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One Piece TCG Takes a Page Out of Magic: The Gathering’s Book

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To celebrate the 25th anniversary of One Piece, Shueisha, Bandai, and Carddass announced in 2022 that they would be making a trading card game adaptation of the hit manga. This TCG, titled the One Piece Card Game, was initially released in Japan in July 2022, before it eventually made its way to other countries later that year. The reveal of the One Piece Card Game wasn’t met with much fanfare; TCG adaptations of popular Japanese franchises aren’t exactly a new thing, and aside from a few exceptions, like Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game and Pokemon TCG, most of them haven’t performed that well from a commercial standpoint. The One Piece Card Game, however, did far better than expected.

According to statistics provided by the card game retailer TCGplayer, the One Piece Card Game was one of the best-selling TCGs of 2024. During the last quarter of the year, in fact, the booster boxes for the One Piece Card Game: Emperors of the New World set managed to outsell the Pokemon TCG: Surging Sparks booster boxes on the TCGplayer website. In Japan, meanwhile, the One Piece TCG was the third best-selling trading card game of September 2024, behind only Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon. While the evergreen popularity of the manga and anime likely played a major role in its commercial performance, the One Piece Card Game‘s apparent success could partially be attributed to the fact that one of its biggest mechanics was taken straight out of Magic: The Gathering‘s playbook.

The success of the Final Fantasy set as part of Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond has some important lessons to teach future crossovers.

The One Piece TCG and the Magic: The Gathering Commander Format Have a Lot in Common

The One Piece TCG Features a Type of Card Known as a Leader

In the One Piece TCG, players compete against each other using decks of 50 cards, most of which are classified under three different categories: character cards, event cards, and stage cards. On top of this, each deck has a certain One Piece TCG card known as a Leader, which is utilized as a representative of sorts for the players themselves. Leader cards are intended to remain on the playing field at all times, and they are used to determine the primary strategies that a certain deck employs. All the cards in a single deck have to share the same color as their respective Leader, and when one of these Leaders is defeated by an opponent in battle, a player loses the game.

The One Piece TCG’s Leaders Are Similar to Magic: The Gathering’s Commanders in Concept

Though the games themselves may be fundamentally different, the Leader cards of the One Piece TCG bear a striking resemblance to the widely popular Commander format in Magic: The Gathering. Commander, for those who don’t know, is pretty much exactly as its name describes. In this format, players build a 100-card deck and choose a specific creature or Planeswalker to use as a “Commander” for their game. Like with the One Piece TCG‘s Leaders, each player’s deck is based around the colors of their Commander cards. If a Commander deals a minimum of 21 points of damage to an opponent during a single game, that player will lose the battle.

The Magic: The Gathering Commander format and the One Piece TCG are both more casual-friendly compared to the average trading card game, and they encourage a lot of experimentation, as well. Since players have to mix-and-match cards that fit best with their desired Commanders or Leaders, they are given many options on how to build their decks, which has led to more player freedom and less rigid rules. The Commander format and the One Piece Card Game have largely attracted the attention of small friend groups and solo TCG players rather than competitive TCG enthusiasts.

While There Are Some Differences Between the Two, MtG’s Commander Format and One Piece’s TCG are Both Casual-Friendly

It’s worth noting that there are a few significant distinctions between the Magic: The Gathering Commander format and the One Piece TCG. In Commander, for example, players have to ensure that there are no duplicates of any card in their decks (aside from basic lands), while in the One Piece Card Game, they can have up to four of the same cards in a single deck, much like in traditional Magic: The Gathering formats. Differences aside, however, the fact that these TCGs both use a similar, approachable gameplay formula has likely contributed a lot to their overall popularity.