We try taking a Blue / White control list to a tournament

It has been a bit since I last wrote about GCG deck lists and put together an update of what I am having fun playing. This happens to coincide with a free tournament that is being run by Egman Events. Huge shoutout to him for organizing everything and putting on a tournament so early in the game's lifecycle. The sign-up spots for it went incredibly fast, and I was very lucky to have nabbed one. Primarily, I am just looking forward to some semi-organized GCG experience and to getting to test out some theories around deck building.

This report will be in two parts, one that I am writing the day before the tournament and a second part that I'll write to recap the event. Hopefully, this will allow you to see my predictions and learnings all in one piece.

#Deck selection

So the easiest question to answer is: What am I playing? The same colors and rough strategy that I've been playing since before the beta events, U/W blockers. If you look at the list below and compare it to what I wrote previously about early decks and my set reviews, you may be confused. There are no 「Guntank」 , no 「Demi Trainer」 , and no 「Archangel」 . Instead we have a pile of [4|3] units, 24 Lv4 units, and a full set of 「White Base」 . So why the changes?

Let us start with the easy bit first. It turns out that 「White Base」 is just too powerful of a card to pass up. It is slightly weaker than 「Archangel」 when trying to stabilize against early pressure, but in the late game it is just as good at keeping your blockers active while providing units to chip away shields with. The major upside though is in the U/W mirror, which you will certainly continue to hear referenced throughout this. The mirror will be a grindy game with not too many places where you can get advantages. Both sides are likely to trade some early units, but then get themselves into a stalemate where neither side has terribly advantageous attacks. 「White Base」 is simply too good at breaking this parity and forcing you to either block their tokens or lose your shields. Therefore, to me, it feels like the best answer to an opposing 「White Base」 is to simply play them ourselves.

While on the topic of bases, this deck list runs only 4 in total. I think this number is not correct against all matchups. 5-6 bases is definitely a safer play, and I would likely add 「Archangel」 if I were to increase the count. In the U/W mirror, which I expect to be facing, getting base flooding is a death knell. Instead, we are only running the 4 「White Base」 as they are good enough to run even if they do not protect your shields.

The command section of this deck is straightforward and what you would expect. We shave off one 「A Show of Resolve」 as flooding early with them can be problematic, and we really need space for units. 「The Witch and the Bride」 gets the same treatment for the same reason. I absolutely think running at least one is correct though, as this deck has enough draw and filter to see 50% of its cards in a game, and you can either force your opponent to play around a non-existent copy or surprise them when they are not ready to be down a unit. I am also going to include the 4 「Strike Gundam」 in this section, as we play them exclusively for their Deploy effect. It helps keep the deck consistent, allowing it to see so many additional cards.

Pilots are fairly standard as well. Max out on 「Amuro Ray」 and 「Kira Yamato」 , and then figure out the 1-3 remaining pilots you want to add in. I currently like running 4-4-2 given the pilots we have access to, but as we get new cards, these numbers are likely to change. If I had more space, I would definitely increase the count on 「Suletta Mercury」 . The two HP is a huge boost to your blockers, and the early game decks have immense trouble dealing with a 「Gundam」 paired with 「Suletta Mercury」 . The Attack effect is also very relevant in a deck that plays so many 3 cost cards. One thing to note about the pilots in this deck is that unless you absolutely need the haste effect that comes from linking, it is often better to not link your units. 「Gundam」 is far more effective when paired with either 「Kira Yamato」 or 「Suletta Mercury」 , and your blockers do not terrible care who is piloting them. In general, you are going to want to save your pilots until you can maximize their unique effects to the fullest, which often times leaves them sitting in your hand for quite a while.

Finally, the most interesting bit, making up over half of the deck, the units. First up, the Blocker units. The split here is 4-4-3, dividing up the four HP Blocker units. The explanation here is that there is a major difference in how expensive each additional cost increase is. A Cost 4 unit is significantly more expensive than a Cost 3 unit. Especially considering that we often want to play a Cost 4 unit, link it, attack, and follow it up with a blocker. With 3 cost units we can run this line as early as resource 7, whereas including one 4 cost unit pushes that to resource 8, and two 4 cost units pushes it to resource 9. The other thing to consider is that we often want to get as much as we can out of the bounce effect of the 「Aile Strike Gundam」 . This often requires waiting for the right timing and holding your 「Aile Strike Gundam」 , so we are likely to find one by the time we need it. Playing a 「Aile Strike Gundam」 and pairing it with a 「Amuro Ray」 can be devastating against an opponent that is attempting to set up a wide board for attacking your shields. I have written about the other two blockers, and at Cost 3 they are just exceptional units. They are good at any point in the game, and you always want to draw as many as you can.

I was mistaken in previous lists for not including 「Gundam」 . While I expected this card to be good, I did not understand just how good it is. Without the context of a deck surrounding it, the card is a solid unit. Once linked with 「Amuro Ray」 it is attacking for 6, which will trade with pretty much anything in the game. Instead if you can pair with either a +2 HP pilot or 「Kira Yamato」 then you can usually destroy a unit without trading and get the effect of the Repair 2 ability. Backing that attack up with a blocker that can prevent the opponent from trading back can often mean having your 「Gundam」 trade with 4 or more cards from your opponent, and in the cases where it is destroyed early, it usually means the opponent spent on of their good pilot effects to do so. Independent of this, the +1 AP During Pair bonus lets all of your four power units (which is half of the units in this deck) take out bases in a single swing. As a result, you are getting an advantage from your 「Gundam」 on the turns where it cannot attack due to needing to repair. The versatility of this unit makes it such a powerful inclusion. So why are we only playing 3? This is a concession to how resource intensive the list already is and the limited number of pilots we have. We have 6 units that demand pilots, and roughly 12 more that gain a large bonus from a pilot, but only 10 total pilots to go around.

Lastly, we have the attack package made up of 「G-Fighter」 , 「ReZEL」 , and 「Darilbalde」 . This set of cards is tuned for what I expect people to be playing in the event. While most players were on G/W prior to playing, I think many will have found the strength of U/W and Blocker at this point. As such, I want something to try and break through in the mirror. This results in maxing out on 「Darilbalde」 and only 3 「ReZEL」 since I expect many U/W decks to be playing 「Demi Trainer」 still. Running 4 「Darilbalde」 and 4 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 means that you rarely need to be concerned with 「Demi Trainer」 , and the card ultimately just becomes a resource tax on your opponent. In a field of mostly U/G I would swap the numbers of 「ReZEL」 and 「Darilbalde」 . The last card to round out this meta call is 「G-Fighter」 . We are playing this for its Deploy effect. Similar to the 「Strike Gundam」 , it is a pseudo-command card, but this time for the late game. The mirror can often get bogged down, and you just need something to punch through and give you an advantageous turn, and 「G-Fighter」 is one of the ways. I prefer it over 「Hawk of Endymion」 and the second 「The Witch and the Bride」 as it can also be used early game to trade without losing card advantage when under pressure. I am certainly not entirely sold that this is what I should be playing here, but it is my best guess for this event.

This rambling has gone on long enough, but let us summarize what this deck is doing and provide some commentary on what is not included. In MTG terms, we are a late game control deck. Absent actual removal spells, we are playing some additional units to help with early board control. We close out games, generally, by forming a wall of blockers and chipping away at an opponent's shields until they are low enough to take the remaining shields in a single turn. Most notably, we are omitting 「Guntank」 and 「Demi Trainer」 . The 「Guntank」 is just not a strong enough card in a control setting. We need all of our cards to trade one for one at worst, and 「Guntank」 never does that. It is much more of a tempo card for clearing out opposing blockers while still adding to the board. We also cut 「Demi Trainer」 , which is possibly a bit more controversial. I mentioned previously that I thought it was an exceptional card, and I was wrong. It is still a good card when playing into U/G or G/W, but it is terrible in the U/W mirror. You will spend turn after turn having it bounced by 「Darilbalde」 and 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 , and it will be rarely relevant. Its best use is really as a discard target for 「Strike Gundam」 and 「Overflowing Affection」 .

#Round 1 - U/W Mirror

Lost roll - played first

For the first round I played against a player I knew of tangentially from Discord. I knew for certain that they were a good player and was quite nervous going into the round. We were playing the U/W mirror, and I had a feeble showing. It started out decent as I had an early 「ReZEL」 for their 「Guncannon」 which required them to pair onto to remove. I misplayed by putting out a linked 「Gundam」 into a board where it could be cleared by an opposing 「Aile Strike Gundam」 link. Afterward, I tried to recover, but my draw commands only found a pile of pilots and a severe lack of units. Ignoring the draw, I played particularly poorly in this round, but it was partly necessary to shake off the nerves.

Score: 0-1

#Round 2 - U/W Mirror

Won roll - played second

In my second round I faced another mirror, but at least this time we actually had a good game. They were playing a little heavier on the Academy side, with multiple copies of 「Michaelis」 and 「Suletta Mercury」 . We traded small units back and forth for most of the early game. I believe I made a mistake in the mid to late game when I cleared most of their board without losing too many units of my own but was not prepared for multiple link units on the crack back. They were left with a stronger board and were able to take a number of shields while I tried to rebuild. On the second to last turn, I chipped their shields to put them into range where I could win on the next turn, but unfortunately hit an 「Amuro Ray」 . That plus a 「The Witch and the Bride」 was enough to clear my blockers and allow them to swing for the win.

Score: 0-2

#Round 3 - U/W Mirror

Lost roll - played first

So far, I had only played mirror matches where my opponent knew the same thing I did about the small units like 「Guntank」 and 「Demi Trainer」 , and my assumption that I would be seeing more of them was a slight detriment. This round I ended up running into a 「Demi Trainer」 build, and the game went roughly as expected. I was able to get a trade with a 「Darilbalde」 into an injured 「Gundam」 that resulted in me slightly losing on card advantage but had cost my opponent their Ex Resource. The rest of the game played out by chaining together 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 and 「Aile Strike Gundam」 effects to control their board. 「Suletta Mercury」 was a huge card here, as making multiple 6 HP blockers put multiple blockers out of range of any effect that they had. We chipped away their shields with 「Strike Gundam」 until I had enough to finish in a single turn.

Score: 1-2

#Round 4 - U/G Rush

Won roll - played second

This was not a deck that I expected to run into. It was an extremely low curve aggro deck. My opponent played 「Zaku I」 on one, 「Guntank」 + 「Guntank」 on two, and 「Jegan」 + 「Jegan」 on three. I had an early attacker to trade with and followed that up by chaining multiple 「Strike Gundam」 effects to find blockers. They were able to clear much of my board with a 「Citizens, Take a Stand!」 and had me at 2 shields before I was capable of getting enough 「Perfect Strike Gundam」 units on board to stop an attack. Given that I could easily lose to a linked 「Char's Zaku II」 or 「Gelgoog」 I made sure to chip their shields early to try and aggressively end the game. My presumption was that since I had not seen any Breach in the early game, it was safe to assume that they were running very little.

Score: 2-2

#Round 5 - G/W Midrange

Lost roll - played first

My opponent was on a G/W list that was a bit lower curve than the standard Breach style deck. They started strong with 「Maganac」 , 「Gelgoog」 , and 「Char Aznable」 . They built a wide board fairly quickly, but I think they made a mistake by immediately attacking with a linked 「Wing Gundam」 into my 「Launcher Strike Gundam」 . I would have blocked even if they did not select it, but it allowed me to trade back with a 「Strike Gundam」 + pilot. This left me with only a few shields remaining, but they only had a few unpaired units on their side. I was able to fill my board with Blocker units paired with pilots, which ultimately out stated their board and did not attack until I could find the 「Amuro Ray」 pilots needed to clear out their blockers. Once they were gone, we had a large enough board to finish the game quickly.

Score: 3-2

#Round 6 - G/W Breach

Lost roll - played first

This is the G/W deck that I expected to see. It started with the classic 「Zaku II」 , and they followed it up with a 「Rick Dom」 paired with 「Kira Yamato」 , and a linked 「Shenlong Gundam」 . The Breach effects got my shields low, but I was able to trade enough 「Strike Gundam」 and 「Launcher Strike Gundam」 units to keep their board from getting too wide. I then stalled the game out with my now favorite pairing of 「Suletta Mercury」 and 4 HP blocker. I did start to lose control as they began to threaten a High Maneuver end by playing out multiple 「Char's Zaku II」 . This meant that I need to dig to find a 「Amuro Ray」 and clear them before they found their pilot. Once they were gone, I chipped away with 「Strike Gundam」 to set up a win. They did have a final 「Wing Gundam」 to try and end the game, but they had to wait a turn and pair with 「Kira Yamato」 as the 「Heero Yuy」 was not available. They were able to take out a Blocker and a base with it, but it was not enough to stop me from clearing their Blocker and ending the game.

Score: 4-2

#Conclusion

I am happy enough going 4-2 in this initial run. Despite going 0-2 at the start, I ultimately wanted to get more experience playing and ended up having a great time. All of my opponents were very friendly, and I did not have a single negative experience all night. Quite the opposite; they were all very positive experiences. Even though most rounds either went to time or were close to it, the organizers kept the rounds moving quickly. I am incredibly appreciative to Egman Events for putting this on and running such a smooth event.

As for my deck decisions, I am happy with the shell that I chose. I think U/W is the most consistent deck you can play, and it is good in any matchup. Cutting the low end units was also the correct call, as they provide very little against so many decks and are invisible in the mirror. The 「G-Fighter」 call though was bad. I believe I played it once, and only because I had nothing else to do that turn. It was by far the most common card that I was discarding to filter effects. 「Suletta Mercury」 and 「The Witch and the Bride」 on the other hand overperformed immensely, especially the former. I am certainly going to find a way to fit a third copy in. I will also likely cut one 「Darilbalde」 for one 「ReZEL」 , as the [4|3] body is much better to pair on to.

If you have made it this far I hope you found something interesting in this write-up, and I hope you are enjoying the game as much as I am. I am looking forward to the full release more than ever now.