GCG Next Strategy 2026

We just got a ton of updates and previews for what Bandai has in store for Gundam Card Game for the upcoming year. Today Bandai held a presentation to go over the state of GCG so far 6 months in and what they have in store for us this year. Let’s go over what they shared.

Gundam Card Game So Far

GCG has been out officially for about 6 months. There have been 2 major sets, and 6 starter sets released so far. With Starters 01-04 they also released Gundam Assemble sets as a preview for that game coming soon.

ST05 brought a new color of card, Purple, which featured Iron Blooded Orphans with many cards that gained strength from damage in true Tekkadan style.

ST06 and G02 brought GQuuuuux, Zeta Gundam, Gundam X, and Gundam AGE into the game.

As a reminder, the Grand Final of GCG World Championship will begin 2026-03-14 and hosted in Japan. I can’t wait to see the results and hopefully watch some of those matches if they are broadcasted!

Latest Product Information

Let’s take a look at the upcoming products that are launching within the next few months. Many of these we already knew were coming from other announcements.

ST07 Celestial Drive & ST08 Flash of Radiance will be launching on 2026-01-17. Thing brings Celestial Being from Gundam 00 and Hathaway into the mix of series included in the game.

GD03 Steel Requiem launches next on 2026-01-31. They revealed Kampfer and pilot Mikhail Kaminsky.

Another Gundam Assemble collaboration launches on 2026-02-28. These are some special reprint cards along with a few Gundam Assemble models. Hopefully you were able to get these on P-Bandai a couple months ago when they went up for preorder!

PC01A features ST05’s Barbados, Schwalbe Graze (McGillis Unit), and Lafter cards It also comes with T-015 CGS Mobile Worker, T-017 Gundam Barbatos (4th Form), and T-016 Graze Custom for Tokens/Assemble Units. This also reveals those associated Tokens for GCG but we don’t have their stat info yet.

PC02A features ST06’s GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu), Red Gundam, and Shiiko Sugai cards. It also comes with T-019 GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu), T-018 Red Gundam, and T-020 GFreD for Tokens/Assemble Units.

ST09 featuring Gundam SEED Destiny launches 2026-03-28 to add that series into GCG. There will also be an alternative Deluxe version of the Starter Deck that includes further cards to swap in as well as some damage counter dice.

GD04 is called Phantom Aria and launches on 2026-04-25 which adds Victory Gundam and Turn A Gundam. Another interesting tidbit about Witch From Mercury (Season 2) will be switching from White cards to Green. There are other future plans to have series reissued into alternative colors but have not shared more details on that yet.

Card Reveals

GD03 Steel Requiem

These are from the Premium Card Assemble Kits, but the art was not revealed yet.

• T-015 – CGS Mobile Worker
• T-016 – Graze Custom
• T-017 – Gundam Barbatos (4th Form)
• T-018 – Red Gundam
• T-019 – GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu)
• T-020 – GFreD

GD04 Phantom Aria

• GD04-003 – Victory Gundam as Blue LR
• GD04-067 – Turn A Gundam as White LR
• Witch From Mercury S2 cards in Green

GD05 Freedom Ascension

• GD05-002 – Strike Freedom Gundam as Blue LR
• GD05-066 – Shining Gundam as White LR
• GD05-097 – Domon Kasshu as White Pilot
• GD05-124 – Shining Finger as White Command with a Trait Box

To see all the reveals check out the Upcoming Cards page for all cards that have been revealed for upcoming sets.

Plans for 2026

The first anniversary will come this July starting with GD05 which will add G Gundam, Gundam SEED Destiny, and two other mystery series. GD05 will be called Freedom Ascension and will launch on 2026-07-25. This will be the first set of Block 2, which can be seen in the top right corner.

Strike Freedom Gundam will be included in Blue, which is another color switch since Freedom Gundam is currently White.

Deck Build Box was announced and will be released in July. This will be a special product for the anniversary that includes a Half Storage Box, a Bonus Pack, Resource/Token Cards, 125 Reprint Cards for Deck Building (25 of each color), and 4 packs of GD05.

When it comes to the reprint cards it seems like they will be building those half decks to allow you to pick any two colors and combine them into a deck that’s ready to play. But then you have all the other cards from the four GD05 booster packs for you to really make it your own. It also includes a product-exclusive EX Base in the Bonus Pack. One of those EX Bases is Shining Gundam.

GCG is to collaborate with G Eternal again in much like their EX Base collaboration that started with GD02 Store Tournaments. They announced ST10 Generation Pulse and EB01 Eternal Nexus, both will launch on 2026-06-27.

As an added information they shared is that the Extra Booster will feature cards designed for multiplayer game modes such as Team Battle and Battle Royale.

Event Information

There will be format change for qualifying for World Championship for World Championships 26-27. In addition to the current official Regionals, they plan to have in-store qualifiers held at card stores, but keep in mind that format may be different depending on region. This change it to try and make qualifying more accessible.

Bandai also plans to hold two seasons of Qualifiers one in Spring/Summer and a second in Autumn/Winter.

Bandai also plans to hold a Gundam Card Game Expo 2026. I would assume that this is a large event specifically for GCG rather than the Bandai Card Fest events that we saw this past year that were held across multiple Bandai card games. They also plan to have it less focused on Qualifiers and more focused on GCG activities where even casual players can also highly enjoy.

Bandai has also announced that there will be a Serial Card Battle. This would be a special tournament to play for a One-of-a-Kind cards that are serialized. There will also be a chance to win serialized cards via random selection among the participants of the events.

If you would like to watch it for yourself, here is the video. It is in Japanese but subtitles in English are available.