Vegeta Blue Starter Deck (FS02) Guide (FB02)

After a difficult time during the Awakened Pulse metagame, the blue color is establishing itself as a much stronger force early in Blazing Aura. Indeed, the blue crew received some really solid cards, and appears to be the most able to take on the Tournament of Power invasion.

With all these new tools, it is only fair to wonder how is FS02-01 performing. Honestly, pretty good. Vegeta managed to post a couple of top 16 placements in regional tournaments, easily ranking in the top half of our tier list in the current metagame.

Indeed, while red remains a tough opponent no matter who you are, sending cards at the bottom of their deck is a very effective defensive mechanic against those aggressive decks. On the other hand, Vegeta hasn't lost a step when it comes to being a pressure-oriented leader himself, as the new FB02-056 and FB02-058 only improved the Saiyan Prince's ability to hit like a truck.

With improved defense mechanics, and more heavy-hitting potential, FS02-01 is a new leader in Blazing Aura!

Decklist & Card Breakdown

Key Synergies

The most important synergy in the deck is to manage your hand to trigger your "If you have 7 or fewer cards in hand" cards reliably. It doesn't mean you have to constantly stay at seven or below, but you always want to keep in mind a way to get there by the time you want to play a card requiring it.
In this deck, I would say FB02-061 is the first one to plan for, as you don't necessarily want to attack immediately with FS02-09 if you play it on turn two. Later on in the match, you will have much more leeway to use combo cards in order to get cards out of your hand, so it shouldn't be a problem then.

Outside this crucial requirement, here are a few other good synergies to have in mind:

• FB02-058 makes FB02-056 free to play, providing an extra 20,000 power to use in two chunks of 10,000. Also, remember that FB02-056 can be used on your leader.

• FB02-062 functions with FB01-042, FB02-061, FB01-068 or FS02-13. Most of the time, you will use the card to improve a bouncing effect, then combo it to support your next attack.

• FB01-056 is used to pick FB02-056 back in hand most of the time. However, FS02-08 or FB02-062 are also possible targets, the first for more gas in attrition battles, the other is more opportunistic, helping a bouncing ability or just because it has 10,000 combo power.

• FB01-039 can pick up either FB02-058 or FB02-044, the choice once again depends on whether you want to push for immediate damage or have more sustain for a longer match. Keep in mind, that you can combo FB02-044 to get it to your drop if needed.

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What to use as energy?

This blue deck doesn't have go-to cards to throw in your energy area, you have to decide based on the match-up and the situation.

Extra cards are the most situational cards, especially FB01-068 against a green opponent, and require energy we sometimes don't want to invest into those. Otherwise, the decision will mostly be based on whether you anticipate the need for combo or strong cards to play in the future.

If you value combo more, you have to be willing to use FB02-058, FS02-13, or FB01-039 as energy. This would be true if you managed to land a lot of hits already, and would rather support your leader rather than bring pressure from different angles.
On the other hand, if you are looking for power plays, you could sacrifice FB02-049 and FS02-08 as they are situational to play.

Apart from FS02-08, FB02-044 is the only other 5,000 combo card in the deck. It is great to develop early, or when we would need to draw cards for an expected long match. Yet, due to playing four copies, we can often sacrifice it if we anticipate the need to combo to protect our cards or leader, and don't want to send our only copy of FB01-039 for example.

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Alternate Cards to Consider

FS02-03 Gotenks

Obviously, we would have to include either FS02-05 or FB02-052 in the deck as well. Also, you could throw a few copies of FB02-041 too for the full package.
I find FB02-044 provides us with enough draw while being more resilient on board. Plus, we have more leeway as to what we include in the deck alongside it.
Yet, this is a great inclusion to consider if you regularly run out of gas due to a lack of combo cards, or would not have every card from Blazing Aura available yet.

FB01-066 Final Hope Slash

Combined with FB02-061, it can be a nice tempo gain, while you also pair it with FB02-056 or FS02-09 for more power or attacks. However, the draw from FS02-15 simply feels superior overall.
If the metagame was less Red, and wouldn't require the deck to run a minimum of two FB01-068 (you can totally go for a 3-3 spread in your extra cards, by the way), then FB01-066 would probably see more play.

FB02-052 Son Goten

Cards sending the target at the bottom of the opponent's deck are so much better than those sending it back in their hand, this is my logic here. If you were missing some cards, you could play this one, FB01-050 or FB02-139, and find success using those.
After testing, I found I liked FB02-062 more in a support role rather than throwing early cards in my opponent's hand.

FB01-049 Trunks: Future

This card is great for bringing some cheap pressure onto your opponent late in the match while just being a 10,000 power combo the rest of the time. Currently, FB02-049 simply feels more necessary, filling that slot of a situational card with 10,000 power combo.

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How to Play the Deck

FS02-01 looks to bring constant pressure onto the opposing leader until they are out of cards to block your repeated 35,000 power hits. However, while you would mostly focus on attacking repeatedly during Awakened Pulse, Vegeta has now a larger control side to its strategy.
Don't take it the wrong way, though, we are not trying to play control and run our opponent out of resources. These new control elements allow us to limit the opposing pressure, and thus the amount of combo cards we have to use on defense.
As such, the core remains the same, hit our opponent for more than they can block until they get tired of it. The difference in this new expansion is how we do it: sending their cards at the bottom of their deck.

If you think about it, you don't need a lot of battle cards to win when your leader hits for 35,000 power every turn. Then, if you can limit your opponent's ability to attack you, they will eventually have to take those big hits and lose their health. This is why, apart from FB02-058, all the other high-cost cards in the deck have some sort of support ability:

• FB02-044 draws so we never run out of cards
• FS02-13 deals with a 4-cost card
• FB02-049 resets the board to no battle cards except this one
• FB01-039 lets us reuse a card from our drop.

The logic is the same for our extra cards, as FS02-15 does not change our hand size, while FB01-068 should be a two-for-one on most occasions. Then you can see the entire deck is built around maximizing card advantage and slowing the pace our opponent can develop at, as it means they will have to endure more of those 35,000 power hits.

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Mulligan Guide

In its current form, Vegeta plays as a reactive deck for the first three turns, bringing the pressure with two FS02-09, FB02-044, or FB02-058 on four energy.
Then, you will often look for these cards against a slow opponent you don't expect to develop much early on.
Against a more aggressive opponent, FB01-042, FB02-061, and FB02-068 are the preferred pulls, keep the board clean until you can develop the four costs.

Two cards you are never mad to see in your hand are FS02-08 and FS02-09, both being decent plays on one and two. Except maybe against a red opponent, able to remove them through power affliction.

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Important Matchups

FB02-001 Son Goku

If you are facing a lot of red opponents, which seems to be everyone's experience, you might want to bump the deck to three copies of FB01-068 to keep their mid-game under control. Otherwise, the game plan is fairly simple here, limit what they can do and take the leader hits available on the way.

If they get a lot of draw through multiple copies of FB02-012 and FB02-013, it might be difficult to run them out of cards. In this scenario, you will need to develop your battle cards and dominate the board, while using combo cards to keep your leader at three or four health. FB02-058, FB02-044, and FS02-013 all resist to FB01-023 so your board is pretty resilient once you manage to stick multiple high-cost cards.
If they start running low on card, you could purposefully lower your defenses to entice them to go for the home run and punish with FB02-049 taking away their last wave of pressure.

I found it quite rare to be in a dominant position, where it was fine to ignore their battle cards and focus on their leader instead. Yet, FB02-001 awakens at three health, so you could reasonably have FS02-13 push for lethal, or at least force a lot of cards out of their hand. Plus, the card will send FB02-013 at the bottom of their deck, where FB02-035 can't get it back, so don't refrain from playing your double striker, even if it won't close the game.

Red is the color you don't want to bet on FB02-044 too much, as having its power reduced to 0 won't trigger the "When KO'd" ability. If you are the second player, playing back-to-back FB02-013 feels much stronger for example. You will be able to bring your 4-cost later with FB01-039, and it will be much harder to focus on it then.

FS02-01 Vegeta

Vegeta, and blue in general, is a battle for the board, which leads to controlling the cards in each player's hand down the line. I find Vegeta to be great against the other blue leaders, as our leader's heavy-hitting trait will often give us an edge in contested games.

It is hard to pinpoint one specific way to develop, considering blue has access to virtually all kinds of removal. The safest one I found is to use your energy marker on FS02-13, which can't be sent back by FB01-068 or your opponent playing the same card during their turn. Yet, every other card can be sent back to the bottom of your deck, and this one gets dealt with by FB02-049 later on.

With this in mind, the best way to leverage a blue encounter is to grab initiative early, so your opponent is forced to play defense. Even if your cards are sent back in your deck or hand, you at least have time to attack, and you still have a heavy-hitting leader as well.
If the metagame was mostly blue, I would probably play more of FB01-039, as it is a great refill after our board is cleared. Also, you could consider FS02-03 instead of FB02-044 as it is one of the best cards when it comes to building card advantage in the long run, while Zamasu will be sent back in your deck more than KO'd.

Overall, the deck is not built to go against other blue leaders. Yet, because Vegeta has a great leader skill in those match-ups, and the other blue players should also be thinking about red match-ups more, I believe we are happy to go against FB02-036, at the very least.

FS03-01 Broly

I love to play against green leaders, mostly due to being able to freely hit like a madman for the major part of the match. This isn't to say these encounters are easy wins, but at least, you can play it like Vegeta would: A pressure only mindset.

This is another type of match-up I would happily include a second copy of FB01-039, but this isn't the right metagame for it. Then, focus on building a difficult to remove board early on, using your energy marker to play two 4-costs in a row is great for example, so we can send multiple hits their way every turn. Also, make sure you awaken around the same time you will awaken them, so you can keep the pressure on with your leader.
We only have FS02-09 to help in that regard, so you might want to entice them to attack your leader in the early turns.

Because we are Vegeta, the 25,000 base power from FS03-01 isn't such a big deal. Same for FB01-071 boosting himself to 35,000 or FB02-070 using FB01-101 for free. We hit all of those thresholds with our awakened leader, FB02-058 or even FS02-13 so they will use cards to stay afloat.
With this in mind, try to limit how much pressure they can bring to your leader, so you can force as much as possible out of their hands on every hit. It is totally fine to use FB02-049 when we have a couple of other cards if it means they lose a big 8-cost. We get our attacks in, force cards out of their hand, and send everyone back to the bottom of the deck.

Closing Words

Amongst the twelve leaders we had in Awakened Pulse, I think Vegeta is the most improved with the release of Blazing Aura. Beerus could have a say in this, but it was already great at the end of the first expansion. On the other hand, Vegeta went from a decent leader you probably would not take to a high-stakes tournament, to a sleeper pick some consider able to go toe-to-toe with the Red leaders.
Doing so obviously requires finding the perfect list, and learning all its intricacies. I hope this guide was a first step in that direction.

Feel free to reach out for any questions you might have, in the comment section or through my Twitter page.

Good Game Everyone.