BT21 – World Convergence Early Impressions

So the Digimon TCG BT21 set released around the world and it it gave major support to a ton of new decks from the past based on the different protagonists from the Digimon franchise’s long history. It also introduced a host of new decks and lots of ways to mix and match between archetypes!

I took it upon myself during the first week to dip my toe into each deck, do some basic building, trying out the new cards, and tinker with them. After all of my testing I put together a small presentation where I went over each deck, what I felt were some of their strengths and weaknesses, and my overall thoughts on them upon release in a live stream on YouTube.

I thought it would be cool to also release my separate notes here on my blog from my time building, testing, and tinkering with the new cards. Below you can find those notes. I’ll say that these are probably a mix of informative and entertaining, but only provide my own personal insights. I don’t expect (and neither should you) for these comments to be taken in a critical light to predict where any deck will land in terms of strength in the environment. Let’s be real, this was all done within the first week of the sets release, and I had to cover like 12 decks lol.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy these and if you have any questions, feel free to leave comments, and if you enjoy stuff like this, please consider becoming an official YouTube member to support more efforts like this (I’ll be honest, this was a MASSIVE undertaking given the sheer volume of decks, and my limited time. )

Adventure

I used the defensive version utilizing WarGreymon. I tried a more aggressive list in the beginning, using the MetalGarurumon, but ultimately felt more at home using a slightly more defensive style.
The combination of Tentomon + Gomamon are an INSANELY good pairing of floodgates.
Board based control using MetalGreymon/SkullGreymon/Greymon feel really nice.
Getting up those 3 tamer colors is so important, especially for unlocking the Lv4’s that let you evolve for free on play or evolve, to really jumpstart the deck.
Our Courage United + SkullGreymon is awesome, and has some cool combos. Honestly Our Courage United is just amazing.
Taichi is an awesome addition and the Promo WarGreymon being able to check 3, and have blocker and reboot is underrated imo.

Galacticmon

Ragnarok Cannon is a little harder to use than I originally thought. The Galacticmon evolve effect forces it to be 4 vemmon named cards you need to stack to use the option for free, on top of his expensive costs to evolve so it’s hard to use early on and steal wins.
The deck is buttery smooth with the new cards.
New Destromon not being able to be De-digivolved and having De-digivolve 2 essentially is NASTY.
In a game where tamer hate is so rare, the promo Destromon just shooting tamers so easily is a blessing for the deck. You can really use this deck for pure board control.
I think there is a good use case to use 1-2 old Galacticmons as well.
The threat of Ragnarok Cannon sometimes feels scarier than it’s effect, in what it will make your opponent do to prevent it.
New Snatchmon popping 4 costs is really helpful for getting Ragnarok Cannon Delay off

Appmon

The new Appmon cards themselves seem pretty cohesive
It’s always important to keep in mind that you don’t have to link everything. Sometimes just evolving in raising is fine.
Because the App Link option trashes cards, and losing a stack is so detrimental, Gossipmon is VERY useful and should be used strategically considering some searches trash cards, and you can recycle pieces if your Digimon get deleted early in the game that you might need later.
Timemon as either a Digimon or a linked card is so disruptive to opponent’s. It’s a great defensive tool.
Globemon with this effect essentially makes him a 13k / 2 checks, and his first check will always be a 15k Digimon WITHOUT FAIL.
Because of the rondo of effects the deck has access to for cheap memory and linking to literally anything, it feels really flexible.
De-Digivolve is a son of a bitch against this deck. It puts everything out of order and forces you to get rid of useful linked cards. You have to spend memory “fixing” your Digimon essentially.

Gammamon

The new cards really do help with the recursion. It takes a lot to really wipe the board.
When the opponent tries to freeze your board, Proximamon has a really unique value in stopping it.
I originally thought the new tamer was so-so, but the more I played, the more I liked the idea of not having to spend all of my Lv3’s and Lv4’s to get memory from the old Hiro Amanokawa tamer. For that reason, I actually skewed my last more toward the new card near the end of my testing.
Arcturusmon is great source fodder for your put a gammamon in text card in sources. It’s fantastic with new Siriusmon.
New Siriusmon effect to delete not being once per turn is awesome. BT10 Canoweissmon + Siriusmon + Arcturus in sources is a 4-check burst that’s relatively easy to achieve.
I didn’t start my testing with Regulusmon ACE, but after playing some test games, I saw his importance as you will often have a Lv4 on board at the end of every turn, and he gives you some way to fight back, considering the deck has little to know defensive capability outside of him to block or stop attacks.
Back in the day this was a difficult deck to pilot. The new cards have really simplified some of your lines while still making the deck feel effective and fun.

Hunters

The new Tagiru really does shine among all of the new cards for this deck. His effect basically being the combination of 2 tamers in the past and him having 2 colors really do a lot for the effects in the deck.
I quickly realized I needed to be very careful with the way I spend my pieces. Once you get to a Lv5, you not longer get those saved pieces back, so if you blow your load early, it’s hard to make a comeback.
The new Arresterdramon playing a tamer is nice.
With the speed of the game increasing quite a bit since BT12, you finally feel the pressure of having to get tamers up quickly to build up the momentum for your Digivolves.
The new Arresterdramon: Superior Mode having Piercing and Raid is actually pretty useful in a lot of situations. It gives you some good answers for removal while still letting you check the security.
With the way the game is now, stacking Digimon underneath an opponent’s Tamer is really funny. It’s a unique form of removal that still bypasses a lot of effects

ShineGreymon

Aaaah, I had just forgotten for a brief nano-second that ShineGreymon is strong. The offensive power of this deck still doesn’t miss a beat. I don’t think it really matters what deck you’re running, if you brick for a turn, this deck will kill you.
The one thing that has changed is that now there is more tamer hate and ways to stop Shine and his punchy companion Marcus.
The new Marcus and RizeGreymon were definitely the stand-out cards for me.
The new Marcus while not able to make himself a tamer on his own, can act as a buff to something on your board when played.
The RizeGreymon seems exactly what the deck needed to extend a little to get the last hit. You can hard play this for 7, and get one last hit before your turn ends, acting as something of a BT5 Blitz Omni.
You can also just use it the Alliance effect
The deck’s drawbacks are also still apparent. Bricking feels awful, and the threat of it, will likely force this to become an OTK deck, because if you lose your stack, it’s over.
I only played a few scrambles, but it feels like those cards will be important to recycle your Agumon who let your Marcus become a Digimon for free. Part of me really feels there is some OTK-esque grime to be discovered in this deck now.

Xros Heart

Okay so funny thing happened here. I built a pretty simple version of this list, and all throughout testing I COULD NOT find a lv3 to save my life. I thought, maybe my ratios were bad, but I felt they were pretty solid. I thought the deck just suffered from consistency issues. Despite that, if I had a good start, the deck was VERY POWERFUL. And once I finished testing, I went to put the deck away, and realized I had left 3 Lv3 Shoutmon’s in the deckbox lmao
I’ve said this in the past, and I’ll reiterate it here: There is no way a deck with 12 rush cards (and now 4 tamers that lets you attack when DigiXrossing) is bad.
The new cards do so much. the Shoutmon giving you cheap evolves is nice in the case of 1 cost Raptor Sparrowmon’s.
The OmniShoutmon letting you play something for cost -5 and then delete himself after attack and then save any card in trash and himself just feels all-around great.
The ShoutmonDX which functions as ZiegGreymon for DigiXros and is also searchable by the BT10 Taiki really helps with consistency.
Keep Hexeblaumon & ValdurArm far away from this deck. They might both warrant the use of X7 Superior Mode in some fashion.
You cannot keep looping attacks with the BT21 OmniShoutmon and Taiki tamer. The OmniShoutmon effect is at the end of the attack, and because during an attack, you cannot declare another attack and the game considers end of an attack as part of the attack, you can’t play another OmniShoutmon and declare another attack after it by resting a Taiki tamer. Thanks Emiya for clearing this up for me.

Veemon Armor

It’s a little scary to think they just made Magnamon faster, but it feels okay because now an 18k DP Magnamon X doesn’t feel that daunting. Just the spirit of the times I guess.
The new Veemon’s Your Turn effect to evolve at cost -1 not being once per turn is AMAZING. Combined with Trainings, you just get free Magnamon evolves over and over.
The new Davis letting you pop the armor form to re-evolve later is a welcome addition to speed up the deck.
The new Flamedramon does fall a little flat, (The Promo Flamedramon will likely be a better option), but the new Lighdramon though is a completely different story. I wasn’t a believer in my own games, but after watching other games, I saw the light. Cheap evolve + Piercing is amazing for this deck.
The new Magnamon can cover the board well enough with its DP minus effects and because it lets you unsuspend, you can loop armors as long as you have memory.
All of the increased offense with the addition of Magnamon X as big backup really puts a lot of pressure on other decks. The crazy thing is, that even outside of the Magnamon X, the deck just puts on a lot of pressure itself, so I expect MagnaX to be maybe only a 2-of in the deck.
Armor Digivolution, it’s kinda surprising this card is only common. It is a 3 cost, search 2, and then free evolve in the hand on any turn. You’re getting so much for this, especially when you compare it to something like App Link or The Strongest of Brothers

Medusamon

The only thing funny about this Clown Lizard is how fast it will give you the business. This deck really captures the true spirit of red in Digimon perfectly.
Progress seems nice as a way to really discourage ACE plays, while the new Owen Dreadnaught tamer giving you piercing makes your attacks absolute.
Medusa’s 1-2 punch of destroying the weakest Digimon, Check 2 Security, and then spawning a Petrification Token which on deletion trashes a security is fantastic.
Raging Serpentine has gotta be the most annoying card to check in security lmao, and in your hand also very handy to wipe big threats to get you back in the game or reset the board.
I didn’t originally understand how Lamiamon’s effect worked, but it has to be used in concert with the BT21 Gigimon Digi-Egg. Because the checking of the security card happens before the battle, she can evolve when the security is checked, then evolve into Medusamon, and then with Medusamon’s high DP more safely do the security battle.
WarGreymon surprisingly nice for EoT attacks to close game, or for the offense + defense to clear something and keep a blocker up.

Hero

I really feel like I only scratched the surface of this deck.
The cards have a really cool way of being native to their own lore, but then also fitting together in a very coherent way. The design here really should be applauded.
Feels like you can build this deck any number of different ways and because each of the cards while being hero are some other archetype, if you wanted you could lean in and bring some of those cards in as well.
True to Red, this deck pushes damage fast. Superior Mode Double Attack, Siriusmon Sec +1, The Taiki and Shoutmon cards essentially looping as long as you have tamers, it really feels like death by 1000 cuts.
I didn’t realize until afterward that the Starter Deck WarGreymon ACE is also a Hero trait, so I could have used him as well.
My original build cut a lot of the tamers, but the more I played, the more I recognized their actual uses, and so as I added more back in, the deck felt smoother.

Megidramon

Aaaah, I see they’re letting the EX5 guy make cards again. This deck is absolutely CRACKED.
The whole deck is about building up trash while creating 1 Meigdramon, and then blowing it up.
The new cards helping you fill up trash alongside longtime staples like Analog Youth helps to reach the threshold of 20 cards in trash quickly.
The Takato tamer seemed really difficult to use, and provides defense for a deck that doesn’t really need it. This deck is 100% offense only.
The WarGrowlmon letting you discard an opponent’s Security on deletion seems so strong, that it subsequently lowered my expectations for the value of a single security.
The new option is also a great way to cheaply get a 2nd or 3rd rush guilmon when your Megidramon destroys the entire field.
One of my personal picks for contenders for strongest new deck in BT21.

Thanks for making it to the end. There really is a lot of fun to be had in this set, and as a predominately Red player myself, I’m super happy that I have a ton of different decks to choose from. I will say as someone who tried to test them all within a week, Bandai never do this again lol. This past week was a whirlwind, and I’m tired. Looking forward to things slowing down though, and just picking a couple to hone in on and play for the next couple of months. Personally I had a lot of fun with Gammamon, Xros Heart, and the Adventure deck and am really looking forward to exploring each of them more. Which decks are you excited to try out?

Again, if you liked this kind of content, please consider supporting me via YouTube by becoming an official YouTube member, you’ll also get some other cool perks like early access to my videos, and voting on the content of videos and blog posts like this. For Ultimate-tier YouTube members I’ll also be posting all of my testing decklists within the weekend of this blog post releasing. I hope these will be a great starting point for those trying to put a deck together and don’t know where to start. Finally, if you’d like to watch my live stream that goes over each of these decks and where I answer questions from my chat, you can watch the livestream VOD. The presentation also ranks each of the decks on attributes like Offense, Defense, Speed, Removal, and Ease of Use. Happy Watching!