How To Play The One Piece Card Game

It’s a golden age for pirates, and with the One Piece Card Game, you can join the adventure. Choose your leader and assemble your crew with all of your favorite characters of the manga and anime sensation, and battle for supremacy to determine who will be King of the Pirates.

One Piece Card Game – The 13 Best Leader Cards

Pick a powerful pirate to run your next One Piece Card Game deck.

Hoist the mainstay and set sail for romance. Gold Roger’s treasure is yours if you want it; wealth, fame, and power. He left it all in the One Piece Card Game! But unless you’re as reckless as Luffy, you should learn how to sail your pirate ship with our guide!

What Is The One Piece Card Game?

The One Piece Card Game is a Trading Card Game (TCG) based on Eiichiro Oda's record-setting manga series of the same title. With over a thousand chapters (and episodes of the anime adaptation), the story follows young pirate Monkey D. Luffy and his crew on his quest to become the King of the Pirates.

In the One Piece Card Game you choose a Leader and assemble a crew of your own to battle it out with your opponent. One Piece stands out from the "Big Three" (Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh) by separating resources into a separate deckinstead of shuffling them into the main deck, reducing the chances of being unable to play due to a bad hand.

While One Piece includes some other unique mechanics, like Trigger effects, many mechanics will still feel familiar enough to veteran TCG players that they should pick it up almost immediately, while less experienced players will find the streamlined rules to be beginner-friendly and easy to learn.

Types Of Cards

There arefive different types of cards used in the One Piece Card Game, of which three are used in your normal deck. The other two types, called Leaders and DON!! cards are separated from the main deck in their own areas.

Leaders

Each deck is built around a single Leader; Leader cards have a distinct red back and are separate from the main deck, spending the entire game in the Leader area. Each Leader card has a Power, representing the character's attack power, an Attribute, at least one Color, an Ability, a Life indicator, and at least one Type.

Number

Description

1

Power

2

Attribute

3

Effects

4

Color

5

Card Category

6

Card Name

7

Life

8

Type

9

Card Number, Rarity, & Block Symbol

While most information on a Leader card is also present on other card types, Life is unique to the Leader and determines how many cards you'll put into your Life area at the beginning of the game. This is important because the main way you win the game is by attacking your opponent after eliminating all of their Life cards.

Life cards function similarly to prize cards in the Pokemon TCG, except that you draw a Life card when your Leader is damaged, not when you successfully attack your opponent's Leader.

All cards in your deck have a color, and they must match at least one of your Leader's colors. Cards that do not match your Leader's color cannot be included in your deck.

Characters

Character cards represent your crew; these cards, along with Events and Stages, have a blue card back and form your 50-card deck. When played, Characters go to your Character area, in front of your Leader and Stage areas.

Character cards share a lot of characteristics with Leader cards, with only four key differences: all Character cards have a cost to play, and may also have a Trigger or Counter effect, and no character has Life. They still have apower, an attribute, a type, and at least one color, which must match at least one of the Leader's colors.

They may also have an ability, but some Characters have no abilities.

Number

Description

1

Cost

2

Power

3

Attribute

4

Counter Bonus

5

Effects

6

Trigger Effects

7

Color

8

Card Category

9

Name

10

Card Type

11

Card Number, Rarity, & Block Symbol

Characters are played from your hand in the active (vertical) position by paying their cost by resting that many DON!! cards. Alternatively, if you take a Character card from your Life pile and it has a Trigger ability, you can activate the Trigger immediately.

Events

Events are one-shot effects that you can play from your hand during your Main Phase or on your opponent’s turn during the Counter Step if the Event has a Counter effect. Unlike Characters and Stages, once an Event is played it is trashed; this makes it important to play them strategically, looking for the best opportunity to play an Event to turn the game around or take a big lead.

Number

Description

1

Cost

2

Effects

3

Trigger Effects

4

Color

5

Card Category

6

Card Name

7

Type

8

Card Number, Rarity, & Block Symbol

Stages

Stages represent the location where your crew is battling, providing a beneficial effect for your Leader or Characters and staying in play similar to Character cards. Each player can only have one Stage card in play at a time, but if you want to replace your current Stage you can just trash the Stage you currently have in play and play the new one.

Number

Description

1

Cost

2

Effects

3

Color

4

Card Category

5

Card Name

6

Type

7

Card Number, Rarity, & Block Symbol

DON!!

DON!! is your resource card in the One Piece Card Game; they have a white back and form their own separate deck of ten cards. All DON!! cards are functionally identical but may have different art.

In addition to being used to pay for Characters, Events, Stages, and some effects, DON!! can also be given to Leaders and Characters. Each DON!! attached provides +1000 Power to the Leader or Character it's attached to.

Setting Up The Game

Before you start your game, you need to set up your field and decide which player will go first. This process is done in four steps:

1. Shuffle your deck and place it in the deck area, then place the DON!! deck in the DON!! deck area. Then place your Leader face-up in the Leader area.
2. Choose which player will go first. Rock-paper-scissors is the recommended method.
3. Draw five cards. If you don't like your hand, you can shuffle it back into your deck and draw five new cards, but you can only do this once per game.
4. Place cards from the top of your deck face-down into the Life area equal to the Life value of your Leader.

Now you're ready for the first player to start their turn.

How To Play

Each turn has five phases: the Refresh Phase, the Draw Phase, the DON!! Phase, the Main Phase, and the End Phase.

The Refresh Phase

During the Refresh Phase, you'll do two things, in order.

1. Move all DON!! cards attached to your Leader and Characters to your cost area.
2. Reset all rested (horizontal) cards to active (vertical)

The Draw Phase

As the name implies, this is the phase where you draw a card. Note that the first player does not get to draw a card on their first turn.

The DON!! Phase

The DON!! Phase is where you'll play your resources, DON!!. During this phase, simply draw two DON!! cards from your DON!! deck and place them face-up in your cost area.

The player who goes first can only draw and play a single DON!! card on their first turn.

The Main Phase

There are four actions you can take in the Main Phase, which can be done in any order and any number of times, as long as you have enough resources.

First, you canplay a card by resting DON!! cards in your cost area equal to the card's cost; Character cards are placed face-up in the Character area, and Stage cards are placed face-up in the Stage area, trashing any Stage already on your field. Event cards are trashed after they've been played.

Second, you can attach active DON!! cards to your Leader and Characters. Each attached DON!! card gives the Character or Leader a +1000 power bonus during your turn, but cannot be rested to pay costs until the following turn.

If a character is trashed, move all DON!! attached to that character back to the Cost area rested.

Third, you can use a card's effect if you meet the effect requirements. There are several types of requirements, such as DON!!×X, DON!!-X, and Activate (Main).

Requirement

Description

DON!!×X

This ability is active when at least X DON!! cards are attached to the Leader or Character.

DON!!-X

To use this ability, select X DON!! cards attached to your Leader, Characters, or in your Cost area, and return them to your DON!! deck.

Activate: Main

This ability can be activated during the Main Phase, except during a battle.

Finally, you can attack your opponent's Leader or rested Character; to attack, rest your Leader or a Character and choose the target that you're attacking. You are now in a Battle, and any "While Attacking" effects on your attacker will trigger.

Winning The Game

There are two ways to win the game; the first win condition is to deal damage to your opponent's Leader when they have no Life cards left. Leaders typically have four to five Life Points, which means that you'll need to defeat them in five to six battles to win the game.

The second win condition is for your opponent to run out of cards in their deck. Unlike some other card games, this win condition does not require the player to draw from an empty deck or wait for their next Draw Phase; as soon as a player's deck contains zero cards, they lose the game.

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