Building Tony Tony Chopper in OP-09

I wouldn't call myself a hardcore One Piece fan even though I binged the entire Anime from episode 1 to 1122 in the space of six months. During that time, Tony Tony Chopper stood out to me as one of the cutest characters (and great comic relief). Naturally, on seeing his Leader card, I didn't think twice about building him into something impressive. Here's how I run Tony Tony Chopper in the Emperors in the New World meta.

Deck: Tony Tony Chopper | OP-09 game: One Piece TCG

Leader:

1x OP08-001 Tony Tony.Chopper

Characters:

2x OP09-118 Gol.D.Roger

2x OP07-015 Monkey.D.Dragon

3x OP08-008 Dalton

3x OP08-012 Lapins

4x OP08-015 Dr. Kureha

4x OP08-010 Hiking Bear

4x OP08-013 Robson

4x OP01-025 Roronoa Zoro

4x EB01-006 Tony Tony.Chopper

4x OP08-007 Tony Tony.Chopper

4x OP09-029 Tony Tony.Chopper

4x OP04-010 Tony Tony.Chopper

Events:

4x EB01-009 Just Shut Up and Come With Us!!

4x OP08-036 Electrical Luna

Initial Development

I started this deck with leftovers from my LGS's "extra commons and uncommons" box (which we fondly refer to as The Community Chest). We had just opened a lot of Two Legends boxes, so there were many leftovers that had the Drum Kingdom type. I decided to throw together a Drum Kingdom deck and it performed pretty well in the small tournament we had, placing second in a field of eight. From then on, I considered him one of the best One Piece cards of 2024.

The fact that it could place in a field made me feel like, with a bit of tweaking, it could be a truly competitive deck. The first thing I did was to look at the deck's strengths and weaknesses. It was very good at chipping away at the opponent's health on consecutive turns and rebuilding a destroyed board.

Its flaws lay in being able to push in quickly against an opponent. Its matchup against Enel was terrible, although it had a much better matchup against the Rob Lucci decks. Its worst matchup, by far, was B/Y Luffy. The store also had a lot of rogue brews, like Hody Jones, making it a necessary consideration. I would have to approach this logically to find something that covered all my bases.

Building For Success

The first thing I did was to get some Just Shut Up and Come With Us!!!! because it was just too good in a deck like this. Being able to get your Choppers out at instant speed is among the most devastating things for an opponent's board state. I also added in the Roronoa Zoro (025) because even though Kureha whiffs on her search with him, he's too good an attacker to just leave out of the decklist.

Next, I looked at Tony Tony.Chopper (029). The hope was to have enough Choppers so that every search or Tony Tony.Chopper (007) trigger, I'd have multiple choices. Since Tony Tony.Chopper (007) brings the character in rested, there's a chance it won't get a chance to do anything and just be attacked down. Tony Tony.Chopper (029) fixes this problem by having the ability to restand itself.

The board presence on this deck is insane as well. After getting most of the board removed, the deck has no problem reconstructing. Card like Tony Tony.Chopper (010) can drop any of the non-Chopper Drum Kingdom animals to the field. The most explosive play available is Tony Tony.Chopper (007) ino Tony Tony.Chopper (010) into any of those animals.

For a Doctor, Tony Tony.Chopper Hits Really Hard

Tony Tony.Chopper (001)'s leader ability is overlooked a lot, but it shouldn't be. I built the deck to take advantage of the Don!! distribution ability. 68% of the deck is 3-cost, with Dr.Kureha and Just Shut Up And Come With Us!!!! being the only single-costed cards in the deck.

The plan is to play a 3-drop each turn, using Tony Tony.Chopper (001) to load the Don!! onto your characters and swing at your opponent's face. More often than not, you'll be in a good position against your opponent by the mid-game. And that's where the next element of the deck comes into play.

Dalton is the mid-game play for this deck. Normally, he doesn't have rush, but if you get to mid-game and you still have 3 or 4 life, it's where he shines. He can come down on 5, take a don from your leader and activate his ability. You get a card to replace him into your hand, and he swings at 7K with Rush. He's like a mini-Monkey.D.Dragon without the fancy ability. Sometimes, it's that push you need to finish closing out a game before it gets out of your control.

Late-Game Pressure

The biggest problem I ran into with my initial Tony Tony.Chopper (001) build was that I'd get the enemy down to 1 or 0 life but be unable to close out the game. With a bit of hard thinking I came up with two options for closing out the game.

Dragon is one of the best topdecks I can draw to try to finish a game. Not only does he swing at 9K with Rush, but he also gives Chopper 2 rested Don!! to raise my leader up to 7K. If there are one or more Animal/Drum Kingdom characters in play when he comes down, they all benefit from Chopper's ability, meaning the opponent needs to have blockers or massive counters to avoid dying.

My tech against other aggro decks and to take over the late game is Gol.D.Roger. Roger doesn't care who has zero life, and it works just as well if you're on zero as if your opponent is. He either forces the opponent to take a life (if they have any left), or makes them discard their hand just to stay alive.

Tips on Playing This Deck

Don't be afraid to attack into your opponent's board. You have enough Rush pressure that you can afford to chip away at your opponent's resources, even if they discard cards in hand to save their characters.

Electrical Luna is there to help you buy a few turns against aggressive opponents and set up your board.

If your opponent is attacking your board, you can counter with Just Shut Up And Come With Us!!!! to replace the board presence you're losing.

This deck works best always pushing at your opponent's life, but there are times when dealing with the board is a much, much better approach.

Final Considerations

The deck isn't overly expensive to build. It's a heavily aggressive deck with a few top-ends to help close out the game. It's mostly a red deck running Choppers as per the OP01-001 Roronoa Zoro deck, but with a twist because of the leader's ability. Try it out and see if you like it!