Like with any card game, the best and easiest way to get started with One Piece Card Game is with one of their pre-constructed starter decks. Not only are starter decks a great way to start, but, like Yu-Gi-Oh!, some of these decks might be worth a good chunk of change in the future.
They will teach you the basics of the game with a deck that best encapsulates what playstyle each color tends to have, but that is just the beginning of your journey to becoming the King of the Pirates.
Updated on November 23, 2023, by Jesus Morales: The Three Captains deck is now out, so that means a new update! As the first One Piece Card Game premium product, the “Captains” deck was an easy choice to include on the list. We also added a few of the most important cards for each of the starter decks in case you prefer buying singles!
10 Monkey. D. Luffy
The First Character-Based Deck
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Key Cards:
- ST08-005: Shanks
- ST08-004: Koby
Black finally gets its own leader who is not a villain. Making it the third leader card with Straw Hat Luffy printed on it — the second one from starter decks alone — ST08 compiles a group of characters that have molded and inspired Luffy throughout his journey to become the next king of the pirates.
The deck and leader ability feel like a combination of red starter deck Monkey.D.Luffy leader and black Smoker leader, mixing the cost reduction abilities of black with the flexibility of rested DON!! cards.
9 FILM Edition
All The Movie-Exclusive Characters!
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Key Cards:
- ST05-004: Uta
- ST05-006: Gild Tesoro
- ST05-014: Buena Festa
The first starter deck to be released after the initial four was a bit of a disappointment. It only doubled down on the DON!! minus strategy that the Animal Kingdom Pirates decks already does so much more efficiently. While the deck does have a few fun tricks up Shanks’ sleeve, like the massive Douglas Bullet character, and the Union Armada event, it leaves much to be desired.
Luckily, since the deck is focused around movie-specific characters, as long as One Piece keeps churning out movies, this deck will continue getting support. Hopefully we can get a real Red-Haired Pirates deck soon.
8 Yamato
“I Am Oden, I Will Protect You!”
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Key Cards:
- ST09-014: Narikabura Arrow
- ST09-012: Yamato
Just like ST08, the Yamato starter deck feels like a pile of jumbled up cards from different archetypes. Sadly, the color yellow suffers from being the newest color in the game, meaning their card pool is quite small compared to the rest of the colors in the game.
The deck makes up for its poor card choices by giving you an excellent leader card that can be extremely defensive — similar to Edward.Newgate — at the cost of your life cards. Not only is this deck an excellent choice to pick up the color yellow, but it also includes the yellow version of one of the best defensive counters in the game, Narikabura Arrow.
7 Straw Hat Crew
The Future Pirate King’s Crew
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Key Cards:
- ST01-014: Guard Point
- ST01-006: Tony Tony.Chopper
- ST01-015: Gum-Gum Jet Pistol
- ST01-012: Monkey.D.Luffy
- ST01-011: Brook
The deck featuring the leading cast of characters in One Piece is not bad by any means; the deck will teach new players how aggro works in the One Piece Card Game, and the main core of the game, which is battling. Its only downside is that, in a constructed format, the Straw Hat deck lacks certain options that make them a less well-rounded and cohesive deck.
The deck does a lot of neat things, with it being able to use combos that can use rested DON!! to power up your next hit. It also includes big character cards that decks tend to have a hard time against like Franky, but it being a card with nothing to note besides its whopping 6,000 power, leaves something to be desired. If aggressive play and huge, unstoppable characters are your thing, then the Straw Hat Crew deck is the way to go, but you’ll need a few more cards from Romance Dawn to round it out a bit more.
6 Animal Kingdom Pirates
Ruling Wano With An Iron Club
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Key Cards:
- ST04-003: Kaido
- ST04-004: King
- ST04-005: Queen
- ST04-017: Onigashima Island
Purple always tends to be the “gimmicky” color in most color-based card games. While it is also true in the One Piece Card Game, the Animal Kingdom Pirates deck does things a little differently from most. In the One Piece Card Game, you can draw two DON!! cards from your DON!! deck every turn. Purple pushes that further with cards like Onigashima Island, which you can rest once per turn to draw an extra DON!! card.
Even though Onigashima Island draws an extra DON!!, the card comes into play rested, so you are unable to use it to pay any play costs. That’s another small gimmick in the Purple deck; many cards include effects whose cost requires you to return a DON!! card back to the deck, constantly cycling your resources in a never-ending engine with an incredibly strong top end to clean up games quickly when played properly.
As the meta progresses, it seems like the real game begins when both players have their maximum allotted DON!!, so a deck that can ramp up quickly and reach that threshold by turn four can be quite deadly.
5 Absolute Justice
“Evil Cannot Be Forgiven!”
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Key Cards:
- ST06-010: Shockwave
- ST06-015: Great Eruption
- ST06-006: Tashigi
Bandai’s first foray into a new color archetype is with the Navy-themed Absolute Justice starter deck. Absolute Justice and its leader, Sakazuki, focus on lowering the play cost of your opponent’s character in play and deleting them depending on how low their costs are. In a game where removing cards with massive power values is difficult, lowering their cost is a great way to circumvent that issue.
An interesting way of removal that is brand-new to the One Piece Card Game, and not so common in other card game, the cost-lowering effects in Absolute Justice falls in theme with the Navy in the One Piece universe holding a high and mighty attitude towards civilians and lower cost pirates.
4 The Seven Warlords Of The Sea
Pawns Of The World Goverment
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Key Cards:
- ST03-017: Love-Love Mellow
- ST03-009: Donquixote Doflamingo
- ST03-005: Dracule Mihawk
- ST03-007: Sentomaru
Every starter deck has its own identity, and the Warlords deck’s gameplan is control. With tons of tools like the seven-cost Doflamingo and cheap blockers like Trafalgar Law, the Warlords deck can play an oppressive and slow game that will frustrate your opponent.
Not only does the deck do well at controlling your opponent’s board by bouncing characters back to their hand or even redirecting attacks to your blockers, but it is also the only deck that can draw a lot of cards.
Due to the counter mechanic in the One Piece Card Game, card draw is few and far between, albeit during the draw phase. Cards that have card draw effects come at a steep price or need to meet specific conditions. Cards like Dracule Mihawk and the Love-Love Mellow event cards, while conditional, can offer players that extra counter that can save their lives.
Control-heavy cards and unique card-drawing blockers and attackers are what make the Seven Warlords deck a force to be reckoned with in the One Piece Card Game.
3 Big Mom Pirates
The Biggest Pirate Family On The Sea
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Key Cards:
- ST07-010: Charlotte Linlin
- ST07-007: Charlotte Brulee
- ST07-003: Charlotte Katakuri
The newest addition to the Four Emperors in the card game, Charlotte Linlin, otherwise known as “Big Mom,” is the Soul-Soul Fruit user. This deck is the first introduction to the color yellow in the One Piece Card Game, which tends to be a more defensive color, with healing as its main gimmick.
Linlin, when attacking, can add a card from the top or bottom of your Life, and, if you have two or less Life, you can add a card from your hand to it. This effect is very powerful, since yellow tends to have many cards with a Trigger effect. Combined with cards like Charlotte Brulee and the seven-cost Character Charlotte Linlin, this deck with heal more often than you can attack.
2 Worst Generation
The Start Of The New Era
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Key Cards:
- ST02-007: Jewelry Bonney
- ST02-004: Capone”Gang”Bege
- ST02-009: Trafalgar Law
While they are known as the Worst Generation, they are easily the best when it comes to the One Piece Card Game. Not only is the Leader effect in Eustass Kid one of the most powerful effects in the entire game, but the deck includes powerful search cards like Jewelry Bonney, which can search almost the entire deck, and Killer, a monster of a card that can K.O. any three-cost or less unit.
Most of the power of this deck comes from the synergy that all the Supernovas have with each other and the myriad of effects that they bring to the table. K.O. effects, setting rested characters to active, resting your opponent’s characters, high damage output, you name it, this deck has it.
The Worst Generation is not unbeatable by any means. Bandai has designed and balanced the game quite well, to the point that it feels like each deck beats the next one. If you’re ever caught in a pickle against the Worst Generation, try bringing a Blue Warlords deck.
1 The Three Captains
The Pirates Who Will Carry The Next Generation Forward
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Key Cards:
- ST10-013: Eustass”Captain”Kid
- ST10-010: Trafalgar Law
- ST10-006: Monkey.D.Luffy
- ST10-012: Bepo
Just like the Beelzemon Advanced Deck Set in Bandai’s other card game, Digimon Card Game, The Three Captains deck is a premium product that comes at a higher MSRP than most starter decks. The deck comes with extra goods to make up the extra cost, such as a plastic deck box and a full set of foil DON!! cards.
The deck comes packed in with three different leader cards featuring Trafalgar Law, Eustass Kid, and the future pirate king himself, Monkey D. Luffy, all surrounded by foil cards of their precious crewmates. Not only is the deck jam-packed with amazing meta-defining cards, but it also includes alternate art reprints of OP01 Nami and OP01 Zoro!
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