Purple Monkey D. Luffy received new cards in the Starter 18 deck, and the ramp deck has been one of the top choices among competitive players. Thanks to its ramping abilities, you can drop high-cost Characters earlier than usual, setting up a formidable field presence. This build leans heavily on {Straw Hat Crew} Characters, which work perfectly with your searchers and the 7-cost Monkey D. Luffy, helping you cheat them into play.
I’ll cover a standard list that is played in OP10 meta, but you can make some tweaks depending on your local scene and what you expect to see. I’ll add other cards to include at the end of the guide.
Leader
Monkey D. Luffy’s ramping ability is a key part of accelerating your game plan. By placing 1 Life card into your hand, you activate his ramp effect, ramp effect, but only if you have 0 or 3 or more Don. This means that by turn 2, you can start ramping up to drop bigger Characters. Just remember, since you’re self-damaging to ramp, you’ll need to protect your Life cards from attacks to avoid getting too low on health and handing your opponent the win.
On turn 2, whether you’re going first or second, you can start ramping to put a Character on the board. If you’re first, you can ramp on Don 3 to play a 4-cost Character; if you’re second and have 4 Don, you can ramp to play a 5-cost. This early ramping also sets you up to play your high-cost Characters more easily in later turns.
The deck is packed with {Straw Hat Crew} cards, giving you plenty of draw options and extra resources.
Purple Luffy Decklist
How to Play
Early Searcher
Since the list is packed with {Straw Hat Crew} Characters, it makes sense to include 1-cost Trafalgar Law in the list to search for the cards you need.
Don 4 Plays
If you’re going first, these are the best plays on turn 2. You’ll have 3 Don, so ramping with your Leader’s effect lets you drop a 4-cost Character. Bon Clay is usually the best choice, as he ramps you up to 5 Don, setting you up for better plays next turn, capable of reaching 8 Don with your Leader’s effect. Bon Clay’s Power depends on what your opponent has on the field, but he’s vulnerable on defense while rested; his 1,000 Power is easy for attackers to KO.
At Don 4, Zorojuro is your strongest option. His 6,000 Power attack is tough for opponents to deal with early on. Plus, Zorojuro draws you a {Straw Hat Crew} card, which could be the missing piece for your next turn or a +2,000 Counter for extra protection.
Onami is a 4-cost blocker with just 2,000 Power, making her less effective in the early game. She’s better suited for the late game when you have 8 or more Don to activate her effect and draw an extra card. With her blocker keyword, Onami helps protect your Leader and valuable cards, allowing you to trash a card you don’t need to draw two cards. As a {Straw Hat Crew} Character, she’s also searchable with your searcher cards.
She could be played on the field through 7-cost Monkey D.Luffy‘s Play effect. Onami isn’t great in the early game as she doesn’t help you win the field, so you’ll hold off from playing her until the late game when the extra cards and blocker keyword matter.
Don 5 Plays
When going second, you can ramp on turn 2 to reach 5 Don, allowing you to play one of these Characters.
Sangoro is your best early play. With 6,000 Power, he also draws you a card when he attacks. However, his effect only kicks in when you have 8 Don or more. If you play him on Don 5, you’ll have 7 Don on your next turn, and by ramping with your Leader, you’ll hit 8 Don. This gives you extra card value and forces your opponent to focus on taking out Sangoro instead of attacking your Leader.
As for 5-cost Eustass”Captain”Kid, he’s a 6,000 Power Blocker, helping us during defensive turns. However, his true power is when we deramp, giving us back the Don. This can be strong during the upcoming turns when you plan to play 7-cost Monkey D. Luffy or 7-cost Sanji.
You’re not locked into playing a 5-cost Character on Don 5—your 4-cost Characters can still provide good value on the field.
7 Don Plays
7-cost Monkey D. Luffy is one of your strongest plays, and you’ll want to get him on the field as early as possible. His On Play effect lets you return 1 Don to play a 5-cost or less {Straw Hat Crew} Character from your hand. This gives you the option to bring out Characters like Zorojuro, Sangoro, Jinbe, Onami, or Franky.
Developing two Characters at once shifts the field in your favor, opening up opportunities for more aggressive plays.
As for 7-cost Sanji, you can return 1 Don to activate his effect, gaining the Rush keyword and resting one of the opponent’s 6-cost or less Characters. This allows you to attack that rested Character with your Leader and/or Sanji to KO it and remove an attacker from the opponent’s side.
Late-Game Characters
9-cost Monkey D. Luffy is a 10,000-power that gains the Rush keyword and draws you a card when you return a Don. Returning a Don at 9 Don won’t put you behind on the upcoming turn, you’ll still be at 10 Don. Monkey D. Luffy is great for attacking a rested Character and KO it or even targeting their Leader. He’s usually the best play when you’re at Don 9.
9-cost Charlotte Linlin provides an extra Life card and removes a 6-cost Character from your opponent’s field, placing it on the top or bottom of their Life Area. This disrupts their next attack turn and gives you more time to set up your winning play. To activate her effect, you’ll need to return 1 Don and trash a card from your hand.
+2,000 Counters
Uso-Hachi can be played for its rest effect. When you have 8 Don or more, you can use Uso-Hachi to rest a 5-cost or less Character, allowing you to attack and KO it. Uso-Hachi can also be used aggressively, resting an opponent’s Blocker to attack their Leader directly.
Hitokiri Kamazo can work with your de-ramp Characters to KO a 2-cost Character or less. You’ll rarely use it, but it can be useful against certain matchups like Green Bonney that have 2-cost Rosinante as an important part of their Fortress strategy.
6-cost Sanji is a blocker who becomes a 3-cost Character if you have 2 less Don than your opponent. Extremely situational play if you need a blocker to buy you an extra turn.
Events
Gum-Gum Giant is a powerful defensive event that returns 2 Don to give your Leader or one of your Characters +4,000 Power and draws two cards, ensuring you have more plays to make or even find more Counter cards. Since Gum Gum Giant is returning two Don, you want to play when you’re at 8+ Don so you don’t struggle to play your high-cost Characters on the upcoming turn.
Other Cards to Include
- Trafalgar Law shines in slower matchups. If your opponent is sitting on 7 cards in their hand, play Trafalgar Law, deramp, and force them to trash two of those cards. This cuts their resources and potentially trashes key cards, disrupting their strategy.
- Queen draws two cards and trashes one, giving you draw value while discarding a card you don’t plan to use. Since activating Queen’s effect requires deramping, you’ll need to consider your next turn’s plays carefully.
- 10-cost Monkey D. Luffy is a powerful play but comes with a massive drawback. Typically, you’ll want to set up your winning turn when you play him. Before playing Luffy, make sure to attack with all your Characters, as his On Play effect will remove them all from the field. Once they’ve attacked, you can play Luffy, return all 10 Don, and send all other Characters to the bottom of the deck.
With 0 Don left you can use your Leader’s effect to gain 1 Don, then activate Luffy’s effect to gain an Active Don. While this may not seem impactful at first, it sets you up with more Don for the next turn. You can attach a Don to your Leader for a 6,000 Power attack before ending your turn.
When your turn ends, you’ll immediately start a new one. Since you ramped and used Luffy’s effect, you’ll have 2 Don, plus the 2 Don you gain at the start of your turn, giving you 4 Don. You can either ramp again with Leader for more Don or hold onto that Life card. Your Leader can attack again, and with 4 Don available, you can either boost his Power or play another Character. 10-cost Luffy can also attack, so you can go for the winning blow if your opponent has 0 Life cards.
Don’t forget to reactivate Luffy’s +1 Don effect at the start of your new turn.
- Magellan‘s On Play deramps for both players, which can prevent certain plays your opponent is planning. If the opponent KO’s Magellan, they’ll have to deramp 2 Don, which can be awful for them in the mid-game.
- Kaido is a powerful late-game play, KOing a 6-cost or less Character and gaining Rush. You have to return 5 Don to activate Kaido‘s effect, so your upcoming turn will be slower.
- Gum-Gum Jet Gatling is a Counter Event that trashes one of your cards to give a +3,000 Power boost to your Leader or one of your Characters.
Turn-Based Gameplay
Going First
- Turn 1 (1 Don): 1-cost Trafalgar Law.
- Turn 2 (3 Don): Ramp Leader and play a 4-cost Character
- Turn 3 (5 Don 6 Don): Ramp with Leader and play 7-cost Monkey D. Luffy. Even if you’ve played Bon Clay on the last turn, you might want to ramp now since you’re still deramping with 7-cost Luffy. 7-cost Sanji if there’s a Character you can rest and KO.
- Turn 4 (7 Don 8 Don): Four plays: Another 7-cost Monkey D. Luffy, 7-cost Sanji, two 4-cost Characters, a 5-cost Character.
- Turn 5 (9 Don 10 Don): 9-cost Monkey D. Luffy or 9-cost Charlotte Linlin.
- Turn 6 (10 Don): 9-cost Monkey D. Luffy or 9-cost Charlotte Linlin.
Going Second
- Turn 1 (2 Don): 1-cost Trafalgar Law.
- Turn 2 (4 Don): Ramp Leader and play a 5-cost or 4-cost.
- Turn 3 (6 Don 7 Don): Three plays: 7-cost Monkey D. Luffy, 7-cost Sanji, two 4-cost Characters (Ramp with Leader) or a 5-cost Character.
- Turn 4 (8 Don 9 Don): If you’ve ramped with Leader on the previous turn, you should be on 9 Don even if you returned a Don with one of your Characters. You can play Charlotte Linlin or Monkey D. Luffy.
- Turn 5 (10 Don): 9-cost Monkey D. Luffy or 9-cost Charlotte Linlin.
Matchups
Against Shanks, we’ll mainly focus down their Leader, trying to win the game before they take over the field. They can KO one Character a turn with the likes of Benn.Beckman and Silvers Rayleigh. However, they’ll struggle to KO anything above 6,000 Power and will need to use their power-reduction cards.
We can’t answer 10-cost Shanks, so our best bet is to ignore him and continue attacking their Leader, trying to rush them down.
Their Leader can shut off our On Play effects, which will slow us down, but we still have to play our Characters even without their On Play effects. San-Gorou is great because he isn’t affected by Teach‘s effect.
We’ll mainly focus down Laboon and Van Augur to stop their cost-reduction effects. Jesus Burgess is another target to KO, but if he has a lot of Power, it’s best to ignore him and shift our attacks on the opponent’s Leader.
As they keep activating their Leader effect, your opponent will eventually run out of resources, finding it harder to Counter your attacks and will heavily rely on their blockers.
Against Blue Doflamingo, we have to control the field and take things to the late-game. 7-cost Sanji and 9-cost Monkey D.Luffy are great Rush attackers to attack a rested Character.
Although Blue Doflamingo prefers going first, we don’t mind going second since we can play a 5-cost Character on turn 2. 4-cost Law can’t return a 5-cost Character to your hand, so you’ll be shutting down the annoying early removal.
Blue Doffy lists are running Gum-Gum Red Roc, so they can remove your high-cost win conditions. We can’t rush them down, our best bet is to control their side of the field and slowly win the value game.
Try to stay at 1 Life card since 2-cost Perfume allows one of their attackers to ignore your blockers.
We’re against an aggressive deck, so we often won’t activate our Leader effect more than once. We need the extra Life card to survive our opponent’s aggression, and we’ll mainly attack and KO their rested Characters and try to take things to the late-game. Remaining at 1 Life card at least is important, so they don’t go for the finisher play and ignore our blockers using 2-cost Sanji. We have to KO OP08 Tony Tony Choppers as soon as possible to shut off the extra Character development.
They have multiple Rush attackers to keep pressuring us. We’ll eventually win the field and start going for the aggressive attacks to win the game.
