The Strongest Brothers: A Gammamon Event Report

Hey folks, East here, and this past weekend I had the privilege of joining the New Digi Cup, a community event held in Japan run by Koba, one of the long running TO’s for the Digimon Card Game in Japan. The event featured a 90-person 1v1 event and a 60-team (180-person) 3v3 event. While I had originally decided to only join the 3v3 event with some friends visiting from Korea, at the very last minute (right before midnight lol) I decided to also sign-up for the 1v1, and just have a bit of fun.

While the 3v3, I had decided to be somewhat competitive, and run with Jesmon, for the 1v1 I wanted to just have fun and play with a deck I’ve really been enjoying lately, which was Gammamon. Ghost Game’s protagonist initially got love when the series was airing over here in Japan, but that was years ago, and it’s only recently gotten a few new tools to play with thanks to cards from the BT21, BT22, and EX10 set. The deck features a little Dinorsaur who in Megaman fashion, can evolve into Multiple Lv4’s or 5’s with differing effects. It also plays on the fact that as you evolve, you can slot more cards in your inheritance for additional bonuses, as well as more inheritance effects.

So without further ado, here is the deck, if you’re interested, below are my thoughts and building strategy when putting it together.

Strategy

With the current popularity of decks like Hudiemon and Jesmon, I needed to put together a deck that has some speed, but I wanted to allow for some counter play against those aforementioned decks as well. The older version of Gammamon had you build up to a level 6 Siriusmon who could make 2 checks while deleting threats on board, but honestly I felt this was not fast enough. Instead I used the new EX10 Regulusmon as the “boss monster” for the deck. His ability to delete while also attacking without suspending seems really good, especially considering that last effect happens at End of Turn, as long as he has at least 5 sources. Utilizing cards like the BT21 Hiro Amanokawa, EX10 GulusGammamon, and The Strongest of Brothers option card, I had multiple ways to go into Regulusmon at some memory discount.

Still however, I felt like this wasn’t enough, I would only get 2 checks under the best case scenario, so in addition I added in the P-062 Hiro Amanokawa tamer card for Security Attack +1. I think this tamer is a bit underrated, giving any attacking Digimon who has a Gammamon in it’s sources Sec +1. This means at the top end, you can actually go out of archetype as long as your still have a Gammamon in sources and still make big swings. But I digress. Hiro with the additional security check meant that if I was able to use it with Regulusmon meant that I was swinging for 4 checks. This felt good. It also meant that any of my level 4 Digimon could start to check for 2 as well, and with the decks natural ability to gain DP from inheritance or effects, they would be more likely to survive the swing.

With that core in mind, I needed to make sure I included at least 5 differently named cards so that in a pinch, I could simply drop a Regulusmon and immediately be able to delete a Digimon and attack, as per his effect. This meant adding in KausGammaon, BetelGamamon, and WezenGammamon (all cards who names I cannot pronounce correctly in real life lol), and I needed a way to get down tamers very quickly. This is what prompted the use of the purple LM06 Gammamon. Between BetelGammamon and purple Gammamon I felt it was adequate, but I really wanted to push the tamer search and play-ability of the deck so I added in 2 copies of the new promo card, “Digital Gate Open”, with this, I could search out a Tamer and any Digimon in the deck, and then on later turns, for free, simply play a Hiro Tamer to get Sec +1

Outside of all of this, the rest of the deck really just feels like nice to haves

• BT21 Gammamon: Evo directly into Siriusmon in a pinch (Only 2 or less security)
• BT21 Canoweissmon: Simple DP based deletion, this seems good especially since BT21 GulusGammamon removal is level-based. In cases where Jesmon plays the Ato, Rene, Por token (who does not have a level), I can use Canoweiss to remove it on my quest to erase their board. Also the inheritance to survive on board is nice.
• LM Bokomon: Deeper search while acting as protection.
• BT21 Regulusmon: Forced attacks to put the opponent in awkward positions. If he himself is taken out, I can simply play a Canoweiss or level 4 card. This seemed in theory useful against Hudie, if they left him on board, I could force him to attack, and because of Collision, either trade, or die on their attack, and immediately drop a BT21 GulusGammamon to take out Hudiemon.
• RB1 Arcturusmon: Not much stuff can slot him in (Only BT21 Lv5’s and up). I thought it might be useful to evo him and leave him on board as a way to threaten Proximamon, or actually slot him in when evolving into a Siriusmon as a way to take out an extra security.

The Matches

Round 1 – vs. DM Linkz Dragons

He moved Digimon into the battlefield as often as possible. I assume as a way to build up trash in order to go into Veggiemon + Vademon, but I think maybe he did it a little too often. There was one turn I thought he would stay back in raising with his Level 4 with trained sources, but he promoted it. BT21 GulusGammamon, Canoweissmon, and EX10 Regulusmon were able to clear board every single turn, and by the time he actually was able to get out a Volcanicdramon, the match was already over. I also found my Sec +1 tamer pretty quickly and Regulusmon did his job. 💥💥💥💥

Round 2 – vs. Alphamon

This utilized a mix of all the best X-Antibody black cards like DexDoruga and Chronicle to build a strong Alphamon Ouryuken ACE that could win the game. I took the early lead with 3 checks, and he managed to build an Alphamon with +3000 DP (14,000 Total for the bean counters out there) that allowed him to recover. I realized that during one of his searches he was running Mega Digimon Assembly, but he ended up bottom decking it. So when he got the Alphamon up and didn’t have the memory to play the option (not sure if he had it in his hand or not) I knew that if I could remove the Alphamon, that would decide the game (He had nothing in raising). I dropped a WezenGammamon, used it’s effects to slot sources (Giving me +3000 DP and blocker), and then used the delay effect of “The Strongest Brothers” to go into EX10 Regulusmon, who let me slot in a Gammamon from trash with a +2000 DP Inheritance effect which gave me enough DP get rid of Alphamon. After that he had no way to rebuild quickly and I won the turn after.

Round 3 – vs. Jesmon

He did quite a bit of searching during the game, I assume looking for a level 5 (he played 3 Sistermon Gyms over the course of the match). He eventually managed to build up his Jesmon (but without Gankooomon) and he did his patented 3 checks. With his big board, I played down Crimson Blaze, to get rid of basically everything but Jesmon (at a nice discount, might I add 😁) and then used Strongest Brothers delay to get my Regulusmon up and knockdown his Jesmon. Without enough memory or the ability to play Digimon by effects, there wasn’t much he could do on his following turn. I won the turn after.

Round 4 – vs. Jesmon

Tragedy incoming. I could not find a Level 3 for 3 turns. Without anything to build up with in raising, my only other choice was to hard drop Level 4’s. Luckily, the BT22 KausGammamon and WezenGammamon are both 4 cost, so I didn’t give away too much memory. When I finally did end up getting a search (Bokomon), it unfortunately didn’t net me the pieces I needed. I tried to preemptively play a Crimson Blaze (putting him at 3) to stop him from going ham, but he managed to find victory anyway in the following turn. Sometimes, you just don’t have a good hand to start and it snowballs. That’s card games tbh. Happens to the best of us. 😔

Round 5 – vs. Royal Knights

I know I needed to be aggressive in this match, and I felt like I had the tools and had built the deck in a way that could let me do it. UNNNNNFORTUNATELY, no level 3 in my opening hand, saw me hard playing KausGammamon for the first 2 turns. I tried to build something big (BT21 Siriusmon) to maybe get over the inevitable BT20 Jesmon to set up for a win the turn after, but he just dropped a BT13 Omnimon instead and used it’s effect to delete my Siriusmon. I really struggled to stabilize, and it gave him the time to close the game out 2 turns later. I felt like a better start would have really helped to build good momentum, but after those first 2 turns, I was so deflated.

Closing Thoughts

I finished 3-2 in 25th place out of 90. I think I played well, but those last two matches hurt because I didn’t know how to play from a deficit, and my openings were really rough. My goal was to use tamers and EX10 Regulusmon to put on a lot of pressure, and every time I went for it, it worked out well! My opponent’s were always so surprised I could dish out that much damage in a single turn. I’m not sure if I was unlucky or if it’s worth adjusting my ratios to prevent bad hands from happening that often though. I reasonably accept a bad hand can happen at an event, but back-to-back really made me think lol. I was a little sad that throughout my whole run, the deck I expected to see a whole lot of (Hudiemon), I managed to dodge the entire tournament 🤣. I did manage to play some casual matches afterward against Hudie, and one thing I had not accounted for was actually Venusmon. Venusmon shutting off all of my evo and attack effects, made it really difficult to gain memory mid-turn from my BT21 Hiro Tamers as well as build up sources for an EX10 Regulusmon. Something I should more deeply consider for the future. Also Crimson blaze against Jesmon was incredibly potent! Red on red violence. Digital Gate Open ended up not making a huge difference, and maybe for the future I would cut 1 to add room for another level 6. My next experiment will be to see how focusing on Proximamon might help to pay off. Despite being a secret rare, I don’t think he’s THAT useful, but I holy acknowledge that him acting as a summoner for Level 4’s could be interesting.

Anywho, thanks for listening to my little event report! I hope you found it entertaining, and if you’re interested in Gammamon, feel free to use my knowledge here as a way to put the deck together yourself! If you’d like to see more of these kinds of write-ups from me, please consider supporting the website by making a small donation below to pay for websites costs. I’m currently using ads on the site to try and pay for the cost of the servers, but with adblockers being what they are, its not a perfect solution, and I would much rather not have to show ads if possible (I think everyone would be happier lol)