Zamasu : Fused Blue Leader and Deck Guide (FB02)

Awakened Pulse (FB01) wasn't exactly a great time for the Blue color, widely considered the weakest during the entire expansion. Now in Blazing Aura (FB02), the Blue crew has a chance at redemption, and is off to a great start in that regard. Indeed, multiple Leaders managed to post a top 16 performance in the first weekend of regional tournaments.

Amongst them, the new Leader, FB02-036 has been particularly impressive, up to the point several players in the community have called it a potential answer to the FB02-001 ("ToPKu") domination. In particular, Johnathan Ball, who managed to go 5-2 in that particular matchup during the American Regional, shared their insight on how they believe that encounter should be handled.

We already knew 25,000 Power when Awakened was a big deal, as FS03-001 showed us during the Awakened Pulse era. Yet, the new Blue Leader might be much more than a hard to kill opponent.

Can FB02-036 shake up the Blazing Aura metagame? Let's explore.

A large part of this guide is due to Johnathan sharing their insight on their deck, helping me to get a better grasp on how to approach Zamasu : Fused. You can also read their writeup if you follow this link.

Decklist & Card Breakdown

Key Synergies

FS02-03 lets us use plenty of combo cards to stay afloat, and make sure we can get to the late game with enough health to spare. Plus, in addition to the synergy with Son Goten or Trunks : Youth cards, it is also a great target for FB01-039.

FB02-061 is a new foundational card in the deck, making FB02-052, FB01-068 or FB01-042 more efficient at throwing back in hand or at the bottom of our opponent's deck.

The deck is filled with various cards to draw or pick cards back from your drop, which can quickly fill your hand. However, many of our cards also require staying at seven or fewer cards in order to trigger their ability, such as FB02-044. Then, it is important to use our cards and stay around seven, and not fear we will run out, considering we have many ways to refill.

Instead, make sure you don't take too many hits early, as even 25,000 Power can't protect you from everything, and you will have to defend a lot once Awakened.

Alternate Cards to Consider

The deck originally had 52 cards, but I believe it is better played with 50. I cut a copy of FB02-044 due to Red's ability to get it down to 0 Power, which is not considered a KO. The other cut was FS02-15 as keeping one Energy up early was often difficult, and we have a lot of 10,000 Combo Power cards for defensive purposes.

Finding the right balance to get to 50 cards definitely is a challenge for the deck right now, and will likely come down to the metagame you play in. For example, FS02-05 is really only included for its 10,000 Combo Power and synergy with FS02-03. If you believe one copy is enough, you can certainly get down to five Son Goten total. This would lower your odds of finding one of your Son Goten by turn four, the first turn you might be playing FS02-03, by about 5%. Then, if we were not in such a Red dominated environment, I could see this being cut instead of a copy of FB02-044.

With this struggle of cutting down to 50 cards in mind, it is hard to recommend adding even more cards into the mix. Yet, here are a few ideas if you wanted to explore other avenues, or when the metagame won't be as focused around beating Red decks.

FB02-139 Vegito

The card can contribute to this idea of slowly building pressure while limiting your opponent's ability to pressure you. Thanks to its 5,000 combo power, and the ability to attack twice flexibly, Vegito makes more sense than FS02-13 in the deck.

FB02-040 Goku Black

The engine around FS02-03 feels too strong to remove, but you might not like FB02-044 against Red, or just not have a full set of the card. This card would be the logical replacement for it, as it contributes to the deck's idea of slowing down the opponent. In addition to being a good target for FB01-039, it also can follow up FB02-061 to send a 3-cost back to the bottom of your opponent's deck.

FP-015 Goku Black

In an Earthling heavy metagame, and if you managed to get your hands on it, this card could also be a consideration to replace FB02-044. Plus, the 10,000 Combo Power is exactly what we are looking for in this deck.

FS02-11 Piccolo

I already find it hard to fit the extra cards we have in my Energy usage during a match, I find it hard to believe I would want even more. Yet, we aren't a pressure deck and a player in Japan was running the card, so maybe picking up some extra FS02-15 is worth including this one.

How to Play the Deck

FB02-036 is looking to enter an attrition war with their opponent, slowly running them out of cards as their attempts at pressuring you are denied one after the other. Right now, the deck is heavily tilted towards beating the FB02-001 matchup, which is about the only one that matters in tournaments after the first weekend of regionals.

Against the Red Leader, just like against most Leaders who can't reliably hit for 25,000 once their hand is starting to run low on cards, we have to think far ahead as our goal is to stay alive. At the very least, our goal is to be in a decent position when turn six comes around. Then, we can either use FB02-049 to punish an opponent who overcommitted to the board, or FB01-039 against one without a threatening squad.

In order to get there, we need to focus on three key areas of the game:

• Limiting how many hits our leader takes in

Even if we have a 25,000 Power Leader when Awakened, and a great ability to stay alive, we also lose the ability to draw when attacking once Awakened. As such, once we turn into a 25,000 Leader, we won't be able to play the attrition game as well. Instead, we will leverage our higher power to pressure the opponent into using cards to defend our hits, or have a chance at landing one.

With this in mind, you aren't in a rush to Awaken, and would rather do it on your own terms later in the match, once you can turn on the pressure against an opponent with limited resources. Considering we don't need to do anything special except stay alive until the later turns, don't feel pressure to use all your Energy if you have nothing great to use it on. Keeping one up for FS02-15 is a great to do it as well.

• Limiting how many hits our opponent can throw at us per turn

In order to defend properly, and be in a position to decide whether we want or not to take the incoming attacks, we need to limit how many times our opponent can swing. Then, we often want to make sure we remove a card, for example sending it back to the bottom of their deck, rather than develop a battle card of our own. Not only we are risking an attack which might be blocked, we also will be forced to invest combo cards to back up the attack, which we would rather have for defensive purposes.

As such, safe removal is the way to go until we can stabilize the situation, we have plenty available, especially if FB02-061 is on the board.

• Build up card advantage

The more we progress into the match, and the more important card advantage will become, as it will determine our chances of performing in both previous categories. We don't necessarily need to focus on card advantage from the get go, especially as we have FS02-03, FB01-056 and other tools to rebuild our hand later on. Yet, once we decide we are done playing defense, and believe FB02-049 or FB01-039 can swing the pressure in our favor, we need to back up that claim.

Sure, we'll now be in a position to awaken safely, and the 25,000 base Power will have a big impact then, both on offense or defense. However, due to drawing one less card per turn, we need the card advantage we built to not run out of gas ourselves.

Mulligan Guide

The deck isn't trying to do anything specific early on, rather make sure the opponent cannot swing and start damaging our Leader for free. As such, the mulligan will mostly be based on whether you expect the opponent to bring some pressure, or give you some leeway.

Against pressure oriented opponents, FS02-08 and FB01-056 are great together to draw cards while having some 5,000 Combo cards to use to protect our Leader. FB01-042 is also solid when second in that regard, denying them the ability to combo their 1-cost to bring some pressure with their leader and 2-cost the following turn.

The other cards we want to see are the pair helping us transfer into the midgame: FB02-061 and FB01-068. Together, these two completely cancel out the opponent's turn two and three, or three and four, meaning we can hope to get into turn five with a relatively safe board state.

Against a slower opponent, you can be much greedier in your mulligan, going as far as looking for FB01-039 and FB02-044 for pressure down the line. With FS02-09 as the only way to bring pressure early on, you'll have to wait for the bigger cards to go for the kill anyway.

Important Matchups

FB02-001 Son Goku

This is the textbook attrition war battle, where we will be reactive for most of the game, looking to bait our opponent into using as many cards as possible.

In this one, the key is to know which hits to accept, and those you have to defend. If unsure, consider that later in the match, there will be a huge FB02-031 gunning for you, and you'll be forced to defend it if you are low on health. Then, instead of losing all your low Power cards to Red abilities reducing them to 0, you might as well use them to tank a few hits you will have to defend later on anyway.

It isn't simple to maintain card advantage while you also need to be solid on defense, but this deck has a lot of draw available, and your Extra Cards are great in that regard as well. If you manage to get there, either FB02-049 or FB01-039 should allow you to turn the corner, and start pressuring them back.

You could extrapolate this matchup to other pressure oriented opponents, such as FB01-001, FS04-01, FB01-022 or FB01-105.

FS02-01 Vegeta

Considering this deck is tailored to beat aggressive built, I don't expect other Blue Leaders to be this good of a matchup to go against. First, they have about the same ability as we do when it come to recycling cards multiple times. Plus, each of their abilities are better than ours once Awakened, and they will reach that stage much faster than we do.

For FS02-01, we can't stop the 35,000 Power hit from coming, which is quite a problem. FB01-036 can easily deal with any card outside of FB01-039. Last, FB01-035 can play FB01-039 faster than we do, and this one is difficult to control.

As such, we need to have a more aggressive mindset against our colleagues, and rely on FB01-039 and FB02-044 more in order to force cards out of their hands. If we manage to build some card advantage, then FB02-049 should be a great way to punish them for pushing to end the match. I could definitely see a scenario where we purposefully hold onto FB01-039 until they play theirs, throw every thing back at the bottom of the deck, and then bring our pressure cards out.

If you start facing more Blue opponents, I would definitely think about packing more pressure cards, such as FS02-13 or FB02-139.

FS03-01 Broly

Green, and slow paced opponent, looking for value more than trying to pressure us might be our worst matchups, simply because we aren't packing much to disrupt them. We have FB02-049 to remove any of their big cards, but that's about it in the late game, and we can assume more would be on the way in the following turns.

With this in mind, I would aggressively look for FB02-044 in the mulligan, as this should be a pain for them to deal with, and add a fourth copy if you expect to run into this kind of opponent routinely. FB01-039 is the other card we can capitalize on, bringing back our key 4-cost if they managed to get rid of it, or just adding another layer of pressure with a second one. Worst case, FS02-03 still gives us more cards to beef up our next attacks.

Closing Words

I don't expect anyone trying FB02-036 to give good feedback until they get an extensive amount of games with it. At first, the leader feels like it has a good ability to slow down the pace, but struggles to get the deal done in the end.

It takes a bit of time to get used to being dominated for most of the match, and focus on where we are trying to go, rather than the current state of the game. I believe someone who played Green in the first expansion probably would have a bit of a head start in that regard.

Once you manage to switch your mindset to a card advantage battle, and stop seeing the cards your opponent's plays as threat but opportunities to starve them down the line, the deck starts to click. Obviously, it will have to be tested in a more diverse environment to know if FB02-036 can be considered an all around leader, or more of a matchup specialist.

In my opinion, it has a shot to be great in a metagame without too much of the other Blue Leaders, as I think FB02-044 and a few of the 5-cost heavy hitters could be enough to pressure Green Leaders.

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Good Game Everyone.