6 Top UNION ARENA Decks from the Virginia Regionals Analyzed by Deck Sensei
The first major tournament of the UNION ARENA 26-27 Championship season took place over the weekend. I built the decks in the JWA Deck Builder and asked Deck Sensei to rank them. Here’s the results as well as my own thoughts on the top 6 archetypes from the event.
#1 Jinwoo/Cha Mill
1st Place Regional Champion Virginia Regionals ‘26-27 by Nick
Purple Cha/Jinwoo Mill was already the top Solo Leveling deck on my list. Little did we all know that it would top Virginia’s Regional – the first UNION ARENA Regional of the 26-27 Championship season!
Although I’m on the record for saying this deck was potentially S-tier, looking back even that was a little too conservative. With powerful forced block/Impact and freeplays for powerful 4000 BP characters that come in active, this deck seems to have it all.
To give you a taste of what makes this deck so good, I ran it through Deck Sensei – the new UNION ARENA deck coaching app that’s part of the JWA Premium Deck Builder. Here’s what Deck Sensei had to say:
Clearly, Deck Sensei knows what it’s talking about, granting this 1st place deck green checkmarks in every category! I love to see highly optimized, underdog decks like this one topping massive events. Congrats to Nick for the win – and really this is a win for UNION ARENA as a whole as it shows just how fun and varied the meta can be when the right restrictions are put in place.
#2 Purple Saito
2nd place by Dyne at the Virginia Regionals ‘26-27
For the most part, when UNION ARENA players have been talking about Kenshin needing a ban, they’re usually talking about Red Kenshin, But here’s Purple Saito proving his relevance! There’s nothing particularly spicy about this deck in its build, but it’s still noteworthy for being a deck that many have been overlooking lately in favor of some of the newer toys to play with.
#3 Gaius/Mari
2nd place by Sylviie at the Virginia Regionals ‘26-27
Although I was just praising UNION ARENA for making cuts to Gaius, this deck is still really strong. Players are leaning heavily into Mari to fill the void left by six-cost Asuka and the Spear of Gaius special, and it’s working. Congrats to Sylviie for landing this impressive third place finish and showing that Gaius still works plenty well even with the hits.
When I asked Deck Sensei its opinion on this deck, it just flagged the three finals as the only potential issue. Many players choose to run three although usually four is best if you can swing it. Clearly, however, it worked in this deck!
#4 Yellow Evangelion
4th place by Valdy at the Virginia Regionals ‘26-27
Yellow Evangelion made up the biggest playshare among the top 16 decks – a feat which could lead to the deck being considered the best UNION ARENA deck overall. While Purple Solo Leveling may have won, often it’s the deck that gets the highest amounts of tops that ends up taking the top spot in the meta, not just the deck that won.
I’ve long been critical of Yellow Evangelion. To me, this deck is not an overpowered deck that plays itself. It’s strong in the right hands, but has key weaknesses that you can certainly exploit – such as working around the four-cost Rei rather than removing her.
However, Valdy is a tremendous player (I’ve played against him myself before) and gets yet another top 16 to start this season out strong playing this fairly standard Yellow Evangelion deck. By the way, it was the top placing Yellow Evangelion deck from the regional, with two more making top 8.
I asked Deck Sensei to review the deck and it came up with the same result as Purple Solo Leveling: a perfect score.
#5 Red Kagurabachi
6th place by Raip’s Husband at the Virginia Regionals ‘26-27
Even though I don’t personally play Red Kagurabachi competitively (at least not yet), I still think this is such a sick deck. Insane removal meets Double Attack and one of the strongest free-play moves around thanks to four-cost Togo – what’s not to like about this deck?
Speaking of Togo, Rapi’s Husband chooses to drop Togo down to just three copies – something which Deck Sensei flagged immediately when I ran this deck through the analysis.
It still gets an optimal strong score, but dropping a powerful character like Togo tripped the yellow caution sign. Clearly it didn’t hurt this player’s chances too much – yet I personally would run the Togo at four despite the fact that many players are choosing to drop him down to a three-count in their deck.
#6 Red Kenshin
8th place by Rapi’s Husband at the Virginia Regionals ‘26-27
Many UNION ARENA players felt like Red Kenshin would swiftly dominate after the Gaius ban. However, in my opinion Gaius was largely causing Kenshin to be even stronger than it otherwise would be. Kenshin is extremely strong into Gaius, and without Gaius running around Red Kenshin has to face much more even-to-difficult matchups.
Plus, there’s Red Kagurabachi to contend with now. When I first seriously tested Red Kagurabachi I felt like that deck would eventually take Red Kenshin’s place in the meta. It can do a lot of what Kenshin is trying to do only a bit better. Kenshin has a more favorable matchup between the two into Gaius however. So with that deck being played less, Kagurabachi seems to have overtaken Kenshin for the time being.
Of course, when I ran this deck through Deck Sensei, the deck passed with flying colors as would be expected of a meta staple.
Congrats to everyone who topped the first regional of the 26-27 Championship Season! These decks are all highly optimized and have great marks from Deck Sensei. Test out Deck Sensei for yourself by heading over to the JWA Premium Builder, or get started crafting your own decks based on these excellent examples by clicking the buttons beneath each deck.
