Are you ready to set sail on a new adventure with Monkey D. Luffy and his rag tag group of friends? Then hop on board and join me as I take a deep dive off the plank into the new trading card game from Bandai, the One Piece TCG!
A Stretch of History
If you’re not already familiar, Bandai’s had past success while teaming up with popular anime and producing some long running trading card games. Dragon Ball Super and (my personal favorite) Digimon have both gotten the treatment so far. One Piece will be the newest collaboration to hit the market.
One Piece began as a manga in Japan in 1997. With an anime adaptation in 1999, it has since had a run of 1,033 episodes and it’s still going! The series follows Monkey D. Luffy as his fellow pirates, the Straw Hat Crew, as they travel the Grand Line in search of the ‘One Piece’ with hopes of becoming the Pirate King. Along the way, they meet a cast of characters that aim to impede on their journey.
Brand New (Game) World
The One Piece TCG pits two players against each other as they try and best one another. During a match, each player uses a 51 card deck and starts off with 5 Life cards, 1 Leader card in the leader area, and 5 cards in their starting hand. Except for the starting players turn, players draw 2 Don cards and place them in the Cost Area. The starting player is only allowed to draw 1 their first turn. Don are used to play cards from a players hand, or to active effects on character or the Leader cards. The endgame is to deplete the opponents Life Cards in order to directly attack. This and many other mechanics work in similar fashion to the Digimon TCG.
On September 30th, a Super Pre-Release of the first 4 Starter Decks with take place. Each of these decks will have a suggested retail price of $11.99. Decks will have a theme that reflects characters from the anime:
- Straw Hat Crew (ST-01)
- Worst Generation (ST-02)
- The Seven Warlords of the Sea (ST-03)
- Animal Kingdom Pirates (ST-04)
Every deck will come standard with a Preconstruted 51 card deck, 10 Don Cards, and 3 Rules Cards. The rarities across the decks will be the same as well. 1 Leader Card, 14 Common, and 2 Super Rare. These decks will have an exclusive Leader Card illustration and a First Edition Gold Stamp. If you’re not able to get your hands on the Super Pre-Release versions, the decks will also be released the same day of the first official, OP-01 Romance Dawn, on December 2nd, 2022.
The box breakdown is what we have seen before from Bandai: 121 card types in total, 24 packs to a booster box with 12 cards per pack. Each booster box will come with 1 box topper. At this time, I am unaware if there will be different box toppers or if will be the same across every box. Here is a quick breakdown of the rarities we can expect to see:
- 8 Leader Cards
- 45 Commons
- 30 Uncommons
- 26 Rare
- 10 Super Rare
- 2 Secret Rare
Cast the Sails!
I’ve got to be honest with you, reader. I haven’t seen a single episode of One Piece. Despite that, I do think there is a lot of fun to be had. As I said earlier, there is DNA in this game that shares from the Digimon TCG (pun intended). Regardless if you are a fan Digimon or One Piece, there is certain level of enjoyment out of getting your favorites series in a Trading Card Game. It’s just up to you to have the fun!
Until next time…Drink up, me hearties. Yo Ho!
