#bt5 – DIGIMON CARD META

This is to continue the summarizing of BT5 Japanese meta for English format BT5 preparation. In this second post, we will cover for:

– Red Agumon Nokia Deck

– Blue Hexablaumon

– Security Control.

– Black Diaboromon

– Rookie Rush

– D-brigade BT5 Concept.

Tier 2: The Red Agumon Nokia Deck

Nokia Shiramine is a tamer that can summon an Agumon or Gabumon for free when we hard-play her. On top of that, with her on play we can save digivolving cost when we evolve 1 Digimon into a Digimon with [Greymon] or [Garurumon] or [Omnimon] in its name.

In the early time of meta, people are very excited to play Nokia in Red or Blue Omnimon deck with LV6 Digimon that has [Greymon] in its name such as: BlitzGreymon, VictoryGreymon, WarGreymon… But when the meta is stable, everyone knows who is in top tier then this profile is less favored.

* To search for the deck that uses Nokia, you can go to BT4/5 Meta Deck List and search "bt5-092"

In BT5, Red Omega is slower than yellow Lordknightmon and red Shoutmon-DX. The BT5 set seems to only support the Shoutmon-DX digivolution line for red, the most useful new card is the new blocker that cheap to digivolve Monochromon, other than that there is no good thing for red color.

Red has its unique playing style compared to other color, this is the most aggressive color in Digimon Card Game. If you plan to build a new OTK profile in BT5 with [ST1-07] Greymon and [BT4-015] Volcdramon, it is recommended to put in some copies of option card A Delicate Plan, it is proven to be very important for red OTK decks, even with BT6 Jesmon.

Tier - 2: Blue Hexablaumon

Similar to Red Nokia profile, blue Hexeblaumon was receiving very good impression when this card revealed as well as the early time of meta. This card's effect is the best blue LV6 Digimon so far that is totally supporting the blue's deck tech. However, it is easy to get reduced DP by Lordknightmon, fragile to Shoutmon-DX, is not considered as a threat for Nidhogg, and only can win over Rookie Rush. But Rookie Rush can also easily delete Hexablaumon with Spiral Masquerade or it's maybe too fast that it can even finish opponent's security before Hexeblaumon comes to play.

For blue color in BT5 meta, we have 1 article written about how blue can gain so many memories with BT5 cards :

Quick Share: Hammer Spark is no longer needed in blue deck.

Tier - 1/1.5: Security Control

This is the time when Security Control started to become more popular in tournaments. With the introduction of 2 hands of Omegamon, Supreme Cannon and Transcendent Sword, and a very good black option card Ultimate Flare, the security control profile stays at tier 1.5 max.

During BT5 Meta, Security Control is like a deck to show off Omega Zwart Defeat or BT5 Omegamon(s) since these are the most expensive cards in current meta. The Security control is strong over Lordknightmon deck if these cards are drawn early: Ultimate Flare, Surpeme Cannon and Alter-S. But to use many colors in 1 deck is another issue for card distribution, that is why people prefer Yellow & Red & Black Sec Con for recovery instead of Red & Blue & Black Sec Con.

For Lordkightmon deck, if you play against Sec Con, you should try to maintain a 4-security limit against SECCON (else, they will use Magnadramon to "recovery" when their security is at 3 or lower), and prepare a wide board using LordKnightmon. When doing swarm at their security with many Digimons, they will find it quite difficult to recover fast enough, and pray for the Ultimate Flare is not opened from their security.

Security Control moves up to Tier-1 when the Atomic Blaster is released from ST7 Gallantmon theme deck. This card is what it needs for Security Control to control the lower rookie rank in the board with cheaper cost to play.

To search for Security Control in BT5 deck-list, you can use the keyword "BT5-105", the ID of Ultimate Flare cards or "security" that list out the deck with naming Security Control or "hybrid" to list out all multi-color decks (this will list both Rookie Rush and Security Control decks).

For the Sec Con related articles, these are what you can refer to:

Tier - 2: Diaboromon

With the full chain of Diaboromon digivolution in BT5, we were expecting them to be at top tier list. But it seems Diaboromon needs longer time to setup, cannot protect the token and hopeless against blockers. Even the promo Diaboromon with multiple security attacks cannot go through the current board of high DP Digimon.
Later on, some players included Spriral Masquerade to increase the defence for the deck, but how easy we can draw this card with a yellow Digimon or a yellow tamer. We hope Diaboromon would get better after EX1 cards are released.

– BT5 will be the battle of Omega and Diaboro Army

– A BT5 Diaboromon Deck Introduction

– A Deck Review: Placing a Spotlight on a hybrid Diaboromon deck.

We have a feature match for BT5 Diaboromon deck (against Shoutmon-DX), the Diaboromon deck player is very good at playing black color as well as Diaboromon deck, but it's still hard for him to take the lead with the game. (If you are going to ask for this deck profile, we are very sorry because we forgot to take picture of his deck last time).

Tier - 1: BT5 Rookie Rush

Surprisingly, after the introduction of Takumi Aiba and many other solutions to counter it, Rookie Rush is still a big thing in BT5 meta. But we see less of them in the tournament because players choose to play other profiles such as LKM, purple or Shoutmon DX.

There are 2 cards that helps Rookie Rush to stay at Tier-1, those are Starmon and Spiral Masquerade.

Deck Review: A new way of rookie rush

To search for Rookie Rush decks, you just need to type "rookie" into the search box. There are many different types of Rookie Rush deck in BT5 meta, but the strongest one is what we are mentioning, the yellow green Rookie Rush with Starmon and Spiral Masquerade.

Tier 2: The BT5 D-brigade concept

There is 1 new Commandramon in BT5, increasing the number of LV3 Commandramon to 16 cards (4 types) for the D brigade deck. On top of that, Omnimon Zwart is a new candidate to digivolve from Darkdramon and summon back the LV5 Tankdramon and Blockers.

When we play Darkramon for 3 costs and return 5 [Dbrigade] type cards to top of the deck, then digivolving into OmnimonZwart and trash 3 cards (Dbrigade) with Zwart's effect. If opponent don't destroy Zwart in their turn, we can return the Darkdramon back to hand when Zwart attacks opponent's Digimon or Player in next turn. And if we have 5 Brigade in the trash again, we can play Darkdramon for 3 costs and attack with "Rush".

The D-brigade in BT5 decks are mostly played by some players who enjoy playing this deck (even in BT6 meta).

Closing Words

The tier list in this post is based on our meta analysis, if you have any comment or idea, you can share us via email or submit comment in comment section.

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

In Japan and Asia, BT-05 is a relatively successful attempt from Bandai to diversify meta decks.

Prior to BT-05, the meta landscape is predominantly a "Christmas Tree": Yellow Wargreymon and Green Nidhoggmon. Back then, the yellow Wargreymon deck had so much synergy that it became one of the most effective aggro decks. Meanwhile, the green Nidhoggmon deck has enabled such a strong board-wipe for counterattacks that has allowed for comebacks at almost any situation.

Moving on to BT-05 Battle of Omega (which we think is the most valuable set so far), which had the most expensive box-topper (Nokia Shiramine), multiple alternative arts for a single Omegamon (4 parallel arts), commanding a high price until today, a classic art AA Omegamon X-antibody, and a steadily-priced Omegamon Zwart-Defeat (that is still increasing today). This is also the expansion where paired-art card concept started (not counting BT-04 since that's a one-off triplet), and the last booster set that does not include block icon on the cards.

To get some first senses with BT5 Battle of Omega, we recommend our readers to check out the early review of BT5 set, and "what is new in Battle of Omega".

BT5 Meta

When we promoted the tier-list in our deck list page, there are many discussions regarding of the correctness of this ranking.

As mentioned above, BT5 is a set that shows the diversity of meta decks. But still, we cannot deny the crazy domination of Lordknightmon decks in tournaments for a while during BT5 timeframe. We saw some players building only this yellow LordKnightmon deck and went on to win many tournaments, which shows how stable and "safe choice" this deck was.

By the way, as we always said, once you know the meta, there will be a way to counter the meta. That is the purpose of Digimon Card Meta's BT5 summary report. English meta is coming after Japanese meta as we saw many different meta-counters, take BT4 English meta as an example, many security control decks are created to counter the dominance of yellow WarGreymon, and then some aggro decks are used to fight security control.

About BT5 set, here is what we got:

– LordKnightmon with/without Mastermon/WarGreymon

– ChaosDukemon with Tactimon/Megidramon

– Lilithloop

– Shoutmon-DX

– Green Nidhogg/Rafflesimon

– Red Agumon Nokia Deck

– Blue Hexablaumon

– Security Control.

– Black Diaboromon

– Rookie Rush

– D-brigade BT5 Concept.

Tier - 0: LordKnightmon

In Japanese meta, Lordknightmon is really a threat in any tournament. It had many potential to be a tier-0 deck during this time, the higher level of reducing opponent's Digimon DP (compared to Wargreymon) that can easily clear the opponent's board once Lordknigh present, and widen its own board in just an instant are what we must acknowledge. Lordknight deck is not very hard to play, the strategy is quite straight forward, the cost to build this deck is also cheap.

To understand this deck's concept and strategy, you can find Digimon Card Meta analysis for Lordknightmon profile:

Tier - 1/1.5: Purple Arises

We have seen some potentials of purple color in BT4 with promo MetalGarurumon and Plutomon, but you will see a brighter future for purple in BT5 set.

The most famous and useful LV7 Digimon is created for Purple and Black in BT5, Omnimon Zwart. This Digimon becomes a very important element for both ChaosGallantmon and Lilith-loop profiles. People became more excited to play purple in BT5, hence we saw many different deck's strategies created around ChaosGallantmon and OmnimonZwart. Here we would like to refer our reader to some articles we prepared during early time of BT5:

Working with Zwart: a very first analysis on this new LV7 Digimon.
Did BT-05 accidentally buff purple Cresgaruru.
A Deck Review: A Strong ChaosDukemon and Zwart Defeat deck.

Tier - 1.5: Lilith-Loop

Lilith-loop deck was first created in Singapore, and became famous due to its complication and winning rate, it was even able to defeat Lordknight deck easily (happened many times in tournament in Singapore). Lilith-loop is not a deck for everyone, you will lose the game easily if you make a single mistake. The game with Lilith-loop is like a brainstorming game, you will see how many times they count trash, check trash, recycle trash, their games was always taken "like forever" to finish.

In BT5 meta, Lilith-loop came late, but then many players from Japan or other countries outside Singapore played and won tournaments with it. It is also promoted to a new version in BT6 and still be played here and there. For the first article related to Lilith-loop, you can found them in "Working with Zwart", later we also had a very detailed deck-review for Lilith-loop deck that won tournaments in Singapore.

Tier - 1: Shoutmon - DX

Shoutmon – DX deck has a very strong OTK profile in BT5 meta. With the "Advance" effect for a LV6 digimon, red color got to re–arise in BT5. Shoutmon-DX was quite strong in the early time of BT5 meta, then they found out its weakness that it focused too much in 1 stack, once the opponent deletes that digivolution chain that was built for Shoutmon-DX, it will lose the game easily. Since it's the deck for only Shoutmon, there are many conditions applied to it to achieve a perfect hit. The lack of ability to end game when Shoutmon appear is also something made Shoutmon can't reach tier-0.5.

We have some article for Shoutmon DX in early time of meta:

These are articles when Shoutmon-DX deck became more mature:

Shoutmon-DX can win Lilith-loop if the hand draw does not brick. But to be precise, Shoutmon-DX can win any decks if it can end the game when Shoutmon-DX appears, it relies on how the player calculates the number of opponent's securities and blockers before performing attack. Also, can you draw a BT5 Omnimon to end game, or you have a solution to finish game at that time.

Tier 1.5: Green Nidhogg/Rafflesi

Green Rafflesimon is just another element to make the Nidhogg profile more defensive in BT5 meta. Green was always strong with the Nidhogg removal method, but the thing is do you still love to play green when you have already had too many of them in BT4 meta?

If you have enough, then why don't you have some fun with "Calculate Gatcha" with the new green tamer in BT5?

By the way, you can refer to this Rafflesi-Nidhogg deck review article to know one spotted winning tournament green deck created in Japan.

Tier 1.5: Palmon/Grankuwagamon promo combo

This is a BT4 English meta that brought victory for Nathan Brooks in TAK Evolution Cup Jul 17, North America. We would like to repeat that this profile is still strong in BT5 meta.

Articles and Tournament Report for this green profiles:

We will continue summary for the 6 remaining profiles of BT5 meta in next article:

– Red Agumon Nokia Deck

– Blue Hexablaumon

– Security Control.

– Black Diaboromon

– Rookie Rush

– D-brigade BT5 Concept.

STAY TUNED