UNION ARENA: Sword Art Online Mother’s Rosario Deck Guide
Mother’s Rosario is one of the best Sword Art Online arcs. It also happens to be a deck in the SAO UNION ARENA set. Focused on the interplay between powerful Asuna and Yuuki cards, this deck can power up to be quite tricky. In the right hands, it can also be effective. Below, let’s look at my custom build for this new deck and how to pilot it to success.
Boost Asuna by sending key cards to sideline
This is the second deck in SAO’s innagural set to feature Asuna as a primary character. Indeed, this deck’s strongest card is the Asuna raid. The core mechanic here is to get as many Yuuki/Mother’s Rosario cards into your sideline as possible in order to grant Asuna the following effects:
Four or more: When Attacking: Draw a card.
Six or more: 5000 BP and Damage 2
Eight or more: Can’t be blocked by a character with 3000 or less BP.
While you’ll need to put some work in to unlock these effects, unlock them all and Asuna becomes a force to be reckoned with.
The really effective part here is the combo of Damage 2 with not being able to be blocked by 3000 BP or less characters. Your opponent is going to want to stop the damage 2 from coming in, but not being able to throw away a chump blocker means they’ll likely have to sacrafice one of their stronger characters to keep the hit from coming through.
Three-cost Asuna also benefits from cards in the sideline
Your raid Asuna isn’t the only reason to work on stacking your sideline. Three-cost Asuna becomes a powerful 4000 BP character with Impact once you reach three Yuuki/Mother’s Rosario cards in the sideline. A 4000 BP character with Impact is pretty insane considering this Asuna is just three energy.
Powerful Yuuki cards
This deck runs several powerful Yuuki cards. Let’s take a look at each of them starting with the strongest.
2 AP Yuuki
Your strongest Yuuki is your SR Yuuki. She’s got 400 BP, lets you draw cards when played, and most importantly comes into play set to active. 2 AP characters that come in Active are something of a staple in UA, and most of them are strong. Additionally, Yuuki can’t be blocked by weak characters with 2000 BP or less. For those familiar with how Purple Code Geass works, this is exactly the same ability that Gawain has, and is quite effective.
The only draw back of this character is also something of a double edged sword. While Yuuki will sideline herself at the start of your turn, that will only help bolster your Asuna. Additionally, when sidelined she will rest one of your opponent’s characters, creating further openings in their defenses for you to take advantage of.
Four-energy Yuuki
Additionally you have access to this handy Yuuki character, one with Nullify Impact included natively and a draw effect you can use to get more key cards into your sideline.
These cards help get more Yuuki/Mother’s Rosario cards into your sideline
To make it easier to find and get Yuuki cards into your sideline, you can use Yui and Silica. Yui lets you search out an ALO character from the top of your deck, whereas Silica easily lets you sideline any Yuuki you might find there.
While you could sidline Mother’s Rosario, that card is so strong your probably going to want to play it instead of just adding it to sideline it.
Mother’s Rosario is one strong special
Mother’s Rosario may be one of the strongest Special trigger events we’ve seen. It can easily bounce a character with 5000 BP or less back to the hand. Once you reach a mere three or more Yuuki/Mother’s Rosario cards in your sideline, however, it’s going to sideline the character instead.
Tips for how to pilot Mother’s Rosario to success
For the most part, Mother’s Rosario plays like a raidless rush deck, with the one exception of Asuna. As you won’t need to build up to any bigger characters, you can essentially be as aggressive as you want. Look to attack as early as possible.
Once you have your bigger characters on board, be strategic in how you attack, resting characters capable of blocking Asuna for example, and using Yuuki’s resting effect to poke holes in your opponent’s defenses. Score a direct hit with Asuna and you can take damage 2!
