OP18 Green Luffy Leader vs OP12 Zoro: Who Swings Better?

Our pick: Luffy, for anyone who wants to win with Leader attacks once OP-18 is legal. Zoro stays the Leader to play until then, and the safer one if you don't want to buy four new cheap cards.

Where the OP18 Green Luffy leader text comes from

Bandai hasn't added OP-18 to its English card list yet. When we checked on November 3, the list's set menu had EB-05 but no OP-18. The text below is the one printed by TCGplayer's presale listing, OPlayTCG (which labels it a spoiler) and OPDeckGuide, and all three match:

[DON!!×3] [When Attacking] [Once Per Turn] You may set this Leader as active. If you do, this Leader will not become active in your next Refresh Phase.

He's Monkey.D.Luffy OP18-022: a Green Leader with 5000 power, 5 Life, the Strike attribute and the Straw Hat Crew and Water Seven types. OP-18 releases in English on November 20, 2026. Bandai's product page says the cards are legal from the pre-release date at your local store and tournament legal 7 days after release in your region. The other five OP-18 Leaders are tracked in our OP-18 leaders roundup.

OP18 Green Luffy leader vs Zoro OP12-020

Sources: Bandai's English card list (Zoro), TCGplayer, OPlayTCG and OPDeckGuide (Luffy).

Image credit: Bandai via the official ONE PIECE CARD GAME English card list.

Zoro has to fight a Character before he can stand up, and once he's up he can't hit Characters with base cost 7 or less, so his second swing nearly always goes at the Leader. Luffy's two attacks can go anywhere. The cost comes a turn later. A newer player in r/OnePieceTCG summed it up on October 12: "For Zoro you need to swing on a char first before you can restand him to active. Also zoro will be active in the next turn." (u/DarrowDayne)

The drawback only bites if he ends your turn rested

Bandai's comprehensive rules set every rested card in your Leader area active during your Refresh Phase (rule 6-2-4). Luffy's text takes him out of that step. If something sets him active before your turn ends, he enters the Refresh Phase already active and there's nothing to skip. That's our reading of the card against the rules; Bandai hasn't posted an OP-18 Q&A yet. The wording isn't new: Gum-Gum Giant Pistol EB02-021 already says the chosen Character "will not become active in your next Refresh Phase."

OP-18 prints these five Green cards at 1 to 4 cost that stand a Leader up outside the attack:

Sources: TCGplayer presale listing and OPlayTCG card pages, checked November 3, 2026.

Robin and the Gonbe plus Chimney pair work every turn: Robin sets a Water Seven card active (Luffy is one), and Gonbe and Chimney stand back up in your Refresh Phase. Kokoro and Luffy OP18-036 trash themselves, so they're one-shots. We ran the odds with our script scripts/sims/op18-leader-odds.py (exact hypergeometric math, not a simulation): with 12 re-stand cards (four each of Gonbe, Kokoro and Luffy OP18-036) in 50, and a redraw whenever the opening five has none, you've seen at least one by your second turn 96% of the time going first and 97% going second. With only 8 copies that drops to 87% and 89%.

Image credit: ShonenTCG chart via our odds script scripts/sims/op18-leader-odds.py.

Zoro and Sogeking OP18-027 (5 cost, 6000, per OPlayTCG and OPDeckGuide; TCGplayer hasn't listed it yet) adds defense. On your opponent's turn, if your [Monkey.D.Luffy] Leader is active with 3 or more DON!! given, his base power becomes 7000. DON!! given to a Leader stay on him until your next Refresh Phase (rule 6-2-3), so a Luffy stood up at the end of your turn usually still has them. At 7000, a 5000-power Leader needs 2 DON!! just to hit him.

Three swings on 4 DON!!: the Gonbe and Chimney line

The play people noticed first: "it can potentially swing 3 8ks at lead on a 4 don turn" (u/Dylsp33d, October 7). Here's how it works going second:

1. Turn 1, 2 DON!!: play Chimney.
2. Turn 2, 4 DON!!: play Gonbe for 1 and give the other 3 to Luffy. A Leader gains 1000 power per DON!! during your turn (rule 6-5-5-2), so he swings at 8000.
3. Attack, stand him up with his own effect, attack again.
4. Rest Gonbe and Chimney to set him active and attack a third time.
5. At the end of the turn Gonbe is rested, so Gonbe sets Luffy active. He starts your next turn standing.

Going first you get 1 DON!! on turn 1 and 2 more each turn after (rule 6-4-1), so the earliest version is turn 3: Gonbe on turn 1, then Chimney plus 3 DON!! from your 5.

The catch is drawing both. Four Gonbe and four Chimney, no redraw: both are in your hand by turn 2 in 15% of games going first and 20% going second, and by turn 4 in 25% and 30%. So the three-swing turn happens in about one game in five. The two-swing turn with a re-stand is the plan you'll have the cards for in 96% to 97% of games by turn 2. Playing it is its own bill: Kokoro and Luffy OP18-036 cost 2, so going second they have to hit the table on turn 1 to leave Luffy his 3 DON!! on turn 2, and Gonbe only stands him up if Gonbe is rested.

Two swings still cost the opponent a lot. Ties go to the attacker (rule 7-1-4-1), so stopping an 8000 swing into a 5000 Leader takes +4000 in counters:

That's why one player in the same thread prefers plain extra attacks to [Double Attack]: "3 normal attacks is always better because it demands more cards out of hand if they want to counter out of it" (u/IveGotAFork, October 7). Our counter mechanic explainer covers how those +1000 and +2000 values add up.

The Nami problem

Image credit: Bandai via the official ONE PIECE CARD GAME English card list.

Nami EB02-017 is the usual 1-cost searcher for Straw Hat Crew decks: look at 5 cards and take a Straw Hat Crew card other than Nami. She's not cheap. TCGplayer's market price was $15.51 on November 2 and Limitless showed $14.88 on November 3, so a playset runs about $60.

Three of the five cards above aren't Straw Hat Crew: Gonbe, Kokoro and Chimney are only Water Seven, Animal or Merfolk. Nami can't find them, and neither can OP-18's own 1-cost search event, Shoot Down That Flag OP18-038 (per OPlayTCG and OPDeckGuide), which looks for [Sogeking] or a Straw Hat Crew card. Nami can still grab Robin and Luffy OP18-036, but not the other three. One reader saw it early: "it is looking like the important stuff will be water 7 typed instead of straw hat, so running nami searcher might actually be a detriment to the deck" (u/Vskg, October 7). We agree. Don't buy Nami for this deck unless a Water Seven searcher turns up in Green. None of the Green cards on OPDeckGuide's OP-18 list does that.

When Zoro is still the pick

• Before November 27: Luffy is legal at your local store from the OP-18 pre-release date, but not in tournaments until 7 days after the November 20 release. Zoro is legal now.
• If you won't buy the new cards: Zoro doesn't skip a Refresh Phase to stand up, and his own 3-cost event, Luffy Is the Man Who Will Become the King of Pirates!!! OP12-039, sets a [Roronoa Zoro] Leader active.

For Luffy, put the OP-18 money into four copies each of Gonbe, Kokoro and Luffy OP18-036 before the chase cards. Our OP-18 pre-order guide covers box prices and dates, and the DON!! system explainer covers giving DON!! to your Leader. For Bandai's other Water Seven Leader, see the OP-18 Franky first look, and for every set and format, our One Piece TCG complete guide.

Sources

• Bandai, OP-18 product page (also the hero image of packs and box): https://en.onepiece-cardgame.com/products/op18.html
• Bandai, English card list (OP-12, EB-02): https://en.onepiece-cardgame.com/cardlist/
• Bandai, comprehensive rules: https://en.onepiece-cardgame.com/pdf/rule_comprehensive.pdf
• TCGplayer, Monkey.D.Luffy OP18-022 presale: https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/718691/one-piece-card-game-the-dominance-of-god-monkeydluffy-022
• OPlayTCG, OP18-022: https://oplaytcg.com/en/cards/OP18-022
• OPDeckGuide, OP18 card list: https://opdeckguide.com/cards-list/OP18/
• Reddit thread, "Why will OP18 Luffy dominate the meta?": https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePieceTCG/comments/1x06z7z/why_will_op18_luffy_dominate_the_meta/
• TCGplayer price data for Nami EB02-017 (product 629110), via tcgcsv: https://tcgcsv.com/tcgplayer/68/23834/prices
• Limitless, Nami EB02-017: https://onepiece.limitlesstcg.com/cards/EB02-017