PRB02 has already launched in the East, bringing 18 new cards into the OP12 meta—and it’s now finally releasing in the West. These new additions have the potential to shake up the competitive landscape, giving older archetypes fresh tools to improve consistency and strengthen their presence.
In this article, we’ll break down the standout PRB02 cards and highlight the decks that benefit most from them.
The 7-cost Charlotte Pudding will likely be a staple in any purple deck running the Big Mom Pirates package. For 7 DON, you can return 2 DON to draw 2 cards and play a {Big Mom Pirates} Character with 6,000 to 8,000 Power directly from your hand.
This effect pairs well with cards like the 5-cost Charlotte Perospero, 6-cost Charlotte Katakuri, and 8-cost Katakuri, allowing you to develop a 5,000 Power body alongside a 7,000 or 8,000 Power threat. It’s a powerful way to go wide and pressure the opponent.
Purple Charlotte Katakuri and Purple Yellow Pudding decks are especially well-suited to make the most of this card.
Purple Charlotte Katakuri
Purple Charlotte Katakuri has been in a rough spot in the OP12 meta. We’ve seen the Leader manage to win a couple of tournaments in the early OP11 meta, but he quickly fell off despite having strong players like 8-cost Katakuri and the ability to cheat him out with the 2-cost Katakuri.
With the addition of 7-cost Pudding, we might see more Purple Katakuri players in tournaments, setting up an extremely strong turn to cheat out the 8-cost Katakrui for 7 Don along with a 5,000 Power Character.
Yellow Purple Charlotte Linlin
Purple Yellow Pudding is an off-meta Leader who we rarely see being played in a tournament setting. She has a strong matchup against the popular Blue Purple Luffy, and with the addition of the 7-cost Pudding, she’ll receive and much-needed boost in the mid-game, giving you a strong turn to make it harder for the opposing player to control your field.
It also makes it easier on you to transition to your 10-cost Big Moms without worrying too much about the board presence.
The 6-cost Gecko Moria is exactly what Black Moria and Green-Black Perona needed after the ban of the 8-cost Moria. It’s a strong value play that lets you go wider by cheating out a 4-cost Character from your trash, setting up a powerful turn to outpace the opponent.
Since this card is restricted to {Thriller Bark Pirates} Leaders, other Black decks can’t abuse its effect, keeping its impact contained to its intended archetypes. This means we won’t have an 8-cost Gecko Moria situation where it becomes played in almost all black decks.
Overall, the 6-cost Moria breathes new life into Thriller Bark Pirates decks, giving them a real chance to resurface in the 12.75 meta.
Black Gecko Moria
6-cost Moria attaches a rested Don to your Leader, so if it’s played on Don 8, you can still activate your Leader’s effect to cheat out a Thriller Bark Pirates Character, developing 3 Characters in one turn.
6-cost Moria isn’t tied to a specific type of Character, so you get to cheat out the likes of 4-cost Kuzan or Rebecca.
Black Green Perona
4-cost Koby can be a difficult target for the opposing player to remove. He’s gaining a +1,000 Power boost during your opponent’s turn, along with Leader Koby protecting him from a removal effect.
When attacking, 4-cost Koby can KO a 3,000 Power or less Character, which can be useful to deal with a low-power blocker and can be comboed with power reduction cards to deal with higher-power targets. If you’re holding 6 cards or less, Koby will draw you a card, adding more resources to keep you from falling behind in the late-game.
Red Black Koby
Since we lost 8-cost Gecko Moria, Black Yellow Monkey D.Luffy has been struggling to perform, losing that powerhouse play that cheats out the 2-cost kids on the field to go wide and overwhelm opponents. 5-cost Ace offers a similar function but lets you cheat out only 1 of your kids from the trash. It’s still quite a strong effect, developing a 5-cost 7,000 Power Character along with another adult brother you can cheat out from your Life Area.
Portagas.D.Ace brings life back to the Black Yellow Luffy deck without the risk of ending up with an overpowered deck.
Black Yellow Monkey D.Luffy
Black Yellow was arguably the strongest deck in the format, but it demanded high skills and matchup knowledge to get the most out of this Leader and his combo plays. Since 8-cost Gecko Moria was a core part of this deck’s late-game strategy, it completely fell out of the meta after the ban.
We’ll see if Ace gives the deck the push it needs to make a comeback. Getting to develop 2 Characters in one turn through a value play might be enough for the deck not to lose steam too quickly and still manage to keep late game pressure.
The 6-cost Smoker is another strong one in PRB02, a tough Character to remove, requiring the opponent to remove him twice in one turn. The first time Law is removed, he gets a -2,000 Power reduction instead, forcing the opposing player to commit another attack on him or a removal play, which will slow down their pace as they try to deal with him.
When attacking, Law can reduce the Power of an opponent’s Character by -2,000, which makes it easier for you to KO a rested character through an attack or a removal effect that relies on the Power of the Character.
Since’s a Punk Hazard Character, we can include him in decks like RG Smoker or even the Red Blue Caesar Clown for the power reduction.
Red Green Smoker
This version of Red Green Law takes a more defensive approach with Bonney and Mihawk as blockers to protect you from attacks, while relying on 5c Smoker and Leader for more Don gain.
6-cost Law sticks on the field, especially with Leader Smoker giving him a +1,000 Power boost during the defensive turn. He continuously applies pressure and can be combined with Koby or Gum Gum Mole Pistole to KO higher-power Characters.
A new defensive blocker for the Blackbear Pirates Leaders! Black Teach can take advantage of Shiryu’s defensive power, capable of blocking an attack, and when KO’d, he can KO a 4-cost or less Character. So you’re blocking an attack while also removing a Character from the field to control the opponent’s side and slow down their pace.
Black Marshall D. Teach
Teach is one of the strongest decks in the game since it has a great package that enables the deck’s strategy. Shiryu is competing with a lot of strong cards to make it into Teach’s list, especially since we have a lot of strong 4-cost choices. It makes sense to run Shiryu in an aggressive format, so we’ll see if players decide whether 4-cost Shiryu is worth including in the current meta.
Marco is a 4-cost 6,000 Power Character that draws you 2 cards when KO’d. It’s an extremely strong early play that can find a place in many Blue decks that want that early defensive power and the value it provides. Since he’s a 6,000 Power Character, he can be used aggressively as well to pressure the opponent.
4-cost Luffy slows down the opponent’s upcoming turn, resting one of their Active DON on the upcoming turn. This prevents them from making certain plays, ruining their upcoming turn, and putting you ahead on the field. 4-cost Luffy can find a place in multi-colored decks like Green Purple Luffy or Red Green Smoker.
Doflamingo is a 5-cost Blocker that ramps for 1 Don, which might see play in Blue Purple Luffy to replace God Thread.
Closing Words
PRB02 brings new strong cards to OPTCG, boosting the performance of multiple old archetypes that have been out of the meta for a while now. We’ll see how these cards translate in OP12 meta, and they could even be the reason certain archetypes manage to push to Tier 2 or higher in future metas.
