One Punch Man Starter Deck Upgrade Guide
One Punch Man is finally here and it’s an incredible set. Everything about it looks and feels great, from the upgraded sheen of the new foil cards to the intricacies of game mechanics.
Also included in the One Punch Man product lineup is one of the strongest starter decks to date: the Yellow Saitama starter deck.
Fully upgraded, this deck is a bit scary. Even with what you can get from just buying two starter decks, however, the deck is strong. Indeed, from our testing we found even without being fully upgraded the deck could go toe-to-toe with meta decks. I can only imagine how strong this deck will be once I’m able to compile the full deck.
For the purposes of this guide, however, we’ll be looking at several different versions of the deck starting with the card list the starter deck comes with out of the box, and then an upgrade you can do with just two starter decks, and finally looking at a starter deck minimal upgrade and advanced upgrade.
One Punch Man Starter Deck card list
For starters, here’s what the deck comes with. It has many of the staples you will need to fully upgrade to a stronger Yellow Saitama deck. However, there’s also a lot of fluff, like the zero-cost Bomb character who feels largely out of place in this deck.
Buy a second starter deck, however, and the deck gets much, much stronger.
One Punch Man starter deck basic upgrade
As is the case with most UA starter decks, simply buying two of these decks puts you a long way towards something playable. And because of how strong this particular deck is, you can probably even just roll with it and achieve some decent results.
With two starter decks, the build I put together maximizes on the consistency of key cards like your Special and Final triggers as well as the powerful One Punch event.
Another nice thing here is that you aren’t fielding a ton of non-triggers, helping you get extra value off of life when you take a hit.
Finally, doubling up on the four-cost Genos and four-cost Saitama give you powerful attackers and closers. However, the deck is still missing some of the strongest cards it should have access to.
Starter Deck Booster Box upgrade
One additional build I like to put together when testing starter deck upgrades is one built from what I’m able to get from loose boxes. I typically buy two boxes and see how much I can upgrade a deck to get it to its final form. In addition to getting a more realisitic test for what someone might be able to hope without spending a fortune on product, being limited in what you choose from can often create unique combos I might not otherwise think of.
Generally speaking, it usually only takes me about four booster boxes to have everything I need to build most decks from a set.
Here’s the deck build I came up with after purchasing the two starter decks, two deck boxes, and combining them all together for one solid deck.
The most noteworthy additions here are the four-cost Silverfang raid character who works fantastically in this deck and the handy zero-cost King character who works wonders when combined with the bigger Saitama. Here, however, he’s mostly going to be handy for resting opposing character.
One error I made in taking this picture is that I did not include a five-cost Saitama I happened to get from my two boxes. That was, again, just an error and by the time I tested this deck I had added the powerful five-cost Saitama into the deck.
Yellow Saitama deck – complete build
If you’re wanting to all the way with this deck, you have my support. This deck is going to be killer in the UNION ARENA meta and should give you as good a chance of winning as any deck out there.
Doing so also shouldn’t cost you a fortune as you’re only missing a few key cards. Of those, only a handful are going to be a little pricey, and those are the Genos SR and Saitama five-cost.
Otherwise the rest should be available for a pretty reasonable price.
For more info on how to play the advanced version of the deck, check out my Yellow Saitama deck guide.
After opening both the One Punch Man Starter Deck and two booster boxes (and pulling a signed two-star Garou card), I can say that this set is one of the best I’ve opened so far. Everything just works. The artwork is killer. The mechanics are excellent. Over all, it’s a fun, quality set that will likely be remembered as a highlight to these early days of the phenomenal UNION ARENA TCG.
