Invited Author: Nicholas Koh
Country: Australia
About me
Hi all! I’m Nick (or Px3_TheKlet on twitter). I’m with the team PX3, mainly known for their achievements in Dragon Ball Super and now branching into the OnePieceTCG! Relatively new to the OPTCG only starting at the end of OP1, but not new to TCGs (been playing MTG for many years).
I went undefeated in a 40-person win-a-box/pirate party yesterday and my Twitter post has gotten a lot of attention and questions. We just recorded a deck profile on YouTube, forgive me if I spoke too fast! First time doing a deck profile and was nervous (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgsO-Kn5dZA), have a watch give a like and subscribe to the channel! I’ll mainly go into my thoughts and impressions of the deck. I’ve only played 1 locals, a win-a-box and testing with the team in the past week, so bear in mind that my personal data is rather limited.
Before I start, I want to credit Garrett Farrington from the WorstGeneration, (https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorstGeneration-OPTCG) this list is completely from him and I just swapped out the whitebeards pirates searcher for a third guard point. My thoughts and impressions might be completely off from him, if so have mercy on me XD
Why I played this deck
I have been mainly playing red since I started the game, and don’t think I’ll be playing other colors soon. I’ve been trying different decks since OP2 came out, whitebeard, Zoro and Luffy and have felt the most comfortable with whitebeard so far. There were 2 main builds initially strawbeard and boatbeard I tried both and always felt something was lacking.
Pure boatbeard played cards that I didn’t really like (Squard and seaquake) and felt that I was bricking more than I’d like to. The deck felt strong when it’s going off but felt lacking in some consistency.
Strawbeard, the current menace of the format felt like a “noobstomper” deck, an anology that I think a lot of people would get would be playing Kirby in SmashBros with someone new to the game (feelsbadman). You curve out, counter out, smash face. Simple yet strong but once your opponent decides to play around you and force you into plays you do not like, you’re stuck. The deck is linear but I guess that makes it easy to pilot as well.
I did try a build prior to this and had changed some cards around to add marco and felt that it was cool, but it wasn’t fully there. So when my teammate KayC linked the list to me, I knew I had to try it.
The list does seem weird, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how consistent the deck has been. The numbers feel right and I have no complaints.
The secret tech is that your opponents like to put you on the draw thinking you are strawbeard. Accept it with a sigh, only to show them boat on turn 1 😉
My thoughts and impressions
I think the question I’ve gotten most is why 3 boat? Apart from “Idk, I just netdecked this”, I do think this is a nice number. The deck does not need boat to win, and I think people do tunnel vision into the idea that without boat the deck cannot work. Strawbeard often wins games just by playing on curve, so that’s something to keep in mind. Playing boatbeard previously, there were too many times that I drew 3-4 boats in hand and it felt bad. Sure, I can pitch them to marco, but you don’t always have marco. I’m sure Garrett has his reasons when he constructed the deck.
The same question comes up for Vista, why only 2? After playing games with the deck, I realized that I only wanted to play vista on turn 2 as there are more powerful cards being played from turn 3 onwards. Vista is still a 1k and marco food.
The deck feels very versatile as you can adapt to the situation and cards you’ve drawn relatively easily. In the games I've played so far, I tend to take the first hit as I want as many cards in my hand. The faster you get to marco and active boat the faster you take over the game. If I do see one of my two wb characters in hand I will still take the first hit, but maybe protect life so that I can play it on T5. This deck allows you to construct the magical turn of having 1 life on T5 and playing wb character and have boat out. It is a chef kiss moment and while it does not happen every game, it happens more often than you’d think.
You still have the tools and card to curve out and smash face like strawbeard and have counters and defensive capabilities that boatbeard has.
Mulligans and going first/second
I believe you always want to go second as the curve is better for you, T1 boat, and curving into your odd cost characters and still being able to hold up 1 don!! For events to protect your board. You don’t feel bad going first as well as you can still go strawbeard things to your opponent.
For mulligans, you want to look for boat (obviously) and nami, nami is especially good versus Zoro as you want to be able to contest their 1 drops early. You want to look for curve, but I guess that is self-explanatory. Ace, boat, marco and nami, you love to see them in your opening hand.
Tournaments Matchups
I don’t have enough games to give reliable data yet, but it never felt bad into the decks of the meta (Zoro, Law, other WBs). I believe these are the 3 decks you would in the coming treasure cups/regionals apart from the occasional outliers. As I do not have much data I am only going to give my thoughts on Zoro and strawbeard as of now.
Zoro:
This match up feels favored as you take hits early, build a hand and pressure their life while playing more powerful cards. If they are using Makinos and Otamos early to pressure and as removal assists, it is easier to end the game once boat is active.
Strawbeard:
Marco and boat are killers for this match up, if you see both, you feel good. You want to play aggressive into them swing for 10k on turn 2 if you go second and they start thinking of 3 cards are worth it to make their turn 5 wb good.
Kinemon:
This match up feels relatively easy. You’d like to see nami early so that you can pressure their searches. You want to pressure them early as so they don’t have the opportunity to play oden comfortably. Prioritize removing okiku as that handles marcos easily.
Wrap up
This was quite the impromptu write up to go along with the deck profile on YouTube. Feel free to msg on Twitter if you want to chat about the deck! I have an online treasure cup on the 20th of this month and might do proper article if I do well 
Thank you for reading and am looking forward to all the feedback!
Garrett if you are reading this, please tell me where I am wrong I would like to hear your opinions and thoughts!