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The Seven Warlords; a once sought after title provided to powerful pirates roaming the seas trading in government protection and pseudo immunity in return of favors for the world government. At one point in time these seven individuals consisted of; Boa Hancock, Dracule Mihawk, Jinbei, Gecko Moria, Bartholomew Kuma, Donquixote Doflamingo, and Crocodile. Yet time has vastly changed the outcomes for each of these individuals and todays' group of interest is not omitted from the ribbons of fate either. Today we will be focusing in on the Warlord Crocodile and his band of Baroque Works to analyze the potential this leader has within the OPTCG.
Like most Mono-Colored leaders, Crocodile is a 5 life 5000 power leader. However, this leader was designed in the beginning of the game so his ability proves. . . unique. Crocodile's ability is "[Activate: Main] [Once Per Turn] DON!! -4 (You may return the specified number of DON!! cards from your field to your DON!! deck.): Return up to 1 Character with a cost of 5 or less to the owner's hand." While Blue is very familiar with bounce strategies, this is the only card within Blue's color pool to date that deals with DON!! manipulation. It is best, given, to wait until all 10 DON!! Has been played prior to using this ability of course. Crocodile clearly provides use with an interesting strategy to tackle within Blue and, as a leader, has flexibility within his seven warlords card type as well as baroque works card type. But what options are available to us to structure a deck piloted by our neighborhood sandman? Let's burrow into it and get this sand castle built!
Given the versatility within this leader, let's explore our options within Baroque works support. Within this card type we have access to cards such as Mr.3 (Galdino), Mr.1 (Daz Bonez), and Ms. All Sunday, as well as Desert Spada.
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Mr.3, as crafty as he is, is a 4 cost 5000 power blocker with "[Blocker] (After your opponent declares an attack, you may rest this card to make it the new target of the attack.) [End of Your Turn] You may trash 1 card from your hand: Set this Character as active.". While at first glance Mr.3 doesn't seem all that great, remember that he can function as an attacker as well as a blocker given the right circumstances. For example, if your hand is just gummed up with unnecessary cards or you really need to get in for quick damage while on the defense, you can pitch a seemingly irrelevant card to Mr.3 at the end of turn after attacking and switch him back into active status for blocking purposes.
Following up from the wax footprints of Mr.3 we have Mr.1, the slicer and dicer himself from Extra Booster! Mr.1 is a a 5 cost 6000 power character with "If your Leader's type includes "Baroque Works", this Character gains +1000 power for every 2 Events in your trash. [On Play] Draw 2 cards and trash 1 card from your hand.". If his on play wasn't good enough, being able to buff our character by just playing events is excellent value! Two events in the trash make Mr.1 a 7000 power character with zero downside, plus you can pitch an event to his On Play to give him the plus 1000 power! Mr.1 is also synergistic with Mr.3's ability to discard cards from your hand to restand him just in case Mr.1 might need a little boost by discarding an event from hand after passing the turn to your opponent.
Further down the list we have from Set 1 Ms.All Sunday, or more commonly known as Nico Robin, who is a 3 cost 1000 power blocker, and a +1000 counter, with "[Blocker] (After your opponent declares an attack, you may rest this card to make it the new target of the attack.) [On K.O.] If your Leader has the {Baroque Works} type, add up to 1 Event from your trash to your hand." So, if you really needed those events that were discarded to Mr.3's ability, or if you just want to return past events that proved useful? Drop Ms. All Sunday to improve your defenses and then get back the events you have missed so much since you last played it. While returning an event may not prove very synergistic for us, it does show utility and widen our options when the right situation reveals itself. Bring back all the removal your heart desires!
Speaking of counters, let's divulge into the card Desert Spada. While most commonly used in Nami decks, Desert Spada is a Baroque Works event that counters for +2000 for the battle and then you can look at the top 3 cards of your library and return them in any order on top or bottom of your deck for the cost of one DON!!. Also worthwhile to note that Desert Spada also has a trigger from life of Draw 2 cards and trash one card from your hand. Desert Spada is a cheap counter to retrieve from the grave with Ms.All Sunday that also allows us to manipulate the top of our deck to ensure we get cards that we need.
But enough of Baroque Works! What events are good for this leader over all? We should be utilizing key removal pieces such as Gum-Gum Red Roc and Gravity Blade Raging Tiger.
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YES, although they are both high in cost, you DO want to run a mixture of both of these events, whether it be 3 and 3, 2 and 4, whatever mixture you feel fits comfortably into the deck. The reason this is important is that there are a lot of big cost threats in our current meta at this time, and Gravity Blade only disposes of 2 6-cost of less characters. OPTCG is no longer filled with just 4 and 5 cost characters with a bit of bulky power, but there are plenty of 8 cost playable characters nowadays. Red Roc being able to hit any character? Well, that's priceless. Plus, let Sandman take care of the lower cost characters after you've hit all 10 of your DON!!. There are some other candidate events for our leader such as Three thousand Worlds which does something similar to our leaders ability except it places it at the bottom of the deck for the same amount of DON!!.
Of course, with Crocodile also having the Seven Warlords type you can also play with the Warlord package with Jimbei, Boa Hancock, Perfume Femur, Doflamingo, and Edward Weevil.
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But let me lay out an example deck from for what could be for our leader Crocodile.
2x Boa Hancok
2x Sengoku
4x Boa Hancock
4x Crocodile
4x Jimbei
But this is just a list that I've been brewing with, what about you? Will you be sculpting a deck around this leader with all the tools that are available out there within the One Piece TCG? Think about it, and come back to me. Until the seas allows us to cross paths again!
