By Beau Kealy Macleod
On September 25, 2026, the Gundam Card Game released 4 starter decks featuring new cards for new decks and supporting the older decks. But the question is, “Which decks should I buy?” This applies to both new players and long term players. This article will answer this question with opinions from experienced players and opinions from card shop employees.
The first of the new starter decks is the ST-11 Aquatic Assault. This Deck has introduced the brand new Marine typing.
The deck’s strategy is creating synergy with cards sharing the Marine type. It’s a low to the ground aggro deck that disincentivizes your opponent from attacking your units with destroyed effects or effects outright stopping a card from being attacked.
The “boss” monsters of the decks are the Lr Char’s Z’Gok and the Lr Shamblo, these cards are incredibly good in a Marine deck with the Shamblo being a support type boss who reduces effect damage dealt to your base by 5. Char’s Z’Gok is an early game card that stops your opponent from attacking it if there are 2 other rested Marine units in play, leading to a sticky card, or even completely un-attackable if you’re able to get multiple rested Char’s Z’Gok in play.
Players from the Gamer’s Guild of Benicia weekly tournament have already started experimenting with using some of its cards to improve existing aggro decks, and some are trying to make a tribal all marine deck work.
The next starter deck is Starter deck 12 , Raging Onslaught. The deck focuses on a strong mid and late game with a new level 6 Unicon Gundam (unit 02 Banshee) and a new level 8 Gundam Epyon.
The deck is all about non-stop pressure and being able to freely attack your opponents unit cards with the Banshee’s, effect giving it First Strike, which negates battle damage if it’s the attacking card. It can also become unblockable, making it one of the strongest mid-game cards in the entire game.
The Epyon is a powerful endgame card that, with its specific pilot, reaches 8 attacks, making it capable of destroying any unit below level 9, and even then they would require a pilot that increases their health points.
But its job isn’t just to throw down with the biggest bosses in the game, it’s also the perfect anti-flood card in the game, as its effect deals two damage to every enemy unit on the board when it battles and destroys an enemy unit.
This deck is one of, if not the most anticipated deck, as its wide variety of generic cards allows for many decks to grow stronger. Even for entire new deck theories to be realized, an employee at NorCal TCG states, “All but one online order featured at least one Raging Onslaught,” which I can attest for as I saw it with my own eyes when they were getting the orders ready.
The next starter deck is st13 Silent Barrage, a very interesting starter deck in terms of synchronization and direct meta viability.
The deck is all about creating special tokens that are unable to be attacked, but instead you utilize your units to either force battle with them or to grant a unit special effects by destroying them yourself.
While the deck was having its cards revealed, a common statement by store employees and players was, “What can we do with these tokens?” The starter deck only had 2 different cards that directly required a token, while one needed to rest any unit/token.
One of the cards was a mid range board attacker, seemingly having more of a place in st12. The other one of the boss monsters is a level 7 Qubeley that both generates and makes use of the tokens by forcing a damage step between a token and any enemy unit, which is good. However, a deck built around these tokens is currently impossible until the next set where we get early game units capable of redirecting damage to them, as they are expendable and another late game card increasing their strength.
The other boss monster of the starter deck is a level 6 Gundam Ariel that more so supports the academy archetype, granting it a strong every turn unit burn allowing the archetype with exponential growth at the end game to start their power curve even earlier, and allows them to control the board while playing out incredibly sticky bosses.
The next starter deck is St14 Heavy Dominion; this deck focuses on having absolute control of the end of the game. The decks featured legend rares are the Unicorn Gundam Full Armor and The O.
The Unicorn Gundam is a level 8 cost 6 that on play lets you search the top 3 cards of your deck for any card and add it to your hand, which is a great card for searching for whatever piece you’re missing to your deck’s strategy. It also has a second effect that allows it to negate battle damage with a card with equal or less attack then it once per turn.
This effect is very useful at dealing with midrange decks, or if your deck features attack reduction commands or pilot effects. It also can trigger on both turns, so it makes it incredibly difficult to deal with, especially with its high health.
The other boss is The O, which is a level 9 cost 8 that immediately makes its presence known on the board with its monstrous stats and powerful effects. It has unconditional suppression, which means that if it does damage to the players shield cards instead of only one damage, it destroys two shield cards, allowing you to make up for your slow start dealing mass damage very quickly.
The O doesn’t just boast a big stat line though, it also has a strong defensive effect where at the start of your opponents turn, their lowest level unit does not become active, meaning it cannot attack and can be attacked next turn if you want to.
This allows The O to slow down midrange to endgame decks that rely on a single unit to win
games such as the Nu Gundam, Sazabi, and Strike Freedom Gundam. The fact that it can stop those meta defining units makes this deck a great generic support for any deck completely changing how a deck does against other decks.
Players agree that the cards in the deck are much more good as side engines in other decks than as a cohesive strategy, but any generically good cards that can be splashed into many decks always go down in the memory of the game as great and useful cards.
