Top 64 @ Wolverhampton Treasure Cup. 37th place @ 7–2. Played PY Rosi. Matchups: Black Teach won the match; won the dice roll; went first. Purple PEnel lost the match; lost the dice roll; went second. Black Teach won the match; lost the dice roll; went first. Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; won the dice roll; went second. Blue Yellow Nami won the match; lost the dice roll; went first. Purple Yellow Rosi won the match; won the dice roll; went second. Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; lost the dice roll; went first. Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; won the dice roll; went second. Purple PEnel lost the match; lost the dice roll; went first.
Davyback.gg
Better conversations about the One Piece Card Game.
Card Games
In 2025, I walked into Walmart and bought a pack of trading cards from my favorite anime, One Piece , before scalping them was even a thing. After staring at torn open pack wrappers for a while, I felt buyer's remorse and thought, "I should probably learn to play, at least a little."
What I didn't know was that the same card game would change the way I think about a lot of things: learning, self-belief, community, mentorship, and the value of challenge.
However, that's not the point of this. I designed and built DavyBack.gg as a one-person team to solve a specific problem I noticed in how information was shared across the card game community.
Problem
There's a large card game community on X (formerly Twitter), where players share wins, give advice, promote coaching platforms, and make friends. When I first started lurking, I couldn't make sense of one particular tweet format: tournament results. Everyone posted them in a different format, each with their own mix of emojis, colors, and symbols.
Let me explain why some of the core One Piece TCG game rules (opens in a new tab) matter and how they were denoted before DavyBack existed.
Leader colors
Each One Piece deck has a leader, and that leader is assigned one or two colors. The colors signal a certain playstyle (opens in a new tab) (Red leaders, for example, play aggressive and simple). Leaders can share the same name, with color being the only way to tell them apart. This was often tweeted using colored circle emojis, like “🔵🟡,” to identify which version of a leader someone meant. Other times, people borrowed Magic: The Gathering's (opens in a new tab) color notation instead. A blue-yellow deck might be labeled “UY” rather than “🔵🟡.” (U stands for blue, not black, because black had already claimed B. Confusing!)
Turn order
At the start of a match, both players roll a die to decide turn order. Whoever wins the roll chooses whether to go first or second. This is very important information, since it changes your whole approach, similar to how White and Black rely on different opening strategies in chess.
Match result
The circle and cross show whether the player won or lost the match. A check next to the die means they won the roll, not the match.
Solution
After eight rounds, the above is a lot of information to read. Players also tend to forget turn order, dice rolls, the leaders they faced, and other details over the course of a rigorous tournament.
Standardize
The immediate problem was that there was no standard, and we could create one! By establishing a product where users could uniformly enter and display information, sharing could be streamlined and standardized. We identified the key parts users generally shared in common tweets (set, placement, and leader played) and made them quick and easy to identify and share.
Top 64 @ Wolverhampton Treasure Cup
37th place @ 7–2
Played PY Rosi
- Black Teach won the match; won the dice roll; went first
- Purple PEnel lost the match; lost the dice roll; went second
- Black Teach won the match; lost the dice roll; went first
- Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; won the dice roll; went second
- Blue Yellow Nami won the match; lost the dice roll; went first
- Purple Yellow Rosi won the match; won the dice roll; went second
- Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; lost the dice roll; went first
- Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; won the dice roll; went second
- Purple PEnel lost the match; lost the dice roll; went first
Wolverhampton Treasure Cup
7 wins and 2 losses at at a treasure cup in OP12
Immediately, we'd solved a large portion of the problem. Users could easily identify and share how their tournaments went, but we wanted them to go one step deeper: individual matchups and specific commentary on how each match went. This required a “detailed” view, the one more commonly screenshotted and shared with friends.
Wolverhampton Treasure Cup
7 wins and 2 losses at a treasure cup on September 10, 2025, finishing 37th out of 1024 competitors
| Round | Deck | Notes | Dice | Order | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
| Curve felt clean | Won dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 2 |
| Couldn’t close before 10 DON!! | Lost dice roll | Went second | Lost match |
| 3 |
| Played around removal | Lost dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 4 |
| Saved counters for late game | Won dice roll | Went second | Won match |
| 5 |
| Applied pressure early | Lost dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 6 |
| Protected the board | Won dice roll | Went second | Won match |
| 7 |
| Found the key removal | Lost dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 8 |
| Went wide early | Won dice roll | Went second | Won match |
| 9 |
| Ran out of threats | Lost dice roll | Went first | Lost match |
Results
The app took off almost immediately! Other card games had similar platforms, but this was the first one built for One Piece. “Copycats” followed soon after. (This was great! I wanted the community to have the best tools, whether I built them or not.) Users came in fast. So did bug reports. Top players shared it, and YouTubers made videos about it. After one year, we had:
The numbers were impressive, and seeing top-level players use the app felt surreal. But the goal was always better conversation: more meaningful questions, more useful advice, and more context around how each match played out. That had been missing before. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I'm proud that something I built helped more people get into competitive One Piece.
Top 64 @ Wolverhampton Treasure Cup. 37th place @ 7–2. Played PY Rosi. Matchups: Black Teach won the match; won the dice roll; went first. Purple PEnel lost the match; lost the dice roll; went second. Black Teach won the match; lost the dice roll; went first. Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; won the dice roll; went second. Blue Yellow Nami won the match; lost the dice roll; went first. Purple Yellow Rosi won the match; won the dice roll; went second. Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; lost the dice roll; went first. Blue Green UG Luffy won the match; won the dice roll; went second. Purple PEnel lost the match; lost the dice roll; went first.
Wolverhampton Treasure Cup results
Wolverhampton Treasure Cup
7 wins and 2 losses at a treasure cup on September 10, 2025, finishing 37th out of 1024 competitors
| Round | Deck | Notes | Dice | Order | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
| Curve felt clean | Won dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 2 |
| Couldn’t close before 10 DON!! | Lost dice roll | Went second | Lost match |
| 3 |
| Played around removal | Lost dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 4 |
| Saved counters for late game | Won dice roll | Went second | Won match |
| 5 |
| Applied pressure early | Lost dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 6 |
| Protected the board | Won dice roll | Went second | Won match |
| 7 |
| Found the key removal | Lost dice roll | Went first | Won match |
| 8 |
| Went wide early | Won dice roll | Went second | Won match |
| 9 |
| Ran out of threats | Lost dice roll | Went first | Lost match |
This was the first project that made me seriously consider a pivot into design. I kept thinking about what should exist, why it should exist, and the tiny interactions that make a product more enjoyable. Suddenly, that way of thinking was at the front of my mind.
Thank you for reading. Feel free to reach out to me at JohnnyDPalacio@gmail.com.