If you play the One Piece Trading Card Game, you have more than likely kept up to the date with the animated story line, the manga translated scans, or at least been exposed to the live action netflix series. Like most grand adventures, this story comes with a wide range of antagonists; from Foxy and his Nero-Nero (Slow-Slow) Devil Fruit powers to, my personal favorite antagonist, Enel and his band of Priests within Skypiea. Today, however, I would like turn spotlight the spotlight onto an antagonist who has been acclaimed to be on the East Blue's most intelligent individuals, Captain Kuro (Source SBS Volume 8 Chapter 65).

What Does Kuro Do?

This Underdog, Kuro, is a Mono-Green 5000 power and 5 life leader. Being the canonical captain of the Black Cat Pirates, he holds the subtype of East Blue/ Black Cat Pirates with the Slash attribute. Kuro's ability states that during your turn you may rest three DON!! and 2 "East Blue" type characters to set Kuro as active and rest one of your opponent's characters that costs 5 or less. By no means is three DON!! and resting 2 characters an easy achievement, and this steep cost is exactly why Kuro is often overlooked; but, utilizing cards with On Play effects such as Nami and Jango really drive this ability toward the finish line. For clarity and understanding, let's dissect Set 3 Nami and Set 3 Jango.

How Do Jango and Nami Support Kuro?

Jango is a 5-drop 6000 power that On Play you can choose one of the following abilities; Set up to one of your East Blue type leaders or characters with a cost of 6 or less as active OR you may rest one of your opponent's characters. This on play ability is HUGE for Kuro and provides a ton of versatility. Being able to potentially swing at your opponent for a minimum of 5000 three times means your opponent would have to discard at least three +1000 counters out of their hand if they do not possess an active blocker at this time. With this option, you can also choose to set characters like Kuro, a 6 DON!! 8000 power character, or even the mighty Kreig, with his ability to gain double strike, as active! This ability aside, simply resting ANY characters allows you to swing into big threats such as 8-drop Katakuri, 9-drop Moria or even annoying blockers like Borsalino or Killer.

Now let's move on to Nami, the only searcher available to an East Blue strategy.

Nami is a two DON!! cost 2000 power character. Nami has an On Play that allows you to look at the top 5 cards of your library and reveal one Green East Blue character from among them and add it to your hand, then place the rest of the cards on the bottom of your library in any order. Nami also has a trigger which allows you to play her for free once she is drawn from your life pile. Nami being the only searcher character for East Blue does make it challenging to get the East Blue characters necessary to try and close out the game. But if Kuro continues to apply pressure and you're able to keep your opponents board tapped down, there shouldn't be much to worry about!

While a small casualty, it is beneficial to note that since Kuro leader has the Slash ability, he cannot inflict damage to Zoros' commonly used Buggy character nor Sealed battle's Dracule Mihawk if you were to even run into it.

Budget Friendly Supports for Kuro

Some other budget friendly opportunities for this deck actually lay within one of the cards from the recently released Starter deck 12, Zoro and Sanji, Dracule MiHawk. This 3-drop Mihawk with 4000 power and a +2000 counter allows you to play a slash attribute character with cost 4 or less other than himself as long as you have 2 or less characters on your board. As long as you meet the On Play requirements of Mihawk, he will enable you to play Sham who has an the On Play ability of as long as your Leader has the "East Blue" type you can rest one of your opponent's characters that costs two or less and then if you do not have a Buchi in play you can play Buchi, a four DON!! cost 5000 power character who On Play K.O.'s a rested character of cost 2 or less. It may only hit smaller cost characters, but when it comes to aggression every character removed counts. At worst, you have just spent 3 DON!! For 13000 power worth of characters. But consider, you now have a board with 3 characters and you have removed potential threats on your opponent's side of the board.

With all this being said, Kuro is certainly an under-utilized leader who has room for upgrades within the future of the game. Either way, Kuro remains a fun, budget-friendly option for those who are looking to expand their horizons within the game or simply want to get into the One Piece TCG.