Hello everyone, and welcome to Training Tuesdays, the (not-so) premier bi-weekly Digimon series where we take a look at some lower-power decks and how to build them. This week on Training Tuesdays, we're going to take a look at the shining dragon of light, ShineGreymon.
While ShineGreymon as a digimon has been powerful at a couple points with its BT-2 printing, ShineGreymon as an archetype wasn't really a thing until BT-12, including a whole slew of powerful cards to combine with the recently released EX-4 set. And while this wave of support was powerful, ShineGreymon was a rogue pick until the powerhouse set of BT-13, Versus Royal Knights. Alongside MirageGaogamon and the other Data Squad digimon, ShineGreymon got a powerful new wave of support that boosted the deck into Tier 1 status, dominating the meta at that time.
The deck's "gimmick" is playing down their signature Tamer, Marcus Damon, which would become a digimon and gain effects when suspended. The deck would later gain tools to suspend their tamers without making them a digimon in BT-17, which we will cover later. The deck historically from this time was an OTK focused strategy, utilizing the powerful effect of BT-12 Marcus Damon, alongside BT-12 ShineGreymon and BT-13 ShineGreymon: Burst Mode
to wipe out an opponent early on in the game. The main combo to achieve this is BT-12 Marcus on field as a Digimon with any unsuspended RizeGreymon on field, BT-12 ShineGreymon and BT-13 ShineGreymon: Burst Mode, and 1 security check already performed. First, you attack with Marcus, activating its effect to digivolve into BT-12 ShineGreymon for free. ShineGreymon will then trigger, giving DP- your opponents security digimon, and its passive effect will give Marcus +3000 DP and <Security Attack +1>. If your Marcus survives the first check then you are practically home free if you have any other Marcus on field, because you next digivolve into Burst Mode in hand by bouncing one Marcus to hand for free. Next you will play down the Marcus you returned to hand, making it 12000 DP and giving it <Rush>. You then swing with the freshly played Marcus, activating Burst Mode's effect to trash a security, and then swing with Burst Mode itself for game. This setup is fairly consistent, and at the time was crazy powerful, being able to DP minus down the nigh-unstoppable BlackWarGreymon (X Antibody). However, future support would branch this deck into a different path.
BT-17 was an extremely powerful set, with powerhouse decks such as Fenriloogamon, Omnimon ACE, and the ever powerful Ancient decks, but one other slipped under the radar of many players, which is the new ShineGreymon support. This wave was more so focused
on defensive plays, and suspending your tamers with your digimon's effects instead of making them a digimon on field. The most impressive cards from this wave are BT-17 GeoGreymon, BT-17 ShineGreymon, and BT-17 ShineGreymon: Burst Mode ACE (pictured right). GeoGreymon and Burst Mode from this set both revolve around suspending tamers [When Attacking] to activate effects, while ShineGreymon plays a tamer for free on evolve. This in total, makes every single level of the line from 4-7 able to play a tamer in some way, with GeoGreymon only being able to do it if you don't already have a Marcus. Burst Mode in this set is especially good, allowing you to play another tamer for free and essentially blow up digimon with a whole slew of DP minus effects. However this wave, while good, has one extremely major flaw. It is all in yellow only. This locks you out of extremely powerful cards like BT-14 Koromon and BT-9 Agumon (X-Antibody) entirely, with you also having a harder time utilizing Crimson Blaze, a red staple at this point. This is notable because the entirety of the line up to this point has been in both red and yellow, allowing you to use these powerful cards freely. This has led to a split in builds, which are Red Base utilizing the aforementioned cards, and Yellow Base opting for BT-12 Koromon instead and using the BT-17 support. Both builds have seen success in approximately equal amounts in the current day.
And while these cards are truly powerful additions to the lineup, the game at this point has accelerated to the point where these cards just simply aren't enough to make it truly viable. This is not to say the deck is bad, it is still a strong option that does get a top or even win every once in a while, but it is fairly few and far between. Looking towards the future for support, we have the unrevealed BT-21 support which will hopefully update the deck into relevancy again. As for lists, we have holychamp's 3rd place list from CoreTCG's November Regionals for Red Base, and a list from one of our community members, WILLEH for Yellow Base since it has not topped in the current format. This has been Training Tuesdays, and I hope to see you again for next weeks Meta Mondays, covering Magnamon X!
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