Yellow Eustass “Captain” Kid is one of the top yellow decks in OPTCG, with strong performances in competitive tournaments and a growing fan base among players. The deck’s game plan revolves around controlling the opponent’s field while setting up for a powerful late game, relying on {Supernovas} type Characters to execute its strategy.
If you enjoy a defensive playstyle, this deck is a great pick. The Leader Kid‘s effect lets you turn Supernova Characters into blockers, forcing your opponent to spend extra resources and attacks to break through your defense.
Leader
Eustass “Captain” Kid is a 5-health Leader with an effect that works on {Supernova} type Characters only. At the end of your turn, you may turn the top Life card face-up to set up one of your 3 to 8 cost Characters with the {Supernova} type as Active. That Character gains the Blocker keyword until the end of your opponent’s next turn.
We want to include {Supernova} type Characters with high Power that benefit from the blocker keyword. Those Characters can be used offensively to attack the opponent’s Leader while still being useful as blockers to protect your Leader from attacks. This saves you from playing valuable Counter resources until the late game.
This deck’s defensive strategy stretches out games and forces opponents to have late-game win conditions to keep up with your high-cost Characters.
Yellow Kid Decklist
How to Play
Early Searcher
1-cost Monkey D.Luffy looks at the top 5 cards in your deck and lets you choose a {Supernova} type card to your hand. This allows you to find the card you need based on your hand. We can go for an early play like Basil Hawkins, a late-game play like 8-cost Kid, or a +2,000 Counter like 4-cost Law.
Low-cost Blockers
Scratchmen Apoo is a 1-cost blocker, but only gains the blocker keyword if you have a Supernova-type Character in play other than Scratchmen Apoo. He’s a great option in the late game, developing a blocker to protect a Life card without sacrificing our high-cost plays.
As for the 2-cost Viola, her On Play effect lets you choose between looking at the opponent’s Life cards and reordering them however you wish, or turning all your Life cards face-down. Both effects can be extremely strong, the first giving you information on the opponent’s cards and delaying access to certain cards, while the other effect ensures you can activate your Leader’s effect if you happen to have a face-up card.
The 2-cost Capone”Gang”Bege can punish opponents trying to remove your Supernova-type Characters from the field through an effect. If your opponent uses a KO, trash, or removal effect to deal with a Supernova other than Capone”Gang”Bege, that Character will go to the top of your Life card. This adds more survivability to your Leader as your forcing the opposing player to commit an additional attack to win the game.
We’ll often avoid blocking with Capone Bege until necessary to keep the effect Active for as long as possible.
Don 4 Characters
If we’re going second, we have two options on turn 2, Kikunojo and Basil Hawkins.
Kikunojo is the best play early into the game, attacking for 6,000 Power and pressuring opponents. When Kikunojo is KO’d, if your opponent has 3 or less Life cards, you may add 1 card from the top of your deck to the top of your Life cards. This makes things awkward for opponents as KOing Kikunojo adds to your defensive strategy and creates extra resources.
Kikunojo‘s Trigger effect lets you play her on the field without any Don commitment; however, your opponent has to have 3 Life cards or less to activate her Trigger effect.
Basil Hawkins is less threatening, having only 5,000 Power. However, he’s a {Supernova} type Character, so you can set him as Active and prevent opponents from attacking and KOing him.
On KO, Basil Hawkins trashes the top card in the opponent’s Life Area, making it easier to win the game and dropping opponents on resources.
Life Card Gain
Bartholomew Kuma can be a real nuisance for the opposing player. You’re developing a 7,000 Power Character capable of presenting aggressive attacks, and his On Play effect lets you trash a card from your hand to place the top card of your deck at the top of your Life Area. So, we’re gaining a face-down card in our Life Area to make it harder for the opposing player to win the game and allowing us to activate our Leader’s effect. We’ll trash the card we need the least in our hand, usually going for a dead card with no Counter effect.
When KO’d Bartholomew Kuma adds another card from the top of your deck to your Life Area, which, in many cases, discourages your opponent from targeting Bartholomew Kuma, so they don’t give you the Life card.
7-cost Trafalgar Law can place one of your {Supernova} type Characters at the top of your Life card, adding to your defensive strategy. We’re forcing more attacks from the opposing player, which buys us enough time to win the game. On top of that, the Life we’re adding is face-down, which means we can activate our Leader’s effect to set one of our Supernova Characters Active and give them the Blocker keyword.
Trafalgar Law, being a 9,000 Power Character, means he can be a wall, protecting us from an attack while remaining in play to go for aggressive heavy attacks.
Kid Win Condition
The 8-cost Eustass “Captain” Kid is your strongest “Supernova” type Character. On Play, you can rest 8-cost Kid to trash the opponent’s top Life card, putting them at a riskier spot to lose to your attacks. By trashing their Life card, we’re making it easier on us to set up the winning turn, and on top of that, we’re cutting down on their card resources, which can be enough to win the game if we trash a Counter card.
At the end of your turn, if your opponent has 2 Life cards or less, you can draw a card and then trash another from your hand with Eustass “Captain” Kid‘s effect, filtering your hand for better cards.
Since Kid is a Supernova Character, we can set him as Active through our Leader’s effect to have him act as a blocker, putting those 9,000 Power to use defensively.
Events
During your turn, Gum-Gum Fire-Fist Pistol Red Hawk can be used to KO a 5-cost or less Character by resting 3 Don. This lets you remove an attacker or a blocker, allowing you to target the opponent’s Leader without having to worry about a blocker taking the hit. Gum-Gum Fire-Fist Pistol Red Hawk can be used as a counter event to give your Leader a +3,000 Power boost.
+2,000 Counters
Zeus can be played to KO a 5-cost or less Character, but you do have to take the top Life card and add it to your hand. This can play into your strategy if you have a face-up Life card at the top of your Life Area, preventing you from activating your Leader effect while also getting to remove a Character to weaken the opponent’s upcoming turn.
X.Drake and Trafalgar Law are both Supernova Characters with +2,000 Counter effects, so they can be searched through Monkey D.Luffy. Although situational, you can use X.Drake‘s effect to rest one of the opponent’s 4-cost or less Characters. This can be useful if there’s a Character you need to KO or to remove a blocker from the equation.
As for 4-cost Trafalgar Law, if you don’t have any other plays on Don 4/5, you can play him on the field to at least have something in play with 5,000 Power. His Trigger effect lets you play him for free, so it can be worth it to win the field presence.
General Tips:
- Be mindful of your Life cards. Activating your Leader effect requires you to have a face-down Life card at the top. So losing face-down Life cards to your opponent will lower the number of times you can activate your Leader’s effect throughout the game.
- Since we have tools to trash the opponent’s Life cards, we can focus our mid-game attacks on the opponent’s rested Characters to weaken their field presence.
- Protect your high-cost win conditions from the opponent’s attacks. We don’t want to give the opposing player an easy way to KO our heavy hitters; instead, we want to force them to burn resources to deal with them.
Mulligan Tips:
- Going First: Kikunojo or Basil Hawkins, 7-cost Law.
- Going Second: Kikunojo or Basil Hawkins, 6-cost Bartholomew Kuma, 8-cost Eustass”Captain”Kid.
Turn-Based Gameplay
Going First
- Turn 1 (1 Don): 1-cost Monkey D.Luffy.
- Turn 2 (3 Don): 1-cost Monkey D.Luffy and 2-cost Capone Bege if your opponent’s deck can’t answer him.
- Turn 3 (5 Don): Kikunojo or Basil Hawkins.
- Turn 4 (7 Don): 7-cost Trafalgar Law or 6-cost Bartholomew Kuma.
- Turn 5 (9 Don): 8-cost Eustass”Captain”Kid.
- Turn 6 (10 Don): Continue developing 8-cost Eustass”Captain”Kid and building up your field; you can play a Viola alongside Kid or Apoo and bank 1 Don for Counter Event.
Going Second
- Turn 1 (2 Don): 1-cost Monkey D.Luffy or 2-cost Capone Bege if your opponent’s deck can’t answer him.
- Turn 2 (4 Don): Kikunojo or Basil Hawkins
- Turn 3 (6 Don): 6-cost Bartholomew Kuma.
- Turn 4 (8 Don): 8-cost Eustass”Captain”Kid.
- Turn 5 (10 Don): Continue developing 8-cost Eustass”Captain”Kid or 7-cost Law and building up your field; you can play a Viola alongside Kid or Apoo and bank 1 Don for Counter Event.
Other Cards to Include
- 6-cost Cavendish is a Vanilla card with 8,000 Power. Although on his own, Cavendish doesn’t offer much outside of offensive attacks, but combined with your Leader effect, you can turn Cavendish into a Blocker. The 8,000 Power on Cavendish makes it easier for you to block an attack and preserve Counter resources.
- 10-cost Portgas.D.Ace is this deck’s strongest play. You want to play Ace when you’re at 1 Life card or less, gaining an extra Life card and activating Rush on Ace to attack the turn he’s played. The 10,0000 Power on Ace is great for targeting a rested Character or damaging the opponent’s Leader.
- You’re the One Who Should Disappear is a Counter Event that lets you trash a card from your hand to give your Leader or a Character +3,000 Power. Its Trigger effect is extremely strong during your defensive turn. If it’s the last card in your Life Area, you can activate the Trigger effect to gain an extra Life card, forcing more attacks from the opposing player to win the game.
- Blaze Slice can be used during your and your opponent’s turn, giving your Leader or one of your Characters +1,000 Power, and if the opponent is at 2 or less Life cards, you can rest one of their 4-cost or less Characters. Blaze Slice can be used offensively or defensively through its ability to rest a Character. You can rest a Character to stop it from attacking you, or rest a blocker to attack the opponent’s Leader directly.
Important Matchups
Blue Purple Luffy
- Kikunojo is great in this matchup since she can threaten a Leader’s Life card without you having to attach a Don to her. However, you will need to attach at least 1 Don to your Leader if you want to threaten their Life card.
- We want to take 1st from them, and it works out for us since we can drop a 4-cost Character on turn 3 and attack with our Leader for 6,000 Power.
- Zeus or Gum-Gum Fire-Fist Pistol Red are great answer for their 5-cost Nami blocker.
- Once they drop their Katakuri‘s, we’ll have a rough time getting our attacks through, so we’re usually relying on the Kid to trash their Life cards. They’ll often ignore your Leader and focus their attacks on your high-cost win conditions, trying to win the late-game.
Green Roronoa Zoro
- If Leader Zoro has 3 attached Don, your blocker is useless if they’re going for a Leader attack. If you block the first attack, they can re-stand their Leader for a second attack. You’ll opt to block their Character’s attacks instead.
- They run blockers like Koushirou and Mihawk to slow you down. You can rest Koushirou using X-Drake if you’re capable of setting up the winning turn.
- Protect your high-cost win conditions. The heavy hitters will be important to set up the winning turn after you’ve burned their Life cards.
Green Bonney
- We’re against a Stall deck, capable of resting one of our attackers to slow down the pace of the game. We have to attack with our highest Power attacker first so they don’t rest it with Jewelry Bonney‘s effect.
- We can’t afford to leave Cavendish in play for too long since the Don gain can put them ahead. We can use Zeus or Gum-Gum Fire-Fist Pistol Red Hawk to remove him immediately or rely on our attacks.
- Although we can trash the opponent’s Life card and eventually set up a winning attack, it will be challenging to get our attacks through once they play their Fortress strategy. They can also KO a rested Character with Shanks, which can prevent us from using a win condition as a blocker as long as they have 9 Don Active.
Closing Words
Yellow Eustass”Captain”Kid gives the Supernova-type cards a different archetype to perform in, acting as a defensive strategy to slow down the opponent’s aggression as you trash your opponent’s Life cards and eventually weaken them to a point where your attacks can secure the win.
