Heya everyone! With the EB04 release, the Purple Yellow Donquixote Rosinante deck gains access to the new 6-cost Rosinante and Law cards, giving it a stronger and more consistent mid-game to pressure opposing decks.
We’re already seeing the deck perform well in the East. What was once considered an off-meta pick is now pushing its way into the competitive scene, proving it has the tools to contend with top-tier decks in the OPTCG meta.
In this guide, we’ll cover the core strategy of the PY Rosinante deck, what its game plan looks like, and how its key cards synergize to create powerful turns. Let’s get started!
Leader
Donquixote Rosinante is a 4 Life Leader whose strategy heavily revolves around Trafalgar Law Characters. He has two powerful effects that support both your board presence and tempo.
His first effect allows you, once per turn, to protect one of your Trafalgar Law Characters from being KO’d by adding one of your Life cards to your hand. While this keeps key Characters on the field and maintains your offensive pressure, it comes at a cost—reducing your Life makes your Leader more vulnerable and can enable the opponent to shift into a more aggressive game plan. Because of this, you’ll want to use this effect carefully, prioritizing high-value Characters while ensuring you don’t put yourself within lethal range.
His second effect lets you return 1 DON!! to reduce the cost of the next Trafalgar Law Character you play by 2. This effect is crucial for accelerating your development, allowing you to play certain Law Characters earlier than expected, establish multiple threats in a single turn, or balance between attacking and building your board. Additionally, by returning DON!! during your turn, you can leave yourself with active DON!! during the opponent’s turn, enabling you to use Counter Events to protect your Characters or Leader.
Decklist
How to Play
Searchers
You can rest Sugar and 1 Don to activate her effect, looking at the top 5 cards of your deck, and add 1 {Donquixote Pirates} type card to your hand. Since we can reactivate Sugar’s effect on the upcoming turn, our opponent will be forced to attack and KO her, and if they don’t have a low Power Character in play, they’re forced to use a higher-power unit that could have instead attacked our Leader.
1-cost Trafalgar Law looks at the top 4 cards of your deck to draw a {Straw Hat Crew} or {Heart Pirates} type card. Since 1-cost Trafalgar Law doesn’t restrict you from drawing Law cards, you get access to those cards to draw.
1-cost Donquixote Rosinante looks at the top 5 cards of your deck and lets you draw a Trafalgar Law type Character, and since the list is full of them, we can choose which one we need depending on the state of the game.
Blockers
4-cost Trafalgar Law is a 5,000 Power Blocker that can be played to cut down on the opponent’s card resources. If your opponent is holding onto 7 or more cards, Law becomes a premium play, returning 1 Don to activate his effect and trash 2 cards from the opponent’s hand, potentially getting rid of key cards they’re relying on and putting them behind in terms of resources.
As for Trafalgar Law, he’s a perfect play on turn 2, especially if we’re going first. He’s a 6,000 Power Blocker that ramps you 1 rested Don if the number of DON!! cards on your field is equal to or less than the number on your opponent’s field. So we can activate Leader effect to return 1 Don, putting us at equal Don as the opponent, and then go for the 4-cost Law Blocker, developing a threat for 2 Don only, while also regaining the Don we just returned.
Rosinante & Law is a 6-cost, 8,000 Power Blocker. They’re treated as [Trafalgar Law] and [Donquixote Rosinante], so we can draw them through searcher, and we can reduce their cost using Leader effect. Rosinante & Law‘s On Play effect draws us a card and ramps 1 Active Don if we have an equal to or less total number of Don compared with the opposing player.
Trafalgar Law is a great play on turn 3, developing a high-power Character that can block an attack and later act as an aggressor, using his 8,000 Power offensively.
Power Boost
Another ramp card is Trafalgar Law, only activating its On Play effect if the number of DON!! cards on your field is equal to or less than the number on your opponent’s field. On Play, Trafalgar Law gives you an Active Don then boosts the Power of [Donquixote Rosinante] and {Heart Pirates} Characters by 1,000 until the end of the opponent’s turn. This enables a stronger attack turn if you have other attackers lined up, and will make it harder for the opposing player to deal with your board during their turn.
Rush + Life Card
Trafalgar Law is out Rush attacker. He’s an 8-cost Character with only 6,000 Power, so he’s not the biggest threat when played, but compensates for that with his Activate Main effect.
Trafalgar Law goes for a Rush attack to force the opposing player to use up Counter plays, then we want to activate his effect, trashing a card from hand and trashing this Character to add the top card of our deck to our Life Area, then we get to play a 7-cost or less Trafalgar Law from our hand.
We’re getting an immediate attack, a Life card, and a stronger Character to replace Trafalgar Law, perfect play to shift the late-game in our favor.
+2,000 Counters
Uso-Hachi can rest a 5-cost or less Character, perfect for shutting down a blocker and enabling our attackers to strike down the opponent’s Leader.
Baby 5 and Trafalgar Law are searchable +2,000 Counters, which you might be forced at times to develop or activate their Trigger effects depending on the state of the game, but for the most part, they’ll be used as Counters.
Events
Gamma Knife can reduce the Power of an opponent’s Character by 5,000 during your turn, perfect for targeting a high-power rested Character, making it vulnerable for your attackers to KO.
The "Extinguishes All Sound Created by Your Influence" Technique is great for setting up your finisher turn. You’re giving one of your Trafalgar Law cards (Character or Leader) a +2,000 Power boost, and that card cannot be blocked when it goes for the attack.
I Love You!! can protect one of your Characters or Leader by giving a +2,000 Power boost. You want to play this when you’re at 2 Life cards or less to get access to your trash and add a Traflgar Law to your hand. In most cases, at that point in the game, you’ll be looking for more Counters to keep protecting your Leader from attacks.
Slow-Slow Beam Sword is another Counter event to protect yourself from attack and shut down a potential attacker by resting it. You can also rest a blocker, setting up a stronger upcoming turn when you start going for the attacks.
Mulligan Tips
Going First: 1-cost Law or Rosinante, Trafalgar Law, Rosinante & Law.
Going Second: Sugar, Trafalgar Law, Rosinante & Law.
General Tips
- Make sure to deramp. You want to use your Leader effect first before developing your Law Characters, especially if their effect is tied to the number of Don you have.
- Protect your Characters. You want to protect high-power Characters for as long as possible, keeping threats to pressure the opposing player.
- Don’t go for Leader effect if it means you lose the game. In the late game, we can’t blindly use our Leader effect without understanding what our opponent is capable of. Falling to 0 Life cards means the opposing player can set up a high-power finisher to close out the game.
Other Cards to Include
- Vergo can protect your other Characters from getting removed. He is also capable of returning Don when he attacks, reducing the Power of an opponent’s Character by 2000, making it easier for you to attack and KO. The additional Don return can be used against decks capable of deramping.
Closing Words
Purple Yellow Rosinante is all about using Trafalgar Law as a core part of its strategy, having Leader Rosinante protect your Law and make sure your opponent can’t easily take over the board. The deck has received new supporting cards across multiple expansions, giving it a slight performance boost every time, to the point where it managed to make a presence in the competitive scene.
