OP-17 Shanks Deck Guide: Green Tempo-Lock Leader Build

TL;DR: Shanks (OP17-020) is OP-17's Green leader: 5 Life, 5000 power, and an Activate: Main ability, once per turn, that trashes a card from hand or rests a DON!! to stop one of the opponent's rested Characters from becoming active in their next Refresh Phase. That's tempo denial, not removal, matching Green's established identity of resting the opponent's board instead of destroying it. Tracked decklists (opdecks.xyz, Sep 6) put Shanks outside the top play-rate leaders, currently led by Enel, Luffy, and Mihawk, so treat this as a build-around-the-ability guide, not a confirmed tier-1 placement.

Is the OP-17 Shanks deck good? (quick answer)

Not a top pick, but a real one. Tracked decklists (opdecks.xyz, Sep 6) show Shanks outside the top play-rate leaders, currently led by Enel, Luffy, and Mihawk. What's confirmed is the mechanic: Shanks's leader ability is a Main-phase, once-per-turn tempo tool that denies a rested opponent Character its next Refresh Phase, at the cost of a hand card or a DON!!. That's a scaled-up version of exactly what Green already does best, which means the deck's ceiling depends less on the leader inventing a new plan and more on how well OP-17's card pool supports Green's existing rest-based toolkit.

Key Takeaways

• Shanks (OP17-020) is OP-17's Green leader: 5 Life, 5000 power, Slash attribute, typed The Four Emperors and Red-Haired Pirates
• The leader ability is Activate: Main, once per turn: trash 1 card from hand or rest 1 DON!! to stop one of the opponent's rested Characters from becoming active in their next Refresh Phase
• This is denial, not removal. The targeted Character stays on the board and returns to normal the following turn
• OP17-020 (Leader) and OP17-022 OP17-022OP17-022Shop on TCGplayer (a separate Super Rare Character, also named Shanks) are two different cards with different jobs, and the numbering gap between them trips people up
• Tracked decklists (opdecks.xyz, Sep 6) put Shanks outside the top play-rate leaders (Enel, Luffy, and Mihawk lead), so treat this build as ability-first, not a proven tier-1 pick
• The ability's dual cost, a hand card or a DON!!, gives it more built-in flexibility than most single-resource abilities in the format
• Illustrated by Paji

OP-17 Shanks leader overview: stats and ability

Shanks (OP17-020) is a Green Leader card with 5 Life and 5000 power, carrying the Slash card attribute and the type line The Four Emperors and Red-Haired Pirates. He's one of six confirmed leaders in The World's Strongest Warriors set, and the last of the six to lock in a color assignment worth building around in the eyes of most early set coverage. The full ability text reads: "[Activate: Main][Once Per Turn] You may trash 1 card from your hand or rest 1 of your DON!! cards: Up to 1 of your opponent's rested Characters will not become active in your opponent's next Refresh Phase."

The key word is "rested." This ability only targets a Character that's already tapped, whether because it just attacked, just blocked, or was rested by an earlier effect. It doesn't touch an active Character at all. That's a meaningful restriction: Shanks isn't a way to lock down whatever the opponent's best blocker is on your own attack turn unless that blocker is already rested for some other reason. It's a way to make an existing rest last twice as long as it normally would.

Shanks (OP17-020), OP-17's Green Leader. The Activate: Main ability only targets a Character that's already rested.

How the rested-character lock actually plays out

Green's whole identity in One Piece TCG runs on resting, not removing. A rested Character or DON!! card stays on the board or in the DON!! area, it just can't act until it becomes active again, which normally happens automatically at the start of its controller's next turn. The Green color identity guide covers this in detail: Green cards rest opposing blockers before an attack, rest DON!! before the opponent's biggest play, or rest an attacker mid-combat as a Counter effect. Shanks's leader ability is the same idea, scaled to leader strength and aimed at the Refresh Phase specifically.

Here's the sequence that makes it useful. Your opponent attacks with a Character or blocks with one, either way it ends the turn rested. Normally, that Character becomes active again at the start of their next turn and is back in play as an option. Shanks's ability intercepts that: activate it on your Main phase, before your opponent's Refresh Phase happens, and the targeted Character stays rested through that Refresh Phase instead of waking back up. The opponent effectively loses that Character for an entire extra turn cycle, without you spending a removal effect or forcing a trade.

That timing window matters. You need the target to already be rested when you activate the ability, and you need to activate it before your opponent's next Refresh Phase resolves, which in practice means using it during your own turn, after they've committed a Character to combat. Waiting too long, or activating it on a Character that's about to become active anyway through some other effect, wastes the resource, and that's the single most common misplay an OP-17 Shanks deck will make early on.

GODEEPER: See how Shanks's ability compares to the other five confirmed OP-17 leaders and their early build directions. OP-17 Leader Preview: All 6 Confirmed Deck Potentials →

Green's established toolkit, applied at leader scale

Green doesn't specialize in card advantage or removal the way Black or Blue do; it specializes in making sure the opponent's board can't do what it's supposed to do on schedule. The Blue/Green Luffy leader from OP-16, covered in the full Luffy deck guide, showed how effective a rest-based control plan can be when it's paired with enough tempo tools to back it up, reaching S-tier in JP week 1 results for that set. Shanks doesn't have Luffy's dual-color Blue toolkit for card draw and bounce, but a mono-Green Shanks deck can lean harder into a pure disruption plan instead.

Practically, that means an OP-17 Shanks deck wants a high density of rest-effect Characters and Events, the same core Green shopping list that's worked across multiple sets: cards that rest a blocker before your attack, cards that rest DON!! before the opponent's turn, and Counter-timed rest effects that blunt an attack while also boosting your Leader's power in that battle. The leader ability adds a layer none of those cards have on their own: it doesn't just rest something, it keeps something already rested from ever waking back up on schedule. Stack that on top of a normal Green rest package and the opponent can end up a full Character behind for multiple turns running.

The tradeoff is the same one every Green deck faces. Pure rest-based disruption struggles against decks that rebuild their board with fresh, already-active threats every turn rather than relying on the same Characters staying in play. Against that kind of aggressive opponent, Shanks's ability is worth less, since there's rarely an already-rested Character worth locking down before the opponent has already moved on to a new attacker.

Shanks the leader vs. the OP-17 Super Rare Character: don't mix them up

OP-17 includes a second card named Shanks that has nothing to do with this leader deck's ability. OP17-022 is a Super Rare Character, Green, 10 cost, 12000 power, with Rush and an On Play effect that sets up to 2 of your DON!! cards as active, then rests all of your opponent's Characters. It's a completely different design: a huge, one-shot swing card rather than a repeatable, once-per-turn leader tool.

The two cards share a color and a name, and both cards lean on Green's rest identity in their own way, which is exactly why it's easy to conflate them when skimming a spoiler list or a secondhand summary. But OP17-022 slots into any Green deck as a high-cost finisher, not specifically an OP-17 Shanks deck build, while OP17-020 is the leader this entire guide is about. If you see "Shanks" mentioned in an OP-17 discussion, check the card number before assuming which one is meant.

OP17-022, a separate Super Rare Shanks Character. It's a Rush finisher, not the OP-17 leader this guide covers.

Step-by-step: building the OP-17 Shanks deck

1. Build a rest-heavy Green core first. Prioritize Characters and Events that rest opposing Characters or DON!! cards on play, on Counter, or as an activated effect. This is the foundation Shanks's leader ability layers onto, and the deck is weak without a real density of these effects already in the 50-card list.

2. Pick your resource, hand card or DON!!, based on the turn. Early game, when you're DON!!-light, trashing a hand card to activate Shanks is usually cheaper than resting a DON!! you need for your own plays. Late game, with a fuller board and less need for extra cards, resting a DON!! instead can be the better trade.

3. Target Characters your opponent depends on, not whatever's rested. A rested vanilla Character with no relevant ability isn't worth locking down. Save the leader ability for a key blocker or a Character whose On Play or Once Per Turn effect the opponent needs active again next turn.

4. Activate before the opponent's Refresh Phase, every time. The ability only matters if it resolves before your opponent's next Refresh Phase. Get in the habit of checking this during your own Main phase rather than trying to react afterward, when the window has already closed.

5. Pair the lock with your own attack the same turn. Denying the opponent a blocker or attacker is most valuable when you immediately punish the gap it creates. Sequence your attacks after activating the ability whenever the board state allows it.

GODEEPER: For the fuller picture of how OP-17's six leaders reshuffled the older OP-16 top tier. OP-17 OP-16 Format: How the Meta Changes This Fall →

Tips for playing OP-17 Shanks

These are the habits worth building into an OP-17 Shanks deck from the first few games, before bad timing costs a real match.

Don't lock down a Character that was going to stay rested anyway. If the opponent has no way to make that Character active early, you've spent a resource for nothing. Save the ability for Characters that would otherwise refresh on schedule and matter next turn.

Track which of the opponent's Characters carry a repeatable On Play or Once Per Turn effect. Those are the highest-value lock targets, since denying them a turn also denies whatever value effect they'd otherwise generate again.

Mix hand-card and DON!! costs across a game rather than defaulting to one. A deck that always trashes cards runs its hand thin; one that always rests DON!! can fall behind on plays. Alternate based on what you can actually spare that turn.

Don't confuse this with removal when planning your attacks. The locked Character is still on the board and can still block once it wakes up. Plan your attack sequencing around denying it a turn, not around it being permanently gone.

Re-check this guide as more match data accumulates. Tracked decklists exist now (opdecks.xyz, Sep 6) but Shanks-specific matchup and win-rate data is still thin outside of raw play-rate share. Treat any precise matchup claim about the OP-17 Shanks deck you see elsewhere with caution until it cites a live tracker.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Shanks's OP-17 leader ability do? Once per turn as a Main phase action, you may trash 1 card from hand or rest 1 DON!! card to keep one of your opponent's rested Characters from becoming active in their next Refresh Phase. It denies a blocker or attacker for a full turn.

Is OP17-020 the same card as OP17-022 Shanks? No. OP17-020 is the Green Leader this guide covers. OP17-022 is a separate Super Rare Character, a 10-cost Rush attacker that sets DON!! active and rests the opponent's board on play. Both exist in OP-17, but they do very different jobs.

What color is the OP-17 Shanks deck? Green. Shanks (OP17-020) is a mono-Green leader with 5 Life and 5000 power, typed The Four Emperors and Red-Haired Pirates. Green's core identity is resting the opponent's Characters and DON!!, which is exactly what this leader's ability does at leader scale.

Is there tournament data yet for the OP-17 Shanks deck? Not a top pick. Tracked decklists (opdecks.xyz, Sep 6) show Shanks outside the top play-rate leaders, currently led by Enel, Luffy, and Mihawk. This guide is still built from confirmed card text and Green's established mechanics rather than a claimed win rate for the deck specifically.

Does Shanks's ability remove the opponent's Character? No. It keeps an already-rested Character rested through the opponent's next Refresh Phase instead of removing it. The Character stays on board and returns to being usable the following turn, so this is disruption, not permanent removal.

What does Shanks's ability cost to activate? You choose between trashing 1 card from hand or resting 1 of your own DON!! cards, once per turn, as a Main phase action. That flexibility lets you pay with whichever resource you can spare that turn, hand size or DON!! availability.

Related Reading

• OP-17 Release Date Confirmed: Full Staggered Launch Schedule: The full Japan, US pre-release, and EN wide release timeline for OP-17.
• OP-17 Blue Leader Revealed: Rocks D. Xebec Confirmed: The August 3 reveal that closed out OP-17's six-leader lineup.
• One Piece TCG Beginner Guide 2026: Full color system and battle rules for players still learning how resting and the Refresh Phase work.

References

• Limitless TCG: Shanks (OP17-020): official card text and stat line for the Green Leader
• Limitless TCG: Shanks (OP17-022): official card text for the separate Super Rare Character
• One Piece Card Game official card list: official Bandai card database for OP-17