One Piece has had a few shakeups recently, like the recent announcement of rotation and the ban list seeing some of the format's best decks getting sidelined because they're losing some of their most powerful pieces. In the midst of all this, there are a few leaders that just don't get enough love. In this article, I'll be looking at one of them, R/P ST10-003 Eustass "Captain" Kid, and a viable way to build him that abuses his strengths.

Underrated and Underused

One of the most powerful leaders ever printed entered the game with ST-10: RP Law. He was so powerful that he had to be banned out of the game to ensure that he didn't just abuse everyone else. While Red/Purple Luffy sees some play these days, the third captain, Red/Purple Kid seems to be the least appreciated leader. And it's for a decent reason too.

While Luffy and Law both got excellent support in ST-10's card pool, Red/Purple Kid was sort of sidelined. While there were some decent cards to start developing a Kid Pirates deck from it, most of the support cards were underwhelming. However, in my experimentation with this leader, I realized that these cards pushed me in a direction I didn't want to go.

What's The Game Plan?

Eustass "Captain" Kid's leader ability reads like this:

[Your Turn] If you have 4 or more Life cards, give this Leader -1000 power. [When Attacking] DON!! -1 (You may return the specified number of DON!! cards from your field to your DON!! deck.): This Leader gains +2000 power during this turn.

He's a rare dual-color leader that starts with five life, but that's both a positive and a negative. At 5 life, you can afford to take one extra hit, but Kid, flavorfully, wants to lose some life because of how reckless a leader he is. There are ways that can help you take life early on, but doing so puts you in a dangerous situation. The sweet spot for Kid is to be at three life. But what do you do to make sure you hold onto that advantage?

Developing The Core

As an attacker, he can attack pretty favorably against many other leaders. But since you lose Don!! so much, you have to find a way to replenish it. Luckily, there are a lot of cards than can help you rebuild your Don!! and even ramp you beyond your starting Don!!

For this, I opted for three cards:

OP05-074 Eustass "Captain" Kid adds Don!! back to the field after you bounce one to the deck and it's a blocker for the later parts of the game.

OP09-075 Eustass "Captain" Kid lets you ramp Don!! at the cost of life.

OP07-066 Tony.Tony.Chopper is great for dropping extra Don!! onto the field just by being played AND is a blocker for the later game.

OP06-069 Vinsmoke Reiju will always draw you two cards because you'll have less Don!! than your opponents. In this deck, getting cards in hand sets you up for a powerful late game.

Putting Up The Blocks

Speaking of Blockers, unlike other midrange decks, this one plays for the long game as opposed to the mid game. You want to be able to protect your life and swing for game with your leader. The "protection" part comes from choosing the right blockers. We already mentioned two of them, but there are a few more that are very worth putting into this deck:

ST10-014 Wire came with the starter deck, but it's great card selection, allowing you to toss your non-counter cards in the parts of the game where they're not viable anymore.

ST04-005 Queen is card selection and advantage, drawing you two card and trashing one.

OP09-005 Silvers Rayleigh does the same thing as Queen, albeit with a few caveats.

That brings your blocker count up to five playsets: decent enough so that you should have enough blockers to stave off huge attacks.

OP07-064 Sanji is almost guaranteed to be a 3-cost high-power blocker in your hand as you'll always have less Don!! than your opponent.

Doing Some Pest Removal

You'll run into some things you'll probably need to get rid of. Blockers, especially, will throw a wrench in your plans. To deal with that you should look at running a few events specifically tailored for these situations:

OP07-017 Dragon Breath is not just a good removal event for low-power blockers, but it's also a pretty good option to break up your opponent's stage.

OP09-018 Get Out Of Here is a two-for, allowing you to break down blockers of power 4000 or less.

ST10-016 Gum-Gum Kong Gatling is in there to deal with particularly high-power blockers you may run into.

The Coup de Grace

Kid is not exactly the most impressive leader. His leader ability is quite often underwhelming, and puts you down resources you might need. However, there are a few sneaky things he can do that opponents rarely ever see coming.

Kid, by himself, at full life, can swing for 6k on a turn before Don!! However, if we look at his ability, we see it doesn't say Once Per Turn. If there was a way to restand him, you could get two bites of the apple. And now, there is.

OP09-064 Killer allows you to restand your Kid Pirates leader for a second swing. That means, at full life and without Don!! attached you can get 6k on one swing and 8k on the second. While this seems ridiculous, it gets better.

OP05-078 Punk Rotten is an underrated card for several reasons, not least of all the fact that it gives your leader +5k power on a turn. Without added Don!!, that puts the first Kid swing at 12k, and the second at 14k. It's a Build Your Own Gol.D.Roger. Speaking of which, we can also include that in this deck. At the time Roger comes down either you or your opponent should be low on life making it a free swing for life.

The Final Build

While this deck is a decent deck that plays on a different axis to others, its strength comes in surprise. Here's what this deck looks like:

Deck: Eustass "Captain Kid" Deck | One Piece TCG | Jason Dookeran

LEADER:

1x Eustass "Captain Kid" (ST10-003)

CHARACTERS:

4x Eustass "Captain Kid" (OP09-075)

4x Eustass "Captain Kid" (OP09-074)

4x Gol D. Roger (OP09-118)

4x Killer (OP09-064)

4x Queen (ST04-005)

4x Sanji (OP07-064)

4x Silvers Rayleigh (OP09-005)

4x Tony Tony Chopper (OP07-065)

4x Vinsmoke Reiju (OP06-069)

4x Wire (ST10-014)

EVENTS:

2x Gum-Gum King Gatling (ST10-016)

4x Dragon Breath (OP07-017)

4x Get Out of Here! (OP09-018)

4x Punk Rotten (OP05-078)

Feel free to use this decklist as is, or refine it to your own local meta. While Blackbeard is still a menace in metas around the world, I maintain this is one of the better and lesser utilized leaders. At the very least, it's a great budget deck to try out!