Guida di Rondino

5.1 The mirror match

Dracule Mihawk OP14-020

The Seven Warlords of the Sea, Leader 5000, 5 Life, green/black, <Slash>

If your opponent's Leader has the <Slash> attribute, this Leader gains +1000 power. / Activate:Main Once Per Turn You may rest 1 of your cards: If there is a Character with a cost of 5 or more, set up to 3 of your DON!! cards as active. Then, you cannot play Character cards during this turn.

The Mihawk mirror is one of the most difficult matchups to pilot correctly, and it will probably be the matchup we analyze the most throughout this guide—especially in the gameplay/video section.

The most important concept in this matchup goes directly back to what we discussed in Understanding Mihawk:

MulliganMulligan Heuristics

The Mihawk mirror is extremely dependent on early setup, so the main goal of our mulligan is to guarantee enough searchers while maintaining a functional early curve.

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Would you keep or mulligan this in mirror, going 1st?

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Would you keep or mulligan this in mirror going 2nd?

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Going 1st the hand is a clear Keep because we have perona Oden luna precisely, our hand is already telling us to play an aggro game and we can expect to be very good at that, if we find more searchers and yasopp and we see that our opponent starts somewhat slow, we can always try to pivot to something else later.

Going 2nd the 2nd hand is also a decent keep, we have 2 searchers as well as yasopp and the 1c spell that could be very strong in the scenarios in which our oppoent starts with <2 seachers.

TurnoGoing 2nd

Generally keep:

• 1 searcher + 5c Yasopp
• 2+ searchers
• 1 searcher + Stage

TurnoGoing 1st

Generally keep:

• 2+ searchers
• 1 searcher + oden

These are heuristics, not absolute rules.

As we go deeper into the matchup—and especially in the gameplay videos—we'll look at the situations where the rest of the hand is strong enough to justify deviating from these rules.

EarlyEarly Game — 1/2/3/4 DON!!

The first few turns are essentially all about setup and information gathering.

You're developing your searchers, building your hand, and—most importantly—trying to understand how the game is likely to develop.

Pay attention to:

• How many searchers you see
• How many searchers your opponent sees
• The quality of your hand
• What your opponent is searching for
• What answers you already have available
• How easily each player can set up future You Can Be My Samurai!! turns
• How strong each player's future For Fun turns are likely to be

From this information, you should already start asking yourself:

Searcher advantage

Generally, the player who sees more searchers is going to have an advantage in the long game.

More searchers means more cards, better access to specific answers, more opportunities to set up efficient You Can Be My Samurai!! turns, and better For Fun setups later in the game.

If you start the game seeing 3–4 searchers while your opponent only sees 0–1, you're already clearly ahead in terms of setup.

You can reasonably expect to generate more free value later in the game, and you're also going to have consistent access to 6c Law for the turns where you need him.

On the contrary, if you're behind on searchers and your opponent is already finding all of their important pieces, you need to recognize that the normal value game may not favor you.

Don't wait until you're completely buried in card advantage before realizing that you can't win the long game.

Mid5 DON!! turn

This is where we establish our first real body, and the correct choice depends heavily on the board state and the game plan we've identified.

Opponent has only 1 searcher : yasopp.

If the opponent has only one searcher on board, Yasopp is the absolute best play.

We can rest the searcher, trade into it, and deny our opponent the ability to use it for their 6c Law play on the following turn.

This is a very clean tempo swing.

Opponent has 2 or more searchers : Bonney

If the opponent already has two or more searchers available, Yasopp loses part of that value because denying a single rested body no longer stops their setup.

In this situation, 5c Bonney becomes our best play because we can freeze their DON!! and interfere directly with their following turn.

Oden vs Yasopp

This decision also depends on the macro game plan we've chosen.

If we are playing value/control

If the opponent has multiple searchers, I generally prefer:

Oden > Yasopp

The reason is that I want to preserve Yasopp.

Later in the game, Yasopp becomes much more valuable when I can use his effect to rest and trade into one of the opponent's actual 5c/6c pieces rather than wasting that utility on an early searcher.

If we are playing aggro

The logic completely reverses:

Yasopp > Oden

If I've already decided that I'm not interested in fighting for the opponent's board, Yasopp's future removal utility doesn't matter nearly as much.

I'd rather deploy Yasopp now and preserve Oden for later, when I can use him to freeze one of my opponent's important pieces while continuing to progress my aggressive game plan.

This is another perfect example of why cards don't have a fixed value in this matchup.

Their value depends on the game you're trying to play.

Mid6 DON!! turn

The general logic from the 5 DON!! turn continues here, with the exception of the specific 5c Bonney / Yasopp interaction against a single-searcher setup.

Our default development is going to revolve around 6c Law + body.

From here, the distinction becomes even clearer.

Value/control

If we're playing for value:

• Yasopp is generally the better body to develop.
• We want access to his board-control effect, and we're interested in efficiently trading resources with our opponent.

Aggro

If we're playing aggro:

• Oden becomes significantly better.
• We're not particularly interested in using Yasopp to control the opponent's board.
• Instead, we can develop Oden rested through 6c Law, freeze one of the opponent's pieces, and force them to potentially waste a large attack clearing Oden.
• That's exactly what we want.
• Every meaningful attack directed into our board instead of our Leader buys us more time to execute our aggressive plan.

MidMid game

From this point onward, our goal is to use our DON!! as efficiently as possible while constantly looking for opportunities to fit You Can Be My Samurai!! into our turns.

The priority changes depending on our game plan.

If we're playing aggro

Our priorities are generally:

1. Develop 6c Law + body2. Maximize pressure3. Attack with as much DON!! as efficiently possible—often 7k+ swings

We're deliberately sacrificing some potential value generation because ending the game is more important than winning the resource battle.

If we're playing value/control

Our priorities become:

1. Develop 6c Law + body2. Find efficient You Can Be My Samurai!! turns3. Maintain board control and card advantage

Here, I'm completely fine sacrificing attack size to generate more value.

Sometimes that means attacking for only 6k because the remaining DON!! allows me to fit You Can Be My Samurai!! efficiently into the turn.

Again:

Mid9 DON!! turn - 5c Bonney

At 9 DON!!, 5c Bonney becomes extremely strong again.

Freezing one DON!! here denies the opponent their natural 10c Shanks turn.

That forces them into something like another 6c Law development, 5c Bonney of their own, or another alternative line instead of progressing into 10c Shanks.

And that's extremely relevant because—

Playing 10c Shanks First Matters

Getting to deploy 10c Shanks before your opponent is a significant swing.

It's obviously extremely powerful when you're trying to win through aggression, but it's also very strong in a control-oriented game.

So being the first player who gets to establish 10c Shanks is a meaningful advantage regardless of which game plan you're currently following.

10c Shanks turns

Once we reach the 10c Shanks portion of the game, the basic decision tree becomes relatively simple.

Playing Control?Drop 10c Shanks → prioritize board.

Playing Aggro?Drop 10c Shanks → prioritize face.

If you have one or more Electrical Luna in hand and believe the game can end quickly enough, this can also be a spot where you transition into full aggro.

Remember what we discussed earlier: if you're no longer interested in clearing your opponent's board, they're naturally going to accumulate bodies.

That makes your eventual Electrical Luna significantly stronger.

Vander decken vs 10c Shanks

If your opponent establishes 10c Shanks, investing the 2 DON!! to clear it with your own Decken is probably correct around 90% of the time.

But not always.

This is exactly the kind of spot where blindly following a matchup rule can cost you the game.

Before playing Decken, ask yourself:

Imagine that you believe the game is ending next turn.

You've calculated that the opponent's 10c Shanks remaining on board doesn't kill you, and the additional 2 DON!! would allow you to create a significantly larger attack this turn.

In that situation, playing Decken can actually be a mistake.

You're spending 2 DON!! solving a problem that doesn't matter anymore.

If the game ends before that 10c Shanks gets another meaningful attack, then clearing it generated effectively zero relevant value.

Those 2 DON!! could instead be the difference between your opponent countering out of lethal and actually dying.

The core principle of the Mirror

The Mihawk mirror isn't simply about who generates the most value.

Early searcher advantage, hand quality, board development, available tech cards, and the opponent's resource usage should constantly influence your assessment of the game.

If you're favored in the long game, lean into it.

Generate value. Control the board. Fit in You Can Be My Samurai!!. Force increasingly inefficient trades until your advantage becomes overwhelming.

If you're losing that battle, don't mindlessly continue playing the same game.

Find another way to win.

And once you've identified that alternative win condition, commit to it.

As we saw in the earlier mirror example, sometimes even one unnecessary attack into an opponent's character instead of Leader can be the difference between your final 10c Shanks attack being lethal or your opponent surviving it.

We'll go significantly deeper into these decisions in the gameplay section, because the mirror has too many game states and branching decisions to reduce everything to a rigid turn-by-turn script.

What do you do if the opponent is starving you?

I don't think starving is ever a particularly valuable strategy in the Mihawk mirror because it loses very hard to a few simple adjustments.

Nevertheless, I've seen multiple players trying to starve in the mirror, so understanding how to respond to it is important.

And the adjustment is actually extremely simple:

Don't attack with your board and only attack with your leader.

That's basically it.

If your opponent's game plan revolves around starving you and generating value by controlling your board, simply stop giving them a board to interact with.

By keeping your characters active, you effectively make their entire board—and a significant part of their Leader's utility—useless.

Meanwhile, your searchers should heavily prioritize finding:

• 10c Shanks
• Electrical Luna

If you can accumulate enough 10c Shanks and Electrical Luna while denying your opponent value from their board every turn, they're eventually going to fall behind.

Usually, it only takes around 2–3 turns before the strategy starts collapsing.

The Yasopp Exception

The only way your opponent can efficiently maintain a starvation strategy is by seeing multiple Yasopp.

Since you're deliberately keeping your board active, Yasopp gives them a way to rest your characters themselves and create targets to attack into.

The adjustment here is equally simple:

Don't start investing cards from your hand trying to save that body.

Let it die.

Your opponent is trying to force you into spending defensive resources despite you refusing to voluntarily rest your board. If you start dumping counter into the character they rested with Yasopp, you're finally giving their starvation strategy the value it was looking for.

Accept the loss of the body and continue executing your game plan.

This is why multiple Yasopp are basically the only way your opponent can starve you somewhat efficiently—but even then, you don't need to play into it.

The Turn Before 10c Shanks

There is one other important exception to the "never attack with your board" rule.

The turn before your opponent reaches 10 DON!!, if you don't have 5c Bonney to freeze their DON!! and deny 10c Shanks, you should attack with your entire board.

Why?

Because those characters are going to be rested by 10c Shanks anyway.

Keeping them active no longer protects them from your opponent's next control turn, so there is no reason to leave that damage on the table.

This is essentially a free attack window.

If you do have 5c Bonney and can prevent the 10c Shanks turn, then the normal starvation counter-plan still applies and you can continue keeping your board active.

So the rule isn't literally "never attack with your board."

The real rule is:

That's the principle you should actually remember.

If you recognize the starvation plan early, deny value to their board, don't waste counter protecting characters rested by Yasopp, and correctly exploit the turn before 10c Shanks, you should essentially never lose to this strategy.

What to do when you are ahead

When you're clearly ahead in the Mihawk mirror, your thought process should change.

At this point, you don't need to ask:

"How do I create an even bigger advantage?"

Instead, ask:

Usually, there are only two realistic answers:

1. Your opponent successfully switches to an aggressive game plan.2. You miss one or more crucial development turns and give them enough time to recover.

Once you understand that, your priorities become very straightforward.

Start adding 10c Shanks and a large amount of counter to your hand.

Defend your life efficiently.

Make sure you continue hitting your crucial development turns.

And, most importantly, understand the clock of the game.

If you know approximately how many turns your opponent needs to kill you, how many turns you need to close the game, and how those clocks change depending on where you allocate your resources, it becomes extremely difficult for them to steal the game back.

This also means you shouldn't become greedy just because you're ahead.

You don't necessarily need to extract every possible point of value from You Can Be My Samurai!!, clear every opposing character, or create the biggest board imaginable.

Sometimes the correct play is simply to protect your life, keep enough counter in hand, develop 10c Shanks, and remove your opponent's only remaining path to victory.

Having a perfect understanding of the game's clock is what allows you to convert these advantageous positions consistently instead of giving your opponent unnecessary opportunities to come back.

5.2 RB Sabo

Mulligan: 1 searcher perona/kinemon + law if second (or 2 searchers)

1 + searcher + oden/yasopp if first

Red/Black Sabo is a very linear matchup once we understand our primary win condition:

• Starve them, progressively remove their board, and stabilize on 10c shanks turn
• We want to play for maximum value and deny them life cards for as long as possible.

Once we successfully stabilize through one or two 10c Shanks, we will usually win the game from there.

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Would you keep or mulligan this going 1st against sabo?

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Would you keep or mulligan this going 2nd against sabo?

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Generally any hand early game that has access to the 1c mihawk spell into elbaph package is a very very solid keep, this hand also has access to kinemon + yasopp, insane keep

Hand going 2nd unfortunately has no plays whatsoever except kinemon and lacks follow up, if we dont find anything decent off of kinemon è draws on 6 we may play law only and from there the game is very bad, way better to mull.

Starving and clearing the board

We generally want to attack with our entire board and maximize the pressure we're putting into their characters.

An important part of this is attack sequencing.

For example:

• Our opponent has a 6k character on board.
• We have three attackers and 3 DON!! available for attacks.

Instead of immediately committing everything into one large swing, we can sequence:

This creates multiple good outcomes for us.

If they give up the character against one of the first two attacks, perfect.

We no longer need to invest the remaining DON!! into clearing it, so we can redirect those resources into searchers or You Can Be My Samurai!! and generate additional value.

If they counter out of the first attacks, we're also happy.

They're spending cards protecting a character while we're starving their Leader.

We can then make the final 9k attack and potentially finish the character anyway.

And if they continue fully countering?

That's also fine.

They're burning through their hand while receiving no additional resources from life.

This is exactly the kind of exchange we want.

What do we search for

Our search priorities are relatively straightforward.

We want to find 1–2 copies of 10c Shanks.

Usually, that's all we need.

Once those are secured, we should prioritize:

Counter + 6c Law

We don't need to endlessly accumulate 10c Shanks. We need enough copies to guarantee our stabilization turns, then we want the rest of our hand to actually survive long enough to reach and capitalize on those turns.

Yasopp vs Oden — Sequencing Matters

Sequencing Yasopp and Oden correctly is particularly important in this matchup.

Imagine the opponent has:

1 rested character + 1 active character

We generally want to attack the rested character before deciding whether to develop Yasopp or Oden.

Why?

Because the result of those attacks gives us information.

EarlyThe rested characters die early

If the rested character dies and we still have attacks remaining, we can play Yasopp.

Yasopp can rest the other character, allowing our remaining attacks to continue clearing the board.

The rested characters die on our final attack

Now Yasopp no longer accomplishes the same thing because we don't have another attack available to capitalize on the rested character.

In this situation:

Oden > Yasopp

We can use Oden to freeze the remaining character instead.

This is a small sequencing decision, but these are exactly the spots where waiting for information before committing your play can generate additional value.

Dealing with 6c Loki

There's another important interaction to understand when dealing with 6c Loki.

It can sometimes be correct to intentionally leave 6c Loki unfrozen.

This may initially seem counterintuitive because freezing it looks like the obvious control play.

But think one turn ahead.

If we leave 6c Loki available, our opponent is incentivized to attack with it.

Once they do, 6c Loki becomes rested.

And now we can clear it with Decken before reaching our 10c Shanks turn.

That can make our eventual stabilization turn significantly cleaner.

Instead of reaching 10 DON!! with 6c Loki still being one of the problems we need to solve, we've already removed it and can use 10c Shanks to stabilize the rest of the board.

So don't automatically freeze 6c Loki just because you can.

Ask yourself:

• Would I rather prevent this character from attacking, or let it attack so I can remove it before my Shanks turn?
• Sometimes leaving it "free" is actually the stronger control line.

Defending life

This is extremely important:

• Counter out of every attack that costs us only one card whenever possible—even the first attack of the game.
• The exception is when doing so would require discarding one of our important future plays.
• We want to preserve our life total because we're deliberately starving our opponent.

The longer we stay at high life while their hand and board are progressively depleted, the more difficult it becomes for them to create a realistic lethal turn before we stabilize.

This is also why counter density matters so much in this matchup.

The 10c Shanks Stabilization Turn

Everything we're doing throughout the early and mid game is preparing for this point.

We're starving their Leader.

We're forcing counter out of their hand.

We're progressively clearing their board.

We're preserving our own life.

We're finding 10c Shanks.

And we're trying to manipulate the board so that when we finally reach 10 DON!!, 10c Shanks can efficiently deal with whatever remains.

Once we've stabilized through one 10c Shanks—and especially after the second—the matchup usually becomes extremely difficult for Sabo to recover.

Only after their board has been sufficiently controlled do we transition away from starvation and start attacking their Leader.

So the matchup can essentially be summarized as:

Don't rush the last step.

The biggest mistake you can make is giving Sabo additional cards from life while they still have a threatening board and you're already naturally favored if the game reaches your stabilization turns.5c Bonney on the 7 DON!! Turn

5c Bonney is extremely strong on our 7 DON!! turn.

This is one of the most important timings for the card in the matchup because freezing one of the opponent's DON!! prevents their Rush Luffy play on the following turn.

That's extremely valuable for our overall game plan.

We're trying to starve, preserve our life, control their board, and safely reach our 10c Shanks stabilization turn. Denying Rush Luffy directly supports every part of that plan by removing one of their strongest proactive turns.

Because of this, 5c Bonney should be considered one of our strongest 7 DON!! plays in this matchup whenever freezing their DON!! successfully denies Rush Luffy.

5.3 Black Luffy

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Would you mulligan or keep this hand going 2nd against luffy black?

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Would you keep or mulligan this hand going 1st ?

Keep (opzione evidenziata in verde = risposta corretta)Mulligan (opzione selezionata, evidenziata in rosso = risposta sbagliata)

Any going 2nd hand where you have searcher + seacher + samurai is generally very good consistency wise, ESPECIALLY against matchups with low a amount of small drops to contest our board the going 1st is a super debatable mull/keep, probably close to 50/50, in tournament, i think i would keep , even without seachers we go spell on his 2c drop into oden/yasopp depending on his 4 don turn, very solid.

MulliganMulligan - Going first

When going first, we're looking for:

• Stage / Searchers
• Oden
• 5c Perona
• 6c Law

Remember what we're trying to accomplish:

We're not building our hand for a prolonged control game.

Search priority

Our searchers should prioritize:

Obviously, the exact priority can change depending on what we already have in hand, but these are the pieces that most directly support our aggressive game plan.

MulliganMulligan - Going second

Going second, we're looking for:

• Yasopp
• Searchers
• 6c Law
• For Fun

Now our hand is being constructed for an entirely different game.

We're trying to starve, control the board, and reach our stabilization turn.

Search priority

Prioritize:

Once we have the development pieces required to reach our late game, we want enough defensive resources to actually get there comfortably.

Black Luffy is considerably trickier than Red/Black Sabo.

The main reason is that Black Luffy runs out of resources much more slowly and has constant access to 8c Rush Luffy thanks to Gerd.

Because of this, the matchup changes dramatically depending on whether we're going first or second.

TurnoGoing first - Full race

Going first, we can't realistically starve Black Luffy.

If we try, their ability to continuously generate resources and access 8c Rush Luffy will eventually overwhelm us.

So we need to accept that immediately and play a completely different game:

We're racing.

This is one of the matchups where understanding your macro game plan from Turn 1 is extremely important.

We're not trying to win a long, beautiful value game.

We're trying to kill them before their engine kills us.

Oden and 5c Perona

Because we're playing for tempo and aggression, cards like Oden and 5c Perona become insane.

They accomplish exactly what we want:

We're progressing our clock without spending attacks trying to control their board.

What do we actually clear?

We generally clear the first small body they develop on their 2 DON!! turn.

After that:

Stop attacking their small bodies. Go face.

From this point onward, we want to freeze their board with cards like:

• Oden
• 5c Perona
• Electrical Luna

and continue attacking Leader.

Why?

Because if we waste our attacks clearing small characters that Black Luffy can easily replenish, we're going to lose the race.

Essentially 100%.

We're spending our finite offensive resources solving problems that our opponent can cheaply recreate.

Instead, let those bodies accumulate.

That's actually beneficial for us because it makes Electrical Luna significantly stronger.

So rather than repeatedly clearing small characters:

Play for Electrical Luna

This is one of the scenarios where Electrical Luna becomes extremely important.

Remember the concept from earlier in the guide:

• The strength of Electrical Luna depends heavily on the type of game we're creating.
• Here, we're intentionally refusing to clear most of their smaller bodies.
• That naturally creates the exact board state where Electrical Luna becomes powerful.
• We're effectively allowing their board to grow because we have a future tool that can exploit it.

Dealing with their bodies

While we ignore most of their small characters, their big bodies are a different story.

This is where Decken becomes extremely important.

We want to maintain our aggressive tempo while using Decken to efficiently remove the large threats that could otherwise completely swing the race.

This distinction is important:

Don't waste attacks doing something Decken can accomplish much more efficiently.

10c Shanks — Face or Board?

The attack from 10c Shanks deserves significantly more thought in this matchup than simply following a fixed rule.

Every time you attack with 10c Shanks, ask yourself:

Is it more valuable to accelerate my clock or slow down theirs?

In other words:

Do I take one life?

or

Do I clear one of their major bodies?

There isn't one universal answer.

Look at your hand.

Look at your counter.

Look at their remaining life.

Look at the number of attacks they can produce.

Look at how close you are to lethal.

Then compare the two clocks.

Sometimes attacking face brings them into guaranteed lethal range next turn.

Sometimes removing a large character buys you the additional turn you need to win.

This is another spot where the correct play comes from understanding the game state rather than blindly following a matchup rule.

Dealing with 6c Loki

Generally:

• Always freeze 6c Loki.
• This is different from the Red/Black Sabo matchup.
• Here, the alternative attacker—4c John—only attacks for 6k rather than 7k.
• That makes the attack significantly easier for us to counter out of efficiently.
• So we'd generally rather freeze 6c Loki and allow the weaker 4c John attack.

Exception:

If we don't have a 2k counter available, we can consider doing the opposite.

Freeze 4c John, allow 6c Loki to attack, and then use the fact that 6c Loki is rested to clear it with Decken before our 10c Shanks turn.

Again, the rule exists for a reason—but your hand can change the correct decision.

TurnoGoing second - Starve

Going second, the matchup becomes considerably easier.

Now we can actually execute the starvation/control plan.

The scariest card we're dealing with becomes Pirate Docking 6.

But because we're starving our opponent, we have multiple ways to deal with it.

Dealing With Pirate Docking 6

Our cleanest answer is:

For Fun

This is one of the main reasons we discussed potentially increasing the number of For Fun in metas where Black Luffy is heavily represented.

But we don't necessarily need For Fun every time.

Because we're starving Black Luffy, we can also simply attack Pirate Docking 6 with very large swings and force them into an awful decision.

The logic is very similar to the Red/Black Sabo matchup.

If they give up the body, great.

If they protect it, they're burning through a hand that we're deliberately preventing them from replenishing through life.

Both outcomes progress our game plan.

LateStabilizing at 10 DON!!

Just like against Red/Black Sabo, we're generally looking to stabilize around our 10 DON!! turn with 10c Shanks.

Once we've successfully stabilized their board, the matchup becomes significantly easier.

From that point onward, the main thing we need to continuously respect is their access to 8c Rush Luffy.

Don't become careless just because you've cleared their board.

Their ability to suddenly generate additional pressure through 8c Rush Luffy is one of the main ways they can still steal the game.

Tha matchup in one concept

Black Luffy is one of the clearest examples of why Mihawk can't be played on autopilot.

The exact same matchup produces two almost opposite game plans depending on who goes first.

Trying to force the same strategy from both positions is a mistake.

Going first, you're asking:

"How do I kill him before his engine overwhelms me?"

Going second, you're asking:

• "How do I deny him enough resources that his engine never gets the chance to overwhelm me?"
• Understanding that difference before the game even begins makes the matchup dramatically easier to navigate.

5.4 PY Robin

MulliganMulligan heuristics

Our mulligan going first or second is essentially the same in this matchup.

We're looking for hands that guarantee early setup while giving us access to Yasopp, which is by far one of our strongest early-game cards against Robin.

Generally keep:

• 2+ searchers
• 1 Yasopp + 1 searcher
• 2+ Yasopp

This matchup is fairly tricky to play.

I remember playing my first games against Enrico and getting absolutely steamrolled. Then, as my artificial intelligence started recognizing more and more patterns, I gradually began winning.

At this point, I would say the matchup is very close to even.

And it's very, very hard for me to lose to a Robin that isn't Enrico—or doesn't Oven trigger first life!!!

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Would you keep or mulligan this against robin going 2nd?

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Would you keep or mulligan this against robin going 1st?

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Going 2nd with 3 searchers? say less.

searcher seacher + samurai + yasopp in hand is also very solid going 1st

Accept the Yellow triggers

Unfortunately, Robin, like any Yellow deck, is always going to introduce a significant amount of randomness into the game.

And we're particularly exposed to it in this matchup because we HAVE to aggro.

That means we're attacking into life repeatedly, which naturally gives our opponent more opportunities to find high-impact triggers.

In Round 1 of finals, I played against a Robin that triggered:

from their first three life cards.

There's nothing you can realistically do there.

Period.

Sometimes Yellow is going to Yellow.

But that doesn't mean we should play scared of triggers and abandon our optimal game plan.

Why we have to aggro

The fundamental problem is very simple:

• Robin scales better than we do.
• Her late game is simply insane.
• Because of the nature of the Leader's Banish ability, the longer the game progresses, the more uncomfortable the game becomes for us.
• Turn after turn, Banish forces actual cards out of our hand instead of allowing life to function as an additional resource.
• Meanwhile, Robin continues gaining access to extremely powerful late-game plays, healing, and Gum-Gum Giant.
• Our power curve is different.

LateWe peak at 10 DON!! with 10c Shanks + Decken.

That's the point where our deck reaches one of its strongest possible board swings.

Robin, meanwhile, keeps going.

So we're playing against a clock.

We need to generate enough value and pressure before Robin's late-game engine becomes overwhelming.

Don't let Robin Stabilize

Robin's best chance of winning this matchup is to stabilize by controlling our board.

Once that happens, she can deal with a small number of remaining attackers relatively easily thanks to constant healing and Gum-Gum Giant.

So our fundamental objective should be clear:

• Play a fast race and don't allow Robin to stabilize the position.
• We need bodies.
• We need pressure.
• And we need to keep forcing Robin to answer multiple threats.

Yasopp is insane

Because of this, Yasopp is one of our absolute best cards in the matchup.

By a big margin.

In the early game, Yasopp essentially allows us to develop a body that Robin has a difficult time contesting while simultaneously clearing one of her 4k bodies that could otherwise become an 8k attacker.

We're simultaneously progressing our clock and reducing hers.

That's exactly what we want.

Some of our strongest possible early sequences are therefore:

or

It's pretty straightforward.

Develop. Develop. Develop.

We want to continuously put bodies onto the board and prevent Robin from ever reaching a comfortable position.

5c Perona and Oden are also completely fine.

The important thing is that we're developing board.

10c Shanks + Vander Decken

The other premium interaction in this matchup is:

10c Shanks + Decken

This is one of our strongest plays because it gives us the ability to create a massive swing while still progressing our own threat density.

And, most importantly, it happens exactly around the point where we need to make a decision about how this game is going to end.

Respecting banish

Whenever Robin attacks for 5k/6k with Banish, think ahead before deciding whether to take the attack.

Whenever reasonably possible, we want to counter.

If we can't, having one life banished is acceptable.

Having two life banished is usually already very, very bad.

Remember that life isn't just life in this matchup.

Every card that gets banished is a card that never reaches our hand.

That progressively reduces our ability to defend, develop, and eventually create lethal.

So don't evaluate a Banish attack the same way you would evaluate a normal 5k/6k attack.

Attack for 7k

Whenever possible, prioritize attacking for 7k with both your Leader and your board.

A strong Robin player is generally going to counter out of most attacks below that threshold.

That means smaller attacks often don't accomplish enough for us.

We're trying to force meaningful defensive commitments while progressing the opponent toward lethal range.

There is an exception.

If the Robin player realizes that their position is already bad enough that their only realistic win condition is to take life aggressively and high-roll triggers, they may stop countering.

Recognize when that transition happens.

At that point, the game becomes significantly more volatile.

The most important turn: 10c Shanks

The most crucial turn in the matchup is usually our 10c Shanks turn.

This is where you need to stop and understand exactly where you are in the game.

There are generally three possibilities:

1. Stabilize and clear their board.

2. Ignore their board and go face.

3. Do a mixture of both.

And there will usually be a clearly better option.

The difficult part is identifying it.

Option 1 - Stabilize

Sometimes we need to use 10c Shanks and the rest of our board to completely stabilize.

Maybe Robin has developed too much pressure.

Maybe leaving those bodies alive makes their next turn impossible to survive.

In that situation, controlling the board is correct.

But there's a cost:

• You're slowing the game down.
• And every additional turn you give Robin is another opportunity for healing, another powerful late-game play, another Banish attack, and another potential trigger.

For example, if stabilizing gives Robin enough time to establish another Mom and you don't have the answer, a strong trigger can immediately put the game out of reach.

So don't clear the board simply because clearing the board feels safe.

Option 2 - Full aggro

The opposite approach is to completely ignore the board and send everything face.

Sometimes this is clearly correct.

But now you're making the opposite bet.

You're saying:

• "I can end this game before your board matters."
• If that's true, perfect.

If you miscalculate and fail to close the game on the following turn, you've potentially left an enormous amount of pressure alive—and Robin can punish you immediately.

So before committing to full aggro, calculate the clock carefully.

Don't just think:

"I have a lot of attacks."

Think:

Option 3 - Hybrid

Sometimes the best answer is neither full control nor full aggro.

Maybe you only need to clear one or two specific pieces.

Removing those characters might guarantee you one or two additional turns of survival.

Then the rest of your attacks can go face.

This can create the perfect middle ground:

You slow Robin's clock just enough while continuing to accelerate your own.

For example, if removing two attackers changes their lethal clock from one turn to two turns, while your remaining attacks put Robin on a one-turn clock, you've fundamentally changed the game in your favor.

You don't need to clear everything.

You need to clear exactly enough.

You can't respect every trigger

This is probably one of the most important lessons in the entire matchup:

• You will frequently be put into positions where you cannot afford to play around every possible trigger.
• And that's okay.
• Trying to respect everything Robin can potentially trigger will often force you into incredibly inefficient lines.
• You slow down your pressure.
• You allocate attacks incorrectly.
• You waste resources protecting against increasingly unlikely combinations.

And eventually you lose—not because Robin triggered something insane, but because you played so inefficiently trying to prevent every possible outcome that you gave them enough time to outscale you naturally.

You need to choose which risks you can afford to respect.

And sometimes the correct play is to accept:

• "If they trigger exactly this, I lose."
• That's not necessarily a mistake.
• If playing around that trigger lowers your overall probability of winning more than simply accepting the risk, you shouldn't play around it.

The real skill of the matchup

This is where most of the skill expression against Robin comes from.

Throughout the game, you should constantly be asking yourself:

• Where are we in the game right now?
• What is my clock?
• What is Robin's clock?
• Can I afford to slow the game down?
• Which triggers can I realistically afford to respect?
• Which characters actually need to die?
• If I go full aggro now, what happens if I don't kill them next turn?
• If I stabilize now, what happens if they heal again?
• This matchup isn't about memorizing one perfect sequence.
• It's about continuously comparing two clocks while managing a level of randomness that you can never completely eliminate.

And, most importantly:

Don't try to eliminate randomness. Make the play with the highest win rate despite the randomness.

5.5 Red Ace

This one is probably going to be a little controversial.

My general approach in this matchup is:

Starve.

Mulligan for: Yasopp+ seacher / 2+ searchers/ Yasopp + law

Some of you may have figured this out by now, but Mihawk is insanely good at starving.

And, almost counterintuitively, I've found that starvation works incredibly well against Red Ace too.

🎯 Question · Multiple Choice

✋ Mano di 5 carte

Would you keep or mulligan this hand going 2nd against ace?

Keepmulligan

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🎯 Question · Multiple Choice

✋ Carte in mano

×1

×2

×1

×1

Would you keep or mulligan this hand going 1st against ace?

Keepmulligan

✎ Nota: anche qui nessuna risposta è evidenziata (pulsante "Check answer"): la risposta corretta non è visibile nella schermata.

The going 2nd hand is basically a dream against anything the going 1st hand is unfortunately super bad , still would be kind of playable tho i bet, definitely a mulligan tho.

Why do we starve Ace?

The main reason is 10c Whitebeard.

Once 10c Whitebeard starts making the opposing Leader 8k base, actually closing the game becomes significantly more difficult.

If we've been attacking Ace throughout the game and giving them additional cards, they can reach the late game with enough resources to start chaining 10c Whitebeard.

And once they chain a couple of them, killing an 8k-base Leader while dealing with everything else they're doing becomes almost impossible.

I've found that this causes us to lose significantly more games than we should.

So instead of trying to kill Ace early:

Don't even start the race.

Change the structure of the game

By starving, we can focus entirely on stabilizing our position.

The game naturally becomes longer, but that's completely fine because we're using that additional time to establish our own late-game board.

Eventually, we can reach positions where we have 2–3 copies of 10c Shanks established.

At that point, we don't need five turns to kill Ace.

We can usually do it in two.

And suddenly 10c Whitebeard making their Leader 8k base becomes significantly less problematic because we have an overwhelming amount of pressure already established.

This is the core idea:

Why do their cards become weaker?

Starving also changes the value of several of Ace's strongest cards.

6c Marco

6c Marco becomes considerably less threatening.

We're not desperately trying to push damage through while 6c Marco continuously creates awkward interactions.

We have time.

Eventually, 6c Marco dies, and we can use Decken to clean up whatever bodies are left over anyway.

8c whitebeard

Some of the interactions involving 8c Whitebeard also become significantly less impactful.

Because of the way we're structuring the game, 8c Whitebeard often can't simply answer our 10c Shanks with the -6k interaction in the same devastating way it could in a more aggressive game.

We're not putting ourselves into positions where one of these tempo swings immediately destroys our entire game plan.

Reduce the volatility

This is another major reason I prefer starving.

Whenever I try to play the matchup aggressively, the game becomes much more volatile.

We start entering weird game states where both players are racing, resources are being exchanged quickly, and individual curve plays can suddenly determine the entire game.

I don't particularly want that.

Why voluntarily play a high-variance game if I believe Mihawk is favored in a slower, structured one?

By starving, the matchup becomes much easier to control.

And so far, through my testing, I'm yet to lose a game against Ace while properly executing this strategy.

Punish bad curves

There's also another benefit.

Red Ace is extremely powerful when it hits its strong curve plays.

But if Ace starts missing those premium turns?

The deck can suddenly feel like a weak starter deck.

By refusing to give them additional cards from life, we're also reducing their ability to naturally fix mediocre hands.

If they have everything, fine—we play the long game.

If they don't have everything, we give them as little help as possible.

For all of these reasons, I currently believe starving is ultimately the correct approach.

How to punish the starvation game

Once you commit to starving, the matchup becomes relatively straightforward.

Use Yasopp and Oden to interact with their pieces.

Control their board.

Defend the life attacks that you can defend efficiently.

Don't burn important future plays just to preserve a life card, but whenever an attack can be countered efficiently, we generally want to protect ourselves.

And most importantly:

Don't attack Leader just because you have spare attacks.

We're deliberately delaying the point at which Ace receives those resources.

The first 10c Shanks

Our 10 DON!! turn is where we begin transitioning into complete stabilization.

Drop 10c Shanks and try to stabilize as much of the board as possible.

We're still not in a rush.

The objective isn't to immediately convert 10c Shanks into damage.

The objective is to create a board state where Ace progressively loses the ability to threaten us.

Then we do it again.

The second 10c Shanks

Usually, by the time we establish our second 10c Shanks, the Ace board is either completely clear or close enough that the remaining pieces can be dealt with efficiently.

And from there?

GG.

This is true even if we're sitting at 1 life—or sometimes even 0.

Once their board is gone, Ace has a very difficult time rebuilding enough pressure

MulliganMulligan Heuristics

Mulligan for 2+ searchers or 1 searcher + 5c

Going 2nd hand is very solid , the 2 mihawk spells can also help either keep our life count up when he swings for 7s or contest his early pieces like franky/law/ reiju/ pink, or even out an early ohm.

Going 1st hand is unplayable if he starts ohm ohm , so i'd mulligan.

EarlyEarly Game

Start by reading Enel's opening.

You can play value/control.

You can starve initially, control their board, establish 1–2 10c Shanks, and only then transition into a two-turn clock.

Or, if your hand supports it, you can race.

Having Electrical Luna already available makes aggression much more attractive because you know you may eventually create one or two extremely powerful Electrical Luna turns.

But their development matters just as much as your hand.

If they open holly

Racing becomes less attractive.

Holly gives them efficient early pressure, so slowing the game down and controlling their board becomes more appealing.

If they open ohm->ohm

Now we have almost the opposite conclusion.

We're realistically not winning a traditional value war.

Multiple Ohm are simply too efficient at clearing our board while developing theirs.

So stop trying to beat them at the game their opening is designed to win.

Start looking for aggression.

MidMid Game

Continuously reassess.

Maybe you started by starving.

Then Enel misses development and your board gets wide.

Change gears.

Maybe you started aggressively because you had Electrical Luna, but their development makes the race increasingly bad.

Change gears.

Maybe Ohm → Ohm tells you your board isn't going to survive a prolonged value game.

Accept that your characters are eventually going to die and ask how much damage they can generate before they die.

LateLate Game

Our control line wants to establish 1–2 10c Shanks and then compress the damage phase into a short clock.

Our aggressive line wants to leverage Electrical Luna to deny the opponent use of the board they've developed while we continue pushing face.

The late game therefore depends heavily on the route we took to reach it.

Key Matchup Concepts

Purple Enel is almost a pure test of Mihawk's macro philosophy.

Don't enter the matchup saying:

"I'm starving."

or:

"I'm racing."

Instead ask:

• "What is Enel giving me, and which game plan punishes it hardest?"
• Holly can push you toward control.
• Ohm → Ohm can push you toward aggression.
• Your own Electrical Luna can make a race much more attractive.
• The correct plan emerges from the information you're given.

Matchup Summary

Then:

The mistake is not choosing control or aggro.

Reading their opening: Holly vs Ohm

A very important part of this matchup is understanding what Enel's early development tells us about the kind of game we should play.

For example, an early Holly can make racing significantly less efficient.

Their clock is already developing quickly, so we may prefer to slow the game down, control their board, and move toward our 10c Shanks turns before transitioning into aggression.

Ohm can create the exact opposite situation.

If our opponent starts something like:

• Ohm → Ohm we should immediately recognize that we're probably not winning a traditional value war.
• Those copies of Ohm are simply too efficient at clearing our board while simultaneously developing theirs.
• If we keep trying to play a slow game where both players trade resources and fight for board advantage, we're playing directly into what their opening is best at doing.
• And this is exactly where the ability to change gears becomes important.
• If Enel's opening tells you that you're going to lose the value war, stop trying to win the value war.
• An opening like Ohm → Ohm should make us seriously consider accelerating the game and putting much more pressure on their Leader.
• We accept that our board may eventually get cleared.

Instead of asking how we can protect every character and continue extracting value from them, we start asking how much damage those characters can generate before they disappear.

This becomes even more attractive if we already have access to Electrical Luna.

We can pressure aggressively, allow Enel to continue developing their board, and potentially use Electrical Luna later to create the extra turn we need to finish the game.

That's the contrast I want you to understand:

Not because these are rigid rules, but because each opening changes the relative efficiency of our available game plans.

The matchup is constantly giving us information.

Our job is to react to it before we find ourselves five turns deep into a game plan that was already losing three turns ago.