rononrun – DIGIMON CARD META

Rematching the D-Reaper

We have recently discussed the D-Reaper engine, and while for the most parts he appears an interesting concept, the engine itself has a large shortcoming.

The deck relies too much on summoning one D-Reaper and it’s consecutive attacks.

Specifically, much resources will be placed in preparing Mother D-Reaper’s 7 digivolution cards during the early game, and when that timer hits, D-Reaper can be played for free and begins consecutively swinging at your opponent’s security. It would be ideal (and mostly essential) to be able to end the game then, as losing that D-Reaper would usually mean that you will have to restart the system and rebuild your Mother’s digivolution again.

Problems with D-Reaper

D-Reaper’s strength comes from its free play (conditional of course) and consecutive attacks by attaching 2 Searchers from trash. There are therefore a few problems.

1. If you hit into a larger Digimon or a deletion card from security, you will lose your D-Reaper before maximizing your hits and will end up in a deficit.
2. If you cannot end your opponent during your consecutive hits, your tempo will be significantly slower during the next few turns since D-Reaper will not be able to unsuspend without putting new Searchers below itself.

D-Reaper: Re-Matched!!

One way to overcome this weakness (and potentially making the deck very lethal) is to play [BT3-109] Rematch!

When Rematch! is used on D-Reaper, it will be able to swing at your opponent’s security without fear of deletion (since you would want D-Reaper to be deleted). Deleting a rematched D-Reaper allow him to be replayed, with [Haste] and without all the attached Searchers hence resets its capacity to perform consecutive attacks. Optimally this way, D-Reaper would be able to swing at your opponent 10 times!

To support this engine, some tech cards such as [ST6-15] Death Claw can be added to delete D-Reaper to reset its engine, and [BT3-096] Mimi may be a useful tamer to support all these purple option cards.

Summary

Do you think D-Reaper will dominate the next meta? We can’t wait to find out when EX-02 drops in Asia this Christmas!

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

Armor Purge: A Magnamon/Whamon Engine?

Though it is still very early in the list of BT-08 reveals, the much awaited armor digivolutions did seem a little lacklustre. We had several armor digivolutions already revealed, and this includes (probably) the most important one: Magnamon.

Let's start with armor digivolutions. From what we know so far, armor digivolutions have 2 distinctive effects. Firstly, they digivolve for slightly cheaper from their respective rookies. So for example, Flamedramon would cost 2 to digivolve from Veemon, and 3 from any other LV3 Digimons. Second, they have the [Armor Purge] effect, which allows them to sort of de-digivolve to prevent deletion.

This [Armor Purge] effect shares some similarities with some existing effects, such as the EX-01 Mugendramon (purging digivolution cards instead) and the BT-07 DarkKnightmon. These armor digivolutions are therefore not very exciting (yet), so far being only slightly stronger LV4 Digimons with a second life.

But what more can we do with [Armor Purge]?

A Magnamon/Whamon Engine

Magnamon is a natural blocker with a respectable 7000 DP, allowing him to avoid easy removal through a number of effects such as Nidhoggmon, Shoutmon DX, and an inherited Baohuckmon. But that alone will not make him shine.

There is a certain synergy between Magnamon and the Whamon line. Specifically, Whamon can, on play, pull the LV3 digivolution card from Magnamon to be played as a separate Digimon, and then place another blue Digimon (of any level) from your hand under Magnamon as a digivolution card. This will allow you to create a Magnamon with a blue LV6 or LV7 Digimon as his only digivolution card (assuming you do not have a LV2 below Magnamon) hence allowing you to [Armor Purge] into that LV6 or LV7 Digimon. Additionally, since Magnamon has [Blocker] he can slow down the game and becoming quite potent on your opponent's turn, since deleting him would bring an even larger Digimon to the field.

You may even be able to loop the entire engine if another Whamon is put below Magnamon, as Magnamon will be able to purge into a Whamon which can digivolve into KingWhamon in the subsequent turn to redo this engine!

I think such an optimized deck would run KingWhamon for the obvious synergy, and perhaps even Leopardmon to be able to pull out a Magnamon from the digivolution stack.

Will this engine be too memory-expensive to pull off? Or will this engine be meta enough to carry the entire deck? I guess only time will tell once the rest of BT-08 has been revealed.

Hyper Spirit Evolution

Red and Blue hybrid for MagnaGarurumon and KaiserGreymon are showing their potential to be in the top tier with the speed of their hybrid evolution line provided with aggressive power of red and removal power of blue. But have you ever think of a deck that combines them together? a deck that acts as Rookie Rush but giving as much damage as Ragnaloardmon.

This deck has 14 hybrid rookies Digimon, 6 LV4, 2 Lv5, 7 for LV6, and 3 copies of BT1 Omnimon. This deck also uses 4 copies of Bokomon, 1 copy of Neemon to support Tamer's summoning or digivolving. 2 copies of Analogy for search and trash power, also secure a white tamer card in order to play Fuse Into Ultimate Digimon option card.

Early Game: Rookie Rush

The mission of the LV3 rookies is to draw more, search more for hybrid Digimon and play more tamers. The Bokomon's effect can help to put 2 cards to hand, the Strabimon and Flamemon effects can only take one card from their search.

In the early game, we may need to attack the opponent's security using the LV3 Digimon or LV4 Digimon to fill up the trash or to draw more to add more cards to hand. I choose blue Upamon because this digitama provides draw+1 in its ESS. The BT7 Strabimon is a very good rookie since we can free play a Koji tamer if this Digimon dies.

Hyper Spirit Evolution

As you can see from Takuya and Koji effect, Takuya can be digivolved into a KaiserGreymon from the hand by paying its digivolution cost and you must place 5 cards with [Hybrid] in their type from trash under this tamer in any order. While red evolution needs 5 [hybrid] cards from trash, the blue line for Koji Minamoto digivolves into MagnaGarurumon condition is you must have 5 [hybrid] cards from hand to enable hyper evolution.

The huge benefit of the hyper evolution in this deck is it does not care about what colour that [hybrid] Digimon is, as long as it is a [hybrid] type, we can put under tamer to perform digivolution from Takuya or Koji into their respective LV6 Digimon.

So after I performed rookie attacks on opponent security to destroy the rookies in order to fill up the trash or play more tamer, I will perform Hyper Sprit Evolution to whatever colour that fulfils the condition first. If I have enough [Hybrid] cards in the trash, I will use Takuya digivolution, else if I have 5 [hybrid] cards in hand, I would trigger Koji evolution into MagnaGaruru. The Bokomon is there to save the digivolution cost from a Tamer into a Digimon, so we only need to pay 2 costs.

The secret power of this deck is BT1 Omnimon with white option card Fuse Into The Ultimate Digimon.

During the Hybrid Evolution, we can choose to put as many as LV6 Digimon we have from hand or trash under the tamer that used to digivolve. If we have a white tamer or a white Digimon on board, we can cast the Fuse Into The Ultimate Digimon to digivolve from LV6 KaiserGreymon or MagnaGaruru into BT1 Omnimon at zero cost.

Once everything is set, we can use Omnimon to attack the opponent's security and at the same time, removing a LV6 Digimon to unsuspend (re-active) the Omnimon. If we don't hit any killer option card in the opponent's security, it is easy to end the game with this trap.

Remember this set-up is doable because we only have to pay 2 costs for the whole digivolution from tamer -> LV6 Hybrid -> Omnimon. Besides, the opponent's cannot control the board to avoid this situation because it is digivolved from a tamer.

We have tested with this deck, and it is strong, easy to perform the strategy. Here are some comments:

It is rare to have a hand-brick since there are too many rookies in the deck.
Easy to set up the hyper sprit evolution.
If the opponent plays Digimon that avoids you earn memory from another source than tamer, you need to destroy its first. We can use the "when digivolving" effect of MagnaGaruru to return it to hand and earn back memory. And if we manage to stay at our turn after MagnaGaruru's [When Digivolving] effect all resolved, then digivolve it into BT1 Omnimon.
Do not digivolve into Omnimon if you cannot end the game in the turn it appears, we should stop at LV6 Digimon, especially the MagnaGaruru to do some removal with its effect.
Takuya can give "SecurityAttack+1" and Koji gives "This Digimon can't be blocked" in their inheritable effect, Omnimon is over-power. LOL.
If we play against a Security Control deck, it is a good decision to stop at LV6 Digimon to inherit the benefit of LV5 Aldamon (if we manage to put it in digivolution source) to enable "option jamming"

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

Week-1 BT7 Meta Tourney Report

Riding the winds of day-2 excitement, we joined a local game shop that hosted a tournament of 10 pax: to check out the early BT7 meta and to do a little bit of deck testing.

Tournament Format & Player Pool

The tournament runs a 4-round swiss, BO3 format with a top-cut of 4 places, which is a very reliable format to gauge deck (and player) strength.

More than half the players have migrated to a BT7-centric deck, with the exception of Mastemon, Eosmon, Rookie-Rush, Melga-Beelstar, and a Sec-Con that runs a couple copies of Kazuchimon.

Correction: The 1st Place deck is Gabumon B.O.F with Hybrid Digimon, check out the winning deck here.

Hybrid Red and Blue Decks

First place was taken by a BOF deck piloted by a very experienced blue player, which remained largely a BT6 deck with addition of a couple copies of Bokomon to search out tamers and hybrids. He plays a couple copies of Garummon, which gives that additional board control.

The new Takuya Kaisergreymon deck is also popular, and is an absolute monster when run with Ancientgreymon. We've witnessed a game where Ancientgreymon and Kaisergreymon collectively pulled off 10 security checks on a Security Control opponent!

We ran a slightly different configuration for Magnagarurumon, using Himi as the tamer base instead of Koji. It has decent board control and freezing effects, but lacked the synergy that Koji has with Magnagarurumon. You can read about our early version here.

Yellow Hybrid Security Control

With the new yellow tamer Zoe Orimoto and her digivolution lineup, recovery becomes more efficient. While in the past there was heavy reliance on 7-cost to play MagnaAngemon and the 11-cost to play Magnadramon, it is not possible to get to recovery in a staggered 6-cost.

In security control decks, it is generally desirable to reduce the tempo of the game, due to limited draw power. The "per-turn" draw is usually the only reliable way to increase your hand size (aside from occasional Coredramons which are also expensive to play). Therefore, giving the opponent too much memory in 1 turn can help accelerate their growth, especially in the current fast paced meta.

With Zoe at 3-cost, she pulls a hybrid card from security, which is important since hybrid cards are not good cards to stay in security. She can then digivolve into LV4 and LV5 at just 2 cost and 1 cost respectively, while recovering security at LV5 Jetsilphymon. Seraphimon at LV6 performs another recovery, and then into a Susanoomon to delete anything pesky.

Summary

Expect to see many players jumping into the hybrid bandwagon in BT7, and plan your deck against it. While red and blue hybrids are the popular colors in the early meta, we expect the other colors (especially yellow and green) to gradually crop up in the coming weeks.

The new hybrid mechanisms are exciting, and is definitely drawing a lot of attention away from traditional nursery-based digivolutions.

The Tommy Himi decklist we used and won 3rd Place in the tournament is here:

EX-01 Meta: Safe Gatcha!

I enjoy playing my green gatcha deck, and with EX-01 there may perhaps be a better way to play this deck!

Behold, the EX-01 Megakabuterimon!

[EX1-040] Megakabuterimon
Effect: [When Attacking] This Digimon can digivolve into a Digimon card with [Insectoid] or [Ancient Insect] in its traits in your hand for its digivolution cost.
Inheritable Effect: [Your Turn] When this Digimon deletes an opponent's Digimon in battle and survives, gain 1 memory.

[EX1-040] Megakabuterimon has a [When Attacking] effect that allows the player to digivolve into a LV6 [Insectoid] or [Ancient Insectoid] Digimon from hand by paying it's full cost. While this does not sound like a valuable effect, it works very well with the [BT5-089] Izzy & Mimi tamer card which allows for free digivolution when attacking.

Since both Megakabuterimon's [When Attacking] effect and Izzy & Mimi's effect have the same timing, the player can decide on their effect's order.

In the past, whenever a green LV5 Digimon attacks with Izzy & Mimi in play, there is certain probability that an auto-digivolution will not take place (when there are no LV6 green Digimons among the 3 revealed cards), which may expose that LV5 Digimon to danger during security checks.

However this will not be the case for the new Megakabuterimon. When Megakabuterimon fails to digivolve from the cards revealed by Izzi & Mimi, the player can simply resolve his [When Attacking] effect to digivolve him into a LV6 [Insectoid] or [Ancient Insectoid] in hand, and the best candidate (as of now) is none other than [EX1-043] Herculeskabuterimon!

[EX1-043] Herculeskabuterimon
Effect1: [Your Turn][Once Per Turn] When one of your Digimon with [Insectoid] or [Ancient Insect] in its traits deletes an opponent's Digimon in battle and survives, you may unsuspend this Digimon.
Effect2: [Your Turn] For each Digimon card with [Insectoid] in its traits in this Digimon's digivolution cards, it gets +1000 DP.

Why is he an excellent candidate? Firstly, any good candidates should not possess a [When Attacking] effect since it will miss timing when digivolved this way. Secondly, Herc will be able to unsuspend himself (either for a second hit or just being unsuspended during your opponent's next turn) after deleting an opponent's Digimon and finally, he becomes (at least) 16000 DP big when inheriting a purely [Insectoid] digivolution line.

Another great digivolution candidate would be [BT1-083] Grankuwagamon, mostly for the same reasons above!

Supporting Cards

The new [EX1-033] Tentomon has excellent synergy running in an [Insectoid] deck setting, making digivolutions more efficient!

[EX1-033] Tentomon
Inheritable Effect: [When Attacking] The next time one of your Digimon digivolves into a Digimon card with [Insectoid] or [Ancient Insect] in its traits this turn, reduce the memory cost of the digivolution by 1.

Always resolve Tentomon's inheritable effect after Izzy & Mimi, to avoid wasting his "-1 digivolution cost" effect on a free digivolution. Note that Tentomon can reduce the digivolution cost of that triggered by Megakabuterimon's [When Attacking] effect.

[BT3-050] Stingmon is also a great candidate in this system, gaining +1 memory when an opponent's Digimon is deleted in battle with Megakabuterimon (or it's LV6).

Due to lack of suspension engines such as Lilamon, it is imperative to include suspension options such as [ST4-15] Chiku Chiku Bang Bang for board control and synergy with the aforementioned digivolution system. These option cards are also very precious in security, especially with the current meta of Jesmons and BOFs.

Deck Reference

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

EX-01 Myotismon a Gamechanger?

Today we got another SR revealed for the upcoming EX-01: this time, VenomMyotismon. With this, we take a closer look at the digivolution line for this upcoming EX1 Myotismon.

[EX1-0??] Myotismon
Effect: [Your Turn] When this Digimon digivolves into a Digimon with [Myotismon] in name from your hand, reduce the memory cost of the evolution by 1.
Inherited effect: When this Digimon has [Myotismon] in it's name, all your Digimon with [Retaliation] can attack your opponent’s LV4 or lower unsuspended Digimon.

[EX1-063] VenomMyotismon
Effect 1: [Retaliation]
Effect 2: [When Attacking][Once Per Turn] You may play a LV4 or lower purple Digimon with [Retaliation] from your trash without paying its cost. Any [On Play] effects of that Digimon will not activate.

Along the Myotismon Route

The EX1 Myotismon has powerful inheritable effect that allows your Digimons with [Retaliation] to attack a LV4 or lower unsuspended Digimon (and yes, being able to attack unsuspended Digimons is a big advantage).

Digivolve him into the new EX1 VenomMyotismon to attack an opponent's unsuspended LV3/4 Digimon (for some board control) while rendering your suspended self quite safe due to [Retaliation], while pulling another [BT2-074] Devimon from your trash.

Myotismon also works extremely well with the starter deck [ST6-12] VenomMyotismon, digivolving cheap at only 2 cost (due to Myotismon's effect) while granting yourself and/or your other Digimons [Retaliation], allowing for very flexible counterattacks!

Meanwhile, [BT3-092] MaloMyotismon is an absolute stunner with the new EX1 Myotismon. By inheriting [Retaliation] from a LV4 Devimon or Devidramon, this Digimon can attack any unsuspended LV3/4 Digimon with [Piercing], and gaining +1 memory in that process (not to mention that his digivolution cost will be cheaper thanks to Myotismon)!

To Anubismon (Or Not)

[BT4-087] Anubismon can offer some support to the new EX1 VenomMyotismon, by granting a revived BT2 Devimon [Haste]. However, the disadvantages of fielding this duo in your deck may often outweigh a Devimon with [Haste].

Solid Pairings from BT-06

In BT-06, there are a few solid choices that can work candidly well with the new Myotismons. [BT6-078] Skullgreymon very flexibly grants [Retaliation], while [BT6-091] Sora & Mimi encourages a LV3/4 Digimon at your opponent's board (to give Myotismon's inheritable effect an attack target every turn).

Naturally Piedmon?

Technically, any Digimon with [Retaliation] will benefit from the new Myotismon, but [BT2-080] Piedmon in particular can be a natural synergy. Both VenomMyotismon and Piedmon are iconic villians from the first Digimon Adventure anime series, and with wishful thinking Bandai might take the opportunity to give Piedmon a buff.

With both Piedmon and the new VenomMyotismon working on LV4 Digimons from trash, there is a chance that we will get a suitable LV4 purple Digimon in EX1 (another Devimon?) that works like magic. But until then, I'd like to think that the 12-cost to play a Piedmon to be too inefficient in this meta.

Summary

Retaliation has always been an effect that is pretty much reactive in nature, but with the new Myotismon it would seem that this humble effect will get a new play. It will be exciting to see what decks and playstyles spawn from one simple Myotismon!

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

New Deck Intro: BT-06 Beelko-ntrol

Kenji Watanabe, Digimon's lead designer, designed Beelko (Beelstarmon) as a lady-Beelzemon joke many years ago, but was made an official Digimon when she gained popularity. She caught many by surprise when she was introduced as an SEC card in the BT-06 expansion set, and a minute later I was dead set on building a deck around her.

Beelstarmon

Beelstarmon is meant to be a hard-play Digimon: her play cost is reduced by 1 for each [Three Musketeer] Digimon or 7-cost option card in your trash. Subsequently, she has an [On Play] effect that returns a 7-cost option card to your hand, and then plays a 7-cost option card from your hand without paying its cost.

Therefore at a worst-case scenario when you do not have any [Three Musketeer] or 7-cost option cards in your trash, she becomes a 5-cost to play LV6 Digimon (assuming we paid in full the 7 cost option card we play in tandem).

While a 5-cost to play LV6 Digimon doesnt sound bad at all, pushing so much memory to your opponent is! So we wouldn't want to do that unless it is a game plan, such as running Megazoo or Security Control decks.

Personally, I feel that because she benefits so much from having a trash full of either big [Three Musketeer] Digimons or expensive 7-cost option cards, it does not make a lot of sense to run her in a standard digivolution-based deck, which can easily choke when filled with so many big option cards.

Unless though, she might work in an option-centric promo [P-027] Metalgarurumon deck but that's topic for another day.

Beelko-ntrol

This deck runs 14 option cards, 7 tamers and 4 Zwart Defeats, giving the security a good 50% "bomb-rate". However, this security lacks punch compared to standard Security Control decks due to excluding "proficient" 8-cost option cards such as Gaia Force and Ultimate Flare.

This deck is constructed around [Three Musketeers] Digimons or rather, Beelstarmon. Therefore, these option cards eventually become toolbox (even in trash) for her, using whichever best depending on the situation.

Black Momentum

I feel that the new tamer card [BT6-090] Izzy & Joe is an immensely suitable card for this deck: not only does the [Start of Your Turn] +2 memory condition exceptionally easy to satisfy, but the [Opponent's Turn] effect also improves upon the lack of drawing power most Megazoo and Security Control decks suffer from. In order to benefit from this effect, I play black (particularly blocker) Digimons.

Deputymon is a great searcher, ideally pulling a [Three Musketeer] Digimon and a 7-cost option card to your hand. He can also warp digivolve into Gundramon, which would be the ideal play.

Gundramon meanwhile has a [When Digivolving] effect that allows you to play a 7-cost option card from the top 5 cards of your deck. He is also a blocker therefore would synergize well with our Izzy & Joe (for draw power) if he was targeted for an attack and deleted.

Both Deputymon and Gundramon trashes the searched cards instead of returning them to the bottom of your deck, which in practice does not do any harm since cards returned to the bottom of your deck will probably never see the light of day for such decks with slow drawing power. In addition, both Beelstarmon and Lucemon benefits from a large trash size so this works to their favor.

I also play [BT2-061] Andromon to serve a few roles:
– As a decent blocker Digimon to slow down the opponent, while synergizing with Izzy & Joe.
– As another digivolution base for Gundramon.
– As revival candidates for Omegamon Zwart.

Omegamon Zwart and Defeat

[BT5-087] Omegamon Zwart will ideally digivolve from Beelstarmon in order return her to your hand when attacking. Both Andromon and Deputymon are revival candidates, with Andromon having a slight edge especially during late-game.

[BT5-112] Omegamon Zwart Defeat plays great from security, and can similarly digivolve from either Gundramon or Beelstarmon.

Both Omegamons benefit from [BT5-093] Tai & Matt, becoming very potent security hitters in the mid/late game when you have a couple of these tamers in play.

Baseline Recovery

Being largely a Megazoo cum Security Control deck, recovery Digimons [BT2-039] Magnadramon and [BT4-115] Lucemon offer the classical recovery routes. I have opted out of [BT1-060] MagnaAngemon as I feel that his cost-per-recovery is insufficient to garner a spot in this deck.

Options - Single Target

Being 7-cost options, both [BT2-110] Trump Sword and [BT6-109] Fly Bullet are conditional plays. Fly Bullet allows you to delete anything LV6 and below, while Trump Sword goes for the unsuspended Digimon, including LV7s.

Options - Multi Target

[BT6-095] Happy Bullet Showering is a very situational card, which can be either extremely useless or extremely useful. Similarly for [BT6-105] Gewalt Schwarmer which is an absolute hindrance when triggered from security (as it only returns to your hand), but is a great card for this deck which runs a very narrow board of big Digimons.

However, both these cards become great tools for Beelstar. For example, with sufficient memory (from the many tamer cards played) and trash size (to reduce Beelstarmon's play cost), it is reasonable to play a Beelstarmon within your memory budget, casting Gewalt Schwarmer to possibly clear your opponent's LV5 and lower Digimons, followed by Happy Bullet Showering to clear 2 or more of your opponent's LV6 Digimons at the same DP.

These are tool cards are usually left inside your trash, and retrieved/used only by Beelstarmon. Therefore, I only run a minimal 2 copies of each in deck.

I also run [BT5-108] Earth Shaker since I usually have enough blockers to force the opponent to build past rookie level, and enough solutions (tamer Tai & Matt as well as single target option cards) to deter my opponent into fielding a LV6 Digimon. Earth Shaker is an effective card to deal with the opponent attempting to build a wide board, and while it is not 7 cost I feel that it should be played largely for board control.

Final Thoughts

Having tried a few games with this deck, there is definitely room for optimization (as it plays very similar to current meta security control decks). I will continue to optimize this deck, and hope to see and learn from other successful Beelstar decks when BT-06 finally touches down.

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

BT6 Deck Idea: Eosmon Deck Counting

Eosmon, introduced in the 2020 anime Last Evolution Kizuna, is a most peculiar engine. The LV5 [BT6-085] Eosmon can be played more than 4 copies in any deck, and the LV6 [BT6-086] Eosmon is capable of producing the tallest stack of digivolution cards we have ever seen.

Peculiarity however, does not win a game: early videos from (1) and (2) shows the Eosmon engine either losing or pulling off a marginal win. Will Eosmon end up another flop, or is there a way to play this engine rather differently? Today, we explore something we'd like to call "deck counting".

At the time of writing, we believe that we already know of the entire Eosmon lineup: the LV3 [BT6-047] Morphmon, LV4 to LV6 Eosmons, their corresponding tamer [BT6-092] Menoa Bellucci, and an option card [BT6-110] Cutting Edge.

Deck Counting

The entire Eosmon engine is built to cycle through your deck with search:
– LV3 Morphmon searches 5 cards for Menoa and Eosmon.
– LV4 Eosmon plays Menoa for free.
– LV5 Eosmon to synergize with Menoa for the draw engine.
– Each tamer Menoa Bellucci searches 3 cards for a tamer or an Eosmon when you play an Eosmon.

It is relatively easy to drop 2-3 copies of Menoa and maybe 2 copies of Morphmon early/mid game, which would setup an engine which allows the player to reveal approximately 10 card from his/her deck per turn, searching for tamers and Eosmons, and returning everything else to the bottom of the deck. With a 40-card deck (5 card in security and 5 card starting hand), it would only take 4 turns for the first card that was returned to the bottom of the deck to resurface. We call this "deck counting".

With careful manipulation, it is possible to know every (important) card that resurfaces, in their exact order. This allows for a very unique gameplan!

2 Phases

With deck counting in mind, it is possible to run this engine in 2 phases:
– Phase 1 (Early): Setup the Eosmon engine and attempt to control the board with Eosmons.
– Phase 2 (Late): Play big and late-game cards very efficiently and diligently, thanks to deck-counting.

Phase 1: Eosmon Control

In the early game, setup your game by playing only the Eosmon-related engine. Hard play the LV4 Eosmon to play a Menoa for free, and run the LV5 Eosmon engine to grow your board size.

Prioritize fielding all Menoa's as early as possible, followed by [BT5-093] Taichi & Yamato (especially an opponent's LV6 is expected the following turn). Menoa will get you to Phase 2 faster while stabilizing your hand size, and Taichi & Yamato fills your turn with more memory to have a better chance at controlling your opponent's board.

Use the LV6 Eosmon to remove threats, and possibly to field more tamers (if you have a hard time playing them fast enough). It is not important for the LV6 Eosmon to get a clean hit on your opponent's security (despite the high DP and large number of security attacks) as Phase 2 will also pretty much allow for that.

It is also important to keep track of how many cards have been drawn from your deck, and when the counter hits 40 then Phase 1 ends. The ending of Phase 1 means a few things:
– You would have drawn most of the Eosmons/tamers you'd need.
– Subsequent cards in the deck are in the exact order in which you have returned them.

Phase 2: Big Plays with Memorized Order

In Phase 2, we should have the (important) card orders in our deck memorized. This presents an opportunity to derive large returns from big plays!

Use [BT2-039] Magnadramon or any recovery cards to put a [BT5-112] Omegamon Zwart Defeat into the security, which is possible with their card positions memorized. Zwart Defeat has great value when played from security, and this is amplified by the multiple copies of Taichi & Yamato played during Phase 1.

If you prefer to play in green, you may be interested in using either [BT1-078] Jagamon or [BT5-089] Izumi & Mimi. Attack with your LV5 green Digimon to reveal 3 cards from your deck and digivolve into a LV6 green Digimon for 0 cost, which is pretty much guaranteed if you remember the positions of your LV6 green Digimons.

[BT3-111] Imperialdramon may work wonders with [BT4-059] Lilamon when played in this way, since you have a guaranteed digivolution without paying the hefty 5 memory cost. Use LV2/LV3 green Digimons that has inheritable effects that increase DP when attacking, which will also synergize well with LV5 Eosmon back in Phase 1.

Summary

This is currently an unproven deck idea, so please take it as a grain of salt. We will definitely be try this idea in coming weeks, and let you guys know if it's as potent as we think.

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

Early Review: BT-06

Overview

Less than 3 weeks before the official release of BT-06, only slightly more than a quarter of cards were revealed. That said, we have already seen 8/11 of the SRs, which should give us a hint on how this expansion set should perform. Let's dig right into it!

New Mechanics

<デコイ> or <Decoy> is a new effect introduced in BT-06, and the only Digimons we know so far that has this effect are [BT6-059] Machmon and [BT6-064] Mamemon (both are black Digimons).

A Digimon with <Decoy> can sacrifice itself to protect another Digimon (of the specified color only) from being deleted by a card effect. This is akin to an effect blocker, which should come in handy amid a rising ecosystem of cards with deletion effects.

I believe that the introduction of <Decoy> is intended to reposition black as a defense-centric color, since <Blocker> digimons are now pretty much card-effect fodder in current meta. While this might strengthen black cards against red and purple, it will not protect against yellow's DP-reduction, which is a dominating color in the current meta. Therefore, the effectiveness of <Decoy> should be quite limited.

It should also be noted that this effect will only protect one Digimon from deletion, so in the case of a [BT1-084] Omegamon deleting more than 1 Digimon with the same name, then <Decoy> can only be used to protect one Digimon and not the rest.

The meta is expected to speed up

The icons of this set is none other than [BT6-018] Agumon Bond of Courage and [BT6-030] Gabumon Bond of Friendship. Not only are these LV7 duo formidable enough by themselves, but also given strong support cards!

Both of these LV7s can warp digivolve (yes not an official term but you get the gist) from a LV3 [Agumon] or [Gabumon] respectively, if you have their new tamers [BT6-087] Tai Kamiya or [BT6-088] Matt Ishida in play. In addition, this warp digivolution comes at a very reasonable 3-memory cost!

In comparison, a warp digivolution of the recently launched starter deck LV3 [ST7-03] Guilmon into a LV6 Gallantmon will cost more than that (4 memory)!

The strong synergy between these LV6 duo with their tamers and rookies sets up not only a very strong board control, but also allows for surprise comeback. They are expected to dominate red and blue decks in the coming BT-06 meta!

Early gameplay videos:
Agumon deck vs. Lordknightmon deck
Gabumon deck vs. Lordknightmon deck
Agumon deck vs. Gabumon deck

Score: 9/10 (as good as it goes for red and blue)

Jesmon

Yellow players in the BT-05 meta understand the stability and robustness of a Lordknightmon engine for simultaneous board control and widening. In the coming set, red players can access this similar mechanic in the form of [BT6-016] Jesmon.

Jesmon has a [When Attacking] effect that allows the player to play a [Sistermon] from either their hand or trash, which has superb value. Jesmon subsequently gains a +3000 DP buff with <Piercing>, in addition to a +2000 DP buff if you have [Sistermon Noir] in play.

At a minimum, this engine should be robust, and gives Jesmon some board presence with high DP and <Piercing>. The presence of Sistermon Blanc should also offer Jesmon some protection in the case that he is suspended after an attack. However, Jesmon will require access to additional inheritable effects (such as <SecurityAttack+1> or those that allow him to attack an unsuspended Digimon) in order for him to shine.

Score: 6/10 (more card reveals may increase the score)

Flamemon

This very unassuming card is expected to provide a very significant boost to Ancientgreymon decks, which is currently underperforming even with the anniversary promo card [P-029] Agunimon. This [BT6-010] Flamemon will grant Ancientgreymon the <Piercing> effect, allowing for more effective aggro plays.

Score: 8/10

Dynasmon

Passive effects are usually not very well-received in competitive games, with examples seen in Belialvamdemon, Donedevimon, and Sakuyamon. As such, I believe that [BT6-044] Dynasmon will not dethrone Lordknightmon off the yellow meta just yet.

That said, I feel that the combination of effects that Dynasmon has (trash stockpiling, searching, and security stalling) hints at the potential introduction of another card: Lucemon Falldown Mode. So until we know that as a fact, Dynasmon is expected to remain as an underdog.

Score: 4/10 (may be higher with Lucemon synergy)

Black becomes more technical

A defensive, blocker-centric black is pretty much a thing of the past, with the vast variety of card effects that will remove or delete Digimons without ever attacking, and <de-digivolve> effects being less potent since it usually works into the opponent's advantage.

With this, I think black Digimons will now have an exclusive access to blanket effects that targets based on Digimon's play cost.

[BT6-067] Gankoomon has a [When Digivolving] effect that deletes all your opponent's Digimon with the lowest play cost, which can be used in many ways.
1) Delete a large swarm of rookie Digimons that has the same play cost (usually play cost of 2).
2) Delete a single large Digimon when opponent only has 1 Digimon in the battle area.

The goal of effects like Gankoomon is to maximize the deletion value by managing the play-cost numbers on your opponent's board, using cards like [BT6-064] Mamemon to eliminate the odds.

Score: 7/10 (black to get play-cost based board control on steroids)

Skullgreymon

Another unassuming card, [BT6-078] Skullgreymon has a unique effect that, when trashed from hand, allows him to be attached and used as a digivolution card on one of your purple Digimon. While one might, on first impression, think that he would synergize well with [BT2-083] Millenniummon, we would like to remind that Millenniummon is not a purple Digimon.

Besides, SkullGreymon behaves like counter-attack for purple during the right times. When we trash this card by another effect, we can put this card under a LV3 or LV4 digimon to destroy an opponent's powerful Digimon (without extra cost) to give one of your Digimon the [Retaliation] effect. SkullGreymon can be much more flexible compared to the BT-02 "Retaliation" Devimon.

Score: 8/10

Eosmon

The LV5 [BT6-085] Eosmon breaks the mold of deck-building by allowing up to 50 copies of itself in one's deck, and the LV4 [BT6-083] Eosmon allows the player to play a 4-cost white tamer card without paying it's cost. Since there is currently no white tamer cards that will synergize with Eosmon, I believe that this set will inevitably introduce [Menoa Bellucci] as it's white tamer.

I guess we will not know of Eosmon's full potential until it's full lineup is revealed.

Score: ?/10.

Predictions

At the time of this writeup, 3 SR and 2 SEC cards remain unknown. Below are some of my speculations.

Full Royal Knight lineup unlikely to be unveiled: while we have [Sistermon] providing buff to the [Royal Knight] type, it is unlikely for BT-06 to unveil all members of the remaining Royal Knights, which include Examon, Magnamon, and Alphamon. I believe that while Examon and Magnamon might not be revealed yet, but Alphamon has been heavily hinted to be revealed soon (from card erratas). Alphamon may be one of the SEC cards of BT-06.

Lucemon Falldown Mode: The LV3 Lucemon has been revealed back in BT-04, with no follow-ups along his digivolution line. With both Lordknightmon and Dynasmon revealed, it is very likely for Lucemon Falldown Mode to also be revealed in this set (since the next EX-01 set may not be a suitable landing for Lucemon). Also, since 2 SR cards has already been revealed for purple, it is likely for Bandai to introduce Lucemon Falldown Mode as a SEC card for BT-06.

Summary

I feel that aside from the LV7 Agumon and Gabumon duo, there is not much going for in this set as compared to the previous BT-05.

Many cards here are less exciting, and exist only to complement or add variety to the already existing engines in the current meta, and my opinion is that Bandai acknowledges this as a fact by bundling it with alternate-art box-topper cards from a card popularity poll.

If Alphamon and Lucemon Falldown Mode is indeed introduced in this set, there is still no guarantee that they will provide meta-defining effects out-of-the-box (since SEC cards can be usually quite unplayable in it's immediate meta). Nevertheless, it seems that the presence of either or both of these cards will be needed to at least give BT-06 a proper dose of excitement.

Score: 6/10

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.

BT5 Meta Deck Review: Lilith Loop

A particular purple deck engine dubbed the Lilithmon Loop has been making rounds in the DCG Singapore League, devastating the many players who have faced it. Peculiar though is the fact that we had not seen or compiled such a deck yet from any tournament outside of Singapore. So today let us perhaps take a closer look at this "uniquely Singaporean" deck engine.

The Lilithmon Loop

Back in Feb 5 (3 weeks before the launching of BT-05) we had a very early discussion on Omegamon Zwart. In that article, we discussed about the potential of a Lilithmon Ramp engine with Zwart, as the white option card [BT5-109] Fuse Into The Ultimate Digimon! has not yet been revealed. Fast forward one month and this fearsome engine now presents itself as the Lilithmon Loop.

Many players are finding success in this deck, finishing in top spots at their local tournaments.

Search our decklist with the lilith keyword to find some tournament related deck recipes.

The core concept of this deck is rather simple, and can be simply broken down into 2 phases: early-game control and late-game aggro.

Early-game control

Early in the game, the player will usually rely on cards that offer abundant board control. LV4 blocker Digimons [BT2-072] Vilemon and [ST6-08] Devimon help to slow down the game by preventing rookie rushes.

At LV5 and LV6, [BT2-077] Kimeramon and [BT5-081] ChaosGallantmon offers very respectable board control by removing an opponent's LV5 or lower Digimon. These cards, together with the LV4 blockers will attempt to nullify your opponent's board at LV5 or below.

There is usually no early-game solution to deal with an opponent's fast LV6 Digimon, other than ChaosGallantmon himself. At 12000 DP, he can pretty much destroy (sometimes at the cost of his own life) any suspended LV6 Digimons.

Early-game preparation

The winning condition of this engine is to fill up your trash to 10-cards as soon as possible, and to draw into essential cards in order to setup the Lilithmon Loop engine. Therefore, it is imperative to use cards that grant draw power as well as discards.

At rookie and below, [BT3-006] Demimeramon, [BT2-069] Gabumon and [BT4-079] Labramon grant effects that allow for this draw-and-discard setup. At LV5, [BT3-088] Ladydevimon is used to serve this purpose.

[BT5-091] Takumi Aiba is a core card that not only grants the much-needed draw power whenever you digivolve, but also prevents rookie rushes.

Board control does not mean protecting your security. Be willing to give up some security to an aggressive LV6 Digimon in hopes of tapping a Tamer or option card, and to simply help fill your trash to 10-card sooner.

An ideal starting hand would consist of at least a copy of Takumi Aiba, with any LV3 and LV4 Digimons. However, since there are usually only 12 LV3 Digimons played in this deck (due to reliance on many option and tamer cards) it is quite prone to bricky starting hands. Therefore, I would suggest including some cheapest (4-cost) on-play LV4 purple Digimons such as [BT5-074] Troopmon or [BT5-075] Musyamon for some robustness against bricks.

Late-game aggro

Lilithmon loop is a counterattack engine, and requires a setup as following:

In your battle area

3 starting memory (-1 for each [BT4-111] Jack Raid in hand)
1X white tamer card (such as [BT5-091] Takumi)
1x LV5 or LV6 Digimon

In your hand

1X [BT3-091] Lilithmon
1x [BT5-109] Fuse Into The Ultimate Digimon!
1x [BT5-087] Omegamon Zwart

In your trash

Approx. 10 cards (-1 for each [BT4-111] Jack Raid in hand)

When the conditions are met, digivolve into [BT5-087] Omegamon Zwart by using Fuse Into The Ultimate Digimon! for 0-cost. This will allow you to revive 2 8-cost or below Digimon from your trash. Ensure that at least one of the revived Digimon is a LV5.

Combo note: you can revive a Kimeramon and a [BT5-071] Guilmon to delete an opponent's LV5 or lower Digimon, while deleting your own revived Guilmon to gain +1 memory.

Attack with Omegamon Zwart to delete an opponent's 12-cost or lower Digimon by returning your LV6 digivolution card to your hand.

Digivolve the LV5 Digimon that you had revived into [BT3-091] Lilithmon to return 2 Jack Raid option cards to your hand. Make sure you have at least 3 memory before you digivolve so that your turn does not pass (play Jack Raids). Play 2 copies of Jack Raid to gain a total of at least +4 memory (2 from Jack Raid and another 2 from Lilithmon's effect).

Repeat this Lilithmon loop if you have more copies of her in hand, and end your turn by normal digivolving into another Omegamon Zwart, allowing you to play 2 more Digimons from trash while giving your opponent little memory (due to all that looping).

At the end of this loop, you should have a very wide board of a LV7 Zwart, one or more copies of LV6 Digimon, and 2 more LV5 Digimon or LV4 blockers revived from trash. During the entire process, you would have run many board control mechanics (from Zwart and perhaps Kimeramon) to eliminate your opponent's board while setting up a strong and wide board that is very difficult to eliminate in short span, guaranteeing your win in the next turn.

This site uses english-translated cards from digimoncard.dev.