Cards Of The Week #3

Portgas.D.Ace (OP08-052)

As cool as this card looks, it isn't very practical to use in Whitebeard decks and outside of those, it's borderline useless. 6000 power for a cost of 5 and +1000 counter in hand is pretty standard and it only has one effect that is very hit or miss. It's hit or miss because it requires deck stacking (and I don't mean cheating) but when you can play an additional character for free and from the deck, that's certainly a great effect.

As an OP08 card though it doesn't compare with the newer OP13 Yamato for example or PRB02 Marco. An additional effect, such as a free rested DON!! or something would obviously make it stronger.

Two of the Whitebeard leaders you could run this card can stack the deck with their own leader effect but that's it. It still requires a mini combo, an appropriate card to stack and won't provide much else in nearly all other blue decks. I'd say I'm even being generous with the score below here.

SaberWolf's Rating: 3.5/5

Dracule Mihawk (OP12-030)

Released in OP12, this card is just like the PRB02 Marco. A blatant and unapologetic example of a card that sets a stronger standard of what's considered "good" now. The DON!! system in the One Piece TCG has been an excellent way to ensure the game doesn't go out of control like Yugioh or Digimon but the concept of you getting back so many DONs that you can use again sort of defeats that purpose. Numerous green cards do this now and Mihawk is one of the stronger ones no doubt.

Why is that you ask? Well if you get a bunch of DONs back it means you can play more cards and all of a sudden that 10 DON!! limit goes out the window. Now, they do give additional play conditions on these effects and while that's also true on this card it's hardly a condition. You get 4 DON!! back when you play this card, can't play cards with a cost of 7 or more but you can still play a character or an event that costs 4-6 depending on when you played this card.

Even if you can't or decide you don't want to play anything else you can still use those DON!! to buff an attacker or your leader for the turn. When you look at it mathematically, this card is a 4 cost 8000 Blocker that you have to wait until you're at 8 DON!! to play. Sounds great to me.

SaberWolf's Rating: 4.6/5