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!