NEW OP07 Perona - The Cross Gencon Deck Explanation

Intro

We finally made some progress with Perona. I know Kai has been preaching for Perona for a minute now, and I DO believe the deck is strong. But I don’t believe the current Perona lists are capable of beating GOOD Lucci & Perona players.

And I know there’s gonna be some of y’all claiming that you always beat Lucci. And I’mma have to tell y’all that your Lucci testing partner might be a bot(at least in the Perona matchup).

And others might think Perona is positive for RP Law, because leader ability rests units & Ryuma pops units. But the part you’re missing is that in order to consistently keep up with board early, we basically have to open multiple Ryumas on curve(if you saw my tournament report, I literally can’t open anything on the first two turns against RP Law). And we are only dealing with ONE unit a turn. So when RP Law starts calling 2–3 units a turn, we eventually get overwhelmed.

I believe I have solved the Lucci problem, so I’m excited to show the list I came up with. 

If anyone has any real insight on the RP Law matchup, please dm me on Discord. Don Krieg is definitely the most common tech I hear of. I initially wrote it off because I don’t think it’s skill will consistently pop two units in the early-game, and Sabo seems to be stronger in the late-game. BUT, I do think Don Krieg would be one of our stronger units on curve. Thanks to it’s 7K power, and it’s double attack(this can help close-out games, as I tend to starve in the early-game), so I’m interested in exploring it more. But I’m pretty unconfident in it.

Anyways, let’s get into my Perona deck.

The Counter to Lucci

 This card has completely warped the Lucci matchup for me. One of Perona’s biggest weaknesses is that we can only deal with one unit a turn. This means that consecutive Moria plays from Lucci can lead to too many bodies for us to deal with.

But Rosinante levels the playing field, by making it difficult for Lucci to deal with our units.

For one, IceAge + MoriaRyumaRosinanate actually stops their Moria combos from being able to clear our Ryumas. 

And on top of this, at 10-don we can actually use “You can be my Samurai!!” on Moria to prevent Moria from being dealt with too! I’m specifically talking about IceAge + MoriaRyumaRosinante + Samurai event. This allows us to take their Moria, while allowing our Moria to live!

And I even took this combo a step further by introducing this combo to the deck:

|Black’s greatest fear, Kid + Rosinante|

I’m a huge fan of starving Lucci from the start of the game, so Kid levels the playing field, by preventing Lucci from going aggro when they finally run out of resources. It also punishes them badly for even missing one big-unit turn.

Not only this, but after Kid stays on the field for even ONE TURN, we can actually use 5-Cost Sabo to protect it again! Or we can use Moria to play a Rosinante rested, and a Rosinante standing! (Keep in mind that a standing Rosinante can protect a rested Rosinanate. So Lucci can’t even pop both of them lmao).

This Kid + Rosinante combo is extremely effective to help seal off games against Lucci, and is actually strong against other various meta decks. After battling for board a bit, this card also happens to be godly against Enel, Bonney, BY Luffy, list goes on.

This is basically the most special Part about my Perona list(s), and I think this could become a standard for future Perona lists. It’s a bit difficult to use, but once you get a hang of it, Rosinante goes crazy.

First I will show y’all the Perona list I was using for most of last week, and then I’ll show the last-minute Perona lists that I played in GenCon (as usual my lists are never adequately ready, prior to the tournament lmao).

Hyper-Removal Perona

The Perona concept I was testing up until GenCon was mostly along the lines of this. 

I originally had Helmeppo and Lucci in the list (I wanted to be able to double-pop like the Lucci deck), but I determined that the IceAge Moria Rosinanate combo was much stronger, AND took up less deck space.

I was honestly pretty impressed with the deck. It felt like I was Lucci on steroids because of all of the card draw. But it was actually difficult to close-out games against Lucci, because random Sabo turns were very annoying, and sometimes I would get out-aggro’d due to me starving them(they have so much life, so they can do whatever since they’re not scared of dying). 

And when I didn’t starve them they actually end up also gaining more cards than us. 

Even though Lucci don’t have draw cards like “You can be my Samurai,” they have an extra life, and Perona’s inability to remove two units catches up with Perona overtime. Their Moria combos are also hyperefficient, and RebeccaSpandine is similar value to having drawn a card to defend with!

Honestly, a list like this may have been the real deal into Lucci, if I had just included 2-3 8-Cost Kids(this would have helped handle the annoying 5Sabo turns). This list can definitely be further optimized, and I also now believe that Perona’s topend should be a lot more toolboxy, so I would definitely be running more than just Moria & Sabo.

I did ultimately decide to retire tempest kick going into GenCon though, and it’s probably a card I won’t be having in the deck for the time being.

Toy Soldier instead of Helmeppo - I liked the fact that Toy Soldier + MoriaHiyoriToySoldier clears 10-costs(you reuse the toy soldier you hard played, so this combo only requires one Toy Soldier in hand. Compared to Helmeppo requiring us to have 1 Helmeppo in hand, and 1 reducer in trash

4 8-Cost Sabo - I was really focused on keeping up with Lucci’s double popping, but I think the Rosinanate combos actually outclass Sabo.

Sabo is still decent for keeping up with the board, but 4 may have been too much.

4 Moria - The IceAge MoriaRosinanate Samurai combo really is too strong against Lucci. But with the addition of Kid to the deck, I’m not sure if I would still include 4 copies of Moria. 

I think people don’t realize how efficient IceAge + Ryuma is by itself(I assumed that I was getting 20 miles ahead by playing it off Moria, but I don’t think it’s as insane as Moria’s Lucci’s double-popping, or also playing Rebecca). And at 10-don you can actually do IceAge + Ryuma + Sabo, which is really effective. Establishing a big body while doing our combos is technically the strongest option I can do. But I think I wouldn’t want to clog the deck with too many big units, so I’d rather streamline the removal options, and include some unique powerful topend, like 8Kid. And Kid is actually too strong when it’s finally established, so 4 Moria doesn’t feel as needed anymore, but it’s still strong.

Tempest Kick - It was very convenient to pop a 8-Cost and 4-Cost with 8Sabo. Without this card, I would be using 3 cards out of hand every time I wanted to pop a Moria combo as Sabo(1 for IceAge, 2 for Sabo), which is extremely inefficient.

4 Ice Age - IceAge + Ryuma/Moria is too strong. You can basically clear anything, and you can get fancy combos with Ryuma + 5Sabo or Samurai + Rosinanate.

4 Inuppe - The filter from this card is really nice early-game. I was running into issues where my hand was sometimes too bricked up, so this helped filter that. This card also tends to be a permanent sentry on board for Samurai, because people don’t want to attack into it. And it draws us closer to top-end of course.

I do think this list was pretty strong. And Sabo was probably the ideal topend, thanks to RP Law dominance. 

But as I mentioned earlier, I’m interested in making my top-end more toolboxy, and I don’t think some of these 4-of top-end cards, are actually meant to be 4-ofs(couugh, cough, Moria).

Now let me show my two GenCon lists.

GenCon Day One

Tweet & Matchups: https://x.com/Cross_Aii/status/1819125159749734875

Bartolomeo - 4K body is really strong against RP Law. Can be played on turn2 regardless of going first or second, and the filter will be strong as well. 

It’s also another blocker to be played off of 8Kid

This is the list I ran for DayOne, and it actually felt like I cooked everything but RP Law. Obviously, playing no 8Sabo was a MASSIVE-MISPLAY. Not only did I throw the RP Law matchup, but I’m missing out on randomly convenient removal.

For some reason I was under the impression that I needed four of Moria & Kids, but these are cards that can both be played after I’ve grinded a bit with other top-end units, or IceAge + Ryumas. So this list was a huge miscalculation.

Bartolomeo was really strong with Kid, and I expected the 4K body to be strong against RP law in the early-game. But with no 8Sabo, the RP Law matchup felt impossible. So Barto wasn’t as crazy as expected.

The ratios on this are really rough man, so I don’t even want to say too much. My day two list was a bit better, so let’s check that one out now.

Gencon Day 2

Tweet for Day 2 & Matchups: https://x.com/Cross_Aii/status/1819818911942275445

Bell-mere - Strongest way to handle 5-costs. It buffs our leader, and rests itself (which demands our opponent to attack into it). 

Perona is a deck that naturally handles all the opponent’s little units, so making the opponent’s leader attack into it, essentially makes this a blocker!

Note 08/05: I’m still not convinced if I actually want this card in the Perona deck. RP law & co can actively just ignore this card (because the minus 1 hardly matters)

Oden - Included this as Nami tech. Of course 9Zoro is stronger, but Oden having 8 searhcers was extremely appealing. I actually cooked a Bonney with this card on day 2, which was hilarious.

This day two list was definitely more optimized than the day one (you can see the topend toolbox coming together), but it was still a little bit rough.

Inuppe was really strong as additional filter, but I kind of regretted losing Barto, as it would have been really nice against RP law (I bricked both my RP Law games, but also Ryuma is the only 4000+ unit I could’ve conveniently play edearly, so having Barto to add to that count would be nice. Ofc Sabo exists, but it’s too expensive. I typically can’t clear a unit, AND play 5Sabo on the same turn against RP)

Both my RP Law games were just dud games, so I’ll have to do my own personal testing to see how effective this list can be against RP Law. I also lost the game to the Lucci, but I genuinely think I lost by playing way too passive. 

I had Kid up for 3-4 turns(Moria was also on board for at least half of those turns). And yet, I was tapping 4000 power Kalifas and swinging at them, swinging at spandems, etc. My decision-making was absolutely atrocious this game. 

He did also triple 6-Cost Brook me this game though, and then finished off my second Kid with IceAge + Kaku. So that was also pretty nuts on his end. 

But I could have 100% won with better pacing and attacks.

I just was on 0 life on that turn, cuz I was omega bricked, so it led to me playing like a pussy.

Thoughts on my Perona Lists

I think it’s a bit difficult to pilot this new list optimally, but I do think it’s a top meta-contender if piloting well. If you can accept Nami is a good deck, but loses to RP Law, then you should definitely accept this as a top deck as well.

I will probably retire playing it in tournaments, until either me or someone else figures out how to beat RP Law, but I would love to play this deck again.

Aside from whether I’d take it to tournament, I want to talk about some card choices I’m interested in.

9Zoro - My friend Ashe(maybe some of y’all have seen her in Magic?), actually topped with Bonney on Saturday in-person GenCon, defeating four RP Laws. And she tells me that 9Zoro contributed heavily, so I would like to try beating RP Law with this in Perona.

9Zoro would also be effective against the Nami bums, so I would be interested in playing this instead of Oden, and maybe even considering 2+ copies.

Stussy - I know some people are a Huge fan of Stussy in Enel, because of the 9-cost range. Personally I think Sabo & Moria are generally more diverse in their plays, but I do think a 1-of stussy is interesting. We only play 4 IceAges, and without it, we can’t reach high costs, so having 1-2 Stussy as a 5th-6th way to clear big untis would be quite nice.

Moria - I’m becoming really unconfident in how many Moria I wanted to include. Before playing Perona I told Kai that I really don’t think this card is necessary, and even the set before this I hardly wanted to play it. And then I jumped to 4 copies, because I felt I needed it to win the bigguy war against Lucci (although Lucci seems to literally never faul to clear it).

And now that I have Kid + Rosi, I’m not really interested in playing a lot of Morias. IceAge + Ryuma is good enough, and since I’m starving, my unit statlines don’t need to be crazy anyways. 

And if they try to do a cheap play in response to Ryuma, then I can clap back pretty hard with a Kid + Rosi play, so I probably will be testing much less Moria, definitely no more 4 copies.

Moria is also extremely bad against RP Law.

Moria is still strong to revive Ryumas that have already been used, and playing two Rosinantes off of Moria feels very illegal.

Kid - I don’t know if I want 2 copies or 3. But what I do know is that this card is actually too strong. If I decide to play 2+ 9Zoro, I’ll likely just keep Kid at two, as Zoro is strong into every matchup Kid is strong into, EXCEPT Lucci.

Hiyori - I don’t know if I still want it. Since I’d like to play less Morias, I’d rather just play like 1-2 Stussy, and save Moria for IceAge combos, or reviving Rosinantes.

Bartolomeo - I have high hopes for this stat-line against RP Law. It’s a bit better than Momo, since RP law can just bottom-deck Momo without attacking into it. I think it competes with space for Inuppe, so pick n choose. I’m really unsure on which is better tho to be honest. Inuppe has much more timing to be played, but Barto works quite well with 8Kid, and the 4000 statline is good against RP Law.

I really think the future of this list probably lies in dropping the whole MoriaHiyori package(this includes the high amount of taurus, toy soldiers, etc.). And accepting that this whole Moria combo is quite mediocre. Sure it’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t have to be nothing Instead of Moria,  we could run a diverse top-end, that will lead us to more consistent results against the decks we’re already good against. And maybe even help the decks that we are bad against.

Conclusion

While trying to figure out ways to consistently beat good Lucci players, I think I happened to discover one of the strongest combos in Perona.
Kid + Rosinanate was the whole reason I was trying to play Yamato last set (I believed that it would let me get almost free wins against Moria), so I’m very surprised I haven’t tried this combo in Perona sooner. But it really did overperform.

Now utilizing Kid + Rosinanate, isn’t as simple as jamming it on curve, you need to do a bit of setup first by exhausting your opponents resources by popping all their big shits, sneak some blockers in by having IceAge Ryuma + Sabo turns. And then we can conveniently seal the game shut with Kid + Rosinanate!

And as I mentioned at the end of the last section, I think there’s a lot of potential for the future in Perona’s topend. I think we’ve been blinded by assuming Moria was the best topend unit, but I actually think it’s Kid + Rosinanate. It can free us from the stress of impossible situations (Sabo turns, missing removal and opponent’s board getting out of control, etc.).

I think the next step in Perona is realizing that our Morias are 10 times weaker than Lucci’s Moria. 

3 quarters of our deck actually doesn’t do anything. Half of it is already dedicated to the engine, and another quarter is dedicated to doing fancy Moria combos.

But Lucci’s Moria combos flow extremely naturally, and has higher ceiling plays. 

Not only does Lucci feature consistent Moria double-pops, but we can even do RebeccaSpandine which earns us a FREE BLOCK, while double popping. Perona’s Moria combos simply can’t compete with Lucci’s Moria.

Perona’s Moria’s are literally just IceAge + Ryuma, except we also get a 9000 body (which is a pretty big benefit, but quite lackluster in comparison to Lucci’s Moria plays). 

After adding Rosinanate to the deck, the combo got slightly better, because at least we could keep our Ryuma’s alive against Lucci’s doublepop.

But I’d argue (at least against Lucci), that this combo is still weaker than doing IceAge Ryuma + Sabo, and Kid + Rosinante is stronger against that deck anyways. 

No matter how many big units we play against good Lucci playersi, 90% of them are gonna get cleared. 

You guys should watch me play vs. Enels who try to starve me (when I play Lucci).

I’m able to remove so many big units before I FINALLY run out of removal. And by that time I’ve looped my entire deck(I’m drawing into the cards I bottom-decked from Lucci, Spandine, etc), so I actually have even MORE removal (this happened to me in testing against Lucci as Perona a lot, at first I thought he was getting lucky on Lucci, but then I realized that they just consistently loop their deck).

Moria is also really bad against RP Law, which I think is actually our worst matchup. Ryuma’s never get sent to trash in this matchup, so you actually have to draw multiple Ryumas, and you have to find a way to get Ryuma in to trash, which means you have to draw one of your 2 Hiyori early, on top of the requirement of ALREADY needing to draw multiple Ryumas. And imagine you met all these requirements just to NOT draw Moria. Like this shit makes less than zero sense against RP Law man.

All I’m trying to say is MORIA MIGHT BE MID IN PERONA. 

I’m starting to think there’s just no way 4 copies is it, let alone even 3. Rather than doing these fancy Moria combos that require me to have Mora in hand and Ryuma in trash, I’d rather just look into new top-end options, like Kid (already mentioned), Stussy, 8Sabo, maybe 9Zoro (fk Nami), etc. As I’ve explained, Moria seems like a relatively weak extender to a combo we already have access to. So Moria will likely be an afterthought for me in new lists.

Outro

This is it for my Perona Gencon experince article! Hopefully this article was insightful to y’all, I know it would have personally been very insightful to me if I had it prior to making my GenCon list.

I think the Perona deck is still being solved 100%. So many slots in the deck have been lost to people defaulting to 4 Bors, 4 Sabo, playing a large amount of cards for a MoriaHiyori package, etc.

Maybe that build will end up being the best build (huge doubt), but there definitely is something to explore with my anti-Moria-in-Perona propaganda (and I’ve already been hating on Bors in mirror matches since last set, I don’t even run it in Lucci, and I see KyleH from Arizona didn’t even run it in his 17-0 Lucci list this weekend: https://x.com/YonasOPTCG/status/1820153905969344949)

Please take these thoughts into consideration, and I’m excited to see what y’all may come up with.