A Massive UNION ARENA Rare Battle Event is Coming to the West Coast
Announced at the Bandai Card Game Fest in Orlando and on stream, UNION ARENA players are going to have a chance to compete at large scale Rare Battles, beginning with the first major event happening at the convention center in Pasadena, CA. This is pretty exciting news as to date there’s only been one major in-person tournament for the English version of the game and that was the tournament at Bandai Card Game Fest which took place in Orlando, Florida.
Now, however, players will have a chance to compete at the largest UNION ARENA event to ever grace the West Coast and duke it out for various prizes and, of course, the coveted Winner cards you can only get at Rare Battles.
Below, we’re going to be diving into everything you need to know about this exciting event.
What is a Rare Battle?
If you haven’t attended a UNION ARENA Rare Battle before, it’s a very fun format in which players battle one another using decks built from the cards found in only one anime. This creates a varied environment from the more mainstream tournaments where decks from all anime are allowed. It also opens up the opportunity to play decks that normally wouldn’t be as competitive in a basic battle format, and creates a pretty fun anime-specific environment to enjoy while you ruthlessly battle your opponent’s life away.
Generally speaking UNION ARENA as a card game is really big on keeping their card game mechanics true to the anime they are based on, so having a battle system where you only can use cards from one anime (like the rule for deck building) feels right.
What is a Large Scale Rare Battle?
Typically, Rare Battles are smaller events like Store Tournaments with a max capacity of 16 players. However, Bandai has lifted that capacity limit for this special kind of Rare Battle and has also upped the prizing to make it more enticing for players to compete.
While the ultimate goal of the rare battle remains winning the Rare Battle Winner card for the anime that you are competing in (or at least placing in the top four to get the winner card promo) players who manage to get top 16 in the tournament will also be getting an exclusive deck box.
If I’m being honest, I’ve seen better looking deck boxes before. Still it would be a pretty cool flex to show up to your locals with one of these in tow, and the fact the top 16 in each Rare Battle get this goodie from only this events is a strong draw for me.
Meanwhile, you will also be getting prizes just for attending the rare battle, including the Rare Battle event pack vol. 2 featuring exclusive artworks of UA favorites and a storage box featuring the UNION ARENA Logo and card back artwork.
Where is the Large Scale Rare Battle being held?
Right now, only one of these events has been announced, making it a pretty big deal especially for the many, many UA fans who haven’t had a chance yet to test themselves at a bigger event. The event is being held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, CA and it’s being organized by the popular CoreTCG store.
We don’t know for certain if or when more of these events will be held which only raises the excitement for this first Large Scale Rare Battle tournament. While it might be hard for those on the East Coast to attend, it’s certainly nice for those of us located on or close to the West Coast to have a chance to compete.
How do you register for the event?
While the tournament itself is going to be run through Bandai TCG+ like any other UA tournament, signups for this event are actually being handled via RK9, the well-known tournament organizing platform. Signing up is easy enough to do but you’ll just have to make sure you have your player ID added to your profile if you haven’t done that before. Entry to the event costs $30 and it looks like most of the events will be running at the same time so you’ll likely have to choose which anime to compete in instead of going to all of them.
Fore more info on sign ups, visit CoreTCG’s Facebook page or Discord.
Does the prizing make this event worth attending?
One issue that stands out to me right away about this event is that the prizing feels a little lackluster, especially if you compare it to what you get from competing at regular size UA Rare Battle tournaments. While it’s really cool to get an exclusive deck box and storage box, not getting added prizing incentive for actually winning the tournament won’t be a strong enough pull for some especially if they are traveling from far away. Indeed, it does feel a little strange that winning one of these larger events doesn’t get you more than say winning a regular Rare Battle at your local game shop.
As for myself, I’m a big fan of UNION ARENA so attending feels like a no brainer if at all possible, even if the rationale behind prizing doesn’t fully make sense. I’ll give them a pass since I’m just so excited for the West Coast’s first large scale in-card UNION ARENA tournament!
That being said, it could very well be that more of these large scale events will be made available around North America so it could work out to wait and see if one closer to you pops up during that timeframe. Given these are supposedly running from early March until the end of May, I think there’s a high likelihood one will pop up near you.
