Hello all, and welcome to a new series I’m going to be doing on No Negate. Leader Guides (and also certain Main Deck Package Guides). I eventually wanted to branch out from the small amount of content I had been doing, and I feel this is a good way to start now that the site is at least slightly more presentable. So I’m gonna start doing guides for requested Leaders within the DBSCCG. I will be going over a bunch of different things that I’ll get more in-depth to within the actual guide. Hopefully you all enjoy this series and if you have any suggestions, criticisms or requests, feel free to leave a comment below. Today we’ll start with my personal Main, Ultimate Form Golden Frieza, and see what he brings to the meta.

Frieza/Ultimate Form Golden Frieza

Unique Cards:

Cold Bloodlust

Ginyu Force Guldo

Strengths:

+ The ability to untap energy makes him gives him great ability to defend himself and also extend certain plays.

+ The ability to draw can provide potential plussing early in the game to choke out the opponent later on.

+ Being Frieza’s Army means Cold Bloodlust access, made even better by his untapping ability.

+ The cost of destroying Frieza’s Army cards makes him a solid enabler for Over Realm outside of Black Leaders.

Weaknesses:

– His ability to gain advantage is only really incremental outside of his Awakening turn, if he’s left short on resources he struggles to gain it back.

– Requiring Frieza’s Army cards can undercut some deck building choices, which may turn into a greater issue as the lifespan of the CCG continues.

– REALLY requires early turns to develop a certain way.

– Can struggle immensely applying pressure in early turns.

Overview:

Golden Frieza is a Leader that generally invokes a lot of what we consider “good aspects” of a Leader in this game. He can draw cards, he can untap Energy and he can even enable Over Realm, albeit at a slower pace than Black Leaders or his brother Cooler. The one thing that had really been holding Golden Frieza back though prior to Cross-Worlds, was his inability to Self-Awaken. Early in the game he could outpace many Leaders but late it was very easy to stall him since due to his reliance on Frieza’s Army Battle Cards, he was forced to be at least half-Yellow which had no good Self-Awaken help in the main deck. While success was gained going into Blue and using Results of Training, allowing some sporadic topping, ultimately it was just hard to justify him over using Ginyu or Mecha Frieza who avoided both issues entirely. He was a good Leader, but held back by his own shackles. This changed however with Cross-Worlds as we gained access to No Openings Son Goku.

Yes, the childhood form of his greatest nemesis proved to be his ironic salvation. He’s easy to search out with Planet Vegeta, his general cost of 1 fits right into Golden Frieza’s early game plan along with his ability to generate advantage, and he’s generally pretty easy to defend because of Golden Frieza’s ability to untap Energy. Add to the fact that Mecha Frieza got hit and the Golden one has a new lease on life as arguably the best Cold Bloodlust user in the game. Still, he’s still somewhat shackled by the Frieza’s Army necessity, but he does at least have more outlets to do what he wants to do.

Tips:

Always do your best to aim for Card Advantage with Golden Frieza’s ability. Do not settle for breaking even unless absolutely necessary.

This is a common mistake I see with all Golden Frieza players and has been done since the birth of the game. Just throwing out something like a Sorbet, and immediately just killing it off for the draw with Frieza. Or worse, throwing out a Guldo with no targets and doing the same. This is the worst thing you can do with this Leader, it’s an absolute waste. Doing this sort of play only breaks you even in Card Advantage. That being, you lose a card to gain a card. Golden Frieza is not a combo deck, Upstart Goblin is generally not a good play. It’s worse than simply playing an Energy Boosted Majin Buu because the Buu remains on board as a relevant combo body. The body matters. What you want to do instead is work on making sure to either get a +1, or at least leveraging your cards to doing something relevant before getting rid of it. Let me explain.

With Guldo, you always want to make sure that you’re getting some value with him. Tap something down with Guldo, like say a Saiyan Teamwork Cabba, kill it and THEN drop off the Guldo for the draw and untap. This is a +1. The same cantrip for you, but the opponent loses a card in the process. Sorbet is a little bit trickier. Don’t force yourself into using his effect but sometimes it is relevant to have. If nothing else, it may influence your opponent to taking a different line on offense. Generally though, Sorbet’s best use is to set up an untap on a future turn. Play him out early, and if you need the extra combo power or block he’s there. If he’s still around later, now you have a free untap and draw to use rather than having to use up a play within the turn.

That’s not to say that you always have this option. Sometimes Avenging Frieza whiffs. Sometimes you’re in a matchup where Guldo has no targets. Sometimes you just REALLY need to dig for something. Worst case, the opponent just played a Planet M-2. In these cases it’s a bit better to just go for the cantrip, since their purpose is lost otherwise. But it’s about exercising your better judgment rather than blindly looking for draws.

Do not be afraid to kill off your higher level threats for Golden Frieza’s ability.

It’s Turn 4, you just dropped down Mecha Frieza, the Returning Terror and you’re going to down. You got your two swings in, and the opponent is reeling. Now what? What I often see is a pass, and avoiding using Golden Frieza’s ability. Do not be afraid of just killing off your Mecha Frieza. The opponent is going to mark it for death anyway and worse, might just use it to get free card advantage if they’re not planning to push at your face this turn anyway. You’re often better just getting rid of the Mecha Frieza, getting your draw and untap and having a better defense ready. Plus it can really hurt the opponent if they’re holding a bunch of reactive threats in hand that they cannot use effectively.

Do note though, if you have better targets to get rid of, like Destructive Occupation Frieza, then feel free to do those away first. However if I have say a Sorbet on board, and a Mecha Frieza I often kill off the Mecha Frieza. Sorbet’s Block and Combo abilities tend to be more valuable to me over the long run than a Mecha Frieza that’s likely to die anyway.

Know where you lie on the deck type triangle in each matchup.

That was a little obtuse, let me explain a bit better. Usually in Card Games there’s three deck types. Aggro, Midrange and Control. Combo decks generally sit in their own world but I wouldn’t worry about them too much at the moment with Mecha Frieza down and Cold Bloodlust generally stomping out the rest. In this triangle, all the decks beat at least one other deck and lose to another. Midrange beats Aggro. Control beats Midrange. Aggro beats Control. It’s not always this cut and dry (and admittedly when the triangle is broken is often when imbalance strikes) but it’s a good basis to work off of. Golden Frieza is a bit special in that it can live in both the Midrange and Control types, especially depending on your personal build of the deck.

Against Aggro decks like a Pan or Masked Saiyan, you want to be the Midrange threat, dropping multiple bombs that they can’t keep up with power wise while your card advantage inevitably takes control. You have multiple ways to cut their aggression deep as well. Against Midrange decks though like Androids or the Veggie Package you want to be a hard Control deck. Stop them at the pass every time because their bodies will be better than yours over time. Try your best to run them out of steam and poke your way to victory behind the wealth of blockers, negates and Cold Bloodlust. Now against Control, of which there aren’t many Control decks to begin with but would be the mirror or current Mecha-Frieza, you’ll have to rely on wits but do your best to put a lid on the match. If the match runs too long, you’ll be in trouble as you run out of cards in hand and Frieza’s Army targets.

Deck Builds:

Now I’m gonna go over a few deck builds to run. Note, these are not necessarily the end all, be all to these Leaders. Feel free to tweak based on your own experience and knowledge. Also I can’t obviously run through EVERY possibility for Leaders (we’d be here for weeks with SSJ3 Goku) so use them to just help influence future potential. I’ll usually stick to two builds per guide but this time I’m going to do three just because I want to do a “Before and After” on my current main version of Golden Frieza with the looming date of Tournament of Power. I’ll explain my deck choices as best as I can.

Current Mono-Yellow Golden Frieza

4 Avenging Frieza

4 Ginyu Force Guldo

4 Sorbet, the Loyal Commander

4 Youthful Bulma

4 Dodoria, the Emperor’s Attendant

4 Destructive Occupation Frieza

4 No Openings Son Goku

3 Lord of the Great Apes, King Vegeta

3 Clan of Terror Mecha-Frieza

3 Mecha-Frieza, the Returning Terror

2 Absolute Defense Great Ape King Vegeta

2 Fu, Shrouded in Mystery

3 Cold Bloodlust

3 Flying Nimbus

3 Planet Vegeta

Overview:

This is technically just a slightly tweaked version of my current IRL deckbuild just because I don’t own CoT Frieza’s at the moment. It’s still my preferred way to play this version of the deck though. The goal is simple. Gain advantage early while poking in for early damage, come over the top late game with a torrent of Mecha-Friezas. If needed, end the game outright with Fu. I find this deck able to deal with pretty much every threat I could think of. The Cross-Worlds additions REALLY helped Mono-Yellow to breathe easy and now I do believe Mono-Yellow to be the way to go with Golden Frieza. Now to explain some card choices.

Dodoria over Shugesh:

Probably one of the bigger eye-raisers of the deck. How could I forego arguably the best card Yellow has to offer today? Well when I built the deck I certainly went that way. Shugesh, Explosive Spirit Son Goku, you know the drill. I found it…somewhat underwhelming in here. But the main reason I left it out is Avenging Frieza. This goes back to my earlier point on “aiming for card advantage” with Golden Frieza’s ability. I’ve found my winrate to definitely be affected by how often Avenging Frieza finds a target. You whiff a decent amount as it is, but with Shugesh the maximum amount of targets Avenging Frieza has? 11. That’s not a lot, ESPECIALLY when you take into account Life and any of the targets you’ve already drawn into the hand. On the same note, 15 is much higher. On top of that, the only really good Shugesh target in the deck…is Explosive Spirit (if ES Goku is in the deck, King Vegeta wouldn’t be) which means I have to have both in hand, and kept in hand constantly, further lowering potential pressure. Ultimately I felt that Dodoria had more to give this particular deck.

King Vegeta Package:

Also when first testing out this deck I noticed something else. The deck really lacks any sort of actual pressure until Turn 4 and at that time the only pressure I had was Mecha-Frieza, the Returning Terror. That…simply was not enough and made it hard to beat very defensive decks since you’d never break through in any reasonable amount of time. So on top of adding CoT Mecha-Frieza to add a bit more proactive pressure, King Vegeta was chosen to provide a warning clock to the opponent on Turn 3. An incoming 25K Double Striker that has Barrier and also potentially restands is a monster to deal with. If he goes down, then I essentially get huge pressure the rest of the game. If he doesn’t, he still thins the deck, provided a lightning rod for my other BCs AND gives me free energy to charge for the next turn. He’s not the most ideal and is likely to be replaced once Tournament of Power drops, but he’s proven to be a nice flex slot.

Fu, Shrouded in Mystery over…literally any other Black Cards:

Probably what will be the other big source of contention in the deck but honestly when building this deck, Fu was the biggest reason I wanted to build it. I’ll make this clear, it ends games. Since tweaking the deck to its final iterations, Fu pretty much has a 100% win rate when dropped. What I mean is, if I drop Fu and the opponent doesn’t have Cold Bloodlust…I win the game that turn, immediately. Turn 6 is relatively late in the game, the opponent being at 3 or less life is usually dead meat at that point. It provides the ceiling that I believe the deck really needs to avoid getting outgrinded by other decks late in the game. Another point is that…really I don’t think the deck gets a ton out of other Black choices. Time Patrol Trunks is fine, but you’re already good on draw power and card quality early on. All the Miras don’t really provide much. The only other choices I believe worthwhile are the Masked Saiyans, both Increasing Evil and the Mysterious Warrior. Over time though I’ve found No Openings to be plenty on the Self-Awakening side, and usually the combination of Guldo cleaning up weenies and Mecha-Frieza torching most bigger threats to be enough on the removal side. I would note to siding in Scientist Fu, in case you’re struggling against Hand Control.

Now onto the revisions I’d make for Tournament of Power (I’m confident I’m not jumping the gun because I imagine the Frieza SR to be dependent on Universe 7…if I need to make changes though I will).

Post-Tournament of Power Mono-Yellow Golden Frieza

4 Avenging Frieza

4 Ginyu Force Guldo

4 Sorbet, the Loyal Commander

3 Youthful Bulma

2 Agony of Hell Frieza

4 Dodoria, the Emperor’s Attendant

4 Destructive Occupation Frieza

4 No Openings Son Goku

3 Clan of Terror Mecha-Frieza

3 Mecha-Frieza, the Returning Terror

4 Full Power Spirit Bomb Son Goku

2 Fu, Shrouded in Mystery

3 Cold Bloodlust

3 Flying Nimbus

3 Planet Vegeta

Overview:

Not a ton of changes here, to the point I won’t have the big card in-depth here. I took out the King Vegeta package simply because we got something better, Full Power Spirit Bomb Son Goku, aka, Yellow Super Saiyan Gotenks. This provides the strong midgame pressure I crave. To the point that you can certainly make the argument to remove the Fu now for more traditional Over Realm choices. Agony of Hell Frieza provides some interesting utility in getting back used Friezas, which also allows a bit more liberal use of Sorbet’s ability. This still needs a bit of testing. I’m considering lowering Goku and increasing Agony of Hell, but this is what I’m rolling with for the time being.

Now the last variant we’ll talk about today.

Blue/Yellow Cooler Abuse Golden Frieza

4 Avenging Frieza

3 Ginyu Force Guldo

4 Sorbet, the Loyal Commander

4 Energy Boosted Majin Buu

4 Dodoria, the Emperor’s Attendant

4 Destructive Occupation Frieza

4 No Openings Son Goku

3 Ultimate Judgment Jaco

3 Clan of Terror Mecha-Frieza

2 Mecha-Frieza, the Returning Terror

2 Returning Evil Golden Frieza

3 Cooler, Blood of the Tyrant Clan

3 Cold Bloodlust

3 Whis’ Coercion

4 Objection

Overview:

The deck that brought Golden Frieza back to the dance with some tweaks. Goal is simple, coast with defense and pokes while ramping into Cooler who will win you the game if left unchecked while you either rip your opponent’s hand apart with Clan of Terror Frieza or dealing with whatever the opponent has out with the Returning Terror or Returning Evil. No Openings Son Goku is in over Results of Training for earlier Awakening, more pressure and just generally being not a complete dead card after one usage. No Over Realm because the Drop Area is kind of important… I don’t believe this is as optimal as Mono-Yellow is, but Cooler, Blood of the Tyrant Clan is one of my favorite cards in the game and this deck is still very fun to play.

Final Thoughts:

I used to be a staunched hater of Golden Frieza…well not a hater, but I was annoyed how he was considered “superior” to Galactic Emperor Frieza who was my main and I still brew with today. But really, he’s a ton of fun and extremely relevant to the meta right now should players actually take a chance with him. I hope that this was a solid read, and enlightening to the Leader’s strengths and weaknesses. Again, any suggestions, requests or criticisms, please leave them below. I hope to continue this series. Next time, with the Eater of Wor…Sweets, Majin Buu.