09One Piece Card Game
The One Piece Card Game is Bandai's two-player trading card game. Each player leads with a single Leader card, fields Characters and spends DON!! cards as a resource to bring the opposing Leader's Life down to zero. This guide follows the official Rule Manual and Comprehensive Rules (version 1.2.1). Where a card's text contradicts the rules, the card text wins.
These are the parts of a card you will check during play.
Cost (top-left number)
How many active DON!! you rest to play the card. Leaders have no cost.
Power
Strength in battle. Only Leaders and Characters have it.
Attribute
Slash, Strike, Ranged, Special or Wisdom. Some effects refer to it.
Counter (along the left edge of many Characters)
The power, usually +1,000 or +2,000, the card adds when you trash it from your hand during your opponent's attack.
Effect and Trigger
The card's abilities and keywords, plus a [Trigger] effect on some cards that can be used when the card is revealed from your Life.
Colour
Red, green, blue, purple, black or yellow. Multicolour cards count as every colour they show.
Type
The crew or affiliation under the card name, such as Straw Hat Crew or Navy. Many effects look for a specific type.
Card number and block icon
The card number sets the 4-copy limit; the block icon in the lower-right corner decides tournament legality.
There are five card categories. Only Characters, Events and Stages go into your 50-card deck; a pre-built Starter Deck includes everything you need for a first game.
Your Leader starts face up in the Leader area and never leaves it. It has power and a Life value, decides which colours your deck can use and can attack every turn like a Character. Most Leaders have 5,000 power and 4 or 5 Life.
Life (Leaders only)
How many Life cards you start with.
Colour
Decides which cards your deck can use: every colour on every card must appear on your Leader.
DON!! cards are the resource. You add them from your DON!! deck every turn, rest them to pay costs, or attach them to your Leader and Characters for +1,000 power during your turn.
×10DON!! deck
| Turn | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Going first | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 10 |
| Going second | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 10 |
Characters are your crew. You pay their cost to play them, and they attack, block and carry most of your effects. You can have up to five in play. A Character cannot attack on the turn it is played unless it has [Rush].
ExampleMonkey.D.Luffy · ST01-012
Events are one-off effects: pay the cost, trash the card and resolve it. [Main] Events are used in your Main Phase; [Counter] Events are used when your opponent attacks.
Stages are places and ships with ongoing or activated effects. You can only have one in play; playing a new Stage trashes the old one.
ExampleThousand Sunny · ST01-017
Both players complete each step before moving on to the next.
Your side of the table has a Leader area, a Character area (up to 5 cards), a Stage area (1 card), a cost area for DON!!, your DON!! deck, your deck, your trash and your Life. The Leader, Character, Stage and cost areas together are called the field.
Cards on the field are either active (upright) or rested (turned sideways). Attacking, blocking and paying costs rest cards; your Refresh Phase sets them active again.
Every turn has five phases in a fixed order. The first player's opening turn is restricted to offset the advantage of going first.
Return every DON!! attached to your Leader and Characters to your cost area, then set all your rested cards as active.
Draw 1 card. The player going first does not draw on their first turn.
Place 2 DON!! from your DON!! deck face up and active in your cost area; the first player places only 1 on their first turn. Once the DON!! deck is empty you add none, so the second player has all 10 on their fifth turn and the first player on their sixth.
This is where the game happens. You can take these actions in any order, as many times as you are able.
Attached DON!! stay on that card until your next Refresh Phase and cannot be moved. If the card leaves the field, its DON!! return to your cost area rested.
With five Characters already in play, you can still play a new one by trashing one of yours. That is not a K.O., so [On K.O.] effects do not activate.
End-of-turn effects resolve, effects that last during this turn expire, and play passes to your opponent.
A battle has four steps followed by the end of the battle. Knowing the defender's options is the key to reading the game.
Rest your active Leader or an active Character to declare an attack, then choose a target: your opponent's Leader or one of their rested Characters. Active Characters cannot be attacked. [When Attacking] effects activate now.
The defender may rest one active Character with [Blocker] to make it the new target. Only one Blocker can be used per battle.
The defender may, as often as they like, trash Character cards with a Counter value from their hand to add that power to their Leader or a Character for this battle, at no cost. They can also pay for Event cards with [Counter].
Compare power. If the attacker's power is equal to or higher than the target's, the attacker wins: ties go to the attacker. A losing Character is K.O.'d and goes to the trash; a losing Leader takes 1 damage. If the attacker's power is lower, nothing happens.
For each point of damage, the defending player adds the top card of their Life to their hand. If it has a [Trigger], they may reveal it and use that effect instead, after which the card goes to the trash unless the effect says otherwise. This is the hidden cost of attacking: every Life card your opponent loses becomes a card in their hand, often a Counter.
Effects that last during this battle end, and you return to your Main Phase to play more cards or attack again.
There are two ways to win a game.
On the turn it is played, this Character can attack Characters, but not the Leader.
ExampleDracule Mihawk · OP16-089
In the Block Step, rest this active Character to become the target of the attack instead.
ExampleTony Tony.Chopper · ST01-006
This card's attacks deal 2 damage to the opposing Leader instead of 1.
ExampleEdward.Newgate · ST22-003
Life cards lost to this card's attacks go to the trash, not the hand, and their Trigger cannot be used.
ExampleCrocodile · OP01-067
Your opponent cannot use [Blocker] against this card's attacks.
ExampleBoa Hancock · OP16-032
Activates when the card is played. It is mandatory if it can resolve, but you may refuse to pay an optional cost.
ExampleBrook · ST01-011
An effect you can use during your Main Phase, outside battle, often by paying a cost.
ExampleNami · ST01-007
Activates when this Character is K.O.'d in battle or by an effect.
On Characters, the power a card adds when trashed from hand in the Counter Step, at no cost. On Events, an effect paid with DON!! and used in the Counter Step.
ExampleGuard Point · ST01-014
When damage moves this card from your Life to your hand, you may reveal it and use this effect instead.
ExampleMonkey.D.Luffy · OP07-109
The effect works only while this card has at least N DON!! attached.
ExampleRoronoa Zoro · ST01-013
The effect applies only during your turn, or only during your opponent's turn.
ExampleBorsalino · OP02-114
Placing a Character from the field into the trash, because it lost a battle or because of an effect.
ExampleNico Robin · OP01-017
Deck construction is short and strict. Run through this checklist before every game.
Since 1 April 2026, official events use two regulations. Standard only allows recent blocks, shown by the block number on each card; from April 2026 to March 2027 that means blocks 2 to 5. Extra allows every card released so far, except banned cards. A few Leaders change the deck-building rules with their own text, and the card wins.
Player A goes first and Player B goes second; both Leaders have 5,000 power and 5 Life.
Attaching DON!! forces your opponent to spend cards from hand, while playing Characters builds a board for later turns. Balancing the two is the core skill of the game.
Exactly 50, plus 1 Leader card and a separate DON!! deck of 10. That makes 61 cards in total, but only the 50-card deck is shuffled and drawn from.
Exactly 10, kept as a separate DON!! deck. You add 2 per turn (1 on the first player's first turn), so all 10 are in play by your fifth or sixth turn.
Yes. The limit is 4 cards with the same card number, and parallel or alternate-art versions count towards the same 4.
When you are attacked, you can trash Character cards with a Counter value from your hand to give your Leader or one of your Characters (normally the one being attacked) +1,000 or +2,000 power for that battle, at no cost, or pay for [Counter] Events. Use as many as you like, but the attacker still wins ties.
An effect that can activate when the card leaves your Life because your Leader took damage. You may reveal it and use the effect instead of adding the card to your hand, or simply keep the card.
No. Under the official rules neither player can battle on their first turn. The first player also skips their first draw and gets only 1 DON!!.
Yes, once. After drawing your opening 5 cards you can shuffle the whole hand back and draw 5 new ones. The first player decides first.
No. The official rules Q&A confirms there is no hand size limit, so you never discard at the end of your turn.
Sourcesen.onepiece-cardgame.com/rules/en.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_manual.pdfen.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_comprehensive.pdfen.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/qa_rules.pdfen.onepiece-cardgame.com/topics/013.phpen.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_overview_sheet_es.pdfen.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_overview_sheet_fr.pdffr.onepiece-cardgame.com/cardlist/fr.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_manual.pdffr.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_comprehensive.pdfonepiece-cardgame.com/rules/onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_manual.pdfonepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_comprehensive.pdfonepiece-cardgame.com/topics/085.phponepiece-cardgame.cn/rulesonepiece-cardgame.kr/rules.doonepiece-cardgame.kr/image/rule_manual.pdfonepiece-cardgame.kr/cardlist.do
