Gundam Card Game

Bandai's card game for its biggest franchise. You field mobile suits, put pilots in them, and attack the opponent's shields. Break through the shields and the base behind them and you win.

The two ideas that make it feel like Gundam rather than a reskin: pairing and areas. A Unit on its own is a machine. Put a Pilot card on it and it gets stronger and gains the pilot's ability, which is exactly the fiction. And the battlefield is split between space and the ground, so a unit built for one is not automatically useful in the other.

• Resources build up over the game from a separate resource deck, so your main deck is never diluted.
• Your shields are your life total, and they are cards, so breaking one can have consequences.
• Command cards are your instants and tricks, played to swing a battle.
• Colours map to the factions and eras of the franchise.

• Unit: a mobile suit or ship. Cost, attack power, hit points, and the area or areas it can be deployed to.
• Pilot: attaches to a Unit, raising its stats and granting an ability. A pilot without a suit does very little.
• Command: one-shot effects, some playable during your opponent's turn.
• Base: a defensive card that sits in front of your shields and has to be dealt with first.

1. 1

   Ready and resource

   Ready your rested cards and add a resource, so your available resources grow each turn up to a cap.

2. 2

   Draw

   Draw for the turn.

3. 3

   Main phase

   Deploy Units, pair Pilots onto them, play Bases and Commands, and use abilities.

4. 4

   Attack

   Rest units to attack. Units can be blocked by enemy units in the same area, so space and ground fights are separate problems.

5. 5

   Shields

   An unblocked attack breaks a shield. Shields are cards, and losing them can trigger effects.

6. 6

   End

   End-of-turn effects, then pass.

• 50 cards in the main deck, plus the resource and base pieces the format requires.
• Up to four copies of a card by name.
• Balance units and pilots. Too many pilots and you have crews with nothing to fly.
• Cover both areas, or accept that you have chosen a lane and build to defend the other one.

• Standard constructed, with a banned and restricted list Bandai maintains.
• Sets are released in numbered waves alongside starter decks.
• Organised play runs through local shops with larger events above them.
• Chase cards are alternate art prints of the headline suits.

Mobile Suit Gundam started in 1979 and effectively invented the "real robot" genre: mecha as military hardware rather than superheroes, in wars where both sides have a point. The card game draws from across the whole franchise.

• The Universal Century timeline, the original continuity, is the spine: the Earth Federation against the space colonies of Zeon.
• The alternate universe series (Wing, SEED, 00, Iron-Blooded Orphans, Witch from Mercury) each bring their own casts, suits and politics.
• Pilots matter in the fiction as much as suits do, which is precisely why the game pairs them.
• Gundam has always been about the cost of war, and the card art does not pretend otherwise. It is a striking looking game.

Gundam on this platform is collect-only: real cards from real sets, pulled through the apitcg feed.

• Open packs from the card shop in Discord.
• Cards land in your public binder on the website.
• Duplicates feed trading and set completion.
• Bolts only. Nothing here costs real money.

• The official Gundam Card Game site for the rulebook, product list and banned list.
• The official card database for searching printings.
• Ask in our Discord. Someone will absolutely tell you which series to watch first.