Invited Author: Acoi
Country: Brunei
Introduction
My name is Acoi and I am from Brunei Darussalam, the main agenda for this article is about my Black Smoker Deck from the newly released OP02 booster box.
Since the One Piece card game is kind of a new card game, I'm still learning many ways and tactics on how to play the game. I had doubts on using black deck way before the booster came out, because I kept on thinking that the deck would be slow and since they have a lot of high cost characters.
Since there are delays on the booster box we had to wait for it to arrive in Brunei for a while. So it came on the 25th of November on Friday.
Deck Building
So for every One Piece Deck, I usually put in at least 10 event cards in this case, to reduce opponent's character costs and removal. My main goal for this deck is always to remove opponents' boards and try to control their tempo. I use 8 event cards from the Black starter deck because those events are crucial in making the deck work, especially the large eruption card. I think of it as a draw engine and an easy way to reduce the opponent's character cost. Also, I put in 4 of the Impact Wave event cards as a defensive event. I put in 4 copies mainly because of the good guarding effect and also the trigger effect which lets you destroy a cost 4 character that can be clutch against rush decks. I also play 2 copies of the Meteor Volcano event for removals.
For the big costs, I play 4 copies of 10 cost Kuzans for late game board wiping and heavy attacks. So playing 3 copies of him was a risky move because I have to endure the game until late game to play him, and since he is a 10 cost, I cant play anything else or boost up dons to my attackers it means I have no choice but to give my opponent a turn to build up their board. I played 4 copies of Kuzan cost 4 mainly for the draw engine. Also, 4 copies of Sakazuki for removal. For blockers, I play 14 blockers in my deck for defense. I don't wanna play 4 Borsalinos because it can be countered against green or blue decks so I think playing 3 copies is a fair amount. I also play 3 copies of the Hina blocker mainly to stop my opponents from rushing me especially the meta right now is the Zoro 1 cost deck. The rest of the blockers are the 2 cost ones. Not to forget, 4 copies of Koby from the booster. I also play 1 of the stage card for the starter deck.
In this deck, I play 11 characters that have 2000 shield which are 4 copies of Monkey D Garp, 3 copies of Vine and 4 copies of Tashigi. I usually keep them in my hand for guarding but whenever I had the chance to play the 2 cost Garp, I would play him especially when I go second because to avoid wasting Don!!.
Matchups
So here are my tournament results on 2nd November 2022 (BO1):
1st Game – Purple Kaido
2nd Game – Black Smoker (Mirror Match)
3rd Game – Green Oden
4th Game – Purple Kaido
I won't talk about all my games that night but I'll share some of the highlights.
I would say the 2nd game and 4th game were the toughest for me. The mirror match had me thinking a lot because my opponent Terry had a better build up than me, I remember that game he put out 3 of the Borsalinos on the field and managed to keep them alive for some times. So I had a rough time facing him mainly because of the blockers and I had to endure the game and kept pushing until I could play Kuzan 10 cost and swarm my board with attackers.
The last game was against Dane, one of the Purple Kaido users in Brunei. I had a rough time against Purple decks because of the 9 cost Rush Kaido. It has Rush and a 10k attacker. I had a hard time trying to KO him because of its big cost but luckily I managed to pump my Leader with 8 dons and won the game.
Summary
To summarize this article, I am still learning how to play the game with the other players since One Piece Card Game is still new. There are a lot of things that I still need to learn in order to improve my playstyle. I also want to take this opportunity to thank my friends that are always around to help, especially the One Piece Card Game Community and a special shoutout to Gamer’s Tavern Brunei for bringing in OPCG products for us locals to play and enjoy the game.
Moving forward, my wish is for us to go global with this game. I also want to try to participate in tournaments outside of Brunei to showcase our talents and potential, hoping to achieve outstanding results along with my friends in the future.