Blue Boa Hancock is an off-meta Leader who fell in popularity after Doflamingo‘s rise. Boa Hancock relies more on returning Characters and gaining value over the opponent. The longer the game takes, the more likely you’ll outvalue the opposing player and eventually win the field.
The Blue Boa deck is still seen in competitive play, and sometimes it can manage to fight through the top meta decks and make it far. If you have the cards and want to take Boa Hancock on a test run, play against friends, or even give her a shot in tournament play, I’ll cover the list and the deck’s strategy here!
I’ll also share different cards you can include in the list!
Leader
Blue Boa Hancock is a 5 Life card leader with an effect that allows you to draw a card whenever a Character is removed from the field by your effect. So two things to account for here, it doesn’t matter whose Character it belongs to that’s removed and KO, trash, or return effects all trigger Boa Hancock‘s effect.
So when building the Blue deck, we need to add as many cards with effects that activate our Leader, getting an extra draw once every turn will help put us ahead of the opposing play in resources, and eventually, they’ll struggle to keep up with us.
Boa Hancock Decklist
How to Play
1-cost Searcher
1-cost Sengoku is an early searcher to play, helping us find one of our {The Seven Warlords of the Sea} type cards. 4-cost Jinbe is usually the Character to grab, but 4-cost Trafalgar Law is a great choice to have some control of the field.
Blockers
1-cost Trafalgar Law and 3-cost Donquixote Doflamingo are low-cost Blockers to protect your Leader and Characters. However, they’re both {The Seven Warlords of the Sea}, so we can search for them or cheat them out through Jibe.
4-cost Characters
Jinbe is how this deck goes wide in the early game, developing two Characters in one turn. With Jibe, you have 3 options to choose from, 3-cost Doflamingo, 4-cost Trafalgar Law, or 4-cost Crocodile. 4-cost Trafalgar Law is the best option since he can return one of the opponent’s 4-cost Characters to their hand and remains in play as an attacker. Returning a Character will also activate your Leader Boa‘s effect, drawing you a card.
Return Characters
6-cost Jozu is great for returning one of the opponent’s 6-cost or less Characters to their hand. However, you have to return one of your own Characters to your hand to activate this effect, so you usually want to go for low-cost Characters like Songoku or 1-cost Trafalgar Law. You easily replay them later in the game or use them as Counter cards.
Kyros‘ effect returns one of the opponent’s Characters with a cost of 5 or less to their hand. So it’s weaker than Jozu‘s return effect but it doesn’t force you to return one of your Characters. Kyros is also a 9,000 Power attacker, a bigger threat and more challenging to remove.
Both Jozu and Kyros are great at triggering Leader Boa‘s effect and gaining an extra card draw. This will help you get ahead of the opponent in resources and control of the field.
Return Events
Gum-Gum Red Roc and Gravity Blade Raging Tiger are both returning Characters to the bottom of the opponent’s deck, which will trigger your Leader, Boa Hancock‘s draw effect.
Gum-Gum Red Roc is more suited to remove 1 high-cost Character who you can’t easily deal with. Whereas Gravity Blade Raging Tiger is best played when the opposing player has two 6-cost or less Characters in play.
Trigger effects on Gum-Gum Red Roc and Gravity Blade Raging Tiger can catch opponents off-guard and remove one of their Characters from play.
Late-Game Kaido
10-cost Kaido is a powerhouse, having 12,000 Power to go for heavy attacks. On Play, Kaido gets to return two of the opponent’s Characters to their hand, one being 8-cost or less and the other being a 3-cost or less. We get to remove one win condition for the opponent and the 3-cost we remove can be a blocker for instance, or if there’s nothing worth removing, we can opt to only return 1 Character.
Counter Event
Gum-Gum Rain is great if you need Counter Power to protect your Leader or an important Character. You have to trash a card from your hand to gain +3,000 Power, so you’ll have to trash the least important card.
Mulligan
We want to have Jinbe in our opener to kick off at a good start. 1-cost Sengoku is also a great keep to search with it and potentially return to your hand later in the game.
Turn-Based Gameplay
Going First
- Turn 1 (1 Don): 1-cost Sengoku
- Turn 2 (3 Don): 3-cost Doflamingo
- Turn 3 (5 Don): Jinbe, Trafalgar Law, or Pudding.
- Turn 4 (7 Don): Kyros, Jozu, or Gravity Blade Raging Tiger.
- Turn 5 (9 Don): Kyros, Jozu, Gravity Blade Raging Tiger, or Gum-Gum Red Roc.
- Turn 6 (10 Don): Kaido.
Going Second
- Turn 1 (2 Don): 1-cost Sengoku
- Turn 2 (4 Don): Jinbe, Trafalgar Law, or Pudding.
- Turn 3 (6 Don): Jozu.
- Turn 4 (8 Don): Kyros, Jozu, Gravity Blade Raging Tiger, or Gum-Gum Red Roc.
- Turn 5 (10 Don): Kaido.
Other Cards to Include
- 6-cost Boa Hancock synergizes with this deck, letting you return one of your Characters to prevent one of the opponent’s Characters from attacking. You’re activating your Leader effect for the extra draw and slowing your opponent’s upcoming turn.
- Perfume Femur is great as a finisher event, allowing you to bypass the opponent’s blocker and go for a straight attack on their Leader to win the game.
