1st Place Gundam SEED Deck List and Guide
Gundam SEED may be a polarizing entry into Gundam’s history, but we can’t deny its impact – many consider the phenomenally popular show as being the shot in the arm that brought Gundam back into the mainstream. Meanwhile, its latest film (released in 2024) was the highest grossing Gundam film of all time.
Clearly, SEED has its fans, and those very same fans will be excited to know that one of the starter decks released alongside Newtype Rising – Gundam’s first set – is fully based on characters and machines from the series.
In this guide, we’re going to be talking about how you can upgrade your Gundam SEED starter deck with cards from the booster pack to create a powerful deck capable of challenging the meta. Don’t believe me? Well you should – this deck is the very one I used to achieve an undefeated win at a Gundam Store Tournament versus a very meta-heavy playing field.
SEED Strike Starter Deck
Gundam SEED (Justice Blockers) Deck List
1st out of 12 by Joseph Writer Anderson
A fully upgraded Gundam SEED deck focuses on the two primary pilots of Kira and Athrun Zala. And for good reason – really these two guys are so strong they’re all you need to dominate the playing field. Let’s look at each of them in turn and dive into what exactly makes them so effective.
Kira Yamato and his Units
Kira isn’t only strong because of the powerful Units he’s able to Link with – he’s also got a powerful Attack effect that activates regardless of what Unit he happens to be paired with. While that may not sound like a lot at first, play a few games and you’ll quickly begin to realize how massive this can be. Reducing the AP of an enemy Unit means getting more positive trades – battles where your Unit survives while your opponent’s does not.
Kira Links with the powerful Aile Strike Gundam
Aile Strike Gundam isn’t just one of the strongest cards in this deck – it’s one of the strongest cards in the game right now thanks to its combination of excellent stats, relatively low Lv and cost, and its synergy with Kira. Playing this Unit as soon as you are at Lv 5 and then Linking it with Kira is a very powerful play, sometimes capable of clearing your opponent’s board in a single move.
While the Freedom is technically stronger, its effectiveness is actually lesser simply because it won’t come out until later in the game. For the majority of the game, however, your Aile Strike Gundam is going to be one of your most deadly Units.
And as if all of that weren’t enough, it’s got the powerful Blocker keyword – arguably the most effective keyword in the game right now.
The Freedom
One of the more recognizable Gundam around, the Freedom is Kira’s strongest mecha, and the one you’ll use to help close out games. Linking Kira with this big guy means lowering opposing enemy Units by a total of four AP. Meanwhile this Unit still has the powerful Blocker capability, and you can use the Freedom’s effect whenever a pilot is linked with a White Unit.
Strike Gundam delivers additional draw
One of the things I love about having this deck built in this way is having plenty of room to run four of the Strike Gundam Units. Often overlooked, getting that incremental draw from a solid unit that’s only a Lv 4, two cost and also Links with Kira is just too much to turn up for me.
Athrun Zala and his Units
As Gundam decks are as much built around their Pilots as they are their Units, we have to cover Athrun in depth. I’ve found Athrun to be one of the strongest Pilots in the game right now. And while he doesn’t have a universally effective ability as do the likes of Kira or Amuro Ray – making him a more niche choice – in decks that can afford to focus heavily on his units, you unlock some distinct advantages from running him.
Perhaps the thing I like best about Athrun is that he essentially acts as an Amuro Ray for Red decks – Link him with your Aegis or Justice and you can attack active enemy Units. Also, because this powerful effect is baked into one of your main pilots, you don’t need to run extra pilots just to enable you to deal with opposing strategies that would leave Units active to avoid being taken out.
Between your ability to attack enemy units with Athrun, bouncing them with Aile Strike Gundam, and then spreading damage via the Aegis’s effect and your “Battle of the Aces,” you have plenty of utility at your disposal to deal with a range of strategies you come up against.
The Aegis Gundam
The Aegis is one of my favorite Units in the game. Only a Lv 4, and boosting to a 5/5 when paired with Athrun, the Aegis has formidable stats both offensively and defensively. Meanwhile, his damage 3 dealing effect makes him an absolute terror against bigger enemy Units under the right circumstances.
To really maximize the Aegis’s effectiveness, you’ll want to pair it with Battle of the Aces when possible. This Command does an additional 3 damage to already damaged Units, making it highly effective at destroying bigger foes. The Burst effect of dishing out two damage is also quite handy, making it a no-brainer to add to this deck strategy (and also keeping with the theme as Athrun is featured in the card’s artwork).
Although the Aegis works fine on its own, look to Link it with Athrun whenever possible to unlock its full effect.
The Justice – your strongest Unit
While this deck may run the massively more popular Freedom Gundam, I actually find the Justice to be the stronger of the two. While the Freedom really needs a Pilot to be most effective, the Justice brings plenty of value on its own. Play this Unit to the field late game and not only do you have a powerful Lv 7 with 5/5, you also get to deploy a solid 2/2 Unit Token with Blocker. This makes for a solid late game play when you need just a little added help defending against threats that would be a direct hit.
Meanwhile, Linking with Athrun makes this Unit absolutely deadly, letting you attack Active Units with a massive 6/7 body, and even combining with the Triple Ship Token you deployed that turn, acting as a solid aggressive late game play in addition to a defensive maneuver.
If you needed any reason to partner Red with White for a deck running Athrun, look no farther than the Justice.
The Early Game Triple Ship Combo
My first ever store tournament was won thanks to my Blue/White Unicorn Blocker deck, but the closer matchups were edged out by my early game Triple Ship combo. This is one of the most deadly early game combos in the game right now, and many players are starting to catch on, with players in Japan (for example) leveraging this strategy to take down tournaments.
Essentially, by combining your M1 Astray with your Strike Rouge, you unlock much greater early game aggression than possible with a lonely Zowort. The best line is to play the Astray turn two, the Rouge turn three, and then pay your remaining resource to restand the Astray. This way you can attack without opening yourself up to an unwanted attack yourself. This play can be used to quickly deal with aggro decks that like to flood the field with bodies, as well as to gain an early advantage against midrange and control decks that simply don’t have the same kind of plays available to them so early in the game.
While the combo works perfectly well between just the Astray and the Rouge, an added incentive to field them in this deck is the fact that you have plenty of other Triple Ship Units, including the Freedom, the Justice, and the Triple Ship Token Unit that the Justice deploys. This makes it much more likely you’ll be getting that added AP and Blocker keyword off of the Astray. And late game, the Astray can still attack your opponent’s shield directly, unlike the comparatively useless Zowort.
Why the Unforeseen Incident and the Vesalius?
The last two cards we should talk about (and the only ones we haven’t talked about besides the Overflowing Affection Command which needs no explanation) are the Unforseen Incident Command and the Vesalius Base.
Unforseen Incident running at four makes it very, very easy to get off in combat. And while most decks can’t justify running so many copies of this card, because you get so much utility out of the combo of Athrun and Kira and don’t need to run more pilots, you absolutely have space for the four copies of “Unforeseen Incident.”
While this card can be great to use offensively, it’s just as strong defensively when your opponent attacks you, or off of life via Burst. Thanks to how many Commands this deck can run, you have a total of 20 cards with Burst in this deck, making it much more likely to hit one off your opponent’s attacks.
Vesalius, meanwhile, is just here to grant added attack when you need it most. This can be helpful when punching through stronger bases, or simply to ease the math between trades with enemy units.
Red/White SEED Matchup Guide
Although I started writing this guide before testing the deck out in the field, by the time of publishing I have a tournament win under my belt, giving me some real hands-on experience with piloting this deck against very strong players running meta decks.
While I won my first ever Gundam Card Game tournament with a creative twist on Blue/White Unicorn, I really wanted to see how well I could do in Gundam playing a fully off-meta deck. Red/White SEED or Justice Blockers (or whatever you want to call it) simply hasn’t made a big splash competitively in Gundam yet. However, it’s still early days and this strategy could certainly catch on.
Regardless, here’s some info to help you in piloting this deck in the field, based on my matchups from the tournament.
Versus Blue/Green Aggro
In order to punish players who love to focus on later stages of the game and neglect the early game, many are running aggro decks to try and sneak out wins. These decks absolutely must be attacking shield whenever possible, as they simply don’t have the tools necessary to deal with stronger decks towards the second half of the game.
As such, Blue/Green Aggro has become one of the most popular Gundam meta decks, and for good reason. This deck is pretty scary, especially if you don’t have a game plan against it. However, this deck definitely has an answer to it, and your strongest early game play is the Triple Ship combo. Use the M1 Astray to take out weak attackers, and then sacrifice it in a blocking maneuver after re-standing it with the Strike Rouge.
This deck also has plenty of Breaching units. The nice thing is, they don’t Link with anything so they are relatively slow. I recommend bouncing them to the hand via Aile Strike Gundam or simply clearing them with a Unit Linked with Athrun to take them out of the game. In situations when that’s not possible, reduce their efficacy via Unforeseen Incident on your opponent’s turn.
Versus Wing Gundam
Another very popular deck, Wing Gundam is the polar opposite of Blue/Green Aggro. This deck is looking to steadily build up resources in order to punish you late game. Let your opponent get to this stage of the game with a full hand of powerful cards and you very well could lose. However, my Gundam SEED deck has a lot of early game aggression so I find this to be a relatively favorable matchup.
Just make sure you aren’t bouncing the Wing Gundam (Bird Mode) cards back into the hand. Additionally, one strategy that worked for me was to get a decent line of Units on the field before swinging for Shield. Once things were set up, I could clear shields in two turns.
Your Aegis/Battle of Aces combo is also strong here when dealing with your opponent’s bigger units, while the Vesalius boosting AP can also come in handy for clearing tough blockers and shields.
Blue/White
Both Blue/White decks (Freedom and Unicorn blockers) are your toughest matchup. In a lot of ways, these two decks share the same DNA, and work in similar ways. However, Blue/White has a few stronger late game plays than you do, primarily around its enhanced draw capabilities. Those really won’t make a huge difference until Lv 5 onward, however, meaning it’s your job in this matchup to use your stronger early game to do as much damage as possible so as to avoid a protracted battle of attrition.
One particularly strong play against this deck is the Aegis. Use it to defeat wounded enemy Units without having to attack them directly.
Based solely on characters, Units, and Commands from the popular SEED Gundam series, Red/White SEED is a fantastically fun deck. It’s adaptable to the playing field, and absolutely competitive against the current meta as long as its piloted by the player with the right mindset.
