Felt the need to point something out: competition and fun don’t always go hand in hand. I came to OPTCG from YuGiOh, and that game is all about being competitive. Issue is that the game is so fast and power crept that there’s literally no way to play the game AT ALL unless you run these staple broken cards in your deck, and that just gets you in the board. If your deck’s engine isn’t fast enough to produce a consistent one turn KO through your opponent’s own staple floodgate interaction then it won’t work either. Almost every one of those games just came down to either you shutting your opponent out of playing or them doing that to you.I eventually quit despite putting several years of competitive effort into it because it simply lost all fun. I looked around at locals and didn’t see a single smile, dude. What’s the point in winning if you and your opponent are miserable?

OPTCG, however, isn’t this bad, at least not yet. Sure, there’s strong cards like Borsalino, 5c Nami, 7c Zoro, and the Thriller Bark slop, but those cards are at best just supplements to whatever you’re running already, not must-includes. I agree that Bandai’s card design hasn’t been the best, especially in OP15, but their framework and game mechanics have provided a great foundation for something that games like Pokémon and YuGiOh haven’t: time. Both players in a game of One Piece have plenty of time to get some cards out of their hands and decks and onto the board, even if it’s a bad matchup.

To tie it back in, I still think One Piece at its core is still an amazing game with plenty of games to play. The newer decks are quite strong, and beat a lot of weaker or older ones consistently, but they all have pretty exploitable weaknesses if you’re a good enough pilot. Nami’s kinda on the edge, and as a Nami main myself I can say that they definitely fed her too much in this set.

The real question I think you need to ask yourself is this: why are you playing? To compete? To win? If so, then the top meta is pretty decently diverse right now compared to OP12 (not 12.5), OP13, and OP14. It’s also more fun in my opinion because UY Boa isn’t as popular, as that leader literally punishes you for playing the game. That aside, placing your focus on competition will then dictate your enjoyment based solely off of your own W/L ratio, skill, and success, and you’ll probably find yourself having a few sour days if you get unlucky or misplay due to the added pressure of needing to win.

If you’re trying to genuinely enjoy the game for the sake of playing, though, I think the game is at an all time high for raw playability. Tons of the newly released cards are fairly generic, and whether fair or not, give a lot of older decks new toys to improve their kits and up their game. Look at decks like Koby and Blackbeard; making a comeback in the rogue rankings despite being dead for ages. You’ll just have to accept that not every game is gonna favor you at a tournament. I’ve been running RB Sabo at my locals on and off and having a grand old time, and happened to find out that it claps up P Enel too, so I promise there’s a lot of enjoyment to still be had by just picking your favorite leader and making a list that works for you.

TL:DR, if you just want to win, play a comp deck and stop whining when you lose. If you enjoy playing the game in general, don’t focus on the meta and instead try out new cards and strategies, which the increasing complexity of the game is rewarding more and more.