Part 15: Green Digimon Analysis
Oooh boy. Only two more Extra Arenas to go. We're not even done with wave 1 of these...sigh. Well I guess I'll prolong it somewhat with a
Competitive Analysis
And today, we're doing Green cards. Green...I used to like most of the Green Digimon. But a hard analysis reveals quite a bit. Green has the fastest evolution speed out of all five. No Green card gives less than 20 DP, and SOME of them give 30. Reaching Ultimate is actually very consistent with them depending on your build. Splash them in with any other color if you like.
The problem is that Green's raw stats are just barely on par with most Red cards, and they have really, REALLY bad support. A good chunk of them are made to be anti-Black cards, and another chunk have absolutely no effect at all, or effects inferior to other cards. Pure Green decks are very hard to make, and lucky me, I get to make one after my analysis, so I suppose we should get right to it.
Green Rookies
Okay. These three. They all give 30 DP and their stats are actually pretty good, Palmon's X effect is Absorb HP, and Salamon has T Counter, but Palmon and Tentomon have no support effect, and Salamon just changes your color to Green and you draw 1 card. Two or three of one of these three is okay for your deck.
Elecmon is strictly an anti-Blue card. Surprised to see one in the Green category? His support effect is to raise your attack power by 300 when you're up against a Blue Digimon. I can think of several other cards that do this without the condition, so I'd honestly pass him over since he only gives 20 DP.
Aaah, Gotsumon. I've been waiting to talk about him. Gotsumon only gives 20 DP, and the stats are lower than the other Rookies, but the support effect is fantastic: If your HP is higher than your opponent's, your attack power is doubled. You'll be evolving fast with Green, and I've already mentioned he's fantastic in Blue as well. You might even try him in other decks, if you generally have high HP.
Here we have a somewhat interesting card. 20 DP, okay stats, the Jamming effect, and a support effect that reduces the attack of both players by 200. A risky effect, but not the worst in the world. Kunemon's pretty alright.
Green Champions
Uh...okay let's get one thing out of the way here. You've got a Green Champion that costs 20 DP. But it's a GREEN card. DP is never an issue with Green. That said, Yanmamon gets the job done as well as he can. No support effect, but he's got 1st Attack as his X effect, and...never use this.
Out of all Champions that cost 30 DP, these three will give you 30 DP. They're about even stat-wise. Ninjamon's support effect is a simple "Attack first" and Togemon's is just +100 attack power. They are fairly decent. J-Mojyamon's support effect is to give you +300 attack points if your level is Rookie. Green decks evolve so fast that this is rarely useful, but if your deck contains ONLY Rookies...............just use an Attack Chip. Really.
Gatomon has stats about on par with the above, but the support effect is intriguing: +300 attack power if your HP is less than 500. If you find your HP dropping that low often, this card is a fine inclusion, and I have gotten into that situation; 500 is an okay range. Beats the condition on J-Mojyamon, anyhow.
Now this guy, I like. +200 attack is the support effect, no condition or anything, stats are pretty alright. No X effect, however.
Another weird card. Stats are about on par with Drimogemon, and he has the Jamming effect. Support effect: Change opponent's color to Green. Might work in an anti-Green deck, or if you really want a Jamming card.
Oh geez. This is a completely lame card. The stats are really not that great, they're like a lame Blue card's stats. And the support effect is just risky. It's the ONLY card to double your opponent's HP, and what do you get in return? Their attack power is reduced to zero. Unless you're playing some kind of wacky strategy involving building up your enemy only to make them the victim of the Hacking card--
...oh my GOD
Now for the 40 DP cards. These three are strictly anti-Black cards. Use only in that kind of deck.
Veedramon's stats are nothing to sneeze at, in fact he could probably rival Greymon. No counterattack, though, and the support effect requires you to be at Ultimate level for it to work. If you make it to Ultimate, you almost don't need support at all. Maybe the condition is the trade-off for Veedramon's stats.
Another strange support effect to go with decent stats: +500 attack power - the highest so far - IF your level is lower than your opponent's. In a Green deck you can't expect that to be the case often, but this is still highly useful and HIGHLY splashable in other decks. Black and Yellow are extremely slow to evolve, and for you Armor users, Armor counts as being a lower level than Champion.
Okay, THIS is the rival to Greymon, with high stats and O counter for the X effect, but no support effect. You want a beatstick, you've got it.
Similar stats to Leomon, but the support effect is to raise your HP and attack power by 100. Decent enough, preferable to something like Togemon in my opinion.
Similar to Kabuterimon, but slightly inferior, unfortunately. Still no support effect. Pick either him or Kabuterimon.
Green Ultimates
MegaKabuterimon is the first of the two (yeah, two, I don't get it) 30 DP, Green Ultimates. With stats rivaling MetalGreymon and an O counter, he makes for a really great Ultimate beatstick. He has no support effect and gives 20 DP, but who cares, you get to this guy so quickly that he can put out damage fast enough. Definitely a good card to consider in a Green deck.
Lillymon is the other 30 DP Green Ultimate, and she gives 30 DP. A deck consisting of nothing but 30 DP Green cards can get to Lillymon at the speed of light, and there is at least one opponent who plays that way. Lillymon's stats are lower than MegaKabuterimon's in all respects, and instead of a counterattack, her X effect is Absorb HP. The trade-off is her support effect raises HP by 200. Not a bad card.
These two cost 40 DP and are exclusively for anti-Black decks. Angewomon gives 30 DP if you're curious.
Wow, his attack is called "Top Gun" even in English? Please tell me Gatomon has told Aquilamon to be her wingman anytime. Sylphymon's got some great stats; none of his attacks have lower than 400 damage, and his O attack does just under 700. That's looking good. The support effect is just "Attack first if opponent's color is not Green" which is, well. Uneccessary condition. Nice card overall.
There's a reason they call him "Hercules"Kabuterimon. For 40 DP, you get 1,700 HP, and an O attack that does 790 damage, the highest we've seen on a Green Ultimate yet. His X effect is 1st Attack if that interests you, and other than not having a support effect (because insects are bad supporters I guess) there's little I can say to convince you not to use this guy.
AeroVeedramon is unfortunately inferior, however. His HP and stats are not on par with other Green Ultimates, and his support effect is the same as Veedramon's. So we have an Ultimate whose support effect condition...is being an Ultimate. Yeah.
Piximon's a bit of a throwaway card. Stats aren't on par with AeroVeedramon, no X effect, and his support effect halves your attack but negates Digimon support. However, he gives 30 DP and that's really all the positive points I can think of.
Rosemon's like a slightly upgraded Lillymon, and it's really not much of an upgrade, unfortunately. Her support effect is to make your attack absorb HP if and only IF your opponent has more than 1,000 HP. It's too rare to draw Rosemon while in that spot, and really, Shining Mane at least cuts enemy HP in half in that same situation. Well, at least she gives 30 DP.
The last three Ultimates cost 50 DP. Unfortunately, Gatomon's original Mega form doesn't justify that price too well, though I'll give her credit for having 200 more HP than HerculesKabuterimon. The support effect makes any of your attacks counter X attacks. Fine, if you think a Crash attack is coming, go for it.
Seraphimon is another anti-Black card. I'll give him credit for having the strongest O attack out of all Green Digimon, but that's all he's getting.
This is Valkyrimon, Sylphymon's Mega form, and he's...he's GOOD. HP and attack stats aren't as good as Magnadramon's, but they'll do nicely, and the support effect? The same as Garurumon's. Now that's good to have, if it weren't so hard to go and collect four copies of this I would use it quite often.
Recommended Options
Dark Lord's Cape - For the same reason it was recommended in Blue.
Warp Digivolve - This is one of the few decks I'll explicitly point out an Evolution Option for, but in this case, skipping from Rookie to Ultimate can turn into a viable strategy due to Green's evolution speed.
Golden Banana - Same reason I recommend it in Blue.
Whistle - Reduces your opponent's attack to zero if your level is higher, and in Green decks, usually it is.
Here's the deck we're taking to the next two Extra Arenas. It's woefully generic, but you work with what you've got. I threw in Special Digivolve just in case I'm short on DP, which can still happen once or twice.
Patamon starts his Extra Arena with a gimmick deck: None of his Digimon are above Rookie level.
What a coincidence, I'm starting with an Ultimate!
What could possibly be dangerous about starting like this?
Well, other than the fact that using only the lowest level of Digimon means Hacking and some other cards always work, it also guarantees the Level Balancer card always works. It and two other cards raise your attack power by 400 if your Digimon is the correct level, Rookie in this case. I've never used them because I can do the same thing with cards whose confitions are more commonly met naturally.
Still, it's not too bad a strategy.
I don't think I could have avoided that. At least I can use Armor now.
He had good option cards, but I straight-up overpowered him as usual.
We already fought Angemon, so here's a glimpse at Patamon's second Armor instead. Baronmon is a Red Armor with enough attack power to rival Flamedramon, but no natural counterattack and you have to wait quite awhile to get him - the end of this update, as a matter of fact.
Baronmon's deck adds destructive firepower to quick evolutions.
But not quick enough, apparently.
Ouch. Nothing I could do there, either.
He made a mistake here: Using his X attack would have KO'd me because that Option card makes him attack first. Crash usage 101.
Finally, we face Pegasusmon. We've seen him before, Angemon basically used a similar deck.
Hey wait, why is the card floating in front of him? Can't he hold it with his hooves? He's a Pegasus, not a Unicorn.
......anybody want me to build a pony theme deck?
Yep, it's Angemon's deck alright.
Using the cards I've got to make a working Green deck becomes a bit of a struggle here. Only one way to solve that issue.
Battle of the Armors! Let's see him stand up to--
ROCKING Stone?!
It's called "ROSETTA Stone". Were they trying to avoid using band names as attack names?
So we beat him down, we get a lame prize pack again, etc. Next Arena, please!
So of course it's Gatomon's Extra Arena--
...wait. The portrait is different!...and why isn't it Salamon?
So they decided not to make a Salamon portrait but drew a new graphic for Gatomon anyways. I'm puzzled.
Ahaha I bet she was expecting to use this until I used an Armor.
You missed nothing. Standard anti-Black deck.
Hey, I've got a riddle for you. How can this fight be any harder than the last?
Quite the stumper, eh?
The answer to that...
...is that there was no answer. Good effort for putting the Elecmon card out, though.
This is Gatomon's second Armor, and the one I've been looking forward to getting the entire playthrough. We'll find out at the end of the update why it's a really good Armor.
That Coral Charm means I probably shouldn't use Submarimon, so here we go again.
Dark Bone continues to be overpowered.
My draws are unlucky, but raw stats will get me through this one.
Here's the prize pack I got. Amazing, huh?
Okay now that wave 1 of the Extra Arenas is overwith, let's head back to Beginner City. Hey look, the Arena's closed, wonder what that means?
WarGreymon's here and he wants us to challenge his "new" Arena.
By "new" he means "Change only the last opponent and make the player do the entire thing again anyways". Which is unfortunately a really awful trend this game's post-game exhibits, especially in the Extra Arenas.
Well, I got to HerculesKabuterimon one time, at least.
Even Greymon is still here, which means he evolved to WarGreymon to tell us the Arena is open, and then switched BACK to Greymon to fight us...
...and then switches back to WarGreymon AGAIN after losing.
Wow. That's so wrong. Where do I start.
Well, there ARE, but I'm certainly not using any.
This fight started out looking seriously easy, I mean when Solarmon Crashes for a whopping 60 damage it's not a good start.
Then he got to Apemon.
Jamming came in handy here to stop him from outright KOing Shadramon. But it just delays him one whole turn anyways.
Not going for the O attack here just because he might have counterattacked was a mistake here, and I'm in serious danger now.
Dangerously low health and I need to get two KOs right away, or else. Well isn't this a surprise, I wasn't expecting the AI to wake up the instant it got its hands on its favorite deck type. I used Gatomon here to guarantee a KO.
Probably looks hopeless right about now, huh?
Good thing I saved that Hacking card! Man, that card has saved my life on dozens of occasions now.
The prize pack stank, but that's not the real reward.
Check in with Tai for what we've all been waiting for...
YES! Now we can use Tylomon!
Tylomon is one of the few Armors to come with its own "x3 vs Element" X effect. Normally, equipping a Digi-Part to gain that effect would cost you 200 points of X attack power, but Tylomon already has it for no penalty, so what you can do is boost the X attack's power with more Digi-Parts, or if you're insane, resetting until Gatomon gets boosts in X attack power when she ranks up. Tylomon can easily do four figures of damage to Red Digimon, and I know the perfect test subject.
The long-awaited battle with the cast of Digimon Adventure commences.
Remember, support effects resolve BEFORE the X effect, so this card could boost the damage all the way up to 2,400! Hell, imagine using a custom support effect to make attack power match your HP, or even Grand Sevens if you want. If Tylomon's HP is sufficiently high, you could overkill ANYTHING.
That Option card Tai used is Shogun's Order, which reduces both players to zero attack power. However, my Option card boosted my attack power AFTER it was reduced. Convenient...maybe I should do more testing on the order effects resolve in.
BUT, never, EVER attempt this on Digimon with X counter, for obvious reasons.
That's more like it! I had to do over 2,000 at least one time. Tylomon is one of the most fun Armors to play around with...
...and it just so happens there are plenty of opponents in the next town over ready for us to slaughter with it. That and a Black deck.