Gundam Card Game Sets in Release Order: Boosters, Starters and the Beta Nobody Owns

By CardSpicy Founder · October 20, 2026

Companion to How to play the Gundam Card Game, the entry point for the game on this site. This page is the release spine only: what shipped, in what order, and what each product was for. It does not quote prices.

Quick answer

The Gundam Card Game has no base set, and the product that came first is the one almost nobody owns. Edition Beta shipped in December 2024, seven months before the game launched. The launch wave itself was four starter decks on 11 July 2025. The first booster, Newtype Rising, followed a fortnight later on 25 July. Anyone who says they started at the base set is describing the starter decks, because there is nothing else that could be meant.

That ordering is not trivia. It decides which cards exist in more than one printing and why the most expensive printing of a card from the first booster is not a card from the first booster at all. A set list in this game is really a schedule, and it has run on a three-month booster cadence since launch with almost no slippage.

The booster spine

Main boosters carry a GD prefix and are numbered in release order. The extra booster carries EB, and it is a different kind of product: smaller, built around a single collaboration, and treated by the official checklist as a side wave rather than a mainline set.

Two things are worth noticing in that table. A set is not an anime: from GD01 onwards each booster mixes four or five series, and a single series is spread across colours and card types rather than gathered in one block. And the billed series are usually the ones making a debut, not the only ones in the box. GD04 was sold on Victory and Turn A, but it still carries cards for series that entered in 2025.

The cadence is the stable part. Three months between main boosters, with a starter deck or a side product landing in the gap. That is what makes sealed product in this game comparatively easy to plan around, and it is also why reprint waves, not scarcity, are the thing to watch.

The starter decks are half the schedule

Fourteen starter decks have shipped in just over a year. They are not a beginner tier that gets abandoned; each one adds cards that exist nowhere else, including Legend Rare printings that never appear in a booster.

The first four decks were also sold as Gundam Assemble starter sets, pairing the deck with small models. Same card pool, different box, and the two are not interchangeable to a sealed collector.

Three products that sit outside the spine

Not everything with Gundam branding on it is a set, and the three exceptions cause most of the confusion in checklists.

• Edition Beta (December 2024). Bandai’s investor reporting describes a beta product released ahead of launch, and describes releasing a beta of a card game as a very rare approach. Its cards carry the same numbers as the GD01 and ST01 cards they became, so a Beta printing looks like a launch printing on a checklist and is not one.
• Premium Accessory Sets. PB01 and PB02 bundle a deck case, sleeves, resource cards, alternate-art cards and a playmat. The cards inside are fixed, and the alternate arts do not reappear elsewhere.
• The Deck Build Box. Shipped alongside GD05: reprints, a few packs and a bonus set of EX Base cards. It is the least wasteful route into a playable pool and it dilutes the singles supply of everything it reprints.

Why the release order matters more than the set list

A card’s price and its searchability both follow the wave it was printed in, not the set it belongs to. Starter-deck Legend Rares have no booster equivalent, so a player who wants that printing has to buy the deck, and the deck has no reprint programme behind it in the way the boosters have. SP reprints keep the number of the set they originally came from, so an SP card pulled from GD03 is filed under GD01 and priced as a GD01 card. And the beta printings are invisible to anyone who searches by set code alone.

If you are trying to work out what a card actually is, the number is the reliable part and the set name is not. That is the subject of the card index guide.

Storing the first year

The first year of product has one physical problem later years will not: most of it is a foil wrapper around cards, and the wrapper is the part that fails. A pack stored loose creases along the card edge, and the crease transfers to the card beneath. A rigid pack holder stops that, and a metal pack storage box is better than a shoebox because metal does not flex or hold moisture the way board does.

For the singles, the layering is the same one that works across every standard-size game: a matte sleeve to stop surface contact, then a rigid holder. On the parallel printings that carry most of a set’s value the surface is the asset, and a 3×4 toploader protects the edges but abrades the face as the card slides in. A press-fit case closes on the card instead of sliding over it, which suits a single you will not handle again.

Sealed boxes from this line are young enough that the failure mode is stacking, not age. A 24-pack display does not need to bear weight. Store it flat.

Where this sits

The next page in this line is the rarity ladder, which orders the letters printed on these cards. If you are deciding what to buy rather than what exists, sealed or singles is the practical companion.

Frequently asked questions

What was the first Gundam Card Game product?

Edition Beta, in December 2024. The retail launch came in July 2025 with four starter decks, followed by the first booster two weeks later. Beta is the true first printing and the least available one.

Is Newtype Rising the base set?

Functionally, yes. It is the first booster, it establishes the numbering pattern every later GD set follows, and it carries the launch series. Bandai has never labelled it a base set.

How many cards are in a booster pack?

Twelve plus a resource or token card in the Western English edition; six to a pack in Japan. The card pool is identical and the packaging is not. The language editions guide sets out the comparison.

Do starter decks contain cards you cannot get in boosters?

Yes. Every ST deck carries ST-numbered cards that never appear in a GD set, and several include a Legend Rare printing exclusive to that deck.

Is Stardust Trails out yet?

It is scheduled for 30 October 2026 and had not shipped when this page was written. Anything describing its contents in detail before release is speculation based on the announcement.

What the first year actually looks like

Three cards from three different points in the schedule, chosen because each one shows a different part of how the line was built.

Image note: the cards described in this section are not shown. There is no public scan database for the Gundam Card Game equivalent to the Pokémon archives, and the manufacturer’s card pages serve images under terms that do not permit rehosting. The descriptions above are written to be checked against the physical card.

Sources

Sources and further reading

1. Bandai Namco — official product pages for Newtype Rising [GD01], Dual Impact [GD02], Steel Requiem [GD03], Phantom Aria [GD04], Freedom Ascension [GD05] and Eternal Nexus [EB01], with release dates.
2. Bandai Namco Holdings — Integrated Report 2025, on the July 2025 three-language launch and the December 2024 beta.
3. Gundam official news — launch announcement confirming four starter decks on 11 July 2025 and Newtype Rising on 25 July 2025.
4. Bandai Card Shop / Premium BANDAI — resale listings for GD01 to GD03, confirming a 24-pack box and the 2026 reprint waves.
5. Parabox Games — set list, used for the billed series of GD02, GD06 and GD07 and the starter-deck schedule from ST05.
6. CardSpicy — How to read a Gundam card number.

Related reading

• The rarity ladder — what C, U, R and LR actually mean, and what the suffixes add.
• Reading a card number — how to find any card from its code.
• Price structure by set — why two sets from the same year behave differently.
• Japanese, English and Simplified Chinese — the three editions compared.
• Sealed or singles — what to buy once you know what exists.
• How to play the Gundam Card Game — the rules, if you have not started yet.

Nothing on this page is investment advice. Release dates are as published by Bandai and differ by a day between the Western and Asian listings; the Western dates are used throughout. No product is offered for sale here.

Where to go next

• The CardSpicy card index — every card we track, with its PSA 10 population and market history (195 cards).
• The illustrator index — every artist behind those cards, card by card (110 artists).