It's been a while since our first expansion for the One Piece Trading card Game was released this year, and we're almost halfway through the year! Half way through the year or not, the next One Piece set will be hitting shelves in early May 2025 with the return of the "Extra Booster."

Extra Booster 01 - Memorial Collection - came out last year in the beginning of 2024 with some highly desirable cards while also being a hard product to get your hands on with next to no additional print runs after it hit the shelves. Cards such as Brook and Cavendish came out of the First Extra Booster set and are still highly desired cards to this day; Brook, in his case, has actually become a staple for Black decks in the current meta.

I've previously touched base on some of the mentioned cards in another article, so we won't be taking a deep dive into EB01 or anything for that matter, but if you are interested, feel free to read it here.

None the less, we should expect Extra Booster 02 - Anime 25th Collection - to also provide us with some impactful cards to help "boost" some under-utilized leaders.

So, let's take a sneak peak at some of the cards that you should consider to place in your collection, or perhaps to even play with, within Extra Booster 02.

Lets start off with some Red cards and talk about Yamato and Cloven Rose Blizzard:

Yamato is a 6 cost 7000 power Character with the card ability of "[Activate:Main][Once Per Turn] - If your leader has the 'Land of Wano' type or is 'Portgas.D.Ace', give up to one rested DON!! to your leader. Then, this Character gains rush." While Yamato does not have a counter, effectively making him a brick (A brick is a card that doesn't have a counter on it) Yamato proves his worth by attaching an extra +1000 power on your leader with a DON!! that has already otherwise been utilized to its full extent and then you can swing in with Yamato. That's a minimum of a 6000 power swing with leader at an opponent along with a 7000 power swing at their leader, which would require the opponent to have at least 3 +2000 counters to get out of without blockers being involved.

But how many Red Wano leaders are there?

One. There's only one right now, and that's Kozuki Oden - Ironically - from Extra Booster 01.

But speaking of Ace... let's talk about a fine event to add to his list of potential cards.

Clover Rose Blizzard is one of the two Red event cards coming out of Extra Booster 02, with a cost of 3 DON!! and reads as such: "[Main] - Up to a total of three of your Leader and Character cards gain +1000 power during this turn. Then, K.O. up to one of your opponent's Character's with 3000 or less power."

This event not only buffs a multitude of potential attackers on your board, but paired along with some cards such as "Gum-gum UFO" and "Round Table", Clover Rose Blizzard can get rid of some of the bigger threats on your opponent's board. Keep an eye on this event as it has a lot of potential.

Now, let's talk about some interesting Green cards from Extra Booster 02.

Bandai is bringing more support for leaders with the "East Blue" card type: Green East Blue support leaders such as Kuro and Arlong. While both leaders bring their own unique strategies, let's talk about the Arlong Character coming out of Extra Booster 02.

Arlong is a 3-cost 4000 power character with +1000 counter and an ability that reads as follows: "[On Play] If your leader has the 'Fish-man' or 'East blue' card type, give up to one rested DON!! to your Leader. Then, up to one of your opponent's characters with a cost of 5 or less cannot be rested until the end of your opponent's next turn." Well, yes. While not the point we're about to make, Arlong does also support Fish-Man leaders such as Hody Jones. HOWEVER, this Arlong character brings an interesting dynamic to the board. Normally, within Green, we would see abilities that stop characters from becoming unrested, but in this case... it just stops a character from resting all together. Besides the fact that this ability shuts off smaller characters from swinging in for the attack, this also turns off some abilities in a Green mirror match. This ability shuts off abilities for characters such as Sugar, Searchers like Baby 5 and Jewelry Bonney, Blockers like Trafalgar Law and Killer, as well as turning off events such as "You Can Be My Samurai!!" from Set 1 Romance Dawn.

While Arlong can't attack into leaders without a DON!! on him, he sure does bring a new way to play the game for some Green leaders.

We've spent a while going over Arlong, and I did mention previously that there are more than just one Green card to go over. While fairly straightforward, EB02 bring us a new Buggy card that cost 4 DON!! And has the ability "If you have no other 'Buggy' Characters in play, up to 1 of your Leaders gains [Double Attack] for this turn."

For those of you who play Magic: The gathering, this is about as simple as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is when it comes to extremely impactful card effects.

Play Buggy, give your leader double attack swinging for two cards from life, swing big. Buggy isn't limited to a card type or a leader lock either, as long as you don't have another Buggy. He is keeping himself versatile within Green.

Within the Blue cards printed in Extra Booster 02 there is another versatile character printed on the lower end of DON!! spectrum in Nefeltari Vivi.

Nefeltari Vivi is a 3 DON!! Cost 2000 power character with +1000 counter and the ability of: " [On Play] - If your leader is multicolored and you have five or less cards in your hand, draw 2 cards." Now, Vivi isn't locked to Alabasta card types or even just "Vivi" leader, which means other leaders such as Queen, Rosinante, and Marco can take advantage of this character to ensure they get to the cards they need just a little faster.

Another cool Blue card is Crocodile! Crocodile is a 4-cost 5000 power character with an ability that reads: "[Your turn][Once per turn] - When your opponent's Character is returned to its owner hand by your effect, look at the top 3 cards from the top of your deck and place them at the top or bottom of your deck in any order." While this can only be done once, this is another Character that is without a Leader lock that allows you to get a glimpse into what you might be drawing and set your next few draws as necessary by removing your opponent's threats.

Going over the Purple cards in this set is... Interesting. A majority of the purple cards in EB02 support either Water 7 or Straw Hats. Regardless, let's just discuss two of some of the noteworthy cards from this set.

First, we'll take look at a member of the Straw Hats, Nico Robin.

Nico Robin is a 3 cost 2000 power character with "Blocker" as well as a +1000 counter. Nico Robin has the ability: "[On K.O.] - Minus 1 DON!! from your field - Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Then, reveal up to 1 'Straw hat Crew' type card and add it to your hand. Then, place the rest on the bottom of your deck in any order." At 2000 power Nico Robin is easily ready to take incoming damage and be K.O.'d from it. Some leaders that can take advantage of this card are... Well, its three Luffys and Nico Robin leader:

• Purple Luffy
• Purple/Black Luffy
• Red/Purple Luffy
• Yellow/Purple Nico Robin

However, within a different side of Purple we'll be getting support a leader the community most likely didn't expect; Magellan. Take a look at this guy.

Magellan is a 2-cost 4000 power character with +1000 counter and the card ability "[On Play] - Play up to one 'Impel Down' character with a cost of 2 or less from your hand."

Not rested... but into play, free of charge. Magellan allows you to play out cards such as Domino or Hannyabal if you are wanting to go a bit wide with your Impel Down package.

Next, let's talk about a pretty spiffy Black card coming out of this set, Sengoku.

Sengoku is a 7-cost character with 7000 power to match and avoids being a brick with +1000 power and blocker. Sengoku's card ability reads as follows: " [On Play] - Play up to one 'Navy' type character with a cost of 4 or less from your trash rested." This actually leaves room for some good recursion, on top of a pretty big blocker. Some good cards to target from the trash with Sengoku's ability are Koby, Sengoku, Hina and Kuzan. When playing Sengoku its important to remember that he returns a character rested, so for maximum value you'd want to play something with an "On Play" or "Activate main" ability. All four of the listed above characters meet those criteria.

Moving on... let's go over the last color, Yellow. Enel is first up.

Enel is a 10-cost character with 11000 power and his card reads: "If your leader has the 'Sky Island' card type, this character gains [Rush]" and " [When Attacking] - You may trash one card from your hand: If you have one or less life cards, add up to 1 card from the top of your deck to your life cards. Then, this character gains +1000 power."

Enel already requires three characters for you to knock him out of the game... but now, Enel Leader has a 11000 power beat stick - potentially a 12000 power character - to apply pressure to your wound. It is important to note that Enel is not exclusive to "Enel" Leader but does gain rush as long as your leader is the "Sky Island" type. As of right now, the only Sky Island leaders we have are Kalgara and Enel... but perhaps there will be more to come in the future. Either way, keep your eyes peeled for this card on either side of the board.

The next card I'd like to highlight for us today is Vegapunk.

Vegapunk is a 5-cost, 0-power character with +1000 counter and "Blocker" with the following card ability: "On play - Look at the top 5 cards of your deck; play up to one 'Scientist' type character with a cost of five or less other than 'Vegapunk'. Then, place the rest on the bottom of your deck in any order and if your opponent has 2 or less characters, trash one from your hand." So... Vegapunk does have a significant downside to his On Play ability, essentially stating that you lose a card from what you search for if your opponent is low on characters, but also provides you with a blocker and another scientist... which would be another Vegapunk, just not THE Vegapunk. Anywho, if you know you know.

But that about wraps up what cards we recommend you pick up for your collection from Extra Booster 02.

Will you picking up any of these cards? Does Extra Booster 02 catch your eye?

'Til the seas bring us together again, fellow sea-farers!