Invited Author: Thomas
Country: Indonesia
Introduction
Gallantmon to me is a deck that heavily relies on the right digivolutions and Takato the Red tamer from EX-02. Giving "blitz" to a security-deleting boss Digimon is basically a game winner in the right conditions. Being red in color means Gallantmon will face no troubles in deleting buff digimons from the field and having deletion by DP instead of level means it has counter play against another oppressive deck in the meta such as “D-Reapers”.
This is the deck I used to win a tournament in local recently.
Link to view this deck in digimonmeta.com decklist.
How does Gallantmon deck work?
Getting the right digivolution means a lot to the deck, stacking with BT9 Guilmon X-Antibody, Growlmon X-Antibody and EX2 Wargrowlmon already adds 3000 DP to all deletion effects for the deck, bringing in the EX2 Gallantmon further increases that number to 7000 DP. Meaning a 6-Cost Atomic Megalo Blaster can delete a 17000 DP digimon.
The lack of memory that was a problem for the deck was taken care of by the new BT9 Wargrowlmon X-Antibody. Just having the card in the deck gives of pressure to the opponent, recklessly swarming the field will just be the same as giving memory to the Dukemon player and a chance to close the game out swiftly. If it evolves on top of a ST7 Wargrowlmon, the digimon will even gain an additional security check on top of that memory.
That being said, piloting the deck can be a wild ride indeed. It has the potential to OTK (One Turn Kill) your opponent or slowly grind their deck to a halt.
There are 2 winning scenarios that this deck provides during the game. It is either the BT5 Omnimon final hit with "Blitz" or the BT9 GallantmonX to trash-and-attack security when we use the LV5 WarGrowlmon* to declare the attack with the help of X-antibody option card, it digivolves into Gallantmon X when attacking. Else we can digivolve LV5 into LV6 BT9 GallantmonX, if there is a Takato in the battle, the GallantmonX gains "Blitz".
When playing this deck, there is a need to calculate when you want to delete opponent's Digimon if there is only 1 or 2 of them in the battle. We should leave 1 opponent's Digimon to be deleted by GallantmonX in order to trigger the "trash the top card of opponent's security stack" when opponent only has 1 card left in their security to win the game.
Matchups
Facing against purple decks will somewhat be of a treat cause they stack up their trash real quick. EX2 Gallantmon Crimson Mode and BT2 Gallantmon can do quick work of opponents like these. A match-up against a Beelzemon deck can be a gamble, the Beelzemon deck has the potential to close the game out in a very explosive turn but in a situation that they couldn’t, it is very much in the bag for Gallantmon. The main focus for this is to out-speed the Beelze deck and always preparing a big counter hitter in case our opponent fails to close the game out. Other purple decks are quite slow compared to Beelzemon and Gallantmon could do very well against them due to their nature of filling up their trash pile.
Facing against yellow decks could be quite challenging due to their recovery and control over the game state. They could control the tempo efficiently and possibly heal up all the damage being done in the previous turn. The focus against yellow decks is like setting up a very big explosive turn with the right digivolution line for example a 3-Security checking menace with the ST7 Gallantmon and ST7 Wargrowlmon. Againts hybrid decks you should always be prioritizing this method, because it is very dangerous considering the amount of options and tamers they can bring in a deck. Speaking of options, to counter this, the deck can opt to bring “A Delicate Plan” for situational scenarios like this. But aside from OTK-ing, you can also choose to delete their security by trashing it. The BT9 Gallantmon X-Antibody can do the job but in case they preemptively prevent it’s effect by not having any digimon in play, the BT2 Gallantmon and EX2 Gallantmon Crimson Mode is another option.
Facing against black decks is a steep hill to climb, due to their immunity being deleted and having blocker on top of it. Meaning security checks won’t be going through. The deck needs to very much outspeed the opponent for a chance to win. Not being able to remove an Ouryumon for example, means that in the next turn we could lose the very stack we have been building if we opt to attack and with its the tempo control. Losing tempo in a game would basically mean that from there on out, there are only mountains to overcome. Regaining tempo is possible but very unlikely from that point. Blackwargreymon can also make quick work of your tamers if you don’t carefully time their drop.
Facing against green and blue will feel the same. Grandiskuwagamon, Metalgarurumon-X Antibody are very fast paced hard hitting decks that can close out the game in a single turn. That being said Gallantmon are also a hard hitting deck but somewhat lags behind in terms of setup time and cost. Grandiskuwagamon has jamming and essentially 3-security checks everytime in a perfect scenario and, Metalgarurumon-X Antibody decks can opt to bring the EX1 Metalgarurumon for fast ramping up to the boss Metalgarurumon-X. Metalgarurumon also has a control option of returning Digimons back to hand that could very disruptive and can punish you in case of a wrong decision.
To add to all of the statements above, Gallantmon is a very versatile and unsolved deck. New variants are going to keep on popping up here and there, given the variety and choices we have when building this deck it is only natural that this occurs. Choosing between BT5 Omnimon and EX2 Gallantmon Crimson Mode, whether to bring the BT2 Gallantmon or not is okay. It depends on your play style and overall meta of the environment. “A Delicate Plan”, “Judgment of the Blade” could be interesting tech cards for the deck.
The ratio of 12-10-8-7 (3-4-5-6) is quite good for the deck. Running this ratio as many other decks also does, gives a form of consistency that is pretty much required for digivolving decks like this. The remaining slots could be used for the essential tamers such as “Takato” and “Cool Boy”. Bringing memory fixers such as Tai Kamiya and Hiro Amanokawa are also recommended. Ulility options such as the “X-Antibody” is very good considering the deck has powerful on digivolving effects. Bringing in removal options such as “Gaia Force”, “Atomic Megalo Blaster” can help in situational conditions but due keep it to a minimum.
Speaking of “X-Antibody” and “Cool Boy”, both of these cards adds consistency and memory control to the deck as never seen before but then again be very careful when utilizing “Cool Boy” and also “Takato” when facing against a Blackwargreymon deck, or a deck that runs the new BT9 Megadramon. In scenarios like this you would just want to keep the tamers in your hand and drop them down in a favorable position when you can already use them or safely use them for a couple of turns. You would want to reap the benefits as much as you can when facing no other choices.
