(September 2nd Update) Deckbuilding CP & Navy Lucci Post-Banlist | OP07.75 Nats Preparation

Intro (@Cross_Aii)
Nationals is just 2 weeks away, so it’s just about time to really start locking in deck choices, and making final adjustments to our decks.

After the Enies Lobby ban, I honestly thought Lucci was going to fall off. Not even because Enies Lobby is gone, but I thought Reiju was projected to replace RP Law as a top 3 deck. So I thought the meta would go from a triangle of Good RP Law beats BY Luffy, BY Luffy beats Lucci, and Lucci beats RP Law, to Lucci just losing to both BY Luffy & Reiju, which would put Lucci in a very unfavorable position.

But it turns out, Reiju has plenty of problems itself. The deck can very well lose to Lucci if it doesn’t open early Ichiji, or if they spam don minus too much. Reiju gets demolished by BY Luffy, an arguably worse matchup than Lucci vs BY Luffy. And Bonney + 9Zoros also seem to cook Reiju as well. 

Reiju could very well still be a strong pick, but with Reiju having sketchy enough matchups as is, on top of the unlikelihood of enough people last-minute switching to Reiju, I actually think Lucci is back in a very favorable position.

Control BY is a pretty concerning matchup, but I think it’s still possible to win, ESPECIALLY against the average BY Luffy player.

Let’s go ahead and get into it.

Cross’ CP Lucci Base

(If mirror matches are uncommon, then maybe I’d get greedy, and only play 2 Helmeppo. I really like 3 Helmeppo though, to hopefully see Helmeppo by my 9-don turn going first, so I can double-pop the opposing 8-drop & 4-drop in the mirror match. Also, if you only play 2 Helmeppo, and miss it, it may be awkward to cleanly answer a 9-Cost Zoro with TempestKick + Moria)

I think something like this should be the ideal base for the current CP Lucci list. I made a YouTube video on this deck earlier this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHXnhNk9hsY&t=611s , but I have more thoughts since then, that I’d like to discuss.

So let’s look at some of the new cards that weren’t in the YouTube list, I’ll briefly talk about some other cards that have been on my mind, and then we’ll go over ratios.

Difference from YouTube list

2 8Issho - With BY Luffy being such a bad matchup, and 100% being more prevalent after the ban, I think it’s important to run more 8-costs, in order to have higher chances of drawing an 8-cost on curve. 

I’m still of the opinion that drawing Moria is ENOUGH against BY Luffy, but having more 8-drops is certainly strong. Issho can also rng opponents out of the game if you’re lucky, and ripping 2 cards in general, also leads to them running out resources quickly. So this seems like a very strong card.

With RP Law out of the meta, I feel much better dedicating deck space to Issho, so I’m excited to start using it.

2 Nightmare Luffy - Due to the rising popularity of finger pistol & 5Sabo, Nightmare Luffy is a difficult card to establish in the early-game. I chose to replace a copy of Luffy from the youtube list, in order to have more 8-drops to establish on our 8/9-Don, AND THEN eventually we can establish a Nightmare Luffy in the late-game.

I’m used to using only 2 Nightmare Luffys against BY Luffy, but if the deck is projected to take up most of swiss, I might feel more comfortable at 3 copies? I’ll do more testing against BY, and see if I need to go back to 3.

3 Sabo, but I’m still playing 3 Borsalino - I’ve traditionally been on 4 copies of Sabo, but with the expected rise of BY Luffy, I feel a lot more comfortable with playing at least 3 copies of Borsalino. Issho & Nightmare Luffy are overall more impactful in the matchup than Borsalino, but Borsalino adds a defensive element that increases our odds of winning. 

Rebecca often gets popped from Egghead Luffy, so having Borsalino as a revival target is nice. Even Borsalino on 4-don, going second, is very strong defensively, and having more copies of blockers to play on 5-don going first is also very strong.

Other Deck Building considerations

3-Cost Brook - I talked about this a bit in my YouTube video. Basically I think 3-Cost Brook is extremely weak in the early-game now, so the main reason I would still play this card is as extra copies of Lucci as best(extra cards that can be played from trash off Moria to pop units). I think the 4 Luccis are satisfactory, but if you’re having consistency issues, consider playing 3-Cost Brook.

4-Cost Kuzan - This is a card that is supposed to be super strong against non-black decks like Bonney, Enel, etc. I think the cost minus from Kuzan is mostly whatever, as IceAge / Tempest Kicks tend to combo well enough. I think at best this card is a scary unit you can play in the early-game against mirror matches, on 4 or 5-don against Bonney, and maybe before the 7Enel turn. But for the most part I think this card is winmore, and it’s super weak against our bad matchup, BY Luffy, so I won’t include it.

Discussing the Rest of the Ratios

1 Tsuru - Honestly, I’m still a fan of 7 2Ks, but my 8th 2K of choice would be Tsuru. I think having extra cost minus in the trash would greatly benefit us, for those games we miss getting one of the 3 Helmeppos in trash on time (this is quite rare though). And it can be used out of hand, in conjunction with Helmeppo in trash, in order to pop 8-costs.

If any of you are daring enough to try 7 2Ks, then I would add another Nightmare Luffy, or another Borsalino. 

I talked about this briefly in the “illuminati” chat, but basically my belief is that if Sakazuki could play 8 2Ks at 4-life, then Lucci with an extra life could easily play 7 2Ks. Lucci / Sakazuki both consistently keep up with the opponent’s board the entire game, so it’s not like we need a plethora of counters anyways.The only decks that Sakazuki even needed 8 2Ks for, were decks like Whitebeard, Zoro, and RP Law that can rush us down. All 3 of those are out of the meta. Also, there was actually a Sakazuki player that won with seven 2Ks before back in the day, and that deck is 4-life, while Lucci is 5. And not only is Lucci 5-life, Sakazuki was doing 7-8 2Ks, WITHOUT having access to the RebeccaSpandine Lucci combo, which is even MORE defense. So 5 life & more Rebecca combos? Sheeeeesh.
BUT ANYWAYS, if I did  play an 8th 2K, it would either be Tsuru or the 0-Cost event. I’m personally leaning towards Tsuru though.

2 Spandam - Spandam being able to secure tempest kicks in the early-game is very nice, and it helps turn tempest kick on rather quickly. Even when I don’t see Spandam, by countering 1-2 times, I can turn tempest kick live by my 9/10-don turn anyways. But I do like that Spandam can grab Tempest Kick, or cards like finger pistol against decks like Bonney/BY Luffy

3 Helmeppo - I still think 3 Helmeppo is a really strong ratio. When we’re forced to go first in mirror matches, increasing the odds of doing IceAge + MoriaLucciHelmeppo(in order to pop their 8-Cost & 4-Cost), is too strong. Not only this, but consistently having Helmeppo in trash makes it easy for us to handle 9-costs, when we don’t have IceAge, because Tempest Kick + Leader skill + HelmeppoLucci hits up to 9-costs.

2 Spandine - This is the traditional ratio. RebeccaSpandine is one of the biggest reasons to play the CP-package in the first place, the ability to allow our Rebeccas, to play our 4-cost CP cards, is too strong.

3 Rebecca -  A lot of people think I’m tweaking for not playing 4 Rebeccas, and when Guanrong showed me his 3 Rebecca list back when I was in OP06, I thought he was tweaking too. But 3 Rebecca surprisingly feels like enough. Ideally I would run 4 copies, but I think going down to 3 Rebecca in favor of an extra copy of one of my techs (Issho, Nightmare Luffy, Finger pistol, etc.) goes a lot further than cutting one of those for the 4th Rebecca.

I guess I’d also consider cutting Tsuruf or the 4th Rebecca, but I still think 3 Rebecca is enough, and I’d rather increase the count of one of my techs if given the opportunity.

4 Kalifa + 3 Kaku - Kalifa takes priority because it’s our 4-don turn play, and Kaku is strong to call off Spandine for IceAge + RebeccaSpandineLucciKaku combos.

4 Lucci 

3 4-Cost Borsalino - This is a card that I have been hating onm from my time on Moria, but I think it’s time for this card to make it’s return. This card is way too good against BY Luffy. BY Luffy snipes Rebecca, every single time we revive it, so having Borsalino as a revival target is very strong. If we also manage to play Borsalino on the 4-don turn of going second, it may completely change the game

Aside from that, this card increases our odds of establishing a blocker on our 5-don turn of going first

3 5-Cost Sabo - This card can never go below 3 copies. This card is an early-game filter that increases our trash by 2, while getting us closer to our Morias. It also let’s us protect our whole board in the late-game

2 5-Cost Nightmare Luffy - This card is way too strong against BY Luffy. Holden Miller (FlyestRaven on Discord), who recently got first place in Peoria, Illinois, actually decided to play 0 6-Costs Brooks, and 3 Nightmare Luffy.

I think this card is infinitely stronger than 6-Cost Brook in the BY Luffy matchup. I prefer to play both, as 6-Cost Brook also happens to be a strong early-game clear unit anyways, but Nightmare Luffy is that much stronger against BY Luffy.

If you establish this card after you’ve established your big attackers (Moria & Issho), it will be hard for them to deal with it, as they’ll be focused on doing their 9K leader loop.

And even if they do handle it, it’s easy to revive it with Rebecca.

2 5-Cost Kaku - I mainly play this card for the sake of the Doflamingo & Reiju matchups. Kaku is a really clean 5-don turn play against Doflamingo, when we go first. Tempest Kick/Ice Age + Kaku is probably the strongest way to answer a 7-Cost Ichiji in the early-game as well

2 6-Cost Brook - This card is a nice emergency clear against BY Luffy, it’s strong to clear Sabo/Borsalino in mirror matches, and it’s a nice early-game clear against various decks in general.

4 8-Cost Moria 

2 8-Cost Issho -This card is mainly BY Luffy tech. I didn’t run it prior to RP Law ban, because BY wasn’t popular enough, and this card lacking counter power was rough against RP Law.

Now that RP Law is out the meta, I think playing Issho to increase the odds of me establishing 8-Cost characters on curve against BY, is very strong. Finger Pistol/Destruction Sabo is also getting more popular in BY Luffy, so establishing NIghtmare Luffy prior to 10 don is difficult, making having an actual 8-Cost to play on curve even more important.

A big body that discards two cards, also happens to be very strong against Nami as well!

4 Tempest Kick - I’m actually debating if I want to play 3 of this card & 4 IceAge. But for the time being, this card is still my 4-of, of choice. Being able to draw a card, while giving cost reduction, is too strong. And against BY Luffy, we can generally use this card as an upstart Goblin (we almost purely use it to filter 1, to get closer to 8-drops)

3 IceAge - The replacement to Enies Lobby. Some people only want to play 0-2 copies of this card, and I think that’s flatout incorrect. Tempest Kick + Enies Lobby is minus 5-Cost, and IceAge is ALSO minus 5-cost. Therefore, if we want this deck to be of similar strength to the Enies Lobby version, we should give ourselves consistent access to a minus 5-cost event

3 Finger Pistol - This card is very strong for being able to pop Bonney’s 6-Cost Hawkins, 5-Cost Luffy against BY Luffy, and pops units on aggro matchups while filling our trash. The main way we lose to that deck is if they are able to pull off multiple Hawkins. Aside from this, this card is another way to clear Doflamingo's units in the early-game, and it can be combined with tempest-kick to pop 9-Costs in general.

This card is also one of the cleanest ways to kill BY Luffy’s, 5-Cost Luffy.

Due to it being so strong against BY Luffy & Bonney in the early-game, and it being another way to clear units in the early-game (due to 3Brook no longer being in the deck), I chose to make this card 3 copies. 3 copies of 6-Cost Brook would be better in the mirror, but 6Brook is much worse in the early-game against BY Luffy, and it only pops Cavendish & not Hawkins against Bonney.

(Update: September 2nd)

I believe I was wrong about reducing Spandam to 2 copies. Especially with losing 3-4 copies of Brook, Spandam being able to search for our removal cards: Lucci, Finger Pistol, and Kaku, is more important than I initially believed. 

Kaku also reduces our trash early, so Spandam adding cards to the trash is great to offset this.

Even against BY Luffy, having cards fill the trash is very important since we never attack.
Also with the loss of Enies Lobby, and no longer having frequent access to Tempest Kick + Kaku/Lucci to clear big units, I think the RebeccaSpandine combos are more important than ever now. Spandam giving us enough trash to consistently do TempestKick + RebeccaSpandine4-CostKaku + 5Kaku/4Lucci, seems very important for when we don’t have Moria. Not only this, but Spandam obviously searches for pieces of those combos as well, and increasing the amount of Tempest Kicks we can draw, is also too strong.

After testing Borsalino on stream yesterday, I was reminded of why I despise this card. My plays felt super restricted when I played it on curve, and I thought about why. When going second, unless you’re god, and you’ve already opened everything, Kalifa to filter 2 cards, WHILE filling trash by 2 cards, is unironically very impactful. So I’m less hyped about playing 3-4 copies of Borsalino now. I’m still interested in 2 copies to revive off Moria, and for highroll hands when going second, but I think dedicating part of it it’s slots, to reach 4 copies of Spandam, is important. And I still think Sabo is too impactful on 5-don when going first.

I might be crashing out, but 2 Spandam really was too greedy. Especially with 3-Cost Brook out the game, increasing our odds of getting multiple Luccis in trash is huge, and searching for our early-game removal, seems to REALLY smooth out the early-game.

Navy Lucci Base

This is the Navy Lucci list I’d like to consider! We lose the RebeccaSpandine combo, but this list looks strangely synergetic.

High amounts of Tsuru & 3-Cost Tashigi make it easy to still consistently use 3-Cost Brook in the early-game. 

Tashigi is basically a pseudo Enies Lobby. We can play it on our 3-don turn going first, and then play Brook on our 5-don turn. Unlike Enies Lobby, they have to attack into the Tashigi, giving us defensive value!

Hina is also another card that increases the strength of 3-Cost Brook! When combined with our leader ability, we can pop up to 6-costs. And this card also gives us access to RebeccaHinaLucci, for when we don’t have Moria (that would be this deck's version of RebeccaSpandineKakuLucci)!

This deck still needs refining, but I’m genuinely interested in how synergetic this deck seems. My impression is that the early-game of this deck would be very strong in mirror matches, and a tad smoother against aggro decks, but it likely won’t function as smoothly as the CP version, against BY Luffy & Bonney.

Let’s talk about some of the key cards in this version:

3 Tsuru - Since we’re playing the Navy package, this is naturally the 2K of choice. The inclusion of this 2K helps make 3-Cost Brook still be viable, by giving us a consistent combo to pop 4-costs in the early-game(Tsuru +3Brook + Leader skill pops 4 costs). 

4 Tashigi - This card is a bootleg Enies Lobby for 3-Cost Brook. We can establish this card the turn before we play 3Brook in the early-game, then we can combo it with our leader ability, to allow our Brooks to pop 4-costs.

4 3-Cost Brook - This card is weak in the CP version, because there’s no more Enies Lobby, and we’re not playing Tsurus or Tashigis. But in this build, 3-Cost Brook flows extremely well with the deck. We don’t lose access to the MoriaRebeccaBrook combos, and we have access to double-pop against Bonney/Enel.

I think the CP version of the deck does a good job of replacing Brooks' roles, by having finger pistols to answer Hawkins, and Kakus to deal with early 4-costs.

But having 3-Cost Brook makes aggro slightly smoother (although these matchups should already be favored), and it’s nice for being able to double-pop 7Enel. 

2 3-Cost Hina - This is run to replicate the RebeccaSpandineKakuLucci combo from the CP version, and it’s a body that lets us proc 3Brook

2 4-Cost Kuzan - I don’t think this card is strong enough to be included in the CP version, but in this version we have no Kalifa for the early-game, so this card increases the amount of early-game plays we have. 

It also combos really well if we use its ability, and then slam down a 3-cost Brook.

3 4-Cost Borsalino - This is my favorite 4-cost in black decks at the moment. Due to BY Luffy being the worst matchup, it feels nice to have a 4-cost that has insane defensive value, AND can’t be destroyed by effects.

I wouldn’t play this version of the deck, because I think it’s weaker against BY Luffy. But maybe there’s a combination of cards that can make this do better against BY.

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A talk about 4-Cost Borsalino

It must look kinda crazy for me to jump from no Borsalinos, to trying to play 3-4 copies of 4-cost Borsalino. Especially when considering that I’ve traditionally hated this card, especially if you were following my Moria articles last set (I did play 1-2 of this cards in my Sakazuki though).

But I really think 4-Cost Borsalino is THE card to run now.

In one of my Lucci articles, I mentioned that I think having either 6Brook or Borsalino is good enough for mirror matches. Obviously these cards serve different roles, but imagine you’re going second in the mirror match. If you can establish Borsalino on 4-don, that’s huge right? But if your opponent plays their own Sabo or Borsalino on 5-don, then you guys actually both have an equal amount of units that would never die. This is fine because you could potentially play another Borsalino or Sabo on 6-don, and this would mean we’d up a unit before our opponents turn.
6Brook actually accomplishes the same thing as this, as 6Brook on 6-don to clear their Sabo or Borsalino from 5-don, which would put us up by one unit(or two if we had a Kalifa on the board), while the opponent’s unkillable unit(Borsalino or Sabo played on their 5-don turn) would be cleared.

Of course it’d be ideal to have BOTH Borsalino and 6Brook for mirror matches, as 4Borsalino on 4-don, into  6Brook on 6-don, would essentially be lights out. But the deck has a limited amount of space.

My option of choice was 6Brook, because I thought it was stronger against RP Law, as it made it easy to clear 5-costs on curve.

But as I played more & more Lucci (and added finger pistols to my deck, which ALSO clears 5-costs), I started to wish that I had Borsalino in my deck.

6Brook was actually severely underperforming against BY Luffy. Tt was better than having no removal, but Nightmare Luffy started being a much superior response to when the opponent played 5Sabo, or it was better to do Rebecca + Nightmare Luffy, than 6Brook in the late-game.

Also against mirror matches & BY Luffys, Borsalino increases the odds of calling an unkillable blocker on 5-don, which is something I underestimated. I was getting away with hard mulling for 5Sabo when going first, but the games you don’t see it, you feel SIGNIFICANTLY far behind.
So due to 6Brook underperforming against BY Luffy, and Borsalino increasing the consistency of me seeing a blocker on my 5-don turn going first, I decided that Borsalino is a card I almost certainly want to include now.

Conclusion

I genuinely think Lucci is a very strong choice for Nationals. I’m not fully sure if I intend on playing it yet, but it definitely seems like a top 3 choice for me.

I was initially panicking, because I thought Reiju was projected to be a top 3 deck. But Reiju appears to have enough problems of its own, so I’ll have to wait to see Reiju’s performance at Liverpool, to decide whether to play it.

Control BY Luffy is definitely more difficult to handle as Lucci, but I think the 3 finger pistol giving a clean clear against Kuzan/5Luffys, without us having to attack their life, willbe significant in that matchup. And then the 2 Isshos & Nightmare Luffy should help still make the matchup possible. Just remember Nightmare Luffy should be played later than sooner in the matchup now.

This is it for the article for now. I will catch y’all in the next one, peace.