How Enel Won Me My Invite to One Piece Nationals!

Posted on August 6, 2024

I recently won my invite to nationals, with OP-05 Enel leader! The event was a store regional, with 6 rounds and 64 players. Top-4 of the event was awarded an invite to the One Piece Trading Card Game Nationals for North America. I was lucky enough to finish 5th with a record of 5-1 - with an invite passing down to me since the guy who got 2nd already had his invite to Nationals. I am going to break down for you all why I chose Enel and highlight my matchups and deck list!

Firstly, I choose Enel because right now he sits at an interesting place in the current format. The deck is extremely consistent and rarely loses to itself. Due to its high consistency, it can compete into most matchups with most being favorable, and a few being even or just under 50-50. An Enel player also won the event being the only undefeated on the day, while everyone else in top cut had one loss. With that being said let us look at my matchups and my general strategies on the day. 1-0

Round 1: vs ST-13 BY Luffy

This matchup is very good for Enel in my testing. The strategy is to just do nothing the few first turns and just play big bodies until it is time to start attacking their leader. In the meantime, you can go for board if they ever attack into you. But, by the end of the game you have a bunch of high-powered characters, that just puts too much pressure on your opponent. That is exactly what happened this game. 2-0

Round 2: vs OP-05 Enel

The mirror with Enel is weird. It can come down to who can see more cards like OP-04 Yamato and Op-07 Ace in order to continue to put pressure while gaining life. However, two choices in this matchup swung the game into my favor. First, I am a big believe in Op-03 Shirahoshi. I used this card aggressively to cycle through my deck and arrive at bigger characters for the end game. This was hugely important. Lastly, I was able to give one of my characters banish with OP-05 O-Nami, after I had placed my opponent's katakuri into their life with mine. When my card that had banished swung into his life he was forced to take it, sending his Katakuri to the discard pile. This was huge tempo play.

Round 3: vs OP-07 Rob Lucci

Lucci is a scary matchup and can be difficult. Knowing this I mulligan aggressively for cards that help this matchup, specifically the 7 cost, Op-05 Enel. I was able to establish two of these and really control the board and apply a lot of pressure to win the game. 3-0

Round 4: vs OP-02 Edward Newgate

I am a major fan of Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate. This leader has been my favorite to play with in the One Piece Card Game. However usually this is a very good matchup for Enel. Unfortunately, I drew all of my high-end pieces and had no counter at the end of the game. Typically, if you can get to the end game, this matchup is very much in Enel's favor. This wound up being my only loss on the day. 3-1

Round 5: vs Op-07 Rob Lucci

This round ended up being another Rob Lucci. We had a pretty good match. Ultimately, I followed my previous strategy, and was able to accrue advantage in the end game. When my opponent could not remove enough of my pieces at the end, I was just able to swing into his leader's life and win. 4-1

Round 6: vs OP-07 Rob Lucci

Another Lucci player! With this being my third match against this deck on the day, I was already aware of what I had to do. Not only was I able to accomplish what I needed to on my end, but my opponent also did not see the most optimal cards and was just a turn off every time. This is one of the issues people have with playing Rob Lucci. It can be very good, but it also can just have games where the deck is its own worst enemy. 5-1

So, overall, I was very happy that I played Enel. This was my tournament run and I hope you were able to learn something about the specific matchups I played on the day. I will be attending The One Piece North American Nationals in Dallas, this September - so if you see me come say hi! I have left my deck list down below for you all to try out if you want. I also made a youtube video going into some of the choices on the list. Thanks for reading!

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