One Piece TCG’s most popular Red decks, including Whitebeard, Trafalgar Law, and Zoro, have been left obliterated today after developers Bandai Namco added three more Red cards to the game’s growing ban list and restricted one more.
The ban list update, which was shared on Twitter by the developers early on Nov. 2, means One Piece TCG players can no longer use Edward Newgate, commonly known as Whitebeard, as a Leader in competitive matches.
Nami from Set One and Curly Dadan from Set Two were also completely banned, while only one copy of Set Three’s Marco can be played in decks from Nov. 10.
Bandai’s snap decision guts the Whitebeard Red deck that has totally dominated the One Piece TCG since Set Two, Paramount War, arrived in March. There is no doubt the update heavily dents Zoro’s power—that top deck played four each of Nami and Dadan—as well and leaves Law looking for new strategies.
The bans come just three months after Bandai restricted several other powerful Red cards, including a Whitebeard character card, a different Marco card, and the Straw Hats defensive event Radical Beam.
Whitebeard’s Moby Dick stage card was also banned in June.
While July’s suspensions shook Whitebeard’s long-held stranglehold atop the metagame a little, Bandai decided it wasn’t enough as it “continued to see [the top Red decks] play a prominent role in the metagame.” The biggest worry, they added, was the game was “starting to be unenjoyable.”
One Piece TCG Banlist post-ST10 release
Banned Cards
- Nami OP01-016 — new
- Edward Newgate OP02-001 — new
- Curly Dadan OP02-005 — new
- Moby Dick OP02-024
- Cabaji — OP02-052
Restricted Cards (to one)
- Radical Beam OP01-029
- Edward Newgate Leader OP02-004
- Marco OP02-018
- Marco OP03-013 — new
The One Piece TCG devs did admit they’ll consider unbanning some Red cards in the future, but for now, they say they’re happy to let a fresh meta evolve ahead of 2023’s Championship events in January.
With Whitebeard Leader banned and Zoro and Law decks badly shaken, this should lead to a heavy surge in One Piece TCG players picking up powerful life-themed Yellow builds like Charlotte Katakuri and ST09 Yamato.
The banned One Piece cards are already dropping in price too, with alt-art Namis sinking to $600 USD in hours and Newgate Leader slipping from $80 to $30.
