1st Place Kaiju No. 8 Yellow Mina Deck | UNION ARENA
Kaiju No. 8 isn’t only an epic anime with an insane soundtrack, now it’s a fantastic UNION ARENA set perfect for both newbies and seasoned UA players alike. My favorite deck from the new set is the Yellow Mina deck that focuses on one of the strongest characters in Kaiju No. 8.
Below, I’ll be walking you through the deck I won a12-player tournament with. We’ll be going over everything from card choices, to sequences, strengths and weaknesses of the deck, and some alterations you may want to consider in your own deck building process.
Kaiju No. 8 Yellow Mina deck list
It’s pretty clear upon playing this deck even only casually that there’s something here. The deck has strong consistency and a few unique mechanics – like the four-cost Mina who attacks from the energy line. However, above and beyond the other aspects of the deck that really make it stand out is the incredible five-cost Mina Raid herself.
Mina Ashiro Raid card breakdown
There’s a lot to unpack here with this card and really understanding what make her so good is subtle and can be easy to miss. So let’s start from the top and work our way down.
Impact 1
So actually, the only less good thing about Mina is also the part of her abilities that is the most straightforward. Impact’s a fundamental keyword after all, however the circumstance under which Mina gains Impact is relatively niche – you have to have a Bakko on the same line as Mina. This means having a Bakko on your front line when you attack. You only have two different Bakko cards to choose from in your deck, and both can be hard to keep around in their own way.
On the one hand, you have three-cost Bakko: this deck’s color trigger and an all-around solid card. Bakko lets you move cards around your energy line which can have multiple strong uses, and also generates two energy when on the energy line. However, you’re going to need that Bakko on the front line for your Mina to have Impact, and quite honestly that’s just not always going to happen as you’ll often need your Bakko on the energy line due to it being one of this deck’s primary sources of energy.
The other Bakko is admittedly quite good. It adds a layer of protection to your Mina when she is on the front line while also enabling the Impact. The only problem is how many other solid attackers you have in this deck, making it hard to find space for it.
I ran it at two in the above deck that won the tournament, but might up it because of how nice it is to have the name on the field when you need it most.
Mina’s “When Played” rests a character
Mina’s When Played effect is decidedly strong, and pairs especially well with her Activate:Main which stops characters from switching to active the next time they would. There’s not a lot more to talk about here other than because of Mina’s Impact, this “When Played” effect is decidedly stronger, meaning you can easily deal with a Nullify Impact character in situations when you need to swing to close out the game.
Mina’s Activate:Main effect is what makes her stand out
The above effects we’ve covered coupled with Mina’s base stats (five energy cost, 4000 BP) alone aren’t quite enough to elevate her to top tier status. But her “Activate:Main” effect certainly is.
The strongest thing about this effect that “freezes” opposing, resting characters by stopping them from switching to active next time they would is that it isn’t limited to the turn she is played. Essentially, manage to get a few Mina characters out on the field and you can continue to force even multiple targets to stay resting turn after turn.
This is a very similar advantage to what makes Roy Mustang such a dominant threat in the UNION ARENA meta. Getting Roy out once is bad. Fail to remove him the very next turn and he’s going to cause serious damage.
You can think of Mina as a similar sort of character, and it’s thanks to her Activate:Main ability.
The Other Mina
Now let’s talk about your other 4000 BP Mina.
While this Mina is strong – her attack from the energy line and staying there can be very helpful – she’s not nearly the powerhouse her raid is. For this reason, you can typically get away with running just four of her. She’s a handy character to keep on your backline to double as energy assurance and an extra attack, but typically you’ll be moving her to the front line after a turn to act as any other 4000 BP character with a few added benefits.
Bolstering the BP of other characters on your field.
Letting you draw a card When Attacking (assuming Bakko is on the same line).
This Mina is still definitely a must in your deck, but she’s far from your main attacker and – of course – isn’t designed to be.
Secondary attackers
Now that we’ve gone over this deck’s main mechanics and core attackers, let’s focus on the secondary attackers you can use to gain the upper hand. Apart from the Mina and the Bakko which are fundamental to your Mina strategy, you have two: Soshiro and Reno.
Both have distinct advantages and as such it can be a little tricky to figure out the exact ratios of these guys in this deck.
Soshiro
On the one hand, Soshiro feels like he fits this deck like a glove as a secondary attacker. You already are going to want to run his zero-cost character as he lets you draw-one-sideline-one (essentially a must-have in top-tier decks) so why not run his Raid? Additionally, two-cost Soshiro is also quite solid, letting you easily rest an opposing character before Raiding over it. This combos very effectively into your five-cost Mina or just as a way to soften up your opponent’s defences.
Meanwhile, Raid Soshiro himself lets you draw a card and also can’t be blocked by characters with 3000 BP or less. Play your cards right with your various resting effects (five-cost Mina, three-cost Mina, two-cost Soshiro and even your Yellow Color Trigger) and you could potentially use Soshiro to close out the game simply because all of your opponent’s high BP characters are resting.
Reno
Meanwhile, Reno also feels like a card worth adding to the strategy. While he plays less directly into Mina than Shoshiro does, he adds viable early game aggression that’s hard to beat. Generate three energy and raid him up and replenish your energy line at the same time, giving you really solid answers to early game plays your opponent comes at you with.
While the Japanese meta tends to favor Mina/Reno heavy decks, I prefer Reno at a lower click. He fits in relatively easily because you have to essentially run his zero-cost anyways. However, he becomes less effective after the early part of the game where your strategy switches to a more control-focused one with five-cost Mina at the helm.
Tournament matchups
1st of 12 winning deck
Before wrapping things up, let’s dive into the actual matches I ran into at the tournament. I find it very helpful to go into key factors when facing down top decks at tournaments for guides like these, and hopefully they’ll give you a strong starting point to work from when piloting your own Mina deck at a tournament.
Round one versus blue SAO
This was the quickest round of the night, and really just came down to a much stronger start mixed with controlling the board. While my opponent did rally once with a few strong attacking turns, Mina’s resting and Reno’s aggro were too strong for this deck to deal with.
Round two versus Mustang
Mustang has two regionals under his belt at this point in the English version of the game, and we all know he is no slouch. As such, you can’t really afford to mess around when going up against Mustang, and the key card in this matchup was actually Reno.
Playing Reno enabled me to get three attackers out onto the frontline early while also letting me play a Bako for free to the energy line to ensure I would be stable for the next turn. Failing to hit a solid energy line and not getting much help off of life triggers made it all but impossible for my opponent to rally back after such a strong opening succession of turns and I won this round.
Round three versus Saito
This was by far my toughest match of the night. Saito is an absolutely deadly deck and I totally failed to get an early game aggression against him, meaning we were going pretty much tit-for-tat the entire time. I’m not sure that’s the best place to be with Mina, however I was able to keep things going evenly down to one life each. It was the final turn, however, that matter the most and required some absolute finessing to get right.
Essentially, my opponent had a full front line and I had one character on mine. It was not a great place to be in and there was only one play that could really win it for me – a five-cost Mina. The only problem? I didn’t have a Mina Raid in hand, and I’d already used two.
So the name of the game became “can I find my Mina” and it went like this:
AP draw to see another card. Luckily I did this because I landed the one-cost Mina that lets you search.
Next, I played a Bakko to the front line and moved my Raid Soshiro back. This means that in the event that I find a Mina, I would have the Bakko to fulfill the Impact requirement and enough energy line to ensure the Raid.
Next I played an AP extending “This Is Who I Am Now” and then the one-cost Mina to search. Raid Mina was the very last card in the four-card pile.
Raid Mina, rest the Saito with Nullify Impact, swing for game.
This was the first time I ever actually played Mina other than a few practice games against myself so coming up with that game-winning sequence was very tough in the moment, and getting the Mina was a very good bit of luck, making the Saito matchup the toughest of the night by far and a game I could quite easily have lost if things hadn’t gone my way.
At the end of the day, the Yellow Mina deck is arguably the strongest Kaiju No. 8 deck in UNION ARENA, and also likely to be a top tier pick going into competitive events. Keep an eye out for this behemoth deck at your next UNION ARENA tournament!
