In Magic: The Gathering, it used to be called "Enter the Battlefield" (Now simplified down to "Enters"). In Star Wars Unlimited it's "When Played." In the One Piece Trading Card Game it is known as "On Play." There are a TON of characters within the One Piece Trading Card Game that are ultimately vanilla characters without their On Play abilities. Some huge examples of this are Gecko Moria, Ben Beckman, Donquixote Doflamingo, Kaido, and lastly Portgas.D,Ace.

These are some of the big hitters that lose a lot of their potential when you take away their On Play abilities, and up until recently the majority of the One Piece card game was reliant on On Play abilities.

Yet, as of the release of One Piece Set 9 on Friday December 13th 2024, a new leader has made a name for themselves right out of the gate. Here to shake up the game is none other than one of the four emperors himself, Marshall.D.Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard.

Marshall.D.Teach is a Mono-Black leader with a static ability of "Your On Play effects are negated" and an activated ability of "Activate: Main - You may trash 1 card from your hand: Your opponent's On Play effects are negated until the end of your opponent's next turn." While this ability comes at the cost of your own hand size, it's not requiring you to pay a DON!! leaving it open for you to use at a later time where necessary. But even then, what does this mean for your opponent? Does not being able to utilize On Plays really affect Marshall.D.Teach? Not really... all of the Blackbeard characters that are coming out of Set 9 to support this leader possess Activate: Main abilities, meaning you won't be punished for using your own crewmates within the Marshall.D.Teach deck. Yet, this will limit you on what cards you can use while also at this limit making the cards you use much more affordable. As of right now, 10 cost blocker Marshall.D.Teach is the most expensive Blackbeard Pirates subtype character holding an average market price of $2.30.

Marshall.D.Teach Character is, as previously stated, a 10 cost Character with blocker, 12000 power and the ability of "[Activate: Main] [Once Per Turn] If your Leader has the {Blackbeard Pirates} type and this Character was played on this turn, negate the effect of up to 1 of your opponent's Leader during this turn. Then, negate the effect of up to 1 of your opponent's Characters and that Character cannot attack until the End of your opponent's next turn."

This isn't an on play ability, which means it gets around Marshall.D.Teach's leader restriction, and if that isn't good enough you can Negate leader abilities like Nami's alternate win condition for a whole turn PLUS Negate the ability of one of their characters on the field. Nami leader is just one good example, it could an off-meta leader like mono red Ace who relies HEAVILY on his own ability or it could be a meta leader such as Purple Luffy.

Either way being able to knock down your opponent's leader ability plus stopping a huge threat from attacking you next turn is something very noteworthy. Let's also not forget that since Marshall.D.Teach Character has 12000 power and blocker if your opponent has two large threats you more than likely can just block it with your 12000 power character and avoid the damage.

Everything else in the deck that has the Blackbeard pirates subtype is .20 cents or less. Of course, there can be more pricey staples in the deck like Laboon or Jack, but honestly those are more of a nice inclusion instead of necessity.

But some other strong blackbeard characters that fall into the .20 cents or less category are cards like Jesus Burgess, Catarina Devon, and Shiryu.

Although Marshall.D.Teach will certainly make waves in the upcoming months and force Players to think about how many "On Play" characters they run just for the Marshall.D.Teach matchup, do you think Marshall.D.Teach is the Captain for your next deck?

Until the seas due us part, fellow seafarers!