Beginner's Guide to One Piece Card Game

Written by Ross Gilbert

The One Piece Card Game is approaching its second anniversary and it’s safe to say that it has taken off in a way not even the most optimistic fans could have expected. In Japan, at the last count, it was the 4^th highest-selling TCG, right on the brink of breaking into the top 3. In fact, by now, it probably has!

In the west we don’t have access to data as precise but sensible predictions might put it ahead of all but the big 3 TCGs. It has managed to somehow combine phenomenal sales with a vibrant competitive scene, seeing over 2,500 players competing at the European Finals in Utrecht, The Netherlands in January, but how do you get started with this fabulous new game? That’s where I come in.

One Piece TCG Rules

One Piece decks are all built around a leader of your choosing. These can be either mono or dual-colour leaders and this is important because you can only include cards in your deck that are the same colour as your leader. Dual-colour leaders then have a big advantage in using an extra colour, but usually pay for this with less life.

Once you have your leader, you’ll need some characters to come in support. The usual way to win is to reduce your opponent’s life to 0 and then successfully attack one more time. You can attack with your leader or any of your characters and you need to have an attack equal to or great than your opponent’s leader’s power. You can boost your power with various skills on various characters or by attaching DON!! Cards to your characters and your opponent can fend off your attacks by countering (discarding character and event cards from their hand, as opposed to playing them, in order to booster their defensive power) or using a blocker to take the attack for their leader.

Speaking of DON!! Cards, they are the resource mechanic for the One Piece TCG and one of the best parts of the game. Every turn you get an extra 2 DON!! Cards from your DON!! Deck until you have 10 DON!! In play (the maximum allowed). You use these DON!! Cards to pay for your character and event cards and never have to worry about not drawing into your resources (think: Pokemon or Magic: The Gathering) or using valuable cards in your hand as resources (think: Disney Lorcana or Star Wars: Unlimited). Of course, as mentioned above, you can also attach them to your characters to boost their power, but then they’re unavailable as resources.

Event cards, much like trainer cards in Pokémon, give various advantages to yourself or disadvantages to your opponent. This could be raising or lower power or removing characters from the board for example.

One Piece Card Game Releases

Like most Trading Card Games One Piece sees releases roughly every 3 months to give 4 sets per year. So far this has been in December, March, June and September. In addition to this Bandai also releases extra special sets. So far, we have seen Extra Booster 01 (EB-01) and the far more exciting Premium Booster 01 (PRB-01). Whereas EB-01 was really just a smaller set, PRB-01 is a reprint set with a lot of special foils and alternate arts, great for collectors of the game and easily ignorable for people who just wish to play.

Starter Decks in the One Piece TCG are also very important because, with rare exceptions, these feature all-new cards. This makes every starter deck important as they may contain cards that become very good, even if they’re not good on release. It’s also worth noting that cards in One Piece are limited to four copies per deck and some cards in starter decks come as 2-ofs, so hardcore players will need to buy two copies of all the starter decks.

Various promos also get released, though many of these are alternate art versions of existing cards. There are mechanically-unique promos, often released as tournament promos or prerelease promos, which you will need to keep track of as these could end up being good in the future. As of the time of writing, there were no expensive, mechanically-unique promos that you really needed to be competitive.

One Piece Organised Play

Despite being a relatively new game One Piece has a robust organised play program with larger events attracting upwards of 2,000 players. These starter as small, casual events such as Pirates Parties (yes, the theming is strong) with no real prizes but promos available for all players. There are some larger tournaments such as store tournaments with promos available but Treasure Cups and Regionals (both online and offline) are where it really heats up.

Although not offering cash prizes for victors, there are phenomenal alternate-art prize cards available such as serial-numbered cards that can prove to be very valuable. At the lower end these cards have been sold for hundreds of pounds but the more sought-after prize cards for the larger events can go well into the thousands.

There is a World Championships for the One Piece TCG but it is an extremely exclusive event with invites not given below 3^rd place at the Championships Finals events, the largest open events which are small in number but large in attendance and prizes.

The One Piece TCG might be a newer game but everything we’ve seen so far shows us that this is going to be a real contender in the TCG space for a long time to come. So, time to set sail?

Buy a One Piece Starter Set on Amazon

Related article: The Best Trading Card Games

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