This weekend sees the prerelease for the long awaited Double Diamond, Digimon Card Game’s newest set. After being delayed multiple times, players were growing anxious for the set. This set is going to once again change some of the things we see in competitive play.
So, I’ve been playing this game since its initial release in November of 2020. In that time, we’ve seen the meta game change with pretty much every set. The only thing that has remained a constant has been Rookie Rush and Security Control. Those two play styles are probably not going anywhere in Double Diamond, however, we’re getting some cool new mechanics that I believe will make it into competition.
New Mechanics
Double Diamond will be bringing back a handful of mechanics that we’ve grown used to; Rush, Retaliation, Security Attack +1, and some decent draw power. We are also getting some mechanics that we haven’t seen before, like Delay, Decoy, and of course the Bonds, which is the featured mechanic of the set. With these, and some answers to Rookie Rush, this set seems to be promising to shake up the meta a little bit. Let’s take a look at these mechanics.
Delay
Trash this card in your battle area to activate the effect below. You can’t activate this effect the turn this card enters play.
Delay is a new mechanic coming with this set. Delay appears like it will just be a mechanic attached to Option cards. Cards with Delay stay on the field even after their initial use. Then on a subsequent turn, you activate a second ability by trashing the the card from the field. Our example here is Howling Memory Boost! (BT6-097)
Howling Memory Boost! is already a pretty decent card with its primary effect. It does want most blue decks want to do, which is trash digivolution cards and profit from it. It also has a Delay effect that says Gain 2 memory. It’s overall a pretty good deal for 3 memory. There is a Delay card in blue, yellow, and purple. Look out for Security Control in your next tournament.
There are two things worth noting. One, the security effect does not activate the primary effect. It instead places the card on the field for you to use the Delay effect. Two, since I features Howling Memory Boost!, it would be wrong of me not to mention that the card already has an errata, as the Japanese version does not have the words, up to, in the first sentence.
Decoy
When one of your other black Digimon would be deleted by an opponent’s effect, you may delete this Digimon to prevent that deletion.
If I may, Black is finally getting some support in this set. I know that Black has never been bad, but I have a Black reboot deck, and while it’s not competitive, I would love to alter it and make it better. However, it’s always felt like Bandai threw us Reboot and Blocker, and said that’s good enough. Yes, I realize that we have Diaboromon, but that’s not inherently a “Black deck”.
With Decoy, your blockers gain more survivability, as you can block and then sacrifice decoys in lieu of sacrificing the blocker itself. It is also a great way to counter retaliation and protect your big lv.6 and lv.7 beaters. With Decoy, Black comes back into the world of competitive play stronger than ever.
Bonds
Alright, I was already thinking of putting together an Agumon deck (he’s my favorite Digimon), but this completely sold me on it. This set features the Bond of Bravery and the Bond of Friendship. Both require you to have at least 7 memory and play the new Tai Kamiya or Matt Ishida cards.
Let’s go over each instance. Tai Kamiya (BT6-087) says to digivolve one of your Agumon into Agumon – Bond of Bravery (BT6-018). That’s a lv.3 into a lv.7! This is a risky move because you will also have to trash the top 2 cards of your security and trash the Agumon – Bond of Bravery at the end of turn if you still have 1 or more security cards.
It’s a high risk, high reward deal, because this new improved Agumon, assuming it can attack, can delete a big Digimon and trash potentially AT LEAST the top 2 cards of your opponents security. If you manage to digivolve it on top of the new Agumon (BT6-007, you’re adding Security Attack +1. If you time it right and pull it off, it could very well win you the game.
The one downside is that it also takes up some space in your deck because you’ll probably want to run 3 or 4 of the Tai Kamiya cards, at least 2 Agumon – Bond of Bravery, and 4 of the Agumon from the set.
Gabumon – Bond of Friendship is played virtually the exact same way, just with a Matt Ishida (BT6-088) and a Gabumon. You are still trashing the top 2 of your own security stack and deleting Gabumon – Bond of Friendship at the end of turn if you have 1 or more security cards.
So what’s the upside for this combo? Well, it unsuspends itself. As long as you digivolved it with Matt Ishida, you’re guaranteed to activate the first [When Attacking] effect. Then, if you used the new Gabumon (BT6-019), you’re unsuspending it again. So you have the potential to be attacking three times in a row, each time activating the second [When Attacking] effect, potentially wiping your opponents board.
There is definitely an argument to be had about which one is the better card. We’ll just have to wait and see which one performs better. I, for one, intend to build a deck for both of these combos.
Let’s take a look at one more card.
Board Wipe?
I was saying earlier that Black is finally getting some support. This is more proof. Gewalt Schwärmer (BT6-105) will likely be an auto-add to any Black deck that is entering a tournament. Why is that? Well, if you aren’t well versed in the competitive scene of the Digimon Card Game, Rookie Rush is a deck type that has dominated the meta since this game’s release. It frustrates a lot of players. Gewalt Schwärmer feels like a good answer to the issue for Black players. It’s an expensive cost, but worth it if you’re staring down the barrel of 5 or 6 Rookie Digimon on your opponents board.
This month, we are being graced by a new set in the Digimon Card Game. We’ve waited for some time for it, but this set looks like it will be worth the long wait. We look forward to seeing some of the competitive edge that these new cards will bring in the future.
Make sure you’re here at Central Gaming Corps for the Double Diamond prerelease at 4:30pm on Saturday, November 20th, 2021. And always remember to Game On!
