How to play One Piece Card Game: a beginner's guide

One Piece Card Game is Bandai's official trading card game based on Eiichiro Oda's manga. It is played one against one, each game lasts between 20 and 40 minutes and you can learn the basic rules in an afternoon. In this guide we explain how to play step by step, what you need to get started and how to make the jump to tournaments in Europe.

What you need to play

Each player needs a deck made up of three parts:

• 1 Leader card. This is your main character: it starts on the table from the first turn and sets your deck's colours.
• Exactly 50 cards made up of Characters, Events and Stages, all in your Leader's colour (or colours). A maximum of 4 copies of each card number.
• 10 DON!! cards, which are the energy you use to pay for your cards.

The easiest way to get everything is a starter deck: it comes with a complete deck and its Leader, ready to play. If you are starting out with a friend, buy two different starter decks and play them against each other. And if you want to try the game before buying anything, you can play One Piece TCG online for free in ARENA, our simulator.

Card types

On each card, look at three numbers: the cost (top left, how many DON!! it takes to play), the power (its strength in battle) and the Counter (the value it adds if you use it from your hand to defend).

How to set up a game

1. Each player places their Leader face up and their 10 DON!! face down in a separate pile.
2. Shuffle your decks and draw 5 cards. If you do not like your hand, you can return the whole hand, shuffle and draw 5 new cards, but only once.
3. Take as many cards from the top of your deck as your Leader's Life value and place them face down without looking: this is your Life.
4. Decide who goes first with rock, paper, scissors.

How a turn works

Each turn has five phases, always in the same order:

1. Refresh Phase. Set all your rested cards as active and return the DON!! you had attached to your Characters.
2. Draw Phase. Draw a card. The player going first does not draw on their first turn.
3. DON!! Phase. Take 2 DON!! from your pile and place them in your cost area. The player going first only takes 1 on their first turn.
4. Main Phase. This is where everything happens, in whatever order you like: play Characters, Events and Stages by resting DON!!, attach DON!! to your Leader or Characters (each one gives +1000 power during your turn), activate effects and attack.
5. End Phase. End-of-turn effects resolve and it is your opponent's turn.

Neither player can attack on their first turn. Also, a Character cannot attack on the turn you play it, unless it has Rush.

How attacking works

To attack, rest your Leader or one of your Characters and choose a target: your opponent's Leader or one of their rested Characters. Then:

1. Block. Your opponent can rest a Character with Blocker so that it takes the attack instead of the target.
2. Counter. Your opponent can trash cards from their hand to add their Counter value (+1000 or +2000) or play Counter Events.
3. Damage. If the attacker's power is equal to or higher than the defender's, the attack succeeds. Ties go to the attacker.

If you hit a Character, it is K.O.'d and goes to the trash. If you hit the Leader, your opponent loses a Life: they take the top card of their Life and add it to their hand. If that card has a Trigger, they can activate it for free at that moment.

How you win

• You win if you hit your opponent's Leader when they have no Life left.
• You also win if your opponent runs out of cards in their deck.

One important detail: losing Life is not all bad, because every Life you lose is one more card in your hand to defend with. That is why games often turn around.

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Practise online for free

The quickest way to learn is to play lots of games. In ARENA, our One Piece TCG simulator, you play from your browser, on mobile or desktop, with the official rules and every card: against the AI on four difficulty levels, against a friend in a private room or in ranked. It is free and you sign in with your email and a one-time code, no password needed.

Where to start buying

Starter Deck ST-31 Red Monkey.D.LuffyOne Piece · ENView in storeStarter Deck ST-32 Green Roronoa ZoroOne Piece · ENView in storeOne Piece OP-17 World’s Strongest WarriorsBooster pack · JPView in store

1. A starter deck to learn with, or better two if you are going to play as a pair. It is the cheapest way to get a legal deck.
2. A few packs of the current set to improve your deck bit by bit.
3. Singles once you know what you are missing: it works out far cheaper than opening packs hunting for one specific card.

Not sure which deck to aim for? Check the best One Piece TCG decks before you spend anything.

Playing tournaments in Europe

Official Bandai tournaments in Europe are played with English cards, and French cards are also accepted; Japanese cards are not allowed. If you plan to compete, buy English from the start. If you are only going to play with friends or collect, Japanese is cheaper. To find store tournaments and regional events near you, check the official Bandai TCG+ app.

When you are ready to make the jump, these guides have everything you need:

• Best One Piece TCG decks: the current meta tier list.
• How to build a deck: cost curve, Counters and copies.
• Standard format and banned cards.
• EB-05 and OP-18: the newest sets.

The full rules are in Bandai's official rulebook. This guide sums up what you need for your first games.

One Piece card images: © Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha, Toei Animation. One Piece Card Game is a Bandai product; ONLYCHASES is not affiliated with Bandai.