Wondering what the next big TCG is going to be? The Gundam Card Game has a strong stake in the ground, backed by one of anime’s biggest franchises, as well as the full attention of Bandai’s considerable marketing/card game development prowess.

After playing at my first ever Gundam Card Game Launch event on the very day the Newtype Rising booster pack (Gundam’s inaugural set) launched, it’s clear to me that the Gundam Card Game is one seriously fun ride. Its game play and mechanics should resonate with a wide variety of players, and each battle truly is a roller coaster from start to finish.

Through four hard fought battles, I managed to secure second place out of 17 players. I had a ton of fun along the way, won some epic prizes, and even more importantly, learned a ton about the hot new TCG and how it’s played in the process.

Below, we’ll be looking at everything from how I approached building my Gundam Card Game Launch Event deck, to insights gained from each of the four battles I faced.

So hop into your Mobile Suit and get ready for a wild ride. At the end, hopefully you’ll be better armed to battle your way to victory at your own Gundam Card Game Booster Launch event!

Gundam Card Game Booster Pack Launch Event – deck building rules

Before diving into the creativity, the strategy, and the craziness that ensues at a Gundam Card Game Launch event, let’s cover our bases and go over some ground rules.

The most common format for Gundam Booster Pack Launch Events is to have players open four packs each. From these four packs they will then construct a deck of exactly 30 cards. There are no limits to the number of a specific card you can have in your deck, and all colors are allowed.

Gundam Booster Pack Launch Event deck building tips

2nd out of 17 Gundam Booster Pack Launch event sealed deck list

With the basics out of the way, let’s walk through my thought process and approach to building the deck, including ratios, key synergies, and more.

Shields

To start with, you’re clearly going to want as many shields as you can to be in your deck. I pulled three from my packs and included each of them in my deck.

Command cards

Command cards are very strong in this format. While you aren’t necessarily going to want to include every single command card you pull, you’re going to want to include many. In the end I settled on six different command cards and every single one of them added a ton to my deck. While you could probably get away with a few more or a few less, six felt just right.

Pilots

Although typically you’ll want to build your Gundam deck around two solid pilots, for this exercise I went light on pilots. Essentially my thought process on the pilots was that if they could be linked, I would include them. My assumption was that if you could manage to pull off a link in a sealed format like this one you’d be fairly well off. I did not end up being wrong with that and the cards I could Link gave me a huge advantage over the competition.

Units

Finally, arguably the most important part of your Launch event deck are your units themselves. More important than the absolute number of units in their totality, however, are the way you divide them up based on level and cost. I found the following ratio to be fairly optimal, and never had trouble finding a unit to play by turn two.

Three one/one units
Five two/two units
Two three-cost units
Two four-cost units
Three five-cost units
Two big boy units: seven and up.

Building the deck in this way provides a decently midrange feel, letting you deal with early game threats reasonably well while building up to your stronger Units later on. In the deck I built, I put an emphasis on Link units, hoping to use those to gain a competitive advantage. With a combined total of five different linkable units and five pilots capable of linking with them, this felt like (and acted like) a distinct competitive advantage.

Strongest keywords to include during Gundam Launch Event, Ranked

Link

Link is the single strongest keyword in the Launch event format, hands down. Assuming you can get a link off based on what you pull from your packs, it’s the single strongest play you can do, enabling you to more rapidly gain control of the board.

In my deck, the strongest Pilot hands down was my Banagher Links. Not only could he Link with three different units of mine, he also goes back to hand to be used all over again. He was my most consistent Link option.

Blocker

Blocker was the second strongest keyword I came across. Getting multiple blockers on the field can make it very, very difficult for your opponent to strategize for their ideal move, while providing a vital defensive layer to use against your opponent.

Breech

Breech can be highly effective, especially when paired with cards that let you gain an attack target, either by attacking active characters or by first resting them. This felt particularly strong in the format as both eliminating units from the board and hacking away at life felt very hard to deal with.

Repair

Not the most alluring of all keywords, it’s still a very strong one in the Booster Pack Launch format, especially given most of your damage being dealt via direct combat. Manage to get a strong Repair unit out there early and your opponent will struggle to resist.

The Ultimate Shamblo Combo

By now I’ve covered just about what you need to know to build the foundations of success in the Gundam Launch format. However, there’s one specific combo that won me two out of the four games I played to top the event. That combo rests on one card in particular: Shamblo

Quite clearly a beast of a card, the only problem here is that it’s got an insane level and cost, meaning you won’t be playing it until the very end of the game. However, my deck did benefit from having the First Contact ramping Command, making it a little easier to get this unit out. Meanwhile, the particularly strong thing about this guy is that it can be paired with your Banagher pilot, letting you draw a card and also attack the turn it’s played.

When you attack, you can deal an incredible three damage to an enemy unit. While it might sound a little hard to ensure you have the right number of units out to make this happen, there are a few relatively straightforward ways to do this.

First, there’s the powerful Extreme Hatred card.

Deploy two units, then simply pay one cost and rest them. This dishes out three damage to an enemy unit. Then attack with your Shamblo into an enemy unit, and afterwards dish out another three damage.

Don’t have the units handy? There’s another command for that.

Play Fortress Defense First, then use Extreme Hatred to switch those tokens to resting. Might sound like a lot of combos to have handy at the same time, but running only thirty cards in your deck makes it possible to pull off combos like these: I pulled off both in two different games!

While pulling off a big boy attacker like Shamblo might sounds farfetched in a sealed format like this, it was actually thanks to these combos that I won two out of the four games to top the event.

A powerful tech…

One last note on the deck building side of things – this Unit was extremely handy for me. When building the deck, I figured I’d have plenty of chances to have Command cards in my trash given 1/5 of my deck is Commands. Apart from one game, I had no trouble playing this solid Unit for -2 cost thanks to having four or more Command cards in trash. That may not sound like a big deal, but when it comes to a format like this one where contests are so very close, getting that added ussage out of your resources can go a long, long way.

Finally, know the rules

While I did practice a little bit before going to this event, I will admit I didn’t know all of the rules ahead of time. There was one key rule, in fact, I didn’t know, and it caused me to not include a particularly powerful Unit in my deck. As funny as it sounds, I did not know you could pair any pilot with any unit – I thought you could only pair them via the Link mechanic when their name was included.

For this reason, I didn’t bother including the powerful Kshatriya LR+ I was lucky enough to pull from my packs.

Kshatriya can easily be paired with several of the Pilots available in my first Gundam Booster Pack Launch deck to leverage the powerful damage dealing effect. However, because I didn’t know you could pair Pilots without their name listed in the Link box, I missed out on this very powerful play. As embarrassing as that is, I just thought I’d mention it either because you don’t know that rule or because there are other rules you haven’t heard yet. It definitely helps to do your homework before attending the event!

Ultimately, the Gundam Booster Pack Launch Event is a huge success. The choice to cut decks down to just 30 cards provides plenty of opportunity for creative deck building on the spot – creating one of the most enjoyable early release formats from any card game I’ve played to date.

The prizes you get just for attending this event (the Gundam deck box which looks amazing and the promo) are fantastic, and pulling off insane combos from a hodgepodge of strategies is one of the most rewarding things a TCG enthusiast can experience.

For more insights into the Gundam Sealed format for launch events, check out my video below.

I Topped the Gundam Booster Pack Launch Event – Here’s How