Announcing the opening of the Digimon Card Network

This is a rather belated announcement, but after a month or so of nonstop work on it I've opened the Digimon Card Network as an all-in-one hub for card translations, breaking news, and tournament data on the 2020 Digimon Card Game.

The website layout is really still being constructed, but my priority was on having the card database and other resources available as soon as it was functional. Future entries in the history of Digimon card games may be dual-published on both Tamer Union and the DCN, but for the foreseeable future my activities will migrate over there.

Detailed Digimon TCG rules revealed in V Jump, Plesiomon & Holydramon debut

Original image uploaded by TechnicalSuwako.

The March 21st issue of V Jump magazine contains the detailed rules for the 2020 Digimon Card Game, out this April. The game is played with decks made up of exactly 50 cards containing Digimon, Tamer, and Option Cards, with an additional "Raising Area" set aside made up entirely of Digitama Cards. The exact limits of the Raising Area were not discussed, but the first Starter Decks come with three Digitama Cards and the sleeves launching alongside them especially for that zone number five in every pack. Up to 4 copies of any card with the same Card Number can be included in a deck.

There are four phases to a turn in the Digimon Card Game:

1. Active Phase: Turn all of your Rest (landscape) Digimon to the Active (portrait) position.
2. Draw Phase: Draw 1 card from your deck. However, when taking the very first turn of the game, you do not draw a card.
3. Raising Phase: You can either turn 1 Digitama card from your Raising Area face-up to hatch it into a Baby-level Digimon, or evolve a face-up Digitama into a Level 3 or greater card to send to the Battle Area.
4. Main Phase: During this phase you can evolve and attack with Digimon, or use Option cards. If after you've paid a cost, the opponent's Memory gauge is at 1 or more, your turn ends.

At the beginning of the game both players shuffle their decks, set 5 cards face-down to form their Security Area, and draw 5 cards to create their opening hands. As revealed previously, a player wins the game by attacking the opponent while they have no Security remaining, and gets to that point by attacking the opponent's Security without being stopped by a Blocker like Unimon. When a Security is attacked it's flipped face-up, and if it's a Digimon, it battles the attacking Digimon as a Security Digimon--similar to Bandai's Chrono Clash card game. If the card is instead an Option or Tamer Card, its Security Effect resolves.

The Entry and Evolution Costs for Digimon are paid using the Memory Gauge shared between players. As soon as a player has 1 or more Memory, it is their turn. In the example presented in the issue, the turn player has 5 Memory and places a Digimon with a cost of 10; the opposing player now has 5 Memory, and it becomes their turn as a result.

The Raising Area is the most interesting mechanic revealed by the issue. During the Raising Phase of each turn the player can either turn a Digitama face-up, or evolve it into a Level 3 or greater Digimon, which results in it being sent straight to the Battle Area. The benefit of this is that Evolution Costs are always lower than Play Costs, Digitama Cards imbue their evolved forms with their Evolution Source effects, and every time the player evolves they get to draw a card, effectively filtering their hand using the Digimon they have available.

Since evolution, battle, and Option card use all take place in the same phase, there's a great deal of flexibility in terms of what players can do during combat. When two Digimon battle, the one with the lower power is destroyed--although the issue doesn't address whether a tie results in mutual destruction or mutual survival. No mention is made of the "summoning sickness" mechanic previously used in Chrono Clash, implying every Digimon can attack as soon as it's placed.

While it was previously known that Tamer Cards provided passive support effects to Digimon, this issue revealed that players can have multiple copies of a Tamer Card in play to stack their effect. And while Digitama Cards are said to be able to evolve into Level 3 or higher cards, Digimon Cards as a rule can only evolve into cards exactly one level higher than themselves. Both card types can only evolve into cards of the same color.

The issue also showed the game's first vanilla Level 6s, Plesiomon and Holydramon. These Digimon have 12000 power instead of the 10~11000 standard for Ultimates, and Entry and Evolution Costs of 10 and 2, but no effects. In addition to these, Dracomon and Coredramon made a cameo in the player's hand, establishing all but the very last card in Starter Deck 1: Gaia Red.

Seraphimon, Zudomon, Starlight Explosion, & Shadow Wing card translations

Thanks to MarcFBR over at With The Will, we now have cleaned versions of several cards from the upcoming Starter Decks Gaia Red, Cocytus Blue, and Heaven's Yellow.

Seraphimon
ST3-11 Super Rare
Digimon card
10000 DP
Entry Cost 12 Evolution Cost 4
Level 6
[When it attacks] During this turn(?) 1 of your opponent's Digimon gets -4000 DP.

Zudomon
ST2-09 Uncommon
Digimon card
7000 DP
Entry Cost 6 Evolution Cost 3
Level 5
[On-Entry](?) Remove 2 Evolution Sources from the bottom of 1 of your opponent's Digimon.

Shadow Wing
ST1-13 Common
Option card
Entry Cost 1
[Main] During this turn, 1 of your Digimon gets +3000 DP.
[Security] Until the end of your next turn, all of your Digimon get «Security Attack +1». (When this Digimon attacks Security, increase the number it checks by 1.)

Starlight Explosion
ST1-14 Common(?)
Option card
Entry Cost 2
[Main] Until the end of your opponent's next turn, all of your Security Digimon get +2000 DP.
[Security] During this turn, all of your Security Digimon get +2000 DP.

15 Starter Deck cards revealed in official Digimon TCG video, first promo cards coming through Battle Spirits collaboration

An introductory video published by the official Digimon Card Game YouTube channel revealed over 25 cards from the first two Starter Decks, including the Yagami Taichi Tamer card and the boss card of Cocytus Blue, Metal Garurumon. The video goes over the basic rules of the 2020 TCG, confirming and elaborating upon what was recently revealed in V Jump magazine.

It was also revealed through the official website today that the first promo pack, Ver 0.0, will be given out to those that buy the latest Digimon x Battle Spirits TCG Collaboration Booster, Last Evolution. One promo pack will be given out with every five packs of the Battle Spirits booster customers purchase. The promo pack features six Level 3 Digimon with different artwork and effects from their Starter Deck counterparts. Promo packs will also be packed in with the Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna Complete Selection Animation Digivice.

Agumon
P-001 Promo
Digimon card
3000 DP
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
[On-Entry] Destroy 1 of your opponent's 3000 DP or less Digimon. (Non-inheritable)

Piyomon
P-002 Promo
Digimon card
2000 DP
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
[During your turn] When this Digimon destroys an opponent's Digimon by battle, «(Illegible Keyword)». (Draw 1 card from your deck.) (Inheritable)

Gabumon
P-003 Promo
Digimon card
3000 DP
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
[On-Entry] Remove 1 Evolution Source from the bottom of 1 of your opponent's Digimon. (Non-inheritable)

Gomamon
P-004 Promo
Digimon card
1000 DP
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
[During your turn] Once per turn: When your opponent's Digimon's Evolution Source is removed, you get +1 Memory. (Inheritable)

Patamon
P-005 Promo
Digimon card
2000 DP
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
(Illegible timing) When your Security becomes(?) 1 or less, «Recovery +1 (Deck)». (Place 1 card from the top of your deck into the top of your Security.) (Non-inheritable)

Tailmon
P-006 Promo
Digimon card
4000 DP
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 2
Level 4
[During your turn] If your Security is 3 or greater, this Digimon gets +1000 DP. (Inheritable)

Note that some effects have changed slightly since these cards were first eased. For example, this Patamon appears to be the same one revealed in V Jump back in January, but it has 1 more Cost, 1000 less DP, and a non-inheritable effect rather than an inheritable one.

The play area in the new Digimon TCG is divided into six zones: the Hand, Deck, Trash, Security, Raising Area, and Battle Area. At the start of the game five cards are placed face-down from each player's Decks into their Security. You win the game by attacking the opponent while they have no Security remaining, and remove their Security cards by attacking them with your Digimon, turning them from Active (vertical) to Rest (horizontal) to declare attacks. While in the video's example the opponent didn't have any Digimon in play at the time, the existence of the Blocker ability implies that Digimon cannot be used to block attacks without it. (Considering that the Digimon TCG reuses elements from Chrono Clash, which was in turn influenced by designer Ryan Miller's previous work on Duel Masters, players probably can't attack an opponent's Digimon unless it's Rested, and power ties will result in both the attacker and defender being destroyed...probably.)

Players enter Digimon into the battlefield by paying their Entry Costs, moving a marker along the Memory Gauge (here depicted in the center of the playmat, but also countable using a pair of accessory cards) towards their opponent's side. When the marker crosses past 0 and over to 1 or higher, it becomes the opponent's turn. Alternatively, players can pay the Evolution Cost to evolve a Digimon on the field into one of the next level and same color.

In addition to what was explicitly stated, several points about the game can be gleaned from careful observation of the cards shown:

• A Digimon with no effects has 1000 more DP and 1 less Entry Cost than a same-level Digimon with effects.
• In general, Level 3 Digimon have no Evolution Cost, so it's possible to play two cards on the first turn before play passes to the opponent.
• Discarded Baby Digimon go to the Trash, rather than returning to the Raising Area.

We now know 10 of the 16 unique cards in Starter Deck 1: Gaia Red, and 5 of the 16 in Starter Deck 2: Cocytus Blue. Currently from Gaia Red the unrevealed slots are slots ST1-02 and 04 (one of them likely being Piyomon, whose number isn't legible) as well as ST-06, 10, and 13 through 15. From Cocytus Blue, the unrevealed slots are 02, 04~07, 09~10, and 12~16.

The Big Reveal: Metal Garurumon

Metal Garurumon
ST2-11 Super Rare
Digimon card
11000 DP
Entry Cost 12 Evolution Cost 4
[When it attacks] Once per turn: Make this Digimon Active. (Non-inheritable)

Were Garurumon
ST2-08 Rare
Digimon card
7000 DP
Entry Cost 7 Evolution Cost 3
Level 5
[During your turn] While your opponent has a Digimon with no Evolution Sources, this Digimon gets «Security Attack +1». (When this Digimon attacks Security, increase the number it checks by 1.) (Inheritable)

Metal Garurumon's effect allows it to attack twice in a turn, automatically becoming Active after Resting to attack. While this can snowball with it inheriting «Security Attack +1» from Were Garurumon, allowing it to destroy up to 4 Security in a single turn, Were Garurumon's effect doesn't activate unless the opponent has a Digimon with no Evolution Sources in play, which is primarily achieved by using Gabumon and Garurumon's effects to gradually strip away Sources. In other words, Metal Garurumon requires setup to become this dangerous; the Blue color as a whole revolves around removing Evolution Sources from the opponent's Digimon to trigger other effects.

While the War Greymon line is less directly damaging, it also doesn't require much setup to happen and can't be reigned in by the opponent evolving their Digimon. War Greymon gets «Security Attack +1» for every 2 Evolution Sources beneath it, and can inherit an effect from a previously-revealed print of Metal Greymon that can make it Active again after it destroys an opponent's Digimon by battle. With Koromon, Agumon, Greymon, and Metal Greymon in the Source, War Greymon can attack twice and check two Security just by evolving normally, but because it has to attack a Digimon to go Active again, it can't check four in one turn like Metal Garurumon. The Gaia Red Starter Deck is thus for players that want something stable and aggressive, while Cocytus Blue is designed for more tactical play. (e.g. deliberately not attacking one of the opponent's Digimon so that it can be reduced to 0 Sources and keep the Security Attack effect active, allowing Metal to dish out more damage.)

Note that Were Garurumon's effect implies you can declare attacks on Security even if the opponent has Digimon in play, as otherwise the effect would be completely useless.

Gaia Red cards

Koromon
ST1-01 Common
Digitama card
Level 2
[During your turn] If this Digimon has 4 or more Evolution Sources, this Digimon gets +1000 DP. (Inheritable)

Piyomon
ST1-0? Common
Digimon card
Level 3
Entry Cost 2 Evolution Cost 0
3000 DP
No effect.

Agumon
ST1-03 Common
Digimon card
2000 DP
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
[During your turn] This Digimon gets +1000 DP. (Inheritable)

Birdramon
ST1-05 Common
Digimon card
5000 DP
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 2
Level 4
No effect.

Greymon
ST1-07 Common
Digimon card
4000 DP
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 2
Level 4
«Security Attack +1». (When this Digimon attacks Security, increase the number it checks by 1.) (Inheritable)

Garudamon
ST1-08 Uncommon
Digimon card
7000 DP
Entry Cost 6 Evolution Cost 3
Level 5
[When Evolving] During this turn, 1 of your Digimon gets +3000 DP.

Metal Greymon
ST1-09 Uncommon
Digimon card
7000 DP
Entry Cost 7 Evolution Cost 3
Level 5
[During your turn] When this Digimon is blocked, you get +3 Memory. (Inheritable)

War Greymon
ST1-11 Super Rare
Digimon card
12000 DP
Entry Cost 12 Evolution Cost 4
Level 6
[During your turn] For every 2 of this Digimon's Evolution Sources, it gets «Security Attack +1». (When this Digimon attacks Security, increase the number it checks by 1.) (Non-inheritable)

Yagami Taichi
ST1-12 Common
Tamer card
Entry Cost 2
[During your turn] All of your Digimon get +1000 DP.
[Security] You may play this card without paying the cost.

Gaia Force
ST1-16 Uncommon
Option card
Entry Cost 8
[Main] Destroy 1 of your opponent's Digimon.
[Security] Activate this card's [Main] effect.

Cocytus Blue cards

Tsunomon
ST2-01 Common
Digitama card
[During your turn] When it battles an opponent's Digimon with no Evolution Sources, this Digimon gets +1000 DP.  (Inheritable)

Gabumon
ST2-03 Uncommon
Digimon card
2000 DP
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0
Level 3
[When it attacks] Remove 1 Evolution Source from the bottom of 1 of your opponent's Level 5 or less Digimon.

Garurumon
ST2-?? Common
Digimon card
4000 DP
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 2
Level 4
[When it attacks] Remove 1 Evolution Source from 1 of your opponent's Digimon

Other cards

Seraphimon, Zudomon, and the Option cards Shadow Wing and Starlight Explosion were all briefly shown in the introduction to the video, but are not clearly legible. Starlight Explosion has a Main Phase effect that affects the end of the turn, and a Security effect.

Starter Decks Gaia Red, Cocytus Blue, and Heaven's Yellow, will launch April 24th in Japan for 500 yen each, and will be followed by Booster Set ver. 1.0: NEW EVOLUTION on May 15th. No English release has been announced at this time.

Want the card game released overseas? Subscribe to Bandai's official TCG channel on YouTube, like their videos, follow their Twitter, and leave comments! Marketing departments pay attention to where their followers are, and getting the TCG a bigger following overseas than it has in Japan would send a strong message to Bandai.

V Jump details 4 card types from the 2020 Digimon Card Game

Original image uploaded by TechnicalSuwako.

The latest issue of V Jump magazine has a single-page feature on the upcoming Digimon Card Game, introducing the four card types, sample effects, and new game mechanics.

Updated product images for the upcoming Starter Decks, DSD-1: Gaia Red, Cocytus Blue, and Heaven's Yellow, feature Yagami Taichi, Ishida Yamato, and Takaishi Takeru, positioned to line up with each deck's face cards through the packaging plastic. The decks will launch on April 24th for 500 yen each, and according to retailers, will contain 53 cards total plus two Memory Gauge markers. (The number of unique cards in each deck will be 16 according to the official website.) They will launch alongside four (still unrevealed) card sleeve designs, and be followed up by the first expansion, Booster Set ver. 1.0: NEW EVOLUTION, on May 15th.

Booster ver. 1.0 will comprise 115 cards total, divided into 45 Commons, 30 Uncommons, 28 Rares, 10 Super Rares, and 2 Secret Rares. Each booster pack will contain six cards plus one index card, every booster box will contain 24 packs, and each carton will contain 12 boxes. At least one card in every pack will be a parallel foil. Booster boxes will retail for 4,752 yen (approx. $43) and cartons for 57,024 yen. (approx. $513) Cartons are intended for sale to stores rather than individuals, but no one's stopping you.

Digitama cards are the basic card every battle begins with, and have different card backs from all of the other card types.

The four card types in the 2020 TCG are Digimon, Option, Tamer, and Digitama cards. Digimon and Option cards function as they did in past games, with Digimon battling as the player's permanent creatures and Options being single-use cards that are discarded after taking effect. Tamer cards stay in play after their cost is paid, but cannot be attacked. The final card type, Digitama, represent a Digimon's egg, Baby I, and Baby II evolutionary stages, are printed as Level 2s and have a white card back instead of a blue one. Digitama cards do not go in the main deck, but are set aside into a separate "Raising Area." (育成エリア Ikusei Eria) The sample Digitama card given, Koromon, depicts both Botamon and Koromon and has an inheritable effect that gives its evolved forms +1000 power under certain (illegible) conditions.

Takaishi Takeru
Tamer
Entry Cost 2
[During your opponent's turn] All of your Security Digimon get +2000 DP.
[Security] You may play this card without paying the cost.

In addition to their inheritable effects located at the bottom of Digimon cards and non-inheritable effects in the center, Option and Tamer cards can also have a yellow "Security Effect" at the bottom of their card. Although not stated explicitly, these seem to resolve when that card is a Security and turned face-up by a Digimon's attack--Takeru's Security effect allows him to be played without paying his cost, but doesn't specify a timing. Past cards shown increase the number of Security cards they "flip over" when they attack.

While the placement of emblems in the article strategically covers the base powers and summoning costs of certain cards, it does show previews of the Yellow-aligned cards Angewomon and Unimon, as well as the Blue-aligned Garurumon. Garurumon has an inheritable ability that targets an opposing Digimon's Evolution Sources (the cards beneath it) but the full text is too blurry to make out. Angewomon has a non-inheritable ability that affects the bottom of the Security Area, and incorporates an illegible keyword, the reminder text of which states it "places the top card of your deck into the top of your Security." (In other words, a healing skill.)

Unimon
Digimon
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 2
«Blocker» (When another Digimon attacks, by turning this Digimon from the Active to Rest state, you may make this Digimon the target of that attack.)
[When it attacks] Move Memory (left?)

Unimon has a non-inheritable keyword ability that allows it to redirect an attack to itself so long as it can be rested (in Magic: The Gathering terms, tapped) preventing the opponent from battling another more valuable Digimon or turning another Security face-up.

Heaven's Gate
Option
Entry Cost 1
[Main] During this turn, 1 of your Digimon gets +3000 DP.
[Security] During this turn, your Digimon and Security Digimon all get +5000 DP. Then [illegible] add to your hand.

The next issue of V Jump will include 2 promotional cards, foiled alternate prints of Garurumon and Were Garurumon with different effects. This issue also clarifies that the upcoming promotional card pack will be distributed at future events, with the exact dates and locations to be announced on the official Japanese website.

Thus far the 2020 Digimon TCG appears to be based upon a very heavily modified Chrono Clash engine--the primary similarities come from the Memory Gauge and Security mechanics, which are very similar to the titular Chrono Clash Gauge and the Guardian stack. In Chrono Clash Guardians are five cards stacked face-down at the start of the game after shuffling the deck, and the objective of the game is to attack a player when they have no more face-down Guardians. Attacking them while they have a face-down Guardian turns it face-up; if it has Guardian ability then its owner can choose whether or not to resolve it, and if it's a Battler (equivalent to a Digimon) then the Guardian Battler does battle with the attacker, potentially destroying them before the Guardian itself is discarded. Already there are certain effects that empower "Security Digimon," which are most likely an equivalent mechanic.

While we can use the Chrono Clash rules to infer some possibilities about the new Digimon TCG, it's important to bear in mind that there are already significant differences, and there may be more to come. For example, the gauge in CC represents units of time and pushing the gauge over to the opponent's side while battling multiple Guardians causes the turn to immediately end--it's not clear if this holds true for Digimon, because the Memory Gauge doesn't have the same connection. Another difference is the Digimon themselves having multiple possible costs instead of just one, and effects that are worded in plaintext rather than represented entirely by icons. (Effects in Chrono Clash more resemble a flowchart of emojis than any of the cards above.)

At this time Bandai has not marketed Chrono Clash in Japan, and this reworking of its template for Digimon was likely done in response to the Digimon Universe Appli Monsters TCG's commercial failure back in early 2017. Based on what we've seen so far, the new game works something like this:

• Each player's win condition is to attack their opponent while they have no more Security cards remaining.
• Players play with 50 card decks, with 1 Digitama card (which may not count towards the deck limit?) set aside in their Raising Area.
• Each turn a player may play any cards from their hand, but each card increments their Memory Gauge marker closer to the opponent's side of the gauge, and as soon as it hits 1 or greater on their end, it becomes the opponent's turn.
• Players can turn Digimon from the Active state to the Rest state to declare attacks, attacking either the opponent's Security stack, or their (Rested?) Digimon. Digimon automatically become Active at the start of their owner's turn.
• When the Security stack is attacked, the top card is turned face-up; if the Digimon has the Security Attack +X ability, additional Security equal to X are turned face-up. Cards with Security effects can be optionally resolved by their owner before they are discarded(?) and if a Digimon is revealed as a Security it then battles the attacker.
• Players can evolve a Digimon or their Digitama in order to pay a lesser cost compared to summoning Digimon normally, but only to Digimon of the same color and of the next level. (e.g. Level 2 --> Level 3)
• When a Digimon evolves, it becomes an Evolution Source of the new Digimon, and the new Digimon inherits any ability in colored text at the bottom of that card. Abilities written in transparent text boxes on the center of a card are not inherited.

Some lingering questions:

• What are all of the zones in the game? So far we have the Deck, Security, a presumed discard pile, the Raising Area, and the hand. Is there an Extra Deck like in Chrono Clash, or an exiled area as so many TCGs have?
• How do the different steps of battle resolve? Are there ways to defend other than just having a Blocker in play? Are there any further steps on the attacking side beyond tapping to attack?
• What happens to a Digitama card when it's removed from the field, either by an effect that destroys Evolution Sources or by its evolution being defeated in battle? As these cards have different backs, it seems like they would be unable to exist in zones outside the Raising Area or Evolution Source, and it would fit with the cyclical lifespan of a Digimon that they return to the Raising Area when defeated, but this is only a best-guess.
• Can Option cards be color-restricted, and for that matter does color play any greater role beyond restricting evolution?

First Digimon TCG promo pack teased, card effects revealed in livestream & Memory Gauge explained

An older and younger brother play the 2020 Digimon card game in Bandai's concept trailer.

In a livestream aired at 3 AM Pacific Standard Time, Bandai Namco revealed several upcoming promotional cards for the 2020 Digimon Card Game, and also showed a 2020 concept trailer for the entire Digimon franchise that revealed two more Digimon effects from the upcoming TCG. Bandai also opened an official Digimon Card Game Twitter account shortly before the livestream aired, where it gave us our first look at the product packaging for the Starter Decks "Gaia Red," "Cocytus Blue," and "Heaven's Yellow." The header for the Twitter account--which also appears as the illustration for the game's first promo pack--suggests V-mon, Liollmon, Kokuwamon, Betamon, Tentomon, Dracomon, Plotmon, Goblimon, Pico Devimon, Patamon, and Guilmon, are all coming to the card game.

The header for the official Twitter account.

The Starter Decks are on-schedule to launch in April at 500 yen per deck. The packaging states that the game is for ages 9-and-up, which is noticeably higher than the current standard for TCGs: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Buddyfight, and Cardfight!! Vanguard are all recommended for children 6-and-up.

New card reveals

Metal Garurumon
Level 6/Data/Cyborg
11000 DP
Entry Cost 12, Evolution Cost 4 (From Level 5)
Effect unknown.

Angemon
Level 4/Vaccine/Angel
4000 DP
Entry Cost 5, Evolution Cost 2 (From Level 3)
Effect unknown.

Gabumon
Level 3/Data/Reptile
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
2000 DP
[Attacking] When it attacks a Digimon, [illegible] 1 of that Digimon's Evolution Sources.

Leomon
Level 4/Data/Beast Man
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 3 (From Level 3)
5000 DP
[When destroyed] Summon 1 Child-level Digimon from this Digimon's Evolution Sources without paying the Cost.

Note that this is the first instance of "Summon" (召喚 shoukan) appearing in effect text.
Promotion Pack ver. 0.0 cards

These cards will appear in promotional pack ver 0.0, which are not for sale and will be distributed to "various places." Fans are encouraged to check the official site and Twitter account for more information at a later date.

The promo packs will most likely be given out as participation prizes at hobby shops that host 2020 Digimon Card Game tournaments, as an incentive for players to participate; this is how Bandai and other manufacturers have done similar promo packs in the past. Several of these cards are partially obscured or at too low a resolution to make out distinct kanji, thus the effects below are incomplete.

Piyomon
Level 3/Vaccine
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
2000 DP
[illegible] ...destroys your opponent's Digimon... [illegible] ...draw a card).

Gomamon
Level 3/Vaccine
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
2000 DP
[When it attacks] (Once per turn) Your opponent's Digimon's Evolution Source... [illegible] ...gets Memory +1

Tailmon
Level 4
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 2 (From Level 3)
4000 DP
[illegible] Look at 3 cards from the top of your Security, return (?) as many cards as you like to the top of your Security in any order, and put the rest on the bottom.

The Security mechanic is also mentioned in War Greymon's effect text.

Agumon
Level 3
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
3000 DP
[When it Enters] Destroy 1 of your opponent's 3000 DP or less Digimon.

Gabumon
Level 3/Data
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
3000 DP
[On-Entry] 1 of your opponent's Digimon's Evolution Sources, [illegible] from the bottom.

Patamon
Level 3/Vaccine/Mammal
Entry Cost 4 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
2000 DP
[illegible] When... [illegible] 1 or less of your Security, [Recovery 1... [illegible] ...1 card from the top of your deck to the top of your Security.)

Livestream content

During the official Digimon livestream Bandai representative Goto-san described the TCG as "a game where both kids and adults can enjoy battling and collecting," and presented several slides clarifying elements of the game. Digimon begin as a "Baby" level card that features a Digitama, Baby I, and Baby II Digimon in a single illustration, which is considered Level 2. They then evolve to Child, Adult, Perfect, and Ultimate, with cards being overlayed on top of one another so that the colored text of each card is visible beneath it. Level 2 Digimon can also have inheritable effects like higher-level ones, but the example card was not legible.

Metal Greymon
Level 5/Vaccine/Cyborg
Entry Cost 7 Evolution Cost 3 (From Level 4)
[When it attacks] [Once per turn] When this Digimon destroys your opponent's Digimon by battle, put this Digimon in the Active state.

Greymon
Level 4/Vaccine/Dinosaur
Entry Cost 5 Evolution Cost 2 (From Level 3)
4000 DP
[Security Attack +1] (When this Digimon attacks Security, increase the number of cards it flips over by +1)

"You can send out your favorite Digimon right from the first turn!?
Your opponent's marker moves proportionate to the cost paid.
Exceed 1 and it's your opponent's turn.
Enjoy simple, innovative & dynamic battles."

Goto also gave a brief explanation clarifying the Memory Gauge system. Players can actually play Digimon of any level right from the first turn of the game, but this will move the Memory Gauge toward the opponent equal to the Digimon's Entry Cost, and if it surpasses the "1" mark it ends the current turn. This means that you could theoretically play a Level 6 Digimon like War Greymon right on the first turn of the game--but you would be giving the opponent a massive amount of Memory to spend, so they would be able to play even more Digimon than you without their turn ending.

The stream also partially revealed the Starter Deck print of Gabumon, which has a different effect from both the promotional card and the version seen in the trailer. Agumon is unchanged from the website version, and Patamon's text is illegible save for the fact that it happens when it attacks and modifies the opponent's DP. The cards are illustrated by Watanabe Kenji and As'maria, two of the franchise's longest-serving artists.

Gabumon
Level 3
Entry Cost 3 Evolution Cost 0 (From Level 2)
2000 DP
[During your turn] (Once per turn): When your opponent's Digimon's Evolution Source is [illegible] until end of turn, this Digimon's DP gets +1000.

At this point, it appears Digimon cards can have two kinds of effects: those written in the colored effect boxes at the bottom of a card, and those in transparent boxes imposed over the artwork. Only colored effects appear to be inherited by evolutions, which is how Metal Greymon and War Greymon were portrayed on the official site, as well as Leomon and Gabumon in the new trailer.

For example, the promo print of Agumon has a transparent box effect that destroys an opponent's 3000 or less DP Digimon when it enters play, while the standard Agumon's colored effect gives it +1000 DP during its owner's turn. The former is the kind of effect a game designer wouldn't want players getting to recycle all the time, while the latter is much more balanced as an inheritable ability. Some of the effects already allow powerful combinations; combining the entire Starter Deck War Greymon line together creates a Digimon with 13000 DP that can break 4 Security in one attack while also destroying an opponent's Digimon by battle.

2020 Digimon TCG will "revolutionize" card games, War Greymon & Metal Greymon's effects revealed

"In April 2020, that Digimon card game returns!"

Over January 20th the official Digimon homepage was revamped in both Japanese and English, accompanied by a new Japanese-only website for the 2020 card game. This is the first such Digimon Card Game website since the closure of the Digital Monster Card Game Alpha homepage in February 2008, and it reveals several key details about the game's rules, as well as new card effects.

Promising the return of "that" Digimon card game, the main page ad gives us our first look at both the card back and Metal Garurumon, the face of one of three 500-yen Starter Sets available when the game launches this April. ("That" game likely refers to the popular Digital Monster Card Game that ran in Japan from 1999-2006, which over the past few years has seen new collector's sets published to coincide with the Digimon Adventure anniversary project.) Of note is that Bandai chose to publish the TCG information in both English and Japanese, even though the TCG site itself is Japanese-only. Bandai may be considering a future English localization--their popular Dragon Ball Super TCG became infamous in the English-speaking world for pulling players away from Cardfight!! Vanguard and other games, and with the western trading card market becoming increasingly open to games outside the "big three" thanks to Super and the Final Fantasy TCG, 2020 would be an ideal time to market a new game.

The three Starter Decks previously revealed are named Gaia Red, Cocytus Blue, and Heaven's Yellow, and will each contain 16 kinds of cards. The actual total number of cards in each deck is unknown. Typically if a game has 16 unique cards per starter deck, then the total deck size is 50, but depending on how many copies of each card is included, this could vary. The Starter Deck names come from the Japanese names of each featured Digimon's special attacks: Gaia Force, Cocytus Breath, and Heaven's Knuckle.

Aside from the Starter Decks, the 2020 TCG website is a part of Bandai's Carddass brand network, meaning the TCG will likely be distributed through both traditional booster boxes and trading card vending machines like past Digimon games.

The Memory Gauge
The 2020 Digimon Card Game webpage states that the TCG's "Memory Gauge" system will revolutionize Trading Card Games, and it certainly provides a unique spin on the standard mana formula. Take a look at the cards below:

The Memory Gauge is a resource shared by both players, used to pay costs. It starts at 0, but each player can voluntarily increase it at the expense of immediately ending their turn. Because it's shared by both players, the opponent increasing their Memory benefits you--if you have 2 Memory and the opponent has 3, then either player can play Digimon and use abilities with a cost of 5. This reduces the advantage either player gets out of going first or second, because Memory is necessary to evolve into or directly play Digimon, so both players are incentivized to give each other more Memory in order to deploy their respective strategies. Even though the player going first will be the first one to evolve their Digimon, the player going second will have more Memory available on any given turn.

This makes the Memory Gauge a fundamentally different kind of resource system from those found in Magic: The Gathering or Pokémon. Instead of having to draw a specific card dedicated to being a resource and play it each turn, the player in Digimon 2020 is given guaranteed ways to increase their resources and the possibility of receiving even more from their opponent. This is more akin to the Play Points found in Shadowverse, but with the addition of mindgames over whether or not to give the opponent more Memory on a particular turn in order to be able to pay higher costs on subsequent turns.

While the webpage says the gauge can be increased by paying the gray "Entry Cost" (登場コスト toujou kosuto) at the top left corner of a Digimon card, how this works isn't clarified. The full rules of the game are to be published in the April issue of V Jump on February 21st, and will likely leak a few days early as the previous issue did.

New card reveals

War Greymon
Level 6/Vaccine/Dragon Man
12000 Power
Entry Cost 12, Evolution Cost 4 (From Level 5)
[During your turn] For every 2 Evolution Sources, this Digimon gets «Security Attack +1». (When this Digimon attacks Security, increase the number it flips over by 1.)

Metal Greymon's effect is just barely visible beneath War Greymon's, used to confirm V Jump's statement that evolved Digimon inherit the effects of the cards beneath them.

Metal Greymon
Level 5/Vaccine/Cyborg
[When it attacks] [Once per turn] When this Digimon destroys your opponent's Digimon by battle, put this Digimon in the Active state.

This is speculation, but War and Metal Greymon suggest several things about the game mechanics. The first is "Security," which based on its inclusion on a high-level card seems to be important to the game's win condition. Security is probably a mechanic similar to the Shields of Duel Masters or Life Cloth of Wixoss; cards which protect the player from direct attacks, and when all Securities are removed, either the player loses or they'll be vulnerable to a direct attack that will win the game for their opponent.

Note that «Security Attack +1»'s rules text states it "flips over" (めくる mekuru) one more. (Using the counter word 枚 mai, which is used for long flat objects like trading cards.) This verb is generally used to mean turning something to its opposite side--a page, a card, and if you remember the Nintendo eShop game Flip Wars, in Japan it's called Battle Sports Mekuru. While mekuru can also be used to mean "tearing off," the word suggests to me that Securities are cards turned face-up, which is exactly what happens not just with Shields or Life Cloth, but also with Life cards in Z/X and Damage Checks in Cardfight!! Vanguard. Moreover, Securities are counted with the counter word 枚 mai which is used to count long flat objects, including cards. In updating Digimon's game mechanics for a modern TCG audience, it wouldn't be surprising for Bandai to follow this design trend. If all this follows, that means War Greymon has the potential to flip two or three Securities in one attack.

The question is, why are Security cards turned over at all? The cards being turned face-up suggests there's important information both players need to check. In other games that do this like the aforementioned Duel Masters, Wixoss, and Z/X, it's to check if the card has a special ability that resolves when revealed. (Shield Triggers for Duel Masters, Life Burst for Wixoss, Ignition effects for Z/X.) In those games these abilities do things like instantly summon the monster with the ability, use an instant effect without paying its cost, or draw additional cards for the defending player. Security cards are probably normal cards placed randomly from the player's deck, some of which will have abilities that interfere with the opponent's battle phase to prevent one-sided games.

Metal Greymon's effect is interesting because it mentions the term "Active," which is also used in Bandai's Dragon Ball Super TCG. In DBS "Active" refers to vertically-oriented cards (portrait position) which are the opposite of horizontally-oriented "Rest" cards (landscape position) equivalent to Magic's "untapped" and "tapped" states, or Cardfight!! Vanguard's "stand" and "rest" positions. If this is what Bandai's going for, Metal Greymon can attack a second time in a turn provided its previous attack destroyed a Digimon--so it can't use the effect by destroying a Security card, but it could destroy a Digimon and a Security rather than having to choose between attacking one or the other.

And since War Greymon inherits the effects of the cards beneath it, a War Greymon with both Agumon and Metal Greymon beneath it gets +2000 DP while attacking, can attack twice in a turn by attacking a Digimon, and breaks an additional Security card. (It will not, however, gain 4000 DP total. Agumon's effect only applies "while" it is attacking, not until end of turn, so the initial power boost goes away at the end of the battle, then reactivates on the second attack.)

[Update: Agumon's effect on the official website has changed since its appearance in V Jump. The revised text simply gives it +1000 DP during its owner's turn.]

Something else to note is that at the website's higher resolution, Agumon's Evolution Cost states "From Level 2." While V Jump merely stated that Digimon would evolve from Digitama in the card game, this implies that players will actually have to play Level 1 and 2 Digimon first, like Botamon and Koromon--traditionally the Baby I and Baby II stages of a Digimon's life cycle are omitted from the card games because they are not capable of battling in the original virtual pet toys. Having Level 1 and 2 Digimon in the game would have a significant impact on gameplay, with a player potentially going into Level 3 with 4 Memory already available. There are other possibilities, like first and second levels being condensed together in some way, but nothing definite can be said until more is revealed.

Bandai announces 2020 Digimon Card Game, Starter Sets only $5

Launching April 2020: War Greymon, Metal Garurumon, Angemon starter decks.

"Aim to be the strongest Digimon Tamer with the Digimon TCG!!"

Three years out from shutting down their Appmon collectible card game, Bandai announced the 2020 Digimon Card Game in V Jump magazine. Set for a Spring launch and paired to the new Digimon Adventure series airing at 9 AM Sundays on Fuji TV--the same timeslot the series debuted with in 1999--the new Trading Card Game puts Digimon's classic monsters front and center. This TCG appears to be largely unrelated to the franchise's past Japanese TCGs, with a resource system, "colors" for each Digimon group evocative of Magic: The Gathering and Duel Masters, and a single unified attack power instead of the rock-paper-scissors stat system used in the 1999 Digital Monster Card Game and 2006 Digital Monster Card Game Alpha.

V Jump highlights the illustrations as a major selling point: every card appears to have a custom illustration commissioned just for that card, with no stock art as seen in past games. According to the magazine, players grow their Digimon partner from a Digitama/Digi-Egg all the way up to Ultimate level, and Digimon "inherit the effects" (効果を受け継ぐ) of the cards they evolved from. For example, Agumon has an effect that gives it 2000 additional DP while attacking, and if it evolves to War Greymon, War Greymon will also have Agumon's effect in addition to its own.

(Note: "Ultimate" is the name for the sixth-level evolutions in Japanese, equivalent to "Mega" in the English dub, one level below "Super Ultimate"/"Ultra" level.)

Agumon
"When it attacks: During that battle, this Digimon's DP gets +2000."

War Greymon
Effect unknown.

Each Digimon has two types of cost found in the top left of the card: the colored cost, placed lower on the card, is its Evolution Cost, which must be paid to evolve into it. The gray cost, found in the top-leftmost corner, is unclear. While the magazine scans are high-resolution, they aren't high enough to distinguish the distorted kanji on the gray cost; it may be a "deployment" (展開 tenkai) cost, as the article also mentions "deployment" as an element of the game, but the shape doesn't look exactly right.

Digimon also have a level next to their name, identifying their evolutionary level. Like in the old Hyper Colosseum TCG, this is a number rather than a name, with Child/Rookie-level Digimon being level 3, Adult/Champion Digimon being 4, and so on. All level 3 Digimon have an Evolution Cost of 0, allowing them to be played for no cost.

In addition to the numbered level, the Digimon's formal level name is listed in smaller text in the bottom right corner of its name box, as well as its attribute (Agumon and War Greymon are Vaccine-attribute) and type. (Reptile, Dragon Man, etc.) To the right of each card's name is its serial number and rarity, with DG-000 Agumon being a Rare and ST1-10 War Greymon's rarity being illegible. War Greymon's effect box is blank, likely to keep it a secret for the next issue, which promises to come out with the detailed rules and card effects.

Most important of all is that every Digimon in the new TCG has a "color," which is identifiable both by the color of their Evolution Cost, and by the color of the box containing their name on the lower part of each card. Each Digimon can only evolve into a Digimon of the same color (同じ色同士だったら、好きなデジモンへ進化できる！"If their colors match, you can evolve into the Digimon you like!") and so far three colors have been identified.

• Red has a strong attack-focused style of play, featuring Dragon Man and Dragon-type Digimon and abilities that increase their DP. (The attack stat.) For example, Agumon's effect gives it +2000 DP during the battle it attacks, allowing it to attack with 4000 total DP even though it can only defend with 2000.
• Yellow is control-focused, featuring Holy Beast, Fairy, and Angel-type Digimon with effects that decrease the opponent's DP. The sample Yellow Digimon is Patamon, whose base DP is just 1000, but its effect is illegible at the scan's low resolution. Patamon's effect does do something to modify DP, but it seems to be in a 3-digit increment rather than 4--possibly a 500 point decrease or increase.
• Blue stresses "expansion/deployment" with Beast, Beast Man, and Beast Knight-type Digimon. It "reigns over the board" by discarding the opponent's cards. Like Patamon, Gabumon's text is mostly illegible. 

The card game will launch in April 2020 with three Starter Sets, one each for Red, Yellow, and Blue, respectively featuring War Greymon, Angemon, and Metal Garurumon. (This may refer to the cards featured on the cover of the box, rather than implying Patamon's deck will stop at level 4.) A booster pack expansion will follow soon after. The next issue of V Jump magazine will feature more detailed rules and card effects. 

Each Starter Set will retail for 500 yen plus tax, approximately $4.54 at current exchange rates--note that this is an incredibly low entry point for the game compared to its competitors. Cardfight!! Vanguard's standard Trial Decks cost 1500 yen, Future Card Buddyfight 1000~1500 yen, Yu-Gi-Oh! 1000~1200, Duel Masters 900~1500, and Pokémon 1556 yen. Even Appmon starter decks cost 950 yen back in 2016, and the closest products on the market now are Wixoss' fifth-anniversary 555 yen decks, and Vanguard's 500-yen reprint-focused Start Sets.

Of note is that the 2020 Digimon Card Game is launching only a few weeks after Bushiroad's otaku-targeted Rebirth For You TCG, and far ahead of their upcoming general-audiences game Dominator. The low entry point is an aggressive way for Bandai to compete with Bushiroad and Konami, both of which have suffered difficulties in the Japanese market in the past several years. Bushiroad saw both its Monster Collection and ChaOS TCGs fold while Luck & Logic fell into obscurity in Japan and shut down internationally alongside Dragoborne, and Konami saw what was supposed to be a major boom period turn to bust as returning players coming in from the newly-launched Duel Links mobile app subsequently turned away from Yu-Gi-Oh! in favor of other games after being alienated by the onslaught of new mechanics not found in the nostalgia-focused Links.

Although much ado has been made about digital TCGs like Shadowverse, Bandai is actually one of many Japanese manufacturers turning back to making paper games after getting burned by the market saturation of digital TCGs. Only Shadowverse, Hearthstone, and Bandai's own Zenonzard survived Japan's three-year digital TCG bubble, with other games like Takara's War of Brains and Sega's Code of Joker shutting down in 2018 and 2019. Even Zenonzard may not come out of this unscathed--the game's Japanese following is one-sixth the size of Shadowverse, which keeps pulling players away from other mobile-based TCGs, and will likely continue to do so as the new anime series helps it snowball its advantage as the market leader.

Ikeda Yoshimasa, of Japan's largest national hobby chain Card Kingdom, recently noted on Twitter that the average age of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Duel Masters, and Pokémon players has shifted over time towards the mid-20s and early 30s, with the bulk of each game's player base being adults. With Digimon Adventure reclaiming its Sunday morning timeslot--the ideal slot for children's programming in Japan, where that time isn't taken up by church services--the card game will have ample opportunity to recruit young players, and face comparatively little competition from its historical rivals. In fact, its biggest competitor may be the Shadowverse franchise, which will be premiering a new shōnen anime series in April 2020 on TV Tokyo, and won't have to deal with the typical obstacles of getting a child into a hobby shop. This will be something of a test for whether or not digital and analog TCGs truly compete against one another, and if they can actually "steal" players in the way that analog games poach from each other.

With the new Digimon Adventure TV series attempting to once again milk the nostalgia of core fans, but also appearing on a child-friendly timeslot, the 2020 Digimon Card Game is likely trying to bring in a mix of brand-new players and the nostalgic old guard to guide them. The Japanese Digimon TCG grew up with its audience--for many fans between Frontier and Savers, it was the franchise--but never reached the point where discrete age divisions could viably exist to allow children and adults to compete separately among their peers, as they had in Pokémon and so many after. Provided that the game is well-received, this would be Digimon's chance to catch up in building a community of players, bridging the long gap between the end of its original run and present-day revival.

Lingering questions

How do you win the game?   
Battle is fairly obvious thanks to the way Agumon's effect is worded. The effect gives additional power "when attacking," which implies the turn player declares attack(s) on their turn and wins a battle by having greater (or equal?) power to the opponent. But what is the result of winning a battle? The "score/point gauge" system used in Hyper Colosseum was not well received when it was reused in Appmon, and cards don't seem to have an equivalent to the Lost Points stat that would make it possible to use.

Most TCGs in Japan now have a non-abstract win condition represented by cards--destroying the opponent's "Shield" or "Life Cloth" cards like in Duel Masters and Wixoss, sending cards from the top of their deck to their "damage" like in Vanguard and Final Fantasy, or taking "Prize Cards" as in Pokémon. Other games like Lycée and the long-dead Bankett! have the player discard cards from their deck equal to the damage taken, so that players only lose when they deck-out, but Digimon's attack numbers are in the thousands range rather than single-digit.

What role does card position play? 
In most TCGs you "tap," "rest," "exhaust," or perform some other action that turns a card horizontally to declare attacks or use certain effects. Yu-Gi-Oh! and Digimon were originally the exception, with Yu-Gi-Oh! using vertical and horizontal position to differentiate "attack mode" from "defense mode," while Digimon largely ignored position, but this was to their detriment. Gameplay feels much less immediate when players have no tactile feedback and are simply taking turns declaring their attacks and subtracting imaginary values, without actually moving cards around the board--tapping and untapping works because it's a physically meaningful action the player can take that immediately changes the meaning of the cards on the board, and because they feel incentivized to take it each turn to progress the game state.

How big is a deck, and how many copies of a card can you have? 
The low cost of the Starter Sets could imply a smaller deck size akin to past Digimon card games. If Digimon are supposed to go through life cycles then it could be a 30-card deck like in HC and Appmon, but if not then 40, 50, and 60-card decks are all standard in different games, and 3 or 4-ofs are the typical maximum. In general ~50 seems to be the magic number for ensuring draw effects aren't too powerful.

How are costs paid? 
Magic: The Gathering had players tap "land" cards to pay for mana costs, Pokémon had them attach "energy" cards to their monsters, Duel Masters and Wixoss both use a system where any card can become mana/energy--but Wixoss added the wrinkle that energy had to be discarded to use it, and brought in a whole lot more ways to get or lose energy as a consequence of that. Vanguard instead had the player's damage function as their means of paying costs, but had a similar evolution mechanic to Digimon with a simple rule that the player could only "ride" once at the start of the turn and only to a card of the same or greater level. The fact that there is a resource system at all is a relief in its own right, as the lack of one can seriously disrupt game balance in a TCG.

How many Digimon can you have? 
The wording in the article seems to imply you only get one partner Digimon, but it's not without precedent for players to control up to three in a Digimon TCG (as in the alternate "Ultimate Battle" format for the 1999 game, or in Alpha's general rules) and the other games on the market all revolve around having anywhere between five and an unlimited number of monsters to attack with.

What are the comeback mechanics?
 One of the biggest weaknesses of past Digimon games was that there were no comeback mechanics baked into the rules, which incentivized players to stop their opponent from playing the game as much as possible and created snowballing situations where whoever got the lead first could keep it forever. Players generally do not enjoy one-sided games where there's no opportunity to mount a counterattack. Vanguard had the player's damage act as their mana, as well as "Limit Break" abilities only usable when they had 4 or more damage available, Wixoss had the player's defeated SIGNI (monsters) and broken Life Cloth go to their energy zone to make the losing player able to use more card effects each turn than the winning player, and Duel Masters put broken Shield cards directly into the player's hand to give them card advantage.

What can you do on the opponent's turn? 
In general, TCGs have gotten more interactive over time. One aspect the Pokémon TCG gets criticized for is that it never got more interactive than using Power Spray back in 2008, and once Power Spray rotated out the game never revisited the idea. Vanguard, Wixoss, Buddyfight, and even Rebirth, all introduced different cards and mechanics that could be used on the opponent's turn, whether that was as simple as discarding a card with a defensive effect to nullify one attack, or as complex as using your own card effects in response to them playing a creature or attacking.

What chance elements are there? 
One reason for the success of Weiss Schwarz, Duel Masters, Vanguard, and Wixoss, is that each of these games use "trigger" effects--secondary effects of cards that activate when they are revealed during the attacking or defending step, and give an advantage like drawing an extra card, dealing extra damage, untapping a card, or summoning another creature. Very competitive but low-chance games like Dimension Zero failed in part because they didn't have enough chance elements. These aspects don't have to be overwhelmingly powerful, they just need to be significant enough to surprise players, make the game fun for casual fans, and give competitive ones an unpredictable element to take into account when planning their strategy.

How many total colors are there, and how balanced will they be? 
"Game balance" is no longer the meme it once was. Vanguard has ~20 viable and distinct deck types in any given format, new Wixoss players are told to play whatever they want because of the strides the game goes to balance both its colors and individual LRIG characters, and Oko notwithstanding Magic has come a long way from 1993. The prognitor of all TCGs used to be infamous for making blue objectively superior to every other color, and in legacy formats it still is...which is why players prefer Standard format, where other colors can actually top. In Pokémon Welder saw a lot of hate for how much better it made Fire over the other types, and the game as a whole still sees the same colorless (or functionally colorless) tools being shared across all of the different deck types. 

Hardcore players aren't going to stand for a low-diversity format in a brand new game. At a bare minimum all colors in Digimon need to have at least one viable deck, and ideally you would be able to build a War Greymon deck just as viable as a Gaioumon deck despite them both being Red. Of note is that Red, Yellow, and Blue are three of the six colors found in Battle Spirits, which Digimon helped bring back from near-cancellation with a series of highly successful crossover sets starting in 2017 and continuing up to February 2020. It's entirely possible Bandai has members from the Battle Spirits design team working on the 2020 Digimon card game, with the remaining colors being Green, Purple, and White. It is interesting that they did not go the obvious route of defining "colors" along the lines of Fields like Dragon's Roar, Nature Spirits, and Virus Busters, but Fields are a relatively obscure bit of Digimon lore and not the most approachable idea to design a game around.