A new year is upon us and with it, the latest EX Digimon set, Chain of Liberation. Like most EX sets, Chain of Liberation is a smaller set with a central theme. While EX05 Animal Coliseum focused on the dark animal archetype and EX06 Infernal Ascension focused on angels and demons, Chain of Liberation is largely focused on various Digimon “families” showcased in the ongoing Liberator story. We saw a little of this concept with the Nature Spirits family in EX07 Liberator, and this time they’ve not only expanded on that family, but introduced the Nightmare Soldiers and Deep Savers families as well.
Brand New Archetypes to Explore in Chain of Liberation
The Nightmare Soldiers family is a selection of demonic and undead Digimon culminating in the heavy hitters Piedmon ACE and Boltboutamon, whereas the Deep Savers are aquatic Digimon that build into Metalseadramon ACE and Aegisdramon. These two families both feature Digimon of multiple colors, [When digivolving] effects that spit out smaller bodies, and the ability to DNA digivolve into a level 7 that clears the opponent’s board and plays even more bodies. The name of the game is going wide and these archetypes do it efficiently.
The biggest drawback to these decks is that they rely on having cards from the same family, so there isn’t a lot of room for customization. Conversely, this can also be an advantage for getting into the game since you can build these entire decks from opening just the one set.
Rounding out the families theme, EX08 has additional support for the Nature Spirits in the Tentomon line culminating in Herculeskabuterimon ACE. The deck so far is tight on space, but the DP boosts these cards provide, while more suited for the TyrantKabuterimon deck, are needed for keeping its boss Digimon alive in combat since they don’t have much protection otherwise.
As well, EX08 also introduces new options that tuck themselves into your security stack when used and provide benefits to each of your Digimon with the corresponding family trait. Having one of these active can protect your board if you’re playing Deep Savers or Nightmare Soldiers, or give Nature Spirits some much needed aggression. These cards operate in a powerful design space that we’ve only just started seeing with Royal Base, so these are must-haves for anyone interested in playing these decks.
New Tech for Old Decks
EX sets often have new cards to rejuvenate older archetypes that have fallen off the competitive radar. Chain of Liberation has support for the fan favorite Tyrannomon line that has wallowed in Tier 3 and lower since the beginning of the game. Dinomon, Ryutaro Williams, and the red Tyrannomon cards give the deck some much needed aggression to help it keep up with faster decks, and the green Tyrannomon cards help prevent the opponent from launching a counterattack by suspending and locking down key pieces. These new additions have breathed some new life into the deck already in the Japanese metagame, so there’s no doubt that dinosaur fans will have something to look forward to in this set.
Another deck that’s getting a powerup is the often forgotten Rock/Mineral deck from way back in BT4. Nearly every black card in this set is support for the archetype, and these update the oft-maligned Digi-burst mechanic by introducing the new Fragment ability. By trashing some of your digivolution sources, you can prevent your Digimon from being deleted. While losing your sources is usually a drawback, Pyramidimon and the support tamer Close can recycle your sources so you can continuously fragment your Digimon so you always maintain board presence. Furthermore, several of the lower level sources trigger effects when they’re trashed so you get value on top of preserving your boss Digimon.
Finally, Justimon gets a significant boost with Justimon X-Antibody. Justimon focuses on changing your Justimon into different “arms” and stacking the digivolving effects for each tamer you control. Finishing off a stack with Justimon X’s mishmash of aggressive keywords is the perfect capping after several DP boosts. While the deck doesn’t really hit its stride until the next Special Release set that has the rest of BT19, including a Justimon ACE, a new support tamer, and a suite of support options, this card is necessary for anyone looking to pick up the deck in the future.
The Must-Have Secret Rares in Chain of Liberation
The secret rares in Chain of Liberation are no joke. Gallantmon X and MedievalGallantmon have put up incredible results in Japan already largely due to how splashable they are. Gallantmon X is usually seen as the top end for the Gallantmon deck, but by virtue of being three colors it can fit in any red, blue, or yellow deck. Gallantmon X has the perfect combination of DP boost, removal, and security burn that makes it an offensive menace, and making itself immune to Digimon effects on the opponent’s turn is the icing on the cake. Gallantmon has been an on-again, off-again meta deck, but looking ahead at the overwhelming presence in Japanese tournament results means this is the real deal.
On the other hand, MedievalGallantmon has been seeing extensive Japanese tournament play due to it fitting into nearly every deck out there. This feels akin to DeathXmon‘s popularity over the years as a big dumb body you can just toss in and wreak havoc. As long as you’re able to put two bodies into play, as most decks are wont to do, you can play MedievalGallantmon for its reduced cost.
Once a turn on each turn, whenever a Digimon is played, you can suspend a Digimon and then delete a Digimon with 8000DP or less. For every suspended Digimon you get to add 3000DP to this effect, so if you played it for its reduced cost that adds a minimum 9000DP to what you can target. As of this date there are no Digimon with a printed DP higher than 16000, so this just deletes any Digimon at its weakest.
Triggering this on the opponent’s turn can also be used to suspend a Digimon before they can attack so you can control the flow of combat. This is a highly flexible card that provides consistent value to any deck that runs it, so this is my call for the most important card to pick up in the set.
Is Chain of Liberation Worth Buying?
Chain of Liberation offers a little bit of something for everyone. New players can build entire decks out of just this set, and enfranchised players have tons of new tools to play with in their existing decks. While not as fundamentally broken as previous EX sets like Animal Coliseum, Chain of Liberation has a power level that feels appropriate for an in-between set. The new archetypes are fun with unique play patterns, and the secret rares are open-ended enough that they can bring most lower tier decks back into metagame relevancy, so this is definitely a set to pick up.
Want more Digimon content? Check out our other articles here. Or watch our 2025 release calendar to know when new expansions are coming out.
