How Snipe Quietly Took Over the UNION ARENA English Meta
Following the latest UNION ARENA Regional in Florida, what are the strongest decks? While on paper you’ll see one story – Yellow Sakamoto dominated the tournament from a play share perspective – the bigger picture tells a different one. Snipe is strong in the UNION ARENA English meta right now, and for that reason it’s largely dominating the game.
Three of the five deck types in the top 16 were Snipe decks
While Yellow Sakamoto taking up nearly half of the top 16 decks is a big enough play share steal to be noticeable in a game like UNION ARENA that typically boasts a varied meta, when you factor in the fact that a staggering 12 decks that made the top 16 cut were Snipe decks, you begin to realize just dominant Snipe has become.
Yellow Sakamoto’s preferred build at the Versus Games regional was the hybrid
The hybrid version of the Yellow Sakamoto deck was the overwhelming favorite build at the UNION ARENA Versus Games Regional in Florida. This deck leverages the Impact/Snipe power of Mashimo, the frustrating hand control of Raid Shin, and the solid free play power of four-cost Sakamoto. When combined its a powerful trifecta that clearly was strong enough to dominate the top 16 from the tournament.
Arguably, this result is enough to solidify Yellow Sakamoto as the strongest deck in the UNION ARENA English format right now. But more than this, Versus Games really makes me want to start questioning the role of Snipe in UNION ARENA: especially when Snipe is paired with Impact.
There are very few ways to stop a Snipe deck
Whenever UNION ARENA keywords are combined the end result is often something strong. One of the strongest keyword combos in the game, for example, is the Impact/Damage 2 combo: one that forces your opponent to make a bad decision, or a worse one when it comes to their blocking pattern.
However, the keyword combo that is now owning the game is the Snipe/Impact combo. Shadow Army has it, Yellow Sakamoto Hybrid has it, and Purple Saito has it. And really, it’s not entirely hard to see why this deadliest of combos would be gaining so much ground right now: there’s not any good way to stop it.
While the game has been filled lately with strong anti-ability defenses (Yellow Sakamoto is a great example of this with plenty of abilities that prevent your opponent from “choosing” your characters), very little in the game can stop Snipe.
Off the top of my head, I can only really think of about two characters capable of preventing Snipe, and they are both pretty niche. One is the four-cost Rengoku from Demon Slayer, the other is from Purple Chihiro.
Having almost no way to stop Snipe is largely what’s causing these Snipe-heavy decks to be so dominant right now. While plenty of decks have ways to deal with Impact/Damage 2 threats (Nullify Impact shuts it off instantly) and increasingly more decks can shut down removals via character effects (Yellow Sakamoto, Song, among others), no meta-relevant decks outside of Purple Chihiro can shut down Snipe. And that might be a problem.
Why Snipe/Impact is so strong
While Snipe itself is a strong keyword ability, without Impact it’s essentially just removal. Combine it with Impact, however, and it becomes incredibly deadly. Indeed, if it weren’t for the Impact, none of these decks would be nearly so dominant. As if it weren’t enough to have a keyword like Snipe that gets around all the anti-choosing effects out there (sniping doesn’t count as “choosing” so characters that prevent “choosing” won’t stop it either), combine it with Impact and suddenly players can pick and choose which character they want to remove AND what life they want to take.
Snipe/Impact plus free play is the new gold standard in UNION ARENA
For a little while there, it felt like decks that could free-play, or rapidly play characters without paying an AP cost, were the new cream-of-the-crop. However, decks that can free-play and Snipe with Impact are even better. While plenty of decks can Snipe, and many can Snipe with Impact, it’s the decks that can Snipe/Impact, and play sometimes multiple characters for free in a turn (that can easily be buffed to big threats) that are the real threat in the game.
This also still makes me wonder: where is GGO?
As far as Snipe decks go, GGO is one of the strongest. It has all of the above: Snipe with Impact, and a powerful free play off of the six-cost Sinon we got from Vol. 2. It easily goes toe-to-toe with the other decks that topped this regional, and yet is still not being played at a high volume. That’s strange, but also good for every other non-sniping deck, granting just a little wiggle-room.
UNION ARENA could benefit from more anti-Sniping defenses
Given these latest tournament results, and perhaps the back-to-back Shadow Army top, it seems like –more than ever – it may be time for UNION ARENA to print more anti-Sniping defenses. A Nullify Impact character that MUST be chosen by your opponent’s attacks if it is on the field, for example, or more staple cards to shut off Snipe like the two shared above would go a long way in balancing out the UNION ARENA English meta once again.
Either way, congrats to all the Versus Games Regionals top 16! You can find the full deck breakdown via Egman Events.
