midrange play-style and remain decently competitive as a result.

Last, the Ban List will go live at the same time as the new set. For blue, all the cards are pointing in FB06-025's direction. Naturally then, we have to consider something like this the future of the blue crew:

Yellow Decks to Play Post Ban

This one is going to be a bit shorter, as I believe FB04-077 likely remains the best leader to play in Yellow. The new SB01-029 looks great, but I cannot ignore how strong the ability to attack for 20,000 twice per turn is.

Both leaders will likely coexist at first, as their abilities might lead us to build in slightly different directions. For example, we don't really need cards like FB03-099 to block opposing cards in rest mode with SB01-029, so we have room to play something else instead.

However, once tournaments will come, and it will be time to win games, pressuring with two leader attacks per turn will always be the easiest way to limit your opponent's ability to control the card flow.

Here is a deck for each Buu leader, if you needed inspiration to compare them: