No, the blog is not changing format into becoming a card game resource but with the new boosters for GCG out for a week now, why not talk about it some more? Newtype Rising is the first booster pack set for the Gundam Card Game and released worldwide on the 25th of July. Here we are examining the English edition although there are also Japanese and Chinese language versions distributed elsewhere. Before its launch I wasn't sure I wanted to jump in or which language edition to go for, since I primarily focus on the Japanese language products but in this case I just let what was easily available guide me. I will not be surprised if the Japanese will end up getting more frequent and beautiful promo cards for example.
First impressions of the box is that it is really flimsy. Even though it arrived well packaged and in shrink the box was crumpled and caved in a little. We have some stylish mobile suit art on the sides and top with some newly commissioned artwork (I assume that the Wing Gundam and Unicorn we see on the sides are also found among the cards) but to be honest the whole thing looks a bit bland and generic to me. The game's logo is of course also not helping.
On the backside of the box we find a whole slew of disclaimers to help hem in your expectations, a card rarity count and information for - in my case - the various European distributors.
After having opened a lot of booster packs from games like Gundam Chronicle, Duel Company or Cross War in the past, the first impression of the GCG packs is that they are short, stubby and thick. Japanese games tend to have really thin packages often with only with 3-5 cards in each so this will be a welcome change although I expect a LOT of repeats.
Let's turn our focus to the card types for a second. The box informs us that the set is comprised of 130 different standard cards (i.e. the blue-backed ones) and an additional number of six support cards in the form of tokens and resources that don't go into your main deck. Each pack contains 12 regular cards and one of these supports chucked in as a bonus kind of like the Pokemon energy cards that were bloating every booster pack in, was it the Sun and Moon-era? How many resource cards could you possibly need?
The breakdown further talks about commons, uncommons, rares and legendary rares, but doesn't mention different card categories such as units or pilots. I don't know if there will be additional secret rares, alternative artwork or other similar denominations not included in the official tally, I am going on completely blind on this opening. Based on previous Gundam War-experience I would expect a pack of 12 to contain 8 commons, 3 uncommons and a single rare but we shall see. Let's crack 'em open already!
If you are like me and like to really drag out the opening process note that all cards are facing the front cover side of the pack. Keep the pack upside down when taking out the cards. The bottom card will either be a red- or yellow-back resource of token card so get rid of that one first. Next just go through the remaining stack of blue-cardback from front to bottom. The common cards are at the top of the pile, followed by the uncommons and then the rares. I remember some of the old Gundam War-game packs actually flipped the uncommons or even the rare upside down so that you often accidentally spotted them too early, but here everything is neatly organized.
Alright, first pack then! Everything is laid out in the order you encountered the cards from top to bottom. I was quite wrong about the rarity distribution, GCG is a bit more generous than I expected. Each pack will net you six common cards, four uncommons and two rares and at the end the resource or token card seen there in the bottom right corner. All of the artwork appears to be brand new for the game and has a fairly consistent style which is a huge plus. Different eras of computer or hand-drawn animation always poses a challenge to a game that tries to blend 45 years of Gundam-history into a single mix.
Really surprised and pleased to see the Mistral-class mobile worker depicted in-game but I still don't like how command cards are blended together with pilots. In this pack we can see two pure pilots cards for Yzak and Marida, and then three command cards that double as pilot cards for Rashid, Shaddiq and Dozle Zabi. Of course, if the game proves popular it is not unlikely that there will be pilot-class cards for some of these characters with different abilities. Colour-distribution appears thoroughly random so for those of you who like buying single packs there is of course the chance that you may end up with just a single card for your preferred faction. In this pack we have five white cards, four green, two red and just one blue.
The second pack is really unit-heavy, there is only a single command/pilot-card in the mix which is exactly how I prefer it. :) Note that we also get two base-cards in this pack, Newtype Rising contains two additional base-cards for each colour. I definitely did not expect to see these awesome ships in the game, colour me impressed. Among the two rares we have a basic rare "R" Shamblo (type-coded as Zeon but part of the red deck and not the green?) and holy-smoke a legendary rare PLUS-version of the Deathscythe Gundam. Did we pull the highlight of the box already in the second pack? If this was a Pokemon CCG booster box I would say we are pretty much done here, but hopefully that is not all she wrote for GCG. Notice how the resource card is just the same dull EX Resource found in each of the starter boxes. Let's press on.
In the third pack red and white dominate with four cards each, three blue cards this time and only a single green card but hold on... it is the Deathscythe Gundam again. This time as a legendary rare (LR), that is, minus the plus-sign. You see, the LR+ card in the previous pack is an alternate art-version of this card but the abilities and stats are exactly the same. Both cards have the same number but different classification. There are even some cards that have a second alternate-artwork variant classed as a "LR++" but - spoiler-alert - I didn't pull any in this box. Some of the faction traits of the cards confuse me. We have another mobile suit with the Zeon trait in the red deck and in this pack we also find both Guel Jeturk and his personal Dilanza - but his machine isn't linked to him personally but to any pilot with the "Academy" trait.
The fourth pack is more of a mixed bag but OH MY GOD, they put the Anksha in the game! I am still waiting for - any figure-series really - to include it. I'd even spend money on a Robot-Spirits figure even though it would break the bank. What a beauty! There are two new bases here, both blue. Besides Side 7, home to the V-project, the Nahel Argama (from Unicorn) shows up as an optional base and we have Banagher Links in the pack too, coded as a civilian. Does that mean that the Unicorn Gundam will be classified as civilian kit as well I wonder? :) I'm seeing more and more examples of grating spelling on the cards too... first it was Rasid and Yzak Jule and here comes Dearka Elthmann, who localized this thing? The two rare cards here are the Gyan - linked to M'Quve and Andrew Waltfeldt's personal LaGOWE linked to... any ZAFT pilot. Sigh...
We are starting to see more and more duplicates of the common cards, there are only 50 of them in the set after all, on average we should expect three of each if the packs are consistently arranged. The fact that we are pulling two rares in each pack with a total of "only" 32 of them in the full set makes me hopeful we might get most of them in a single booster box which would be phenomenal. So far there have been no duplicates in the rare-class but something tells me this will change soon. By the way, here we are again pulling Cagalli Yula Athha's Skygrasper and Char Aznable's red Zaku II, they are linked to Cagalli and Char specifically and not just any faction pilot, as it should be. I don't understand the inconsistency on display here.
A strange mix of cards in this pack with a new base-option for the Academy, an unnamed Skygrasper to join Cagalli's personal unit (I would have preferred if named units were uncommon or rares only) and would you look at that, Unicorns 01 and 02 as the rare cards and yes - the Unicorn Gundam is apparently a civilian steed. Can't wait to see its license plate and ownership certificate.
I haven't really commented on the resource cards we have been finding in most of the packs, they are beautiful close-up portraits of various mobile suits but still act as the plain resource-cards found in the starter packs. This time we got one of those confusing token cards, and as you can see it is identical to the one found in the ST03 Zeon's Rush starter set (seen on the left here). I have no idea why these are included in the booster packs and if it matters which faction they belong to, as I have mentioned previously I am only in it for the card collection aspect but I still find this unnecessarily complicated.
The green team gets a new base option in the Zanzibar-class cruiser with the same name and look, there is Cagalli's Skygrasper again, I would have much rather taken a second no-name version if it. Happy to see more iconic Gundam SEED grunt units in here, so far Newtype Rising is really burning up a lot of the mainstay suits from the series. They should be careful not to overdo it or the later sets will be full of Windmill Gundams with power creep meaning that all these beautiful machines will be cycled out of the meta too early. I notice that the resource card here is the same old EX Base-card found in all of the starter sets. Check out the legendary rare-plus (LR+) version of the Gundam card by the way, we are indeed able to get more than one of these "super-rares" in a booster box. I am positively surprised.
In pack number eight we find our first duplicate rare card, a second copy of the Gundam Aerial. However, there is something else that is odd here, the resource card in the right corner there - coincidentally also the Aerial Gundam - is coming in a foil-version which is coded as common plus "C+". This was the only such card found in my box and so I don't know if all of the resource cards are also available as plus-variants or not. Check out the ReZEL and Jegan there by the way, what a beautiful sight.
Wow, a Stark Jegan and also the Galluss-K? They clearly are burning through a lot of the Unicorn-series suits in this set, I am curious if this means we will not see them ever again. I have also noticed that so far, beyond the resource cards it seems that none of the cards found in the starter boxes are part of the Newtype Rising set. This is cool as CCG-starters often contain a couple of special cards and then a ton of recycled stuff from the booster packs, the Gundam Card Game is really impressing me in this regard.
And speaking of resource cards, what do we have here? A brand hew token card for the Justice Gundam's Fatum-00 wing unit complete with its own ability. It is coded with the Triple Ship Alliance (sigh... "Three Ship Alliance", please) trait, does that mean only the white deck can use it? The card-number T-011 indicates it is the first token card after the ten that came in the four starter packs. I didn't find any other new token cards in my box and so I don't know if there are even more out there.
We are really seeing a lot of duplicates now but I am happy to get multiples of all the mass-production type suits. This set contains two unique Leos piloted by Duo Maxwell and Zechs Merquise but you can only find the mass-production type in the ST02 starter pack which is a little odd. I wouldn't have minded seeing a different version of the Leo for example. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any GMs, GINNs or Strike Daggers either but I have seen alternate versions of the Zaku II and the Gouf. I do hope they will lean into making more alternate versions of common suits like these in the new booster sets going forward.
You know you pulled a bad pack when the card that interests you the most is an Earth Federation Ball with base stats of 1 and 1. :) One of the rare cards in this pack is a command card, the first one without a pilot trait and it feels like a waste somehow. Let's move on.
My god, they really dug deep into the pockets when they designed this set, I can't believe a spot was saved for my precious ZuOOT. At this point I am starting to feel like picking up a second box, not to chase the rarer cards but to build up a larger set of grunt suits, there sure is a lot of great ones in this set. Actually, the starters with their generous assortment of exclusive mass-production type units are starting to seem like viable multi-purchase options to me, for all the wrong reasons of course. :)
Wow, back to back ZuOOTs and... less excitingly back to back rares of Lucrezia Noin's personal Aries too. I notice that this Aries is linked to Noin specifically, you'd think any Oz pilot would be able to handle it since it is pretty much only a paint job-swap. After all, according to the GCG designers any ZAFT pilot can just waltz up to Waltfeld's LaGOWE and take it for a spin. This game...
We are more than halfway through the box by now and are still pulling new common cards. Here comes an optional base for the red team, the mining asteroid Palau and look at that, Dopp fighters for Zeon and the good old M1 Astray for the Orb Union (even though it is coded as a Three Ships Alliance unit here). We have seen none of the M1 pilots so far, perhaps there will be a different version of the Astray with the Orb Union trait in an upcoming set complete with Asagi's team? One can always hope, right? In this box we also find the legendary rare RX-78-2 Gundam card with the artwork seen on the box cover and all the booster packs.
We're pulling several cool mass-production suits as duplicates, less enthused to meet Wufei though. How many Zanzibars have we seen now? I feel like there is an entire fleet already (come to think of it - if the card had been named Zanzibar-class it would have been useful for many other gaming applications). The Guncannon shows up as a rare card together with the Banshee in a different configuration to the one we saw earlier. Let's continue.
Wufei again, really? I think that is the first mass-production Gelgoog we have seen, it is rated as uncommon after all. Yonem Kirks's beautiful Zaku Sniper shows up among the rares so I can forget about building a squad of those it seems. :/ Notice also the regular version resource card of the Gundam Aerial, it has the same artwork as the foil-version we discovered earlier.
Another strong pack with half a dozen mass-production suits including the first Rick Dom. I notice that both the MS-09 Dom and the MSM-07 Z'Gok appear to be absent from this set, presumably held back for a later booster series (and presumably with the Black Tristars team to follow suit).
I think we have seen everything here except the rares already. The Big Zam appears to have lower stats than the Wing Gundam Zero, I remember seeing somewhere that this Zero is one of the top cards in the meta at the moment which feels completely undeserved; surely it would be ground into space dust by the Kshatriya. :) That is the same artwork as on the side-cover of the booster box by the way.
Pack 19 of 24 and not much to report from here, a single mass-production type suit feels incredibly underwhelming. That combination of rare cards seems very familiar and yes, sure enough, you can see the exact same combination in pack number 8. It doesn't seem like the rares are packaged in specific groupings however, because that Aerial has featured together with a different rare card seen in the third pack from this box. While things are looking good overall it seems we may not get all of the rares in a single box (not counting legendary rares here, just the individual card numbers).
Booster package number 20 contains only a single new card but it is a beautiful one, the Strike Rouge. I notice that the card has the trait "Triple Ship Alliance" but it is linked to an "Orb" pilot. I think I need to study this in more detail... let's dig out some of the Orb cards for a closer inspection:
Alright, so what do we have here? Well, the Strike Rouge and the M1 Astray are both here and coded as belonging to the "Triple" Ship Alliance rather than Orb. I guess I can live with that since they are deployed on the Kusanagi (even though the Kusanagi never defected from Orb like the Archangel did from the Earth Alliance). Cagalli herself only has the Orb trait and notice how the Strike Rouge is coded to go with an Orb pilot rather than a Three Ship Alliance pilot (that would be Kira or Athrun if they had been released in this set which they curiously are not - they only exist as Earth Alliance and ZAFT pilots in the ST04 starter). The M1 has no special pilot link requirements. Then we look at the two Skygraspers, technically belonging to the Earth Alliance military but two were carried on the Archangel. Only Cagalli can board the named machine (which is odd since it is just a standard Skygrasper) and the second requires an Earth Alliance pilot so Kira could pilot that one but not Cagalli. This whole system is just a mess... :)
Let me just hammer home this point one more time... On the left we see the Wing Gundam and the Wing Gundam Zero from Newtype Rising, on the right we have Heero Yuy and the Wing Gundam found in starter ST02. At least here all the Wing Gundam versions are linked directly to Heero, but notice how the Zero has a different trait than all the others. The other cards are tagged with Operation Meteor but the Wing Zero instead is given the G Team-trait. I guess presumably we will see more of those in a future set. Still... this system is a mess.
Moving on... four packs to go. Nothing new among the commons and the uncommons here and the two rare cards are both command cards without even the pilot ability. Lovely artwork but I am trying to find the missing mobile suits here; specifically a Buster Gundam to go with Dearka Elsmann. :)
Three packs to go and not a single mass-production type unit in this pack - what a waste. The saving grace is that beautiful Kshatriya with a puny stat-bar of [5][4], hopefully its and/or Marida's special abilities can make up for it.
Two packs to go, an awful lot of command and base cards here at the last stretch but look at that, two beautiful cards in the rare slot that I did not expect to see here. Between the Zeon starter pack and this set there is a really good selection of Unicorn-era mobile suits in this game, an important era for me personally since the original Gundam War card game folded right around the time before its release.
here is the lats pack then, and no Buster Gundam for me unfortunately. Overall though, we did really well. Out of the 130 different cards (not counting the alternate artwork variants here) we got everything except the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam (Destroy Mode), GAT-X103 Buster Gundam, ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam and the ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam - all of them legendary rare. Wow, that's a pretty expensive group of cards to try and go find on the aftermarket.
Still, this means we found 50 out of 50 commons, 36 out of 36 uncommons, all the 32 rares and 8 out of the 12 legendary rares - I certainly did not expect such a good variety from a single box. Technically, out of the 48 rare spots there were 10 cards rated legendary rare or legendary rare plus, it just so happened that we pulled both the LR and the LR+ versions of some of them. You can also find "plus" versions of a couple of the uncommon cards, typically in the waifu category because this is a Japanese cardgame. In fact I know of at least 33 cards from this set that we did not find in this particular box, most of them in the "plus" or "plusplus" categories.
Here we see three of the four RX-78-2 Gundam cards found in the Newtype Rising series on the left as well as the version found in the ST01 starter deck on the right. Most of the mobile suits and pilots found in the starters do not even appear in this set but the once that do typically have different stats or abilities (as well as artwork), as seen here.
These were the standard resource cards found in this set. You get ten of them without artwork in a starter box so there is more than enough in a booster box to replace them here. According to the box cover there are six different resource and token cards in this set which makes absolutely no sense because here are eight of them and they all have individual card numbers. Interestingly they are numbered R-002 through R-009, the no-artwork version found in the starters has number R-001.
These are the EX Resource and Token cards we found in the box. Except for the fatum-00 which appears exclusive to this set the other cards have been seen before; the EX resources are the same as the ones found in each starter and the token cards match the ones found in the ST03 Zeon's Rush starter. Perhaps each booster box has a random faction's token cards inserted, or maybe they are all like this. It seems completely pointless though and these cards should be relegated to the starter kits I think.
When it comes to card colour balance it seems there is a reasonable attempt to keep the factions evenly distributed but hey, this is a single sample so it isn't exactly science. My package contained a total of 75 blue cards, white and green each had 72 cards while red had to make do with 69 (with the remaining 24 slots going to resources and tokens). In summary, as a card collector I am very happy with my purchase - managing to pick up a nearly complete set in a single booster box is unheard of. For example, I recall having to buy somewhere around 20 booster boxes of the first Gundam War cardgame set to get every last one of the rare cards so this system seems much more forgiving. At least if you are prepared to miss out on the alt-rares; considering I only found two of those in this box you'd have to buy many more boxes (crates even?) to have a chance of finding them randomly.
No comments:
Post a Comment