Hey everyone! Some of you may know the Godzilla Card Game is coming out from Ban Dai on September 27th. I’m so excited for it! It utilizes their new Chrono Clash System, as seen in their Naruto/Boruto Card Game. If you’re unfamiliar, you can read THIS ARTICLE I wrote prior to the game’s launch. Well, the fine folks at Ban Dai have noticed our excitement here at Gaming With Sidekicks, and are allowing us to unveil a card preview for the upcoming Godzilla set. Without further adieu… GAIRA!
First, the basics with the card. There are four colors in CCS (Chrono Clash System), and decks can contain up to two of these colors. Gaira is green. The first thing we see is Gaira’s cost of 5. Cards that cost 5 or more really need to have a big impact, as they mean you’ll typically be giving your opponent a lot of time to work with, allowing them to play high cost cards. So high costs should really either be a great answer to other potentially strong cards, or force your opponent to play a strong card of their own in a very specific response. Does Gaira do that?
He has a strength of 5. This is mediocre. In CCS, strength is both a character’s attack and defense values. A 5 cost card for a battler with 5 strength tells us that his abilities need to be pretty special for him to be considered to include in a deck. His first ability is Withdraw. That means if Gaira is ever defeat in combat he returns to your hand. Card advantage is very important, especially when it comes to questing. Attacking with him, getting defeated and returning to your hand, then sending another character on a quest with Gaira as the quest card is good resource management.
His other ability says that when he comes in to play, one of your battlers gains +5 strength. This is Gaira’s biggest asset. If you have a character that can attack the Guardian Stack multiple times, giving that character an extra 5 strngth could ensure multiple hits. There’s also the elephant in the room called Elusive. Elusive is a new ability that is essentially the equivalent to Magic’s Flying keyword. Character with Elusive can only be attacked by other characters with Elusive. Gaira you might need to give the +5 strength to a character of your with Elusive so it’s stron enough to defeat your opponent’s.
Does Gaira belong in your deck? Let me know in the comments below!
Now, for a bit of a history lesson. Gaira made his only cinematic appearance in 1966’s War of the Gargantuas. This is noteworthy because it is NOT a Godzilla movie. WotG was produced by TOHO, so is a part of the same library of kaiju movies as Godzilla, Mothra, and others. There are two Gargantuas in the movie, referred to as brothers: Gaira and Sanda. While Sanda is benevolent trying to take care of humans, Gaira is malicious, seeking to harm humans. Gaira is one of the few evil kaiju in the TOHO monster universe. Many monsters will follow orders from evil masterminds, but not Gaira. The story of the movie is really well told without much dialogue. Sanda initially tries to protect his brother, Gaira. But eventually, sees the truth of Gaira’s actions and the two battle. This is one of the movies from TOHO’s early days that display how effective storytelling can be with giant monsters.
Gaira, along with Sanda, have made appearances in the Godzilla: Rulers of Earth comic book from IDW. They aren’t typically kaiju that make appearances in other media, so it’s great to see them make an appearance in this card game from Ban Dai. Who knows, maybe this opens the door for other creatures that have appeared in non-Godzilla movies, such as Varan or Matango.
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