If you are buying a Dragon Ball card and you do not know which game it belongs to, you are buying blind. Masters and Fusion World share a publisher, a licence, a card size and a colour system, and nothing else. Here is the whole comparison on one page.
Side by side
| Masters | Fusion World | |
|---|---|---|
| First set | Galactic Battle, July 2017 | Awakened Pulse, February 2024 |
| Booster codes | BT, TB, DB, EX | FB, SB, ST |
| Deck size | 50 cards plus 1 Leader | 50 to 60 cards plus 1 Leader |
| Card types | Leader, Battle, Extra, Unison | Leader, Battle, Extra |
| Colours | Five, plus multicolour | Five, no multicolour |
| Resource | Energy from cards in hand | Energy plus Energy Markers |
| Top rarity | God Rare | Secret Rare and its alt art |
| Digital client | No | Yes |
| Cards legal in the other | None | None |
How to tell which one you are holding
Read the code in the corner. A BT, TB, DB or EX prefix is Masters. An FB, SB or ST prefix is Fusion World. Starter decks follow the same rule: SD and XD are Masters decks, FS is a Fusion World deck. Promos in both games use a P prefix, which is exactly why the code alone is not always enough — see card numbers.
Why the distinction moves money
Because the pools are separate, the same character can be expensive in one game and ordinary in the other, and neither price says anything about the other. In our own pull, the two halves of the catalogue look like this:
- Masters: 7,355 card printings across the sets we track, of which 1,314 carry a PSA 10 value.
- Fusion World: 2,473 printings, of which 733 carry a PSA 10 value.
A larger share of Fusion World being priced is not a sign it is more valuable. It is a sign of a much smaller, newer pool where a greater proportion of printings have been graded and sold.
The one that keeps giving
Fusion World is the actively promoted game and ships on a quarterly booster cadence, which means its newest set changes more often than anything on the Masters side. Masters, meanwhile, is the longer history: a decade of printings, and the only place certain treatments exist at all. Collectors generally end up in both, for different reasons.
The sets of both games are listed on the Dragon Ball index page.
Frequently asked questions
Can you play Masters cards in Fusion World?
No. The two games share a publisher, a licence, a card size and a colour system, and nothing else. Neither game’s cards are legal in the other.
How do you tell which game a card belongs to?
Read the prefix. BT, TB, DB and EX are Masters; FB, SB and ST are Fusion World. Starter decks follow the same rule: SD and XD are Masters, FS is Fusion World.
Which game should a new player start with?
Fusion World is the easier on-ramp: three card types instead of four, and a deck of 50 to 60 cards rather than a fixed fifty. Masters carries the longer history and the only place certain treatments exist at all.
Does a character’s price in one game say anything about the other?
No. The pools are separate, so the same character can be expensive in one game and ordinary in the other, with no relationship between the two prices.
Sources
Sources and further reading
- Bandai — Dragon Ball Super Card Game and Dragon Ball Super Card Game Fusion World official product pages and rule manuals.
- PriceCharting — Dragon Ball console and individual card listings. PSA 10 values retrieved 2026-10-04.
- CardSpicy — the Dragon Ball card index, on how the pool and its priced cards are counted.
Prices quoted are secondary-market observations at the date cited and move quickly; nothing here is a valuation or an investment recommendation. Our own asking prices for the cards we hold are on each product page.