Law Research [Post Restriction-List] (Update July 28th) (Patreon)

With 9Beard and Blocker Marco being restricted to one copy(Rad Beam was also restricted but this is not significant to Law), a lot of people believe that Law is the best deck. But due to the new restriction list...

(Law's Worst Nightmares)

Thanks to the disappearance of 9Beard, Zoro can now comfortably run these cards, without them being detrimental to the non-existent 9Beard matchup! This is great for Zoro, but terrible for Law since these are the cards that destroy Law.

Fire Fist in particular makes it difficult to shambles by turn 3, which is a problem because Zoro prepares for an onslaught, while delaying our preparation for that onslaught

Vista is a big problem as well because it threatens to pop our resource engine(Nami, Dadan, Bonney) in the early game which also threatens our ability to shambles by turn 3(because in this matchup you need to loop searchers, so if you open only one you may have to resort to not fielding it). Vista also pops our blockers, which makes our defense worse.

Not all hope is lost though! I believer that there are potential plans and strategies to make is possible to beat Zoro, but for the time being I think it is difficult to call Law the best deck. Rather I believe that Zoro is the best deck, while Law is the second best deck.

It's actually sort of ironic to me that people would think that this banlist makes Law the best deck, Whitebeard was one of Laws easiest matchups(if you knew how to play it) prior to the banlist, so you would think that Law becomes slightly worse, due to losing one of it's best matchups. Not only does Law lose it's positive Whitebeard matchup, but Strawbeard comes back into existence.

Strawbeard runs 4 of both Luffy and Ace, and also now runs Red Hawk(due to know longer having access to 4 Radical Beam. This actually makes the Whitebeard matchup worse for us.

(Hawkins will be the key to making sure Law does not lose to Strawbeard)

While I think Law is still the second best deck, the Zoro machup has become even more disadvantageous, and the Whitebeard matchup has also become more difficult to win(although I'm unaware of if it's disadvantageous yet or not).

(Shoutout to Shayne, best Law Player NA! He's CrossGai, not CrossGAI, so he's not the bad one)

With that being said let's go ahead and look at some of the new Law builds!

Top 4 8 Cost Kid Law

This list recently got Top 4 at my second server tournament, and I am a huge fan of this list. I will also say that the Law player was really good as well. Funnily enough before this tournament came out, I made random comments about 8Kid Law in my server, and actually started researching it with one of my homies(who should also be on this Patreon).

(Shoutout to the homie Gage/Beaver)

Anyways let's go ahead and look at my current take on the list.

8 Cost Kid Law V1

This is my current take on 8Kid Law and it is has some key differences from the Top 4 VBY #2 List.

Prior to the restriction list I chose to run 3 Rad Beam in my Red/Green Law build(I thought that ST Nami made 1 cost events very convenient, and also believed that 1 Cost events are essentially blockers from the hand). So in order to maintain this concept I decided to add in guard point! The reason we don't use red hawk is because the difference between 1 cost and 2 cost is too huge on our first 8 cost Kid turn. It's also worth noting that radical beam and guard point end up having the same value quute often. The truth is that there are various situations where the opponent attacks 7k at a 5k unit, or 8k at a 6k unit, and in this sense radical beam and guard point have the same value quite frequently.

I ran this card at 3 in my store championship Film Brook Law list, and while it was primarily for making the Whitebeard matchup impossible to lose, it also made Robin and Hawkins very easy to use. Thanks to the addition of 8 Cost Kid, ST Nami is still very powerful in this deck! ST Nami allows us to

• Use 8Kid's Pseudo-Leader effect as fast as Turn 4(Oden is the only other deck that can do this)
• Shambles after hard playing Kid on Turn 5
• Allows us to use a Vista/Rush Zoro off of 8Kids ability while still activating it's effect(this is important to mention because there are instances where Brook is played to activate 8Kid early)

ST Nami has plenty of usefulness when combined with 8 Cost Kid, and I think it will also be very strong against the new Strawbeard deck.

I decided to adopt Vista instead of Robin because I believe it is important for counter cards such as Blamenco and Haruta. Vista is also a strong counter to Zoro playing Gordon T2(they play it turn 2, to combo with 5Marco on turn 3). Against Zoro, Vistas immediate value is very important, while Robin is overall better against the other decks.

This card is the main star of the build, and I believe it is a very strong pick. 8Kid absolutely destroys the Zoro list that got first place at the recent Core Online Regional, and this card single-handedly takes down hyper aggro Zoro decks that lack removal. This card is also very strong against fire fist, because if Zoro uses 1-2 fire fist and does not have another fire fist available, then Kid has the potential to absolutely take over the game.

This card also happens to be a generically strong defensive unit, and even against control decks like Black, you can use kid to play Rush Zoro and swing with units that are already board, while forcing the opponent to have the answer to 8KId. And even if 8Kid gets answer, Rush Zoro and the various other units we swung with maintain their board presence relatively easily.

(Update July 27th)

I'm officially uninterested in using a build centered around 8 Cost Kid in Lawbecause of my own Zoro testing, and the Zoro lists I have seen from some other top players(https://twitter.com/Dobogeee/status/1684402307692388353?s=20) AND (https://twitter.com/Cross_Aii/status/1684661925865738240?s=20).

It may be worth including as a spicy 1-of that sometimes gets value, but at the moment it seems that committing deck space to a second 8 Cost Kid and ST Namis, may be troll.

Film Brook Law V1

This is my first draft of the new FIlm Brook Law list! My previous list included less film brooks and more starter Namis(for the Whitebeard matchup), but my new list runs 4 Film Brook because I am absolutely tweaking about Fire Fist. Let's go ahead and talk about some of the key cards in this list.

If y'all end up not messing with this card even after my explanation, then replace this for the 4K power OPO1 Robin, but hear me out... The reason I am testing this card over OPO1 Robin is because it has 5000 power! And the reason I play Robin instead of more Zoro, is due to both Zoro's lack of counter power. In my Master Guide to R/G Law, my idea with Film Brook was for my opponent to Fire Fist a 1 Drop and 4K Power Nico Robin, and then the following turn I get to play Film Brook and another attacker. This concept was fine but the issue was it required me to see two 3 cost Strawhats and a Film brook by turn 3. And even if I met all those requirements I still wouldn't be able to shambles on my turn 3. So instead I thought it'd be better to play FIlm Brook Turn 2 and have it play another 5k Unit. In this scenario, my opponent would need to have Otama/Gordon on top of Fire FIst in order to pop my board, and this also consumes 4 Don meaning I would only get attacked by Zoro leader! I think the difference in power between 4K and 5K is too huge when reffering to Fire Fist.

This card is another one of my favorite anti Fire Fist cards! The thing that's cracked about this card is that if we play it off of Blocker Law and attatch a don to it(even though we won't be swinging into it that turn), we will be establishing two 6K bodies at once 😳. This makes it difficult for the Zoro player to clear both of the attackers, because they would have to reduce the power of both units before they may fire fist.

This build seems very extra, but I think it is important to be able to handle Zoro(which is likely to be the most popular deck). I also think Law naturally beats everything else anyways, so most of the anti-Fire Fist tech should be insignificant to the other match ups.

The Original Film Brook List

This is the Film Brook list I tested leading up to store championships. I started testing Film Brook towards the end of OPO2, and my list stayed relatively the same, until I added ST Nami, which made it 10x easier to beat 9Beard, and was also very convenient to combine with ST Zoro.

Going into store champs(https://twitter.com/Cross_Aii/status/1678195453815291905?s=20) I decided to try 0 Bege, because of a Bege-less build that I saw bubble out and get 17th at a 1000+ Person Japanese championship:

I decided to bump Sanji to 2, in case there were any yellow players that tried to life-starve me. As you can see from the previous list instead of Bege there is Sabaody...

This card actually felt stronger than I expected.

• Made finding Film Brook or targets for Film Brook Easier
• Increased my chances of opening Searcher Nami
• Searches for Starter Nami
• Very defensive card as I had 5 2k Units and Chopper to search as well

While the card was stronger than I expected, I ultimately determined that Bege was better. While Bege was unnecessary to beat 9Beard, it felt sketchy to not have at least 6 low cost blockers against red and yellow. Even though I almost never place two low cost blockers at the same time against Red, just increasing the chances of seeing the first blocker is fairly important.

I think it's also worth showing the second place 1000+ Asia Championship Film Brook List from Team SeafoodKing Player, Alfred

As you can see ,this list is fairly similar to the main Film brook list I tested. He opted for 3 ST Zoro, for the same reason I did in my V1 Film Brook List, the card is incredible anti FF tech, it does also happen to be a very strong attacker against Whitebeard as well .This deck getting second place in OPO4 in Asia is pretty insane, and I believe it demonstrates the potential of Film Brook.

In regards to future Film brook lists, I think it's important to include Hawkins to keep up with the mirror and Strawbeard, and I think a 1-Of 8Kid might have potential as a clean punish to Zoro, if they abuse too many resources by trying to fire fist two 5k units, two 6K units, or if they use more than 1 fire fist.

The Standard Law List (V1?) [Added: July 15 11:30 PM PST]

If I currently played a "Standard" Law List, I would expect it to look something like this. Vista is strong for having a unit to play early against Zoro, and also pops any crazy tech cards like Blamenco, or punishes a Gordon that was played on turn 2. ST Nami is also no longer necessary because we run less cards that require don, and quadruple 9Beard is not longer in the meta(this list would be significantly different with 9Beard in the meta).

This card is also extremely strong for the mirror match, while Hawkins normally diffs the mirror match if it can be played on time. Rush Luffy steals games from the Law mirror due to it's ability to ignore blockers. Rush Luffy can also close out difficult games against Black, and could also be strong against this season's Strawbeard, which runs 4+ Blockers.

This version of Law is still one of the strongest, it's fairly cookie cutter and simple, I am just trying to figure out ways to handle the Zoro matchup better, and I think the current main answers are 1-2 8Kid, or a Film Brook type of list, but I will experiment more and find out what the bet version(s) are.

Film Brook Law V2 (Added: July 27th)

Film Brook Law V2.5 (Added: July 28th)

(I forgot to include 14 targets for Dadan zzz)

July 28th Note: I decided to add in a 5th Zoro, if there's too many non counters I would go back to Vanilla Robin

This is the next version of Film Brook I want to test. I have never ran Vista in Film Brook before, but I think it's about that time of the year we have to include it.

With these two cards rising in popularity, the importance of Vista is greater than ever before. With Zoro running an insane removal, based on my lists, and Noel's lists from Team Seafood King(https://twitter.com/Dobogeee/status/1684402307692388353?s=20), I think that the attempt to play 8 Cost Kid is officially dead, and we have to switch over to Film Brook and Vista.

• Pops debuff units like Gordon and Blamenco(prevents them from hard playing it on their turn 2, and then saucing us up by combining it with Fire Fist on turn 3)
• Combos with Otama to pop 5k bodies like Debuff Brook(picture shown above) and other pesky attackers
• Takes attention away from our searchers we play early on because Zoro wants to remove this as soon as possible
• Strong in mirror

It's unfortunate I had to reduce the amount of 2ks, but the inclusion of Vista is TOO important to me. If you have to play more 2ks I would probably take Film Brook down to 2, and drop a copy of one of the 3 Cost Straw Hats But as I've said in this article and in my Master Guide to Law, attackers are very important against Zoro and being able to field two at once is insane.

If anyone has had good success against the new removal Zoro decks with Law, let me know. I'm always looking for new ideas, and new ways to make Law good against Zoro, so we can officially be the best deck again!

-------------------------

That's it for this article, watching Pedro Rodriguez get top 4 in my Law stream has inspired me to unquit Law and I will be testing these decks(primarily into Zoro) very soon!

If you messed with the article please drop a like, so others know to check it out. And with that being said I'm going to bed, I'll answer questions soon haha.

Question and Answer [Added: July 25th 11:00 AM PST]

Isn't 8 Cost Kid weak against Yellow?

(This card instantly removes Kid)

8 Cost Kid is traditionally weak against Yellow. But Law is strong against Yellow, so it does not matter that 8Kid is in the deck! It's also important to note that Yellow tends to send Blocker Law to life on their 8/9 Don turn. So if you play 8Kid on the turn after, they'll be required to have another Katakuri, or if they have Katakuri and 10 Mom in their hand, they have to give up on their 10 Mom turn.

I can't stress enough that, the main reason Kid is even viable in the first place is for punishing the opponent using too much removal or being unlucky and drawing too little removal. If you're against Yellow they need to have a 2nd Katakuri and they lose their 10Mom turn, or you don't have to use it in the first place. Against Lucci, they have to have reducer + Destruction Card, and you can still make the Kid turn worth it by playing Rush Zoro off 8Kid and rushing the opponent down, rather than trying to play tower defense.

Against Zoro in particular you beat the no hyper aggro players who play no removal, and you beat the players who use 1-2 Fire Fist too early.

I don't know whether 8 Cost Kid Law is the best Law build right now or not, but I do know that the build is fairly strong. How you use or don't use 8 Cost Kid Law in each match up will be key to playing the deck to it's full potential.

Is Film Brook ever dead in hand?

Yes, Film Brook has the same problem that 4K Nico Robin had in set one, both cards are very strong when played on time, but if you don't play them on time or you're against the wrong match up they accumulate in the hand very quickly. With that being said, the reason I have committed to running so many copies of Brook is because of my expectations against Fire Fist Zoro. Normally I would have more 2ks in place of Film Brook, but I decided to reduce the 2k count because of how much I need an answer to Zoro. After I further test the list,  I will have a better understanding of how many Film Brook and Film Brook targets I need to consistently keep up with Zoro. If the Zoro matchup is just doomed, then I may reduce Brook all together.

(https://onepiece.limitlesstcg.com/decks/2 : One of NA's best Law players going through it against Zoro)

Your Film Brook List only has 13 Dadan Targets, should I just run Sabaody?

This card is strong because it is another way to search for Starter Nami, and it makes seeing Film Brook by turn 2/3, a lot more consistent. My main issue when testing it half a month ago was that it made my 9Beard matchup significantly worse. If you read my guide to Law then you know that every don matters every single turn against 9Beard, because you quite literally have to whittle their hand as much as possible, and as fast as possible.

With 9Beard being out of the format it may be worth testing Sabaody again.

I will also say that I accidentally included only 13 targets for Dadan and I will revise the list. I hate the idea of having less than 14 copies for any searcher in general, but this concept applies especially to Law.