Introduction:
Hi! I’m Kris Ebal and this is my journey to being the April Flagship Winner for One Piece Card Game.
As a Magic: The Gathering player, I really prefer Control Archetype and as I transitioned to One Piece Card Game, it really was hard. I started playing since OP03 and played Nami. It didn’t click with me even though I love combo decks, so I transitioned to Blue Doflamingo and Yellow Yamato. These decks were not really very good decks back then (not until they print ST17 which broke Blue Doffy).
The closest Control Deck I played was Green Purple Doflamingo in OP8 but it was really niche and really bad overall. I played mostly midrange decks as I get better success using these kinds of decks. Purple Luffy was and still is one of my go to midrange deck as it is easy to use and draws a lot of cards which is why I love it. But when OP11 was released, I immediately found a control deck that I really wanted to play and grind many games with it. Finally, an actual control deck!
Deck Summary:
Blue Purple Luffy (UP Luffy for short) is a control deck that leverages on its ability to filter your draws and provide you more cards when you have 8 don on your refresh phase. I actually was a skeptic on this card as I really find the ability really clunky when I first read it. “Wow, so I need to wait for 5 turns and need to win the die roll so I could play second” was my impression of it until I saw videos of it being test played. That’s when I fell in love with this deck.
General Gameplan and preparation:
So, the gameplan of the deck is simple. Ramp on the first few turns with cards like Zoro-joro, Bon Clay, "..It’s to die for" and Gear 2 while trying to survive. That’s really it. So how is it similar to a MTG Control deck? You have removal, in the form of Gum-gum Red Roc and Charlotte Linlin AKA Big Mom 9. You have survival cards like Gear 2, lots of 2000 guard cards and the infamous Gum-gum Giant. Your finishers are big bodies that are really hard to block like Sanji 9, Big Mom 9 and Luffy 9, you can basically call them "The Power 9" (these are cards in MTG that were considered very broken). Joking aside, having your finishers be 9 cost means you will have extra don for protection, which is really powerful as you leader is already 6000 power to begin with, meaning your opponents will have to spend additional dons to attach to their field just to attack you which then creates a disadvantage for them as they cannot play certain cards on their turn. With this in mind, the deck is not invulnerable. The deck auto loses to decks that swarm the board like Red Green Law and Red Yellow Betty. The decklist above is the one I have used to win the April flagship last April 25, 2025. I will now discuss the card choices and the reasoning behind it.
Shout out to Busoy for helping me trying to predict the local meta on the flagship and we were on point. There was a lot of Black Lucci Players and all of them made it to top 8, by the way. So, the build was inspired by Kai, a Japanese player (@ikailakai, give him a follow guys). This build was a build specifically to counter Black Lucci. Rushing them down with 9-cost Luffy and 8-cost Luffy and Gum-gum Red Roc to remove their ace card 10 cost Kuzan.
Cards that were cut down from the list was Katakuri 8, which is a very strong card on his own but is only a dead card versus Black Lucci as it needs a turn to be useful. 8-cost Luffy was used instead as it is a better card for the Black Lucci match-up as it can bounce the opposing 4-cost Kuzan and Laboon so they would lose tempo. God thread was also not used because there were not a lot of aggressive decks predicted which our prediction turned out correct. I prefer using " ..It’s to die for" instead because it will make ramp faster when going first. Blue Pudding was used to 3 so there were not enough slots for tech card like Gravity Blade. Gum-gum Giant is only 2 offs in the deck as I really find the card not really useful and is actually counter intuitive for the deck. Playing Big Mom 9 on your 10 don turn which you really want to do makes you 9 don, so if you will play Giant on your opponents turn, you will lose 2 don and can’t use your leader’s ability on the following turn as you will be 7 don on the refresh phase.
Match Rundown:
Round 1 was against Enel.
On paper, it should be a favorable matchup because of the Power 9 but I almost lost because I bricked in the early game and fumbling because I attacked my opponent and he triggered Kikou-nojo having more attackers than anticipated. 8c Luffy also shined in this matchup as it kept the 2c Shirahoshi bounced back when he needed blocker on his turn. The nerves were getting to me on my very first game because we were on stream for round 1 and I was very nervous specially when I almost lose grasp of the win when deciding which card to discard on the Big Mom 9.
Round 2 was against Lucci.
My early turns were really bad as I only have 1 ramp card even on a mulligan. I was able to clear his 5c Garp on the early turns and the successive Big Mom 9s took care of two 4c Kuzan. He was not able to Jack but was able to put 10c Kuzan exactly on curve. Lucky for me, when 10c Kuzan was on the field he was only down to 3 life and I still had 3 9c characters. His last play was having two Rebecca blockers and I was able to bounce one of them with 8c Luffy and dealing three 9000 attacks for game.
Round 3 was against Bonney.
Nothing much against this game as my opponent bricked and conceded early. If ever he didn’t brick, I am still confident against this matchup as the Rush Luffies should beat her down and be able to dodge the leader ability of being rested.
Round 4 was against the ST21 Red Luffy.
This was tough as he got a good start and manage to get me to 1 life as early as 3rd turn. I bricked hard as my 3 Big Moms was drawn and I don’t have cards that can guard 7000 attacks. I was able to stabilize when I was able to play Big Mom 9s but even then, he was able to get me to zero life for a very long time. This is where UP Luffy’s effect shine as I was able to get 2000 guard, Blockers like 5c Name and 6c Sanji and survival events specifically Gum-gum Giant. Having able to clear the board every turn while having blockers and events to protect me even on 0 life got me to secure the flagship win!
Wrap Up:
If you want a Leader that gives enormous card advantage and love to play a control style of deck, I suggest you should try playing Blue Purple Luffy!
