My One Piece Card Game Review

 

Introduction

I have been playing this game for a few months, technically just a month ago at the time I've written this. But I will grow along with the blog, improving along the way. There are some pros and cons about this game currently, and I hope Bandai will fixed this problem, so they can go against the big 3 card games. 

As you know, I came from VG side of things and used to play CFV until Bushiroad ruins it with power, and not skills anymore.This is why I quit the game. I know there will be VG fans out there who would disagree with me, but if you haven't played pre Legion era, where skills were majorly involved, you won't really know what I meant with VG being a power creep game instead of skills. I do think Legion and Break Ride were the GOAT era for that game, then after that everything just went downhill.

But enough rambling about VG since this is One Piece Card Game blog and not a VG blog anymore. My main priority is to make this blog grows in audience number, then try and make it big. Although I wrote is a One Piece Blog and the banner has Luffy on it, I don't plan on just One Piece content as the name of the blog is not One Piece related, I might also post Veemon decks from Digimon, and Synchros deck from YGO since those are my favourite archetype. But I don't want to post any more unless I have the authors who can do One Piece stuff.

Anime

Anyway with One Piece, I've been reading the manga series, I've actually stopped watching the anime since Dressrosa arc where some fights they drag the minutes whereas in the manga, the Characters actually one shot people. This is what I didn't like about the anime. Before the New World, One Piece did made some fillers arc, so they could let the manga run. But now I don't really like the way the anime does things now where they add extra minutes to the fight.

One Piece Card Game

I've mainly compared One Piece Card Game to other Card Games especially Bandai, two other card games I played before DBS and Digimon to One Piece. I haven't played BSS, I tried to but I guess the reboot version of BSS is just not my thing compare to Battle Spirits, even though BSS have English cards. The difference felt like huge. There are some good part about One Piece, but also some bad part about One Piece. Honestly no card game is perfect, even the top card games, they will all have pros and cons, hopefully people don't get triggered about this.

Pros

So for the card game, I think its great, I haven't played Battle Spirits Saga, I tried to but wasn't interest so I don't know anything about BSS, but I did played Bandai two other card games, Digimon and Dragon Ball Super. The one thing I hate about those games is that they made Blockers redundant. I think the reason because, those games you can go really wide, so having Blockers won't be another to stop the attacks, where as One Piece, you are only limited to 5 Characters, basically just like YGO with 5 Monster Zone and 1 Extra Zone, or VG with the 2 front RG circle and 1 VG circle. I know Dragon Ball Super is making their second card game with One Piece Leader rule where you can only use the colours that matches your Leader, unlike the Dragon Ball Super we have now.

Counters felt like guarding in VG, so I was pretty confident with my Counter timing as I've been playing VG for a long time. It is similar to Combo mechanic in Dragon Ball Super, but the Combo mechanic can also be used as an offense as well as defence, so it is a bit different to One Piece Counters. Unfortunately for Digimon, they have nothing except Blast Counter or Blockers to stop your opponents attacks, otherwise, you would have to take their hits.

A proper OPTCG Sim made by a fan. I know DBS and Digimon has an online sim, but you need to go through TTS or untap to use those. However Bandai is making an official sim for DBS, so I am looking forward to it. As you know, my locals doesn't do One Piece, so a sim is all I got to actually play One Piece with people. I do have some real life builds, because sometimes, I feel having a physical copy of the deck is much better than just virtual, makes me really understand the deck. Maybe it is just me who think of it that way. 

The game feels more like skills need to be involved. I played Digimon and honestly, I think that game becoming less skill, but more about the cards itself being OP. (I hope any Digimon fans out there who plays the card game don't get triggered by this). But that is how I feel about the current state of Digimon at the time I've written this. I do hope One Piece can continue this way, because when I was testing, I can feel I misplayed a lot compare to Digimon, Digimon is just more of a straightforward game when you just play this Digimon to win. One Piece will need DON involves, the timing of the cards, as well as the used of Counters. 

I know some people might disagree with me with the skill base game because of Yellow. For people who doesn't know what Yellow does, not only you gain Life, but you can also put Trigger cards into the Life area, so they can activate the Trigger effects when your opponent's attack the Life area. It frustrate some people as they seems to can't do anything about it. Then Yellow also has some pretty strong cards on top of those mechanic. But the thing is, this mechanic I've seen is similar to VG against Oracle Think Tanks and Angel Feathers where they make use of Triggers who meant to be luck base mechanic, especially back in G era. 

Cons

Just like their Digimon counterpart, old cards are almost impossible to find, or if you can they are very expensive. Not very good for new players who want to try the game but couldn't get their hand on the first few starter decks, because they are sold out, or people reselling them at a way higher price. I do know DBS does reprints, because its like Bandai only game who doesn't have JP language. So everything we got will be the same worldwide. The good thing about DBS is that people doesn't know the meta ahead compare to One Piece or Digimon, so we don't see price increases for certain cards.

The ban list will be a con. I know we had a separate ban list compare to JP format, but they removed it in December. If I know Bandai, they will do the same to One Piece like what they do with Digimon, have the same ban list as JP version. I really doubt we would see a separate ban list for One Piece, but when they does, you can ignore this paragraph I've written. Honestly, meta might be different in the East Vs West, so I don't think Bandai should follows what the East meta. It is like YGO and VG where the West ban list is different to the East ban list because we are different over here.

Useless Premium Collection stuff. I see this a lot for Digimon, and One Piece is taking the same route. I guess the premium collection targets the Collectors more than players, but I want something for players as well, like Anniversary sets once a year in DBS where it is just reprinted cards.

Other than Pros & Cons

I don't want to talk about meta, like certain colours get better cards than the other, because all card games will have some sort of meta. Although, at the beginning of VG, decks felt actually balanced, like whatever decks you built, can actually win as long as you have the skills to do it. I don't know where did VG goes wrong, maybe the introduction of Cross Ride, so the Vanguards had 13k based power, made lower power decks harder to hit, and you also had an easier time to guard since its 13k based power. But this is all in the past, and I doubt there are card games that will be like the beginning of VG, even the VG now is not the same as the past which is why I left.

Anyway as someone who plays YGO, I know the meta format can be toxic until a ban list hit them. But this shouldn't put people off, in fact this just wants me to challenge the meta even more, with a meta contender deck but not meta. I think it is possible, since YGO does have meta contender decks, but they are not meta. One Piece does constantly change in the meta since it is the typical Bandai game like in DBS and Digimon. Bandai seems to try not keep a deck being in the same meta for a long time, unless they are actually broken.

What I want to see

Currently I don't know which route Bandai will be taking for One Piece. They could follow the Digimon footstep which sucks, or follow DBS footstep where there are plenty of starter decks with reprinted cards. It feels like I am DBS fan, but I am not, DBS is very expensive to play, a lot more expensive than One Piece, it is more MTG level in terms of pricing, which is why I've quit. But the practices for DBS were really good which is why it was successful for Bandai, and that is how they start making Digimon, One Piece and BSS for the West. 

If they are able to do yearly reprints for One Piece like DBS, then I think it will make the game very healthy and new players will be able to find some cards. I know recently Digimon got a reprint set, but it was also with some new cards as well which I wasn't interested. I want a pure reprinted set like DBS. So we won't be able to have people hogging all the copies of certain cards to sell for insane price. One Piece did made a ST10 deck with reprinted OP01 Nami and OP01 Zoro, and I thank you for them they did that because Zoro was insanely expensive, now its a lot cheaper to get. Now if they make more reprint cards for starter decks, it will really help a lot with the pricing.