We usually showcase the top-performing decks in the One Piece Card Game and discuss how the meta is evolving. But today, we’re switching things up to shine the spotlight on some underrated Leaders who rarely make tournament appearances.
I picked some off-meta Leaders that don’t see much play in the One Piece Card Game, but the community always gets excited when they show up at tournaments. These decks appeared at local events and held their own against top meta decks, some even managing to win it all!
Purple Black Zephyr
Purple Black Zephyr is a control Leader, capable of KOing a 3-cost or less Character when he goes for the attack and gains +1,000 Power. However, to activate his effect, you must return 4 Don cards. So it has a high drawback, which prevents us from activating it on the early turns. Thankfully, the list has Black Maria and Charlotte Katakuri for their ramp effects, allowing us to activate Zephyr’s KO effect without worrying about falling behind on Don.
Laboon’s effect reduces the cost of an opponent’s Character by 4, allowing you to KO up 7-cost Character with your Leader effect. 8-cost Katakuri is there to block attacks, protecting your Leader in the late-game, and can go for offensive attacks while remaining a blocker. We have Rebecca, Queen, Nami, and Shirahoshi as other lower-cost blockers to protect our Leader and make sure we can get more turns to attack their Leader and win the game.
Shirahoshi can also reduce the cost of an opponent’s Characters, helping us keep control of the field. Black Maria will be important since she ramps us back up in Don when we activate our Leader effect, removing the drawback.
Lastly, 10-cost Kuzan is the strongest play, especially if he sticks on the field for more than one turn. When played, Kuzan will reduce the cost of all of the opponent’s Characters by 5, then he can KO a 0-cost Character, so technically a 5-cost Character. We can then activate Leader effect to KO an 8-cost or less Character. 10-cost Kuzan’s cost reduction will remain during upcoming turns, making sure you can keep control of the field.
Purple Foxy
Purple Foxy can slow your opponent’s aggression through his effect, preventing your opponent’s rested Leader and one of their Characters from becoming active, removing two attackers from their upcoming turn. You have to have 3 {Foxy} type Characters in play and return 3 Don to activate this effect, but we have multiple ramp cards to make sure we can keep up with the opposing player.
3-cost Porche is a key early Character to play, cheating out a Purple Character with a Power of 4,000 or less. Porche lets us go wider on the field and makes it easier to have 3 {Foxy} type Characters in play.
7-cost Foxy ramps 1 Don, which should be useful in the late-game when we activate our Leader’s effect. Additionally, 7-cost Foxy reduces the Power of all of the opponent’s Characters by -1,000 during their turn. This makes it harder for the opposing player to get their attacks through, forcing them to attach more Don to their Characters to create a threatening attack.
On top of that, we have 8-cost Charlotte Katakuri to block an opponent’s attack while being useful as an offensive attacker.
Blue Black Rebecca
Blue Black Rebecca was hit hard with the loss of Gecko Moria, but we’ll try making her work in the current meta. Unfortunately, Rebecca can’t attack, which can lead to frustrating turns where you can’t KO a certain rested Character. If you have 6 or less cards in your hand, you can rest 1 Don to look at the top 2 cards of your deck. You can then choose 1 {Dressrosa} type card and add it to your hand, and then trash the other card. So, Rebecca will be a draw engine, making sure you don’t fall short on card resources, and if games stretch out long enough, you can even outvalue the opposing player.
The {Dressrosa} deck has Brook, Roronoa Zoro, Kyros, Gum Gum Red Roc, and Gravity Blade Raging Tiger as control cards to remove your opponent’s Characters from play. We have many options to control the field, and with cost-reduction cards, we can remove higher threats, slowly bleeding opponents of resources, and making it exceptionally difficult for them to set up a winning turn.
1-cost Corrida Coliseum plays a key role in pressuring the opposing player, giving your {Dressrosa} type Characters a pseudo-rush, meaning they can attack a Character on the turn they’re played.
Yellow Kalgara
Yellow Kalgara lost popularity in OP10 and OP11 metas, but it’s one of the cheapest competitive decks to build, capable of holding its own in tournaments. This is an aggressive version, relying on Ohm and Holly to go wide on the field and start attacking to pressure the opposing player.
Leader Kalgara’s effect adds to your aggressive strategy, playing 1 {Shandian Warrior} with a cost equal to or less than the number of Don on your field. So you can cheat out Wyper or 6-cost Kalgara, adding an additional Character for your opponent to deal with. However, activating Leader effect means you have to add the top Life card to your hand, so you have to be wary not to fall too low on Life cards and risk losing on the upcoming turn.
Although Mont Blanc Noland isn’t a {Shandian Warrior}, he synergizes with this deck to activate his effect, requiring you to have 6-cost Kalgara in play to add the top card of your deck to your Life area.
Red Yellow Sabo
With the fall of Black Yellow Monkey D.Luffy, Red Yellow Sabo has become the strongest ST13 Leader. This is a {Revolutionary Army} type deck, using Empario Ivankov to go wide on the field by cheating out Karasu or Lindbergh.
Let’s talk about Leader Sabo’s effect first. You can add a 3-cost or more Character with 7,000 Power or more from the field and onto the top of your Life area, and then give one of your Characters a +2,000 Power boost.
Leader Sabo’s effect is giving us an extra Life card to make it challenging for the opposing player to win the game, but also, you’re gaining a Power boost on another Character to go for an aggressive attack.
This list has Kid Luffy and Ace to cheat out their higher-cost versions, so we can use Leader effect to place the adult brothers at the top of our Life Area and then cheat them out through their kid versions. We’ll gain +2,000 Power on our Leader to go for a more aggressive attack, while at the same time, we’re cheating out a Rush Ace or Luffy for an additional attack. This allows us to line up multiple attacks in one turn and start taking the opponent’s Life cards to put them in the danger zone.
Red Blue Marco
Red Blue Marco keeps showing up in tournaments as an off-meta choice, and sometimes, he manages to go far and even win the whole tournament. This Leader can give -2,000 Power to one of your opponent’s Characters, making it easier for you to KO it through an attack or an effect. 7-cost Edward Newgate, Silvers Tayleigh, and Divine Departure synergize with your Leader’s Power reduction effect, allowing you to put higher Power Characters in range for your removal plays.
Marco can also filter your hand for better cards, drawing you a card, and adding 1 card from your hand to the top or bottom of your deck. If we don’t want the card anymore, we can place it at the bottom of our deck. However, we can place certain Characters at the top of your deck to cheat out through Emporio Ivankov or Sanji.
9-cost Sanji is the strongest play in this deck, letting you cheat out Characters like Silvers Rayleigh, Monkey D.Luffy, and Edward Newgate, putting two big bodies on the field in one turn.
Purple Kaido
The Purple Kaido is all about deramping to activate extremely strong effects, which means Black Maria is a premium card in this list to remove the deramp drawback from the equation. Onigashima Island lets you ramp once every turn, which will come in handy to play your high-cost Characters a turn earlier and to not fall behind on Don too much when you deramp.
Leader Kaido returns 7 Don to trash an opponent’s Life card. We’re returning a lot of Don cards, so we usually won’t activate this effect until late in the game when we’re trying to set up the winning turn. However, since we have Black Maria in this deck, we can use her effect to ramp Don and match the opponent’s Don, allowing us to activate Kaido’s effect without falling behind on Don.
This Kaido deck is full of late-game Characters. Charlotte Karakuri is our strongest blocker to defend our Leader and can be used offensively while remaining a blocker during your opponent’s turn. 9-cost Kaido and 9-cost Charlotte Linlin are there to remove an opponent’s Characters while remaining in play as big bodies.
10-cost Kaido is the strongest control Character, returning 6 Don to KO all of the Characters on the field except himself. It’s a great play to shut down the opponent’s upcoming attack turn and make it harder for them to come back into the game.
Yellow Vegapunk
Yellow Vegapunk is a 2 Life card Leader that can’t attack, so he might seem weak at first sight, but he’s far from that thanks to the Eggheads working together! Vegapunk’s effect lets you place 1 of your {Egghead} type Characters with a cost of 5 or less from your hand to the top of your Life cards, face-up.
This means your opponent will need more attacks to go through the Life cards you’re adding, making it harder for them to win the game. On top of that, your Egghead Characters have a Trigger effect that lets you play them on the field. So by placing them in your Life Area for 1 Don, you can later play them on the field, developing a Character without having to use as much Don.
We have tons of Egghead Characters to ensure consistency isn’t an issue. Nami and Luffy can help control the field, Lilith for extra resources, and 5-cost Vegapunk and Shaka for their blocker keyword.
We’re also running 5-cost Ace for the Rush attack. We often will be on low Life cards, so we can easily activate his Rush to make use of his 7,000 Power attack. As for Yamato, she’s giving us an extra Life card if we’re at 1 Life card or less, and can potentially KO an opponent’s Character.
