The question, as raised

A thread posted to r/ONEPIECETCG on August 5 asked a simple format question: is the ST29 Luffy leader still a deck anyone should be building for the OP17 environment, or does the new Big Mom leader out of the incoming set do the same job with less counterplay available. The poster framed it as an honest check rather than a takedown, which is usually how the earliest format consensus starts forming in public.

We treat that as community-surfaced news, not a ruling. Format viability arguments get settled by results, and results take weeks. What we can do is look at what money has actually done around the cards and products attached to the question.

Nothing directly priced, so look adjacent

There is no matched print row for the ST29 leader in this week's dataset, so any claim about its market direction would be invention. What is priced is the promo layer that shares its DNA, and that layer had a brutal seven days.

Card Number Price 7d
Monkey.D.Luffy (Round 1 Promo) OP16-095 $201.17 -60.9%
Nico Robin (Round 1 Promo) EB03-054 $74.41 -60.7%
Nami (Round 1 Promo) ST29-008 $105.56 -56.2%
Roronoa Zoro (Round 1 Promo) PRB02-006 $113.95 -48.6%
Usopp (Round 1 Promo) OP11-003 $21.59 -43.8%

Note the third row. The Round 1 Nami carries an ST29 card number and is down 56.2% on the week to $105.56. That is a supply and hype story on a promo print, not a gameplay verdict on a starter deck leader, and the whole Round 1 cohort fell together in a range of -43.8% to -60.9%. When five promos from five different sets drop in lockstep, the variable is the promo program, not any one archetype.

Where demand actually showed up

The gainers list went somewhere else entirely. Monkey.D.Luffy (033) from OP07PRE led at $69.38, up 116%, and Nami (033) added 54.8% to $50.17. Charlotte Pudding rose 63.4% to $20.37, which is the closest thing on the board to a Big Mom adjacent tell, and it is a small one at that price level.

On the product side, OP17 boxes sit at $395.34 against $260 of expected value, a 0.66 ratio. That ranks fourth among tracked sets on our EV page, behind OP15 at 0.91, OP14 at 0.74 and PRB02 at 0.72. Sealed OP17 is priced like a set people want to open for specific cards, not like an efficient way to convert cash into cardboard.

Reading the whales

The large-ticket moves stayed in collector territory: Sabo (SP) at $1,125, up 18.4%, and Rob Lucci (SP) at $811.24, up 17.7%. Neither is a format signal. The Offline Regional 2024 Vol. 3 Finalist Luffy at $961.59, up 32.3%, is the same category of buyer.

The Terminal take

Format anxiety and price action are running on separate tracks this week. The only ST29-numbered card in our movers is a Round 1 promo that fell 56.2% alongside four siblings from unrelated sets, which reads as a promo cohort unwind rather than a market pricing in a leader's obsolescence. Meanwhile OP17 sealed holds a 0.66 EV ratio at $395.34, the mark of a set bought for singles chase rather than value. If the Big Mom thesis has legs, expect it to show in specific OP17 singles first, not in starter deck adjacent promos.