Introduction the winning team
Today we would like to share the interview with the team that recently won the One Piece Championship 2023 Preliminary Round in Asia (3on3 format), "Galvin & Friends" Derek, Alvin and Norvyn. They earn their invites to Asia Area Final -1st season.
There is total 60 teams (180 players).
First of all, we will share the decklist of all the members. (you also can find them in OP4 decklist)
1. Tell us something about yourself? and before this tournament, do you guys have some other (personal) achievements
Derek: Hello friends, Derek here. Unless mentioned, I’ll be the one to provide my insight for most of the article on my team’s behalf. I’ve been playing TCG for almost a decade, with some competitive experience in Cardfight Vanguard, Pokemon, and Digimon in the past. I’ve had a good amount of top cut achievements in the past, with a steady record of going home after the 1st round of top cut for most cases. This article is meant for One Piece, so I’m not going to go into detail about my insignificant achievements in other games. I’ve been playing OPCG since the game’s release and have been playing long enough to know that I’m not a terrible player at the very least. Here are a couple of my minor achievements in the game:
– Multiple 1st place wins at local flagship battles
– Top 16 Malaysia One Piece Card Game Championship Qualifier 2022
– Top 16 Malaysia One Piece Card Game Championship Qualifier 1v1 June 2023
– 1st place team Malaysia One Piece Card Game Championship Qualifier 3v3 July 2023
Alvin: I have been playing TCG for over 10 years now and have played OPCG since the very beginning as the gameplay was very interesting to me. It is also thanks to our best friend, Joshua's recommendation that we found ourselves in OPCG.
– Cardfight Vanguard 3v3 Daivanguard festival 2023 Malaysia Qualifier (2nd Place)
– Multiple 1st place wins at local flagship battles
– Top 16 Malaysia One Piece Card Game Championship Qualifier
– 1st place team July 2023 Malaysia One Piece Card Game Championship Qualifier 3v3
Norvyn: I found myself in OPCG because I've been playing TCG for a long time and the game mechanic looks very fun. I’ve been competing in TCG since 12 years old, the major tournaments I won since then were :
– Match Attax 2011 World Champion
– Cardfight Vanguard Team League Malaysia 2014 Champion
– SEAO Shadowverse Open Omen of Storm 2022 Champion (in-game name as Crisome)
– Various tops in Shadowverse Open and Cardfight Vanguard BCS/WGP
– 1st place team July 2023 Malaysia One Piece Card Game Championship Qualifier 3v3
2. Will you share with us about the strategy of the team, deck choice before the tournament?
Before I get into further on how we decided on our deck choices, something important to note is that before we had Norvyn on the team, our initial team lineup was supposed to be me (Derek), Alvin, and Malaysian Cardfight Vanguard Idol, Joshua Rakesh. He will be mentioned a couple of times throughout this article, so for simplicity’s sake, we will refer to him as Dosh. Based on the metagame up til the tournament and also based on the decks that we knew how to pilot, we decided between Whitebeard, Law, Ace, Zoro, & G/P Doffy. It was just a case of picking 3/5. Between me, Alvin and Dosh, all 3 of us were quite proficient Whitebeard players as we have been playing it throughout the flagship tournaments since OP03. Best deck before and still best deck now, so the best deck was the obvious pick. Easy right? To decide on the other 2 decks, we conducted some testing for a couple of days and made 2 discoveries;
1.There were too many existing variants of Zoro and ain’t none of us got the time to figure out the optimal list.
2. G/P Doffy as a deck can be absolutely oppressive with good draws, or a piece of trash with bad draws. We felt like the searchers were unreliable and the consistency of the deck was junk, so we left the deck in the junk as well.
So, our picks were quite set. Alvin could only play WB, Zoro, or Doffy, so it was a given for him to play WB. And I was best at WB, Law or Doffy, so I was stuck with Law, not that I was complaining since I played it for the 1v1 the week before. That left Dosh with Ace.
Well, that was the initial plan at least. A day before the tournament, Dosh had some stomach issues and started a short-term relationship with his toilet. And in comes our sub, Norvyn, who didn’t need to think too much and decided on Katakuri, since it was the deck that he was playing the most during the OP03-OP04 season.
*Long story short: Our final lineup was WB, Law, & Katakuri. Decks were picked based on what didn’t suck at the moment, what we knew how to pilot, and what we had available given Dosh’s defection to Team Toilet.
3. How was the matchups result for each deck?
Our swiss rounds on day 1 didn’t run so hot. We actually started to lose some hope after round 4 when our team was 2-2, since we each had to deal with our own individual dumb problems. Alvin had to take on some pretty unfavorable matchups, and was constantly ranting about how much he missed Dosh. Norvyn had the neverending problem of “I was short 1k shield to guard”. And I was suffering from emotional damage since I was playing with shitty draws throughout the day. It felt like I was playing Zoro instead of Law (My turn 1 power play was dropping Brook and shoving 2 don to my leader for ⅚ games, not like I had much choice). But well, we managed to end the rounds with 4-2 and squeeze into the top cut, so hooray I guess?
After the top cut, it was just a simple case of having the right players win at the right times. Personally, I was just thankful that I was actually playing Law instead of Zoro in my top cut games, or else a certain deck would have been unsleeved that day. Matchups are as below for each player.
(T: for Team result)
Alvin
G/P Doffy: ☑ T ☑
Blue Crocodile: ☑ T ☑
WB: ☒T ☒
Lucci: ☒ T ☒
Katakuri:☑ T ☑
Zoro: ☑ T ☑
Top 16: WB ☒ T ☑
Top 8: Katakuri ☑ T ☑
Top 4: WB ☑ T☑
Final: WB ☒ T ☑
Norvyn
Katakuri: ☒T ☑
Katakuri: ☑ T ☑
Rebecca: ☑ T ☒
Zoro: ☒ T ☒
WB: ☒ T ☑
Law: ☑ T ☑
Top 16: G/P Doffy ☑ T ☑
Top 8: G/P Doffy ☑ T ☑
Top 4: G/P Doffy ☒T ☑
Final ‘G/P Doffy ☑ T ☑
Derek
Law: ☑ T ☑
Kid: ☑ T ☑
Katakuri: ☒ T ☒
WB: ☒T ☒
G/P Doffy:☑T ☑
Ivankov:☑T ☑
Top 16: Law ☑T ☑
Top 8: WB ☑T ☑
Top 4: Katakuri ☑ T ☑
Final: Law ☑ T ☑
4. Share with us the experiences, tips and hints to the players/team who will participate in the 3on3 event in the future?.
Well, just like any card game, you gotta put in enough effort to learn the game. No, not your tutorial mode to learn the ABCD’s on how to turn your card sideways and declare an attack. Learn how to play optimally, how to manage your resources, your attack pattern, your guarding sequence. Learn how to pilot your own deck, learn how to beat your matchups, know the decks you expect to see in your metagame, and the things you can change about your deck build to adapt to the expected metagame. The usual card game stuff I guess?
For a team event, be mindful that your teammates should be reliable. If you’re better than them, teach them. If they are better, get them to teach you. If you’re all good players, learn from each other. If all 3 of you are questionable players, learn from another source together, or just pay a visit to your local church/temple/mosque/etc and hope for the best.
Lastly, you gotta put in the time to improve at the game, but don’t spend too much time. We all got our own lives to live, and there are more productive things to do than to be playing cards all day. “A true Pirate King wouldn’t be spending 5 days a week playing card games all day” – Monkey D Luffy (One Piece, Episode 214.5)
5. So now you guys will head for the final, any plan to practice or deeper training?
No intense training arc planned at the moment. Will just go about our lives as we usually do. Joining flagship tournaments on the weekends gets us a good amount of practice. Besides that, we just have our occasional playtest sessions at Starbucks or McDonalds maybe once a week, and watch Dosh or some other friends play on the OPCG simulator online and point out all the questionable plays that people make. Will turn it up a notch once the actual date of the event is getting close.
5. So now you guys will head for the final, any plan to practice or deeper training?
Alvin: I would like to thank Dosh for introducing me to OPCG. If not for him, I wouldn't be here. And thank you to my friends who always playtest with me.
Norvyn: I did not expect to even be in Malaysia during that day because I was planning to go to Singapore, but fate had other plans for me I guess. I would like to thank my teammates for carrying me and Dosh for being supportive despite puking rainbows. I would also like to thank today’s sponsor, McDonalds for giving me continuous emotional support *(This is a joke, not actually sponsored by McD).
Derek: I would like to thank my teammates, Alvin and Norvyn for making themselves useful when it mattered. Even though he couldn't make it, special thanks to Dosh because he is my favourite Indian and without him, our entire circle might not have started OPCG. Shoutout to the group of donkeys that I call my friends, whose names I am too lazy to list. Lastly, special mention to the card shops that I frequent; Little Akiba, Cardinals Hobby Store, Deckout Trading, & Toysbar (Shameless promotion).