Building BLEACH Purple Vol 2 Without Zero-Cost Rukia

Purple BLEACH was one of the first popular decks to threaten to dominate the UNION ARENA meta. Many months down the line, it’s still one of the strongest decks in the game, if having fallen just a little short of the top tier.

With the second volume of UNION ARENA’s BLEACH Thousand Year Blood War now slowly making its way into the hands of players everywhere, there’s one vital question on most of our minds: where is zero-cost Rukia?

Zero-cost Rukia was left out of the game to maintain balance

Zero-cost Rukia is a character card included in the original Japanese UNION ARENA BLEACH base set (in the starter deck) which was omitted from the English version of the game. While the decision had been made in order to maintain balance in the game, most assumed she would be included in BLEACH Volume 2.

Well, as it turns out Volume 2 doesn’t include the powerful zero-cost Rukia, making us wonder if she has been cut from the game entirely.

What makes zero-cost Rukia so strong?

What’s the big deal about a zero-cost character?

To be fair, it’s not that Rukia is such a powerful character on her own. It’s what she accomplishes when paired with Ichigo that makes her a problem. Indeed the UNION ARENA game producer herself highlighted how leaving her out of the game was necessary to create a fun environment for the UNION ARENA meta to thrive.

It’s not super hard to see why — if zero-cost Rukia were allowed into the English version of the game with the same effects as in the Japanese one, she could very rapidly fuel BLEACH Purple’s sideline that could make it hard to deal with for other decks.

For starters, the card itself enables you to send the top two cards of your deck to your sideline when she is sidelined.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, she acts as a rather easy Raid target for your four-cost Raid Rukia.

Raid Rukia further enables you to bolster your sideline, letting you draw three cards and then discard two. That’s a very strong draw effect with essentially no downside, letting you see more cards while also getting more in the sideline to easily power up your other characters.

Is Zero-cost Rukia really worth removing?

At this point in time, it seems that Bandai has removed zero-cost Rukia from the game. Which begs the question: was doing so really necessary?

The game designers seem to think so. While I’m not entirely sure myself, I tend to want to side with Bandai here. The UNION ARENA meta is a very balanced one, with many decks capable of winning tournaments. That’s been carefully cultivated by the Bandai team responsible for UNION ARENA so I trust they know what they are doing in helping keep any single strategy from gaining an unfair advantage.

Is Purple BLEACH still good without zero-cost Rukia?

The next thing Purple BLEACH players will undoubtedly be wondering is whether or not the strategy is still worth investing in without the zero-cost Raid target.

The answer? It certainly is. Indeed, Purple BLEACH still gets stronger with Volume 2, complete with a new four-cost Ichigo with Damage 2, a powerful Kisuke searching card, and the underrated two-cost Rukia.

These combined help modernize Purple BLEACH in the current meta. While it may not be overwhelmingly dominate this way, it’s still quite strong and certainly among the top 5 decks in the game with these buffs and possibly even in contention for top three.

How to Build Purple BLEACH after Volume 2

While there have always been several ways to build Purple BLEACH, the best has been focused around Ichigo and Renji.

That’s likely to change after Volume 2 hits the shelves, however, depending on what direction players take.

For example, with the new Raidless Ichigo, you could conceivably play Purple BLEACH without any Renji Raid at all, as seen in the list below.

Purple BLEACH Ichigo/Rukia deck list

Despite the many ways to build Purple BLEACH, the Ichigo/Rukia build is likely to be strongest. This deck is all about power: looking to rapidly fuel your sideline to leverage strong removal effects and Damage 2 plus Impact Ichigos.

Really, you have everything a strong deck needs thanks to your three 4000 BP Ichigo, with Rukia providing more reliable support thanks to the new two-cost Rukia available in this set.

While a two-cost Raid target is arguably less solid than a zero-cost one, from my early tests it feels much more handy and reliable than the comparatively cumbersome three-cost Rukia. Additionally, being a two-cost character that boosts to 3500 BP while having the Active trigger is no laughing matter.

Orihime, meanwhile lets you rapidly fuel your sideline without much energy requirement, while your Kisuke lets you search out what you need from the top five cards of your deck with relative ease.

The Byakuya BLEACH Purple build

While you could fairly easily drop the Rukia and go for the Renji in her place, doing so will be at the cost of some additional card draw and sideline fueling, making that less than ideal. However, there is another BLEACH Purple deck that benefits perhaps even more from BLEACH Vol. 2 than Ichigo and that’s Byakuya.

With an additional Byakuya character, and a new Renji, Byakuya finally feels like a deck in its own right, and not just a watered down version of the Purple BLEACH strategy.

Byakuya works seamlessly with Renji and Rukia, while having much stronger removal powers via BP reduction than ever before.

Both builds demonstrate the power of Purple BLEACH in the current UNION ARENA meta — no zero-cost Rukia required.