Purple Donquixote Doflamingo rallies his Donquixote Pirates to fuel his overall strategy, ramping early, protecting him from attacks, and setting up a powerful mid-game. Early ramp is essential because many of your cards return Don. You want to accelerate quickly so you can drop your high-cost Characters as early as possible and avoid falling behind when you start returning Don.
The deck excels at redirecting the opponent’s attacks, disrupting their plans, maintaining a strong board presence, and making it significantly harder for them to close out the game.
Leader
Purple Doflamingo is a 5-Life Leader with a unique effect that triggers once during the opponent’s attack. By returning 1 Don, you can redirect one of their attacks to a different target. This effect disrupts the opponent’s plan—allowing you to save a key Character or protect your Life to extend the game.
Because this effect forces you to return Don, you need to stay aware of your upcoming turn’s curve. In the early game, you’ll often want to avoid using the ability unless necessary, so you don’t fall behind on development.
Several of your Characters have On KO effects, and Doffy’s redirecting effect helps you force the opponent to KO them on your terms. This generates the value you need to set up stronger late-game turns.
Decklist
How to Play
Early Searcher
We need to rest Sugar and a Don to activate her effect, letting us look at the top 5 cards of our deck and add a {Donquixote Pirates} type card to our hand. By resting Sugar, we’re forcing the opponent to commit an attack on her to prevent us from generating more value. If we force a 5,000 Power or more attacker to target Sugar, it’s a massive win since we dodged losing a Life card or committing Counter cards.
I Do Not Forgive Those Who Laugh at My Family!!! can be played during our turn or the opponent’s turn, letting us look at the top 3 cards of our deck to find the {Donquixote Pirates} type card we need.
Dellinger is a bit different since we can only search for a card when they’re KO’d. Using Leader Doflamingo’s effect, we can force the opposing player to attack, and KO Dellinger, letting us ramp 1 rested Don and look at the top 5 cards of our deck and add a {Donquixote Pirates} type card to our hand. We’re basically dodging an attack, gaining 1 Don, so the Don we’re returning from Leader effect won’t matter, and we’re searching for a card. Dellinger is perfect to preserve our Counter resources in the early stages of the game.
Ramp Mid-Game
On Play, the 4-cost Sugar adds 1 Active Don, perfect for speeding up our mid-game. She isn’t an attack, only having 1,000 Power, but On KO, Sugar lets you play a 5-cost {Donquixote Pirates} type Character from your hand, if your opponent has 6 or more Don cards.
With Leader Doglamingo’s effect, we can force them to KO Sugar when they have 6 or more Don, getting to dodge an attack and developing a 5-cost Character like Vergo to do some heavy lifting on our turn.
4-cost Baby 5 has a similar job, having only 1,000 Power, her role is to add an Active Don and tank a hit for us, triggering her On KO effect. When Baby 5 is KO’d, you can return 1 Don to gain a Life card, perfect to add more resources and help prolong the game until you can set up a game finisher.
Monet is another ramp option, adding 1 Active when she’s played. Unlike Sugar and Baby 5, Money is an attacker, having 6,000 Power and capable of KOing rested Characters or threatening an opponent’s Life card. Although it’s tempting to keep Monet alive for as long as possible, her KO effect lets you draw 2 cards and trash 1 from hand, then you can add 2 Don cards, allowing for an extremely strong upcoming turn.
Trebol is a +2,000 Counter Character, but having him in play can be useful thanks to his effect. Once per turn, when you return Don, Trebol gives you another Don. This allows you to activate your Leader’s effect without worrying about dropping on Don, redirecting the opponent’s attacks to protect rested Characters or your Leader.
Donquixote Rosinante isn’t a ramp Character, but he provides card draw and 2 Active Don that give us a stronger late game. When played, Rosinante lets you trash an event from your hand to draw two cards, adding more resources to your hand. At the end of your turn, Rosinante sets 2 of your Don as Active, which allows you to play Events or use with your 8-cost Doflamingo’s ramp effect.
Vergo Defence
Vergo is our strongest mid-game aggressor, having 7,000 Power, and can reduce the Power of one of the opponent’s Characters by 2,000 when he goes for the attack. You are forced to return a Don to activate the Power reduction, so we need to be mindful when going for it, and only if we have to focus down one of the opponent’s Characters.
Vergo also protects your Characters and himself from getting removed. As long as Vergo is on the field, you can activate his effect once per turn if your opponent tries to remove a {Donquixote Pirates} type Character, letting you return a Don instead to keep your Character in play. This forces the opponent to play differently and will require them to make less optimal plays.
Doffy Late Game
8-cost Doffy lets us go wide on the field. By returning 1 Don, we can play a {Donquixote Pirates} Character with a cost of 5 or less from your hand. We usually want to go for Monet here for the ramp effect, making sure we remain at 10 Don on our upcoming turn, even if we use our Leader effect. We can still go for Vergo if the plan is to protect our field and set up a stronger upcoming turn.
During the opponent’s turn, if you have an Active Don, Doflamingo can rest it to ramp an Active Don. This gives you back the Don you’ve used to cheat out a Character, making sure you don’t fall can set up a 10-cost play on the upcoming turn. If we’re playing Doffy on Don 8, we’ll want to play a ramp Character alongside him to give us that Active Don. If we’re at 9 Don, we can go for the Vergo, as we’ll still have an Active Don to activate his ramp effect.
The 10-cost Doflamingo is our strongest late-game play, allowing us to return 3 Don to choose one of two options. We can either KO one of the opponent’s 8-cost or less Characters, or up to 3 of the opponent’s Characters with a cost of 7 or less cannot be rested until the end of your opponent’s next End Phase.
Depending on the state of the game, we’ll choose the control effect we need. If our opponent has one main threat, we can KO it, but if they’re going wide on the field and have multiple attackers lined up, then we should consider Doffy’s second effect to keep them rested.
+2,000 Counters
If you have 8 or more Don, Uso-Hachi can rest one of the opponent’s 5-cost or less Characters, usually useful if your opponent has a blocker in play, making it harder for you to set up a winning turn.
Monet is mostly in the list as a searchable +2,000 Character. She has 6,000 Power, so in the case we don’t have anything to play or cheat out through 8-cost Doffy, we can go for the Monet.
Events
Divine Departure can be used during our turn by resting 5 Don and giving a -8,000 Power to one of the opponent’s Characters. This allows us to attack and KO a high-power rested Character with ease. Alternatively, Divine Departure can be used as a Counter effect, which in most cases, will be used for that. By trashing a card from your hand, you can give your Leader or one of your Characters a +3,000 Power boost, great for protecting yourself from an attack and trashing a dead card in your hand.
As for Slow-Slow Beam Sword, it gives a +2,000 Power boost to your Leader or one of your Characters, and you get to rest one of your opponent’s characters, perfect if they have multiple attackers lined up.
Slow-Slow Beam Sword’s Trigger effect lets you ramo 1 Active Don. The Trigger effect is worth activating in the early game to set up stronger turns.
Mulligan Tips
Going First: Sugar or Dellinger, Monet, 8-cost Doffy.
Going Second: 1-cost Sugar, Baby 5 or 4-cost Sugar, Vergo, 8-cost Doffy.
General Tips
- Keep track of your Don. A lot of your effects will return Don, so we need to be mindful when to activate them so as not to slow down our upcoming turn. In the early stages and the mid-game, we can’t fall behind on Don too much, or we won’t be able to play our high-cost Characters.
- Leader Doffy’s effect can protect key Characters. If there’s no other safe target to redirect the opponent’s attack to, you can use Leader Doffy’s effect on himself, allowing you to sacrifice a Life card to keep winning the field presence. This can be important in the late-game, when you want to set up a winning turn and keep as many attackers on the field as possible.
Other Cards to Include
- Baby 5 is a +2,000 Counter who can be played for her ramp effect.
- Ever White can be used to ramp on turn 2 or used to give your Leader a +3,000 Power boost.
- If you need a ramp card that can turn into a heavy hitter, Bon Clay is your card.
- Pica is a ramp option that gives you an Active Don at the end of your turn. It continues to do that throughout the game, so the longer it sticks on the field, the more value you gain.
Closing Words
Purple Doflamingo is a challenging deck to play well. You need to carefully track your Don when planning your turns so you don’t disrupt your curve or lose tempo. Knowing when to use Vergo’s defensive and control effects is key to gaining an advantage, and your high-cost Doflamingo cards can swing the game by shifting the board presence heavily in your favor.
