Deck-Building Cheat Sheet
The high-level framework for building a prerelease deck out of your OP-17 pool, plus set-specific quirks called out in the review.
✅ Look For (ratios out of ~50 cards)
- 2k Counter Cards — 10
- Blockers — 10
- Vanillas — 10
- Removal / Card Draw — 5
- Boss Characters — 5
🚫 What to Avoid
- Attacking units under 5000 power
- Combo pieces with few targets
- Archetype-locked cards
- Searchers
- Too many bricks
📌 OP-17-Specific Notes
- Average-to-high number of 2Ks — you'll likely cut a couple.
- Not much Rush outside red Sanji leader; some great Rush:Character options though.
- Vanilla 2Ks are all massive — somewhat less useful compared to 5-cost/6000-power bodies.
- Either curve can work — depends on your pool. Slight edge to going 2nd (lots of 10-cost, low volume of 3-cost).
- Lots of ways to rest/bypass blockers, especially in green — be careful going to low life.
- Most blockers are fairly high quality.
- Lots of extremely powerful characters, but many are "bricks." Your opponent may not have as much counter as you think.
Set Overview new — from web research
Context the spreadsheet didn't cover: what the set actually is, when it drops, and how it lands in the wider competitive format.
📦 The World's Strongest Warriors
- 135 unique cards; 4th-anniversary set weaving the Elbaph arc (Giants, Prince Loki) together with a Four Emperors celebration.
- Release: Aug 22, 2026 (Japan) / Aug 28, 2026 (English).
- Two debut rarities: Treasure Rare (new top rarity, above Secret Rare, one per set) and manga-style Manga Rares of the four old-era Emperors.
- Six Leaders: Whitebeard (Red), Luffy (Black), Shanks (Green), Kaido (Purple), Big Mom (Yellow), and a surprise legendary pick — Rocks.D.Xebec (Blue).
🌐 Where OP-17 Lands in the Meta
- All OP-16 cards stay legal — the format gets bigger (100+ new cards), which historically favors midrange/combo over pure aggro.
- Going into OP-17, OP-16's S-tier is Luffy (65.0% WR), Enel (64.6%), Blackbeard (61.5%).
- Enel is most at risk: Kaido lands in the same Purple slot and competes directly for deck space.
- If holding OP-16 staples through the transition: Yamato (Black-Yellow) and Blackbeard (Yellow-Black) engines are called out as the most format-resilient holds.
Leader Guide new — spreadsheet had these as N/A
The original ratings sheet skipped Leaders entirely. Here's a rank + ability summary pulled from OP-17 leader-preview coverage, ordered strongest → weakest per early competitive consensus.
🏆 Top 10 Cards — the best of the best in the set
2K Counter Breakdown
1-cost 2000-power counter characters are the backbone of a prerelease deck — but not all of them pull their weight.
👍 Good 2Ks — worth running even without a payoff
👎 Underwhelming 2Ks — fine filler, don't expect much
⚪ Vanilla 2Ks — plain 7-8k power bodies with a 2k counter
🔶 "Vanill-ish" — off-rate bodies whose text box makes up the difference
🤔 Maybe Not These — narrow / situational, think twice
Events
⚡ Hybrid Events — strong Main ability + usable Counter
😴 Sleeper Picks — easy to overlook, quietly strong
👀 Other Cards to Look Out For
Chase Cards & Premium Pulls new — for the collector side of prerelease
Not a gameplay ranking — these are the pulls people are actually hoping to crack packs for.