UNION ARENA: Every Kaiju No. 8 Deck, Ranked
Kaiju No. 8 looks like a fun set with a few strong decks. One of its unique aspects that we’ve not seen before in UNION ARENA is that it’s our first set in the English version to have only two colors included in it. This means it actually has less total number of potential decks to build than usual sets do. While that could be seen as a mark against it, it also theoretically makes building the deck you want from your booster boxes a little easier.
And while it may have fewer decks, it makes up for any shortcomings in its fun mechanics and electrifying alternate arts. Below, I’ll be ranking each of the four main new decks in the UNION ARENA: Kaiju No. 8 set from good to great.
#4 Soshiro
Soshiro is an intriguing character in the anime, and his deck in Kaiju’s UNION ARENA set is also intriguing – even if it is noticeably the weakest in the set. Like the Kaiju No. 8 deck, this deck focuses on switching cards to resting to unlock various effects. However, unlike the Kaiju deck, the payoff for why you’re running Soshiro as your main attacker just doesn’t feel quite there.
Perhaps the strongest thing about this Soshiro Raid is the built in protection he has – forcing your opponent to discard a card if they want to choose him with abilities. Having a Double Attack that can be reused turn after turn also isn’t bad.
You could potentially combine this card with the bigger Kaiju card to have a stronger deck. But as it is right now, Soshiro feels a little underpowered to justify being his own deck.
#3 Yellow Kikoru deck
The Reno/Mina hybrid may be the strongest version of Yellow, but Kikoru is also no slouch. Play this deck right and you unlock a highly aggressive strategy that can likewise undercut your opponent, especially if they happen to be playing a more control-style deck.
This deck is all about getting as many three-cost characters onto your field as possible and gaining a bunch of benefits for having them. For example, the Kikoru Raid will buff to a much stronger character once you hit your ideal threshold of three-cost characters.
While these buffs may feel a smidge underwhelming, they’re not supposed to be all-powerful game ending effects – just decently strong ones that will help in this deck’s aggro strategy.
Another card that is easy to overlook but one that can certainly be quite strong is the dedicated site card yellow gets.
This card reminds me a lot of the Hero’s Association card we got with One Punch Man, only it’s stronger, letting you both search for a card and play one for essentially free.
You have a bunch of other lower-cost characters with decent effects in this deck as well, but the real sweet spot is right around using your powerhouse three-cost characters to rundown your opponent before they build up enough opposition to stop you.
Is it a top tier deck? Not likely. But it’s one that sure looks like a lot of fun.
#2 Green Kaiju No. 8
One of the best Kaiju No. 8 decks is easily also one that bears the titular character: Kaiju No. 8 himself. And rightfully so – this guy’s a powerhouse in his own respective anime. What I particularly like about this Kaiju deck is that it feels like it could be a viable, higher energy green deck – something which has been largely missing from the UNION ARENA meta as of late (apart from Lancelot).
As is the case with just about any high energy deck, of course we have to compare it to the gold standard green deck. And actually, at first glance this deck holds its own weight in the comparison.
Let’s start with this deck’s biggest tough guy of them all – the formidable eight-cost Kaiju 8.
There are several things I really like about this card. First of all, don’t think about it as an eight-cost character: you’re looking to play it at six-cost for the most part. That’s not a tall order given you just need two or more resting characters on the front line to pull this off – something easy enough to achieve via how many cards in this deck rest themselves.
With that in mind, this card becomes very, very effective for a number of reasons:
Native Damage 2
Comes in active
Pushes a character to the energy line, forcing them out of the game for a turn and potentially disrupting your opponent’s energy line
Getting to six energy feels relatively easy in this deck given the plethora of solid two-energy generating characters available. Meanwhile, I love the consistency search card this deck gets that very much reminds me of the effective “Unit Maintenance” in Lancelot. Kaiju’s card is called “Found You.”
Being able to search the top six of your deck for your key cards (Kaiju) and then get an AP back in the process is a very powerful effect, and of course one that has worked wonders in Lancelot (despite that card only searching the top five).
All-in-all I don’t see why this powerful green deck couldn’t fair nicely into the current meta. And given the sheer coolness of its strategy and what it’s trying to do (sidelining characters while pummeling your opponent with big hits), it’s highly likely you’ll this guy showing up at tournaments near you.
#1 Rena/Mino Yellow
Although the most colorful deck in Kaiju No. 8 is undoubtedly the heavy-hitting Green Kaiju deck, the highly aggressive, low-energy cap yellow Mina/Reno hybrid is the deck that’s the top one to look for. Especially into the current meta that values speed over everything else. The deck’s single strongest card is the five-cost Mina.
Mina acts as a sort of baby Toshiro Hitsugaya for those familiar with that deck, forcing an opponent’s character to resting and also keeping them that way the next time they would switch to active. However, it’s not nearly as strong of an effect as the character will be able to switch to active more readily than with the case of Hitsugaya. However, Mina has the added advantage of the Bakko boost with Impact – a key mechanic in this deck in general.
Meanwhile, Reno works as a solid, low-energy cost secondary attacker. Just like how Mina will benefit from having a Bakko on the same line, so will Reno – as well as just any other three-cost character, becoming a 4000 BP character as just a three-cost. Meanwhile, he unlocks heavy aggro capabilities by letting you swarm the board with other three-cost characters.
Finally, I have to highlight the “Screening Exam” card, one that lets you search out the top four cards of your deck for a character, and then plays that character set to resting on your field. That’s a really powerful card, essentially turning the next four cards you would draw into a potential resource pool from which you can play the majority of your characters.
All said-and-done, Yellow Mina/Reno is the fastest, most reliable deck coming out of Kaiju No. 8, one that is well positioned to compete with the very aggressive UNION ARENA meta we find ourselves in.
Agree? Disagree? Leave your comments below and let me know which Kaiju No. 8 deck you think is best.
