The Revolutionary Army has a new Leader in OP13, with numerous support cards that enable his strategy. The Red Black Sabo is a Dressrosa/Revolutionary Army type Leader that can be weak in the early game, but becomes a tougher Leader in the mid to late game, gaining a Power boost and sharing it with your other Characters in play.
This deck relies heavily on 8-cost Characters to enable its strategy, so we run multiple mid-game cards that can give themselves a cost boost, giving you access to your Leader’s Power boost ability on earlier turns.
In this guide, I’ll explain Red Black Sabo‘s game plan, how to plan each turn, and what your win conditions are. Let’s get started!
Leader
Red Black Sabo is a 5 Life card Leader with a drawback effect that reduces the Power of your Leader by 1,000 as long as you have 4 cards or more. This means in the early game, Sabo will be a 4,000 Power Leader, having weaker offensive pressure and being harder to protect the early Life cards. So, in most cases, you’ll be giving away the first 2 Life cards without protecting your Leader to get rid of the -1,000 Power reduction as soon as possible.
Now let’s talk about Sabo‘s actual strength! Attaching 1 Don to Sabo and developing an 8-cost or more Character gives your Leader and all of your Characters in play a +1,000 Power boost. This Power boost is during your and your opponent’s turn, which means you’re setting up heavier attacks to force more Counter cards while also making it harder for the opposing player’s attacks to go through.
The list has cards like Sabo that can give themselves a cost boost to hit 8-cost, letting you activate your Leader’s effect a turn or two earlier to get access to the +1,000 Power boost.
Decklist
How to Play
Early Searchers
Belo Betty and Koala can search for Revolutionary Army type cards from the top of your deck. This adds more consistency to your deck, allowing you to search for the cards you need to make sure you don’t have dead turns with subpar plays.
Koala can look at the top 3 cards, and the other 2 cards left will go to the Trash, which can be useful when you play cards like Monkey.D.Dragon that rely on your Trash.
1-cost Garp is another searcher option, letting you look at the top 4 cards of your deck to add 1 card with a cost of 3 or more to your hand. Garp isn’t tied to a specific card type, so you can draw cards like Stussy or Rogers through it.
Revolutionary Army HQ is a Stage that you can rest once per turn to trash a card from your hand and look at the top 3 cards of your deck before choosing 1 {Revolutionary Army} type card to add to your hand. This helps you get rid of dead cards, find cards you need the most, and have the cards you want in your trash.
Cost Boost
Hack is a 4-cost Blocker that gains a +4 cost boost, turning him into an 8-cost Character. We won’t get access to Leader’s Power boost on Don 4, but if Hack is played on Don 5, you can attach 1 Don to your Leader to gain the Power boost on both Leader and Hack.
Hack‘s Blocker keyword can protect us from an opponent’s attack, and we get to choose when we sacrifice Hack to an attacker. When KO’d, Hack lets you KO one of the opponent’s 4-cost Characters, so you get to remove an offensive attacker or a blocker to weaken their side of the field.
At Don 6, we’re planning to play the 6-cost Sabo. This Sabo is one of our strongest plays, acting as a 7,000 Power blocker that can give himself or another Character a +2 cost increase and attaches a rested Don to your Leader.
The Don you’re attaching to your Leader, along with the cost boost on 6-cost Sabo, will trigger the +1,000 Power boost, turning 6-cost Sabo into an 8,000 Power Character to block an attack, and can even go for an offensive heavy attack.
You can continue activating 6-cost Sabo‘s effect on future turns, benefiting from the cost increase to make it harder for opponents to remove him and to keep attaching a rested Don for stronger attacks.
Dragon Wide
8-cost Monkey.D.Dragon is your strongest play in the deck, letting you cheat out a 6-cost or less Character from your trash to go wider on the field. You’re gaining value from Dragon and setting up multiple Characters to overwhelm the opposing player.
When you play Dragon, you have to return 3 {Revolutionary Army} type cards to the bottom of the deck before cheating out a 6-cost or less Character. So, we’ll return cards we don’t expect to need from our trash, like 1-cost Characters, events, stage, or another Dragon.
Ideally, we want to cheat out the 6-cost Sabo for his Blocker keyword and Don attachment, creating a strong turn with two high-power Characters to pressure the opposing player and put them behind on the field.
Control Stussy
Stussy is a massive play if your opponent has a high-cost win condition in play that you want to remove. Stussy lets you trash one of your Characters in play to KO an opponent’s Character, regardless of its cost or Power. When going for Stussy, we can trash one of our 1-cost searcher cards to remove a win condition while also developing a 9,000 Power Character that we can use for her heavy attacks.
Rush Attackers
Red Monkey.D.Dragon is our Rush attacker, having 9,000 Power and attaching 2 Don to your Leader or one of your Characters. You’re triggering your Leader’s effect to gain a +1,000 Power boost on your Leader and Dragon for an even stronger attack turn, going for at least two heavy attacks to try and KO rested Characters or threaten the opponent’s Life cards.
On the other hand, Gol.D.Roger is great for setting up a win condition, especially when your opponent has blockers in play. If you or your opponent are down to 0 Life cards, your opponent cannot activate a Blocker as long as Gol.D.Roger is in play, weakening their defensive turn entirely. If they do decide to activate a Blocker, they’ll automatically lose the game, so blockers are completely out of the equation with Gol.D.Roger is in play.
Counter Event
Hair Removal Fist is a Counter Event that gives your Leader or one of your Characters a +2,000 Power boost. However, if you have a {Revolutionary Army} type Character with a cost of 8 or more, Hair Removal Fist will give you another +2,000 Power boost. You’re basically gaining a +4,000 Power to Counter a heavy attack.
+2,000 Counters
All of these Characters are {Revolutionary Army} type with a +2,000 Counter. Koala can reduce the power of an opponent’s Character by 3,000, making it more vulnerable to your attackers.
As for the Sabo and Morly, they’re mostly there for the +2,000 Counter, but can be played if you have nothing better to play. Sabo still has the Blocker keyword, and if you have 15 or more cards in your trash, he becomes a 3-cost Character, easier to drop on the field alongside another Character. Morly can increase his cost to 8, enabling your Leader’s effect.
General Tips
- Don’t protect your Leader early on. At 4,000 Power, you’re forced to commit more Counter cards to protect your Life cards, so it’s generally fine to take the first two hits and remove the -1,000 Power reduction.
- Your trash matters. Keep track of your trash when going for plays like 8-cost Dragon to make sure you have the cards needed to return to the bottom of the deck and a card to cheat out.
- Decide whether to go for board control or aggressive play. Your deck has tons of blocking strength, and the +1,000 Power boost can enable an extremely strong defensive strategy. With that in mind, you can either go for a fully aggressive turn to target the opponent’s Leader or take a slower approach, clearing out the field and overtaking the late-game.
Mulligan Tips
Going First: Early searchers, Hack, 6-cost Sabo, 8-cost Dragon.
Going Second: Early searchers, Hack, 6-cost Sabo, 8-cost Dragon.
Other Cards to Include
- St. Marcus Mars is a removal play to KO one of the opponent’s 5-cost or less characters. If you have 7 or more cards in your trash, St. Marcus Mars becomes a blocker, perfect for protecting your Leader in the late game. He’s a consideration to add to the list since you can cheat him out through 8-cost Dragon, developing a blocker while KOing one of the opponent’s Characters.
- 5-cost Karasu enables your Leader’s effect. When attacking, he can force the opposing player to trash a card, dropping them down on card resources.
- 5-cost Koala gains +3 cost if your Leader is a {Revolutionary Army} type to become an 8-cost Character. Using her Activate: Main effect, you can place 1 card from your trash at the bottom of your deck to give your Leader or 1 of your Characters a rested Don. We’ll want to attach the Don to our Leader Sabo to activate his Power boost effect.
- Black Vortex gives a -4,000 Power reduction to the opponent’s Leader or Character and negates the effect of the opponent’s Leader. This is usually useful against decks like Green Zoro, which heavily rely on the multiple Leader attacks to pressure you.
Turn-Based Gameplay
Going First
- Turn 1 (1 Don): 1-cost searcher.
- Turn 2 (3 Don): searchers.
- Turn 3 (5 Don): Hack.
- Turn 4 (7 Don): 6-cost Sabo.
- Turn 5 (9 Don): 8-cost Dragon + 6-cost Sabo.
- Turn 6 (10 Don): 8-cost Dragon + 6-cost Sabo.
Going Second
- Turn 1 (2 Don): 1-cost searcher.
- Turn 2 (4 Don): Hack.
- Turn 3 (6 Don): 6-cost Sabo.
- Turn 4 (8 Don): 8-cost Dragon + 6-cost Sabo.
- Turn 5 (10 Don): 8-cost Dragon + 6-cost Sabo.
Closing Words
Red Black Sabo is all about Power boosting your Leader and Characters, making them tougher targets for the opposing player. With Dragon cheating out a Character from your trash, you get to go wider on the field and outvalue the opposing player, setting the stage for an even stronger late-game.
This is one of the strongest Revolutionary Army decks in the OP13 meta and has managed to perform well in a couple of major tournaments so far.
