One Piece Card Game: Beginner's Guide
The One Piece Card Game (OPTCG) is Bandai's collectible trading-card game based on Eiichiro Oda's manga, launched in 2022 and now one of the fastest-growing TCGs in the world. This guide gets you from zero to your first deck and shows how to keep track of what your cards are worth.
What is the One Piece Card Game?
OPTCG is a two-player game where each side leads a crew into battle. Unlike video games or the anime, it is a physical card game: you buy sealed booster packs and starter decks, collect the cards, and build a deck to play against friends or at local tournaments.
Each set is identified by a code such as OP-01 or a starter deck code like ST-01. New main sets release regularly, and older cards keep their value — which is exactly what a collection tracker like banlisto helps you follow.
How a game works
Every deck is led by one Leader card, which has a Life value. You win by attacking your opponent's Leader until their Life reaches zero. To pay for cards and attacks you use DON!! cards — a flexible resource you gain each turn, similar to energy or mana in other games but far more versatile.
You attack with your Characters, your opponent can block or use Counter cards to survive, and games are fast and aggressive. A full match usually takes only a few minutes.
Card types
There are five kinds of cards. The Leader anchors your deck and colors. Character cards are your board presence and attackers. Event cards are one-time effects. Stage cards give ongoing board effects. And DON!! cards are your resource system.
Knowing the type matters when you build a deck: most of your deck is Characters, with a handful of Events and Stages for support.
Colors and building a deck
Cards come in six colors: Red, Green, Blue, Purple, Black and Yellow. Your Leader determines which colors you may play — a deck can only use cards matching its Leader's color(s). Some Leaders are dual-color, opening up more options.
A standard deck is 50 cards (not counting your Leader) plus a separate 10-card DON!! deck. Start with a starter deck to learn a color, then upgrade it with singles.
Rarities and chase cards
Cards come in rarities: Common (C), Uncommon (UC), Rare (R), Super Rare (SR), Secret Rare (SEC) and Leader (L), plus Promo (PR) cards from events. Higher rarities are pulled less often and tend to be worth more.
The biggest price drivers are alternate-art cards, often called Manga Rare — special illustrations that collectors chase, the One Piece equivalent of a chase card in other games. These are where most of the value in a collection sits.
How to read a card
A card shows its Cost (how much DON!! it takes to play), Power (its strength in battle), and often a Counter value (extra power you can add when defending). Character cards also list an Attribute (such as Slash, Strike, Ranged, Special or Wisdom) and Traits (the crews and groups it belongs to, like Straw Hat Crew).
The card text describes its effect using keywords in brackets — for example [On Play], [Blocker], [Rush] or [DON!! x1]. These keywords are the heart of how the card plays, and banlisto shows the full card text and stats on every card page.
Getting started with banlisto
banlisto is a free catalog and collection tracker for the One Piece Card Game. You can search any card, see its reference price aggregated from public marketplaces, and add cards to your collection or wishlist to follow their value over time.
Reference prices are for information only — banlisto does not sell cards and this is not investment advice. Start by searching a card you own, add it to your collection, and explore the sets to see the whole game at a glance.