One Piece TCG: Deck Tech - Red & Green Monkey D. Luffy (OP15)

In today's article, we'll explore a rather unique leader. Red and Green Luffy from OP13 is definitely challenging!

When OP14 came out, he got a little better and his game strategy became a bit more cohesive, as well as interesting, but he still couldn't deal with enemy attacks that consistently.

Without further ado, let's explore this rather underestimated leader.

Monkey.D.Luffy OP13-001 is a Supernova/Straw Hat Crew/Strike red and green leader with 5000 power and 4 life. Whenever an opponent declares an attack and you have 5 active DON!! or less, for 1 DON!!, you may tap as many DON!! as you want to give Luffy or a Straw Hat Crew character +2000 during this battle for each DON!! you tapped this way.

You can use this effect more than once per turn, and it is quite defensive. You'll grow your cards more and more and force your opponent to respect any DON!! you still have left.

The most interesting part is that this isn't a traditional control list or a pure aggro deck. In this strategy, DON!! are very versatile resources, so it leans more towards midrange. You'll progress your main game plan with cheap but decent characters, stat-wise, that let you untap DON!! or scale even further. In the opponent's turn, you'll be able to use these DON!! defensively.

The list we'll see today was built by Kouki, a Japanese player who won a tournament with it. It's very simple and clean. Instead of playing many different kits, this deck leans on cheap, efficient cards and Straw Hat Crew characters, lots of searchers, and ways to reuse DON!!.

It is an aggressive midrange list that can use DON!! pretty well and do more than it should in your turns. You'll even have leftover DON!! at the end of the round as well.

Here's our list:

Initial Setup

On the very first turn, you'll need the many searchers this list plays. Nami OP01-016 lets you look at the top 5 cards in your deck and get a Straw Hat Crew character from among them that isn't Nami. Monkey.D.Garp OP13-016, in turn, lets you look at the top 4 cards in your deck and get a card that costs 3 or more, which includes many cards in this list. As for Jewelry Bonney EB04-002, it lets us look for Egghead/Straw Hat Crew cards, but we'll only get Straw Hat Crew characters with it. All three of them are great on turn 2 because we can play more than one at a time then. We'll go through our deck quite well and set up our following turns.

This opening fixes a common issue multicolored leaders face: drawing the wrong side of the deck. Nami and Bonney usually find relevant Straw Hat Crew bodies, and Garp gives us cards that cost more DON!! of any kind. The Straw Hat cards we want are Nami OP14-031, Sanji OP13-027, Monkey.D.Luffy OP13-118, and Roronoa Zoro EB04-007.

The initial curve includes Tony Tony.Chopper OP10-011, and I really like it. It's a 4-cost blocker with 4000 power that gets an extra 2000 power on the opponent's turn. It's not the most elegant card in the world, but if you need to be more defensive, it's perfect. It will protect your board from small bits of damage and keep it wide enough for future attacks.

The Green Engine

This is the core engine this list plays.

Usopp OP14-022 sets up to 2 DON!! as active at the end of the turn if your leader is a FILM or Straw Hat Crew character. Sanji OP13-027 does something similar: it sets up to 2 DON!! as active when he comes into play and another DON!! at the end of the turn. These two cards already make this deck quite resourceful. With them, you don't need to play Cavendish EB01-012, which is quite strong in archetypes that untap DON!! and fits Supernova leaders like a glove.

The card that best sums up what this list is all about is Nami OP14-031. It is a blocker that rests up to two enemy characters that cost 8 or less when it comes in, and, at the end of the turn, it sets up to 5 DON!! as active.

These cards return DON!! to you so that you can keep playing and also set up 5 active DON!! in play, which is great with your leader, Monkey.D.Luffy OP13-001.

Nami OP14-031 quite literally can return 5 DON!! to you at the end of the turn. Sanji OP13-027 and Usopp OP14-022 return less DON!! to you, but they're just as important. With them, you'll be able to attack, develop your turn, and also still have resources when it's the opponent's turn again. It's quite critical because it lets you develop your game plan on your turn but doesn't force you to spend all your DON!! and become vulnerable on the opponent's turn as a result.

Protecting the Board

To start, our own characters will become quite big when they face enemy attacks, but this deck also plays cards that protect them against removals. Nico Robin P-111 protects, once per turn, one of your Straw Hat Crew characters from enemy effects as long as you tap 1 DON!!.

Tashigi OP10-032 does something similar, but for one of your green characters. You can tap this card and prevent your green cards from leaving play because of a removal. Considering the engine this deck plays is mostly green cards and that you can untap DON!! quite easily, this type of effect is great. It will make your opponent's removals a lot less efficient.

You'll end up with a board that is more resilient than it seems and can definitely fool opponents. Your bodies will look relatively modest, but when the opponent tries to interact with them, they'll have to remove smaller bodies that don't impact battles as much first because they'll protect your other characters.

Together, your leader's strong defensive ability and these protection cards will turn each enemy attack and removal into a bad decision. The opponent will often realize that their attacks are useless because of how many DON!! you'll still have.

The Big Cards

The most expensive cards in this list are quite aggressive. Roronoa Zoro EB04-007 costs 7 and gives your leader +2000 power until the end of the opponent's next end phase when it enters play. This, by itself, is already great in this list. Furthermore, if the opponent has a character with 8000 power or more, Zoro gains Rush that turn.

Monkey.D.Luffy OP13-118 puts pressure on the board because it has Double Attack and can untap up to 4 DON!!. The only drawback is that you won't be able to play characters that cost 5 or more in the same turn. This is the attacker you'll want most of the time because of how valuable it is in this strategy.

The single copy of Roronoa Zoro OP06-118 will be more useful in long matches. You won't need it in every match. It costs 9 and has 9000 power, just to start, but you may also set it as active when it attacks and in your main phase for some DON!!. Considering this list recycles these resources constantly, you won't struggle to use this effect and make this Zoro quite threatening to the opponent. He is perfect to clear a problematic board or punish the enemy leader directly with attacks with 9000 power or more.

Events

The events in this deck are tempo plays. Charlestone OP05-038 is a Counter that gives something +4000 power and also lets you set up to 3 DON!! as active if you discard a card. It's a great way to reuse DON!! and build up your defenses in future turns and seems to be made for this list. As for Electrical Luna OP08-036, it freezes all tapped enemy characters that cost 7 or less and prevents them from untapping on the next turn. Considering this deck rests a lot of cards, this can compromise the opponent's entire turn.

I really enjoy this card because with it this list won't have to rely solely on building a large board. You can win by searching for other cards first, putting characters in play that give you active DON!!, and eventually win by freezing the enemy board. Like so, RG Luffy is a lot more versatile than it seems, if you only look at the flashiest cards in t. It is quite fast but can take things slow until the opponent's board is vulnerable to simple lethal attacks.

In the early game, you must set up your hand with the exact cards you need. You'll nearly always prefer one or more searchers straight away so that you can set up your curve in the next few turns. You must not get ahead of yourself at this point. Your leader's effect is quite strong, but it is even better when you know how to manage your resources. You'll win many matches by calculating exactly how many DON!! you need to build the best defense against the opponent.

In the mid game, this deck takes shape and takes advantage of the cards you'll get from your searchers. Sanji OP13-027 and Usopp OP14-022 are the best ways to have DON!! on the opponent's turn. Nami OP14-031 taps enemy cards and untaps resources, and Sanji ST21-003 turns big bodies into difficult attacks that the opponent will struggle to handle with blockers. From this point onward, the opponent will realize that attacking your leader is a terrible decision, ignoring the board is even worse, and trading card per card is too slow. You'll win bit by bit just by being efficient. This is also when you'll use Monkey.D.Luffy OP13-118.

In the late game, Roronoa Zoro EB04-007 and Roronoa Zoro OP06-118 will make the difference between you and the opponent quite clear. This includes every advantage, such as the cards you got with your searchers, the 5 active DON!! you got from your green Nami, every attack you made difficult, and every Electrical Luna OP08-036 that made the enemy board stand still for too long.

Monkey.D.Luffy OP13-001 is one of the most unpopular leaders in OP13, much because it's quite unusual, not because he is bad. It rewards you for the time you invest in it because it's quite difficult to master.

I'd really like to see this deck evolve as new sets come out because it's a lot of fun. It's perfect if you want to try out something new.

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

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!