OP-16 Impel Down Buggy Deck Guide: Blue Swarm Build

Below is the engine with the exact card text, the best tournament list we found, what it costs, and how it did.

How the Buggy engine works

Image: Bandai, official ONE PIECE CARD GAME card art (OP16-041 Buggy, Leader)

The Leader, OP16-041 Buggy. Blue, 5 Life, 5000 power. With 1 DON!! attached, once per turn, when one of your Impel Down Characters is removed from the field, you play up to 1 Prisoner of Impel Down from your hand. Bandai's own deck guide confirms that a K.O., a bounce back to your hand and trashing by an effect all count.

The body, OP16-042 Prisoner of Impel Down. A 6-cost, 6000-power Character with a 2000 Counter, and you may run any number of copies. You almost never pay for it. Buggy's Leader effect and the OP16-048 Buggy Character play it for free.

Image: Bandai, official card images from the ONE PIECE CARD GAME card list (OP16-042, OP16-058)

The ways to trigger it. Crocodile (OP16-045) and Miss Olive (OP16-050) both return one of your own 2-cost-or-more Characters to your hand when played. That's a removal, so Buggy fires. Mr.3 (OP16-056) can trash himself to draw 2 and stop an opponent's Character from attacking, which also fires Buggy. The OP16-048 Buggy draws a card and plays a Prisoner on its way in, then once per turn gives a Prisoner Blocker when you're attacked.

The draw. Mr.1 (OP16-054) and Mr.2 (OP16-055) are 2-cost Characters that draw a card when played. Mr.1 also gets +3000 on your turn with a DON!! attached if you hold 5 or more cards.

Bandai's own recommended deck finishes with The Prisoners Are Rioting!! (OP16-058), which makes every Prisoner 7000 base power for the turn. Read the whole card: it only works with 10 DON!! on your field. Neither tournament list below plays it.

The list

This is the Blue Buggy list STG Kieran took to 4th place at Treasure Cup Peoria on June 21, 2026, a 510-player event. Limitless prices it at $74.61 using the cheapest printings.

Repriced on November 2 at TCGplayer market (each card's base printing, via tcgcsv.com), the list comes to $75.58. Just over half of that is the 20 Prisoners at $1.91 each ($38.20), and the next big piece is Mr.3 at $6.74 a copy ($26.96). Gravity Blade Raging Tiger is $4.20; every other card in the list is under $1.

The price has gone flat. The Prisoner moved 15 cents in two and a half weeks, so there's no reason to wait for it to drop further.

Car D. Kaizoku's guide list is close: it cuts Ivankov and Sanji for two more Miss Olive and a second Gravity Blade. Both run exactly 20 Prisoners.

SHOP: Building the Impel Down Buggy deck? Check the current price of the Buggy leader (OP16-041) on TCGPlayer. Shop TCGplayer →

How to play it

Keep a Prisoner in hand at all times. The Leader effect does nothing without one, and it needs that DON!! on Buggy before the removal happens, not after.

Your early turns are the 2-costs that draw: Mr.1 and Mr.2. From there, Crocodile and Miss Olive turn a bounce of your own Character into a free Prisoner, and the bounced card goes back to your hand to be played again. Save the OP16-048 Buggy for when you have a Prisoner to drop with it, since the draw and the free body together are the deck's best turn.

Mr.3 is the late-game card. Trashing him draws you two, triggers Buggy, and stops one of their Characters with a cost of 9 or less from attacking until the end of their next turn.

How Buggy has done

We counted every published list on Limitless Play's One Piece events in two windows.

Buggy's best finish there was 3rd of 63 at ChinoizeCup #72 on June 17 (5-1). The Peoria 4th is the deck's only placing on Limitless's main One Piece database.

The Buggy that is winning: OP09-042

The same 632 lists from October 15 to November 2 had 38 Buggy decks, all on the other Blue Buggy Leader, OP09-042 from Emperors in the New World. That made it the sixth most played Leader in the sample, behind Rocks.D.Xebec (OP17-039, 108 lists), Monkey.D.Luffy (OP13-001, 64), Luffy & Ace (ST30-001, 50), Enel (OP05-098, 41) and Sabo (OP13-004, 40).

It's a different deck: OP09-042 is a Cross Guild Leader, and the Prisoner engine from this guide doesn't carry over. Our EB05 Buggy decklist covers that build, card by card. If you already own the OP-16 cards, keep them for casual play. If you want to win a store event with a Buggy, start there instead.

What players said

Car D. Kaizoku's guide covers the list, the price, opening hands and matchups, then plays four games.

On release day, the price was the problem. One r/OnePieceTCG player wrote "I refuse to pay $5 for 14 copies of a card. I was super hyped for this deck but the singles market is wack right now", and another predicted it would fall: "Japan went from $5 a prisoner to about a dollar each after a few weeks". Before the set was out, one player summed the deck up as "going to be a powerhouse in some scenarios and will just lose to itself in others."

Our take

Build Buggy if you want a cheap, silly deck for casual nights. Twenty Prisoners on a table is a lot of fun, and the whole list is about $76.

Don't build it for a tournament. It was a fringe pick when OP-16 was new, and it's gone from the Limitless Play events we counted since mid-October. If you want a Blue deck that wins, look at the current tier list or the Cross Guild Buggy above, and for the other Impel Down Leader see the OP-16 Luffy deck guide.

How we checked this: card text from Bandai's official OP-16 card list; Bandai's recommended Buggy deck page; the Peoria list, placing and price from Limitless TCG's One Piece database; single prices from TCGplayer market data on October 15 and November 2, 2026 (via tcgcsv.com); tournament use from the Limitless Play API, every published decklist from One Piece events not marked EXTRA between June 12 and November 2, 2026 (the last window re-counted on November 3); OP09-042's color and set from Limitless's card page and TCGplayer's product data.

Frequently Asked Questions

What color is Buggy in OP-16? Blue. The OP16-041 Leader has 5 Life and 5000 power.

How many Prisoner of Impel Down can you play? Any number. The card says so. Tournament lists run 20.

How much does a Buggy deck cost? The Peoria 4th-place list came to $75.58 at TCGplayer market on November 2, 2026, using each card's base printing. The 20 Prisoners ($38.20) are just over half of that, and four Mr.3 ($26.96) are most of the rest.

Is Blue Buggy good in OP-17? Not the OP-16 Impel Down version. It had 1 list from August 20 to October 14 (0-4) and none of 632 lists from October 15 to November 2 on Limitless Play. The other Blue Buggy Leader, OP09-042, had 38 lists in that second window with a 93-78 match record.

Which Buggy Leader is being played right now? OP09-042 Buggy, the Blue Cross Guild Leader from Emperors in the New World. It was the sixth most played Leader in our Limitless Play sample from October 15 to November 2, with a best finish of 7th of 64 players. OP16-041 had no lists.

Does The Prisoners Are Rioting!! belong in the deck? Only if you reach 10 DON!! on your field, which is what it needs. Neither tournament list we checked plays it.

Related Reading

• One Piece TCG OP-16 Complete Guide: every OP-16 Leader and product.
• One Piece TCG Blue Color Guide: the rest of Blue's bounce and draw.
• One Piece TCG Counter Mechanic Explained: why a 2000 Counter matters on a free body.

References

• Bandai: OP-16 card list
• Bandai: Recommended deck, (Blue) Buggy
• Limitless TCG: Blue Buggy, Treasure Cup Peoria
• Limitless Play: One Piece tournaments