Volume 2: Electric Boogaloo

Sep 16

32 min read

Everyone’s on that sequel hype train. There are more movie sequels and p

requels coming out than ever before. It’s often a safe bet to take what worked in the past, re-hash it, re-master it, and re-release it to make a quick buck. Union Arena isn’t safe from this mindset.

In light of this corporate mentality and Hollywood ethos, I have assembled a brief dissection and digestion of Volume 2 sets in Union Arena

Tier 4 Highlander II: The Quickening (Standing in as Code Geass Volume 2)

I Paid $80+ For THIS???

Code Geass Volume 2 is, in a nutshell, hot garbage. It’s total ass. It’s got like two whole plot threads that go anywhere and they’re basically what the first release was doing just tidied up. There’s not a ton really going on here, and what is going on, is pretty… bad. I’m usually Mr. Optimist when it comes to underdogs, but even I have a hard time hyping this set up. If you’re trying to get a friend to try out one of these decks, just put them down gently. Tell them it’s a joke or some avant-garde, dadaist impression of a Union Arena deck. Getting someone to pick Code Geass Volume 2 up is so difficult, that most stores that I know of which carry Union Arena… this box might be one of the only ones they still have on shelves, year round, with not a soul buying them no matter the price. A cinematic and commercial failure… what can we even salvage from this set?

There’s No Such Thing As Bad Pizza

I remember when I was opening this set up, there was very little fanfare about it. If you opened up a bunny-suit Kallen R★ [CGH-2-038] or SR★ C.C. [CGH-2-066], those were likely the only exciting hits anyone would give a second glance over. And yeah yeah, I know… waifu cards are always going to have pull. But for these two cards? They were good additions! They had solid effects, slotted in naturally into their corresponding decks, and added a new play you could perform that advanced your strategy.

I bring C.C. up because I was trying to lab out how to make Red Pizza C.C. work, but it was a real struggle. It’s always like this with event-cards-in-sideline decks… the juice is seldom worth the squeeze. But with this card? I felt like I could sneak in wins. I could dump useless cards out, or consume more pizzas, and refill my hand with more ammo. The fact it can grab out more pizza searchers when sidelined is a great addition too, so there’s an upside on this card even when it’s removed from the field. That being said…? One green haired witch eating a pizza does not make for a locals-topping strategy.

Still, if there’s one thing I like in this movie? It’s pizza. And if there’s two things I like in this movie? It’s pizza and our leading lady, the C.C. raid character.

Green Aggro is a Shockingly Effective Twist, But An Underwhelming Delivery

The Lancelot deck is a big energy deck that puts the player up to the task of generating a full eight energy in order to play out a juggernaut of a card. Lancelot Air Cavalry [CGH-1-060] is a late-game control strategy which intends to sideline your opponents characters and swing in with Damage 2 and Impact checks with massive 5000BP robots. This includes not only the titular Air Cavalry, but also baby Lancelot [CGH-1-059] to swing with enormous bodies that your opponent won’t have enough removal to deal with. It’s a solid deck, and in a pre-Red Kenshin world, it was a very strong meta contender. This set even gave it the last energy card it needed to truly shine in Nunnally vi Britannia [CGH-2-052], a pseudo two-energy card that gains its extra energy dot once the back line was filled, which is what you were planning to do anyways, alongside speeding up the strategy to help it fall more in line with modern meta pacing.

This set gave it more support. As an aggro deck. As the antithesis of what the strategy originally was. The very strange green aggro combo: Knights of the Round.

There are some stand-outs here, like Lancelot Conquista [CGH-2-060] looking like a card most aggro decks could only dream of with its 5000BP plus (usually) Impact body and ability to make your weaker characters go from 3500BP to 4000BP. Even the new Suzaku Kururugi [CGH-2-055] feels like a solid idea in this deck, giving other Knights of the Round characters Damage 2 on their attacks. Slap that on a Lancelot Conquista, and you’re swinging a 5000BP Damage 2 Impact 1 card almost like it’s the real Air Cavalry coming at your opponent. Still, that’s really all that’s happening here. Also note: that sequence above with the impressive stat line is a two card combo, relying on a When Attacking trigger. The Knights of the Round, despite playing faster and still composing an effective aggro strategy, don’t really reflect what made Lancelot such a cool deck to play. Characters like Mordred [CGH-2-059] and Tristan [CGH-2-058] are going to spook an opponent who has no idea they’re coming out to get them, but once you get familiar with the play patterns in this deck? It’s not hard to stuff it into the dirt, and it’s exceptionally easy to deal with relative to the Air Cavalry deck premiering in Volume I.

Making a complete archetype 180 feels cheesy, campy, and kind of uncanny.

Bromance In Red Was Not What This Movie Needed

There are no red Ashford Academy cards higher than R rarity. I suppose that’s nice for people looking to play a Code Geass deck that’s easily accessible. Still I’d stick to Volume 1 for that, because all of the cards that make this deck function… are in Volume 1. Who planned this sequel out?? The only possible additions to Ashford I can see being feasible are Villetta Nu [CGH-2-064] if you want to add in some mid-game Step tech, and Anya Alstreim [CGH-2-063] who can become a formidable attacker. I should mention Cupid’s Day [CGH-2-073] as it’s a Color trigger and also an Event card that can be used to toss more event cards in your sideline, but… to be honest? I don’t think it’s worth it. Losing out on Suzaku Kururugi [CGH-1-073] in what’s functionally an aggro deck feels like a big loss. You can’t combo Cupid’s Day with Gino Weinberg [CGH-2-068] for instance. I suppose if you’re playing a lot of Lelouch in Ashford Academy, Rolo Lamperouge [CGH-2-072] isn’t a bad choice, but Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-1-092] from Volume 1 is already a solid 4000BP attacker. Is it to boost Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-1-091] from the… pizza deck to 4000BP?? Are we really trying to make Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-2-070] a 3500BP attacker here? I’m so confused as to why you wouldn’t stick to what was working before in Volume 1 and just expand on it. I feel like this is a more lore-accurate recounting of all of Ashford Academy’s student body… but I really don’t care who’s in the AV Club or who’s the new guy on the soccer team, I just want Suzaku Kururugi [CGH-1-074] to make my 3000BP dorks be a nuisance and swing twice. Where’s my new 3000BP guy in Ashford I’m supposed to swing with??

What Even Happened to Purple

2AP strategies are always a hard sell. From Blue Fort Briggs in Fullmetal Alchemist to Hashira in Demon Slayer, there’s always friction when a lot of your plays hinge on mandatory 2AP cost characters entering play. This set supports Purple Lelouch as a new archetype, adding in more 2AP cards in order to make the strategy more cohesive. But honestly? Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-2-042] is such a let down for a payoff, and let me explain why.

2AP is a difficult cost in Union Arena. You need to strike the balance of it being too much value in a single card, versus not having enough to make it playable. In most cases, the solution is commonplace: Staple on a pseudo AP Draw effect and then either have it play Active or have some kind of small-body removal. The best part, is if you’re feeling lazy, you can have it function as a 1AP card, but slap 2AP on it and have it play from hand at a discount when some easy condition is reached on your board state, ala CCG's Reaper [TKG-1-029] (a lot of 2AP event cards follow this pattern). Chihiro Rokuhira [KGR-1-059] plays active and draws a card. Mitsuri Kanroji [KMY-1-020] doesn’t play active, but gets to sideline something. These cards are balanced, as all things with 2AP cost should be. The losers in this dichotomy are cards like Renji Abarai [BLC-1-105] which only provides some small amount of removal. Granted, Renji is an older card, but he wasn’t passing the sniff test back in the day either. The winners of this value un-balancing are cards like Asuka Shikinami Langley [EVA-1-013] — having enough effect text to nearly cover her face — who plays active, sidelines a threat, and can even gain Impact.

So why bring this up now? Well, Purple Lelouch Lanperouge has tons of these cards, and they all fall on the weaker side of the 2AP card power scale. Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-2-042] is the best of them by far, allowing you to custom-make a 2AP staple with the three common effects above.

For the cost of a 2AP card in hand. Are you noticing the problem here?

The only luxury a 2AP card affords you is not taxing an additional card in your hand. You get a body on field and removal. You get a character in active and draw a card as if you performed an AP Draw. Lelouch here? He outright negates that upside, and negates it in a way where you have to have a 2AP cost card exactly to make playing him not utter trash. His other forms don’t pass muster either. Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-1-103] is a slightly better Renji. Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-1-017] is a bizarre card that makes your opponent discard and lets you draw two when he’s sidelined. The best card in the Lelouch deck isn’t even Lelouch — It’s Kallen Kozuki [CGH-2-038] of all people, who provides the exact effect a deck like this wants: reducing the AP cost of an AP2 card. It’s so frustrating seeing a complete miss on almost all 2AP cards in a set that really wants to feature them, but it’s a complete disaster.

Blue Is So, So, So BAD

When a Volume 2 comes out, it’s typical to have a new color introduced to the set. Blue is the color introduced into Code Geass. This is to provide people who either came into Union Arena late or bought the Volume 2 box before their Volume 1 boxes some cards to intrigue them alongside other colors, but also to give them a strategy they can start building right out of the box. These would be Shen Hu and Rolo/Lelouch Lamperouge.

Holy fuck, these decks are so bad.

Let’s start with the easier pill to swallow. Shen Hu [CGH-2-030] looks like a real sweet card. 4500BP, Impact, and non-sidelining removal. This guy can also hit even harder if you boost him up with When Shen Hu Wins Glory [CGH-2-033], which turns him into a 5500BP, Double Attack, Impact 1 juggernaut of a robot. And check it out! They even snuck in that 2AP event card becoming 1AP motif too. Sweet!

Shen Hu, however, misses out on some thresholds. Bouncing a 3500BP character is nice, but 4000BP is the golden standard for what’s considered a “good” attacker. Anything higher is awesome, with 5000BP being the threshold for being a “great” attacker. Notice something about Shen Hu…? Yup, he’s at 4500BP, so he’s in that weird gray area where he’s able to block 4000BP attackers, but can’t stuff a 5000BP blocker on your opponent’s field. For those good at reading, you may also notice he has an effect outside of his Raid text: “(If on the Front Line) At the end of your attack phase, sideline this character or place one card from your hand into your sideline.”

Awesome. Mr. Mediocre here even taxes your hand at the end of each attack phase.You can avoid this with Tianzi [CGH-2-020] in your energy line, but that makes you have to consider additional prep-work before you raid this guy. It feels like Tianzi is more for making Li Xingke [CGH-2-024] have a better When Played effect, but no, it’s primarily to make Shen Hu not eat a card from your hand at the end of your turn. There’s a lot of frustration here, because in my opinion, the rest of this archetype… works just fine! The low-energy ensemble of Chinese Federation is a buttery-smooth playstyle not uncommon to other Code Geass decks. This deck just shits the bed with its disappointing playmakers, leading to a distorted sense of power being held in your characters, but it just never pans out.

And what about our bromantic couple, just a pair of bros, Rolo and Lelouch, in their robots fighting together? Awful. I dare say you’re better off just piloting Shen Hu and rolling the dice on your opponent not knowing what Chinese Federation does. This deck’s playmakers are Shinkiro [CGH-2-028]. Vincent (Rolo Fighter) [CGH-2-026] and Rolo Lamperouge [CGH-2-026].

Shinkiro is a good card. 4000BP, Impact, and an ability to make himself immune to trigger abilities and character abilities, making him safe from any annoying life triggers that may interrupt his attacking. This is really solid, honestly, and the more Shinkiro you have on the front line the better. His counterpart, Vincent (Rolo Fighter), is the enabler for the deck. Stunning a character when he’s played, to being able to rest himself to rest another character means he’s excellent at controlling blockers, forcing your opponent to block with cards they’d rather not. He can even get right back up with Locket [CGH-2-037], a kind of signature event card in this deck. From what I’ve noticed, the more Lockets you are able to resolve, the better this deck functions.

And that’s about all the good stuff. Rolo Lamperouge [CGH-2-016] is a card with an utterly baffling effect, targeting cards with such specificity it’s almost comical. It’s like playing a character card where if it’s a Tuesday, after 8:00pm, and your opponent is playing a yellow deck, you’re allowed to draw one card when he’s played. Madness. I’ve never seen his effect go off, and he’s functionally a 4000BP beater you can use Locket on to set him active, costing two cards in hand for what amounts to a 5000BP vanilla your opponent’s just gonna chump-block anyways.

There’s also this… weird inclusion of C.C. in blue that feels like she’s really out of place. Her Akatsuki Follow-Up Specs (C.C. Fighter) [CGH-2-025] feels like it makes 3500BP attackers relevant against a wall of 4000BP defenders… those attackers being exactly C.C. [CGH-2-005] herself? And Lelouch Lamperouge [CGH-2-013] maybe?? It doesn’t help Sutherland Flight-Enabled Version (Jeremiah Fighter) [CGH-2-027] because he attacks at 4000BP. It’s a Negate Impact card however, so at least the C.C. Fighter shows some greater purpose that’s obvious to everyone: It stops Shen Hu from hitting you with Impact.

Unless Shen Hu targets her with this returning to hand effect.

What a confusing trainwreck of a sequel…

Tier 3: Tron Legacy

(Standing in as Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 2)

Technically Admirable, Ultimately Underwhelming

Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 2 is, in a nutshell, not good. It’s totally cheeks. It’s got like two whole plot threads that go anywhere and they’re just basically what the first release was doing just tidied up. One thing that this set has in common with Code Geass Volume 2 is that the new color they released was kind of a flop. While one may argue that Chinese Federation in Code Geass is better than both Red Jujutsu Sorcerers and Red Womb Paintings/Cursed Spirits combined, I rate Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 2 higher because while it had a bigger flop on the new color released, it supported its other colors admirably well. Blue Sukuna, Yellow Megumi/Shikigami, and especially Purple Todo got incredible cards in this set, whereas in Code Geass we got a C.C., a Nunnaly, and a Kallen… and that’s about it for stand-out cards.

The Defensible Blue Sukuna and Purple Todo Additions

In most bad movies, there are very few times where in the entirety of its run time the movie is utterly indefensible and unwatchable. You’ve got everything from so-bad-it’s-good to the unrealized potential of a sequel where post-hoc explanations and world-building is back-filled in by a fandom desperate to polish the diamond in the rough. Blue Sukuna and Purple Todo support for this Volume 2 is that very essential juice needed to keep a poor showing tolerable.

Purple Todo at face is a good deck, but it was clearly lagging behind the times. Every new archetype from Black Clover all the way to Bleach Volume 2 had new bells and whistles to show off. Rotating the position of two characters from front line and energy using Aoi Todo [JJK-1-081] was losing its luster. Who’s your back-up play even? Kasumi Miwa [JJK-1-084] popping a 3000BP character at best?? It was starting to feel stale and underwhelming.

When suddenly, like a beam of light from the heavens, we got the Volume 2 support we’ve been craving. Aoi Todo [JJK-2-010] able to swap itself between lines to smooth out your energy curve, Ultimate Mechamaru, Mode: Absolute [JJK-3-027] in order to sideline sites and 3500BP or lower blockers, even Toji Fushiguro [JJK-3-026] as a tech card in case you wanted to surprise your opponent by playing a game-ending Snipe plus Impact attacker. You could even include Kasumi Miwa [JJK-3-028] in this list, seeing as the card you pitch off of this could be an Aoi Todo [JJK-1-081] you could raid later using a Goodwill Event [JJK-1-096]. There were a lot of crucial additions to this strategy that are hard to imagine playing without this Volume 2 update.

Sukuna received more than his fair share of support too. The Yuji Itadori [JJK-2-006] backline energy generator was a way to increase energy production in a deck where you were often Raiding guys off of the back line. This could act as a two-energy generator in a pinch, or a raid source if you had a glut of two-energy generators already. We got Yuji Itadori [JJK-3-013] to act as another attacker, additional hand filtering, and bringing down the cost of the new Sukuna [JJK-3-015] in a deck which already had a glut of exceptionally powerful Sukunas. This Sukuna is a juggernaut of a card, offering card draw, discarding from your opponent’s hand, reducing BP, and sidelining low-BP characters all in one card. Considering this new Sukuna was a late-game staple, you could reasonably be expected to have at least two of these effects go off at once. This package of cards was a reason that a lot of people I know switched to pure Blue Sukuna builds and stopped splashing in Kento Nanamis. You didn’t need him any more, and trying to squeeze him into a deck meant you were likely going to be missing out on access to come stronger Sukunas for finishing off your opponent.

Taking what’s good and making it better is a hallmark of good support. I’d love to see the look on someone’s face who’s a fan of these two decks try to play them in their original state with just Volume 1 cards. It feels like fighting with a hand tied behind your back now, which is always what you want to see with a Volume 2 set. If it isn’t re-imaging a strategy into a comparable counterpart, you want to see what was working in the past, updated to match the ever-evolving pace of the game.

The Missed Opportunities of Yellow Sorcerers, Yellow Gojo/Geto and Blue Kento Nanami

The other decks that received support from this set all got some good pieces. The one-energy Kento Namai [JJK-2-008] adds a defensive card to a deck that wants to go into the late-game, powering up one of your other blockers if he’s the one blocking first, as well as milling cards from your deck. Seeing as Kento wants to hit his overtime as fast as possible, any amount of removal of cards from your deck helps. The Raid Kento Nanami [JJK-3-019[ follows a similar philosophy, adding a mid-range raid card that helps in slowing the opponent down while also providing milling and additional advantage when attacking if you’re already in overtime. These are, admittedly, good cards. They support the Kento Nanami strategy and I’d be remiss if these weren’t added as 4-ofs to any Kento deck. That being said… they feel a bit paltry. A bit of “too little, too late” for setting up a late-game win condition where raiding back-to-back Kento Nanami [JJK-1-054] is what you’re relying on to close out games. Sukuna gets to very rapidly search and discard cards from its deck, but this same haste isn’t afforded to Kento who has, in my opinion, a lot more restrained of a payoff. This feels like clear favoritism, but I guess getting updates to this deck isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Yellow Megumi/Shikigami got some more Shikigami and searchers for said Shikigami, which is about as good as you can hope for seeing as a lot of this decks plays have to be executed in a particular sequence. Megumi Fushiguro [JJK-2-005] is a early-game searching for Shikigami, or dumping a Divine Dogs: Black & White [JJK-1-024] into your sideline. Rabbit Stampede [JJK-3-008] and Max Elephant [JJK-3-009] allow you to play said Elephant onto the field active, making him a very energy-effective 4000BP attacker. Megumi Fushiguro [JJK-3-007] even offers the deck additional sidelining, albeit requiring a bit of prep-work before you play him. I felt like this deck played a lot more consistently after these cards were introduced, but the Chimera Shadow Garden [JJK-1-027] is really the sticking point in this deck. It’s a powerful field card, but the amount of preparation you need to set this up for multiple attacks at the right time for it to be effective is still troublesome. I just wish there was a Megumi who let you play this out for free, you know?? That’s always been the issue with this deck: you need to see the right pieces, at the right time, played in the right order, and hope everything goes smoothly. That’s a lot of wishful thinking. I feel additional consistency tools would have given this deck the bump it needs.

Yellow Nobara/Toge/Gojo is still pretty much… unchanged? Nobara Kugisaki [JJK-2-002] is a card you can play now, which is a cool little addition to recycle the necessary event cards in your sideline. Still, your best card in this deck remains Panda [JJK-1-017]. Best to stick to mostly Volume 1 cards for this strategy.

There’s instead a side-strategy introduced in this set, pairing up Gojo and Geto as your primary playmakers. Initially, this sounded like lots of fun for me, a guy who liked the idea of using Cursed Technique Reversal: Red [JJK-1-030] and Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue [JJK-3-012] to mess with your opponent’s positioning in order to create chaos. Even Satoru Gojo [JJK-3-006] let you search for these cards while typically being a gnarly attacker at 5000BP and Impact on on your turn. There’s even a Damage 2 flavor in Satoru Gojo [JJK-2-004] who lets you search when sidelined, which is about my least favorite time to be searching, but it’s there at least. Even Suguru Geto [JJK-2-003] has his place, making your Gojos into larger attackers to really make sue your attacks kill anything in their way, as well as generate an additional energy in frontline, though at the cost of one card in hand, that’s not worth it much in my opinion. Now, for the astute of you, you may have noticed an issue here: No one here is a raid character. If you need to play a five-energy character, it’s best you play them out as active if you want them to get any kind of attacking in the turn you spent AP, or else you have a massive target on your back. Trust me, your opponent is going to bulldoze you over with their attackers if you don’t get a few swings in to soften them up.. Enter Riko Amanai [JJK-3-001], a card which makes this deck function by setting your Getos and Gojos to active… by discarding a card in your hand. Yup. Once per copy of Riko Amanai, you can discard a card from hand to give your guys the privilege of being able to attack the turn they’re played. In other words:

Get used to not having a hand. Get used to those cool event cards you fit into your deck to be discarded just to get some half-decent attack phases in. The worst part? If your opponent rids your front line of Gojos and Getos entirely? She scurries on up to your frontline, disrupting your own energy line by her effect. What an absolutely evil woman. This entire deck felt like it didn’t need this limitation. Gojo and Geto are characters that want to gain advantage the longer they can attack without being disrupted, and this woman does the disruption.

It just goes to show you that a supporting actor can be the one to sabotage the entire script if you let them.

Red JJK Is A Bad Joke That Lingers For Far Too Long

Let me be brief here: these two decks are bad. Laughably bad. I don’t even want to discuss this too-too much, but let’s at least mention the decent cards here.

Yuji Itadori [JJK-3-043] is a pretty unique card. It’s modal in the way that you can choose to give it Impact or a weird, pseudo-Double Attack that can tax frontlines lacking in blockers. Choso [JJK-3-062] is an effective raid character that draws a card to replace himself in hand and play an Eso or Kechizu onto your field, a notably useful effect in a teamwork-style deck.

And that’s it. Every single other card has a bizarre drawback, is outright mediocre, or has an underwhelming quirk which really puts me off from playing them. Suguru Geto [JJK-3-039] requires an embarrassing amount of setup to get him moving. Satoru Gojo [JJK-3-052] is a cheap 5000BP blocker at best, and a complete waste of AP at worst. Nobara Kugisaki [JJK-3-049] needs you to play a goofy matching game with your cards to -3000BP a character on the field, plus discarding a card to give an attacker +500BP is really steep for a cost. Prison Realm [JJK-3-070] is removal that’s at five-energy cost and forces you to play it for 2AP unless you trudge a Geto up on your frontline or have some Womb Paintings in position. When you got a brother adding four copies of Mei Mei [JJK-3-057] because she’s a no frills, well statted attacker over your more complicated playmakers, maybe you’ve over-designed your cards into a corner…?

Miserable. Awful. And worst of all? Convoluted, which is something you never want your plot described as.

Mahito? Mahito Who?

I will now rant about one of my most hated mechanics they love putting into purple Union Arena decks: Sideline your own characters to perform an effect. You need to realize something about this: It’s hard to balance properly. Think about what you’re doing if you sideline a character on your own field: you remove a card you paid an Action Point for and was currently providing presence on the board (be it as energy or a front line defender), plus the card itself. You’re minus one both a card in hand and an Action Point worth of influence on your board. You need to make the effect you’re getting from this self-sacrifice worth your while, either by getting that Action Point of value back or by getting the card back, ideally both.

Considering a strong contender in Union Arena now is Purple Reze/Bomb Devil, a deck that performs this strategy to great effect, let’s compare and contrast. Bomb Devil [CSM-1-017] often will sideline a Denji in order for it to gain effects. This typically has the effect of strong removal (-5000BP), or in the case of the other Bomb Devil (CSM-1-016], becoming a plays-active, 1AP, 5000BP Damage 2 plus Impact 1 beast of an attacker. The Denjis you’re wanting to sacrifice also often have effects to search your deck to replace themselves too. You’re doing a lot of sidelining on your field, but you’re often even or slightly ahead of the cost you paid in both cards in hand as well as AP. It’s a solid strategy for this exact reason.

Now let’s look at Mahito, specifically Mahito [JJK-3-035]. It has a removal ability similar to Bomb Devil, which is good. We like removal. However, this is at the cost of sidelining two cards with unique names on top of that. It allows you to draw cards back into your hand in order to replace the cards you likely used to trigger this effect. So far so good. But what’re we missing here?

Oh yeah. Two whole Action Points, plus you had to spend 1AP just to raid this guy, an attacker that is a 5-energy raid character that can’t even sideline 5000BP defenders with this ridiculous condition.

I’m not even going to talk about the triggerless Mahito [JJK-2-011] which is supposed to provide you more energy when something on your field is sidelined. Thanks, boss. I appreciate you generating one more energy when I’ve already blown up my Transfigured Person [JJK-1-072] I was going to feed into my Self-Embodiment of Perfection [JJK-1-094]. You know who makes two energy permanently for me…? Hanami [JJK-1-089], and there’s honestly a decent chance I’m going to make her cost 2-energy when in hand considering how much yellow is represented by strong decks.

Dude, get your shit together. This is embarrassing.

Tier 2: The Matrix Reloaded

(Standing in as Hunter X Hunter Volume 2)

The Most Okay Sequel

When in the presence of a masterpiece, it’s hard to follow up what was so foundational. From the first Snipe-Impact deck in Kurapika, to the gimmicky wonder that is Purple Phantom Troupe, to the first deck where sites ever mattered Blue Specified Slot, this set is a cornerstone in Union Arena. Even if it’s overshadowed by its brother Bleach, Hunter X Hunter Volume 1 is still a set you have to respect for all of the design and gameplay patterns it ushered into the game as a whole. If I’m ever teaching a person new to Union Arena how to play, I give them a Hunter X Hunter deck immediately because they’re just such good teaching aides. It’s a simple premise for a simple film, but if you want more of the first without much fuss? This is a good set to look at.

Yellow Decks Are Unique But Not Noteworthy

I’m usually the biggest defender of a teamwork deck, one where you need to have all characters of a team assembled on the front line to get some really great effects. It’s a nice excuse to make cards more powerful then they should be. If you, for instance, need to have a deck where four uniquely named characters need to be on the front line to get their full line-up of effects, you can make the individual cards underpowered, but when the entire team is assembled, make their effects highly synergistic. This can turn a wall of 4-energy 4,000BP beaters into something more interesting where their When Attacking or When Played effects layer on top of one another. It adds a layer of skillful execution and deliberate deckbuilding that’s often under-represented in Union Arena. For the best example of this, I recommend looking at 2.5D Dimensional Seduction decks in Asia format. Take a look at the cards below and you’ll realize there’s not only a sequencing required to get all of their effects to properly work, but they often do a lot more together than a single card of comparable cost would be able to muster.

This is where I have an issue with Hunter X Hunter’s new yellow decks. They’re both teamwork decks, one based around Razor and his Nen Beasts, making the “team” more about the [Nen Beast] tribal tag while the [Razor Attack Team] does the same but with their own names included. Where this falls short is that the pay off for these effects is very narrow and very specific. You can’t mix-and-match these cards to gain their effects in the sequence you’d prefer. In the case of the [Razor Attack Team], it’s almost always mandatory to Raid the Killua, Raid the Gon, and then play Hisoka somewhere after that. These plays can be separated by whole turns as well, meaning you have to hope your opponent is either too obstinate to read your own cards or is playing completely recklessly. Teamwork strategies tend to come unglued when your opponent can pick out what piece of this team is your lynchpin and then topple the rest of your front line like you’re playing anti-Jenga. If, for instance, in your 2.5D Dimensional Seduction Angel Airborne Cops deck you opponent removes a Nonoa, you might have one in energy line you can just push up to the front line and get all of your effects back, or you can be sneaky and hide one in hand so your opponent wastes their removal on a card you have redundant copies of ready to play next turn. It’s a good mind-gaming strategy that rewards you for obfuscating what you’re planning to do.

These yellow decks feel like teamwork decks that are not structured in this way. It’s all-or-nothing with these decks. Is there a universe where, for instance, Razor Attack Team sees its pieces in the sequence it needs to see them and completely steamrolls you? Yes, it’s possible, and any deck with some access to Snipe-Impact tends to have this advantage, but it’s such a specific line you have to go through it’s seldom worth the effort required to go through with it. Even if you’re playing [Nen Beast], the amount of times that deck is required to see their Raid Razors [HTR-2-008] to sneak in a win is uncanny. If the entire deck revolves around that one card, it’s not much of a teamwork deck, is it? Even if the Nen Beasts themselves can swing in with large BP values like a discount-brand Shadow Army, you really don’t want to be relying on them as your primary attackers as you gain much more value if they stick around on the field. These yellow decks feel really gimmicky and poorly planned out, and it really upsets me that there’s this kernel of brilliance inside of them that refuses to be opened up and explored further.

Blue and Purple Additions are Fun Flavor for Quirky Decks

I do like the added support for the blue and purple decks in this set, and I’ll start with the good on the blue side.The Specified Slot deck received very unique sites like Blue Planet [HTR-2-049] to help add to the already-powerful draw engine of Specified Slot as well as Killua Zoldyck [HTR-2-043] to help play cards like the old Gon active. You could cut down on cards like Toraemon [HTR-1-016] now, though I’d still recommend it for having unique names for your Specified Slot effects. Overall, this isn’t terribly impressive, but it promotes the intensely fast draw power the deck is known for as well as covering its weakness by adding one more Specified Slot you can reveal.

Team Genthru got more interesting support and even one funny little piece of tech you could mix in. With added copies of Sub and Bara you can include more cards that are two-energy or higher without whiffing the effects of Bara or Genthru. Team Genthru is a great addition as well, as having your old Color trigger be forced onto a 2AP card is kind of a feels-bad kind of inclusion you’re forced to take but may not want to bother with, as its value to justify that 2AP cost just isn’t there. One of my favorite cards from this set however is the hilarious Out!, an effect which lets you target your opponent with a Risky Dice, turning the d20 on your side of the board into a grenade that’ll be rolled under one of your opponent’s feet for laughs. These cards are overall welcome additions, but there’s not a whole lot pushing the envelope here. Good additions, but after a while, they just start to feel like cards that should have been printed in Volume 1 but they held off on giving them to us for whatever reason.

Except for Out!, which is hilarious and a great inclusion. I only wish more cards could weaponize gambling like this one. Maybe a poker gam card for Jojo when it arrives…?

The purple decks in this set are much like the blue ones: they’re good additions but ultimately feel very safe. They feel like cards we should have gotten much earlier. For instance, I always felt like the new Raid Killua Zoldyck felt like something we should have gotten earlier, as no raid-able Killua Zoldyck in a proper Zoldyck deck just felt incomplete.

Green Got An Alt-Build (It’s Kinda Okay)

This deck might as well be the bogeyman. It is a massive impediment to Red Kenshin, and every single piece of it feels like it’s made to make your life hell. Let’s start with the obvious one: Kenpachi Zaraki on a stick, it can be hard to keep up when Misato isn’t playing cards out from your life.

Tier 1: Shrek 2

(Standing in as Bleach TTYBW Volume 2)

A Stand-Out Sequel With Astounding Ideas

Bleach Volume 2 does one thing right across the board: it gives you what you wanted and more of it. That’s all a Volume 2 really ought to be at its core. It’s a simple idea, but a well-executed simple idea is a classic. It upgrades and updates, innovates and intrigues, it slaps ass and takes names. The unfortunate part about a lot of these strategies that their best cards are not from this Volume 2 set, but rather the New Card Selection Pack, which I had to unfortunately take Bleach Volume 2 down from the top position in this list. Still, in a world where the New Card Selection Pack was blended into this set? This would be an easy A+, but I had to downgrade it to an A- in rankings language purely because I felt it would be disingenuous to mention the strength of these Volume 2 decks without that caveat.

Blue Does 2AP Right (And Mayuri Is Okay I Guess)

In most bad movies, there are very few times where in the entirety of its run time the movie is utterly indefensible and unwatchable. From so-bad-it’s-good to the unrealized potential of a sequel where explanations and world-building is back-filled in by a fandom desperate to polish the diamond in the rough. Blue Sukuna and Purple Todo support for this Volume 2 is that very essential juice needed to keep a poor showing tolerable.

Kenpachi, Shunsui, Shinji, and Yamamoto Are An All-Star Cast

Bambies is Sternritter Done Better

Purple Ichigo is a Solid Support Actor

Tier 0: Terminator 2

(Standing in as Sword Art Online Volume 2)

It’s As Good As The First One, If Not Better

Sword Art Online Volume 1 is a tough set to follow. It introduced Blue Aincrad which held its own in the meta for many months, Yellow Goddesses which made getting hit advance your strategy in more ways than just fishing for life triggers, and Green GGO, a deck about snipers Sniping and femboy Kirito being the most terrifying 5000BP character since Lancelot Air Cavalry. Here’s the most important takeaway from this Volume 2: Every shot it took was a shot it landed. Every old deck got its love, every new deck got its time to shine. I can’t imagine a Volume 2 working out better than Sword Art Online.

Yellow Integrity Knights is Pure Aggro Fun

In most cases, the issue with introducing or updating an aggro strategy is that the deck is a complete mismatch for it. How is Knights of the Round able to completely swing around Lancelot’s game into a watered down, inferior version of it? Why did Ashford Academy decide that it wanted to be another bland, event-focused mid-range deck? It’s hard to shoehorn this strategy into a previously existing deck because it operates on a level that doesn’t afford it any miscibility between other strategies (unless you’re Red Kenshin, a mid-range deck that starts as an aggro deck in the early game for some reason). Integrity Knights feels different. It felt like a strategy that was being teased in Volume 1 with this mysterious [Integrity Knights] tag on certain characters before we got the full ensemble of characters. The fact that they also have a very limited overlap with the previous cards in Volume 1 is actually a good thing here, allowing it space to breathe on its own instead of an imitation of another strategy. If your opponent isn’t aware how this deck operates, they’ll more than likely be eating a flurry of attacks at the start of their game that will quickly have them realize that they won’t have enough life to gamble with once you play out Perfect Weapon Control [SAO-2-012] alongside a few copies of Bercouli Synthesis One [SAO-1-017] and pivot to an Impact-focused finishing strategy. Some cards like Administrator [SAO-2-001] feel a little under the curve, but if you’re ahead on tempo, playing a card like this out to re-fill your hand and field with resources can help stabilize an unsteady midgame.

Blue Ain’t Broke, So Why Try and Fix It? They Just Let It Thrive

Blue Aincrad was the meta deck to play upon release. Having access to strong attackers who can duck in and out of the front line was a good way to get five or more attacks in one attack phase without having to worry about a Double Attacker getting stuffed by life triggers, or having high-value characters stuck on front line making them vulnerable to your opponent’s reactions on their turn. Keep in mind, this deck alone rotated Yellow Nezuko & Tanjiro out of the meta overnight, stealing its shtick and doing it much, much better.

You’ve got wonderful additions like Asuna [SAO-2-014] who helps provide an energy base for your 5-cost Kirito [SAO-1-041] while giving you a target you can swap to the front line and gain some draw power. Another Kirito [SAO-2-015] is good to have to boost the BP of units you can swap into. Even if you’re looking to use the Double Attack Kirito [SAO-1-104] from the starter deck, making everything that’s going to swing even bigger is never a bad idea and especially so if the character getting multiple attacks has its BP boosted. But this is all what the deck was doing anyways. What if you wanted to give the deck additional options in order to make the deck more customizable and flavorful?

Volume 2 introduces a strategy to use Lisbeth [SAO-2-020] alongside Crystalline Ingot [SAO-2-025] in order to give your Kiritos the Double Attack keyword, allowing them to swing twice without having to switch characters from your front and energy lines. This opens up a few lower-budget, more hybridized builds with access to Lisbeths and Lisbeth’s Smith Shop [SAO-1-108]. There are a lot of Lisbeths which might even make the cut, such as Lisbeth [SAO-1-048] to act as a two-energy character that gives advantage for switching or Lisbeth [SAO-1-061] which can draw in order to refill your hand. While this lacks the raw power of Asukas switching in and out with Kirito, it’s still enough to get 4000BP or higher attackers onto your field swinging multiple times. This variation feels more resource oriented, swapping around raw aggression to see more cards in hand and cycling cards in and out of sideline. You could even mention Pina [SAO-2-019] for these hybrid builds, acting as some decently priced energy generation in the early game and turns into a big attacker once you set up a Silica [SAO-1-043] to pull it out of sideline, making your draw-and-discard effects help load your sideline with a future attacker your opponent won’t see coming.

Green Ain’t Broke Either, But The Yuuki Is Super Welcome

If there was one issue with Green GGO, you might be able to describe it as a deck which had the largest gap between its highest highs and lowest lows. Even in a high variance game like Union Arena, this deck was chief among them. You had the opportunity to crush your opponent into a fine paste with back-to-back Sinon [SAO-1-043] raids, throwing in a Kirito [SAO-1-087] to threaten a long, grueling beatdown or a last hit with Impact to seal the game out. You might not even do that and just slap a smaller Kirito with a Photon Sword [SAO-1-099] and call it a day then and there. But the issue, as is with most big energy decks… you need to see your pieces consistently. You need to race to six or seven energy, start raiding, and keep raiding characters while keeping your hand filled. It’s not easy to do, and if your draws don’t work out smoothly, you might just stall out mid-game and end up getting rolled.

Volume 2 adds consistency, the one thing this deck really needed to shine. While not a GGO archetype card, Sinon [SAO-2-066] is still a valid raid target and can even look at the top two cards of your deck to smooth out your next few draws. The smaller raid Sinon [SAO-2-073] can both be used as a utility piece with its When Played effect as well as giving Impact to characters like it’s handing out Photon Swords. The most dangerous card in this deck is seemingly Kirito [SAO-2-071] himself, making Sinon and Kiritos raid characters a -1 energy cost if he’s on front line, meaning the difficult energy thresholds of six and seven energy are more manageable. He’s also a decent attacker at 3000BP, so if you need to put up a chump blocker like Musketeer X [SAO-1-094] on front line, you can give that +1000BP to this Kirito to keep him a threat even against staple 4000BP attackers. Smoothing out the bumps in this deck help it a lot, and though I’d be hesitant to call it a meta strategy (Red Kenshin ruined so many big energy decks), you can easily roll people with it, especially if you have luck on your side.

The other green deck, Green ALO, got some amazing support too. Namely: More Yuukis. That deck loves Yuukis. Hell, if it had its way, you’d play it as a mono-Yuuki decks kind of like Sheryl Nome from Macross. Fortunately, the Yuukis in Volume 2 play out your Asunas for free. The raid Yuuki [SAO-2-069] is the perfect piece of support for this deck. It sidelines characters, it free-plays Asunas, and most importantly, it sidelines itself. While normally I’d be railing on this effect being here, considering that Yuukis need to be in sideline to fuel your Asuna [SAO-1-071] as a finisher, this is a good thing, believe it or not, and it’s not like that AP you paid to raid the Yuuki is wasted because you can get an Asuna on field after she dies. It’s a really clean combo that helps progress the deck’s strategy, showing that a singular, simple addition to a deck might be all it really needed at the end of the day. I’d even like to mention the new Asuna [SAO-2-063] you can play off of Yuuki’s ability, which has its condition automatically fulfilled upon a single raided Yuuki to draw you a card. This color received very insightful additions, all of them welcome to their respective strategies.

The Yellow Goddesses and Yellow Kirito

Now that there’s a proper raid for Leafa (Earth Goddess, Terraria) [SAO-2-011], you can use your Leafas for recovering your life cards, an effect that’s exceedingly rare in Union Arena.

The other yellow teamwork deck also gets a raid character in Kirito [SAO-2-002], the one character missing from the original line-up of raidable names. This lets you raid these units in order to replace a name you might be missing from your front line.

Song and Progressives Are What Volume 2’s Should Be All About

When you’re dropping a Volume 2, there’s always that fourth color that’ll be getting two new archetypes which has people all excited. It’s hard to top two highly powerful, competitive decks coming out in your new color that feature gameplay that’s both strategic and satisfying. These decks aren’t holding your hand any more. Purple Song is a deck that tests your skill in arranging the sequence of cards in your deck along with how many and what specific cards are in your sideline. Purple Progressive tests your sequencing of Activate Main effects and how you intend to pick apart a board as well as bolster your own defenses. These decks are the advanced cinematography you get to savor after you master the basics of Union Arena.

Song’s strategy is to keep using event cards during your turn typically to smooth out your plays via Ubiquitous dB [SAO-2-061] and longing [SAO-2-062], cycling and searching cards from your hand that are both free if you have an AI pop idol on the field. You then play the Song card smile for you [SAO-2-060] to play out the cards you’ve been tossing into the sideline. This is a very purple kind of deck, and if you like purple sideline recursion decks, you’ll certainly like this one.

Your pay-offs are cards like Asuna [SAO-2-033], your staple 4000BP Impact character and Kirito [SAO-2-036], both a removal option as well as a Nullify Impact character, which is a nice bonus effect to tack onto any card. If you really want more on top of Kirito, Sinon [SAO-2-026] and Agil [SAO-2-045] are also options, if a bit cumbersome to include in this deck due to the amount of Yunas you’ll also want to include. You’re going to be filling your sideline to fuel Kirito, stacking the bottom of your deck to smooth out future draws, and constantly harassing your opponent with Yuna [SAO-2-031] in order to keep pressure on your opponent.

Unfortunately, the best song from this movie, Break Beat Bark, is not in this set and the writer’s heart goes out to this song being released in Volume 3.

Purple Progressives is a very solid teamwork-style deck with a very mutable board state. Your plays will typically hinge around Mito [SAO-2-054] or Kirito [SAO-2-049] due to their abilities to -1000BP characters on your opponent’s front line. This activates Asuna [SAO-2-042] in order to play Progressive characters onto your field active. Argo [SAO-2-044] is there for moral support, searching, and sneaking in that last check of life if your opponent doesn’t know how this deck works. One of the finer features of this deck is to use Pendant of Aniorite [SAO-2-058] to add protection to your key characters on your front line, and Asuna can have this effect placed on her for free. This gives the deck an extra point of decision making, figuring out if and who you’d like to protect with this effect.

In Conclusion

Bruh I fuck with it