A Closer Look at Reiju in OP08 (@ikailakai)

Reiju is a deck that feels like she should be good, but couldn’t quite become meta. When the bans were announced, some thought that this deck would be tier 0. I believe that this is largely due to the fact that Reiju as a deck has always been that 1 step away from being meta in Japan in OP08, gated mostly by RP Law. Once RP Law disappeared it felt like the possibilities for this deck were endless, but it hit another wall in Black Yellow Luffy. 

Regardless, the deck has a lot of power, and while I won’t say that I can solve the Black Yellow Luffy matchup, I think the deck has lots of potential build in a direction that can be very powerful. Reiju will still beat bad BY Luffy’s so I believe she is still a great pick for this coming OP08 meta.

Is Reiju inconsistent?

This is the default argument that people have against Reiju.

“If she can pull off her combos, she is strong, but if she doesn’t, she folds.”

Before anything else I would like to get into the mechanism of this argument. 

What makes a deck inconsistent? Generally this argument will stem from there being either:

1.) Low counts of cards

2.) Unsearchable key cards

3.) A single gameplan that isn't consistent

Point 1 Is generally a deckbuilding trap that people fall into when they tech for too many matchups. Let’s say a deck has 46 cards that you feel you cannot change within your deck. If there matchups that require completely different tech cards, and you try to tech for all of them, you start to explore which of the 46 set cards can be reduced to add more tech cards. In this way, you end up in a situation where you are sacrificing consistency from your set of 46 cards to add tech cards for certain matchups. This is not necessarily wrong. Jackson Hoang just won a tournament using BY Luffy with 5 1ofs in his deck, but you need to be extremely careful with how you do this, and understand why it’s being done. Jackson Hoang’s list is made for large scale tournaments, and would differ from lists you would bring to local tournaments. However, generally increasing the consistency of a deck, by making most cards 3 or 4 ofs in the deck is best for most people as it helps to streamline the gameplan. By increasing the counts of cards in your deck, you increase the odds of drawing the cards that you’re looking for, and therefore, the consistency goes up.

Point 2 is best described through an example.

OP07 Lucci is a monstrously powerful deck. If the deck could pull off the moves that it wanted to every game, then it would likely be stronger than RP Law in the Japanese OP08 meta. However, the reason why this was not the case was his consistency. 7 cost Jack, 8 cost Moria and the Stage Enies Lobby are all unsearchable, yet crucial to the game plan. While you can play without stage, it makes the game much easier if you have it. However, the deck revolves around Moria, and the number of Moria correlates directly to the power of the deck. As such, games where you fail to draw Moria, Jack, Enies Lobby etc reduce the overall winrate of the deck. “You will lose if you don’t draw the cards you need,” is a statement true for any deck, but decks generally try to make its gameplan as consistent as possible through the likes of searchers or increasing options in the event that they do not have their power card.

Point 3 pertains to decks that do one thing, and one thing well. Katakuri is a deck that will play 4 10 cost Charlotte Linlins on you and win. Katakuri as a deck can survive due to its ability search for these 10 cost Charlotte Linlin. Although he only has 1 gameplan, he does it very consistently, and that’s why he is playable. Decks that only have one gameplan, and are also not consistent at pulling it off are non-existent in his meta.

In the case of Reiju, she would most fall most closely into the 3rd point, where she has a gameplan she wants to execute that is tricky to execute consistently. 

This gameplan that people want to execute on is ‘Turn two Ichiji’

However, when using this deck, I would like you to refrain this thinking.

People play this deck with the expectation being turn 2 Ichiji, and anything else being a low roll. 

For Reiju, think of the expectation as getting a transformation, and the highroll being turn 2 Ichiji.

Reiju is quite similar to Red Green Law in that the first few turns can be unstable. However, if you can just survive those first few turns with relative stability, you are in a great spot for the majority of the game. I will not deny that Reiju has some consistency issues, but I think it is quite overblown. Ki Ota got 2nd place with Reiju at the Dallas Nationals, showing that Reiju can contend.

Why Reiju in OP08?

Reiju has received exactly 1 card in OP08, but it is extremely powerful. People in the west will never know how much terror this card evoked in the East in RP Law. With RP Law gone, this card hasn’t quite found a suitable home in any particular deck yet, but Reiju uses the card very very well.

Black Maria allows you to minus your Don freely, and regain it all at some point in the game. The best way to use this is to freely minus your Don in the early game, and play Black Maria the turn before you plan to play Judge so you do not relieve any pressure throughout the game.

This card alone breathes a lot of potential into the deck, which is why I wanted to showcase this deck first.

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Reiju

Strengths

• Easy Cycling: With the Germa Kingdom Stage, it is extremely easy to cycle your deck and find the pieces you need to set up for something like Judge.

• Explosive Board Creation: With the version that runs Judge, you do not need to rely on cards like Ichiji solely to close out the game. Judge has the ability to play up to 4 other characters, giving this deck a lategame that can lock the opponent out of the game if they fail to kill you fast enough.

Weaknesses

• Early Game Consistency: This deck is like an engine that needs some time to get running. As such, the first few turns are where you will mostly feel the difference in power. After a few turns it feels like this deck is limited only by the plays that you can imagine, but these first few turns being slow can lead to losses if it’s not salvageable. 

• Rigid Deckbuilding / Gameplan: The deck does what it wants to do well, and there are a reasonable number of spots that can be moved around for matchups you want to tech for, but the Germa package is generally how you want to play this deck, and the Germa package can struggle into certain deck types.

Decklists

What about Porche?

Porche is a card that had been rising in popularity in Japan in OP08, but why is it not in this construction?

I will not say that this card will never fit into to this list, but I want to explain the logic behind why it was being used, and as such why I think the necessity for it has gone down. 

Reiju is a very powerful deck, but her worst matchup is Red Purple Law. The reason for this is due to the fact that Reiju’s card have the stipulation that she needs to be at equal or less don to use the effect.

However, while Reiju generally only reduces her Don by 1 each turn at most, Red Purple Law reduces their Don by 3. As such, the reason why Reiju struggled in this matchup was due to her cards simply not having effect. Porche saved this by allowing Reiju to reduce her Don very early and establish 2 strong bodies from very early in the game. Generally you would want to go first, play Porche into 4 cost Ichiji into 7 cost Ichiji on Turn 2, and this amount of power set up up for the rest of the game. As such, to supplement this plan, the Foxy Pirates 2000 counter, as well as Chopper were adopted to the list to have a few targets to ‘get lucky’ and pull from Porche’s search effect of her card. On top of this, things such as the 1 cost Sanji were used to keep Reiju’s Don low enough to keep using her effect vs Red Purple Law.

Sanji was technically a 1 cost Sanji’s Pilaf as with Reiju’s effect, you could draw 2 cards.

However, as you may have suspected, the consistency of pulling off this dream Porche combo was very very low. If you thought having both 4 cost and 7 cost Ichiji in hand was highroll, wait until you face the Porche, Ichiji, Ichiji high roll. 

The reason why I am not using Porche, or the supplementing Foxy pirate cards in my list is due to the fact that Red Purple Law is gone.

I think that the true strength of Reiju does not come from playing low to the ground (low Don) with Ichijis, but comes from her strength to instantly create a powerful board with Judge.

Card Explanation

Reiju

Reiju is one of the strongest cards for decks that can use her properly. Though unlike with Law, the ‘5 cards or less’ condition can be slightly harder to meet, as long as you are careful of this, you will be fine. To ensure that you can always use the effect on this Reiju, you will generally be defending easy to defend (5000/6000), and even moderately difficult to defend (7000) attacks depending on the situation to stay in this range. Additionally, as the Leader Effect and Reiju activate at the same time, if you are 5 cards in hand after playing the 2 cost Reiju into the 4 cost Reiju, then you can choose to activate the character Reiju’s effect first, then your Leader Effect to draw 3 total. 

This card with your leader ability is what gives Reiju the tankiness she has and as such, the maximum copies of 4 should be utilized in my opinion.

Ichiji

Ichiji is the core of this deck’s early game power. Many decks, even black, struggle to clear a 7 cost 7000 on turn 2, and is a large reason why people call this deck a “Turn 2 Ichiji or lose” deck. While I will not refute that Ichiji is an extremely powerful card to this deck, I will reiterate that this is just a highroll, to an otherwise relatively stable deck.

Ichiji having rush is very strong, but many people forget that he can also -2000 power a character. As such, Ichiji is like a slightly mild feeling 7 cost Ace, can can be potentially played for 4 Don. (Doesn’t sound very mild to me.) As such, it’s key to hold a 4 cost Ichiji in your hand, and a 7 cost Ichiji in your trash in the event that you are fighting a Bonney that potentially runs 8 cost Kid. 

Niji

Niji may seem underwhelming in comparison to Ichiji and Reiju, but is very good at bridging Reiju into the mid to late game. A 3 cost (as you’ll generally be playing the 3 cost Niji to play this card) 6000 power character that can bounce a 4 cost, or KO a 2 cost is nothing to scoff at. 

*Bouncing refers to return a card back to the owner’s hand, like it is being bounced right back off of the board back to where it came from.

In most cases, the bounce effect is what you will choose when using this card, but I want to talk a bit about the value of bouncing cards as I undervalued bounce effect for a while. The argument against bounce effects in this game is that as the opponent gains the card back, they regain the benefits of having the card in hand. 

This means that the card can now be used for counter, or re-played for its On Play effect, should it have one. However, by temporarily removing the card from the board, you are preventing it from attacking. Even if the card has counter, by not allowing it to stay on the board, you are not forced to counter an additional attack, effectively gaining you counter as well. Not only this, but you do not need to attack into the character after it hits, allowing you to focus your hits in places that will put more pressure on the opponent. As such, bouncing, although has downsides for the opponent, is generally outweighed by the upsides for the user.

Niji is great for bouncing cards such as Weevil from Blue Doflamingo, Urouge from Bonney, etc, and the KO effect can target things like small blockers, or the 2 cost ‘babies’ from Black Yellow Luffy. Black Yellow Luffy especially wants to play these 2 cost babies in the early game to reduce the impact of 4 cost Pudding in the late game, and the presence of this card denies that possibility.

However, as it can only bounce 4 cost, when the important threshold is 5 in this meta, its usecases are not universal. As such, we are currently only using 3. If the necessity of this card increases or decreases, feel free to move this card from 2 to 4. If you are running Judge however, I would not take this card out, as the 6000 power line is just straight good.

Yonji

Yonji is a card that you generally do not see in Reiju. However, I think that if you have 2 extra spots in the deck, you might as well add Yonji. This deck cycles immensely, and having 2 cost, and 4 cost Yonji in your trash for whenever Judge is played is just free advantage that can potentially negate the weakness of playing Judge in being vulnerable.

The reason why I only have this card at 1, and not 2, or 0 is because I had the privilege to talk to Jackson Hoang, (ClydeTCG) on his theory regarding 1ofs. Picture that you are fighting someone with the exact same skill level. Any match that you play is a 50-50. These 1ofs do not get in the way of the consistency of the deck overall, but give you the opportunity to have miracles happen. These card’s impact may be subtle, but can sway matchups that are 50-50, to 53-47 and help you squeak out advantage against the top players. The reason why I don’t add 2 of this card is because if there are too many, while yes, the consistency of executing the Yonji combo goes up, the consistency of executing other combos in your decks is potentially reduced. As such, Yonji as a searchable ‘potential’ card with counter means that I have no issues with utilizing him in the free space the deck has.

The one thing to be careful of is to not fall into the trap of grabbing him if you see him in a search knowing that you may not see him for the rest of the game. Play to your deck’s immediate strengths and keep this as an option to create subtle advantage in 1 in every couple games. If you see this card in the same search as your first Judge, or an Ichiji, probably just grab the Ichiji or Judge and play for that instead. As this deck searches an insane amount, there is the potential to loop in longer games, so consider where your Yonji went so you may be able to grab it on the loop.

*Loops are when the cards that you sent to the bottom of your deck via searches come back up to the top of your deck with time.

Keep in mind that this card is also an attacker in many cases especially the turn after you play him off of Judge.

I can see the argument for putting Yonji down to 0, and I can also see the argument for putting him up to 2 if you value the explosive Judge turn, or consistency. As such, feel free to play around with the counts of these cards.

2000 Counters:

Kaya

Kaya helps mend some of the consistency issues this deck faces in the first few turns. If you don’t have your ‘big and small’ transformation combo for going your next turn, then playing Kaya to cycle and look for these while simultaneously preparing your trash is very good. Reiju generally ends the game with a wall of character, and a hand full of 2000 counters at the end of the game, and as we are running 12 of these sorts of 2000 counters, do not be too afraid to play them to the board when the potential for the cards that you can draw into is high.

Generally you will not need to play Kaya after the first few turns as presumably you will have your stage and will be filtering in this way. Kaya is just another way to find the stage in the early game, and passed these turns, she can be freely used for counter.

Sora

A searchable 2000 counter. This is enough to be utilized, but I remind you that 2000 counters also have effects. Sora has the unique ability in this deck to retrieve the small pre-transformation GERMA characters from trash, allowing you to grab a 4 cost Ichiji and play the 7 cost Ichiji in times of desperation. If you are playing against Lucci for example, where you need to be ending the game as soon as possible, using Sora to increase the general number of Ichijis for example can be invaluable.

While trashing a card may feel heavy for the effect, remember that you are regaining a card with Sora’s effect, and then when activating the effect of the pre-transformation GERMA, you are gaining a card from your leader ability, making it a net +/- 0. If you end up retrieving Reiju, it’s a +2 in cards in your hand. As such Sora is a 2000 counter that you will hold on to in your hand ‘just in case’ over cards like Black Maria or Kaya.

Black Maria

Though this is the star card of OP08, this is not the card you will want to be filling your hand with. The general pattern for this deck will be to stay low on Don, playing Reiju, Niji, Ichiji etc, and regaining all of it back suddenly with Black Maria to play Judge on the next turn. As such, you generally only need 1 of these in a game. Once you have your 1 Don on standby, additional Black Maria’s you draw will be easy to counter with alongside Kaya.

NOTE: The Don returned at the end of the turn is treated as Don return in any regular scenario. As such, If you haven’t used your leader ability yet, Black Maria will give you a draw

Judge

8 cost 8000, Return 5 Don, trash 2 cards, play a 7 cost 7000 Rush, 4 cost 5000, 4 cost 6000 Blocker, 5 cost 6000, Minus 2000 power to a character, Draw 3 cards, and Bounce a 4 cost.

That’s what this card does. When OP06 was still stabilizing in Japan, this was the strongest card in the game because its power was so straightforward and powerful. I have talked about the strength and explosiveness of this card so I will not dwell on it, but I would like to remind you that Judge also has an activate main effect. By minusing 1 Don, you can rest the opponent’s Don. This doesn’t seem too significant as there aren’t too many powerful Counter Events. However, it messes up Bonney’s game plan immensely in many cases, and in OP09, can remove a Don that would have been used for Gum-Gum Giant as well. If you are against Bonney especially, or decks that run Radical Beam, do not forget about this effect because it can put a massive wrench in the opponent’s plans.

Generally, we only need 1 per game, but we really want to find this one. As the deck searches very often, 2 feels like the correct amount, but there are build that prefer to run 3.

The builds that prefer to run 3 are lists that want to play Judge as soon as possible, and add cards such as 5 cost Miss All Sunday, or 4 cost Bon Clay to ramp up to 8 and play Judge ahead of curve to get ahead of the game. This is not a bad strategy, but I find this plan to be more consistent. As we have time to find our Judge, 2 is the correct number for me.

Kingdom of Germa

This is the card that makes the whole deck work. For free, every turn you can put a card into your trash, and pick up a new one from 3 choices. Not only is the search effect great, but the ability to put cards from your hand into your trash is great as we generally do not want to do our transformation out of hand, and what the post-transformation GERMA to be in our trash. As such, this is the card that pulls this deck away from being a gimmick and makes it an actual force. If you have this in your starting hand, you will generally keep as it is the bridge to the rest of the pieces in this deck.

GERMA 66 is a search event generally used find the Kingdom of GERMA in early turns if you didn’t draw it in your starting hand. While search events seem generally strong in any scenario, I want to mention that search events are significantly weaker than search characters. Not only does the event obviously not play a body to the board, but it also does not have counter, making it a bit tricky to use in certain spots. The one merit is that these events have trigger, but the trigger on this card does not activate the main effect like many other searchers do. 

GERMA 66 also is tricky to use as you will find yourself using all of your Don for your turn rather often. As such, this is a card that doesn’t necessarily feel great to play, and if a card in contention for being reduced in count, but due to the nature of the deck, really wanting to find the stage early one, relying solely on the mulligan and Kaya is not enough. As such, though reluctantly, this card is used. 

It can still be trashed with the stage’s effect, so it doesn’t feel as bad as I’m making it out to be, just be careful not to make your turn weaker trying to find an opportunity to search with this card. The stage is free!!

Pudding

Pudding is another card which can be considered for replacement. However, she helps with the treacherous Black Yellow Luffy matchup, so she finds herself in this list. Reiju is very conscious to stay around 5 cards in hand due to the 4 cost Reju, but decks like Black Yellow Luffy and Blue Doflamingo can chase that 14 cards in hand dopamine high and get overzealous with their card draw. Pudding ruins these moments and is especially powerful after you’ve set up your board to reset your opponent’s hand to 5, and then start hitting from there to reduce it further. There is a luck aspect to what your opponent will draw off of their next 5 cards, but mathematically, it is always good to reduce your opponent’s hand from 9 to 5 for only 4 Don.

Additionally, as it’s not just ripping cards out of the opponent’s hand like 4 cost Law, but resetting their entire hand, it’s good against decks that tend to cycle their deck for combos. If for example, in the mirror, your opponent draws their Judge, you can Pudding them to potentially take the judge back out of their hand. This also applies to decks like Marco that cycle 1 hand every turn. Resetting their progress is a significant pain in their ass.

Other Cards for Consideration

We have discussed Porche, and she can always be an option if playing for the late game Judge seems unviable. Here are some of the other cards that may find their way into the list if you run Porche.

Tony Tony Chopper 

Generally you are not looking to play Chopper off of Porche’s effect, but to use Porche’s effect, you need to search first. As such, having targets that can potentially be retrieved wth Porche is good. Additionally, Chopper is a blocker than can regain some lost Don, so using him to fill out your floating Don is very good.

Gina

Her effect is not usable. It is solely for having more random targets for Porche to retrieve off her effect. 

Note that Porche can also search herself. With 12 targets, the hitrate is rather low (you want at least 16 for a search to feel somewhat consistent), but adding more than this will weaken the overall package. As such, treat the search part of Porche’s effect as a bonus gamble that you feel good if you hit, but don’t feel bad if you miss.

3 cost 2000 Counter Promo Sanji

While yes, this card is searchable, Kaya, Black Maria, and Sora are too strong for us to move them for more searchability. I don’t think this deck needs more than 12 2ks, but if you want to increase the number of searchable 2ks, maybe go 2:2 with Black Maria and this Sanji.

Mr 2. Bon Kurei (Bentham)

Now that Law is gone, Bon Kurei is back to being the best Don ramp card in the game. I personally find the timing that you want to be playing ramp to be a bit awkward, but many decks were running ramp cards to potentially go for early Judges. However, with the advent of Black Maria, I think it’s better to be playing low on Don and gaining it all back in one turn, than to make your turns slightly weaker to get to Judge in a controlled fashion.

Black Bug

Black bug is an event that bottoms a 5 cost or less. This feels pretty bad to use in general as Niji bottoms up to 4 cost, but as the meta has many 5 costs, there is value on Black Bug to bottom things like Sabo. If you are struggling with Black Yellow Luffy for example, consider adding this card.

Also the trigger on this card is very powerful.

Matchups

I have 0 matchup experience against decks like the 3d2y Luffy, so I will just write a few notes on some matchups that I do know. I believe that the card explanations have explained generally how you want to be using the cards in the this deck, and saying “Turn 1 play stage, Turn 2 play Ichiji” can have a negative impact on players in these kinds of decks. The power in these kinds of decks comes from its flexibility, and as such, unstanding the role of each card, and making your own decisions on every turn will net you the highest chances at winning. Be able to explain every turn why you are doing what action in which order, and you winrate will go up with any deck.

Nonetheless, here are some matchup tips for the general gameplan you want to accomplish!

Lucci

Side Selection: Second

In this matchup, you can win just by playing a few Ichiji. Lucci struggles again repeated 7000 power attacks, and unless they draw Ice Age, they won’t be able to deal with Ichiji early on. This is a matchup where you really want to find Ichiji, so make sure that you mulligan looking for this. Reusing Ichijis once they go to the trash, or using Sora to pick up the 4 cost Ichiji again will continue to put pressure on Lucci.

Additionally, do not hesitate to bounce back 4 cost Lucci with Niji as especially if it’s not in their trash, they will have difficulty getting the card to their trash for Moria. Once you put pressure with Ichiji, seal the game with Judge and watch as your opponent does the math trying his best to be able to KO maximum 3 of your things if he manages to play Jack into Moria.

Black Yellow Luffy

Side Selection: Second

I will not pretend this is not true. Black Yellow Luffy is an extremely difficult matchup. Reiju prefers to play low on Don for a large percentage of the game, and as such, when the opponent becomes 9000 power, it’s too high for Reiju’s attacks to reach Black Yellow Luffy’s leader.

As such, the way to win is through 4 cost Pudding. Black Yellow Luffy tends to thankfully take all of the attacks to their life. Our goal is to hit Luffy so that he takes his life, and get a massive Pudding off. Bad Luffy players will just take all of their life thinking that you’re a bad player, so don’t give them an indication that you know what you’re doing. Good Black Yellow Luffy players will not allow all attacks to go through to be conscious of Pudding. In these scenarios, hitting bigger with attacks that are 7000 power or higher are good for getting damage through to fill up the opponents hand before you reset it. We want to time our Pudding to drop before we are hitting the opponent with more attacks. This would be a scenario where we have a few attacks, like leader, Ichiji and Niji, and the opponent has 1-2 life. We play pudding, put the opponent down to 5 cards in hand, then attack in a way that forces the opponent to cut more cards out of hand for counter. This isn’t guaranteed to win, but it can ruin their day if they get a bad draw. Nonetheless, bad Black Yellow Luffy players do not know how to recover from these situations as they are playing on the assumption that they have 10+ cards in hand on a turn that they actually only have 5.

Additionally, while Niji’s value is relatively low in this matchup, if the opponent does play their 2 costs to board to try to counter Pudding, just KO it with Niji’s effect. If you have the option to play Niji and Pudding on the same turn, it’s actually better to bounce the character to hand and then Pudding as this prevents the card from going to trash for Moria.

Doflamingo

Side Selection: Second

As turn 2 Ichiji is exceptionally strong, and Niji can answer anything played on turn 2 from Doflamingo, I believe that second is more stable for this matchup. However, my experience against Doflamingo is from OP08.5 with the start deck, where Doflamingo became a ‘Go second’ deck. As such, this would need some more testing to see which is better. I do not think that the different in going first and second is that significant, so it doesn’t make a huge difference. Nonetheless, It’s easier to answer the opponent’s plays in general when going second.

In this matchup you simply want to play Ichiji and Niji to control the board while reducing the Doflamingo player's hand. Niji can bounce 6000-power characters like Weevil or the vanilla Gecko Moria, and Ichiji can reduce the power of these characters when they are rested to make it very easy to take back. 7 cost 7000 is a cost and powerline too high for Doflamingo to deal with, so Ichiji is great to have if you manage to find it, but Niji is also excellent in this matchup, and is a large reason for why I think people taking out Niji are crazy.

Reiju Mirror

Side Selection: Second

This matchup is a bit of a nightmare as you are both fighting to be lower than your opponent on Don to be able to use your effects.

Many people take first, but I think that second is still better due to this one technique.

On turn 1, play the 2 cost Reiju, or 2 cost Yonji and use the effect. Even if you can’t get the transformation off, use the effect to minus 1 Don. The reason why you take 2nd and not first to do this is because if you are first and your opponent does this, you’re in serious trouble.

On turn 2, you are at 2 Don compared to your opponent’s 1 Don. If you use either 2 costs, effect to go down to 1, then your opponent is at 3 while you are at one. The only way for them to save this is to play Porche to get themself down to 1 as well.

However, as we don’t play Porche, if the opponent does this to us on their 2 Don turn, we don’t have a way to recover.

Closing

I hope you guys enjoyed this quick look at Reiju as a deck in the OP08 meta. While many people were hyping her up for OP07.5 with bans, she did not end up seeing too much play. I will not say that Reiju is suddenly top tier, but I think that people who find this deck fun will certainly be able to find some success with it as well.

I will be showcasing multiple decks that have been buffed by OP08, and there is a high demand for Vegapunk, so that will be coming next.

I hope you guys enjoyed this article, and I’ll see you again real soon, I promise.