Oof, I thought when I had written my first Digimon Card Game Diary after the first 2 weeks of starting this hobby, I would be a lot more consistent with my writing. What I failed to take into consideration, is that most of the fun and excitement with the Digimon Card Game comes from playing against other people, opening booster packs, and building decks – all activities which have been one of my mental health activities away from work and even working on Dorkaholics. But here we are, 19 months later… I started my collection with the ST-8: Starter Deck UlforceVeedramon and I’ve recently purchased two of the latest starter decks ST-15: Starter Deck Dragon of Courage and ST-16: Starter Deck Wolf of Friendship. And even more groundbreaking for the card game is that the latest booster RB-01: Resurgence Booster being their first set with reprints of coveted cards from the earlier sets.
The ACE Mechanic from ST-15: Starter Deck Dragon of Courage and ST-16: Starter Deck Wolf of Friendship
Normally when a pair of starter decks is released, I’ll typically lean towards only getting two sets of only one of the decks as usually there’s enough of a distinction to sway me. When I first got into the game, I chose UlforceVeedramon over Gallantmon being that I was a much bigger fan of the Veemon line and my best friend Chris was already playing Gallantmon (eternal rivals vibes). A few months later, I chose Imperialdramon over Mastemon (ST-9: Starter Deck Ultimate Ancient Dragon, ST-10: Starter Deck Parallel World Tactician), once again favoring the Veemon line. Last October, I chose ST-13: Starter Deck RagnaLoardmon over ST-12: Starter Deck Jesmon, this time both because I had previously built a RagnaLoardmon deck with the older cards from an earlier booster set, but also because Chris had committed to Jesmon. Note: I went into this knowing that Jesmon would be far more consistent than RagnaLoardmon which often bricks as it is really dependent on having a number of pieces readily available in hand and at the top of the deck waiting to be drawn or revealed, but that’s kind of player I am – committed to his choices even in the face of likely defeat.
Now with the latest two starter decks, I went in hard and got two of each. Why? Between the Agumon line and the Gabumon, I genuinely love both equally. They were both beloved by me as a child watching the first season of the anime and seeing both of them being the only ones at the time to reach the Mega level. Prior to this current phase of the Digimon Card Game, I had already built a BlackWarGreymon X deck as well as a MetalGarurumon X deck, so having access to the new ACE mechanic introduced by these decks (technically the mechanic was introduced in the last booster set in July, BT-13: Versus Royal Knights, as the ACE cards were include as box toppers) seemed to be a natural progression as the game continues to grow and evolve.
So what is the ACE mechanic and why did I feel a need to have these new cards accessible to my decks? The Digimon Card Game website describes it as:
Digimon ACE are cards that can be played for a very low cost compared to other Digimon of the same level and with a new feature that allows them to digivolve without paying the cost during your opponent’s turn. However, they have the disadvantage that you lose memory equal to the value specified in “Overflow” if they are removed from the battle area. Therefore, they are cards that need to be played with caution.
This is pretty game changing as the player using the ACE cards are able to play higher level Digimon at a reduced cost, allowing them to either get out of a tight bind or to apply pressure on the opponent. However, if the opponent is able to remove the ACE Digimon, then the amount of memory gain in their favor either offsets whatever manner of removal they employed (Gaia Force set the standard for removal to be around 7 memory) or if the removal was for 0 memory i.e. they brought out a stronger Digimon from the Raising Area who swung over, then the memory gain opens them to additional plays on their turn.
Additionally, these ACE cards so far all share the keywords: Hand, Counter, Blast Digivolve. Hand and Counter refer to the Blast Digivolve effect being something that can be triggered from the Hand during the Counter Timing after an opponent declares an attack with their Digimon. The Blast Digivolve effect itself is being able to have an existing Digimon on the board digivolve for free during their opponent’s turn as a counterplay, meaning any additional When Digivolving effects of the newly digivolved Digimon could interrupt the attack being made in some manner.
With the introduction of this Counter effect timing, a new video going over the current rules of the Digimon Card Game was published on the Official Bandai Card Games YouTube Channel to assist players new and old with understanding the mechanics and flow of the game.
RB-01: Resurgence Booster
From the Resurgence Booster set, I’m hoping to collect extra copies of the Memory Boost cards as they’re highly flexible support cards that can go into most decks as long as there is room for another Option Card. And more copies of the Omnimon cards from BT-05: Battle Of Omni are similarly splashable on most decks, this time fitting as cards for the top end (higher level Digimon for finishing plays). Specifically, the cards that have been reprinted include: Omnimon, Omnimon Zwart, Omnimon (X Antibody), and Omnimon Zwart Defeat. The nice to haves would be a playset of Greymon from the very first starter deck which gives the inherited effect of Security Attack +1 (inherited effects refer to effects that pass along to Digmon when the original card is included as a digivolution source, and Security Attack +1 increases the amount of Security Cards being checked when a player is attacked).
The extremely nice to have but from what I heard also slightly unlikely, are enough copies of the new cards in the set to build one of the new decks (Gammamon, Jellymon, Angoramon) as I like to try to build at least one new deck with each set, which is probably a good time to talk about my collection… for another post, another time!
