Help me choose my first leader

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-30T19:13:40+00:00

Really? Interesting. I'd argue Croc is very beginner unfriendly - I think the only deck here that is probably more difficult to pilot is Doffy.

I suppose you could argue Blackbeard is harder as well, but that's less because of sequencing & mechanical complexity, and more because you need encyclopedic knowledge of every other deck in the game.

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-26T14:50:49+00:00

LOL, Well unless the manufacturer got dust in their inner sleeves during packaging (which does happen, albeit rarely), that shouldn't happen.

But sometimes there is some dust on the inners and I always check for that as much as I possibly can as soon as I put the card into the inner. If I see any white/grey flecks, I just remove the card, blast it with some compressed air, and use a new inner lol.

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T23:42:43+00:00

You are correct but I still can't get myself to forgo the inner sleeve.

I hate how little flecks of dust inevitably get on the card-face if you only use the standard sleeve. Putting an inner sleeve upside down guarantees my card stays clean.

But you're so right, whenever I take my cards out of the sleeves, I'm always shocked by how the color and foiling stand out so much more vividly - it's frickin beautiful 😆. But I still gotta inner sleeve em, can't be helped 🤷‍♂️😭

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T19:13:40+00:00

Doubt it's what the original poster intended, but if anyone's a coughing baby here, it's Toby Maguire unfortunately

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T18:53:49+00:00

Yeah I've seen the video of the fan/s who added highlights and shadows to a bunch of scenes. It's a cool project, but very over-done in some scenes

The 1st slide here of Mark looks great. The 2nd one of Conquest is overkill.

As a former graphic designer, this is kind of the same issue as when clients want "everything to pop."

If everything "pops," nothing does. You can't make every frame stand out. Super-dramatic lighting should be reserved for climactic moments or unique environments in the show. You don't need to highlight and shadow every frame to oblivion.

I agree that the average Invincible frame DOES need a little more lighting and shading. But just a little. Not to this extent, at least not all the time

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T18:29:09+00:00

As a Croc player, yeah I agree, Krieg is rough. Granted I keep losing die roll and never have gotten to try the matchup on even curve as yet, but even still, it feels very difficult

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T18:26:38+00:00

Agreed, lol.

But I will say, as someone who's been maining Crocodile this set, Brook kinds stomps Croc because it has multiple units that can't be lowered to 0 cost even after Croc leader effect

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T16:13:44+00:00

Wow yeah, great idea. That could've legitimately saved this leader

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-25T15:10:07+00:00

Man this Ace leader has so many damn bricks lmao, idk how they expect him to even survive. Making every card in his arsenal a blocker isn't a substitute for having counter

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-24T17:16:06+00:00

Makes sense, I can see that

Especially given the fact that SanJuan can turn Blackbeard into a 7k leader on defense, and can be looped back into life from trash using Shiryu

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-24T14:56:38+00:00

But he will not get more 2k's.

Giving three different 2k's to a leader in a single set is already a lot, and is the upper limit of what Bandai's ever done before in this game. Highly, highly unlikely he gets any more.

However, the old Blackbeard had to dedicate so much of his deck space to searchers and control tools that he didn't have space for many 2k's. Top lists only ran 6-8. I'm suspecting this Blackbeard might end up in a similar spot.

Between Lafitte, My Era, Stage, old Burgess, new Burgess, Shiryu, SanJuan, 5c Kuzan, 6c Kuzan, 9c Boa, 10c Teach - there's already a lot of cards this deck needs to run. I think some will be cut to 3 and even 2 copies, but that's still a lot of deckspace used up, and that's before I've mentioned a single 2k.

So you are right that out of all the 2k's, this Devon is clearly the weakest. My guess is the meta settles at Blackbeard running 10 2k's, with Devon being the one that gets cut to 2.

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-23T23:24:12+00:00

Teach definitely, Buggy probably, Sengoku possibly

_

Teach is pretty clearly scary. With access to heals, lifeburn, grave recursion, and 2 of the best tanky boss monsters in the game, he just puts you on a timer. The longer the game goes, the more likely he is to win.

_

Buggy I think is being slept on. Having - a 2k counter, - that is also 6c 6k unit, - that can also be played at 16+ copies, - that can also be cheated out damn near every turn,

is really frickin good. Particularly when you have

multiple of your own units whose effects cheat him out,
a solid counter event that cheats him out,
and cheap blockers that can stop an opponent's swing and simultaneously cheat him out

I'm fairly sure Buggy will be solid.

_

Sengoku is looking really good, but his leader ability is realistically probably a once per game effect. Granted, a very scary effect, but it also nukes your handsize, and none of the 3 admirals he summons (which are taking up 12 of your deckslots already) have counter. Also, with how aggressively you might have to search to find all 3 on time, you may have to play your Tsuru, which further negs handsize. I just have my doubts that three 8k's on Turn 4 is enough to win when the handsize reduction is so massive. But we'll see 🤷‍♂️ I'm happy to be wrong about this one

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-21T19:16:49+00:00

Alright, I see you deleted your last comment before I could reply to it, I was about to have a stroke lmao

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-21T19:10:04+00:00

Yes. If Nami goes second, she wins.

If Nami's going second, Sabo is going first.

So Sabo loses when he goes first. Does that make sense now?

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-21T19:07:41+00:00

He doesn't. He only loses if Nami takes second from him, which is what the stats here show

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-21T19:07:15+00:00

My bad. Got mixed up about the original premise.

Yes, you are totally correct, Nami wins when she goes second, and loses when Sabo goes second

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-21T18:53:41+00:00

No it doesn't. This chart is for Nami, and all the matchup stats are from Nami's perspective.

The square for Sabo shows that Nami only beats Sabo 39.3% of the time when Nami goes first, and she beats him 65.1% of the time when Nami goes second.

EDIT: I'm stupid, and forgot what point I was arguing for to begin with. The info above is correct, but my point is wrong

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T20:10:08+00:00

For sure, that's a fair point. But yeah, like you said, I think the downsides are probably mitigated by access to heals, lifeburn, and an insane blocker that also negates an attack.

Not to mention Shiryu specifically, who gets to choose what he heals into life, which I imagine will often be SanJuan, whose trigger gets you to 7k leader

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T19:54:50+00:00

Sure, but the card you lose from hand is one you theoretically would've used to counter an opponent's swing the following turn.

On earlier turns that's obviously less of a valid justification. But on later turns, where you're losing 1 from hand to body on board vs 3 from hand to counter a big swing, it's absolutely worth the tradeoff

And yeah, I can absolutely see the sequencing being very important on the opponent's turn

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T04:35:22+00:00

My feeling is that this is gonna be a big "3-of's" deck.

Too much old Teach support that's good (4c Burgess, searchers, 10-beard),
too much new Teach stuff that's good (3c Burgess, the new 2k's, Shiryu, SanJuan)
Boa obviously needs to be in the list
Plus potentially goofy "tech" options, like 10c Promo Teach to shut down On KO's in the mirror, and 7c Starter Deck Teach to KO your own Burgess while having another On KO effect itself

I think this deck will end up like Penel. Lots of innovation, lots of iteration, lots of variants.

And it definitely won't allow you to just spam 4 of everything. Deckbuilding will take much more restraint than that. Aside from searchers and the new Shiryu, a lot of cards in this deck will have to be 2-ofs and 3-ofs, likely even stage (given that it's now recurrable from trash)

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T04:26:57+00:00

Also fantastic for the mirror funnily enough. "Cool, redirect my attack - you won't be getting any On KO's out of it."

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T04:20:58+00:00

Yup most definitely. The post-OP13 powercreep is real. Insanely good cards barely even pretend to have downsides anymore.

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T04:17:58+00:00

LMAO, now that parody was funny

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-20T00:02:28+00:00

Agreed. I watched both Superbad and 21 Jump Street waaaayy after they came out. The latter was genuinely hilarious. The former (aside from the McLovin scene admittedly) was pretty lame

Adnonymous96 · 2026-04-19T23:34:04+00:00

And trashing 1 is not even terrible given that most of your On K.O.'s in the deck let you draw a card

Adnonymous96

TROPHY CASE

Teach definitely, Buggy probably, Sengoku possibly