UNION ARENA: Yellow Saitama One Punch Man Deck
One Punch Man is a very hyped set for UNION ARENA and it brings a range of powerful and exciting mechanics into the game the likes of which have not been seen before. Of the many decks that are coming out, however, the single strongest appears to be the Yellow Saitama deck, the same deck that we are also getting a starter deck for.
Picking up two of these starter decks is a great way to start building your deck, and it comes with many of the pieces you are going to need to build a solid Yellow Saitama deck. For the rest of the cards, check out the list below.
Five-Cost Saitama card breakdown
As it should be, Saitama is the key character in this deck, and you have three different versions of him to use – each of which is quite strong with a base stat of 10000 BP. This is pretty fitting with the show as no matter where Saitama is or what he’s doing one thing is for certain that he’s incredible strong.
Let’s talk about arguably this deck’s strongest version of Saitama and that’s the five cost variant.
There’s a lot to digest about this Saitama card, but the two biggest things that make this card strong is the fact it has 10000 BP and an effect that makes it almost impossible to be removed from the field.
How strong is 10000 BP?
10000 BP can feel very, very intimdating at first. But what does it mean, really?
Well, it certainly is a strategic advantage, but it’s a more narrow advantage than you might think. Having 10000 BP gives Saitama a few use cases that aren’t available to a regular 5000 BP. By having that extra 5000 BP, Saitama can:
Attack through any other non-Saitama character regardless of an Active Trigger. This could reduce the effectiveness of Active Triggers in general once Saitama takes his rightful throne somewhere near the top of the meta.
Avoid being taken out by most BP reducing effects.
Block virtually any attack regardless of boosts from a non-Saitama character.
And that’s about it. So while all of that’s cool, it’s not exactly game breaking – Saitama essentially only has a few added powers that a normal 5000 BP doesn’t, but that doesn’t come without it’s own fair share of tradeoffs.
The biggest trade off is that when attacking he freezes himself, making it unlikely he’s going to be able to defend an opposing blow. That also eliminates one of the three main advantages of leaning on his 10000 BP in the first place.
Saitama can’t be removed from the field by opposing abilities
Another seeming advantage of the 10000 BP is that Saitama can’t be removed from the field by specials that only target 5000 BP or less characters. However, that’s not really a factor given the fact that Saitama basically can’t be removed by effects, abilities or triggers at all. This is a huge advantage in a game that’s dominated by decks that love to remove, remove, remove.
It’s also the other key differentiator about this card that is going to help catapult Yellow Saitama to the top of the standings in the UNION ARENA meta.
Saitama has two of the strongest keywords
So as if all of that weren’t enough, Saitama has the Damage 2 keyword right off the bat, comes into play set to active, and gains Impact 1 by just discarding another Saitama from the hand.
For comparison, this essentially makes Saitama as effective as Air Cavalry Lancelot while being playable for only five energy.
The trade-off
However, this five-cost Saitama does come with a pretty significant tradeoff – that being Saitama remains set to resting the next time it would switch to active. That means you essentially lose him as a blocker the following turn. That being said, there’s a huge loophole to this trade-off that makes it significantly less bad, and that’s if you have King in play.
While there’s a lot to look at here, King essentially lets you avoid Saitama’s “when attacking” effect by switching him to active. Of course, Saitama won’t switch to active right away, but after you use this effect, he will switch to active during the End phase, making him capable of blocking attacks the following turn.
While King does have another effect you can activate if he is on the front line, he’s really just here to help switch your Saitama to active. Keeping him on your energy line to use him to restand your Saitama is the way to go.
Four-cost Saitama brings powerful removal
If you thought that five cost Saitama was the only thing this deck had going for it – think again. Four cost Saitama is also quite, quite strong, and brings insane added removal into your deck. You simply play him and remove a character with 4000 BP or less – no strings attached.
The only drawback here is that you have to send him to the bottom of your deck after you play him which essentially means you won’t be playing him again that game. It also means you’ve wasted two AP on playing a character who won’t stick around.
As such, that’s a much bigger drawback than what you get with the five-cost Saitama.
However, that being said, you can use your one-cost Silverfang to recycle this Saitama by bouncing him to your hand and playing him again the following turn, thereby almost ensuring you will have added removal then.
Silverfang can then switch himself to active assuming you’ve played him that turn or simply grant himself additional BP. He also makes for a fantastic raid target for your four-cost Silverfang who protects your characters with a defensive layer while enabling incremental draw support to an energy color typically lacking it.
One more Saitama
The last Saitama we’ll talk about is the three-cost 10000 BP Saitama. And just writing that feels crazy because a three-cost character with 10000 BP is pretty insane.
Additionally, this guy doesn’t have huge drawbacks. He does move back to the energy line if he’s on the front line at the end of the attack phase, meaning you aren’t gonna be using this guy as a blocker. But he makes for an excellent energy generating presence on your energy line, or as a discard target to grant your five-cost Saitama Impact.
Don’t overlook his effect that you can activate during your main phase, either. Using this effect you can move him up to your front line essentially whenever you want. This is especially good if you need him on your energy line at the start of your turn to play powerful characters but want to attack with him after you’ve played your cards out.
Playing Genos
Genos is a central figure to this deck – as much so as Saitam in a lot of ways. He’s got both your Color Trigger and your Special Trigger cards, making him in some ways this deck’s backbone, if not its strongest, flashiest card. Your zero cost character is simply here to be a raid target or to allow you to play your special.
Three cost Genos has a powerful collection of effects
Meanwhile, you have a three-cost Genos with the special who also has Nullify Impact. More and more we’re seeing Nulify Impact characters make their way into the metagame with added incentives to play them as opposed to the simple zero-cost Nullify Impact characters without triggers we got in earlier sets.
As if that weren’t enough, when Genos is defeated in battle, you can switch another character to active. That’s pretty insane and could be used to block two attacks via Saitama if you set things up correctly.
Raid Genos is a handy supporting attacker
Finally, Raid Genos is relatively strong with an effect that grants Impact for a turn when Saitama is on the field and also a defensive “when sidelined” effect that lets you play another Genos from your hand.
Genos certainly doesn’t pack the kind of punch Saitama does, but is a powerful supporting character in this powerful deck.
“One Punch” stands up to the lore as a powerful event
By now we’ve covered just about every powerful card and combo this deck has to offer save one – the exciting “One Punch” event card.
As if this deck weren’t already insane enough, “One Punch” lets you deal an instant damage to your opponent’s life assuming they have more than three life around, or also grants impact to a Saitama character on your field. This means you could essentially turn your five-cost Saitama into a damage 2 Impact 2 character, so long as you have everything you need.
This is pretty extraordinary and just goes to show you how broken Yellow Saitama has the potential to be.
Yellow Saitama’s impact on the metagame will be resounding
Now that we’ve gone over every single detail about this deck, it seems worth noting just how impactful this deck is going to be on the existing meta. Undoubtedly this deck will be tier one. As such, a few outcomes are likely once this deck gets released into the wild.
Rush decks will become more popular again
First, it’s quite likely that decks that counter this deck will once again make their way to the top of competitions. One deck that’s been seeing less play lately due to the current meta’s ability to rapidly remove characters it the once-popular rush strategy. Rush decks are aggro decks that look to leverage low cost characters to overwhelm the opposition essentially with bodies.
Decks like Toshiro Green or a heavily rush focused Yellow Tanjiro could become very popular as these decks won’t mind they can’t remove Saitama but will instead look to work around them.
Saitama has a few tools to deal with rush decks with the most notable being the Genos characters that let you restand resting cards and play another character from your hand.
But they are just minor defenses in a deck that otherwise doesn’t fair particularly well gainst the rush playstyle.
This isn’t a huge advantage against this deck because Saitama isn’t particularly high end in regards to energy cost. It’s just that a lot of the advantages you otherwise gain playing yellow Saitama are otherwise nullified by rush-style decks.
Nulify impact will rise in popularity
Nulify Impact has been slowing making its way into the UNION ARENA metagame as time has passed. Impact is just such a strong keyword and countering it is well worth the space it takes up in your deck. Also, newer decks tend to have stronger Nullify Impact characters than were originally available in the game.
A handy way to deal with the hyper-powerful Saitama is simply to block his attacks with a Nulify Impact. Given One Punch’s ability to grant Impact 1, it feels like just about every deck should run at least four Nullify Impact cards in their deck.
Active triggers could be less effective
Right now, the Active trigger can be very, very strong as it essentially allows you to block any attack. However, Saitama hits over Active Trigger blocking boosts. If everyone starts playing Yellow Saitama, it’s quite likely that the Active trigger will be less effective and less focused than it once was.
BLEACH Purple could get more popular again
Finally, BP reducing effects are just about the only thing in the game capable of removing a Saitama from the field. It’s a total pain and inconvenience to pull off, but theoretically cards at BLEACH’s disposal like five-cost Ichigo can remove Saitama as the latter’s “Cannot be removed by opponent’s abilities” doesn’t apply to BP reduction.
Whatever the case, it’s highly likely we are gaining another tier 1 deck in the form of Yellow Saitama. It’s even possible Yellow Saitama will be tier zero, causing every deck to tech specifically with it in mind.
While it’s too early to know for sure, it’s fairly clear that this deck is an incredibly strong new addition to the game, and quite likely the single strongest One Punch Man deck in the set.
