Guida di NebulusTCG

Against the Big Mom package your win condition is to create a board advantage and stabilize the game in a fashion where they will not be able to kill you, but you are slowly whittling their life and cards in hand down as you clear the cards that they play/come out of life triggers.

While they are spending their Don developing 1 big body or developing 1 undersized body you will remove, their leader swings usually range from 5k to 7k which is just 1 card. This is primarily achieved through Yasopp in the mid-game and Shanks+Decken in the late game. I will cover the specific ways this helps in a later section.

Robin is a deck that is focused on ramping to 10 don to play their 10c Charlotte Linlin before the opponent can establish anything of equal might in response.

Players who have picked Robin to play the Big Mom package are sacrificing the defense/free ramp of other leads for the Banish effect on theirs. They want to tax the opponent with Banish swings every turn which can also lead to their opponent misplaying in response as the keyword is very uncommon.

However on the flip side they are forced to trash a card in order to ramp which can lead to their hand size being lower than other decks like PY Pudding.

Versus PY Robin I like going Second to force them to triple ramp for their 10c Linlin.

Going second also allows your curve to be smoother with a less demanding hand to play "perfect" curve. We should hard mulligan for Yasopp as it changes our winrate in this MU significantly. Regardless of whether or not we go first or second we will always reach our 10 don turn of Shanks+Decken one turn after them.

In order to truly take advantage of being at 10 don one turn ahead, they need to slam down 2 Big Mom's BACK TO BACK. With few decks running the 1c Pudding that searches 5 cards at a 4x and most only running the 1c Streusen & Brulee 2ks that searches 3 cards at a total of 4-8x, it is EXTREMELY unlikely they are able to play down 2 back to back.

Not only this, if we make them go first they need to see one of their unsearchable 4x Yamato ramp cards (current common decklists).

By going second they remove this second requirement entirely as they can simply trash two cards from their hand to ramp to 10 Don. By choosing second we force them to hit this low chance and smoothly play our ideal curve while getting an extra card for to turn our draw engine online.

In their first 7 cards (10 if they play 3c Pudding and 11 they take one life) they need to see one of their Yamatos as well as multiple Big Mom's to follow.

Without any disruptions from the Mihawk player, the Robin going first should have 1 blocker and at least 1 8k offensive bodies not including any triggers from life on their first 10 Don turn.

Going second it should be the same whether that's 2 8k bodies from healing or 1 blocker to save a card and 1 body (usually Pudding to draw cards). If they high roll Yamato turn 2 into 2x Pudding they can sometimes have 3 bodies.

So then how do we respond to this? IF we have Yasopp going first we can IMMEDIATELY rest either their 4k body or blocker and kill it with one of our searchers+leader swing. Then on 7 Don we can either use 6Law to bounce a card and play a second Yasopp or bounce or Yasopp to IMMEDIATELY rest and clear the second body they've played.

On 9 Don we simply repeat the process except we are responding to any trigger bodies they spawn out of life. We should swing with our bodies first before we spend any of our Don to ensure any threat is first taken care of before we prepare to survive and respond to a potential 2x 10c Big Mom.

At this point we are not too worried about them countering or taking life we just want to begin whittling their resources down.

On their first 10 Don turn they ideally should just be swinging their leader for a measly 5k which is only possible because of Yasopp.

Oden would've stopped one of these attacks but we would still need to face at least 1 8k powered extra if not more from triggers.

Going second they will be able to establish a body before we can respond with Yasopp but the prior inconsistency usually makes up for this.

As a response & skill check from our end we really want to have multiple searchers rested to tempt them into swinging 4 at 2 to prevent us from drawing. If they do so we should be able to wipe out 2 of their bodies in one turn allowing us to reach a similar state as our ideal going first curve where they only heal and swing 5k on their first 10 Don turn.

If this happens OR they don't hit their perfect curve (triple ramp) you shouldn't be forced to take any 8k swings either and can respond to their turn 4 body with a turn 5 10c Shanks to rest and swing into it.

If they do hit perfect curve you should prepare a Don or life for a counter event to soak the first hit. You generally want to be taking the last 3 life cards to hand and stabilizing at 1 life.

The above reasons is why Yasopp is so important for us to find because we can proactively respond to their plays and preemptively remove the 8k bodies before they get boosted by 10 Mom.

Not only that Yasopp also restands himself which prevents them from playing 3 Sweet Generals and clearing them. Without lucky 8c Teach triggers or teching in cards like Zeus or Black Rope Dragon Twister (turn skips or much weaker turns), our Yasopp army will constantly restand and attack their board without repercussions.

This is in contrast the original general strategy for Mihawk of continuously establishing another Law+Oden while hitting face which is dragging the Sim wr stats down.

So what if they do hit their perfect curve on either side AND THEN play 2 Big Mom's back to back?

Undoubtedly you are in a tough spot but it is still winnable due to their reliance on board presence from triggers. You should prepare enough Don for counter events or blockers to survive the first 2 10 Don turns. By turning around and completely focusing our swings on their board, we not only neuter their offence but also can force them to counter for a 4k body rather than their 5k leader.

If you see a rested 10c Big Mom and DONT need to play a 10c Shanks to rest and clear their bodies, you can simply play Decken the Big Mom and then bounce him back to hand with 6Law to establish a Yasopp (rest standing body) or Oden (prevent swing if you can't full clear). Now your opponent will be forced to hit the THIRD Big Mom or they will fall into the same weakness as before where we are able to whittle their resources and eventually just swing our 10c Shanks (PLURAL) to clear their 8c Teach.

In these spots will need to have a board wide enough to swing 6 at 4 enough times that they don't feel it is worth to counter for their weenies.

If they God Roll triggers or you miss Yasopp and play Oden, then you need to push damage to their face hard so they either don't feel safe enough to play multiple Big Mom's in a row. Also if they have a full board due to keeping it fully standing, you should swing at their leader with as many extra swings as you can.

If they have high rolled into 2 4k bodies from hand and 2k 4k trigger bodies accompanying their Big Mom, you need to swing their life and force them to counter with any extra swings.

They will be reluctant to take life as any triggers hit at these times will be "wasted" bodies and they will clear their own board for us.

If they have these 4 4ks+Big Mom on your 8 Don turn to their 10, we should engage our searchers in the attacks on their bodies.

Expecting at least 1 6k body left on the board (your first Oden was cleared by one of the 3 8k swings) vs their 3 rested 4ks and a standing 4k I would usually begin with a 5 from lead and then consider how many weenie swings I can involve in the attack.

Your standing 6 law should clear a body and your next Oden from hand should put their standing body on hold.

This means that with the leader swing & weenie swing you should be able to restrict their attack to just 1 12k and (maybe but usually not) 1 8k.

Going first this is much simpler as you should have a 6k from 5 don, 2 from 7 don, and on 9 don you probably could've kept at least 2/3 6k's which allows you to clear their bodies more easily.

So in practice the concept of using extra swings if they have 1 standing 4k, 3 rested 4ks and 1 12k to your 3 6ks you can use your leader swing to attack their face before proceeding with your turn and demanding a 1k counter.

No matter what once they start the Big Mom chain you MUST SWITCH your focus to controlling their board as your win condition is playing a long game with a value advantage from your bodies being 6k on defense vs their 4ks.

With the same concept of using extra swings you should start your turns with 5k's to lead if it's unlikely they will be able to protect their 4k's in any scenario. As they are unlikely to take these tiny 5k swings you can begin whittling down their resources whilst controlling their board.

The first thing when it comes to whittling their resources is whether or not Charlotte Oven can summon a Pudding.

Allowing them to go +2 in hand goes directly against our general gameplan and should only be done AFTER we have cleared their first pair of big bodies if they do come down. An Oven+Pudding combination should be Oden'd rather than Yasopp'd but you should swing 5 with lead FIRST to check for a trigger body that is NOT Oven. Also if Oven has no Pudding in trash you should feel free to

The easiest way to ensure you will survive Robin's clapback is to count the number of swings they can potentially have and have enough life+blockers to survive. Because Robin doesn't run unblockable (as of now) you can stabilize behind 6c Law as a standing blocker to prevent them from swinging huge numbers or to soak the 12k attack from Big Mom.

Usually though Law simply does not live to this point unless you are playing it against them to bounce a Decken when they hit their 2nd 10 Mom but miss their 3rd and swing their 2nd 10 Mom.

By not resting it you can prevent them from even sending lethal and lowering the eventual amount of counter you will need to maintain your life amount.

Knowing that you will be spending your don in other ways whether it's for counter, Decken, Luna, or cycling with Boat, you can and SHOULD swing with your bodies before you play your 10c Shanks that rests everything on their board. This allows you to advance your goal of whittling away their hand and life while making it easier for you to jam a big swing into their 10k & 12k bodies.

If their Big Mom is able to survive while they also trigger out standing bodies you will need to counter out of an 8k you could've preemptively removed for free.

By swinging 5k's BEFORE you play 10c Shanks you allow you to proactively remove the potential 8k swings.

The amount of swings at face AFTER you play Shanks if they let everything go should always be capped at 1. When you decide to attack lead BEFORE Shanks, you should have at least 3 excess swings (including your 10c Shanks swing and a potential weenie 5k) compared to the number of bodies they have.

If they have 2 4k bodies you need to kill and you have 3 6ks, 1 2k, and leader on board, you can comfortably swing at least your leader at their face asking for a 1k.

If they trigger a body then you can swing your 3 6k's and maybe a 5k with your 2k at their NOW 3 4k bodies.

Thus your excess swing at face AFTER Shanks is capped at 1. In this situation if I don't need to push life or if I need to have counter events available I would spend the 3 restanding Don cycling/drawing cards instead of attaching to a weenie to swing larger or again.

As a general rule of thumb count 3 excess swings to board BEFORE Shanks. If you only have 2 excess swings compared to their board and they trigger a body off your first excess swing, without access to to the 3 restanding don they merely have to give a 2k and 1k to get either 2 2ks or a 4k event from you in response.

These scenarios are without usage of restood Don but if opponent has a Don for GGG, they could send a surprise lethal by spending extra counter to protect a 4k body.

We want to swing at this 4k body multiple times so the combined total of counter they're "wasting" is more than just 1k.

Do not forget that Robin's strength with this package is that she still has access to the most broken card of the past, GUM GUM GIANT.

As we whittle down their resources with our extra 5's and 6's to face, eventually we should reach the point where we can simply clear the 12k body by swinging multiple 12k's + a 16k/17k or multiple 14ks based on the # of cards in their hand.

To maximize value against GGG when swinging at a Big Mom with Don upyou have two scenarios:

Because 10 Mom is such a large body you can realistically only achieve 1 of these two scenario to swing and clear it if you are unable to Decken this 10 Mom you are swinging at.

In the late game if it's the only Big Mom left swinging just a 12k at 12k you can also scare them into giving it early and saving you at least 2 cards of 1k counter each which is necessary to further your goals for point 1. The other known optimization for GGG is simply to completely flatten your swings by adding your don to weenies or stack it tall into 9k swings.

When whittling resources you often are able to fully control their board to a point where it doesn't make sense to utilize Luna and simply stop 1 or 2 bodies.

As you reach the end game and they are just scrambling to survive by playing heal/draw instead of 10 Mom's, you can change your gameplan to begin rushing for game. It's at this point Luna can show insane value by stopping a board of 4 8k power bodies.

In these scenarios without 10 Mom you can just swing all your bodies at board without adding extra Don, play 10c Shanks to rest all the triggers they just got, and then play Luna to freeze their board. This means that their maximum damage they can do to you will either be a 9 10 split of 10 Don among leader+the body they triggered out from your last 10c Shanks swing, or 10 Mom to burn your last life and swing 5 8.

If you decide to rush down the opponent they will have an excess of cards in their hand, a multitude of 8k bodies they played for FREE from their life, and you will have no cards in hand as you have trashed them to prevent her from healing.

This game plan is BAD because to win: A your opponent needs to get extremely unlucky on triggers, B miss 10 Mom, and C you need to top deck or avoid them trashing your most key cards in your tiny 3-7 card hand. This is a very inconsistent strategy which has led the sim stats to say this MU is extremely unfavored. Unfortunately for my devout Yellow enthusiast friends, my gameplan allows Mihawk to win over 80% of the time even going first.

So what's the winning gameplan?

Following the advice from the PY Robin guide on how to beat the Big Mom package, you can limit the maximum amount of damage that they can do to you every turn through board control. By holding your 10c Shanks to respond to their 8 & 10 cost bodies as they come down, you can overwhelm them with the width of your board while smoothly clearing every body they play. For this purpose I almost always choose for them to trash a second card and heal a life to minimize their cards in hand so I can easily just swing at their 10 Mom to clear it with Shanks. Unlike the PY decks playing the Big Mom package, you are always able to respond to their 10 Mom as they play it down.

If they play it without having at least 2 8k bodies to follow up, they are effectively spending their entire turn to just heal 1 life for 10 don.

This means that any Linlin player who is brainlessly playing their 10 Mom's as they see them simply because they are at 6+ life will get EXTREMELY punished by a Shanks+Decken combo.

As the Linlin will be healing so much throughout the game, you can be taking anywhere from 2-4 Life of their life in one turn with a full board.

As their deck is over 50% triggers, this means that they will very quickly fill their board up if you constantly swing life. Fortunately you have access to 10c Shanks to quickly resolve this situation.

Referring to the section on counting excess swings in the PY Robin guide, make sure to count how many swings you will need to attack and clear their board before you play out your 10c Shanks. IF they get unlucky and only hit 1 trigger, you can even play 6Law+Yasopp to rest their 1 trigger and kill it which is a safer turn compared to 10c Shanks as you are establishing a VERY relevant blocker(Linlin doesn't run unblockable RN).

The other card that allows you to deal with the mass of trigger bodies is the devil's weapon, ELECTRICAL LUNA.

So how do we determine when to begin sending lethal with Luna? You can equate each 10c Shanks on board to 1 life taken and with each turn you should be establishing ANOTHER Shanks that will swing.

This means that we can figure out when to send lethal by counting the number of Luna's we have and using that as the # of turns left (we are skipping 1 potential turn in case a Luna is randomly trashed from hand).

By purely attacking face and playing Shanks+Luna the damage dealt will increase per turn of Luna that you play. Thus if the total damage dealt by the Shanks is more than Linlin's current life total+Luna, you can guarentee lethal.

Their effective life you need to get through is calculated by combining their current life total combined with the amount of turns they get to play because you are assuming that they will heal once per Luna turn from the character they play but not their leader.

For example if you have 1 Shanks on board and only 2 Lunas, the number of turns left to play is 2(in case you lose a Luna). This turn you will swing your entire board and leader at face, then play Shanks+Luna and attack once more at face.

Next turn assuming that you have been forced to trash your Luna for their leader effect, you will send lethal on this turn before their entire board of 8k's restand.

So the total # of Shanks swings is 2 from the first turn of Shanks+Luna, and 3 from this turn.

If your opponent started this entire sequence with just 3 Life, you can assume you have guaranteed lethal because you are swinging at them for at least 5 12k's while they only healed one time from their turn after your first Luna.

If they play an 8c or 10c you need to clear by swinging 14 with Shanks, you can safely assume in most circumstances that the other swings from your board+leader will suffice for it.

The purpose of determining when you can begin to push lethals based off Luna is a method of GUARANTEE'ING yourself the win.

If you have failed elsewhere in the gameplan and you simply need to send it as the 5k/8k swings from Oven are beginning to overwhelm you please do just send lethal.

Or if they have so few cards in hand that even 5's and 6's from your board/leader are going through you also don't need to wait.

As stated in the section covering Yasopp in the PY Robin guide, this card allows you to proactively disrupt the Big Mom package's midgame gameplan.

Due to how long the games against Y Linlin run you are able to get a lot of value from this card as it restands itself which makes it immune to removal by the Sweet 3 Generals' power reduction.

The 6k statline lends itself perfectly to KO'ing their rested 4k bodies as this deck runs no counter events and is loathe to give you 2 cards for a body smaller than their leader. Hard mulligan for this card as this combined with just 1 6c Law can completely wipe their board leading into their 10 Mom turn.

While Decken is an ELITE card at removing 10c Big Mom from play, the nature of this MU means that when they 10c Big Mom comes down they have already attacked at least 3 times which requires them to trash 6 cards to heal 3 life.

This means that a 16k from a Shanks at the Big Mom will often times get through especially when you decide to swing with your extra smaller bodies (read excess swings section in the PY Robin Guide).

If they take these swings without careful consideration then you will be able to remove any value they would've gotten from their triggers. If they counter then they leave themselves vulnerable to a 16k at 12k.

This requires 3 out of their usually 4-5 card hand at this point of the game.

As long as you won't die on the following turn I would advise keeping the 2 cards of counter in your hand and instead jamming a big swing at 10 Mom which should achieve the same effect of killing it.

It's definitely critical to have Decken as AN option in your hand but I don't believe it is the PREMIER option in order to remove Big Mom.

As I said earlier, on curve it can be your only punish to a thoughtless Big Mom. I would still recommend trying to keep at least 2 Decken's in your hand during your 10+ Don turns in case you decide to switch to pushing lethal and need it to KO any big bodies the opponent decides to play down.

This card allows Linlin to completely negate one turn of your double development for just 6 don as the card KO's a 6 cost and a 5 cost.

However, the activation condition is quite easy to play around as it requires either more bodies on your board compared to theirs AND to have a facedown life. Not only does the activation give you information as to whether or not their next life in a trigger (allowing you to choose to rest leader for Kin'emon or characters for Samurai), it also prevents them from using it again the very next turn.

The other way to play around it is by minimizing the number of unnecessary bodies on your board. If you don't need to search for a play on the following turn you can avoid playing down a Perona you just bounced for example.

Removing your Yasopp & 6 Law is of the highest priority for them so try to make it as difficult as possible.

Boa has 2 leader effects which are both extremely relevant to her gameplan.

The first one essentially allows her to draw a card for every trigger she utilizes which means that she doesn't lose hand size in exchange for using the trigger effect. She is able to play bodies from life at no cost to her hand or Don which makes her a very strong deck when stacking life. This is the primary reason why people feel frustrated playing against Boa as she will spend cards and Don stacking her life to trigger out bodies that heal her more.

Then instead of having a permanent cost on her hand, she gets those cards in hand refunded through the cards being played.

For example if she spends 2 cards (1 to stack life think OP11 5c Nami, 1 card to heal 5c Borsalino), she will 1 of the cards immediately refunded by the card draw and the other refunded by not having to give you at least a 1k counter to not die.

Her second effect essentially acts as board protection which disincentivizes people from killing her board. Once per turn when a Kuja/Amazon type character is KO'd she can burn one of our life which can scare people into leaving her board alone completely. This effect is especially annoying when combined with the fact that she plays many units that have the blocker key word attached to put this burn life effect under her control.

There's a cost of having a Don attached to leader but as most of her early-mid game cards attach Don to leader, this will never come up against a competent Boa player.

Make sure to check for Don attached regardless in these times as you may be able to score a surprise KO through Yasopp on a trigger body like Marigold.

Fortunately for you as well, Mihawk is able to ignore the second effect in two ways: 1. Freezing the opponents units so you don't have to worry about KO'ing them, 2. Take all your life so there's no life to burn.

My preferred gameplan vs Boa is to take life quickly down to 0 and stabilize behind at least 1 6c Law. As each life can be corroborated to the amount of counter you would save compared to actually protecting it (i.e taking a 7k means you saved 3k counter from hand), you want to minimize the amount of life that is burned from on play's or Boa leader's board protection deterrent. You should always expect a 9c Boa to be played on the first 9/10 Don turn which will be utilized to take your last life. DO NOT waste your cards trying to prevent this scenario as she can easily force this scenario by blocking your attacks with 5k/6k power blockers like 5c Marigold and 4c Boa.

Instead anticipate that you will be 0 life by turn 5 or 6 and maximize your 5 life's value by either taking lives or killing key units.

As mentioned the primary gameplan in the late game is to stabilize behind a 6c Law to deter them from jamming 15k to our face.

As Boa decks CAP their unblockable event at 2 copies, having a 6c Law means they must find one of these copies AND commit their entire turn to trying to kill us. By constantly applying pressure to their life and establishing a wide board, you can force them to only use this option when they are extremely desperate. As the Mihawk player you must always have either the counter or Don standing to counter out of their 15-17k power unblockable swing. By dissuading them from this option and coercing them into fighting a long and losing attrition war against you, you are able to control the pace of the game as they spend all their Don every turn on stacking their life to prevent themselves from dying.

So then what is the 6 Law's role in all of this? As they submit themselves to this long grind, they are obligated to spend anywhere from 5 to all 10 don on healing or stacking their life and then healing.

Since their board is being controlled either through KO or Luna, the only attack you need to expect is from a 5k or 6k from their leader.

Your 6 Law will act as an essential blocker in these scenario's to either free block their leader swing or make it cost just 1 1k counter.

Constantly accruing a free card or 1k counter allows you to consistently defeat Boa in the attrition war as you will be resting/freezing her board while she will have to counter out of your numerous 5/6k swings whilst you free block/1 card counter out of her singular leader swing. Ensure that you have ONE standing 6 Law blocker once you are at 0 life at all times. If they have a body or multiple bodies (usually should be max 2) that can attack I would recommend you keep 2 standing.

Boa doesn't run any rush cards so once they use their extra swings (compared to # of standing 6 Law's), make sure to use their blocker effects to save yourself counter.

commit the majority of the counter in our deck to even survive just one of these. Thankfully with the inclusion of 10c Shanks you can kill the 9c Boa's immediately as they come down so the largest singular swing you have to worry about is 17k power.

As we are very afraid of this potential 22k, make sure that you kill the 9c immediately or put them in a position where they are unable to safely play it down without dying. In my games vs Boa they often are only able to establish the singular one on turn 5 which promptly gets killed by Shanks+Decken or Shanks 17k.

As mentioned in the last section, pressuring Boa's life is very important to prevent them from safely playing down extra 9c Boa's.

Each extra 9c Boa means a more stringent requirement of your hand to actually have the 3 card combo to cleanly answer it.

This means it's IMPOSSIBLE to starve out Boa as they will slowly burn our life and threaten 22k for lethal. By lowering their life total they will also spend their Don to heal which reduces the counter required from you each turn.

Boa's often take their first two life at the start of the game with no resistance to gamble on any trigger bodies to instantly win them the game.

This makes it easy for us to pressure their later and we should make to sure to punish this habit by swinging 5k's with our weenies when we are unable to draw.

Even if they do trigger out Gorgon first life, we can kill it quickly with a big swing enabled by Yasopp.

By their first 9c Boa they should have a maximum of 2 Life maybe 3 if they healed with borsa on 7/8 Don and blocked with it immediately. Throughout the game make sure to attack before you spend all your Don drawing counter cards so they are incentivized to give the body immediately. Maintain flexibility as sometimes you NEED to kill one of their units instead of drawing more cards.

Boa runs a ton of blockers in their decklist which means that 1. you get extra value from resting/freezing them before they block, and 2. they will block 6k swings and let the body die early in anticipation of Shanks+Luna.

This makes board control for you very easy as you often won't even need the Luna since they will quickly block with all the extra bodies so you can then direct your non-excess swings towards clearing their board while threatening it.

The mere threat of Shanks+Luna opens up alternative options in the late to mid-game to establish more 6c Law's along with replaying existing Yasopp's & Oden's to interact with the last body on their board.

In situations where you are beginning to feel confident you will end the game soon, FIRST CHECK their cards in hand. This is a much better signal of how close you are to the end compared to their life total. Unfortunately we can't apply the same concept as is described in the Y Linlin guide because pushing for lethal versus Boa is so much more uncertain and messy.

Not only will you need to play your 10c Shanks at the beginning of turns to rest 2 blockers (often Borsa+Nami) to push for lethal, current iterations of the Boa deck run many triggers that either block or heal a life that can ruin your calculations.

This deck can easily heal 1 time, play 2 blockers, and set up 2 more heal triggers all in one turn which is equivalent to 5 life.

This is why I recommend to only Shanks+Luna out of necessity to live rather than to merely push damage which can start from my 2nd Shanks onwards.

When you play Luna you are also spending the Don you would usually keep standing for 4k events to easily counter out of the 15k unblockable attack so you actually don't want to spam Shanks+Luna if you can help it.

Boa can also trigger out bodies to dodge Luna so make sure to play it at the end of your turns to minimize their efficiency when they need to replace their own bodies.

This is the biggest enabler of the Boa gameplan as this allows the Boa player to scam up to 5 extra Don PER Gorgon Sisters on the field.

For example if the opponent has 4 bodies and plays a 9c Boa, they can use this effect on two different Gorgon's to attach all 9 Don used to play out the 9c Boa that turn. MAKE SURE TO KILL THIS CARD ASAP!!

This card is such an important enabler that I would always trade 1 life to kill this card by swinging 8k or 7k 7k in the early-mid game. This quickly changes the opponent's attacks to be multiple 6k+7k attacks every turn which will quickly lead to you losing the game if you have to counter multiple of them by the opponent's first 9c Boa.

They will often try to stack this as their first life which makes it a simple decision to rest it and remove it with Yasopp on 7/8 Don.

In the late game you should consider killing it even if it's being Luna'd if the extra attached Don will make the unblockable unguardable (i.e 15k power becomes 16k) or if they hit some lucky triggers which will gain +1k power from this card.

This is the deck's main boss monster which allows them to burn one of your life while healing one for yourself. If you are 2 life and they play this card you are effectively at 0 because you MUST KO this card to dodge the large unblockable attack. Once the card is KO'd you will take a life from their leader effect so try to be at 0 life before their 9 Don turn.

Them knowing this will try to tax you for cards by swinging your board instead of your life so be cautious with resting your board against a top player.

Most Boa players however, will simply swing out into your life on their 7/9 Don turn which usually ends up being taking life and giving 1 card for counter.

If they have no way to attach Don on their 9 Don turn then you can kill it for free and stay at 1 life for an extra turn.

This requires them to have a slow game where they triggered no bodies, you neutralized their earlier bodies (4c Zoro/Rayleigh on 5/7) and are swinging just 5k with leader on 9 Don.

You would have taken the swing on 3, 5, and 7 leaving you at 2 life so you should be able to judge whether or not they are able to attach a Don and maximize your punish for their slow game.

The trigger is whatever but if the opposing Boa is a thinking player who chose to leave a Don up, they are most likely playing this card. Make sure to play around it when you only have 1 very big character by attacking with it first. If you are going to play a 10c Shanks and intend to attack with it, use the other attacks before you play & attack with it.

Or just attack with the one you played first. This card only affects characters so you can save leader swing in those scenarios!

They've added 1k counter, 3c 4k Sanji's Pilaf as the buff from OP17. They may play this card down on 3/4 Don to draw but NEVER end up swinging with it.

You can ignore this card UNLESS they have a Gorgon, in which case they can use this to swing an extra 5. Add 2 Don to a weenie and clear it if you have nothing else to do. They DO NOT play 10 Mom so it is not a priority to clear since Boa very rarely has extra Don to add.

This leader can ramp 1x for free and can also utilize the Big Mom type locked characters like 6c 4k Katakuri.

However as this deck no longer runs any cards that help flip her life facedown, I don't think ramping 1 time for free is enough to overcome the benefit that Robin has with the Banish keyword and more consistent ramp .

Pudding faces the same issue as 10 Mom where without a double ramp card like It's to Die for I find it has a hard time reaching 10 don on an accelerated curve WITHOUT dedicated deck slots.

She mainly utilizes the 8c Katakuri I will cover below to restand her units so it's difficult for the opponent to trade back into her board.

Unfortunately for her, she is a giga victim of 10c Shanks as she lacks the counter from GGG to protect her key units once they've been rested by Shanks.

Pudding is actually the flimsiest decks amongst the yellow decks as her primary defensive tool is completely invalidated by 10c Shanks. She wants to generate defensive value with continuous free blocks from the 8c Kata but they are easily removed with even a 12k to 8k swing.

Refer to the Robin guide for general strategy but utilize the Yasopp to control the board.

Once the 10c Big Mom's are dead make sure you kill the 8c Katakuri so they are unable to free block your "excess swings" before you play your 10c Shanks. If they greedily block with 8c Katakuri early in your turn make sure to pop them with Decken then bounce it back to hand with 6 Law for the 10 Mom later. With the introduction of the fishmen this deck's main strength of 8c Kata is invalidated by proper ordering of your turn. SWINGS YOUR UNITS BEFORE YOU USE YOUR DON TO THREATEN DECKEN KO ON KATA!!!!

This is the core of her deck and what allows her to be strong into other decks since it can consistently block smaller swings for free while restanding itself and other Big Mom Pirates cards.

As it's not color locked it can restand the yellow cards in the Big Mom Package and allow them to continously get value. This is not an issue for Mihawk as you can simply kill everything else BEFORE you focus on this card.

Against Purple Kaido both sides are very favored but I believe that first is slightly better. Going first we are able to establish a Yasopp to get rid of any of their searchers/Yamato blocker. This Yasopp is also critical for 10+ Don turns so we can restand our 10c Shanks to keep it safe from 10c Linlin killing it. Going second they're much less likely to see King but it's significantly more potent for them if they can chain 10c Kaido into numerous 10c Linlins to respond to you.

The deck is obscenely inconsistent though so this has never happened to me.

You want to keep the King locked up in Oden jail so it can't swing at you until you start dropping your 10c Shanks. If they miss it then establish Yasopps instead so they are unable to swing into your rested bodies.

Their swings will mostly be 5 at 4 through the midgame so if you have curved out with 4 bodies going into your 10 Don turn where you need to respond to a 10c, let the body go and save the 2k.

You'll be replacing the body anyways with Decken to KO their 10c. If they starve themselves too hard by countering early swings (2 cards in their hand) you can just jam 17 with Shanks at their 10c body. This goes back to fundamentals of when to go board vs life.

MAXIMIZE the number of Decken combos you can do as that is your primary gameplan to win as they have no way to protect their big bodies. If you can Shanks+Decken every turn they will just lose too much value as every turn their big bodies On Play effects are not the strongest.

The backup plan with no Decken should be to let them swing their big bodies and then Decken+Law to bounce the Decken and play out an Oden to put the King back in jail.

In these scenarios keep your Law standing to be used as a blocker for these GIANT swings. Yasopp is the best 1k in this MU aside from going first on 5 Don.

You can force them to minus Don in uncomfortable positions to prevent any strong plays.

For example if they have 8 Don on board+King, often times if you swing a 6 at lead they will autopilot into LA'ing and going down to 7. At this point you can now swing at the King to force them to protect it by minus'ing another Don down to 6 and prevent them from playing a 10 drop even with King ability.

You can take this 1 step further and drop them down to 5 Don to prevent even a 9 drop from being played.

They run no mid-game bodies so they'll either be forced to counter or let their King go which can be devastating. The primary use of this is to prevent a 10 drop from coming down when you don't have a sufficient response (no Decken+Shanks or no Yasopp on board to restand Shanks).

If you know that you don't have enough Don to push a meaningful amount of damage, you can start with a 7 then use the remaining Don to YCBMS a standing body.

This is most useful on your 8/9 Don turn when they have already established a 10c Kaido blocker and they will probably be blocking 1/3 swings then using leader ability to deny the other. Make sure you swing with leader first while attaching no Don to see how they react. Then follow with a 7 from one of your bodies.

You can only get 1 attack through in these configurations so if they don't block or slow-slow beam, you can spend the rest of your Don on drawing cards with YCBMS or stage.

If they play blocker Kaido make sure to swing all your small swings first to force them to use their resources (cards/LA) instead of being able to free block. This applies even to later turns as if they tap their only 10c, Decken+Law&Oden becomes a VERY strong turn since you will be able to use ALL the excess Don on swings.

They generate no card advantage so they are especially weak to a multitude of swings if they waste LA.

This deck's entire board is vulnerable to Luna so you want to draw as many as possible for the late game. Your leader is a 6k so often times Rocks is forced to starve you early as the majority of their best plays on curve (2/4/6/10) require all their Don.

This means that on 6+ Don having a Whitebeard on their board is ESSENTIAL for them to do ANY damage at all to your life as it can buff their leader swing to being 8k power.

Rocks' primary gameplan into Mihawk is to rush us down and outlast us with Captain John & the Usopp event that allows them to trash any card to prevent Captain John from being KO'd.

They usually run a maximum of 2 and it's still limited by their hand size but running 3 Lunas & stunning their entire board for 3 turns usually allows us to make it through even this setup. The way to avoid the setup entirely or avoid needing Luna is to swing small at their face and then JAM a HUGE amount into their rested bodies with your 10c Shanks. By clearing their board you restrict both their offense and their defense as they need to use their board's effect to get the 3k counter (Shiki/Newgate).

7k at 5k is most of the time bait as both 7c Shiki and 6c Newgate allow them to get +3k counter.

If they only have Shiki's, you should be swinging small with lead then at least 8k with your board to demand 2 cards from them because Shiki only affects characters. If they have multiple of the two then make sure to make note of it and make it difficult for them to counter by swinging 11 at 5 or 14 at 8 for example.

While they do run 12 2k's and usually 4 1k's they largely rely on counter that stems from their bodies to survive the mid to late game.

If they are trying to starve you, prioritize picking up as many copies of 10c Shanks as possible. Not only is it EXTREMELY difficult for them to kill these compared to your 6k bodies, you will also have extra life which means having bigger bodies than theirs will bring you EXTRA value compared to normal.

In these late game scenarios you just spend your extra Don on hunting for Luna's and then push their face with your multiple 12 at 5 swings. Only allow them to kill your 6k bodies if it costs you more than 1 card, getting free swings and cards from their hand allows you to clear their bodies more freely (mainly Shiki) so they can't trade back into your 10c.

Late game you can just Yasopp/Oden+Luna to swing 12 12 12 at their opponent as they will be unable to kill you in just 2 turns (6Laws+5 life+Large hand). Save 1 Decken Shanks for their 10c play if they have the leeway from life to do so.

ALWAYS COUNTER 5k swings vs this deck. Even if it's the first swing of the game and you are starving your opponent, you can fully expect every swing after the first 1 or 2 5k's to be 6ks. Asking for one of your 8 2k's is a tall task for us as we even want to save all the Kawamatsu as ammo for Decken and sometimes we will need to play the Otama.

For this similar reason you want to pick up Otama's with 6 Law if you don't need to bounce a Perona to find your next 6Law.

The key vs BLuffy is to focus on whittling down their hand size so we can full clear their board or go for game by the second 10c Shanks. As their bodies stay static at 5k power the entire game, you want to minimize the number of cards in their hand while continuing to clear the board.

In the early to mid game when they don't have a large amount of bodies for you to swing into, you should almost always be swing 5 with lead and then 5 with a weenie with the Don from your leader ability. As there is only going to be 1 or 2 bodies to swing into, they always will take a 7k but if you swing 5 5 you can both get a card for counter AND kill the unit.

For Elbaph decks, their +12 cost giants are their most important bodies because they enable the rest of their kit in the form of their small 5k bodies.

To minimize the # of swings, you start with small swings at their weenies and then load all the bigger swings into their giants. Once you hit the 10 Don turns you want to prioritize killing ALL their giants to cap their swings+board development to Gerd+2c+8cLuffy which is easily resolved with 2 10c Shanks swinging at board.

You can start small swings at leader in the late game to force counter out of hand because if they take, then you can threaten a lethal with 12k swings at face.

Both the leader and weenies are 5k for the entire game so you will lose too much value in the form of free swings throughout the game if you starve.

They can play a rush 8k every single turn once they pass 8 Don which also makes it difficult to fully stabilize in the late game if you miss ANY of your 6 Laws in the mid game turns. You pseudo starve them on both sides with the intention of killing the majority of their board on your first 10c Shanks turn. If they try to play around that 10c turn too hard, you can use a Luna to pause their aggression (2 or more weenies) and push hard into their life which can force them to counter your bigger swings.

Similar to the reasoning for whether or not we starve, because their bodies stay at 5k regardless of how we hit them, I always take the first 3 life before starting to counter out of the follow up swings. This allows us to more reliably draw our combos & our card draw engine which they have a difficult time dealing with.

If they swing into our weenies to deny draw you are getting card value anyways because 1c Nami is their only body that doesn't swing at face. Take 3 5k's then 1 8k swing to start stabilizing at 1 Life. If you hit your full curve you need to "make space" on your board by letting your bodies go.

Thus leading up into your first 10 Don turn you should be at 1 Life and ideally block with the 6 Law you played on your 8/9 Don turn so you can Shanks+Decken without playing over your own body.