One Piece is a story that made its first leap into the world on July 22nd 1997 and continues to this day (No, we haven't found the One Piece yet. I know it's 2025.) As fans of the One Piece anime series, we've watched Luffy and the Straw Hats grow as individuals as well as a crew. With Luffy being our main protagonist of this series, it only makes sense that Monkey .D. Luffy would have more than just one Leader card, right? In comparison to Lorcana, Mickey Mouse has a multitude of different prints of his character within the card game. Yet, we've seen a lot more of Luffy in recent sets of the One Piece Trading Card Game than expected. So far it's been back to back with Green/Purple (Grape or Glurple if you will) Luffy coming out of Extra Booster 2 and then to Set 11: Fist of Divine Speed bringing Blue/Purple (Blurple if you will) Luffy to the table.

But how many Monkey .D. Luffy leaders are in the One Piece Trading Card Game right now?

As it stands currently, post set 11 and pre set 12, there are 13 Monkey .D. Luffy leaders.

The above images represents all the Luffy Leaders present within One Piece TCG (as of writing). Excluding the most recent Luffy's (Extra Booster 2 and Set 11), let's talk about our top 3 picks for the best Luffy Leaders!

Starting with Number 3, we have Red Luffy from Starter Deck 21

Right out of the gate, this Luffy promotes an aggressive strategy. This deck also came with some strong staples with a Luffy character and a Zoro character that can be used in other red decks since these characters are not leader locked to "Monkey .D. Luffy" himself.

This Luffy reads "As long as he has a DON!! attached to him, Once per turn, you may give up to 2 rested DON!! Cards to one of your characters." That's about as simple as it comes for aggressive strategies.

This also benefits the previously mentioned staple characters out of this starter deck. The Monkey .D. Luffy character is a 5-cost 6000-power character with rush that reads: "When attacking, give up to one rested DON!! card to your Leader or Character," which allows you to further utilize the already spent DON!! on your field. You could also use leader ability to turn your 6000-power rush character into a 8000-power swing on turn three.

But what do we do with the DON!! that Luffy character can attach if we've already attacked with Luffy leader? Throw it on Zoro. Yes, Zoro.

Zoro is a 4-cost 5000-power character who gains rush if he has 2 or more DON!! attached to him and the following ability: "[On K.O.] Play up top 1 red Character card with 6000-power or less other than 'Roronoa Zoro' from your hand.". This means that if your opponent removes this zoro from sheer removal that you could drop the Monkey .D. Luffy character we were just talking about! Or, what are some other excellent Red options? If you decide to build this luffy with more of a Revolutionary Army type of build, you could also cheat out Emporio Ivankov from Set 6 with a 6000-power and allows you to play another revolutionary army character. Other Options are Sanji and Karasu.

Aggression places Red luffy into our third place slot, so clearly on the other side of the spectrum landing in second place is Red/Purple Luffy

What makes this leader so great is that there are two ways to build him; Ramp or Aggression. He is also a 6000-power leader with 3 life, much like some other leaders we have seen before, but this Luffy comes with versatility. Red/Purple Luffy reads: "Activate Main; Once per turn - If you have 0 DON!! cards on your field or 8 or more DON!! cards on your field, add up to 1 DON!! Card from your DON!! deck and set it as active." So, this ramp isn't the fastest in the world, but this is ramp regardless. What makes him aggressive? Well, for one, he has 6000 power. 6000-power leaders have an advantage on hitting an opponent's leader, requiring them to utilize +2000 counters out of hand just to negate the damage to life while your leader only has to counter out of a 6000 attack with a +1000 counter. You could easily turn two swing with your 6000-power Luffy while also playing cards like Kid & Killer, Zoro, and the 5-cost Monkey .D. Luffy previously mentioned.

Of course, if aggression isn't your favored play style, why not try bigger characters? Like (I kid you not) Monkey .D. Luffy. One of the two. Or Three. Lets look at these three big ole Luffys.

Yes. You can have a deck with nothing but big ole Luffys and Straw Hats if you truly want. There are also a ton of other purple Straw Hats that can work with this big ole character build. However, we're going to go over most of these pieces in our number one pick on this journey.

I want to remind everyone, for the purpose of this article we've excluded Blue/Purple Luffy and Green/Purple Luffy considering at the point of writing out this segment they are unarguably A-Tier decks and there isn't any room to argue where both of these luffy's stand in the current meta.

With that being said, let's talk about our number one pick; Purple Monkey .D. Luffy.

While this Luffy holds standard stats for a Mono-colored leader, 5000 power and 5 life, he has a unique ability for its singular color identity. Monkey .D. Luffy has the following ability: "[Activate: Main][Once Per Turn]; You may add 1 card from the top of your Life cards to your hand: If you have 0 or 3 or more DON!! cards on your field, add up to 1 DON!! Card from your DON!! deck and set it as active." Granted, like the majority of leaders in the One Piece Trading Card Game, the Leader is only as good as the support available to it. The purple characters previously mentioned in this article work well for this leader, since he is strictly on the ramp plan but it does come at the cost of taking cards from your life. Why would you want to do this? As risky as it seems, that card in life could be the card you need. Out a +2000 counter? That might be it, and going from 5 DON!! to 6 DON!! turn three puts you on the same pace as your opponent, this is a worthwhile risk... Definitely if you are still at 5 life on turn three. Some excellent pieces that came out for this Leader are Sanji, Zoro and Robin.

Just a quick overview on these straw hats, Sanji is a 7-cost 7000-power character that can gain rush on play and rest one of your opponent's characters cost 6 or less. That's A LOT of things on one character. Zoro is a 3-cost 5000-power character that just provides you with DON!! manipulation. Then, Franky is a 4-cost 5000-power blocker with the ability to draw cards.

And those are our top 3 Monkey .D. Luffy characters within the One Piece TCG! Is there a Monkey .D. Luffy leader you think should've been included in this list? 'Till the seas do us part, fellow seafarers!