The release of OP14 Azure Sea Seven has begun in the East, and players are already diving into the newest cards to understand how the set will shape competitive play. With a fresh wave of Leaders and powerful new tools, we’re all hoping we can break out of the Black Imu, Red Blue Ace, and Green Zoro.
OP13 meta has felt a bit restrictive for competitive players, and even with the EB03 release, Red Blue Vivi didn’t remain a solid deck for long. We saw her grabbing a lot of locals, but failing to perform in major tournaments.
In this article, I’ll be showcasing early decklists for the OP14 Leaders, breaking down their core mechanics, overall game plans, and what you should keep in mind when trying these decks for the first time.
Purple Donquixote Doflamingo
Purple Doflamingo is a 5-Life Leader with an effect that lets you return 1 DON!! to redirect the opponent’s attack to a different target. This can be a huge defensive tool, protecting your Leader or one of your key rested Characters. By forcing attacks onto less valuable Characters or Characters your opponent can’t KO as easily, you make it much harder for your opponent to remove your board or pressure your Life totals. The downside, of course, is that returning DON!! slows your tempo—so this list includes several ramp cards to keep you ahead.
Your early ramp package consists of Baby 5, Pica, and Monet.
Baby 5 doesn’t apply offensive pressure, but she provides +1 Active DON!! when she’d played. If she’s KO’d, you may return 1 DON!! to gain a Life card. Most opponents will avoid attacking her to deny you the Life, but this is exactly where Leader Doflamingo shines; he can redirect their attack onto Baby 5 and get the Life card.
Pica gives you an Active DON!! at the end of your turn. The longer he stays on the field, the more value he generates, helping offset the deramp from Doflamingo’s Leader effect and other Character effects.
As for Monet, she adds an Active DON!! on play, and when she’s KO’d, you draw 2 cards and trash 1. You also gain 2 rested DON!!, setting you up for a powerful follow-up turn and helping you recover from any DON!! you’ve returned earlier in the game.
Because the list runs several strong 5-cost Characters, the 8-cost Doflamingo is an ideal fit. His ability to cheat out a 5-cost unit helps you develop a wide board and immediately start applying pressure.
Your biggest play is the 10-cost Doflamingo, which returns 3 DON!! to activate one of two effects: KO a Character with cost 8 or less, or choose up to 3 of your opponent’s Characters with cost 7 or less—they cannot be rested until the end of your opponent’s next End Phase.
Which option you choose depends entirely on the board state. One line clears a major threat, while the other locks down multiple attackers and slows your opponent’s entire game plan.
Blue Jinbe
Jinbe plays an aggressive strategy, using his Fish-Man army to create multiple high-power attack threats.
Leader Jinbe can trash a card from your hand to give up to 2 rested DON!! to one of your {Fish-Man} or {Merfolk} Leaders or Characters. You can repeat this effect as long as you have cards to discard, allowing you to set up an extremely strong finishing turn.
The deck runs several 1-cost 3,000 Power units, which rely heavily on Jinbe’s effect to push their attacks over key thresholds and turn them into real threats.
Wadatsumi provides a +2,000 Counter and can be cheated into play with Aladdin, helping you develop early pressure while keeping your hand safe.
Your strongest play is the 8-cost Jinbe, which shines most when you reach 10 DON!!. He’s a 10,000 Power attacker that can rest 2 DON!! to draw two cards and bounce a 7-cost or lower Character to your opponent’s hand. This means you only get his full On Play value at 10 DON!!; however, you’ll often play him earlier for the Rush attack. By using your Leader effect to trash a card, the 8-cost Jinbe gains Rush, letting you immediately leverage his 10,000 Power.
Green Dracula Mihawk
Green Dracule Mihawk gains a +1,000 Power boost if you’re against a <Slash> attribute Leader, so if you’re going up against a deck like Green Zoro, you’re gaining a massive advantage throughout the whole game.
Leader Mihawk’s effect lets you rest one of your cards to set 3 of your Don as Active if there is a Character with a cost of 5 or more in play. You can rest any of your cards to activate Mihawk’s effect, which means you can rest a Character, Don, or even a Stage for the 3 Active Don. However, by activating Mihawk’s effect, you are not allowed to play any Characters anymore. This means we’ll be using the remaining of our Don to go for heavier attacks to force Counter cards or play Events.
The 5-cost Tashigi is a massive mid-game Character that can’t be removed by an effect thanks to her ability to rest a card instead and remain in play. On top of that, during your turn, Tashigi can rest 2 cards to gain a +2,000 Power boost that sticks during your opponent’s turn, becoming an 8,000 Power threat. Leader Mihawk giving us Active Don will make it easier to use Tashigi’s effects.
As for the 7-cost Shanks, he synergizes with our Leader’s rest effect. When rested, Shanks can rest one of the opponent’s Characters with 7,000 base Power or less. This can be helpful to KO a Character or to rest a blocker, preventing it from blocking one of your attacks. During the opponent’s turn, when Shanks is rested, all their Characters will have a -1,000 Power reduction, making it harder for the opponent to get attacks through.
Black Yellow Gecko Moria
Black Yellow Gecko Moria is an interesting deck, using Thriller Bark Pirates Characters as a core part of the strategy. Let’s first look at Leader Moria’s effects. During your turn, you can trash 1 Character in play to give your Leader and all Characters a +1,000 Power boost. This enables a stronger attacker turn, especially if you have multiple attackers lined up. Additionally, the list is full of On KO effects, so using your Leader effect will generate more value.
Additionally, when attacking, Leader Moria lets you trash 3 cards from your hand to gain 1 Life card. You’re technically losing 2 cards to gain a Life card, but in the late-game, this effect will be worth it to get dead cards out of your hand and force the opposing player to commit an additional attack to win the game.
We have Yellow Characters, Victoria Cindry, Absalom, Dr. Hogback, and Perona with a Trigger effect that lets you play a Character from trash, which you’ll be relying on to go wider on the field. Absalom, Dr. Hogback, and Perona all have an On KO effect, which makes them great targets for Moria to KO.
6-cost Moria is how we go wider on the field, cheating out a 4-cost or less Thriller Bark Pirates from trash and attaching 1 rested Don to your Leader or one of your Characters.
In the late game, we have 8-cost Moria and 9-cost Boa. 8-cost Moria lets you select a 4-cost or less Thriller Bark Pirates Character, and you get to choose whether you want it on the field or in your Life Area. This is adding more survivability in the late-game, potentially giving you an additional turn to win the game. As for the Boa, she’s also giving you a Life card, but also forcing your opponent to add a Life card to their hand, making it even easier for you to plan a winning turn.
Blue Yellow Boa Hancock
Blue Yellow Boa Hancock can draw you a card when you play a Character during the opponent’s turn. We can play a Character during the opponent’s turn through Trigger effects from cards like Ran, Gorgon Sisters, and 9-cost Boa Hancock.
If you attach 1 Don to Leader Boa, you can punish the opponent if they KO your {Amazon Lily} or {Kuja Pirates} type Characters with 5000 base power or more. If they do choose to KO them, they’ll be forced to add the top card in their Life Area to their hand, making it even easier for you to set up your winning turn.
Playing Gorgon Sisters through her trigger effect can be a huge tempo swing, developing a 5,000 Power Character that can attach rested Don to your other attackers, setting the stage for a huge attack. Ran is also doing a similar job, giving a rested Don to 1 of your {Kuja Pirates} type Leader or Characters to enable your Leader effect and go for stronger attacks.
Gloriosa lets you place the card you want in your Life Area, which means we get to put the Trigger card we want to plan a wider field, enable our Leader’s draw effect, and pressure the opposing player in the mid-game.
The 5-cost Nami can force the opponent to add a Life card to their hand, making them more vulnerable to your attackers.
Boa gives us more survivability while putting your opponent behind on Life cards. She’s a late-game win condition capable of going for heavy swings to set up a winning turn, especially if they’re at 0 Life cards and you have Perfume Femur to ignore blockers.
Black Crocodile
Black Crocodile changes the rules, preventing you from removing the opponent’s Characters through an effect. This is a massive downside, but it makes sense because of Crorcodile’s ability to give a -10-cost reduction.
Crocodile can KO 1 Baroque Works Characters to give an opponent’s Character a -10 Power reduction. This might not seem too useful since we can’t KO the opponent’s Character, but we have multiple cards in this deck that can activate their effects on a 0-cost Character and can trigger their On KO effects. Croc also lets you trash the top 2 cards of your deck, and this can be beneficial to add more cards to the trash for certain card effects.
For example, KOing Mr.2.Bon.Kurei lets you play a 5-cost or less Baroque Works Character from your trash, which means you can get the likes of Miss Doublefinger, Mr.1, or Mr.5. If you have 7 cards or more in your trash, 5-cost Miss Doublefinger gains a +1,000 Power boost to become a 7,000 Power Character and gives all Baroque Works Characters +2-cost, making them harder targets to remove.
Ms. All Sunday lets you go wide on the field, cheating out, from your trash, two Baroque Works Characters with a cost of 4 and 1. You can play Mr.4 if you need the blocker and searcher Miss.Valentine for the card draw.
8-cost Crocodile can slow down the opponent’s pace, preventing one of their 9-cost or less Characters from attacking on the upcoming turn. He’ll also draw you a card if your opponent has a 0-cost or an 8-cost Character in play. On KO, Crocodile lets you trash a card from your hand to play him from your trash. This is where Leader Crocodile’s effect comes into play, letting you KO the 8-cost Crocodile to give a -10-cost reduction, replay the 8-cost Croc, prevent another Character from attacking, and draw a card thanks to the -10 Power reduction.
Red Trafalgar Law
Red Trafalgar Law is an aggressive deck relying on the Leader effect to swap the base Power of two Characters. The idea of this deck is to have a low-cost Character in play and to swap its Power with a higher-power Character that cannot or hasn’t attacked yet. This turns that low-power Character into a threat, forcing the opposing player to use a Counter card or give up a Life card.
The list has multiple Rush attackers to keep pressuring the opponent, and they can be perfect targets to swap power around after they’ve attacked. 3-cost Zoro, 4-cost Kid & Killer, 7-cost Zoro, and 9-cost Law are all Rush attackers to help aggro the opponent down.
9-cost Trafalgar Law is a massive Rush attacker, which we want to use as a target to swap the base power, using his 10,000 Power for a low-cost Character to take advantage of. During your defensive turn, you can swap your Leader power with a Character’s power using 9-cost Law’s effect for one battle, which can be massive in the late game to defend your Leader and buy yourself more time.
