Moving the spotlight away from X-Antibody Digimons, we take a look at Raidenmon first introduced in Digimon World 3.
[BT9-067] Raidenmon is a versatile LV6 black Digimon: being able to digivolve from both LV5 and LV6, and also benefits from hard-play.
When played with the accompanying option card [BT9-102] Heavy Machine Digimon's Advance!! (or HMDA) he becomes a 9-cost (having +3 memory from inheriting Fujin, Raijin, and Suijinmons from trash) nuke: with 15000 DP, [De-digivolve], [Rush], and [Blitz], in addition to the slew of effects inherited from Fujin, Raijin, and Suijinmons. This gives him enough firepower to swing at almost any suspended Digimon, and the versatility to de-digivolve your way out of difficult situations (such as Armors, Magnamon-X, Ordinemon, and Mugendramon).
His offensive capabilities are the same when digivolving, but at a measly 1-cost from LV5 or to even regain +1 memory if digivolving from a LV6! (assuming the LV6 trios are readily available in trash) Raidenmon will not need the option card if he digivolves this way.
Possibilities of different base colors
Raidenmon should be played with 3 others LV6 Digimons Fujinmon, Raijinmon and Suijinmon, which are 2 coloured green, yellow, and blue Digimons respectively. This means that it is not necessary to play Raidenmon in black base, and that may be a very good thing.
Raidenmon decks can take advantage of a green deck's digivolution speed, yellow's DP reduction and recovery, or blue for a myriad of digivolution card trashing and unsuspend effects. While there are certainly many possibilities out there, I felt that green and blue would work best with Raidenmon.
Running him in green, it is possible to digivolve into Fujinmon very cheaply by using [Digisorption] from Argomon and/or Blossomon. With just 4 memory, we could digivolve from a LV4 into Fujinmon unsuspended by using the digisorption/ARD-02 engine, and then into Raidenmon to recover +1 memory (and attack).
Meanwhile in blue we will be able to take advantage of Kaiser Nail and/or Tidal Wave! Ideally, it is possible to digivolve Raidenmon into another Raidenmon for +1 memory, and then pull the Raidenmon from digivolution card using Kaiser Nail for 4 – 3 = 1 memory (and attack immediately if HMDA was also played). A blue base will also grant access to inheritable effects such as [BT6-027] Majiramon which should work quite well with a properly-equipped Raidenmon.
Dual-colored LV5s such as Shakkoumon and Kimeramon should also complement Raidenmon well as they would relax the digivolution color conditions, as otherwise would restrict the LV5 to LV6 digivolution to either Fujinmon (in green) or Suijinmon (in blue) only.
Playing in a black base
No doubt that Raidenmon would be the most robust when played in his own base color, using LV5s such as [BT8-067] Metalgreymon. Since Raidenmon is a [Machine] Digimon, he would do well inheriting what works with [EX1-073] Mugendramon, but this raises a question on whether a pure Mugendramon/Chaosdramon configuration should be played instead of Raidenmon. It may also be difficult to navigate both Raidenmon and Mugendramon in a single deck since the distribution of LV6 Digimons can be far too skewed.
Mugendramon is certainly buffed in BT9 (thanks to HMDA) but he largely remains a defensive Digimon. For example, even when inheriting [BT6-013] Megadramon his attack would only be 13000 DP (far too low to go through LV7 Digimons). Therefore we can look at Raidenmon being a sword while Machinedramon being the shield.
In addition, it may be theoretically easier to have Raidenmon's 3 different LV6s in trash than to have Mugendramon's 5 different LV5s, and this will allows us play a more consistent 4 copies of whatever LV5 that complements Raidenmon best, instead of the highlander-style LV5 configuration in a Mugendramon engine.
And while this may be far-fetched, it might be possible to play both Raidenmon and Mugendramon in a same deck, maybe less Mugens and without Chaosdramon since Raidenmon can digivolve onto Mugen if needed.
Playing with Greymon-X and Omegamon
An idea that I certainly may enjoy trying, is to run the Raidenmon engine with [BT9-012] Greymon-X and Omegamons. Greymon-X has an inherited effect that protects itself (when he is a [Greymon] or [Omegamon] in name) from deletion/return by trashing 2 cards of the same level, which complement Raidenmon well since his stack should have up to 4 LV6 Digimons. Raidenmon can digivolve into Omegamon Zwart Defeat or Alter-S, and subsequently into either Omegamon-X or Merciful Mode if necessary, all which will benefit from the tall stack made possible by Raidenmon.
Ending notes
While some ideas here are still relatively unpolished, I hoped to share some ways in which Raidenmon can be played as a new mechanic. If you have any comments or ideas for Raidenmon, do drop a comment below!
