The Top 6 One Piece Cards from ST5: Film Edition

Today is a great day to be a One Piece Card Game fan! The fifth starter deck, Film Edition, is now on the shelves, and with it comes a host of new cards to put into our decks.

Some of these cards will help bolster existing archetypes, and some will help carve out space for entirely new stuff. Let's break down the top six cards from the starter deck that will have the most impact on the current One Piece metagame.

#6 Shiki

Shiki's passive effect to survive combat under most conditions makes him a uniquely powerful card in the game if your strategy is centered around controlling the board.

As long as you have 8 DON!! in play (which you will on the turn Shiki can attack if played on-curve), he cannot be K.O.'d in battle. This ability alongside Shiki's statline make him incredibly difficult to remove from the board, as he's also too large to be targeted by common removal spells like Gum-Gum Jet Pistol or a new staple to the format that we will get to later in this list.

Having a 7,000 attacker stick around ensures you always have multiple attacks to bring down your opponent's characters, which can be a huge boon for decks like Blue Purple Crocodile and certain builds of Kaido that really want to control the board so they can transition into the late game. Just be careful to not go below 8 DON!! when you use some of your other powerful minus DON!! effects, like the next card on our list.

#5 Gild Tesoro

Card draw is one of the most powerful effects in any card game. That's especially true in One Piece considering how rare those effects are, so whenever we get a new form of card advantage, it's important to take notice.

Not only does Gild Tesoro draw cards, but he can do so every turn he says in play! That's incredibly strong. Boa Hancock is likely the best card in blue because of her ability to repeatedly draw cards, and she only draws one per activation. The cost of having to DON!! -2 is certainly notable, but if you are constructing your deck with a much lower mana curve or using various ramp spells, that drawback can be heavily mitigated.

Gild also creates a bit of a positive feedback loop with himself because you can use the extra resources from his "when attacking" trigger to protect him and increase the likelihood he gets to attack again. This card can take over a game by itself under a bunch of different circumstances, and I'm honestly starting to worry that I may have ranked it a bit too low.

#4 Carina

Carina can enable certain minus-DON!!-heavy strategies in ways no other card can. Being able to ramp 2 DON!! repeatedly can be game-changing if you are constantly fulfilling the activation conditions while protecting Carina from attack.

Keep in mind that by default you are always 1 DON!! ahead of your opponent on any given turn, so you will need to DON!! -2 in order to activate Carina. Because of this, Carina should not be thought of as a ramp card, because it will only ever put you back to even. Instead, it should be seen as a tool that compensates for multiple minus DON!! activations, preventing you from falling too far behind on your mana development.

The other part of her cost is needing to discard Film type cards, which can be a fairly steep deck-building cost, but there are also several situational Film cards without counter value that could benefit greatly from having such a good discard outlet. She synergizes incredibly well with our previous card, as Gild Tesero puts you at least 1 DON!! behind on event activation and gives you a bunch of cards to enable Carina.

#3 Lion's Threat: Imperial Earth Bind

This card is going to alter how a lot of matchups against purple play out. 5 cost was previously a hard point to hit for the color on curve, as ST King can only kill 4 cost Characters, and ST Kaido comes down a couple turns too late. ST Brochio Bomber was always an option, but that card is a bit inefficient for a lot of people's tastes, including mine.

Now purple has a removal spell that is comparable in power to red's Gum-Gum Jet Pistol to answer important threats like ST Luffy and OP1 Yamato. This is an especially large boon for Blue Purple Kaido, as his leader ability allows you to heavily mitigate the -2 DON!! drawback, making Lion's Threat an incredibly efficient removal spell. Blue Purple Crocodile could also benefit from its addition to the game, as Lion's Threat is another cheap Main phase event that you can pair with Desert Spada or Blast Breath to double dip on the card draw ability.

While the -2 DON!! makes this card hard to play early in the game, it will still enable incredibly powerful multi-card turns in the mid and late-game that could allow you to come back from positions that would have otherwise been insurmountable.

#2 Douglass Bullet

It may not seem like adding yet another massive finisher to purple would be super impactful, but Bullet does a couple things that other cards like ST Kadio can't, which makes him invaluable for certain situations.

Bullet's primary unique ability is dealing with multiple blockers every turn he is in play. This makes it incredibly difficult for your opponent to protect cards like OP1 Eustace Kid or even their own life cards, considering Douglass' -4 DON!! ability also gives him double attack.

There simply aren't any other cards that can end the game as quickly through multiple blockers as Douglass Bullet can. Keep in mind that while Bullet cannot attack the first turn he comes into play, you can still activate his ability to rest your opponent's characters so they can be attacked down by your leader or whatever other characters you may already have in play.

Bullet is especially strong in a deck like Blue Purple Crocodile that really wants to turn the corner quickly once the game is stabilized. Even Blue Purple Kaido could make use of Bullet's ability to constantly make opposing creatures attackable, creating a small positive feedback loop when they are K.O.'d as a result.

#1 Uta

It's fitting that the star of the show would get the top spot on this list, as the One Piece universe's #1 idol is also the most impactful card in the FILM deck.

Uta is one of the strongest blockers in the game, and very likely the strongest in the color purple. This is because her -1 DON!! ability to rest another of your opponent's characters on block not only prevents an additional attack, but can also make something your opponent didn't want to risk in combat a legal target for attack on your turn.

Attacking into an Uta can get fairly tricky for your opponent as they have to consider the order of their attacks much more carefully, assuming any profitable attacks are even possible. Because Uta's ability triggers on block, you can defend her with counters from hand and continue to get value from her effect turn after turn, creating an incredibly powerful defense.

Uta can slot comfortably into any purple archetype as she is just a generically strong blocker that requires very little support to shine. I'm sure many people will be picking up two Film Starter Decks just to get a full playset of this very powerful card.

I'm incredibly excited to delve into these new cards and see how they impact the metagame. Just the fact that both Blue Purple leaders are getting so much support should shake things up if they become mainstays in the format. I hope you end up having as much fun as me, and I'll see you at the tables!