One Piece TCG: A Fist of Divine Speed Review - All Leaders From OP11

Leaders take center stage in One Piece TCG and, as such, are absolutely essential. They are always revealed first when new sets come along and dictate how each deck works. This type of card influences everything, from deckbuilding to the strategies you can use. They're even a baseline for the colors you can use in each list, how many life points you'll have at the beginning of the match, and whether you have to follow specific restrictions for that particular strategy or not.

In today's article, we'll explore the new leaders from OP11 - A Fist of Divine Speed. We'll go through them one by one according to their card number in this set, so please note we didn't rank them in any particular order for this article. Without further ado, let's go!

This set focuses on two specific One Piece arcs: the Fish-Man Island arc and the Whole Cake Island arc, which was when the Straw Hat Pirates faced the pirate fleet known as Big Mom.

Black cards and red cards in this set are essentially support for Marine decks. This card type is not uncommon in black, but it'll be pretty interesting in red, considering the new set will support old leaders like Monkey.D.Garp OP02-002 and Smoker OP10-001. The entirely new "SWORD" card type is featured in these new Marine support cards as well.

The new green cards are mostly Fish-Man Island cards, including the so far unseen Sea Kings, the colossal sea monsters from the series. As for the new yellow cards, they support this new card type, Sea King, and should form a solid base for the new Shirahoshi OP11-022.

The new purple cards are great support for Big Mom Pirates, both for Charlotte Katakuri OP11-062 from the new set and Charlotte Pudding OP08-058, an old strategy from OP08 that will be a lot better with these new cards.

Finally, the new blue cards are support for Mugiwara Pirates, but some blue Mink cards will also go great in the Whole Cake archetype. Then, there's Capone"Gang"Bege OP11-048, which will be a great searcher for Straw Hat and Firetank Pirates, to the point it might pave the way for a new mafia leader in the future. Finally, this new set brought us several new Vinsmoke Family characters, which will be great support for the old Vinsmoke Reiju OP06-042.

Let's start with my favorite leader from the new set, Koby OP11-001. Koby has 5000 power, 4 life, and is red and black. He also has the Strike attribute and is a Navy/SWORD leader. His first effect lets all of your SWORD characters attack enemy characters on the same turn you play them, so it's like "half" a Rush. Of course, these characters can still only attack enemy characters that can be attacked, that is, tapped characters, according to the game rules. However, characters like Koby OP11-119 and Aramaki OP11-082 can ignore this rule and attack untapped characters.

His other ability is quite interesting. Once per turn, if one of your Navy characters with 7000 base power or less is removed by an enemy effect, this effect lets you put 3 cards from your trash pile at the bottom of your deck in any order instead. This sort of protection or substitution will be a lot of help whenever you need to keep important units in play.

Koby OP11-001 is quite intense. His main way to remove other cards is by attacking them with all he's got directly. He won't be the best strategy in the game, but he's consistent and rewarding when you learn how to play him and how to identify his biggest threats. Furthermore, Koby OP11-119 can buff and, as such, protect this leader.

Jinbe OP11-021 is a green leader who has 5000 power and 5 life. He also has the Strike attribute and is a Fish-Man and Straw Hat Crew character. Out of the 4 new leaders in this set, Jinbe is the one that least stands out because we still don't have great support for the main card types in his strategy, Fish-Man and Merfolk. At least not yet.

His ability states that, at the end of your turn, if you have 6 or less cards in hand, you may pick up to 1 Fish-Man or Merfolk character and up to 1 DON!! and set them as active. The most common way you'll use this ability will be to reactivate a blocker you already attacked with or a character you want to protect from attacks. Furthermore, this ability also lets you reactivate a DON!! for your opponent's turn so you can use events to defend yourself.

As we mentioned before, what makes this strategy not as great as the others is that there's no support for it yet. Once new Fish-Man and Merfolk come out, it could become more relevant.

Our next leader has 5 life and two colors, yellow and green, which means she can't attack. Shirahoshi OP11-022 has 5000 power, the Wisdom attribute, and is a Merfolk and Fish-Man Island character.

With this new Shirahoshi, the One Piece "princesses that can't attack" trio is finally complete: Shirahoshi OP11-022 - Nefeltari Vivi OP04-001 - Rebecca OP04-039.

Shirahoshi OP11-022 states: once per turn during your main phase, you may rest 1 DON!! to turn the top card in your life pile face-up. If you do, you may then play, from your hand, up to 1 Neptunian or Megalo character from your hand as long as this card costs the same or less number of DON!! than you have on your board.

This effect essentially develops your board faster, as it puts characters in play directly and doesn't force you to pay their original costs. Furthermore, this entire strategy includes effects that let you turn the top card in your life pile face-down, like Megalo OP11-112, so you'll be able to use your leader's effect every turn.

However, it isn't very strong. That's because, just like Jinbe OP11-021, it can only be as strong as the Neptunian characters in the game are. Nonetheless, it is a cheap and very fun build.

Monkey.D.Luffy OP11-040 is one of the most consistent leaders in the game. He is blue and purple, has 6000 power and 3 life, and is a Straw Hat Crew leader with the Strike attribute.

His effect activates at the beginning of the turn if you have 8 or more DON!! in play. If you do, you may then look at the top 5 cards in your deck, reveal up to one Straw Hat Crew card, and add it to your hand. You can then reorder the rest of the cards however you like in your deck - at the top or the bottom.

This is, straight away, a tier-1 leader, as he is very defensive, efficient, and has great answers. His only problems will be aggressive decks that can punish him before he can get all 8 DON!!. But he is still one of the best leaders from this set.

OP11 is a diverse, strong set and brought us interesting tools and cards that support different strategies. The future is here, and it is wonderful for us, One Piece fans!

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

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!