The Best New One Piece Leaders in The Time of Battle (OP-16)

One Piece's 16th mainline expansion, The Time of Battle, is officially live, and it's set to shake up the meta harder than anything since set rotation a few months ago. Themed around the Impel Down and Marineford arcs, the set leans into variety—not just in card designs and effects, but in archetypes that introduce interactions the game has never seen before.

Here's a rundown of three of the strongest new Leaders from the set, along with sample decklists and strategic overviews to get you started.

Blue Green Luffy

(All deck images via Egman Events)

• 1 OP16-022 Monkey.D.Luffy
• 4 OP16-034 Monkey.D.Luffy
• 4 OP16-055 Mr.2.Bon.Kurei(Bentham)
• 4 OP16-054 Mr.1(Daz.Bonez)
• 2 ST30-014 Mr.3(Galdino)
• 2 OP16-037 Mr.3(Galdino)
• 2 OP16-026 Emporio.Ivankov
• 4 OP16-056 Mr.3(Galdino)
• 4 OP16-045 Crocodile
• 4 OP16-048 Buggy
• 2 OP15-032 Brook
• 9 OP16-042 Prisoner of Impel Down
• 4 OP16-032 Boa Hancock
• 1 OP02-068 Gum-Gum Rain
• 4 OP16-038 Let's Go!! To The Navy Headquarters!!

(JP Cardshop Flagship 1st place list by Kuru; taken from One Piece Top Decks)

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Blue Green Luffy has a relatively unassuming Leader effect that restands two DON!! if every Character on the board has the Impel Down type. But as we learned from Mihawk in OP-14, restanding DON!! can be meta-definingly powerful, and Luffy's restand effect is practically unconditional if you've built your deck the right way. You don't need to rest a card to trigger it, and you aren't limited in how you spend the DON!! (Remember, Mihawk couldn't use his extra DON!! to play Characters.)

The plan here is to swarm the board in the early game with 2-cost cards, as on the two DON!! turn, you can play two 2-drops in the same turn with Leader effect. Then on five DON!!, you can use OP16-048 Buggy to play out a OP16-042 Prisoner of Impel Down, which brings you to a near-full board state.

Once you've set up a board, you can use cards like Mr. 3 Galdino and the absurdly powerful 7-cost Boa Hancock to freeze the opponent's Characters. Then comes the coup de grâce: Let's Go!! To The Navy Headquarters!!, which can restand your Leader and every single Character on your board if they have different names and the Impel Down type. It's one of the most powerful finishers in the game, and a big part of why Blue Green Luffy is such a force to be reckoned with. 

Black Yellow Marshall D. Teach

• 1 OP16-080 Marshall.D.Teach
• 4 OP16-109 Doc Q
• 4 OP09-095 Laffitte
• 4 OP16-103 Van Augur
• 4 OP16-110 Vasco Shot
• 4 OP16-104 Catarina Devon
• 2 OP12-112 Baby 5
• 4 OP16-106 Sanjuan.Wolf
• 2 PRB02-015 Shiryu
• 4 OP16-108 Shiryu
• 4 OP16-119 Marshall.D.Teach
• 4 OP09-093 Marshall.D.Teach
• 1 OP16-115 Black Vortex
• 2 OP09-096 My Era...Begins!!
• 3 OP16-116 Zehahahahaha!
• 4 OP09-099 Fullalead

(OP-16 Teach list from content creator iKailaKai)

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With the power to redirect opponent attacks by trashing a Trigger card, Black Yellow Teach is a defensive powerhouse of a deck that, like many other meta-defining yellow decks, can also put the opponent on a clock by forcing them to take damage.

The curve is elegant. Early small drops like Vasco Shot, Van Augur, and Doc Q serve as attack-redirect fodder. The midgame brings board controlling threats like Shiryu and Catarina Devon. The late game drops boss monsters like the new 8-cost SEC Teach alongside the 10-cost Blocker Teach, both of which can be summoned from Teach's signature Zehahahahaha! Event, which deals a damage to the opponent while playing a Blackbeard card from hand.

The deck's real strength is its flexibility. Those early drops double as a toolbox, while the wide range of attacker sizes and board widths let it answer a variety of challenges.

Black Yamato

• 1 OP16-079 Yamato
• 4 OP16-091 Nami
• 4 OP16-092 Nico Robin
• 4 OP16-087 Shinobu
• 2 OP16-095 Monkey.D.Luffy
• 4 OP16-082 Kin'emon
• 4 OP16-084 Kouzuki Momonosuke
• 4 OP16-098 Yamato
• 4 OP16-096 Yamato
• 4 OP16-097 Yamato
• 4 OP16-086 Sanji
• 4 OP16-085 Kouzuki Momonosuke
• 4 OP14-096 Ground Death
• 4 OP16-099 I've Come Here To Cut Those Chains!

(JP Cardshop Flagship 1st place list by Yorozu; taken from One Piece Top Decks)

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Black Yamato represents a new aggressive archetype for OPTCG. With the ability to give any Wano card Rush when it's summoned from the trash, the deck can send a flurry of attacks at the opponent without needing to fully set up a board. Then, using sticky 8000-power Yamato cards, the deck can regenerate its own hand and put consistent unblockable pressure on the opponent.

To help set things up, the deck runs searchers like Nami and Kin'emon, which trash the cards they don't grab, plus Nico Robin, which cycles cards on play.

From there, your combo pieces—Momonosuke, Shinobu, Yamato, and I've Come Here To Cut Those Chains!—work in concert, summoning one another, Rushing, and re-summoning all over again.

A word of caution for newer players: the combos here are highly sequencing- and trash-dependent, and the nuances can be hard to track if you haven't nailed the fundamentals of the One Piece Card Game. Once the interactions click, though, this is one of the most fun and rewarding decks in the set.