OP07 Lucci Tournament Deck Explanation - August 4th Gencon Online

Intro

After having two of my losses be RP Law on back-to-back days, I decided to switch to Lucci, from Perona, for the Gencon tournament on Sunday. I learned some concepts that will help further my Perona run, by having played it in the Thursday & Saturday tournaments, but I deeply regret not having played Lucci the entire weekend.

Whenever people ask me what I think the best deck is(even during my Perona cope), I always said Lucci. I think this deck is just too flexible in both it’s deckbuilding options, and its plays.

Honestly, if I had a bit more exp on Lucci (I got close to no reps, I’ve just watched a lot of good people play, and done a lot of theory), I think I could have beat the BY Luffy as well. 

These were my matchups & results: https://x.com/Cross_Aii/status/1820246504247812214

I chose to play 0 Issho this weekend, and I clapped 3 different Enels & RP Luffy. Obviously, I lost to the BY Luffy, but those games are always so tight (pause). I made one critical swing-mistake on my Turn 6 that cost me the tempo. Prior to that, I was very in control of the game.

I’m telling y’all, unless you’re building anti-BY Luffy Lucci (playing as many BY techs as possible). Y’all need to learn how to beat these matchups without Issho, before you start belieivng that you 100% NEED Issho. Issho may be nice depending on the situation, of course, but space is very limited. Issho will potentially be included in my deck, but the reasoning will never be because I can’t beat Bonney / Enel without it.

Anyways, let’s look at the list.

My 8-2 Lucci List

3 Spandam - Was struggling to decide between 2 & 3 copies. I ultimately chose 3 copies because feeling trash early is strong, and digging for tempest is really strong as well. 4 copies would be nice, but I think I prefer techs over the 4th Spandam.

3 Helmeppo - I think this card is just too strong. It lets me double-pop 8 & 4-Costs when combined with Enies lobby. And when I miss Enies Lobby I can actually do Tempest + MoriaRebeccaBrook, to still clear their Moria, while establishing a blocker. (Leader + Helmeppo + Tempest = 7 Cost Reduction, and then Brook does the last minus 1 and pops Moria!)

2 Spandine - This combo is actually too dumb. Being able to conveniently play a blocker while doing our Moria combos is actually too unreasonable. And Rebecca also being able to play Lucci for only 4-don, while producing a blocker, is also insanity.

3-Cost brook - This card is nuts. If we play it the turn before Bonney’s 6Hawkins Turn or Enel’s 7-Cost Enel turn, it makes it very easy to clear either of these pesky units.

And its combo with MoriaRebeccaHelmeppo is too strong as well. 

I think this card can be anywhere between 2-4 copies. I think we mainly want it in trash, but it is really nice against Enel / Bonney in the early-game as well. And if it sticks against non-Black matchups (which is fairly likely tbh), it makes removing cards 20x easier.

Main Benefits: Removes Hawkins & 7Enel against Bonney & Enel. Rebecca combos with Moria to single-clear their Moria, when we are missing Tempest + Enies Lobby(Tempest Kick +  MoriaRebeccaHelmeppo + Brook, can pop their 8-Cost Moria, while establishing us a blocker. This is the second best possible play if we don’t draw stage early) 

3 Kaku + 4 Kalifa: First off, Kalifa is the 2K that you are very happy to play on curve of 4-don for going second. The filter is very important for drawing into our Morias, and other cards. Therefore it will ALWAYS be at 4 copies. The reason I only decided on 3 Kaku, is because my 2K lineup was typically 4 Kalifa, 3 kaku, 1+ Tsuru. But I always wanted Helmeppo in trash, instead of Tsuru, so I decided to drop the Tsuru for Helmeppo. Seven 2Ks is a bit low, but I’m so satisfied with my board control, that I’m fine with it.

3 4-Cost Rebecca - Godly card in black decks. THe dream combo of MoriaRebeccaSpandine is way too strong. We get to do our normal Moria plays while establishing a blocker for no reason. 4 copies is popular, but I currently think 3 is enough.

2 Nightmare Luffy - This is my spicy tech for the weekend. Normally people would have Issho in this slot, but I had a few different theories about this card compared to Issho.

• Nightmare Luffy has counter. Whereas Issho is quite poor into RP Law, arguably poor into mirror matches, and mediocre against Enels that don’t starve us. Nightmare Luffy actually has counter power, which is relevant against Mirror and RP law. 

• Nightmare Luffy is another 3-Cost Brook?! Just to clarify, the only deck I’m actually super comfortable playing Issho against is Bonney. It’s alright against Enel, but you can lose a crazy amount of tempo if they Kata it away. This is why I was unsure on playing Issho in the first place. Now let’s look at Nightmare Luffy. As discussed above, it’s a counter in the matchups it’s not relevant against. But this card is also strong against both Enel & Bonney, because we can also play it on the turn before their Hawkins/7Enel turn, in order to put ourselves in the same situation as when we establish 3-Ccost Brook! (The situation I’m referring to is having a convenient way to clear Hawkins / 7Enel)

• Is Issho even better than Nightmare Luffy against BY?(0-Cost Houndblaze vs. Discard 2) I understand Issho rips two cards from the opponent’s hand, which is crazy value. But Lucci vs. Nightmare Luffy is an EXTREMELY grindy game, where we spend so many turns of blocking and countering out of attacks. So my question is, is it better to rip two cards from the opponent’s hand with Issho? Or remove an unkillable 5Luffy / 8Moria with Nightmare Luffy, in order to put the opponent the BY Luffy in an awkward position, while keeping us alive longer (because it’s 1 less attack to block)? My theory was that permanently removing the threat was better. Of course, we already have 6Brook in the deck. But Nightmare Luffy can be established in advance (it’s probably the perfect response to an opposing 5Sabo turn), and this would effectively mean we have a 0-Cost hound blaze, just waiting to be used. And since it costs 0 to use nightmare Luffy’s effect, we can actually establish Moria & various other cards on the turn we use Nightmare Luffy effect. We could even establish an Issho on this Nightmare Luffy turn.

2 5C Kaku - Prior to Sunday, I was watching my friend Ethan Gandy / SirStingy (his Discord Name) practice against my friends RP Law deck as Lucci. And I saw a lot of hands where he either missed removal early, or had to waste a significant amount of cards to clear a unit. Through watching this, I decided that I wanted more early-game removal. I settled on 5C Kaku, because it’s a 1-card answer to a 4-drop played on curve, and it’s searchable from Spandam. Finger pistol is a consideration over Kaku, but I wasn’t thinking about this the night before (my brain was recovering from losing to so many RP Laws as Perona)

4 5-Cost Sabo - This card is leagues better than Borsalino. I don’t think people realize how important it is to be able to dig deeper into our deck for Moria’s. And it fills our trash up by 2, which gets us closer to the tempest kick activation! I don’t see myself using any less than four copies.

3 6-Cost Brook - People normally play Borsalino as their mirror tech, but this is my mirror tech, that doubles down as BY Luffy tech. And it’s extra early-game removal against RP Law! Especially in mirror matches, I like to mulligan for this card when going second, to get rid of my opponent’s Sabo played on 5-don. Then, if they can’t answer my Brook played on 6-don, Sabo on 8-Don goes kinda crazy. Even when going first. Sabo on 5, amd then 6Brook on 7-don to clear their 5-Sabo that was played on their 6-don is also impressive. Aside from the mirror match, this card is quite strong against BY, and being able to remove a 5C Luffy from their board is too strong. And even against RP law, it can be used on curve as a convenient way to clear 5-costs!

4 Moria - This card is simply way too good in leaders like Lucci & Sakazuki. Read the end of my recent Perona article to see me crashing out about how Moria is 100 times better in Lucci, Moria, and Sakazuki than it is in Perona. Even though we don’t draw a gazillion cards like Perona, the value we get from consistently keeping up with board, getting an extra blocker off our Moria combos (RebeccaSpandine), our Moria’s producing extremely wide boards, having an extra-life, etc., all ends up amounting to getting similar value to Perona overtime! Even though we’re not literally drawing a billion cards like Perona, the sheer card advantage from Moria goes an extremely long way.

1 8Sabo - A card that was quite lackluster. I thought it’d be too strong in mirror matches as extra removal, but only producing 1 body is too weak (I have ptsd as Perona vs Lucci. If you only play 1 body Lucci can clear it super conveniently 10 times out of 10). It’s quite strong against RP Law, but the RP Law matchup is already favored, and I think improving our early-game options will lead to more consistent games against RP Law than improving our late-game. I’d also actually prefer to do a Rebecca removal combo than 8Sabo against RP Law if possible. This is a card that will likely be removed from the deck

4 Enies Lobby - This card is too good man. I didn’t see it in all my matchups, but everytime I did see it, I was extremely impressed. Who could’ve known? Changing our leader ability from minus 1 to minus 3 is too ridiculous.

4 Tempest Kick - A god card. I will likely never be playing Brannew + IceAges in Lucci. The filter from Tempest Kick, while it also makes our Moria combos cost 1 less (Ice Age + Moria consumes 2 cards out of hand, while Tempest Kick + Moria essentially only consumes 1 card), is just way too strong. Similar to how I realized pure stage Sakazuki is mediocre due to missing the additional filter from Great Eruption, I think this card drawing cards is way too strong. If eruption wasn’t banned, I’d probably have been playing both eruption and tempest kick.

1 Ice Age - I originally included this as a way to have full combo in the mirror on 9-don for whenever I was missing Enies Lobby on board + Tempest kick. It actually allowed me to hit some fire thresholds, but I would have been just as fine if this was finger pistol, or if I had seen alternative combos in general. I saw this as a “9th reduction card,” but I think it would be better to replace this with something else, as it felt pretty unnecessary. It was good whenever I played it, but I don’t think it good enough to be played over my other considerations.

That was my Lucci deck for the weekend, and it actually felt so good. Getting clapped by RP Laws as Perona on both Friday & Saturday, really did demoralize me. A lot of the people who lost to me were really impressed with my Perona list and how I played it, but then I lose to two fucking RP laws man.
But playing this Lucci deck has highkey reinflated my ego. I really felt like I could easily have beaten ANY deck thrown at me. Even the games I did lose, I know I could have done better. And with more practice on this, instead of Perona, I might be going on demon-time. 

Every deck has bad matchups right now, but I think Lucci has the most consistent matchup spread. And I actually think I prefer Lucci vs. BY compared to RP Law vs. a good Lucci.

Other considerations in my Lucci deck, after playing it in Tournament

Finger Pistol - This is a card I’m very interested in trying. I normally feel comfortable with about 20-23 counterless cards in my Lucci deck, so I could easily add this card (especially since I wanted to replace Ice Age anyways). If you read the 5C Kaku section, I mainly added it for more early-game clear options against RP Law, but this card would get similar value, WHILE making tempest kick live early. It also happens to clear up to 11-Cost with Enies Lobby + Tempest Kick.

Other Top End options - Quotes from Discord Last Night:

This basically summarizes my thoughts on the topend options right now. None of them feel necessary, but they all have decent benefits. But I think Issho is the most impactful against the matchup it’s good against (BY Luffy). But this is also the worst matchup, so it’s hard to say if it’s worth teching for.

Stussy is very strong against Enel, Sabo is very strong against Law, and Issho is very strong against Bonney, but I don’t think I need any of these three to consistently win any of these matchups, so that’s why I’m leaning towards BY techs.

The Enel Matchup

It was crazy how EASY this matchup felt. Realistically there were some close calls, but I just felt ahead the entire game. I played against both Enels that starved me and attacked me in this tournament. And I’m pretty sure the matchup is almost impossible for them if they don’t see 7Enel, but two of the Enel players I played against saw at least one 7Enel, and still lost.

I know a lot of Lucci players that struggle against Enel, so I wanted to express some of my thoughts on the matchup.

Tips for Lucci vs. Enel

TURBO MILL + Stack our decks - I kept attacking with my Lucci leader, even when my opponent could get free leader skill(keep in mind that if they have a rested unit, you can just attack into that instead), or even if I was setting them from 2 life to 1(giving them value for Yamato/Ace). I gave no fucks about giving them free cycles, because I thought that the ability to stack my own deck, outweighed giving them an extra draw/trigger chance. In one of my Enel games, I actually milled three Morias at the start of the game, and still ended up playing about 3-4 Morias that game! The thing about long games against Lucci is that there is a very real chance of just going through our entire deck, which is extremely advantageous for us.

My recommendation for stacking your deck is to send back tempest kicks and Morias. And when bottomdecking for Spandine I recommend sending back any combination of Kalifa, Tempest Kick, and a removal unit. 

I think this is the strongest way I’ve played the matchup so far, but I’m still experimenting.

Prepare for the 7Enel Turn - Before you’re oppoennets Enel turn on 7-8 don, prepare to get rid of it. There’s multiple ways to do this, such as Tempest Kick + Leader skill + Enies Lobby into 3Brook + Lucci. Or if you set up 3Brook / Nightmare Luffy the turn before, you can do this same combo, except we have more don to work with (because the 3-don we would have played for Brook is now free). And worst case scenario, if you can’t deal with it, just play Moria and pass. Game will become a bit grinder if they play Kata instead of Raigo, but we can still win.

Be proactive - Always clear big units if possible, and then look into doing Sabo turns after you’ve finally ran out of gas
Mulligan - Sabo when going first (Sabo on 5 is too strong), Enies Lobby when going second. The logic with Sabo on 5 going first, is that we turn tempest on live faster, and we get that nice filter. The reason we go for Enies Lobby going second, is because Sabo on 6 becomes less impactful (because they potentially got to establish a 6K power unit on 5), and there’s less timing to play Enies Lobby.

Outro

This is it for my Tournament Lucci article. I randomly went 8-2 after flunking out with Perona twice, so I thought y’all may be curious in what list I used. I’m very excited to take Lucci more seriously, I really think that this is probably the strongest deck right now, it just flows so smoothly.

If you guys have any unique advice or techs against BY Luffy please reach out to me,

And with that being said, I will catch y’all in the next one, peace.