For most of this year the One Piece Card Game's banned list has been a blank page. The list posted on Bandai's own rules site, in effect since April 10, carries no banned cards, no restricted cards and no banned pairs — nothing at all. On October 12 that changes, and the card that fills the empty page is one of the strongest Leaders anyone has built around in the last two sets.
What Bandai actually announced
Bandai's notice names a single card: OP14-020 Dracule Mihawk, the green Leader from The Azure Sea's Seven, banned as of October 12, 2026, and the ban covers every printing of that card number including the parallel and alternate arts. The reasoning in the announcement is unusually direct. Certain combinations involving the card, Bandai writes, "have become more powerful than anticipated," and the card "significantly restricts the viability of Leader cards with the {Slash} attribute and severely harms the diversity of Leader selection."
That second half is the part worth reading twice. Bandai is not saying the card wins too often. It is saying the card decided which other Leaders were allowed to exist. When one Leader makes an entire attribute unplayable, the fix is not a nerf to a support card — it is removing the Leader.
Bandai is also not leaving the archetype stranded. The notice says a revised version of the same character, P-163 Dracule Mihawk, will be handed out at future events. The name on the card survives. The text does not.
Why banning a Leader is not like banning any other card
This is the part that catches newer players, and it is worth being plain about. In this game your deck is 50 cards, and the official play guide is explicit that your deck must match the color of your Leader card, with up to four copies of any one card number. Your Leader also sets your Life total — the value printed in its lower right decides how many Life cards you start with — and, as the guide puts it, "sets the overall direction for your deck."
So a Leader is not a slot. It is the permission slip for the other 50 cards. Ban a Character and you cut four cards and sleeve four replacements. Ban a Leader and you have lost your color access, your Life count and your engine in one line of text. That is why two weeks of notice matters, and why "I'll sort it out at the next event" is the wrong plan.
What the deck was actually doing
Bandai's own featured decklist for the Leader is a good map of what you are about to lose. The deck was built on resting your own cards to set DON!! back to active, which let it spend the same resources twice in a turn — and because you gain only two DON!! a turn, capped at ten, anything that cheats that curve is doing real work. Around it sat a crew of swordsmen whose effects fire when they are rested rather than when they attack: the nine-cost Dracule Mihawk at OP14-119, Perona at OP14-033, Shanks at OP14-027.
Here is the good news hiding in that list. Every one of those Characters is still legal on October 12. The ban is one card number, not a set and not your binder. What you are rebuilding is the top of the deck, not the whole thing.
How to spend the two weeks
Start by sorting your 50 into two piles: cards that only made sense because of the Leader's resting engine, and cards that would be good in any green deck. The first pile is your real loss and it is usually smaller than it feels. The second pile is the skeleton of your next deck.
Then pick a replacement Leader and play actual games with it before the 12th, not after. Green has other directions, and the Leader you choose decides your Life total and your curve, so the deck you sleeve on the first try will almost certainly be wrong. Being wrong on October 5 at your local table costs you nothing. Being wrong on October 12 at a Regional costs you the day.
Last, read the notice yourself rather than trusting a screenshot. Card numbers matter in this game — OP14-020 is banned, OP14-119 is not, and both are named Dracule Mihawk. A card that shares a name with a banned card is not banned, and that distinction is going to confuse a lot of tables on the first weekend.
What this means at our tables
Triad runs on the official list, so October 12 is the date the card stops being legal here the same as it stops being legal everywhere else. If you play One Piece with us in Wellington, you have between now and then to show up with the old deck, lose a few games with a new Leader, and figure out which of the two piles you sorted was the honest one. That is the whole job, and it is much easier done across a table than alone at a kitchen counter.
If you are rebuilding and need the cards to do it, the set the banned Leader came from is still on our shelf — we have The Azure Sea's Seven Booster Box and The Azure Sea's Seven Sleeved Booster Packs in stock now, and if you would rather build toward what comes next, The Dominance of God Booster Box is up as a presale with an estimated ship date of November 20, 2026. Bring the deck in either way and we will help you find the Leader that keeps it alive. Play Bold. Collect Smart. Trade with Trust.
Written from Bandai's ban announcement and current banned and restricted card list on the official ONE PIECE CARD GAME site, the same site's play guide and its featured green Dracule Mihawk decklist, with stock and presale details taken from Triad's own Shopify catalog on October 1, 2026.