Image credit to the author/Bandai
As Digimon tournament results pour in, there is no doubt that Special Booster 2.5 has had a tremendous impact on the format. Several decks have received massive power boosts, and there is no better example than the Royal Knights.
This is a “MegaZoo” style deck that aims to play huge Digimon for a discounted cost with King Drasil_7D6. The [On Play] effects either dig for resources or interact with the board, and the deck has a combo finish by using Omnimon BT13 to play out multiple bodies with rush.
Royal Knights is also a toolbox deck that aims to run a variety of effects to handle most threats the opponent can play, be it through DP reduction, bounce, or outright deletion.
Royal Knights Deck List
Main Deck
4 Cool Boy BT20-091
2 Dynasmon BT13-087
2 Gankoomon BT13-019
1 Alphamon BT13-075
2 LordKnightmon BT19-072
4 Omekamon BT13-093
4 Omnimon BT13-112
4 Royal Knights of the Purge BT13-110
4 The Last Guardian BT20-100
2 UlforceVeedramon BT13-030
4 Omekamon BT20-083
4 Omnimon (X Antibody) BT20-102
4 Magnamon BT13-040
2 Jesmon BT20-017
2 Jesmon GX BT20-021
2 Alphamon: Ouryuken BT20-060
1 Craniamon BT13-077
2 Gallantmon BT13-111
Egg Deck
4 King Drasil_7D6 BT13-007
Powerful New Additions to Royal Knights
In the past, the deck was reliant on the combo turn to close out games because you rarely had a body in play that was able to attack otherwise. This all changed with the introduction of Omnimon X Antibody BT20, a card that bypasses this drawback by giving rush and pseudo-blitz to any of your Digimon at the end of your turn. Couple this with its own keyword suite of raid and piercing as well as an [On Play] that sends an opposing Digimon to the bottom of the deck, and you have an effective means of clearing the board.
Now Royal Knights has the capacity to do chip damage in addition to the combo turn, so instead of relying on building up sources under King Drasil you can start to pressure the opponent early on.
The addition of Omekamon BT20, Cool Boy BT20, and The Last Guardian compliment this behemoth perfectly. Omekamon can throw itself in front of an attacker and add itself to King Drasil’s sources, and once any of your security cards are removed you can play it all over again. The [On Play] is where Omekamon’s goofy appearance belies it’s terrifying potential. If you have one or fewer security cards when played, Omekamon can immediately digivolve into Omnimon X, and since Omekamon counts as the named card X Antibody, Omnimon X will trigger the board wipe in addition to the bottom deck ability.
While you can’t digivolve on your turn while King Drasil is active, you aren’t restricted on your opponent’s turn, so a single security check can devastate their field and cheat your scariest Digimon into play for free.
Sandbagging an Omekamon under King Drasil can signal to the opponent to play more cautiously, but what if we want to completely catch them off guard? Cool Boy, in addition to being a card draw and memory gain engine, can cheat an Omekamon from your hand into play when one of your Royal Knights leaves play on the opponent’s turn. Since Cool Boy triggers on the opponent’s turn, Omekamon can drop down out of nowhere as a surprise blocker or even digivolve into Omnimon X if your security is low enough.
All of this just because your opponent happened to have the audacity to remove one of your threats.
Cool Boy becomes even more oppressive in multiples. One of the biggest hurdles Royal Knights used to have is not drawing into the cards you need, and with a toolbox deck you need to see specific cards at specific times. The raw draw power of Cool Boy makes it trivial to find the cards you need, and with multiples, and a little bit of counting, you can use the King Drasil cost reduction and Cool Boy memory gain to choke your opponent on memory.
This also works wonders for the combo turn as each Cool Boy effectively shaves a memory off the cost of Omnimon, making it much easier to go for the combo and keep turn to attack.
The Last Guardian is the final piece of the puzzle and one of the most important if chip damage is the game plan. Not only does this dig for your Cool Boy and any Digimon with Royal Knight or X Antibody in its traits, its delay effect can keep Omnimon X around should it leave play for whatever reason. This lets you keep Omnimon X in play through the King Drasil effect at the start of your main phase so you can get more attacks in, or you can prevent it from leaving play against an opponent’s effect.
Finally, since King Drasil’s inherited effect gains memory when a Royal Knight option is played, The Last Guardian can be an effective tool for memory choking.
How to Accelerate Your Combo Game Plan With Royal Knights
Speaking of options, Royal Knights often employs Royal Knights of the Purge as a way to speed up the number of sources under King Drasil, and its delay effect has become immensely more powerful with Omnimon X. Cheating any Royal Knight into play for free with rush at the expense of not triggering its [On Play] effect is already strong, but Omnimon X can use its raid and piercing combo as Digimon removal to offset the lack of an [On Play]. As well, Omnimon X’s end of turn trigger will still go off so you can get in yet another free attack.
Most of your other Royal Knights from BT13 also have effects that will trigger when they see a Royal Knight enter play so you can use Purge to play one of these Knights from under King Drasil, play another Royal Knight for the reduced cost, and get that extra effect.
The final piece of the support package is the original Omekamon from BT13. While nowhere near as flashy as its newer counterpart, Omekamon functions as early chip damage that replaces itself by drawing a card when played. Then, should it be deleted, you can tuck a Royal Knight from your hand under King Drasil to use later. Cool Boy can also play this Omekamon when your opponent removes a Royal Knight, so it can also be a sneaky attacker when they least suspect it.
Bringing the Right Tools for the Job
From here the rest of the deck is straightforward: play Royal Knights! As a toolbox deck, you can tune the variety of effects to how you expect your metagame will be. The average Royal Knight deck is teeming with removal to answer opposing threats, so a mix of different types of removal is ideal.
Alphamon Ouryuken ACE and Jesmon GX ACE are your cheapest removal to play, with the former’s memory gain ability working overtime to enable your combo turns. Jesmon BT20 hits mid-size Digimon while making a token that blocks and can decoy removal from your red and black Digimon. Gallantmon BT13 is a flexible rush attacker that can clear threats both small and massive, whereas UlforceVeedramon BT13 is key for stripping digivolution sources and bouncing Digimon you don’t want deleted.
The rest of the Royal Knight package is filled out by Magnamon BT13 and Dynasmon BT13 to dig for your pieces, as well as Gankoomon BT13 to reuse Digimon from under King Drasil. Some versions will also run LordKnightmon BT19 which can grab an Omekamon or Magnamon from the trash as well as redirect attacks.
Royal Knights has access to a lot of large blockers to gum up the board, so for aggressive metagames you can also use Craniamon BT13 as a big invulnerable road block. Finally, Alphamon BT13 can be a trump card in the mirror match and against other large Digimon as it can prevent them from attacking for a turn.
The Biggest Threats to Watch For
While Royal Knights has received a massive power boost, it’s not unstoppable. The purple/red Imperialdramon is incredibly difficult to deal with using only deletion since they recur from their trash constantly. The Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode can also shut off playing by effects for a turn so you lose access to playing your Omekamon from under King Drasil. That one turn is often all it takes to swing the game in their favor, so using UlforceVeedramon to strip sources and shut off Dinobeemon BT20‘s partition is imperative.
As well, floodgates to shut off playing by effect or reducing cost, such as Pomumon or Psychemon, can slow down Royal Knights tremendously. When these are prevalent it’s usually recommended to use cheap answers like Marcus Damon BT13 or Porcupamon to delete them without a major loss of tempo.
Final Verdict: Why Play Royal Knights
Royal Knights is the perfect deck to play when you want something versatile and easy to customize without sacrificing power. The various tools Royal Knights has access to gives it flexibility against any metagame with the correct predictions, and the ability to combo kill out of nowhere gives it the edge against other control-heavy decks.
The sheer size of these Digimon lets you throw your weight around and use attacks as removal, and it also makes it difficult for most Digimon to survive checking your security without being deleted.
Finally, this deck is the best suited to abuse the overwhelming power of the Omnimon X/Omekamon/Cool Boy package, so if you’re looking to play the biggest, baddest Digimon from Special Booster 2.5, Royal Knights is absolutely the deck for you.
Wanna learn more about Digimon? Check out our guide to making the most of the memory gauge.
