To play the One Piece Card Game you need one Leader card, a 50-card deck, and 10 DON!! cards. A Starter Deck contains all three, which makes this one of the cleanest games in the hobby to enter — one box and you are playing.
The rest of this guide covers how those pieces work together, what the deck-building restrictions actually are, and how to find a sanctioned event once you have a deck.
| Component | Count | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Leader card | 1 | Sets your deck's colour and your starting Life total |
| Main deck | 50 cards | Characters, Events and Stages |
| DON!! deck | Exactly 10 | Your resource system |
The DON!! deck is exactly ten cards. Not a minimum, not a maximum — ten. Every legal deck in the game runs the same ten, from a Starter Deck out of the box to a tournament list.
There are only two, and both are simple:
That is the whole ruleset for construction. Compared with Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Forbidden & Limited List or Magic's rotating format legality, it is refreshingly short.
Setup: place your Leader face up, shuffle the deck, place the DON!! deck in its zone. Rock-paper-scissors decides who chooses to go first. Draw five, with one optional mulligan. Then take cards off the top of your deck equal to your Leader's Life value and set them face down as your Life cards.
Each turn has five phases in fixed order: Refresh, Draw, DON!!, Main, End. In the Refresh Phase you set rested cards active and return attached DON!! to your cost area. The Main Phase is where you play cards and attack.
You win by winning a battle against your opponent's Leader while they have no Life cards remaining, or by their deck running out of cards.
Games are short. That is a deliberate design decision and it is a large part of the game's appeal — a match fits comfortably into a lunch break.
A Starter Deck. This is the answer for essentially every new player. Starter Decks carry an ST- prefix, and Bandai's official beginner page describes them plainly: use it as is or customise it, and it includes everything you need to start playing.
A recent example, the ST-31 red Monkey.D.Luffy deck, contains a constructed deck of 51 cards — that is the 50-card deck plus the Leader — along with 10 DON!! cards, a playsheet, and a bonus pack. Some Starter Decks, particularly the EX line, also include sleeves.
Bandai has been releasing per-colour Starter Deck waves, so there is generally a deck available in each colour. Pick the colour whose Leader you like the look of. At this stage that is a genuinely adequate selection method.
Two Starter Decks, if you are learning with someone. Two players, two decks, and you can start immediately without either of you having to sit out.
Not booster packs, yet. Boosters carry OP- prefixes for main sets, EB- for extra boosters and PRB- for premium boosters. They are for upgrading a deck you already have, not for building one. Buying boosters before you own a Leader and a DON!! deck leaves you with cards you cannot play.
Once you do want to upgrade, we stock One Piece booster boxes and ship Canada-wide.
Bandai publishes a free Teaching App that walks you through a game using a Starter Deck, and there is a full Rule Manual and FAQ on the official site. Use the Teaching App first. The turn structure is simple enough that a single guided game is usually all it takes.
Bandai runs organised play for the game through the BANDAI TCG+ app and bandai-tcg-plus.com. You will need a Bandai Namco ID to register. TCG+ handles finding a store, registering for events and tracking attendance, and store tournaments hand out in-store exclusive promo cards.
One caveat from experience: stores manage event registration differently. Some take signups exclusively through TCG+, some take them at the counter, some do both. Register through the app and then confirm with the shop directly before travelling.
You do not need a playmat. You do not need a binder. You do not need a booster box.
Sleeving matters more here than in some games because of how often DON!! cards are moved between zones — our card storage and protection guide covers what to look for in a sleeve, and applies to any game.
We carry One Piece alongside our other lines on the other TCGs page. If you want to know which Starter Decks we currently have in a particular colour, or whether a specific set is in stock, ask us — we would rather answer that than have you guess.
A 50-card main deck, plus one Leader card that sits outside the deck, plus a DON!! deck of exactly 10 cards. The DON!! count is fixed at ten for every legal deck in the game.
Your deck must match the colour of your Leader card. Some Leaders are themselves multi-coloured, which widens what you may include, but the Leader is always what determines the legal card pool for your deck.
Up to four copies of any one card number. Because the limit is by card number rather than name, alternate artwork versions of the same card count toward the same four.
Yes. Bandai's official beginner guidance describes Starter Decks as including everything you need to start playing, and they contain a Leader, a full 50-card deck and the 10 DON!! cards. You can play them straight out of the box and customise later.
Through the BANDAI TCG+ app or bandai-tcg-plus.com, which handle store search, event registration and attendance. A Bandai Namco ID is required. Confirm with the store directly as well, since registration handling varies between shops.