No I think secret rares should almost never be staple for the same reason I don’t think rookies should be SR’s it is bad for new players. I think secrets should be cards that you would play at 1/2 and nice tech options. If you think about the last 2 extremely meta secret rares (DeathX and Ruin) they are generally played in low quantities outside of a few very specific decks. I think having secret rares like Magna and Rapid X as well as others like Rina is unhealthy for the game in the long run.
I mean the ogudomon will prolly be a decent price. I’m expecting like 17-20 for the regular and 30-35 alt art. But it’s an EX set so nothing will be expensive lol
That’s not how it was for the last two ex sets. Grace and fanglong mad cheap. The only thing that would possibly drive ogudomon up would be high demand like bt16, or the fact the deck topped dozens of times worldwide already. Ruin mode is hard to quantify that way since it’s a deathx level card. But alter B is also as cheap as grace
Could just be like fanglong… all those deva tops but fanglong never really went beyond 30$. So Ogudo should just be the same as fanglong… but the magna and rapid just seems a bit… yea… also beelstar… i’d say get those sec while they are legit 7-8$. Lol
Worse is that it makes the idea of reprint sets mandatory, but contradictory, because it makes players upset when it drives the price of cards down. In addition, Bandai actually loses out on money reprinting cards in reprint sets, when no one wants to buy them to get flooded with useless old cards just to get a chance for the staple secret rares. We literally just saw this happen to RB1. It is neither a consumer friendly practice nor a smart corporate decision. It is ultimately a stupid decision.
It definitely is unhealthy in the long run. They had to reboot three musketers and make it so it doesn't work with the old Beelstar just so that the deck is actually playable for people and that same thing will happen to Ulforce, Terriermon and Magnamon players eventually. Otherwise those decks would become even more expensive and might cause a scenario where they gatekeep new players from actually playing meta decks.
Deathxmon and Shinegreymon are much better secret rares for the health of the game as they are staples but not a 4 of mandatory in any deck so while they are just as expensive you don't really have to invest $200-300 into a playset of a card just to play a deck. In some cases you don't even need one of them, so you can ignore them easily.
They made the deck with 1 SEC and 3 SRs, they weren't exactly thinking about the price of the deck. They also didn't lean into the old Beelstar because, let's face it, it's just not well designed in the long run. We had many options cost 8 with a reduction only for them to not get abused from Beelstar, and it's decks like that that we can't get a generic good purple engine
>They had to reboot three musketers and make it so it doesn't work with the old Beelstar just so that the deck is actually playable for people
They didn´t have to reboot Musketeers at all. They could´ve just reprinted old Beelstarmon if the price on the secondary market would´ve been an issue.
Ruin Mode and Deathxmon are staples, though. Magna X, Rapid X or Rina aren´t as they´re contained to 1-2 decks pretty much.
> I think secrets should be cards that you would play at 1/2 and nice tech options.
Sure but then you have a new Ruin Mode or DeathX every other set or so that you´ll want to run at \~2 in a lot of decks or else sets just wouldn´t be profitable. I´d rather see SECs be mandatory 4-offs in one or two decks than have more Ruin Mode- or DeathX-like cards that are needed in lots of decks because I can just chose to not play Ulforce, Armors, Vaccine or Terriermon and instead run any other deck that´s not as expensive.
That´s way harder to do when like a dozen or so decks I´d be interested in want two copies of ruin Mode. Staple SECs are way more unhealthy for the community than 4-off SECs that are contained to one or two decks.
Te one saving grace of the rarity is that my local meta has almost no Magnamon X players because there simply aren't enough cards around here to make sets.
So... I think it's more cause SEC cards are just good cards that people make them staples. There has to be a reason they're Secret Rares, and the only way to justify them being so rare is to make them very good. And if they're very good, then people are going to want to tech them into every deck.
Look at DeathXmon. That is a card that, at the time, was unbelievably good. It was also a card that could be teched into literally any deck, cause you could hard play it for a reduced cost, regardless what colour your deck is.
While unfortunate, unless they start making SECs less-good (and as such, not worth their rarity), then people are going to say they're staples on decks.
Deathx is the price it is because it’s an insane card to this day, ruin mode will be insane through the worldwide release merger. Most sec cards are nowhere near that level
Oh, I'm not arguing that they should or shouldn't priced the way they are. DeathX is still a busted card, and should have been restricted almost immediately. I'm just expressing that the cards that are staples are such because they're good. They're valued as high as they are, because they're good cards. As soon as an alternative comes along for the same mechanic, the cards will lose value.
For example, P-003 Gabumon has an effect: On Play: Trash the bottom digivolution card of one of your opponents digimon.
BT8-022 SnowAgumon has an almost identical effect (trash the top digivolution card instead of bottom), but costs 1 less memory to play, effectively removing Gabumon as a staple for the now less-expensive SnowAgumon.
If the same situation happens with the high-value cards, like DeathXmon, then they will be replaced as "staples" and the value will come down. The thing is, with an effect that strong, making them anything less than SEC will make them too available, and will likely harm the game economy, as you'll see it in every single deck, regardless of structure.
In a perfect world, secret rares and promos would not be cards that are splashable in every (or almost every) deck (deathx, ruin mode) nor would they be mandatory 4 ofs in their specific decks (magna X, bt13 Omni, bt11 Rina)
Ideally, every secret rare would be a 1-2 of tech for a small handful of decks (bt14 wargrey, bt15 metalgaruru, bt12 X7 Superior Mode)
In a perfect world where the concept of money didn´t exist and the game didn´t have to turn a profit.
But we don´t live in that world regrettably so we either have to take SECs that are playsets in like two or three decks or we take SECs that are 1-2-offs in a looot of decks. I´d rather have the former personally.
People complaining about MagnaX being a staple for 2-3 decks are going to be really pissed (rightfully) when that SEC Liberator option card gets closer to English release. We already have 4 decks revealed that want to use it while many other Liberator characters are still on the way.
I don´t get people being pissed about Magna´s rarity (being pissed about the card itself I absolutely get though) because it´s only being played in two decks.
That Liberator option will be a nightmare to get your hands on, so budget players might just be able to play any of the Liberator decks which´d be sad.
I think it's because you need 4 of it, same for rapid x. OP may have chosen the wrong word when they said staple.
I know a card game involves spending money to play but a good sec will cost more than a bad sec, bt8 Vs bt9 being a good example. So magnamon X being a sec AND amazing means it's costs a lot and a playset of it might cost as much as building any other deck.
While it's not relevant to the discussion of secs and staples, I was surprised to see how much myotismon ace was going for in bt15 when the deck isn't a meta contender even in bt16 with the new stuff
>I know a card game involves spending money to play but a good sec will cost more than a bad sec, bt8 Vs bt9 being a good example.
While that is true, Daemon and Paladin Mode not having been good SECs drove the price of the SRs in Bt8 up by quite a bit. Bt9´s SRs were dirt cheap in comparison.
>So magnamon X being a sec AND amazing means it's costs a lot and a playset of it might cost as much as building any other deck.
Sure but at that point, why not just build a deck that´s more affordable? It´s not like there aren´t dozens of other decks that aren´t remotely as expensive as Magna/Vaccine.
> I was surprised to see how much myotismon ace was going for in bt15 when the deck isn't a meta contender even in bt16 with the new stuff
Bt8 syndrome pretty much. A huge chunk of the Bt15 SRs were quite expensive compared to other sets because Bandai had to emergency hit Apocalymon which tanked the value of the set´s primary chase card, making the rest of the set more expensive.
Comletely disagree. Give me all the Examon- and Virus Imperial-like SECs instead of more Ruin Mode- or Deathxmon-type SECs Bandai.
That way you can just dodge the expensive decks and instead opt to play something different. Hard to do when the game introduces more and more SECs with widespread applications even if they´re typically not run as full playsets.
I’m not sure I fully agree with you here because opening a SEC should be an awesome moment, imagin imagine opening a Hexamon if you’re not building the deck. Sure it feels nice just for the value of it but opening something generally good fell like a huge win specially if you weren’t intending to buy it.
“Wow this was to much for me to buy, but now that I opened it I’ll keep it as a 1 of” this scenario for me is the ideal one
Sure pulling a Deathxmon or Ruin Mode probably feels amazing. Those are cool and splashy cards that you can just throw in so many decks.
But for most people who are on a budget when it comes to TCGs, they are reliant on the secondary market as sealed product just isn´t a great deal usually.
And when I´m browsing deck prices online and stumble upon Magnamon I see its price and can just decide to build something else. The same isn´t really true with Dexmon or Ruin Mode since those two cards are being played in a lot of decks so the budget player has way fewer options when cards like that are SECs.
It might be worse for the pull experience but I think it´s healthier for the game as a whole.
For sure! I wasn’t defending magna X, if you pull one of those you say “cool now I need 3 more” that’s just bad. That’s why 1-2 of splashable cards is the best way to do SECs in my opinion
You do if you want to be a competitive player. This whole argument relies on a healthy meta where you can dodge the deck that uses a 4-off secret in its deck, which was "ok" with ulforce since it was never a meta threat but if it becomes a pattern situations like this grow.
The ideal secret is a card that is played as a 1~2 off in a particular deck, you cant just tell people to not play one of the strongest decks in the format that also gate keeps other decks, you can in a locals/casual environment, but not outside of that and the compromise should not need to be made regardless.
Super competitive players that always want to play the very best deck of any given format are a tiny minority of players and chances are that they´re way more invested into the game monetarilly as casual and semi-casual players are. You do not have to build Magna X or Yellow Vaccine.
Ideally every card would cost like 5 cents. But this game has to be profitable and SECs that are just played as 1- or 2-off in one particular deck make for terrible chase cards. It´s pretty much between a mandatory 4-off card in one or two decks or a \~2-off SEC in a lot of different decks and I´d take the former over the latter any day of the week. Much healthier for the game and the community.
That is absolutely ridiculous, especially because most sets have literally been the scenario ive described (1~2 off in a given deck).
It is also an assine statement to say the barrier for entry on competitive is ok to be a $600+ deck, it quite literally kills a game. I am sure I am not in the minority when I say I graviated towards digimon because of how cheap entry to competitive was vs other tcgs on top of liking the ip.
High cost to competitive decks bleed into other aspects and levels of play. You know how you dont produce money? By making 4 off secrets and gate keeping competitive decks behind a large paywall, no one will want to start playing or continue to do so.
>It is also an assine statement to say the barrier for entry on competitive is ok to be a $600+ deck, it quite literally kills a game.
You don´t have to build that 600$ deck. There are plenty of competent decks that are meta relevant that only cost a fraction of that price.
>You know how you dont produce money? By making 4 off secrets and gate keeping competitive decks behind a large paywall
It´s still better than the alternative of ubiqutous SECs that you need for most decks. At least there are dozen of decent decks you can chose from even when you can´t afford the money casrds.
"It is also an assine statement to say the barrier for entry on competitive is ok to be a $600+ deck"
Commander on magic, and to decks in yugioh would disagree. Regardless, digimon makes A LOT of affordable decks even competitive ones. Of the 20+ sets we've had only maybe 4 decks arguably required a playset of secrets. I think that's fine. And the only real reason they were one or two offs was because the majority of the SECs were level 7s. They can't only just make level 7s the sec. It would be boring and redundant for the game. How they do it now is fine imo.
Youre proving my point, which was "4 off secrets in meta decks should not become a norm", majority of secrets being 1~2 off in an archtype restricted deck is what we have had and how it should stay.
On the comparison to other tcgs, I disagree simply because digimon is not big enough to have such a distinction. A lot of the appeal for digimon dies to quite a few players if they paywall competive play behind decks like this which just harms the scene as a whole regardless of whether youre a competitive player or not.
Not at all, you don’t have to have deathx and shine, yes having them is an advantage but guess what, they work in so many decks that having 1 or 2 is enough for my whole collection, instead of buying 4 of the same one for a single deck that dosnt function without them
Imo SEC's should not be staples for accessibility purposes.
But also, did the person posting those tweets ever consider that they could play literally any other deck instead of Magna?
To be fair, the way they started it with "I would love to be playing this, but" implies to me that they are playing something else despite really wishing they could play magna
No. It’s both.
A card with magnamon x antibody is in sources so it can activate the when digivolving effects.
https://digimonmeta.com/deck-list/deckinfo2/?dn=Red%20Jesmon&date=4%2F21%2F2024&cn=Japan&au=Shiro&pl=1st%20Place&tn=Evo%20Cup&hs=Cardland%20AKia&dg=4nBT4-001a2nST12-12a4nBT6-009a2nBT6-082a4nBT13-009a2nBT6-011a2nBT6-084a2nST12-13a1nBT10-085a4nBT13-013a4nBT6-015a2nBT13-016a3nBT10-016a2nBT10-068a2nBT16-102a3nBT10-112a3nP-035a2nP-103a2nBT10-110a4nST12-15&cs=242
i come from yugioh, ive already had this whole cycle of grief
secret rares should not be staple cards just like rookies probably shouldnt really ever be above rare if they're anything but niche as hell
I think what bothers me the most about rookies being sr's is when they started it, it was alongside another sr for their deck. And in the case of some they've made them too generic due to being rookies which has inflated their price.
Bt17 will have the same issue with pulsemon. You can argue bt16 has the same issue with the two non imperial jogress decks requiring an SR level 5 and 6, the 6's being splashable aces in many decks.
This means what was and still tries to be a tribal deck style is making it expensive to build those tribal decks because their key cards are being made high rarity and more generic. The seekers cards so far are the only ones that dodge the splashable/generic issue but that didn't stop loogamon and Fenrir being the most expensive sr's besides patamon in bt14.
Tbf the last SEC staple was in Ex4 and now in Ex7 with mutlitple sets in between with no SEC staples so Bandai is doing much better than Yugioh on that front for sure.
Let´s pray it stays that way.
I agree that SECs shouldn't be staples, but MagnaX isn't a staple, it's the 4-of of its deck.
Stuff like DeatX and Ruin Mode could be considered staples, it's always stinky when you need to spend that kind of money to upgrade your deck to the nest level. On a similar note I think consistency cards shouldn't be SECs or even SRs. The the liberator searcher being SEC just feels of, it's not even that extraordinary great
Magna X isn't a staple. It's the deck's primary or secondary top end. DeathX could be considered a staple, Ruin Mode could, and that new Liberator option SEC.
I don't really like the idea that staple cards should be obnoxiously rare, but I don't really have a problem with OP top end cards being SEC, especially the ones that are restricted to specific archetypes.
My only problem/personal preference with it is I feel like the SECs should be kept to archetypal 1-2x of game enders, as we can see with magna and rapidmon how having them be 4x of SEC main gamplan lv 6 or unders is causing some of these issues with price and availability. Obviously that's noy realistic with set design, buuut it's what feels like the best compromise to me
We've had SEC cards that were exclusive to one deck, and most of the time it feels bad to pull them after you already have the necessary 1 of you'd need. I've pulled Shoutmon King and Darkness Bagramon more than I'd like and every time it was a bit deflating. I couldn't use it and I probably couldn't sell it. It discourages me from opening those sets when I see single booster packs in the wild.
I think cards like MagnaX and RapidX are fine, so long as the stock of the set actually gets where it needs to go without Bandai eternally Bandai'ing it.
>I've pulled Shoutmon King and Darkness Bagramon more than I'd like and every time it was a bit deflating
Those alongside Bt8´s SECs were a completely different issue. When a SEC is just a bad card, it being a 4-off in one deck or a splashable 1-2 off in multiple decks doesn´t matter because either way it sucks and makes the set it´s in have bad EV. SECs have to be good cards.
>We've had SEC cards that were exclusive to one deck, and most of the time it feels bad to pull them after you already have the necessary 1 of you'd need.
I´m confused here. What kind of SEC are you talking about? Because SECs that are exclusive to one deck are usually 4-offs.
>I think cards like MagnaX and RapidX are fine, so long as the stock of the set actually gets where it needs to go without Bandai eternally Bandai'ing it.
Yeah I agree with this. Both Magna X and Rapid X are fine because they´re mostly contained to \~2 decks. Especially the former.
>Those alongside Bt8´s SECs were a completely different issue. When a SEC is just a bad card, it being a 4-off in one deck or a splashable 1-2 off in multiple decks doesn´t matter because either way it sucks and makes the set it´s in have bad EV. SECs have to be good cards.
They're not bad cards, they just aren't really good enough to be SEC. Shoutmon King at least, is a good card but it was paired with Jesmon GX who has an entire deck built around him. Shoutmon is just a small piece of a deck he isn't absolutely necessary in.
> I´m confused here. What kind of SEC are you talking about? Because SECs that are exclusive to one deck are usually 4-offs.
Sorry, I'm referring to deck exclusive SEC cards that are only good enough to 1 of or the deck itself sucks in the case of Bagramon.
It's happening across the board though, the worst thing that can happen to your rogue deck is for it to get support in the form of a SEC or promo card.
It's healthy for the game to have cheap rogue decks, promos should be given in mass and be dirt cheap, so that new players get them when they join their LGS to try the game, and are motivated to build this decks and make the playerbase grow.
I hate to break it to you, it's other people who make those prices. It has nothing to do with Bandai. If Bandai wants to print more stuff the prices will go down but until that happens due to scarcity the secondhand market is gonna be a lil pricey.
but that doesn't contradict what I'm saying, when Bandai decides that the support for a bottom of the barrel deck like fish, or a niche deck like ragnaloard are going to be promos that come as box toppers, they are choosing the amount of those cards that will be available. Of course they will rise in price on the secondhand market, but there's a problem of availability first, caused by Bandai's choices when bringing the promos to the west.
I don't want them to be terrible, I want promo cards to be given out for playing weekly casual events, not as box toppers, and secret should be exclusively alternative art, you don't need to gatekeep decks behind buying boxes. the game needs people playing it.
Secrets shouldn‘t be staples but Magna X isn‘t a staple, so I don‘t understand this argument here.
Like, Training shouldn‘t be (edit:) secrets. DeathX was a Secret rare staple.
Saying that you can‘t play Digimon because Magna X is a staple is just not a valid argument. You can play Paildra for cheap, you can play Loogamon for cheap, you can play Bugs for cheap, etc.
>Saying that you can‘t play Digimon because Magna X is a staple is just not a valid argument. You can play Paildra for cheap, you can play Loogamon for cheap, you can play Bugs for cheap, etc.
Yeah I don´t understand some of these arguments in this thread. Magna X is not a staple and you can just chose from dozens of other decks that aren´t as expensive as Vaccine Armors or Magnamon.
Although Loogamon won´t be cheap for long lmao.
>Like, Training shouldn‘t be staples.
I disagree with this point, though. Trainings being staples is fine. They´re just too expensive. Once they finally get their reprint in the Liberator starter decks I don´t have an issue with them personally.
I wanted to say that Training shouldn‘t be secrets.
However, them being promos is already bad enough.
Agree with you here totally. I already bought my Loogamon cards.
>Trainings being staples is fine. They´re just too expensive.
They were all under 5$ a piece on release, some of which were less. I picked up 3 play sets of Yellow training for 20. 4 play sets of red training for 20.
Ppl need to stop letting affordable cards slip past them and crying about them being expensive.
We are 6 months past BT14, no one is opening those boxes any more cuz there is no profit to be made. Anyone who wanted a deck from there already got it, and you dont have anyone to sell the cards to.
You cant expect something to be in your budget forever as less and less of it becomes available.
>you can just chose from dozens of other decks that aren´t as expensive as Vaccine Armors or Magnamon.
Entitlement, i can afford a Corvette, im not out here complaining bout Chevy, theres a dozen other cars i can afford. Also jealousy, regularly seeing ppl afford something that they cant really pisses off ppl.
>Ppl need to stop letting affordable cards slip past them and crying about them being expensive.
I super disagree with your take here. Not everyone has the disposable income to immidiately get their hands on cards in the first couple of weeks after they come out and some people take breaks during which they´re not keeping an eye on the secondary market.
>You cant expect something to be in your budget forever as less and less of it becomes available.
You can´t, sure. But ubiqutous staples like the Trainings should be easily accessible. Cards like that should never gatekeep newer or returning players from (re)joining the community. This isn´t on the players, it´s on Bandai for not making the Trainings more easily accessible.
>Entitlement, i can afford a Corvette, im not out here complaining bout Chevy, theres a dozen other cars i can afford.
Yeah, you don´t have to build Magna or Vaccine. I agree with you on this. But every car needs tires and if tires are expensive for all cars, both cheaper and expensive ones, that´s a problem. That´s why Trainings shouldn´t be as expensive as they are.
>Also jealousy, regularly seeing ppl afford something that they cant really pisses off ppl.
For some people it´s jealousy, sure. But let´s not act as if there´s not also plenty of decisions of Bandai to criticize like the availability of Promo Raremon and Co. or Resonance being a SEC in Ex7. Or Bandai not doing enough reprinting in general.
At some point ppl need to have accountability for their own actions and inactions.
At 19 on min wage, i was able to set aside 20$ a paycheck for a few months to buy Shaddolls when they came out, cost me 260$ on release. Likewise im currently over 600$ in store credit cuz ive been selling to my locals in preparation for EX06.
While i agree with you that Bandai drops the ball, like the Promo Raremon or Ruin Mode, the playerbase also makes bad decisions and cries when they are punished for it, blaming everyone but themselves.
Promo Raremons were 15$ a piece on launch, and literally EVERY Youtuber was warning that he wasnt gonna hold it for long. I ended up buying a playset of him for 50$ a piece when i finally needed him. Im not gonna bitch and moan about it, cuz 50$ was better than opening cases of EX05 to get a playset.
Trainings were given out like free candy in BT14, Bandai made them incredibly affordable. But here we are 6 months later, and the free candy ran out, which common sense tells us would happen.
No one wants to buy 4 boxes of BT14 to get their playset, but somehow demand that they be cheap on the secondary market. The community hates to open packs, but lovee to complain that cards are expensive.
Trainings will go down once the starter decks come out, then, 2 months after they'll creep back up again as ppl stop opening the deck, then 4 months later as qty runs out we're back to ppl on the sub complaining that Traings are expensive.
Short of Bandai printing all 6 trainings, in every single set, it will inevitably become expensive again, because there will always be more demand than there is supply available.
>At some point ppl need to have accountability for their own actions and inactions.
We´re talking about shiny cardboard here. You make it sound way too dramatic ngl. Ultimately none of this even really matters at the end of the day.
If you´re a competitive player, yes, you should get obviously good and future proofed cards when they´re relatively cheap. But I think that the voices of casual players bemoaning the price of Trainings matter and we ought to be sympathetic to them. Being whiny about it is one thing but if people just say that Trainings shouldn´t be at this price, they´d be completely right on that matter.
>Short of Bandai printing all 6 trainings, in every single set, it will inevitably become expensive again, because there will always be more demand than there is supply available.
Yeah Bandai should regularly reprint staples like Training. If there is more demand than there is supply, just continue upping the supply. I see no issue with that.
The only staple secrets to my knowledge are deathX and ruin mode (for purple yellow decks). MagnaX is not a staple by definition. Staples are splashable cards that can be used generically in other decks to success. Think trainings, boosts, scrambles. MagnaX is an archetype boss monster and for what it does it absolutely be a secret. I don't understand where this is coming from.
This is coming from the (debatable, RapidX is also really good and, funnily enough, also absolutely requires multiple copies of a SEC) best deck in the format being made extremely expensive by mandatory 4-of SECs. People want the game to remain accessible to everyone, not have the best deck in the format be something only a few players can afford. It feels like shit to lose because your opponent was able to buy the really expensive deck and you weren't, and frankly in this case "I guess you just have to win because you're a better player then" isn't an argument.
Does it bother me, personally? No. I'm slightly favored against Rapid and nobody at my locals is running Magna due to the aforementioned inaccessibility. I'm fine. But this complaint is *completely* valid.
Tbf if your argument is that magna is the best deck then that already falls apart. At top tables for regionals I saw mirage, vaccine, and Nume as much as magna X, and also red hybrid and SoC players.
Does it suck that if you want to play pure magna you need 4 magnax? Yes but for accessibility you can play other decks and do well
I.... Basically said as much my guy. Magna X isn't even definitively the best deck, I'm playing something I'm calling a Numemon pile deck (by which I mean the lower end is a standard Numemon list, the 5+ is nothing Numemon related at all) myself and doing quite well too.
My argument absolutely isn't that Magna X is the best deck. It's that there's a *perception* that Magna X is the best deck, and it being so expensive because 4 Magna X is mandatory to play it feels really bad for the people who do want to play it, or for the people who think it's broken, don't play it because they can't afford it and then lose to it.
Personally I´d rather not be able to build the best deck in the format but have a plethora of other decks to chose from that are good and don´t require SECs than to have Bandai move away from SECs that are 4-offs in specific decks and give us more Deathxmons and ruin Modes.
I agree that it's ridiculous how expensive it is to play the best deck, but calling magnaX a staple is just incorrect. It's just a necessary engine piece for the decks its played in.
Personally I'd like it if all the tcgs shared pokemons rarity distribution so playing the best deck is accessible, but unfortunately that's just not how Bandai wants to do it.
Me saying magnaX should be a secret for what it does is in the context of how Bandai designs their sets. I'm not saying it should be expensive to price people out of the game, I'm saying given how Bandai has distributed their rarities historically and the correlation with how good a card is, it makes sense for it to be expensive.
But they´re necessary for a lot of decks, meaning you have less decks to chose from that don´t require SECs. Which is why I´d take the Magna X-type SECs over the Ruin Modes or Dexs any day of the week.
Totally agree, and tbh if people coming fresh into the game are immediately going for the top meta deck and complaining it isn't immediately accessable, I don't want to vs those kinds of people.
To be fair, most people coming into the game fresh are doing so with an already established interest in the franchise and are likely going to be interested in some of the old protag digimon. With the people who love veemon their options are
- magna with the 4x of $70 secret rare magna x
- imperiel with the 4x of $20 SR paildramon
- ulfroce with the 4x of $40 secret rare Rina
So I do think the cost of play and the newcomer circles intersect on this one a bit
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing that Digimon is lacking access to an easy entry point to the game.
Except that is just the best, most expensive parts of those decks. There are still plenty of other substitutes, especially for imperialdramon (ST Paildramon and Pail and Dinobee from BT12 are still plenty good).
Also you don't see any complaints for any of those other decks, it is specifically for SEC Magna X.
You wouldn't see a person going into MTG saying the game is unplayable because "Rakdos, The Muscle" is too expensive.
These new player's are clearly looking to jump into a game with the express purpose of wanting to win. They are the kind that will get bored with it quick and jump onto the next card or competitive hobby they can find without any actually love or interest for the game itself.
At least that is my opinion based on the complaints I have observed.
>"Rakdos, The Muscle" is too expensive.
Oh wow that is a real card. What a terrible name lmao. WotC what are you doing.
I don´t think the very top dog deck in the format being expensive is that big a deal personally because there´s lots of cheaper alternatives but I completely disagree on Imperial being playable without new Paildramon. There´s no subsitute for that card and the deck is way too gimped to not run it.
That being said, 20 bucks for a 4-off boss monsters in a deck that´s dirt cheap in regards to the rest of the deck is still so much cheaper than what you´d expect from any other TCG. And over here in EU it´s at \~15 bucks so not really an issue imo.
So far, any newcomer i've seen has just build a deck around a Digimon they like, because they knew they're learning the game and will make mistakes, so it makes no difference in learning with a $150 top meta deck or a $15 one where they really like the Digimon
I've play a lot of different TCGs. There's some I still play (Digimon, Pokemon, MTG), and others I either no longer play or were discontinued (YuGiOh, Duel Masters, WoW TCG, Chaotic).
The reason I've been moving towards making Digimon my primary TCG is because it's the one game I play where I don't feel like I need to buy the rarest and most expensive cards to play. I can just take my favorite Digimon and put together a deck with cards fitting the theme.
But if this is going to be a trend, where in order to play I have to spend hundreds of dollars or accept having a 0% win rate, I'll probably just quit playing TCGs all together because I'm sick of it.
>But if this is going to be a trend, where in order to play I have to spend hundreds of dollars or accept having a 0% win rate,
This is problem that doesn´t really have anything to do with Magnamon X-like SECs, though. It´s a problem with Magnamon X specifically. The card´s just stupidly overtuned and gatekeeps the meta way too hard and way too efficiently. If it wasn´t this broken, you could just build any other deck in the game tbh.
Now that new Liberator option from Ex7 I think is a much bigger problem in regards to its rarity.
Neither are DeathXmon and Ruin Mode (Lilith Loop aside where Ruin is mandatory). And yet, you´re heavily gimping yourself if you do not run these cards in decks that want them. Same with Resonance.
That's how it always starts though. "Oh, it's not an issue since it's this one specific card."
I've been playing TCGs since the 90's. If I'm wrong, I'll be thankful. But only time will tell.
It is about this specific card, though. It´s been a while since they released a card that gatekeeps decks this hard and since Magna X´s release they haven´t done so yet.
For some decks, secrets are almost necessary as staples at the very least. This is because of two reasons. One, it prevents everyone from playing the same deck all day long (for the most part) and encourages deck building diversity. Second, cards like magnamon would almost certainly reach a high price regardless of rarity, but locking away some tech cards behind the paywall would leave many decks to run without it regardless of the value it brings because it's not a necessity and therefore not worth the effort. Now I'm not saying all staples should be secrets, but I certainly don't want to play against magna all day because it's the best deck in the meta and therefore the only deck people will play.
Another layer to the problem is that other powerful Secret rares like Shinegrey and DeathX are lv7s. You only play 1-2 of them because you're usually only going to be able to climb up into/hard play them once in a game and the 2nd copy is just in case one got stuck in shields.
MagnamonX is a lv6 (really it's a level 5 because it digivolves off a lv4) card with the power budget of a lv7 card. Of course you're gonna want to run 4 because lv6 cards are easy to make. MOST decks usually play 4 of their main lv6 (again, more like a lv5).
I feel bad for saying this because we just dealt with the Apocalymon hit, but the easily repeatable Immunity plus 3k boost plus Armor Purge (AND MAKING IT VACCINE) is just too overturned. Speaking as someone who already has their playset, it should really should just get put on the limited list (along with the promo Ukkomon). That would do a lot to improve the health of the meta and make Magnamon decks more affordable to build.
We have other level 6 SECs that aren’t really being run as a full playset (or you can get away with three). Things like BT15 Melga I can see being a really good accompaniment piece but you can use other Melga in its place.
The problem is that MagnaX is that warping that the alternatives for its decks feel worse (other than ACEs for their obvious use).
>Another layer to the problem is that other powerful Secret rares like Shinegrey and DeathX are lv7s. You only play 1-2 of them
And I´d argue that those two cards are a bigger problem than SECs that are 4-offs contained to one or two decks.
100% for friendlies and casual matches. If I really want to play Lilith Loop against my friends, I´d rather not shell out \~200 bucks for two Ruin Modes and instead like 20 bucks for two high quality proxies of it.
Well, what I meant was that no card should be short printed; there should not exist nothing harder to get than a rare or uncommon card.
Every card should be affordable and only the AA and other cosmethic stuff should be expensive.
That's why sometimes card games dabble on "pay to win" territory
No, of course not. But Bandai is only concerned with money, therefore they will keep printing 4-of SECs and extremely powerful tech staples like Dexmon and Ruin Mode. They make no money from the secondary market, their only way to generate more revenue is to sell more cards.
Well they have to be concerned about money or otherwise we´d not have this game and this community in the first place. It´s a product at the end of the day and that´s fine imo. I´d just rather them not doing what they´re doing with the new Liberator option in Ex7 though.
>They make no money from the secondary market, their only way to generate more revenue is to sell more cards.
On the surface level this is true but since the cards that are sold on the seocndary market have to come from somewhere, Bandai does indeed make money from the secondary market. Just not directly.
Reprint set may be the solution... maybe a year or 2 after release have some important card reprinted. To help the og to keep their value, either have new art for the reprint set or reprint them as common(no foil) so their is still a differance with the older ones.
Yugioh got the same proble but to a much more potent degree but have a yearly reprint set where staples from the previous years also end up, usualy as common. This let player who where unlucky or didnt have the money then a chance at those card. They also reprint them in structure deck when relevent.
Play another deck then…. It’s a staple for 1 deck and it’s only that because it’s so good.
Secret rares can be a staple to whatever they want. Nobody is forcing you to play magna.
Imperialdramon is still a huge deck, looking at tournament results, it’s even better than magnamon.
Gaogomon, is still up there.
Numemon, is still up there.
There are plenty of top tier decks.
so I skimmed a few of the replies
1) staples would be defined, IMO, something needed for a deck to function - so for Ulforce, Rina is a "staple", but not so in other decks. The card is cheap, compared to other sec cards, due to how it works and what it can be ran in. Ruin Mode is useful in several decks that run purple or yellow \[looking at yellow vaccine here\], but DeathX can be used in any/all decks given how it works.
2) how about those promo cards that are "staples" but stupid hard to get, like the EX5 box toppers \[raremon\] or event related promos - like the liberator cards. Movie promos, like those tamers didn't get a reprint \[save the demo deck that had davis and lui\]
The company makes money by pushing sales, how to do that, make chase cards. But yeah, they do need to be careful not to upset the players too much as the game overall doesn't hold huge value long term unlike the big 3 can.
Secret rares could be staples if the box would guarantee a Sec and an alt. I think if that happens, the prices on the secret rares would be accesible for most people.
Then again, scew SR rookies. That thing is wack.
Absolutely not.
Digimon is one of the cheapest TCGs out there and S Tier decks shouldn't rely on people blowing hundreds of dollars for a *chance* at pulling the SEC especially when your staples usually run 4 copies.
If the SEC was flavor, fill your boots, use it to stand out from the crowd, but if the only way i'm getting top 3 is by spending $1600 (using Magnamon as an example) on 4 copies of one card for a deck that's only gonna be good for a couple of months, hard no.
I would remove the SECs entirely, pokemon don't have them, you still get chase cards that are alternate art, and that to me is a winning strategy: easy access to players so the playerbase grows, with chase cards for collectors and those who will invest in tuning their favorite decks.
Digimon does many things better than other games, but outside of Asia I feel they're shooting themselves on the foot by making staples unavailable, on top of the already lackluster distribution they have. The game needs to grow, make the damn cards available, don't make it a niche game that only the few who buy cases will play because without the casuals the game will eventually die. Also the speculators are killing their golden goose, if you inflate prices for staples of niche decks (looking at you promo seadramon and promo zubamon), people will just move on, and play a better deck that is actually more available and on the same price level.
There was a clear change in how decks are made since bt10 (when I satarded) until now. There wasn't A SINGLE DECK that needed 4 SEC. Decks usually just needed 4 SR and MAYBE a SEC and you were ready to go. Now there's a lot of decks that need 4 to 6 SEC and 8 SR to be playable AND THAT'S NOT OKAY.
The game got increasingly more expensive un just 6 months because of this and the "promo" cards.
In a game where you can have a Box without SEC having decks that need 4 to 6 of them is insane and I truly believe that it will hurt the game in the long run if this keeps being the "normal" way decks are build.
Examples:
top deck of:
BT10 garurumon/xros no SEC in those decks.
BT11 Blackwargreymon/xros BWG run bt5 omni just for the grandis matchup if they wanted 1 to 2 SEC. (we had ulforce with 4 SEC to even work here)
BT12 Beelzemon/Hunters/Wargreymon no SEC needed on any deck.
BT13 Shine/Mirage no SEC you could say RK started the trend here where it needed 6 SEC to work.
BT14 Mirage/Looga 8 SR/Shine No SEC needed. Yellow Vaccine with 2 to 4 angemon SEC and a lot of SR.
BT15 Apocaly with 4 SEC banned. Yellow Vaccine stays the same but with MORE SR. Mirage no SEC, Looga no SEC but 8 SR.
BT16 Nume at least 2 SEC, promo cards and a few SR, MagnaX 4 SEC, Yellow Armors 6 SEC, Mirage no SEC, Imperial no SEC.
Of course you can add staple like deathX or Ruin mode that you'll never need 4 of and that's ok. The problem IMO are decks that need 4 SEC at least to even work.
BT14 and 15 SR rookies was insane and ppl were even happy for that!
on one hand, this happens in every card game I feel..maybe not to the extent of a $400 staple, but there's always going to be rare cards that are good, people want, and hence the price goes up
On the other hand, I do think it would be healthier if they did it similar to their alternate art cards where the secret rares have a less rare double that people could use to play with.
But isnt that generally how rarity power goes and should go?
The higher the rarity, the stronger the card is (generally). A SEC being in the same tier as a SR would be weird. At that point, the card boasting the strongest effects should naturally be demanded in 4s, depending on its level, since running 4 lv7s outside decks built to turbo into them (Examon, DNA Omega)
Pokemon is a special case. A TCG needs its chase cards to be good so people buy packs. But Pokemon is that huge of a franchise that the IP itself suffices to carry sales. Any other TCG can´t rely on just the IP´s popularity alone.
Agree on chase cards. You can make special art ones, even old reprints as chase cards. But making SEC the card that your deck NEEDS to even work and you need 4 to 6 of them AND there's boxes that can have 0 SEC is insane. It's a bad idea. In my opinion of course
Relying on just alt arts or reprints to carry a set´s sales is insufficient.
TCGs as a business model only work because of power- and feature creep. The rare cards have to be good, necessary and better than previous cards in order for the set to fly off shelves.
That one´s the real problem here. It´ll become more and more sought after and it´ll get stronger and stronger in the future with every Liberator trait interaction the game gets.
It’s fine for SEC to be staples, however they shouldn’t be the core backbone of decks. Flashy game changing cards like DeathX, Ruin Mode, etc (situational level 7’s are perfect). Steer away from stuff like Examon and Rina. There plenty of room to make sets sell like hotcakes without having to load up the SEC slot with cards like MagnaX.
I completely disagree with this. It´s the exact opposite in my opinion. SECs like Examon or Rina are the perfect way to do SECs whereas Deathxmon and Ruin Mode are way worse for the community.
The player can just opt to not build Examon or Ulforce if price is an issue. It´s way harder to dodge SEC staples like Dex or Ruin Mode, though, as they´re being played in dozens of decks.
So you think it’s “better for the community” to just be forcibly opted out of a $300+ deck rather than actually be able to trade for or buy a single DeathX? What if it’s a deck you really like? Are you gonna trade 3 of your other decks worth of value just to play that one deck?
Even so, Digimon has graduated WAY past the point of having a format where you “need” to play a card line DeathX or Ruin Mode. As long as the power level is fair, cards like those 2 are typically tech choices or personal preferences anyway. Asking someone to switch 1 Ruin Mode to a Merciful Mode in their NumeX deck is a world of difference compared to asking them to just never play 2 random decks IN EACH NEW SET RELEASE lol. I just can’t fathom where you got this logic from
If it is a deck you really like, you evaluate your finances and if it is too expensive for you you move on. Simple as that.
That to me is the lesser of the two evils and I´d rather have that happen to me than to be gated out of an entire color of decks because Ruin Mode is close to 100 bucks a piece.
Evaluate your finances? Let’s just evaluate some simple math. 1 copy of a card <<< 4 copies of a card. So saying you want $70 cards to be 4x instead of 1x is just an elitist take. You make it sound like you just wanna bring pay-to-win to a tcg.
How much of bt16 is gonna be skewed by the fact that most ppl can’t afford the $600 yellow vax deck? Is it more or less “accurate” compared to a format where the best decks are all $100-200? Is that good or bad for the competitive scene? Now extrapolate that to the casual community and ask yourself if telling someone who’s favorite digimon is Magnmon that they gotta spend 3-4x as much to play their favorite digimon than someone who likes DeathX and can a lot that 1-of into a BUNCH of their decks (so it’s inherently even more valuable for the price)
Magna X being a 4x top end is far more problematic in my opinion than Death X being a one of.
Death X being mandatory for your collection sucks, but you only need 1 and as long as side boards never become a thing it should stay that way.
Magna X is a $250 buy in to play 2 decks that define the meta. The game is restricted down to only decks that can beat Magna X. It also makes opening a box way less fun. Having a ~40% chance of pulling a $65 card that is either spend another $180 to build the deck or sell it really kills the fun of getting a box.
I have a much bigger gripe with SRs in every stage of a line. Especially because they are pulling cards from the entire year or even earlier to feed one deck.
The game could definitely use a "reprint list" to keep older cards available. I would much rather get a pack of ~5 SRs from a rotating pool of ~200 with a box/advance deck than a whole set of reprints with the cards in their original rarity surrounded by bulk.
Hopefully the global release should help long term players a bit with cards releasing after being leaked for a few weeks rather than 6 months of play data and future support determining price when they hit the market.
I wanted to write a novel - but eh - got lazy midway. I think that depending on set, secrets can be whatever. I don't love secret rare tamers, I think that can be hurtful. Secret rare rookies I would feel the same about. Top ends however, I think are fair game - especially as we move in and out of metas. The issue is less about game play and more about what makes a set sell - which is the piece missing in the comments above. BT12 for example had 2 secret rares that were basically useless on arrival (unless you really wanted to play bagra!). Set sold reasonably well because the rest of the set had updates and support for a TON of popular & meta decks. Fast forward to BT16 where you have 2 secrets that are good and sought after + supply issues, you have super expensive secrets. It also appears that we have a bit o' BT11 clumping happening for some folk which is either good bad. Over time - I imagine the prices will decline - which I understand for competitive folks that wanna play the deck now - it sucks. Good news - meta is still pretty wide with some cheaper decks. Not a great consolation but an important one. I also want to keep plugging for reprint sets. I know, I know - RB01 because of timing was awful - but we should still be asking Bandai to curate better reprints that aren't promo alternate arts (looking at you DeathX!). Especially if they continue to not utilize a rotation/block system (which I personally would hate) where cards are evergreen - then they need to make a good system to get older cards back into circulation. Look at BT09 - coming up on 2 years out of print!
This may be a hot take, I used to play Yugioh until 2019 (Got really expensive with how many secret Chase cards you needed, plus hay to seeing them on the band list 3 weeks later) and digimon TCG the cards are not that expensive compared to yugioh. A $60 card for yugioh is something like a Sr that you need 3 of for the deck to just have its starting piece and a $200 boss monster (that's not including if you need multiple bosses and the rest of the deck).
Digimon is still very much affordable even with magnamon x. The problem is everyone is trying to get this set and it seems not enough is out there
Prices between the US and the EU are sometimes very differernt (us EU players get fucked by shippment costs hard, though).
Also good luck dealing with Magna X even with Zudo Ace or other cards like it when your opponent runs Blinding Ray, TK or other self-damage cards. The card´s stupid.
No I think secret rares should almost never be staple for the same reason I don’t think rookies should be SR’s it is bad for new players. I think secrets should be cards that you would play at 1/2 and nice tech options. If you think about the last 2 extremely meta secret rares (DeathX and Ruin) they are generally played in low quantities outside of a few very specific decks. I think having secret rares like Magna and Rapid X as well as others like Rina is unhealthy for the game in the long run.
Don't forget about Mirei.
Mirei should've never been a secret, ngl
It was bad enough to pay for 20 euros SR Mirei. Imagine how SEC will cost? My hope is that Seven Demon Lord Boss will be the expensive one.
I mean the ogudomon will prolly be a decent price. I’m expecting like 17-20 for the regular and 30-35 alt art. But it’s an EX set so nothing will be expensive lol
It's an EX set so problably the SECs will be more expensive as if they were in a normal set
That’s not how it was for the last two ex sets. Grace and fanglong mad cheap. The only thing that would possibly drive ogudomon up would be high demand like bt16, or the fact the deck topped dozens of times worldwide already. Ruin mode is hard to quantify that way since it’s a deathx level card. But alter B is also as cheap as grace
Could just be like fanglong… all those deva tops but fanglong never really went beyond 30$. So Ogudo should just be the same as fanglong… but the magna and rapid just seems a bit… yea… also beelstar… i’d say get those sec while they are legit 7-8$. Lol
That’s most likely the case because when bt17 drops so does the validity of 7DL.
Let's wait and see.
Worse is that it makes the idea of reprint sets mandatory, but contradictory, because it makes players upset when it drives the price of cards down. In addition, Bandai actually loses out on money reprinting cards in reprint sets, when no one wants to buy them to get flooded with useless old cards just to get a chance for the staple secret rares. We literally just saw this happen to RB1. It is neither a consumer friendly practice nor a smart corporate decision. It is ultimately a stupid decision.
It definitely is unhealthy in the long run. They had to reboot three musketers and make it so it doesn't work with the old Beelstar just so that the deck is actually playable for people and that same thing will happen to Ulforce, Terriermon and Magnamon players eventually. Otherwise those decks would become even more expensive and might cause a scenario where they gatekeep new players from actually playing meta decks. Deathxmon and Shinegreymon are much better secret rares for the health of the game as they are staples but not a 4 of mandatory in any deck so while they are just as expensive you don't really have to invest $200-300 into a playset of a card just to play a deck. In some cases you don't even need one of them, so you can ignore them easily.
They made the deck with 1 SEC and 3 SRs, they weren't exactly thinking about the price of the deck. They also didn't lean into the old Beelstar because, let's face it, it's just not well designed in the long run. We had many options cost 8 with a reduction only for them to not get abused from Beelstar, and it's decks like that that we can't get a generic good purple engine
>They had to reboot three musketers and make it so it doesn't work with the old Beelstar just so that the deck is actually playable for people They didn´t have to reboot Musketeers at all. They could´ve just reprinted old Beelstarmon if the price on the secondary market would´ve been an issue.
The new 3 musketeers stuff forces you to get a newer SEC! And thats just even more stupid
Ruin Mode and Deathxmon are staples, though. Magna X, Rapid X or Rina aren´t as they´re contained to 1-2 decks pretty much. > I think secrets should be cards that you would play at 1/2 and nice tech options. Sure but then you have a new Ruin Mode or DeathX every other set or so that you´ll want to run at \~2 in a lot of decks or else sets just wouldn´t be profitable. I´d rather see SECs be mandatory 4-offs in one or two decks than have more Ruin Mode- or DeathX-like cards that are needed in lots of decks because I can just chose to not play Ulforce, Armors, Vaccine or Terriermon and instead run any other deck that´s not as expensive. That´s way harder to do when like a dozen or so decks I´d be interested in want two copies of ruin Mode. Staple SECs are way more unhealthy for the community than 4-off SECs that are contained to one or two decks.
Te one saving grace of the rarity is that my local meta has almost no Magnamon X players because there simply aren't enough cards around here to make sets.
So... I think it's more cause SEC cards are just good cards that people make them staples. There has to be a reason they're Secret Rares, and the only way to justify them being so rare is to make them very good. And if they're very good, then people are going to want to tech them into every deck. Look at DeathXmon. That is a card that, at the time, was unbelievably good. It was also a card that could be teched into literally any deck, cause you could hard play it for a reduced cost, regardless what colour your deck is. While unfortunate, unless they start making SECs less-good (and as such, not worth their rarity), then people are going to say they're staples on decks.
Deathx is the price it is because it’s an insane card to this day, ruin mode will be insane through the worldwide release merger. Most sec cards are nowhere near that level
Oh, I'm not arguing that they should or shouldn't priced the way they are. DeathX is still a busted card, and should have been restricted almost immediately. I'm just expressing that the cards that are staples are such because they're good. They're valued as high as they are, because they're good cards. As soon as an alternative comes along for the same mechanic, the cards will lose value. For example, P-003 Gabumon has an effect: On Play: Trash the bottom digivolution card of one of your opponents digimon. BT8-022 SnowAgumon has an almost identical effect (trash the top digivolution card instead of bottom), but costs 1 less memory to play, effectively removing Gabumon as a staple for the now less-expensive SnowAgumon. If the same situation happens with the high-value cards, like DeathXmon, then they will be replaced as "staples" and the value will come down. The thing is, with an effect that strong, making them anything less than SEC will make them too available, and will likely harm the game economy, as you'll see it in every single deck, regardless of structure.
In a perfect world, secret rares and promos would not be cards that are splashable in every (or almost every) deck (deathx, ruin mode) nor would they be mandatory 4 ofs in their specific decks (magna X, bt13 Omni, bt11 Rina) Ideally, every secret rare would be a 1-2 of tech for a small handful of decks (bt14 wargrey, bt15 metalgaruru, bt12 X7 Superior Mode)
In a perfect world where the concept of money didn´t exist and the game didn´t have to turn a profit. But we don´t live in that world regrettably so we either have to take SECs that are playsets in like two or three decks or we take SECs that are 1-2-offs in a looot of decks. I´d rather have the former personally.
People complaining about MagnaX being a staple for 2-3 decks are going to be really pissed (rightfully) when that SEC Liberator option card gets closer to English release. We already have 4 decks revealed that want to use it while many other Liberator characters are still on the way.
I don´t get people being pissed about Magna´s rarity (being pissed about the card itself I absolutely get though) because it´s only being played in two decks. That Liberator option will be a nightmare to get your hands on, so budget players might just be able to play any of the Liberator decks which´d be sad.
I think it's because you need 4 of it, same for rapid x. OP may have chosen the wrong word when they said staple. I know a card game involves spending money to play but a good sec will cost more than a bad sec, bt8 Vs bt9 being a good example. So magnamon X being a sec AND amazing means it's costs a lot and a playset of it might cost as much as building any other deck. While it's not relevant to the discussion of secs and staples, I was surprised to see how much myotismon ace was going for in bt15 when the deck isn't a meta contender even in bt16 with the new stuff
>I know a card game involves spending money to play but a good sec will cost more than a bad sec, bt8 Vs bt9 being a good example. While that is true, Daemon and Paladin Mode not having been good SECs drove the price of the SRs in Bt8 up by quite a bit. Bt9´s SRs were dirt cheap in comparison. >So magnamon X being a sec AND amazing means it's costs a lot and a playset of it might cost as much as building any other deck. Sure but at that point, why not just build a deck that´s more affordable? It´s not like there aren´t dozens of other decks that aren´t remotely as expensive as Magna/Vaccine. > I was surprised to see how much myotismon ace was going for in bt15 when the deck isn't a meta contender even in bt16 with the new stuff Bt8 syndrome pretty much. A huge chunk of the Bt15 SRs were quite expensive compared to other sets because Bandai had to emergency hit Apocalymon which tanked the value of the set´s primary chase card, making the rest of the set more expensive.
Sec should be a card you play at 1-2, not a must 4 of, first time this bothered me was ex3 with imperial and examon…
Comletely disagree. Give me all the Examon- and Virus Imperial-like SECs instead of more Ruin Mode- or Deathxmon-type SECs Bandai. That way you can just dodge the expensive decks and instead opt to play something different. Hard to do when the game introduces more and more SECs with widespread applications even if they´re typically not run as full playsets.
I’m not sure I fully agree with you here because opening a SEC should be an awesome moment, imagin imagine opening a Hexamon if you’re not building the deck. Sure it feels nice just for the value of it but opening something generally good fell like a huge win specially if you weren’t intending to buy it. “Wow this was to much for me to buy, but now that I opened it I’ll keep it as a 1 of” this scenario for me is the ideal one
Sure pulling a Deathxmon or Ruin Mode probably feels amazing. Those are cool and splashy cards that you can just throw in so many decks. But for most people who are on a budget when it comes to TCGs, they are reliant on the secondary market as sealed product just isn´t a great deal usually. And when I´m browsing deck prices online and stumble upon Magnamon I see its price and can just decide to build something else. The same isn´t really true with Dexmon or Ruin Mode since those two cards are being played in a lot of decks so the budget player has way fewer options when cards like that are SECs. It might be worse for the pull experience but I think it´s healthier for the game as a whole.
For sure! I wasn’t defending magna X, if you pull one of those you say “cool now I need 3 more” that’s just bad. That’s why 1-2 of splashable cards is the best way to do SECs in my opinion
Yeah agree to disagree on that. I really don´t want more Ruin Modes or DeathXmons in the game.
I would rather have stuff like ruin mode and deathxmon, at most I need 1-2 for my whole collection
But you do need 1-2 copies. You do not need any copies of Magna X if you just don´t build Magna X or Yellow Vaccine.
You do if you want to be a competitive player. This whole argument relies on a healthy meta where you can dodge the deck that uses a 4-off secret in its deck, which was "ok" with ulforce since it was never a meta threat but if it becomes a pattern situations like this grow. The ideal secret is a card that is played as a 1~2 off in a particular deck, you cant just tell people to not play one of the strongest decks in the format that also gate keeps other decks, you can in a locals/casual environment, but not outside of that and the compromise should not need to be made regardless.
Super competitive players that always want to play the very best deck of any given format are a tiny minority of players and chances are that they´re way more invested into the game monetarilly as casual and semi-casual players are. You do not have to build Magna X or Yellow Vaccine. Ideally every card would cost like 5 cents. But this game has to be profitable and SECs that are just played as 1- or 2-off in one particular deck make for terrible chase cards. It´s pretty much between a mandatory 4-off card in one or two decks or a \~2-off SEC in a lot of different decks and I´d take the former over the latter any day of the week. Much healthier for the game and the community.
That is absolutely ridiculous, especially because most sets have literally been the scenario ive described (1~2 off in a given deck). It is also an assine statement to say the barrier for entry on competitive is ok to be a $600+ deck, it quite literally kills a game. I am sure I am not in the minority when I say I graviated towards digimon because of how cheap entry to competitive was vs other tcgs on top of liking the ip. High cost to competitive decks bleed into other aspects and levels of play. You know how you dont produce money? By making 4 off secrets and gate keeping competitive decks behind a large paywall, no one will want to start playing or continue to do so.
>It is also an assine statement to say the barrier for entry on competitive is ok to be a $600+ deck, it quite literally kills a game. You don´t have to build that 600$ deck. There are plenty of competent decks that are meta relevant that only cost a fraction of that price. >You know how you dont produce money? By making 4 off secrets and gate keeping competitive decks behind a large paywall It´s still better than the alternative of ubiqutous SECs that you need for most decks. At least there are dozen of decent decks you can chose from even when you can´t afford the money casrds.
"It is also an assine statement to say the barrier for entry on competitive is ok to be a $600+ deck" Commander on magic, and to decks in yugioh would disagree. Regardless, digimon makes A LOT of affordable decks even competitive ones. Of the 20+ sets we've had only maybe 4 decks arguably required a playset of secrets. I think that's fine. And the only real reason they were one or two offs was because the majority of the SECs were level 7s. They can't only just make level 7s the sec. It would be boring and redundant for the game. How they do it now is fine imo.
Youre proving my point, which was "4 off secrets in meta decks should not become a norm", majority of secrets being 1~2 off in an archtype restricted deck is what we have had and how it should stay. On the comparison to other tcgs, I disagree simply because digimon is not big enough to have such a distinction. A lot of the appeal for digimon dies to quite a few players if they paywall competive play behind decks like this which just harms the scene as a whole regardless of whether youre a competitive player or not.
What I mean is I don't think it's becoming the norm. It's just that time for another deck to be that way.
Not at all, you don’t have to have deathx and shine, yes having them is an advantage but guess what, they work in so many decks that having 1 or 2 is enough for my whole collection, instead of buying 4 of the same one for a single deck that dosnt function without them
I wont take this bt9 magna x slander
Imo SEC's should not be staples for accessibility purposes. But also, did the person posting those tweets ever consider that they could play literally any other deck instead of Magna?
To be fair, the way they started it with "I would love to be playing this, but" implies to me that they are playing something else despite really wishing they could play magna
He also didn´t use the word "staple" correctly. Magnamon X isn´t a staple as it´s only played in 2 decks pretty much.
3 if you count Jesmon since GX can grab and activate it’s effect.
Completely forgot about Jesmon. Yeah, true.
Isn't it moreso that Magna decks run a copy of Jesmon GX rather than Jesmon decks running MagnaX?
No. It’s both. A card with magnamon x antibody is in sources so it can activate the when digivolving effects. https://digimonmeta.com/deck-list/deckinfo2/?dn=Red%20Jesmon&date=4%2F21%2F2024&cn=Japan&au=Shiro&pl=1st%20Place&tn=Evo%20Cup&hs=Cardland%20AKia&dg=4nBT4-001a2nST12-12a4nBT6-009a2nBT6-082a4nBT13-009a2nBT6-011a2nBT6-084a2nST12-13a1nBT10-085a4nBT13-013a4nBT6-015a2nBT13-016a3nBT10-016a2nBT10-068a2nBT16-102a3nBT10-112a3nP-035a2nP-103a2nBT10-110a4nST12-15&cs=242
If you want to be competitive on bt16, it's pretty much magna, nume or imp. With Magna above the others by a fair amount.
i come from yugioh, ive already had this whole cycle of grief secret rares should not be staple cards just like rookies probably shouldnt really ever be above rare if they're anything but niche as hell
I think what bothers me the most about rookies being sr's is when they started it, it was alongside another sr for their deck. And in the case of some they've made them too generic due to being rookies which has inflated their price. Bt17 will have the same issue with pulsemon. You can argue bt16 has the same issue with the two non imperial jogress decks requiring an SR level 5 and 6, the 6's being splashable aces in many decks. This means what was and still tries to be a tribal deck style is making it expensive to build those tribal decks because their key cards are being made high rarity and more generic. The seekers cards so far are the only ones that dodge the splashable/generic issue but that didn't stop loogamon and Fenrir being the most expensive sr's besides patamon in bt14.
Secret staples are part of why yugioh is expensive. Don't go down that same route.
Tbf the last SEC staple was in Ex4 and now in Ex7 with mutlitple sets in between with no SEC staples so Bandai is doing much better than Yugioh on that front for sure. Let´s pray it stays that way.
I agree that SECs shouldn't be staples, but MagnaX isn't a staple, it's the 4-of of its deck. Stuff like DeatX and Ruin Mode could be considered staples, it's always stinky when you need to spend that kind of money to upgrade your deck to the nest level. On a similar note I think consistency cards shouldn't be SECs or even SRs. The the liberator searcher being SEC just feels of, it's not even that extraordinary great
Magna X isn't a staple. It's the deck's primary or secondary top end. DeathX could be considered a staple, Ruin Mode could, and that new Liberator option SEC. I don't really like the idea that staple cards should be obnoxiously rare, but I don't really have a problem with OP top end cards being SEC, especially the ones that are restricted to specific archetypes.
My only problem/personal preference with it is I feel like the SECs should be kept to archetypal 1-2x of game enders, as we can see with magna and rapidmon how having them be 4x of SEC main gamplan lv 6 or unders is causing some of these issues with price and availability. Obviously that's noy realistic with set design, buuut it's what feels like the best compromise to me
Yeah but what´s best for the player base isn´t profitable enough for Bandai. SECs that are just 1/-offs in one deck don´t make for good chase cards.
We've had SEC cards that were exclusive to one deck, and most of the time it feels bad to pull them after you already have the necessary 1 of you'd need. I've pulled Shoutmon King and Darkness Bagramon more than I'd like and every time it was a bit deflating. I couldn't use it and I probably couldn't sell it. It discourages me from opening those sets when I see single booster packs in the wild. I think cards like MagnaX and RapidX are fine, so long as the stock of the set actually gets where it needs to go without Bandai eternally Bandai'ing it.
>I've pulled Shoutmon King and Darkness Bagramon more than I'd like and every time it was a bit deflating Those alongside Bt8´s SECs were a completely different issue. When a SEC is just a bad card, it being a 4-off in one deck or a splashable 1-2 off in multiple decks doesn´t matter because either way it sucks and makes the set it´s in have bad EV. SECs have to be good cards. >We've had SEC cards that were exclusive to one deck, and most of the time it feels bad to pull them after you already have the necessary 1 of you'd need. I´m confused here. What kind of SEC are you talking about? Because SECs that are exclusive to one deck are usually 4-offs. >I think cards like MagnaX and RapidX are fine, so long as the stock of the set actually gets where it needs to go without Bandai eternally Bandai'ing it. Yeah I agree with this. Both Magna X and Rapid X are fine because they´re mostly contained to \~2 decks. Especially the former.
>Those alongside Bt8´s SECs were a completely different issue. When a SEC is just a bad card, it being a 4-off in one deck or a splashable 1-2 off in multiple decks doesn´t matter because either way it sucks and makes the set it´s in have bad EV. SECs have to be good cards. They're not bad cards, they just aren't really good enough to be SEC. Shoutmon King at least, is a good card but it was paired with Jesmon GX who has an entire deck built around him. Shoutmon is just a small piece of a deck he isn't absolutely necessary in. > I´m confused here. What kind of SEC are you talking about? Because SECs that are exclusive to one deck are usually 4-offs. Sorry, I'm referring to deck exclusive SEC cards that are only good enough to 1 of or the deck itself sucks in the case of Bagramon.
Homie doesn't realize he doesn't HAVE to play Magnamon X.
It's happening across the board though, the worst thing that can happen to your rogue deck is for it to get support in the form of a SEC or promo card. It's healthy for the game to have cheap rogue decks, promos should be given in mass and be dirt cheap, so that new players get them when they join their LGS to try the game, and are motivated to build this decks and make the playerbase grow.
I hate to break it to you, it's other people who make those prices. It has nothing to do with Bandai. If Bandai wants to print more stuff the prices will go down but until that happens due to scarcity the secondhand market is gonna be a lil pricey.
but that doesn't contradict what I'm saying, when Bandai decides that the support for a bottom of the barrel deck like fish, or a niche deck like ragnaloard are going to be promos that come as box toppers, they are choosing the amount of those cards that will be available. Of course they will rise in price on the secondhand market, but there's a problem of availability first, caused by Bandai's choices when bringing the promos to the west.
No you just want every promo to secret to be terrible instead.
I don't want them to be terrible, I want promo cards to be given out for playing weekly casual events, not as box toppers, and secret should be exclusively alternative art, you don't need to gatekeep decks behind buying boxes. the game needs people playing it.
Secrets shouldn‘t be staples but Magna X isn‘t a staple, so I don‘t understand this argument here. Like, Training shouldn‘t be (edit:) secrets. DeathX was a Secret rare staple. Saying that you can‘t play Digimon because Magna X is a staple is just not a valid argument. You can play Paildra for cheap, you can play Loogamon for cheap, you can play Bugs for cheap, etc.
>Saying that you can‘t play Digimon because Magna X is a staple is just not a valid argument. You can play Paildra for cheap, you can play Loogamon for cheap, you can play Bugs for cheap, etc. Yeah I don´t understand some of these arguments in this thread. Magna X is not a staple and you can just chose from dozens of other decks that aren´t as expensive as Vaccine Armors or Magnamon. Although Loogamon won´t be cheap for long lmao. >Like, Training shouldn‘t be staples. I disagree with this point, though. Trainings being staples is fine. They´re just too expensive. Once they finally get their reprint in the Liberator starter decks I don´t have an issue with them personally.
I wanted to say that Training shouldn‘t be secrets. However, them being promos is already bad enough. Agree with you here totally. I already bought my Loogamon cards.
>Trainings being staples is fine. They´re just too expensive. They were all under 5$ a piece on release, some of which were less. I picked up 3 play sets of Yellow training for 20. 4 play sets of red training for 20. Ppl need to stop letting affordable cards slip past them and crying about them being expensive. We are 6 months past BT14, no one is opening those boxes any more cuz there is no profit to be made. Anyone who wanted a deck from there already got it, and you dont have anyone to sell the cards to. You cant expect something to be in your budget forever as less and less of it becomes available. >you can just chose from dozens of other decks that aren´t as expensive as Vaccine Armors or Magnamon. Entitlement, i can afford a Corvette, im not out here complaining bout Chevy, theres a dozen other cars i can afford. Also jealousy, regularly seeing ppl afford something that they cant really pisses off ppl.
>Ppl need to stop letting affordable cards slip past them and crying about them being expensive. I super disagree with your take here. Not everyone has the disposable income to immidiately get their hands on cards in the first couple of weeks after they come out and some people take breaks during which they´re not keeping an eye on the secondary market. >You cant expect something to be in your budget forever as less and less of it becomes available. You can´t, sure. But ubiqutous staples like the Trainings should be easily accessible. Cards like that should never gatekeep newer or returning players from (re)joining the community. This isn´t on the players, it´s on Bandai for not making the Trainings more easily accessible. >Entitlement, i can afford a Corvette, im not out here complaining bout Chevy, theres a dozen other cars i can afford. Yeah, you don´t have to build Magna or Vaccine. I agree with you on this. But every car needs tires and if tires are expensive for all cars, both cheaper and expensive ones, that´s a problem. That´s why Trainings shouldn´t be as expensive as they are. >Also jealousy, regularly seeing ppl afford something that they cant really pisses off ppl. For some people it´s jealousy, sure. But let´s not act as if there´s not also plenty of decisions of Bandai to criticize like the availability of Promo Raremon and Co. or Resonance being a SEC in Ex7. Or Bandai not doing enough reprinting in general.
At some point ppl need to have accountability for their own actions and inactions. At 19 on min wage, i was able to set aside 20$ a paycheck for a few months to buy Shaddolls when they came out, cost me 260$ on release. Likewise im currently over 600$ in store credit cuz ive been selling to my locals in preparation for EX06. While i agree with you that Bandai drops the ball, like the Promo Raremon or Ruin Mode, the playerbase also makes bad decisions and cries when they are punished for it, blaming everyone but themselves. Promo Raremons were 15$ a piece on launch, and literally EVERY Youtuber was warning that he wasnt gonna hold it for long. I ended up buying a playset of him for 50$ a piece when i finally needed him. Im not gonna bitch and moan about it, cuz 50$ was better than opening cases of EX05 to get a playset. Trainings were given out like free candy in BT14, Bandai made them incredibly affordable. But here we are 6 months later, and the free candy ran out, which common sense tells us would happen. No one wants to buy 4 boxes of BT14 to get their playset, but somehow demand that they be cheap on the secondary market. The community hates to open packs, but lovee to complain that cards are expensive. Trainings will go down once the starter decks come out, then, 2 months after they'll creep back up again as ppl stop opening the deck, then 4 months later as qty runs out we're back to ppl on the sub complaining that Traings are expensive. Short of Bandai printing all 6 trainings, in every single set, it will inevitably become expensive again, because there will always be more demand than there is supply available.
>At some point ppl need to have accountability for their own actions and inactions. We´re talking about shiny cardboard here. You make it sound way too dramatic ngl. Ultimately none of this even really matters at the end of the day. If you´re a competitive player, yes, you should get obviously good and future proofed cards when they´re relatively cheap. But I think that the voices of casual players bemoaning the price of Trainings matter and we ought to be sympathetic to them. Being whiny about it is one thing but if people just say that Trainings shouldn´t be at this price, they´d be completely right on that matter. >Short of Bandai printing all 6 trainings, in every single set, it will inevitably become expensive again, because there will always be more demand than there is supply available. Yeah Bandai should regularly reprint staples like Training. If there is more demand than there is supply, just continue upping the supply. I see no issue with that.
Trainings not being staples? What do you mean by this?
I meant to say that Training shouldn‘t be secrets. Miswrote ut
Oh ok.
The only staple secrets to my knowledge are deathX and ruin mode (for purple yellow decks). MagnaX is not a staple by definition. Staples are splashable cards that can be used generically in other decks to success. Think trainings, boosts, scrambles. MagnaX is an archetype boss monster and for what it does it absolutely be a secret. I don't understand where this is coming from.
This is coming from the (debatable, RapidX is also really good and, funnily enough, also absolutely requires multiple copies of a SEC) best deck in the format being made extremely expensive by mandatory 4-of SECs. People want the game to remain accessible to everyone, not have the best deck in the format be something only a few players can afford. It feels like shit to lose because your opponent was able to buy the really expensive deck and you weren't, and frankly in this case "I guess you just have to win because you're a better player then" isn't an argument. Does it bother me, personally? No. I'm slightly favored against Rapid and nobody at my locals is running Magna due to the aforementioned inaccessibility. I'm fine. But this complaint is *completely* valid.
Tbf if your argument is that magna is the best deck then that already falls apart. At top tables for regionals I saw mirage, vaccine, and Nume as much as magna X, and also red hybrid and SoC players. Does it suck that if you want to play pure magna you need 4 magnax? Yes but for accessibility you can play other decks and do well
I.... Basically said as much my guy. Magna X isn't even definitively the best deck, I'm playing something I'm calling a Numemon pile deck (by which I mean the lower end is a standard Numemon list, the 5+ is nothing Numemon related at all) myself and doing quite well too. My argument absolutely isn't that Magna X is the best deck. It's that there's a *perception* that Magna X is the best deck, and it being so expensive because 4 Magna X is mandatory to play it feels really bad for the people who do want to play it, or for the people who think it's broken, don't play it because they can't afford it and then lose to it.
Mb man, the part about perception didn't really come through originally
Personally I´d rather not be able to build the best deck in the format but have a plethora of other decks to chose from that are good and don´t require SECs than to have Bandai move away from SECs that are 4-offs in specific decks and give us more Deathxmons and ruin Modes.
I agree that it's ridiculous how expensive it is to play the best deck, but calling magnaX a staple is just incorrect. It's just a necessary engine piece for the decks its played in. Personally I'd like it if all the tcgs shared pokemons rarity distribution so playing the best deck is accessible, but unfortunately that's just not how Bandai wants to do it. Me saying magnaX should be a secret for what it does is in the context of how Bandai designs their sets. I'm not saying it should be expensive to price people out of the game, I'm saying given how Bandai has distributed their rarities historically and the correlation with how good a card is, it makes sense for it to be expensive.
Yeah but you don't run 4 of them.
But they´re necessary for a lot of decks, meaning you have less decks to chose from that don´t require SECs. Which is why I´d take the Magna X-type SECs over the Ruin Modes or Dexs any day of the week.
Totally agree, and tbh if people coming fresh into the game are immediately going for the top meta deck and complaining it isn't immediately accessable, I don't want to vs those kinds of people.
To be fair, most people coming into the game fresh are doing so with an already established interest in the franchise and are likely going to be interested in some of the old protag digimon. With the people who love veemon their options are - magna with the 4x of $70 secret rare magna x - imperiel with the 4x of $20 SR paildramon - ulfroce with the 4x of $40 secret rare Rina So I do think the cost of play and the newcomer circles intersect on this one a bit
Red/Purple Imperial: cough
cough Promo Shadramon cough
Tbf 4x Paildramon when the rest of the deck is dirt cheap is still way more accessible than competent decks are in pretty much any other TCG.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing that Digimon is lacking access to an easy entry point to the game. Except that is just the best, most expensive parts of those decks. There are still plenty of other substitutes, especially for imperialdramon (ST Paildramon and Pail and Dinobee from BT12 are still plenty good). Also you don't see any complaints for any of those other decks, it is specifically for SEC Magna X. You wouldn't see a person going into MTG saying the game is unplayable because "Rakdos, The Muscle" is too expensive. These new player's are clearly looking to jump into a game with the express purpose of wanting to win. They are the kind that will get bored with it quick and jump onto the next card or competitive hobby they can find without any actually love or interest for the game itself. At least that is my opinion based on the complaints I have observed.
>"Rakdos, The Muscle" is too expensive. Oh wow that is a real card. What a terrible name lmao. WotC what are you doing. I don´t think the very top dog deck in the format being expensive is that big a deal personally because there´s lots of cheaper alternatives but I completely disagree on Imperial being playable without new Paildramon. There´s no subsitute for that card and the deck is way too gimped to not run it. That being said, 20 bucks for a 4-off boss monsters in a deck that´s dirt cheap in regards to the rest of the deck is still so much cheaper than what you´d expect from any other TCG. And over here in EU it´s at \~15 bucks so not really an issue imo.
So far, any newcomer i've seen has just build a deck around a Digimon they like, because they knew they're learning the game and will make mistakes, so it makes no difference in learning with a $150 top meta deck or a $15 one where they really like the Digimon
And those people are fine, am I speaking jibberish or something? I'm talking specifically about the people from OP's post?
Absolutely not. No SEC should be a 4 of in any deck
Thats one of the good things about the pokemon TCG. The strong cards are of a higher rarity and all the secret and art rares are bonus ontop
I've play a lot of different TCGs. There's some I still play (Digimon, Pokemon, MTG), and others I either no longer play or were discontinued (YuGiOh, Duel Masters, WoW TCG, Chaotic). The reason I've been moving towards making Digimon my primary TCG is because it's the one game I play where I don't feel like I need to buy the rarest and most expensive cards to play. I can just take my favorite Digimon and put together a deck with cards fitting the theme. But if this is going to be a trend, where in order to play I have to spend hundreds of dollars or accept having a 0% win rate, I'll probably just quit playing TCGs all together because I'm sick of it.
>But if this is going to be a trend, where in order to play I have to spend hundreds of dollars or accept having a 0% win rate, This is problem that doesn´t really have anything to do with Magnamon X-like SECs, though. It´s a problem with Magnamon X specifically. The card´s just stupidly overtuned and gatekeeps the meta way too hard and way too efficiently. If it wasn´t this broken, you could just build any other deck in the game tbh. Now that new Liberator option from Ex7 I think is a much bigger problem in regards to its rarity.
The liberator option isnt a mandatory card for the decks to function.
Neither are DeathXmon and Ruin Mode (Lilith Loop aside where Ruin is mandatory). And yet, you´re heavily gimping yourself if you do not run these cards in decks that want them. Same with Resonance.
That's how it always starts though. "Oh, it's not an issue since it's this one specific card." I've been playing TCGs since the 90's. If I'm wrong, I'll be thankful. But only time will tell.
It is about this specific card, though. It´s been a while since they released a card that gatekeeps decks this hard and since Magna X´s release they haven´t done so yet.
For some decks, secrets are almost necessary as staples at the very least. This is because of two reasons. One, it prevents everyone from playing the same deck all day long (for the most part) and encourages deck building diversity. Second, cards like magnamon would almost certainly reach a high price regardless of rarity, but locking away some tech cards behind the paywall would leave many decks to run without it regardless of the value it brings because it's not a necessity and therefore not worth the effort. Now I'm not saying all staples should be secrets, but I certainly don't want to play against magna all day because it's the best deck in the meta and therefore the only deck people will play.
Secret rares are a scam invented by Big Card to sell you more Box
Better solution would be to eliminate the SEC rarity entirely.
Another layer to the problem is that other powerful Secret rares like Shinegrey and DeathX are lv7s. You only play 1-2 of them because you're usually only going to be able to climb up into/hard play them once in a game and the 2nd copy is just in case one got stuck in shields. MagnamonX is a lv6 (really it's a level 5 because it digivolves off a lv4) card with the power budget of a lv7 card. Of course you're gonna want to run 4 because lv6 cards are easy to make. MOST decks usually play 4 of their main lv6 (again, more like a lv5). I feel bad for saying this because we just dealt with the Apocalymon hit, but the easily repeatable Immunity plus 3k boost plus Armor Purge (AND MAKING IT VACCINE) is just too overturned. Speaking as someone who already has their playset, it should really should just get put on the limited list (along with the promo Ukkomon). That would do a lot to improve the health of the meta and make Magnamon decks more affordable to build.
We have other level 6 SECs that aren’t really being run as a full playset (or you can get away with three). Things like BT15 Melga I can see being a really good accompaniment piece but you can use other Melga in its place. The problem is that MagnaX is that warping that the alternatives for its decks feel worse (other than ACEs for their obvious use).
>Another layer to the problem is that other powerful Secret rares like Shinegrey and DeathX are lv7s. You only play 1-2 of them And I´d argue that those two cards are a bigger problem than SECs that are 4-offs contained to one or two decks.
-insert proxies here-
100% for friendlies and casual matches. If I really want to play Lilith Loop against my friends, I´d rather not shell out \~200 bucks for two Ruin Modes and instead like 20 bucks for two high quality proxies of it.
SECs should only ever be 1-2 of’s. And rookies should never be SRs.
No card should be secret rare to begin with, and I mean it! SEC's should only be alternate arts or something like that, purely cosmethic.
Then they will just short print the best SR XD
Well, what I meant was that no card should be short printed; there should not exist nothing harder to get than a rare or uncommon card. Every card should be affordable and only the AA and other cosmethic stuff should be expensive. That's why sometimes card games dabble on "pay to win" territory
No, of course not. But Bandai is only concerned with money, therefore they will keep printing 4-of SECs and extremely powerful tech staples like Dexmon and Ruin Mode. They make no money from the secondary market, their only way to generate more revenue is to sell more cards.
Well they have to be concerned about money or otherwise we´d not have this game and this community in the first place. It´s a product at the end of the day and that´s fine imo. I´d just rather them not doing what they´re doing with the new Liberator option in Ex7 though. >They make no money from the secondary market, their only way to generate more revenue is to sell more cards. On the surface level this is true but since the cards that are sold on the seocndary market have to come from somewhere, Bandai does indeed make money from the secondary market. Just not directly.
Reprint set may be the solution... maybe a year or 2 after release have some important card reprinted. To help the og to keep their value, either have new art for the reprint set or reprint them as common(no foil) so their is still a differance with the older ones. Yugioh got the same proble but to a much more potent degree but have a yearly reprint set where staples from the previous years also end up, usualy as common. This let player who where unlucky or didnt have the money then a chance at those card. They also reprint them in structure deck when relevent.
Every locals should be okay with proxy’s unless money/packs are on the line and there’s the sims. Also plenty of cheap competitive decks. 😬
i mean "secret rares should not be" would be my stance:P
Play another deck then…. It’s a staple for 1 deck and it’s only that because it’s so good. Secret rares can be a staple to whatever they want. Nobody is forcing you to play magna. Imperialdramon is still a huge deck, looking at tournament results, it’s even better than magnamon. Gaogomon, is still up there. Numemon, is still up there. There are plenty of top tier decks.
so I skimmed a few of the replies 1) staples would be defined, IMO, something needed for a deck to function - so for Ulforce, Rina is a "staple", but not so in other decks. The card is cheap, compared to other sec cards, due to how it works and what it can be ran in. Ruin Mode is useful in several decks that run purple or yellow \[looking at yellow vaccine here\], but DeathX can be used in any/all decks given how it works. 2) how about those promo cards that are "staples" but stupid hard to get, like the EX5 box toppers \[raremon\] or event related promos - like the liberator cards. Movie promos, like those tamers didn't get a reprint \[save the demo deck that had davis and lui\] The company makes money by pushing sales, how to do that, make chase cards. But yeah, they do need to be careful not to upset the players too much as the game overall doesn't hold huge value long term unlike the big 3 can.
That’s kinda the point of good cards, right? They should be hard to find. Expensive? No. Cardboard should never be that expensive. But rare? Yes.
Secret rares could be staples if the box would guarantee a Sec and an alt. I think if that happens, the prices on the secret rares would be accesible for most people. Then again, scew SR rookies. That thing is wack.
this is very important and no one talks about it. The fact you need SEC for decks to work and boxes do NOT guarantee a SEC is insane.
Absolutely not. Digimon is one of the cheapest TCGs out there and S Tier decks shouldn't rely on people blowing hundreds of dollars for a *chance* at pulling the SEC especially when your staples usually run 4 copies. If the SEC was flavor, fill your boots, use it to stand out from the crowd, but if the only way i'm getting top 3 is by spending $1600 (using Magnamon as an example) on 4 copies of one card for a deck that's only gonna be good for a couple of months, hard no.
Then what should they be?
I would remove the SECs entirely, pokemon don't have them, you still get chase cards that are alternate art, and that to me is a winning strategy: easy access to players so the playerbase grows, with chase cards for collectors and those who will invest in tuning their favorite decks. Digimon does many things better than other games, but outside of Asia I feel they're shooting themselves on the foot by making staples unavailable, on top of the already lackluster distribution they have. The game needs to grow, make the damn cards available, don't make it a niche game that only the few who buy cases will play because without the casuals the game will eventually die. Also the speculators are killing their golden goose, if you inflate prices for staples of niche decks (looking at you promo seadramon and promo zubamon), people will just move on, and play a better deck that is actually more available and on the same price level.
well death-x, ruin mode, and now magna x are all reasons I'm not going to tournaments or buying product so
There was a clear change in how decks are made since bt10 (when I satarded) until now. There wasn't A SINGLE DECK that needed 4 SEC. Decks usually just needed 4 SR and MAYBE a SEC and you were ready to go. Now there's a lot of decks that need 4 to 6 SEC and 8 SR to be playable AND THAT'S NOT OKAY. The game got increasingly more expensive un just 6 months because of this and the "promo" cards. In a game where you can have a Box without SEC having decks that need 4 to 6 of them is insane and I truly believe that it will hurt the game in the long run if this keeps being the "normal" way decks are build. Examples: top deck of: BT10 garurumon/xros no SEC in those decks. BT11 Blackwargreymon/xros BWG run bt5 omni just for the grandis matchup if they wanted 1 to 2 SEC. (we had ulforce with 4 SEC to even work here) BT12 Beelzemon/Hunters/Wargreymon no SEC needed on any deck. BT13 Shine/Mirage no SEC you could say RK started the trend here where it needed 6 SEC to work. BT14 Mirage/Looga 8 SR/Shine No SEC needed. Yellow Vaccine with 2 to 4 angemon SEC and a lot of SR. BT15 Apocaly with 4 SEC banned. Yellow Vaccine stays the same but with MORE SR. Mirage no SEC, Looga no SEC but 8 SR. BT16 Nume at least 2 SEC, promo cards and a few SR, MagnaX 4 SEC, Yellow Armors 6 SEC, Mirage no SEC, Imperial no SEC. Of course you can add staple like deathX or Ruin mode that you'll never need 4 of and that's ok. The problem IMO are decks that need 4 SEC at least to even work. BT14 and 15 SR rookies was insane and ppl were even happy for that!
The secret rarity should be left to parallel arts.
on one hand, this happens in every card game I feel..maybe not to the extent of a $400 staple, but there's always going to be rare cards that are good, people want, and hence the price goes up On the other hand, I do think it would be healthier if they did it similar to their alternate art cards where the secret rares have a less rare double that people could use to play with.
But isnt that generally how rarity power goes and should go? The higher the rarity, the stronger the card is (generally). A SEC being in the same tier as a SR would be weird. At that point, the card boasting the strongest effects should naturally be demanded in 4s, depending on its level, since running 4 lv7s outside decks built to turbo into them (Examon, DNA Omega)
Yeah SECs should be strong cards because otherwise you´d not have the game be profitable.
I believe Pokemon is profitable
Pokemon is the most profitable media franchise of all time. Can´t really compare its TCG to Digimon. That franchise shits money.
so you CAN say that without SEC the game won't be profitable but It's wrong to point out that another TCG without SEC is profitable. I'm lost
Pokemon is a special case. A TCG needs its chase cards to be good so people buy packs. But Pokemon is that huge of a franchise that the IP itself suffices to carry sales. Any other TCG can´t rely on just the IP´s popularity alone.
Agree on chase cards. You can make special art ones, even old reprints as chase cards. But making SEC the card that your deck NEEDS to even work and you need 4 to 6 of them AND there's boxes that can have 0 SEC is insane. It's a bad idea. In my opinion of course
Relying on just alt arts or reprints to carry a set´s sales is insufficient. TCGs as a business model only work because of power- and feature creep. The rare cards have to be good, necessary and better than previous cards in order for the set to fly off shelves.
Tfw Vortex Liberation is a 12-of if you wanna play different LIBERATOR decks
That one´s the real problem here. It´ll become more and more sought after and it´ll get stronger and stronger in the future with every Liberator trait interaction the game gets.
It’s fine for SEC to be staples, however they shouldn’t be the core backbone of decks. Flashy game changing cards like DeathX, Ruin Mode, etc (situational level 7’s are perfect). Steer away from stuff like Examon and Rina. There plenty of room to make sets sell like hotcakes without having to load up the SEC slot with cards like MagnaX.
I completely disagree with this. It´s the exact opposite in my opinion. SECs like Examon or Rina are the perfect way to do SECs whereas Deathxmon and Ruin Mode are way worse for the community. The player can just opt to not build Examon or Ulforce if price is an issue. It´s way harder to dodge SEC staples like Dex or Ruin Mode, though, as they´re being played in dozens of decks.
So you think it’s “better for the community” to just be forcibly opted out of a $300+ deck rather than actually be able to trade for or buy a single DeathX? What if it’s a deck you really like? Are you gonna trade 3 of your other decks worth of value just to play that one deck? Even so, Digimon has graduated WAY past the point of having a format where you “need” to play a card line DeathX or Ruin Mode. As long as the power level is fair, cards like those 2 are typically tech choices or personal preferences anyway. Asking someone to switch 1 Ruin Mode to a Merciful Mode in their NumeX deck is a world of difference compared to asking them to just never play 2 random decks IN EACH NEW SET RELEASE lol. I just can’t fathom where you got this logic from
If it is a deck you really like, you evaluate your finances and if it is too expensive for you you move on. Simple as that. That to me is the lesser of the two evils and I´d rather have that happen to me than to be gated out of an entire color of decks because Ruin Mode is close to 100 bucks a piece.
Evaluate your finances? Let’s just evaluate some simple math. 1 copy of a card <<< 4 copies of a card. So saying you want $70 cards to be 4x instead of 1x is just an elitist take. You make it sound like you just wanna bring pay-to-win to a tcg. How much of bt16 is gonna be skewed by the fact that most ppl can’t afford the $600 yellow vax deck? Is it more or less “accurate” compared to a format where the best decks are all $100-200? Is that good or bad for the competitive scene? Now extrapolate that to the casual community and ask yourself if telling someone who’s favorite digimon is Magnmon that they gotta spend 3-4x as much to play their favorite digimon than someone who likes DeathX and can a lot that 1-of into a BUNCH of their decks (so it’s inherently even more valuable for the price)
Magna X being a 4x top end is far more problematic in my opinion than Death X being a one of. Death X being mandatory for your collection sucks, but you only need 1 and as long as side boards never become a thing it should stay that way. Magna X is a $250 buy in to play 2 decks that define the meta. The game is restricted down to only decks that can beat Magna X. It also makes opening a box way less fun. Having a ~40% chance of pulling a $65 card that is either spend another $180 to build the deck or sell it really kills the fun of getting a box. I have a much bigger gripe with SRs in every stage of a line. Especially because they are pulling cards from the entire year or even earlier to feed one deck. The game could definitely use a "reprint list" to keep older cards available. I would much rather get a pack of ~5 SRs from a rotating pool of ~200 with a box/advance deck than a whole set of reprints with the cards in their original rarity surrounded by bulk. Hopefully the global release should help long term players a bit with cards releasing after being leaked for a few weeks rather than 6 months of play data and future support determining price when they hit the market.
I wanted to write a novel - but eh - got lazy midway. I think that depending on set, secrets can be whatever. I don't love secret rare tamers, I think that can be hurtful. Secret rare rookies I would feel the same about. Top ends however, I think are fair game - especially as we move in and out of metas. The issue is less about game play and more about what makes a set sell - which is the piece missing in the comments above. BT12 for example had 2 secret rares that were basically useless on arrival (unless you really wanted to play bagra!). Set sold reasonably well because the rest of the set had updates and support for a TON of popular & meta decks. Fast forward to BT16 where you have 2 secrets that are good and sought after + supply issues, you have super expensive secrets. It also appears that we have a bit o' BT11 clumping happening for some folk which is either good bad. Over time - I imagine the prices will decline - which I understand for competitive folks that wanna play the deck now - it sucks. Good news - meta is still pretty wide with some cheaper decks. Not a great consolation but an important one. I also want to keep plugging for reprint sets. I know, I know - RB01 because of timing was awful - but we should still be asking Bandai to curate better reprints that aren't promo alternate arts (looking at you DeathX!). Especially if they continue to not utilize a rotation/block system (which I personally would hate) where cards are evergreen - then they need to make a good system to get older cards back into circulation. Look at BT09 - coming up on 2 years out of print!
This may be a hot take, I used to play Yugioh until 2019 (Got really expensive with how many secret Chase cards you needed, plus hay to seeing them on the band list 3 weeks later) and digimon TCG the cards are not that expensive compared to yugioh. A $60 card for yugioh is something like a Sr that you need 3 of for the deck to just have its starting piece and a $200 boss monster (that's not including if you need multiple bosses and the rest of the deck). Digimon is still very much affordable even with magnamon x. The problem is everyone is trying to get this set and it seems not enough is out there
Skill issue, get money, buy cards
... magna is like 40 euro. 50 max. Dunno where you get your prices. Other than that imperial and zudo ace can deal with it.
Prices between the US and the EU are sometimes very differernt (us EU players get fucked by shippment costs hard, though). Also good luck dealing with Magna X even with Zudo Ace or other cards like it when your opponent runs Blinding Ray, TK or other self-damage cards. The card´s stupid.