|Color Combo|**Kanji**|**1-Feb**|**8-Feb**|**15-Feb**|**22-Feb**|**1-Mar**|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Blue/Purple|青紫|14.8%|25.9%|25.4%|25.6%|23.3%|
|Green/White|緑白|36.8%|24.9%|19.5%|16.3%|15.4%|
|Blue/White|青白|10.3%|12.6%|11.0%|10.9%|10.7%|
|Red/White|赤白|8.3%|10.0%|10.6%|14.0%|12.0%|
|Blue/Green|青緑|17.4%|8.6%|13.2%|12.5%|13.9%|
|Blue/Red|青赤|7.0%|6.2%|8.5%|9.4%|9.7%|
|Green/Red|緑赤|4.5%|5.3%|5.6%|4.4%|5.8%|
|Red/Purple|赤紫|0.4%|2.0%|2.4%|3.7%|4.9%|
|Purple/White|紫白|0.1%|2.0%|1.6%|1.7%|2.6%|
|Other\*|その他|0.3%|2.5%|1.9%|1.4%|1.6%|

*\*includes Green-Purple and monocolor decks*

|Color|**1-Feb**|**8-Feb**|**15-Feb**|**22-Feb**|**1-Mar**|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Blue|49.5%|53.3%|58.1%|58.4%|57.6%|
|Green|58.9%|41.3%|40.2%|34.6%|36.7%|
|Red|20.2%|23.5%|27.1%|31.5%|32.4%|
|Purple|15.8%|32.4%|31.3%|32.4%|32.4%|
|White|55.8%|49.5%|42.7%|42.9%|40.7%|

As the first Newtype Challenge of the year ends and the second begins, the meta is seeing continuing changes.

Blurple use has gone down by 9% compared to last week, as did the other top deck combos (GW, BW, RW). Correspondingly, this means an increase in use among the other color combinations.

Seeing that this week marks the end of the first month of the GD03 meta, we can take a look at a couple trends that can be seen from the data (except the Blurple elephant in the room; a lot of words have already been said about that by this point):

1. **Blue is the Best Color?** Surprisingly, it wasn't until the second week of this NTC season that Blue overtook Green as the most-used color among the five (since we started getting data in November). While its use numbers now weren't too far off from the GD02 days (averaging **52%** then compared to **56%** now), the sudden drop of Green (and to a lesser extent White) has been more significant compared to the more modest gains of Blue. Combined with the **60%** net gain of Red (and **100%** net gain of Purple), Green's usage rates have dropped despite getting new tools from GD03 and ST07/08 like the Lockon package, Altron and Peacemillion, and White's new tools which were hyped during the GD03 teaser cycle like Superbloc and GD03 Freedom seemed underwhelming in practice.
2. **The Rise of Monocolor Decks?** The "Other" slice of the pie in previous NT challenge summaries have been a quiet afterthought, usually containing the unlucky color pair that ranks last. (Green/Purple will have its time, mark my words! /s) But that's not what I want to look at here; previously, "Other" barely goes above 1% in these data collections, but starting with the GD03 meta, "Other" has averaged 1.6% usage throughout the season. And while most of this figure can be chalked up to those that are trying to make CB work (and indeed some CB decks have won NTCs, as well as odd combos like Tekkadan/Wing), GD03 has begun to give a glimmer of viability to running monocolor decks. In particular, GD03 almost encourages you to run a mono-Purple deck to make full use of the new Barbatos Lupus kit, but issues with getting enough mill means that even the most dedicated Lupus players still allows for a splash of White (mainly A New Sign and Overflowing). The new Providence LR also encourages running a full ZAFT deck, but is undermined by the need to splash White for Athrun's best Link. So no, monocolor decks haven't quite gone up from their niche, they're certainly getting there.



Japanese Newtype Challenge 2026 Mission 1/2 Deck Distribution for the week of 24 Feb-01 Mar has been released!