A look at some of the rulings that are easy to miss in the GCG Beta environment

I have been watching too many beta gameplay games on YouTube. Maybe it is borderline excessive, but I will watch whatever I can get my hands (eyes?) on. So far, the Beta set has modest complexity regarding card effects, and the comprehensive rules answer most of the questions that come up. That said, it is easy to overlook card clauses or misinterpret rule differences based on the card game the player is coming from. In no particular order, here are a few things I've seen come up watching matches.

#Wing Gundam attacking active units

「Wing Gundam」 has a condition on its special attack targeting rule. It requires that the chosen unit must be level 4 or lower, meaning that an active 「Aile Strike Gundam」 or 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 is not a valid target. You can of course still select these units as an attack target if they are rested.

#Destroying Char's Zaku

「Char's Zaku II」 only creates a token when both of the conditions on its effect are satisfied at the same time. The unit must have a pilot (note there is no condition on whom) paired with it when the unit is destroyed by damage. At this point, a token will be created.

#Bursted bases trigger deploy

The card text clearly states what should happen, but when starting out playing the GCG, it is common to forget to resolve the Deploy after you resolve the Burst effect of a base. Currently, all bases have the effect of "Add 1 of your shields to your hand," but given that is not keyworded, it may not be true for future bases. Do make note though that 「Falmel」 has a condition on the second part of its deploy effect. This means that if a 「Falmel」 is deployed as a result of the Burst a token will not be created.

#Conditional AP bonuses

Both 「Gundam」 and 「Char Aznable」 provide AP bonuses that combine a trigger with a conditional clause. In these cases, the trigger specifies "when" the effect activates. 「Gundam」 has an effect that triggers on During Pair and specifies a conditional in the effect that it only is active during your turn. Based on my interpretation of rule 9-1-6-1-1, the game will continually check the trigger and the effect condition to determine when to provide a bonus. This means that as soon as your turn has started, 「Gundam」 's trigger will fire and begin providing its AP bonus.

「Char Aznable」 , on the other hand, has an effect that triggers on Attack , with a condition of "During this turn." This means that if you pair 「Char Aznable」 on to a 「Char's Zaku II」 and attack, the 「Char's Zaku II」 will gain the effects of AP+1 and High-Maneuver for the rest of your turn. This effect will end at the end of your turn, as once your turn ends, the condition "During this turn" will never be able to be true again. The unit will not have the AP+1 bonus nor the High-Maneuver keyword until it attacks again.

#Breach cannot win the game

This is a rule that I misunderstood when I first read Breach . It specifically to "deal the specified amount of damage to a card" when a unit is destroyed. This means that if the defending player does not have a base deployed, and they have already run out of shields, the Breach effect will do nothing. The defending player will not lose the game from that attack.

#Timbre cannot save you

In a similar vein to the above, 「Peaceful Timbre」 states that "shield area cards" will not receive damage. This means that you cannot use 「Peaceful Timbre」 to prevent losing the game to an attack when you have no shields remaining. Notably, though, base cards are deployed into the "shield area", so 「Peaceful Timbre」 will protect both bases and shields.

#Pilots remain with units

This one makes sense, but is not explicitly clear if only the card text is being read. Once a pilot has been paired with a unit, that pilot will move to whatever zone the unit moves to. So if the unit moves to your hand or moves to the trash, the pilot will follow with it. While the pilot moves with the unit, once the zone change is complete, the pilot will no longer be paired with the unit.

#Link vs Pair

Pairing pilots with units is the fundamental feature of the game, but one of the things that immediately comes up as a question is when does a pair become a link. To start, as far as the beta set goes, you can pair any pilot with any unit. This will confer the AP / HP bonuses displayed in the bottom right of the pilot and activate and When Paired effects. Linking is a subset of pairing. Let's look at two units, 「GM」 and 「Loto」 . The black with white text section at the bottom of the card is the link requirement for this unit. This means that no pilot can link with 「GM」 as there is no link condition to satisfy, and any pilot that satisfies the "(Earth Federation)" trait condition can link with 「Loto」 . When looking at a pilot, they have two bits of information that are, as of the beta, relevant for linking: their name and their traits. As an example 「Amuro Ray」 satisfies all the following link conditions:

• "Amuro Ray" name condition
• "(Earth Federation)" trait condition
• "(White Base Team)" trait condition
• "(Newtype)" trait condition

All the cards that exist in the beta only reference either a name condition or a trait condition, but per rule 2-11-1 there is nothing stopping the designers from inventing new link conditions.

#Zones?

Who knows? We have seen "Earth" and "Space" as zones on bases and units. The comprehensive rules make no mention of the word "zone" anywhere within them. They can be seen as mini bits of flavor on cards, but they seem too prominently placed on the card frame for only that purpose. I have not played other Bandai card games in the past, so this certainly may be intended, but I would really like to see some kind of interaction between them as gameplay elements. Maybe units that have pushed AP / HP but can only interact with units in their zone, or a base that takes reduced damage from units that are not in its zone.

Even more bizarre is the way that zones are represented on the beta cards. They only contain two spaces for zone names, and based on what we have seen so far, the first zone is dedicated to "Space" and the second zone is dedicated to "Earth". You can see the differences by comparing the following three cards:

• 「Wing Gundam」
• 「Rick Dom」
• 「Gundam Sandrock」

Maybe it is a scrapped or incomplete concept? Just one more thing to look forward to with the initial set releases in July.