V-Mundi

October 2020

New Promo on Samhain — Wizardmon

HAPPY SAMHAIN!

SIX! Six Samhain holiday promos. Who is on sixth? It’s Wizardmon, just popped through the gateway from Witchelny and ready to try a new array of spells. It has a pretty special lineup of effects. Firstly, it has two attack abilities which aid in casting. Wizardmon’s  is lightning elemental, for critical damage against airborne types. But the is “Magical Game“, its card-throwing ability that messes with randomness and entropy—appropriately giving you some nifty corruption to control your opponent’s draws. Its evo-bonus signifies Wizardmon having some time to cast enchantments and wards after evolving, including the unique ability to create a magical barrier voiding all effects (evo-bonuses), though it’s only strong enough to ward off Level C Digimon.

The real draw is its Support. Both players get Grudge and pick any attack for their new grudge. Nightmare type has a tendency to use powerful effects but…on both players. In this case, you try to guess what attack your opponent used, both attack orders don’t meaningfully change, and then if you guess right you get doubled power and set revival equal to that power. Normally the power and revival are either/or. But the effect continues! “KO’s don’t end Battle this turn.” means what it says. If either Digimon is KO’d, don’t immediately skip to the Battle Phases’ “Check for a Digimon KO” step. Instead, you proceed with any remaining attacks that weren’t skipped due to Counter. Yes, bear that in mind—Counter doesn’t let you double-dip on attacks if you also succeed with Grudge. In fact, only 1 attack would occur that turn (using the opponent’s damage against them). So let’s see what fun and creative ways you can use Wizardmon!

This concludes the Samhain pointy-hat promo run. Or does it?

New Promo for Samhain — Blue Comet

Only 4 days till Samhain! And with that, we have a fifth holiday promo—Blue Comet. Witchmon’s broom from the world of Witchelny is an incredibly fast, dimension-crossing transport. If you need a new partner right away, just air drop one in! Blue Comet lets you pretend a Level R you have is like a partner. If you’re out of DZ evolution targets, it’ll still let you use it as a very limited Digivice for Level C evolution from hand (that’s the small text). Since its so similar to Data Hijack, you could potentially have both in the same deck and really flesh out your partner-like experience. Bear in mind, while Hijack looks through the deck and gives DP, this ignores type and gives an evo-bonus.

New Promo for Samhain — Soulmon

Another Digimon, another witchy hat. This is the fourth Samhain holiday card, rising from the grave with an army of magically-enchanted souls is…well, Soulmon! This is not quite as weak as the other version of Soulmon, nor as cheap. Grudge makes another return, as the necromantic magicks embedded in Soulmon’s code are highly appropriate for such an ability. But since it’s a master of death magic, many enhancements and wards are set up around its presence. When KO’d (during an evo-bonus), it is worth -1 point as long as it has revival set. Grudge provides easy access, but so does Miracle Ruby, Neodevimon, and others. While you may not plan on losing with this Digimon, but such a threat is always in use even when it is not being played, and can therefore influence opponent choices when they have an easy KO with circle. For the Support ability…no comment. Find your own fun!

New Promo for Samhain — Sorcerymon

The third promo for the Samhain holiday is… Sorcerymon! Fine-tuned caster joins us from the alternate Digital World of Witchelny. Their sorcerers use a programming language that’s abstract enough, it basically resembles the spoken and written word. Spells. It’s spells. Sorcerymon loads up its spellbook with the support ability, straight from your Destiny Zone! Choose your effects wisely, since it means every decked copy of this sorcerer could be any one of up to 3 different spells.

New Promo for Samhain — Ghostmon

A new Samhain holiday promo card has arrived, pointy hat included! Ghostmon crawls out of the shadows of ruined buildings in a decaying forest. This is a new Digimon from the Pendulum Z, but we created our own DOT art anyway. Yeah, it was teased in the evo-box of the last promo. It’s quite loaded up with a high-endurance body, the ever-present new Grudge ability to revive from death and hit hard, an unprecedented Crash power on Level R, the ability to wipe out an opponent’s attachment, and a constant flatten source. To top it off, the section at the top makes Ghostmon able to fit in any decks that could use Candlemon!

Design Diary — Flatten

If you’re looking for how Flatten works, check this article.

How it all started

In Digimon World, you could inflict an LCD status effect on an enemy Digimon called “Flat”. It reduced their 3D model to a DOT sprite like in the v-pets and caused them to use a weak attack. It seems pretty appropriate to include for any 3D Digimon game that wants to include DOT sprites as with set Bit Depth. At the time, I already had this mechanic planned but no theming. So reducing the opponent’s dimensions one by one until they pop out of existence made a lot of sense. Originally, the balance was centered around having to obtain 4 instances of flatten. This didn’t test well. It took far too long to 4-hit-KO even when it can pierce evolutions. The next step was to tweak that number until it felt right in many many games. There was one point where I was torn between requiring 3 flattens and a regular damage hit versus 4 flattens and I ended up just including both due to how supports could be used to add more flats. The 3 flats with damage requirement was slightly too powerful while 4 as a fixed amount was way too slow without a constant supply of support-based flatten. Full Article

Promo Release—Hudiemon & Chaosdukemon and new symbols

New promo cards!

Before the next errata list drops and an upcoming set is released, I’d like to give everyone a couple of cards to play around with that I think are pretty interesting.

There are also 2 new symbols created to make player’s lives a lot easier. In the past, there has been confusion about which evo-boxes give effects permanently (like Power changes) and which are one-and-done. With all new cards (and any that happen to be errata’d in the future), evo-boxes with permanent effects will have the Permanent symbol, denoted by a stylized lemniscate . These are only found in evo-boxes for bonuses, so other permanent effects won’t have the symbol.

The second symbol is to denote an opponent, marked by this target-looking thing . Originally, the “opponent” symbol was only needed for evo-boxes to both save space and clear up confusion about whether an effect is you, your opponent, or both players, but will now also be used in all effect boxes on any new cards. The word is just used so often that unlike permanent effects, I see no reason to make it specialized. This should save a lot of room, clear up a lot of confusion, and increase reading comprehension.

Both symbols’ meaning have also been added to the rules page.

New effect: GRUDGE.

Sounds menacing right? Grudge is the middle answer to threatening a particular attack between “to zero” and “counter”. It works the following way:

/ / Grudge: An attack ability or effect (granted similarly to Counter), which makes you attack second, double your Power against the specified attack, and revive with your Power as HP if you’re KO’d by that attack.

In technical terms, here’s how you play it during the Battle Phase when attack abilities resolve:

  1. Get a stack of 2nd Attack. This is like removing a stack of 1st Attack, including if it’s your turn. It doesn’t make you guaranteed to attack last like Counter.
  2. If used the attack specified on Grudge, double own Power.
  3. If KO’d when an opponent used the Grudged attack, revive with HP equal to your Grudge attack’s Power. Do not revive if that Power is 0. Note, you would not still get to attack after revival since that timing has passed. Revival happens after attacks.

It’s like a real grudge. You predict what attack your opponent will use, get a power boost, and insure yourself against KO. The opponent still receives a KO point as with any revival. In fact, the revive part follows all revival rules including a Level M no longer counting as 2KOs after that revival. Because the 2nd Attack of Grudge is not permanent as with Counter, you can still use the “1st Attack” ability to sort of cancel-out that effect and go by turn order. When you play Grudge, try to imagine your Digimon taking it to the face and having the poise to come back with something fierce, even if it’s from the grave. That should give a clear image of what’s intended. This can severely curb someone’s attempt to KO with a specific attack, such as a Circle which can 2-hit-KO your Digimon when it has Circle Grudge. Like a “to zero” or “counter” effect, this introduces an element of risk and prediction. This can also be an interesting way to punish 1st Attack, since that’s normally used to ensure a KO.

Have fun everyone!