Skip to the gallery pics at the bottom if you want the good stuff.

Useless Trivia

Holy crap a new card template! We wanted to fold Durandamon up into his sword form for the special Durandal attach card but…oh boy that did not turn out right. So we had to completely reconstruct the model from the ground up based on Ragnalordmon’s tiny art 😅. The card “Ryuzanmaru” (Zanbamon’s sword) has some characters 鱗舞龍斬丸 on it but what do they mean? In Japanese, “RIN MAI RYU ZAN MARU” or for Chinese pinyin “Lín Wǔ Lóng Zhǎn”; which means roughly Scale-dance Dragon Purifier. The imagery is ripping through a dragon’s diamond-hard scales to slay such a demon. The main name for the sword probably best translates as DRAGONSLAYER which I think is neat. Lots of the evo-bonus tree for this set is based on the Pendulum Z Metal Empire, like Cyber Junk, and can basically be thought of as a predecessor to CJ. In fact, CJ was supposed to come after XD but we didn’t have the ability to completely make this set back then. So think of CJ like SF or LE. On that note, there’s one other card that didn’t make it into CJ at the time…. Sword Training is the way more complicated version of a simpler evolution we forgot to make. Expect a simple evolve from deck eventually! Metal Claw joins Metal Armor and Psycho Blaster, allowing players to almost build a Metalmamemon from scrap parts. Garmmon was originally to be Komondomon but alas, no model. The first instance of this set ever created was a Zubamon card around 2020 that had the attack ability “RAM” and that was just an empty thing when I printed it and took a photo for the Instagram. It was meant to mess with people a bit but we dropped it because in testing, RAM never worked as intended.

New term: CRITICAL

When you resolve a “CRITICAL” effect, you immediately set your HP to 10! Sure, it could’ve been “Own HP becomes 10….” but this way looks cool. But it has one more effect: if your HP is already 10, KO yourself. It reminds you this card has a powerful effect but don’t take the downside lightly. If CRITICAL is accompanied by a timing such as “End”, do it at that time instead. ※Beware of Crash self-KO with CRITICAL.)

Cards remaining in Evolve Zone?

Sword Training is an Evolution card that asks you to leave it in the Evolve Zone. This means, until the card is used up for its evolve effect, it will remain there turn after turn. Can you get any benefit from this?

Silly things

We were going to make a card called TWENTIEST!! that gives you +100 Power for every “20” printed on your active, and carefully counted them all including on the art 😄.

Play Style?

Starting with the “Fencing” mastery, the style becomes obvious: spam to win. Or rather, to get lots of cards. Avoid unless necessary or your hand is big enough to start ditching cards. Even without the mastery, you’ll probably want to avoid it since these cards have very good abilities on their Normal attack. There are several ways to pump your Normal attack’s Power and get extra benefits from using it, plus it’s usually the safest bet that does real damage anyway. Meaning, the more you use your Deadly attack for damage, the less you can bring with you into the next turn. Try using this to your advantage to become less predictable, by deliberately discarded when your hand is low or when you’ve proven Normal attacks are best for you; use the Deadly attack for a huge hit almost no one will stop! That unpredictability will come back later through Durandamon or its DATA card allowing you to get away with face-down supports. This makes stopping the momentum of the deck like trying to fight an angry bear covered in razors in pitch darkness. On top of that, you will be playing mind games with Durandal trying to get the same attacks so your power spikes every turn. This assists in making the Deadly attack less costly, since it’ll be stronger if you both use it. At Durandamon, you want a different attack so your opponent gets less benefit from its constant power increase.

The XD sword style is about accruing a reserve resource to constantly keep momentum into the next turn, even if KO’d! To that effect, try attaching Duramon. If you’re KO’d with it attached, you get to immediately play a Level R (not your partner) from your deck. Plus, it gives another empty slot so you can equip an item. Just in case the deck runs dry, make sure to use its support to Recycle a Level R or two back in, or if you’re fielding one, use the Recycle attack ability. A fielded Duramon or Zubaeagermon also give you DP when they’re KO’d which makes your next evolution that much less painful. This set will drown you in a wealth of Recode, Recycle, and Draw effects so don’t get distracted by the trees and miss the forest: you still must find a correct damage curve to get KOs.

The major weaknesses of using this set as a deck core is the low +P to DP requirement ratio, mediocre Power spread as usual with , over-reliance on one type for evolving and effects, reliance on opponent not disrupting the hand or deck. If the aggressive style isn’t working, you can swap Durandal for Ryuzanmaru and try to maintain a similar hand size for big protection until you reach Level M. Despite the +P to DP requirement weakness, this set can evolve fairly quickly when things sequence just right: 000 Zubamon can act as 40+P, Sword Training racks you extra DP and conserves resources, Garmmon is fairly cheap, and the 013 Zubamon can put its extra 10+P into DP after resolving just in case you don’t have Sword Training active. Don’t over-rack DP or reach Level M too soon though, else a clever opponent can keep resetting their HP with evolution long after and take you down. The big final hit comes from the ACE Berserk Sword, which abuses the high HP of these Digimon to effectively get a safe Crash (don’t forget your applicable x3 VS!).

To sum up, use safe, decently damaging attacks while building resources, remaining unpredictable and flexible, and cash out in a big hit or evolution. Build unstoppable momentum like a runaway train.

XD Full Spoiler

Gallery of All Cards (Full Layout)