Invited Author: Andres Perdomo
Country: USA.
Introduction
Hi everyone! I’m Andres Perdomo from Florida. I was the champion of the 2022 championship finals for North America. I am happy to represent NA in the upcoming world championship. I have always been a fan of the franchise since I was a child. I have played most of the videogames and I like all of them. I started playing the Digimon TCG when it first came out. I can say I usually like midrange decks that can be both offensive and defensive when needed, once BWG X came up I thought it would fit my playstyle a lot, that’s the deck I decided to take nats and I am very happy with how it performed.
Deck Introduction
I think it was clear that BWG X would be very impactful to the meta once BT11 arrived, but there was a big uncertainty on how all the new decks would perform since nationals was the first big event we had in the BT11 format, from the Japanese results we already knew BWG X would be one of the decks to beat, after testing decks for so long in preparation for nationals it was clear to me that BWG X has great cards to deal with almost any matchup, with the biggest problem for the deck being Grandis, with this in mind I expected a lot of people to play Grandis to counter BWG X and also expected a lot of mirror matches since BWG X has been anticipated to do well for so long, and I believe this two things were what influenced my decklist choices the most, my goal was to increase my odds in both the mirror match and the Grandis matchup.
I will try my best to explain each of the card decisions in my list.
First the lvl 3 and lvl 4 line up I think is very standard, the Agumon promo is great for DP increases and it is usually what you want to evolve into in the raising, while the other Agumons are there to search for your other pieces. Playing the BT5 search Agumon and evolving it into Agumon X is a super strong way to cycle your deck and get all the pieces you need quickly, having cool boys out just make this play even stronger. For the lvl 4, I really like to have the black greymon for the blocker inheritable against matches that want to rush security like Xros Heart, and the BT5 Greymon is great because of the memory gain, a 1 cost evolution is huge, lastly Greymon X is probably the best card in the deck, evolving into a greymon for 0, making all your lvl 5 evos cost 2 is huge, while also providing protection and trigger cool boy’s effects.
For the lvl 5s we just play 4 BT8 Metalgreymon and 4 of the new BT11 Metalgreymon X, both help to clear the board of small bodies and their inheritables are big factors that make the lvl6 super strong. I like Metalgreymon X effects to safely trash security while BT8 Metalgreymon allows it to deal with big stacks on the opponent side.
Finally in the lvl 6 line up, we play 2 BWG X since he is just a big wall that is hard for some decks to deal with. Gaiomon allows to quickly clear security while he is probably the best card to see in the mirror match, that is why I decided to play 3 to make sure I always see it, and one of my tech choices was certainly the promo Blackwargreymon, I must said this card did win my some of my games but I would not say it was better that the other lvl 6s in the deck, I considered it just a nice option to close out games because of his unsuspend effect, and the cheap evo cost can be very useful.
Then we have Omnimon X from BT5, which I think is one the key pieces of my deck since it can win the Grandis matchup by itself, I played 2 to make sure I always see him, the only way Grandis can deal with this card is by having two different stacks that can go into grandis during the same turn which is very hard to accomplish since we can keep the board clear with the Metalgreymons. I usually have to go into a Gaiomon, using blitz to swing with X-antibody option inheritable to go straight into omnimon X, this play along costs 11 memory but it’s worth it in the Grandis matchup, for other matchups I think omnimon X while not necessary can still be a defensive option that can make a huge difference.
For the option cards and tamers choices I think the only one that might need explanation is the 1 hades force, I particularly think that while hades force is super strong, I don’t see myself playing it more than once per game and I don’t like to gamble for it to be in security, since it is an option that requires both players to have a board established to be good, I think it makes sense for it to be a one of, the only time I think it would be worth to play more than one is probably in the Xros Heart matchup.
Matchups
My matchups for each round day 1 was as follows, I will try my best to give a general description of the matchup against each archetype.
1 – Grandis
2 – BWG X
3 – Metalgaruru X
4 – Grandis
5 – Sec Con
6 – Xross Heart
7 – Jesmon
8 – BWG X
9 – Xross Heart
First as I mentioned previously the Grandis matchup is a matter of having omnimon X in play before Grandis comes out, Gaiomon and X-antibody can allow to make this play very quickly since Greymon X can allow to go into from a lvl 3 to a lvl 5 for potentially just 3 memory..
The mirror match can be hard, but I think the main plan is to have two different stacks and hope to see Gaiomon to clear the opponent’s stack.
Metalgaruru X can still be very scary, you need to see BWG X early to make sure they cannot start attacking early with their Weregarurumons.
My game against Jesmon was very interesting, I think it can be super hard for BWG X if Jesmon sees all their cards, if they can make all their sistermon by 7K+ DP, it makes them super hard to remove. I was lucky that my opponent was only able to boost their sistermon blancs to 5K so I could remove them with metalgreymons and then clear the rest of the board in the both games I won.
The one sec control matchup was scary mainly due to going to time during the second game, Yuuya is definitely the best card for this matchup along with BT11 Metalgreymon, these two cards just allow you to make early attacks without much risk.
Lastly Xross Heart, I think after the event it became clear to me that Xross Heart is a super strong deck, both Mervamon and Shoutmon X7 variations are very strong, to win this matchup it is important to have a blocker early so they cannot just rush security, seeing Hades force at some point during mid game is also huge to try stop then for making huge plays for cheap.
For day 2 and Top 32 matches I will explain each game more in detail.
Top 32 match vs Wargrey X
In this match if I remember correctly I won the first two games but they were both very close. I feel my opponent got a bit unlucky with their starting hands but was able to clear my security very quickly anyway, since BWG X is not a particularly fast deck in winning the match, he was able to find his pieces eventually to try to win in a single turn, at the end I was able to clear his stacks and make my way to the win.
Top 16 match vs Grandis
This was one of the most intense matches I had, in general omnimon X was able to stop the OTK all 3 games but all games were very close, during the 2nd game I unfortunately checked a Snimon while going into Omnimon X, this left my opponent with two digimons in play, 10 memory and had two green memory boost ready for the delay effect to gain memory, essentially having 14 memory ready, this allowed them to make two grandis stacks to remove my omnimon X, I was later able to clear those two stacks but unfortunately my second Omnimon X was my last security check so my opponent was able to go into a third grandis to win the game.
Top 8 match vs Grandis
For this match my opponent was able to see grandis very quickly most of the time, one of the games I was just not able to see my pieces soon enough so they were able to OTK. In the other two omnimon X was the MVP in the matchup as usual.
Top 4 match vs BWG X
For our first game I think there was a lot of back and forth, drawing into Gaiomon was very important to clear the opponent's board, at the end I was able to see get two big stacks so I got the overall advantage, during the second game I feel my opponent just bricked very hard and I was able to capitalize on it.
Top 2 Match vs Xross Heart
I was already scared of Xross Heart from day 1, and I knew my list was not optimal for facing Xross Heart. My best bet was to get blockers early and try to put pressure on my opponent with Gaiomon. I was very lucky to see my one Hades Force both games when I needed to leave my opponent with little options. During the first game I tried to play it extra safely and I think it was a mistake, while I was able to clear all the board including tamers, my opponent still had enough resources to go into an X7 with 15k DP that made it more difficult for me to try and finish the game, I realized my opponent already had all 4 shoutmons in play or trash so they could not do a digi xross with rush, this allowed me to win the first game at the end but I could have taken the risk earlier and swing at their security to win, extending the game was actually dangerous for me here. During the second game I unfortunately did not see a lvl 3 at the start but I did have everything else I needed, I hard played a greymon during the first turn knowing it would be hard for them to answer right away, this allowed me to get a Gaiomon pretty quickly to rush security and was also able to see Hades Force again to secure the win.
Special Thanks
I would like to thank all my friends that supported me during the event, all the support messages I got meant a lot to me and I am very happy I was able to win the event after all. A special thanks to Jacob Puusalu for helping me test with proxies the BT11 format before it came out in English, I think all the testing we did was a key part of being able to win the event. To Julio Montalvo for helping me test a lot for the BWG X mirror match. Also to my cousin Luis Perdomo because he always helps me think about strategies, tech cards and combos, we just love to talk about the game a lot.
I will try my best to do well in the upcoming Worlds championship and wish the best luck to all the qualifiers.