We have the complete meta breakdown from the Versus Games Regional held in Orlando Florida on December 7th. Below, let’s take a look at the deck breakdown by top 32, 16, and 4!

Versus Games UNION ARENA Regional Top 32 Meta Breakdown

Looking at the data breakdown from the Florida Regional shows an incredibly diverse playing field. As I predicted before the event, Red Kenshin’s share of the meta slipped considerably – down from around 50% at the last two regionals to around 25%. In the top 16 this slips even more, clearly indicating a healing meta.

The big winner here in this regional, however, was a different deck: Purple Saito. It’s interesting to see that deck perform this well months after Kenshin has come out, but it goes to show that Saito’s better matchup spread than Red Kenshin’s go-aggro-or-go-home play helped the deck fair well in a more mixed playing field. Currently, Saito appears to be the best deck in the UNION ARENA meta.

Kenpachi/Toshiro is the third most successful deck

I’ve been touting the efficacy of Kenpachi/Toshiro deck since the cards in the New Card Collection came out. I myself took this powerful deck to a case tournament the very weekend the New Card Selection came out, and tied for second place out of 20+ players. We’ll see how the deck fairs over time, but right now it clearly is one of the strongest decks in the game, with a distinct advantage over Red Kenshin, and it faired incredibly well in the top 32 where it made up an impressive 15.6% of the meta.

Yellow Kaiju rises in the ranks

The other standout deck to me that made the top 32 was the powerful Yellow Kaiju strategy. Now, the information here does not specify whether or not both Yellow Kaiju decks were Mina. However, we do know that the Yellow Kaiju deck that made top 16 was Mina, and since they were both grouped together I’m assuming both were the powerful Yellow Mina build.

Both Yellow Mina and Green Kenpachi/Toshiro were my favorite picks before the event, with Mina being the deck I would have run if I participated. Clearly the meta is becoming increasingly diverse outside of the two big Kenshin decks, and Yellow Mina has an incredibly solid matchup spread thanks to its ability to flit seamlessly between aggro and control strategies.

Two “Rogue decks” in the top 32

The last two decks to note before moving into the top 16 are the two Green decks that also made top 32 but not top 16. Those are the Lancelot deck strategy and Green Kaiju. While I’m not surprised to see Lancelot make top 32 – that deck remains strong despite clearly slipping down in the meta – I am impressed by the Green Kaiju Deck doing the same. Green Kaiju has been more of a B-tier pick in my books since it came out. It’s a very strong deck once its combos get pulled off, but getting those combos off can be a bit awkward at times with all of the switching to resting that has to go on.

Lancelot falling out of the S-tier seems innevitable at this point, and with the stuff coming out in January via Sword Art Online Vol. 2 and Evangelion, Lancelot will probably continue this downward trend. In my UNION ARENA English Version tier list, I’ve dropped it down into the A+ tier just below S.

Top 16 Meta Breakdown

I won’t get into the top 16 too much as I already wrote about the Versus Game’s Top 16 UNION ARENA meta breakdown. However, the big rogue deck standout from the top 16 players to get an invite to UNION ARENA Nationals was a very spicy Byakuya deck.

While personally I would still run the five-cost Renji with Byakuya, running the Squad Zero package actually makes decent sense, granting additional removal to Byakuya.

Top 8 Meta Breakdown

Now the final chart we will look at is the playshare among the top eight decks from the event. Here’s where things get really interesting: Red Kenshin drops down to just 1/8 of the decks. Indeed, apart from the four Saito decks that over performed, there’s an even split. Still, 50% of the top 8 being Saito does show how dominate that deck is.

Meanwhile, the deck that will likely get the most attention from the top four is the pure Sukuna build by Rage-AJ

Third place Blue Sukuna deck by Rage-AJ

Ever since the pair ban between starter deck Sukuna and two-cost Yuji was lifted, players have been curious about whether or not Sukuna has the chance to be once again top tier the way it had been in the earlier days of the game. This Sukuna build essentially proves the deck’s viability, and thanks to Rage-AJ’s success, we’ll likely see more pure Sukuna builds showing up at competitions everywhere.

What this data shows about the present and future of the UNION ARENA meta

While the Kenshin set still looms large over the UNION ARENA meta with such a large play share from both Kenshin and Saito, the overall meta remains mixed. Saito overperformed in the top eight but was at a much more normal 30% number for the top 32. That’s still clearly a dominant deck, but not at tier-zero level, and it’s not a number that shows a broken meta.

Red Kenshin has dropped massively since when it first came out, showing players have indeed learned how to handle this deck, as well as people not being as willing to play it with so many counters out there – especially the new and popular Kenpachi/Toshiro build.

The meta will invariably change, however, at the end of January when two massively powerful sets come out, so I expect this to be the last major UNION ARENA event to feature Kenshin decks as a powerhouse. Instead, just wait and see what Evangelion is going to do to the English meta.

UNION ARENA: Versus Games Regional Meta Breakdown