There's a new One Piece Card Game on the way and Bandai Namco has revealed the basics of the game, including some of the most important rules regarding deck building, resource management, and win conditions. The One Piece Card Game is set to launch worldwide later in 2022, but Japanese players will get first access to the game, as it's due to launch there in July. Bandai Namco has released the basic rules for the game in Japanese, which have been translated by fans into English by fans.
One Piece is an incredibly popular battle manga about pirates in a fantasy setting. The story of One Piece follows a pirate named Monkey D. Luffy, who is on a journey to find the mythical treasure known as One Piece, and become the Pirate King. Over the course of the series, he adds new characters to his crew and comes into conflict with rival pirates and the marines. The world of One Piece is a good fit for a trading card game, as there are lots of characters with unique powers that can be translated into game mechanics, as well as different factions that can be used to tie different cards together.
There is a lot of One Piece content arriving in 2022, including the One Piece Odyssey RPG, and it will be joined by the card game. The One Piece Card Game was announced with a trailer that showed some of the fantastic card art that will appear in the game, but it was light on explanations regarding how the game is actually played. The rules for the One Piece Card Game are now available online and fans can get a feel for the game, ahead of more card reveals that will shed light on the different types of cards that will appear in the game. The One Piece Card Game bears some similarities to other card games on the market, with its own twist on classic rules and formats.
One Piece Card Game Has A Leader Mechanic Like The Commander Format In MTG
Magic: The Gathering has the popular Commander format. A Commander deck requires either a Legendary Creature or a Planeswalker, which is designated as the commander. The commander belongs in its own special zone and can be summoned whenever the player can pay its cost. If the commander dies or would otherwise be removed from the field, it's returned to its zone and the cost to play it again increases by two mana. The One Piece Card Game has a very similar concept to the Commander format, as each deck requires a Leader card, which is placed in the Leader Zone. The four starter decks that have been revealed so far confirm that Monkey D. Luffy, Eustass Kid, Crocodile, and Kaidou will all be Leader cards of their respective decks.
The other aspect of the One Piece Card Game that is similar to Magic: The Gathering's Commander format is deck color identity, but taken to the extreme. In Commander, the deck must consist of cards that use the same mana types as the ones listed on the commander's card. In the One Piece Card Game, the deck can only use cards that are the same color as the Leader. This means a deck with Monkey D. Luffy as its Leader must only contain red cards. If the game takes off, then this rule will likely be scrapped in the future, as it will inhibit the ability to create interesting decks. Either that, or it will pave the way for Leader cards with multiple colors.
One Piece Uses A Pokémon TCG Prize Card System (That's Tied To The Leader)
In the Pokémon TCG, both players take six cards from their deck at the start of the battle and turn them into Prize cards. Every time a player's Pokémon is knocked out, they add one of the Prize cards back to their hand, but running out of Prize cards means losing the game. There are also cards that are more powerful than normal and can even skip the need for evolution, but they drop more Prize cards when defeated. An example of this is Pokémon VMAX cards that drop three Prizes when defeated, adding a huge risk/reward element to their usage.
In the One Piece Card Game, there is a similar mechanic involving the Leader. Each player takes several cards from their deck and turns them into Life cards, which are returned to their hand whenever their Leader card receives damage. What's unique about the One Piece Card Game is that the number of Life cards differs, depending on the Leader, with Monkey D. Luffy providing five Life cards. This can create a situation where some Leader cards can have a lot of Life, but are weak in battle, while other Leader cards provide few Life, but are strong or have great effects. A player loses the game if they take a hit after losing their final Life card, or if they run out of cards to draw in their deck.
The Game Uses A Land/Energy System That Is Tied To Its Own Deck
One of the trickiest aspects of Magic: The Gathering and the Pokémon TCG are their resource management aspects. The player requires resources to play cards, which means tapping Land cards to produce mana, or attaching Energy cards to a Pokémon to allow it to attack. This can create a balancing act when it comes to deck-building, as the player must carefully plan how many resource cards they want to include, as they don't want to be in a situation where they have too many or too few cards.
In the One Piece Card Game, the resources actually have their own deck. The resource cards in this game are called Don!! cards, and the player has ten of them in a special Don!! deck. The player draws two Don!! cards every turn, or one Don!! card if they go first during the game. Don!! cards are used to play regular cards, but they can also be attached to cards to provide special effects, which can involve buffing one card, but prevents that Don!! card from being used for anything else. There are also special abilities that spend Don!! cards in order to be activated, and these are returned to the Don!! deck. This is a great mechanic, as it ensures that players will have a steady flow of resources in the One Piece Card Game, even if it does have a silly name.