UNION ARENA: Every Rurouni Kenshin Deck, Ranked
Rurouni Kenshin is a relatlively new add to the Japanese version of UNIONA ARENA, but lucky for us we’re getting it comparatively early in the English UNION ARENA release schedule. The decks in this set are based around some of the strongest anime swordsmen of all time, including the iconic Kenshin himself. But which of these new UNION ARENA decks are the strongest? Below, we’ll be taking a look at each of the new archetypes coming into the game, and ranking them from strong to strongest.
Before diving into that, however, my general impressions of this set is that it’s an interesting one. Instead of rehashing tried-and-true mechanics from previous sets, Kenshin looks to bring new play styles into the game. Will these be enough to offset a very competitive meta with powerful volume two decks running rampant? That remains to be seen, but certainly this set is a compelling one for fans of unique decks that pose a challenge to the creative deck building process!
#6 Blue Aoshi
It’s always great to see a relatively strong deck start these lists off, as it only serves to show how strong a set is as a whole. Kenshin is a very solid set, with most of the decks hovering around mid-tier and the top two decks being in contention for top tier. And While Aoshi feels like a B-tier deck from the get-go, there are still some very interesting combos here, mostly unlocked via sacrificing lower-cost Aoshi (which you have ways of playing for free) to unlock powerful effects.
One of the strongest combos that catches my eye right away is unlocked via the three-cost Takeda.
Takeda breaks a lot of previous rules set up in UNION ARENA that usually limit 4000 BP removal tools to four-cost two-AP characters. However, having a three-cost two-AP removal option like this that also generates two energy unlocks a lot of options. You can play this guy to your energy line very early on, sideline a character, and then raid someone else (just as an example).
The easiest and most effective way to unlock this effect is to sideline a character played via your Raid Aoshi.
Use your Raid Aoshi to play your two-cost Aoshi, draw a card, and then sideline it to unlock the removal. Alternatively you can use that character you played to active this turn as a target to switch your 4000 BP raidless Aoshi to active.
While there are some very interesting combos here, and certainly enough to send this deck straight to the B-league, ultimately it’s not going to be enough to compete with the heaviest hitters in the format, and it doesn’t excel at any particular thing like removal, aggro, multi-attack etc to justify it being a top tier pick.
#5 Ten Swords
The Ten Swords has the most complicated and unique mechanic of all the Kenshin decks. The deck that it is most similar to is the Hunter X Hunter Blue deck – one that hasn’t been commonly played since the earliest days of the game. This deck is all about strategically manipulating the card on top of your deck. Have the right card on top of your deck and you can easily unlock some insane benefits.
However, that’s not the only draw to this deck – some of its characters have some insane stats just at the base level. Take, for example, this two-cost 4000 BP character.
A two-cost character with 4000 BP is unprecedented in the English version of the game. And to make it even easier to include this character in your deck, it has a Draw Trigger, and the only drawback isn’t really a draw back at all but a When Played that lets you put a card on top of your deck from your hand. That might sound like a negative, but this deck has so many powerful effects that are dependent on what card is on top of your deck (just like Blue Hunter x Hunter) that it’s not really a drawback at all.
The card you’re really going to want to place on top of your deck is the Raid Sojiro character. If you discard him with one of your effects that discard the top card of your deck, you essentially get to Raid him for free and he gets much stronger.
Purple Kenshin has a lot of powerful ways to unlock additional AP extension and some high BP power for low energy cost, making it an attractive deck especially to combo-loving players out there. Is it top tier? Probably not, but should still be a fun one to try out.
#4 Red Sanosuke
It wouldn’t surprise me if players found Kenshin a comparatively difficult set to master. As I said at the start of this guide, each of the new decks in this set are based on relatively new mechanics, or at least creative twists on tried-and-true strategies. And that’s where Red Sanosuke comes in.
Admittedly, there’s nothing net-new here that we haven’t seen before, yet the mechanics are woven together in such a way as to make them feel vibrant and refreshing. Let’s take this deck’s strongest character for example: Sanosuke himself.
This character’s impressive collection of effects can be hard to understand right away. But dig a little deeper and you start to understand that what this card really is doing is providing you an excellent Damage 2 attacker with Nullify Impact who cannot easily be blocked by opposing 5000 BP characters. He’s essentially a light Impact 1 Damage 2 character, and at five energy, that feels right.
Meanwhile, you can unlock a powerful combo when you pair Sanosuke’s 2 AP character with this Event card.
This four energy-cost Sanosuke might just be this deck’s strongest card. Think of him as an easier-to-play Guren from Code Geass Purple. He forces your opponent to block him, and if you pair him with “The Single Character of ‘Bad,’” he’s a 4500 BP Impact attacker who must be blocked.
There are a few other tricks in this deck that let you unlock multi-attack, enabling a highly aggressive stance, but ultimately what I think players will be draw to most about this deck is its raw power and straight-forward, all out attack play style.
#3 Blue Seijuro Hiko deck
If you’re looking for a deck with an edgier Kenshin – one who doesn’t mind killing – then Blue may be the energy color for you. In this deck we see Kenshin team up with his teacher, Seijuro Hiko, and the result is some pretty crazy synergy that lives up to these two swordsman legends.
On the one hand, you have the character card that is clearly this deck’s lead – seven-cost Seijuro Hiko.
Seijuro has a massive BP at 5000 base and 8000 during your turn, meaning he’s swinging through almost any threat even when bolstered by Active Triggers (a few notable oultiers being the Colossal Titan with an active Trigger or the still out of reach Saitama) That’s made massively more damaging given he also comes complete with the Damage 2 keyword. However, that’s not all. He can also let you bring back an event card (any event card) from your sideline, and finally helps bolster your characters – such as five-cost Kenshin who gains Double Attack when at 6000 BP.
While there are many other tricks up this deck’s sleeves, the combination of these two together is what makes for the most exciting mechanic not only in Blue but in all of this set.
#2 Purple Saito
When we talk about the Rurouni Kenshin set, most of the attention goes out to the deck that takes the number one spot on this list. However, overlook Saito at your own risk. This deck is looking to do a pretty straightforward thing – that being building up an energy line and then using Hajime Saito to stealthily snipe opposing characters. As this deck doesn’t run any characters with affinities, you are essentially guaranteed to access Saito’s strongest effects which include attacking from the energy line, gaining Snipe, and also 1000 BP.
As incredible as it may sound, this means Saito is capable of Sniping an Air Cavalry from the energy line with Impact at only six energy. To make this combo more reliable, you can move front line Saito characters back to the energy line with three-cost Saito, and use them as Raid targets for six-cost Saito. This makes getting this play off much easier. Conversley, you can use Saito to push up an attacker from your bench after fulfilling your energy cost to play it – something which makes for a powerful combo given how strong many of your characters are.
You could argue that Six-cost Saito is the strongest closer in the game right now. If you manage to get two of these off in a single turn, the second will hide in waiting safely on the energy line. This way if your opponent hits a special trigger off of life, you are safe to still close out the game via a second Impact attack.
We’ve never seen a card quite like this one, but it’s not the only unique character entering the game via Purple. The other is the solid two-energy cost Saito character. Not only is this guy a solid raid target for your bigger Saito characters, he’s got the powerful Purple Color Trigger, can boost to high BP levels, and can even double as a zero-cost character when you have none on the field (removing the need to run 12 zero-cost characters the way you usually would).
Saito should be a very popular deck thanks to how much strong filtering, search, and high end power there is available to it. The only thing limiting its efficacy is the fact that you really can’t run peripheral characters easily to boost its strength. Because you need to have only characters without affinities on your board, you can’t include some of the strong characters available to Kenshin Purple to create a more hybrid build.
Still, there’s enough here to make this deck stand out, and could be a very attractive option in the Rare Battle format where Red Kenshin certainly wouldn’t want to be forced to push Saito Raid targets to the energy line.
#1 Red Kenshin
Since the Rurouni Kenshin set released, the Red Kenshin deck has a had a profound impact on the meta, winning the very first regional that took place almost immediately after its release.
One thing helping give it status as a top tier deck is its relatively solid matchup into the powerful Lancelot deck. Use Kenshin to force opposing attackers to the energy line, and reverse engineer an energy-line disruption that could be catastrophic for your foe.
There are a few other interesting gimmicks in this deck. First and foremost, you gotta love the way they baked Kenshin’s commitment to not killing into this deck. Instead of sending characters to the sideline when he battles them, he simply sends them to the energy line, instead.
While this could be a problem into some matchups, it also could be kind of great against others – like those high energy decks that really don’t want one-energy attackers taking up room on the bench.
That being said, there is a dark side to this Red Kenshin deck that is equally true to the storyline – in a bind you can always force your Kenshin to lose his “During Your Turn” effect which is essentially the one that doesn’t sideline characters. You can do this via two-AP Kenshin.
Somewhat poetically, if your remove Kenshin’s “Final” card – Oath Not to Kill – from your sideline, ALL of your Kenshin characters lose their effect that prevents them from sidelining when winning a battle. This card is also just solid on its own, coming in active, letting you draw a card, and complete with 4000 BP.
Apart from this lore-centric mechanic, Red Kenshin plays like a lot of red decks in UNION ARENA – preferring to swing for multi-attack and an aggressive play style over late game removal. With the right combination of draw, field disruption, and powerful multi-attack, Red Kenshin dominated the UNION ARENA meta right off the bat.
