Evo-bonus restrictions – To save space, evo-bonuses are prohibited from targeting the following card types by default: Ace, Firewall, or Partner. If an evo-bonus allows you to take, or trash a card from a deck or trash, you cannot target the prohibited types unless specifically allowed. The “take” restriction also applies to things you must take and then use, such as evo-bonuses that have you support directly. This is similar to the default restriction on the Attach D/T/H attack ability, but broadened to all targets not just attaches. Attach in evo-bonuses must furthermore follow the attach attack ability restriction and are not allowed to target Data or Evolution cards as a result but can target partners. Supports and other effects are not subject to this rule and may target whatever is not prohibited. Examples:

• If an evo-bonus says “Trash any 2 cards in opponent’s deck”. You cannot target their Partner, Firewalls, or Ace but may target non-Partner Digimon, Data, Evolutions, non-Ace/non-Firewall Options.
• If an evo-bonus says “Take 1 Evolution in own deck.” You can take any Evolution unless it’s an Ace or Firewall.
• If an evo-bonus says “Attach slot +1. Attach 1 in own trash.” aka “Attach T” You can target a non-Ace attach as usual but because attaches follow the attack ability restrictions, you can attach your (attachable) partner from the trash. But you could not attach a Data or Evolution card in addition to the normal prohibition on Ace and Firewall.

Note: Due to legacy printing in this game, some cards may specify non-Ace, non-Partner, etc (usually from BIT set). Just treat these as rule reminders. In the history of the game, this rule was tested at the same time as BIT but not implemented until after it was published, so some cards are inconsistent.

Choose Effects – When a card has a “choose” word, it will have a list of effects separated by bullets but it may also be a simple “a OR b” effect. In the case of “Choose” effects, it may take the format of “Choose X” or possibly “Choose X effects;”, both are the same but the latter is simply reminder text added to some cards to guide players. Here’s how these work in detail.

TIP! Because the exact choice effects aren’t determined until the card resolves, any Support card with a choice effect can be a bit stronger since the opponent will not know what you choose and will have to plan for any eventuality. It also means these are more flexible in case the situation changes before yours resolves. This especially makes choice cards good for the opponent’s turn. But watch out, choice cards can be weaker than non-choice cards to compensate!

• a OR b — “OR” effects are considered 1 effect at a time. Each choice is part of the overall effect. You may only choose to activate 1 of the effects on either side of the all-caps “OR”, and you are not required to activate any of the choices. The choices you do not activate will be ignored as if it misfired (meaning self-voided). An effect can still misfire after it is chosen due to other game rule interactions. This format still works with “a OR b OR c”, you should choose only 1 of these effects. This is similar to a single-line version of “Choose up to X” but is treated as 1 effect for things like voiding because it has only a single period.
• Choose X — Choose exactly X, no more or less effects, where X can be any number of bulleted points. Each effect chosen must be a completely different bullet. Each bullet is a completely separate effect treated as though a period ( . ) were present after each one. Resolve each effect immediately after choosing it, then choose again until X choices have been made.
• Choose up to X — Choose from 0 to X of the choices listed and each choice must be a different bullet. This is a more flexible version of “Choose X” and otherwise follows the same rules as above.
• Choose any X — Choose any number of effects, up to X of them, and there can be repeat choices. Otherwise “choose any” follows the same rules as the above choice effects.

POINT! Bulleted effects like “Choose X” can be combined with the “a OR b” format for extremely complex decision trees. In those cases, if you choose that bulleted effect, you would then choose one of the “OR” effects immediately.

Note that because OR and Choose effects are all effects, you must wait until the card is resolving to activate them. Example: You support with Metal Armor and do not choose 1 effect yet. Your opponent supports with a card. Then their effect resolves. Then you must choose 1, either multiply your power or recover your HP.

DZ Proxy – No, using a proxy card from your Destiny Zone, is not considered playing that card from hand. Instead, it’s activating a game rule. The cost is discarding your partner from hand and placing the DZ proxy directly into its relevant zone. It can be treated as an extra card effect with the wording: “DZ; Discard own partner: Play this for any of its other effects.” meaning you would respect their typical timings and zones. SUPPORT for the Support Phase and zone, EVOLVE for the Evolve phase and zone, Data Break as ACTIVATE from DZ, “Any Phase” any time you could play a card, EFFECT whenever specified, etc.

Dark Area – Dark Area is a hidden zone for each player that may contain cards put there by effects. Nothing may affect this zone unless specified. A player may look at their own Dark Area and rearrange it at any time, exactly like their hand. Players cannot play cards from the Dark Area. If a card activates from the Dark Area, it overrides this rule. Cards in a player’s Dark Area are added to their hands during their own Draw Step. Conceptually, this represents a future hand that merges with a player’s hand at that future time. Or it can be thought of as predicting the future. This zone is inoften used and can be thought of as “setting cards aside” in other games.

Dark [action] tells you what zone receives the action’s result. So “Dark Draw” means put 1 from the top of own deck into Dark Area. This will activate “when drawing” effects.

DZ Proxy – No, using a proxy card from your Destiny Zone, is not considered playing that card from hand. Instead, it’s activating a game rule. The cost is discarding your partner from hand and placing the DZ proxy directly into its relevant zone. It can be treated as an extra card effect with the wording: “DZ; Discard own partner: Play this for any of its other effects.” meaning you would respect their typical timings and zones. SUPPORT for the Support Phase and zone, EVOLVE for the Evolve phase and zone, Data Break as ACTIVATE from DZ, “Any Phase” any time you could play a card, EFFECT whenever specified, etc.

No-Zone cards – Cards without a zone designation (SUPPORT/EVOLVE/ACTIVATE/PASSIVE/etc) which are Any X Phase can be played from hand to nowhere in particular; i.e. “No zone”. They can still be voided by certain cards that have “When opponent plays an Any Phase card” or that are in play, regardless of lack of zone. Because they have no zone, they don’t require a clean-up step where they’re placed into own trash at a specific time, simply trash them once they’re done resolving or misfire.

Attachment conditions – Effects that attach a different card must use the target card’s conditions, costs, and scope. The easiest and most through way to play these correctly is follow this procedure:

1. First check for the word “Attach” on the target card. If present, it may be an attachment if it makes sense and you can proceed.
2. Check the scope. Somewhere it will have the word “own” or “opponent” (or new cards have the symbol for opponent). It may allow attaching to any active. This scope must be respected regardless of the effect attaching the target card. If the scopes conflict, stop, you can’t attach it. Example: Tyrannomon SUPPORT targets Vademon for attachment to own Dragon-type from your deck. You can’t attach the Vademon because it only has “opponent” as its scope.
3. Check the conditions which are the words after “Attach” and before a comma ( , ) period ( . ) or sometimes a semicolon ( ; ). Basically, look for punctuation and meet all those conditions. Such as “non-Partner Level R” or “Jungle”
4. If there are any costs before a colon ( : ) you must also pay those.
5. Ignore any other effects in yellow text on the card outside of the attachment effect. You would not attach directly using a different card’s effect in order to activate unrelated effects on the attachment card.

The Glossary section on “Attach” covers this as well.

ACTIVATE timing – Megas (and rare non-Megas) often have ACTIVATE timing. These can be activated any time a player has effect priority or as an “Any Phase” as long as they are the turn-player and is present on the Active Zone. Some ACTIVATE effect boxes have further text indicating it can be used “Any Phase” or “Either Support Phase” or “Any Support Phase”, which means they follow those terminology rules instead of being required to be the turn-player. ACTIVATE abilities can only be activated once per game, PER CARD. If a card uses an ACTIVATE, then leaves its zone after that point, it is always deleted (usually has reminder text indicating this).

Conditionals – Effects might have if/when statements. These are simple: carry them out under the conditions/timing specified. If anything misfires, skip it and move to the next effect (after a period .) However some effects have a comma (,) or semicolon (;) with “If not, ” or “Otherwise, “. In which case, if the effect *would* misfire, instead skip the “If…” and do the “If not…”.

Example: On EX-035 Palmon (Wind type), the Support effect says “If both attacks are same, Boost own Power +400. If not, recycle 3 and shuffle”. Since there is a period do you get both? No you do not because attacks are never the same and different (even if changed!) so you do not control which effect activates but one must activate if possible.

Complicated example: DB-013 Biyomon Support says “If own Level is R and type is , evolve to a valid C from deck. If not, draw 2.” When do you get “if not”?

• When you have a type active but is not Level R
• When you have a Level R active but is not type
• If none of your types is and the active’s Level is considered something other than R

Why don’t you get draw 2 if you meet both requirements but fail to evolve to a valid C from deck? Because the effect failed not the condition! “If not…” only checks a prior if condition(s). It doesn’t check the resulting effect! In many games, this kind of misfire is because only the subject part of the sentence is checked for conditions and the predicate is ignored. In DBE, I do not care about the rules of English. DBE has its own language rules. This only fails due to the placement of a comma (,) or semicolon (;) after an “If…”. Similarly, if you would get “If not, draw 2.” and your deck has 0 cards, you would not draw 2 since you can only do so much. If your deck had 1 card, you would draw 1 and stop.

Cherrypicking Rules – When looking into hidden zones for specific cards (instead of any card) a player must reveal the picked card to the opponent for inspection of legality. Such as an effect saying “Take 1 Evolution from deck”, which requires the taking player to show that the card has a yellow border with the words “EVOLUTION” at the top (“EVOLVE” timing cards are not the same).

When do you shuffle? This is slightly more complicated. There are numerous effects that may seem as though you looked into the deck and therefore shuffle but you didn’t! You always shuffle the deck if it was the hidden zone picked from. In any ambiguous case, allow the deck’s owner to choose whether they will shuffle. But the following cases do not require a shuffle because you look at a set of cards from the hidden deck zone but are not part of the deck anymore:

• Recycle (not shuffle): You looked only at the open zone; the Trash. Just because you know what’s on top of your deck now does not mean you must shuffle (unless “Recycle” refers to a Cross ability! Always shuffle with the Cross ability “Recycle X”)
• Abilities that separate a number of cards from a deck first before looking do not instruct to shuffle. Example: BIT-054 Matrix Evolve reveals the top 7 of own deck and allows the player to choose a valid Digimon to evolve to. At that point, no shuffle is necessary since the cards were already separated. In other games a shuffle is always required. In DBE, only if it is instructed on a card or triggers this rule. If Matrix didn’t say “reveal”, then the number of cards (7) must still be shown but not necessarily revealed what cards. Only the card chosen must be revealed, not all cards. Then a player may choose to invoke shuffling ambiguity and shuffle their own deck. Then the player makes a good-faith effort to put the 7 cards back in roughly the same order. An opponent may allow them to rearrange the remaining 6 as the deck owner sees fit, in order to work out any ambiguity. In other games, this would be strictly prohibited or require a shuffle. DBE allows negotiation and ambiguity. This means the deck owner should know the order of those cards after putting them back! The second effect allows you to shuffle your partner from Trash into your deck, so this would shuffle anyway.
• Corrupt and Recode. As these are designed specifically to allow revealing X cards and putting them on top or bottom of that deck in any order, obvious intent says you do not shuffle. But also this is like the second example: you separate X cards from the hidden zone “deck” and then change them, rearrange them, and finally merge them back with the hidden deck zone.

Try to determine obvious card use intent when shuffling or revealing is ambiguous. Does it reveal all or most of the deck? Shuffle! Does it separate anything from a hidden zone first and then change or merge it after? Don’t shuffle unless instructed. Does it ruin the function of the card? Don’t ruin the function.

Counter specifics – Counter as a concept represents stopping the opponent’s attack and using it against them, similar to boxing. When your attack is Counter, your Power is set to 0 at first but can be raised later to add to your damage. Counter sets 2nd Attack (removing any 1st Attack).

How do you calculate damage and from who’s perspective? Counter means that an opponent did the equivalent of give you their attack, rather than use it against you. Countering is only successful if the opponent used whichever attack is being countered (usually the case, though some effects simply say “Counter” which is the same as Counter any attack). Any bonuses on the opponent’s attack are kept but exactly as-is; conditions don’t “re-check” (Example: all “x3 VS” abilities don’t check for the user’s type. If you counter a x3VS, the Power of the opponent’s attack simply damages them as-is without resetting and checking type again), so the attack countered is exactly what the opponent would’ve done to the Counter-user. This means that unlike any normal battle phase, one with a successful counter only has 1 attack performed not 2!

Who receives the attack abilities and effects of the countered attack? The owning player or countering player? The countering player receives attack abilities, such as Drain, Draw, etc and uses them from their own perspective. Examples:

1. Gain all opponent attack effects: A player counters an opponent after that opponent’s Option support gave their attack “Drain”. Since the countering player uses the attack as if from their own perspective but exactly as the opponent’s attack was modified, the countering player performs Drain and gains HP!
2. Opponent’s damage before own: Player 1 counters their opponent (Player 2)’s Cross attack which has 290 Power and Drain. That opponent also supported with Devil Chikp to Boost both player Power +600. How do you calculate the damage and HP recovery? Player 2 will have 890 Power and Drain. Player 2’s attack is countered and therefore not performed by them. Instead, Player 1 performs exactly that attack and deals 890 damage to Player 2. Then, Player 1 gains the Drain effect and Recovers their HP up to 890 (less if the opponent went to 0 and was KO’d first). Then Player 1 will deal 600 more damage from their own counter’s damage being increased (but will not gain the Drain HP).
3. Countering negative effects: Player 1 counters Cross. Player 2 has a Cross with Crash. Player 1 will deal damage to Player 2 equal to Player 2’s own HP (thus triggering a KO). Crash will not set the countering player to 10 HP and that effect will be lost.
4. Counter Jamming? If Jamming is activated and voids the Counter attack (from an attack ability or Digimon support), then counter will not work. However, effects may also add Counter without being Jammed (such as Options, or after Jamming’s timing has passed), in which case, Counter works as normal and immediately acts as though the countering player has Jamming, if the counter requirements are met (usually checking an attack was used). In that case, order of effects matters.

Costs vs Effects – Some effects have a sentence before a colon ( : ), which usually indicates a cost. Costs are essentially conditions but indicate to a player that they are allowed to do something to fulfill that condition at the moment of activation.

POINT! Costs are never “paid”. In other games, costs are paid. That means they can’t be unpaid. In DBE, costs are actions taken to fulfil a condition or requirement. If the full requirement is not met, the condition fails. But since it’s not “paid”, as long as it reveals no hidden information to both players, it may be reversed. If you must discard 1, do so, and decide you don’t want to “pay the cost”, simply take that card back and the cost will misfire. Any rule or card references to “paying” costs therefore simply refer to meeting the full condition by taking that action, not as in other games. Or as a process specified in those rules.

Example: “Trash 3: Opponent discards 2.”

Unlike an effect that says “Trash 3.”, you may not be able to perform this action completely. Trashing 2 and stopping would mean voiding the effect after the colon. Trashing 2 and running out of cards would work the same way. Unlike a condition, you do not have to wait until this action occurs naturally (such as “When own deck is trashed 3,…) and are allowed a chance to perform this action at that time. If a cost is not paid (either by choice or circumstance), the effect after the colon ( : ) misfires, and is voided. Remember only to count the next effect! This includes every comma ( , ) and semicolon ( ; ) but not after a period ( . ). If effects are chosen from a bullet-list, each are voided if after a cost.

POINT! Any costs partially met are lost if they reveal new hidden information! This is a synthesis of the rules allowing players to undo plays that don’t reveal new information and that costs can be attempted even if not completed. Be aware that a player who discards from their hand for example, may still undo this as it doesn’t reveal new information to themselves. This effectively makes the discard a misplay.

Costs vs Timings – Even if a sentence followed by a colon is actually a timing (such as “Any Phase:” ) and seemingly not a cost, you can play this like a “cost” with nothing to do, since costs are effectively conditions with an allowed (and required) action. Since these state no action and only a condition, that may be considered costs with 0 to pay for ambiguity sake. Simply wait for the correct timing and resolve the effect.

Effects that exempt you from costs and ones that don’t:

Some effects exempt you from things that would otherwise be costs. These effects will say (Costs are 0) or (Ignore costs) or something similar. Example: EX-094 UlforceVdramon has PASSIVE: Your HP cannot be lowered except by an attack (costs are 0). Because it says “costs are 0”, this effect now applies to costs as well and makes all HP costs 0. If it didn’t, any effect with something like “Halve own HP: Boost own Power +400.” must still lower the HP for the Power boost to resolve.

However, costs are not exempted from effect exemptions. For example, “Supports cannot lower own HP.” means that no support effect can make your HP go lower than the current total (though technically, it can go higher or stay the same). This does not apply to an effect’s cost, which still requires lowering your HP to gain its effect. Effectively, this means effects can’t prevent players from using costs.

POINT! For players from other games, it may help clear ambiguity to consider the source of a cost versus effect. An effect’s source is the card that generated it. A cost’s source is the player that chooses to use it if able. This is why “HP can’t be lowered” is an effect pointing to other effects but not costs by default. Some effects may explicitly forbid players from using costs, which will be obvious. “Opponent can’t use Any Phase effects” obviously does prevent “Any Phase: “

“Must” in a cost – When a cost has “must” in it, treat this as a regular effect where it is forced to attempt to fully activate but without player choice. As usual, if this cost is not completed, the effect misfires and fails. Example: BR-171 Mega Disk says “Must Trash 6: Recover own HP +1000.” therefore the player who has this effect will trash 6 even if they don’t want to. If their deck can’t finish trashing 6, it trashes as many as possible and then misfires. As a reminder, costs cannot normally be forbidden.

Card timing and effect timing – A card timing is written in large letters near the name of the card to let a player know when it is permissible to use its first or primary effect, usually from hand. A lowercase timing is found in the effects of a card (usually underlined and may have a colon after) to indicate what phase or condition it triggers on. A card’s natural timing can’t be changed by any non-permanent effects. Here is when card timings are played:

• EVOLVE: During the player’s own Evolution Phase during the step which allows an EVOLVE timing card to be played. This usually means from hand but may be played into the evolve zone from other places for some cards.
• ACTIVATE: During the player’s own phases during the “Any Phase” step or during their Support Phase at the Support step. This is not in place of a support and is NOT played from hand. ACTIVATE is only usable naturally from the top of the active stack. Effects may allow forcibly using one from another zone. Once a card’s ACTIVATE timing effect fully resolves, a player can’t naturally activate it again and it will always be deleted when it next leaves its current zone (to prevent tracking errors and confusion). Cards that use another card’s ACTIVATE effect do not disable the original’s use.
• SUPPORT: Played during any Support Phase during the Support step. Players must naturally play these from hand to the Support Zone but they will resolve no matter how they enter the zone (including supporting from the top of the deck facedown).
• DATA: See “When can I play DATA timing cards?” in the FAQ
• EFFECT: Has many different effects with separate timings with no clear primary effect OR specifies a unique timing on the card such as “Any Phase” which is playable during the any phase step of a given phase. By default, the card is played from hand.
• PASSIVE: Similar to ACTIVATE, this can only be used while it is on the active Digimon naturally. This does not indicate when to play the card from hand, as that is naturally done during evolution or prep.

What are lowercase timings for individual effects? – By default, lowercase timings apply only to the effect text that follows them until a new timing is specified. This means many effects may be part of the same timing. As such, they typically are listed last on a card unless another timing is listed after. These naturally trigger during the start of every specified phase (or when possible during that phase) including the opponent’s. These may be nested—meaning multiple timings in a row—so all must coincide to activate (such as “Passive, Support Phase: When…” is a condition that can trigger only during either player’s support phase, at any legal time). Here’s a list of some examples:

• Prep Phase: (same as “Draw Phase:”, outdated) Triggers at the start of every prep phase or when appropriate during.
• Own Prep Phase: Triggers at the same times as “Prep Phase” but only during own turns.
• Support: or Support Phase: both mean trigger or usable on any support phase during the “any/support phase” step or support step. This does NOT require a player to use up their 1 support per turn. SUPPORT timing cards do require this naturally.
• Any Support Phase: Treated as both “Support” and “Any Phase”, which essentially allows ACTIVATE to be usable during the Any Phase timing of either player’s Support or the Support step of either player’s Support phase.
• Passive: Always continually applied while its conditions are met and stays in its zone. Similar to PASSIVE, but usually not the first effect timing of a card.
•  or “While attached, ” means it applies similarly to PASSIVE but only when occupying a player’s attachment zone.
• Active Zone: or Active Stack: means it is a location specified for a Passive timing effect that is still valid anywhere in the active zone, not just the top card.

DATA timing – This is a special timing card plus deck construction legality rules. DATA timing counts as three other use cases, making it essentially the same as “EFFECT” timing:

• DNA: Evolve timing with normal DNA use.
• Data Break: Same timing as ACTIVATE (see Glossary – “Data Break”), meaning as “Any Phase” but restricted to own turn, own Support Phase. May also allow use on opponent’s turn if specified.
• Any Phase for use as normal

Digimon without DP cost – A Digimon can only be evolved to by DP if it has a DP cost printed on the card. Otherwise, it may only use its evolution box. Evolve cards that ignore DP can not override this because Ignoring DP only works if a card has DP printed on it. Otherwise, there is nothing to ignore.

Paying DP – A card may actually use the term “Pay DP” even though costs are not “paid” and DP is not “paid” when evolving. This indicates something new is happening. When paying DP for effects, simply reduce the DP amount being tracked by that card as if it were a normal cost.

Example: BIT-052 Immortalize is a Firewall that says “Ignore DP when evolving and put all your DP below this card, then attach it to active. [Attached] Support: Pay 30 DP from this: Void an Option. Support: Pay 10 DP from this: Void a Digimon Support.”

This means if you successfully evolve while ignoring the DP zone, you take those cards instead of trashing them all, then stack them under Immortalize (this is simply a reminder and a way to “freeze” the cards so they can’t enter other zones). While it’s attached, Immortalize provides 2 effects a player can activate during the “Any Phase” step of the Support Phase or during the normal Support step. Both require “Paying X DP from this” as a cost. In this case, “pay” is a brand new term and therefore is being defined by the card itself. This should intuitively mean to reduce the amount of DP Immortalize is tracking. You would not discard any of the cards it kept underneath! When it has 0 DP, the costs can’t be used and the card is effectively a dead attachment. If you had 2 cards in your DP Zone, one with 10 +P, one with 20 +P, you have a total of 30 +P. You can afford the cost to void 3 Digimon Supports OR void 1 Option. Since you do not discard the representative cards underneath it (no effect tells you to), you simply reduce the amount it tracks. Use dice or other counters to track this!

EFFECT timing – Timing on a card that will be specified in the card’s effect box. Usually indicates multiple timings or “Any Phase”

Jamming oddballs – Due to being an attack ability that can also void attack abilities and some supports, Jamming has many odd scenarios.

When should Jamming void a Digimon Support?
When a player is using an attack ability with Jamming (usually cross), and another player supports with a Digimon card, they may immediately reveal their attack and void that Digimon support. If they cannot, they lose the ability to Jam once the “attack effects” step comes up since Supports resolve first. Players receive this opportunity every time supports would have to be resolved from the beginning, meaning extra supports added later can be voided if they’re Digimon. Missing this timing for support voiding does not affect timing for voiding attack abilities! Be aware of this timing when supports give your attack Jamming. If it gives a specific attack Jamming, treat it as normal and reveal that you chose this attack. If it’s simply “get Jamming” or “own attack gets Jamming”, in those cases, you wouldn’t need to reveal the attack you chose since it’s applied to all attacks.

POINT! Timing and Jamming supports is key. Jamming can only void Digimon supports if they haven’t resolved yet. If your own support gives your attack Jamming, you will want it to resolve before an opponent’s Digimon support, or you miss that opportunity! However, Jamming will still void their attack abilities.

Which attack abilities can Jamming void?

• Jamming only voids Cross abilities.
• If a player’s Cross gains an ability through another means, Jamming will still void that if the timing is correct.
• If non-Cross attack gains an ability through an effect, it cannot be voided by Jamming.
• Jamming can void Cross Counter, so an opponent who uses “Cross Counter” will have their ability voided before Counter attack is set, therefore Jamming is considered “faster” or superior to Counter.
• Jamming cannot ever void another Jamming the same way any “void” effect can’t void another “void” effect. But both can still void a Digimon support.
• If both player’s attacks are changed to Cross (which you didn’t void with an existing Jamming ability you had), you can’t reveal your chosen attack for Jamming to void during the support step, so you can’t undo your attack change. This intuitively makes sense because it would reverse time and create a paradox where you had your attack changed to one with Jamming and voided that change itself.
• Because adding Jamming to an existing specific attack (or changing a player’s attack to a Cross with Jamming) requires you to be able to reveal that you chose the Jamming attack in order to void a Digimon support, you cannot reveal something like “Circle” if for example something gave your “Triangle” Jamming. So the normal rule applies even to attack changing and abilitiy adding.

Lack of Digimon & Can’t mulligan – Sometimes a player may not have a Digimon in hand at the start of their turn and an empty active zone. If a player has 3 or more cards and is allowed to mulligan, they must do so until they can play a Digimon as active. Sometimes players start their turn with 0 cards in hand, draw 2 and still cannot play a Digimon and but doesn’t have enough cards to mulligan OR an effect prevents mulligan. This triggers a special mulligan rule: Reveal their hand to their opponent to confirm it contains no Digimon cards (even if they would be played as abnormal), then must mulligan as if they were allowed until a Digimon appears or they run out of cards in their deck; revealing each new hand this way. The first hand with a Digimon stops this process and one of them must be played as active (even if Abnormal).

When would there be a game loss due to lack of active Digimon? If a player can’t place a Digimon into the active zone before their own Prep Phase ends, that player loses the game immediately. This is typically because the special mulligan failed to give them a Digimon before their deck became 0 cards.

Leaving a zone – Depending on the type of effect, a card that generated it leaving its current zone may void that effect.

• “Permanent” or “Passive” effects immediately stop being applied and revert to normal as if they were lingering effects during the End Phase when a card with this leaves its zone. In the case of active Digimon with either permanent effects that are activated by an evo-box, or “Passive” timing effects, these are also voided when their card is covered up by evolution, even if they are still in that zone. An exception to this is when a card’s timing is “Active Zone” or “Active Stack” which means it would continue to work anywhere in the zone, not just in the top active position.
• Lingering effects’ conditions are voided if the causing card is removed from its zone. The current results are treated as-is (unlike Permanent/Passive effects which would be reverted). Example: BR-130 Etemon says “At End, if able, discard this active, then own HP is 10” which is usually itself, but if it is KO’d, an opponent plays Potty Boat to remove it, or if it somehow evolves to change the top active to another Digimon, you would not continue with this during the End Phase. Your active would not change and its HP would not become 10.
• Attachment effects immediately stop applying their conditions (as lingering), Passives (as with Passives above), and any other effects but does not revert their values. If EX-018 Courage Crest already boosted own Circle Power +100, then was discarded by Shatter, your Circle will not revert.

Lingering effect VS Permanent effect – Permanent effects, aka “modifications” are effects that count as (Parentheses arguments) which means they do not terminate at the end of turn; they are denoted on some new cards’ evo-boxes with this lemniscate symbol . These can be considered embedded in the card’s identity but not physically printed on that card. This distinction matters since parenthesis/permanent effects can never be voided but printed abilities can. Also, “Shatter” will only reduce an opponent’s Power by the printed amount, but will ignore any permanent changes to that amount. Permanents are simply lingering effect changs that can’t be voided. Whereas printed values can be changed, voided, or referenced as “printed”.

• Permanent effects do not terminate ever, unless the card leaves its zone or any of its conditions aren’t met. Examples include HP change, type change, name change, or anything that modifies a permanent part of another card.
• Lingering effects terminate at the end phase and some cards may void them. Examples include Boost Power, change attack, gained Attack ability, max hand size, whether hand is revealed, number of times you may Support, DNA not counting as playing “Evolve”, or other non-passive effects that change non-permanent parts of the game or statuses.
• Passive effects are neither Lingering nor Permanent. They are voidable, have passive timing plus any other specified, and for most situations will be treated as permanent effects that are weaker.

Negative Effects in Evo-boxes – Any effect in an evo-box bonus that would be intuitively “negative” (i.e. have a bad effect on the game state) to its owner is meant to apply to the opponent. Some newer cards have an “opponent” symbol to clear this ambiguity. Example: “Discard 1” is a compactified phrasing of “opponent discards 1”. When ambiguous, the player applying the bonus chooses which player it affects. Designer note: It sucks, but I didn’t have any space when I first made the game.

Permanents in Evolution Boxes – Some permanent effects may be granted by evolution boxes such as “Attacks cannot be countered”/”Uncounterable” or “Supports cannot be void”/”Supports Unvoidable”. Unlike the general case, these only refer to your own attacks/supports/whatever is listed. These permanent effects are denoted on new cards by a lemniscate symbol and stay on your Digimon while it is active and the conditions are being met. They are not “lingering” effects that terminate during End Phase nor are they voidable like Passive effects. Void your permanent evo-bonuses if your active digimon card changes (but not if it flips).

Player discards – Any time an opponent “discards”, this means from the hand and is their choice unless otherwise specified (such as “discard randomly”). Some effects may have an opponent discard from another zone such as DP or attachment, these are also the opponent’s choice. The same applies to your own discard choices unless specified otherwise on the card. Costs requiring discards also by default allow the player to choose.

Discard any… – This is likely to appear followed by “own” or “opponent” and some zone such as DP or attachment. By default, all discards refer to the hand in case one is not specified. Discard any means the effect’s owner chooses, not the target. So “Discard any 1 in opponent’s DP” means you choose any 1 to discard in their DP, not the opponent’s choice. This is due to the intuitve fact that opponents already get to choose “any” by default.

Amount not specified – This means the effect removes all. Or if “any…” but doesn’t limit the amount, you can discard any number of any chosen cards in that zone.

Putting unknown cards from a hidden zone into a visible zone – This can often occur when resolving some Jungle abilities such as “put the top 1 Digimon of own deck into DP”. When checking for its conditions (1 Digimon), if the specified card(s) do not meet that condition, they are eventually returned to their hidden zone in the exact same location whenever possible. Follow normal shuffle rules about when hidden information is revealed from the deck versus a separate set.

POINT! Skip anything intuitively illegal in the game. Putting the top 1 card of deck into DP makes no sense if the card has no +P amount listed because it’s an Option without it. In that case, you would treat it as illegal and continue looking at the next card and so on.

Example 1: “Put the top 1 Digimon of own deck into DP.” If the top 1 is not a Digimon card, it is an illegal option which we skip, then iteratively continue checking the next cards until we reach the first Digimon or the deck is empty. Then, follow the Cherrypicking rule as we revealed hidden deck information and shuffle the deck.

Example 2: “Put 1 Digimon from the top 5 of own deck into DP.” Only allows the player to reveal to themselves 5 cards, fails if there is no Digimon, allows any of the 5 Digimon to be put into DP, and does not require a shuffle as the 5 cards are not considered the “top” and are not part of the deck anymore. Try to place them back in the same order if possible.

When is something a hidden zone? First, it’s easier to understand the open zones that any player can check the contents of (but not modify the order of) at any time: Active Zones, Trashes, attachments, evolutions, Support, Destiny Zone, and any temporarily created places such as looking at cards from hidden zones or revealing them to do other effects (these stop existing when the effect ends). Any card played facedown automatically ignores the openness of the zone (such as when supporting from the top of the deck face-down).

Hidden zones may be hidden to both players or only one: A player’s own hand is open to themselves but their opponent’s hand is hidden to them; all decks are hidden zones; all attacks chosen by players are hidden until checked or revealed by normal gameplay; and any temporary hidden/partially hidden zones may be made by effects such as when recoding your own deck and being allowed to see those cards while an opponent can’t. Some cards may cause hidden zone ambiguity such as DB-017 Gaizmon, which flips its attached’s deck over and plays with it face up. In this case, everything revealed (the top card) is now OPEN and everything under it is hidden. If a deck count is required in that circumstance, try to keep the deck as hidden as possible. Another temporary opening of a hidden zone is Redotamamon which makes an opponent’s hand remain face up (and then that lingering effect stops at the End Phase). In that case, the zone is now open until the effect stops.

Simultaneous Effects – If two effects (except attack abilities) would trigger simultaneously, do one of the following:

1. If the effects are both from the same card owner, that card owner chooses the order they resolve.
2. If one effect is a player’s and the other is their opponent’s, the current turn player chooses the order they resolve.

Interrupting effects/triggers – Some conditions on a card may be met in the middle of resolving a different card. This is fine and the conditions will interrupt the currently resolving card as if the effects are sequential. If two simultaneous conditions occur, proceed with the simultaneous rules. Effects are interruptable as they contain a period. Costs can’t be directly interrupted but may trigger conditions. In that case, the first effect after the cost must either trigger or misfire/void before anything else can resolve.

Example 1 (effect interrupt): Player 1 is resolving Ogremon’s Support to discard their hand, then afterward the next effect doubles their Power. Player 2 has an Ebemon active. When Player 1’s “Discard own hand.” finishes resolving, Ebemon’s effect that triggers when an opponent discards will immediately interrupt, resolve (Draw 1), and then Player 1 will begin their next effect. After their Power doubles, Ebemon will trigger again, interrupting Ogremon, then Boost its Power +200, then Ogremon resolves by putting itself into DP and Player 1 draws 2.

Example 2 (cost interrupt): Player 1 uses Missile Pod and completes the cost of discarding their hand. Player 2 has Ebemon as active again. Ebemon triggers on the discard but cannot interrupt a cost, as the effect hasn’t actually finished. Player 1 doubles their power. Player 2’s Ebemon now intterupts Missile Pod before its other effects can resolve and Draw 1 and Boost its Power +200. This is because both conditions were met while waiting to intterupt. Then Missile Pod finishes resolving by checking a condition.

Ruler Digimon – Rulers are special Digimon with their own rules. Link to detailed explanation for Ruler Digimon