Metal Bat is the Strongest New Rush Deck in UNION ARENA
While Saitama may be getting much of the attention in the latest UNION ARENA set, another deck comes out in this set that is at once both powerful and underrvalued. That deck is the formidable Metal Bat deck.
Metal Bat could be the strongest new rush deck in UNION ARENA. With a plethora of versatile 4000 BP attackers, and up-leveled effects that feel like they're from the future, this could be the ideal way to counter the 10000 BP meta!
Below, let’s look at my custom build and go into the ins-and-outs of how it works.
Metal Bat Deck List
Metal Bad Rush – Key Cards
While each and every card in this deck is important, a few stand out as particularly strong. And to be honest, we see mechanics introduced in One Punch Man and included in this deck that go above and beyond what we’ve seen in the meta to date.
This deck comes at a solid moment for the UNION ARENA meta, as for the most part rush decks have been losing popularity, with the main noteworthy rush deck seeing a lot of play being the Yellow Tanjiro deck.
Let’s first talk about Metal Bat
So while Metal Bat may be the strongest card in this deck, weirdly enough he’s not actually the strongest character in the world. What’s really nice about him is that he largely counters the current meta, especially once Yellow Saitama grows in popularity. Essentially, you can use Metal Bat as a 4000 BP Impact attacker, and then use him to block Impact attacks.
As long as you have the required number of characters on the board with “Hero” affinity, Metal Bat will also come back to the board, enabling you to nullify another Impact attack.
Although he may not seem the absolute strongest on paper, that Nulify Impact outside the raid box makes him very handy in a rush deck, and he pairs well with the other incredibly powerful cards in this deck to help you quickly and effectively overwhelm your opponent.
Not to mention that being able to bring him back to the board lets you keep your numbers high – a fact which will benefit you down the line alongside effects like the powerful Atomic Samurai.
Metal Bat Rush has powerful removal effects
One of the things that stood out to me straightaway about the Metal Bat deck is how solid its removal options are. Speaking of, you have the powerful Atomic Samurai character in this deck.
If you’re familiar with Kenpachi from the Toshiro Green deck in BLEACH, that powerful card is much like this one. However, Atomic Samurai has one additional benefit that makes him even stronger – his removal effect works even when played to the energy line. That may not sound like a big deal, but it means you can leverage a much stronger attacking front line while using Atomic Samurai to soften your opponent’s defenses without him taking up a spot resting on your board.
Apart from a solid removal effect, he’s got 4000 BP, making him a solid attacker the following turn.
Another powerful removal option available to this deck is the Pig God character. This guys’ particularly insane when compared to other comparable removal engines like him. Unlike the plethora of characters in Demon Slayer (for example) who expend two AP to remove 3000 BP characters, Pig God sidelines 3000 BP characters or less for just one AP. He’s also just a four-energy character.
The only tradeoff here is that Pig God lets your opponent draw a card when he’s sidelined. One way to remove this option is to simply remove him when you promote another character.
Pig God is easy to miss but he’s incredibly effective in this deck.
This Metal Bat Rush Deck fields a plethora of 4000 BP characters
Like any rush deck, how well you are able to do has a lot to do with your range of attackers. Luckily, Metal Bat Rush has a plethora of powerful 4000 BP attackers to choose from. While we’ve covered a few of them already (i.e. Metal Bat and Atomic Samurai) there are even more options available to you, providing an unusual versatility in how you approach your game.
The strongest of your 4000 BP attackers outside of Metal Bat is arguably Terrible Tornado. When I originally looked through the One Punch Man set and built a few preliminary decks, I actually somehow overlooked this powerhouse card.
Putting it simply, Terrible Tornado is a 4000 BP four-cost character capable of coming in active without needing a raid target. All you have to do is discard a hero character from your hand. That’s easy enough to manage given your deck is almost all heroes apart from a few event cards.
Again, Terrible Tornado continues this trend in One Punch Man towards up-leveling the kinds of effects previously available in the game. In the past, typically it took two action points to play a character set to active. While discarding a card from your hand is something of a trade-off, it’s much less so than having to pay two AP for an active character.
In addition to Terrible Tornado you also have Genos and Watchdog Man.
Genos, in general, is just a solid secondary attacker. While his double block probably won’t always be a huge deal in this deck since you’ll be looking to play the aggressor, his when Sidelined helps ensure you always have another character in your hand to play the next turn. Additionally, card draw is important in this deck as you’ll need cards in hand to discard to activate several of this deck’s effects.
Meanwhile, Watchdog Man is a handy and versatile attacker. Play him to generate additional energy or put him directly onto the front line to attack. Just keep in mind once you put him to your energy line he won’t be able to move up to take an attack.
Leverage two powerful zero-cost characters
Finally, this deck has two unusually strong zero-cost characters which should come in handy. On the one hand, you have Zombieman – a character with Nullify Impact and a “when sidelined” effect that lets him keep on coming back. This is handy in situations where you may have used up the low cost characters in your hand. Bringing him back to hand ensures you have additional Nulify Impact as well as the ability to build up your energy line again next turn.
And don’t forget about the pretty insane Flashy Flash character. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is another instance of up-leveling character effects beyond what we’ve seen in the game to date.
The only other card that has an effect this strong is the two AP Lelouch from Code Geass. Having an effect that prohibits your opponent from blocking an attack with a 3500 BP or more character on a zero cost character is pretty insane, enabling you the means to get in some late game sneak hits.
Additionally, if your opponent does try to field something 3000 BP or less to prevent this attack, just get rid of that character with your Pig God!
With an incredible retinue of powerful attackers, next-level effects, and the ability to rush down your opponent’s life before they can build up their strongest combos, Metal Bat feels like a deck from the future, and is well poised in both in regular UNION ARENA format and especially in the Rare Battle format coming up in a few weeks.
