Build your first One Piece deck: step by step

New to the One Piece Card Game? How to build a playable deck: Leader, 50 cards, DON!!, counter values, cost curve and common mistakes.

The One Piece Card Game is one of the most popular new card games, and many collect the cards for the artwork. This guide takes you in 7 steps from “I have cards” to “I have a playable deck”. No prior knowledge needed.

One Piece in one minute

• Your deck has a Leader. It sets your colours and your Life: that many cards are placed face down as Life cards at the start.
• When your Leader is hit, you take a Life card into your hand. If it is hit when you have none left, you lose. You also lose when your deck runs out.
• Instead of lands or energy there are DON!! cards. You get 2 per turn, 1 on the very first turn. Use them to pay for cards or attach them, giving the card +1000 power.
• Nobody may attack on their first turn. The player going first does not draw on their first turn.
• When defending, you can discard cards with a Counter value from your hand to get stronger. Characters with Blocker can intercept attacks.

Step 1: Pick a Leader

The Leader is the heart of the deck. It sets the colours (some Leaders have 2) and has its own ability you build around. Check which Leader you like and which one you own the most matching cards for.

Step 2: Only cards in your Leader's colours

The deck holds exactly 50 cards, all in your Leader's colours. Each card number may appear at most 4 times. On top of that come 10 DON!! cards in a separate deck.

Step 3: Mind the counter values

Many characters show a counter value (+1000 or +2000) on their left edge. It is your defence. A deck with too few counter cards loses its Life quickly. Plan at least 15 to 20 cards with a counter.

Step 4: The 50-card skeleton

Step 5: The cost curve

You get 2 DON!! per turn, so you need enough cheap characters early and a few strong ones later:

Step 6: 4 copies beat lots of singles

Your most important cards belong in the deck 4 times, so you actually draw them. Many different single cards make the deck unpredictable.

Step 7: Test and adjust

• Draw 5 cards (your opening hand). You may redraw the whole hand once. A good hand has cheap characters. Do this 10 times.
• Play a few games and swap out cards that never did anything.

The shortcut: a starter deck as a template

Bandai regularly releases starter decks: 1 Leader and 50 cards, playable right away. Their card lists are online. Paste such a list into TCG-Completist and see what is already in your collection.

How TCG-Completist helps

1. Open 🃏 Decks in the account menu and click “New deck”. Choose One Piece as the game.
2. Paste a list. The card codes are enough, for example “4xOP01-016”. That is the usual format of deckbuilding sites.
3. You see right away which cards you own, which are missing and roughly what the rest costs.
4. If you want to play a Parallel version, set the print with one click. Add missing cards to your wishlist with one click.

The deck builder is free.

The 5 most common beginner mistakes

1. Wrong colours. Only cards in your Leader's colours.
2. Too few counters. At least 15 to 20.
3. Too many expensive cards. Follow the cost curve.
4. Losing Life too early. Defend in time.
5. Only single copies. Better 4 copies of your best cards.

That's all your first deck needs. Build it, play it and improve it after every game.