If you've been following the 2020 Digimon anime (which I highly recommend doing) you know that Devimon, the classic spooky boy of the series, dating all the way back to the series' days as a brand of virtual pets, received a brand new mega evolution just last year. The Digimon anime has historically always served as an advertisement for the various toy (or card) lines that make up the Digimon franchise and so naturally, BT-04 Great Legend gave DanDevimon (BT4-088) a card of its own, but the magic didn't really come together until the release of DemiDevimon (P-034), one of six cards that can be found in the Great Legend Power Up packs (learn more about those here).

What is a tribal deck?

Blasphemy, I know, but tribal is an old trading card game slang originating in Magic: The Gathering. Yu-Gi-Oh players might be more familiar with the not-entirely-different term archetype. The term refers to a deck that is largely focused on one specific type of card or monster. Usually, a prerequisite to being considered a tribe is that the key card (or cards) of a deck explicitly interacts with most of the deck by name, and the deck focuses on one or more of those specific interactions. Simply putting Seraphimon, Ofanimon, and Cherubimon, each of whom shares the Three Great Angels type, into a deck wouldn't necessarily mark that deck as a tribal one. At least, not until a card or two comes around that specifically references, or interacts with the Three Great Angels type they share. Some examples we've already seen in Digimon include Taiga, or Rina Shinomiya, representing the Tyranomon, and Veemon tribes respectively. 

So, what makes a DanDevimon deck a tribal deck? 

In short, DanDevimon is a tribal deck because of the way the deck focuses on using the level 3 DemiDevimon (P-034) to set up your combos. Because of the way it calls out all cards that contain [Devimon] in their names, DemiDevimon gives it's player a way to make a plethora of cards that are otherwise (mechanically speaking at least) unrelated work together in a unique way.

But how does it work?

The basic strategy here is to use DemiDevimon as quickly, and as often as possible to get DanDevimon out onto the field.

DanDevimon's ability means that the first time that your security is removed on each of your opponent's turns, your opponent's security stack is reduced by 1. It's Important to note that the card removed from your opponent's stack is... well, removed; not activated or resolved, just removed. While this does unfortunately only work once per turn, it's important to remember that this is once per turn per copy of DanDevimon you're able to get onto the board. Even when not attacking, DanDevimon's ability makes its presence on the field is a terrifying one by forcing your opponent to think twice before taking a cheeky swing at your security stack.

Now, as far as level 6 Digimon go, even with its deterring presence, DanDevimon is still far from the most powerful Digimon we've seen. What makes this deck truly ghastly is DemiDevimon, who is able to call DanDevimon back from the trash bin as long as you have 6 more Digimon whose names include [Devimon] in there with it, allowing its player to cheat their big Digimon out onto the field.

DemiDevimon ties together all of the other Devimon cards that came before it, and there are a lot of them! Devimons, DemiDevimons, NeoDevimons, LadyDevimons, MarineDevimons, and of course DanDevimons themselves all work together and count towards helping you get this combo off the ground.

All right, I’m convinced. Let's build a deck.

I suppose the most logical way to start out is by making sure we have all of the important cards we need. That means as many DanDevimon (BT4-088), and DemiDevimon (P-034) as you can get your hands on. Then we can start willing the decklist with enough cards with [Devimon] in their names. As of BT-04, that means:
DemiDevimon (BT2-026)
DemiDevimon (P-017)
DemiDevimon (ST6-02)
Devimon (BT2-074)
Devimon (BT4-81)
Devimon (P-18)
Devimon (ST6-08)
LadyDevimon (BT3-088)
NeoDevimon (BT4-084)

Our main strategy is going to be getting our flagship, DanDevimon, onto the playing field. The way I see it, there are two prongs to this attack: Getting it done quickly, and getting it done often.

To get the job done quickly, we're going to want to reach level 6 as quickly as we can. Evolving up, rather than hard playing, is always a good way to go in this game, to ensure we're drawing as many cards as we can to fulfill our 7 [Devimon] in trash requirement. Luckily Devimon (ST6-08) helps us by both costing only 1 to evolve, and by being ever so conveniently named. Beyond our [Devimon] cards, cards like Meramon (BT3-083), Myotismon (BT2-075), and are cheap evolvers that can help get Digi-Egg from level 2 to 5 in just 3 memory while drawing 3 cards. If you find yourself hard playing cards out of necessity (hey, we all have bad draws), consider cards like Wizardmon (BT2-071) to get a level 4 out for just 4 memory, or SkullMeramon (BT3-085) who can get you one step away from DanDevimon in just 5.

To get the job done often, we're going to want to focus on two things. Firstly, filling our trash up with all of our [Devimon] cards. Impmon (BT2-068), and DemiDevimon (P-017) are great at this, so are Digimon like Gabumon (BT2-069), or Labramon (BT4-079) that let you choose particular cards to trash from your hand. Secondly, recycling our DemiDevimon (P-034) back to the field as often as possible with cards like Night Raid (BT2-108), or Anubismon (BT4-087).

Couple all this with purple's natural penchant for deleting the opponent's board until you're ready to strike (cards like Death Claw (ST6-015) or Hell's Gate (BT4-112) can help with this) and you too can be scaring children your friends off of File Island again in no time!