Does luffy need to recruit 2 more members to be even with blackbeard's commander number? Both luffy and shanks have 9 main crew and under them with blackbeard now having at least 11 now. Him having a 10th titanic captain + previous admiral kuzan seemingly working for him
Shanks can make up that gap teaming up with cross guild main cause crocodile and mihawk
Luffy so far doesn't really have anyone set in stone. Like momonosuke, kinemon, and yamato are basically honorary strawhats that can join whenever they want but idk if theyll play a role against blackbeard or shanks
Luffy missing 2 members in comparison to blackbeard and potentially shanks would also put him in the underdog role again when it comes to becoming pirate king. With him still needing to still catch up to them and surpass them.
He's obviously going to surpass roger and whitebeard when it comes to individual + crew strength but first he needs to start of with surpassing shanks and blackbeard