After a week-long period of tirelessly testing my newest Demon Slayer custom build, I finally can say it has my stamp of approval. I took it to a 20 player store tournament and went undefeated, placing first overall. The reason that matters is it shows that this admittedly off the wall take on the Gyutaro/Daki combo that’s a core component of UNION ARENA Demon Slayer Purple can be very strong in the open field, and might also be a great option to take to your next event.

Below, let’s get into every little detail about how this deck works, the process behind building it, and even the matchups I’ve faced along the way.

Gyutaro/Daki Deck UNION ARENA — *Store tournament – 1st out of 20 players*

Finding the perfect 50 for my Gyutaro/Daki deck

If you couldn’t tell, I’ve tested many, many decks over the years. And although I got this first place result after about a week of testing, that challenge of coming up with this deck was one of the more difficult deck building puzzles I’ve faced. After what feels like countless iterations of this strategy, I finally landed on the best one.

Core components of the Gyutaro Demon Slayer Purple deck

When you first look at Demon Slayer’s Purple line up of cards, at face value there appears to be two distinct decks that – while sharing some commonalities – have entirely disparate strategies. On the one hand you have the Muzan deck that leverages a retinue of card effects that benefit you from sidelining your own characters. All of this is done with the end goal in mind of powering up Muzan – a character with Impact 2 and Damage 2 who can only enter the front line after you have 20 cards in the sideline.

On the polar opposite side of things you have the Daki/Gyutaro combo – a deck that (also at face value) looks like an aggro/rush deck, capable of coming out the gate fast for very little energy, while lacking some late game power.

My feeling from the very start when sifting through these cards which I pulled from Demon Slayer booster boxes was that within the two seemingly disparate strategies lay one cohesive version of the deck.

However, finding out what that cohesive version was proved terribly elusive for a while.

My first attempt at Demon Slayer Purple was a hybrid between Muzan and Gyutaro

Even just messing around with relatively random card combinations was enough for me to realize that there was something special and powerful about the new sideline engine that comes in Purple Demon Slayer. Using cards like Bow Your Head and Purge with cards like Lower Four meant being able to unlock handy effects and crazy draw power unlike anything I’ve seen in the game until now.

Apart from beneficial effects like Daki’s “when sidelined” that lets you pick a Gyutaro from the top six of your deck or Lower Four’s “draw a card,” the main reason you want to put cards in the sideline is to get your big bad Muzan into play.

However, intuition told me that relying too much on this end game win condition while foregoing an aggressive early game would be unlikely to work no matter how solid Muzan might be.

I was very ingrigued mostly by the powerful Gyutaro Raid as well as some of the draw potential that gets unlocked between Gyutaro and Daki, so the first deck that I came up with was a hybrid between the two strategies.

The deck proved disappointing to say the least

A lot of the key pieces that would eventually make their way into my final build are in this initial one that I tried out at the Egman Demon Slayer tournament. Despite some positive initial tests, playing this deck for the first time in a competitive setting showed the many short comings of building a deck that was too hybrid between Muzan and Gyutaro/Daki.

The deck felt clunky in practice – neither focused enough on Muzan to make the late game gamble pay off, nor focused enough on Daki/Gyutaro to make that synergy matter.

However one core insight that carried its way to the finalized version was the inclusion of the powerful Enmu. Enmu is your strongest card in Purple after Gyutaro. Not only is he a vanilla 4000 BP body for just four energy, when raided he gives you added draw power and even becomes a 4500 BP character once you hit 15 cards in your sideline.

Getting 500 added BP may not sound like a lot, but in most matchups that’s the difference between surviving an attack and living to tell the tale and becoming sideline material yourself.

Regardless of that solid insight, this version of the deck just didn’t work. So I decided to do what felt like the logical thing: abandon the idea of a Muzan/Gyutaro hybrid and just lean into the strengths of the one I felt was better.

My straight Gyutaro/Daki build showed promise

I rebuilt the deck this time focused on the Gyutaro/Daki demonic sibling relationship that’s honestly kind of a highlight of the show. Still, even figuring out a deck that uses these two together effectively in a highly competitive meta proved difficult. In the end, I came up with a deck that leaned into the aggressive playstyle you can unlock via a three-raid character like Daki.

Unlike my bastardized Muzan/Gyutaro deck which clearly could not stand up to the meta, this much more Gyutaro-focused build felt like it could, and indeed bested several meta decks in my first outing with it. However, there were some definite issues with this deck I couldn’t ignore.

Straight Gyutaro/Daki works fast but lacks follow through

This version of the deck ends up basically playing like a rush deck. You push as many characters forward as you can, and raid your three-cost Daki early to help punch a hole in your opponent’s defenses. Once that’s done, Gyutaro can be used to clean up what remains or take life directly as your opponent won’t want to block his attack since he will just switch back to active afterwards.

When that works it works great and you can win. However, there are many situations where this just doesn’t work, and whenever I would lose a match the core theme was that in order to win I was forced to overextend. That overextension then meant having no energy on board with which to fall back on in order to mount another attack, or deal with a random special flying out of my opponent’s triggers.

Lacking an adequate amount of high energy characters was one clear issue but it wasn’t alone. Kyogoku House felt a little pointless in combat, while running four two-AP Gyutaro just wasn’t sufficient enough to deal with the stronger bodies you tend to come up against.

Even Demon Powers (while working wonders in tests) tended to be elusive during actual competition.

Without a solid energy line, characters with native Impact, or a solid removal options, Gyutaro just felt a little lifeless.

Breaking down my first place Gyutaro Purple deck

Now that you’ve gotten a deep look into my deck building process (possibly too deep of a look), let’s talk about the deck that actually worked. I think this is likely to be the best version of Demon Slayer Purple as it contains in it the strongest cards from that energy color without some of the red herrings many will undoubtedly chase (like Muzan).

As you can probably tell when comparing this list versus the last one, a lot had to change before finding the winning combination.

‘Lower Your Heads’ is a superior special

The most dramatic change is actually leaning back into the powerful sideline engine that I mentioned earlier, only this time without bothering to include Muzan at all. Instead, we look to leverage the utterly terrifying Lower Your Heads card which can sideline any character regardless of BP. What makes this card so terrifying is not just that it doesn’t have a BP stipulation – it can be played for only three energy cost. That dramatically lowers the bar for what it takes to remove powerful cards from the game.

And sure while that may come at the cost of sidelining one of your own characters, you also get the powerful upside of getting more cards in your hand – something which will help you down the line with playing the powerful Akaza character. Additionally, if you play the right combo of cards, having sidelined a character can help you. For example, you can use “Lower Your Head” to sideline your Lower Four and draw an additional card to the one you already gained from the base effect, or on your one-cost Daki to search out the powerful Gyutaro.

As if that weren’t enough, your two-cost Enma (who also has the formidable Active trigger) lets you draw another card if you’ve sidelined that turn. While that would also work with the Gyutaro-flavored Blood Sickle special, the fact that that one requires four energy in order to get off makes it less likely you’ll be able to get it off before playing two-cost Enma from your hand.

Lastly, three-cost Rui lets you add incremental damage to sidelining by lowering the BP of a chosen character by 1500 when played. This can be a solid play to eliminate low BP characters trying to rush you down or even to lower the BP of a character who would otherwise be out of reach. 5000 BP characters, for example, are very tough for this deck to deal with. Rui gives you a way to make managing them much easier.

Bolstering your energy line and playing Akaza

This Gyutaro build also features a greatly enhanced energy line. By running eight total two-energy generating characters, you are able to do a lot more. While you have plenty of means at your disposal to rush your opponent down early on if you need to, establishing a firm base with at least one two-energy generating character at all times means having the flexibility to respond to threats as they emerge instead of overextending and permanently throwing off your momentum for the game.

It also opens you up to the possibility of added removal and more powerful cards, like the ridiculous Akaza character I included in my build. Akaza is also the reason for why you need to be conscientious about bolstering the resources in your hand. Not only will you need six energy on field in order to play him, you’ll also need plenty of cards in hand so you can discard two of them to grant him the deadly combo of Snipe and Impact.

Not only can this be a great end game closer, Snipe is effectively removal, granting you a much higher removal potential than relying on two-AP cost Gyutaro who only sidelines opposing characters with 3000 BP or less.

My list doesn’t run Raid Daki

Finally, the last big difference you might notice between my former build and this one is that my finished list doesn’t include the Raid Daki card which was a staple of my original build. While she’s a handy card, she really mostly is there for the rush strategy, letting you pivot off your Energy line quickly to dismantle your opponent later on.

While she’s a handy aggro choice, ultimately Enmu is a stronger card and much handier in the late game, so I chose to prioritize her raid over Daki.

Additionally, there’s not any point in raiding Daki if you think about it, as Daki mostly just exists to bolster your vastly superior Gyutaro character. If you have Daki on the field, you want either her one-cost version to be on the front line blocking hits so you can grab a Gyutaro from your deck or safely tucked away on your energy line so you can gain passive effects from Gyutaro that are unlocked only by having her on the field.

Raid Gyutaro is just too strong

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Ultimately, a midrange take on the Gyutaro/Daki combo – and one that leverages the many powerful “when sidelined” effects available to Demon Slayer Purple – is stronger than either the control/late game focused Muzan and aggro/rush Daki Raid build.

With that being said, it’s important to make one final note on this deck’s real MVP: Gyutaro Raid. While each Gyutaro included in this deck is interesting in its own way (e.g. three-cost Gyutaro has a solid combination of draw support, energy gen, and Active trigger), it’s Raid Gyutaro that gives you the strategic finishing power needed to close out games.

Early on Gyutaro grants you incremental Life hits because people just don’t want to block him as he will switch to active if he wins. Late game, however, players will be forced to block him or he’ll simply overcome and remove characters from board as he relentlessly thrashes his way into your opponent’s life.

Additionally, because he’s not a more known attacker in UA, players often forget he switches to active after winning a battle, so you might get some free removal with him that way. That won’t probably last if he gets more popular, but right now he remains largely overlooked.

Gyutaro Purple deck matchup guide

With the main deck portion of this article out of the way, it’s time to look at the specific matchups you will face piloting this powerful Demon Slayer deck.

Code Geass Purple

Surprisingly, Code Geass Purple is a decent matchup for Gyutaro. No 4000 BP characters means your Gyutaro can get around anything he’s going to face. Additionally, your deck is more flexible than Geass Purple, meaning you can more easily rush down your opponent early without suffering the consequences the way Geass Purple would if it doesn’t manage its energy line.

Another meaningful differentiator in this matchup is the fact that you have Enmu. Against any deck that relies primarily on 4000 BP characters, Enmu is a handy asset, enabling a favorable trade when blocking.

Lancelot – Code Geass Green

Lancelot is arguably your toughest matchup as the 5000 BP characters it fields can largely nulify your Gyutaro’s effect. Your best bet against Lancelot is to play very aggressively and try to get your opponent’s life as close to zero as possible before Air Cavalries start hitting the board.

You can use cards like Demon Powers to even the math out against their superior BP, or even lean on Rui to lower BP to a more manageable level. This isn’t an unwinnable match by any means, but it is going to be one of your more challenging ones.

Blue JJK

This is a pretty nutural matchup. While Blue JJK doesn’t have any particular edge over you, it’s still a very strong deck and will be hard to beat. It shouldn’t be as hard to beat as Lancelot as it doesn’t field 5000 BP base characters. If they don’t get their fingers you should be in business.

From ruin to splendor, this deck ended up being one of my better UA decks to date, and also my current favorite to pilot. It’s just such a blast to play.

1st Place Demon Slayer Purple Deck Combines Gyutaro with Powerful Sideline Effects