Hello everyone, my name is OvermasterP. About 5 years ago, I wrote a BT8 tournament report for Digimon Card Meta regarding my top cut experience in Tokyo, Japan using my Kimeramon/Eyesmon deck. I’m very excited to be back today to unveil my new deck for BT26 that many have asked me about: Merva Megazoo.
Exportable Deck list:
4 Tsunomon BT24-003
2 Greymon BT24-010
4 Elecmon BT24-031
4 Aegiomon BT24-034
4 Minervamon BT24-041
2 Dan Yuki & Kanan Yuki BT24-085
1 In-Between Theater BT24-100
4 Homeros BT24-102
4 Coronamon BT25-008
3 Lunamon BT25-022
4 Sirenmon BT25-039
3 Bacchusmon BT25-077
4 Aegiochusmon: Holy BT26-029
4 Jupitermon Wide Plasment BT26-033
1 Bacchusmon Reversal of the Dead BT26-080
4 Mervamon BT26-081
2 Kanan Yuki BT26-090
Merva Megazoo builds upon the previous Olympus XII Megazoo decks in BT24 and BT25 by (re)building boards with multiple lvl. 6s and layered protections. Compared to BT25, the deck has become less toolbox and more combo, now centered around the power of Mervamon and the new Dual cards. Let’s see what she can do.
First, you’ll need an ADAMAS tamer in play. You can accomplish this during the climb up to Mervamon with BT24 Aegiomon. Then,
- Play or Digivolve into Mervamon
- (Optional) Play out Homeros and a lvl. 3 searcher from hand or trash. DP -4000 for each of your [TS] Digimon and Tamers. And it’s until end of turn, so it cuts straight through turn protection!
- End of Turn, activate Homeros to play out any lvl. 5 from hand or trash. Remember, Mervamon can play from trash, so the combo is not particularly limited by cards in hand.
Let’s have Homeros play out Sirenmon for this example. Also, another whole lot of DP minus. - Activate your ADAMAS tamer to play out Jupitermon BT26 x Wide Plasment, deleting the lowest DP Digimon and getting around Digimon effect protection again. Then, Recover +1, Arts Digivolve to draw 1, and take your top security to play or use a [TS] card with the cost reduced by 5.
- It’s not cost 5 or lower, its cost reduced, so we can play more Olympos XII off Jupitermon. What conditions do we meet? Well, we just set up two lvl. 6s, so Bacchusmon seems like a good fit for just 2 more memory! You could also play out In-Between Theater or Greymon for free, Sirenmon for just 1 memory or Assemble another Mervamon for 3 more.
- Bacchusmon plays out another Sirenmon, suspending a Digimon and deleting the lowest DP. With additional ADAMAS tamers, you could extend further with more Dual cards now.
With 1 tamer, this basic combo already accomplishes so much:
- Set up 1 Homeros
- Played a rookie to search 3
- Played out 3 megas
- Alliance, Blocker, Reboot, and +2000 DP for your entire board
- Set up 3 protections (Sirenmon, and Jupitermon protects and de-digivolves into another Sirenmon) that all recover back to security
- DP minus a lot, easily over -16k until the end of their turn, 2 times
- Delete the lowest DP Digimon 2 times and suspend
- Set up Bacchusmon [All Turns] for disruption
You could also replace any of the protections for Aegiochusmon: Holy’s protective effect, depending on the matchup. Overall, this deck is similar to Gear Forest and Jupitermon, but exchanges OTK power for a focus on control. Leveraging the interaction between Jupitermon and Sirenmon allows you to extend multiple, recovering protection effects across your entire board alongside Mervamon’s Blocker, Reboot, and DP boost.
And how much did it cost? Well, it’s mostly limited by your security count. Jupitermon x Wide Plasment can either be very cheap or frustratingly expensive depending, so take as often as possible with Aegiomon and Aegiochusmon: Holy. A common pass is around 7 memory: Regardless of Mervamon’s cost, Wide Plasment often requires a pass at 5, plus 1-2 more if you wish to extend with Bacchusmon and Sirenmon. But as the game goes on and you gain more memory from Homeros as well as push your security count lower with Aegiochusmon: Holy, it becomes extremely reasonable to choke your opponent around just 3 memory, leaving them in an overwhelmingly despairing situation. I would say this deck plays best when operated similarly to a traditional Jupitermon deck, but instead of recovering directly, it’s like your recovery is temporarily played onto the board as a protection effect instead.
While the full combos described above are devastating for some opponents, it also has the flexibility to be truncated to a smaller package as suits your hand and game state. Mervamon can be good value just for playing out a Homeros and a Sirenmon, or you could extend just as far as Jupitermon to set up an In-Between Theater instead. Getting value out of short combos and smaller passes is a serious strength of the deck that s houldn’t be ignored- you can still set up Homeros, remove multiple bodies and protect your board even with less cards and memory, allowing you to play to the situation at hand.
Another quality that shouldn’t be dismissed is that, although called Megazoo, and Coronamon is excellent for setting up Assembly, digivolving to Mervamon is an equally powerful line. BT24 Tsunomon is excellent tech with the new lvl. 5, Aegiochusmon: Holy. Even if you pass the turn, by digivolving to Aegiochusmon: Holy and trashing your top security, you can digivolve again to Mervamon or Jupitermon and continue your combo. Sirenmon is also a Shaman, so your lvl. 4 Aegiomon can also be used to get a cost reduction if it helps you keep turn.
Keeping the turn at lvl. 6 is also very rewarding as it allows you to establish some extra resources by going into Minervamon before Mervamon, adding another Homeros to widen the board with even more lvl 5s. There is also the possibility to combo out with Bacchusmon instead of Mervamon by playing out a Siremon as the Arts Digivolve target, or combo backwards by using Jupitermon to play out your Mervamon with Assembly. As you experiment with the deck, you will become more practiced at identifying additional extensions as well as when to curtail them.
A common retort to all this might be that for all its strength; this deck still loses to Susanoomon. While it’s true that [TB] is a more stressful matchup for us, I have developed some specific counterplay that is worth divulging:
- Aegiochusmon: Holy is an obvious godsend, but because of Susanoomon’s [When Attacking], it’s best when deployed in multiples. However, with Ascension, it still interacts well with Jupitermon to offset the chip damage and trade evenly.
- Greymon, played off Bacchusmon or Jupitermon, forces them to get a 2nd Susanoomon in trash first. It can delay their gameplan quite a bit especially now that Analog Youth is gone. It’s also useful for denying Amaterasumon and Kaguyamon.
- Bacchusmon is easily baited, but it usually forces them to give up their raising rookie unless they have another Genshi Continent to spend 3 memory on. This sets you up to punish them hard in the following turn.
However, the strongest and most important counterplay against Susanoomon is in fact Minervamon. Everyone knows that dedigivolve is ineffective against Susanoomon because they can place a 2nd Susanoomon underneath to maintain Rush. But what if you could choose to dedigivolve 1 or 2?
The most common way to achieve this is to Arts Digivolve an Aegiochusmon: Holy into Jupitermon and then play out Minervamon for 2 more. With a DP- immune Digimon and Minervamon’s “May” [On Deletion], no matter where they place the 2nd Susanoomon in the stack, you will be able to leave them without Rush. Even if they reduce less than Minervamon’s DP, you’ve still kept a wide board and can use Jupitermon’s protection as well as Blocker from Minervamon. There are further consequences of this, but as I don’t want to devote too much space to a single matchup, I’ll leave it there. In any case, it’s clear that with smart play, Merva Megazoo can check and outmaneuver even Susanoomon.
I hope this brief deck guide has been informative and exciting! Building both tall and wide, Merva Megazoo is an intensely splashy deck that really exemplifies the power level of BT26. Don’t neglect to give it a try and experience the new plateau for Olympus XII.
