UNION ARENA Summer 2025 Rare Battles Heat Up
Bandai has revealed the next lineup of Rare Battles for UNION ARENA running from June-August 2025 and they are fire. In this lineup are a collection of top chase cards from four different sets, reimagined as Rare Battle promos. What makes these particular UNION RARE cards even more exciting is their uniqueness to North America – giving players added reason to bag these never-before seen cards.
Below, we’ll be looking at each of the Rare Battle winner cards and why you should want them.
First of all – what’s a Rare Battle?
Rare Battles are essentially an alternate UNION ARENA tournament format where only decks built from cards from a specific anime are allowed. This creates a vastly different competitive experience than regular tournaments where all decks are playable. It’s also a little something extra special for players who are specifically a fan of a particular IP – letting them battle within their own preferred, immersive world.
Rukia BLEACH UNION RARE Card is my top pick
We’ve had BLEACH Rare Battles before during the very first wave, and now we get to experience the fun all over again thanks to BLEACH: Thousand Year Blood War Vol. 2 getting released. It’s exciting to note that Vol. 2 sets also kick off a Rare Battle, giving fans of these IPs a second chance at victory piloting their favorite decks.
The Rukia winner promo handed out to the top four finishers at Rare Battles is one of my favorite to date, featuring Rukia in her iconic Icy Bankai state.
This Rare Battle should be very exciting as multiple decks could easily claim the throne. BLEACH Purple may seem like the most obvious pick for the event, but the powerful Green Kenpachi is a solid counter to the latter’s BP reducing effects.
Practice and hope to come out on top for this gorgeous promo!
Kirito UNION RARE
Fans of SAO should be veery excited to bag this SAO UR based on the SR*** Kirito from the set. However, I’m a smidge disappointed as I was hoping the ASUNA SR*** would be the promo for this event. That being said, BLUE SAO is a highly popular deck, and many players will be eager to deck out their builds with this hot card.
Sukuna UNION RARE is what the people want
This seven-cost Sukuna packs a mighty punch, making it a solid choice for your Blue Sukuna deck post Vo. 2 (coming out in June). While the seven energy required to play this guy certainly changes the way you play the deck, it could just be worth it for the massive payoff you get from playing him – especially with all four Fingers in the sideline.
Red Asta UNION RARE
This Asta UNION RARE comes from the fairly hyped Red Black Clover Deck (one that we’ll also be getting a starter deck for). Being able to straight-up sideline a character with 4k or less on Raid with no other prerequisites places this guy in a league of his own. True, he eventually will sideline himself after a few turns, but that probably won’t matter by the time it happens.
Top four UNION RARE promos
While those brave souls who manage to place first at Rare Battles will get the UNION RARE card with the WINNER stamp on them, placing in top four will get you the same card, only without the stamp. See those via the gallery below.
Additional incentives for playing UNION ARENA Rare Battles
While the UNION RARE cards (both the top four promos and the ones with the stamped WINNER) are the primary reason to compete in Rare Battles, there’s no shortage of added incentives here, including unique cards you can only get from competing as well as some greatly improved AP sleeves.
Event Pack Vol. 3
This time around we’re getting a Kirito, an Orihime and a Toge in our Rare Battle event packs. As usual, each of these cards will feature two different rarity versions, giving players added incentives to attend as many Rare Battles as possible.
Of the three my favorite by far is the Orihime – a card which could work very well in the BLEACH Purple strategy, letting you quickly fuel the number of cards in your sideline.
New and improved Action Point Card sleeves
Bandai has made the very astute decision to rethink their approach to the AP card sleeves you get from placing top four at a Rare Battle event. Previous Rare Battle volumes featured AP card sleeves with the same artwork on them as the AP cards themselves given out during store tournaments. The problem with this? Remembering which is your AP and which is just the sleeve.
However, now we’re getting AP sleeves with totally unique artwork. Some of them I very much want, especially the SAO ones featuring Kirito and Asuna and the BLEACH sleeves featuring the main crew.
Without a doubt Bandai continues to up the ante for Rare Battle events, and these could very well be our most exciting to date, especially with those epic AP sleeves to collect and NA exclusive UNION RARE cards. If you’re eager to start playing Rare Battles with your favorite deck, you’ll be able to do so as early as June 19, 2025! Check your Bandai TCG+ App for more details and to apply.
