Invited Author: Kelmer M. (@MalwinaZero)
Country: Dominican Republic (Latin America)
About me
I am Kelmer M. from @MalwinaZero and I will be showcasing my list for Blurpodile Control. I have fared well with this deck in my locals against all types of decks and most recently I won an undefeated 1st place at my last tournament.
The Leader
The Blue/Purple Crocodile leader (“Blurpodile”) has a very strong once-per-turn Donx1 ability with which you can draw an extra card when playing an event.
In OP01’s meta survival depends on how many and which cards you have in your hand, this deck provides you with such an immense draw power that will make your opponent feel helpless because they wi feel you have anything you need right when you need it.
Check out this link for the decklist in One Piece Top Decks.
Why play this deck?
The Blue/Purple typing solves the issues with either color with the slight drawback of having one less life card (which won’t matter much because of your insane defense).
In OP01, Blue offers great control of the field and your deck but has great trouble finishing the game on its own. Meanwhile, Purple’s immense power is held back by it’s consistency issues and lesser amount of “counter” cards. This build fixes both issues and makes it the strongest control deck in the meta.
Key Cards:
- Desert Spada: arguably the most important card in the deck. In addition to letting you order the top 3 cards of your deck (“scrying”) it basically lets you choose what you will draw with the leader’s effect, your Love-Love Mellows, Queens, and on your next turn. This card basically lets you have what you want when you need it and can also be very strong if you use it to get 2k counters, basically giving you a 4k defense for 1 don.
- Donquixote Doflamingo (3 cost blocker): it has similar utilities as the Spadas but ends up being even stronger because it lets you scry 5 cards. I would use it to set up future offense and defense and, if you need any card in a pinch, you can greatly increase your chances of getting it next turn by sending the top 5 cards to the bottom if they are not going to be effective. Additionally, the fact it gives you a 4k body that can hit leaders with an extra don, block Shanks, take care of weaker characters and also survive Nico Robin’s effect is extremely useful.
- Love-Love Mellow: when used when this is the 4th card in your hand, the leader’s ability will allow you to instead draw 2 cards. If you set up 2k counters behind it on the queue, you can get as much as +8k defense from a single card. When used with more cards in hand, it will let you get its original effect from for a single card draw because of the leader’s ability despite having more cards in hand.
- Ms. Sunday: this card lets you recover ANY EVENT from your trash on KO regardless of color and is also a 1k counter blocker. If you have any powerful events in trash, it can be a great deterrent against most kinds of removal because it can both take a hit and give you resource advantage when you use the event.
- Hard Removal (6 cost King, 7 cost King, 9 cost Kaido and Who’s Who 3 cost): when playing Blue, it is hard to counter aggro decks because of their low attack power and ineffectiveness of returning low cost cards to hand. While these cards can slow your plan with their don removal, they tend to have an added utility as “beaters” which will be hard to remove because of your deck’s strong defense.
- The “Cleaners” (Jack, Queen, Sasaki, Mihawk): because a lot of the cards do not have counter/require don and you also need 5 cards or less in hand to take advantage of your leader’s ability. It is essential to able to get rid of dead cards from your hand whenever possible. These cards also have the added benefit of giving you some sort of bonus for doing so, be it extra don or better cards that can offset the high cost of your hard removal cards.
Game-play and Matchups
This deck can fare well going either 1st or 2nd. For my starting hand, I usually want a Spada or Doflamingo in order to set up ahead my draws and maximize my leader’s ability while responding to the opponent’s actions. If I have a heavy hand with no counters or cards that are not useful for the matchup, I like having a cleaner that will allow me to trash these cards to make the most of my leader’s ability.
For most part of the game, you should not attack your opponent directly but instead control his board while abusing the leader’s ability. Since your biggest strength is your draw power, giving them life cards can usually be counterproductive since they can get better responses to your threats. Therefore, the best time to attack directly is when your opponent already has a few cards in hand.
Matchups (From Easiest to Hardest)
Red Zoro/Luffy: As long as you see 1-3 Who’s Who or Kings during the game, you will usually be fine since your defense, removal and board control will neglect most of their attacks and put their characters in vulnerable spots. 5c Luffy is not as big a threat because of your strong defense and the fact it can be removed with 9c Kaido. In particular, you want to remove their Nico Robin’s as soon as possible and have your blockers/1k counters take the small hits so you can defend against the big unblock able hits.
Green Kid: similar to the above but with a bigger emphasis on board control. You want to start with 1-2 Who’s Who or Kings to destroy their advantage generating cards like Okiku or Raizou before they can make an impact. This deck fares well against 8 cost Kid because of board control and overall removal options unless you allow them to get a big hand they could counter with.
Red/Green Law: since this deck requires a full board and also has 4 life, your game plan will be to do everything to clear their board in the early rounds. If by late game they cannot use their Leader’s ability, they will likely lose. However, if they get their combo going it can become a lot harder to win unless you can stop it with 7 cost King and take care of the rest of the board.
Blue Crocodile: you usually want to play first since it will be a mirror match. It is usually best to not overcommit to big drops since they will try to bounce stuff to your hand. As long as you maximize your leader’s ability and make advantage of your hard removal and superior aggression, this is a manageable matchup.
Blue Doflamingo: harder matchup since most of your cards cannot remove their key characters because of their awkward costs (either 4 costs or 7+ costs). While your deck has a strong defense, this deck’s continued heavy aggression might be one of the few ones to leave you with a small hand.
Purple Kaido: arguably the deck’s hardest matchup but still possible to win. Good Kaidos will be very aggressive against you and refrain from using cards smaller than 5 costs, making most of your removal useless. It is key to have a lot of cleaners to ramp up don and discard useless cards and be on the attack early so they spend theirs. While having a strong offense, it bricks relatively easily so it is best to focus on attacking the leader if possible. Note that Blockers are essential to take on the big hits from their Kaidos without draining your resources but having more than 1 of the small ones will just make them use 7c King to clear your board. Be extra careful with protecting your life cards because having 2 life can be as good as dead because of the leader’s ability.
Oden/King/Blurple Kaido/ RG Luffy/Uta: in general, in the current OP01 they tend to just be weaker versions of the other leaders because of lack of support.
Deck Construction
While I already went through the key cards, there is a lot freedom to what other cards you want to add or replace depending on what archetypes are common in your region. In particular:
- 7 Cost Crocodile: synergizes extremely well with your deck/game plan and is very hard to remove once it gets going. It’s counter power can also be extremely convenient early and mid game. Its main drawback is dropping it can be high and slow commitment, usually leaving you and him pretty open.
- Sables: addresses the deck’s difficulty in removing high cost threats while also providing additional draw advantage with the leader ability. Highly situational but very good vs Purple and Green.
- Overheat: a strong defense event that, besides helping you with your ability is likely to remove small blockers and ruining your opponent’s turn, making it excellent to close games or make it easier to eliminate other characters. Situational but specially convenient against Red and Green.
- Jack (booster): doubles down on the deck’s resource advantage mechanic with hand disruption mechanics. Downside is that Jack is easily removable and its mechanic is slow.
- Blast Breath: can be a very strong mixup mid to late game if you keep your opponent guessing if you are saving don for a spada or other events. Biggest downside is that can slow your late game if you -don a lot.
- Douglass Bullet: while still pretty new to the OP01 Meta, this card will be crucial for ending the game or regaining board control against most decks. When paired along with a strong beater on the board, it can completely overwhelm your opponent’s defense. Additionally, being a 10k with having a lower cost than 9c Kaido means you can play it on the turn before another strong beater.
