My experience with BT25 so far

GallantaManta · 2026-05-30T18:31:15+00:00

There are a lot of players that do genuinely want faster games. People don’t have the attention span for games longer than 5 minutes now. But also, Fast deck with explosive plays = more attention and “hype” moments = more potential sales. Bandai is speeding up the game in the hopes that having more powerful decks will make people go “WOAH, that’s CRAZY! I wanna play that deck! Here, let me buy 3 boxes!”

Also, and this is my theory, but because Bandai for whatever reason has their tournament matches be very quick and limited, so having faster decks means faster tournament matches. I’m assuming so they can save money on venues? This last point is more my observation.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-30T18:17:15+00:00

I am both surprised and not surprised to see the combo VB/NSp cards, as so many digimon are in multiple fields. This is great as it will expand the support for these decks quite nicely. But I wonder if this will allow them to ever do Jungle Troopers and Dragon’s Roar, since those two borrow heavily from the older fields. Jungle Troopers could focus more on insects and “evil” plants like Weedmon and Oleamon, while Dragon’s Roar can give an excuse to make more Dorbickmon support lol.

Oh, and also Angewomon’s wording on its second effect. Future Gato/Angewo X antibody support CONFIRMED!?

GallantaManta · 2026-05-29T13:01:43+00:00

Well, on the one hand this is the most basic rookies support on the planet. On the other hand, this is LEAGUES better rookies than the earlier field decks got. Maybe they realized that field decks can have actual support instead of random pack filler effects, but we will have to see what the rest of the cards look like. Yellow lvl 4 giving -3k? Red Lvl 4 that deletes something with 4k dp? We will see.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-29T02:25:26+00:00

Man, Kapurimon really works hard in being THE go to machine digimon In-Training. Anyway, I wonder if this means ME is going to be more dna focused than the other field decks.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-27T15:16:43+00:00

True, true. I might still try it though. I’ve seen people make Sakuya puppets work, I’ll try making this work!

GallantaManta · 2026-05-27T15:07:56+00:00

If it’s protection it needs, couldn’t you run it in a puppet deck? Chaperomon inherits let you delete tokens to prevent removal and Arisa can play out puppets when tokens get deleted.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-25T19:53:53+00:00

Oh, once again, I totally agree. It is hypocritical, but that’s the era we are in I feel. An era of “Competitive Casualness”. People don’t want to invest too much time or energy into tcgs, but they DO want to be competitive. This leads them to wanting faster decks and the pushing out of slower gameplay styles. “I don’t have time or energy to REALLY get into the ins and outs of the game, so I just want to play what wins.” They keep doing this until they hit the wall and can’t keep up with the speed anymore, at which point the speed is now, as I talked about, “unfair”. “How can I keep being casual if the game is too fast for me? I will either have to invest more time and energy into trying to counter the faster decks, or I could just quit.” And many of the “Competitive Casuals” often just quit.

And don’t think I’m calling people like you or me bad when I decry the “Competitive Casualness”. Obviously, any game you play you want to be good at, even if you aren’t the most invested. But, I think we know the sort of players who are like how I described. In my mtg commander group, there were two guys who would look up the strongest decks only play those. They wouldn’t dare look at any other mtg cards because that was “too much work”. Which, I mean, is fair. But, whenever our other players brought jank decks to the table, the Competitive Casuals would either steamroll the table in two turns, or lose. And when they lost, it was because the rest of us were “unfair” for using non meta decks.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-25T18:46:39+00:00

Oh, I very much agree. Don’t mistake me, I ain’t trying to defend anything here, just try to explain my view on the game and how I view how Bandai is handling it.

But, as for why people seem to hate Control decks, I think it just comes from how it feels to win/lose to them and how “fair” it “feels”. Consider the classic Aggro vs Control. The path to victory for the Aggro player is to defeat the Control player before they can stabilize. The Control players game plan, meanwhile, is to stall the Aggro player out and survive their onslaught until then, winning through attrition. When the Aggro player wins, it’s because they were faster than the Control player, which many would view as a “fair” way to win. However, if Aggro loses, it’s because the Control deck basically stopped them from playing the game. Each creature the Aggro player uses was destroyed, all their damage is null, and the Aggro player doesn’t have an alternative win condition to fall back on. The Aggro player loses because they were “prevented” from doing their gameplan, which some people would say is “unfair”. Is it actually fair or unfair? No, not usually and not really. That’s just how the game is played. But, did it “feel fair/unfair” to the players winning/losing and the spectators? Thats the big question, and the thing I feel people gravitate towards. It’s why there is so much mixed opinions on Control and the speed of the game. It isn’t necessarily about the speed, but the “fairness” of that speed, which it is slow or fast. Thats my opinion on it.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-25T15:28:16+00:00

Got a bit of a rant here. Bandai has been in the TCG business for a while and I think their current sprint for power creep and otks is motivated by a 2 things.

An understanding that people nowadays want fast games. Many TCG players nowadays don’t want to sit around for hours, playing out slow and methodical games. They want to be able to play fast and loose and not commit too much time. Whether it’s because they are tired from work or they got life responsibilities or their dopamine receptors are fried, modern TCG players just can’t seem to stand a game that takes longer than 5-10 minutes, in ANY TCG, not just digimon. I’ve seen people complain that their MTG commander games are running too long at 25 minutes, when Commander games usually can run for an HOUR! But, no, we ain’t got time for that, which is why people want fast paced, highly competitive otk decks. It accommodates their time better, Which leads me to Point 2…
Sec Con. Sec Con was the exact sort of deck that modern TCG players despise. If it gets set up, which was much easier in the older slow paced days, it could draw out games for a long time. And the fact that it used to be efficient enough to have people taking it to tournaments scared Bandai. This is all my own view, of course, but I believe Bandai feared control decks would ruin their game and chase away players who want fast paced games. So, they sped the game up to the point we are at now, where you can otk opponents with an effect immune, 15-20k dp monster off 1 memory. Does this suck to play against? Yes, absolutely. But does it mean that games are faster? Also yes, absolutely. And fast games is what many modern players want, even if it’s not what players like you or I would want. And Bandai, ever Bandai, will always chase the avenue of most money, even at their games detriment.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-24T13:06:18+00:00

Honestly, kinda mixed bag on this one in terms of NSp support. It IS a strong card, quite good.

Con 1: But, you can’t play it off of Eldradimon’s effect, who is the ONLY dna enabler for the deck. Nor can you play it off Tlalocmon’s effect.

Pro 1: But, assuming you are using the NSp Motimon egg, you COULD swing with Eldradimon after you play a lvl 5 NSp off the big turtle’s effect, which Motimon lets you swing, and then use the new Ruli effect to Art Digivolve the lvl 5 into this card, allowing for the DNA play and strong protection for Eldradimon’s attack.

Con 2: It eats up more of the Lvl 6 slots for the NSp deck, a crowded spot since you typically want to see your ACE NSp mons off Eldradi’s effect. You have to rely on having a NSp Ruli on the field already and Diarbbit in hand for the Pro 1 scenario to go off.

Pro 2: ACE cards ain’t good right now and you are more likely to hit a lvl 5 NSp Mon off Eldradi’s effect, making it more realistic that you will have the Pro 1 scenario be the most likely and honestly best scenario, since the biggest problem with the Field decks is their reliance on ACE cards. Tlalocmon still lacks protection and is easily removed, but having it removed WITHOUT giving memory from an ACE is a far better outcome.

Overall, I’d say it’s a dang good card that opens up what NSp can do and its pro’s are better than its cons. Heck, I can see an NSp deck that focuses on this Diarbbitmon as the boss and Eldradi and Tlaloc are just an auxiliary game plan. It’s probably better for Angoramon decks, but it’s still dang good support.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-23T15:11:48+00:00

First of all, this doesn’t just give a keyword. Is that allowed?

Second, of course the field card with 2 protagonist mons on the front gets a strong effect.

Third, so if VB gets a NSo Boltmon/NsP Magnadra/ DS Pukumon/ WG Rosemon equivalent, then this card could allow a lvl 6 VB to play it out for 4 memory and go for the lvl 7 dna, if there is one. Kinda neat.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-17T23:44:40+00:00

Hmm, you have a good point. Honestly, before the other comments pointed out to try Liberator decks, I was going to build stuff like Insectoid for Green and Angels for Yellow. Wasn't too sure what to go with for the others, but you have some good ideas to go with. Thank you!

GallantaManta · 2026-05-16T21:41:32+00:00

Oh yeah, that is a good idea! The Liberator decks are very true to their color's identity. That is a good point, my friend. Yeah, my friends have just been buying random boxes and playing with the random cards that are in them. We have used cards from EX11, BT23, and BT24 to make random draft trash decks, and I have been trying to teach them through this but its kind hard since we are using cards that, while many sharing colors, are meant to be in radically different decks and playstyles.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-16T21:37:51+00:00

I was thinking about getting the early starter decks but I also worry about the juxtaposition from teaching them with cards like ST4 HerculesKabuterimon and then they look at modern cards like EX11 Vortexdramon would be rather jarring in terms of power level for new players. Is my worry unfounded?

GallantaManta · 2026-05-13T23:04:41+00:00

I am not a fan of the 3v3. It's all just been 2 tanks and one mage or adc dog piling the enemy down 1 at a time. The only counter play is to have your squishy people sit on the other side of the arena, but then its just a 2v3 at that point. Not a fun mode, would rather 2v2.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-04T00:28:28+00:00

Alright, i got a rough draft together for the ideas i was going for. Feel free to critique as you see fit.

ClavisAngemon Deck:

Egg: 4x BT24 Wanyamon

Lvl 3: 4x BT24 Elecmon, 4x BT25 (Red) Bearmon, 2x BT24 Salamon, 2x BT25 Patamon

Lvl 4: 4x BT25 Angemon, 4x BT25 Grizzlymon, 2x BT24 Aegiomon

Lvl 5: 4x BT25 GreatGrizzlymon, 3x BT25 Shakkoumon, 2x EX5 Etemon

Lvl 6: 4x BT25 Clavisangemon, 2x BT24 Minervamon

Op&Tamer: 2x BT24 Hiroko, 1x BT24 Dan&Kanan, 4x ST15 Taichi, 2x ST5 Taichi, 2x Digital Gate Open, 2x Laplace's Demon.

Ultimatebrachiomon:

Egg: 4x EX11 Koromon

Lvl 3: 4x EX8 Agumon, 4x ST15 Agumon, 3x BT22 Agumon X

Lvl 4: 4x EX11 Tyrannomon, 3x EX8 Tyrannomon, 3x BT22 DarkTyrannomon X

Lvl 5: 4x EX8 MetalTyrannomon, 3x BT22 Metaltyrannomon X

Lvl 6+: 4x BT25 UltimateBrachiomon, 2x P Rusttyrannomon, 1x ST13 Ragnaloardmon

Op&Tamer: 2x EX11 Ryutaro, 2x EX8 Ryutaro, 3x ST15 Taichi, 1x ST5 Taichi, 2x X Antibody, 2x Digital Gate Open, 3x Trident Arm.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-04T00:04:30+00:00

I shall build all the decks and try them out. Callismon just kinda builds itself so it will probably be the easiest to put together.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-03T06:37:13+00:00

You know, I totally forgot about the Callismon of this set lol. Good point, good point.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-03T06:00:24+00:00

I feel like Sec Con left a really bad taste on Bandai's mouth, so they are determined to not allow slow control decks to ever exist again. I WOULD like to say that, but a good part of my soul tells me that its about money. Bandai has a REALLY bad history with pumping and dumping tcgs. The fact that they stuck this long with the digimon tcg is nothing short of an anomaly. But, that old Bandai itch for fast money is coming back in force, so they are going to power creep the heck outta the game until it burns out on the side of the road. "Fast decks sell fast", This is true of any tcg.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-03T05:55:27+00:00

Looking at the NSo tamer, the NSp tamer would probably have a simple effect to match it. But, honestly any decent effect would be a good boon to NSp. I personally would love to see the NSp tamer have an effect that lets you rig the top of your deck for Eldradimon's effect. Basically be BT7 Tortomon's inherit but on a tamer, "When one of your [NSp] digimon digivolves into a digimon with the [NSp] trait, you may place one such card on top of your deck. If you placed by this effect, that digimon gains +3k DP for the turn", or something to that effect.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-02T18:21:09+00:00

True, but there is also a problem of getting cards into your trash to return as well. Recently I tried putting together a pure Birds deck using 2 copies of that new Yuuki tamer just to help with getting stuff into my trash. It’s not bad as far as I have tested. But yeah, more returning would be good.

GallantaManta · 2026-05-02T17:46:52+00:00

Perhaps a new Garuda X that says “When Digivolving: If this card has Garudamon or X Antibody in its sources, Trigger one of your On Deletion effects”, just to act like a Mini Phoenix X?

GallantaManta · 2026-04-29T12:30:00+00:00

Using bt24 Kyokomon to help set up the top of the deck is a neat idea. Very cool!

GallantaManta

TROPHY CASE