Digimon BT21 3v3 Case Tournament Recap

By David Tram – Questionable Plays

Tamers, Welcome to Unification!

Hello all, I am David Tram and part of a Tournament Organization group called Questionable Plays. We have been hosting Digimon Tournaments at Rogue State Games in Mahwah, New Jersey for a little over a year. 

On April 26th, 2025, we held our 3v3 case tournament for BT21: World Convergence, the starting set for Unification. We decided on a 3v3 to fit in with the fact that the Digimon Card Game is officially unified as of this set. 

We had 11 teams registered equaling to 33 players. A great turnout and definitely a very fun day for all involved. We also live streamed the event on Twitch with DigiWatchTCG and RisuTheSquirrel as our commentators. The matches on stream are available on our Youtube Channel.

Before we get into the more exciting part of the event, I want to touch on the fact that everything we do at Questionable Plays is community driven. I want to express my thanks to the Digimon Community on the East coast of the United States for supporting our group to continue to bring high quality events and to ensure everyone is having fun in a safe and inviting environment.

Community Is Always First!

Now Let’s Get into the Fun… THE DATA!

BT21 introduced Appmon and additional support to our Protagonist decks (Armors, Hunters, Xros Hearts, Shinegreymon, etc). However, in light of a new set, we still saw veteran decks from prior metas holding on strong. These include the likes of Imperialdramon, Royal Knights, Gallantmon and Sakuyamon.

From our 33 Decks registered we had these standouts:

1. Sakuyamon – 5 
2. Imperialdramon (B&G) – 3
3. Gammamon – 3
4. Royal Knights – 3
5. Adventure – 2
6. Gallantmon – 2
7. Hunters – 2

The most popular deck that teams brought was none other than Sakuyamon! Sakuyamon was initially introduced in BT5 and received additional support over the years from EX sets to main sets. It wasn’t until Special Booster Ver. 2.5, where we saw Sakuyamon really shine as a top contender in the game. The new Rika and Taomon Ace allowed her to take the game by storm prior to the restriction of the EX4 Kuzuhamon to 1.

Prior to the Kuzuhamon restriction, the deck focused on a combo where you either evolve or hard play the Taomon ACE, use Digivolution Plug-In S or Yellow Scramble to free evolve into Kuzuhamon. Kuzuhamon then used another option to play the Taomon ACE from sources of the initial stack to free evolve Kuzuhamon into Shinegreymon Ruin Mode by using aforementioned Yellow Scramble.

This chain of effects can essentially blanket your opponent’s field from -5 to -10K DP for a single turn, paralyzing most decks in the game. This creates an almost unplayable board state where your opponent has to either drop a level 6 Mega that has an on play that can hopefully do something otherwise they are lose the following turn. The restriction did slow this down but Sakuyamon now has access to other powerful megas like Sakuyamon X Antibody and Chaosmon: Valdur Arm from EX8 and BT21 respectively. From a team perspective, having a strong Sakuyamon pilot will definitely helped due to how powerful of a toolbox the deck it is. 

The deck does have a weakness to effect that prevents playing digimon by effects (Gotsumon, Pillomon, Pomumon) and it is a very combo intensive deck, missing a beat is not forgiving. However, the rewards that the deck can provide is more than enough.

Right before the release of BT21 two starter decks were also released, Protector of Light and Hero of Hope. These were the introduction to the Adventure archetype to the game. The archetype focuses on the synergy and flexibility of playing cards with the Adventure trait cheaply and quickly. Fans of the first season of the Digimon Anime will also recognize the cards as they’re themed from the protagonists of the series. One of the unique attribute of these cards are their evolution lines. Because all of the Digimon in these decks have the Adventure trait, and have the alternate evolution requirement to match, you can mix and match evolutions lines as you see fit. It makes the following kinds of evolution routes possible:

Koromon > Gabumon > Ikkakumon > Angewomon > Metalgarurumon ACE

So what is special about the Adventure archetype? 

The deck is also a tool box. Since you have no real restriction on what Digimon to use, you can utilize a lot of the effects from the digimon provided with no conflicts or paying a lot of memory. Not many Digimon decks have such a wide array of interaction without having some type of conflict like being out of archetype, paying extra memory, or lack of synergy. The Adventure archetype truly allows you to have it all; free evolution, force suspend, source stripping, being sent to security, Alliance and more. BT21 also provided additional cards to Adventure which included the secret rare Tai Kamiya, and the more easily attainable Metalgreymon and Weregarurumon. Another powerful aspect of the archetype are the dual-color Tamers

These dual-color Tamers are also part of the backbone of the archetype by providing additional effects while also allowing you to hard play your Adventure trait Digimon at a reduced cost. The notable Adventure tamer is Matt Ishida & T.K. Takahashi which gives your Lv5 and higher Adventure Digimon Rush. This helps you close out games by doing a lot of damage with Alliance and finishing with a low cost to free Champion that can evolve for free into a Lv5 with Rush.

Although it is a new archetype, it is cool to see players try it out in a more competitive setting. Hopefully Bandai continues to support it and one day we can see it shine more brightly in the meta. 

Our Winners were these 4 teams!

1st Place – Two and A Half Gremlins

• Sakuyamon
• Gammamon
• Imperialdramon (B/G)

2nd Place – DGU (Digi Guard United)

• Purple Hybrid
• Xros Hearts
• Gallantmon

3rd Place – Two Scoops and a Bowl

• Armors
• Blue Value
• Royal Knights

4th Place – Oblivion Sounds Good Right Now

• Sakuyamon
• Royal Knights
• Adventure

Congratulations to our Top 4 teams and “Two and a Half Gremlins” for taking it all! All of the decks List from the event are available here. but I want to talk about 3 of these Decks that stood out to me personally.

Gammamon, Team: Two and a Half Gremlins

Gammamon was introduced in BT8 in conjunction with the airing of the anime, Digimon Ghost Game. Gammamon received a lot of support throughout the years initially trying to be a rainbow deck but settled to being a powerful Red Purple deck. In BT21, it received a lot of new cards, one of the most notable being the delay option, “The Strongest of Brothers”, and a new Hiro Amanokawa Tamer card.

The Strongest of Brothers is very powerful. It searches out your pieces and the delay is whenever you place digivolution cards under your digimon by an effect you may have a digimon evolve for free into a digimon with Gammamon in its text from your hand. Considering that Gammamon always has many effects that put cards into sources you will be activating that delay with no issues. This option is basically an in-archetype Scramble and can let your Gammamon turbo-evolve into Mega level with ease.

The new Hiro Amanokawa Tamer is also potent since it nets you a memory and a draw when you put something into sources which is easy to do since you also play the RB1 Hiro in addition to your deep pool of effects. The two together allow enough memory manipulation to forgo the Hiro that memory sets.

The spicy tech is the Omnimon X Antibody from BT20 which is the finisher if your digimon didn’t close out the game already. It also acts as an additional removal if you need it.

Blue Value, Team: Two Scoops and a Bowl

It’s indeed a blue value pile. In the Digimon Card Game, blue has been a very flexible color. No hard archetype restrictions and no limitations on what you can do. This deck is very unique as it is trying to be a “Jack of All Trades”. 

The mega line up is very interesting as it tries to cover as much as possible. Between the use of Miragegaogamon, Gallantmon X, Hexeblaumon, and Invisimon, you can definitely keep your opponents guessing. Who knows what mega will pop out after you go into your ultimate.

Huankunmon is an all-star from EX6 allowing you to replay one of your rookies to either become a floodgate again to being Unsuspend fodder. Popping out Betamon to stun an opponent’s digimon is also very powerful. The Bukamon egg is also potent since it makes Huankunmon a 2 evolution cost since it gains a memory when you play a digimon from your sources. This gets more powerful when you combine it with Mental Training to essentially print a memory. 

The finishers range from Miragegaogamon Burst Mode to replaying a lv3 with Huankunmon, evolve into Seadramon to have rush. We have indeed moved on from “Hybrid for game” after a Hammer Spark or two days.

This deck is very interesting for those who are willing to try a non-archetype deck that is just straight value.

Xros Hearts, Team: DGU (Digi Guard United) 

Returning from its BT10-11 Debut, Xros Hearts! Xros Hearts introduced the Digi-Xros mechanic where instead of paying the full cost when hard playing a digimon, you can instead reduce the play cost by putting the specified cards in order as its sources on field. As players of the Digimon Card Game, we love not paying retail for our monsters. 

Xros Hearts took a step back from the meta due to the rise of ACE Digimon easily answering them and probably not retaining any pieces afterwards. BT19, 20, and 21 however introduced a plethora of new cards to give them a nice update to their deck. Now the deck is very Taiki and Shoutmon-focused with a lot of new faces!

BT21 provided Xros Hearts with its own Delay option, Can’t Turn My Back. It allows you to place all of your Digimon cards from 1 of your Xros Heart Digimon’s sources under 1 of your tamers to play a Digimon card with the Xros Heart trait from your hand. Then, reduce the play cost by 1 for each card placed. A very powerful interaction is when you play a Digimon that has DigiXros. You can further reduce the play cost of your Xros Heart Digimon with the amount you placed under one of your tamers and following the DigiXros requirements. You still paid 2 memory for the activation of the option but having the opportunity to just drop a Mega for just 2 memory overall is potent. This increases the flexibility of plays you can perform with the deck

The new Taiki from BT21 is also amazing in its own right. It gives essentially “Blitz” to your Xros Hearts digimon that are played out. Since all of these Shoutmons give rush, you can easily clear out security with your early aggression and close out with a rushing “blitz” Shoutmon of your choice.

After 3 rounds of Swiss and a very quick 2 round Top Cut, we finished our 3v3. The players had a great time and as a tournament organizer that’s all I could ever ask for. BT21 marks our 8th event and I am excited for our 9th event which is for EX9 on July 5th, 2025. 

I love being a Tournament Organizer, because I get to give back to my community that has already given me so much. I also just love interacting with players after they play their matches to learn about how they build their decks and how they tech’d for the meta. 

The Digimon Card Game has continued to grow. No matter what, my team and I will continue to serve our Community by delivering the best events as we can for the East Coast. If you live on the East Coast, and are interested in joining one of our events, we’d love to have you! You can find some info for our future upcoming events below!

Thank you again for East for providing a platform for this event write up. 

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