Spade Pirates

Portgas D. Ace assembled this crew about five years before the current era, and it climbed to prominence as one of the standout rookie outfits of its day until it broke up and its members joined the Whitebeard Pirates in full. On the crew's flag, Ace's trademark hat crowns an ordinary grinning skull set over crossbones; the hat carries two smiley faces, one cheerful and one glum, with flames leaping off its top to represent his fire-based powers, a spade fills the space behind the skull, and the word SPADE runs underneath. Different sources have tinted the emblem in various ways, from a red spade paired with an orange hat to a purple field behind dark red flames.

Under Ace the crew ran on a loose, casual arrangement with barely any rigid ranking. According to Masked Deuce, he, Ace, Skull, and Mihar formed a kind of officer brain trust that made most of the calls, while everyone else handled the fighting. Saber, Banshee, and Wallace stood out as well, with Banshee handling the cooking while Wallace, who knew the waters near Fish-Man Island intimately, proved crucial there. Twenty strong, made up of sixteen humans together with a lynx, one Longarm Tribe individual, a mermaid, and a fish-man, they were tough enough to survive Paradise. Ace himself fought two Warlords on even footing, dueling Jinbe for five days without rest and besting Hanafuda, and was even extended a Warlord seat. The crew crossed the seas aboard the Piece of Spadille and the smaller Striker, a craft Deuce built and afterward modified so it would function alongside the flame powers of Ace.

Ace served as captain, with Masked Deuce as his earliest friend and right hand. Having left Dawn Island, Ace was shipwrecked on the desert island of Sixis, where he met Deuce, shared the Mera Mera no Mi with him, took on its flame powers, and founded the crew alongside him. The Marine officer Isuka trailed them, and Ace rejected a Warlord invitation carried by Vice Admiral Draw before beating him. Known as a super rookie, Ace caught Whitebeard's attention. Later the crew endured hard times in Wano's Amigasa Village, grew close to Tama, and encountered Yamato on Onigashima. When Ace finally moved against Whitebeard, Jinbe stopped him in a five-day draw, Whitebeard then overwhelmed the crew, and a beaten Ace, after numerous failed attempts on Whitebeard's life, at last agreed to join, bringing his entire crew along.