Blue Nami Deck Guide

Thanks to one buff from OP-06, OP03-040-nami finally became decent again. OP03-040-nami has been my main deck for many sets, so this is going to be a very comprehensive deep dive into how to play the mill queen. If you're an experienced OP03-040-nami player, some of this guide will be redundant; however, each section will be labeled for easy navigation. (yes the pun was intended...). So grab your snacks and your maps, and let's get into it!

Leader Overview

OP03-040-nami is a radically different deck than anything else in the game. For those who are unaware, OP03-040-nami is the only leader in the game that has a special win condition.

Unlike with other leaders, your objective isn’t to take all your opponent’s life. Instead, you want to trash all the cards in your deck. This allows you to win at any point in the game, including during your opponent's turn and even during their attack!

Compared to other leaders, she requires a completely different set of skills to master. You need to remember what's on the bottom of your deck, be able to account for various probabilities, and predict your opponent's plays based on their personality and playstyle. 

For me, that's what makes the deck so fun! So if you’re looking for a different style of play, this might just be the leader for you. However, I am going to advise against beginners playing this deck. While it’s what I started with, because of how differently OP03-040-nami plays, you will not be able to learn the fundamentals and it’ll make transitioning into other decks, in the future, a bit more difficult.  

It’s also not an easy deck to play well. It has a low skill floor, which has led to its unfortunate reputation that OP03-040-nami players only get lucky. Thankfully for the wonderful readers of this guide and me, that's caused a lot of players to discount her and never learn the nuance. She has a very high skill ceiling, but if you can master her, it's a very rewarding feeling. 

Ranking OP03-040-nami against other decks is a bit difficult, as winning with OP03-040-nami is determined by several main factors:

1. Your opponent's experience against OP03-040-nami decks
2. Your exact deck composition (small changes make a BIG difference)
3. Your knowledge of your deck
4. Your ability to adapt to different situations
5. Your luck

Luck plays less of a factor than the other 4, if you build the deck right, but all 5 are important.

My EB-01 Decklist

Video Guide

Card Breakdown - East Blue Package

These are pretty standard in any OP03-040-nami deck, but let's run through them anyways.

First off is 4 copies of OP03-044-kaya. OP03-044-kaya is a 1 cost that lets you draw 2, then discard 2 from your hand. That’s -2 from your deck and she will be the most don efficient card you have. Unfortunately, like your other character cards, she can be easily bottom decked in the OP05-041-sakazuki matchup, but even then she’s still pretty efficient as you still end up with -1 card. Plus, OP03-044-kaya being at the bottom is really not the worst thing. Of course, we’ll talk about OP05-041-sakazuki more in the matchup section. 

Since we’re drawing out our whole deck, of course we need to run 4 copies of OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf. On top of being another draw 2 trigger, it also just lets you draw 2 if you play it normally. However, this is actually not very don efficient for us, so you gotta be careful about when you use this and it’s not uncommon to actually trash that for OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel. Again, we’ll talk about when you should OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf in the decision making section. 

OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel. This is our best 1 cost event, but it costs 1 card from your hand as well. However, it gives you +4000 power to your leader and lets you trash 2 from the top of your deck. Again, that’s pretty don efficient, so we’re going to be recycling that as much as we can. You’re not usually going to use the trigger, as the -2 cards from your deck is much better, but you can use that in dire situations to bounce OP03-044-kaya back to your hand or to temporarily remove a threat from the field. Of course, we’re running 4 of these. 

We can't forget the budget OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel. 4 OP03-054-usopps-rubber-band-of-doom. For 1 cost, you get +2000 power to a character or leader and then you can trash 1 card from the top of your deck. However, it has 1 benefit over OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel and that’s its trigger. It lets you draw 1 and trash 1 from the top of your deck, so that’s another -2 cards from the deck. 

Card Breakdown - Impel Down Package

Up until OP-07, Impel Down is the only real engine we can run for OP03-040-nami , so we're going to make the most of it. You'll see a few differences from the standard OP03-040-nami deck here.

You want 4 copies of OP02-058-buggy. He is an Impel Down searcher, letting you take a look at the top 5 cards of your deck, and you are going to be running A TON of Impel Down cards. We’re going to make sure our chances of hitting something are pretty high, so he’s 1 cost for -1 card from the deck. However, something that’s often overlooked is that OP02-058-buggy lets you put the remaining cards from your search at the bottom of your deck in any order. Remembering what you put there is pretty important. We’re going to discuss that more in the decision making section

While we can technically pay this card's cost to get rid of dead cards in hand, since OP03-040-nami isn't an Impel Down leader, we can't use its effect. However, this gets added to the deck to increase the probability of OP02-058-buggy hitting a search target and for its lovely trigger. If you have this in your hand, it'll be the first thing you discard with OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel or OP03-044-kaya.

This character basically allows you to have 8 OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavels in the deck, as his primary use will be to add that back to your hand. However, he offers a couple other small advantages.

1. He's another search target for OP02-058-buggy
2. He has 1k counter, so he's easy to remove from your hand if needed.

This is one you don't find in a lot of OP03-040-nami decks, but I run 2x copies of him and 2x copies of EB01-026-prince-bellett for the same reason. He's an impel down character that offers us 2k counter. Just like with OP02-063-mr1-dazbonez, the bonus of running characters with counter is that we get more control over our hand size at any given moment. We run 2x copies of each instead of 4x of one of them because it makes it more difficult for your opponent to tell how many 2k counters you have in your deck.

I run 1 copy of OP02-068-gum-gum-rain for a very similar reason as OP02-064-mr2bonkurei-bentham and EB01-026-prince-bellett. It's a search target that helps us remove dead cards in hand for 0 cost. We only need 1 copy as we have OP03-044-kaya and OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel as the main ways to discard. The extra copy just helps to boost the consistency.

As you can see, I tend to put a lot of emphasis on managing your hand size and it's so we can always get the most out of this card. Not every OP03-040-nami player runs 4 copies, but it's an extremely good card. After its first effect goes off, giving you +6000 attack in one card, which is a big deal on its own, you draw cards until you have 2 cards in your hand. This is a better OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf if you play it right. This version of the deck looks to use this and several other extenders to draw through your deck.

Now it does have a trigger that lets you send a 7 cost or lower back to your hand, and that can be useful in specific situations. However, it is almost always worse than getting the draw 2. Consider using the trigger if:

A. you don’t see yourself having enough don to play it and you need to get rid of one of your opponent’s threats

B. you already have one or two OP02-069-death-winks in your hand

Or C. You’re close to the endgame and bouncing a OP03-044-kaya will pretty much guarantee the win.

Card Breakdown - Misc. Cards

Here's where I'm just going to put cards that either don't fit into the previous categories, or require a bit more explanation.

We’re running 4 copies of OP01-088-desert-spada. It’s a 1 cost event with a trigger that lets you draw 2 cards and trash 1 from your hand. That’s going to be its best use in the deck, but if you use it for its counter, it’s +2000 power to a character or leader and lets you peak at the top 3 cards of your deck, rearrange them, and put them at the top or bottom in any order. This does have some pretty helpful advantages in combination with other cards. For instance, you can use it to put an extender on top of the deck or to make sure the top two are cards you don't mind milling with OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel. If you choose to put the cards on the bottom, like with OP02-058-buggy, remembering that order is very important. Closing out the game with OP03-040-nami is the hardest part, so you have to set yourself up for success. 

This is my favorite card to combo with OP02-069-death-wink. You’re running 4 of these. This is a 2 cost event that lets you draw a card if you have 3 or less cards in your hand. Important note here, it counts the cards after it’s played, so if this card was the 4th card in your hand, you still get your draw. If you see any OP03-040-nami deck not using 4 copies of this, you should immediately discount the deck. This is one of the best draw counters we have and any OP03-040-nami player that doesn't see that is just wrong.  

A OP02-069-death-wink that draws you a ST03-017-love-love-mellow means you’re getting an easy 3 cards off the top of your deck and replenishing your hand.

When we talk about trying to set things up with OP02-058-buggy, putting ST03-017-love-love-mellow and OP02-069-death-winks next to each other to enable this combo can win you entire games. I’ve had several games where I knew those two were coming, I played one ST03-017-love-love-mellow to draw the OP02-069-death-wink, then used the OP02-069-death-wink to draw 2, then the last ST03-017-love-love-mellow to win. 

OP06-059-white-snake is a brand new event in OP06 and the reason OP03-040-nami got buffed. OP06-059-white-snake is a 2 cost event that gives a character or leader +1000 power for the entire turn and lets you draw a card. For people who used to know how to play against OP03-040-nami, one of the keys was hitting her with 9k attacks, but OP06-059-white-snake pushes that number up to 10k and that means your opponent hits you with one less attack than they used to be able to, in most situations. It also means that decks that go wide and don’t leave enough don to give to their characters can be exploited to give yourself a free turn. We’ve got 4 of those, since it does help us draw as well. 

The trigger lets you look at the top 5 cards of your deck and place them on top or bottom in any order. That’s less helpful, but still definitely has uses. 

I run 1 copy of OP03-051-bell-mere because, in any matchup that doesn't bottom deck her (not OP05-041-sakazuki or ST10-001-trafalgar-law), she puts your opponent into a lose-lose-lose situation.

If they let her hit life, at any point, then you pretty much win the game. 7 cards from the top of the deck is too much of an advantage.

If they KO her, you get to drop 3 cards for 4 don, which is awesome on our end.  

If they just choose to block her every turn, then they don't get to swing with one of their characters.

The reason we don't run more of her is specifically because OP05-041-sakazuki is still in play. I started to use her in OP-07 and she is insane in the yellow, green, and black matchups.

Why not Zeff?

OP03-047-zeff is a noob trap and here’s why. He is a 5 cost character, which means you are -5 don for even playing him. You get the bonus of adding OP03-044-kaya back to your hand, but we can already do that with 2 don with OP02-067-arabesque-brick-fist and we don't run that because it's a dead end in our draws. 

OP03-051-bell-mere nets us a benefit every turn, even if she doesn't actually take a life. However, OP03-047-zeff needs to get that hit in for him to be any more than an overpriced OP02-067-arabesque-brick-fist and OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel. That puts us in a situation that is much more predictable and easy to counter.

If you don't go all in with OP03-047-zeff, you're going to get easily countered (since we don't attack with other cards, your opponent definitely has counters saved). Then, he gets ko'd next turn and you're out 6 don (5 to play, at least 1 to swing) for -2 cards from the deck and a OP03-044-kaya bounce. That's not a great trade.

Like OP03-047-zeff, OP03-051-bell-mere forces the opponent to deal with her, but she only costs us 5 don (4 to play and 1 to swing) for -3 cards. On top of that, because she's an on ko effect instead of an on play effect, she punishes your opponent for dealing with her. Compare that to OP03-047-zeff who gets all his benefits up front. Once he's rested, there's nothing stopping your opponent from just immediately koing him. This gives us more flexibility in how we choose to apply pressure to our opponents.

Additionally, the 5 cost for OP03-047-zeff leaves us in a worse off position than 4 with OP03-051-bell-mere. 5 don left means you have enough for a ST03-017-love-love-mellow (or a OP06-059-white-snake) and a OP02-069-death-wink. If you draw something with ST03-017-love-love-mellow that can't be immediately dropped from your hand, then you only draw 1 with OP02-069-death-wink or you have to wait and try again later.

6 don remaining gives us enough for the same two + a OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel. That ensures that we can get the ST03-017-love-love-mellow and OP02-069-death-wink combo off, no matter what we draw with ST03-017-love-love-mellow.

I know it's a hot take, but I am very against playing OP03-047-zeff in OP03-040-nami. I have used him plenty in past metagames and anything that he offers us can be done better by other cards.

Mulligan Criteria

Alright, so when are you going to mulligan? What are we looking for in our opening hand? There are several factors, but the first one is really simple.

Do you have OP02-058-buggy, OP03-044-kaya, OP03-054-usopps-rubber-band-of-doom, or OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel? If you have at least one or those, that's a good start.

The second factor to consider is how many draw 2 triggers (or draw 1 + trash 1) do you have in your opening hand? Remember that you draw your opening hand before placing life, so if you have a lot of those triggers in your hand, you're reducing the chance of your life containing at least one or two.

You can usually expect to see two draw 2 triggers in life (if you don't have any in your opening hand).

On top of that, you generally don't want more than 1 OP02-069-death-wink in hand at a time. However, if you have a OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel to trash the extra one, having 2 in your opening hand is fine. Ideally, you don't want any in your opening hand, since it takes a few turns before you're ready to drop that.

Lastly, you’re looking to establish your first three turns in your opening hand. If you’re going first, OP03-044-kaya or OP02-058-buggy is free. If you’re going second, you want to look for at least 4k in counter for 2 don. Basically, you want to be able to avoid the attach 3 don and swing hit. This is especially important in the OP06-022-yamato matchup.

Decision Making

Alright so let’s talk about your decisions. First off, how should you be defending? Well the answer is pretty simple. Whatever way is going to get more cards out of your deck. 

So if you’ve got one don, it’s generally going to be better to OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel instead of using OP03-054-usopps-rubber-band-of-doom, but that much is obvious. However, as I mentioned before, you gotta be planning ahead and considering your hand size. 

So your ideal defensive turn is gonna look like this. 

Say you’ve got OP02-069-death-wink, ST03-017-love-love-mellow, OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, and OP06-059-white-snake. You want OP06-059-white-snake to be the first card you play since it’ll benefit you for the whole turn and OP02-069-death-wink to be the last so you can draw 2 cards. 

So you OP06-059-white-snake. You draw 1. Let’s say it’s useless like Impel Down All Stars. Next, you’re gonna ST03-017-love-love-mellow and draw 1. 

Now you could have OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel’d here, but then you’d be in a position where your next play is ST03-017-love-love-mellow and you’re drawing a card you don’t know, which means you don’t know if you can use it before OP02-069-death-wink. However, if we ST03-017-love-love-mellow first, then we’re left with OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, OP02-069-death-wink, and 2 cards. If at least one of those is a character, you’re in a good spot. You gavel the useless card, trash 2 from the deck, and then discard the character for counter. That leaves with you with only OP02-069-death-wink, which you use and you’ve drawn 2 cards. 

If the card you drew with ST03-017-love-love-mellow is also a bad card, let’s say another copy of Impel Down All Stars, you can still OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, but you’re in a position where it may be more advantageous to take the next hit instead of only drawing 1 with OP02-069-death-wink, so you can see if you can grab an event and get to your next turn without going for OP02-069-death-wink. Then, you have a turn to set up your hand and re-try for the OP02-069-death-wink draw 2. 

If you get OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, OP06-059-white-snake, ST03-017-love-love-mellow, and OP02-069-death-wink to work, that’s 8 don and 15k total counter power, not counting any bonus counter you’re getting from OP06-059-white-snake for other attacks, along with 6 cards from the deck. Most opponents won’t be able to get past that, but let’s look at that situation again and see how we would need to adjust. 

Opponents will sometimes do this thing where they attach 10 don to their strongest character, then if you use too many resources to counter it, they’ll just swing with all their other characters for 5k. If you don’t counter it, they just end their turn and then you haven’t had a chance to drop cards. On the surface level, that makes sense from their perspective. 

So let’s say you have the same hand as before. You see the 10 don swing, You know if you counter, you’re gonna have to deal with 4 other attacks, and lets even make them all 6ks because OP06-059-white-snake would make the 5k situation irrelevant. 

You’re gonna OP06-059-white-snake, draw the 1. If it’s useless, you’re also going to OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel to trash 2. That leaves you with ST03-017-love-love-mellow and OP02-069-death-wink. From there, you’re gonna take the hit. Why? That’s a middle ground play that gives you -3 from the deck, doesn’t waste much don, so you discourage them from attacking with other characters, and now they’re gonna end their turn. 

On the next turn, you’ll have ST03-017-love-love-mellow, OP02-069-death-wink, and at least 2 other cards. If at least one of those cards was OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel or OP06-059-white-snake, you’re good to go. If it was OP02-063-mr1-dazbonez, you played him and grabbed OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel from your trash. 

Now they’re gonna do the same thing and try to hit you with 10 don. Whether or not you have your OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, you’re gonna ST03-017-love-love-mellow to draw. Now, you have 3 mystery cards. If you’ve gotten OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel and a character, OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel the non-character and trash the character for counter. You’re down to just OP02-069-death-wink. You use it and draw 2. 

Assuming you used OP02-063-mr1-dazbonez, you’ve now used 8 don, but you have 2 cards in hand. You can counter at least one of the following attacks. You might take around 2 life, but you got 5 cards out of the deck.

If, after the ST03-017-love-love-mellow, you still don’t have a OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, then you just take the 1 hit and then they stop attacking. 

If you had OP06-059-white-snake instead, you OP06-059-white-snake first and ST03-017-love-love-mellow, then it’s the same thing as before. 

The point I’m trying to make here is you’re balancing don cost, hand size, life, and predicting how your opponent will react to your plays. While OP03-040-nami isn’t a very proactive deck on her turn, how you react will make a huge difference. 

There are times when it’s worth it to just take the life to get an extra card in hand and because you see that the opponent is over-committing. Keep in mind what cards are in your trash and whether or not it’s likely your opponent is just gonna give you a draw 2. 

When to Use Sanji's Pilaf?

So OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf. That 3 don is a big commitment early. Generally, if you’ve got an opponent that’s continually attacking you, you want to wait until you have at least 6 or 7 don before you play OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf, as you should be focusing on defending. 

However, if you’ve got an opponent that’s leaving you alone and just building their board up before attacking you, you can play a little bit riskier and activate it when you have 4 or 5 don. If you use too much don early, you won't be able to defend their next swing and you'll be down a life. The people who are focusing on building their board are much less likely to switch up their playstyle and just attach all their don and swing at your next turn. That's why you have to see how your opponent is choosing to play the matchup. 

The Three Types of Opponents

Typically, you’re gonna get the 3 types of opponents. Ones that go wide with a lot of small attacks and hope you can’t deal with that. Ones that just try to hit you with one big hit every turn. Or ones that wait until they have a full board and then try to hit you with either a lot of medium sized attacks or 1 big attack and a bunch of small ones. 

The ones that go wide early are easy. Just keep your don open and you’re probably using 1 card per attack to defend. 

The ones that go for one big hit every turn make you consider whether you’re going to overextend by defending against it. If you can be sure you have a play next turn, then counter out. Otherwise, take the hit. 

The ones that focus on building the board up gives you time to just play OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf, OP02-058-buggy, OP03-044-kaya and OP03-051-bell-mere. If you have the extra don available, attach one or two to OP03-040-nami and swing. It likely gets countered, but if it doesn’t, that’s -1 card from the deck. Sometimes these types of opponents don't think that extra card matters and are happy to get a card into their hand. However, that one milled card can make a big difference later on.

How to Order Cards on the Bottom of Your Deck?

When it comes to OP02-058-buggy, and OP01-088-desert-spada to a lesser extent, you’re looking to order things that combo with each other next to each other. 

We already talked about how OP02-069-death-wink and ST03-017-love-love-mellow can combo with each other, but if you’re putting them on the bottom, you’d go ST03-017-love-love-mellow first, If OP02-069-death-wink is at the end of the chain, you have a higher chance of drawing it after your opponent has already attacked and then you can have a turn to make sure you can fulfill OP02-069-death-wink’s draw condition vs drawing that mid turn and then not being able to get the most effect out of it. 

When it comes to putting a OP02-058-buggy on the bottom, you want OP02-058-buggy before any Impel Down cards. If you don’t have any to choose from, OP02-058-buggy goes last. 

OP03-044-kaya should be in front of a card you don’t mind getting rid of with her effect. In the endgame, you might be playing a OP03-044-kaya and not have cards you want to discard in your hand, so we place the low priority cards after so we can just drop those. 

OP03-056-sanjis-pilafs should be spread out away from each other on the bottom. You generally don’t want to play 2 in one turn, as you’ll only have 4 don to defend yourself with and that’s a bit of an awkward amount. You usually want 5, 8, or 10. You also want OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf before major defensive cards like OP02-069-death-wink and Beam, so if you topdeck OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf, you can use it and be able to defend yourself the following turn. 

But before we move on, I want to take a second to talk about when to actually play OP02-058-buggy because there's a little bit of nuance there. Generally, as the game goes on, the chances of OP02-058-buggy whiffing get higher. Sometimes if you're in the mid-late game, you might not want to actually play him. If he whiffs, you gained nothing, lost a card in hand, and lost a don. Thankfully, you're going to have your decklist memorized, so we can do a quick check in the trash and then do simple division to calculate your chances. 

Difficult Matchups

Alright, so let’s talk about specific matchups. Keep in mind that I’m only mentioning ones where we have to consider different plays than normal. If something doesn’t get mentioned here, you’re just gonna play the matchup like usual.

Advantage: OP05-041-sakazuki

OP05-041-sakazuki is a problem for us because of 1 card, OP05-057-hound-blaze. We don't give a flying frickidy frack if he kos our characters, but sending them to the bottom of the deck is very much a no go. 

That's why when you're up against a OP05-041-sakazuki, you need to consider any character you play VERY carefully. A good OP05-041-sakazuki player will make every character you play a -1 by putting them back in the deck. So here's what you do. 

You are only gonna play OP03-044-kaya and maybe a OP02-063-mr1-dazbonez if you really need to get a OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel back. OP03-044-kaya taking 2 from the deck will offset the -1 you get when she gets sent back there. Plus, OP05-041-sakazuki players are unwittingly setting us up perfectly for the final turn. If you top deck OP03-044-kaya with only a few cards left in the deck, that'll be gg. 

So OP02-058-buggy is just a 1k counter in this matchup. I don't care if the probability is high that he'll hit a card. When he goes back into the deck, that's nullified and so all you got was minus 1 don. The ONLY acceptable time to play him in this matchup is if he's the last card in your hand and you know you can get a OP02-069-death-wink. That'll at least give you a combo enabler with its draw 2 effect. 

OP03-051-bell-mere is also the same. You are not playing her. It’s just a bad idea. 

Outside of that, we're also going to look for opportunities for an early OP03-040-nami swing. Almost every Saka player will prioritize setting up their board against us because they're too confident (for good reason). Because of that, they don't usually prioritize getting a blocker out or they end up using the blocker to swing. Take advantage of that for 1 card off your deck. Beware though, this only works once or twice. Once they realize what were up to, they'll be more cautious. 

When it comes to defending against a full board, you're usually going to take the OP06-086-gecko-moria hit and stop the little guys. Obviously, if you have OP06-059-white-snake and OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, then countering OP06-086-gecko-moria is fine

OP05-041-sakazuki is a tough one and you just have to try your best here. If you play with a lot of awareness and a bit of luck, you can win this one. 

Advantage: OP06-080-gecko-moria (by a little)

OP06-080-gecko-moria has two tools that are a pain in our side. OP06-093-perona and the ability to spam out characters. 

OP06-093-perona will make us trash a card from our hand if we have 5 or more cards. Good OP06-080-gecko-moria players will use that on their first attack to put us in a bind. Having a designated "dead" card in hand to trash on turn 3 is usually a good idea. For the rest of the game just to keep your hand size at 4 or lower. 

When it comes to OP06-080-gecko-moria's removal, it's all koing, which as I said with OP05-041-sakazuki, doesn't matter at all to us. You can play characters normally and lure opponents into a false sense of confidence when they ko your OP03-044-kaya. 

Oh no, I really needed that! 

Now the character spam is definitely more of an issue. OP06-080-gecko-moria players will usually go wide with 5k attacks, so we want to stick to managing our hand size and trying to only use 1 card per attack. OP06-059-white-snake is helpful here and gains more value as they play more characters, so try not to waste it too early. OP03-051-bell-mere is also great here. 

Advantage: OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri

On the other hand, a OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri player is more likely to play patiently. They like to get multiple 10c OP03-114-charlotte-linlin out before they try to go for game. This can be an issue as constant 7k pokes from OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri may have taken a lot of your resources. 

Honestly, this is a really hard matchup. You'll need to adjust your play around what they're doing. Watch for signals that tell you what's in your life. If they put it on the bottom, it's probably a draw 2 trigger. If they leave it, it's probably something with minuscule impact like a 2k counter or OP03-054-usopps-rubber-band-of-doom. 

Before you end your turn, count how many attacks they have on board. The only rush card OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri runs is OP05-100-enel sometimes, but it's rare. More often, they'll be looking to hit you with Reject or OP03-114-charlotte-linlin to take that last life and catch you off guard. If you can plan how many attacks you can safely take a turn, then you might be able to pull this out. 

Advantage: OP03-040-nami

OP05-098-enel is actually way easier. OP05-098-enel players are used to being laid back and taking hits early. When they go up against OP03-040-nami and you're not attacking them, they usually don't know what to do. 

That leads to one of these three play lines. 

They spend the first few turns just attaching don to their leader and swinging until they can drop cards like OP05-098-enel or OP06-022-yamato. Generally, this means they aren't playing characters for a while, so it's easy for us to assess whether we should take the life or not. A big leader swing should be blockable by a OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel + a ST03-017-love-love-mellow. If you have to overextend to counter it, then it's usually better to just take the hit. 

Play line 2 is they focus on spamming the board with OP05-110-holly, OP05-101-ohm, OP05-105-satori, etc and trying to hit you with a bunch of 5k hits. That's easy to deal with. 1 card per attack. 

Play line 3 is a combination of both. This happens when they're trying to figure out what works. However, this also has a high chance that they don't even swing at all on at least one turn. If they don't know what to do and you keep countering their attack, plus trashing cards from the deck, they sometimes get scared. They think that just passing isn't helping you because you're not playing events, but it actually just gives us an extra card. 

Look at their behavior. If they're giving you free turns, you need to gauge whether they're baiting you to overextend and then swing when you use too much don or if they're really just unsure of what to do. In either case, usually, you're safe to use 1 OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf, but no more. I don't like to spend more than 3 don before they attack because 7 don equals a OP02-069-death-wink and two ST03-017-love-love-mellows, or OP02-069-death-wink, ST03-017-love-love-mellows, and two OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavels. 

Who wins in this matchup entirely depends on the players, not on the decks. 

That being said, OP03-051-bell-mere is huge in this matchup too. She allows you to have an option to be more aggressive.

Advantage: OP03-040-nami

OP06-021-perona is another leader that can often get a bit confused when facing us. She's used to koing 4-6 cost characters and building up small bodies, until she finally drops 10c Doflamingo. 

However, like OP06-080-gecko-moria, we don't care if she KOs our characters. 

The main reason I bring this matchup up here is because OP06-021-perona has character searchers. She runs ST02-007-jewelry-bonney or OP05-034-baby-5 and, if she plays a blocker OP02-114-borsalino, you can't really do anything to them. If OP06-021-perona leaves the searcher open, by all means KO them, but if the blocker is there, you need to accept that they're gonna gain value from it every turn. If you try to attach don to OP03-040-nami and swing past the blocker, you're just gonna get countered and youll be out a few don. 

The secondary reason I bring this up is that, although she's a slow deck, which works to our advantage, she does have a bunch of 6k attackers. Your 2k counters become a little more valuable in this matchup. 

OP06-022-yamato has two major variants and whether you have advantage or disadvantage entirely depends on which one it is. 

If he's running Fortress OP06-022-yamato, that's fantastic for us. It's very defensive and that means the main threat is their leader swing, at least until 8c OP01-051-eustasscaptainkid-701 comes out. They tend to just attach all their don to OP06-022-yamato and swing until they get OP01-051-eustasscaptainkid-701 out. Just like with OP05-098-enel, you just need to determine if it's worth taking the hit. When OP01-051-eustasscaptainkid-701 comes out, they'll attach all their don to OP01-051-eustasscaptainkid-701 and then just poke with OP06-022-yamato. 

If he's running a more aggressive variant, like the Wano engine, that's actually a problem. In that case, OP06-022-yamato will be able to pressure us from multiple sides. You treat this like you're facing a character spam deck, but you have to be extremely careful about OP06-035-hody-jones. 

An experienced OP06-022-yamato player will drop OP06-035-hody-jones, rest 2 of our don, and then try to get us with the surprise 10k swing. The 2 extra don coming from their leader skill. 

Thankfully, people who haven't mastered that deck will often forget OP06-035-hody-jones can rest don (seriously so many play make that misplay), since he's so often used to rest characters. You still need to watch for that 10k swing though. 

In both scenarios, you need to mulligan to get a OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel in hand or 2 2k counters. It's very normal for OP06-022-yamato players to attach 3 don to OP06-022-yamato and just swing at your face. You want an answer for that in your opening hand. 

Additionally, while it's more likely with the aggro variant, you need to be extremely aware of OP06-101-o-nami. If he gets a hit off when OP06-022-yamato has banish, you have a much lower chance of winning. Remember that we expect to see at least 2 draw 2 triggers in our life, so if those get banished instead, we lose 2 cards that would have went to our hand AND we lose the potential to get 2-4 cards out of the deck. That's a minus 4 to us at minimum. Make sure that you have enough counter to deal with OP06-022-yamato with all don but 2 attached. 

If you're facing the aggro variant, it might also be worth taking a hit from their leader early, that way you can save the resources to stop a banish swing later on. 

Advantage: OP06-042-vinsmoke-reiju

OP06-042-vinsmoke-reiju is a problem for two reasons, but the biggest one is a tech card, OP06-047-charlotte-pudding. She has on play, your opponent shuffles their hand into their deck and draws 5 cards. 

Thankfully, you will know instantly if they have it in their deck based on how they play. If they don't attack and only play characters like OP06-069-vinsmoke-reiju, it's in their deck and they're fishing for it. They want you to draw as much as you can, so they can put all those cards back into the deck. 

If they play more aggressively, they aren't running OP06-047-charlotte-pudding and you can play normally. 

If they have OP06-047-charlotte-pudding, start attaching 2 don to OP03-040-nami and swinging. They want extra cards, so you're gonna incentivize them not to counter. They'll let the attack through and you get a card from the deck. OP06-042-vinsmoke-reiju/ runs enough 2k counters that they feel confident you can't finish them via life and they're right, but that's not our intention. You're just looking to drop 1-2 cards from the deck and make them think you're more aggressive than you actually are. 

You're also going to play characters as often as you can. You want your hand size low and playing the characters is a good way to achieve that. 

If they don't have OP06-047-charlotte-pudding, they're looking to spam out characters and surprise you with 1 or 2 OP06-061-vinsmoke-ichiji swings. Since he's a 7k character, you focus on stopping the small swings and take the OP06-061-vinsmoke-ichijis, unless you have ST03-017-love-love-mellows or OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel of course. 

The second reason OP06-042-vinsmoke-reiju/ is difficult is OP06-062-vinsmoke-judge. If you’re up against an experienced OP06-042-vinsmoke-reiju/ player, they’re gonna use OP06-062-vinsmoke-judge to deny you a don every turn. The combination of that, character spam, and OP06-047-charlotte-pudding actually makes this an extremely difficult matchup.

Advantage: OP02-001-edwardnewgate

Ah OP02-001-edwardnewgate. The original 6k leader. They look to end the game quickly and run the big boss man himself, which has 10k power. 

This is a tough one because even if you don't swing at them, their leader ability is still giving them resources each turn. 

To win this, you're going to need a decent bit of luck and to hold onto your OP02-069-death-winks for the 9c OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 swing. 

You should also keep your 2k counters for the leader swing. That's about all we can do. 

Advantage: ST10-002-monkeydluffy

The other 6k leader also gives us trouble. You're going to play it similarly to OP02-001-edwardnewgate, but you need to be careful when they get to 10 don. Watch what their first move is. 

A gear 5 OP05-119-monkeydluffy play means you’re likely going to lose 2 life if you're not prepared. 

So if they just start swinging with characters that don't have any don on them, even blockers like OP05-074-eustasscaptainkid, they're getting ready to drop OP05-119-monkeydluffy. Don't overextend and make sure you can block a 9k leader swing on their next turn. You won't be able to stop the gear 5 OP05-119-monkeydluffy, so you need to make sure you're only losing 1 life in that exchange. 

Advantage: OP05-002-belo-betty

OP05-002-belo-betty is the exact opposite of our deck and unfortunately, that really makes this a tough one. Thankfully, she has a terrible matchup against a lot of other decks, so you shouldn’t see her too often. 

A OP05-002-belo-betty wants to build up a wide board before she boosts the character's, so she gets max value out of the exchange. Thankfully, that means you have 2-3 free turns. You need to make the most of those by playing things like OP03-044-kaya, OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf, and OP02-058-buggy and making sure you have the hand to stop their big swings later. Ideally, you're not even really using any major events on their turn here. OP03-054-usopps-rubber-band-of-doom or OP01-088-desert-spada is fine, but anything better should be saved. 

Once they start to go in, you switch to full defense mode. Leave as much don open as possible and be ready to stop the big hits. When their characters are open, we swing at them so they lose hand resources and thereby lose chances to boost. 

Advantage: ST13-003-monkeydluffy (by a little)

Okay so this can be rough depending on your first few turns. The best thing you can do is play COMPLETELY defensive. They want to hit 0 life so they can start their combos and power up their leader.

While they do carry ways to reduce their own life, making them do it themselves will stall for a handful.of turns, which can really make the difference. After that, you need to watch for rush ST13-011-portgasdace and you're probably going to end up having to take their leader swings. 

You want to defend against the other attacks and then you have to hope you drew enough early to get through your deck before they finish you off. 

Advantage: ST10-001-trafalgar-law

ST10-001-trafalgar-law is tough because he can bottom deck any character we play and likes to spam out a bunch of low cost attackers. Similar to OP05-041-sakazuki, you really need to be mindful of what characters you play. On top of that, OP06-059-white-snake is the key to winning this. OP06-059-white-snake at the right time will completely nullify their turn, which will save you hand resources and let you start again with 10 don.