Well That Just Happened!
Silly me, not focusing on Digimon work for a month and change, so of course Bandai has to go and ruin a video I was kind of sort of working on.
Ok, while that’s not wrong, I am being mostly silly, good morning folks, we just got a new Banned and Restricted list update for Digimon! This one hits a whopping four cards, that might not sound like a lot if you’ve been playing say, Magic the past few years, but its a bit of a big deal, both for number and the cards restricted, don’t worry no bannings, and I’m here to say, this was actually a 100% good update, yup really, die angry.
For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, go here to see the restricted list and Bandai’s stated logic behind them, all of these cards are being limited to 1 copy per deck instead of 4, not banned, and this will only go into effect on November 11th, the day EX3 releases.
First up! DoruGreymon! We all knew this was coming eventually, frankly I’m still surprised we didn’t get this banning when Japan did. Between the protection effect that enables the deck’s core plan, aka getting a ton of X antibody Digimon under a single target to draw tons of cards and gain too much memory, and the inheritable that helps Alphamon reach it’s OTK, yeah, it was a pain. We got two extra months with it, hope you enjoyed them.
Now go and built a more fun and varied Alphamon deck dang it! Go try out Grademon!
Second, we have Calling from the Darkness.
Honestly this card has been treated as a de-facto 1 per deck already, but the decision to make it de jure seems right. See otherwise Calling artificially limits design space. [On Deletion] effects are not unique to purple, but they are more prevalent in the color, and giving purple the ability to simply pop thier own Digimon for beneficial effects, then recur trashed cards, a rarity in the game so far, all for 1 memory just limited the power that could be placed into [On Deletion] effects, especially when a deck could be running around with 4 copies. It notably was also responsible for several endless loops, which while they are still possible with a single copy, are less easily achievable.
And now the ones that people have slightly more reason to be salty about.
First, Sunrise Buster. Frankly, this feels like it came from the same mildly busted design space that gave us the Yellow Hybrid deck. One of Yellow’s more consistent themes has been playing around with tamers, especially throwing them straight onto the board, either for free, or getting them bundled with another effect, and RizeGreymon, whose X antibody form is depicted in Sunrise Buster, had a whole evolution line dedicated to getting tamers on board, then using them to power a lethal swing. The problem is two fold, well three, but the third ties into the other restricted card.
Yellow tamers tend to be absurdly generic, see BT6-089 T.K Takaishi & Kari Kamiya, who have the extremely low memory gain requirement of simply having less security than the opponent, effectively discouraging them from pushing for lethal, and a triggered ability that let’s them perform as removal, while both of the other dual tamers from the same set, BT6-090 Izzy Izumi & Joe Kido and BT6-091 Sora Takenouchi & Mimi Tachikawa can only gain memory from more niche situations, and both have triggered abilities that draw a single card.
Sunrise Buster turns any and all yellow and red tamers into removal, meaning for only slightly more than the play cost of most tamers you could get both a long term useful piece on to the board, often with an [On Play] effect, then at absolute minimum if that was your only tamer, pop a rookie, or most level 4s if you even had one other tamer.
So, yeah, honestly, unless they intend to fix the issue with Yellow tamers generally being more powerful and generic than other colors, this was necessary, and we haven’t even hit fold three!
Which is of course the Xros heart deck, and it’s loss of Shoutmon X4.
Quick rundown because I know many of my readers are not necessarily as invested as the obsessives folks, like me. Xros Heart, pronounced cross heart, is a new archetype introduced in BT10 Xros Encounter that focuses on cards and characters from the fifth Digimon series, known as Xros Wars in Japan, and localized as Digimon Fusion, which never got it’s final third dubbed, it was not terribly popular outside of Japan, though most blame poor localization rather than bad source material. But basic idea, instead of Digivolving, the Digimon combined together, very MegaZord style, which is what the new <DigiXros> Mechanic enables. Essentially when you would play a Digimon with <DigiXros>, instead of paying retail you can take one of each of the cards it lists from the field, your hand, or using the new tamer Taiki Kudo, from under tamers, place them under the newly played card and reduce it’s cost.
This mechanic combined with the new <Save> and <Material Save> both of which allow Digimon or some of it’s material to be stored under a tamer when they’re deleted instead of going to the trash, made Xros Heart into one of the most prevalent decks in the Japanese meta, though it should be said Japan’s use of Best of 1 games, focus on a wide number of smaller tournaments instead of a few large ones, and the fact that the archetype both called back to and often forgotten anime, and was entirely contained within the new set, making it extremely accessible, also helped push it into effectively a Tier 0 deck in Japan.
And Shoutmon X4, the card that will be limited as of EX3’s release on November 11th, made the deck, or at least that version work. So Let’s try and explain why, and why it being limited is actually goo for a healthier game going forward.
First up, it’s <DigiXros> Materials are [Shoutmon] x [Ballistamon] x [Dorulumon] x [Starmons] and it costs 2 memory less for each one used. So if X4 was build fully, it would only cost 1 memory, then the owner would get the [On Play] effect, to draw two, as well as possible effects from Xros Heart tamers, BT10-089 Akari Hinomoto, who can suspend to draw a card when a Xros Heart Digimon is played, and BT10-090 Zenjiro Tsurugi, who can suspend to gain 1 memory when a Xros Heart Digimon is played, making X4 free.
Then, we need to look at what X4 can do, or more accurately, what it can do because it now has 4 inheritables, assuming you used the BT10 Shoutmon and Starmons, as their previous printings don’t synergize well.
BT10 Shoutmon provides <Rush> if the top Digimon’s name contains [Shoutmon].
Ballistamon provides <Piercing> if the top Digimon’s name contains [Shoutmon].
Dorulumon has a passive that lowers the DP of the opponent’s security Digimon by -2K, again if name contains [Shoutmon}
Starmons have the classic, [When Attacking] If this Digimon has [Shoutmon] in its name, <Draw 1>.
So, X4 comes out, potentially for free, draws at least 2 cards, then attacks with <Rush>, has <Piercing>, draws another card, and is safer than expected from Security Digimon, if it dies on the attack, <Material Save 2> means two of the sources can be saved, often Shoutmon for the <Rush>, but what ever is needed, and if it doesn’t die on the attack, then it gets worse.
[End of Attack] By placing all digivolution cards from under this Digimon under 1 of your Tamers, unsuspend 1 of your Tamers, and delete this Digimon.
Now that sounds bad doesn’t it? But again, you just drew at least 3 cards, placed every card you have under Shoutmon X5 under a single tamer, meaning if you have either of the tamers with the <DigiXros> enabling effect, Taiki Kudo or Kiriha Aonuma, they can be suspended to play out ANOTHER X4, or X5, and heck, if you had more than one Taiki out you could even use that unsuspend effect on a Zenjiro instead, making it possible to go into ANOTHER X4 for free.
So, yes, Xros Heart is both the reason Sunrise Buster needs to be limited, the deck runs 4 copies each of Taiki and Akari, both of whom can be played by Sunrise Buster, and have solid to actively great [On Play] effects, and it’s also the reason the freshly printed X4 should be limited. Both cards function as extenders for the deck’s plays, and when the deck’s entire plan is to be a rush deck that doesn’t care if it’s rusher’s live or die because they enable a burst turn either way, well then extenders make it a massive pain.
YES, it honks that X4 will be limited function 3 weeks after printing. However, Bandai has made it clear they want to support the Xros Heart archetype, with the deck already getting more cards in BT11 and BT12, and X4’s power would limit what can be done with cards named Shoutmon, Ballistamon, Dorulumon, and Starmons, so limiting it sooner is assuredly better. Also, it make Shoutmon (King Version) a more useful card since it’s recursion ability is actually important now, I’d say pick some up now if you want to play Xros Heart still, but they’ve pretty much tripled in price since yesterday, they were a $5-10 card on TCGPlayer, yup, even as a Secret Rare, but the lowest price right now it $20
