One Piece TCG: OP12 - Legacy of the Master Review (All Leaders!)

In One Piece TCG, leaders are the stars in every deck and are always revealed first when new sets come along. They also clearly define the colors and game style of each new card, which strategies Bandai wants to see in the meta, whether we can attack or not, and even how much life we have when the game starts.

So, naturally, we wanted to go through the leaders in the new One Piece TCG set, Legacy of the Master, or OP12, first. Let's go!

Silvers Rayleigh OP12-001 is a red Former Roger Pirates leader with 5000 power, 5 life, and the Slash attribute. Straight away, the "Right Hand of the Pirate King" forces us to meet a deckbuilding condition: any deck with this leader can't play cards that cost 5 or more. This restriction directly forces us to change our priorities when we build decks with this leader simply because it prevents us from playing big finishers or expensive creatures.

Silvers Rayleigh's main active effect buffs your low-cost characters. Once per turn, in the main phase, if you reveal two event cards in your hand, it gives +2000 power to one of your characters that turn, as long as it has 4000 or less base power.

So, if you want to play Silvers Rayleigh OP12-001, you'll have to play a combination of cheap, aggressive characters and events. You must also find a way to keep these events in your hand at all times so you can use your leader's effects and the effects of a few other characters from this set, such as Kouzuki Oden OP12-004. This card, if you reveal two event cards in your hand, buffs itself by +2000. It goes from 3000 power to 7000 power very easily, considering you can reveal the same two events throughout the entire game.

It's clear that Silvers Rayleigh OP12-001 is the golden standard for monored aggro lists that Bandai wants to see in the game as soon as Roronoa Zoro OP01-001 rotates out of the format. In the current meta, his main problem is Buggy P-048, which prevents you from attacking with characters that cost 3 or 4 and, as such, is quite disruptive for this archetype.

Roronoa Zoro OP12-020 is a Straw Hat Crew/Supernova green leader with 5000 power, 5 life, and the Slash attribute. When Zoro battles an enemy character with 3 DON!! attached, his effect lets you set him again as active, so you can attack with him a second time. However, this ability also prevents you from attacking characters with a base cost of 7 or less that turn, more specifically when you attack with him a second time.

The most obvious idea is to use the first attack to remove some important attacker on the enemy board and use his second attack to put pressure on the enemy leader or some expensive attacker. This way, you'll either push some damage through or force your opponent to use blockers and counters. As Roronoa Zoro OP12-020 is green, he can access ramp and other ways to reuse DON!!. You'll have no trouble using his expensive ability or setting up efficient plays with characters like Cavendish EB01-012, considering he is also a Supernova leader.

Currently, Roronoa Zoro OP12-020 is the main deck in the meta, comfortably a tier-1 list or even a hypothetical tier-0 list. He is the strongest archetype in this set and will certainly be a great choice for competitive players.

Kuzan OP12-040 is a blue Navy leader with 5000 power, 5 life, and the Special attribute. He needs a specific setup to work: discarding cards in your own hand with Navy cards. Whenever you discard cards this way, you'll draw back the same number of cards you discarded. With this effect, what used to be "throwing away resources" will become a way to draw cards and filter your hand, as well as fix any "bricked" hand with new cards. Furthermore, you can use this effect more than once per turn, so you'll be able to dig through your deck as much as you like.

Many Navy discard effects will play new roles in these decks. Any card that punished you by forcing you to discard cards or that forced you to discard cards as a cost will become a recycling tool. Cards like Aramaki OP06-043 and Tsuru OP06-051 will become useful in new ways. Their effects will no longer make your hand smaller, which is a very heavy punishment for a game that has you use cards in your hand to defend yourself. Furthermore, you can use this leader's effect with Navy events, like Ice Block Pheasant Peck OP12-057, as well, not only characters, and, in the future, you'll even be able to use a Navy Stage to trigger this effect.

Kuzan OP12-040 is quite decent, but, unfortunately, he will be overshadowed by Zoro and Rayleigh, which we discussed above. Still, he is one of my favorite leaders from this set and could reward you quite nicely if you master him.

This is, most likely, the most difficult deck to build and master from this new set. I spent a few hours in the TCG simulator to learn how to pilot him somewhat decently. Sanji OP12-041 is a Vinsmoke Family/Straw Hat Crew blue and purple leader with 5000 power, 4 life, and the Strike attribute.

This archetype focuses a lot on events and leans more towards midrange, but it is a bit fragile and easily "bricks", depending on the list you're playing. His first and main effect activates once per turn on the main phase when you return 1 DON!! to your DON!! deck. If you do this, then you may play, directly from your hand, a Straw Hat Crew event with a base cost of 3 or less, so it's a great way to manage your DON!!. The entire archetype is a bit restrictive because it relies a lot on the cards from this set. After all, before this set came along, we didn't have many ways to use this type of effect.

The card that most stands out in this archetype is Boeuf Burst OP12-060, and it's an incredible card. You can only use it with multicolored leaders, and BANDAI designed it specifically for this archetype. You can use it both as a control tool in the mid-game, returning mid-to-low-cost characters to the opponent's hand, and to draw cards so you can keep putting pressure on them and defend yourself in the end-game.

The icing on the cake is this leader's second effect. When you attack, it lets you add 1 DON!! from your DON!! deck and rest it. The idea behind this is to pay the cost of the first effect to enable the second effect, as this will make sure you have the same number of DON!! or less as your opponent. This is a very dynamic strategy.

Once again, this is a great leader, but he won't have that much space in the meta because the first two leaders we discussed in this article will overshadow him. Furthermore, both Rayleigh and Zoro are less complicated to learn and play, while Sanji OP12-041 is a bit more difficult and vulnerable because he forces you to use unconventional builds to work. The main strategy also has a few flaws and heavily punishes small mistakes.

Donquixote Rosinante OP12-061 is a Navy/Donquixote Family purple and yellow leader with 5000 power, 4 life, and the Special attribute. As a leader, Rosinante presents us with an interesting idea: deckbuilding around the synergy between characters with a certain name, Trafalgar Law. The idea is to both protect and make cards with this name easier to play. His first effect, which you can only play once per turn, prevents the opponent from knocking out a Trafalgar Law character if you add a card from the top of your life pile to your hand. This strategy is quite similar to the Barrier strategy in Digimon TCG. With it, you'll protect your Trafalgar Law in play, but only if you pay some life.

Its second effect, which you can also only use once per turn and in the main phase, discounts the cost of a Law character that costs 4 or more in your hand by 2 if you return a DON!! to your DON!! deck. As such, you'll be able to put the best "Trafalgar Law" characters in play more easily.

Donquixote Rosinante OP12-061 is most likely the worst deck in this set. Both purple and yellow are quite strong colors in the game as a whole, so prioritizing multiple versions of the same character and cards that center around Law specifically is quite restrictive, deckbuilding-wise. His first ability is also a bit complex. To use this risk-reward mechanic well, you'll have to constantly check how much pressure your opponent is putting on you and how valuable the character they're removing is. To sum up, this leader is quite limited and will struggle against aggro and slower leaders alike.

In nearly all my reviews, I mention a deck that seemed quite promising at first and could potentially revolutionize the game, but in the end failed. That's Koala OP12-081. This is a Dressrosa/Revolutionary Army black and yellow leader with 5000 power, 4 life, and the Strike attribute.

Koala's first effect triggers when you attack and control two or more characters that cost 8 or more. It draws a card. This condition may seem restrictive, but all this leader's support cards are characters that cost less in your hand but are considered more expensive when they hit the board. That's how you'll meet this condition, and quite easily too.

However, this leader became the talk of the town because of her second effect. It only triggers once per turn, but it triggers in two situations: either when your opponent plays a character with a base cost of 8 or more, or when they put a character in play through another card. When this effect triggers, your opponent will have to add the top of their life pile to their hand, so it'll punish them when they play their best cards.

Currently, the meta includes aggressive decks with characters that don't cost a lot of DON!! and decks that are very similar to Koala OP12-081. That is, leaders that focus on the mid-to-late game, but the current leaders are a lot better than Koala and directly compete with her, resilience-wise. So, this leader will struggle to establish herself in her own strategy and probably won't be able to find a spot on tournament podiums anytime soon.

I, personally, enjoyed this set a lot, and I believe it is very positive for the game. All we need to know now is if, after the next banlist update, Koala OP12-081 will be able to live the dream many players have for her, or if she will actually fail miserably.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!