Table of Contents
We begin one more deck guide with Starter Deck #12, Zoro & Sanji; a leader who for many has gone unnoticed. However, from my point of view, it has many advantages that will revalue it over time.
Let's discover little by little what I mean by this in this article. First, we will address the base list and explain how it works. From there we will go on to show what the ideal list would be if we buy two decks usually the most common to get the playsets of some important cards. We'll end with two builds that have been successful in Japan, one for the [OP06] meta and one for the [OP07] meta.
Weigh anchor and set sail!
Original Decklist
Deck Concept and Strategy
The central idea of this archetype in its base form is to put 2-cost characters on the table quickly and, thanks to the effect of ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji return them to our hand in to set up our leader or some other character of 7K power or less, thus enabling relevant double hits.
Ideally, we want these two cost characters to have some ability. This would allow us to place them on the table either by paying their cost or through the effect of another of our cards and obtain some benefit before returning them to the hand.
We prefer two cost characters that have some ability. This would allow us to place them on the table either by paying their cost or through the effect of another of our cards and obtain some benefit before returning them to the hand.
As a good Green deck, we have multiple effects for our opponent's other characters. This is always useful to turn off an annoying blocker or be able to attack a character that the opponent has decided to leave set up intentionally.
The Blue color will help us manipulate the top of our deck. Thanks to multiple effects, we can look at our top 3 cards and return them to the top or bottom of the deck in any order. This will ensure that deck effects that play 2-cost cards from the top will not fail, giving solidity to the strategy.
Let's analyze the crucial cards in detail to make it easier to understand how the archetype works and get your first wins if you recently acquired this deck.
Super Rares
The two flagship cards of this deck.
Mihawk
Mihawk is without fear of being wrong the best card in ST12. Not only is it a +2K counter; but thanks to its effect, we can put a relevant body on the field. The trick is that, even if Mihawk puts the character on the field rested, thanks to ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji's effect we can bounce characters from the field to our hand and thus set up what Mihawk's effect has put on the table, protecting it from being attacked.
This is why our 2-cost characters must have some relevant effect since bouncing them to our hand will allow us to use their effects a second time.
If we did not want to set up what Mihawk brought to the field, we could well attack with our leader and with its effect bounce Mihawk to our hand, set up our leader, and attack again with it thus having Mihawk's effect available once again.
Ivankov
Emporio Ivankov is present in this archetype functioning as the card that gives us gas.
It would be cool if its second effect could trigger more than once per turn. It would be easy to draw more than one card thanks to the effect of our leader that allows us to set up characters and thus attack twice. Although this is not possible to draw a card for attacking, it is quite useful.
If we add its first effect to this, we can say that Ivankov allows us to draw two cards. Let me explain: its first effect allows us to reveal a card from the top of our deck and put a 2-cost character into play. If we decided to bounce this newly played card into hand thanks to ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji's effect, we would technically be drawing an additional card.
That being said, Emporio Ivankov is a card that certainly works in the core idea of this deck. It is also a +1K counter, which makes it always useful even in our hand.
Attackers
To take full advantage of the effect of our leader, we have to take into account that it allows us to set up characters with an attack of 7K or less.
That is why the two attackers that we must choose as favorites from the base list of this deck are the 4-cost ST12-008-roronoa-zoro and the 2-cost ST12-011-sanji.
Both have an effect when attacking that is not limited to just once per turn (like ST12-010-emporioivankov). Thanks to this, if we attack twice with any of these characters we can easily create favorable scenarios.
Roronoa Zoro
ST12-008-roronoa-zoro rest an opponent's character of cost 6 or lower when attacking while having a DON!!. That leaves Zoro's power right at the 7K mark, enough to untap him with our leader and be able to attack a second time while resting a second opponent's character. This 7K double attack + resting two of the opponent's characters can be quite disruptive allowing us to remove blockers from the path or rest a character that we want to get out of the way even if the opponent has left it untapped or has just played it.
Sanji
As for ST12-011-sanji, with his first attack we can get his power to reach 6K with just one DON!!. This makes its value quite high since a 6K attacker for only 2 costs is already something quite relevant. If we decide to untap it with our leader's effect and attack again with it, it will reach 8K. This exerts good pressure early in the game or allows us to apply strong pressure late in the game for a few resources even more so if this Sanji came into free play thanks to the effect of one of our other cards. If we do this with 2 DON!! the numbers go to 7K and 9K!
Consistency
Blue is a color that has many cards that manipulate the top of our deck. The intent of this varies depending on the archetype. In this particular case, ST12-014-duval's effect and ST12-013-zeff's effect help us search for a 2-cost card that we could put at the top of the deck. Having achieved this, Zeff's second effect (which is similar to ST12-010-emporioivankov's) allows us to play that 2-cost card that is at the top.
This can have various benefits. First, we have to make it clear that Ivankov plays the card untapped and Zeff puts it into play rested. With these implications in mind, we can decide if this two-cost card is something we want to leave on the field or if it will be the target of ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji's effect so we can set up another card with which we want to attack twice.
We have to make it clear that ST12-013-zeff should also be considered an attacker alongside ST12-011-sanji and ST12-008-roronoa-zoro.
Its effect when attacking can easily fill our side of the field if we have left a couple of two-cost cards at the top of our deck. It is enough to bounce one of them to the hand with the effect of our leader to repeat the attack with Zeff, placing another cost two on the field. This can trigger multiple On-Play card effects, put Counter in our hand, untap other attackers with our leader's effect, etc.
Events
The two events in this deck may seem modest, but they're pretty good.
ST12-017-plastic-surgery-shot adds redundancy to the effects of ST12-010-emporioivankov and ST12-013-zeff, allowing us to have multiple options to play the two-cost characters that we may have left at the top thanks to our deck manipulation effects. +2K for a single DON!! added to the previous effect makes the deal at least profitable in most cases.
ST12-016-lion-strike has a great advantage, unlike other cards that allow us to rest characters. This event also allows us to rest the opponent's leader, which can have a potent effect if our opponent does not respect it. Having the effect of this card as a trigger is the icing on the cake.
[OP06] Build
In the previous paragraphs, we have seen the general functioning of the archetype in its base form. We look in depth at the important cards, which are mostly repeated in other successful iterations of this deck.
Let's first check a list of [OP06] that reached the top 4 in a Flagship in Japan and let's discuss the important differences.
+2K Blockers
With 10 +2K counters and 26 +1K counters, it is unlikely that this deck will have any way to protect itself from an attack when it wants to.
The trick is that, unlike other decks, with ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji we can play these cards early in the game or whenever necessary and not have to hesitate between doing so or leaving them in our hand to be able to defend ourselves. We can put them on the field thanks to the Ivankov effect or Plastic Surgery Shot and then make space on our side of the field by bouncing them into our hand and having the counters ready for when necessary.
We can rest DON!!s with ST02-008-scratchmen-apoo, low-cost characters with OP02-034-tony-tonychopper, or bounce characters to the opponent's hand with OP01-064-alvida. These effects can be done twice per turn if we decide to set up these characters and attack again thanks to our leader's effect.
Upgrades
These two cards seem like direct improvements to the effects or concepts that are in the base deck. P-049-usopp allows us to look at and rearrange the first 5 cards of the top instead of the first three, while ST02-003-urouge comes to accompany ST12-011-sanji as a powerful 2-cost attacker who, unlike the 4-cost ST12-008-roronoa-zoro that we have in the initial build, can enter to the field due to the effects of ST12-017-plastic-surgery-shot and OP02-051-emporioivankov.
2-cost Tech
These three cards are known for how powerful they can be in already recognized archetypes. OP02-035-trafalgar-law is a classic in OP01-002-trafalgar-law-269 and it is known how many tricks and pivots he can achieve. This deck is no exception. It allows us to reuse OP04-024-sugar, which could not be missing in a green deck, and allows us control of the field + the aforementioned P-049-usopp and ST12-014-duval, which will keep our draws and top of the deck well tuned.
OP05-030-donquixote-rosinante is in my opinion one of the best blockers in the game. Being able to make it reach the field during the opponent's turn thanks to ST12-017-plastic-surgery-shot's effect is a play that breaks the combat mathematics of any unprepared opponent in half.
Late Game
Something the archetype lacked in its base state was late-game range. Thanks to these two cards we can have a curve for these moments that can put very strong pressure on the opponent's lives.
OP02-051-emporioivankov can play an Impel Down character of cost 6 or lower for free. While this can serve to put the other ST12-010-emporioivankov on the field, the idea is to be able to put OP02-062-monkeydluffy on the table. The latter is capable of closing games with a single turn he has to go on the attack. Thanks to its effect we can return characters of cost 4 or less to their owner's hand, whether they are ours or the opponent's, which will make it easier for us to clean the defenses. This will grant Luffy Double Attack. If we decide to untapp this Luffy with ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji and attack again with it we may be able to take away all of the opponent's remaining lives in a single combat phase.
[OP07] Build - Seven Warlords of the Sea
Click on a JP card to read a full translation
I won't explain this deck in detail since OP07 is still on the horizon. However, I think that this version with the Shichibukai (七武海) core is emerging as the best without a doubt.
I will surely give you a detailed guide when the time comes. In the meantime, I leave you with this list that took first place in a Flagship tournament in Japan. Studying it in detail can let us see how strong the Shichibukai's core is and how well the leader ST12-001-roronoa-zoro-sanji can take advantage of it.
Ending
Seeing the amount of cards that can be leveraged with this leader taking into account those that already exist and those to come makes me realize that if we take the time to study the archetype, the leader can be quite flexible.
Allowing us to reuse cards with On-Play effects is undoubtedly formidable. Being able to simultaneously enable double attacks with powerful cards or relevant While-Attacking effects is also a turning point in games.
I think that if someone hasn't gotten a couple of copies of this deck, doing so if they can still find them at the starting price wouldn't be a bad idea. That OP07 build looks spicy!
Let us know your thoughts on this and any other One Piece TCG-related topics in the comment section of this article and on my Twitter. I would love to know your opinion.
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Thanks for reading, dear nakamas, don’t forget to smile; I assure you that it makes a difference, see you at Egghead!
