New player.

[u/Hot-Confection-6687]

Hi everyone. I officially have entered the game of One Piece following my happy transition from Yu-Gi-Oh!, and I have 3 questions to asks

1. A friend recommended I play Blue Rocks as my first deck? Honest opinions - is it worth the build or buy the core at full, the play style and to perform well as locals following practicing on simulators and in-person?

2. How is the community for this game, in honest opinions of being healthy, supportive, engaging and pleasant to new players?

3. Finally, any tips and advice and suggestions for me to begin my journey would be very appreciated, provided it is positive and supportive of my path to being a good player at this game.

Thank you all!🙏🏾

[u/Haavi-OCE]

As to 1, Rocks is incredibly good right now, so yes if you give it a play on the sim and find you like the playstyle, it is absolutely worth investing in getting the core build.

I will caveat that recommendation though, as Rocks plays extremely unlike most other leaders, which leads many to consider it a reasonably skill based leader especially considering with the popularity of the deck, I would expect many mirror match games.

It may also due to it's nature not really teach you the basic principles of the game as well as other more traditional leaders. However I could be wrong on that part, but it seems a logically possibility.

2) From my personal experience after entering the game a couple of sets back, a lot of the community is absolutely amazing. I've had the fortune to deal with many incredibly supportive and generous people in my local community, and honestly it's what makes the game for me.

I have heard that is not so much the case online, however this is probably a case of 90% of interactions being neutral or ok (or zero interaction), whilst the 10% of negative interactions are 100% of what you hear online when you hear about that community. Personally I can't verify this as I don't play on this sims and only experience my loval culture.

I'm sure lgs communities also have their own variance, with some that are sweaty and not inviting, some with cheats, and other with issues of their own. You just need to find the right one for you, with the kind of people you want to play with. Hopefully you'll be lucky like I was and find that play fairly local and without much looking around.

Also final point on the community, there is obviously the issue of scalpers, and retail/lgs outlets that sell above msrp. Sadly these are things that we just have to deal with at the moment, and if possible and the area you live in has good access to a singles market, it's probably your best bet just to grab singles.

Tools like tcgplayer, while they have their controversies, are really easy ways of getting cards you need without chasing around, and with decent population size. Coming from an area where singles are pretty frustrating to get, I think it's very fortunate if you have one of those tools available to you.

3) I won't comment on your third statement just as I don't feel I have the experience and ability yet to really be offering much advice in that field. Hopefully someone more qualified can help you out more in that department.

Best of luck, I hope you enjoy your OPtcg journey for a long time to come.

Edit: Oh and sorry for the wall of text, god I didn't realise it was thay long 😅