Last time, we looked at the three decks sitting at the top of the OP-16 tier list. Right behind them are three decks that are genuinely strong — tournament-viable, capable of beating anything in the format on a given day — but each falls just short of S-tier for a specific, identifiable reason. Understanding why is often more useful than just memorizing the ranking.
Black/Yellow Marshall.D.Teach — strong everywhere except where it matters most
Teach's whole identity is defensive — Black's kit lets it redirect incoming attacks onto characters built to survive them, while Yellow backs that up with counter and life-value tools. Played well, it's one of the most resilient decks in the format, grinding out attrition wars other decks can't easily win.
The catch is specific and well known: Teach has a genuinely bad matchup against Green/Blue Luffy, the best deck in the format. That's the entire reason it sits in A-tier rather than S — it's not a weak deck by any measure, it just happens to struggle against the one deck it's most likely to face at the top tables.
Blue/Yellow Nami — quietly the strongest Yellow deck in the format
Nami doesn't get talked about as often as the S-tier three, but it arguably deserves more attention than it gets. It's a resource-heavy value deck that out-lasts opponents rather than racing them, and it keeps improving as more Yellow support releases each set — this is a deck that's still climbing, not one that peaked at launch.
What's genuinely notable is its matchup spread: Nami holds favorable matchups against several S-tier decks, including Enel and Luffy. Its weak spot is the format's other aggressive decks, particularly Teach. That's an unusual profile — a deck that beats the best decks in the room but loses to its fellow A-tier competitors.
Red/Blue Lucy — the flexible, lower-commitment aggressive option
Lucy trades some of the raw consistency of a single-color build for a wider, more flexible card pool. It's aggressive in the same general lane as Enel, but without quite the same explosive ceiling — what it offers instead is steadier, more forgiving results.
It's a reasonable choice for players who want an aggressive game plan without committing to Luffy's harder execution requirements or Enel's narrower, all-in approach. It posts consistent top-cut results without ever being the single best deck in the room — the definition of a solid A-tier choice.
The pattern across all three
Where the S-tier decks each have a built-in answer to their own worst matchup, all three A-tier decks here have one clear weakness they haven't fully solved — Teach against Luffy, Nami against fellow aggro, Lucy's lower ceiling than Enel. That's usually the actual difference between A and S tier in a format like this: not raw power, but whether a deck's one weak spot has been patched or not.
Check the full tier list for how the B-tier decks compare, or look back at the S-tier spotlight for the three decks these are chasing.