Quick answer
Bandai has printed 142 Leader cards. 74 of them are single-colour and 68 print two colours in the identity box. With six colours in the game there are exactly 15 possible pairs, and all 15 have been printed at least once. CardSpicy indexes every One Piece card by its code, and this page is the Leader pool read by colour.
A Leader is the only card in a One Piece deck that is not a choice made during the game: it is in play from the first turn, and its colour is the deck’s colour.
A One Piece deck is built around one Leader card, and the Leader is what decides which cards the deck is allowed to use. A single-colour Leader permits one colour of card; a Leader printed with two colours permits both, at a cost that shows up in its starting life. That trade — a second colour against one less life, in most cases — is the single biggest decision a deckbuilder makes before choosing a single card, and it is a decision that was made for them by whoever designed the Leader.
One colour or two
Of the 142 Leaders in the database, 74 are single-colour and 68 are two-colour. A two-colour Leader is not a stronger card: it is a card that buys access to a second card pool. The price is usually paid in starting life, which is the number the opponent is trying to remove.
| Starting life | Leader cards |
|---|---|
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 61 |
| 5 | 75 |
| 6 | 2 |
Five life is the standard for a single-colour Leader, and four is the standard for a two-colour one. There are six Leaders that break the pattern: one with two life, three with three, and two with six. Everything else is four or five.
All fifteen colour pairs
Six colours give fifteen unordered pairs, and the database contains at least one Leader for every one of them. Eight of the pairs have been printed more than once.
| Colour pair | Leader cards |
|---|---|
| Green/Red | 8 |
| Black/Yellow | 6 |
| Blue/Purple | 6 |
| Blue/Red | 6 |
| Purple/Red | 6 |
| Black/Blue | 4 |
| Black/Red | 4 |
| Blue/Green | 4 |
| Blue/Yellow | 4 |
| Green/Yellow | 4 |
| Purple/Yellow | 4 |
| Black/Green | 3 |
| Black/Purple | 3 |
| Green/Purple | 3 |
| Red/Yellow | 3 |
Green/Red is the most-printed pair with eight Leaders. Five pairs sit at six, and the remaining pairs have three or four apiece, which is roughly what you would expect if the designers were working through the combinations rather than favouring particular alliances.
What the second colour actually buys
Cards in a deck must match the Leader’s colours, so a second colour is a second card pool — and the two pools are not interchangeable. Each colour in One Piece is built around a different mechanic: Red around attacking, Green around resting and standing, Blue around returning cards, Purple around DON!!, Black around cost reduction, Yellow around life. A pair therefore gives you two mechanics to combine, not twice as much of one.
Leader power, by contrast, is nearly constant. 5000 power on 136 Leaders, 6000 power on 5 Leaders, 7000 power on 1 Leader. Power on a Leader is the number an attack has to beat, so the designers kept it almost fixed and varied the colour instead.
How to read a Leader card
A Leader card has no cost. Its top-left number is life, not cost, which is why a Leader is never played from hand and never sent to the trash in the ordinary way. The colours printed in its identity box are the deck’s colours, and any card in the deck outside those colours is illegal.
The effect printed on a Leader is available every turn, which makes Leaders the cards that define a deck’s plan rather than support it. When a card’s own effect refers to “your Leader’s colour” or to a type line, it is referring to the card that was chosen before the game started and cannot be changed during it.
Frequently asked questions
How many multicoloured Leaders are there?
68 of the 142 Leader cards in the database. The other 74 are single-colour.
Can a Leader have three colours?
No. Every Leader in the database prints either one colour or two, and there is no three-colour Leader.
What is the most common two-colour Leader combination?
Green/Red, with 8 Leader cards. All fifteen possible pairs have been printed at least once.
How much life does a two-colour Leader start with?
Four on most of them. A single-colour Leader usually starts at five, so the second colour is generally paid for with one point of starting life.
Which cards can a two-colour Leader use?
Cards of either of its two colours, and no others. The colour restriction applies to every card in the deck, not just the ones played early.
Sources
Sources and further reading
- Bandai — the official One Piece Card Game card database for the English edition, the source of every Leader colour, life total and power printed here.
- CardSpicy — One Piece Leaders explained, for what a Leader does in a game rather than what it is printed with.
- CardSpicy — the six colours of DON!!, for what each colour’s card pool is built around.
- CardSpicy — card block numbers, the other field that decides whether a card is legal together with a given Leader.
- CardSpicy — how many One Piece cards there are, for the account of the whole card pool that this page is cut from.
Card statistics on this page are counted from Bandai’s own card database at the date shown, so they move as the database is updated. Prices are not quoted here: this site prices graded cards in US dollars from observed sales, and a raw-card figure would be a different number measured a different way. Where a card is described as part of a set, the set code and release date are the English edition.
Related reading
- One Piece Leaders Explained
- The Six Colours of DON!!
- One Piece Card Block Numbers
- How Many One Piece Cards Are There?
Where to go next
- The CardSpicy card index — every card we track, with its PSA 10 population and market history (195 cards).
- The illustrator index — every artist behind those cards, card by card (110 artists).
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