[Beginner] The Fundamentals of the One Piece Card Game

Introduction

Hello and nice to meet you. My name is TsukiUsagi (@MdaTaePraty). 
Hey guys, Kai (@ikailakai) with translation from Japanese to English!
To preface, this article is made for beginners looking to start playing the One Piece Card Game. It will be covering the absolute fundamentals of fundamentals when it comes to this game. As such, when reviewing the contents, if there are sections that you feel you have already mastered, feel free to skip around. However, If there is any semblance of doubt in regards to these sections, perhaps reviewing it will be in your best interest, just in case.
The contents of this article are not a guide to teach you a secret tactic that will always win the game. In RPG terms, it would be like teaching someone who only knows how to use Attack magic, to use Defensive and Healing magic.
Additionally, after reading this, your deck will not get any stronger. However, by reading this, you may observe yourself using your decks more effectively, and be able to spot mistakes in your old gameplay. That is the kind of topic this article will aim to cover.

Create a “Goal For This Turn”

Picture this:
The opponent has 2 life, and 2 cards in hand. There is no blocker or active Don!! but 2 rested 7000 power characters.
On your board, you have 2 5000 power characters, 10 Don, and 1 life.
In a situation like this, how and where would you direct your attacks?

…In actuality, there is no “absolute answer” to this question. 
For instance, if the opponent were to have 0 counter in their life or hand, 5000 3 times would win the game. Conversely, if their life and hand were all cards with 2000 counter, there is no possible way to finish the game on this turn. The important factor in decision-making on a turn like this is to ask the question: “What is my goal on this turn?”
A clear goal could be to simply make the opponent's life 0, and have an attack go through. However, is that the only goal that we can assign to this turn?

Attack Before You Use Your Hand

Have you had a situation like this?

“I have 3 Don!! I’ll use all my Don!! to play Robin! Now, 5000 Leader!”
“Trigger Jet Pistol, KO Robin”

In the One Piece Card Game, you can play cards, as well as attack with your leader/characters in whichever order you like. A situation beginners often find themself in is that they will focus on the characters that can be played or the events that can be used first and foremost. After resolving this action, they use the leftover Don!! to power up attacks.
However, by doing this, 2 large disadvantages are being created.
① The played character can be affected by the opponent’s counter events or triggers.
② As you use all of your Don!! before you attack, it is easier for the opponent to respond.
Point ① is very straightforward, where cards like Jet Pistol, or Punk Gibson can affect the board immediately and flip it to a disadvantageous state. In this game, there are very few cards that can affect hand off of a trigger. As such, cards are safer kept in your hand.
Point ②’s disadvantages are a bit harder to quantify the value of but are most certainly a crucial aspect of the game. For instance, if both players have a 5000 power character on the board, and the opponent has 2 cards, you have the options to either:

1. Use all of your Don!! to play a high-cost character

or 

1. Use your character and leader to KO the opponent’s character

Let’s first visualize how the opponent will react to scenario 1.

“Oh! He has no Don!! left so I can defend my character with 2 cards with +1000 counter.”

Now, the opponent is given the option to either

1. Defend the character

or 

1. Maintain their hand size

Now let’s visualize how the opponent will react to scenario 2.

“They attacked my character with 5000. I only have 2 1000 counters in my hand. Even if I were to defend this attack, the opponent can simply add Don!! to their character and kill the character meaning I would have lost 1 hand AND my character… I can’t afford to defend it.”

In this sequence, we have effectively withheld the option to ‘Defend the character.’
In this way, although to the player, the actions taken are the same, changing the sequencing of the attacks can deny the opponent options due to a lack of information as to where the Don!! will be assigned.
This is not to say that it is always better to play characters after you resolve your attacks, but fundamentally, playing characters after you attack leaves you with more options, and the opponent with less. 
Once you get to a point where you can identify situations where it’s advantageous to play characters before and after your attacks, then you can officially graduate from being a beginner.

Reducing Hand, Not Life

How do you win the game?
You get an attack through on the opponent’s leader when they are at 0 Life.
*Ignore the circumstance where you can win by the opponent running out of deck.
What this win condition means to its core is:

1. Your final attack to the opponent’s leader at 0 life needs to be a higher power than the opponent has counter in their hand.

2. The opponent’s final attack on your leader at 0 life needs to be a lower power than you have counter in your hand.

This seems obvious of course, but finding the balance between these 2 facts is important.
Both you the player, and your opponent gain a card to their hand when receiving damage to their leader. 
The more cards in a player’s hand, the more counter they have, making it harder for attacks to go through on the leader proportionally to hand-size. 
In an extreme case, even if the player/opponent has 0 life, if they have 10 cards in hand, they will not falter easily.
Conversely, if the player/opponent has 5 life, but 0 cards in hand, the opposing player has nothing to fear. The reason for this is that a 5000 power attack is guaranteed to go through, and the opponent effectively only has the option to play the card that was drawn from their life. If this becomes the case, the opponent’s moves are at the mercy of luck, and the number of cards the opponent is allowed to draw is controlled by you.
If you have been playing the game focusing on reducing the opponent’s life total, it is now time to reevaluate your thinking.
In the most simple terms, this game is about finding ways to make your opponent’s hand smaller, while keeping yours larger.
You regain 10 Don!! every turn, but you only gain 1 card per turn.
In a volatile game like the One Piece Card Game, where there are very few ways to increase your hand size, the size of your hand is the only thing that will never betray you. 
*Your life total will often betray you.

Hit at +2000X

What criteria do you consider when allocating your Don!! to hit a leader with 5000 power?
Do you hit at the same power as the leader?
Do you dump a bunch of Don!! to ensure it goes through?

The theory when it comes to attacking is to attack at ‘The target’s power +2000X’
*X refers to the number of additional cards you want to burn from your opponent’s hand in addition to a 2000 counter.
What this means is if you were to target a 5000 power leader, hitting at 2000 power over the leader, meaning 7000 power forces the opponent to cut a minimum of 2 cards.
The target’s power +2000X
5000 Power Leader. We want them to cut a 2000 counter + 1 card, so:
          5000 + 2000 x 1 = 7000
5000 Power Leader. We want them to cut a 2000 counter + 2 cards, so;
          5000 + 2000 x 2 = 9000
Attacks are conducted to reduce the opponent’s hand size. Although attacks that go through to the opponent’s life temporarily increase their hand, the lower that a player’s life is, the more instances where the need to defend an attack will occur, resulting inevitably in hand size reducing throughout the game. What this means is that when playing, you must internalize the question: “How do I make the opponent burn their hand as inefficiently as possible?”

In the One Piece Card Game, there are Counterless (0 Counter), 1000 Counter, and 2000 Counter cards. Generally, cards with less counter have an inversely proportional powerful effect to balance this tradeoff. This can be extrapolated to mean that it is more beneficial to force the opponent to use a +1000 counter card rather than a +2000. As such, hitting in a way that forces the opponent to use many +1000 counter cards, or ‘The target’s power +2000X’ is a very powerful line of play. Hitting at 6000 or 8000 power, while technically higher than 5000, or 7000 respectively, are targeting these lower value 2000 counter cards, while 5000 and 7000 beckons the opponent to cut their powerful cards for counter. If the opponent uses a +2000 counter card on a 5000 power attack, we have officially forced the opponent to inefficiently burn their hand.
When the X is equal to the opponent’s hand size, an attack is guaranteed to go through.
If this condition is met when the opponent is at 0 life, the game is over.
One exception to mention is the existence of counter events. Counter events have the capability of increasing the defending side's power by, for example, +4000 power, while occasionally having an additional effect. The solution to counter events is to review the counter events that each color tends to play and consider the possibility and additional counter that the card will provide. 
Understanding these concepts will pull you out of beginner status.

Closing

Thank you for reading up to this point. How was it? I’m sure many will be thinking “I knew most of this already.” However, when at locals, or doing webcam games, many people said they straight up didn’t know, or “were doing that, but never really considered why.” I hope that this article could help out beginners, even if just a little.
Now, as we established at the very beginning. What is our “Goal For This Turn?” Do you now have a clearer idea of how to make a goal for each turn? Hopefully, you have found new options aside from “make the opponent’s life 0,” or “protect my life.”
After writing this, I felt like there’s a lot more I want to write about, so if the reception of this article is good, I'd love to make more. Please let me know what you think.
For now, let’s leave it at that!