Hello, One Piece card game enthusiasts!
The One Piece card game regional offline tournament in Krefeld, Germany concluded this weekend. We’ve seen legends like Hrvoje Hedžet and Matteo Longhin as well as a fair share of newcomers battle it out in a fierce competition.
Let’s break down the One Piece TCG tournament meta and how it changes from Swiss Stage to Top Cut!
Krefeld Offline Regional Swiss Stage
To anyone up-to-date with the Japanese tournament meta during OP06, these stats shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The big three this season are Katakuri, Sakazuki, and Gecko Moria.
The biggest twist is that Katakuri is the most popular of the three. Sakazuki was the deck to play in OP05 and made up 30% of the One Piece card game tournament meta.
This might be due to some players being discouraged by the upcoming Sakazuki ban, the high price of OP06-086-gecko-moria at the start of the season, or sheer variance.
Despite Katakuri being the easiest of the three to pilot, Moria is by far the most successful deck, sporting a 55% winrate over the Swiss Stage.
This shows that while Katakuri is easy to play, it’s also easy to play against, and black decks can get the upper hand if navigated correctly.
Here lies the nuance between Moria and Sakazuki as well – while both decks have a similar power level, Sakazuki is quite a bit more difficult. Especially choosing which card to cycle with the leader ability every round and setting up cards like OP06-086-gecko-moria can be overwhelming to rookies.
As Yamato found a lot of success in Japanese tournaments, winning the first two regionals there, it has also become a meta staple in the West. It notably has a very advantageous matchup against four-life leaders like Sakazuki and Reiju, making it a polarizing deck in nature.
This is because if Yamato’s leader swing connects twice vs. four-life leaders, they are down to zero life and any swing that goes through will be lethal.
That being said, Yamato’s nemeses are five-life leaders like Katakuri and Moria, who unfortunately are just as popular as Sakazuki. This explains the below-average winrate of Yamato in the Swiss Stage.
Next is my favorite One Piece card game tournament deck – Reiju!
Featuring the unintuitive concept of deramping your Don!!, this archetype is heaps of fun to pilot. And hey, the childhood nostalgia of seeing the Power Rangers back in action is a nice bonus too! =)
That being said, Reiju can feel inconsistent at times. The games where it doesn’t find OP06-079-kingdom-of-germa feel vastly different from games where it does.
It is worth noting that Reiju has never won a major tournament in Japan in OP06. Overall, this deck was flying under the radar in the eastern meta. Only in the West, it is getting its fair share of attention.
In the Krefeld Offline Regional Swiss Stage, though, Reiju was the second-best-performing deck after Moria. It also achieved a 55% winrate, proofing its inherent strength!
Further down the line, there are some remnants of the past – Enel, Uta, Nami, and Zoro have some representation but didn’t perform at all.
Especially Enel, a meta giant in OP05, now whispers his way around corners where OP06-086-gecko-moria can’t hear him.
Perona is the biggest letdown of OP06. Many hoped that she would take off as a child of the green rest archetype and black removal. But as it turns out, OP02-114-borsalino and OP04-083-sabo build an unsurpassable wall against Perona.
Not all hope is lost though – Perona won an Offline Regional in OP06 in Japan!
Lastly, Red Purple Law has found its way into the One Piece card game tournament meta. In OP05, it was the secret Sakazuki counter. In OP06 though, with Sakazuki being able to search their 2k counters through OP06-050-tashigi, this matchup has become a lot closer.
The key difference for the deck is OP06-069-vinsmoke-reiju. It allows RP Law to keep a sizeable hand and defend their board through countering.
This change allowed Tim Riefer to top as the only RP Law player! Here is his deck list:
The Swiss Stage was completed after nine rounds. In the final round, Kristian Čurla, also known as VoiceoftheWind, won with Moria against the Sakazuki of Dennis Kuprijanov, also known as Kuraschi.
Krefeld Offline Regional Top Cut
As we can see, the distribution of Swiss Stage and Top Cut decks roughly matches, especially the big three remain the same!
That being said, Moria is outperforming the other two meta contenders. With 13 out of 32 decks, Moria makes up 40% of the One Piece card game top cut meta!
Furthermore, Sakazuki also has the upper hand over Katakuri due to Sakazuki better scaling with player skill.
RP Law and Yamato are the rogue decks that made a single top cut, whereas two players maneuvered Reiju to the top.
In the end, Sakazuki won! Giovanni Salvatore Oliva managed to win five times in a row in the top cut, granting him the title of Regional Champion!
The member of K2 is no unwritten page either. He already won two offline regionals before Krefeld, making him an absolute legend in the Western One Piece card game community!
Most noteworthy, K2 utilized a drastically different Sakazuki list from other competitors:
Instead of black staples like ST06-015-great-eruption and OP02-117-ice-age, this list is relying on ST06-017-navy-hq for cost reduction.
Additionally, the list is utilizing OP06-056-ama-no-murakumo-sword to bottomdeck combo pieces against Sakazuki and Moria, while avoiding the On K.O. effects of OP03-113-charlotte-perospero and OP06-104-kikunojo of Katakuri.
This is a big innovation compared to the Japanese meta, where builds like these were not that popular or successful.
Conclusion
In summary, Gecko Moria is the deck to bring if you want to top a One Piece card game Offline Regional. If you’re confident, Sakazuki might be the better choice, and the K2 list gives plenty to test until the next big event.
If you want to be cute, Reiju is the most promising Tier 2 deck.
That being said, take this advice with a grain of salt. This is just the first offline regional in Europe, and we will need more tournaments to draw definite conclusions!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@Leer97) or Discord (Leer1709).
Thank you for reading and see you next time =)
