Union Arena Current Meta: Tier List From Official Regionals

Rechecked November 4, 2026: Bandai's limit of two Monarch's Domain has applied since November 1, and the first regional under it, Washington, DC, was played that day. The archive still ends with the September 18 results (Milwaukee, played October 3, isn't posted either), so the tiers below haven't moved. What the winning list plays now is in the new section after the decklist.

Union Arena tier list: Championship 26-27

Bandai's Top-Placing Decks archive lists the top four of each official regional. It has seven for this season so far, posted between May 8 and September 18. That's 28 decks. We sorted them by title.

The archive shows placements, not how many people brought each deck or how often it won, so read the tiers as "who keeps finishing on top". Tier 1 is the deck that wins. Tier 2 is the decks that keep making top four. Tier 3 has shown up, but only now and then.

Chart: ShonenTCG. Source: Bandai, UNION ARENA official Top-Placing Decks archive (Championship 26-27 regionals, May 8 to September 18, 2026)

Why Solo Leveling is on top

It's not close. Purple Solo Leveling won the regionals Bandai posted on May 8, June 12, June 26, August 21 and September 18. At the most recent one, 401 Games, it also took second and fourth.

It's also the same deck each time. The recipe Bandai links for the June 12, August 21 and September 18 winners is identical, and the second and fourth place lists from September 18 share the same core: twelve Shadow Soldiers, four of the 12-cost Sung Jinwoo, four Monarch's Domain and four Shadow Monarch.

Shadow Soldiers is the reason. Its text says "A deck can contain up to 12 copies of this card", where Union Arena's normal limit is four. Every Shadow Army card on your field, Shadow Soldiers included, makes Sung Jinwoo SLG-1-022 cost one less, so the 12-cost card comes down fast.

Image: Bandai, official UNION ARENA card images via Bandai TCG+ (UE17BT/SLG-1-030 and SLG-1-022)

Here's the September 18 winning list, priced at TCGplayer market on October 15.

Twelve Shadow Soldiers and four Super Rare Jinwoos are 95% of that. Everything else costs under a dollar.

SHOP: Building the Shadow Army list? Compare current Solo Leveling singles for Shadow Soldiers and Sung Jinwoo. Shop TCGplayer →

What the Shadow Army list plays after November 1

Two of those 50 cards are now illegal: four Monarch's Domain became two on November 1. The same 50 cards won Spencer Freeman the Peoria, Gen Con and Milwaukee regionals, and on October 20 he posted how he plans to fill the gap: cut two Domains and "a Final", which in this list can only be Arise, the one card with a [Final] trigger, then add a Tusk, an Iron and a Beru. He says he'll test it "at least … all of this week before even considering changing."

He doesn't give copy counts for the added cards, so the November column is our count: three cards out, three in, still 50. He does say he wants "the fourth Iron".

Iron and Beru are bodies that don't need a site. Iron gains 500 BP for each resting Shadow Army card with 2500 or less base BP on your field, and Beru is a 4000 BP character. In the same video Freeman gives a simpler swap too: both Domains out for a fourth Tusk and a fourth Kaisel, which he says keeps the deck's double-energy count the same.

Either version costs about the same: $129.62 for the test list, $130.31 for the simpler swap. What moved is the market. The September 18 list cost $186.92 on October 15. On November 4 it's $130.29, because Shadow Soldiers fell from $5.43 to $3.06 and Sung Jinwoo SLG-1-022 from $28.15 to $21.28.

Nobody has a result with the new version yet. Bandai's archive had no Washington, DC results on November 4, and Freeman didn't bring Shadow Army there. In his November 2 video, "Top 8 in DC: My Experience - Union Arena", he goes through his rounds on Yellow Evangelion, including a loss in round two.

What the rest of the field looks like

Evangelion has the second-most top fours, but it isn't the deck it was. Bandai limited two cards from the purple Spear of Gaius deck, EVA-1-051 Asuka Shikinami Langley and EVA-1-063 Spear of Gaius, to one copy each from April 17, 2026. Since June, every Evangelion top four has been Yellow.

Sakamoto Days is the steadiest of the rest: five top fours, all Yellow, including second and fourth at GenCon in August.

Rurouni Kenshin was last season's big deck: it won three of the seven 25-26 events in the archive, including the North America Finals. This season it has three top fours and no wins. Kagurabachi has four top fours, three of them Red, and no wins either.

InuYasha has no top fours yet, even though it came out in English on August 14. Neither does anything from the September 18 Re:ZERO and Attack on Titan Vol.2 sets, but the September 18 results are the latest in the archive, so they haven't had a chance.

What players are saying

Xanderogue Gaming's review of the 401 Games regional is titled "Shadow Army Takeover", and his description is blunt: "I do thin that the best deck in our game is far and beyond any other deck in the game and that is Shadow Army. This deck in my opinion needs to be hit." One of the comments agreed: "Shadow Army most definitely needs a hit."

Bandai has now acted, though not on Shadow Soldiers. Its October 19 producer's message announced a restriction for Solo Leveling, and the restriction page limits Monarch's Domain (SLG-1-035) to two copies from November 1, 2026. Bandai's reason is the combination with Sung Jinwoo SLG-1-022, which raises every Shadow Army character's BP by 2000.

Not everyone expects the cut to matter. ProDMJoey's October 22 tier list for DC calls it a "slap on the wrist" that "is virtually nothing against the deck, and it just removes a high roll," and still ranks Shadow Army as the best deck. His bigger change is Sakamoto Days, which he now calls "the second, if not best deck in format."

The field behind it is wider than the top fours suggest. After the Gen Con regional in August, Team Sleeveless went through the top 32 on r/UnionArena and found "a small handful of new decks and many big meta decks".

Our take

Purple Solo Leveling is still the deck to beat after November 1. Bandai took two copies of a site out of it and left the twelve Shadow Soldiers and the Jinwoo engine alone, and that engine won five of seven regionals. If you're building it now, buy two Monarch's Domain, not four, and start from Freeman's Tusk, Iron and Beru swap. It's also cheaper than on October 15, about $130 instead of $187. The one warning sign is that its best-known pilot left it at home for DC, so if DC's top four comes back without Shadow Army, that's the result to read first. If you'd rather not play into the mirror, Yellow Sakamoto Days has the most consistent record of the rest.

For deck-by-deck detail, see our Solo Leveling guide, Sakamoto Days deck guide and Evangelion deck guide. The regionals schedule and results page tracks the events themselves.

How we checked this: placements from Bandai's Top-Placing Decks archive (seven Championship 26-27 regionals and the seven 25-26 events listed there), read October 15, 2026 and rechecked October 20 and November 4 (still nothing after September 18); decklists from the Bandai TCG+ recipes the archive links; Freeman's November list from his October 20 video; card text from the official UNION ARENA card list; prices from TCGplayer market prices on October 15 (the decklist table) and November 4 (TCGCSV build of November 3, the after-November 1 table); restrictions from Bandai's Banned/Restricted Cards page, reread November 4.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the strongest deck in Union Arena right now?

Purple Solo Leveling, the Shadow Army deck. It has 5 of the 7 wins and 7 of the 28 top-four spots in the Championship 26-27 regionals Bandai has posted, through the September 18 results.

Is there an official Union Arena tier list with win rates?

No. Bandai's Top-Placing Decks archive lists who finished in the top four at official events. It doesn't publish win rates or how many people played each deck, so any tier list, including ours, is built on placements.

Has Bandai restricted Solo Leveling?

Yes, one card. Bandai's October 19 producer's message announced a restriction for Solo Leveling, and from November 1, 2026 Monarch's Domain (SLG-1-035) is limited to two copies. The April 17 limit of one copy each on Evangelion's EVA-1-051 Asuka Shikinami Langley and EVA-1-063 Spear of Gaius stays.

How does InuYasha fit into the current Union Arena meta?

It doesn't yet. InuYasha released in English on August 14, 2026, and Bandai's archive has no InuYasha top-four finishes so far.

Related Reading

• Union Arena Solo Leveling vs JJK: Which Deck to Play: a head-to-head look at two of the season's winners.
• Union Arena TCG Beginner Guide: rules and starter decks before you pick a competitive deck.