Part 13: Red Digimon Analysis
Oh boy...65%...still 35% to go...and it's all Arenas...more and more Arenas...
Okay. It's clear if I just show Arena after Arena I'll bore everyone to sleep. So I'm gonna use the next few updates to do a
Competitive Analysis
This is where I look at all the cards of a particular color, talk about which ones are good, what makes them good, and point out peculiar plays you can make with some of the card effects. You've seen how to play Digital Card Battle, but now you're gonna learn how to play Digital Card Battle!
So first things first: When making a new deck, how many of each card should there actually be in your deck? Agumon recommends using 3 Ultimates, 7 Champions, 10 Rookies, and 10 Options. Well, for the most part that's alright; you could not use any Ultimates if none appeal, or add more Digimon as long as you keep the same ratio of levels, but I want to make a point about Option cards: A large, LARGE number of them share effects with, or are outclassed by, certain Digimon cards.
Take, for instance, the Digivice cards, which I've mentioned raise HP by 200 and attack power by 100 if you have the correct color. Well, Monzaemon does the same thing, but with no condition and the card gives 20 DP. That's a crucial point - Digimon cards can be used as DP, Option cards cannot. DP is DP regardless of card color; this is not Magic The Gathering. And using a card as DP means you empty out your hand faster so you can draw more when your turn comes back. Options cannot do this, except for Evolution Options since you can discard them on your turn.
The more versatile a card is, the more valuable it is to you. Granted, Option cards are immune to the Jamming effect (Meaning only Misty Sevens and Cherrymon's Mist can negate them) but you see that so rarely, you don't really need to worry about that. Most support effects are usable regardless of color, so don't hesitate to put ToyAgumon in any of your decks, you already know how good the effect is. That said, don't outright IGNORE Option cards, either. Use them to compliment your deck.
So, the first color we'll look at is the one that seems to be a favorite among protagonist characters and players of all card games that include a color wheel of some form: Red. Red is characterized by high attack power and low durability, with plenty of support effects to push their power even higher. Red is pretty good by itself (if very much a glass cannon) and in dual-color decks.
Red Rookies
These three are by far the best Red Rookies. All of them have passable stats, and great support effects; Agumon and Muchomon raise one of your attacks by 300 points, and Biyomon raises all of them by 200 points. Biyomon's X effect is 1st Attack, Muchomon's is X counter, and Agumon's is O to zero. All of which have gotten me out of tough spots.
Slightly less good is Candlemon. Now, he unfortunately has the lowest HP out of all the Rookies here. While his X effect is O counter, with only 480 HP opponents will probably stick to some T or X they can boost to over 500, and his support effect only boosts one of your attacks by 200 instead of all of them like Biyomon. Usable, but not as much as the others.
D-Otamamon is an Anti-Blue card. If you are playing an anti-Blue deck, D-Otamamon is a good card for that. Otherwise, there are very few reasons to include it unless you know ahead of time what your opponent plays, and I typically don't build decks with that in mind.
These two cards are close to being junk. Both have 500 HP and no support effect at all. Goburimon has 300 power on all three of his attacks, but no X effect. Solarmon's at least a little interesting because he's one of two Rookies sporting the Crash effect. I would avoid these two, unless you're making a Crash deck.
Red Champions
Flarerizamon is one of few Champions to cost only 20 DP, and for that price, he's pretty solid - 730 HP and 550 O attack power make him a favorite among speedrunners since they can get quick damage output, and he's also nice if you're aiming to get to Ultimate as quickly as possible. The downside is he lacks an X effect and his support effect may as well not be there. Overall, a good card.
These two cost 30 DP, but they also give 20 DP if put in the DP slot rather than 10...and uh, they're not great otherwise. Aquilamon's support effect is glitched and doesn't work; even if you fix it with a patch it's not that great. Tyrannomon is crap. He was actually nerfed from the previous Digital Card Battle and is now not as good as other stuff here.
RedVegiemon, humorously, has an X attack that is literally called "Rest" and literally does nothing. No, Smash players, there's no secret tech here to make it good...but...wait...animations don't play if you do zero damage...if Rest does zero damage, can there even be an animation for it?
...sorry I asked.
His support effect throws out your DP slot for +300 attack power too. There are better ways to get the same amount of power. He also gives 20 DP.
These are the remaining 30 DP cards. Meramon is strictly an anti-Blue card, like D-Otamamon. Birdramon puts out a nice amount of damage, and her support effect is simply "Attack first". Worth considering, not a lot of Red cards do that.
Akatorimon is simply excellent. Same support effect as Biyomon, and his T attack does 460 damage, while his O attack does 400. I like these numbers a whole lot.
We move onto the 40 DP cards. Piddomon is the only one to give 20 DP, but what's interesting is the support effect: It changes your O attack power to match your HP. In Red, that's typically not that much of an increase unless you're an Ultimate and have a LOT of HP to start. Know what else has lots of HP to start? Other colors! I tried Piddomon in a Blue deck, and oh boy, was that a real treat. The HP of your average Red Digimon ranges from 500 to 900, but Blue Digimon range from 700 all the way up to 1200 on average! That can turn into a lot of damage.
Greymon and ExVeemon are probably the best Champions in the Red category. They are similar in stats, both have O counter, and both have similar support effects: +300 attack power if your level is Champion (for Greymon) or Armor (for ExVeemon), extremely common situations. ExVeemon becomes inferior if the players agree not to use Armor at all, which I won't blame you for. Meanwhile, Apemon is not far behind these two in stats, but his support only boosts attack by 200 and changes your color to Red, which might put you off if you aren't using a pure Red deck.
Monochromon has 950 HP (very high for Red) and some nice attack power, but no support effect at all. Might be worth having one in your deck. Centaurumon has about the stats Greymon did, but not as good a support: Changes your attack to O and raises your O attack power by 400. You can get that much without the attack change elsewhere. The last champion is Tankmon, and you might like this: 1,000 HP exactly, some decent attacks, and his X effect is 1st Attack, rather strange. His support is risky though; your HP drops to 10 and you get 500 attack power. Seems like something a Black card would have, huh? Run it if you're not a gambler.
Red Ultimates
Okay, these cost 30 DP to evolve to and they also give 20 DP. Stats-wise, they are similar, but you can find better. Vermillimon has no support effect, and Garudamon's is "Attack first if you chose O". (why add a condition...?) When selecting an Ultimate, you'll want to consider more than than just the support effect, but I still think you can do a lot better than these two.
Meteormon is a card a lot of players start the game with. While it's usable in the early game, it has very low HP for a Red Ultimate. Virus MetalGreymon has great stats, much better than the other three I've talked about, but the support effect is basically a "win-more" effect: +500 attack power if your level is Ultimate.
Now THIS! Paildramon is one of the really good Red Ultimates. There's something a little better, but Paildramon is great and easy to make too, it's a Special Fusion. The support effect gives 300 attack power if your color is Red - not always the best, unfortunately, but it's great in Red decks.
Phoenixmon is bizzarre. It costs 40 DP, gives 20 DP, and the support effect is okay if you REALLY want to keep the current Digimon in play even as it's about to take a KO. That isn't the weird part, though, the REALLY weird part is the X effect - Absorb HP. I'm not kidding. What a weird effect for a Phoenix. Stats are similar to Paildramon, though I think you have way better choices. Like this:
Okay. THIS is the best Red Ultimate, hands down. First, the support effect: +300 attack power, no condition. You can use that in any deck you want. He's got 1,540 HP, O counter, and an O attack that does a massive 850 damage. The biggest issue with this card is finding it, I don't even have it on my file for this LP yet. Only problem with it compared to Paildramon is that it's a 40 DP card.
Gigadramon is the first card to cost 50 DP, and it has no support effect, so it is for battle only, and it has a massive 900 O attack power, in fact ALL of its attacks do at least 500 damage. We are getting into the big leagues now. Shame Gigadramon here is outclassed by the other cards that cost 50 DP, and let me just say that 50 is a pretty big price, your Champion would have to hold out for a long while to get that far.
These both give 20 DP and cost 50 DP. WarGreymon has similar power to Gigadramon, except for its X effect, which is x3 vs. Ice because I guess Tai really is Matt's rival. It's got a crap support, though: +100 attack power for every card in your hand. Holding bricks in your hand is never good. Now, MasterTyrannomon is just epic; he may not have the stats WarGreymon does, but the support is excellent: If your color is Red, your attack power is doubled. Use it in a pure Red deck if you have to pick between this or WarGreymon.
And our final two Red Ultimates cost a whopping 60 DP. These are pretty much trophy cards. They're contenders for the top 10 Digimon in the game, but 60 DP? It's very hard to get there, and they both have lame support effects. Not recommended.
Recommended Option Cards
Dark Bone - This card turns any attack into one that absorbs HP, even O and T attacks. Considering the high attack power of Red cards, you'll absorb a LOT of HP with this one.
Premium Steak, Super Recovery Floppy - These are the best recovery cards, and of course Red consists of many glass cannons. I especially like Super Recovery Floppy, because it recovers 700 HP if your HP is lower than your opponent's - a common situation for Red.
Chain Saw - A risky card that loses some of the risk for cards with lower HP. This TRIPLES your attack power, but drops your HP to 10.
Golden Banana, Metal Banana - Your HP is already so low you can stand to pay that cost for these great cards.
Missile Pod - The cost of doubling your attack power with this is discarding your hand. If your hand is down to one card, that isn't too high a cost for this. Just keep in mind it won't work if it was the last card in your hand.
Hi-Speed Disk - Discard 1 card, opponent's attack power becomes zero. Just watch out for counters, they won't give a crap if they work.
Miracle Ruby - If you get KO'd on the turn you use Miracle Ruby, you still take the loss, but the Digimon stays in play with 1,000 HP. Phoenixmon does this too, but you get only 500 HP. You might try this if you really want to keep your Champions out longer and get to Ultimate more often - the low durability of Red doesn't make this a bad card to try once in a while.
Here's the deck I'm working with. A tad sub-par considering I don't have anything that makes RealMetalGreymon yet - I went with Paildramon instead. Speaking of whom, here's what that Special Fusion animation looks like:
The two Digimon spin around a lot and lose their textures...
...then combine together and show off their new abs.
Moving onto gameplay! Beginner City and Junk City (for some reason) have brand-new Arenas for us to mess around with.
Uh-oh, it's an Anti-Red deck!...with Yellow in it? Blue and Yellow? What part of Penguinmon suggests Yellow...?
Oh right, the part where I get my Yellow partner on the first turn. Well, I was going to show off Red cards, but no matter.
Yeah, I'm not letting that mishap with Gatomon happen again, she gets a good support effect now. Pretend this is Greymon with Paildramon support I suppose.
Penguinmon then decides to...uh...use a malfunctioning Shellmon.
...that was pathetic...
I think that's a new record for most bonuses in a single round. Anyhow, surely round 2 will provide a much harder challenge.
Fucking hell.
You can see that supercharging my partners goes very well with Dark Bone. I'm shocked it doesn't have a condition or drawback of some kind, really.
The curious thing is, none of my partners have Red armors, funny how that turned out. Anyhow, this went about as well as you can imagine.
So many bonuses again! Greymon, please, salvage this for me!
Pure Red?! This is good, glass cannon vs. glass cannon matchups are tense!
And it's becoming even more of a mirror match!
This is an example of me having to use X here because I would risk taking a KO if I did not, his O attack power would have been 580.
He basically can't do anything to stop me from absorbing the rest of his HP. Maybe I can use that Crash move after all.
...not that I need it. Come on, Greymon! Use something threatening! Anyways, you get a pack of Option cards for clearing that, let's move onto Junk City.
Thundermon? I remember his card not being good, but we'll see if the opponent is any better.
Huh...the Arena host is the first opponent.
And...oh boy. You know, I plan on making a Crash deck at some point in the LP, to show how to really make one.
Hey, check it out! Does Thundermon know how to use this effectively?!
NOPE. He should have used X. I realize I got KO'd here. I should have used X myself. Anyhow, next opponent.
Green...? What are you using Green for?
Oh, so that's why. Shame he topdecked it during the Battle Phase, though.
He had a chance to make it to Ultimate, but he would have had to live through two attacks.
This card is Beetle Diamond. It makes you attack first and gives 100 attack points. I don't think that's all that much better than Birdramon for a Red deck, but I didn't have a lot of other good Option cards.
Okay! Last opponent.
Star Force? Oh god we've found Geo Stelar's partner.
...Nope, actually, Geo Stelar is smarter than this. Come on! If he had used O, he would have killed me!
Well, I have to apologize again. These arenas are too blasted easy.
Though, it's a little amusing that SuperStarmon actually interrupts the usual "Congratulations on winning!" message with his denial.
So we head to Flame City after that, and hey, what have we here?
Remember Wormmon's arena? Now we get to do it with Veemon. And spoiler alert, we also get to do it with Hawkmon, Armadillomon, Patamon...
EXtra Arenas are EXtremely awful. Imagine fighting the same opponent three times in a row, that's basically this. I realize the armored forms, like Flamedramon, have armors, but they only have one partner card in their decks, so it doesn't always come out. But that's not even the worst part. Extra Arenas are the most highly abused post-game mechanic, because to 100% the game, you are inevitably going to play all five Extra Arenas, FIVE BLASTED TIMES.
At least these Red decks turned out to be challenging because they were so incredibly tense.
These aren't the most dangerous cards, but they're sort of usable. Of course I'm going to OHKO him with my --
MOTHERFUCKER HE TOPDECKED CIRCLE HITTER. I hate that card.
Revenge! CRASH ATTACK! It did come in handy after all!
This is, by far, one of the roughest spots I've gotten into. I have to use Hacking here in order to survive the incoming 680 damage. (His Option card forces us to both use O and raises his attack power by 100.)
Except NOW what?
Ah, of course! Power up Biyomon's X attack, which always attacks first! Wow, I have never been more thankful to be using Biyomon at that exact moment.
Okay, Flamedramon. I guess I should be scared if Veemon comes up.
...GAME! If you were going to go for a counter anyways why didn't you use the Medium Recovery Floppy?! It halves your attack in exchange for 500 HP, but that downside doesn't matter a bit for counters!
So he did use Flamedramon. Which means I can't use O to KO him in one hit, he'll see it coming and go for a counter.
Or he could spam his own O and not punish me for using Submarimon with his Anti-Ice cards. And he doesn't learn anything either, he keeps using O in this fight.
Okay, so that went poorly, but surely Raidramon can do better, at least the deck color's different!
...is that supposed to be like "Heeeeere's Johnny!"? It doesn't work in this context at all. What is with the pop culture references in this...?
Fucking hell, you're saying this in a licensed anime card battle game
Okay, so this might be scary. This is a fun card that lets an Armor Digimon jump straight to Ultimate, but you need DP and matching colors. But he has no Black Ultimates, to my knowledge.
Heeeeeeere's a KO!
So I can't use Crash here, because Muchomon can in fact counter it. That's one of the weaknesses of Crash attacks - they can still get countered, and since Crash does damage equal to the user's HP, the counter does damage equal to the user's HP.
But I guess I should have risked it, because now I get to take down ExVeemon with my last partner.
So he goes for the counter, I suppose that could have KO'd me if he got it.
And there's a scare card. It would give his O attack the exact amount of attack power to KO me. I have no choice but to use X.
And he knew I would, so he went with T, but luckily, there's nothing he can do now, none of his cards recover HP or let him attack first. One Extra Arena down, 24 remaining.
...yeah why don't you jump into that fire pit beneath us.
Next time: Blue Digimon, more Extra Arenas, and more extra Arenas!