Hi again,

It’s me, Kai (@ikailakai) OP05 Rebecca apologist and deck builder.

I’m back early from my usual 3 month break from writing articles by request of Flèche(@FlecheNoireHS) of YamiiCorp to discuss the meta progression of OP04 in Japan. OP04 has had the most disparity in deck representation, meta shifting, and winning decks compared to any other meta in the game’s history up to this point, so we decided that it would be really interesting to look back at the early meta, people’s thoughts on the meta, and how it shifted throughout the season.

OP03 Retrospective JP

In OP03 in Japan, Moby Dick was not banned at the start, meaning that it was clear from the second that the cards were revealed that Whitebeard was going to be a massive problem. Moby Dick and Kabaji were banned and although Kabaji being banned was a bit surprising as Nami wasn’t in the meta at all at the time, Moby Dick was a no brainer. However, despite this, Whitebeard was still the strongest in the meta clearly and it made OP03 a bit stale as there were very few decks that could contest with Whitebeard’s power. Overseas, they corrected more for this level of power by restricting 4 cost Marco, Whitebeard, and Radical Beam. Despite this again, Whitebeard was still one of the strongest decks in the meta. Whitebeard as a concept has enough power to overthrow any deck that’s not built to specifically destroy Whitebeard in OP04 and before. However, what would generally happen was that if you were to make a deck that beat Whitebeard, then there was a very high chance that it would instead lose to Zoro.

Although OP03 overseas had some more meta diversity in decks such as Blue Doflamingo, in Japan, the meta was: 
1. 🟥Whitebeard
2. 🟥Zoro
3. 🟥Ace

If you were to bring a deck like Lucci that can beat Whitebeard and Ace, you would lose to Zoro, if you were to bring a deck like fortress Kid, you beat Whitebeard and Zoro, but would lose to Ace. This trifecta made a closed circuit where no other decks were allowed except for a deck discovered at the end of OP03 by 青髪のテル(@aoteru5656), called Film Kid. I've written an article of Film Kid, but as the restriction is staying in overseas meta, the deck list may not be relevant, but the knowledge is certainly helpful I think.

OP04 Pre-release

Introduce OP04. OP04 was a set centered around 2 color leaders, which notoriously have not been very good compared to mono color leaders, as they had 4 life. The demerit of having 4 life is quite substantial in a game with very little card draw, and a deck as powerful as Zoro. If you wanted to make a successful set with 2 color leaders, you needed to make sure that the deck could beat Zoro.

Of the 6 new leaders in OP04, 4 of them could fight with Zoro.

🟩🟪Green Purple Doflamingo
🟦🟨Blue Yellow Queen
🟦⬛Blue Black Rebecca
🟥🟦Red Blue Vivi

Finally some color diversity.

Of these 4, 3 of them have had some presence in the top 16 at the 7 championships Japan had during OP04. The one outlier Vivi, who although had some potential, was just not strong enough into the entire meta to ever be an actual contender. 

I still think there's potential for Vivi. Someone managed to go 7-2 at the Tokyo Championship and qualify for the Championship Finals using Vivi. It could be a fun deck to mess around with because you have the strength of unfamiliarity on your side.

Now that we’re set the stage for OP04, let’s see how the meta was changing from beginning to end.

Early Meta

The set list is always dropped in full exactly one week before the set is released. In this week, people will print proxies and try to find the best deck in the meta for an early advantage. While generally aggro decks run the meta, this set started differently.

Note: The videos and decklists are posted for the sake of retrospective analysis and do not represent the best version of that decklist.

The first 2 color deck was found that could beat Zoro.

Film Doflamingo

While everyone was trying new leaders, the consensus was that Film Green Purple (GP) Doflamingo, and potentially Blue Yellow (BY) Queen could be strong enough to change the meta. At this point, the trauma of Iceburg meant no one wanted to seriously try Vivi or Rebecca. GP Doflamingo was a deck that if you were to play Tezoro and Nami, you would be essentially drawing 4 cards per turn, while getting 2 Don active for free from the leader ability. This resource and Don advantage was very easy to identify as powerful and people started to call GP Doflamingo the best deck in the set and it wasn't even close. 

As the meta always does, once a consistent and powerful deck is found, it’s time for people to start countering it. The first deck to come back into the meta was Whitebeard, as it could beat GP Doflamingo with it’s high power units and overwhelming power. In response to this, GP Doflamingo players started putting in 8 cost Kid to bandaid fix this problem. Of course, 8 cost Kid isn't searchable, so it did not fix the problem completely.

Little fun fact, but someone won a tournament and used this exact list in the video above, and rather than giving him credit, wrote his own paid article and profited off of it massively. I won't name them, but it was a controversial event at the time.

In response to both of these decks, Blue Crocodile came into the meta.

All 3 of these decks established themselves as top meta decks in the first few days of the meta.

Along with these 3 decks, other decks were seen here and there in the early meta such as Red Green Law and a very very slight amount of Katakuri. Zoro was officially dead.

That was until the Yamakawa Cup, an unofficial tournament held by Mr. Hiroaki Yamakawa, took place.

If this is strong wtf am I supposed to do??

While Zoro struggled against GP Doflamingo, Zoro was excellent into every other deck in the meta. FOREST reminded everyone that Zoro is deck that will never die, and did so by winning a tournament by perfectly dodging GP Doflamingo.
Despite this being an unofficial tournament, it shifted the meta heavily as Japanese OPTCG is a tight-knit community. The reason you don’t see this kind of Zoro list often is because it’s weak into the mirror. In a meta where there is no such a thing as a mirror, this list was terrifying until more Zoros came into the meta.

While Zoro was not a top deck in playrate, it immediately killed Blue Crocodile, as it was a matchup where you would lose the second you flipped your leader and it was Crocodile vs Zoro.

I say this in every article I think, but if you think your Crocodile beats Zoro, 9 times out of 10, it just means your Zoro opponent is not very good at Zoro. Often this is enough if you're in a small local environment, but in Tokyo, where Zoro's popularity is very high, you could not bring a deck that was losing to Zoro.

At this point, Doflamingo was also finding ways to deal with Whitebeard as it was the main issue it had. The answer at the time was to use 8 cost Kid, and hope you draw it with the crazy amount of card draw Tezoro has. As this was not a consistent gameplan, and Zoro killed Crocodile, Whitebeard claimed it’s spot as the top deck again.

Hiroshima Championship June 10

Whitebeard 7
Zoro 3
Law 2
GP Doflamingo 2
Red Luffy 1
BY Queen 1

While we don’t have exact stats on the amount of each leader used at each tournament, there are people who have aggregated as much data as possible to make a statistically likely representation of each deck’s presence. 

Deck Presence: Whitebeard > GP Dofla > Law > Katakuri > Zoro

Zoro’s strength was known, but perhaps the fear of hitting GP Doflamingo, or the lack of time between when it came into the meta, and the Hiroshima Championship did not give it enough time to fully come into the meta. Despite its low playrate, 3 managed to make it into the Top 16, having perhaps the best ratio of preliminary representation to Top 16 representation.

Of the 3 Zoro players in the Top 16, 2 of them were very well known Zoro players. The Zoro lists were using many different ideas at the time, such as 4 cost Brook, or Marshall D. Teach in response to the other meta decks. In a time period with very little Zoro mirror, there was much more creativity in Zoro deck lists in how to counter the meta.

One big surprise this tournament was the presence of Queen in the Top 16. While there were murmurs of Queen being strong, it’s a very difficult and laborious deck to play. It beats decks like Zoro and Whitebeard, while losing to decks like Katakuri and Law.

In the Top 16 match, Queen fought a Law and won due to a mistake on Law’s side. This sort of thing can happen to anyone, especially Law players after they’ve played 8 games of preliminary qualifications to get into the Top 16 and have to play the Top-Cut on the same day. The Queen ended up making it to the finals to lose to the King of OP03, Edward Newgate.

The meta had no problematic 7 cost characters, so Sogeking’s price went crazy as a necessary Crocodile card, a solid Queen card, and a potential Rebecca card. Sogeking could bounce Thatch and now Yasopp which was starting to become popular in Whitebeard as people were starting to realize how insanely strong a 6/8000 power line is for many decks as well as the mirror.

Nonetheless, Whitebeard winning meant that more people would use this deck if they wanted to win, as it has proven itself time and time again that it was THE Top Deck.

Miyagi Championship June 18

Whitebeard 9
Zoro 3
GP Doflamingo 2
Katakuri 1
Law 1

As there was only a week separating the Hiroshima and Miyagi Championship, not much had changed in the meta except that Zoro's popularity shot up.

Deck Presence: Whitebeard > Zoro > GP Dofla > Katakuri > Law

Zoro increased massively in the last week, but the build still was not solidified.

Zoro lists were the only lists that changed every few days in this period.

However, Zoro still did not change the meta. Comparing the Top 16 of Hiroshima to Miyagi, there was an increase of Whitebeard in reaction to last week’s results, and 1 new deck, Katakuri. Katakuri’s playrate consistently hovers around 10-15%, meaning that at least 2 Katakuri should make it into the Top 16 each time. However, there has never been more than 1 Katakuri in the Top 16 of the same tournament. I don’t enjoy playing Katakuri for its lack of consistency, but many people enjoy it as it’s a very beginner friendly deck. Despite it being inconsistent, many people will play it for this facet and become something we call in Japan, a “Landmine Player,” who takes down other people with them in the early rounds.

However, Zoro was not the only deck that was evolving.

The highest placing Doflamingo deck in the Hiroshima Tournament was a Doflamingo deck using Sugar and 10cost Doflamingo.

Using a similar build, Green Purple Doflamingo won the Miyagi Championship by beating Whitebeard in the finals. By playing Sugar before Whitebeard hits 9-10 don, and then immediately locking it with 10 cost Doflamingo heavily swings the game in Doflamingo’s favor. The only issue with this is that:

1. You could not search 10 cost Doflamingo

2. You can’t use Tezoro until 10 don

However, if you do manage to get the pieces you need, this deck was very strong in the meta at the time.

For Whitebeard, the build that came in second place ran (essentially) 6 Atmos, and 6 Thatch. The benefit of this was that you did not need to prioritize these in your search, and you could focus on looking for 4 Marco, and 9 Whitebeard while naturally picking up your early game cards.

The 2 Kings of the early meta have won a championship. This should set precedent for the rest of the season… right?

The time between this tournament and the next tournament was 2 weeks. 2 weeks especially in the early meta is a very long time, and in this time progression was made to other decks to knock down the kings.

Fukuoka Championship July 2

Whitebeard 3
Zoro 3
Rebecca 3
GP Doflamingo 3
Nami 1
Katakuri 1
Crocodile 1
Law 1

This was the most diverse Top 16 that we had in the set. The most a deck was represented was 3.

For the first time, we are finally seeing Rebecca, Nami, and Crocodile. Nami in OP04, while she hasn’t had substantial buffs, could use the new Apisu to fix a problem that Nami had where she only had 1 type of 2000 counter. Apisu could also search something like Sanji’s Pilaf, or Kaya, but you needed to throw away 2 cards to use it, and as such, Nami players would generally only utilize 2 Apisu. Nami was on the rise as it could now beat Whitebeard, Katakuri, Crocodile, and a new up and coming deck, Rebecca. Crocodile made it to the Top 16 by dodging Zoro the entire way. Some times you just need a little bit of matchup luck to win, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Deck Presence: Whitebeard > Zoro > Katakuri > Dofla > Rebecca

Despite Rebecca’s low presence, 3 made it into the Top 16

And then all 3 Rebeccas made it to the Top 4.

While there were some hardcore Rebecca believers, aka me / Macaroni Station Gavin, many people were extremely anti-Rebecca. I will not post their tweets, but they ranged from.

“I didn’t realize how low the level of play was in Fukuoka to let Rebecca win this much. This just means there was no good Zoro in Fukuoka”

“Can Rebecca even beat Whitebeard?”

“I closed the stream the second that the Zoro didn’t play 5 Marco on curve.”

[Deleted Tweet from non-Japanese player] “I’ve been saying that Rebecca is strong, but lists in Japan are garbage.”

The perception at the time was that Zoro could beat Rebecca, so Rebecca had no place in the meta. If you lose to Rebecca as Zoro, you were just bad at the game, they would say. As Fukuoka is in Kyushu, a large island not connect to the mainland of Japan, it’s the only tournament that’s not on the mainland, and thus the furthest. There were extremely negative comments on Rebecca at this time.

However, in the tournament’s Top 16, Rebecca only lost the Mirror.

At the time, there were 2 Rebecca builds. 1 that uses 10 cost Kuzan and permanently clears the board, and 1 that doesn’t and attacks the board more with 7 cost Luffy. Either way, both of these decks usually run Corrida Colosseum. The one that won had 0 Corrida Colosseum. This fueled the debate more of if Fukuoka was simply a weak region, or if Rebecca was actually strong. Due to strong anti-Rebecca propaganda on Twitter, despite Rebecca’s dominance, her playrate barely moved.

Most people, myself included, suspected that the winning deck list was the result of early testing, and not the ‘final form’ of Rebecca. 

All players in the Top 16, and Top 32 at larger tournaments, are invited to the Championship Finals to decide who is the best in Japan. The winner of this tournament, かぁ〜 (@ka_pkkmy), used almost the exact same list, and went the furthest in the Championship finals several months later.

If I could go back to OP04, I would seriously test this build more, if I had known.

In the following days after Rebecca won, and no one was convinced that she was good, a meta development happened outside of the Championship.

ペス (@pethcard) made a guide on Law that changed the meta. Law had been solved, and Law vs Whitebeard was now a heavily winning matchup for Law. The Law guide is seriously well written that I seriously recommend reading it even now if you want to learn more about Law.

ヤマシ (@ro_15708) and other Law players would use this deck as it breathed life into the meta. The only problem for Law left was Zoro, and Rebecca. However, at the time, there was still very very little Rebecca.

For the first time ever, Whitebeard was not the clear favorite when it came to deck choice, as it lost to the very prevalent Law.

Aichi Championship July 8

Zoro 6
Law 3
Whitebeard 3
Rebecca 1
Nami 1
Katakuri 1
Crocodile 1

For the first time in 2 sets, Whitebeard was not the most represented deck in the Top 16. Likely due to Peth(ペス) and other Law players pushing that Law was now the best deck, Law’s playrate went up significantly, and Whitebeard was not the most represented deck in the Top 16 anymore despite still being the most represented overall. However, as Law is still a difficult deck, it would not have more presence over a deck like Whitebeard, Zoro, or Katakuri. This was still the period with the highest Law presence. 

Deck Presence: Whitebeard > Zoro > Katakuri > Law > GP Dofla

Again Crocodile, Nami, Rebecca and Katakuri make an appearance in the Top 16, with GP Dofla not making an appearance for the first time. This is largely due to how heavily losing the GP Dofla vs Rebecca / Law matchup was. I'll also write two lines on BY Queen while we're on the topic, but Queen vs Katakuri was brutal for Queen, Katakuri's playrate was slowly going up more and more throughout this time. It went out of the meta by the same logic that Blue Crocodile went out of the meta due to Zoro. Blue Crocodile, however, still had a place as it could beat Rebecca and Whitebeard handedly.

In the last championship, Rebecca only lost in the mirror, and didn’t lose to a single other deck in the Top 16 that it faced. It’s worth noting that Rebecca is generally losing against Katakuri, and all 4 players in the Top 16 so far as Rebecca were able to dodge Katakuri. However, despite this bit of luck that all of these players had, Rebecca won the championship again. The second deck ever to win a championship twice after Zoro, and the first deck ever to win twice in a row.

This was no longer a fluke. It wasn’t “bad players in a weak region stomping weak Zoro players” anymore. サイーデ, the winner of this championship won going 13-0 throughout the day, also becoming the first player to win all qualification matches, and also the championship.

One adaptation to Whitebeard recently was that they started to use Ace more and more. Ace, although weak in the mirror, was extremely strong into every other matchup, including Rebecca in theory as it would speed up the game.

People on Twitter were no longer calling Rebecca a bad deck, and the very same people who were saying that only bad Zoros lose to Rebecca, were trying to figure out how to win the matchup, praying they don't hit Rebecca.

サイーデ’s Rebecca list is close to what is now, the ‘standard Rebecca list.’ His list ran Red Rock to compensate for the lack of 10 Kuzan and clear things such as 10cost Linlin or 9cost Newgate on the turn they were placed. The standard Rebecca list only moves this Red Rock space to Leo and Sabo.

The rise of Rebecca was a big hit on Law’s playrate. What’s the point of playing a difficult deck when it can’t even win every matchup, let alone play some of them?

Kanagawa Championship July 15

My attendance

One week later, the Kanagawa Championship started. The Kanagawa Championship was important as it was the closest to Tokyo, meaning that the most ‘well-known’ players were here.

I was at this championship as I had qualified earlier, and didn’t want to go too far away from Tokyo. So I think it would be fun for just this section to discuss my thought process and take on the meta and how I did.

Deck Presence: Whitebeard > Zoro > Katakuri > Law > Rebecca

I suspected with the latest double win by Rebecca that 1 thing, and only 1 thing would change. Law’s playrate would go down. People who realized that Rebecca is strong don’t have enough time to start playing her, but the people who have been playing Law can easily stop playing him. I suspected Rebecca and Law’s playrate to be relatively low and Whitebeard, Zoro, and Katakuri dominated the preliminary rounds. As Green Purple Doflamingo was dead at this point, and some decks made to beat Rebecca were coming into the meta such as Nami and Ace, the lower presence deck's were very volatile in their representation. 

If you were not already set on playing one of the top decks, my read was that the best deck to bring was Nami, or Film Kid.

Self-plug:

I wrote a guide on film Kid, please read it. I talk about how to beat Kid as other decks as well.

My read on the meta was that there would be Whitebeard > Zoro > Katakuri > Rebecca > Nami.

While I was not entirely correct with this read, my opinions on matchups in my Film Kid article reflect why I chose to bring Film Kid. I do not regret my decision although I only managed to go 5-3. Although I am a Rebecca player, and confident in my Whitebeard matchup. I am extremely unconfident in my Katakuri matchup. Thus I decided not to bring Rebecca. I see people go 5-3 and place in Top 64 overseas, but as the Kanagawa championship had 1400 people, I was still in the 200s. Regardless, you only get a prize (Borsalino) if you get into the Top 16. The Top 32 get an invitation to the Finals, but is this not too strict??

My matches on the day were:

Zoro ⭕️
Rebecca ⭕️
Ace ❌
Law ⭕️
Yellow Linlin ❌
Kid ⭕️
Kid ⭕️
Yamato ❌

Not a great result unfortunately. I think I hit only winning matchups (except Law), but I failed to win at the last step each time. Against Ace, he took first and played everything on curve to beat me. Otama Hiken, Entei, 9Shanks. It was very hard for me to keep up with the board control, but if he failed to take my board or threaten me hard enough even once, I would have won very easily. He survived by 1000 counter even after clearing 3 threats on the turn they were placed.

Against Linlin, I had 4 Punk Gibson in my start hand. If I had survived another turn, then I would have won this one as well.

Lastly Yamato, I was winning and his last 2 life was Narikabura Arrow and Bege. If it was only one of these I still would have won. The other matchups went as planned as you can read in my guide how I like to play them.

It was unfortunately not my day, but I do not regret the decisions I made or the deck I brought. I just wish there was another Film Kid player, as my deck was far from complete at the time.

Top 16

Zoro 6
Whitebeard 5
Law 2
Rebecca 2
GP Doflamingo 1

There were 2 Rebecca at this tournament. And they hit each other in the Top 8 Match. However, this is the first time that a Rebecca has lost to a deck that was not the mirror in Top-Cut. It lost to the eventual winner, Whitebeard, which is generally a skill matchup and close to 50-50.

At this time, it was actually shocking that a Doflamingo made it to the Top 16. Though he didn’t make it far after, getting to the Top 16 in a meta riddled with Law, Whitebeard, and Rebecca was very impressive. 

I think that overseas will have a similar meta progression if not a bit faster. Doflamingo is strong, plain and simple. However, once people get better at the decks that beat it, it becomes very hard for Doflamingo to stay in the meta. Once the meta goes this far, I recommend picking up something like Nami or Kid.

Osaka Championship July 30 

Deck Presence: Whitebeard > Zoro > Katakuri > Law > Rebecca

The meta has stabilized. By far the most popular decks are Whitebeard, Zoro, and Katakuri, with a huge drop off in playrate to Law, Rebecca, and Nami.

Zoro is the king of consistency, so once the list is solidified, Zoro will consistently be the most represented deck in the meta. Whitebeard has been slowly declining in representation and playrate, but is still as strong as ever.

There is not much to say in terms of new changes to decks at this point except that it’s now a must for Law to run 2 cost Sanji, as without it, the Rebecca matchup is completely unwinnable.

Once again, Rebecca won the Osaka Championship, establishing itself as probably the best deck in the meta by being the first deck to ever win 3 times.

The Rebecca list is the absolute standard Rebecca. No spice cards, just pure consistency and high level playing.

Now you would expect that finally, FINALLY Rebecca’s playrate would rise from winning twice in a row, and eventually 3 times, but a new card was introduced that shook the meta for the last time.

Katakuri vs Rebecca was already a bad matchup, but thanks to promo Zoro, it was arguable now that Katakuri could beat Whitebeard going first and second as he essentially had 8 Thunderbolt now that could kill 4 Marco. With the inclusion of Zoro, Katakuri’s popularity exploded, and I, as a Kid player was very happy, and took this time to take home 2 prizes in flagship battles stomping Yellow left and right with Kid.

While there was no Championship during this time, there were unofficial tournaments, where it seemed like the deck presence became

Katakuri > Whitebeard > Zoro > Law > Rebecca for a short period

The Championship Finals will not reflect this ratio as top players tend to dislike playing yellow for its inconsistency, so let’s see what did happen at the Championship Finals

Championship Finals August 20

With the new meta with a large influx of yellow, I believed that people would be more scared to bring Rebecca, and more inclined to bring Law. I believed that the best deck to play at the end of the meta in response to the rest of the meta, was either Nami, or Law. The best deck in general is of course Whitebeard and Zoro, but Nami and Law were my 'meta-breaker' picks. I know this may sound retrospective considering the results of the tournament, but I believed that Nami and Law were in the best spot in the tournament going in, and I was shocked by how low Law’s playrate was despite Rebecca’s playrate dropping. Even my friend who only played Law since OP01 abandoned it for Katakuri. Due to my prediction that Law would be strong, I would hesitate to bring Kid in that meta.

Finally for the first time we get to see all of the decks represented. Here is the full list.

Oh boy, I guess I should translate this. Like and subscribe

Total 157 players, all who placed Top 16 or Top 32 in the previous tournaments of 700-1400+ people.

Whitebeard 51
Zoro 40
RG Law 14
Katakuri 12
Rebecca 11
Nami 10
Crocodile 4
GP Doflamingo 3
Ace 2
Vivi 1
Queen 1
BP Crocodile 1
King 1
Red Luffy 1
RP Law 1
Zephyr 1
RP Luffy 1
Oden 1
Yellow Linlin 1

The ultimate start deck came out during this time, but it was not quite strong enough to come into the meta as of yet, so I will brush past it.

Although Katakuri was going crazy in popularity in local environments, top players refused to bring Katakuri. Perhaps this is because the actual Katakuri players didn’t make it to this round, or because they thought that even with the Zoro promo, Katakuri was still not enough to contend with the top decks.

Despite this, one of the people who went lossless in the preliminary rounds was a Katakuri with a very unique build.

It was very fun for me to see people I know on stage fighting a miserable matchup, but let’s move quickly onto the Top 32.

Newgate 9/51 17.6%
Zoro 7/40 17.5%
Law 6/14 42.8%
Nami 3/10 30%
Katakuri 3/12 25%
Rebecca 2/11 18.2%
Ace 1/2 50%
Crocodile 1/4 25%

While I knew Ace was strong, as I lost to one in my own championship, I did not think Ace was this strong.

Otherwise my predictions were mostly correct. I just didn’t expect that the decks that counter the meta would actually rise up considering how people are prone to just play the meta at the highest level.

Whitebeard 4 | 44% of Top 32 | 8% of Total 157
Law 4              | 67% of Top 32 | 29% of Total 157 
Zoro 2             | 29% of Top 32 | 5% of Total 157 
Nami 2            | 67% of Top 32 | 20% of Total 157 
Katakuri 2       | 67% of Top 32 | 17% of Total 157 
Rebecca 1      | 50% of Top 32 | 9% of Total 157 
Ace 1               | 100% of Top 32 | 50% of Total 157 

Crocodile 0   | 0% of Top 32 | 0% of Total 157 

Thank you Mr. Crocodile

Whitebeard 2 | 50% of Top 16
Law 2              | 50% of Top 16
Nami 1            | 50% of Top 16
Katakuri 1       | 50% of Top 16
Rebecca 1      | 50% of Top 16
Ace 1               | 100% of Top 16

Zoro 0             | 0% of Top 16

Goodbye Mr. Zoro

Whitebeard 1 | 50% of Top 8
Law 1              | 50% of Top 8
Nami 1            | 100% of Top 8
Ace 1               | 100% of Top 8

Katakuri 0       | 0% of Top 8
Rebecca 0      | 0% of Top 8

The final 4 were all different decks:
Whitebeard - The King of the Old Age
Law - The Original Dual Color King
Nami - The Control Deck Killer
Ace - The Dark Horse

The matchups were Whitebeard vs Law, and Nami vs Ace. In theory, Law should beat Whitebeard, and if we go off of OP03 knowledge for the unusual matchup, Nami should beat Ace. Unfortunately, the unexpected Dark Horse Ace fell at the Top 4, and Whitebeard fell to Law.

Here is his article discussing the deck. Notably, the deck has very few 7Ace, and focuses on Striker to create an incredible hand advantage.

I will say though, although I am not a top player comparatively, it’s clear that these people do not have a plan for fighting Nami. You cannot play normally vs Nami, and need to know how to fight Nami. If you don’t you will lose.

Nami vs Law is generally winning for Law, but giving Nami opportunities to counter attacks cleanly from hand is what will sway the scales of who will end up winning. If the Law was more conservation with his attacks and saved them for bigger hits with 5 cost restand Law, I believe that this game’s result would have turned out differently.

Nonetheless, the winner of the season was Nami, finally giving us the answer to why Kabaji was banned.

Does this mean that Nami is the answer to the OP04 meta? No. The meta will always change, even overseas. The game is designed to have decks that your deck excels against, as well as decks that your deck struggles against. It’s important to know what cards benefit you in which matchup, and what decks you can use in certain metas. By being flexible and reading ahead, you will have the advantage. 

Not to call out names, but there are people who see the game as a purely skill centered game. That you can make the perfect deck, and use it to perfection to win every game. This can only be true to a certain extent. While playing is important, the other half of the game is in meta reading, and deck building. Even if you have ‘the perfect deck,’ not knowing when to search or when to attack will mean it’s not the perfect deck. Find a deck that is perfect for you, and understand what makes your deck work and win in certain matchups and you can adapt to the upcoming meta.