One Piece OP-16 Six Weeks On: What Our May Call Got Right

On Saturdays we like to look at the popular TCGs outside Pokemon, mostly for the bird's-eye view of the space. Right now they're behaving much the same way Pokemon does when it comes to new set hype.

Pitch Black spent this past week repricing after launch. One Piece and Riftbound are a few weeks further down the same road.

On June 6 we said we'd come back to OP-16 after the English release and tell you how it shook out. That was seven weeks ago.

Here's the accounting.

We got the ranking right. Staying out of the cards is the part that saved money.

The admirals ranked exactly as we said

Back on May 23, before OP-16 "The Time of Battle" had a settled price anywhere, we flagged something odd about the set. Bandai handed its three Manga Rare slots to Sakazuki, Kuzan, and Borsalino, the Marines running the war, rather than the protagonists the community had spent weeks pricing in.

Then we went further and guessed which one would set the ceiling.

Sakazuki.

Nine weeks later that order hasn't moved. Sakazuki trades around $1,210, Kuzan near $1,160, Borsalino close to $1,060. Same ranking we called before a single copy had a public number.

It's also the only one of the three showing green. Sakazuki is up roughly 8% over the past month and another 9% in the past week. Kuzan is down 15% on the month. Borsalino is down 7%.

The better call

Ranking was the fun call. The useful one was six words on May 23: we will be watching, not buying. A week into the Japanese release, staring at Sakazuki asks anywhere from $2,000 to over $5,000, we said we weren't putting money near it yet.

Since the English release on June 12, the set has repriced hard.

Of the 36 OP-16 cards trading above $8, thirty-four sit below their English release price. The median is down 37%.

Borsalino is off 31% from release. The Charlotte Katakuri Special has lost 42%. The Blackbeard alt art we singled out as one of the steadier reads is down 52%.

Fill at those presale asks and you're somewhere around 40% underwater today.

The thesis that only half worked

The frame we built the May piece on was that Bandai underprints, sets sell out on release day, and the secondary market fights real scarcity instead of scalper inventory.

The scarcity landed in the sealed market, where prices held. Singles absorbed the whole drawdown.

OP-16 since the English release

Double Pack Set Vol. 11 Display +19% Booster Pack +6% Booster Box Case -3% Booster Box -9% Singles above $8, median -37%

Change measured against each product on June 12, the English release date.

Every sealed line bottomed in the second week of July and has climbed since. Over that same month the singles median is down 21%.

That's the part worth carrying into the next set. Underprinting supports the box. The chase card still has to clear its own launch crowd first, and when three Manga Rares carry an entire set's chase economy, three cards absorb all of that pressure at once.

Where the set sits right now

The bleed is ending.

Median 30-day change across those 36 cards is down 21%. Median 7-day change is down 1%.

The trough dates say more than either number. Most of the cards we track set the lowest price of their entire run inside the last two weeks, clustered on July 17, 19, 23, and 24.

Sakazuki bottomed near $1,215 on July 13 and has added 12% since. Kuzan bottomed on July 16. Borsalino on July 19.

Only 3 of those 36 cards sit more than 10% above their low, so nothing here is a recovery yet. This is the part where the selling runs out.

What Riftbound says happens next

Riftbound is the League of Legends card game, barely nine months old. We keep the same per-set price history on it, and it has already run this arc twice on a shorter clock.

Origins peaked in presale around $296 a display in August 2025, bottomed at $180 on release day itself, then reached $317 within five weeks. Unleashed peaked at $297 in February, bottomed at $107 on May 23, fifteen days after its May 8 release, and sits 20% above that low today with its case up 35% from the bottom.

Both sets made their low within about two weeks of release day. Both spent the months after climbing. Origins singles are up 35% over the last month, and a case of it now trades at $1,865, up 66%.

These are not token numbers. A single Origins display is $253 and an Unleashed display is $129, while the Unleashed chase cards, the overnumbered Poros, run $173 to $229 apiece.

The third instance is live right now. Vendetta releases July 31. Its booster display peaked at $220 in May and trades at $129 today, 41% under the presale high, with the case down 13% on the month.

On Riftbound's clock, Vendetta hasn't bottomed either.

Where it points

Three sets across two games, and the same shape in all of them. Inside it, the box is the position and the chase card is the lottery ticket: OP-16 singles took a 37% drawdown while its sealed barely moved off release.

Then there's the calendar. Six One Piece starter decks and Vendetta all land on July 31, with OP-17 "The World's Strongest Warriors" following on August 22. Three supply events inside four weeks, across two games.

We didn't buy OP-16 at launch and we aren't buying Vendetta at launch. Twice in Riftbound, and now once in One Piece on this month's evidence, the low has landed in the two weeks after a set reached shelves.

Vendetta reaches shelves Friday.