One Piece Fundamentals - How To Take Life(Damage) (Patreon)

(Zoro knows how to take damage effectively)

At the GenCon TCG Tournaments in Indiana, I learned some new card games for the first time in a while. One of the games in particular, Dragon Ball Super Fusion World(a new version of the DBS card game), was a little confusing for me to wrap my head around at first. Me and Jackson Hoang were playing against each other (https://twitter.com/ClydeTCG/status/1687882080372264960?s=20) and we had no idea what was going on! Everything was Rush Zoro(all the units had rush lmao), we started with like 8 life, we were able to awaken(go super-saiyan) at like 5 life, and we had no idea what to do with all this information. I decided that I was going to take the One Piece approach of taking life/defending and managed to barely squeak out the game against Jackson, even though I had the worst deck.

I thought about that game and how I played One Piece after, and realized that how you take life is directly linked to winning or losing the game! Obviously everyone loses once they are attacked at 0 life, but an attack you decided to take damage from(or defend) at the start of the game, or at 4 life, or at 3 life, etc. may be one of the primary causes of you winning or losing that game.

Card Advantage

There are 3 main ways to draw cards in One Piece.

• 1.) You draw a card at the start of your turn
• 2.) You use a searcher or a draw event
• 3.) You take a card from your life to your hand

Everyone knows about 1.) and 2.) and knows that they are essential to playing and winning the game, but many people unconsciously take 3.) for granted.

(The Leader in this example should be Yellow Katakuri)
Let's look at this board state here. Zoro has 5 cards in hand, and 5 cards in life. While Yellow Katakuri has 7 cards(Going to 8 Next turn) and 4 life in hand. Do I attack with Rush Zoro this turn?

THE ANSWER IS (the vast majority of the time) NO!!! This also applies to the concept of not wanting to rest Bonney too early while playing Red/Green Law, or not wanting to attack with Dadan or Izou too early(Buggy is an exception when going against Slash characters/leaders). If we rest our units TOO EARLY, we will lose the resource game. Instead of having a normal progression of the game where we take a certain amount of life and then start being cautious of defending, instead we will either lose the unit on the board or cards out of hand, and we will have taken zero life. The correct play this turn was either to play Dadan, or play Rush Zoro and leave it standing. Rush is a keyword meant for the mid-to-late game, not the start of the game. And using rush incorrectly is definitely one of the most common reasons for losing.

Let's look also look at this situation from the "illuminati" Patreon chat in the discord.

This patron's turn flow was

• Zoro T1 Buggy
• Lucci T1 Brannew
• Zoro T2 Dadan + Second Buggy (Attack with leader, Lucci goes to 4 life)
• Lucci T2 Kuzan (Lucci attacks leader, Zoro goes to 4 life)
• Zoro T3 Fire Fist Kuzan and Brannew(Swing 6 with Leader, Swing 5 with Buggy)
• Lucci T3 Kaku destroys a Buggy(Leader attacks the rested Buggy, and Zoro is only left with Dadan)
• Zoro T4 Jet Pistol Kaku (Leader attacks Lucci)

Let's stop here. From what we can see Zoro remained at 4 life, while losing units on the board. The progression of the game was actually really solid, he had three 3K attackers, and was able to clean up two attackers(that could have swung into board) with Fire Fist! But this position got significantly fumbled, because he decided to atack with Buggy on turn 3(Zoro T3). Now imagine this:

• Zoro T3 Fire Fist Kuzan and Brannew(Swing 7 with leader, all units remain standing)
• Lucci T3 Kaku destroys a Buggy(Leader attacks Zoro, Zoro now has 3 life and 2 units)
• Zoro T4 Jet Pistol Kaku(Lucci has no attackers on board) (Leader attacks Lucci for 6, Buggy and Dadan swing for 5K. Alternatively, Leader attacks for 6K, Makino buffs Buggy and another 1 drop is played, etc)

We are now in a significantly better position than the previous scenario. Not only did we manage to maintain more attackers on the board, but we also drew an additional card out of life, allowing us to keep up with Lucci's destruction!!

Such tiny decisions resulted in such huge differences in both of these examples. In both scenarios, by attacking too early, the leaders would have drained our resources, and then destroyed us in the span of 1-3 turns.

Even looking at Whitebeard, many people thought that this leader was going to be mediocre on release(because it went to 0 life too early). But turns out the defensive capabilities of being a 6K leader, and the resource advantages of having an extra life and being able to draw 6 additional cards faster than any other deck, are too strong.

TL:DR: When you defend too early, not only are you not drawing resources from life, but you are LOSING them(whether that's losing a unit on the board, discarding cards to defend a unit on the board, or defending life)

When to Start Defending?

Just as taking too little life will result in too little resources, taking too much life will result in a stomachache.

Imagine you're playing against Kid, if you go to 1-2 Life too early, you may lose the game to 12K double swings on the next turn, or 2 turns in a row.

Imagine you're playing against Whitebeard. If you go to 1-2 life too early, you will be met with a barrage of 6-7K+ attacks, while Whitebeard defends his life like there's no tomorrow.

Etc, Etc. Now, let's actually talk about when to start defending life.

Life Thresholds

Every player should be comfortable taking about 2 life, before they become concerned with defending their life/characters. (The main exception to this rule is against Whitebeard, where I normally take 1 life[This will be the Whitebeard players 2nd turn of going first, or their 2nd turn of going second] and then begin to start 2K countering a lot of their 6K attacks, because their units are so much stronger).

I typically don't mind going down to 2 life, but I start attacking with characters while I'm at 3 life, and make sure I have enough defense so I don't go from 3 life to 1 in the same turn!

• 3 Life - This is where I become comfortable with attacking/resting my own units. We've already drawn 2 cards out of life, so we can defend units and characters without giving up too many resources!
• 2 Life - This is the perfect amount of life to be at in terms of resources(we've drawn 3 cards out of life, which is huge), but is also the perfect amount of life for the opponent to develop a plan to defeat us. At this point, I wouldn't even think about not attacking the opponent aggressively, unless there's blockers you want to keep standing!
• 1 Life - This is the most dangerous life amount to be at(unless you're Red/Green Law, since they have a billion blockers. Most games actually end from 1 life rather than 2. At this point in the game, you need to either A.) Pressure the opponent with the most don you can, while leaving up the least amount of resources to make sure you don't lose the game next turn, or B.) Determine that you can't defend your life next turn, and use all of your don and events to try to win the game on the spot. REMEMBER: MOST Games end from you getting otk'd at 1+ Life, RATHER THAN you living on 0 life for a turn

This is an advanced concept, so I won't talk too much about it, but when you're at 1 life, you should literally be counting what kind of attacks the opponent can do to kill you. Generally the opponent making a certain amount of attacks that are 2K+ power above your own leader, will be how they kill you.

Example:

If the board states like this, I only have 5K counter in hand, one blocker and one life. 5K counter means that i can guard a 9K attack, Blocker means that I can block one attack. And one life also means I can block one attack. Knowing my hand, I know that if my opponent swing 9s with Marco, Ace, and then 10K with Whitebeard Leader and 10K with Whitebeard Character or if he swings 7ks+ with Izou, Makino, Ace, I won't be able to win the game(only way I could win is if I hit Punk Gibson out of life, but if he swings 7K+, that won't even be enough). This is a perfect example of games ending from 1 Life, rather than me being at 0 for a turn!

With that knowledge, I understand that I am forced to try to win the game on the spot, and will try to make the best attacks possible to win the game.

(I was forced to go for game and managed to win)

Resource Starving

This is another advanced concept, so I won't go too in-depth(at least not in this article), but certain decks or certain people will try to not attack life in order to deny the opponent resources. The best way to counter this, is too only attack with leader!!! Leave your attackers on the board standing, and don't bother attacking with them until after the opponent begins to attack your life.

For this same reason, I would never guard the first attack to life(I've also already established that I generally always take 2 life at the start of the game.) Imagine if you guard your opponent's first attack to life, and then they decide to just not attack you. Now you're astronomical, you've lost a card from hand, and you're drawing zero cards out of life lmao.

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This is it for the article for now, this is game knowledge I wish literally everyone knew, so I decided to make it free this time! Please like this article if it helped you out, so others know to read it. And for my patrons, let me know any other fundamentals you want me to discuss in our discord chat. With that being said, I'll catch ya'll in the next one, peace.

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Q&A (Question and Answer)

I under the example of Zoro vs Lucci, but are you sure you can't attack with Zoro Turn 2?

Funnily enough, I meant for the example to be Yellow Katakuri, Yellow Mom is one of the very few exceptions, where I think it is fine to attack with Zoro, because they can't efficiently clear Zoro the following turn.

Here's one of my Gorosei Patron's take on it(he's a very strong player):

And Here's what we agreed on:

My current opinion is that:

Swing

• Whitebeard - Zoro can attack turn 2 going second, because you can easily defend with 2K, and Zoro becomes worse and worse as the game goes on against Whitebeard
• Yellow Mom - It's fine to swing because they have to either play a 3/4 drop, and they can't swing for 7K like Katakuri
• Film Kid - Should be able to get away with it because they play a 3/4 drop, and don't have enough don to effectively clear Zoro

Don't Swing

• Law - Generally wouldn't swing with Zoro, because Otama punishes it too conveniently
• Green - Against Supernova Kid, they can starve you after making you waste resources defending Zoro, so I wouldn't do it
• Black - They can starve you after making you waste resources defending Zoro, so I wouldn't do it, but you can probably get away with it against most Black players. (They could Kaku you if they leave it standing, but I'd rather force them to have Kaku AND meet it's requirements that early in the game)
• Yellow Katakuri - Wouldn't do it because Katakuri can swing at Zoro for 7K with one don
• Blue Doffy - Doffy attacks into Zoro for 7K while producing a body

The general consensus between me and Dativv is that you just shouldn't play the rush Zoro at all as a turn 2 play. The reason I brought this up is because some players would rather play Rush Zoro, than establish dadan, buggy, etc. But if Zoro was my only play, I'd hard play it and keep it standing against most matchups, or I'd attack with it against certain matchups as mentioned above.

If I am attacked by a Whitebeard Player swinging 5K with Izou, should I defend it?

Yes, you should generally defend it. While I like to take 2-3 damage before I start defending, I don't like to take 2 hits on the same turn in the early game. The reason for this, is if my opponent starts swinging big numbers for the rest of the game after that, I'm at a huge loss. It's the same reason that I start defending my life when I get to 4 against Whitebeard, the threat of being hit by big numbers for the rest of the game is too great.

More Whitebeard Tech: If the Whitebeard player attacks me for 6K on their turn, and I have my play for next turn(5Marco if I'm playing Zoro for example), it's fine to guard. Whether you guard this early depends is on a deck-by-deck basis, but a lot of matchups are fine guarding Whitebeard's attacks relatively early. I would experiment with this, as it could significantly raise your winrate against Whitebeard! (Law is one of the decks off the top of my head, that I don't defend too early against Whitebeard with. But in theory, if my hand was perfect I could/would)

Wise Words from Cole(Infinite Money Glitch) and Regional Champ Shayne(Infinite Nuts Uwu)