Disrupt Ray—Choose your opponent’s attack, sort of
What’s good about it: If you’re an expert at prediction and attack-choice punishment, Disrupt Ray can be incredibly potent. This card can be used, with significantly higher accuracy than not, to force a Counter or to-Zero effect, or at the very least save you from a deadly . Don’t forget that this can protect you from a powerful opposing like a Counter/Flatten/to-Zero effect which threatens your own attack, in addition to a one-hit-kill Crash/1st Attack/x3 VS. Replacing itself with a draw is a nice bonus too! What’s bad about it: There’s no fast-and-loose way to specify what attack you want an opponent to use in Digimon. This is on purpose—taking away a player’s choice is heavy handed design and can lead to less mutual exchange of intelligence and tactics; as well as ruining fun for players when you’re making choices for them. Disrupt Ray is therefore limited in its capacity to change attacks by forcing its player to figure out what the opponent would choose and, if the Ray is still the best card to play in that instance, decide what “direction” they want to rotate the attack selection from that presupposed choice. If the deck playing Disrupt Ray is telegraphing that it does attack changes, opponents can play further mind games to disrupt the disruption. In addition, many situations make Disrupt Ray significantly less effective than simply playing a Recovery Disk or other protection from damage. You have to work hard to get the best use of this. It also doesn’t stop Jamming. If an opponent wants to reveal with Jamming before this Option resolves, they can do it and still Jam your attack ability (not this Option), then their attack will change. This means Jamming effectively gets better if Disrupted. Tips: Don’t tip your hand by being incredibly obvious about your ability to counter or nullify attacks. But the mere existence of Disrupt Ray can also effectively disrupt how an opponent chooses attacks if they know you have it, or suspect, and you respond by not playing it. In that case, you still have the card to play and predicted accordingly. If you absolutely must force a specific attack, usually for Counter, Flatten, or to-Zero, make sure you understand the situation and opponent’s current payoffs. If they are none the wiser and have the ability to one-hit-kill your Digimon with either or , and you have Counter on your , you can safely assume Cross is your best attack, support with Disrupt Ray, choose the bottom option (which assumes they went for the “safer” Traingle-kill) and roll them up to Circle for your counter! Now you take no damage and they take it all. Notice that by being in a weaker position (both Circle and Triangle can KO instead of just the typical Circle), there’s no need to guess what they’re playing. If it’s a Circle one-hit KO and Triangle two-hit KO, you still have to guess whether your opponent values taking you out now, can afford to take you out next turn, or prefers to be unpredictable. Keep these things in mind. Disrupt Ray is also a good choice for decks that need to hit with commonly—and it supports protecting your attack as well as a Coliseum. Often this protects from a Counter/to-Zero/Flatten to your favored attack.
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