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Beta Set Review · White

Beta Set Review · White

29 Jan 2025

Evaluating the white cards of the limited beta set

Table of Contents

#Introduction

The early days of a new set in a card game are some of the most entertaining. Trying to determine the potential of cards with few to no match data to go on. Consider now that the set is incredibly small, such that you cannot just ignore 60% of it as filler. Finally, add on top that it is a brand-new game without an existing history to compare against. All of that together makes evaluating a set of cards and guessing their potential incredibly fun.

We are going to start this set review with the available white cards, and then follow up with green and blue at a future date. I am only going to be reviewing this set through the lens of the set itself. So consider any rating to be relative to the specific color within the set, and to some degree, the full set. It is very difficult to predict if we are seeing the lower or higher end of the power curve compared to the full release this July, or maybe Bandai has given us a uniform sampling; only time will tell.

Without wasting more time on an intro, let's get into the set.

#Individual Reviews

Starting off with one of the stronger cards in the set. Its base stats are good enough at [4|4] for a Lv5 card, but nothing amazing. The heavy lifting on this card comes from the Blocker keyword, which is the strongest keyword we have currently. In a game so focused on unit combat, getting to control where those combats occur is invaluable. The When Paired effect on the card is solid as well, easily leading to cases at the end of the game where you pair, bounce a unit, attack down a unit, and leave the opponent with very little to attack back with.

There is a downside to the bounce ability, and that is the fact that it is mandatory. A crafty opponent can certainly play around this and force the difficult choice of bouncing a unit that you would rather attack down. All that said, the majority of the time it will be in your benefit.

The biggest downside to this card is the cost. From what we have seen so far, four is a very steep price to pay, and whatever you get for it had better be strong. At four cost it means that if you try to play and link this on curve, then it is likely going to be taking all of your resources for the turn. In the beta environment, this is still pretty strong, but I find myself wanting to hold this until later when I have additional resources.

Score: 8/10

One of the better bases that we get to see in the beta. It is not the best, as it takes a bit of setup to really take full advantage of it. Obviously, we are going to need a unit with Blocker on it, but to have that blocker survive combat it is likely going to need to be paired.

On the upside, this only costs 1, making it effortless to fit in on a turn where you cannot otherwise maximize your resource usage. Lv3 is also an absolutely fine time for a base to come online. There is very little in terms of fast aggro in the beta, so bases that come out slower do not feel much worse than their early counterparts.

Score: 6/10

The school base really does not have anything going for it. Yes, it does only cost 1 which is good, but there is very little benefit to being a Lv2 base. Additionally, the condition required to even get a benefit from activating is very strict. Even worse, in most white decks, your link units will get very little benefit from an AP+1. Generally, they are already going to be large enough to take down anything on the opponent's board. The fact that white already has 「Archangel」 also pushes this down even farther.

The only interesting bit on this card is that its effect asks you to "rest" the base. We do not have anything currently that can set a base back to active, but it suggests that maybe in the future we will.

Score: 3/10

I ignored this card when initially building and starting to test some decks. The more I played with white, the more I felt the lack of an early drop that could trade against the majority of units. This card ended up filling that role, but then ended up having a lot more upside. The Deploy trigger is nice to have, but it is the stat line that is more important. At [4|2] there is no expectation that this is going to survive a battle, but instead it will trade with a non top-end link unit, or finish off a base that has been hit by a small unit like 「Demi Trainer」 . At worst, this card trades one for one, but can often go two for one, all without using a pilot.

Score: 6/10

An innocuous standard within not just white, but the entire beta set. This is up there with some of the pushed Rare and LR cards. Likely a large part of this is that we have a limited number of cards, and the effects on the cards we have are relatively simple for the most part. This all contributes to Blocker being immensely powerful. This unit is trivial to deploy whenever you have a spare resource on a turn and can easily take advantage of the quiet turns 1 and 2 that most decks have. It is a nightmare card for blue decks, as they have almost no recourse other than to waste an attack on it, often at the discretion of the defender. The only thing holding this card back is the prevalence of Breach , which drops it down ever so slightly.

Score: 8/10

Poor poor Guel, this card is rough. It is effectively a [+1|+1] with no other text at Lv3. Even worse, it only pairs with one unit in the set. If that was not bad enough, it also has to stand in the shadow of the other white pilots, which are some of the best in the set. I can not really see a reason to run this card.

Score: 0/10

This card is a build-around-me trap. It asks you to play a heavy command deck, which really is not terribly supported in the beta set, for an extremely mediocre reward. This needed to be a [4|4] at minimum, or maybe a Lv4 2 Cost card. Even then, it would only be at a playable level at best. A deck currently can only support so many Lv5 cost units, and this is not one of them.

Score: 0/10

Compare this to the 「Gundam Aerial」 :

  1. It deploys at Lv4 instead of Lv5
  2. It at most costs 1 more, and often 1 less
  3. It has one more toughness

Despite all of that, this card is not great. There are better options in white to play in the Lv4 area, namely the Strike Gundam variants, but if you do not have access to them in your card pool, then this is a fine substitute. It won't do anything impressive, but it at least becomes a [5|5] when paired with some of the better pilots. A point is knocked off though for having a poor link trait. This is a solid card to have in an early beta set.

Score: 4/10

This will be one of my most unsure scores in the entire set. When I first saw it, I immediately wanted to play four based on its Main /Action effect, but after a few sessions, I ended up cutting it entirely. Card efficiency is critical in the beta environment, and trading efficiency for tempo is definitely not ideal. After trying some other pilots, playing more decks, and getting a few more games in, I came back around to this card. One of the main things I had initially missed is the strength of link units over only pairing. Mu happens to pair with two of the strongest white cards, which makes it much more valuable. This card ends up being the sum of its parts, no part is great, but it is incredibly flexible. I currently waver on how many to play, but I am definitely playing some number in my white decks.

Score: 6/10

It is difficult to not mention this card in the context of reviewing other cards, as Kira is the card in the beta set that warps the game. I think it is hands down the best card in the beta set, without a close second. It pairs with all the best white cards, provides good [+2|+1] stats, and has a powerful Attack effect. Combining the constraints that card efficiency is at a premium and a card set with no hard removal, Kira is what looks the closest to removal and really shines.

The worst-case game plan with Kira is usually to link with a blocker, battle a unit that ends with Kira's unit taking 1 to 2 damage, and then trade with an opponent's attacker. In almost all cases, this will be a 2 for 3 trade. The game plan gets significantly better though if we consider that we also likely have other blockers in play, making the opponent's ability to choose what to trade with more difficult. If we are linking Kira with a blocker (which is easy), and we have a 「Archangel」 in play, then things get even more dire for the opponent.

If I have to pick a negative, it is that a Kira linked unit does not take out a 「Wing Gundam」 linked with 「Heero Yuy」 . That said, if you are playing white, you should be playing as many Kiras as you can. It is difficult to emphasize enough how powerful being able to battle other units without taking damage back (or minimal damage back) is. Kira really stands in a tier of his own.

Score: 10/10

Another blocker, another strong card. It has pretty solid stats as a [3|4], and if we compare it to the more vanilla Lv4 cards in white, we are paying one more in cost for the addition of Blocker . The (Earth Alliance) link condition is particularly strong as it gets to link with 「Kira Yamato」 and 「Hawk of Endymion」 , both of which I expect to see in most white decks. There is not much to say about the Launcher Strike other than, play this card if you are in white.

Score: 8/10

I really wanted this card to work, and depending on the full set release, it might be playable in the future. The lack of a link condition is disappointing, and it would have been nice if it also checked for a (Triple Ship Alliance) card instead of specifically a unit. We do not have any (Triple Ship Alliance) bases yet, but 「Asticassia School of Technology, Earth House」 is evidence that they could exist. Sadly, for the Astray, there are simply better filler cards in white.

Score: 2/10

Not quite as powerful as some of the other units that white has access to, but still the 「Michaelis」 is a solid card. The [3|3] base stat line is good for a Lv3 2 cost that has both a link condition and an effect. It is also one of the few cards in the set to have a permanent stat bonus that lasts through to your opponent's turn. Being from the "Witch from Mercury" world (and therefore have an (Academy) link condition) rather than Seed is a slight downside, as you are rarely going to pair this. This card is a solid replacement for other Seed units you may be missing when building, but I think it is one of the easier units to cut when space starts to get tight.

Score: 6/10

This is awful, and gets put in the pile with 「Guel Jeturk」 and 「Gundam Aerial」 . I guess it was given the weaker effect because it comes out at Lv2, but the only blocker you could possibly have out at Lv2 is a 「Demi Trainer」 . I will note that the Burst effect is quite strong. It being tied to a Burst and not an Action though is a problem. I'll give it one point for being one of the few things that can reduce AP.

Score: 1/10

I will likely be repeating this in other locations, but card draw in the beta environment is extremely limited. So much so that anything that says "Draw" on it needs consideration. In the case of 「Overflowing Affection」 it is an incredibly strong card even if draw were more prevalent. It is only providing card selection and not advantage, but it is still a strong play at honestly any stage of the game. Being low level and cost really helps this to fit in anywhere along a curve and fill out turns that are light on plays. Similar to Kira, I would be surprised to see white decks that did not play as many as possible. I would give this a 10 if it were not for Kira hogging the spotlight.

Score: 9/10

The strongest unit that white has in the beta (though by a narrow margin). 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 gets a major boost from being only 3 cost. The one cost difference between it and 「Aile Strike Gundam」 can be huge on 5 resources. It allows for two common sequences:

  1. 「Overflowing Affection」 to find the missing piece
  2. 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 + 「Kira Yamato」 / 「Hawk of Endymion」
  3. Block and then attack on 6 resources

or

  1. 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 + 「Kira Yamato」 / 「Hawk of Endymion」
  2. Attack
  3. 「Demi Trainer」 to prevent attack back

It pairs with both of the good white pilots (most importantly Kira), has a solid stat line, and the Deploy effect is almost always positive. Rarely does white find itself in a place where there is a 1 HP unit on the field that it cannot remove otherwise AND that it does not want to bounce. I put the bounce as a nice to have, where if it is relevant then I am feeling great about my board position, but I am not usually holding the card to make use of the effect. The big question is if you run 3 or 4 of these. I think it is better in the general case than the 「Aile Strike Gundam」 , but the 「Aile Strike Gundam」 has higher high points. Currently, I favor 3 Perfect and 4 Aile Strike, but I could easily see those numbers changing.

Score: 9/10

The white variant of 「Maganac」 . Both are good enough to play and likely to be included in aggressive white / green variants. A [3|2] stat line at Lv2 lets this card trade with anything Lv1 - Lv3 (short of a boosted 「Michaelis」 ). It also has the all-important 3 AP needed to take out an EX Base with a single swing. This is a good baseline rule to follow when evaluating aggressive cards. Late game or controlling white decks are not going to have any interest in this card.

Score: 6/10

Everything in 「Gundam Aerial (Bit on Form)」 is true for this card as well, with the exception that this card has a much better link condition. We can give half a point back for the link condition, since you are already playing four Kira in a white deck. That half point is still unlikely to be enough to warrant a spot for this version of the Strike.

Score: 4.5/10

Bandai seemingly forgot to delete 「Strike Gundam」 from the production card file when they created 「Strike Gundam」 . I am sure we will see more cases of the same unit name and number in future sets, but I find it kind of humorous that they could have picked almost anything else from the Seed universe for one of these two cards.

All that aside, this version of the Strike is far superior to the former version. As mentioned before, having the text "Draw" on a card is a huge bonus in the beta set. Even better is that the draw here is a Deploy effect, as opposed to being dependent on pairing or linking. The cost of this effect is a slightly underpowered stat line at [3|3] compared to other Lv4 cards. But given that we are only paying 2 for this, it plays great early on when you need to trade or late when you are looking to dig for answers.

Score: 7/10

Suletta is the card in white that I need to do more testing with. It does not pair with the best units in the color, but getting a blocker to 6 HP is excellent. The added resource activation also provides a little incremental advantage that is largely missing from the game.

My instinct is that this is still slightly weaker than 「Hawk of Endymion」 just due to the fact that most of the cards it pairs with are so bad. This is a card that I will absolutely be looking at again once we get the full set release, as resource generation in the late game sounds appealing.

Score: 5/10

With the final card in white, we have the rare case of a playable event that does not draw a card. The Lv5 restriction on this card makes it pretty awkward to run too many of, but it is a great card for closing out games against other white decks and disrupting game ending setups from green. The Burst effect is unfortunately much worse than adding the card to hand, but it still provides an effect that will be in your favor the majority of the time. Controlling white decks will definitely want to include 1 or 2 copies of this for some of the situations where your units are just not set up to favorably trade with the opponent's.

Score: 5/10

#Summary

Overall, white in the beta set is incredibly strong. It has by far the best pilot, arguably the best draw command, the best unit that draws a card, and is the only source of the Blocker keyword. I absolutely expect the colors to balance out a lot more once the first full set releases, but until then, white/green and white/blue are what I aim to be playing.

Finally, let's wrap up with a quick list of where all the scores landed:


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