Can I get Nine Asuna UNION ARENA Winner cards?
Welcome to the 2026 edition of “can Joseph Writer Anderson collect nine winner cards?” Starting all the way back in Vol. 2 of 2025, I started my now tradition of attempting to collect nine of a given chase Winner card per each UNION ARENA Store Tournament series. Since then, I’ve been able to do it for each series. Will I be able to do it for the 2026 Winner Series and collect all nine Asuna Sword Art Online Winner cards before time runs out? So far, I’m off to a great start!
My first Asuna winner card after first place at an incredibly tough tournament
Of course, as a massive Sword Art Online fan I was very much looking forward to the 2026 tournament series ever since the UNION ARENA Vol. 1 2026 Winner cards were revealed in November. With Christmas and New Years (as well as the busiest season for the website), honestly this tournament series really snuck up on me by the time I went to my first tournament for it on Friday January 2nd.
After a somewhat painful loss by an awkward start, however, Asuna eluded me by one placement. I got top four and the gorgeous Tokito Winner card, but my first attempt at Asuna faltered.
Joseph Writer Anderson’s top four winner card from first tournament of 2026
I’ve been playing a ton of Yellow Mina from the fantastic Kaiju No. 8 set and it’s worked really, really well for me. However, Mina is one of those odd UNION ARENA decks that actually can be built and played in a vast variety of ways (as evidenced by the tournament I won the Asuna from which I’ll talk about in a moment). After losing the tournament mostly due to a faulty start that failed to produce a Reno Raid early on, I spent the entire night – literally I was awake deck testing until 7 in the morning – rebuilding Mina and testing it to be more effective at hitting the Reno Raid and two-hit combo early on. The end result was a much faster Mina build than I had before, as well as winning first place at a very competitive tournament with strong players.
Three Mina decks in the top four
Good thing I had reconfigured Mina to be faster and more reliable: the top players at this competitive 10-player event were also running Mina, albeit different versions. My first opponent was fielding a Kikoru/Mina hybrid build – one that has seen success in the Asia tournament scene. Despite hitting an incredible two specials and one color trigger out of his life, I was still able to barely secure the win that relied on a perfect sequencing play to see as many cards as possible before dropping the one-cost Mina for a game winning Raid Mina/rest attack final life play.
The second player I faced wasn’t running Mina but another Kaiju Yellow deck – the aggressive Kikoru deck and was piloted by a powerful player and personal friend, Edgar who had come to the tournament with me. As expertly and flawlessly as my opponent played, Mina does have the advantage in this matchup as long as you can survive until your Mina Raid’s start coming on-line, as Mina provides more board control than anything at Kikoru’s disposal.
Finally, it was a mirror match: Mina vs. Mina in the final. Despite my opponent being obviously a skilled player (and the guy his local crew looks up to for rulings etc), this was the only game that really didn’t feel very close – I just had a much stronger start via Reno into the Bako early that kept me ahead for the majority of the game.
Joseph Writer and friend, Edgar, after first successful Asuna winner card claimed
The end result from my second tournament of the year was bagging the prized Asuna Winner Card. Complete with Asuna’s outfit from the Progressive films, it’s a gorgeous card and one of my favorite Asuna cards to date.
The second Asuna came after a tough battle against Lancelot
The cool thing about UNION ARENA is that you don’t always have to go undefeated to get the winner card you want. After a few tough rounds that included a very intense battle against a skilled Lancelot player and a mostly masterfully won battle against a Red Attack Titan deck, I ended up losing in the final round after not drawing a single zero after an incredible four whole turns.
I rarely concede in a UNION ARENA battle and this was one of the few times I ever actually scooped. Still, my opponent was after the money Asuka Evangelion Winner (the most valuable right now on the secondary card market), leaving me the Asuna Winner and three prize packs for my second place finish. My Sword Art Online prize packs were pretty fire, too – each had a hit and I bagged a Leafa, an Asuna Goddess, and a rare alt art Leafa Goddess card (which will be going straight into my collection case).
A few strategic plays won me the battle
The most exciting battle of the night came versus one of the strongest Lancelot players in the land in the second round of the three-round tournament. Going first I opened a little more slowly than I’d usually like as I had limited low-cost characters forcing to field them to my back line until I hit three and could raid my Reno. However, once I did that, I ended up having three full attackers on the front line turn three. My opponent – who had an even slower start – didn’t have anything to block me, and all of those three hits swung through.
He did get a Lancelot Air Cavalry out of his life, however, and the following turn he was able to quickly catch up thanks in part to two final cards that filled his front line with solid blockers.
That turn I simply used my special to eliminate the raidless Lancelot and played a two-cost Mina to the back line, letting me get five attacks off in a single turn. However, my opponent hit yet another raid out of life, this time having the energy and target to raid out the Air Cavalry and shut down two of my attacks.
The following turn was his strongest yet, and he did manage to get a single Damage 2 attack through. Lucky for me he hit an Active trigger and a Mina Raid. I chose to keep the Mina Raid in hand and used the Active Trigger to prevent him from hitting any more of my life that turn.
The fateful Soshiro
The following turn I would make what would turn out to be my most vital decision of the game: playing the two-cost Soshiro to my back line. While I had plenty of options to choose from, I just felt like I might need Soshiro and his resting effect at some point soon.
Sure enough, after a reasonably successful attack into my opponent, he responded by removing my mina via another Lancelot Air Cavalry, and finally swinging through enough damage to bring me down to just two life left.
This was a ton of pressure to deal with – two Lancelot Air Cavalry on the board at 5000 BP a piece, and two more 4000 BP bodies. And while Mina isn’t able to swing over these big bodies, she can rest them and effectively swing around them.
I had one last Mina Raid in my hand at the start of my turn, and just as importantly the two-cost Soshiro on my energy line. I also had a Reno Raid and Raid target in my hand, four energy on my energy line after pushing the Soshiro up. The play became apparent to me from the start: I would have to switch my Shoshiro to resting, rest an opposing character, play the one-cost Reno, Raid the the Reno, play a Mina from my hand for free, and finally Raid out the five-cost Mina, rest the second Air Cavalry, and attack with four attackers into a defending front line of just two active characters and two-life left.
It was a gutsy play that payed off, but tracing my plays back to the moment that decided the game for me, and it was putting that two-cost Soshiro onto my back line just in case I would need him later down the road.
Stay tuned! I’ll be updating this article with more tournament wins as I make my way to that coveted nine UNION ARENA Store Tournament 2026 Vol. 1 Asuna Winner cards!
