Budget Decks: D-Brigade

Here's the elevator pitch for this deck: What could be cooler than little camo-clad dinosaurs fighting? When BT4 (Great Legends) was getting ready to drop, one of my friends explained the idea of this deck to me and showed me the cards involved. It took about one game of playing it for me to love it. It's fast, fun, and can be surprisingly effective. It's also a deck that is relatively inexpensive to build, quick to learn, and can definitely steal games. It's not going to beat the big-name decks too often, but it has its moments to shine.

I regularly run much more "meta" decks if I'm competing at locals, but I'll admit right away that when playing casuals, this is my favorite deck.

General Strategy:

D-Brigade decks revolve around playing Digimon with D-Brigade type (most notably Commandramon) and then using their abilities to drop more D-Brigade cards from your deck. The idea is to put a few cards down and then flood the field from there, eventually allowing you to swarm your opponent's security and swing for the game, potentially in one or two turns. There are currently three different Commandramon cards legal for play outside of Japan, with a fourth card on the way in BT5. In addition to the Commandramon cards, there are also a level 4, a level 5, and a level 6 D-Brigade type card. When playing this deck, you want to drop a Commandramon early to start the chain. The best card to do this with is BT4-063, which has an ability wherein you can scout the top three cards of your deck and play a Commandramon card (of any number) without paying its cost. The beauty of this ability is that it can trigger in a number of ways. If your opponent drops its unfortunately low DP down to 0, the ability triggers due to deletion. If you decide to swing early on turn 2 and unsurprisingly lose the security battle, the ability triggers. If you somehow survive that security check and your opponent swings at your suspended Commandramon on their turn, the ability also triggers. There are other, more complex ways, but these are the most common scenarios. 

 

The level 5 D-Brigade card (Tankdramon, BT4-071) has a similar ability. If you have this card on the field and any of your D-Brigade type cards are deleted you may scout the top two cards of your deck and play a Commandramon from there without paying its cost. The best part of this ability is that if the card deleted was the aforementioned BT4-063 Commandramon, you get to trigger both abilities, and search the top of your deck twice. This makes that sacrificial security check sound a lot better when you can potentially lose on Commandramon and drop two more in its place. By firing off combos like this, its not uncommon to drain your opponent's security and be able to swing for the game by turn 4, using mostly rookies. This deck runs very similar to a purple-style deck in Digimon, where the main idea is to keep having cards come back from "the grave" to flood the field, and it works very well in black.

Darkdramon is the level 6 D-Brigade card, and its ability is both fun and efficient. While it has a 3 cost digivolution option, it can be hard played for 13. However, if you have any D-Brigade cards in your discard pile, you can place up to five of them on top of your deck (in any order) and reduce his play cost by 2 for each card. In other words, if you have five Commandramon (or other D-Brigade) cards, you can drop Darkdramon, place those five on top of your deck, and it'll only cost you 3 memory! Not only do you get a level 6 out quickly, you help replenish your deck and serve up more D-Brigade cards to drop. As if this wasn't good enough, Darkdramon also has the Rush keyword, which allows it to attack the same turn it was played. Talk about a sneak attack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Key Cards:

While the core of the deck is Digimon with D-Brigade as their type, there are some other key components that this deck uses to run smoothly. These are the cards it needs to run, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of room for some flavor like a spicy tech card or two.

For starters, you're obviously going to want to run 4 copies of each Commandramon (BT3-059, BT4-063, and ST5-05), as well as the other level D-Brigade cards (Sealsdramon BT4-067, Tankdramon BT4-071, and Darkdramon BT4-074). It may be up to the user, but the two other cards I would consider to be essential to this deck are Izzy Izumi (BT4-096) and Dark Roar (BT4-110). Izzy is crucial to making sure you have Commandramon stacked on top of your deck when triggering the abilities, and also serves as a "memory tamer," which are invaluable when trying to avoid being memory choked. Dark Roar is an option card that provides a little bit of control and a safety net for the deck, allowing you to delete an opponent's Digimon with a play cost of 3, or more depending on the number of D-Brigade cards you have in play.

 

If you run 4 copies of each D-Brigade Digimon card as well as 3 copies each of Dark Roar and Izzy Izumi, your deck will only have 30 cards, which leaves plenty of space for personal preferences and tech cards to try out. Black as a color in Digimon has plenty of choices that can run in any deck, so have fun making it your own! Find something that compliments the little dino soldiers in your favorite way and try it out until it fits just right. If you're still looking for some unique combo cards, here's some help.

 

 

 

Tech Cards:

While everyone's mileage with this deck will vary, these are some cards that I've found great success with and have proven to be pleasant surprises when playing.

 

1. Kimeramon BT2-077

This card has given me the best and worst of itself when playing. I'll start with the bad: It kills Izzy's extra ability for the free memory. If that's something you can live with, it's an amazing and sneaky addition to this deck. Kimeramon is a purple level 5 Digimon that you're only going to be able to hard-play (paying the full 7 cost to drop it onto your field). It's not the strongest attacker, but when playing it you can delete one of your digimon to delete an opponent's Digimon with a level of 5 or less. If you've been paying attention, you know why this ability is great in D-Brigade. Imagine your opponent has something you really need to get rid of, like a blocker, and low-level attacker with jamming, or one of D-Brigade's worst nightmares: Shakkoumon. You can delete one of your Commandramon (ideally the BT4 version) and instantly that card that was giving you so much trouble goes poof! It's gone! And if you were able to trigger Commandramon or Tankdramon's abilities, you can now instantly replace that Commandramon with one or more of its brethren.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Millenniummon (BT2-083)

This feels like a somewhat obvious inclusion, as most decks have some sort of level 7. Unlike Omnimon or Chaosmon, however, D-Brigade's endgame doesn't rely on this card. It's simply a powerful tool to drop if you've already got a Darkdramon or other level 6 on the field. It can be a powerful removal tool and a fierce attacker. Its secondary ability also keeps it from being deleted completely if it has any digivolution sources under it. I've used this card a handful of times while playing D-Brigade and it definitely doesn't feel as if it's strictly necessary, but when it does come out its a huge benefit and it changes the field drastically for the user. Paired with a card like Final Zubagon Punch, Millenniummon can be absolutely lethal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Tsumemon (BT2-006)

This can be considered a tech card, filler, or even the main dish when it comes to your Digitama. The obviously level 2 for this deck is Missimon, while has an inheritable ability that gives the Digimon +1000 DP if it has D-Brigade in its type. That is certainly going to trigger on almost any Digimon you play, but considering that the majority or all of your level 3's are going to be Commandramon, Tsumemon can do the same just as Missimon, just better. If it's under a Commandramon and you have another Commandramon (of any type) on the field, you get +2000 DP. This would also trigger for multiple Sealsdramon, Tankdramon, etc. While it's not quite as consistent, it's just slightly more powerful, and I feel its the better option most of the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there you have it! A quick, hard-hitting budget deck. It likely won't be topping any big tournaments but it's always a fun inclusion in your deckbox for casual or local play. Going forward there are sure to be more cards to throw into this deck to make its combos even faster and exciting.