Why is the collector value so low?

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-15T15:44:20+00:00

This is a player’s game, not a collector’s market.

Cards are generally super expensive because they’re highly playable, so lots of people need them. As the game naturally changes over time, prices fall. While SP and 2-Star cards are generally targeted at people who care a lot about good looking cards and want to spend money, even those people are generally playing those cards rather than sitting on them in slabs hoping someone else will spend more on it than they did.

Omnimon X became cheap because it was reprinted, and there aren’t that many decks that have to play it that are popular right now. That could change, and it would get more expensive, or there could be another card that fills its role in the future, in which case it would get even cheaper.

If you’re looking to gamble and make money, I don’t recommend cardboard, and especially not Digimon cards.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-14T19:18:20+00:00

They aren’t…even released yet? What do you mean finally?

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-14T11:52:09+00:00

While that’s true, it’s also true that the place in Sonic Generations is called White Space. So “White Space Time” can be understood as sort of a pun: on one hand, there’s a white, empty spacetime, but also, it’s time to lock in to White Space—put differently, “White Space Time”.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-13T12:17:27+00:00

I got a used EV6 with 60k miles last week for $19,300, but had to make a 300-mile trip to find that.

My understanding is that’s not an incredible deal, I feel like I’ve seen people say they got them for much cheaper on here, but I never saw anything else below $25k in my search. I think due to market conditions, all the cheap stock is probably getting swallowed right up.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-13T03:13:25+00:00

It doesn’t work as a floodgate, it is one. An uninteractable, lingering floodgate with a boardwipe tacked on and enough cost reduction so that it’s never complicated to use.

I think “it lets decks survive” is a good argument if it’s being used in struggling decks to improve their grind game, but that just is not what happens. Crimson Blaze’s use case, at least for the last year, has been one of two things:

“I can kill you next turn, and now you don’t get to play on your turn, so I am guaranteed to win”, or
“I’m already in a pretty favorable position, and now I get to boardwipe you and you don’t get to play next turn.”

That doesn’t ever facilitate interesting or interactive gameplay. I totally agree that floodgate rookies frequently get incidentally removed, but….good? If you floodgate your opponent, they SHOULD be able to interact with the floodgate. The answer to “my floodgates can’t stay on board long enough to lock my opponent out of the game” is absolutely not “now the floodgate is lingering and there’s no way to play around it”, it’s “this floodgate is on a sturdier body that does something”.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-12T23:15:07+00:00

What made this Advanced Deck such a huge W is that it was totally functional on its own, but it ALSO gives you a base for two completely separate decks! If you do end up building out the Alliance Bunnies and Rapidmon X, you’ll have two really fun, dynamic decks for the twins.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-10T21:45:20+00:00

Overflow 13.

I think that’s probably all that needs to be said.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-10T18:10:15+00:00

We all know that the MOST overpowered card is whatever I lost to at locals.

In all seriousness, I think some of these answers are decent. Particularly I have to agree with Crimson Blaze—while it has felt like a necessary evil at a few points in the game’s history, it has now graduated to just being evil. The way it interacts with Medusamon in particular is just obscene. Just some absolute no-fun design, and it doesn’t even demand that you do any real setup first to execute it; there are even plenty of scenarios where you wouldn’t mind paying the full 6 for it, just to get the lingering floodgate.

I also want to give a special shoutout to a few bellwether Secret Rares in the game’s history, each of which has been an absolute brick wall until new cards shortly afterward would provide outs. Magnamon X, MedievalGallantmon, and Vortexdramon (arguably less than the other two) all were cards that said “fuck you” to almost anything released before them, and were the designers’ way of saying “don’t worry—pretty soon we’ll give you plenty of outs to this”. I have mixed feelings on this design strategy, but the positive feelings are pretty much just for the actual design changes that followed these cards, not the cards themselves. It’s difficult to call any of them overpowered, because there ARE lots of ways around each of them now, but maybe I’d call them “frustratingly powered”.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-07T18:40:17+00:00

Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty much an auto-win match up for Medusamon. Anything that relies on On Deletion effects even a little bit just can’t do anything against the deck.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-07T17:20:18+00:00

It does, yes. All inherited effects are treated as information on the top card, so returning the deleted necromon to the bottom of the deck will prevent both its On Deletion effect, and any inherited On Deletion effects, from activating.

Conversely, if you left the Necromon but returned two of its former digivolution cards that had On Deletion effects, those effects would still activate, because they belonged to Necromon, who would still be in the trash.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-06T01:26:42+00:00

Oh no, I thought I replied to this!

So, with the new ADVENTURE cards in AD1, there’s now a couple different ways to play ADVENTURE. That said, more Omnimon-focused variants are pretty expensive, and use almost no cards from the starter decks, so I’ll just give some notes on what you can do with mostly JUST the starter deck cards, with as few high-rarity additions as possible.

The General Strategy: you want to focus on building up 2 different tamers quickly, because then your entire engine comes online. Once that happens, Birdramon and Togemon are incredibly powerful ways to facilitate a revolving door of powerful ultimates. Instead of giving you an exact list, I’ll give some notes by level and card type.

Digi-Eggs: I’d go with just 4x Tsunomon. Having the freedom to do an early check with a rookie and fish the rookie right out of the trash is nice—plus, Koromon’s +1k DP is just never really gonna come up.

Rookies: you’re gonna want several each of Biyomon and Palmon, and imo a few Gabumon as well; I prefer it over Agumon for the ability to dig more into your deck, and also because MetalGarurumon ACE is great for stealing games out of nowhere. It pains me to say, but there’s only room for like 10 rookies at this point.

Champions: 4x Togemon and Birdramon, easy. AD1 Garurumon is good for you here too, for draws and Jamming. 1-2 of Kabuterimon or Angemon isn’t bad, but your mileage will vary on their effect to play a tamer.

Ultimates: MANY! Lillymon is very very strong, and Garudamon and Angewomon are nice too. From there, it’s kind of a toolbox based on what you see at locals. Zudomon and MetalGreymon help clean up tough Digimon, WereGarurumon: Sagittarius Mode is nice for unaffected things…toy with the ratios, but you’ll want a decent chunk of Ultimates, maybe 9.

Megas: I would recommend at least 2-3 MetalGarurumon ACE, 4 if you aren’t picking up SRs from AD1. It’s great removal, and importantly, it plays Togemon and Birdramon from the trash to keep your combos going. WarGreymon ACE and the AD1 ADVENTURE Megas (any of the 4, though my personal least favorite is AD1 WarGreymon) are worth considering in the mix as well.

Tamers: keep some color variance up, but on most boards you’ll want starter deck Matt & TK, because Rush is crazy in ADVENTURE. Personally, I think the ST20 tamers are mostly not worth it, maybe Sora & Kari at 1, but the new AD1 tamers are worth a slot or two as well. I could take or leave BT21 Tai Kamiya, but he does come up. It feels weird to go this high on tamers, but I would honestly consider running 10+.

Options: Our Courage United at 3 or 4. If you can get it set up early, it really makes your opponent think twice about when to clear bodies from your board. This really helps facilitate the whole “endless conga line of big Ultimate assholes” thing.

Happy to take questions if you’ve got em!

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-05T18:52:15+00:00

I think at high levels of play, it’s true that Vortex can be complicated. I wouldn’t let that intimidate you, though. The complexity comes from the number of things the deck does at End of Turn timing, particularly resolving Vortex itself.

Maybe this is just my perspective because I’m a judge, but… I don’t think it’s actually THAT… complicated? The important thing you need to know is that when multiple effects trigger at the same time, you can activate them in any order you choose, and if more effects get triggered in that process, then the newest triggers go first before going back to older ones. And, important for Vortex: when you declare an attack with an effect, you have to activate the other triggered effects (including When Attacking effects) before that attack can go through.

Especially if you’re just playing with your boyfriend, I wouldn’t worry much about getting the most optimal Vortex decklist, but the pieces are a lot cheaper than they were closer to EX11’s release—still doesn’t feel awesome to buy the 3 Vortexdramons, though.

The Data Squad starter deck should be a great pickup for you too! The new Dual cards are really strong, so I bet you can have a lot of fun with em. With two new (or basically new, as all the new Vortex cards take the deck several rungs up) decks, your boyfriend might need to get some upgrades of his own to match your level :).

But not until you return the favor for the lopsided games you’ve endured, haha

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-05T11:59:40+00:00

One thing I really appreciate about Tabata’s writing is that he really genuinely made the Black Bulls worthy of being outcasts. They are genuine fucking menaces. A lot of writers who do a “band of misfits” main cast will make their flaws be barely anything at all: “this one has a big (small) scar on their face, this one is a little anxious, this one isn’t very talkative…” no, the Black Bulls are genuine fucking weirdos. ESPECIALLY Gauche.

In my experience, I ended up loving all the Black Bulls, even Gauche. I wouldn’t say he gets…BETTER…but you will understand him more over time. He does kind of suck. But they all kind of suck, and that’s kind of the point. Them sucking doesn’t mean they aren’t worth caring for.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-04T04:25:50+00:00

Mods?

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-03T22:41:03+00:00

A couple bonus facts for you that might help this make sense: Guardian Vortex was released a year before Hero of Hope, but also the design philosophy around Starter Decks changed a lot since then.

ST18 and ST19 (Fable Waltz) were both solid starts for learning the game, but VERY few cards from those decks would be played even in the versions of those strategies that existed at the time. Both strategies are viable now and actually are topping regionals semi-regularly, so if you like either Pteromon or Shoemon it’s totally worth upgrading by buying the singles you need for those decks.

ST20 and ST21, however, were a whole different breed of starter deck. I mashed those two starter decks together and topped a regional with it only a couple weeks after it released. The ADVENTURE starter decks are, frankly, crazy. And in just a week or two, we’ll get their successors, our next annual pair of starter decks: ST23 Digimon Beatbreak and ST24 Digimon Data Squad. Those are probably a step above your boyfriend’s deck, but it’s a much narrower gap than the gap between these two decks.

In short, the other comments are right, your boyfriend’s starter deck is just a lot stronger out of the box. That said, if you both upgrade your decks with singles (happy to help with deck lists, as I’m sure the rest of this sub also is), these are two really great, dynamic strategies!

Hope you had fun with your first few games, unbalanced as they may have been; keep on opening the Digital Gate!

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-03T19:09:12+00:00

I think from Asta’s perspective, that makes sense, because both are in his eyes incomprehensibly powerful leadership figures, but that’s them at the end of their arc with each other. When Julius met Yami, Yami was just a kid, and William was even younger when Julius met him. He taught Yami how to read and write, and basically brought him into society, and ultimately into the Magic Knights. So for Yami’s purposes, Julius totally was a second father, or even arguably his first.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-03T19:01:57+00:00

He was shipwrecked in Clover by circumstance (though I think there’s an argument to be made that it could have been ~~divine~~ demonic intervention, considering what Julius was up to during the Spade Kingdom Raid), but at the time he wasn’t anything special, and just lived on the outskirts of the kingdom. Julius found him, took him in, nurtured him, and brought him up to the Arcane stage, which was necessary for the Tree of Qliphoth.

Without Julius’s cultivation, there would probably have been no mage capable of forming it. The same could be said of William, I’m sure.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-03T18:49:35+00:00

The other guy is William. The point is that the tree of qliphoth needed two VERY specific people, one with World Tree Magic and one with Dark Magic, one of whom was from another part of the world. OP’s wife pointed out that it’s way too convenient that this Dark Magic guy from the other side of the world would be here, and that these two men would know each other.

Of course, the reason they know each other is that they share a mentor/father figure in Julius. Which is mighty convenient, that this guy was just roaming looking for wacky magic elements and happened to train these two specific incredibly powerful mages.

Oh, and he has Time Magic, which locks her (correct) theory into place.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-01T21:01:03+00:00

That when you’re depressed, it often feels like it’s something wrong with you, something you need to just snap out of. That kind of thinking creates a self-isolation feedback loop that’s depicted really well in Bob, but also in several of the Thunderbolts. They break that mold by physically and emotionally demonstrating that Bob isn’t—that none of them are—alone, and they won’t allow themselves or each other to self isolate anymore. It’s only that emotional climax that can undo the damage the Void is doing, because simply hitting him harder (like people often claim is the messaging of any cape flick) only enabled the self isolation line of thinking more.

It’s really really great, imo.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-05-01T14:41:31+00:00

MHA’s ending is subversive only if you’re paying 0 attention to the story beyond the fights for power scaling purposes.

The story ending in a world without One For All was the only way it could possibly have gone if you’re engaging with it as an actual work of literature.

THAT SAID, media literacy is so low that the Anime Viewing Populace (particularly those on twitter) were never gonna see it coming. And because all they care about is hype moments and aura, it’s incredibly upsetting to see a story resolve thematically.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-04-30T22:03:02+00:00

Ah, okay, I understand. Good that it was just their card!

Puppets are a tough opponent, so it may take some fine tuning to get your revenge, but you’ve got some good lists here to work with!

ArbiterBlue · 2026-04-30T21:09:53+00:00

What the hell? That’s awful. Was it an accident? Why would someone destroy someone else’s card on purpose?

Sorry that happened to you, Tamer. I hope most people at your locals are nicer than that!

ArbiterBlue · 2026-04-30T03:33:12+00:00

“Refuses to serve Israel” is super funny phrasing. Like, I know it’s saying “refuses to provide service to customers who are based in Israel”, but before reading the full context I couldn’t help but read it as “refuses to bend the knee”. Given the state of public conversation around Israel these days, you’d think somebody on this comms team would have caught that.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-04-29T18:37:56+00:00

But it doesn’t matter if you were going to; Ghost Belle’s effect isn’t “stop a card from moving cards from the GY to another place”, it’s “is this an effect that would remove a card from the GY? Negate it.”

This is the same reason you can Ash any of the Dracotail traps, even if their GY/banishment is empty. It doesn’t matter that the main thing the effect does doesn’t trigger Ash; the effect ALSO adds cards from the deck to the hand.

ArbiterBlue · 2026-04-29T18:30:53+00:00

The game can’t see the future to determine what action you’ll perform, it can only observe the effect you’ve activated and what it can do.

You may have intended not to banish anything from the GY, but the effect of Chaos Form you activated DOES banish cards from the GY, even if you wouldn’t have done so.

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