Every UNION ARENA Set Ranked from Good to Great

If you’ve already heard about the latest and greatest anime game to grace the shelves of game shops everywhere called UNION ARENA, you might be wondering which set you should start out with. Although the game has only been available a few months at this point, it has already developed a large following in North America thanks to strong game mechanics, beloved IPs, and strong support for local tournaments. Also, many different sets based around specific anime have come out, giving you plenty to choose from.

But where do you get started? What UNION ARENA set is best?

While many will simply go with the set based on the anime they like best others want to know the competitive viability and future prospects of the cards you can get from sets. Still others might be more interested in the collector’s side of things and which set has the most collectible, high value cards.

Below, we’ll be taking each of these factors into consideration as we rank each and every UNION ARENA set released so far from good to great.

#5 Hunter x Hunter

Starting things off is Hunter x Hunter. The reason I put this set at the bottom of the list isn’t because it is a bad set. Indeed, there is a little something for everyone here, although these days much more for collectors than players.

Collectors will actually enjoy this set as it has a fairly broad range of higher value cards in the SR** camp. Indeed, Hunter x Hunter parallel arts seem to have faired well in general. However, it lacks a major chase the way other sets have and for the most part fails in the competitive side of things.

Despite a few colors getting played here and there, Green Kurapika was this set’s main deck, leaving little room in the meta for anything else.

While Kurapika has dropped out of popularity lately, it’s still a strong deck with plenty of arguments for having it see play.

Hunter x Hunter isn’t a bad set. It’s got highly collectible cards and a strong deck. However, beyond the one deck this set lacks much spice to entice gamers to play it, and was also a set highly dominated by BLEACH when both came out in US.

#4 Demon Slayer

Demon Slayer gets points for being an interesting set even if it’s severely lacking in a few departments. Unlike some sets that boast two or even three viable decks within them, Demon Slayer seems to only have about one really strong meta deck, and a bunch of other second tier decks.

While I actually think my custom Demo Slayer Purple build could take the cake for best deck, that was hardly ready right out of the box and took me a considerable ammount of effort to put together. Typically, players want the core archetypes included in the set to work out for them and those ones are the decks that get attention at competition.

With a middling power level, no amount of interesting mechanics will be enough to make any set appeal to most players.

That being said, the sheer fun of playing Demon Slayer shouldn’t be underestimated, and it could very well be that Demon Slayer will have the most fun Rare Battle Format out of any of them given a lack of one overwhelmingly strong archetype being within it.

Oh, and the Tanjiro serialized chase card is epic.

#3 BLEACH

BLEACH is a personal favorite of mine and I love playing this set (I have every deck from it) and collecting it. BLEACH Purple is still a force in the meta several sets down the line, and the base SR*** from this set is worth the most of any card from any UNION ARENA set (apart from serialized cards). It also has decent variety: back before some of the latest and greatest sets came out the meta was dominated by BLEACH decks. Today, Toshiro is also competitively viable even if it doesn’t see a ton of play anymore.

If you’re looking for a set with strong decks, unique mechanics, and strong collectibility, you can’t go wrong with BLEACH.

#2 Jujutsu Kaisen

Blue JJK as a deck is arguably the most popular in the game right now, making JJK a highly sought after expansion. Beyond its premier deck, it also has a solid secondary option in the form of the certainly meta relevant yellow builds. There are actually two different yellow builds that fair relatively well which are the Yellow Gojo deck and the Megumi build.

The only real downside of this set is that it leaves collectors somewhat wanting, with relatively few high value cards outside of the SR***.

#1 Code Geass is the Best UNION ARENA Set

Code Geass is the single greatest set released for UNION ARENA to date. While that could quickly change based on the upcoming UNION ARENA sets that look pretty solid, it’s got something for everyone. Whether or not you are a fan of the anime which it is based on, UNION ARENA players love this set because of the meta relevancy of its decks. Each of Code Geass’s energy colors are playable competitively, and two of them are among the best UNION ARENA decks right now.

Purple Code Geass reigns almost supreme in the meta, challenged only for the top spot by Blue JJK. But the fact that you can build something spicy and competitive from each Ink color is not something you can say about every set, making Code Geass something of a gem in that regard.

Beyond comptitive viabilty, mechanics are fun and unique, and the rare cards themselves are gorgeous, including plenty of high valued chases like the alt art Lancelot Raid and more beauty-centric pieces like the C.C. SR**.

As if that weren’t enough, a second volume has been announced for Code Geass meaning there is likely a future for the decks you build, giving you future bang for your buck.