Black Yamato Matchups and Build: OP-16 Deck Guide 2026

TL;DR: A Black Yamato deck is mono-Black by rule (Comprehensive Rules 5-1-2-2). Limitless averages from 8 OP16 lists show a near-fixed core: four each of Yamato OP16-098 and OP16-096, close to four of OP16-097, Nami, both Momonosuke cards, Shinobu, Nico Robin and Kin'emon, plus 3.63 copies of the OP16-099 Event. In ranked data from June 23, 2026 the deck won 49.3% of 30,820 games, lost hard to Blue/Yellow Nami (24.4% first, 33.8% second) and beat Teach (78.7% second).

Updated October 12, 2026: This guide was rewritten and retitled. Earlier versions described a Black/Yellow Yamato deck with "up to 10 cards from any one secondary color." That rule does not exist, so the Yellow package was removed. The page now covers the legal mono-Black build from Limitless tournament averages and sourced matchup data. OP-17 released in English on August 28, 2026, so these are OP16-format numbers.

Black Yamato deck: quick answer

A Black Yamato deck is a 50-card mono-Black list built around Yamato OP16-079's Leader ability: when a Land of Wano Character is played from your trash, it gains Rush that turn. The SR Yamato OP16-098 trashes itself to put an 8-cost Black Yamato from the trash into play, and that Yamato can attack right away.

You cannot add Yellow. Bandai's Comprehensive Rules state: "Only cards of a color included on the Leader card can be included in a deck." OP16-079 is listed as Black, so every card in the deck has to be Black. For the full engine walkthrough, our Black Yamato deck guide goes turn by turn; this page focuses on the averaged list and the matchups.

Key Takeaways

• Comprehensive Rules 5-1-2-2: only cards of a color included on the Leader card can be in the deck, so a Black Yamato deck is mono-Black
• Limitless averages from 8 OP16 decklists: four each of Yamato OP16-098, Yamato OP16-096, Nami OP16-091 and both Kouzuki Momonosuke cards
• The OP16-099 Event averages 3.63 copies and Ground Death OP14-096 averages 1.88
• Ranked data from June 23, 2026: 49.3% overall win rate over 30,820 games
• Worst matchup: Blue/Yellow Nami, 24.4% going first and 33.8% going second
• Best of the top five decks: Black/Yellow Teach, 78.7% going second
• Limitless OP16 points: Black Yamato seventh at 1.37% share, 8 placings

Why the Black Yamato deck has no Yellow cards

The color rule settles it. Section 5-1-2-2 of Bandai's Comprehensive Rules reads: "Only cards of a color included on the Leader card can be included in a deck. Cards of a color not included on the Leader card cannot be added to the deck." A two-color Leader can use both of its colors. Yamato OP16-079 has one color, Black.

An earlier version of this page claimed a single-color Leader "can include cards of that color plus up to 10 cards from any one secondary color." That rule isn't in the Comprehensive Rules, and a list built on it would be rejected at a sanctioned event. The 8 to 10 card Yellow splash and the turn plan built around it have been removed.

Image: Bandai official card image (OP16-079 Yamato Leader). The card lists one color, Black, so every card in her deck must be Black.

Bandai's card list shows three Yamato Leaders, and none of them is Black/Yellow:

• OP16-079 Yamato (Black): 5 Life, 5000 power, and the trash-Rush ability. This is the Black Yamato deck's Leader.
• OP06-022 Yamato (Green/Yellow): 4 Life, Double Attack, and a once-per-turn ability that gives up to 2 rested DON!! to a Character when the opponent has 3 or less Life.
• ST09-001 Yamato (Yellow): 5 Life, gains +1000 power on the opponent's turn with DON!! x1 if you have 2 or less Life cards.

OP06-022 and ST09-001 include Yellow but not Black, so neither can play the OP-16 Black Yamato Characters. Check the current banned and restricted list and your event's format before building around an older Leader.

Image: Bandai official card list (OP16-079 Black, OP06-022 Green/Yellow, ST09-001 Yellow). None of the three Yamato Leaders is Black/Yellow.

Black Yamato deck build: what 8 tournament lists run

Limitless TCG averages card counts across the 8 Black Yamato decklists it recorded in OP16. The core barely moves from list to list, which matches the Reddit view that the deck is close to solved.

The averages split into 44.17 Characters and 5.89 Events per list. That is a Character-heavy deck: almost every slot is either a Yamato, a body that fills the trash, or a cheap Land of Wano Character that OP16-097 can play.

The OP16-099 Event is the setup card. It costs 1, but you rest 6 DON!! to trash the top 5 cards of your deck and then play a Land of Wano Character costing 6 or less from your trash. With the Leader, that Character has Rush.

What the lists leave out. Black also has Land of Wano defensive cards: OP16-100OP16-100Shop on TCGplayer Hallowed Glacier Slash (a 1-cost Event with a +3000 Counter), OP16-101OP16-101Shop on TCGplayer Mahoroba (a 2-cost Event whose Trigger adds a Yamato from trash to hand) and OP16-083OP16-083Shop on TCGplayer Kouzuki Oden (a 5-cost Blocker that draws 2 if you trash a cost 8 or more Character). All three are legal in a Black Yamato deck. None of them appears in the 8 averaged lists, so treat them as options to test, not staples.

Black Yamato matchups by turn order

TCGMatchMaking posted Black Yamato's ranked numbers to r/OnePieceTCG on June 23, 2026: 30,820 games at a 49.3% win rate. The chart splits every matchup by turn order. Read these as online ranked results from one point in the OP16 format, not tournament win rates.

Compare that against Limitless's OP16 points share. The three biggest decks were Blue/Yellow Nami (23.52%), Green/Blue Luffy (22.91%) and Purple Enel (22.71%). Black Yamato is clearly behind against Nami, behind against Enel from either seat, and only ahead of Luffy when it goes second. That is the reason one Reddit player predicted the deck would have "bad matchups into 3 of the top 5 meta decks."

Nami. This is the matchup that defines the deck's ceiling. Nobody in the thread disputed it, and one reply called it "the only terrible matchup." Our Nami counter guide covers what other decks do against her.

Enel. Purple Enel was the third-biggest OP16 deck by points, and Black Yamato won 41.8% going first and 40.9% going second. There is no turn-order fix here. See the Purple Enel deck guide for how that Leader plays.

Teach and Rosinante. Black Yamato's best result against a top-five deck was Black/Yellow Teach: 52.7% first and 78.7% second. Against Purple/Yellow Rosinante, it was close to even going first (48.5%) and worse going second (42%).

Image: Bandai official card image (OP16-080 Marshall.D.Teach Leader), the OP-16 Leader whose card is Black/Yellow.

OP16-080OP16-080Shop on TCGplayer Marshall.D.Teach is also the answer if you wanted a Black/Yellow deck in OP-16. His Leader is Black/Yellow with 4 Life. On the opponent's turn his Characters gain +1 cost, and on an opponent's attack he can trash a [Trigger] card from hand to change the attack's target. He can legally run Black Yamato Characters, but without Yamato's Leader they lose their Rush from the trash.

GODEEPER: For Teach's redirect plan and Trigger package, see the OP-16 Blackbeard Deck Guide →

TheEgman's OP16 Yamato video above walks through a mono-Black list and gameplay.

Step-by-Step: building and piloting a Black Yamato deck

1. Lock the colors first. OP16-079 means Black only. Count colors on every card before an event; one non-Black card makes the list illegal.

2. Start from the averaged core. Four OP16-098, four OP16-096, close to four OP16-097, then the support Characters at three to four copies each, as in the table above.

3. Fill the trash on purpose. The OP16-099 Event trashes the top 5 and plays a Land of Wano Character from the trash in one action. An 8-cost Yamato that lands in the trash early is a target for OP16-098 later.

4. Turn the SR Yamato into an attack. OP16-098 can trash itself to play a black 8-cost Yamato from your trash, and the Leader gives that Yamato Rush. If OP16-096 is later K.O.'d, it plays a Yamato costing 6 or less back from the trash.

5. Choose to go second when you can. In the June ranked data, going second improved the result against Luffy, Teach, Ace, Buggy and the mirror. Against Enel, Rosinante and Sengoku it did not.

Tips and common mistakes

Trusting a "splash" rule from other card games. Some games allow off-color cards. One Piece TCG doesn't. The Leader's colors are the deck's colors.

Confusing Yamato Characters with Yamato Leaders. The Black Yamato Characters can go in any deck whose Leader includes Black, but only the OP16-079 Leader gives them Rush when played from the trash.

Over-teching. The core in the table above leaves only a handful of flexible slots. Spend them on Black cards that fix a real problem rather than cards that dilute the recursion chain.

What Yamato players say about the list

On r/OnePieceTCG, a thread asking for Black Yamato tech got a blunt answer: "yamato at this point is solved, you go all in on getting that 6c yamato out with a target in the trash". In another tech thread, a player warned: "Yamato is kinda solved and when you begin to tech specifically against an off meta pick like krieg you can find that you lose consistency and matchups into the meta."

Under the matchup chart, one player noted: "Nami looks like the only terrible matchup...and ST-30 but that's not as prevalent." Another added: "But yeah if you aren't going second its an uphill battle lol".

Our take

Based on the Limitless averages and the ranked chart cited above, Black Yamato was a coherent mono-Black deck that lost to the format's biggest decks. A 49.3% overall win rate, about one game in four against Nami going first, and 1.37% of OP16 points all point the same way: a strong locals pick, a hard sell for a large event. If you play it, copy the averaged core, take the second turn where the data supports it, and expect Nami and Enel to be the losses. Earlier versions of this page recommended a Black/Yellow build that was never legal; we should not have published it.

How we checked this: 38 facts checked on October 12, 2026 against Bandai's Comprehensive Rules and official card list, Limitless TCG's OP16 deck share and Black Yamato card averages, TCGMatchMaking's ranked chart as posted to r/OnePieceTCG, and the video and Reddit comments cited above; the full source table is kept with our editorial notes. Last reviewed: October 12, 2026.

GODEEPER: For the Blue/Yellow side of the worst matchup, see our OP-16 Nami tech cards →

Related Reading

• OP-16 All 6 Leaders Explained: Colors & Which to Build: Verified colors and quick profiles for all six OP-16 Leaders, useful context for how Yamato compares to the rest of the field.
• One Piece TCG Black Deck Guide: Removal and Trash Mastery: Black's removal toolkit and trash recursion mechanics explained as a color archetype.
• OP-16 Complete Guide: All Leaders and Set Overview: The full OP-16 set guide, including all six Leaders, chase cards, and format impact.
• One Piece TCG OP-16 Meta Report July 2026: The OP-16 tier picture before OP-17's launch; see the OP-17 meta tier list for the current picture.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Black Yamato deck run Yellow cards?

No. Bandai's Comprehensive Rules say only cards of a color included on the Leader card can be in the deck. Yamato OP16-079 is Black only, so a Black Yamato deck holds Black cards and nothing else. There is no secondary-color allowance of up to 10 cards.

What does a Black Yamato deck list run?

Limitless averages from 8 OP16 tournament lists show four each of Yamato OP16-098, Yamato OP16-096, Nami and both Kouzuki Momonosuke cards. Yamato OP16-097, Shinobu, Nico Robin and Kin'emon sit just under four, and the OP16-099 Event averages 3.63 copies.

What is Black Yamato's worst matchup?

Blue/Yellow Nami. TCGMatchMaking's ranked chart from June 23, 2026 shows 24.4% going first and 33.8% going second against OP11 Nami. Nami also led Limitless's OP16 points share at 23.52%, so the worst matchup was also the most common deck at events.

Should Black Yamato go first or second?

Second, in most matchups. The ranked chart shows better results going second against Luffy, Teach, Ace, Buggy and the mirror. Enel, Rosinante and Sengoku were the exceptions, where going first was equal or better. One Reddit player called going first an uphill battle.

Is Black Yamato competitive in OP-16?

It placed, but rarely. Limitless lists Black Yamato seventh in OP16 points at 81 points and 1.37% share from 8 placings, including 5th at Treasure Cup Bielefeld and 13th at Treasure Cup Peoria. Its overall ranked win rate in the June chart was 49.3%.

Is there a Black/Yellow Yamato Leader?

Not on Bandai's card list. The Yamato Leaders are OP16-079 (Black), OP06-022 (Green/Yellow) and ST09-001 (Yellow). OP-16's Black/Yellow Leader is Marshall.D.Teach OP16-080, which can run Black Yamato Characters but does not give them Rush from the trash.

References

• One Piece Card Game Comprehensive Rules (PDF), Bandai: rule 5-1-2-2, deck colors
• One Piece Card Game official card list, Bandai: Yamato Leaders OP16-079, OP06-022, ST09-001; Yamato OP16-096, OP16-097, OP16-098; Marshall.D.Teach OP16-080; OP16-083, OP16-099, OP16-100, OP16-101
• Limitless TCG: Black Yamato average card counts: 8 decklists
• Limitless TCG: Black Yamato deck overview: 8 placings, 81 points, 5th at Treasure Cup Bielefeld, 13th at Treasure Cup Peoria
• Limitless TCG: OP16 deck share: points share by deck
• r/OnePieceTCG: OP16 Black Yamato 1st/2nd Win% and Card Win Rates (TCGMatchMaking chart): ranked matchup data, June 23, 2026
• TheEgman: One Piece Card Game: OP16 Yamato Guide, Deck List, and Gameplay!: video