Son Goku Starter Deck (FS01) Guide

You can't really say Dragon Ball without having Son Goku come to mind. As the iconic character of the series, Goku is logically a starting leader, and I believe a great one to learn the mechanics of Dragon Ball Super Card Game Fusion World. Indeed, with a deck built around manipulating the power of both our and the opponent's cards FS01-01 appears as a flexible, midrange oriented kind of leader. It will look to control the battle phase in order to build the lead, and then transfer to either exhausting the opponent out of cards, or become the aggressor to close the match.

If you aren't familiar with this type of fast-paced card games, where building an early lead is crucial to your success, I think Son Goku will be a great entry point. With this starter, you will be forced to work on card advantage, efficient trading, perfect to hone your skills before getting serious about the game.

Ready to dive into the Red Starter Deck?

Base Deck and Immediate Improvements

Goku has some promising cards in its started deck, unfortunately, it is mostly cards we get in two copies. Indeed, FS01-12, FS01-08 and FS01-09 represent a great midrange curve for the deck, pressuring the opponent while limiting their draw with the Critical keyword. However, having only two of each in the deck naturally limits the deck ability to dominate, those cards being the backbone of our strategy.

Then, I believe Goku is a great starter deck to understand one of the keys of Dragon Ball Super World Fusion: building card advantage early in the match to dominate battles later on. However, this deck really wants to be improved with a second starter deck, so it can get rid of some fillers, and instead focus on manipulating the power on the table.

Build With Two Starter Decks

With four copies of both Super Rare cards plus FS01-12, and two extra FS01-04 to help you awaken faster, Goku's deck immediately feels like it has much more gas to pressure its opponent. Indeed, considering the deck relies on building card advantage through the various buffs and debuffs it applies, having most of the cards with a related ability only as two offs felt awkward.

In this improved deck, Goku mainly gains the ability to really control the board with power manipulation. As such, you can be much more aggressive in the way you control your opponent's development early, with the intent to completely take over when your 4 and 5 costs come around. The extra two copies of FS01-09 and FS01-12 in particular, are great to bring the pressure onto the opposing leader with their Critical keyword while impacting the battle cards on both sides in the process.

Overall, you could consider FS01-08 to be the closer in the deck, but it will rarely be able to so without your FS01-09 and FS01-12 laying the groundwork in the previous turns. If you start facing a lot of Broly, which is a bit of a trend as I'm writing this, Beerus could be cut down to two copies, favoring 25,000 power cards instead.

Overall, I would say Son Goku is worth it if you intend to invest into a second Red Starter Deck.

Great Booster Pack Cards to Strengthen the Deck

Super Rare cards are almost all really strong compared to the rest of the collection. Then, unless your deck is running a specific synergy, which isn't the case with this Goku, you can fit any Super Rare you pull in your deck.

Amongst the non-super rare cards, these three get my vote for very good standalone cards.

FB01-028 is a trading machine, which you can attack with every turn, and not fear they will represent an easy target for your opponent, They do give the opponent a free attack to draw while not attacking your leader, however.

FB01-004 is a great utility 1-cost, which you don't have to attack with. It will take care of all those 5,000 power cards in your opponent's deck, such as the draw 1 card, which tons of players are running. Combined with our awakened ability, we can leverage really nice trades. Wouldn't necessarily run four copies as the combo power isn't ideal, but I wouldn't mind having two in my deck.

I didn't believe much in FB01-025 early on, but 20,000 power is actually a big threshold so far in the game, stopping lots of cards from being able to attack. Particularly against other aggressive or midrange builds, Frost can be a pain to deal with, and give you a lot of momentum until the bigger cards come around on turn five.

Because we aren't running a specific synergy, this deck has the ability to change its leader fairly easily. FB01-002 can be played with the same concept as the Starter Deck Goku, pushing for even more pressure with the Critical keyword, at the cost of less flexibility as we aren't drawing cards until awakened.

As for the Universe 7 leader, it will necessarily push the deck into more of a synergistic direction. Yet, we naturally have plenty of cards with the required Special Trait, so the switch isn't very demanding to make.

Ideal List for Goku Super Sayan

Game Plan and Strategy

Goku doesn't really have a preferred style going into each and every game, and will adapt to its opponent. Against a FS02-01, which is faster and more focused on damaging your Leader, Goku will adopt a defensive play style, and look to remove their battle cards first and foremost. On the other hand, Goku doesn't want to enter a long battle against FS03-01-broly, as the power debuffs won't be effective enough when the big cards come around. Then, it will focus on quickly damaging the opposing leader to get in range of a big Double Strike attack.

Son Goku has access to a decent amount of battle cards with the Critical keyword, which is another way to control the pace of the game. Ideally, you would want to attack the opposing leader with those, while the others are on trading duty. This isn't a hard rule, but card advantage is key in Fusion World, so you should definitely try to leverage everything in your power to limit how many your opponent has access to.

We won't necessarily change which cards are important to us from a game to another, but we need to adapt how those are used. First, you want to be mindful of power thresholds and whether you need help awakening or not to decide which battle cards can be dropped in your energy zone. Then, depending on whether you are looking to win through pressure or card advantage, you won't be looking for the same set-ups, or protect the same cards.

For example, you can play FS01-08 even on an empty board against a green opponent, as the potential two damage is enough to warrant playing the card. Particularly if they are getting to their eight energy, we have no time to spare.

However, in a Red mirror, or playing against a Yellow opponent, you would value the On Play ability much more, and might want to play something else on turn five if the opposing side is empty. This will open your five cost to reduce theirs to a 15,000 power card with the On Play ability, and give your Leader a chance at taking it out. Doing so, you open your double hit card to attack the opposing leader, rather than being forced to use it on their battle card, or risk to be taken out because they played theirs second.

Closing Words

I really like Goku as a starter, especially if you don't have much card game experience, because the mechanics in that deck emphasize on trading efficiently, knowing how power thresholds work, and identifying the right targets to focus.

I have a lot of card game experience under my belt, but not on games similar to Dragon Ball Fusion World. While I used mostly Vegeta during the beta, I decided to go with the red color for the official release and don't regret it at all. I feel like a lot of the fundamentals of the game are key to playing red decks well, so piloting Goku has helped pick up on a lot of important areas such as using Combo cards properly, and knowing when to go after battle cards, or the opposing leader.

Overall, I would say Goku is a bit more difficult to play compared to some other starter, but it also has more flexibility to it, especially when it comes to the battle phase. As such, if you like the play style and are ready to invest a bit to upgrade the deck, you should have a good time playing the Red leader.

I hope this guide was a nice first look at the Red Starter Deck. We will have similar pieces for every leader in the game, so you can make an educated choice on which you want to invest into before spending money, or in game currency. I wish you a lot of fun on Dragon Ball Super Card Game Fusion World, and feel free to reach out for any question you might have, in the comment section or through my Twitter page.

Good Game Everyone!