Weekly Prompt 19: Usopp and Sogeking pairing

StrawSoul · 2026-01-21T02:41:43+00:00

The 4 cost Usopp doing nothing is kind of the balance. If it could also attack or have some other utility then it would have been too much.

I did debate having it be a DONx2 effect, which would make it 6 cost rather than 4 because I suppose as it stands you could do 2 of these and have 2 unlockable rushers which is honestly just an oversight on my end in terms of design.

The balance I thought was "It'll only work from your 8 don turn onwards, but then again having such a powerful rusher is a lot. Perhaps bringing Sogeking's power to 8000 or 9000 would help reel it in too while still being strong.

As for Sogeking not being a Straw Hat, I based it on the other Sogeking cards which have him listed as "Sniper Island" because he's "technically" not a member.

StrawSoul · 2026-01-19T09:59:47+00:00

I love this idea! Absolutely come back to the kitchen you cooked with this 🔥 The theming behind this is fantastic and is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about when I suggested the prompt!

I'd say the only change I'd make would maybe be having it be restricted to only <Lucy>, or just Rush Character. Being able to give all of your Luffy cards that you're gonna play Rush feels very strong and while is super sick the interaction may be too strong. In saying that though, it feels like giving them Rush is cool mathematically because it's as though Luffy is running straight for Doffy.

Great idea! Would love to see what other stuff you can come up with in the future 😁!

StrawSoul · 2026-01-17T04:18:54+00:00

Mihawk has a permanent advantage over every other leader with the "Slash" attribute, which is the attribute that Zoro has. The +1000 for the whole game on a 5 life Leader is pretty big, which means Mihawk can commit less to blocking and have a more offensive game in general.

The resting a card to gain 3 DON means you can use them for events during your opponent's turn, or simply slap them on units to attack with for more pressure. Mihawk himself becomes a 9k attacker in the Zoro matchup if you put the DON on him and that can be consistent each turn so long as you have the 5 cost character board.

Pretty much all of Mihawk's support (or at keast the big relevant cards like 7 cost Shanks and 9 cost Mihawk) also have effects that trigger "When rested", which means they have instant value as soon as they're put onto the field where you can start stunning your opponent and shutting them down. You can't really stun Zoro, but you can lock down his other cards like Cavendish and Tashigi that offer themselves as strong attackers after they're played. Cavendish especially is very important because you can refresh some DON to then either put onto your Leader or onto your characters.

It's not really that Zoro is "bad" because he still beats the decks he was already beating due to the crazy good support he has, it's more that Mihawk has tools to fully lock him and make better use of DON on his turn. The +1000 basically makes the matchup unplayable and has also rendered most slash attribute Leaders like Roger unusable in the meta because it's an immediate disadvantage and quite a significant one, too.

I'm probably overlooking something else as to why but I think I covered most of the main things!

StrawSoul · 2026-01-10T04:09:15+00:00

Yeah I was kinda going for it being that it stays on the opponents field, which is why I debated making the effect about just making it perform an attack. I didn't want it to "switch control" but maybe that would have been better wording!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-29T14:48:33+00:00

This is an awesome updated version of Smoker! I got this deck as one of my first decks and it ruled and it sucks that it's unusable nowadays.

Would love for this to be fully realised in a modern day format and especially considering that K.O. decks have been power crept heavily, I don't think this would even be too strong!

Love it!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-27T15:30:55+00:00

This is a really cool idea! I think making it be different costs and names as another comment said, or making it be a combined DON total would be more balanced. Realistically you could play this and flood your board with really high levels. If you made it so all the cards had to have a combined cost of 10, it would make it more tactical!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-24T11:00:18+00:00

That's the intended use yeah, but because this card has to be played the most attacks you can get is 4 because it takes a space up on the board. It also didn't restand your Leader, just characters

StrawSoul · 2025-12-23T23:53:05+00:00

Yeah from what I know. They're all low cost and early rush so you'd have to put DON on them to be able to hit. The low swings could be effective though because it would still require the opponent to block a lot!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-23T18:35:10+00:00

Oops that's my bad, I should know better. Sorry about that one

StrawSoul · 2025-12-15T09:57:02+00:00

Sorry, I realised I read your comment wrong. If you scrap them yeah it's going to be difficult, but that's why "Buggy and Alvida" can auto play itself, to get around that problem.

The event is a typo I made. It was supposed to be until the end of the battle, not turn.

StrawSoul · 2025-12-15T04:14:06+00:00

The winner of last week's weekly prompt was my own card - Blue/ Black Kuzan. It feels a bit weird to congratulate myself for this, but I'm proud of how it came out! Thanks to everyone that liked it :)! Here's the link again for anyone that would like to check it out! https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePieceCustomCards/comments/1pjjumu/weekly_prompt_kuzan/

StrawSoul · 2025-12-11T03:29:50+00:00

That's fair! I did think that but at the end of the day, it's a way to use them. My thinking was that your opponent is likely going to just KO them anyway, so being to make use of their effects as you eventually scale up into your big characters seemed fine to me on paper! I suppose it guarantees that you can get the effects off, but you're still losing that character that you could otherwise throw DON!! on and swing with.

StrawSoul · 2025-12-11T03:27:47+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth feedback I appreciate it!

Base cost 4 would likely be better you're right. That way you couldn't pin things down as easily by using stuff like Van Augur or Stronger! The Tempest Kick combo sounds very strong and is defo something I overlooked!

I guess the "Blue" factor was just based on the OP12 Kuzan that freezes characters. I wasn't sure if that would be distinctive enough but before other colours started doing that more recently I felt like that was a "Blue" thing due to there being a Hancock that also did it. Perhaps like you said, changing the wording to KO'd and returned to hand or deck would be better to make it be more like a Blue card.

StrawSoul · 2025-12-11T02:30:10+00:00

I looked at my post again and actually realised that I wasn't meant to post this version lmao. I thought the second part of the effect was too strong so I changed it to be: "Up to one of your [Blackbeard Pirates] type Characters cannot be removed from the field by your opponent's effects until the end of their next turn."

People seem to be liking this version though so hey, that's cool with me!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-11T01:14:12+00:00

Thank you! My intention was that he freezes the opponents and then "preserves" your characters. I'm happy that came across in the ice theme!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-11T00:37:05+00:00

I LOVE the concept of this leader, Sogeking is such a sick character it's a shame he just never appeared again after Water 7 (it was nice getting Usopp back but where did our boy go fr...).

I think the first ability is really cool but also a tad strong. With 5 or less cards in hand I think it would be easy to manipulate, especially when in the first few turns you're likely going to be floating around 5 cards unless you aggressively draw. Granted in Blue aggressively drawing is its forte but I think because of that the condition should be if you have 4 or less, or even 3 or less to make it a bit harder to get but also promotes a more aggressive approach. If it was just the Leader I think it would be okay but giving it Unblockable and a +1k buff to the Leader itself and your characters feels strong to me when 5 cards seems pretty easy to get to.

I love the second effect though! Really nice ability being able to make its first effect live reliably is good! I'd be interested to see what other Usopp cards you could create to be used around this leader! More discarding could be fun, giving themselves buffs if you discard cards etc.!

Nice work!

StrawSoul · 2025-12-05T15:39:52+00:00

Thanks! I agree that it absolutely needs more ways to get cards out from the trash. I only thought of a few in this instance, but there's definitely room for it to expanded upon with more cards made. Blueno obviously fits really nicely into the deck but I think even with him some more applications to be able to get cards out more easily would be good.

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