Blurple reiju deck guide ( will add pictures later )

I have tested Reiju for 30+ hours on the One Piece TCG sim and realized in English alot of the indepth deck guides we have are few and far between and the ones we donhave are in Japanese. So i want to be able to bring a comprehensive deck guide for anyone who is a fanatic of midrange decks like this and anyone whos a reiju fan in general and want to know how to pilot the deck against meta

There are a few ways that you can build the deck but so far the most consistent topper is the Germa 66 version because of its resiliency. I will break down that deck, and if I get enough requests. show some builds that are more midrange but don't take advantage of her effect as often. 

So without further ado I will explain the reasons why you should play this deck and why you may not want to play the deck. 

Reasons to Play This Deck: 

So the pros about this deck is that it's a true midrange deck and if you like the ability to try and out-tempo your opponents. But at first glance, this seems impossible; you may ask, “how am I out-tempoing my opponent when I minus on Don?” 

If you take the time to learn the deck and manage your resources heavily you are essentially paying one Don to draw a card every turn at minimum and using 12 Don to play a more than 20+ Don worth of cards in a turn at maximum. 

You like the Blue-Purple (“Blurple”) combination: if you like trying to control the board and really like how busted Purple can be and also like Blue’s hand control and bottom-deck mechanics this is the deck for you. 

You like rewarding gameplay: Reiju’s deck has the most rewarding gameplay because if you play the deck and manage your resources you get a huge payoff. However, if you're reckless, it's less of a payoff and more of a headache. Unless you want to sit down and spend at least 20 hours playing the deck to learn it, you will not like this deck very much . 

You like Germa / the Germa engine: Reiju is a generic Blurple leader with a good effect for any Purple deck that minuses Don a lot. Reiju’s playstyle is just Germa doing very Purple things with occasional Blue things mixed in. If that sounds like your thing, this will be the deck for you, and as long as Germa cards come out she will always be meta-relevant. 

You want to build a cheap one piece deck: In Japan, someone built the deck for around 40-80 dollars (after conversion) with just the Germa engine and some Blue staples they had prior. The deck can be both tourney-worthy and cheap without really needing much besides Kaya and other stuff that comes out in the Zoro-Sanji Starter Deck. 

Reasons not to Play This Deck :

Why Wouldn’t You? 

On a serious note, there are some reasons Reiju might not be for everyone.

Requires Lots of Thought: If you do not like thinking a lot while playing and managing resources you will have a better time with something like PLuffy, Enel, or even Katakuri where you do not have to think very hard about every play you do. Not saying that those decks are super easy but Red decks and PLuffy are more “smash face”-based. You would be better off comparing Reiju to a Red/Green Law combo-heavy deck instead of a Zoro or Whitebeard deck. 

You Don't like the Germa engine because there are stronger decks in the meta: Yes, there are stronger decks in the meta, but if you are a good player and willing to dedicate the time to learn the deck’s style and strategy you will be fine. Reiju is an overall good leader, but she's midrange—that is, she isn't phenomenal but she isn't terrible. If you want to play Tier 1 absolute balls to the wall decks, Reiju is not the deck for you.   

If You Don't Like the Purple and/or Blue Playstyle: if you aren't a fan of being behind on Don vs opponents then this isn't the deck for you. You will almost always be at lower Don. This could happen as early as Turn 1 depending on your hand. 

If you want to play a more Blue-centric control deck you can build her that way, but you should consider other options since Reiju is going to be more proactive than reactive. If you’ve never played Blue or Purple before, I highly recommend testing both of those colors before diving into Reiju. 

Deck Breakdown

Anyways that's neither here nor there. I will begin my write up on the deck itself and begin to explain the complexities of Reiju and her family.

Starting with the Germa Cards… 

Every Germa card you have is always going to give you some advantage but I will quickly rank them on priority after putting them in numerical order and explain why.

Ichiji - he is going to be your best attacker and a 7C rush that becomes a 9k attacker ( basically because of the -2k) 

He is a threat that opponents will always try to handle immediately when you see him hit the board and is a problem. You're going to want to prioritize having him early in game , he will be run at 4 and overall is one of the main reasons to play the deck 

Niji- This card is significant in the deck because it's one of your only forms of removal—in fact, it’s the only removal in the engine that most topping decks use. In OP06 with the prevalence of decks like gecko , katakuri , perona and an ample amount of decks having focuses on 5c and lower units on field we need to set these decks back as much as we can to push through their defenses. And this is one of the few ways we can set decks back that are meta. 

Yonji- this doesn’t require too much explanation: he’s an in-archetype blocker that we can turbo out, spam on the board, and can come back after being killed as long as you try to keep him in hand or use a 2K Vinsmoke Sora in order to grab him from drop in dire situations.

Reiju - Simply put, she's a draw 3 if you just use her effect once for one Don and she's a 5k body that can swing and hit the opponent’s Leader without any Don contribution. 

2K Counters

Kaya - a mandatory 2k because she facilitates us drawing further into the engine. With how the deck is set up we need to fulfill 2 conditions with the deck: 1. Have the big Power Rangers in drop and we get to choose what to get rid of and 2. We want to draw and deck thin as much as possible to close out the game in the fastest way possible against meta decks. Kaya fulfills both of those conditions AND she's also a 2K counter, which makes her a key card in the strategy and can help us set up the gang early on. So overall you should keep her in hand unless you absolutely need her to fix your hand and you didnt draw into the ideal hand. While we have a lot of engine so it could seem impossible to do so but it can happen from time to time

Ms.Doublefinger - good but optional. She is very good when coming from Life, but beware: Reiju’s Leader ability does not activate on the opponent's turn. For the most part she's good on opponents' turns to get a body on board and fuel the drop but is better for deck thinning on your turn. Both are good! At the bare minimum, she's a great defensive option by being a 2K Counter alone and gives back Don if you're too far behind.

Vinsmoke Sora - a mandatory 2k because she’s a searchable in-archetype 2K and can help get 3 out of the 4 babies from trash. You'll hardly ever play her unless you absolutely need to, but her searchability and utility make her necessary…especially if you don’t have a Judge in hand and your board has been wiped. 

Searchers 

4 of each Germa searcher 

Germa 66 - a 1 cost top 5 searcher for any card with a type including [Germa] that isn't itself and place the rest on the bottom of the deck in any order.This can be used to find Germa kingdom ( our stage searcher) or any of the Germa we need in a pinch 

Germa Kingdom - 1 cost event searcher that lets you discard a card to rest the stage snd look at top 3 cards of the deck and reveal a [Germa] card and add it to you hand and put the rest on bottom of deck in any order. This helps you cycle through the deck and fill the discard pile. 

These both are at 4 because they help thin the deck. There's not too much to explain with these: you want to see engine pieces to be able to combo effectively. And with these you'll usually want to put your non-engine 2ks and cards you need in a pinch at the top since you can easily search all your in engine cards to try and increase the likelihood of drawing into 2ks, non-engine events and utility/ tech cards.

Other Techs / Non-Engine 

Charlotte Pudding- Insanely good with where One Piece is going. Many decks in OP06 depend on having certain cards in hand to finish games. Timing Pudding’s disruptive effect can close games in your favor because every other deck will have its best possible hand. 

 

Some decks that have topped recently have used Blast Breath which is useful as a defensive option when the amount of big bodies hitting the board is now happening consistently. So it has s similar defensive effect as GumGum Red-Red which you would use against high-cost cards.

Others have been using our searchable event which gives the ability to bottom deck 5 cost cards and is essentially a searchable 3000 worlds. 

There's a list that used a 1 cost yamato to bottom deck unusable hands to draw more to try and make custom hands. 

  

Ideal hands 

Your ideal hands will usually contain at least one of the smaller germa cards being the 2c yonji , reiju, 3 cost niki or 4 cost Ichiji. Then you will want to have one of the hugher costed evolution forms of the cards , that being the 5c Niji , 4c yonji kr reiju, or the 7c ichiji. 

Youll want one of the Searchers being Germa 66 or Germa kingdom. you'll want Germa kingdom if you have a liw costed germa and a high cost Germa that has different names. 

If youre in a Matchup against Yamato youre goint to want the 4 cost blocker yonji, a defensive card like blast breath or 2k counters in hand  

If against Gecko or Sakazuki youre goint to want to fill the other cards in hand with a Vinsmoke Judge and at least a counter or way to draw cards. 

Against Uta you're going yo try and dig for 4-cost Charlotte Pudding, Red Roc, or any utility cards you have in deck because Uta can attack twice and also draw almost every turn she gets to attack. That isn't including the custom hands she can build with the combo of the 3 cost searcher Nami from OP02 and her leader ability lf revealing the top card and if its film adding it to hand. 

Warning: Bad Matchups!  

General Card Types

Most big bodies like Hody Jones 9C , 8C Gecko , 9C Katakuri and 8C Kid are

detrimental to our strategy because we don't have much removal and points that have been mentioned earlier. Even if we kill the big bodies it's usually hard for us to keep up without making significant sacrifices against those decks.10C Big Mom doesn't have any counter play and just gets rid of life; 7C Big Mom only helps opponents , 8c moria helps saka and gecko remove and give board presence, and the 8c kid gives Yamato a floodgate to hide behind and the Hody jones is a high stat Rush character used to finish what resources we have next to Yamato. 

    Removal. Even if your Germas can “come back,” it sucks to lose a body. 

Yamato the green yellow leader that releases in set 6 is a problem because of the double attack and the access to three yellow card pool. Especially onami ( 2 cost on play give leader or character banish for this turn with the trigger ability of K. O. An opponents 5c or lower character) most of our bodies besides Judge and the suited up ichiji are above that cost. And yes while we'll want them in drop dependong on when that trigger is hit can mess with the tempo of the game. And as a 4 life leader we are only aiming to take the first 8k swing yamato players usually make . Anything more than that can quickly become overwhelming relatively fast. 

Blockers. It doesn’t matter how big your Germas are if they get Blocked. Decks that spam out blockers in the csse of Yamato and 

Bad Matchups—Entire Decks 

Yamato - This deck had 2 big bodies in Hody Jones and 8c Kid . If you do not run redroc unfortunately you will probably die by the hands of these cards. While yes you can try to swing into them for the most part you will have to match body for body and try to break even. Even then kts hard to keep up with these cards unless you get early blockers and 2K counters. And in that case drawing with queen can feel cool when you draw 3 and have a 6k blocker on board but it doesnt mean much when hody or kid swing and you try to block it just to have to face a Double Attack Leader and they stick whatever don they can on the card to beat face  

How to win- Unfortunately just like with other matchups youll see mentioned the objective way to beat this deck is to try and kill them before they kill you. Take every chance you can to be greedy with plays. Yes you'll be behind on don frequently but you need to have Gas from turn 1 and youll ideally want to go second if you have the best hands. 

Gecko Moria and Sakazuki - We lose to this Matchup solely due to the anount of removal these decks have. The problem with this deck specifically is that while you are playing you jave to consciously remember to either reserve your don and dont be greedy because saka and gecko can remove bodies on a consistent basis starting from turn one onwards and they both play the same. Gecko is a bit more linear than sakazuki so you can usually use the cards they play to your advantage. I. E. In a matchup with gecko where they may want to start the turn by having you discard from perona that helps build our drop and their removal isnt as turn after turn as sakazuki. However with sakazuki if you have to play conservative with Gecko you definitely have to with Saka. Especially since Saka can outgrind you relatively easily 

How to win- The way to win these matchups is simply to be a conservative on your turns as possible. Never go for turns where you're playing multiple baby germa into big germa. These matchups are the ones where you sre going to want to use your germa for as much hand advantage as possible. Returning cards to hand for eother of these decks doesn't do much like in the yamato matchup where you can bounche blockers frequently at any given time with niji and not worry about it. Though when they do play sabo and borsalino you

Can bounce both to hand without much resistance and set them back a turn. This matchup is one where you're going to try to aim for w judge play the moment you can and use thsy turn to try and get as much value as possible. 

Potential Matchups in ST13 Meta

Reiju gets no help from ST13 or eb01 to my knowledge. Any Yellow matchups are likely to get worse, but I haven’t tested beyond set 6 with Reiju. 

Black-Yellow Luffy can play 22 Don turns, control their life and has the ability to beat down in the late game but I have not tested against this deck or any ST13 decks. 

Sabo- life control and beat down could be potential problems from ST13 as well because they have the ability to loop life back and forth and has the benefit of life manipulation and beat down in early and late game. 

Now before closing out I will explain the 28 don turn i had mentioned. This all comes with the Territory of the game running long enough for you to play judge. So if you have folloeed the guide snd drew into a really good hand what you can do is tempo your play line like this on a judge turn. If you have at least some bodies on board ( i. E 7c ichiji , 4c reiju , and leader at the least and at most have all the Germa on board including 4c yonji and 5c Niji you would swing with each of them individually into opponents leader, then you would swing with leader , after swinging with leader you play judge (8c) . After you will retire all the big Germa you have revive each of the small Germa back for free ( 4c Ichiji, 2c Reiju , 2c Yonji , and 3c Niji. Which is now 19 don technically ) and then you will minus 4 don for them ( so this counts as using 4 don si would technically bring the count up to 23 but if you dont want to count these you dont need to towards the amount of don you're technically using) and then you bring back sll the big germa again ( 7 cost ichiji , 4 cost reiju , 4 cost yonji and 5 cost niji which would technically mean 43 don worth if cards played) . The numbers are a little wonky i suppose and depend on if you count playing the big germa as actually playing them. Regardless you can swing after with Ichiji and that would have been a 6 attack turn and thats not accounting for the 2 don you would put on any character or leader . And you still are able to draw 3 on that turn, establish a blocker and potentially bounce something to hand.

This is the best play you can do. I would not say to rely on this every game but it can happen

Conclusion: 

The Blurple reiju deck overall is a phenomenal deck if you love reiju, blurple , and a mix of control and rush tactics with gy revival as well. The deck is complicated and it does have its flaws especially becaue the deck csn be hard to pilot and it lacks busted characters like gecko moria , Onami , 8 cost kid snd etc but you do hsve room to try snd compete at the very least. However it is a tough task I’D like to thank Majou for helping edit and consolidate alot of the guide , Onepiecetopdecks.com fot posting decklists and results from Japan and A special thanks to the people in the One piece discord who are in the Reiju Leader discussion who helped me come up with these ideas on the deck. Until next time which may be a good stuff Reiju deck build or one of the St-13 decks . Ill try to update this if i need to with 

certain matchups or you can send me a message on twitter @truAbsoluteZer0 but overall thanks for reading Again