While card games have been around for a few hundred years, trading card games date back as early as the beginning of the 1900s where Baseball cards began to make their appearance. From there it would spawn many sports-related collectible cards and others until we get to well-known modern iterations such as Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and many others. I myself have been a fan of such trading cards for years having collected the previously-mentioned three on and off since I was young. A fourth one that I collected when young was Digimon, which didn’t take off at the time of original release nor with its subsequent attempts to launch in the west until this last year which saw the release of their latest simply titled Digimon Card Game. While Digimon is most well known for its games and anime, it’s no surprise that they’ve attempted to dip their toes into the trading game sphere multiple times ultimately culminating to what we have today.
The Digimon Card Game launched in Japan in early 2020, and it would take around a year for it to begin to release in English with various build up for the latest TCG attempt in the west. The original Digimon TCG can be traced back to the late ’90s and likely due in part to the popularity of the games and anime spawned their own competitive TCG to a growing market. It’s hard now to trace how well it did in Japan, but based on my personal experiences with it in the US it failed to make a splash outside of being enjoyable artwork to look at on cards. The concept was too confusing for many young children to easily pick up and subsequent other TCG attempts would ultimately fall to the same overall criticism. They were still fun to collect as many fans enjoyed collecting their favorite digital monsters regardless, but it never made a huge splash. Fast forward to now and this iteration is the most enjoyable by far that they’ve ever crafted, in addition to being readily easy to play and understand thanks to reliable resources and a more straight-forward rule set. Its unique mechanics also help set it far apart from the other TCGs to make a name for itself.
One of the big issues of the early Digimon TCGs is their attempt at sticking to strict evolution lines akin to Pokemon or in some cases, Yu-Gi-Oh. Digimon are versatile creatures and are capable of digivolving into a multitude of monsters usually within a selection of a good handful, but the TCG alleviates this issue entirely by having evolutions centered around color and level of the card which makes decks immediately more versatile and able to really bring about tons of variety. No longer must Agumon only evolve into Greymon, but instead a red Agumon can evolve into any next level red Digimon, which breaks down one huge barrier that even Pokemon often deals with in regards to getting lucky in card pulls. Digimon also has no mana or energy-like equivalent that must be shoe-horned into decks and take up space to allow creatures to be played or attack, and instead has players sharing a memory gauge which goes up and down based on the cost of the card they’re playing. If the cost of a card goes into the other player’s memory it becomes their turn after all effects have played out, so it’s a huge game of risk and reward or simply trying to give the other player as little memory as possible so they’re not able to play much on their turn. It’s a well-balanced mechanic that makes turns fast-paced and thoughtful the entire time.
The main goal of the TCG is to destroy the opponent’s security deck of five random cards and make one final direct attack on they themselves. This usually means building up a strong team of Digimon on the field and going in to strike as quickly as possible before the opponent can retaliate, or ensuring they can’t keep enough Digimon on the field to fight back. There are six main colors to style decks around: red, blue, yellow, green, black and purple with the addition of white as a special color. Each one has its preferred play style, but they can be easily mixed and matched to a player’s desire in order to find the perfect playstyle for each person. The only general color related requirement is that the Option cards cannot be played without a Digimon or Tamer of similar color. Most decks revolve around one, sometimes two, colors to create a fifty-card deck. There’s also up to five extra cards known as Digitama that sit in their own stack allowing players to safely digivolve one monster at a time from an area that can’t be affected by the opponent. While strong monsters can easily be played by themselves, there’s a ton of benefit to digivolving thanks to inherited skills that allows Digimon to grow rapidly stronger through slower growth as well.
Of course, it’s hard to clearly explain a card game without being able to show it in action, but the Digimon Card Game is one that feels easy for a wide range to pick up after grasping the basics. The only flaw of the TCG at the moment is a lack of accessibility to the cards themselves. Right now packs don’t stock in most major box stores and are usually reserved for smaller card shops that for many players may be a good ways away. They have gotten easier to purchase online for those willing to purchase entire booster boxes, but most new players would likely prefer starting out with a deck so they can at least immediately play and try it out. Currently there’s a free app which teaches players the basics and allows them to try out short battles with half decks against a computer which is a great place to start for anyone the tiniest bit interested. It was also revealed last year that an online client is in the works, but with no planned release date and no guarantee it will be in English right away, it’s hard to guarantee when people might be able to dive into it.
It’s been a lot time since I personally found myself fully invested in a card game I wanted to play. While I still actively collect Pokemon cards, it’s more out of a love for Pokemon rather than a desire to play, but once I was able to purchase some cards and try it out I could tell right away that Digimon feels so much easier to embrace. I easily started building ideas for decks as with such a versatile play style it allows for people to use their favorites without feeling or they aren’t using the most powerful setups. Right now the Digimon Card Game is still starting to gain popularity little by little, and hopefully as decks and cards get easier for new or interested players to find it will continue to grow. There’s just a lot to love with what they’ve started from the artwork on cards themselves to how easy it feels to pick up and get started playing after a bit of a tutorial understanding. In terms of difficulty it might rank a teensy bit higher than Pokemon in some regards, but with card mechanics being explained clearly in each instance of use, it’s also relatively simple for any younger players able to read to also begin to learn how to play while still being complex enough to keep older audiences entertained and invested. I genuinely hope the Digimon Card Game does well from here on out, as it’s not only fun to keep up with but has begun quickly rising to one of my favorite TCGs ever created that was coincidentally paired with Digital Monsters that are so easy to love.
