Frieza Starter Deck (FS04) Guide

After being one of the dominant forces of the Awakened Pulse era, FS04-01, and the yellow color in general, is struggling in Blazing Aura. Slowly, the color is refining its lists and finding optimal ways to exist in this red dominated metagame. Yet, with two leaders completely out of the competitive loop in FB01-104 and FB01-105, the color only has two representatives to fight off its "worst color in the game" label.

Amongst these two, FS04-01 is the only one with a top finish in a regional tournament, even if it was only a top 32. Then, even if we are far from the status it held during the first expansion, FS04-01 might have to carry the yellow gang on its back once again.

Can he do it in a much tougher environment? Let's explore.

Decklist & Card Breakdown

Key Synergies

Keep your cards protected as you turn them back to active mode at the end of the turn, and lock your opponent's ones in rest mode whenever they attack with an important one. With this one sentence, you know most of what the current Frieza deck is about.

Indeed, with the additions of FB02-122 and FB02-119, the ability to block our opponent from using their battle cards as they intend has skyrocketed. Then, although we are far from the firepower of a red deck, we have a solid off-tempo game plan, relying on building the board while we hinder our opponent's play patterns.

As for specific synergies, we don't have that many in the deck, and would rather play to annoy our opponent rather than follow specific, planned play patterns. FS04-11 and FS04-12 can serve to rest a battle card we want to lock in that mode, but that is about it.

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What to use as energy?

Due to the deck being about limiting what our opponent can do, most of the cards we can use as energy will be based on the opponent in front of us. One thing to keep in mind is we have a limited amount of 10,000 combo cards, 16 in total, so we will rarely use those as energy.
Otherwise, the choice will often come down to your anticipation of a card's future need based on the current situation:

• A tempo-oriented opponent will often make your abilities to turn a card into rest mode, or lock it there, very valuable. On the other end, a green opponent probably won't reward those abilities until very late in the match.
• Blue is excellent at dealing with cards up to a cost of four, with FB01-068 or FS02-13, but can struggle a bit more with 5-cost cards. Then, it might be wise to use FB01-129 as energy and plan to rely on FS04-03 instead, or a multitude of smaller cards.
• Red can remove your 5,000 power cards very easily. Unless you plan to use them as a combo after you get their ability off, you often can use them as energy if you don't need to draw or have energy to do so in the near future.

Alternate Cards to Consider

Even if FB02-130 added another draw option to yellow decks, the current Frieza builds still use FB01-116, which necessarily pushes the deck to use a lot of Frieza cards. Unless you wanted to add more, or different Friezas, you probably would have to remove FB01-116 from the deck to explore other deckbuilding avenues.

However, keep in mind we don't have many 10,000 combo cards apart from FS04-13 and FS04-11, so those cards have merit outside just being played.

FB01-113 Cooler

The other 4-cost card to consider in the deck, probably instead of FB01-129 if I had to pick.
The current metagame is a lot about strong 3-cost cards, particularly red decks, so FB01-113 doesn't have this many targets, even if there also are some valuable 1-cost to remove with the ability. However, the card has great synergy with FB02-122 and FB02-119, turning cards into Rest mode so you can lock them afterward.
I think the change is worth testing, although you might want to add a Frieza somewhere else to keep FB01-116 as reliable as possible.

FB02-128 Frieza

Speaking of another Frieza, this is one you might want to consider, although 25,000 base power for a 3-cost seems to be very important currently. If you decided to play FB01-113 and would be looking for more Frieza to include, you could go cost for cost and replace FB02-122. In this case, you would be favoring the ability and combo rather than the card's power. Otherwise, you can also cut some Extra cards, as four can feel like a lot at times.

If you just wanted to include the card because you like it, then FS04-13 is probably the cut, as the card is really just in the deck for FB01-116 consistency and the 10,000 combo power.

FS04-16 Death Ball

The other extra card you could consider in the deck, more flexible as you can use it during your opponent's turn, but arguably a little weaker against a red opponent right now. Indeed, FB01-136 is currently valuable to push a trade while blocking another card, or allowing you to push for the win while ignoring an opposing Battle card.

FB01-109 Ginyu

Arguably the strongest yellow card during the Awakened Pulse metagame, the card has been cut from many decks, largely due to 20,000 power not being enough in the current environment. Yet, if you were missing a card from the featured list, I believe there are still enough cards with the "Frieza's Army" special trait to include the often free 2-cost card.

How to Play the Deck

Except if you are against a green opponent, who will just let you seize the initiative for free, fighting to get set on the board first is crucial.
Indeed, we have plenty of ways to deal with an enemy battle cards, from attacking into it, turning it to Rest mode, or locking it there for a full turn. As such, our main limitation is our available energy. Then, if we can start a turn with some Battle Cards already on the table, we don't have to think about developing so much. We will instead make sure to limit what our opponent is able to use during their next turn.

We have FB01-129 and FB01-136 to push big attacks onto the opposing leader if we want to end things. Yet, FS04-01 will often focus on running their opponent out of cards more than out of health. Then, you will pick your attacks based on what will cost your opponent the most cards. A lot of the time, it will be a battle card, as not defending means they at least lost the one you attacked. However, if you anticipate they have to block the incoming hit, you might want to target their leader and force them to spend several cards to defend themselves.

In terms of timing, we will very rarely start pushing for leader hits before turn four. First, because our priority is to awaken to unlock FS04-01 great ability, so we don't want to give the opponent battle cards to attack into if we have a choice. The other reason is to keep the opponent at 15,000 power, which doesn't threaten any battle card in our deck, while keeping our opponent without their leader ability as well. Eventually, we'll have built a big enough lead, and we won't just send hits our opponent can welcome as new cards, they will have to use cards to protect themselves.
As such, Apart from Blue, which eventually gets to play FB02-049, or green with the superior late game, even if FB02-140 helps a lot in that regard, we then are completely fine keeping our opponent at a high health total.

Once awakened, we want to pick up the pace and force our opponent to go out of their way to deal with active Battle cards, as a way to reduce the pressure. The most important decision during that second stage of a match is whether you want to deal with battle cards, or just lock them in rest mode while you focus on the opposing leader.
The tiebreaker in that situation will once again be the cards. If you lead that category, keep the same guiding principle of pickings the most valuable targets for your opponent, until they simply can't protect themselves anymore. On the other end, if you only have heavy hitters but little combo available, you might want to take more risks and be more aggressive. The same would apply if you are under pressure and feel like you won't be able to keep up over multiple turns.
This is really a situational decision.

Mulligan Guide

Just like during Awakened Pulse, FS04-12 is a card I really want to find early in the match. Not only does the card help us awaken, it is also a fantastic board control tool, which sets us in the perfect position to transfer to the midgame.

We could discuss specific hands in certain situations, but FS04-12 remains the most important card you want in your mulligan.

Important Matchups

FB02-001 Son Goku

Red decks in general are a battle to run the opponent out of cards. Indeed, now that FB02-013 is in every deck, their ability to develop a large board is too dangerous to enter a race to the finish line.
Instead, you would rather focus on limiting their ability to develop, and let them get to three or four health on their own. Once there, you can leverage the card advantage you have built through the match to go for the kill.

As such, a match against any of the red leaders will be a mix of locking their battle cards in rest mode or taking them out, as they will gladly welcome the hits to their leader until awakened. If they purposely got themselves in the danger zone, we can leverage the ability of FB02-119, FB02-122, and FS04-03 to control the pace of the late game.

In this card advantage, it is important to limit how many we will lose to their power affliction mechanic. Most of the time, it is safer to use our 1-cost as a combo immediately after playing them. If there is no reason to do so, even preventing an early hit to your leader is more valuable than losing it for free to a minus 5,000 effect.

FB01-002 is the most dangerous in an attrition battle due to its leader ability. Then, you might want to be a little more aggressive, and rely on FB01-129 more in that particular match-up.

FS02-01 Vegeta

Blue leaders are annoying, because they are very good at maintaining a reasonable amount of cards in their hand, and have multiple ways to answer multiple cards with one.
FB02-049 in particular, will force us to limit how much we develop or invest extra cards to back up the hits. FB01-068 presents a similar issue, limiting our ability to leverage FB02-119 over multiple turns.

Then, the best approach against blue is to make sure they don't have threatening battle cards on the board at the end of our turn. This way, even if they send our battle cards back to our deck, we don't have to spend even more to protect ourselves from their incoming hits.
Once you reach the turns when FB02-049 can come down, simply lock their cards in rest mode rather than removing them. This will allow you to attack their leader, possibly setting up for FS04-03 to push for the win, while their battle cards will be sent to the bottom of their deck alongside yours.

FB02-070 Cell

Even if we can lock their big cards in rest mode for a while, we don't want a green opponent to reach the late stages of the game comfortably. Sure, we don't have the same explosive firepower without FB01-109 in the deck, although you could put it back if you aren't facing much of FS03-01.
However, due to all our cards being 25,000 power or more from the 3-costs and up, we aren't giving them free leader hits either.

Plus, compared to the other three colors, green remains the worst one when it comes to dealing with cheap cards, which allows us to keep our 1-costs for future combos on the board. I know FB02-071 was added to the mix, but apart from FB02-130, which we aren't going to combo anyway, we are fine with the other 1-cost being removed this way.

Then, a battle against a green opponent is mostly based on quickly setting up a constant flow of pressure they won't be able to easily remove, often based on our 3 and 4-cost cards. Due to the limited amount of battle cards they play in the mid-game, we can lock in Rest mode those we would have to invest too much to remove, and focus on their leader. Then, once they already need to figure out a way to deal with our pressure, we can focus on drawing more, making sure we have combo cards to expand to protect that pressure.
If we can manage to do so, we'll eventually get an opportunity for FS04-03 or FB01-136 to push for the win.

FB02-133 is a great consideration if struggling against green opponents.

Closing Words

Frieza clearly isn't the dominant force we grew accustomed to in Awakened Pulse. It still is the best yellow leader, but the current environment doesn't reward its signature off-tempo playstyle.
Indeed, from super explosive turns with FB02-013 to blue punishing your methodic development with FB02-049, Yellow has an uphill battle to be considered a top color.

Even in this difficult situation, I still would recommend FS04-01 if you enjoyed it in the first expansion. I do believe the red match-up isn't as one-sided as it may seem, and the ability to keep their cards in rest mode is very powerful. The explosive firepower had to be reduced to make room for this new mechanic, but this happens to be a great complement to protecting our cards through switching them back to Active Mode.

I hope this guide gave you a bit of hope in the yellow color for Blazing Aura, I know we aren't many to believe in those leaders right now.
Feel free to reach out for any questions you might have, in the comment section or through my Twitter page.

Good Game Everyone!