Cards Of The Week #28

Sanji (OP11-051)

This Sanji card reminds me of the older yugioh replacer cards that needed to get killed in a specific way for you to gain their effect. Excluding the exceptional GOATS at the time, Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest most monsters would have needed to get killed in battle or by an effect but never both. That would make them too amazing as learnt from Sangan and Witch.

Sanji is sort of like that, as he needs to specifically get KOed by an effect for you to grab a new card. Unlike most One Piece cards though, his effect will allow to directly summon that new Straw Hat on your field. Cost 5 or less is very average and by no means generous. Even if you miraculously did gain the effect odds are you won't get to play anything too great and may even miss the effect.

They were definitely being too careful with his effect which is weird as they are also perfectly fine with giving super overpowered effects to other cards without a second thought. I suppose this is an OP11 card but I don't personally consider that set to be THAT old.

His on play effect will allow you to bounce a character with 5000 power or less in hand which is also not the greatest. The card should have went to the deck or give you better range. Maybe it's not that bad though as it works on your cards too; so you could bring back a cheap searcher back in your hand or simply give yourself a +1000 counter.

On paper he doesn't seem that bad, but in truth he really does miss the mark. You would need some powerful combos or interactions and like I already said, the range on his deck summon effect is also an issue.

SaberWolf's Rating: 3.8/5

Shanks (OP09-004)

Speaking of polar opposites, they really had no qualms making one hell of a boss character with this Shanks in OP09. It's not even funny, as he still holds up very well even to our current format. Just a simple 12000 with Rush and the package is already starting solid.

The second effect is where his brokeness shows; a passive -1000 on all of your opponent's characters all of the time. If you can play this Shanks and follow it up next turn with a second copy it becomes even more ridiculous as it is incredibly difficult to kill this guy in battle when your characters are constantly weakened too. It also becomes much easier for you to kill your opponent's characters when they're constantly weakened.

The only minor problem with this effect is that in some game states, this power decrease will not be what you need when paying 10 DON!! to play this card and he won't help you all that much in the short term. He really needs to stick around for a few turns for you to really get the most out of his effect when your opponent's characters are constantly weaker than usual.

Nevertheless, this is one of the strongest 10 cost red characters even now and has also been my personal favorite to exploit in most red deck I use.

SaberWolf's Rating: 4.7/5