Master Guide to [OPO3] Law (Patreon)

Back in OPO2 I won my second tournament with Red/Green Law after many people thought it was not very strong(due to the OPO2 meta) and Ig I am now known as THE Law guy:

https://twitter.com/Cross_Aii/status/1647962039216742407?s=20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2kN3ijmNjo&t=177s (The Original Master Guide to Law)

Going into OPO3 I think Law is in a similar position that it was until I won with Law in OPO2. With Red Zoro gaining 5Marco and Fire Fist, Whitebeard having an insane boost in consistency, and Black becoming extremely popular, it now takes significantly more skill to win with Law. Note that I said that it takes more skill, rather than Law being put in a worse position. People believe that Law is a lot worse because they are performing worse with it into the new meta, but really they need to learn how to play it better in the new meta. I do not even say this to flame anyone, as the first time I played Law in OPO3 I was getting clapped up by my friends in testing and was also losing every round in the weekly tournament me and my Arizona friends do. Cut to the present and now I won my first OPO3 store championship with Law after playing against a series of amazing players(https://twitter.com/Cross_Aii/status/1678195453815291905?s=20).

Once a Law player improves their skill and decklist in OPO3, I believe that Law is easily one of the top 3 decks in the format. If you struggle with certain match-ups or are at a dead-end with Law, I believe that after reading this article and repeatedly referring back to it that your win rate with Law will significantly increase!

Before we talk about the new Law decklists and matchups, lets talk about where I believe Law is in the meta right now, and why I think it is such a strong pick.

(Note: This tier list is made solely from the perspective of the most relevant decks, which is why you see decks as powerful as blue and green all the way down in tier 3)

I currently believe Ace is slept on and might pop off towards the end of the format if a really good Ace player emerges and would probably be in tier 1 below Whitebeard.

I think Law is close to the best deck in the game, only slightly below Zoro because of how much more versatile and consistent Zoro is. With the exception of Fire FIst Zoro, Law literally beats every other deck in this tier list. Ace is technically a difficult matchup(if you are not playing Film Brook or Dogura), but thankfully the deck has a high skill ceiling and currently is not popular. There's also some people who believe Lucci is a bad matchup, but I believe this matchup is favorable if you attack second and even more favorable if you run Film Brook.

Law is truly in an extremely favorable position. The OPO3 build of Law consistently beats Whitebeard, and Law also frys yellow, which will naturally be very popular due to it's strength and it being THE new color. It also frys Nami, which is another new deck that people will naturally want to play.

The only thing holding back Law is......

The Bane of Laws existence in OPO3

How is Law Still Relevant?

Law barely added any new cards to its deck in OPO2, and as of OPO3 Law has added literally 0 new cards from the OPO3 set,  and yet it is somehow still one of the most powerful decks.

This is thanks to the versatility of the red/green card pool.

If control is popular, play rush units such as Rush Zoro and Luffy,

if green is popular play control cards such as Jet Pistol and Hawkins,

if aggro decks like Zoro are popular play cards like Vista, Nico Robin and Punk Gibson.

Law simply has TOO much adaptability.

While Zoro is versatile in the sense that it has both extreme aggro and control tools, Law is able to change its decklist to adapt to the meta, while always naturally being able to outvalue the rogue decks of the format.

The day Law actually gets a new set of cards really might be the end of this game.

The Current Law Lists

Before I talk about the current Law lists and matchups, there are a few things I want you to take note of.

• Blocker Law is an attacker - You don't need to attack with blocker law at the very end of the game, but for the majority of the game you should be attacking with blocker Law.
• Be wary of playing Bonney before you are able to bring it back to your hand because it is your most important search(it searches for Blocker Law, which is the most important card in the deck)
• Play around triggers - you should generally shambles early, buff up units, or play with an extra don open so you can successfully shambles even if a trigger removes one of your units

With that being said, lets talk about the new OPO3 Law lists!

I'm going to show 2 of my favorite Law lists and then I will talk about why certain cards are or are not adopted.

This is my new favorite "Standard" Law List:

ST(Starter Deck) Nami has been especially phenomenal in the Whitebeard matchup, and has made using Nico Robin and Basil Hawkins a lot more don efficient. ST Nami has also made it easier to play around triggers from Ace and Zoro as there is free extra don to power up our units.

Hawkins has also made the Whitebeard matchup borderline unlosable if we draw it on time. Suddenly the whitebeard player does not want to rest any of their units, and this card also happens to have a lot of value in the mirror match. It's also nice to have extra powerful supernovas that can be searched from Bonney.

4 Rush Zoro has also been crucial to the Red Zoro and Red Ace matchups, being able to force an extra card out of the opponents hand while producing a 5K body on board is extremely important against these new Red decks. Since Law produces a board of many units, once the red player's hand gets low, the value of their defensive events become incredibly reduced because there are too many units attacking from the Law player. Also Fire Fist Zoro(which is the version Law is disadvantageous to) runs a lot of bricks, so by rushing the opponent with rush zoro, lethal comes significantly closer for us.

Only 6 low cost blockers may be strange, but due to fire fist being back breaking for Law in the late game, it seems that having 1 low cost blocker on the board and 1 don up for rad beam is much more effective than having 2 blockers on the field. And then against Whitebeard, ST nami has significantly more value than extra low cost blockers. If you did want to increase the amount of Bege, I truly believe that 3 is the maximum amount you should run in this format.

Now lets look at the next version of law ---

This is Film Brook Law which I have been preaching in Discord for the longest time. Originally I was not going to talk about this deck as I was very interested in playing it at gen con, but a member of Team Seafood King got second place with it at an OPO4 championship, so we will talk about their list for now.

Compared to the new "Standard" Law list we can see that this list features:

0 Hawkins

Starter Deck Zoro

Film Brook

Rather than adopting Hawkins, this build uses Starter Deck(ST) Zoro as the anti-Whitebeard attacker. It may be confusing how ST Zoro counters Whitebeard, but basically having a 3 cost unit that is essentially a 6K attacker is very strong against Whitebeard in the late game. Once Whitebeard plays their 9beard, committing only 2 don to make each Starter Zoro 8K is significantly more powerful than attaching 3 don to a rush Zoro.

Hawkins isn't necessary to defeat WB but Hawkins feels like a nail in the coffin card for the WB mu, while ST Zoro feels like a card that makes the WB mu advantageous but not by crazy.

The MOST IMPORTANT card to talk about in this list is Film Brook. The main reason to use this card is to counter an early Fire Fist from Zoro, it is also very convenient to field 2 attackers at the same time against Zoro. Rather than playing this card turn 2 every game, Film Brook is a very nice recovery card after a fire fist. After you get fire fisted(pause), you can play Film Brook and some 1 drop units the following turn, so you can still keep up with Zoro.

Film Brook also happens to be a very strong play against Whitebeard if you played ST Nami on Turn 1 as it allows you to produce a gazillion attacks by the opponents 9beard turn.

One more matchup I specifically want to mention is the black matchup. The black matchup gets slightly harder when going first, but playing Film Brook on turn 3 is very strong as it can absorb a Sakazuki on the following turn, rather than a Blocker Law getting destroyed. And once again, against decks like Black and decks with fire fist, it's always convenient to have more attackers and in this case Film Brook is an attacker that also calls another attacker.

Film Brook Law is currently my favorite version of Law mainly because of how much it has improved the Fire Fist Zoro matchup for me, and as I mentioned earlier, this is the only deck I am really concerned with coming across in tournament.

Now let's talk about why certain cards are adopted.

OPO3 Red/Green Law Deck Choices

ST Nami is the new goat of my current Law decks, and the Dogura Law players who were preaching how powerful it was in Law last set were defintely right. This card makes it very hard to lose to Whitebeard(which is one of the most popular OPO3 decks), and makes cards like Robin and Hawkins 10x more efficient. I also noticed a problem where I did not want to field any 1 drops outside of Nami, Chopper and Bege in the early game, so having Nami as an extra 1 drop that also produces value every single turn has been amazing. If Whitebeard was not as relevant as it was, there is a chance that I cut or reduce this card, but for the time being it is here to say. (I also like that it makes playing around red triggers a lot easier)

In OPO2 Dadan was the "defensive" search card as it searched for 8 2ks, Chopper, or another Nami. But thanks to this new deck list, Nami is easily the goat of the deck. Between 4 Chopper, 4 2k counters, 3 Rad beam, and attackers, Nami can really find anything, If you're searching for defense play Nami, if you're searching for an attacker play Nami, if you want to win PLAY NAMI.

As of OPO3, Robin has officially replaced Vista for me for the time being. Vista is still a very strong card, but it is so weak against every other deck. Since Film Brook is my favorite build, Robin being able to be played off of Film Brook is very strong, and it is searchable off Nami. A good amount of NA players do not even believe in running fire fist in the first place making this card hot, and even for the ones that do, we can clap black with Film Brook 💪. This card is also decent against Whitebeard because you can combo it with Otama to pop blocker Marco in the late game.

This card may seem winmore to people who are new to it, but I truly believe Film Brook is the closest to an anti-Fire Fist card that we have at the moment. Rather than playing this card on curve turn 2 against Zoro, I like to use a Nico Robin as bait on turn 2, have Nico Robin and a 1 drop get popped by fire fist, and then play Brook as the follow up turn 3. I also believe this card makes it possible to win in the rare games where you see 0 blocker Law because it provides a lot of value at once while being an attacker. There are a lot of times where I will shambles a searcher Nami back to hand, play Brook and then play a Zoro from my hand over one of my useless units. I also want to note that i like to play about 6-8 callable targets(Example: 2 Rush Zoro, 3 ST Zoro, 2 Nico Robin) off Brook, so keep that in mind

Running 4 Rush Zoro is very crucial to Standard Law this format. It may take a few games abusing this card against Zoro to understand, but Zoro really struggles with the extra 5k swings in the early game, because there are very few cards in their hand that they want to discard. Also as I mentioned earlier, Fire Fist Zoro runs a lot of bricks, so an extra 5K swing gets us significantly closer to game against Zoro.

This card is absolutely ridiculous against Whitebeard, this card makes going first potentially even better than going second against Whitebeard. The threat of this card efficiently clearing Whitebeard's units is too much. This card is also generically good against the mirror, blue, yellow, etc and can catch Zoro by surprise if played at the right time.

This card is the strongest. I basically consider this card as a "pseudo-blocker" and is the main reason I am comfortable with reducing Bege to 2 copies. It's very rare that you use Bonney to search for Bege, so Nami being able to search for either Chopper or Rad Beam is absolutely incredible. Ever since I ran 4 copies of this card for the first time in set 2, I noticed my winrate against Luffy, Zoro, and Whitebeard has significantly increased. I think 3 is the perfect amount of copies as you can reasonably expect to see about 2 between searchers and hard drawing.

This card isn't featured in either of the lists I showed, but I am a huge fan of this card. It technically is not necessary at the moment, but if blue Nami becomes popular or starving Law becomes a popular strat of yellow, I believe this card being able to conveniently shut off these strategies is very strong.

Now let's go ahead and talk about the important match-ups.

Match Ups

Whitebeard

Going First: Advantageous

Going Second: Advantageous

Mulligan: Hawkins, ST Nami

In this matchup I have traditionally chosen to go second, but with the addition of ST Nami and Hawkins, it may be even more advantageous to attack first.

I consider this matchup advatangeous, but you need to have to have a specific plan and be wary of Ace turns, or you will defintely lose

(This card is probably the reason most people lose to Whitebeard as Law)

In this matchup regardless of whether you go first or second, you want to focus on attacking the opponent's leader for 6k with Law at least once per turn. The only exception to this rule is playing Hawkins turn 3 going first, because its board presence completely changes the way Whitebeard plays until their 9beard turn.

All attacks mentioned will be at the opponents Whitebeard leader, but depending on the board state it is also fine to attack the opponent's units)

Example Turn Flow Going First 

T1(1 Don)- ST Nami, Pass turn

T2(3 Don)- Dadan/Nami + 1 Drop(s) Swing Law Leader for 6k and Pass turn

T3(5 Don) - Hard play or Shambles Hawkins and Swing 6k with Leader(Alternatively Shambles in Blocker Law this turn)

T4(7 Don)- 6k with Leader, 6k with Dadan, Shambles Law and play Zoro or Robin using Blocker Law's ability. Generally, I would not swing with any base 6K+ units(Basically Blocker Law, Hawkins, and ST Zoro) this turn so we do not get hard punished by Ace the following turn, if you do need to free up space on board then it's fine to swing with one of the characters, but I would absolutely not swing with Hawkins or Blocker Law)

T5(9 Don) - 6k with Leader Law, 6k with Zoro, 6k with Law, 10k with Hawkins, shambles in Restand Law  and swing 10k with Hawkins(You can attack Hawkins at a character if it is rested, as Hawkins will get a free restand)

If you counter out the amount of times we swung 6 by the opponent's first 9beard turn, you will see that we have attacked a total of NINE to TEN TIMES, and this is without considering Hawkins ability! The amount of attacks you make at Whitebeard in the early game, will significantly affect how close you are to killing them towards the end of the game. If the Whitebeard player guarded every 6k attack they will have minus 8 cards in their hand.

Example Turn Flow Going Second

T1(2 Don) - Starter Deck(ST) Nami + 1 Drop

T2(4 Don) - Film Brook + Any Zoro, 6K with Law Leader at the opponent's Whitebeard Leader

T3(6 Don) - Shamlbes in Blocker Law and Another Zoro, Attack the opponent's Whitebeard Leader with 6K Leader, 6K Zoro, 6K Brook

T4(8 Don) - Attack the opponents whitebeard Leader with 6K Zoro, 6 KLead, 10K w Blocker Law twice(By using Restand Law)

This is actually very similar to a curve I had in my store championship against Whitebeard, where I quite literally went 6 a gazillion times in one turn. As you can see in this case there are only 8 attacks before the first 9beard turn, compared to the 10 attacks Law gets going first. Going second has the advantage of Whitebeard fielding less attackers, and potentially having to sacrifice playing an attacker for playing a blocker Marco prior to their 9beard turn, but on the flip side Law is incredibly more aggressive when going first. At the end of the day, I believe the matchup to be advantageous either way.

Once the opponent reaches their 9beard turn the rest of the game is simply math. Beware of factoring in the Whitebeard player using Ace + 9beard to out-tempo, or in order to attempt to go for game. I would also generally make only 2 big attacks(or one big attack + restand law) during 9beard turns. If the opponent has blocker Marco I would try to make them block and then swing into blocker Marco with my leader and other attackers.

In this matchup it is also important to keep 1-2 life. If you already have everything in hand I would try to stay at 2 life, if you feel like you can get some gas, then it is ok to go down to 1 life.

TL:DR

• ST Nami and Hawkins are overpowered in this matchup
• Don't swing with units the turn right before to the Whitebeard player's Ace turn
• Attack 6K with leader at least once every turn, and make a bunch of attacks on the turn before the opponent's 9beard turn
• Maintain 1-2 Life

Red Zoro

First: 50/50

Second: Slightly Advantageous

Mulligan: Film Brook(If Included), 2+ Searchers(In order to keep up with Fire Fist)

If Fire Fist is included the matchup gets worse, but if it is not included the matchup becomes more advantageous. The matchup also gets more advantageous if Film Brook is included.

It is better to go second because the extra draw is extremely important since Law vs Zoro is a battle of resources, and it is important to be able to consistently turn 3 shambles(Law's leader ability) against Zoro, which is more likely to happen going second.

In the early game, if you end up with only 1 searcher in hand, I would be cautious of calling it to the field before you are able to shambles it back to hand ,because it will be significantly easier to lose if you run out of searchers early.

I would generally ignore clearing 2k attackers, and only attack Makino and 3k attackers(remember that 99% of your characters can't kill buggy so don't accidentally attack it). I also want to get the opponents life down to 2 or less as soon as possible. Once Zoro's life gets that low they begin having to commit don to establish blocker Marco, and commit don to holding up defensive events, which means there is less don for them to attack us with.

(Idk why they gave Zoro this card, none of our units can defeat it smh)

As I mentioned in the deck choices section, rush Zoro is very crucial in this meta for dealing with Red Zoro. It allows us to get the Zoro player down to 2 or less life early and force them to start playing defensively, and when they start playing defensively they have to start keeping don up for event, and commit don to playing blocker Marco, which makes there turns less aggressive as the game goes on.

Robin is beautiful bait in this matchup, as if it absorbs a fire fist early, we can field film brook to clap back or we can safely field Hawkins later in the game. And if it just doesn't die then we get to pop units on the opponents board.

It is very effective in this matchup to clear Buggies by reducing it's power with Otama and then attacking it with searcher Nami.

I generally spam play Namis in this matchup in order to maintain resources against Zoro.

It's also important to allow yourself to go all the way down to 1 life in this matchup, as you get to comfortably defend units. Zoro also happens to swing a lot of 5ks throughout the game so whether you have 1 life or a billion life will not change their flurry of attacks.

You have to be extremely flexible in this matchup and make sure to abuse searchers, if your opponent is low on hand clear their 5Marco, if not go face. There's also a lot of times at the end of the game where I leave blocker Law standing for defensive purposes.

Black Lucci

First: Advantageous

Second: Very Advantageous

Mulligan: Blocker Law + Searchers

I would choose to go second, the extra draw is strong since Lucci is a deck that destroys resources and it's very convenient to throw them off curve.

There's not a specific gameplan we aim for every game in this matchup but there are plenty of concepts you want to keep in mind.

• Abuse Otama - Otama makes clearing blacks big units such as Sakazuki very efficient in the mid-game, and it is generally effective to also use Otama on 6K blockers and rush face.
• Be Aggressive - Rather than attacking for 7s a bunch of time, it is very important to swing with a bunch of 5k attacks in order to drain blacks resources, black runs more bricks than other decks and discards cards from their own hand, so they often have to accept a lot of the early 5k attacks, and they run out of counter towards the end of the game, due to the bricks they run and the frequent discarding. It is very common for me to attach 2 don to Dadan and swing 5 with it
• Play around Impact Wave -

If you ignore the opponent's impact wave either when they have 2 don up or the opponent triggering impact wave out of life you will lose the game. I actually lost round 3 of the tournament I won with Law in swiss, because I failed to properly play around impact wave. There are a few different ways to play around impact wave.

If the opponent has 2 don up - I would start by swinging with your 3 cost attackers, and I would not bother attaching don to them. The reason we don't attach don is so we deny the value of impact wave being +4k.

Playing around impact wave trigger - If you unexpectedly get hit with an impact wave trigger out of life it can literally prevent you from a shambles turn. In order to play around this we can either A. Play with an extra don that way if one of our units does get popped, we can play a 1 cost unit from hand and shambles as normal. Or B. if there is no extra don to play with we shambles in advance and then attack with our units. Black is a color I commonly shambles before attacking against because I want to make sure I can establish my blocker Law, ever since I lost round 3 at the regional I won I have been very cautious of not getting clowned by impact wave  trigger out of life.

• How to play the End Game -  The end game against Black is another thing I imagine a lot of people mess up, but this is where Law shines in this matchup. Because Black has no rush units it is very easy to calculate how they can kill you. In the end game against Black it is very common for me to clear my opponents board rather than trying to go for game, because it is generally impossible for them to kill me if I successfully clear their board. If my opponent is very low on hand(like 3 cards) I will generally attack units even if I can't guarantee clear the board in order to either clear the unit or force my opponent to discard all their cards from their hand. Aside from this it's important to be very mathematical when going for lethal against black. Consider the fact that their part of their life or hand may be bricks and attack accordingly. For my advanced players and mathematicians, a common way I kill Black is when they have 1 card in hand and 2 life and I have 3 attackers, I swing 6, 8(I buffed a small unit like Dadan with 5 don), 8 and generally get the game. The reason for the 6 is because I gamble on the card in their hand either being a 1k or a brick and if that 6k attack goes through, I know that they can't guard 8k, even if they got a 2k out of life. This is generally much better than going 5, 7, 9. because of the opponent can guard 5k you lose on the spot, meanwhile if you swing 6 you can win by the card in their hand being a 1k. I've been doing spicy lethals like this since the Deck-Limited battle era, before I went undefeated into finals in DLB era, I defeat one of my opponents by making educated attacks and attaching don to 1 cost blocker Law and swinging with it! I guarantee learning the logic behind the 6, 8, 8 swing will significantly increase your winrate against Black as I have seen this situation happen way too many times.

Yellow Katakuri(and Yellow Mom)

First: Very Advantageous

Second: Very Advantageous

Mulligan: Blocker Law + Searchers

I personally would pick to go second against both of these decks, but Law destroys yellow regardless

The only way Law loses to Yellow is if the opponent triggers too many thunderbolt.

I would be cautious of this cards trigger throughout the entire game, and make sure to swing with all of your units before using shambles that way Blocker Law does not get blasted by thunder bolt.

In this matchup I would receive up to 3 life(Take damage until you have 1 life left), and force them to burn the last life with 10 cost mom. Some people take all their life, but I believe there's less room to randomly lose if you force them to manually remove the last life.

Low cost blockers should be abused in this matchup as yellow has very limited removal, but I would be careful of a well-timed Streusen from the yellow opponent.

(If you only have one low cost blocker on the board, this card can catch you by surprise if you don't leave a don up for radical beam)

It's fine to attack Perospero if you have enough attackers in hand, but if you are low aggression it may be smarter to just swing at the opponents face. When I am worried about thunderbolt coming out of life, I also attack Perospero multiple times with my units in order to get value out of them attacking before one of them gets blown up.

(Yellows Strongest trigger attacker)

I have also heard rumors about yellow players trying to starve Law players. If this strategy proves to be effective then I would reduce 2 copies of brook and 2 copies of Sanji in order to invalidate this strategy.

(The strongest card against decks that don't attack Laws life in the early game)

Blue Crocodile / Blue Doflamingo

First: Very Advantageous

Second: Very Advantageous

Mulligan: Blocker Law + Searchers

This is one of the few decks that I prefer to go first against, while it is a favorable matchup either way, throwing Doflamingo off its curve, and prevents Croc from fielding Sentomaru and Mihawk on curve is nice.

Otama is the king of this matchup as it makes clearing blues bodies so incredibly efficient.

(The Bane of Doflamingo's existence)

Aside from this, as long as you have optimal decision making such as knowing what to attack, when to use blockers, etc, you highkey kinda just win. Blue and Yellow are by far Law's easiest matchups.

The only card I would be cautious of is Three Thousand Worlds:

(Blue finally has some kind of answer to Law)

Blue Nami

First: Very Advantageous

Second: Very Advantageous

Mulligan: Blocker Law + Searchers

I would choose to go second in this matchup, because Nami does not swing life, so the extra draw is convenient. I do not believe I have ever lost against Nami as Law, but I have heard of people who have lost this matchup so we will briefly talk about it.

At the start of the game we swing 5000, but if we have few attacks, and the opponent has 2+ don up, I think it's okay to pass turn in order to deny them convenient mills.

In the mid-game I will swing a bunch of 5k attacks, once the opponent taps out of don I will swing a bunch of 6k attacks(because their only 2k counter is basically Kaya) and for the last attack, regardless of if don is still up, I like to swing for at least 9k with a supernova, and restand and attack with it again by using Starter deck Law.

(Nami's only 2k counter and a card they would rather keep in their hand)

Basically as long as you swing a bunch of 5k attacks, swing 6k when the opponent is tapped out, and swing for 9k+ (in order to force at least 2 cards out of the opponents hand, if they have a 4k counter event) you will be golden. This matchup is all about attacking with proper numbers, and knowing when you shouldn't attack.

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This is currently it for the Law guide, I gave general information on the Law deck, and covered the match ups that I believe to be most common and most important. If there any further matchups anyone would like me to add to this guide, I will research those matchups and eventually update it to this guide. If there's any additional content you want me to add the guide please message me that as well.

Lastly, I will be adding a QNA section to the end of this guide, so if there's any specific questions anyone has, message me those questions and I will add the good questions to the end of this guide for everyone else to see.

Thank you for reading the guide, feedback would be appreciated for future guides, let me know if there's any grammar or spelling mistakes you see, and I hope y'all liked this guide and will check out more of mine in the future :).

I am also currently researching 8 Cost Kid in Law again!! If everything goes well, I will be talking about that build in here as well 🔥🔥

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QNA (Question and Answer)