How to Upgrade the One Piece TCG Starter Deck 26: PURPLE/BLACK Luffy

Welcome back to installment number four of our One Piece TCG Starter Deck Upgrade Guides. Today, we're sprucing up the latest product for our beloved Straw Hat Leader: a little-known character called Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061).

There's a lot of different versions of Luffy. Honestly, that's no surprise. The central protagonist has been the one constant throughout 26 years of One Piece history and stands tall atop popularity polls, boss fights and TCG metagames. Without Monkey.D.Luffy, there's no One Piece. There is no better entry point for established fans of the franchise.

Starter Deck 26: PURPLE/BLACK Monkey.D.Luffy leans heavily into the purple side of his color identity, but the leader does a great job at blending together signpost attributes of both. By attaching a DON!!! to Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061), all your characters will have their cost increased by one. This is a very black-learning effect designed to enable characters looking for higher costs to activate their effects and dodge more situational removal. On the purple side of things, you'll be able to add DON!!! back into play the first time you return them to the DON!!! deck each turn, turning the drawback of your most powerful cards into an upside.

If you're starting your One Piece journey alongside a different leader, don't panic! I'm slowly working though upgrade guides for every starter deck from the most recent wave. As they're finished, you'll be able to find them below:

However, if you're hoping to hop aboard with the future King of the Pirates, let's waste no time and set sail!

Starter Deck 26: Purple Black Luffy - Base Decklist

• Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061)
• 2 Nico Robin (ST26-003)
• 2 Monkey.D.Luffy (ST26-005)
• 2 Tony.Tony.Chopper (ST26-002)
• 4 Soba Mask (ST26-001)
• 4 General Franky (ST26-004)
• 4 San-Goro (OP05-065)
• 4 Jinbe (OP05-066)
• 4 Fra-Nosuke (OP05-070)
• 4 Usopp (OP09-063)
• 4 Nami (OP09-070)
• 4 Roronoa Zoro (OP09-076)
• 4 Brook (ST14-010)
• 4 Gum-Gum Lightning (OP09-077)
• 4 Gum-Gum Giant (OP09-078)

You can tell that Starter Deck 26: PURPLE/BLACK Monkey.D.Luffy is designed to appeal to the casual audience first and foremost. Every single member of the Straw Hat crew gets a card in the deck, allowing you to play out their adventures in real time across the tabletop. However, that does lead to some slightly ham-fisted synergies that don't really serve the deck.

Usopp (OP09-063), San-Goro (OP05-065) and Brook (ST14-010) are just vanilla characters with no synergy or reason to be here, while the rest of the deck leans towards powerful event cards and one-time ways to activate your leader ability for value. It's not terrible, but it could be a lot better.

With that said, some of the new cards printed exclusively in this product are bonkers good. Nico Robin (ST26-003) joins Roronoa Zoro (OP09-076) as a 3-cost character that will accelerate you by one DON!!! overall on account of your leader ability. Even better, she's a +2000 counter, giving the card absurd late game flexibility that cannot be found in Zoro.

Monkey.D.Luffy (ST26-005) is also a little bit crazy. As long as your opponent has five or more DON!!!, you'll be bumping up your leader's power by 2000 until the end of the opposing turn. Again, this comes at no real cost due to Monkey.D.Luffy's (OP09-061) ability. 7000 is absolutely gigantic and can be used on both offense and defense. Forcing out +2000 counters while safely holding back all your own? That's pretty darn good.

Overall, I'm a little disappointed with the deck out of the box. It's mostly new cards converting over into a fully powered decklist and the lack of black cards to explore and learn with seems like a real miss. Thankfully, the leader's very strong overall and will be worth investing in if you enjoy the play patterns or flavor.

Budget Upgrades

Enjoying yourself after a handful of games? That's great. Let's find you some cheap improvements you can make to really tie Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061) together. Each card mentioned in this section is readily available on the TCGplayer marketplace for less than five bucks a copy at time of writing.

Step One: Double dip on Nico Robin (ST26-003) and Monkey.D.Luffy (ST26-005). These two cards are the shining light of this starter deck and will be played as a must-have four of in your decklist going forward. Given that each starter deck only contains two copies, pick up a second or grab the additional cards needed for a couple of bucks.

Next, you'd love some consistent ways of finding our best cards. When You're at Sea You Fight against Pirates!! (OP05-076) and Trafalgar Law (OP09-069) are some of this color combination's best {Straw Hat Crew} searchers, helping you consistently find Nico Robin (ST26-003) in time to accelerate your DON!!! or a copy of Monkey.D.Luffy (ST26-005) when it's time to put the pressure on your opponent.

Black Maria (OP08-074) was such a terrifying way to rebuy your DON!!! that her impending release played a role in the banning of Trafalgar Law (ST10-001). As a floor, using Black Maria on your three DON!!! turn acts as an additional copy of Nico Robin (ST26-003) or Roronoa Zoro (OP09-076) by triggering Luffy's leader ability at the end of turn.

However, if you'd like to aggressively use multiple effects that eat through your DON!!!, Luffy cannot reimburse you for all of them. Instead, you can use Maria can foot the bill and replenish all that DON!!! to pull you back level with your opponent. She's a little on the pricer side, but she's a huge upgrade.

At this stage, we're looking for a few more powerful activators for Luffy's leader ability and some all-round generically powerful cards that should probably make the cut. Franky (OP09-072) serves as both a blocker and a way to generate card advantage throughout the former, while Sanji (ST14-003) and Sanji (OP09-065) offer power ways to clear up whatever problem you may be staring down. Sanji (ST14-003) actually benefits massively from Monkey.D.Luffy's (OP09-061) first ability, seeing himself as a six-cost character when entering play.

Finally, you should look to diversify some of the niche options and trigger effects that may be lurking in your life cards. Gum-Gum Lightning (OP09-077) is great, but it won't always bail you out against much larger characters in the later stages of the game. By mixing it up with some copies of Gamma Knife (OP05-077) and Gum-Gum Jet Gatling (OP03-072), you can create more permutations for the opponent to consider without giving up any of those accelerating trigger effect.

With all of that in mind, here's the current list I'd be playing on a budget.

Starter Deck 26: Purple Black Luffy - Budget Upgrades

• Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061)
• 1 Gum-Gum Jet Gatling (OP03-072)
• 4 When You're at Sea You Fight against Pirates!! (OP05-076)
• 4 Gum-Gum Giant (OP09-078)
• 2 Gamma Knife (OP05-077)
• 2 Gum-Gum Lightning (OP09-077)
• 4 Trafalgar Law (OP09-069)
• 4 Black Maria (OP08-074)
• 4 Nico Robin (ST26-003)
• 4 Roronoa Zoro (OP09-076)
• 4 Tony.Tony.Chopper (ST26-002)
• 4 Franky (OP09-072)
• 3 Sanji (ST14-003)
• 2 Brook (OP09-073)
• 4 Monkey.D.Luffy (ST26-005)
• 4 Sanji (OP09-065)

Full Power Upgrades

As always, please remember that none of these cards are required for you to play your deck at a local level. They're simply the most common inclusions in tournament topping decklists that come in outside of our previous $5 restriction. Metagames will change and sometimes other cards will enter the fold. It's always best to keep that in mind as your shopping.

With that said, the two big ticket items you'd really like to have in Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061) are Uso-Hachi (ST18-001) and Monkey.D.Luffy (EB02-061). Each is very much a best-in-slot character that should increase your win rate dramatically.

Uso-Hachi may not look exciting, but this +2000 counter offers the flexibility to rest problematic blockers or must-remove characters as early as turn four. That's an effect that nearly every purple leader is interested in. Even better, Uso-Hachi is a {Straw Hat Crew} member, so you can dig it up with Trafalgar Law (OP09-069) or When You're at Sea You Fight against Pirates!! (OP05-076).

Monkey.D.Luffy (EB02-061) is frankly absurd. Thanks to your multicolored leader, Luffy will rush into battle and smash damage into whatever may be in front of him, before returning your DON!!! to ready up and get battling again. Of course, you can mitigate that drawback if you'd like to with your leader ability, but it's worth noting that the active DON!!! gained from using Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061) beforehand can be part of the fuel for this particular fire.

Throw it all together and we've got Minqi Huang's 3rd Place list from the recent One Piece Regional in Sydney, Australia. Not bad, eh?

Minqi Huang's Purple Black Luffy - 3rd Place at Sydney Regional:

• 1 Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061)
• 4 Trafalgar Law (OP09-069)
• 4 Black Maria (OP08-074)
• 4 Uso-Hachi (ST18-001)
• 4 Nico Robin (ST26-003)
• 2 Roronoa Zoro (OP09-076)
• 1 Tony.Tony.Chopper (ST26-002)
• 4 Franky (OP09-072)
• 2 Sanji (ST14-003)
• 4 Monkey.D.Luffy (EB02-061)
• 4 Monkey.D.Luffy (ST26-005)
• 4 Sanji (OP09-065)
• 1 Gum-Gum Jet Gatling (OP03-072)
• 4 When You're at Sea You Fight against Pirates!! (OP05-076)
• 4 Gum-Gum Giant (OP09-078)
• 2 Gamma Knife (OP05-077)
• 2 Gum-Gum Lightning (OP09-077)

Closing Thoughts

Monkey.D.Luffy (OP09-061) forms part of the backbone of the current One Piece format, helping it to be an interesting and rewarding onboarding platform for those just beginning their journey with the game. Above all else, the Straw Hat leader deserves to be at the forefront of the franchise that he built. Honestly? It's pretty cool that he constantly is.

Have further questions? Let me know what you're thinking over at @HowlingMines on X (formerly Twitter) or @howlingmines.com over on Bluesky! Alternatively, give my other work here on TCGplayer a peek if you'd like another slice of everything nice about your favorite game.

But until next time. I've been HowlingMines, you've been amazing!

Stay safe out there — and happy gaming!