BT-12 is shaping to be a reboot of sorts, featuring a cast of all our anime heroes from the very first season to Xros Wars or Fusion season 3. Well of course they all appeared in that final episode together didn't they, but somehow these new cards do seem to power creep the old ones, and have effects made more loyal to the anime. We are excited to lets get down to it!
Rebooting Our Heroes
In season 3 of Xros Wars or Fusion anime, otherwise known as The Boy Hunters who Leapt Through Time, 5 heroes were summoned from their times to stop an army created by Quartzmon. This is where Bandai gave us refreshed card effects for our main heroes.
– [Start of your Main Phase] [On Play] 1 of your Digimon with [Agumon] or [Greymon] in its name gains +1000 DP and "Blocker" until the end of your opponent's next turn.
– [Your Turn] When one of your Digimon digivolves into a Digimon with [Greymon] or [Omnimon] in its name, suspend this Tamer to gain 1 memory.
– [Security] Play this card without paying its memory cost.
[BT12-070] Wargreymon
Mega | Vaccine | Dragon-Man
– Digivolve: 3 from level 5 with [MetalGreymon] in name
– [Raid] (When this Digimon attacks, you may switch the target of the attack to 1 of your opponent's unsuspended Digimon with the highest DP.)
– [When Digivolving] This Digimon gains +3000 DP and [Reboot] until the end of your opponent's turn.
– [All Turns] [Once per Turn] If the target of an attack changes, unsuspend this Digimon.
[BT12-090] Davis Motomiya
– [Start of your Main Phase] If you have a Digimon with [Free] in its traits or a Tamer with [Ken Ichijoji] in its name, gain 1 memory.
– [Your Turn] When one of your two colored blue and green Digimon attacks, by suspending this Tamer, that Digimon may digivolve into a Digimon card with [Imperialdramon] in its name in your hand by paying its memory cost.
– [Security] Play this card without paying its memory cost
The new Tai Kamiya is a black tamer that grants [Blocker] and a slight DP buff to his line of Digimon, and his new Wargreymon works as a versatile piece, having both [Raid] during your turn and [Reboot] and [Blocker] during your opponent's turn makes him both a sword and shield. Greymons already have a great lineup accumulated from past sets but is mostly aggressive, so the addition of a more defensive route is be very flavourful.
Meanwhile the new Davis Motomiya lets you digivolve into Imperialdramon when attacking, which is very helpful in a deck where both Dragon Mode and Fighter Mode take up LV6 slots. The new Fighter Mode has very strong board control and also counters Dexmon, while being optionally defensive with [Blocker]. Together with Dragon Mode, digivolving into the new Imperialdramon line will almost guarantee flipping board states to your favour.
Excitement comes from the all new Takato Matsuda from Digimon Tamers, which finally has Biomerge Digivolution! This card effect is faithful to the anime, placing the tamer below your Guilmon in order to digivolve into Dukemon. The updated Dukemon (and lineup) is very strong, gaining a board advantage in almost any situation.
For example, Takato can biomerge into Dukemon, deletes a big Digimon using [Raid] together with up to 2 smaller 6000 DP or lower Digimons or trashing their security if the effect fails (and if this takes too much of your memory then we can always rely on the old EX-2 Takato for [Blitz]).
Takato's line of Digimon also enjoys the extensive lineup from past sets hence is expected to fare very well in the coming tier list.
[BT12-088] Takuya Kanbara
– [Security] Play this card without paying its memory cost.
– [Start of your Turn] If you have 2 or less memory, set your memory to 3.
– Inherited: [Your Turn] This Digimon gains +2000 DP. If this Digimon has 10000 or more DP, it gains "[Your Turn] [Once per Turn] When this Digimon checks your opponent's Security, gain 2 memory.
Hybrid Digimons seem to have been stagnant for a while since BT-07, and the updated Kanbara does not seem to be doing too much either. However, the secret sauce lies in his new line if hybrid Digimons.
Previously in BT-07, Kanbara and his hybrid line has a very linear strategy. The old BT7 Kanbara is a 3-cost tamer that does nothing until he digivolves into Aldamon or Kaisergreymon, and there are no card effects amongst his LV4 to LV6 digivolutions that plays him from hand/trash (only the LV3 Flamemon has this). Furthermore, since his LV4 and LV5 hybrid forms have so little board control, the only effective way to play comes from warp digivolution into Kaisergreymon but even with that, he does almost nothing to your opponent's board other than swinging security. Without Mega Digimon Fusion! to support Susanoomon, Kanbara fell from grace very quickly.
Fortunately, the new tamer-recycling effects given to Agunimon and Aldamon in BT-12 should revive this deck, and gives it a lot more dimensions than previously possible. The new Aldamon can now digivolve directly from tamer, and Kaisergreymon now has some board control and is arguable better than the older variant (since I feel his second effect is very redundant). Fans of hybrid decks should be very excited with this update.
Another major update came from Masaru Daimon and Shinegreymon. Daimon is often seen fighting alongside his Digimon, and this has been faithfully captured in his card effect. At 1-cost, Daimon can be treated as a 3000DP Digimon and when attacking can digivolve your other Digimon into a yellow [Greymon] in name for free.
Daimon hits very hard (6000 DP with [SecurityAttack+1]) when supported by Shinegreymon, and Rizegreymon recycles Daimon back into your security, making this effectively a [Recovery+1] and "play a tamer for free" effect combined. This high impact synergy should be able push him into high-tier in the coming meta.
[BT12-087] Taiki Kudo
Hunter | Xros Heart
– [Start of Your Main Phase] By placing 1 Digimon card with [Save] in its card text from your hand under this Tamer, [Draw 1].
– [Your Turn] When your Digimon would digivolve into a Digimon card with [Save] in its card text, by suspending this Tamer placing 1 card from under your Tamers at the bottom of that Digimon's digivolution cards, reduce the digivolution cost by 1.
– [Security] Play this card without paying its cost.
[BT12-112] Shoutmon X7: Superior Mode
Mega | Data | Composite / Xros Heart / Blue Flare
– When this card would be played, by placing 1 of your [Shoutmon] into this Digimon's digivolution cards, reduce the play cost by 1, and you may also place cards in trash as digivolution cards for DigiXros.
– [On Play] Return the digivolution cards of 1 of your opponent's Digimon to the bottom of deck in any order, and return that Digimon to the bottom of deck.
– [Your Turn] All of your opponent's Option card's [Security] effects do not activate.
– [DigiXros-1] Unlimited Digimon cards with different card numbers with [Xros Heart] or [Blue Flare] in their traits.
[BT12-096] Tagiru Akashi
Hunter
– [Start of your Turn] If you have 2 or less memory, set your memory to 3.
– [Your Turn] When one of your Digimon would digivolve into a Digimon card with [Save] in its description, by suspending this Tamer and and placing 1 card from under your Tamers under that Digimon as its bottom digivolution card, reduce its digivolution cost by 1.
– [Security] Play this card without paying its cost.
– Digivolve: 4 cost from a red or black or purple LV4 Digimon with [Save] in description.
– [When Digivolved] Put 1 of your opponent’s LV3 or lower Digimon to the bottom of 1 of their other Digimon’s digivolution cards or to the bottom of 1 of their tamers. For each of your tamer’s with different colors, increase the LV selected by this effect by +1.
– [End of your Turn][Once Per Turn] If this Digimon has 4 or more digivolution cards, this Digimon can attack without suspending.
– Inherited: [When Attacking][Once Per Turn] When this Digimon has [Save] in description, [Draw 1].
Finally for the Xros Wars heroes, Kudo Taiki gets his hunter form, together with Amano You and Tagiru Akashi, as well as the antagonists Ren Tobari, Airu Suzaki, and Ryouma Mogami. These new tamers reduce digivolution cost instead of DigiXros play cost, and should work well in their respective decks. In my opinion, digivolution is a far better mechanic than any [On Play] effect, and I wholeheartedly welcome this mechanic update.
We also get the respective Digimons from these 6 hunters, but few are notable such as Arresterdramon Superior Mode with a Bagramon-like effect, Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode with an omnipotent removal effect, and a Quartzmon waiting to dominate the next meta. We discuss some of them below.
Quartzmon
Perhaps a card that many are expecting to top competitively in the early BT-12 meta. Quartzmon is such a powerful card, suspending the entire board permanently (as long as it is in play) making this potentially one of the strongest control card we have ever seen. This is a double edged sword though, since both players will have their board states frozen, Quartzmon becomes the only Digimon that can attack (not accounting for fresh Digimons entering from nursery) hence the tempo can be slow.
Despite seemingly too powerful, Quartzmon is actually susceptible to many effects, namely removal option cards, digivolution effects or on-play effects that removes/returns/de-digivolves, and attacks from fresh Digimons entering from nursery. However, when played right, Quartzmon is still extremely formidable, and we see some synergy with cards like Puppetmon, Giga Death, and Nidhoggmon.
Furthermore, since Quartzmon also digivolves from LV5, we also see potential to play this with [EX2-072] Blue Card since Quartzmon is not a white Digimon.
– Digivolves: [Psychemon] for 5 cost / Yellow or Green or Purple LV4 with [Save] in description for 3 cost.
[BT12-057] Quartzmon
Mega | Unidentified | Unknown
– Digivolve: 9 cost from LV5 with [Save] in description
– [When Digivolving] Suspend all Digimons except this, and all tamers. Then, gain +1 memory for every 2 suspended Digimon or tamer.
– [All Turns] All Digimon except this and all tamers cannot be unsuspended.
– [When Attacking] Suspend 1 of your opponent's Digimon or tamer. Then, for every 5 suspended Digimon or tamer, trash the top card from your opponent's security stack.
The Final Forms
Bandai finally gave us the final forms of Bagramon and Shoutmon, and boy do they not dissappoint.
Bagramon has a unique effect in BT-11, but his actual usage was rather lacklustre: not only is he is expensive to play but his removal effect is very conditional. In many occasions, he fails to remove what is needed, or ended up giving too much memory to the opponent to rebuild what was removed.
DarknessBagramon is a much simpler card: he deletes a Digimon, can board wipe tamers, and ends their turn by gaining +5 memory from trashing 5 of your Bagra Army digivolution cards (assuming you use those that grant memory on trashing). On top of that, he also digivolves from LV5 so there is synergy with Blue Card and [P-077] Wizardmon if you wish. He is also great with Kaiser Nail since his [On Play] effect equips him well (unlike Bagramon).
Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum, Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode has arguably the most omnipotent removal effect at the moment. By first returning all digivolution cards from a Digimon to their deck followed by returning that Digimon to deck, bypasses any protections granted by X-Antibody (of the Wargreymon X, Blackwargreymon X, and Metalgarurumon X line), Mugendramon, Ragnamon etc. X7 Superior also has the highest base DP charted by any Digimon at the moment, and can be DigiXrosed using an infinite numbers of cards from trash.
When he uses DigiXros materials, he can easily inherit a variety of effects that gives him an edge on board state. He also stands to benefit from Kaiser Nail, since he can be inserted into the digivolution cards of Deckergreymon, Mervamon, or Shoutmon King Mode.
We expect to see both of these cards used extensively in the coming meta!
– [On Play][When Digivolving] Delete 1 of your opp’s Digimon. Then, put up to 5 Digimon with [Bagra Army] in traits to the bottom of this Digimon’s digivolution cards.
[BT12-112] Shoutmon X7: Superior Mode
Mega | Data | Composite / Xros Heart / Blue Flare
– When this card would be played, by placing 1 of your [Shoutmon] into this Digimon's digivolution cards, reduce the play cost by 1, and you may also place cards in trash as digivolution cards for DigiXros.
– [On Play] Return the digivolution cards of 1 of your opponent's Digimon to the bottom of deck in any order, and return that Digimon to the bottom of deck.
– [Your Turn] All of your opponent's Option card's [Security] effects do not activate.
– [DigiXros-1] Unlimited Digimon cards with different card numbers with [Xros Heart] or [Blue Flare] in their traits.
Beelzemon gets the X-Antibody jab
BT-12 also buffs Beelzemon by giving him his X-Antibody line.
Not sure if this is the reason why the [ST-14] Beelzemon theme deck was delayed, but perhaps Bandai wanted to control the tempo in which a Beelzemon deck will be buffed. But with his line of X-Antibody it does seem a very strong buff, and could very much push him into tier-1 in BT-12.
The current Beelzemon deck, while unpretentiously strong, builds too linearly and relies too much on Ai & Mako. Without Blast Mode, Beelzemon has limited firing range and is not aggressive on security attacks. In BT-12, Beelzemon X will not only help to remove end-game dependency from Blast Mode and Ai & Mako, but also lets us play the much-coveted Cool Boy in this deck.
[BT12-085] Beelzemon X Antibody
Mega | Virus | Demon Lord / Seven Great Demon Lords / X Antibody
– Digivolve: 1 from [Beelzemon]
– [When Digivolving] If this Digimon has [Beelzemon] or [X Antibody] in its digivolution cards, for every 10 cards in your trash, trash the top card of your opponent's security stack.
– [On Deletion] You may play 1 Digimon card with [Impmon] in its name from your trash without paying its memory cost.
– Digivolve: 0 cost from [Baalmon]
The new option card [Seventh Full Cluster] also adds extra ammunition to Beelzemon X, triggering from trash whenever you digivolve into Beelzemon X.
[BT12-110] Seventh Full Cluster
Seven Great Demon Lords
– [Trash] [Your Turn] When your Digimon digivolves into [Beelzemon X Antibody], by returning this card to the bottom of your deck, delete 1 of your opponent's Digimon with the lowest level.
– [Main] Delete 1 of your opponent's Digimon with the lowest level.
– [Security] Activate this card's [Main] effect.
Other miscellaneous buffs
Aside from Beelzemon, BT-12 will also give X-Antibody treatment to 2 very popular Digimons.
Fans of Ulforceveedramon will rejoice having Ulforceveedramon X released just one set after Rina/Ulforce was significantly buffed. Recently competitively played with Jeri/Leomon, it is interesting to see whether X Antibody cards can find its way into a tight Jeri/Leomon/Rina/Ulforce deck. Or maybe other builds will emerge?
Meanwhile a similar story with Mugendramon which was heavily buffed a set ago with Analogman, we now have a Chaosdramon X that can possess all of the effects from it's underlying Mugendramons and Chaosdramons. This card solves the dilemma of whether to digivolve a BT-11 Mugendramon and losing its [On Deletion] effect, or losing the DP-reduction nullification effect of your EX-2 Mugendramon. In addition, it has also the ability to pull a [Machine] or [Cyborg] card from trash to itself at the start of your main phase, repairing any gaps during its digivolution.
Imagine pulling 2 EX-2 Mugendramons into itself and tidal wave!
[BT12-029] Ulforceveedramon X Antibody
Mega | Vaccine | Holy Warrior / Royal Knight / X Antibody
– Digivolve: 1-cost from [Ulforceveedramon]
– [When Digivolved] Unsuspend this Digimon or 1 of your blue tamer.
– [All Turn][Once Per Turn] When this Digimon is unsuspended, if you have a blue tamer or if this Digimon has [UlforceVeedramon] in its digivolution cards, return 1 of your opponent's Digimon with the lowest LV to their hand.
– Digivolve: 2-cost from [Mugendramon] or [Chaosdramon]
Summary
BT-12 is picking up on where BT-11 has left off, building on good and fun card mechanics while delivering on variety. New card mechanics such as Takato's Biomerge Digivolution and Daimon's punches will surely be popular among players, and they set a good trajectory for the coming tamers and Digimons that are not yet rebooted.
Furthermore, as a collector's addition, there is still 2 more special alternative art cards that is yet to be revealed. And boy ain't that box topper sexy!
Score: 9/10
