Table of Contents
If you caught my comprehensive deep dive into OP03-040-nami in EB-01, this is going to be an update to that! If not, you can find that here. If you've read that, you already know that I tend to take a slightly different approach to OP03-040-nami than other players, as I like to make OP03-040-nami as consistent of a deck as possible. Even if you don't pilot her in the same way I do, I'm sure you'll glean some interesting information from this article.
Nami's Meta Outlook
Going into OP-07, OP03-040-nami players have a plethora of options to choose from, as we finally have been given two new engines to play with. OP07-041-gloriosa-grandma-nyon searches out Kuja Pirates cards and OP07-046-sengoku grabs cards with the 7 Warlords of the Sea trait! Along with OP02-058-buggy, this led to three different variants emerging, all with their own pros and cons.
Kuja Pirates OP03-040-nami focuses on getting to ST03-017-love-love-mellow quickly and using OP07-054-marguerite as a blocker. This makes her pretty good against opponents that swing tall like OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri, but worse against opponents that go wide like OP01-001-roronoa-zoro. OP07-054-marguerite is also a card with 0 counter, so this version is more prone to dead cards in your hand.
Warlords OP03-040-nami runs 7 cost OP01-067-crocodile and excels in matches where an opponent can't remove him. 7 OP01-067-crocodile makes all your events cost 1 don less, including the 1 don events, so it tends to be better against decks that swing wide and allows for more aggressive plays.
Impel Down OP03-040-nami is what I'd consider to be the most balanced version, as it is able to consistently use OP02-069-death-wink and allows us to have OP02-066-impel-down-all-stars be searchable in our deck.
However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for our trusty navigator! There's a storm on the horizon and its name is ST10-001-trafalgar-law. While OP05-041-sakazuki is now banned, ST10-001-trafalgar-law is the most popular deck in the OP-07 format. This means that OP03-040-nami players will face a lot of uphill battles, and this trend seems to continue in the OP-08 format. On the other hand, she does have the best matchup against OP05-098-enel, so she's particularly good in metas with a lot of the electric god.
Feel free to check out how we handle some of the common threats in this video
The Decklist
The deck I'm bringing to you today takes the best traits from all three variants, in order to make your matchup versus any leader (except for ST10-001-trafalgar-law) as consistent as possible. Unfortunately, while there are a few cards that can help in the ST10-001-trafalgar-law matchup, they are never enough to fully bridge the gap. I'll cover a couple of them in a later section, but as every deck in this meta has a deck that counters them, I've elected to forgo the ST10-001-trafalgar-law techs in favor of making sure we can win every other matchup.
While a lot of the core cards don't need explanation, as I already covered them in the last article, OP07-055-snake-dance is a brand new card in this set.
This is a 2 cost event that lets you bounce OP03-044-kaya (or any other character back to your hand) and gives you +4000 power. This is exceptional in the early game, as it not only allows us to reuse OP03-044-kaya, but it’s lets us avoid using more important cards like ST03-017-love-love-mellow for later on. Plus, unlike OP01-086-overheat, your character does not need to be active to bounce them. Bouncing is also not a cost, just an extra effect, so you can still use this even if you don’t have anything to bounce back to your hand.
Thankfully, this also has a pretty life saving trigger as well. By bouncing one of your own characters, and this is a cost this time, you can bounce one of your opponent’s cost 5 or lower characters back to their hand. We can use that in a variety of situations, but one of the most helpful is against ST10-001-trafalgar-law.
By adding this to the deck, we have a way of bouncing OP03-044-kaya without having to run dead cards, like OP02-067-arabesque-brick-fist. However, while this card is wonderful, it is not your top priority and is okay to discard if needed. If you don’t have a character to bounce on your field, it’s just an extra 4000 counter power, which you should take into account when you compare it to something like OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel or ST03-017-love-love-mellow that also gets cards out of the deck.
OP02-063-mr1-dazbonez is a very helpful card that lets us recycle our 1 cost events, especially OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavell. In the last decklist, we ran him at 4 copies, as we had OP02-058-buggy to search for him. However, as this list doesn't rely as much on the 1 cost events and we no longer have a way to search for OP02-063-mr1-dazbonez, I have reduced the number of copies from 4 to 2.
In matches where your opponent doesn’t run removal, OP01-067-crocodile is essentially a win condition. While he won’t be doing much for us in Black matchups, he greatly boosts our win rate vs green decks and yellow decks like OP07-019-jewelry-bonney, OP06-022-yamato, OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri. Plus, he's a massive help vs OP01-001-roronoa-zoro. We’re only running him at 2 copies because he’s situational, but he has a 1k counter, so he won’t be an obstacle for controlling our hand size, which if you remember, that's extremely important.
Basically, you run OP03-050-boodle because of ST13-003-monkeydluffy. In that matchup, we would normally have to take their boosted leader hits, but OP03-050-boodle blocks and drops a card, which saves us a life. On top of that, he’s also an easy turn 1 play against anything that won’t immediately bottom deck him, as you can just block the first hit, save the cards in your hand, and drop a card from your deck.
He’s great value, but situational, which is why we’re only running 2
Now I talked a lot about OP03-051-bell-mere in the last article, but it’s really important, so I’m gonna go over her again. Against an opponent that cannot bottom deck her, which is only ST10-001-trafalgar-law and OP07-038-boa-hancock usually, she puts our opponents into a lose lose situation. She has the same ability as OP03-047-zeff, so if she deals damage, you mill 7 and that pretty much secures us the game.
However, instead of having OP03-047-zeff’s on-play effect, she has an on-ko effect to mill 3. She also costs 1 less.
What that means is that for 4 don, we get to mill 3 cards, at minimum. That’s pretty decent value, but what it also means is that there is a deterrent not to ko her.
If you’re the opponent and you’re staring down OP03-051-bell-mere,
- You can ko her, and just let the OP03-040-nami mill 3.
- You can play a bit more defensively and just make sure she can’t get a hit in.
- You can just ignore her, but if you do that, you’re probably going to lose.
All of these are great for us. If your opponent plays more defensively, that means things like leaving a blocker active, which means less that you have to defend against. This puts a lot of pressure on your opponents, as if they make a mistake on this route, you have game.
If your opponent bites the bullet, cool, that’s a valuable trade for us. They lost don to remove her, you got 3 cards from your deck, and that’s worth the 4 don for playing her.
When we play OP03-047-zeff, we get the bounce effect, but we don’t have the deterrent. After OP03-047-zeff is played, there’s nothing stopping an opponent from just getting rid of him. A lot of people don’t seem to get this, but the value from OP03-051-bell-mere is more than just what’s stated on the card. It’s how she affects the state of the game.
As a OP03-040-nami player, we need to be able to react appropriately to our opponent’s plays, which means we need to play more than just the game in front of us. You need to play the player.
When we look at piloting a OP03-040-nami deck from this perspective, OP03-051-bell-mere pushes our opponents into tough decisions. This is not even considering that OP03-051-bell-mere is 4 don for 3 cards and OP03-047-zeff is 5 for 2 cards and a bounce. We run 4 OP03-051-bell-mere and no OP03-047-zeff for this reason. She's extremely effective against OP05-098-enel and black decks like OP06-080-gecko-moria and OP07-079-rob-lucci, which along with ST13-003-monkeydluffy and ST10-001-trafalgar-law, make up the top 5 decks in the meta. She also gives us a way to win the mirror match. If your locals contains more ST10-001-trafalgar-law and ST13-003-monkeydluffy, you should drop this ratio down to 2 and add 2 OP03-050-boodle instead.
ST03-005-dracule-mihawk is the best 2k counter we could run, outside of Kata, and in the matches you can play him in, you get the value for the don spent from one attack. He, along with the 4 copies of OP03-051-bell-mere, make it so you should not be losing the mirror match. Those two also give us ways of being very proactive, so opponents can’t just leave us alone and build up their boards, which is a common tactic people like to take against OP03-040-namis. Plus, because he’s a 2k counter, you will always be able to gain some value from this card.
What Was Not Included and Why
She helps in the ST10-001-trafalgar-law matchup, but has a costly effect and isn’t enough to bridge the gap. You’ll still be at a pretty big disadvantage. If your meta is very ST10-001-trafalgar-law focused, swap ST03-005-dracule-mihawk for OP04-041-apis.
OP03-057-three-thousand-worldsRemoval cards are more of a western-meta thing, but they act as dead cards in too many matchups. There are many moments where we need to top deck a card that draws into more cards, and if we draw into one of these, that ends the chain. If your local meta has a lot of OP07-019-jewelry-bonney players, OP04-056-gum-gum-red-roc may be worth it, as 9c OP06-118-roronoa-zoro can be a real threat. However, while OP06-058-gravity-blade-raging-tiger may seem effective against ST10-001-trafalgar-law, leaving yourself with only 3 don leaves you vulnerable.
OP07-057-perfume-femur and OP02-066-impel-down-all-stars
Without a way to search for them, thus controlling when they end up in your hand, I don't believe the trade off for increased triggers is worth the dead draws in the late game.
How to Mulligan
This hasn’t changed too much from the previous guide, which you can find here. As always, you want to be going second, if possible. You also want as few draw 2 triggers in your hand as possible, including things like OP03-054-usopps-rubber-band-of-doom that draws one and mills one. This just boosts the probability that they end up in life, and without OP02-066-impel-down-all-stars, that probability has gone down, so it’s a bit more important now.
If you’re going first, ideally you have a OP03-044-kaya in hand, but if it’s a good hand with no OP03-044-kaya, it’s fine to keep.
If you’re going second, you want a OP03-050-boodle in hand or some combination of cards that will give you +4000 counter power for 2 don or less. This just avoids the obvious, attach 3 don to leader, and swing. This is extra important in the OP06-022-yamato matchup.
Outside of that, you want to be able to establish a chain of cards over the next few turns. For instance, if I draw OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel, OP02-069-death-wink, OP06-059-white-snake, OP03-051-bell-mere, and ST03-017-love-love-mellow , I’d keep that. It’s not the best hand, but you’ve got an easy chain.
Your 2 don turn, you pass. They swing for 8k, you OP03-055-gum-gum-giant-gavel and drop OP03-051-bell-mere.
Your 4 don turn, you draw an unknown card. You pass. OP06-059-white-snake for another card and ST03-017-love-love-mellow if you need to for another card.
Your 6 don turn. You’ve got OP02-069-death-wink and 3 other cards. By this point, you’ve probably got an early OP02-069-death-wink play on this turn or the next for +2 cards.
As you get used to this deck, it’ll be easier to recognize these things. If you want some more help understanding the combos, I did a whole section on it in the last guide.
Meta Matchups
Advantage: ST10-001-trafalgar-law
As I’ve hinted at throughout this guide, ST10-001-trafalgar-law is an extreme disadvantage. Because he can bottom deck our characters, we need to avoid playing any unnecessary ones. However, other than that, the key to winning lies in how well you use OP06-059-white-snake.
The thing about ST10-001-trafalgar-law is that they run A LOT of 5k attackers. They also tend to prefer building up their board against us and trying to swing for a lot of small hits, instead of attaching a ton of don and swinging.
If you can hold onto your OP06-059-white-snake until the moment when they’ve used most of their don, and have a bunch of attacks ready to go, you can completely nullify their turn by just boosting yourself up to 6k.
If you do this right, you save yourself about 3-4 cards worth of events every time. That does add up.
The other thing to know is that a bit over half of ST10-001-trafalgar-law players do run the 4 cost blocker T10-010-trafalgar-law; however, most run about 2-3 copies. While you don’t need to be overly cautious about hitting 7 cards in hand, you do need to be aware of it and pay attention to when your opponent is trying to set up for that. If they’re leaving you alone, or if you’re at 6 cards in hand and they have the don or leader ability available, they may be trying to trick you into discarding two of your cards.
Lastly, EB01-003-kid-killer is a problem, so you need to be pretty conservative about taking damage. If you’re careless and get into the 2 life range, you’ll have to deal with 7k swings every round, without any don attached. That’s pretty hard to come back from.
While this match is difficult, it’s not impossible and, if you get lucky and play well, you can do it.
Advantage: OP03-040-nami
OP05-098-enel is the exact opposite. We have such a major advantage against OP05-098-enel in OP-07 that it’s literally one of their hardest matchups, especially since we’ve built around beating their only real strategy.
For OP05-098-enel to win versus OP03-040-nami, they need to start building up a crazy board before they start attacking. In theory, this should prevent you from getting too many cards out of the deck and then they can try to overwhelm you.
But remember OP03-051-bell-mere, OP03-050-boodle, and ST03-005-dracule-mihawk. We’re not a passive OP03-040-nami deck. We have options to force OP05-098-enel to start attacking, which will let you start using your counter events before they can be ready for you.
You should not be losing this matchup.
Advantage: OP06-080-gecko-moria (slightly)
Honestly, not much changes from my previous guide here. The only real thing is that you need to start looking out for Issho. OP06-080-gecko-moria players run him quite often and you don’t want to have to discard anything unnecessarily.
On top of that, ST03-005-dracule-mihawk is just a 2k counter here, but you should play OP03-051-bell-mere the way you’d play a OP03-056-sanjis-pilaf. Don’t make yourself vulnerable playing her, but it’s a don investment that pays back 3 cards from the top of your deck. It’s all too easy for them to ko her with OP06-081-absalom and most OP06-080-gecko-moria players will take the bait.
Advantage: ST13-003-monkeydluffy
Nothing has really changed for this matchup, outside of using OP03-050-boodle to block, but we already covered that. They still have the advantage, but you have a few turns before they’re ready to start really swinging at you. Use the most of that, take the hits that you have to, and then you’ll pull through. They don’t really have a way to get rid of OP01-067-crocodile, unless they run the 4c OP02-096-kuzan, so if you can get him on the field, your victory is much closer.
Advantage: Neutral
Honestly, this one is not that bad. OP07-079-rob-lucci doesn’t have a way to drop cards from your hand, other than OP03-078-issho. They also have more tech options they can run than him, so as of writing this, they only run OP03-078-issho about 25% of the time.
The main difference you need to be aware of is that they use a lot of 6k attackers. This gives more value to the 1 cost events, but OP06-059-white-snake is less important here. Also, it should go without saying, but we don’t use OP01-067-crocodile here.
Advantage: OP03-040-nami
We have the advantage until she plays 9 cost OP06-118-roronoa-zoro. Playing OP03-051-bell-mere may seem okay, but it’s likely she just gets perma-stunned with OP07-019-jewelry-bonney’s ability and 10c OP04-031-donquixote-doflamingo or your opponent just plays OP07-029-basil-hawkins and blocks her. OP01-067-crocodile is very helpful if you never attack with anything. If you don’t give OP07-019-jewelry-bonney a chance to use her ability, she can’t really remove OP01-067-crocodile.
If you think the OP06-118-roronoa-zoro is coming, I’d drop OP01-067-crocodile a bit early. Having him on the field makes the OP06-118-roronoa-zoro play winnable, but you need the full 9 don available, so playing him after OP06-118-roronoa-zoro is down isn’t great.
Advantage: OP03-099-charlotte-katakuri
Really nothing changes here from the last guide. The 7k Kata swings will drain you until they play multiple 10c OP03-114-charlotte-linlin. You win if they don’t get to the OP03-114-charlotte-linlins fast enough. You can play OP01-067-crocodile here, as well as OP03-051-bell-mere. ST03-005-dracule-mihawk will get OP05-102-gedatsu’d if you play him.
Advantage: Neutral
In OP-07, OP06-022-yamato really just runs an aggro build, usually Wano based. The build has a lot of draw power, but a TON of cards that just search. Make sure you can counter the OP06-022-yamato swings, if he gets banish, but otherwise you should be good early on. They also like to run a lot of OP06-035-hody-jones and 5c ST13-011-portgasdace. The ST13-011-portgasdace doesn’t really matter, but you should be ready for the OP06-035-hody-jones play late game. OP01-067-crocodile is fine here, as long as you don’t open yourself up to banish double attack.
Advantage: OP03-040-nami
So take everything I just said about OP06-022-yamato, but minus the double attack and banish and give her removal instead. This is absolutely winnable on our end. You can just play it normally, but of course, no OP01-067-crocodile.
Advantage: OP07-038-boa-hancock
OP07-038-boa-hancock is just a worse OP05-041-sakazuki for us. She likes to bottom deck things, so only play the characters you need to. She doesn’t have that many boss drops, other than the OP04-044-kaido-326 and kind of 8k OP07-038-boa-hancock, so she likes to go wide instead. Use your OP06-059-white-snakes well and you’ll take this one. No OP01-067-crocodile.
Advantage: YOU
In the mirror match, we’ve got it covered. The only time I ever lost in the mirror with this deck was because
- My last Pilaf was in life and not in the last couple cards like I expected
- More importantly, I was too impatient and started swinging with 2 ST03-005-dracule-mihawk on the field instead of 3
Because we have OP03-051-bell-mere, ST03-005-dracule-mihawk, and even OP01-067-crocodile, you should not be losing this. The average OP03-040-nami deck runs about 2 OP03-047-zeff in OP-07. You can easily stop that by just defending against the hit and koing them the next turn.
They sometimes run OP04-041-apis, which will give them extra search and many still run OP02-067-arabesque-brick-fist.
But outside of those, they have to rely on their events. An average OP03-040-nami deck is going to mill about 6 cards off of 10 don. If you have at least 3 ST03-005-dracule-mihawk on the field before you start swinging, you match their mill on your own turn and can surpass it if they try to stop the ST03-005-dracule-mihawks. This is also not counting any mill that you do with OP03-044-kaya or Sanji’s Pilaf on your own turn.
On top of that, you have OP03-051-bell-meres. If you get 2 out, all of a sudden, your opponent is under a lot of pressure.
This is alongside OP05-098-enel with some of the easiest matchups this deck has.
Difficult Niche Matchups
Advantage: OP06-020-hody-jones
Yes this is not a joke. OP06-020-hody-jones specializes in resting don and swinging multiple times with OP06-029-daruma. This is an exceptionally difficult matchup when you run into it. To win this, you need to actually use the characters a good bit. You gotta play aggressive because you won’t win this one defensively.
Advantage: OP06-042-vinsmoke-reiju
I don’t have much more to say about this that I didn’t in the last one. OP06-062-vinsmoke-judge still bends us over a table and let’s just say we’re not being served a nice meal. OP01-067-crocodile is fine here
Advantage: ST10-002-monkeydluffy
Gear 5 Luffy is ROUGH! Make sure you use OP03-050-boodle and keep enough don open for the double turn. Outside of that, prioritize the 4k counter events over the 2k ones. OP02-069-death-wink is a big help here. OP01-067-crocodile can definitely bridge the gap and make this one a neutral matchup.
Advantage: OP05-002-belo-betty
OP05-002-belo-betty is an all in fast deck, which is entirely the opposite of how we want to play. If the OP05-002-belo-betty player gets the right cards quickly enough, we're in trouble. To win this, you need to deal with their characters as soon as they're rested. OP05-005-karasu is one of the biggest threats to worry about, so make sure you take that out ASAP. If you can get OP03-051-bell-mere or ST03-005-dracule-mihawk out before the leader boost, it can be helpful to slow down your opponent.
Conclusion
While OP03-040-nami isn't the best leader in the meta, she's relatively strong. There are a lot of great builds out there. I believe this list is the most consistent, but it's going to depend on your local meta and your own playstyle. I hope that this article can provide insights and a good starting point for your own OP03-040-nami builds.
