The UNION ARENA Florida Regional Top 16 Depicts a Healing Meta
The UNION ARENA: Florida Regional has concluded and we have a new Regional Champion, piloting Red Kenshin for that deck’s second title.
Yet, despite Kenshin winning, the top 16 looks drastically different than the two previous heavily Red Kenshin regionals where that deck type took up around 50% of the top decks. Now, however, we’re seeing the UNION ARENA meta evening out a fair bit. While Kenshin decks were still healthily represented (roughly 20% for Red Kenshin and around 30% for Saito), many other new decks made their mark at the regional.
Green BLEACH makes its triumphant return
As expected, Green BLEACH had a strong showing at the regional where it took up an impressive 13% of the top 16. But it wasn’t the only BLEACH deck to top the event. The powerful and newly upgraded Byakuya deck also snuck into the top 16, no doubt bolstered by that powerful Renji character the deck now has access to.
Otherwise a few familiar faces also topped the event, including one Mustang, one Blue Sukuna sporting the recently freed two-cost Yuji, as well as two new faces from the latest sets: Purple Toguro Brothers from Yu Yu Hakusho and Yellow Mina/Reno from the phenomenally popular Kaiju No. 8 set.
Below, let’s look at a few of the decks from the event.
Red Kenshin – Winning deck list
The Regional winning Red Kenshin deck by Senra (according to data shared via EXBURST) features a fairly standard Red Kenshin build. I guess you don’t really need to rework something that’s already great.
5th place Saito by NobleJimJam
Saito is so consistently strong you really don’t have to do much to it to win. This list is pretty standard but only goes to show how powerful this archetype is directly out of the box.
6th place Roy Mustang by Zanryo
Although many Blue Mustang players have been adding the 4500 BP Louis Armstrong to their builds, this deck looks much more like the original Blue Mustang deck that won the first regional and features one of the Edward Elric for added Impact.
12th place Mina/Reno by artyspagharty
My favorite deck from the regional’s top 16 might just have to be this Yellow Mina/Reno deck. This deck leans heavily into Soshiro, taking advantage of the two-cost Soshiro for added resting effects to combo with your five-cost Mina as well as yet another Raid target for Soshiro.
I really like this heavy lean-in to Soshiro as having this Raid package enables you to take advantage of Mina’s freezing effect on multiple turns.
13th Toguro Brothers by creamy
Toguro is the strongest Yu Yu Hakusho deck and has proven itself one of the strongest high energy-cost, tall-man decks in UNION ARENA. I recently won the Yu Yu Hakusho Rare Battle via a Toguro deck I borrowed and was blown away by the insane board domination this deck can unlock in the right circumstances. Toguro seems to have taken over for Lancelot as the preferred big guy deck.
14th Place Byakuya/Squad Zero Hybrid by Gutless Mist
This outside-of-the-box Byakuya build doesn’t bother with the new five-cost Renji available in the New Card Selection and instead leans on additional removal via Squad Zero characters. That actually makes sense given you won’t be fueling your sideline as much with this deck as you would with Ichigo, making that added removal via Senjumaru very handy.
15th place by Kenpachi/Toshiro by theRealAntiheroXP1
Finally, the non Kenshin deck to have the biggest impact on the meta was Green BLEACH. I’m not surprised at all to see this deck doing so well at the top of this competition. Green BLEACH is an insanely strong deck thanks to all of the upgrades in the New Card Selection for BLEACH.
While both Red Kenshin and Purple Saito remain the most highly represented archetypes in the top 16 of the meta, their numbers show a significant decrease from where they used to be, particularly Red Kenshin at under 20% versus its previous 50%. This is a massively good sign for a UNION ARENA meta that seems much healthier now than it did before thanks to so many strong decks entering the fray and the lifting of restrictions that should help foster an increasingly fun play environment for everyone.
