Union Arena Keywords Glossary: Every Term Explained

How we checked this: every definition below was read against Bandai's Official Rule Manual (Ver1.1) and card text and product pages on the official site on October 19, 2026.

Updated October 19, 2026: We fixed four errors from the earlier version. A tie in BP goes to the attacker. Site cards (not "Field" cards) are the third card type. The energy line generates energy without resting. And the "AP" rarity is the Action Point card itself, not an unrelated chase tier. We also added Step, Double Attack, Double Block and damage 2.

The three Union Arena keywords people get backwards

Ties go to the attacker. The rule manual's attack resolution reads: "The BP of the Attacking Character is Equal to or Greater than the BP of the Character Being Attacked: The attacking character wins the battle." Blocking with an equal-BP character loses you that character. A losing attacker is not sidelined.

Impact only works through a block. Impact 1 says "When this character attacks and wins a battle, deal 1 damage to your opponent." An unblocked attack on your opponent is not a battle, it just deals 1 damage. As u/GoldFade put it on r/Union_Arena_TCG, "Impact only triggers when you win a battle, which means the opponent blocks". So Impact is the answer to a blocker, and damage 2 is the answer to an open board.

AP is one card doing two jobs. You play with three Action Point cards. "To pay 1 AP, take one active (vertical) AP card and switch it to resting." Those same AP cards come in booster packs, so Bandai lists "AP (Action Point)" next to C, U, R and SR on every set's product page. Rurouni Kenshin has 6 AP types; Chainsaw Man has 12, plus "serial-numbered, hand-signed Action Point cards" at "an extremely low pull rate." When someone says they pulled an AP, they mean an Action Point card with special art, and you can play it.

Resource and board terms

AP (Action Points)

The cost in the top-left "ACTION" box. Pay it by resting that many active AP cards. Resting AP cards stay resting through your end phase.

Required Energy

The colored number on the card. "Your energy line must be generating that amount of energy or more in the appropriate color." Energy is a condition, not a payment: nothing gets rested or spent to meet it. The color of the required energy is the card's color.

Energy line

The back row. "You can place both character and site cards onto your energy line," up to four in any combination, and "only energy generation from cards on the energy line can be used to fulfill the required energy of other cards."

Front line

The front row, up to four character cards. Site cards can't go here. Front-line characters attack and block. The front line and energy line together are your field.

Life area, sideline and removal area

You start with seven life cards face down. The sideline holds used events and sidelined characters and sites, face up. The removal area is out of the game for good. You win when your opponent has no life left, or has no cards to draw in their start phase.

BP (Battle Points)

Combat power. Compare BP when two characters battle; ties go to the attacker. A character whose BP is reduced to zero or less by an ability is sidelined.

Combat keywords

The rule manual's Keyword Abilities page defines nine. Here they are in its wording, trimmed:

Snipe and Impact on the same character is the combination to watch. Snipe forces a battle against the character you pick, and winning it triggers Impact, so one attack removes a character and takes a life card. Rurouni Kenshin's Hajime Saito gains Snipe for a turn when played with no affinity cards on the field.

Raid

Raid places a character card on top of "a specified character that does not possess Raid." The target is named in angle brackets () or by affinity in square brackets. From hand, "you must have the required energy for that card and pay its AP cost." Then, in order: the old card's abilities stop applying, a resting character switches to active, it may move from the energy line to the front line, and When Played abilities activate. If a Raided character later leaves the field, only the top card goes; the cards underneath go to your sideline. Our Raid mechanic guide goes into more depth.

Image: Bandai, UNION ARENA (Japanese InuYasha cards). Inuyasha (left) prints Raid, Impact 1 and Double Attack; Miroku (right) has a Get trigger.

The seven trigger types

When you take damage, the attacker picks a life card for each point of damage, and you turn them face up and check for triggers. Activating a trigger is optional, and afterwards the card goes to your sideline, not your hand. The official card list filters by exactly seven trigger types:

• Get: "Add this card to your hand."
• Draw: "Draw a card."
• Active: "Choose one character on your field and switch it to active. It gains 3000 BP until the end of the turn."
• Raid: "Add this card to your hand, or if you have the required energy, perform Raid with it."
• Color: the effect depends on the card's color. In Rurouni Kenshin, Red sidelines an opposing front-line character with 2500 or less BP, Blue returns one with 3500 or less BP to hand, and Purple replays a small purple character from your sideline.
• Special: strong removal. On Rurouni Kenshin cards: "Choose one character on your opponent's front line and sideline it."
• Final: "If you have 0 life, place the top card of your deck into your life area."

Color, Special and Final are limited: "Cards with Special, Color and Final triggers are restricted to no more than four cards for each trigger type." That's twelve at most across the three. For how each plays out mid-game, see the trigger system explainer.

Image: Bandai, UNION ARENA (Japanese InuYasha cards). Kikyo and Sango both carry the Active trigger.

Bandai's own rules video walks through a full turn if you'd rather watch it:

Deck construction terms

A deck is exactly 50 cards, all with the same source material code (the first three letters of the card number, such as HTR or RNK), no more than four copies of any card number, plus three AP cards. Cards with the same number and different art count as the same card. The card types are Character, Site and Event. Bandai can restrict specific cards for official tournaments; its restricted cards page limits two Evangelion cards (EVA-1-051 Asuka Shikinami Langley, EVA-1-063 Spear of Gaius) to one copy each, and from November 1, 2026 limits SOLO LEVELING's Monarch's Domain (UE17BT/SLG-1-035) to two copies.

Rarity is separate from all of this. C, U, R and SR, the starred parallels such as SR★★★, and AP cards change how a card looks, not how it plays. The card rarities guide covers what each one is worth.

Our take

Read the Keyword Abilities page of the rule manual once, then keep this glossary for the arguments. The two rulings that decide real games are the tie rule and Impact needing a battle: block with an equal-BP character and you lose it, and you can't save a life card by refusing to block an Impact attacker, because then it just deals its normal damage. Get those right and the rest of Union Arena's terms stay out of your way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does AP mean in Union Arena? Action Points. You pay AP costs by resting your three AP cards, and those same cards are the "AP" rarity slot in booster packs.

What does Impact do? When the character attacks and wins a battle, it deals 1 damage. It only matters when there's a battle, so through a block or with Snipe.

What is Raid? You place a Raid card on top of the character it names, paying its AP cost with the required energy met; the Raided character switches to active and may move to the front line.

How many trigger types are there? Seven: Get, Draw, Active, Raid, Color, Special and Final. Color, Special and Final are capped at four cards per type.

Who wins a battle when BP is tied? The attacker.

What is Snipe? It lets a character attack a character on your opponent's front line, and your opponent cannot block it.

Related Reading

• Union Arena How to Play: Rules & Turn Flow: the turn structure these keywords plug into.
• Union Arena Impact Keyword Explained: Impact in more depth, with counterplay.
• Union Arena Deck Building Guide: putting these rules into a real 50-card list.
• Union Arena Beginner Mistakes: common early misplays once you know the terms.
• Union Arena Chainsaw Man: Best Cards to Pull: the set with the hand-signed AP cards.

References

• UNION ARENA Official Rule Manual Ver1.1: zones, decks, attack resolution, Raid, Keyword Abilities
• About Banned/Restricted Cards: four-copy rule and current restrictions
• UNION ARENA Card List: trigger types and printed trigger text