"SEED Strike" is not only the worst named deck but also the fourth and last of the introductory Gundam Card Game dual-colour starters released on July 11. It wraps around the colour palette and cycles back so that its two colours of red and white result in each colour being represented in two starters. The game allows you to build your deck from one or two colours and so you have been given two options each by Bandai and is free to figure out the third combinations yourself. To exemplify, the red colour paired here with white is also paired with blue in the first starter "Heroic Beginnings" but there is no preset white and green deck and so on.
Starter 04 takes two opposing teams and slam them together into a joint task force; Z.A.F.T. and the Earth Alliance now get to work together just because they happen to come from the same alternate timeline. By the same logic Bandai could have made a blue and green deck built up by E.F.S.F. and Zeon forces. This is one of my main issues with Gundam collectible card games (or arena-style shooters for that matter) in general - there is zero adherence to the in-universe settings and everything boils down to a watered down hodgepodge of random units punching and kicking at each other. Anyway...
If you have skimmed through the previous starter deck reviews there isn't much new to say here. You have the exact same component count here; 50 cards for your main deck, 18 resource cards, a cardboard counter sheet, a combined rules/playmat and a promo-pack that contains an alternate foil-colour version of one of the cards in this set.
The double-sided playmat/rules sheet is of course similar to the ones found in the other boxes. Yes, the card artwork is showing cards found in the ST04 starter instead of course, I feel like I am repeating myself needlessly.
The most interesting aspect of this item is of course the deck composition; which units have been chosen to represent each faction and is the new artwork anything special? I must say I was very pleasantly surprised to see more mass-production type units than I had expected. SEED is quite Gundam-heavy but this starter leaves out almost all of the Z.A.F.T.-operated Gundams and completely ignore the Freedom and Justice and instead showcases the Strike and the Aegis.
The white faction is spearheaded by the Aile Strike Gundam which is the faction's "legendary rare" foil-printed card. It is teamed up with a lesser version of the Strike without any backpack (less happy about that), a couple of Strike Daggers and two mobile armours, a bunch of Moebius fliers and Mu La Flaga's Zero-variant. Z.A.F.T. is represented by the Aegis Gundam in legendary rare foil-garb, again backed up by itself in mobile armour form and then a couple of mass-production type GINNs and Miguel Aiman's ret-conned orange machine. I don't like how all the GCB starters are lop-sided like this; why not have five different units for each side?
You will not be surprised to learn that Kira and Athrun are the two main pilots for each faction. They are backed up by combo pilot/command-card versions of Mu La Flaga and surprisingly Miguel Aiman. Well, it isn't surprising considering that his GINN is in the starter, it is just an unusual pick for a game like this but I like it. The Earth Alliance gets the only pure command card which is a Striker Pack set for the Gundam with a lot of rules crammed into its text box. Each faction also gets an iconic space craft as its main base; the legged ship for the Earth Alliance and Raw Le Creuset's command vessel the Nazca-class destroyer Vesalius. I wish someone would make a PVC model of this great design, come on Gundam Converge!
The 18 resource cards that are not part of the main deck are the same tired mix of standard and EX resources as well as these obscure Token Cards that here take the three different forms of the Strike Gundam equipped with the different Striker Packs. Man, Z.A.F.T. is really short-changed in this set. Once again the counter sheet has a couple of custom tokens to match some of the card effects found in this starter.
So what random promo-card did we get with this lot? Well I'll be damned; it is one of the legendary rare foil-cards in an "upgraded" foil version which is denoted as "LR+" or Legendary Rare-Plus as its rarity level. This numbering system is just stupid. Imagine if the two legendary rare cards would have had completely alternate artwork cards in these promo-packs, that would probably have driven collectors completely mad. Instead the card features the same artwork as on the standard card except it has been zoomed in and cropped a little and the Z.A.F.T. insignia has been added into the background. I am honestly quite happy that these promo-cards are so underwhelming; it would have been a real pain trying to chase them down if they were really special.
Just like the other starters; SEED Strike is available as a variant called ST04a which also includes three promotional miniatures for Bandai's upcoming miniature wargame "Gundam Assemble". I find the unit selection really lacklustre. I do like the look of the Skygrasper miniature but throwing in two versions of the GAT-X015 with Sword Striker and Launcher Striker packs attached is silly; they should have picked one and put a different suit in the third slot in my opinion. The Gundam Assemble minis are simple model kits that you need to put together and paint up yourself so only hobby enthusiasts need apply.
So what is next for the Gundam Card Game? Well, Newtype Rising - the first booster pack series - premieres on Friday; it is likely sold out in many places already. We get two additional starter sets in September and October. ST05 will introduce suits from Iron Blooded Orphans (presumably Tekkadan and Gjallarhorn) and ST06 will follow with everyone's current darling GQuuuuuuX (The Pokemon gang goes to space...).
I am curious if these sets will introduce new faction colours. Four deck colours seems a little bit limited for a sprawling universe like Mobile Suit Gundam. If we were to look back to Gundam War again that game also launched with four main colours; blue for E.F.S.F. and A.E.U.G., green for the Principality of Zeon, black for the Titans and red for Neo Zeon.
The game later expanded with three additional colours; yellow or brown lumps together stuff from Turn-A-Gundam, Gundam X and Mobile Fighter G Gundam, white featured Oz and the Gundam Pilots from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing together with O.M.N.I. and Z.A.F.T. (and all other lesser factions) from SEED. Purple started out as a neutral colour but then became the home of Celestial Being's overpowered monstrosities while other factions from MSG00 where snuck into the green and the black decks. Additional factions were seeded into the existing decks where they seemed to belong; the League Militaire and F91-era E.F.F. went into the blue deck, the evil Zanscare Empire joined black and the Crossbone Vanguard ended up in red. I think it is likely we will see additional deck colours also in the Gundam Card Game as the system continues to expand.
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