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:
Active Phase: Turn all of your Rest (landscape) Digimon to the Active (portrait) position.
Draw Phase: Draw 1 card from your deck. However, when taking the very first turn of the game, you do not draw a card.
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.
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.
January 21st, 2016. Digimon World Tour revealed several of the prizes to be given out to the winners of the various tournaments and contests being held at the Digimon Celebration in Pittsburgh this February. World Tour just announced the full tournament lineup and rules over the 16th, promising a line of Rumble Arena tournaments alongside fanart, cosplay, and trivia contests.
Among others, the prizes include War Greymon D-Arts and Metal Garurumon SHFiguarts figures, booster packs from the Digi-Battle Card Game, Card Tactics, and Trading Collection sets, a VHS copy of Digimon: The Movie, the film's original Andiramon and Holydramon promotional cards, assorted Xros Wars keychains, and a "Comin' Up Next on FOX Kids!" basket of Power Rangers toys.
Digimon Celebration will take place at the Victory Pointe gaming lounge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 6th, 2016. Tamer Union will be traveling to provide on-site coverage of the event. The event is being organized through Facebook, and currently 63 persons have committed to going. 144 others are
"interested," and 345 invited. In addition to the gaming and cosplay
events that day, the Celebration will feature artist duo Ramen Bento as a
vendor, selling Digimon plush toys, stickers, and magnets. Up until February 3rd, fans can purchase commemorative Digimon Celebration T-shirts from Redbubble.
December 13th, 2015. Japanese YouTuber Hackichannel uploaded a video showing off the recently-launched Complete Selection Animation Digivice today, an official anime cosplay toy that reproduces the evolution sequences and famous quotes of various Digimon Adventure Digimon. The CSA Digivice uses lines newly recorded for the movie series Digimon Adventure tri., and confirms Tailmon's final evolution sequence in it. Tailmon's evolution is found at 12:54 in the video above.
For background on the Tailmon controversy, see below. Spoilers for Tailmon's last stage follow.
The great religious debate of the 21st century.
Her Ultimate evolution has been a subject of controversy since at least 2002. When Tailmon first debuted prior to the anime series, in Digital Monster Ver. S (September 1998), Angewomon's only evolution was Holydramon. This was also the case in the 1999 Digimon Pendulum 1.5: Nature Spirits virtual pet, where Angewomon could only evolve to Holydramon (and only by Jogressing with Atlur Kabuterimon). At this time evolution was much more limited, with there generally only being one Vaccine, Data, and Virus Ultimate for each field (Tailmon & Angewomon's being Nature Spirits). During Digimon Adventure's original run, it was generally presumed that Holydramon would be Angewomon's Ultimate based on this limited evolution model. The first time that this could even be reasonably disputed was with the debut of Digimon Pendulum ZERO: Virus Busters in March 2000, just as the anime series was ending. Holydramon was not present in Pendulum ZERO, and instead Angewomon evolved into Omegamon by Jogressing with Holy Angemon or another Vaccine.
The Hyper Colosseum trading card game introduced a number of other possible evolutions for Angewomon; Crossmon (April 2000), Valkyrimon (October 2000), Babamon and Seraphimon (December 2000), and Marine Angemon (May 2001). At least for the Adventure universe, Holydramon seemed to certainly be her final stage when she appeared as such in the theatrical film Digimon Adventure 02: The Golden Digimentals!! The first strong argument against Holydramon came in September 2001, when the Three Archangels group was introduced to the trading card game and general Digimon lore. Ophanimon appeared as a new possible evolution of Angewomon. Designed as an obvious counterpart to Seraphimon, Ophanimon's mass exposure in the 2002 anime Digimon Frontier lead more fans to become aware of her, and gradually an argument in favor of Ophanimon as Tailmon's final evolution in Adventure emerged.
Detractors of Holydramon made the case that The Golden Digimentals!! was an extracanonical film, not fitting in Adventure 02's chronology and contradicting established canon by portraying Tailmon as being able to evolve to Ultimate when her partner Hikari had given up her crest powers (necessary for both Perfect and Ultimate evolution) between the film Our War Game and 02. Advocates for Holydramon countered that the film gave a plausible explanation for her debut, as the film's antagonist was attempting to rewind time during Holydramon's appearance, enabling Hikari and Takeru to evolve their Digimon. (Interestingly, the anti-Golden Digimentals argument has never been used to argue that Seraphimon is not Patamon's canon Ultimate.) Pro-Holydramon fans have pointed out that while Ophanimon is consistent with Angewomon specifically, the same can't be said of Ophanimon and Tailmon, Plotmon, or Nyaromon, all of which are animal-based rather than humanoid, and which share catlike traits. Holydramon on the other hand has feline traits more appropriate for Tailmon's line as a whole.
Proponents of Ophanimon also argued that Holydramon fit better as a final evolution for an Airdramon line, even though this has never been portrayed in any canon. Bandai and Toei as a whole left the debate untouched until 2013, when the Digimon Adventure RPG for the PlayStation Portable reignited fan discussion by portraying Ophanimon as the warp evolution of Tailmon. Many fans took this as a sign that Ophanimon was her new canon Ultimate, though the game also included several elements decidedly not canon to the anime, like having Gankoomon of the Royal Knights and his apprentice Hackmon appear in the game. Some years later fan hacking efforts uncovered that incomplete data for Holydramon was found in the game, and left unimplemented for what were likely game balance issues. (Not having access to the healing skills that Angewomon and Ophanimon share in the final game would make players more likely to use Angewomon than they would Holydramon.)
The debut of the Digivice Ver. 15th in 2014 and 2015 seemingly solidified Holydramon as Tailmon's canon Ultimate, but fans have continued to debate the issue up to this moment. The Complete Selection Animation Digivice has laid to rest the argument, at least as it pertains to Digimon Adventure's canon; Holydramon is Tailmon's final stage.
Ironically, the reverse situation has recently happened to Gomamon. In 1999 Gomamon's original Ultimate was Plesiomon, while in July 2000 (after Adventure had ended) the debut of Vikemon incited debate over whether Plesiomon was more appropriate for Gomamon's Adventure evolutions, or Vikemon as directly succeeding Zudomon. Vikemon had originally appeared as an Ultimate evolution for Angemon & Ankylomon's Jogress, Shakkoumon. Digimon Adventure PSP portrayed Vikemon as Gomamon's Ultimate, which the Digivice Ver. 15th agreed with, and the CSA Digivice has reconfirmed. As a result, Shakkoumon is currently without an established Ultimate form in the Adventure universe.
