The Gundam Card Game is young — it launched in mid-2025 — but its competitive scene has grown fast, and Bandai has built out organized play, official tournament rules, and now a banned and restricted system to manage the meta. If you're thinking about playing in a sanctioned event, whether that's a local store tournament or a regional championship, knowing the format rules ahead of time keeps you from showing up with an illegal deck or getting blindsided by a procedure you didn't expect.

The good news for new tournament players: the format is straightforward, and the banlist is currently very short. As a brand-new game, Gundam hasn't accumulated the sprawling banned lists that older TCGs carry. There's one restricted card and zero outright bans as of the most recent update — which makes this one of the easiest competitive environments to prepare for right now.

This guide walks through the constructed format rules, the match and tournament structure, the banned and restricted system (and its single current entry), and the practical things you need to know before your first event. As always with a fast-moving young game, treat specific list contents as a snapshot — we'll point you to the official source to confirm the current state before any event.

The Constructed Format Rules

Sanctioned Gundam tournaments use the standard constructed format — the same deckbuilding rules you'd use in any competitive game, governed by the official Comprehensive Rules (currently version 1.6.0, updated April 2026). The core deck-construction requirements:

• 50-card main deck. Your primary deck is exactly 50 cards, made up of Units, Pilots, Commands, and Bases. This is fixed — not a minimum, a precise count.
• 10-card Resource Deck. Separate from your main deck, you run a 10-card Resource Deck containing only Resource cards. These fuel your plays — you draw from this deck during the Resource Phase rather than placing resources from your hand. It's a distinctive feature of Gundam that trips up players coming from other games.
• Up to two colors. Your deck may use cards from up to two of the game's colors (Blue, Green, Red, White, Purple). This shapes the entire deckbuilding landscape — mono-color for consistency, two-color for flexibility.
• Maximum 4 copies per card number. You can include up to four copies of any card sharing the same card number — unless that card is restricted, which lowers the cap. This is where the banned and restricted list comes in.
• Setup tokens are separate. The EX Base token (used by both players) and the EX Resource token (used by the player going second) are setup pieces, not part of either the main deck or Resource Deck. You don't build them in — they're provided as part of the game's starting setup.

The Sideboard

Like most competitive TCGs, sanctioned Gundam play uses a sideboard — a set of extra cards you can swap into your deck between games in a match. After losing or winning the first game, you may exchange cards from your sideboard into your main deck (and Resource Deck, where applicable) to adapt to what your opponent is doing.

The sideboard matters for the banlist in an important way: restricted and banned limits apply across your deck and sideboard combined. If a card is restricted to two copies, you can't run two in your main deck and two more in your sideboard — the total across both is capped at two. Likewise, a banned card can't appear in your sideboard either.

Sideboarding is one of the skills that separates casual play from tournament play. Knowing which cards to bring in against which matchups — and respecting the combined deck-plus-sideboard limits — is part of competitive preparation. If you're new to the concept, practice your sideboard plan before the event rather than improvising at the table.

Match & Tournament Structure

Gundam tournaments follow a familiar competitive structure. The key details based on official event rules:

• Best two-out-of-three games per match. A match isn't a single game — you play until one player wins two games. This is where the sideboard comes into play between games, and why a single unlucky opening doesn't end your match.
• Swiss rounds, then single-elimination top cut. Larger events typically run several Swiss rounds (where you keep playing regardless of losses, paired against players with similar records), followed by a single-elimination bracket for the top finishers. Grand finals and championship events use single-elimination top cuts.
• Time limits at most events (with exceptions). Preliminary rounds usually have a time limit per match; some high-level elimination rounds (like grand finals) may be played with no time limit. Always check the specific event's structure — time limits affect how you pace your games.
• A tiered penalty system. Official events use escalating penalties — cautions for minor issues, warnings for more significant ones, and forfeits or disqualification for serious or repeated violations. Foul play results in an immediate game loss; leaving your seat during a match can forfeit it. Electronic devices generally aren't permitted during matches.
• Provided sleeves at premier events. At top-tier events like championships, organizers may provide standard sleeves that all players must use, distributed at sign-in. This levels the playing field and prevents marked-card concerns. Local events usually let you use your own (unmarked) sleeves.

How the Banlist System Works

Bandai introduced Gundam's banned and restricted system in early 2026 — a sign the game's competitive meta had matured enough to need active management. The system is simple and uses two designations:

The Current Banned & Restricted List

As of the revision effective April 1, 2026, the entire list is remarkably short:

That's the whole list: no banned cards, and a single restricted card. ST02-016 Corsica Base — previously allowed at the standard 4 copies — is now capped at 2 copies across your deck and sideboard combined.

For a competitive TCG, this is about as forgiving as it gets. The overwhelming majority of cards in the game are fully legal at 4 copies, which means deckbuilding for tournaments is almost entirely unconstrained by the banlist. The one thing to remember: if you run Corsica Base, cap it at 2. Everything else, build freely.

Why Corsica Base Got Hit

The reasoning Bandai gave for restricting Corsica Base is a useful window into how they think about the meta. Corsica Base was originally designed as a Base card that could deploy Unit tokens as attackers while protecting the player throughout the game — a defensive engine with offensive upside.

In practice, it exceeded expectations. According to Bandai's stated reasoning, Corsica Base appeared in a majority of decks using blue, and those decks posted a high win percentage — particularly faster blue-purple builds. When one card shows up in most decks of a color and correlates with winning, that's a textbook signal of an over-centralizing card: it narrows the meta because not running it puts you at a disadvantage.

Rather than ban it outright, Bandai restricted it to 2 copies. The goal, in their words, was to reduce its prevalence in fast decks and create more diversity in the meta — letting it still see play, but not as a guaranteed 4-of in every blue deck. It's a measured first move from a developer clearly trying to avoid heavy-handed bans on a young game.

The Starter Deck Exception

Here's a nuance worth knowing, because it's the kind of thing that causes confusion at events. The Wings of Advance [ST02] starter deck contains three copies of Corsica Base — more than the restricted limit of 2.

Bandai explicitly addressed this: you can still use the ST02 starter deck in official and sanctioned tournaments, exactly as it comes, with all three copies — so long as you make no changes to its contents. The restriction applies to constructed decks you build yourself, not to the unmodified precon starter.

The practical takeaway: if you're a newer player who wants to bring the ST02 starter to a tournament as-is, you're fine — the three Corsica Bases are legal in that specific unmodified context. But the moment you start customizing the deck — swapping any cards in or out — it becomes a constructed deck and the Restricted (2) cap kicks in, meaning you'd have to cut down to 2 copies. Know which side of that line your deck is on.

Preparing for Your First Event

A practical checklist before you head to a sanctioned Gundam tournament:

• 1. Confirm the current banlist. Check the official website for the latest banned and restricted list. It's short now, but the six-month revision cadence means it can change. Verify before you finalize your deck.
• 2. Double-check your deck counts. Exactly 50 main deck, exactly 10 Resource Deck, max 4 of any card (2 for Corsica Base), and no more than two colors. Count twice — deck-list errors are an avoidable source of penalties.
• 3. Prepare your sideboard plan. Know which cards come in against which matchups, and confirm your deck-plus-sideboard counts respect all limits. Practice sideboarding before the event so you're not improvising under a clock.
• 4. Bring legal, unmarked sleeves. Use undamaged, unmarked sleeves — or be ready to use organizer-provided sleeves at premier events. Marked or damaged sleeves can draw penalties.
• 5. Know the event structure. Ask the organizer about round count, time limits, and top-cut format. Knowing whether rounds are timed changes how you pace your games — especially in best-of-three matches.

Common Tournament Mistakes

FAQ & Quick Reference

• How many cards are banned in Gundam right now? Zero. As of the April 1, 2026 revision, there are no outright banned cards — only one restricted card (Corsica Base, capped at 2). This makes Gundam one of the most open competitive environments among current TCGs, which is typical for a game this young.
• Where do I check the official banlist? The official Gundam Card Game website publishes the banned and restricted list and announces revisions there (and on the game's official social channels). Always treat the official site as the source of truth — third-party trackers can lag behind official announcements.
• Is there a sealed or draft tournament format? Constructed is the primary competitive format. Limited formats (sealed and draft) may appear at specific events or launch parties depending on organizer support and product availability, but the banned and restricted list and the bulk of competitive play center on constructed. Check with your local organizer for what they run.
• Can I use any printing of a card, including alt-arts? Yes — cards are identified by card number, and any printing of a given card number (including alternate-art versions) counts as that card for legality and copy limits. An alt-art Corsica Base still counts toward the Restricted (2) limit. Functionally, the art doesn't change legality.
• Will the banlist grow as more sets release? Almost certainly, over time — that's the normal life cycle of any TCG as the card pool deepens and new interactions emerge. But Bandai's measured approach so far (one restriction, zero bans, six-month revisions) suggests they'll move carefully rather than swinging the banhammer aggressively. Expect gradual, meta-driven adjustments rather than sweeping changes.

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