Purple SAO Song and Dance Custom Deck List and Guide – UNION ARENA
Over the weekend I won my third UNION ARENA: Sword Art Online Rare Battle Winner, this time playing my custom deck I call “Song and Dance.”
This unorthodox build leverages the power of both strategies found within the Purple SAO Energy Color to unlock insane plays unparalleled in virtually any other deck.
And while I’m not trying to necessarily say this deck is objectively better than playing Purple Yuna or Purple Progressive via their more straight builds, the hybrid certainly unlocks advantages neither deck has alone. Indeed, when built this way it also serves to solve one of Purple Progressive’s greatest weaknesses: a hyper reliance on Raid Asuna.
Given the huge attention my X post got for this custom deck, it seems plenty of players are eager to learn more about how to play this truly unique deck.
Just bagged Asuna Winner #3 (5th Asuna #UNIONARENA RARE) with this tricked-out Purple SAO build featuring Song and Progressive. I call it”Song and Dance.” Special thanks to @Mylo_UATCG for bringing the Kayaba site to my attention. This is my fav build of Purple SAO so far! pic.twitter.com/OnqIl9DLc7
— Joseph Writer Anderson (@Jnderson007) March 29, 2026
Song and Dance Purple Sword Art Online deck list
You could call this deck a truly pure “Purple SAO” deck as it contains pieces and components from the two most prominent decks from that Energy Color. Of course, the strategy clearly favors Progressive over the Song deck, relying on Progressive’s core mechanics like the Asuna effect that switches a Progressive character to active.
What will really stand out to SAO-savvy UNION ARENA players is the inclusion of “smile for you” and the SAO Survivor Affinity cards – cards that almost always aren’t included in a deck like Progressive that relies so heavily on having “Progressive” characters on the field.
Yet, oddly enough, these two strategies work really well together, and even help cover some of the biggest weaknesses that Progressive faces.
Solving the Progressive problem
I should start this by admitting that neither Purple Progressive nor Song inherently need “fixing.” Indeed, I rode on the back of Purple Progressive to a top placement at the LCQ in Vegas, landed a spot in the invite-only North America Finals, and then went deep enough amongst the best players in North America playing the same deck.
Meanwhile, Song has seen modest success. At the same LCQ several players also qualified via Song and the deck has seen success at online tournaments. So what exactly is the problem?
Well, for the purpose of this article, let’s focus on the problems that Progressive definitely faces as a deck: the very problems that keep this fast and powerful strategy out of contention for the S-tier for most UNION ARENA tier lists (including my own).
Purple Progressive is painfully reliant on Raid Asuna
The idea to include smile for you occurred to me after narrowly losing one of my Rare Battle matches. It was a final round battle versus Blue SAO, and I lost largely from not seeing just one more Raid Asuna.
I’m not the kind of player to make drastic changes to a deck just because of losing a single battle. However, this only further solidified a trend I had witnessed over and over again when playing my favorite Purple deck: the deck lives and dies by Asuna.
In the past, I’d attempted to mask this hyper reliance on the Raid Asuna by using the powerful Pendant of Aniorite. Not only is that card powerful but it also is a key piece of one of the Progressive Film’s most important parts. So I wanted to include it for both reasons.
However, the Pendant is noticeably weak in the Rare Battle format that is heavily dominated by GGO – a deck that won’t be hindered even slightly by the Pendant as Snipe attacks ignore the ability-based protection the necklace grants.
While the Pendant theoretically adds some stickiness to Asuna’s Raid, the Rare Battle format led me to look in a different direction. At first, I prioritized speed over defense. It’s a strategy that paid off quite well, as Purple Progressive landed me my first two Asuna Winner cards – both of which had final rounds versus the favorited Green GGO deck.
Took down my second SAO Rare Battle after 3 rounds undefeated with Progressive #UNIONARENA — the Asuna Winner is gorgeous!
— Joseph Writer Anderson (@Jnderson007) March 16, 2026
Win vs mirror
Win vs mirror
Win vs GGO
Pro tip for rare battle — drop the pendant as it’s dead weight into GGO. Your only hope is to go really fast. pic.twitter.com/BHqWPwsA3l
And yet, I wondered if there was another answer to building a Purple Progressive deck that made the reliance on exactly four Asuna Raid’s in deck less of a glaring and easily exploitable weakness to the deck. I found the answer in a little Special Trigger card called “smile for you.”
smile for you forgives a multitude of Progressive’s sins
I really do have to dive pretty deep into this one as the plays smile for you unlocks in Progressive are both multifaceted as well as relatively advanced. Indeed, I wouldn’t recommend new players to start with this build, but instead to start with the regular Progressive Build I’ve written and shared about before.
However, if you feel like you’ve maxed out on Progressive and want an additional challenge for a high reward, this could be the deck for you.
So why smile for you?
The first thing you’ll notice about this Special is that it very easily does one thing that is extremely effective in Purple Progressive: it lets you bring a character back to your hand. I always advocate reading the fine print on cards yourself because oftentimes your mind will fill in gaps that aren’t necessarily there. Many might assume that you can only bring back an SAO Survivor affinity card from your sideline to your hand. But the card text clearly states “up to one character card” with no further requirements.
The SAO Survivor part only applies to the free play to active from your hand. And that is important. As you can see from my list I’m running several SAO Survivor affinity cards in my list to take advantage of this free play mechanic (something which solves another one of Progressive’s weaknesses which we will get into a moment.
The biggest weakness to Purple Progressive is not having an Asuna on your field: a weakness which – when exploited – frequently will cause you to lose a game. Having access to a Special that lets you bring your Raid Asuna back at will, however, massively increases the consistency of this deck. Suddenly it’s no longer an “Asuna or fold” mechanic, but a pretty reliable, aggressive powerhouse capable of handling even heavy removal decks like GGO.
Come back from a heavy removal turn
While Raid Asuna is integral to Progressive’s strategy – enabling you to switch cards like two-AP cost Kirito to active the turn he is played and unlocking crazy multi-attack turns via the combo between Raid Asuna and Mito, heavy removal is always a hurdle for this deck.
Because Purple Progressive is a deck that relies so heavily on combos, getting a full board wipe is often enough to fully shut it down in a way that other decks are less susceptible to.
While you might be thinking “well any deck is weak to a board wipe,” that’s not really the case. Decks like Gaius or Purple Yuna (song) can come back very easily from a board wipe and be even stronger the following turn.
Purple Progressive, however, struggles, and many of my worst losses have been after getting a full front line set up with my key pieces only to see them vanish from a particularly strong turn.
smile for you, however, eases some of that burden. While it’s primarily here for the ability to bring the Raid Asuna back to hand, it can also be used to play your Raidless four-cost Asuna set to active with Impact, your Kirito with the added advantage of gaining a Nullify Impact 4000 BP character (something Progressive rarely affords) or even the zero-cost Agil in a pinch.
Not only does this help you rapidly refuel your front line after a heavy removal turn, it lets you keep the aggression going: something which a typical removal special alone won’t be able to achieve.
Easily one of the strongest plays you can achieve with this combo is to use smile for you to bring back an Asuna who was sidelined to your hand while already holding onto the SAO Survivor Asuna. Now you will achieve both getting your most powerful character back as well as a free-play Asuna complete with Impact set to active who also can’t be targeted by opposing character abilities.
What’s not to love about that?
And don’t forget, in a pinch the SAO Survivor Asuna works as a Raid target, as well.
Removal specials aren’t always great in Progressive
My current list runs two smile for you and two Linnear – Asuna’s basic kill special. While this worked for me in the tournament I took it to (landing first place with this hybrdi build), after experiencing that success I could see you even further upping the smile for you special card count if you wanted to. For me, having two of the kill special and two of the smile for you unlocked the right amount of versatility and removal power that I was looking for.
While it might seem counterinuitive to remove a kill Special from a deck that lacks removal, the thing is very often you will find when playing Purple Progressive that having too many Specials on hand is actually a bad thing. Progressive is a deck that needs to be attacking aggressively to stay ahead. This means you won’t always have the luxary of playing a Special. Meanwhile, your heavy combat-focused approach to gameplay means that your opponent is often being forced to remove their own characters anyways.
Unlock removal and Nullify Impact via SAO Survivor Kirito
Two Linnears feels like just the right balance to get enough removal to matter without it cluttering up your hand, and still being able to take advantage of everything smile for you has to offer. Meanwhile, don’t forget that smile for you can act as a removal special as well when you need it to. That’s why you have the four-cost SAO Survivor Kirito with the Color Trigger.
While the Asuna play will more frequently be the one you’ll be looking to use, the Kirito removal comes in handy in a pinch – not to mention having a 4000 BP character with Nullify Impact is really strong.
If it weren’t for his having the Color Trigger I would probably run one more of this guy. However, your Argo is so necessary to your strategy – and honestly one of your strongest cards that even running just one of him hurts a little.
To make up for some of the search capabilities lost via dropping an Argo, I added in the powerful Kayaba site card – one that lets you search the top five cards of your deck for two whole Progressive characters.
While the cost of sidelining one of your own characters to use this this effect is a tall order for a straight Progressive build that already struggles into removal, in the smile for you variant this card actually shines. You can use it to remove one of your SAO Survivor characters, for example, and then combo with smile for you to bring them back – unlocking a five card search for two characters essentially for free.
Use smile for you/SAO Survivor combo as an early game aggression tactic
Before closing this whole thing out there is one more important play that this deck strategy unlocks that also solves some issues I’ve faced when running pure Progressive. While Progressive has one of the strongest early game combos in the game – either by pushing up your low cost characters to apply pressure before building up to your bigger combos, or by straight up fielding a Mito and an Asuna for a three attack turn very early, it suffers whenever you are forced to field one of your key characters before the combo is set up.
In a perfect world that would never happen. In actual competitive play, it happens all the time. I’m often forced between a rock and a hard place, needing to either field my Mito on her own or Raid an Asuna prematurely before being able to unlock the full combo that typically needs a two-AP Kirito or a Mito and an Asuna to unlock.
To that end, smile for you can be used as a low-risk early game aggression play. Assuming you’ve built up enough energy to play it (usually possible by turn three) and you have a smile for you and an SAO Survivor in hand, you can simply play it, bring a resource back, and field a powerful attacker/defender who won’t be easily removed.
Throwing an SAO Survivor out there to the wolves is a much better use of resources that exposing one of your key combo pieces early on before you’ve managed to get the maximum benefit out of them.
As you can see, the smile for you/SAO Survivor combo plays really well into the Progressive Strategy, covering a lot of weaknesses that deck faces, as well as unlocking some very advanced plays that feel very good for advanced players. Instead of being forced to Raid up your strong characters, play SAO Survivors up early, or use smile for you to recycle your greatest asset of all: the Raid Progressive Asuna.
Give this deck a try for yourself and let me know how it goes!
