Table of Contents
Heya everyone! Red Purple Luffy was once one of the top meta performers, and even though it has fallen out of favor, players are still making it work on the SIM-ranked ladder. This deck has a fun fast-paced playstyle, especially with Leader being at 3 health, meaning we need to be aggressive and have tools to protect our few Life Cards. Starting with fewer Life Cards means we’ll often have fewer card resources than our opponents.
Gameplan
Leader
Despite Red Purple Luffy only having 3 health, the 6,000 Power gives additional protection, forcing opponents to commit more Don on their Leader/Characters to get their attacks through. The additional 1,000 Power on our Leader also makes it easier for you to Counter out of those attacks. The 6,000 Power isn't only useful defensively, but also offensively. Your Leader attacks will force out more Counter plays if opponent wishes to protect their Leader or Characters.
You can activate ST10-002-monkeydluffy's +1 Don Ramp ability if you're at 0 Don on your field or have 8+ Don. Basically, we'll first aim to hit 8 Don as fast as possible, with the help of our Ramp cards. This lets us gain a Don through ST10-002-monkeydluffy, which means we get to play a higher-cost Character like OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511.
With the ramp cards we run, we can accelerate that game plan, and get our high-cost characters a turn earlier than usual. Those high-cost characters pose a threat and can create a stronger attack with your Leader. We can still find use of ST10-002-monkeydluffy's ramp effect in the later stages of the game, especially when we play OP05-119-monkeydluffy, and wipe out all our Don.
Low-cost Cards
OP01-016-nami-333 is our early searcher, helping us find {Straw Hat Crew} type cards. The card we choose will depend on our hand, but if we're going first, the main card we'll be aiming to find is OP05-067-zoro-juurou so we can play it on turn 2. Cards like ST01-012-monkeydluffy-938 or OP05-119-monkeydluffy are more for the later stages of the game when we're cranking up the pressure.
OP01-016-nami-333 can also find us {Straw Hat Crew} Events that help protect our Leader from incoming attacks.
As for OP05-010-nico-robin, she's more of a meta call, to remove 1,000 Power or less characters that pose a threat to our game plan. So cards like EB01-061-mr2bonkurei-bentham or OP05-091-rebecca are premium targets for OP05-010-nico-robin to KO.
Ramp
Ramp cards played early into the game advance our game plan and allow us to play our higher-cost Characters a turn earlier than usual. We want to play them as early as possible, as they won't find much use in the late game.
If we're going first, OP05-067-zoro-juurou is the perfect card to play on turn 2. On turn 3, we get to attach a Don and attack with it, ramping 1 Don and posing an attacker threat.
Players have been including the EB01 EB01-061-mr2bonkurei-bentham card in the list. It's perfect to play if you're going second, immediately giving you an Active Don on turn 2 that you could bank for the defensive turn to use one of your defensive Events to protect Leader or go for a 7,000 Power attack with Leader.
Blockers
Blockers are valuable to protect our Leader from incoming attacks. The opponent has to commit additional Don on their attackers to put them at 6,000+, this makes your Blockers exceptionally annoying as it's slowing down their attempt to aggro you down.
ST10-010-trafalgar-law and ST04-005-queen have beneficial effects but will require you to -1 Don. So when going for effect activation, we need to be mindful of our upcoming turn and whether it slows us down from dropping our higher-cost Characters or not. For instance, if we're at 7 Don and decide to play one of our Blockers and activate their effects, we're dropping to 6 Don, putting us at 8 Don on the upcoming turn. With Leader effect, we're gaining 1 Don, pushing us to the 9 Don mark for OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 to join the battle.
ST10-010-trafalgar-law can trash 2 cards from the opponent's hand if they're at 7 cards. So this will come down to whether or not your opponent is holding a lot of cards in hand, but we want to drop ST10-010-trafalgar-law as early as possible if we see an opportunity to deplete some of the opponent's resources.
Since our deck doesn't run any resource generation, ST04-005-queen is extremely useful for the card draw he provides. This keeps us from running out of future plays and could even find us the right card to play on the upcoming turn. We're drawing 2 cards and trashing 1 card, the trashed card will be the one we'll likely not play or find use for in the upcoming turns.
Rush Pressure
ST01-012-monkeydluffy-938 is a bit of an expensive play to set up compared to cards like OP01-025-roronoa-zoro or EB01-003-kid-killer. However, ST01-012-monkeydluffy-938 can be a finisher play in the late game, boosting his power with Don and activating his effect, your opponent's blockers are rendered useless, allowing you to connect with the opponent's Nexus.
EB01-003-kid-killer is still a solid consideration in this list if you're looking for a 7,000 Power Rush attacker to help you close out the late game. But it can be difficult to drop opponents fast enough to 2 Life Cards, since unlike R/P Law, we're not playing two characters per turn.
Leader Boost
We're aiming to play our Leader Power boost cards as early as possible to empower our Leader attacks while also adding a protection layer that's difficult for opponents to go through.
ST10-013-eustasscaptainkid is one of the best cards to play on Don 7, giving you that additional +1000 Power boost for -1 Don. Going down to 6 Don means we can still follow him up with OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 on the upcoming turn. The 8,000 Power attacker also poses a threat whenever it goes for the attack as it can reactivate its effect and give us another +1000 Power boost on our Leader.
The +2,000 Power boost that OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 is pushing us to 8,000 Power, making it extremely difficult for opponents to commit more than one attack on our Leader and it will slow down their board development. It could also force players into completely avoiding an attack setup, focusing their resources on building up a board, or removing your threats.
Unless they have a blocker, OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511's 10,000 Power attacks are almost impossible for opponents to protect from and will eventually set you up to win the game.
The Finisher
Our strongest late-game play, capable of creating a powerful turn. By playing OP05-119-monkeydluffy and activating his effect, we're returning 10 Don to our Don deck, which can be scary for future turns, but our ramp capabilities will still keep us in the game.
In most cases, we're aiming to close out the game with OP05-119-monkeydluffy, but we could end up a bit short of winning. The plan here is to attack with our characters before we play OP05-119-monkeydluffy. This includes our blockers as well (if by any chance we have any on the board), we want to take advantage of them before OP05-119-monkeydluffy puts them at the bottom of the deck.
We're now at 0 Don, which means we can activate Leader ST10-002-monkeydluffy's ability to gain an Active Don if we haven't activated it yet. Additionally, for 1 Don, 10c OP05-119-monkeydluffy's second ability gives us an Active Don, and then we can use that 1 Active Don to attack with Leader for 7,000 Power.
The ramp might only seem useful on the upcoming turn since we're resting a Don to gain an Active Don, but with OP05-119-monkeydluffy's ability to give us a full new turn once we end our turn, we're activating that rested Don, putting us on 2 Don, getting to draw 2 extra Don, now we're on 4 Don, gaining a card draw, and then reactivating OP05-119-monkeydluffy's effect to go up to 5 total Don.
With a full new turn, our Leader can go for another attack, and we have 4 Active Don at our disposal to either boost up our Leader attack or save as a defensive Don to activate Events. OP05-119-monkeydluffy can now also go for an attack, threatening a 12,000 Power attack.
So although we put back all our 10 Don, on our upcoming turn, we'll have 7 Don, still able to make plays or use that Don offensively. If OP05-119-monkeydluffy remains on the board, we can activate his ramp effect again, pushing us to 8 total Don, which allows us to activate Leader Luffy's ability, giving us an Active Don. This leaves us with 8 Active Don to work with.
Defensive Events
OP01-029-radical-beam is one of your strongest defensive events, which you'll easily get the +4000 Power boost out of. It does require you to bank 1 Don for the defense turn, so it's important to identify on which turns we're planning to play OP01-029-radical-beam and save 1 Don for it.
OP03-072-gum-gum-jet-gatling is a powerful defensive Event for 0 Don. You will have to trash one card in hand, and you'll have to decide which card you won't need on upcoming turns. The list runs a bunch of cards with no Counter effect that you might not need to play on upcoming turns like ST01-016-diable-jambe or ST10-013-eustasscaptainkid, so they can for good trash targets.
OP01-119-thunder-bagua is a 2 Don card, which can be restraining a bit when holding Don during our turn to play it. However, it's ramp effect if we're down 2 Life Cards can be extremely useful, especially in the late game once we've already played OP05-119-monkeydluffy.
Offensive Event
This card finds use against matchups where opponent is relying on blockers to protect their Leader. If opponent is down to 0 Life Cards, you can set up the lethal attack with ST01-016-diable-jambe on either Leader or one of your high-Power characters for one big attack that goes through blockers and ends the game.
Gameplay Video
Techs and Options
OP05-074-eustasscaptainkid: A 6,000 Power Blocker to protect our Leader and help us make it to the late game when the heavy hitters drop.
OP07 Cards
OP07-015-monkeyddragon: An aggressive card that can attack on the same turn it's played, threatening a 9,000 Power attack. It's also attaching 2 rested Don to your Leader or one of your characters for added aggression.
OP07-064-sanji: Mainly a +2,000 Counter card, but it can come in handy after you've played OP05-119-monkeydluffy, dropping your down down and reducing the cost of OP07-064-sanji, letting you play him for 3 Don.
General Tips
- With only 3 health, it's important to keep defensive turns in mind when committing our plays. Some of our Events provide a lot of defensive Power, but we need to identify which turns we're playing them and save enough Don for them.
- If you're at 8 Don and planning to play one of your -1 Don cards, make sure to activate Leader ability and take advantage of the ramp before playing your card.
- We're not primarily aiming to control the board, attacking opponent's Leader is a priority to aggro them down. If opponent has a bunch of 5,000 Power characters, and we play a OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511, those 5,000 Power characters don't pose much threat and can be ignored if we're able to set up threatful attacks on their Leader to win the game.
- If we're at 10 Don and decide to play cards with a -1 Don effect like Kid, Queen, or Law, we can activate Leader effect afterward and gain back an Active Don.
Mulligan Tips
- Searching Nami is good to have early in the game to help us look for {Straw Hat Crew} type cards and shape up our upcoming turns.
- Ramp cards are extremely helpful to drop our high-cost characters on earlier turns. So finding either OP05-067-zoro-juurou or EB01-061-mr2bonkurei-bentham can accelerate your game plan.
- An ST10-013-eustasscaptainkid or OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 are also good to have to ensure we have our late game guaranteed.
Important Matchups
Gecko Moria
- This is a tough matchup since opponent can generate a lot of value with 8-cost Gecko Moria. Them having 5 health also makes it difficult to aggro them down.
- Try not to hold onto too many cards since Perona will trash those resources.
- The Power boost is extremely valuable, most of their cards are at 5,000 Power, so opponents will usually aim to give each of their attackers 1 Don and force out a Counter play. A damage boost will force more Don commitment to their attacks or avoid attacking and focus their resources on developing the board.
Black Yellow Luffy
- 4c Law is valuable in this matchup since opponent will likely hold on to a lot of cards in hand. Getting to trash two resources can be huge for you.
- Don't drop them down too low quickly. They want to fall to 0 health so they're able to activate Leader ability and start cheating out their adult brothers on the board.
- Blockers are extremely bothersome for opponent and will slow them down from winning the game.
- If they've activated Leader ability and are now at 0 Life Cards with 9,000 Power, you can set up the winning play with OP05-119-monkeydluffy. Although opponent is at 9,000 Power, OP05-119-monkeydluffy's effect to give you an extra turn will make opponent lose that 4,000 Power boost, making it easy for you to go for the finishing attack. The Sabo blocker can be a shutdown but having ST01-016-diable-jambe allows OP05-119-monkeydluffy to go right through all the blockers.
Yellow Enel
- Since Leader is at 3 health already, we're not afraid of Gedatsu KOing our Characters.
- The plan is to drop the Enel player down to 2 Health and leave them there. From there, the plan is to develop the board and focus on clearing out the board. Once we have multiple attacks lined up, we're able to focus on their Leader and attempt to win the game.
- If we're trying to win the game with OP05-119-monkeydluffy, keep in mind that activating his extra turn effect means that the Enel player can reactivate their Life Card gain again. So the plan here is to try to drop them down to 0 Life Cards before we go for the OP05-119-monkeydluffy play.
Red Purple Law
- Most of R/P Law's characters are 5,000 Power, which forces them to commit a Don on their attacker if they're trying to damage our Leader. This could slow their board development or they'll opt to hold off their attacks and build up their board.
- If we prioritize KOing their rested characters, we could take things to the late game, running them out of resources and start outvaluing them.
- ST10-013-eustasscaptainkid and OP02-004-edwardnewgate-511 are insanely annoying for opponents due to the Power boost they give to our Leader, which could shut down their aggression for a whole turn. They also can't easily remove those characters with Leader Law's ability, they need to commit two cost reducers to put them in range.
Closing Words
Red Purple Luffy might take a bit of time to get used to the low health, but the Leader's playstyle and setting up those Power boosts bring a different playstyle that requires a deep understanding of the state of the games to decide whether to go full aggro or control the board.
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