Fusion World Meta Tier List – Manga Booster (SB01) & Post-Ban

Welcome to our Dragon Ball Super Card Game Fusion World Meta Tier List! In this meta report, we will look at the best Color, Leaders and Decks to play in the DBS Fusion World metagame for Manga Booster 01 [SB01], Shallot Starter Deck Ex [FS09], Giblet Starter Deck Ex [FS10] and after the ban of FB01-056 and restriction of FB04-085 (read the analysis).

Tier	Deck
S Tier	🟡 Yellow Majin Buu : Evil
A Tier	🔴 Red Cell
B Tier	🟢 Green Vegeta
C Tier	⚫ Black Baby Vegeta 🔵 Blue Son Goku : Childhood

Meta Overview

The game feels different and exactly the same with the Manga set and ban list now live. It is a weird feeling really, as we have multiple avenues to explore, but the same sword of Damocles keeps hanging above our head.

SB01-001 is a breath of fresh air for red players, as the Android synergy finally clicked, but more importantly looks great. At the moment, SB01-001 is widely regarded as the second-best leader in the game.

Ironically, the opposite happened in Green, as FB01-070 does not feel like the only choice anymore. Indeed, the aggressive strategies pushed by FB04-051 or FS10-01 look viable although limited in the current environment. Plus, FB03-053 is making the most of its new supporting extra card, SB01-027, as it was the more popular ramp synergy in tournament so far.

Blue is the the third color to feel widely different, as Satan City and FB01-056 are now out of the picture. As expected, the new popular synergy is World Tournament, but that deck has failed to post any significant result so far.

With all those changes, you might be wondering what is the same in Dragon Ball Fusion World : The common enemy. Indeed, the card slightly changed its cosmetic and leader ability, but Buu remains the best leader, the one to beat and the one you need to have a decent match-up against to exist competitively.

At first, I thought SB01-029 would not be as oppressive as its former iteration, but the ability to just dismiss a large threat on your opponent's board and push high power attacks to the opposing leader is just as good, if not better. Combined with the flurry of new synergistic options released in SB01, we still live in the villain's metagame for yet another set.

S Tier

Yellow

Best Leader

As everyone anticipated, limiting one card but adding a whole set worth of new ones allowed Buu to remain the best leader in the game, although it is now the new SB01-029. In this new look, the deck feels even more deadly, as the leader's ability allow to literally ignore a threat while we keep pushing our own agenda.

In that context, FB04-094 feels even more busted as it was in the past. Whenever it drops on turn four or five, the opponent is immediately on a life or death situation. Indeed, not only at least 3 cards just had to be spent to defend the incoming hits, FB04-094 must be removed for the game to keep going.

Want to take a wild guess at which leader is better equipped to handle that situation ? SB01-029 of course ! Thanks to its ability, it can at least freeze the card for a turn, and turn the pressure around, or look to wrestle the board back over two turns.

Last but not least, the new set also brought battle cards able to help with the board, such as SB01-042 or SB01-034, transforming former extra cards into 10,000 combo tools. Early on in the set, the lack of combo was a weakness for the deck, as the best pairing for SB01-031 were all low in that department. Yet, these refined builds manage to pack at least ten 10,000 combo power cards, with some players going up to 15 through cutting either SB01-038 or FB03-093 from the deck.

This is the deck to beat in this set, and the one influencing whether other leaders will look good or bad based on their match-up with this one.

Other Strong Leaders

SB01-031 plus FB03-093 is such an incredible defensive set-up, other yellow leader outside Buu are using the new 2-cost card. During reveals season, we all believed SB01-039 would annihilate this leader, completely cancelling its ability.

However, once you understand you can use your spell aggressively to control the board, and manage to set some barriers on the board your opponent cannot rest, the game takes a whole different turn. From there, you can navigate up to turn six, drop FB02-140 and be safe from FB04-094.

Once that particularly annoying match-up is solved, FB02-105 feels like a decent pick for those enjoying that particular leader.

Arguably, the new SB01-029's ability to ignore one big threat is wonderful in a metagame where most leaders are trying to rush their opponent. However, the more control decks will rise and tilt the environment towards defensive strategies, and the better two attacks per turn will be. I'm ranking this one third just because there is another pick within the same synergy. Except for that, both Buu could legitimately be #1 and #2 in the entire game at the moment.

A Tier

Red

Best Leader

The reliability of this deck is impressive to say the least, making SB01-001 the best reactive leader in the game. Plus, the deck clears opposing boards so easily once SB01-012 is set, most of the attacks in a turn can be directed at the opposing leader. That particular card, plus SB01-015 are very important against the tyrant SB01-029 in order to value our frozen cards.

Outside that specific match-up, SB01-001 shines through its ability to constantly have a large hand and pair it with explosive patterns. The amount of draw in this deck is the best in the game, allowing to use SB01-010 to summon SB01-011 on time in most matches. From there, the deck is impossible to run out of cards, except if you can bring enough heat to force it into a reactive stance, while your board is resilient to power afflictions.

I have little doubt this is the second-best deck in the game at the moment. It is simply unfortunate the direct match-up against the best one relies on finding a card we can't run so many copies of, as we really need to limit the card with no combo in this deck.

Other Strong Leaders

I believe FB06-022 is too slow to see play. It allows removing SB01-031 but I'm not sure if it solves that much of the problem considering we have to pay three to set a card that allows another card to remove a 2-cost. Plus, this leader wants to run the same synergies as SB01-001, except the new leader can swing 40,000 to the face while this one can't.

There isn't a solid red leader outside the Android synergy to be fair, as it has been the color's focus for the past two sets. Then, this pick goes to the most reliable leader over the previous sets for the color.

B Tier

Green

Best Leader

It was difficult to pick the best leader for the class, as Green feels like the most balanced in terms of power level amongst the possible options. I picked FB04-051 because FS10-01 failed to top anything while being quite popular, while FB03-053 still needs to refine its build. I wouldn't be shocked if someone played FB06-048 or FB01-070 either, to be fair.

Now, let's talk about FB04-051. Honestly, the leader is quite good with the SB01 reinforcements. Unfortunately, quite good isn't enough when others are bonkers or fantastic.

Synergy wise, the deck has now enough support to do exactly what is aims to:

• We have multiple awakeners to make sure we can start dropping extra Saiyans by turn three or four if we have to.
• FP-046, SB01-026 and SB01-025 added some energy cheats to the deck.
• We pack some finishers with FB05-119 and FB04-052, while having decent proactive removal as well.

What FB04-051 lacks in my opinion is flexibility. Indeed, an aggressive build wants to be in control of the damage flow, and decide when to push attacks to their opponent or hold to prepare for a larger assault later.

Currently, with Yellow resting your cards and Red lowering their power to 0, you don't have much agency on how to leverage your cards. You need to use them as soon as they are in play, or you might not get another chance to do so.

This greatly limits this deck's ability to plan for specific play-patterns or two-turn synergies. FB04-051 feels like it is always in a rush, limiting its potential as a result.

Other Strong Leaders

The most popular leader in the color looking at recent tournaments, FS10-01 failed to top at any of them, likely due to its bad match-up against the best yellow and red leaders. Then, while this could be regarded as a top pick, the inability to perform in the most important match-ups will hold FS10-01 back until someone solves that puzzle.

This remains a solid budget option for those on the digital game, as you can play that leader with just two copies of its starter deck.

SB01-027 has been an incredible addition for FB03-053, who finally started to make tournament appearances, 10 months after its release. This isn't a meta-breaking deck by any means, but SB01-027 followed by FB06-120 will be a problem for most decks. Then, if FB03-053 can get to that point reliably, the deck has a shot against anyone.

Black

Best Leader

Heading into this report, I was sure Black would be ranked last. At least, Blue had FB06-025 to offer a competitive option while both recent releases for Black (FS09-01 and SB01-045) failed so far. However, when I looked at recent tournament results, I found two black leaders sitting on top of North American tournaments.

This doesn't mean much in the global environment of the game, as I found no presence of any Black deck in other regions. Yet, Blue didn't do much better, so I guess Black gets the edge due to its performance on American soil.

Deck wise, the class still feels helplessly tied to FB03-140 powering its best decks. FB06-097 offers a good late game option, but typically only helps if the mid-game went according to plan. If you manage to force your opponent into a reactive stance, there are a lot of things you can with a Black deck to keep the pressure up. FB04-113 will keep feeding you cards, FB03-121 pressures really well and we have plenty of combo available with many 10,000 cards and FB06-103 representing a super-combo.

The problem is, whenever we fall behind early, which can happen more often than we'd like against the best decks, the comeback mechanics are limited, and FB03-140 suddenly struggles much more to stay on board.

The featured deck went 7-0 in the recent Roanoke Regional. Yet, I'm not sure it would perform well if the average player took it on the ladder. There is potential for sure, but the pilot has a big responsibility in any black deck performance at the moment.

Other Strong Leaders

When your best shot at winning a game is to relentlessly hit the opposing leader, 25,000 is better than 20,000. To be fair, I don't think there is a good second choice for the color at the moment past FB04-103. The leader has the best aggressive synergy in the color through the Rilldo loop, while its ability allows to run FB04-113 in any midrange build for sustain.

Here, we are basically leveraging the fact most people believe this isn't a good leader. They are probably right, but hopefully, our opponent didn't look into it that much, so they ignore how much power we can develop with just a few cards in our hand.

Against an experienced player, or just an average SB01-029 really, SB01-045 needs more support to thrive. However, if you are looking for a unique synergy in a more casual field, this leader can post decent results.

C Tier

Blue

Best Leader

I really thought the World Tournament synergy would click and keep blue in business for this set, but any sort of convincing performance has yet to happen. On paper, the deck has everything it needs to perform, with a ton of draw, energy cheats, a great finisher and a good set of removals. I mean, turn one SB01-019 into a turn two SB01-017 is insane value, while a turn three FB06-027 plus FB06-044 to summon FB06-029 is another bonkers pattern.

It might just be a Satan City situation once again, where the eventually best deck in the game took months to rise, as the synergy was difficult to pilot properly. Or maybe the amount of Extra cards we have to run makes the build unstable, and often stuck with a bunch of unusable cards during defensive turns.

Considering the metagame is quite aggressive, I wouldn't be surprised if the World Tournament synergy was struggling to stay high enough on health now that we can't fetch 10,000 cards from our drop anymore. Then, when it is time to face multiple 30,000 power attacks in a turn, or defend against a beefed up Double Strike, the deck should struggle more than we'd like.

Playing very aggressively is the only way to avoid that situation, but the top performers are really good at wrestling the board in their favor in the mid game at the moment.

Other strong leaders

Even if losing FB01-056 means this leader can't play defense as much as it did previously, FS07-01 still packs very strong cards in the mid-game. Indeed, FP-041 remains one of the best 4-cost cards in the game when it come to sheer value, as it will deal with your opponent's 4-cost.

Unfortunately, barrier is a popular keyword at the moment, while red decks can swing the board back in the favor the same way. Plus, they don't struggle to keep a large hand heading in the later turns.

I haven't seen Satan City since the new set and the ban list dropped, but I haven't seen much of blue in general to be fair. Then, while World Tournament feels like the obvious top pick and FS07-01 has a few tournament appearances here and there, Satan City still feels like a playable synergy, although you should not expect the same results with this deck.

Naturally, losing FB01-056 hurt, but the top two performers also tend to be great at removing FB03-033 on the spot.

Conclusion

I don't think we have solved all decks for this metagame. SB01-029 and SB01-001 are clear front-runners at the moment, and I expect them to be dominant going forward. However, I feel like Green decks have not tried to adapt to these specific match-ups yet, instead trying to build around their own synergies. Likewise, World Tournament probably has room to grow in the future, even if just in terms of piloting that deck more precisely.

I don't have much hope for Black, but the color managed to post results early on, so I'm curious whether we will keep seeing it in future tournaments.

If you needed to get in touch, for a question or if you were looking for coaching, feel free to hit me up on Discord (@den_ccg).

Good Game Everyone.