Gundam Card Game's first anniversary Set, GD05 Freedom Ascension will be a massive breath of fresh air for the player base as it's poised to bring the largest amount of meta impacting cards and decks into the game since the release of the very first set.
When we take into consideration the updated bans and restrictions hitting weenie turbo decks and the pair ban Amuro Ray and Mikazuki Augus, the upcoming meta is more open than it's ever been. That's not to say Aggro is gone from the game, I actually think far from it, and some of the GD05 cards will likely prove to be very scary on that front.
With that in mind, in no particular order, here are what I'm projecting to be the most impactful cards coming out of Freedom Ascension!
Strike Freedom Gundam
Strike Freedom will likely position itself as the premier Blue Boss Monster of late game decks for the upcoming meta (and I predict past that for awhile). To get the obvious pros out of the way, the card is a non archetype locked Unit that can draw cards even without a link, whether you're behind and need to clear board OR ahead and poke at shields. In a pinch it'll also serve as removal, though notably one a good opponent can try to play around. But in a Boss versus Boss situation, Strike Freedom will often walk away from that face off on top.
Conversely, there are some cons thought none I deem detract enough from the card to take away its merit as one of the most important cards of the set. It's a Level 8 Unit, standing among a very small amount of Units in the game to be playable this late. Additionally the removal can be played around, which could lead to some middling turns if not properly set up. That said, the card pushes you into the direction of White as your splash so heavily (thanks Kira) that both of these issues are largely overcome.
The best pairings early on for this insane Unit will be decks that can best take advantage of the draw provided while also being able to setup the boards necessary for the most impactful use of the Attack effect.
The natural first inclination is leaning into what Blue White has been doing since set 1: Blue White Blockers. The addition of 4 more Kira to the deck allows you to more aggressively utilize your white Kira for board control, something that was at times hard to justify when so many Units in the deck demand him as a named link. Just the existence of Kira Yamato acts as a release valve on that pressure, allowing you to more freely go for advantageous early Kira pairs without need to sacrifice the late game options.
Unsurprisingly, the best archetype out of the last set slots perfectly well into the strategy as well, with Victory Gundam providing the early game draw and V-Dash Gundam providing the board control necessary to maximize Strike Freedom's potential.
Unsurprisingly, both of these strategies meld relatively well into a cohesive strategy that will be extremely powerful out the gate, especially as the early turns don't have to be dedicated to so much anti-aggro tooling (probably) as there has been for the previous format.
There is the natural inclination to combine this with cards like Unicorn Gundam 02 Banshee Norn (Destroy Mode) for that Giga Value, but I'm of the opinion that this is largely Christmasland gaming, though I'm here for the fun of it the one time it does pop off.
Nu Gundam
Nu Gundam takes the mantle as probably the scariest card in Freedom Ascension, largely due to the fact that in a perfect curve scenario you lock the opponent out of effectively playing the game.
There is a fair amount of confusion regarding this card, so to clarify some key points:
Nu Gundam is attacking when using its on pair effect
Nu Gundam can select active Units with this effect
This effect attack does not rest Nu Gundam
If Nu Gundam destroys an opposing Unit during this battle, it will proc breach
There are no attack ability activations, no blocking, nor action steps during this battle
With the above in mind, Nu is scary because of these 2 facts:
In a behind situation, it can clear the 2 scariest Units on board while Breaching away 2 shields, thus allowing the deck to stabilize without sacrificing on the ability to close out the game in a meaningful amount of time.
In a game winning situation, Nu singularly can kill a blocker in the way, have the breach break a final standing base, and swing for game when Linked.
In an aggressive leaning strategy, this Boss unit I think will frustrate a lot of players as it have the V-Dash Gundam style of impact in the game where you can lock your opponent out of playing the game while also just closing out the game very efficiently. Then when you also remember that you can combine this Green deck with the already game warping prowess of Blue Amuro Ray and Gundam... well that's a recipe for something truly potent. Especially given that in a pinch, Blue Amuro can create the second target necessary for Nu to attack into if none are rested, or use Nu to clear out a blocker and Amuro to clear out another opening the way to win the game in a situation where you're facing more than 1 blocker.
The weakness of this strategy is largely that there is an opening for counter Aggro decks to get under you, especially strategies like Phantom Pain. As such, you do need to consider some level of concessions to contest against that. Nevertheless, regardless of Nu's popularity and looking solely on its playability, I fear how good Nu Gundam based strategies will be going into GD05.
Gaia Gundam
I suspect a large amount of players will go into Freedom Ascensions meta with the expectation that Aggro is largely dead because of the updated Banlist, however I'm of the opinion that this couldn't be further from the truth. Not only did the Banlist leave decks like One Year War largely unaffected, but GD05 is introducing a brand new aggressive archetype to the fray that has very real legs.
Phantom Pain is an aggressive archetype oriented around being able to cheat out bodies onto the board and force the opponent to discard. Bandai's previous forays into this very type of Aggro deck in their other games have always proven to be incredibly powerful, and I expect no different in Gundam, especially given the games inability to let decks draw cards to counteract this kind of strategy.
Gaia Gundam presents a lose lose situation for your opponent where they either speed up the clock by a very scary margin or lose out on one of their valuable, largely irreplaceable, card in hand. Now often times I can see opponent's get rid of bricks, but that starts to put players in a corner when you consider the Units Gaia is freeplaying.
As Units that you play for free or very cheap, these stat lines are not immediately answerable by most decks this early in the game, and getting off the hand-rip from specifically Abyss Gundam (MA Mode) will often feel like you're cheating.
Include these powerful Units with the ability for the deck to largely ignore turbo block strategies via Chaos Gundam and Girty Lue and you make for a very tough corner to put your opponent's in.
The deck does have a "weakness" in that deckbuilding is largely inflexible. After the roughly mandatory 42 card includes, you're in a position where you're just taking in the best cards from your splash color to go faster or get more advantage. In a position where the meta may shift towards more removal value oriented strategies, and I do see the Phantom Pain deck struggling. That said, the Nu matchup can lean quite favorable which does put the deck in a really good spot out the gate.
Gundam Exia Repair
In the face of the existence of Gundam Exia Repair, the new Banlist is kind of funny. Sure players can't turbo out a deck with a dozen Level 2, 1 Cost 2AP 2HP Units, but they can fill up on very comparable Units that in some cases are even better. In Gundam Exia Repair's case, you're trading away a HP for a non turn restrictive deathtouch for Level 4 and under units. This provides aggro decks with an additional blocker breaker without having to touch any link plays which is massively powerful.
If we then take a look at what Green can provide us aggressively:
The Zeon core stands largely untouched from the Banlist, and provides the deck with still a considerable amount of early game Aggro in similar spirits to the turbo weenie decks of old. Naturally this version of the deck omits Amuro Ray and Gundam but it's a worthwhile experiment.
That's not to speak to the fact that Gundam Exia Repair is effectively the best self mill tool to be printed yet, as it can serve as pressure or board control and then self mill for 2, whether you're in the targeted Celestial Being archetype or not. This makes it a valuable consideration for all strategies trying to build out their Trash: Vulture, Minerva, etc.
In a world of banned 2122s, Exia is a sign of future design space for a statline that may provide very scary for the game's future.
'Rush' Units
Rush Units describe units with the ability to attack other Units the turn they are deployed, regardless of being Linked. These cards mark a very important step in GCG's game philosophy, especially as the game borrows heavily from the design of games like Hearthstone, where these style of Units have become mandatory to a successful strategy.
The most powerful of the 3 that we got with this set is Gundam Deathscythe Hell (EW) given its ability to take out a large amount of Link Units in the game, most notable of which being a linked Gundam. However, all 3 of these Units open up their colors to being able to deal with on board threats while conserving their Links plays for later turns where it's more beneficial for their strategy. In previous formats, you'd often have to forgo your perfect setup and hope you can redraw into your needed pilot at a later turn, less you leave yourself open to losing too much tempo.
Time will tell how the statlines in the game line up to make these kinds of cards useful, as they live or die by their ability to effectively take down key threats early in the game. Nevertheless I am very high on these kind of cards, and suspect the Gundam Card Game will delve even more into this design space as the game progresses.
Protagonist Copies 5-8
Up until GD05, strategies revolving around Kira, Amuro and Heero have been at the forefront of the game as the most powerful things you could be doing across the entire spectrum of the game: Aggro, Midrange and Control. It's no surprise given that that gaining an additional 4 copies of said Pilots is extremely powerful. I touched on this topic a smidge when talking about Strike Freedom Gundam and Kira, but the existence of 4 additional copies of these Pilots by virtue of their name alone is so powerful that they could be vanillas and largely still see play.
This is the most evident when we look towards the Units these Pilots can link to from previous sets without even accounting for their new GD05 tools:
Going down the list:
We've been putting 2 HP pilots on Aile Strike Gundam since beta, and that largely is still very powerful to this day, even if we have to omit Blue Kira's draw to do so.
A effectively <Repair 4> Gundam is absolutely absurd, especially when you consider that gramps getting into the 6HP range takes him out of range of so many cards that would look to interact against it, like the previously mentioned Gundam Deathscythe Hell (EW).
Heero's case is one much more similar to Kira where by having a premium unit that you must link to most of the time in Wing Gundam, your end game potential to close out with a linked Wing Gundam Zero or make an emergency defensive link via Wing Gundam (Bird Mode) go down dramatically. That's in addition to making it easier to link in the heavily contested Level 6 slot with the existence of Wing Gundam Zero (EW), a very powerful card even if I'm a little cautious about how impactful it'll be in the overall meta on its own.
Airframe Seizure
Overflowing Affection is a good card. Even better when it's a Level 1 play and in a color that has needed cycle the most, to a point where I've experimented with Gwadan in decks before, to middling success.
There's not much to say about this card that isn't immediately apparent to anyone who's played a game of Gundam before; hand quality is hard to come by, and red is a color the very much relies on seeing the right cards at the right time to see success.
In addition to just being generically good, the card will also serve as a great boon to decks like Purple Red Minerva that sorely needed the extra consistency and ability to dump cards from hand into Trash to setup future plays.
Widespread Annihilation
In games that function like Gundam, board wipe style effects are extremely important because of the threat that is posed by a single turn or two of unanswered Units. In Magic the Gathering, Wrath of God and Damnation cost 4 mana, and even then sometimes are just too late to deal with powerful aggro boards.
I would have loved for Widespread Annihilation to have been a Level 5 Cost 5 card, but at 6 I think it is still very serviceable, and a card that will shutdown aggro decks completely if you're able to get it off two turns back to back. With the existence of Airframe Serizure, Red Purple decks can be poised to be the great gatekeeper for aggressive strategies if they become to potent in the game once again.
On a similar note however, inevitably the utility of this card goes down a smidge as the Banlist has removed the premier Aggro deck out of the format. Nevertheless, I expect Widespread Annihilation to be a key card for the game for a long while into the game's future.
Presidential Office
I'll get ahead of saying I have my doubts about Presidential Office having a large meta impact out of the gate and am largely including it in this list as an expectation of what this card, or style of card, will do to the game a few sets down the road.
I have lost count of how many games I find myself with 3 copies of a Base in hand, with no meaningful way to weave them into my plays as I am trying to restabilize the game I've fallen behind from. Or the frustrations I have felt as my opponent goes for game with my hand bricked by said Bases. Presidential Office presents an opportunity in the game for the first time (well sorta if we neglect Financier) to extend your defenses past your set life total on your opponent's turn. It's no secret that many games have been won and lost to a last shield base, and if we extend that to potentially 2 or 3 Presidential Offices in hand, that could be an incredibly back breaking setup.
Knowing you have the safety of multiple offices in hand is almost like knowing you're able to Time Walk your opponent if they play too aggressively, and even allows you to ignore a key Unit or two on their board to try and close out the game knowing they can't finish you off. It has a very Absolute Ice Shield effect in that sense to throw it back to Batlle Spirits Saga.
What I think will prevent that kind of thing to happen immediately in the Gundam Card Game is just the lack of hand advantage to create such a scenario consistently that makes it worth utilizing other utility Bases instead. I do think in spite of that though, this is the kind of card to keep your eyes on for the right time in the game where it will be incredibly powerful.
What do you think of my picks? Feel free to share your own over on the MetaSheep Discord or the Gundam Community Discord!