Images courtesy of Bandai
Digimon‘s newest booster set, Special Booster 2.5, is upon us, and with it the latter half of BT19. We got the first half in Special Booster 2.0 along with the entirety of BT18, and now we’re getting the remainder with BT20.
These sets were split up in an attempt to catch up the English release schedule and unify it with Japan and make everything more cohesive. While most of the new BT19 decks such as Millenniummon, Royal Base, and Lordknightmon X were introduced in Special Booster 2.0, the latter half of BT19 is full of cards to breathe new life into older archetypes. So let’s take a look at some the new cards.
The Return of Beelzemon
The Beelzemon deck has always been popular – especially after receiving its own starter deck – but in terms of power it’s slowly been outpaced by other Demon Lords like Leviamon. Special Booster 2.5 has an entire line of Beelzemon support cards that play into the self-mill strategy and improve the consistency of the deck. Impmon is an exceptional addition to the deck since it can play any purple tamer from your trash if you have one or fewer tamers. There are plenty of ways to cheat an Impmon into play from the trash, such as Beelzemon EX02, Purple Scramble or the new option Bonds of True Love, so the more you mill yourself the more likely you are to grab a tamer from your trash.
This set also introduces a new Ai & Mako tamer that Impmon can bring back from the trash that not only gains memory at the start of the turn, but can also let you warp your Impmon straight into Beelzemon for just four memory, provided you have 20 cards in your trash. This is an easy task for the deck, and warping into any Beelzemon gives you access to repeatable removal and de-digivolving through Beelzemon EX02 and Beelzemon EX06.
Beelzemon often wins games as a combo deck, and there are few cards scarier to warp into than Beelzemon ST16. Warping for a cost of four is offset by gaining at minimum two memory back from the digivolving trigger, and from there you get your extra security attack and can then combo off with Beelzemon X and Blast Mode. The deck already has a focus on warping into this Beelzemon, so having a tamer that can facilitate that is incredibly powerful.
The new Beelzemon is probably best suited as a single copy, but it’s an effective control card against aggro decks. When played or digivolved into, you mill yourself two cards and it gains Blocker, but more importantly once on each player’s turns you can delete a level 5 or lower Digimon when you’re milled. This helps keep smaller boards under control and also acts as a hard counter to the ever popular Velgrmon loop since you can delete it before it can even attack.
Finally, we have Beelzemon: Blast Mode Ace. I have it on good authority that the easiest way for Beelzemon to lose is by decking itself out. It’s easy to have to overextend your milling against defensive decks, and by that point you have nothing left in your deck. This new Blast Mode offers a solution to this problem by returning ten cards from your trash to the top of your deck and burning a security card when it attacks.
While this may seem detrimental since you usually need those cards in trash to scale your effects, by stacking the cards correctly you can use the [When Attacking] inherited effects of your stack to mill those cards right back and use the “when this card is milled” effects all over again. This way you can gain memory with Death Slinger and Wizardmon, grab an Impmon with Beelzemon EX02, or put Rival’s Barrage back in your delay zone for future use.
New Upgrades for Blue Flare in Special Booster 2.5
There was a time when Blue Flare was one of the dominant aggro decks in the format. Capable of clearing an entire security stack in one turn while locking down the opponent’s board was something to be terrified of. These days the blue decks have all moved on to ramping into level 6s like MirageGaogamon, so Blue Flare has been out of favor for a while. Special Booster 2.5 changes that with cards that ramp up the consistency of the deck as well as the aggression.
MetalGreymon, like its predecessors, can come down for as little as three memory and rush down the opponent. While it doesn’t have the same stun ability, it has something equally as powerful in de-digivolving an opposing Digimon. As well, it can immediately digivolve into a level 6 with Blue Flare in its traits from under your tamers, so you can go into the new ZeigGreymon to de-digivolve the opponent even further and bounce a level 4 or lower Digimon. Then, should ZeigGreymon get deleted, it can play a Blue Flare Digimon with cost five or less from under one of your tamers and Save itself, thus maintaining your board presence.
BT19 also has a slew of new Digimon that you can cheat out with ZeigGreymon. The new Greymon has rush so it can come down swinging for that last security check, and can also cheat a Kiriha tamer into play when it’s deleted. MailBirdramon gives the deck some newfound defensive capability while also retrieving Blue Flare Digimon from the trash and tucking them under a tamer for future use.
Gaossmon also lets you tuck a Digimon under a tamer when it’s played or deleted so you can establish your combos early. Finally, the new Kiriha can use Digimon from under your tamers as DigiXros material, and it can even manually tuck Digimon under itself from your hand to gain memory at the start of your main phase. All of these cards give the Blue Flare archetype a continuous engine so your aggro deck doesn’t run out of steam.
Xros Heart Makes a Comeback
BT19 has a new Shoutmon X5, Shoutmon EX6, and a slew of new DigiXros fodder to play these Digimon for next to no cost. This new DigiXros package has two things going for it: the level 3s and 4s can immediately digivolve into their level 5 counterparts from under your tamers, and the level 5s all count as the names of their lower level counterparts so they can be used interchangeably as DigiXros material.
The lower level Digimon digivolving as part of their [On Play] effect means an opening turn of Taiki & Kiriha & Nene can tuck a source at the start of the turn for you to immediately digivolve into, and since most of the level 5s have board impact when you digivolve into them you can apply pressure on the opponent as early as turn two.
Shoutmon X5, like previous iterations, can DigiXros for a reduced cost with the correct material, and when DigiXrossed with all the pieces you get to play a level 5 for zero memory. When you have any of the various Shoutmon as a source to give it rush, you come down attacking and should anything happen to Shoutmon X5, this version can save three of its sources under a tamer and then play a level 4 or lower Xros Heart Digimon from under your tamers. If you play any of the new level 4s you can then digivolve into the level 5 immediately from their [On Play] effect so you never lose tempo.
Shoutmon EX6 is the new top-end closer for the deck, and it hits hard. Alliance on a 12000 DP Digimon usually means it’s surviving any battle it fights, and an [On Play] that reduces the opponent’s board by 1000 DP for each color in its sources lets it do its best ShineGreymon: Ruin Mode impression since its DigiXros requirements are predominantly multicolored.
Speaking of its Xros requirements, since each of its material reduces its play cost by two memory, with all five sources Shoutmon EX6 can be played for just a single memory! All of these cards combine to give Xros Heart the aggressive tools it needs to return to its former competitive glory.
Even More Notable Archetype Upgrades in Special Booster 2.5
The new Taomon Ace turns the previously fringe Sakuyamon deck into the menacing Taomon Loop. This deck tries to digivolve Kazuhamon over Taomon Ace, which then plays the Taomon from its sources. Then you get to play an option for free, namely Digivolution Plug-In S to digivolve into yet another Kazuhamon, which then plays the Taomon and you repeat until you run out of Plug-Ins or level 6s.
From there the deck can also digivolve those level 6s into ShineGreymon: Ruin Mode to lock down the board turn after turn. This can be an oppressive deck to play against if you aren’t prepared for it, though the Japanese metagame has adapted fairly well with time.
Justimon: Blitz Arm Ace is the final piece of the Justimon puzzle, as I alluded to when I reviewed Chain of Liberation. This card has the unique effect to unsuspend itself by trashing an option card in the delay zone. While this is meant to synergize with the Device series of options, this can also trash options in the opponent’s delay zone, such as Scrambles, Memory Boosts, Training cards, and even more importantly, Biting Crush.
As more and more decks become reliant on stockpiling delay options to accelerate into their boss monsters, having a way to disrupt that is extremely powerful. The game needs more ways to interact with these options, so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
Finally, ADR-01 Jeri and D-Reaper Zone are exactly what the D-Reaper deck has been looking for: interaction with the opponent’s Digimon. Most of the deck is just ramping up the sources under Mother D-Reaper and defensively keeping the opponent from checking security with ADR-09 Gatekeeper. If they wanted to interact with an opposing Digimon they’d have to resort to Starmons, which scales poorly when you’re behind. These new cards can shrink attacking Digimon based on the number of sources under Mother D-Reaper so they scale much better than Starmons, and Jeri can even redirect an attack to itself when played from the Mother. D-Reaper Zone, in addition to shrinking attackers, can play a D-Reaper trait card for free when checked in security to increase your board presence.
In Summation….
The second half of BT19 has some fantastic cards for rejuvenating older decks, which is always welcome in a game entering its fifth year. All of these decks have already made waves in the Japanese metagame largely due to these new cards. This helps diversify the meta and keeps things from growing stale.
While this half of BT19 doesn’t really introduce as many new archetypes as the first half did, I’d argue that this is more important for enfranchised players since they can play with their pet decks competitively again. The other part of Special Booster 2.5, BT20, does introduce some brand new archetypes, so stay tuned for Part 2!
For more Digimon content, check out the biggest winners at the recent BCGFest Orlando.
