Burst Mode
Bandai has finally introduced the [Burst Mode] Digimons from Digimon Savers, and they have massive potential based on early gameplay trials.
4 Digimons will get their [Burst Mode] cards in BT-13, and so far it looks like Shinegreymon will be doing very well in the coming meta. The tight synergy between Marcus Daimon and the Shinegreymon lineup makes a very robust and memory-efficient system, cycling between free tamers, free digivolutions, and aggression from Daimon checks.
Meanwhile, MirageGaogamon and his Burst Mode should play pretty much like AncientGarurumon or Gabumon BoF (with multi-attacks and return to hand), Yoshino’s Rosemon has one of the cheapest digivolution line, and Ikuto’s Ravemon plays a ninja’s disappearance act but his Burst Mode has a rather conditional effect.
Yggdrasil and the Royal Knights
As its name suggests, this set has a heavy emphasis on Royal Knights, and a new mechanic coming from the god of digital world Yggdrasil.
A Yggdrasil deck will usually include (almost) all members of the Royal Knights, and plays rather similar to a timer deck (much like D-Reaper). Simply put, this deck will stall for about 5 turns, using the [On Play] effects of different Royal Knights, while accumulating them under the digivolution cards of Yggdrasil. When there are sufficient copies of unique Royal Knights under Yggdrasil, Omegamon will be played for end game.
When not played in a Yggdrasil deck, each of these Royal Knights should buff their own deck archetypes. This entire system is therefore rather peculiarly designed but elegant in some ways: instead of introducing a bunch of cards that only work for 1 deck archetype, we get cards that work for 13 different decks, and a single Digitama card Yggdrasil defining a whole new deck mechanic on its own!
Sleipmon and Leopardmon finally playable
Fans of Sleipmon and Leopardmon rejoice as these archetypes see proper buffs in BT-13.
Rentarou’s Sleipmon line has a variety of effects that utilises warp digivolution, security management, and DP-reduction, all which gel together rather efficiently to make this a fun deck to play!
Leopardmon meanwhile introduces a very surprising [Leopard Mode] and gains strength from a wide board (of possibly rookies). Unfortunately however he is now a green Digimon so there is little to no synergy with the older blue Leopardmon from BT-03.
Enter Belphemon
Belphemon is the next demon lord to be introduced into card game, and should be pleasantly welcomed in the coming meta. Belphemon comes in 2 modes: [Sleep Mode] is defensive and can even be played from hand, and will almost always become [Rage Mode] in its next turn, which will almost always deal a massive 4 security checks and LV5-or-lower board wipe.
Akihiro Kurata and some Gizumons give Belphemon a unique mechanic, but Belphemon should be quite a versatile card for many purple deck configurations so we should see some creative deck building in the coming meta.
Others
Checkmate?
Miki Kurosaki and Megumi Shirakawa carries their Chessmon line in black and yellow. Almost all Chessmons have [Blocker], and they summon another Chessmon on deletion. QueenChessmon will unsuspend every time your Chessmon is deleted allowing for multi-attacks, but whether or not this line will be meta-potential remains uncertain.
Other archetype buffs
For players patiently waiting for Akiho to be relevant, rejoice as Chika Daimon joins the fray with her line of Garudamon, which should improve robustness of [Avian] type Digimons.
The Sukamon/Etemon line will also be buffed in this set, with a bunch of new cards including KingEtemon (finally!!) which gels so well with all the recent Sukamons.
And a small Mamemon archetype buff coming from [PrinceMamemon], which may not be sufficient to buff this archetype at all…
Summary
BT-13 does a good job servicing a variety of deck archetypes, and should have cards that appeal to many different players. Moving away from the Xros Wars saga that is BT-11 and BT-12, this set continues to tie up loose ends around its anime franchise by introducing Digimons from season 2 of Digimon Savers.
With BT-13, all Digimons from anime adaptations should be now completely covered (with exception of Appmon), so it is interesting to anticipate what BT-14 will be. Will nicher Digimons from the game series (such as Dawn & Dusk) finally take their turn? What new mechanics will come the set after this? It is very interesting!
