Spicy Decks Top the Biggest UNION ARENA Tournament Ever
The biggest UNION ARENA tournament ever for the English version of the game happened last night, and we’re going to be breaking down the winning decks from the event.
Hosted by Egman Events, the tournament had over 100 players, making it a pretty good sized event, and showing some impressive growth for the game. I also was in attendance for this one (couldn’t miss the biggest tournament ever for this great game) and was pleasantly surprised by how polite and even kind all of my opponents were.
While I didn’t have a particularly strong night finishing 39th, my friend and contributing writer to this blog, Jeremy Eggers, took second place piloting the powerful Kurapika deck. He was the highest placing Kurapika player at the event, meaning he might just be one of the best Kurapika players around right now. Hopefully we’ll be getting a more detailed breakdown from him of how the event went including matchup details.
With all of that being said, let’s look at the most interesting, top finishing decks (provided by Egman Events) and break down what made them spicy and strong at this tournament.
1st Place Toshiro Rush by Tyler Green
Taking first place overall after seven rounds of swiss (and going undefeated at that) we have this pretty ingenious Toshiro BLEACH Green deck. What I love about this deck is how straightforward it is. Unlike most Toshiro builds that have been focusing on fancy plays with the likes of Unohana, this one just goes straight for the gut with a powerful combination of Kenpachi Zeraki, Toshiro Hitsugaya, and Shinji to grant Impact to each and every character whenever it is needed.
What makes this deck particularly strong is it has answers for just about everything in the meta. Kenpachi’s four-cost self can’t be affected by damaging reducing effects, making it immune to a lot of BLEACH Purple’s tools. Meanwhile, it can swing through even the likes of Kurapika given its powerful effect that boosts it to 5000 BP when attacking.
The Yachiru play is also quite strong, helping to not only grant Kenpachi the ability to attack the turn it enters play but also as a strong recovery option against those Yellow BLEACH decks that like to force your characters into rested.
Last but not least, this deck has an insane amount of removal options with the Special event, two-action Kenpachi, and of course Toshiro’s powerful effect that freezes your opponent’s characters. While that is not technically removal it functions in the same way, forcing your opponent to play without one of their strongest characters on the field.
I absolutely love this deck and love seeing it doing so well at such a big competition.
2nd Place Kurapika by Jeremy Eggers
I’ve played against Jeremy’s Kurapika deck many times so I feel like I know how this one works pretty well despite not being a Kurapika player myself. For the most part, this build looks like a pretty straightforward Kurapika build although there are some interesting plays in here that Jeremy is able to utilize effectively.
For starters, the inclusion of Melody is a strong tech, giving you a few added options to more consistently generate energy without clogging up your Energy line. Second, Jeremy has two three-cost Leorio in this deck, giving him the option to bring back any Green character from his sideline into his hand. That can be a very effective play, helping ensure you have what you need to continue dominating the field via powerful Snipe attacks.
Other cards worth mentioning in this deck are Basho who is actually quite effective thanks to his Step ability, letting you put pressure on your opponent while being able to leverage energy generation the next turn and Hisoka, who basically acts as a baby Snipe character without the Impact.
Other than these astute deck choices, I think what largely makes this deck so effective is that it was piloted by one of the best Kurapika players in the world. So if you want to get better at playing Kurapika, checkout his story about how he got two Winner card playsets in a few weeks playing this deck.
9th Place Blue Bomber by Jaime Castillo
I ran into several Blue Hunter x Hunter decks during the tournament, and while none of them beat me, they seemed quite strong. At this point, given its presence in the meta, I think we can safely say Blue Bomber is a current top UNION ARENA meta deck.
It’s got plenty of card removal, some very tricky plays to keep your opponent on their toes, and a few combos that can feel very, very deadly if you manage to get them off.
11th Place Yellow Bleach Deck by Joshua Wisniewski
I’ve been in search of a Yellow BLEACH deck I felt was strong (and have been testing my own version of this deck) but I think I’ve found what I’ve been looking for in this powerful list.
Before getting into the deck itself, however, it is worth noting that among the top 16 decks from the event, Yellow BLEACH was the second most successful with three builds. That’s pretty incredible for a deck that had largely slipped off the radar in recent weeks.
What I like about this build is the added card removal you get via Yhwach’s Raid. Combine him with Metalize and you can really do a lot of damage to the board.
Additionally, you also have four of the three-cost Ywach character’s which I think is a smart play. Using his When Played effect, you can actually somewhat control the pace of the game, discarding the top card of the deck if it is strong, or leaving it there and forcing your opponent to draw into a dead card.
Jugram is also a very strong card and also plays into the “controlling the game” aspect with its strong discard effect (one of the few in the game) coupled with Impact and a powerful built-in draw engine which is sort of like a Rukia Raid from BLEACH Purple only stronger when you take into account the rest of what he does.
3rd Place Renji Rush by Jon Mendoza
Last but not least let’s talk about Renji Rush. Renji Rush gained a massive amount of popularity early on after it dominated Egman’s first tournament. However, since then it has largely cooled off although it is still a force to be reckoned with in the meta, and that is true of BLEACH Purple in general.
I won’t say much more about it than that but just thought I should mention that despite a dip in play share, BLEACH Purple is still going strong at the highest level of competitive UNION ARENA events.
Those are my top picks for spicy and interesting top-finishing builds from this massive event. Stay tuned for more UNION ARENA updates as I continue to cover this emerging and exciting game!
