Introduction of the winner
Hello my name is Ernesto also known as Wraithtalks, I'm a big card collector but One Piece is my very first tcg where I decided to play competitively so I am very new to this stuff. I've been enjoying one piece so much more than I expected. I've met a ton of amazing people who have become close friends and I can say I'm definitely spoiled in terms of gameplay for my first ever tcg.
Also if you don’t know, I do run a youtube channel “AwakenedTCG” where I upload daily content about all things one piece and it makes playing the card game that much more enjoyable.
Achievement in One Piece Card Game
As far as previous achievements go, I think my best placing was top 32 in a Treasure Cup in set 2 (OP2) as well as a top 64 in a regional for set 3 (OP3). Besides that there hasn’t been much success for me because I struggled finding a good deck that really clicked with me until now.
Deck Information and Strategy
I have been practicing with Doffy since the start but I always struggled with deciding what deck to take into tournaments and I know that has cost me other good performances due to last minute switches. I realized I need to just play my game instead of trying to meta deck too much and just work with what I know best and that has worked best for me. I have months of practice on Doffy so I wanted to show off my skill set on the deck and it paid off.
The strategy on Doffy is really to be as aggressive as possible while allowing your defense to shine when it's time. I know it might sound weird as this is such a defensive deck but it really plays well aggressive into all the top meta decks.
I added in 2 judgments of hell and 1 shiki one of which were the only changes to my deck from what a previous list I used and those changes won me easily 3-4 matches. I believe this deck does REALLY well into the top 3 meta red decks because it has answers that are very effective for all 3.
I think playing on curve against Whitebeard and putting him in situations to give you cards early makes the matchup favourable, as far as Law and Zoro go you just want to see an early Sugar and play Nami so you don't fall behind on card advantage then just play as much board control as possible until you can set up a lethal turn.
Core TCG Regional's Matchups
My match ups were: – Whitebeard(win) – G/P Doffy (win) – Whitebeard(win) – Zoro(win) – Law (win) –katakuri (win) – whitebeard (win) – Law(win) – Film Kid (win)
Overall the tournament went really well and let me go over some key points for each of the matchups.
For starters we have WHITEBEARD. This matchup in my opinion I feel is super comfy to run into because 10cost doflamingo just destroys whitebeards whole game plan and chaining them together should almost always net you the win in most cases. Going second and playing a 4c vanilla into a 6c shiki feels amazing then you can pressure board and make them burn cards alot earlier than they would like making end game feasible so they won’t have 20 cards in hand. Best matchup you want to see by far.
Then I played up against a G/P Doffy and my experience with that deck has been relatively good, I know there are tech cards for the mirror in specific but I tend to not add those since id rather tech in for whitebeard because it usually out numbers the doffys by a lot. Back on the topic of the mirror match you want to go first and establish units as soon as possible and play aggressively, doing so will not allow your opponent to keep up with units as long as you trade effectively. It is the same deck so it's just a 50/50 matchup when both players play correctly.
Going into ZORO I knew the game plan since my brother is a zoro main, you want to see an early sugar to get rid of 2 early units from the zoro then drop nami so you can keep card advantage, if you nail those 2 things then playing board control aggressively with uta or punk gibson will net you alot of value and will keep the zoros hand limited. 2nd best matchup you want to see after whitebeard.
Just like with zoro, LAW doesn’t want to see you drop sugars early on because it spells trouble for them. Very similar game plan going into this matchup as zoro because you want to delay shambles a turn if possible then just play super aggro on board control until you can slowly whittle down the law. NEVER swing into law for free if they are looking for cards, an early swing instead of going at board is trouble. All your early swings should be at the laws board making them go down in hand size fast, then it's just slow play until you can set up a lethal turn. LAW was by far the hardest match I saw.
Next up we had a KATAKURI , this matchup is tough when the kata can see his curve and can 10c mom without the fear of losing the next turn, You have to see early units 4c vanilla or nami and play them early while focusing ALL of your attacks on to leader. Being able to put the katakuri in a position where they 10 mom and it might be a turn where they lose is where you want to have them, don't swing at the peros out aggro the kata and protect units with good value if possible. 2nd hardest matchup behind the law that I played, can trigger you to a loss but that's kata in general.
The last deck I played was FILM KID while I dont have much matchup knowledge still I was able to pull out the win because I treated the matchup like the mirror. So the only advice I can give here is to run atleast 1 of Judment of Hell and try and go first if possible. Not enough matchup experience to know if the matchup is hard or not, its most likely 50/50.
Shoutout
I want to give a big shoutout to my brother ANINE who is my #1 training partner and the one I test with the most, shoutout to AwakenedTCG which is a youtube channel I run with one of my closest friends Jim.
Also I want to give a big shoutout to One Piece Top Decks, you have an amazing platform and inspire so many peoples list with all the info that is generated on this website and every article that is put out is always a 10/10 read so big thank you for allowing me to write a piece as well.
Thanks to everyone who has congratulated me, I can’t respond to every message but I see all of you so thank you and lets keep playing One Piece and make it a top 3 card game in the world!