Tag: #deckreviews

[JP] Jude: Kaido wins flagship in OP3 meta.

Invited Author: Jude Macaranas

Country: Philippines.

Introduction

Hello, I'm Jude Macaranas here from Philippines. Recently I won the Aqua Card Games Flagship Main on March 12, 2023

I chose Kaido deck because he’s the best Purple Leader since OP01 up to now. 

My main goal is to cast Onigashima on my turn 2, play Magellan or King [6 cost] on turn 3 and turn 4, and play Kaido [9 cost] on 5. My main strategy is to slow the game phase of the opponent using Magellan and King [6 cost] to survive the early game.

The reason why I'm confident playing against Whitebeard is because I practice with the first person to ever put Whitebeard in the Philippine Meta.

Click into the image for the decklist in One Piece Top Decks

CARD CHOICES

Uta [4 cost] 

Can hold up to 2 attacks. I usually play Uta [4 cost] if my opponent already have 2 to 3 characters on play.

Magellan [5 cost]

Can ruin any deck's curve by forcing opponent to return 1 Don to their Don Deck gives you an advantage especially when played in 2 consecutive turns.

Magellan will surely stay on board until opponent's have 8 to 10 Dons but even if they managed to K.O Magellan that time he already did his job.

Kaido [9 cost]

As I stated, My main goal is to slow the game phase of the opponent using Magellan and King [6 cost] to survive the early game. And having a rush 10,000 attack power that can K.O 6 cost below in the midgame is too powerful.

Thunder Bagua

2 cost for +4000 counter. My main reason playing Thunder Bagua over Blast Breathe is because of the additional Don that Thunder Bagua gives. Small advantage like gain +1 Don in Kaido is huge.

Also I can play Kaido [9 cost] on my turn 4 if Thunder Bagua triggers.

Top Knot

Bottom deck any cost 4 below with same effect in trigger for only 2 Dons is way too good in the current meta.

Didn't play any cost 2 blockers because of Marco [5 cost]. Also cards with +2000 counter are already enough sustain the early game.

Match Ups

MULLIGAN GUIDE : 

  • Going First : Mainly look for Onigashima.
  • Going Second : Mainly look for Onigashima or King [6 cost] with Magellan. 

TOURNAMENT MATCH UPS :

  • Round 1 Rob Lucci – WIN
  • Round 2 Whitebeard – WIN
  • Round 3 Whitebeard – WIN
  • Round 4 Whitebeard – WIN
  • Round 5 Whitebeard – WIN

MATCH-UP STRATEGY :

VS WHITEBEARD

  • I always choose going first against Whitebeard it's because I want to play Onigashima into King [6 cost] as early as I can so I can K.O their Atmos or Speed Jil at their turn 2 or at least play Magellan on my turn 3 if I don't have a K.O target for King [6 cost].
  • I’m playing Magellan because it's a free hit 6000 attack power every turn without spending a single Don and to delay Whitebeard [9 cost] as I can until they can't play it anymore.
  • Protect your life with 2000 counter cards as you can. 
  • In the mid to late game, if you managed to K.O Marco [4 cost] blocker either by attack or by effect, attack him as many as you can before you use Top Knot to Marco [4 cost] blocker. After they discard a lot of cards to revive Marco [4 cost] blocker, your opponent is forced to play another copy of Marco [4 cost] blocker on their turn. On your next turn play your Kaido [9 cost] to K.O their newly played Marco [4 cost] blocker and attack it again as many as you can. 
  • The finishing move against Whitebeard is to use Top Knot to Marco [4 cost] blocker then go all in Dons to Kaido [9 cost].

VS KATAKURI

  • Protect your life if you can so you can choose Trash Life against Charlotte Linlin [7 cost]. 
  • Delay Charlotte Linlin [7 cost and 10 cost], and Charlotte Katakuri [8 cost] using Magellan.
  • K.O as many as you can using King [6 cost] especially Charlotte Daifuku, Smoothie, and Cracker.
  • If they have Charlotte Perospero on board, attack to Leader first before you play King [6 cost] so you can K.O your opponent’s trigger character like Charlotte Smoothie, Daifuku, and Cracker.
  • Prioritize adding Hells’ Judgment over Little Sadi in the effect of Hannyabal.
  • Mostly, Decks aside from Whitebeard won’t let his life down to 2. So make him discard up to 2 by attacking the Leader then play X.Drake so you can have the upper hand in terms of resources.

VS ROB LUCCI

  • In this matchup I always choose to go second turn because most of the casting cost of Black Characters are even numbers.
  • Immediately do early counters so they can’t play Issho Fujitora against you.
  • Use Top Knot as soon as possible against Kizaru Borsalino.
  • Play Magellan as early and as many as you can.
  • Play Uta [4 cost] blocker if they already have Fukurô or Kizaru Borsalino on board.
  • Play King [6 cost] even without a target. Having 7000 attack power with 6 cost on board is a powerful threat since Sakazuki Akainu can't K.O a King [6 cost] without the help of other card/s.
  • The finishing move against Rob Lucci is to Top Knot their Fukurô or Kizaru Borsalino, attack Kaido [Leader] with 9000+ attack power to their Leader, Kaido’s [Leader] effect Trash Life, then direct hit using characters with high attack power like Kaido [9 cost].

Summary

My deck's main weakness is Zoro since most of my cards won't do much like Top Knot, Magellan, and Kaido [9 and 10 cost] if I didn't manage to defend my life in the early game. 

Hardest match up would be Rob Lucci because of cannot be K.O.’d blockers that's why I main 4 copies of Top Knot and 4 copies of Uta [4 cost] blocker for Fukurô and Kizaru Borsalino so that I can even the aggression of Rob Lucci.

Strong against Whitebeard because this deck list is only created to beat that deck because Whitebeard is still the deck to beat in the Philippine meta.

PROS – Not super reliant on the Onigashima since Magellan helps me have a decent board.

CONS – Sometimes Magellan comes out too late and Onigashima went bottom deck because of Hannyabal. Also doesn't have any searcher yet for Animal Kingdom Pirates.

Tournament MVP's are Uta [4 cost] blocker, Magellan, Top Knot, and a single copy of Kaido [10 cost].

I want to thank Team Pachamp especially Laurrie Funelas and Jec Lim for helping me build this powerful deck list, for practice and for providing everything I need to excel. I will surely use this deck list as long as Whitebeard dominates the Philippine Metagame.

To all Team Asiong for sharing game knowledge and for bloody practice. And to Gerald Mercado, Lyon Cu, Jayvee Rosario, Rizaldy Belarmino, Chito Racimo, Rob Reyan, Emm Lazarte and Alvin Rodriguez for supporting me all the way from the bottom to top.

Huge shout out to Team Arken for the support on every tournaments. 

Also want to thank and congratulate Aqua Card Games for this awesome event!

 And congratulations to all players who made it to the top 8. Happy gaming everyone!

[EN] Sanco: Garp Control: Underrated Deck in the New Meta

Invited Author: Sanco

Country: Canada

Introduction

Howdy all, my name is Sanco/PlayHeavy and I’ve been a TCG player with some moderately decent success ranging from Yu-gi-oh and Hearthstone to MTG’s legacy/commander formats. Hailing from Canada, card games have always been a great way to get out of the cold and have been a pretty active part of my life. I get into TCG’s for the deck-building aspects and feel like there is always an advantage in playing an unrepresented deck (Plus, you can just complain that your deck isn’t meta if you lose, this is an advanced strategy). As an early pioneer of Blurple Croc (which.. unfortunately has been put on the shelf for now), I’m all about playing odd decks that create interesting interactions and make unique matches.

On a serious note, I’ve had a ton of fun and some pretty good success with Black Red Garp, both at locals and online, even inspiring others to try with equal results. There have been a lot of revisions to the list but this one seems to be the most consistent one and allows for a toolbox of support against a varied meta, which has led to first place outcomes in the sim/online and multiple tops at locals.

Black is a strategy that attempts to balance both cost reduction and efficient removal in order to gain board state. What BR (Black Red) Garps ability allows us to do is run the most efficient removal package by allowing the leader to do all the reducing for us. This leads to a lot of oppressive plays that steal tempo from the opponent by removing practically any cards they play on most turns, while swinging for high damage with your Don attached leader. This deck aims to drag the opponent down into the late game and diminish all their resources. Red allows us to play efficient standalone removal as well, leading to a unique combination of resources that can go for cost or power based removal. Using these diff aspects to the fullest will lead to a lot of success, though the deck does take some practice.

Click into the image for the decklist in One Piece Top Decks

Deck Build

Garp Leader: 

The core of the deck, which allows us to reduce the cost of cards each time we place Don. This works well with 2Don Garp and Nicos paired with meteor volcano. It also pairs up this removal aspect with big swings with Don attached characters, quickly closing out the 1 life gap against mono-coloured decks.

The Garp Package

4x Garp (2Cost) : This card is seriously one of the most abused cards I’ve seen printed. As a going second deck, he clears any turn 2 opponents play if he’s not removed and leads to some of the most controlled games I’ve played in a tcg. Due to our leaders ability, we can almost always make character cost zero, making this Garp a Nico Robin on steroids.

3x Garp (5Cost): While Sakazuki is cool, this big guy is the new all star. In BR Garp, he is strictly better, providing the same removal for the same don investment + the advantage of attaching a Don to your leader/character. Usable on main (not on play), this card combos extremely well with Kuzan (10Don) allowing you to remove both the Kuzan target and a 9 or less card by activating this Garps effect. Worst case scenario, you slam him down on 5 don and make them sweat trying to remove him. 

4x Meteor Volcano: Extremely versatile removal that is flexible with our leaders ability, i dont often use the trigger unless in dire situation as its such a strong removal tool.

4x Guard point:  No radical beams here, we need efficient protection early to protect our garps / nicos and an early guard point can burn a lot of don investment from the opponents first attack against garp. If they dont play around it, any character they play next is going to be Garp’d (™)

4x Nico Robin: Essentially our extra Garps, have been saviors in KOing those pesky law boards and Zoro boards. Is a threat on its own and is at worst a 1k in hand.

The Rest:

4x Borsalino: Pretty much the most annoying blocker, catches people off guard and is almost guaranteed to get at least one block in against Red decks. Also incredibly strong against 10Cost Kaido and other black decks.

3x Koby: Just efficient removal while paired with leaders ability, but also trades with Okikus and Robins in the early game.

4x Kuzan (4Cost): Honestly not as good as i thought it would be without counter, but he keeps our hand healthy and his attack ability is great for knocking out Oden, Kids, and other threats. Keep in mind, our leaders ability can only reduce 7 or less, so we need Kuzans to help us get below 8 to finish them off.

2x Kuzan (10Cost): I wish I could run more, as I almost always win after a board is secured with this card. Great synergy with 5Don Garp and is a removal on his own + absurd stats.

4x Vista: A fast removal character, great for Zoro / Law decks and works great with the Otama Package

4x Otama: A flexible card both for the 2k spot, and the synergy with Vista, Nico and Jet Pistol

4x Chopper: its a 1 cost blocker, what else do you want

4x Shockwave: Turns out, the trigger is pretty good against Borsalino and helps the black matchups, and the Counter helps push you to the late game while cutting down wide boards.

2x Jet Pistol: Efficient removal, but too much gets clunky. Great when paired with Otama but fine on its own as well.

Deck Strategy

For the most part, our plan is pretty simple. We want to live as long as possible, and we do that by KOing everything. Garp is a going second deck, as we want to slam Garp down on the first turn.

Ideally, this is an outline of the first 5 turns in an ideal scenario

Opponents turn 1: Nothing/Blocker

Our turn 1: Garp

Opponents turn 2: 3 cost character, no removal

Our turn 2: attach 3Don to Garp character, reducing their character to zero. Garp attacks leader and KO’s the character.

Opponents Turn 3: They see a 3k tapped garp and attack raw with leader, we Guard Point out of the attack, and they spent 5 Don into a card that Garp will then KO again.

While this doesnt always happen, it does happen a ton of the time and I will devote resources to protecting Garp against decks that struggle with instant removal.

Beyond that, our curve is pretty good, we use leader ability to manipulate cost and use efficient removal like Koby and Meteor Volcano in the early game while slamming the Admirals down when we can. Kuzans help to remove the higher costed cards and serve as more beatsticks.

If we go first, we still have solid lines such as Nico robins into 5 Don garps to establish presence, or Vista if a faster response is needed.

Match Ups

Whitebeard:

Surprisingly, one of my highest performing matchups. Whitebeard seems to bleed himself out over the first few turns and most of his stuff is easily removed. When he gets down to that last life, he tends to play blockers that die to our removal and we overwhelm him. For the most part if you keep the board clear and counter out his big hits when you can, you’ll find that he’ll hurt himself enough to finish him off, just be careful of those radical beam full hands and you’ll be fine. This deck also struggles dealing with hitting lethal through Borsalino. Get rid of Marcos before he gets to 2 life, which is pretty simple in our deck.

Zoro:

Ill be honest, this can be a rough one. Borsalino’s help a ton here as theyre annoying to get through, but the deck can out speed us fairly easily. Meteor volcanos, vistas Kobys, Garps and Nico Robins are the all stars here. Mulligan for them early and use them to clear the board as much as you can. Once you get behind some borsalinos you tend to gain control fairly easily, but it can be a struggle.

Kid/Kinnemon:

Seems to be a fairly standard list between the two. I’d say Kid is stronger in the matchup due to the leaders double attack, but Garp has almost no issue removing their scary cards efficiently. Kuzans and Garps shine here as you don’t often have early game threats taking your life, and both are good at removing Kid/Oden. Be warned, 4Don Yamato can rest Borsalino, although honestly most players attack it with the 5k leader and get sad that Borsalino is still 6k on opponents turn when rested. Okikus and other tempo cards like Basil Hawkins are almost a non-issue and too slow to deal with us efficiently. I’d say we’re slightly favoured against Oden, and slightly disadvantaged against Kid.

RG Law:

One of our best match-ups, if we get the right cards. Garps, Nico Robins, and and Vistas are pretty great for early game control, since law tends to go wide with lower costed characters we usually have an easy time removing them. The one of 5Don luffy is still a threat through Borsalino, but they have a hard time dealing with the blocker otherwise. Stop them from going wide as much as possible and you’ll have a pretty easy time

Kaido:

Is this a deck still? You’d think that Kaido and the high costed units would be annoying to remove, but its mostly just queens and blockers which are too slow. They can drop 10 Drop kaido into your Borsalinos and nothing happens, and while the 9 drop Kaido can be a bit of a problem, its usually a little too late for them. We’re slightly favoured in this matchup, but not a ton of testing has been done as the deck seems to have lost its hype in OP02.

Doflamingo:

This deck is a brutal matchup. The 7k swing from leader is a little bit rough on our 4 Life leader and the efficiently played characters off the top make this a nightmare. Still try to retain board control but know when to start going for the face and ending the game off. If you feel like you’re losing control and not in threat of dying the next turn, it might be the time to start smacking him

Ivankov:

This deck is… not good against us, to say the least. They burn their own resources for us and have no rush cards. Most things get removed and the leader ability surprisingly doesnt allow for them to keep up. I don’t think I’ve lost to this deck more than one time. Them dropping ivankov character can be scary, but they dont have many great targets to bounce with the luffy they pull out and a Croc is just not fast enough.

Smoker:

This deck can be a little mix and matched. Dealing with the 5Don smoker from deck can be annoying, but we often dump don into cards anyway and can attack into him. Same goes for Borsalino. We have good removal for the rest and the heavy discards of both decks turns this into a slug fest. When they flood with their cost reduction cards, we usually take the game. However, they can also do a good tempo swing with leader ability each turn, so dont let the game drag on too long.

Summary

Pros of the deck: 

Incredibly fun to manage Don reduction + removal

Almost always feel like youre ahead, and never worried about any particular character or matchup

You get to Play Garp. Garp is cool

Cons of the deck

4 life means we can occasionally get rushed down if we dont mulligan/draw well. Unfortunately as an event heavy deck, we can also take some early hits by not having counters in hand and put us in a bad situation where we’re struggling against big leader hits.

Sometimes , you can have too much removal, and others not enough. It really depends on the playstyle and deck of your opponent, and i think the threat of having cards removed can make opponents play in a way that actually leads to their advantage.

Summary:

This deck honestly doesn’t feel like any other deck in the game as of yet. It has such an aggressive removal strategy that at times it feels like the opponent isn’t playing. While it does struggle a bit against faster decks, the new black event from the Navy deck has lead to some huge development in that area and I really think it’s the underdog of the format. While it might not be consistent enough as of yet to lead to any treasure cup wins, I do think it has a really niche spot in the meta and has a ton of favorable matchups. I look forward to developing it more as new support comes out and think that the rogue aspect of it can sneak you some good wins.

 

[JP] Robin: Won a Flagship with Whitebeard

Invited Author: Robin

Country: Indonesia

Introduction

Hey everyone, I am Robin/ Twitter: @IKI_Azu from Indonesia. Thank you for the invitation to write my first article on ONE PIECE TOP DECKS .

I participated in total of 3 flagship to this date since OP03 came out. I used Whitebeard with a slightly different list on the latest one and able to get top 4, first, and top 8. I won 2 standard battles in the same week as well. For this article I will go through the Deck explanation and share my journey to get my 2nd Flagship Zoro or 1st Flagship Zoro since OP03 came out.

Deck Explanation - Core Cards

First I will explain how the deck works and the core cards.

Cost 4 Marco:
Your main blocker, Very hard to remove. Play this only when your life is 3 (end turn gets to 2 by leader effect) or less. Usually played on 6 don turn/ 7 don turn.

Cost 4 vanilla:
Very strong on don 4 when going 2nd. It has 6k power which is technically the same power as your leader making it easy to guard from opponent attacks, however vulnerable to K.O by effect.

Cost 5 Marco:
This card is amazing, It K.O 3k power or less on play, has a 6k body and also very hard to remove as you can resurrect him by throwing event. You want to play this at your 5 don turn/ 6 don turn every time.

Cost 9 Edward Newgate:
At first glance, during OP02 to OP03 transition, this card looks bad. After researching and play testing for a while. This situation seems to be the best scenario. Deploy him on the turn when you have 1 Life remaining, and cost 4 Marco. This is the “unkillable formation” setup.

Radical Beam:
1 don 4k counter. How can I say no to that?

Moby Dick:
+2k to all unit is just too good.

Match Ups - My Way of Play Whitebeard

Mulligan guide: You always choose going 2nd if you win the coin toss/dice roll.

  • Going first: mainly look for Izou, 5-cost Marco
  • Going second: mainly look for Moby dick, 4-cost vanilla
  • Cards you look for but not in the starting hand: 4-cost Marco, 9-cost Edward Newgate.

Popular matchups:

Mirror whitebeard: The strategy is to hit their characters until their hand gets depleted, play safe for 1-2 turns with unbreakable formation. When they all in and failed, you technically win. Set up Edward Newgate before your opponent and keep Otama in hand. Use Otama to -2k their blocker marco, destroy marco with Newgate effect while swinging for lethal.

Ace: slightly favored(55-45) follow normal mulligan guide. Play everything on curve. If they have removals, great, otherwise, It’s hard for them to handle the board.

Blue Nami: Highly favored (70-30/75-25) Follow normal mulligan guide. Don’t be scared to put more attackers and 0 blockers. Mostly attack for 7k and 9k line when they have open dons. Save 5-cost marco for moji (1-cost vanilla) or Kaya. Play mostly 4-cost vanilla since the power is already 6k and attaching 1 don already hits for 7k. Don’t need to focus on unbreakable formation since their leader won’t swing at you.

Rob Lucci/ Smoker: slightly favored(55-45) Luci is more passive than smoker, They only deploy blockers and only chip you with 6k power and dropping indestructible blockers like Borsalino and Fukurou. At most they go for Ishou which is RNG. Then they will try to all in on the next turn. If they fail, you always win so just poke and play safe.

Smoker is more annoying as their Ishou + leader effect can make our Newgate to 5-cost making it vulnerable to 6-cost Sakazuki. Their hand size is not a lot so they can’t guard forever.

Pure yellow decks: Highly favored (70-30/75-25) Their cards interacts with opponent live which makes their card mostly become vanilla. Watch out for Ikoku trigger as it can destroy 4-cost Marco making you vulnerable when they try to all in.

Event Recap

Flagship Sumitako 23/02/25

I used this list with reference to JOKER (Japan) who won Championship Finals. I changed 2 guard point from his original list into 2 speed Jill/ 2 extra 6k vanilla because I feel that the key to winning mirror match is to have vanilla on board on turn 2 while going 2nd. From there, you will have advantage of chipping 2-3 extra cards from your opponent’s hand.

Tournament run:
R1 2nd (lost dice roll) vs whitebeard O
R2 2nd (won dice roll) vs whitebeard X
R3 2nd (won dice roll) vs ace O
R4 2nd lost dice roll) vs BY bigmom O
R5 2nd (won dice roll) vs ace O
Seed 1
Top 8 2nd (I choose by seeding) vs smoker O Top 4 2nd (I choose by seeding) vs dofy X

I kind of felt dofy was kind of high rolled by having perona turn 1, Moria vanilla on turn 2 and 3 from dofy effect, and Sogeking on turn 4 to wipe out my attackers. Very tough game to win at that point.

Flagship ogre puri 23/02/26

I used the same exact list I used for Flagship Sumitako as I felt like the run was ok, it’s just that at top 4 dofy kind of high rolled in my opinion. Participant was lower than expected.
Tournament run:
R1 2nd (lost dice roll) vs Y big mom O

R2 2nd (lost dice roll) vs whitebeard X R3 2nd (lost dice roll) vs Y big mom O R4 2nd (won dice roll) vs nami O Seed 3

Top 8 2nd (I choose by seeding) vs Whitebeard O Top 4 2nd (oppo choose by seeding) vs arlong O Final 2nd (oppo choose by seeding) vs whitebeard O

Nothing much to comment here. In final, oppo tried to all in on the “unkillable formation” setup and failed to finish. Next turn just all in and won.

Standard battle: IKI Cardshop 23/02/27

I tried to explore different list this time. I used Chamy’s list He got top 4 in Championship Finals and he also won a Flagship with the same list.
Result: 4-0, first place

Standard battle: Arcanum 23/03/02:

This time I decided to change a few cards and find my comfort list. I actually made a mistake. My initial plan was to play 2 guard point and 1 Ace. I changed the card last minute and didn’t realize until Tournament finished. Result: 5-0, First place.

Last but not least,
Flagship Chekku-Pointo 23/03/05

My comfort list for now. Everything seems just nice.

Tournament run:
R1 1st (lost dice roll) vs Whitebeard O
R2 1st (lost dice roll) vs Whitebeard O
R3 2nd (won dice roll) vs Whitebeard O
R4 1st (lost dice roll vs YB Bigmom X
R5 1st (lost dice roll) vs Nami O
seed 6
Top 8 1st (oppo choose by seeding) vs Ace X

Actually greed for lethal at top 8 whereas I can just play defensively and survive next turn and kill on the next turn.

I know it is a very long article. I hope by sharing many version of Whitebeard list you will find the comfortable list for yourself. I don’t think few card changes would impact much on the deck itself as the main point of the deck is quite straight forward.

I hope you enjoy reading this article. Thank you!

[EN] Julio: Top-4 LATAM Treasure Cup with Red Luffy

Invited Author: Julio Farfan

Country: Chile

Introduction

Hi guys, my name is Julio Farfan from Chile. I'm a classic player who enjoys card games, board games, and a little bit of legal gambling. 

I recently attended the Santiago de Chile Treasure Cup event, which featured a total of 256 players from all over Latin America. I went with the Red Leader Monkey D.Luffy from the Starter Deck, which, after a lot of playtesting, I found to be the most balanced and mid-range leader, something that Zoro lacked if you don’t establish a clear advantage early in the game.

Deck Build

My deck was aimed at a favorable match against green and red decks, focusing on Kid and Zoro, as they are the most popular decks in my region. During the tournament, the mirror match became more relevant, but I devised some strategies to gain an advantage.

Key cards that stood out in the tournament were:

3x Ben Beckman: it was a last-minute addition to the deck. Before this card, I was using the Brook Drop 4, but it was too slow for certain matchups, so I decided to swap it.

2x Bepo: a defensive card that, in certain cases, can function as an emergency removal to clear low-power units, and in conjunction with Otama, can even remove important cards like Nico Robin.

3x Law Promo: nice combo with Nico Robin or Jet Pistol, this card wasn't seen much at the event, but it helped me consistently take control of the board.

2x Red Hawk: even if I didn’t have it in my hand, letting 2 Dons in active mode was enough to force my opponent to play around it. The bluff was real.

Treasure Cup Day: Match Ups

Standing Rounds

R1: my opponent didn’t show up, so it was a free win for me.

R2: mirror match Luffy. I started second, and thanks to some defensive misplays by my opponent, I controlled the board, hitting constantly with magic numbers of 7k, 9k, and 10k for the win.

R3: another mirror match Luffy. Again going second, I was able to flood the board with characters and secure a fast win.

R4: R/G Law. Once again going second, Nico Robin and Bepo were the MVPs. The opponent couldn't establish a board, and that really hurt Law.

R5: Green Kid. You guessed it, I went second. This match was a spam of Luffy Drop 5; I used the 4 copies of it, and my opponent couldn’t believe that I always got another one after removing it. Well, that card's ability to bypass blockers really helped. Win for me.

R6: Green Kid, matched against a friend. Once again, I went second, and 2 Jet Pistols showed up early to remove the green control cards Okiku and Basil, forcing him to play Kid Drop 8 on a suboptimal board, and winning me the grinding game. It was a tough match, but I got the win.

R7: Kaido. Guess what… yep, I started second again. My opponent got afflicted with the Kaido curse and didn’t get the Onigashima stage card in his opening hand. Instead, he decided to use Who's Who Drop 3 to remove a Drop 2 Sanji that I played on my first turn, destroying his tempo as I was 2 Dons up, and he couldn't keep up with the spam of rush characters, leading to my win.

R8: Mirror Match Luffy – Loss. This time, I finally got to choose who went first and decided to try going first to test how well my deck would perform in that situation. My opponent surprised me by using vanilla cards from the Film Pack, securing his tempo due to the sheer power of the cards.

Top 16

Mirror Match Luffy

Game one, was tough from the beginning. I won the dice, but I decided to go second. During the match both of us focused on hitting characters to control the board, but in a decisive turn my opponent did a misplay in the last attack by declaring a diable jambe on Ben Beckman, card that is unaffected by it… I called the play and blocked with chopper, prompting my opponent to concede game one.

Game two, going second and my opponent was noticeable affected by his game one misplay influencing his plays. Was a quick game and took win 2-0. W

Top 8

Kid, staring second with Jet Pistol being the indisputable MVP card in both of games. The strategy was to focus on controlling the board to force my opponent to play kid drop 8 or law drop 5 inefficiently.

Was a long match, because I played the grinding game to reduce card by card his hand and securing the game. Win 2-0

Top 4

R/G Law Lose 0-2, sticking to the game plan by going second. The strategy was to play Nico Robin and blockers to protect her, but it was impossible to accomplish that. Basically, he drew the right cards to control the board on both games and I was unable to turn the table.

Later this opponent won the tournament.

Conclusion

It was a great experience, shout out to my friends and their support at every round giving me feedback to improve my game and matches.

Now time to wait the next big tournament, with the goal to take the first place home.

Julio Farfan 

@GrindmancerCL

[EN] Jeff: I brought Kaido to 2nd Place in Las Vegas Treasure Cup

Invited Author: Jeff Wiscovitch (2nd Place Las Vegas Treasure Cup)
Country: USA

As I’m waiting for my flight back to Florida I decided to write this report of how Treasure Cup Las Vegas went. 

Definitely an amazing experience and It solidified my love for this game, bringing a deck that most dismissed into a second place finish is my most precious achievement (so far). Before I get into the juicy stuff i want to give a few shout outs OrangeSamuraiD thanks for being a precious friend and great team member, looking forward to what we can do going forward, Garrett Farrington for keeping me headstrong in my deck choice and not letting me switch last minute.

The Worst Generation for being kick ass friends

And lastly to my finals opponent congrats and kick ass game!

My Deck Choice

I came in with Kaido and here is why I chose what i chose and how to maneuver the meta matchups. 

Kaido, for me, has been a tempo control deck at least in my mind and as a fellow MTG Control player I gravitated towards Kaido since Super pre-release. But that doesn’t stop the glaring weakness that is ramp and the mid game that Kaido does not excel in unless you see Onigashima Island, and Kings, so how did i circumvent that? 

Easy, I took my previous run at Treasure Cup miami and went into the think tank, and realized that going 2nd with Kaido is how you want to play the deck to achieve the most consistent results as it allows you to see more cards than your opponent over the course of the game, and if you did not open Onigashima it allows you more chances to see it in the early game where you can establish Onigashima without getting punished by your opponent for doing so. 

The other choice i made was playing a very aggressive vanilla package with 4 Babanuki and 2 Urashima, these cards are good when you opponent is trying to play around your Kings so you get no value, these cards are statistically the same as kings without effects, and in the mid game i need to keep up the pressure or i will get out valued and lose. The main goal of the deck is to survive until 10 DON and from there you can establish powerhouses such as the 9 cost and 10 cost Kaido’s. I decided to run 3 9 cost Kaido and 2 10 cost Kaido, due to the fact that in treasure cup miami i saw myself using 9 cost more than 10 cost due to the fact that the “Rush” Keyword is so strong in swinging tempo back into your favor. 

Now onto the Ramp package, I decided to run 4 Jacks, as there are sometimes  cards that are dead in certain matchups, like Queen into Red decks, or the Vanillas if you see your Kings even second copies of Onigashima, Jack turns these cards that was giving you no value in your hand to a 4k body on the board, and an extra ACTIVE DON, which is huge when trying to survive until 10 DON. For events I played a very small amount with only 3 blast breath, I think the card is really good but at 4 there is huge potential for blast breath to clog your hand and can lose you games where if it was a 2k counter it could mean the match.

Optimal plays going second:

When going second you want to turn 1 play a 2 cost blocker and pass, this is very important as your life is a very valuable resource into decks like Red luffy/Zoro or Green Kidd, Every life you take is a swing closer to losing the game. Ideally turn 2 you play Onigashima Island and Swing with the leader for 6k, forcing your opponent to either take the life or give you a 2k counter from hand. Turn 3 you either play King if they have a problematic card, or a Babanuki and swing lead for 6k and either take out a blocker that they played or a rested card on the field. It's also a option to swing 5k at a rested card with your leader to take a card from your opponent's hand and use King afterwards, to remove it anyway. 

Turn 4-5 you either play queens if you have the breathing room to do so or Kings if you need more board control, to set up a 9 cost Kaido turn for the next turn. Swing life if the cards on board pose no threat to you in the near future. 

Turn 6+ At this point you either play 9 cost Kaido and start closing the game or you use your active don and swing large numbers at your opponents and make it hard for them to pressure you back, notably King’s are 7K power, so alone they warrant 3K counter to not take damage, so 2 extra don or 1 extra DON on top of King makes it very hard to counter consistently. I have won plenty of games with only 2 Kings on board swinging 10k to life.

Preserving life is key and knowing when to take life is very important. Against green I like to stay at 3 life a majority of the game so it is much harder for them to use Kidd’s Ability to close out the game. And against Red I like to hover around 2 life so they can not sneak in a Diable Jambe, and Rush luffy for game.  2 Cost Black maria is the go to blocker for these matchups in the early game and you want to play kurozumi in the end game, Especially against red because 9 Cost Shanks can be blocked by 3k Power blockers or greater. Throughout the game i like to setup my hand defensively and sculpt it to what i want, preserving as many 2k counters as i can and holding all my 3k power blockers as well, If i see a blast breath i tend to hold it until the final turns of the game as that is when counter power becomes the most important.

The last tip I can give to those wanting to play Kaido is DON MATH IS KEY and knowing when to use Leader Skill to trash a life. Knowing your character's power and how much counter an average red or green or Law deck has, can help you punch through those grindy games. For example, Kings on their own are 7k, which is considered a sweet spot as your opponent needs a minimum of 2 counter cards or 1 event card to not take damage. But adding 2 more don makes it so it requires 3-4 Counter cards, and 1 event card PLUS a counter card. These trades allow you to survive and keep tempo in your favor and ultimately win the game over the next few turns. You never EVER want to use Kaido’s skill to burn your opponent unless you are pushing for the game. Ideally you would want 1 king and 9 cost kaido/10 cost Kaido or 7 cost Urashima, a combination of these cards can secure your game when your opponent is at 3 life with 4-6 cards in hand, or more convincingly at 2 life. This goes back to DON! Math, knowing the counter thresholds of your opponent, keeping mind if they have any DON! Active for event cards ect. 

An example game ender is as follows:
Swing King for 7k – if they take it great. (if they don’t we DO NOT go for the game here.)

Then you attach 7 DON onto the leader and swing for 12k power. (At this stage of the game the number is too high to counter it so most cases the life will be taken.)  

Then you use Kaido’s Effect and remove the 7 DON you attached earlier to remove the last life from your opponent. 

Lastly you swing with the last 3 don attached to the largest character, and this should secure the game, as Urashima swings for 12k/ 9 Cost swings for 13k/ 10 cost Swings for 15k. (Very large and hard to deal with).

 

Treasure Cup Day: Match Ups

Kaido can go into most decks without a real issue, but there are some plays you need to work around so you can win much easier. Red Luffy/Zoro being our weakest matchups and Green Kidd and R/G Law being our best matchups. Blue Doffy being a solid mid ground. 

Here is the notable match from swiss, and then I'll be explaining my top cut journey. 

Round 1 R/G Law – Loss: This game was quite the eye opener for me, as a majority of the time i see R/G Law as a “Bye” and never give it a second thought, I underestimated my opponent and i paid the price, the game went on and i was fortunate to get Onigashima on the right turn, but i saw no King. I played my Babanuki vanilla and attempted to clear the board as much as possible so I could slow down Law’s Ability and find stronger cards to potentially end the game. Unfortunately i did not see any of my Kings and only 1 copy of 9 Cost Kaido, so i was unable to push over the wall of blockers the law player established, and I was swarmed with a volley of swings I could not continuously counter. Definitely starting off at the wrong foot. 

After my Round 1 crushing defeat I was able to take on the rest of the day and win very convincingly without a sweat. The final round was difficult and ended in a loss. But mainly due to not drawing any of my 2 cost blockers and taking too much life early.

Overall got 14th after Swiss and made it to top 16! I was overjoyed after a crushing set of defeats in the Miami treasure cup. Time to rest for top cut Day 2 

Top 16 R/G law 2-0 (Win) I came into this match with overflowing confidence, I took my time with each of my plays, and made sure that anything that I did would not have come to punish me. Fortunately I was able to see my 6 cost Kings and played them turn after turn. The law player was unable to establish a board, and thus I was able to win by applying too much pressure to the law player's hand. Who knew 3 7k swings every turn was so strong! 

Game 2 was the traditional opener, with Island on turn 2 into king on turn 3, and vanilla turn 4. By this stage of the game I could tell my opponent’s hand was weak on counter power, so I took the gamble and pushed for game using the combination of 7 don on leader, detach to trash a life and swing with my guys for game. Winning this match was a sigh of relief,  I did it! I am one of the handful of players from the Florida region that has made top 8!

Top 8 Kidd 2-0 (Win) Sitting down in this match I was not worried as most of my local meta was green Kidd so I had a strategy. My opponent Sam Hsieh and I honestly played the match with jokes and smiles, it was like another day at locals. Game 1 I opened standard, had Oni on curve along with my 2 vanillas, I was able to establish a very threatening board that my opponent had a difficult time dealing with. The pressure the 7 cost 9k vanilla and the 5 cost 7k applied allowed me enough room to whittle down the hand, and preserve life. He was too busy trying to get rid of my characters. In the end I defended my board and ended the game the Kaido way. 

Game 2 I also opened very standard, this time though i played more queens as i did not see a king or any of my vanillas, Early into the game i showed no fear and just attacked him with a volley of queens, and i was eventually able to find a 7 cost vanilla and 10 cost Kaido. This game my opponent slammed 8 Cost Kidd on the table and attempted to reestablish the game and wall me out. Fortunately I was at 3 life and just attacked Kidd with my vanilla to get a counter out of his hand and proceeded to play 10 costs and wipe the board.  Shortly after he tried dealing with 10 cost but was unable too and ran out of steam. On to the top 4!

Top 4 Kidd 2-1 (Win) Top 4 was another Kidd matchup, and Game 1 I started very standard so I let out a sigh of relief, Was able to keep tempo with kings, wall up with Queens. And slowly took over the game little by little, my opponent went for the hail mary and I was able to clutch out with a blast breath from life! He conceded the game and we went on to game 2. 

Game 2 i opened pretty poorly, had no threats in hand and was going 1st, my opponent opened standard with a momo bonny play, and i just passed the turn, on turn 2 i played jack, discarding a second copy of king, to hopefully stay on curve. I drew an island the next turn and was able to slowly climb back into the game, unfortunately my opponent was able to play 8 cost Kidd and start his wall. I only had 2 Kings and some blockers, unable to break the wall I conceded and moved onto the 3rd game.  

Game 3 was a game where I drew Jack, a queen, a vanilla and some counters. No island! I set up the usual going second plays and this time i was able to play jack, discarding a dead card in hand, get another active don and play a blocker. My opponent just swung leader and played a Capone, This was a clear indicator his hand was weak so i pumped up the gas and got more aggressive, i attached 2 don onto my Kurozumi and swung lead with a blocker, he was quite flabbergasted, but took the life, then i played my vanilla and attacked lead. The next turn I played down an X drake, forcing him to discard a card, and proceeded with the onslaught of attacks. Played down my second vanilla and passed. I was able to end the game the Kaido way, and after the game my opponent showed me his hand, and there were no counters to be seen, what a rare sight and very unfortunate end.

Finals 0-2 Kidd (Loss)

I made it to the finals! I was overflowing with emotion. I could not handle the excitement, my opponent and I shook hands and agreed that no matter the outcome, both made it. Game 1 I opened a very dead hand, no ramp cards at all. I tried to mitigate my life but my opponent got aggressive and used Kidd's ability turn after turn. Was unable to keep the pace and eventually lost. Game 2 I opened my first hand 3 Onigashima, 9 cost Kaido, Queen. I had to mulligan. Post mulligan. 5 2k counters. I had nothing. My opponent played the best curves, was able to establish Basil, Okiku, and 8 cost. In the end I stood no chance, and i unfortunately conceded the game as there was no hope of me winning in the position i was in. 

Conclusion

Overall I am overjoyed with my performance and I am glad Florida was rooting for me every step of the way. It was quite the experience, as a veteran TCG player to finally make it to the end at a big tournament. And my hope is I can keep the tempo and produce more results for set 2 and keep on seeing the big stages. I am excited for the future of this game, and to see what decks I would pilot. I am super excited for Kaido into set 2, as well as Z .

[JP] Daniel: 1st Place Flagship with Rob Lucci CP Navy

Invited Author: Daniel Tan
Country: Malaysia

About me

Hi once again everyone, I’m Daniel Tan from Malaysia, currently an active player for One Piece Card Game. I’ll be giving a brief intro on my winning black CP9 Lucci deck on 25th Feb in the Kourindou Flagship tournament. I would like to thank One Piece Top Deck again for inviting me to give my two cents on the deck. 

This is my second invite for a written review on a deck this month post OP03 release by One Piece Top Deck, with my first article being on Yellow Katakuri, I would like to first explain why I pivoted from Yellow Katakuri to Black Lucci.

First and foremost, Katakuri is extremely weak against Red Whitebeard due to their lackluster mid-game aggression and board clearing capabilities compared to Black Lucci. It also struggles against Nami with weak board clear, allowing Nami players to be able to bounce back their key cards to be played again for draws, which is why Katakuri is put at a rather awkward spot when it comes to matchups in tournaments where Blue Nami and Red Whitebeard can be seen alot. Also, with the low amounts of green and purple (Kaido) decks in tournaments right now which black struggles against allows it to strive.

Mentioned above are my main reasons for pivoting to Black Lucci for recent tournaments. However, my predictions are that with Red Whitebeard’s topping slowly reducing lately, chances that Yellow Katakuri would move forward in tiers are high.

The Rob Lucci CP Navy Deck

The current build that I am using comprises mainly Navy based cards such as Kuzan, Akainu (my MVP), Issho, Smoker and Borsalino. Compared to some builds that play the CP9 line, I think that the Navy line is more stable and provides more control options to its player if played well compared to CP9’s rather low KO threshold, if used wisely, board clear with Meteor Volcano, 2C Garp, shock wave and Sakazuki (MVP) would give you more than enough mid game board advantage to carry you through late game and for the win. 

Black, being known for its board clear abilities, has always had an issue with their hand size due to cards costing a discard for effect. Therefore, having a good balance in card ratio will often give you clear targets to discard for effect, and that requires a lot of play testing and experience with the deck. The introduction of new cards which gave the deck a new leader option and new defensive/offensive has given the deck a great boost by increasing their board clearing capabilities and lifting a rather heavy burden (discarding a lot of cards) off them. I will give a brief explanation on the new cards and what they provide to the deck: 

Brennew – much needed searcher with a solid 3k base, increases the deck’s consistency. 

Fukurou – An effect Ko resistant blocker, gives you a clear advantage when against decks with mainly KO effects (Red, Yellow, Black) especially against Ace and Whitebeard. You mostly only play this out on the board when against the above mentioned colors. 

Bruno – Solid 6 cost 6k blocker that can spawn a 4c 6k vanilla upon KO or Khalifa for some hand renewal. You normally play this when board pressure is moderate and you don’t have sakazuki in hand to clear you opponent’s board. 

Khalifa – Can be combo-ed with Bruno and Shockwave for 5c removal, solid 2k counter with hand renewal abilities on play allows you to discard dead cards in hand and replace them with other more useful cards. 

Kumadori – 6k vanilla to be discarded as a counter and revived by Bruno, you normally only use it as a counter to be discarded to trash. 

Issho – one of the strongest cards black has ever gotten, having a solid 9k base for an 8 cost, the discard 2 ability gives you a natural edge fighting most of current meta decks including Blue Nami, Red Whitebeard and Red Ace. The -3 cost also gives you a much higher KO threshold for even better board control and advantage. 

Game Play

Next, I will explain briefly about what you would want to do early-late game with the deck. For Black Lucci, I would recommend going second if given the chance to choose because most of your key cards costs are in even numbers 

Early (1-4 don) – Focus on getting useful bodies on the board, Brennew to search, Kuzan to draw, Borsa for added defenses and sometimes Garp. Kumadori should only be played when facing decks with mainly effect KO board clear, Khalifa only when you need an early hand renewal. 

Mid (5-7 don) – Focus on removal of your opponent’s mid game pieces which would normally be 4-5 costs with Sakazuki, Kuzan + meteor shower, Kuzan + Garp. If you have dead cards in hand, you can always use Lucci to restand upon KO to give your opponent more pressure. 

Late (8-10 don and onwards) – Your 8 don timing when going second is absolutely pivotal against above mentioned meta decks (blue, red and sometimes Yellow), playing Issho at this moment will take 2 cards off your opponent’s hand and heighten your board clear threshold. After playing Issho you can continue focusing on board clear with your board clear pieces to keep your opponent’s board pressure low. 

Matchups

Lastly I will go through all the matchups I’ve faced so far 

Matchups: 

Kinemon – Hard – Your hardest matchup will be green because of their ability to rest your unit, try to play around it and use your board clear wisely. 

Blue Ivankov – Medium – Your opponent will need to have a very good hand and draws to win, their removal can be annoying but you will almost always end up having a better board than them if controlled well. 

Red Whitebeard – Medium – You have to clear their early pieces to reduce late game pressure coming from Moby Dick, find good timings to use your leader Lucci ability (not only late game) and Issho right on 8 don timing to apply more pressure to them. 

Green Blue Sanji – Medium – The deck actually doesn’t struggle that hard against you especially after the event card power boost given to the deck post OP03, don’t overthink on their leader ability and continue focusing on board clear, with only 4 life there’s nothing much it can do against your relentless assault. 

Blue Nami – Easy – Again same strategy when you are against Red Whitebeard, meteor shower will give them a big headache because their main draw power relies on certain 1 cost pieces. Your Sakazuki will mostly be used on their Zeff and 4c Mihawk. 

Yellow Katakuri – Focus on getting board advantage mid game by clearing their mid game pieces, 10c big mom can be annoying but with enough advantage generated during mid game you can mow through his health relatively easily even with healing. 

Red Ace – Medium – play your pieces wisely to play around his events, put a mental note to remind yourself what events he has everytime he searches. Issho works most of the time against him so as long as your Issho works it wouldn’t be hard. 

That’s all I have for now. Once again thanks for the invite and thanks everyone for reading till the end. 

[EN] Diego Loayza: Top-4 in Chile Treasure Cup with Green Kid

Invited Author: Diego Loayza
Country: Peru

About me

Hello everyone, my name is Diego Loayza from Peru. I’ve had my fair share of TCG experience with the competitive circuit of Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, Digimon and now dedicating mostly to One Piece TCG. 

The Leader

At this stage of the OP01 meta it should be no surprise for anyone that Kid is the best green leader, and one of the best leaders over all.  Its ability to hit twice per turn can be a menace for any opponent, as it lets the deck play aggressively or in a more control or midrange style, either way it is extremely consistent.

Why did I choose Kid for the Treasure Cup

As I stated previously, Kid is a powerhouse of a leader. However, for the Treasure Cup, I needed a specific version of Kid. I was expecting a lot of Kid and Zoro/Luffy players, so I needed a list that could guarantee the upper hand in mirrors, while not losing to red rush strategies. I was also expecting some Purple Kaido players, but Kid overall has a good match up against purple, so I did not worry too much about that. Here is the list I ended up using: 

It is also important to mention that this list was not optimized for playing against Doflamingo or blue decks in general, but I wasn’t expecting much of those… and boy was I wrong.

Key cards and Combos

  • x4 – Basil Hawkins:

    The mirror-defining card. The first Kid player to play this 5-cost has a ton of advantage over the game, since the mirror is solely defined by who gets the better board presence (Not necessarily the widest). This card makes your opponent’s 8-cost Kid a card they won’t be eager to play. Running four of these made the deck tappers (Neko, Izou, Okiku and Straw Sword) extremely valuable.

  • x4 – 7 cost Eustass Kid:

    The anti-Hawkins. As stated earlier, Hawking can turn the tables on a mirror match, but 7-cost Kid can turn that again. As Kid untaps every single turn, their Hawkins won’t be able to do its shenanigans, and you can keep hitting with a 8K power for life. This card is another reason why opponent’s 8-cost Kid were almost always dead cards in hand.

    It is important to notice that this list has a fewer quantity of counters, as you are running 4 Hawkins and 4 7-cost Kid, so you have to be very careful in managing the resources in your hand, translating in taking hits early that you could otherwise easily counter in order to have more counters for late game. As I said, mirror is all about board presence.

  • x4 – Trigger Killer:

    The Rush Killer. Get it? Okay, sorry. Trigger Killer helped a lot against Zoro, and with less frequency it also helped against Luffy and Doflamingo. Not only was it great coming out from Life as trigger, but It also helped getting rid of characters I previously attacked with my leader, forcing my opponents to waste counters from their hand. Especially good against a defended Robin, Zoro or Okiku.

  • x3 – Paradise Waterfall:

    The option of choice in this decklist. This option helped protect my life with its 2K counter, but mostly helped protect my characters untapping them, a tapped Hawkins or Okiku saved by this card was almost game. It is also important to mention that having 2 blocker Trafalgar Law and 4 7-cost Kid, this card allowed blocking twice with the same card very frequently. Overall Paradise Waterfall was almost the MVP of the event, if it wasn’t for the next card. 

  • x1 – Straw Sword:

    Lastly, the hidden gem of the deck. I enjoyed very much watching the face of the opponents as I play this Starter Deck Option. This card allowed me to finish games tapping big blockers, or getting rid of big characters that my opponents thought were safe because of their high cost. Having a full set of Basil Hawkins in this list just made this single card in the deck the real MVP. As a side note, remember that this card is searchable from your Bonneys, as it is a supernova event.

I want to clarify some of the decisions in the deckbuilding. As I was expecting a lot of green players, I had to make room for Hawkins and 7-cost Kid, so I decided to took out the Wano package of Momo+Raizo. I tested a lot of different lists, and somehow I always ended up using Momo’s ability and not finding anything. In a similar manner, whenever I found Raizo, it was just a 1K counter, and with a cost of 3, that was replaced with the Trigger Killers.

Seeing as I had more high-cost characters, I decided to take out 1 of the 8-cost Kids, and having just two of them made Punk Gibson much less relevant, so I decided to take out all of them and prioritize Paradise Waterfall.

Lastly, X.Drake, even though I run only two-of, proved to be a valuable asset in the match up against Doffy and its army of 4-cost or less warlords.

Treasure Cup Day: Match Ups

Round 1 – Green Kid – Win

This was the first big event of One Piece TCG I was participating in, so naturally I was nervous. Fortunately, my opponent was a great guy who also used to play Pokemon, so we shared a talk before beginning. As for the match, I drew 2 Hawkins and played them on turn 3 and 4, the game was pretty much decided there.

Round 2 – Red Zoro – Win

This game I was really unlucky, didn’t get to see any Killer and got 2 Jet Pistols out of my opponent’s life. I was rushed pretty fast, but I managed to stabilize the board with my opponent with no hand and play an 8-cost Kid.

Round 3 – Blue Doflamingo – Win

This was my worst nightmare. My deck was not optimized for the blue match-up. Luckily, I mulliganed into an 8-cost Kid and later got another one searching with Bonney. This was the longest game I had in the day and we almost got into time. My opponent played really good, but the second 8-cost Kid sealed up my win.

Round 4 – Blue Doflamingo – Win

Doflamingo… again… However I imagine my opponent bricked, the game was really quick and I didn’t actually feel pressure from its side of the field. He put tons of blockers, but Okiku+Hawkins just got rid of everything.

Round 5 – Red Zoro – Lose

Up to this moment I was feeling very comfortable with my performance, almost securing the Top-64 Chopper. My opponent played early threats with Vivi and rush Zoro. I managed to wipe his board, but it cost me most of my resources and I left him with just one card in his hand. However, on his turn he played a Ben Beckman, next turn Shanks and finished me with an unblockable Luffy. I was not expecting such high costs on the list, as it seemed really low-cost invested with the Vivis, but my opponent played really well making me feel that way, and when I realized the gimmick of the deck it was too late.

Round 6 – Red Zoro – Win

Not too much to say about this match. This time I did get a Killer and a Paradise Waterfall from Life, so I got rid of its board without spending Don. Kid and a Hawkins sealed the victory.

Round 7 – Green Kid – Lose

This was probably the most frustrating match of the day. Remember how I many times stated that my deck is optimized for the mirror? Well, sometimes you just don’t draw what you need. I never got to see a single Hawkins, or neither 7-cost or 8-cost Kid. He managed to finish me off with his 8-cost Kid, a Raizo and multiple Punk Gibsons.

Round 8 – Green Kid – Win

At this point, I was extremely nervous. This was the match that would define if I had a chance to crawl my way up into the Top 16 and play the Day 2, or finish my journey in the Treasure Cup. My confidence in my match up against green Kid was just demolished by the previous match. 

But in spite of my doubts, the deck decided to shine its brightest as I managed to play a Hawkins turn 3 in an empty board, followed by a 7-cost Kid played by my opponent and tapping out all his Don. Next I played Straw Sword into the Kid, put three Don on my Hawkins and proceeded to hit for 9K the Kid. My opponent had to let its Kid go into the trash securing my board and winning the game.

Top 16 – Green Kid – 2-0 – Win

I got paired against another Peruvian player, great couple of games, but as I said, my decklist was optimized for mirror match.

Top 8 – Green Kid – 2-1 – Win

Another Green Kid player. First game I bricked and the next two I got to see early Hawkins+Okiku.

Top4 – Red Luffy – 1-2 – Lose

These were some intense games, my opponent played really well rushing me in the first game. I managed to establish an 8-cost Kid to win in the second game. Lastly, I started slow in the third game, and Jet Pistol on my opponent's life sealed the deal.

Conclusion

Overall I had a great experience, got to meet a lot of amazing people and high-skilled players. Got nice prize cards and the drive to keep on playing this great game. Shoutout to all the peruvian community and thank you for reading my report on the Treasure Cup of Santiago de Chile. 

I hope Bandai makes an event such as this in Peru too!

[EN] OrangeSamuraiD: Miami Treasure Cup Judge Report.

Invited Author: Diego (Twitter: OrangeSamuraiD)
Country: USA

About me

Hey guys it's Diego, OrangeSamuraiD here with a judge report from Florida's first ever major One Piece Card Game event hosted by Pro-Play Games. This was a huge event with over 500 players in the main event and several side events going on through the weekend.

Background:

So I am originally a Yu-Gi-Oh! Player. I played from release all the way to Duelist Alliance. Always repping Gladiator beast through thick and thin. Later on I joined up Pokemon and played XY format until they announced that they'd keep BW in expanded for longer so I just decided to stop because I didn't want to backtrack and buy all those BW cards for expanded. So One Piece is my first Bandai TCG and and I played since its inception by even going as far as buying the Japanese Starter Decks to play with friends alongside using translation sheets. For judging I helped judge some local stores with Super Pre-Release, judged Pro-Play Games' Deck Limited Battle Webcam event, judged a Half-K tournament at Versus Games and most recently judged Miami Treasure Cup.

Day 0: Friday – The Ride

So as you'd know I am from Central Florida so its about a 4 hour or so drive to Miami. Not the worst. My friends Daniel (also a judge), Alex, Matthew and Rojas carpooled and left around noon. While there we made a few stops, namely looking for Blisters at Targets. Rojas pulled some rare Yu-Gi-Oh Card named "The Bystial Lubellion" and its worth a pretty penny from what I hear. Also I had brought some Blisters my friend Lee had sold me a while ago that I wanted to open in Miami so on the ride to the hotel we opened a few blisters (posted the videos on my socials) and it was just all rares unfortunately. We get to the hotel, the DoubleTree which was conveniently within the convention center venue for Treasure Cup (Thanks PPG for the event room discount). We walked around  the hotel for a bit and met up with Ben one of the judges for the event and chatted. We were starving so we ended up doing Hotpot/Kbbq.

After that we went back to the hotel and playtested the rest of the night.

Day 1: Saturday – The Main Event

Day started for us at 6:30am as both Daniel and I had to report to the venue at 7:30am. We got ready and were warmly greeted by the PPG staff, George Machado, PPG's CEO and our Head Judge Nate. We immediately started working and set up tables.

Once we finished we went downstairs to help direct people into either go upstairs to scan the QR code to enter the wait list for the main event or come to us to validate their check-in and give them their participation prizing. Pretty much that's what we did for a few hours until we went back upstairs and just walked around the floor answering any questions people might have. For the most part we just wanted people to be good with the sleeving situation as a lot of players weren't aware that in this game you cannot have clear sleeves at all. They must be fully opaque as in you are not able to see the card back through the sleeve. Another thing we look for was players leader cards. We allowed Top Loaders and mini-snaps but unfortunately those magnetic sleeves were deemed too big. Lastly was the biggest one looking out for "spicy" sleeves or other accessories like playmats and deck boxes. Don't get me wrong. I too can appreciate "spicy" accessories but let's keep that off of events where there's families and children present. It put us in a bad light and it could make or break a kid's ability to play this game because a parent might see that there's perverts out there using near-pornographic sleeves or other accessories in front of children.

Event started around 12:00PM or so and it was announced to be over 500 players big with a whole 9 rounds of Best of 1 swiss until there is a lone undefeated player and then tomorrow there would be a top cut playoff of top 16 Best of 3 matches. 

We had a player meeting and went over some rules of the game along with End of Time Procedures. With that, Miami Treasure Cup was underway. We initially had some setbacks with the player Best Coast Pairings App and players were unable to input their match results but our judge team was there to help any player who had any issues and in the later rounds the problem went away. Most of the rounds went smooth sans a few issues with players having issues with End of Time as they claim they weren't aware of the rules. However, the rules were stated at the player meeting. 2 Turns each or 5 minutes of extra time, whichever happens first then if the game isn't over it goes to tiebreakers which were highest life, deck count, characters on board and who took life last before the game becomes null (which thankfully it never came to that). Other than that most common judge calls were for things like people forgetting to set their life and we had to come in and repair the game state. Everything was fairly organized and each judge had a respective section that we had to oversee. At one point I did become the stream judge for Round 8 which if I recall correctly was the Kid vs Law match (Law won). We were told to be on Twitch to read the chat so it was fun seeing familiar names from the Discord chatting up there.

 

Besides that there weren't many issues with the tournament itself but rather the venue. The Miami Airport Convention Center doesn't have the best reception. Had some friends on ZERO phone service and I on AT&T was sitting on like 1 bar of service. Another thing was that the venue at one point got extremely hot. Which I get, there's over 500 souls inhaling and exhaling. I was there last month for the Otakufest convention and the hall we were in was the hall they used for the rave and it was also very hot back then too. Neither of these things were on the TO. Thankfully the venue staff provided a refreshment area with plenty of water and cups that never ran out and introduced some fans to help with air circulation so that was a plus.

As the day came to a close, a top 16 was declared and one of our locals Brandon Corpuz made it through so that was awesome. He's an amazing player. Unfortunate that some of the homies bubbled out or had to play each other through as the tournament progressed. Most notably my friend Fern Castellanos who got 20th and my The Worst Generation Podcast teammate Garrett Farrington who ended up 19th one of his two losses was Kyle Waple who also had an amazing run, made top 16 and blinded us with his 4 Manga Shanks and serial Luffy Leader in his deck.

Congrats to him making top cut btw I hope he can get the 4 Treasure Cup Choppers to use in his deck. After the tournament wrapped up, the judges helped distribute the prizing for the Top 128 with their Event Pack prizing and Top 64 with Treasure Cup Chopper prizing and then called it a day. Thankfully several Central Florida friends made that Top 64 cut. Jeff, Cameron, Hunter, Dae Han, Frankie, Jackson, Fern and Garrett so congrats to them on their prize cards.

Day 2: Sunday – Top 16 + Side Events

Same deal as Saturday, we got up at 6:30am to report to the venue at 7:30am. Top 16 players and onlookers started to trickle in as a group of judges were performing deck checks for the top 16 players. Not much action here until we started the top 16 matches.

I was in the Top 16 area for that round but as the hour passed by around 10am we started doing side events. 8 man pods for point prizing which could be used to redeem for valuable items like toys, plushies, tcg accessories, cards or even Super Pre-Release Starter Decks. This was a super interactive experience because people just kept signing up for the event so I was managing multiple pods at  time along my other judge partners Fernando, Danny and Joel. While all that was going on Top 8, 4  and finals were taking place. Andrew Dovale ended up winning the main event going undefeated 13-0 through the whole event and won every Top Cut match 2-0. Incredible feat by an incredible player. I look forward to seeing more from him in this game.

After that a 3v3 team wars side event did launch but it was on the other side of the room and was still managing my pods so I didn't get to see much. At around 2pm or so we started to get ready for the biggest side event that started at 3pm. A 256 person side event for a Treasure Cup Chopper card. Ultimately the demand for the event became so big that we lifted the cap and the event ended up with over 280 players. An amount bigger than Treasure Cup Australia or Treasure Cup Las Vegas. So due to the new player count the tournament became an 8 round swiss tournament with no top cut and Top 4 would get a Chopper while Top 8 would get some Event Packs.

This event went a lot more smoother and quieter than the main event mainly due to the prizing. Only Top 4/8 get something so being x-2 is already pretty much being eliminated so there were a lot of drop outs every round. Not many big judge calls were made beside no-shows where we had to go and award the player their win but also drop the no-show or having us come to every table to help them out with the end of time procedure. Ultimately day 2 of the event went on for a whole lot longer because we had a whole 8 round event starting at 3pm while Day 1's main event was 9 rounds starting at roughly 12pm. As the event was winding down I got cut and I decided to walk around and hang out. I opened some blister packs with some new friends and got to watch my friend Sagar (Kid) vs David Rodriguez (Law) at table 1 of the final around of the Chopper Side Event. Unfortunately Sagar did not get the win but David Rodriguez had been insane all tournament long because I was watching his matches in the side event pods earlier in the day.

That Law deck was absolutely cracked. With that day 2 came to an end and so did Florida's first ever major One Piece Card Game Tournament. It was a phenomenal experience to be a part of this event. Even if I didn't play I would still wholeheartedly say I had an insane amount of fun being there, meeting all sorts of people. Whether they were brand new people I met for the first time, followers of the page, Facebook friends, YouTube friends or Discord friends. It was an absolute pleasure seeing all your faces in person and it made proud to see how big this One Piece community is. This game is still in its infancy and it's already pulling such incredible numbers and bringing all this attention to other TCG players.

I do want to give some shout outs to some special people I finally got to meet at the event. My friend Janak aka Johku of eccentric hats and custom card notoriety.

It was a pleasure finally meeting you brother and I hope to see you around  in future events. All my Discord homies, Reis, Kite, RayRamz, Fake. Loved threatening to ban you on the discord <3 . My friends from Facebook who always support me: Ryan, Wynter, Eliott, Giancarlo and everyone else who came by to say hi to me. Each and every single one of you is the MVP and what makes this community great. Again, just like I tell everyone I'm just schmuck that loves One Piece and I just want to do everything I can to raise awareness for this game and have it be successful and this weekend proved that we're heading in that direction.

Lastly, special thanks to George Machado for giving me this opportunity to be a part of this incredible event as part of his judge staff. Nate for being a great head judge for the event and also thanks to my team members Daniel, Danny, Joel, Fernando and Ben for being amazing judges. It was a pleasure working with you all. Thank you all for reading if you made it this far and as I wrap up this Judge Tournament report I am getting ready for Treasure Cup Vegas hosted by Play!TCG inside the LVL UP Expo.

See you guys in Vegas!

 

[EN] Thibaut: Top-4 in UK Treasure Cup with Green Kid

Invited Author: Thibaut
Country: UK.

About me

Hello, my name is thibaut and I was playing kid in the tc cup as Birmingham. I’m a long time Tcg player with a good history in Pokémon and flesh and blood.

The Leader

Kid as a leader is amazing as it can restand for 3 don so you can swing 2 times for 12k if you need to finish of opponent with only one life left. It is also really consistent where you can always do stuff with your hand while other decks would struggle.

Check out this link for the decklist in One Piece Top Decks.

I play kid as it can be both a control but also a aggro deck if needed. I like that you can swing twice with your leader. Op 01 is generally a controlish meta and kid can build up a wall really fast where almost no deck can get passed. 8c kid really shines here for me.

-8c Kid : you need to attack this and with cheap blockers and a lot of counters in your hand they just can’t hit you

-7c Kid : blocker and after every turn it’s restand if it has a don to it so they can never attack into it. So you always pressure for 8 minimum to a card or life.

-Bonny : best searcher in the game for supernovas.

-Hawkins : great for mirror because it restands if you attack a character while Hawkins has a don attached to it.

Your best option is to go first as you can get a blocker out or Bonny. Then you go into a Okiko and then you are basically controlling the board if they can’t remove it. If no Okiko then just play more blockers or search with your Bonny for more options. 7c Kid or Hawkins depending on what type of match you are playing.

Kid in Matchups

Luffy/zoro : maintain board control and try to develop a Hawkins , 7c , 8c Kid. Don’t let the field get out of hand but make sure you got characters that can easily kill luffy or shanks. Once they are top decking and you have a good field of blockers and 8c you attack his life.

Kid : try to find 7c Kid, Hawkins. These things can’t almost never be removed so they are horrible to deal for your oppenent. Play it very safe and slow and prioritise board control over going for life. Only go for life if you can. Okiko is also a nice card to have but it can get removed easily.

Doffy : try to find 8c kid and build up a wall of blockers. Try to maintain his field first so when you drop the 8c kid he can’t remove it easily. Let doffy take your life as you need cards in your hand to support your 8c kid.

Law : keep his board small he eventually will run out of cards and then you can finish him of easily. Okiko , Hawkins , 7c Kid and 8c Kid are all great to make sure he can’t attack too much. Early hand you want Neko , Straw sword and Izou though.

Kaido : hardest match for us. Mulligan for 7c Kid. Play nothing till turn 4 and then play 7c Kid. All the turns before you swing 2 times to his life so he is forced to use 10c kaido. Once it drops play another 7c Kid, Hawkins or 2 Okiko. Keep rushing for his life don’t interact with his board unless you have Hawkins then you swing freely into his board.

Matches in tournament where a lot of Kid and Law so that should be your main focus. Adding a extra Hawkins and Straw sword is possible by cutting 4x Drake. Luffy is upcoming but they need to Jet pistol your cards at the right time and mostly they miss this window.

[JP] Daniel: Yellow Katakuri, my first win in OP3 meta

Invited Author: Daniel Tan
Country: Malaysia

About me

Hi everyone, I’m Daniel Tan from Malaysia, currently an active card game player for One Piece Card Game. I'll be giving a short intro on my winning Katakuri deck on 11th Feb in Gaia’s OP03 celebrations tournament. I would like to thank One Piece Top Deck for giving me the chance to write this review

The Leader

There were some changes made by me after play testing a few more rounds and I decided to add in more cards that would benefit my mid-game more because my mid game felt very weak especially when having all the big cost cards in hand. Cards added in were Cracker, Thunder bolt, Galette and Buzz cut mochi.

After the update I also managed to secure first place in my local card shop Burning Soul’s Standard weekly battle, also a huge shoutout to my friends OSL, KC, Hao Hui, Darren and Ming Wan for helping me playtest and improve my deck

Yellow being a relatively new color is a deck focused on removing and increasing health. With Katakuri, you will be able to constantly play with more information than your opponent that you can put into good use if piloted correctly by repeatedly using Katakuri’s leader skill which is relatively cheap (1 don only for a 7k attack). With the additional leaks you can plan ahead on which card from health do you want your opponent or yourself to have during the duel.

Decklist in the first win.
Decklist after updated, got 2nd win.

Check out this link for the decklist in One Piece Top Decks.

Yellow being a relatively new color is a deck focused on removing and increasing health. With Katakuri, you will be able to constantly play with more information than your opponent that you can put into good use if piloted correctly by repeatedly using Katakuri’s leader skill which is relatively cheap (1 don only for a 7k attack). With the additional information you can plan ahead on which card from health do you want your opponent or yourself to have during the duel. 

Early game (2-4 don) – getting small cost characters down like Sanji, Pespero, your 1c searcher or blockers. 

Mid game (5-7) – focus on removal of mid game pieces (4-5 cost character’s) with events or by attacking with 7k base. Make sure health is lower than your opponent to get additional effects from cards.  

Late (8-10 onwards) – Removal with Katakuri and added pressure with 10c Big Mom Charlotte Linlin, from here on out you can focus on just putting bodies on board without attacking unless necessary (to clear their board), with your high cost cards on hand you will have leverage to play resource game with your opponent until you think you can kill them in 1 turn. Their remaining health would most probably always be their high cost cards that you put in with 8c Katakuri that don’t provide any counters or defensive use to them. 

Matchups

Zoro – Relatively hard to fend off early but you win late if fended off early 

Kinemon – Can be medium to hard depending on opponent’s build 

Ivankov – Relatively easy, this deck has basically no out for your 8 and 10 cost units 

Kaido – Relatively easy, Kaido’s tempo game can’t really keep up to newer decks anymore especially when you can heal. 

Black Yellow Big Mom – Relatively hard if dragged to late game, this deck has the natural advantage being constantly lower health than you. 

I have yet to meet newer red decks like Ace and Whitebeard, but I do feel that Whitebeard is the strongest deck in OP03 meta and the matchup would be very hard. 

That’s all I have for now, thanks for reading everyone. 

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