Table of Contents
Heya everyone! The One Piece card game's OP08 Two Legends is set to officially be released in the West on the 13th of September. This expansion will bring 6 new Leaders to the game (OP08-001-tony-tonychopper, OP08-002-marco, OP08-021-carrot, OP08-057-king, OP08-058-charlotte-pudding, and OP08-098-kalgara) along with many new cards to shake up the West meta.
OP08 will also have new starter cards (ST15, ST16, ST17, ST18. ST19, and ST20) that'll be released down the line, but in this article, I'll share decks built for the OP08 cards only and I'll share the new Starter decks that some Leaders can take advantage of. I'll also talk about how these decks performed in the East meta and my expectations for them in the West.
Red Blue Marco
The Red Blue Leader OP08-002-marco is one of the strongest coming into the OP08 meta and will continue to improve with the release of Starter 15 cards.
OP08-002-marco's effect gives one of the opponent's Characters a -2,000 Power reduction, making it easier for you to attack and KO that Character or put it in range for cards like OP03-018-fire-fist and OP03-013-marco to KO.
4-cost OP02-018-marco and 5-cost OP03-013-marco can stick on the field for a while, ensuring you have a mid-game presence. Whenever they're KO'd, you can trash a card from hand (4-cost OP02-018-marco needs you to trash a {Whitebeard Pirates card}, while 5-cost OP03-013-marco needs you to trash an Event) to keep them in play, maintaining presence without having to use up Don.
OP08-118-silvers-rayleigh is the best play if you're looking to remove threats off the field and weaken your opponent's upcoming attack turn. Whereas OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 gives your Leader a +2,000 Power boost, forcing more Don commitment out of them if they wish to damage your Leader. When OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 attacks along with Leader OP08-002-marco's power reduction effect he can KO 5,000 Power Characters.
OP08-002-marco's other effect draws you a card and lets you place 1 card from your hand at the top or bottom of the deck, which helps filter your hand for better cards. However, with OP06-119-sanji[card] in the list, we can take advantage of this synergy between both cards' effects. At 10 Don, we can place a high-cost Character like [card]OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 or OP08-118-silvers-rayleigh at the top of our deck and then follow it up with the OP06-119-sanji play, cheating out that high-cost Character at the top of our deck.
ST15-004-thatch is a {Whitebear Pirates} card with a +2,000 Counter. He can be played for the Power reduction and self-damage, but that's more situational.
ST15-005-portgasdace is another great addition to the deck, a 6,000 Power Character with Rush finds value on the field immediately. Additionally, it can be challenging for opponents to remove ST15-005-portgasdace off the field. The first he would be removed from play, ST15-005-portgasdace activates his effect keeping him on the field but losing -2,000 Power in the process. This makes him more vulnerable to attacks, but at least the opponent is committing their resources to removing him and it's up to you to decide if it's worth protecting him for future turns.
As for ST15-002-edwardnewgate, he's probably the best card this deck has and will give the OP08-002-marco deck a massive boost in performance. The fact that we can play ST15-002-edwardnewgate on Don 7 and give our Leader 1 Don to activate his Power reduction effect means we can KO up to 7,000 Power Characters, maintaining our board control.
Yellow Kalgara
OP08-098-kalgara is the new Yellow Leader that will have an impact on the OP08 meta. This deck managed to top cut and win many tournaments in the East, and I'm confident we'll see a lot of it in the West meta. This Leader can cheat out {Shandian Warrior} type Characters by self-damaging himself, so you can adopt an aggressive playstyle, playing Characters like OP06-114-wyper or OP08-099-kalgara through Leader effect.
The general plan is to go wide on the field and start striking down the opponent's Leader and the OP05-101-ohm + OP05-110-holly improves on your aggressive playstyle, forcing opponents to shift their focus on dealing with your side of the field instead of attacking your Leader.
This list only has 5-cost ST13-011-portgasdace as a rush attacker, but some lists also include 10-cost OP07-119-portgasdace for the extra Life card and Rush attack.
Green Carrot
OP08-021-carrot needs to see a {Minks} type Character on the field to activate her effect, allowing her to rest one of the opponent's Characters with a cost of 5 or less. So we should include as many Minks as possible to activate the effect consistently.
Resting the opponent's Characters means we put them in a vulnerable state to our attackers, shifting our focus from attacking their Leader to attacking their Characters and weakening their board state. It also finds use if there's a blocker stopping us from attacking a key Character or their Leader.
The deck has stall cards like OP08-023-carrot, OP07-026-jewelry-bonney, OP08-022-inuarashi/, and OP08-036-electrical-luna to slow down the opponent's aggression and stretch out the game until our bigger threats start dropping.
Since we have multiple 5-cost Characters, OP04-119-donquixote-rosinante works perfectly in this deck, allowing us to cheat out one of those 5-cost Characters when we play him, developing two Characters in one turn.
Our strongest win condition is none other than OP06-118-roronoa-zoro, a Character who can single-handedly win you the game if he manages to stick on the field and go for his triple attack turn.
ST16-004-shanks is a potential inclusion from the Starter 16 cards. Since we have multiple cards that can rest an opponent's Characters, ST16-004-shanks can join the battle and KO that rested Character through his effect.
Purple Yellow Pudding
OP08-058-charlotte-pudding is a ramp Leader, who has to have the top two cards in the Life area face down for her to ramp up 1 Don when she attacks. So on turn 2, we can ramp 1 Don easily with OP08-058-charlotte-pudding, and from there, we can make use of a couple of our cards to set up the second ramp.
If your opponent attacks your Leader, we usually want to take that hit, so we're down to 1 face-up Life card at the top. This is where OP08-063-charlotte-katakuri comes to use, turning the top card in your Life Area face down and ramping you up. So we're now gaining 2 Don in one turn through the Leader effect and OP08-058-charlotte-pudding, setting the stage for our high-cost Characters to start dropping on the upcoming turn.
ST13-004-edwardnewgate is another way to make sure you have two face-down cards at the top of your Life Area. If you're going for the ST13-004-edwardnewgate play, you're not obliged to damage your Leader on the previous turn.
Since OP08-058-charlotte-pudding is a ramp Leader, we can play our high-cost Characters OP08-069-charlotte-linlin, OP07-119-portgasdace, and OP03-114-charlotte-linlin on earlier turns. All three characters are giving you a Life card, making it harder for the opponent to close out the game, but they also have a second effect, each having a different purpose. 9-cost OP08-069-charlotte-linlin can place one of the opponent's 6-cost or less characters in the Life area so you don't have to worry about it attacking you. OP07-119-portgasdace gains Rush if you have 2 Life cards or less, attacking on the turn he's played. As for 10-cost OP03-114-charlotte-linlin, she trashes the opponent's Life card, putting them at risk of losing them and cutting down on their resources.
Green Tony Tony Chopper
The OP08-001-tony-tonychopper deck wants to swarm the field with {Animal} or {Drum Kingdom} type Characters and through the Leader effect, you can give three of them 1 rested Don each. This adds to the aggression when setting up your attacks and makes it easier for you to activate certain character's effects.
OP08-007-tony-tonychopper is a key part of your game plan, when he hits the board, he looks at the top 5 cards in your deck and cheats out an {Animal} type Character card with 4,000 power or less rested. So you're gaining value and at the same time going wider on the field.
Characters like OP01-015-tony-tonychopper, OP08-013-robson, OP08-010-hiking-bear can be played through OP08-007-tony-tonychopper and they all need Don attachment to activate their effects. So Leader OP08-001-tony-tonychopper effect comes in handy here.
OP02-040-brook works in this list since he can also cheat out a {Strawhat crew} Character, helping with that go-wide game plan.
OP06-035-hody-jones and OP06-118-roronoa-zoro are your late game win conditions. OP06-035-hody-jones can rest two of the opponent's Characters and go for an immediate attack with the Rush keyword. As for OP06-118-roronoa-zoro, if he sticks on the board for a whole turn, you're now setting up a triple attack to potentially close out the game.
Purple King
Leader OP08-057-king deramps for 2 Don to activate one of his two effects: draw a card (if you're at 5 cards or less) or reduce the cost of one of the opponent's characters by -2. We didn't really see much of OP08-057-king in the East, so I'm not too hopeful he'll perform in the West. But with R/P Law banned, we could see OP08-057-king perform better.
We want to have ST04-017-onigashima-island on the field as early as possible, ramping us by 1 Don and accelerating our game plan. It'll remain useful throughout the game as we return Don through Leader effect.
We usually want to hold off on activating the Leader effect until we have a ramp card on the field to gain back Don. OP08-074-black-maria is a game changer for this deck, allowing to activate Leader effect without having to worry about falling behind on Don. OP05-074-eustasscaptainkid is another card that ramps us up when we return Don.
The OP08-057-king's -2-cost reduction works best with OP08-084-jack and OP08-079-kaido since they have an "Activate: Main" effect. So after we've played them, we can go for the -2-cost reduction, put the target in range for either OP08-084-jack or OP08-079-kaido to KO.
OP07-118-sabo and OP08-069-charlotte-linlin are other late-game removal Characters but you'll need to keep Leader's -2 Don effect in mind if you need the cost-reduction. Ramp cards like ST04-017-onigashima-island can help you out here to combo them with cost reduction.
Closing Words
The East already got their hands on the OP08 Leaders, so we get to see how they built their lists and the changes they made over time. However, most of their OP08 meta had ST10-001-trafalgar-law dominating the competitive scene. Luckily for the West, we won't have to worry about ST10-001-trafalgar-law in our meta, so we can expect a different environment where new Leaders might rise to the top of the competition.
