Return To The Digital World In The Digimon Card Game

The Digimon Card Game is now available at Zephyr Epic! 

After the reboot of the Digimon Adventure cartoon in 2020, Bandai decided to revisit the Digimon Card Game too. But this Digimon game isn’t the same as what some of you might remember from your childhoods. It’s a revamped approach to Digimon battles and it’s a ton of fun. So to get you back into the Digital World, here are the basics of playing the new version of the Digimon Card Game.

The game features two players going head to head, each with their own decks of Digimon cards. The goal is simple: eliminate your opponent’s five Security cards, then launch one last successful attack against your opponent to win the game.

Types of Cards

A player’s main deck is made up of three types of cards: Digimon cards, Option cards, and Tamer cards. Each card has a Memory cost in the top left corner, but we’ll get to Memory a little bit later. 

Digimon cards are the centrepiece of the game and are what players use for battles. Every Digimon has a Digimon Power (DP) level, and the stronger the Digimon is, the higher that DP number is. Some Digimon also have special effects that can be activated in certain scenarios. Some have an Inherited effect that they can use once they Digivolve into another Digimon, while others may have the Blocker effect, which allows them to be used for defense as well as offense.

Players can get stronger Digimon on the field through Digivolution. Now, players can skip Digivolution by playing Digimon cards straight from their hand, but this often costs significantly more Memory. Digivolution costs less, and this is done by placing a Digimon card on top of another Digimon card with the same colour, so it’s usually the best way to go, unless you’re desperate.

Tamer cards feature the human characters from the cartoons. They are played on the field like Digimon cards, only they create effects that can alter the game. Tamer cards also stay on the field (unless your opponent deletes them) and can be reactivated after the Unsuspend phase of the player’s next turn.

Option cards also have effects players can activate to change the course of the game, but they can only be played once. They can also only be played when a Digimon or Tamer card of the same colour is already on the field.

There’s also a fourth kind of card that’s used in its own deck: the Digi-Egg card. Each player has five of them and can use these cards to hatch baby Digimon.

Digimon cards are split into seven different colours, each leaning towards a different style of play. There are seven colours in total: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Purple, Black, and White. These colours determine which Digimon can Digivolve into which, as well as determining which Option cards a player may use. Knowing what colours you want to focus on is key to building your deck. 

Turn of Play

A player’s turn is made up of four phases: the Unsuspend Phase, the Draw Phase, the Breeding Phase, and the Main Phase.

In the Unsuspend Phase, any Digimon and Tamer cards in the Battle Area that were suspended by being used previously are now unsuspended and can be used again.

In the Draw Phase, the player draws one card from their deck and adds it to their hand.

In the Breeding Phase, a player may draw a Digi-Egg card and place the baby Digimon into the Breeding Area. The Breeding Area is a safe zone where a Digimon cannot be affected by what’s happening in the Battle Area, but it may also not do anything except Digivolve until it’s moved into the Battle Area. Speaking of which, a player may also use the Breeding Phase to do just that and move the Digimon into the Battle Area, but keep in mind that a player may only do ONE thing during the Breeding Phase, so choose your action carefully.

Finally, we get to the Main Phase, which is where the bulk of the action occurs. In this phase, Players can play Digimon from their hand into the Battle Area, Digivolve Digimon already played, use Option and Tamer cards, and/or use their Digimon to battle. These actions can be taken in any order and this phase lasts until you run out of Memory. Keep in mind that once a card is used, it is considered Suspended and can’t get used again until the Unsuspend Phase of your next turn.

Memory is the central resource of the game. What makes the Digimon Card Game so interesting is that this resource is pulled back and forth between the two players. A chart is placed between the two players that displays the Memory level, going from 0 to 10 on both sides. As a player plays cards on their turn, those cards cost Memory, and the player moves the Memory Counter on the chart towards zero depending on what the cost is. Once the Counter passes zero, the player’s turn is over. Players need to be mindful of where the counter is when they play their cards, because spending a lot of Memory on your turn may push the Memory Counter deep onto your opponent’s side of the chart, which would give your opponent a lot of Memory to use at the start of their turn.

Digimon Battles

To win the game, a player must delete their opponent’s five Security cards first. Security cards are similar to Prize Cards in the Pokémon TCG, in that they are five random cards from the player’s deck that are placed facedown at the beginning of the game. 

Deleting a Security card is done through an action called a Security Check, which is an attack launched by a Digimon card in the Battle Area. When this happens, the other player turns over one of their Security cards. If the flipped card is a Digimon, a battle commences. If the attacking Digimon card has a higher DP, the Security Digimon card is deleted. But if the Security Digimon care has a higher DP, then both cards are deleted. Either way, a Security card is eliminated at the end of the battle.

If the flipped card is an Option or Tamer card, then that card’s Security effect is activated. The card no longer counts towards the player’s Security Stack. 

But a player may decide on their turn that instead of attacking their opponent’s Security Stack, it might be more helpful in the long run to delete their Digimon instead. In a regular Digimon battle, the Digimon with the highest DP wins and the other is deleted. If the DP is a tie, both Digimon cards are deleted.

Once all five Security cards are deleted, a player then must launch one final (and successful) attack against their opponent. If the opposing player cannot block the attack, the game is over. 

In Conclusion

The Digimon Card Game is an exciting new take on turning the Digimon world into a fun trading card game. While the game may appear a bit complicated at first, once you understand the basics it turns into a fast-paced back-and-forth contest where victory can be won at a moment’s notice. We’re thrilled to finally offer Digimon cards at Zephyr Epic and hope that you give this great game a try!

Are there any other trading card games you’d like us to make available at Zephyr Epic? Please let us know in the comments and, as always, thanks for reading!