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OvermasterP: 3 Gods, 3 Protections, 3 Memory: Merva Megazoo

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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

BT17 Omnimon Back at Tier-1?

There's been a lot of talk about Bandai hellbent on pushing Omnimon back to the top of the tier list. Just look at this!

A LV6 Wargreymon or Metalgarurumon can be played for 8 cost and digivolves your other Agumon/Gabumon into their LV6 form for free!

This is a very simple 10-cost setup that will put immense pressure to your opponent.

By playing the option card Miraculous Ultimate Knight for 2 cost to putt an Agumon/Gabumon in play, and then another 8 cost to play a Wargreymon/Metalgarurumon which digivolves your Gabumon/Agumon into their LV6 form for free.

Now your LV6 Digimons cannot be trivially removed from the battle area as otherwise you can DNA Digivolve them into Omnimon ACE, which would deal drastic damage to the board.

Support

While the new Tai & Matt is meant to synergize with these new Digimons, its inevitable to overlook the synergy coming from our older [EX4-061] Matt and Tai. When Digivolving normally into a LV6, this tamer lets you play an Agumon/Gabumon and gains 1 memory, and you would proceed to activate the [When Digivolving] effect to effectively put 2 LV6 Digimons on your board for 2 cost. Then, DNA Digivolve into Omnimon ACE.

And since it is so tremendously cheap moving up to Omnimon, it now makes sense to further Digivolve into Alter-B. This not only diversifies your arsenal, but also synergizes well with the new tamer Tai & Matt, allowing your Alter-B to attack at the end of your turn to deal significant damage to security.

In an Alter-B play, opting for an Alter-S instead of Omnimon ACE would also make sense to avoid paying a -5 cost overflow unnecessarily.

Counters

Not without weaknesses, this deck can be countered in a few ways.

When 2 LV6 Digimons are in play waiting to DNA into Omnimon through the Miraculous Ultimate Knight option card, the opponent can de-digivolve to disrupt the setup.

Omnimons are also ineffective against Venusmon since their effects are mostly triggered [When Digivolving] or [When Attacking].

Against some of the current tier-1 decks, this deck cannot easily penetrate a buffed Magnamon X or Tyrant unless you can inherit at least +1000 DP. This deck is also sufficiently ineffective against a 7DL but it becomes a timed race.

Summary

The new Omnimon support is truly magnificent, being extremely efficient (2 cost in your turn to launch) with access to a variety of removal effects (mass return, deletion, and de-digivolve). On top of that, it can also be aggressive on security through Alter-B.

It is also very versatile, launching similarly at 10-cost on-play through the new option card Miraculous Ultimate Knight. This not only allows players to time their attacks/controls more precisely (at a higher cost) but also to recover from a bad hand.

However, this deck lacks access to -DP effects which are essential to control some of today's tier-1 Magnamon X and Tyrants.

Bandai Card Game Festival Japan Announcements

The Bandai Card Game Festival (BCF) world tour is coming to a close, with the tour finals happening in Japan from March 2nd to March 3rd.

Some announcements for Digimon Card Game were made during the morning session of BCF.

1. Card Fest Merchandise sale.
2. BT17 quick introduction! and introducing the high rarity Greymon!
3. Tamer Battle cards from May onwards.
4. Information on Digimon Liberator during DIGICON on March 10.
5. World Championship (WCS) participant roll!

1. Card Fest Merchandise

Card sleeves (gold and silver), playmat (Dorugoramon and Omegamon), and Limited Card Set 2024 packs available on sale at the BCF event.

Subsequent sales (outside of BCF) of these products may be announced later.

2. BT17 Quick Introduction

A new Sakuyamon and Rika Nonaka were teased for BT17. These are very good cards and synergizes well with the new Reload Plug-In Q (from Tamer Battle Pack 21) and Maid Mode ACE (from LM set 2024). We believe that many players will be looking forward to these cards. Translations here.

High rarity Greymon SEC was also teased during the event. This art features the Greymon and Parrotmon fight during the Last Evolution Kizuna film.

3. Upcoming Tamer Battle

Tamer battle packs for May were also announced, which includes an option card based on Digimon Liberator.

Wanyamon P-148 P <04>
In-Training | Lesser/(Nature Spirits?)

[When Attacking] [Once per Turn] If this Digimon has the [Nature Spirits] trait, <Draw 1>.

Minomon P-149 P <04>
In-Training | Larva

[When Attacking] [Once per Turn] If this Digimon is multicolored, by trashing 1 card in your hand, delete 1 of your opponent's level 3 Digimon.

Exermon P-150 P <04>
Champion | Data | Insectoid
[[Digivolve] [Pulsemon] Cost 2]

[When Digivolving] If you have 3 or more security cards, suspend 1 of your opponent's Digimon or Tamers. If you have 3 or fewer security cards, 1 of your opponent's Digimon or Tamers can't unsuspend until the end of their turn.

Inherited: [All Turns] (Once Per Turn) When this Digimon becomes suspended, suspend 1 of your opponent's Digimon with DP equal or lower than this Digimon.

Digimon Liberator P-151 P <04>
Liberator

While you have a Digimon or Tamer with the [Liberator] trait, you may use this card ignoring color requirements.
[Main] Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Add 1 card with the [Liberator] trait among them to the hand. Return the rest to the bottom of the deck. Then, you may play 1 card with the [Liberator] trait and a play cost of 3 or less from your hand without paying the cost.

[Security] Activate this card's [Main] effect.

4. Liberator in upcoming DIGICON

More information on Digimon Card Game Liberator will be announced in the DIGICON March 10 web event.

5. WCS Finalists

Congratulations to the WCS finalists representing their respective countries/regions and all the best in your finals!!

Digimon Card Game Asia Final: Feedbacks and Complaints

On Feb 4 2024 the Asia Final for Digimon Card Game was hosted by Maxsoft to find out the top-2 from 16 representatives from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Hongkong, Taiwan, Indonesia to head to Japan for the World Final. Aside from Hong Kong with 4 players, other countries contributed 2 players each.

The event was an ONLINE event with BO1 format. After the tournament, there were many talks among players who participated this important tournament.

Here is the collection of feedbacks and complaints that was sent to us, and we hope this will help Bandai or Maxsoft to understand what is/was happening and host more proper events in Asia like what they were/are doing for other regions.

FEEDBACKS and COMPLAINTS on Asia Final

MangGiga - Philippines

First of all, this tourney circuit is so much BRUTAL compared to last year and yet considerably less rewarding. (I still haven't forgiven you for the delays in our last years prizings and what not :P)

In order to reach this stage, we needed to go Win either STB, Prelims, DC-1, to participate in Regionals. then comes regionals with only the prize of 2 game mats. imagine being the best 8 players of the country and no participation prize to commemorate it. top 2 don't event have cards or jacket compared to our EN or other counterparts. take note also that each of the games are best of 3 format.

Only 2 players each country will get to play the asia finals and the site also announced only 5 countries. i sent an email for confirmation and they replied that there will be 7 countries, 14 players. Yet we get 16 players in total, surprising 4 player count from HK.

Also, this is a High level tourney, wouldn't it be justifiable to have this at best of 3? all the prerequisite tourneys that we went through has been best of 3 in order for each player to display their true skills for god sake.

Match making and point system is not properly discussed and weeks beforehand. and it is also weird. 4 rounds seems to be so cramped up for a 16 player tourney with top cut only to 4. Tourney details are only finalized during the last minutes before we start. We even need to be proactively asking the questions regarding draws, top cuts and such.

I have nothing against the players since we have been messing around on twitter and on good terms, but for bandai and maxsoft, please help!! digimon is thriving. share us some of the love you are giving to onepiece.

Shang - Singapore

To be honest my own experience wasn't that bad against other players, but then maybe it's because 3 players I played against were people I already knew. The one HK player I played against was very fair and friendly so no complaints from me there

My only grievance to air is that I don't know why as the 1st and 2nd highest resistance 2-1, Shane and I were somehow both downpaired in round 4. There were 6 players at 2-1, so I think it would have definitely been possible to coordinate 3 games between the 6 2-1 players, instead of having 2 down pairs.

Because the first tiebreaker was opponent's win rate, winning the final round actually ruined my tiebreaker and dropped me from 4th to 6th. I feel like I was punished by the system for reasons outside my control.

I also think that a top 4 cut for 16 players is very harsh. At the minimum, there will be 4 players with a 3-1 record, meaning one person will bubble. I believe this happened for One Piece too. I have never played in a circuit before where an X-1 record is not enough to advance to knockouts. I would propose to either do a bracket for Top8, or some kind of modified bracket where all X-1 advance to the knockout stage

In my years of competing in both Pokémon VGC and DTCG, I have never once received a downpair for having too high of a resistance. Downpairs usually are done when there is an odd number of players with the same record and the lowest person with that record gets downpaired because they are the least likely to be impacted by their resistance getting lowered, while the up paired person has the most to gain from winning their up pair

My final wish would be that we get to have in person Asia Finals one day. It sucks to not get to meet these players face to face. At the end of the day i think we all play this game because we love Digimon, and missing out on the chance to meet fellow Digimon fans in Asia in person is disappointing.

With an in person finals, we can do things like livestreams to showcase Asia DTCG at the highest level to the rest of the world. There's a lot of missed opportunities that I wish Bandai would support us with, but at the end of the day I also understand that this would cost a lot of money and Asia is not the biggest market to pay attention to

Other SG Player

The event is run generally ok but i feel the following things can be improved

1. Information of the event can be inform earlier. Like after losing at top cut, I already pack my stuffs because i clarify if there is a game for 3rd place. I was inform no but after the champion is decided, i was told to play the game for 3rd place. I need to setup again and face audio technical issue, so it affect the mental state when playing the game. Cause panic.

2. I think there should be a 10-15min break between round. So player who went overtime still get time to prep their mental state/toilet break for next game. Back to back while help the event to run faster, but can be nerve wrecking for the player who just finish a close game

3. Schedule for Taiwan is a bit unfair. They are not given time to prep. Sat play qualifier. Sun asia final

4. Pairing system is awkward at round 4 as player got pair down despite it being a perfect number swiss tournament

Anonymous

Numerous countries faced issues against HK players in both One Piece and Digimon. Their judges do not take a neutral stance when judging and are part of the same team as their representatives. This leads to biased outcomes which are fed to the head judge and results in one-sided favouritism, allowing the players to get away with misconduct.

Player from Indonesia

I think the main problem like pairing system or miscommunication has already mentioned by others. For myself i has 3 problems:

1. I really have a problem about communication with certain country, i hope for the next online event like this the judge placed on each country can at least help local player to communicate with the others.

2. The format of the tournament very poorly notified, on my own country i got the info about the format like 1 week before Asia Final. So i don't have a time to prepare or modified my deck according it.

3. Rulling of tournament it's not fixed until players briefing on tournament day.

Other than that i think it's my own country problem like internet connection, etc.

Player from Indonesia

Playing online through camera is hard and because we need to keep our hand without opponent seeing by mistake while you need to keep playing and focused on what your opponent play, making it tough to stay focused and intervene when needed.

The other thing is the judge system for this qualifier that have been the same since last year, there can be a bias since local judge might want their own country player to win. Every table should have judge and match recorded so when there is a controversy we can replay back what happend, especially for big qualifier like this one where many prize and slot for world at stake.

Plus, language barrier can add another problem. For the pairing system itself I still confuse why there is a pairdown since its a 16 player tournament and I hate the inconsistency of tournament format in Digimon (Bo1 or Bo3) because ofc it's crucial for choosing deck and how you build your deck. Hopefully, maxsoft and the judge team can resolve this next year so all players can have better experience.

Beelstarmon in BT9: An Answer to OTK Meta

Invited Author: Ron Andre Agbayani

Country: Philippines

Introduction

Good day! Digimon Tamers, I am Ron Andre Agbayani from the Philippines and I would like to share my ideas of an in-depth review of the current Meta from BT9 and ST12-13 era and how Beelstarmon revived from the forgotten realm. This deck is based from the player named “Shina” from Japan who had the idea of including blue tamers which was eventually tweaked and adjusted through numerous players around the world and evolved to a Top Contender deck this Season and I would like extend my gratitude to these players because we were able to break the norm.

The Meta in BT9 to ST12-13

Nowadays decks are centralized on getting the key cards needed to win the game, generally through searching, drawing, and milling. These key cards will eventually win a game or have an advantageous board state.. This is mainly done by playing Memory Boosts Promo Cards, Tamers and Digimons with search function. Once you acquired the cards needed to advance your play, you may now be able to finish the game with a One Turn Kill focus deck (OTK) (eg. Grandiskuwagamon, WarGreymonX, MetalGaruruX, and Alphamon Ouryuken), variety of security cards (Yellow Hybrids), and Swarm (Jesmon and Beelstarmon), and also, in my opinion, Rogue Decks that are off-meta will definitely catch you off guard.

The current Meta dictates that whoever has better memory control will have a good board state which will allow them to have at least 2-3 plays per turn, leaving your opponent in a very disadvantageous situation. Since the advent of BT9, many decks got the support in need so that it can do OTK very easily and fast as mentioned above. Yellow Hybrids is still consistent and competitive. However, restricting key cards made it function less, making it a challenge to catch up with the consistency and potency of OTK decks. With this, OTK-focused decks saw high number of plays which made it a go to deck this current Meta.

This is just my observation and experience here playing in different tournaments and casuals plays. With this said I am always open to opinions and ideas of different players that support me. Aren’t we all the same curious cats so that we can make Digimon more interesting?

The Viability of Beelstarmon in BT9

BT9 gave OTK decks the protection they needed such as effects of Greymon X Antibody BT9 and like. The only way to survive the ravage is to have a good RNG (Random Number Generator) Roll option cards in your Security Cards. Yellow Hybrids BT7 made sure to always have a wide variety of good option cards in their security stack (such as decreasing DP to 0 which will be deleted through game mechanics or by more restoration). However, this is not sufficient hence they fell slightly in the tier list. The next Security Control deck in mind is either Mother D-Reaper deck EX-02 or the old Beelstarmon BT6. Mother D-Reaper deserves another article but for this one, we will delve on Beelstarmon BT6.

Beelstarmon BT6 is one of the early security control deck that only loses to Jesmon BT6 powered with BT3 A Delicate Plan. In the recent formats, Beelstarmon lose the spot light due to newer and exciting decks from every release. I personally thought that Beelstarmon is getting weaker before. However, in today’s list of winning decks we are now flourishing with Beelstar! What made Beelstarmon strong now?

As I have said earlier, key cards are easily searched or milled. In a sense we can have more than five 7-cost option cards in your trash after 3-5 turns thanks to Mist Memory Boost BT8, Analog Boy EX1, Eyesmon BT7, Demimeramon BT2, and of course Gazimon X BT9. By mid to late game, you can now play Beelstarmon BT6 for less than 5 cost and eventually free to play at end game. Cycling of hand cards is now achievable compared to BT6 era.

What are the best 7-cost option cards to run in your deck? This includes the following:

Fly Bullet BT6 – best answer to all level 6 Digimons with OTK capacity, including level 5 Digimons with multiple attacks (Paildramon ST)
Nail Bone – Allows Tempo playstyle, pushing threat by reviving Ginkakumon Promote BT6 and Gazimon BT3. Can be used defensively when you revive Vilemon BT2 and Psychemon BT8. (A caution though. You must have a way to delete Pscyhemon since the effect is “both players cannot reduce plays cost”).
Cocytus Breath ST2 – answers to all level 7 Digimons. Requires BLUE card in your play area if you plan to use it with Beelstarmon BT6. Also, with the resurgence of decoy and destruction protection very few cards has immunity to send back to hand
Happy Bullet Showering BT6 – deletes Digimon/s with lowest DP.
Howling Crusher BT1 – removes Digivolution sources from WarGreymonX and Alphamon Ouryuken which makes them weaker and friable to options cards.

There are other 7-cost Option cards that were not mentioned but I believe these are the best options at the moment. The goal is to have immediate response of security card to attacking Digimons to prevent you from being OTK’d. Second to this is to make your opponent skeptical and doubt in attacking you and pushing for OTK. This will give you time and resources to prepare to reach your end-game, which in turn makes Beelstarmon’s play cost as low as 0-1 memory to play. Meaning, you have milled almost of all of your 7-cost options. This strategy allows Beelstarmon to play head to head with the current Meta. Beelstarmon has aggro-control play with a high risk-high reward gamestyle. It can achieve memory control through Gazimon BT3 and crowd control through Dexmon BT9. Calling From The Darkness BT7 becomes handy when your Beelstarmon and Dexmon are in your trash. Beelstarmon may be branded as anti-meta and soon enough players will see answer for this deck. This is Digimon. You do not know the next deck your opponent will bring and you cannot side out. Play your best with your chosen deck list.

The Future Beelstarmon

BT10 is fast approaching with the Xros mechanics in the horizon. People are eagerly searching and play testing for other strong cards that may upgrade their current decks. As for the upgrade for Beelstarmon, we do not have yet stronger 7-cost option card. As explained above, we can answer to the threats of every deck if and only if we have also achieved the winning condition of our deck which is to dump almost all of the 7-cost options.

Xros mechanics is another rapid play that allows a player to make a Digimon with efficient ESS at an affordable memory cost. It may be jamming, additional security checks, or buffs. Again, the only way for Beelstarmon to survive the Meta is hopefully to stack option cards in Security and praying for the best.

Fingers crossed*

I would like to share my insights with the Digimon Card Game. I personally feel happy with how the Digimon Card Game evolves. The Meta is very diverse this season. Old decks are showing up again at our local game store and also winning though it requires enormous tweaks and testplays. This shows that old decks may become rogue or anti-meta decks that can answer to the new cards/mechanics. This also tells us that at some point we have to think carefully the “best and efficient” cards against the Meta. It might be a card in the newest set or inside your long forgotten card stash waiting to be excavated.

Thank you!

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

DTCG Singapore League 2021, Report and Reflection

Invited Author: Marcus and DTCGReview
Country: Singapore

The conclusion of DTCG SG League and its overview

Saturday (26th Feb 2022) marked the end of Singapore’s inaugural Digimon Trading Card Game Singapore (DTCG SG) League. What was truly momentous was having card shops and local game stores islandwide, in collaboration with DTCGReview (@DTCGReview) and supporting partner digimonmeta (https://digimonmeta.com), offer their weekends and store space to facilitate players battling through the qualifiers, semifinals and finals spanning across 10 weeks. The end of the league culminated in the crowning of Singapore’s top player who walked away with an entire carton of BT9: X-Record, released just the day before.

What is this league about and its inception

DTCG started to gain traction in Singapore in 2021 after the release of several booster sets which were carried by a growing number of local game stores. Global attention and demand for the game was at an all-time high, and local players and shops now had assurance that Singapore will officially adopt the Japanese version of the card game and will continue to be supported by Bandai as such.

While the regular player base remained relatively small and niche compared to other long-standing and established card games, the local DTCG competitive scene was hard to ignore; tamer battles and shop-organised tournaments filled up week after week where players vie for the champion promo card as well as a prize (often booster packs from the current set). What was glaringly lacking at that point in time was large-scale organised play with clearly defined match rules and advancement criteria.

How was it organised and participation

The DTCG SG League was the brainchild and passion project of the founder behind DTCGReview, a twitter-based influencer aiming to improve the global DTCG community. The DTCG SG League sought to forward Singapore’s competitive scene and challenge players to venture beyond the comforts of their neighbourhood card shop to test their best strategies and deck-building skills. Digimonmeta partnered and helped to cover the League in full and created a website (https://dcgleaguesg.wixsite.com/landing) to highlight league details, updates and document qualifying players and their decklists. Commencing on 20th March 2021, players could register for weekly qualifying rounds organised and hosted by participating game shops held across 8 weeks. Games were to be played in-person and adopted prevailing rules and restrictions set by Bandai. The victors of the qualifiers took up 70 semi-final spots and competed to be the top 16 to earn an invitation to the league finals.

The inclusive nature of the qualifying rounds meant that a skilled player could play at various card shops to secure multiple spots in the semifinals for a better chance to advance to the finals. At the same time, inexperienced or unsuccessful players had the chance to adapt to their competitors’ builds, improve their gameplay and try again the following weeks. This League presented fair opportunities for everyone, and thus it was of no surprise that there was overwhelming support and participation rates over the duration of the league.

A participant myself, I observed the intangible benefits that the DTCG League brought to the local community – friendships were forged between regular players of different game shops, and players started frequenting different game shops beyond the most convenient or closest one to home. Not only was the current meta (BT5: Battle of Omega at the point of the qualifiers) played to the highest level, we saw the development of defining deckbuilds such as Lilithloop, which the international community now takes reference from. The yellow Lordknightmon build was optimised to the point of dominance; an incredible player managed to win at nearly all of the participating card shops and was granted direct entry to the finals for his achievement.

Unfortunately, the emergence of the COVID-19 Delta wave dampened the excitement and anticipation of the semifinals originally slated to be held on 15 May 2021. To combat the local infection clusters, the Singapore Government instituted Phase 2 Heightened Alert from 16 May to 13 June 2021. During this period, social gatherings were restricted to 2 persons and dining-in was not permitted. The return to normalcy was hindered by a fresh surge in community infections in late June 2021 and the KTV cluster in July 2021 which consequently delayed the phased easing of restrictions to 10 August 2021. The uncertainty in the permissible group size made it impossible to finalise plans for the next rounds as new restrictions and measures could be announced without advance notice and effected days later.

Another consideration League organisers had to contend with was the release schedule of the upcoming sets. Ideally, the semifinals and finals should be held sometime after the release of the latest booster set but not straddle the release of the next set. They also had to survey all players’ availabilities and be mindful of major announcements such as the latest card ban and restriction list.

Semis and finals

The semi-finals were held over 2 weekends in Mid-Feb 2022 and 43 players played in 15 pods of up to 4 persons, in line with current safe distancing measures. The winner of each pod advanced to the grand final held on 26 February 2022, hosted by Sanctuary Gaming. The 16 finalists were only allowed cards up to EX2: Digital Hazard and all decklists had to be submitted to DTCGReview prior to the actual day. Players were paired after registration on the day of the grand finals and were presented a custom-designed top-16 playmat as keepsake for their efforts and commitment. The finalists then battled in best-of-3, single elimination rounds until an undefeated winner emerged.

The conduct of the grand finals was remarkably smooth and free from discrepancies or disputes. But what was a sight to behold was the level at which our nation’s best players competed at. The games I observed were rarely a one-sided affair – every move was deliberate, calculated and often the best play possible in that circumstance. Players were gracious and respectful and the judges noted very few misplays over the course of the grand finals. We saw a blue hybrid Leomon player breeze through a sea of yellow hybrid decks in the top 16, top 8 and top 4 rounds to reach the ultimate showdown against another yellow hybrid player in the final round. While blue was eventually bested by yellow, it was one of the most exciting and memorable matches to watch in a long time. No one left empty-handed either! DTCGReview also sponsored the lucky draw prizes that every eliminated finalist got to win. The grand finals concluded with players leaving happy with their prizes and a little more appreciative of their opponents’ abilities.

Closing thoughts

In hindsight, as a participant, volunteer and ardent supporter of the DTCG SG League, I am proud to have witnessed the successful closure of this event and have renewed respect to the organisers who have pledged so much time, effort and resources to see this through to the end. I believe that not only have the DTCG SG League fulfilled its objective to cultivate a larger pool of better players and crown the best player in Singapore, it has served well as a platform for players to forge stronger bonds with each other within the community. That to me, is a reward to the organisers in itself and is best done organically; an endeavour from our community itself.

The conduct of the DTCG SG League also sets a healthy precedent for future tournaments carried out at a similar scale in Singapore (Bandai and Maxsoft, I’m looking at you). I am sure all players are looking forward to the next iteration of organised play and I sure hope it doesn’t disappoint.

Tournament Information

Host: DTCGReview

Partner: digimonmeta.com

Date: March 2021 —-Semis and Final: Feb 2022

Number Participants: ~100

Format: Swiss Bo3 Double-Elimination in qualifier, Bo3 Single Elimination in Final.

Deck Distribution in Top-16:
8 Yellow Hybrid, 1 X-antibody, 2 Purple Maste-Ophanimon, 1 Beelzemon Deck, 1 Blue Hybrid with Leomon, 2 Blue-Green Imperial and 1 Beelstarmon.

Top-4 Decks and the Winners

Top-16 Battle Result:

Champion: Jeremy Ong
2nd: Chong Cheah How
3rd: Tan Shi Qi
4th: Marcus Lim

The result of winner's deck in final:

Top 16 : Yellow Hybrid ❌⭕️⭕️
Top 8 : Yellow Hybrid ⭕️⭕️
Top 4 : Yellow Hybrid ⭕️⭕️
Finals : Leomon Hybrid❓⭕️⭕️

Quick Share: Shinegreymon OTK in BT9

There are many OTK (One Turn Kill) decks will be created for BT9 X-record, thanks to those X-antibody cards that can avoid removal option, hence providing OTK a safer "SecurityAttack+x" check.

Here we would like to introduce an interesting OTK combo for BT4 Shinegreymon.

Same with other OTK playing style, a safe method is to build the digivolution source inside the raising area. Here we have an ideal build till BT4 Rizegreymon with:

LV2 BT9 Koromon, ST7 Agumon to add +2000DP, BT9 Agumon X (to be digi-bursted by LV5 BT4 RizeGreymon), the LV4 BT5 Greymon (to add DP) or ST1 Greymon to add "SecurityAttack+1" and BT9 Greymon X (to counter removal option or being returned to hand or deck).

Once we move this build to the battle area, we can trigger the Digimon-burst and remove LV2 Digitama and LV3 Agumon-X to play 1 tamer. In case we have enough tamer in the field so that ShineGreymon can "checks 5", then we don't need to digiburst.

The Tamer that is needed for this combo is Marcus Daimon and Hiro Amanokawa.

Marcus Daimon, is a must to put 4 copies for the deck and around 1 or 2 copies for Hiro Amanokawa. These 2 tamers can be suspended when BT4 Shinegreymon attacks, that is the reason why we choose them.

Beside, to achieve this combo, we must at least have 4 memories on our side. We must play more "red memory boost" early to search for cards and at least 1 tamer that can give us 3 memory at the beginning of the turn.

Once all the condition meet, the needed cards are all in hand, then here we proceed the OTK.

The BT4 Rizegreymon, after moving out from raising area, trigger Digimon-burst to play 1 tamer. Then we pay 1 cost to digivolve it into [BT9-041] RizegreymonX and play another tamer thanks to its "when digivolving" effect. On top of that, we can use this card's effect to reduce DP (-2000DP for each red or yellow tamer on play) on opponent lv4 blocker.

The next step is to evolve the BT9 RizegreymonX into BT4 ShineGreymon for 3 cost. The ShineGreymon now has 11000 DP (itself) + 2000 DP (from ST7 Agumon) +2000 DP (if we use BT5 Greymon) +2000DP if we rest 1 Hiro Tamer when ShineGreymon attacks.

Depend of the security cards left in the opponent's security to estimate the number of tamers we need in the field. But we surely have 2 tamer from Digiburst and RizeGreymonX digivolving effect. Based on that calculation, the ShineGreymon will normally has 17000DP or more, it passes the threshold of Wyvern Breath, the famous option card in security control.

When ShineGreymon attacks, we can rest one tamer at a time to add the "SecurityAttack+1" for ShineGreymon. We will gain back memory from Marcus Daimon and gain +DP from Hiro Amanokawa.

Once we clear out the opponent's security, we can finally evolve ShineGreymon into BT5 Omnimon to make a final hit to win the game.

If the ShineGreymon attacks and hit the removal option in opponent's security, the LV4 GreymonX inherited effect is now to be used. Since we have 2 LV4 cards and 2 LV5 cards in the digivolution source, it can be protected at least twice.

This OTK profile is also safer than other OTK decks because 2 tamers are played in the turn it is moved out from raising area, avoiding opponent from deleting your tamers by using BT9 cards.

QnA For BT4 ShineGreymon

Many Readers asked us about the BT4 ShineGreymon that: is it possible to gain each "SecurityAttack+1" for each tamer that is rested during Shinegreymon attacks. We have answered them in comment section below, and here we would like to attach a related QnA from Bandai which is proof that ShineGreymon can have multiple attacks for each rested tamer.

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

A Beelstar-Ordine Concept?

Many players who have proxy-tested Ordinemon suggest that she may not make top-tier, perhaps due to her situational play conditions.

However, when I was fiddling with a certain deck concept I found Ordinemon doing a lot better than I would have expected!

Raguelmon and Ordinemon

[BT9-082] Ordinemon is currently the only LV7 Digimon with a Jogress (DNA digivolution) effect. She has almost no play value when digivolved normally hence should always be played via Jogress.

It is not easy to have 2 LV6 Digimons in play during your turn to readily Jogress into Ordinemon, so it is imperative that an [End of Your Turn] jogress effect be used with Ordinemon. For this, [BT9-080] Raguelmon is introduced.

At a play cost of 12, Raguelmon can always play another Digimon (usually a LV5 or lower such as MagnaAngemon, or a LV6 Angel/Fallen-Angel when you are low in security) from trash, making it's play-cost worthwhile. In addition, Raguelmon will be able to jogress into Ordinemon at the end of your turn, given that you have another LV6. Raguelmon however, does not do much when digivolved normally.

Would a LV7 that should always be played by jogress, and a LV6 that should be hard-played, perhaps do well in a mega-zoo-like deck like… Beelstarmon?

The Beelstarmon factor

As it happens, Raguelmon/Ordinemon can be played with Beelstarmon (being a purple LV6 Digimon that can jogress into Ordine). By replacing most LV3 Digimons in the deck with Beelstarmon and her legion of 7-cost options, we can build a security-control mega-zoo deck.

The addition of a Beelstarmon configuration helps strengthen the deck's security with deletion option cards. Gatomon/Tailmon can be played to provide search, while MagnaAngemons and Angewomons can be played for their [On-Play] effects. Ideally, Gatomon can digivolve into any of the LV5 angels for just 1-cost, and subsequently into Ophanimon Falldown Mode for a recovery and deletion effect. When Ophanimon is deleted, she can revive Gatomon to search again and replay this cycle.

Beelstarmon provides flexibility in dealing with a variety of opponent's board, and if a Raguelmon or an Ophanimon that inherits Gatomon is in play, they can then jogress into Ordinemon for a massive board control and recovery!

Tidal wave works well in this mega-zoo configuration, since Beelstarmon can use it instead of the usual deletion options if a jogress will happen at the end of turn. Since Ordinemon has a wide deletion effect that couples with recovery, we wouldn't want to delete anything unnecessarily through Beelstarmon's option cards.

I have proxy-tested this deck for quite a while and boy was it fun to play… though not without problems. For one, this deck lacks the necessary draw power to recover from a bad starting hand.

This is simply a deck concept, and do expect a lot of optimisation if it was ever going to be played in the competitive scene!

…. something that I will most likely be doing in the coming weeks.

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

BT9 X-Record Parallel Art, What is my Favourite!

In one more week, the BT9 will be officially distributed for Japan and Asia region, and today Bandai has revealed all the cards and its 18 parallel arts. Looking at these cards remind us the same quality as BT8-New Hero set, because the best arts do not belong to secret rare cards.

Here I would like to list them into the ranking in my opinion and the price prediction for them. Do let me know if you have different idea.

The Least Favourite: GrandisKuwagamon and Grademon

Insect-type Digimon has never been players or collectors or Digimon fans favourite even if they are in top tier meta. This card's art is illustrated by Tonamikanji, the artist who always shows the most clean and clear image for the Digimon's body. His best arts so far, in my opinion, are all the Sitermon AA arts and the BT7 Flamemon. But for this BT9 GrandisKuwagamon AA, there is nothing special and unique for the art, I predict this card would be the cheapest AA in BT9 set.

[BT9-064] Grademon is also drawn by Tonamikanji. We rarely see the LV5 black Digimon AA art that bring the pleasant to our eyes, because of its black color for the inherited effect area that is hard to match with the overall theme of the card. I feel this card's art is very normal and it doesn't look like an AA art. Beside, Grademon is not a famous Digimon, he will only support the Alphamon deck in BT9.

I don't think it is hard to own one of it (cheap), and the normal AA like this would have a higher pull rate in a carton.

Alphamon and Raguelmon

Alphamon and Raguelmon are both illustrated by Tonamikanji. The art for Raguelmon has a good mix in color of purple and orange while the Alphamon brings us the same feeling when we look at Imperialdramon: Paladin Mode (.illustrated by Sasasi).

These cards are not going to be expensive in the market as our prediction, because Raguelmon deck is not going to be in top-tier and Alphamon, even though he has many fans, but players would prefer the BT6 SEC Alphamon for this BT9 meta instead of BT9 Alphamon, less demand causes cheaper the price.

Rookie AA cards: Good for collection

Meicoomon and Jellymon are nice to collect, but Agumon X and Gabumon X will have the same price as BT6 Agumon Gabumon AA art in the early meta, it means they are not cheap.

Takase is famous and well known for drawing Rookie AA for Digimon Card Game. You can check out in your binder for the whole rookie series in BT7 set and other set. Both Meicoomon and Jellymon in BT9 are cute and adorable. The Meicoomon would be useful for Raguel deck while Jellymon may be not so useful in BT9 meta, but I would be happy to have 1 of her in my binder.

Both Agumon and Gabumon X are illustrated by Tonamikanji. These are going to be expensive because WarGreymonX and MetalGarurumonX are going to be tier-1 in BT9 meta.

As'Maria series of X-antibody

As'Maria is one of my favourite artist in DTCG. He is the original creator of the light of X-antibody so we are not surprised that he draw many X-antibody AA arts for this set

All of As'Maria arts in this set gives the romance feel, LOLx, they are mix in pink as the main theme of the art. Many players don't like Magnamon because he looks too thin in this pose and somehow the normal art looks more powerful.

For the pricing, the WargreymonX and MetalGaruruX will be expensive because we predict them would be tier-1 in BT9 meta. The Gaioumon and MagnamonX may be less expensive, but not so cheap compared to other AA cards, because … well, they are As'Maria arts.

Secret Rare AA: A Bit Dissapointed.

Alphamon: Ouryuken mode and Dexmon AA arts are both illustrated by Sasasi, the artist that draw almost all the Secret Rare AA cards so far. But I am a bit disappointed for what he provides us in BT9 set.

There is not so much different between the normal art and the parallel art of Dexmon, same theme same color even though 2 different artists drew them.

The Alphamon: Ouryuken mode, the last card revealed, have brought my disappointment to the lowest. I am not the fan of the art that the Digimon weapon takes almost half space of the art. Not only that, this art is not classic, not elegant and underwhelming.

Even though these arts are not my favourite but they are secret rare, and they are also the hidden potential in BT9 meta that may bring us many creative decks, especially Dexmon. Their prices may not be around $100 or something, and SEC AA is somehow easier to pull compared to some other SR AA cards, so they are still affordable.

DexDorugoramon is also illustrated by Sasasi, he is not an SEC but I think he will be expensive as well. People will need 4 copies of DexDorugora if they want to max-bling Dex deck.

My most-wanted in the list: Naochika Morishita arts

I always love NaochikaMorishita arts, since the BT2 SEC AA Beelzemon and Blackwargreymon.

His arts can somehow show the feeling and trait of that Digimon. We can feel Ordinemon sadness, darkness and pain in that image, and a Omegamon Merciful Mode looks glorious with the white wings, like some angels descending from the digital sky. I think these 2 card will be relatively hard to pull from BT9 set.

For now we don't see many decks use Omnimon Merciful Mode, or rather we don't know how to use him yet. He may not be popular in this meta or a deck would put maximum 1 or 2 copies of him for the tech. It is the same with Ordinemon. People would hunt them for their arts instead, and Omnimon Merciful Mode is very popular too.

Dex

The last SEC to be revealed for BT-09 may be the next most popular card.

Dexmon

The black/purple LV7 Dexmon has what it takes to become the next anti-meta card.

His first effect reduces his play cost by -3 for each Digimon and tamer that your opponent has, a very straightforward effect that punishes tamer-centric decks such as the Zoe hybrid and the Tommy hybrid, which are easily the current tier-1s. To put this into perspective, Dexmon would cost only 2 to play when your opponent has something like 4 tamers and 2 Digimons.

His second effect not only de-digivolves all of your opponent's Digimons by 1 level, but also deletes all that is LV4 and lower. In other words, playing 2 Dexmons consecutively in a turn will clear the opponent's board of LV6 Digimons, assuming they digivolved normally in a LV4-LV5-LV6 sequence (again, punishing the current Zoe and Tommy hybrids). This effect is also highly effective against Armor Digimons.

His third effect punishes the opponent when he is not taken down during their turn, by deleting all of your opponent's Digimons with the lowest play cost. In other words, your opponent is forced to play some sacrificial Digimon before the end of their turn in order to protect their better Digimons, and this becomes more obnoxious the more Dexmons you have in play.

Dexmon's weaknesses though, are also pretty obvious.

Firstly, his "de-digivolving then delete" effect would be less effective against X-Antibody decks that may have a larger stack of LV5s, making them a little bit harder to delete. It is also not effective against big Digimons that do not have digivolution cards, the usual suspects such as Beelstarmon, Lucemon Chaos, and Omegamon Zwart Defeat.

Secondly, his overall effectiveness can be thwarted just by knowing that he is included into the deck. The opponent will avoid playing a large pool of tamers and Digimons, or avoid ending their turn with a LV5 Digimon that can be de-digivolved into a LV4.

However, these weaknesses can be circumvented.

Dexmon in the Dex archetype

A no-brainer. Being of the same archetype, Dexmon benefits from the synergetic engine.

[BT9-081] DexDorugoramon has an [On Deletion] effect that can play Dexmon from trash without cost, which is easily the most amazing callback effect. No other Digimon can play another LV7 Digimon for free, from trash.

With the LV4 and LV5 Dex Digimons providing the much needed milling, in addition to the strong board control from the original Dorugoramon line as well as DexDorugoramon, this deck should prove formidable and popular in the coming meta.

Both Dorugoramon and DexDorugoramon excels in controlling a smaller board of 2 or 3 Digimons. Dorugoramon could easily eliminate up to 2 medium-sized Digimon, something around a play cost of 6-7, which helps to setup DexDorugoramon's [When Digivolving] effect against the bigger Digimon. Dexmon would be perfect here, offering robustness against wider boards instead.

Meanwhile in a purple alternative, the new [BT9-079] GrandDracmon should also work well with the Dex archetype, since they are mostly [Undead] Digimons. GrandDracmon can accelerate digivolution of the Dex line thanks to it's [End of Attack] effect, which could hopefully help to launch DexDorugoramon more efficiently.

Dexmon in Security Control

As it happens, Dexmon does not really need to be in a specific archetype.

While we do yet not know if the yellow security control deck would survive the coming meta, assuming it does, can be strengthened by Dexmon.

Dexmon can digivolve from [BT8-082] Ophanimon Falldown Mode, a staple of most yellow security controls. While more expensive (in digivolution) than the popular Zwart Defeat and less effective in security, Dexmon can deal more damage on-play and when digivolving, (conditionally) plays cheaper from hand, and has an immense presence when he remains in play.

The defensiveness of a security control deck may work in favour of Dexmon, punishing an opponent with a wider board in his mid/late game.

Dexmon with Beelstarmon

Another easy engine since he can digivolve from [BT6-112] Beelstarmon, replacing Zwart Defeat as the preferred choice of LV7.

Dexmon extends Beelstarmon's damage range, which is usually limited to single target 7-cost purple option cards. While many Beelstarmon decks play copies of [BT6-095] Happy Bullet Showering and some [BT6-105] GewaltSchwarmer for wide-range deletion, they are often too conditional and does not delete what is intended. With Dexmon, the deletion range is not only extended beyond DP-based and cost-based targets, but also improves the deck's robustness since pure-deletion effects are less effective against Armors and the Greymon X-Antibody line.

Dexmon with Mugendramon

With [EX1-073] Mugendramon expected to a little more popular in BT-09, it is fascinating to know that Dexmon can also work in this deck.

While Mugendramon is a very defensive card, his engine is often weak towards a wide board (and no Chaosdramon is often not a solution). Mugendramon decks are slow, and playing a Mugendramon amid an opponent's wide board of Digimons would usually offer little to no protection since he can only block once (without Tai Kamiya).

We might find solace in Dexmon during these sticky situations, first reducing play cost by taking advantage of the opponent's wide board, and then reducing that board enough for Mugendramon proper.

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