The Digimon TCG saw its first in person regional since the release of BT12 on June 2nd 2023. This also marks as the first Digimon regional since the ban list that came into effect beginning of June. At a staggering 226 entries, the UK Games Expo saw fierce competition. Digimon  kicked off their 1 day Swiss tournaments that played out over the weekend. All Swiss results will be listed as W-L or W-L-D format (e.g. 5-1-1).

A Digimon Regional without Beelzemon?

Previous favorite Beelzemon was noticeably absent from the top 16, with the highest placing Demon Lord at 36th. It was Red Hybrid, piloted by Safwan “Saf” Akhtar, that came out on top, undefeated after 7 rounds on the Friday, narrowly beating out Usman Rahman’s Bloomlordmon on stream in the final round. The Fanboy3 (Manchester) representative capped off a string of impressive recent results at online and offline events, with fellow Manchester rep, Derek Lam finishing 10th.

Saf himself is no stranger to the top cut, with multiple Store Championships under his belt, a Top 32 in online ultimate cup and a 7th place finish in the London 2022 Regional, this 1st place finish finally nets him the elusive win. For those wanting to try out his take on Red Hybrid, I interviewed Saf for a look at his ratios. His run and reasonings behind his decisions are featured within. Check out Saf’s Deck List in our interview!

Even the best players make mistakes

The final round of the event came down to Saf vs Usman on stream. While the last undefeated player played a pair down into TJ’s at the time 5-0-1 Security Control list. Game two did feature an unfortunate misplay where Usman missed a suspension for the effect of his Sunflowmon. It ultimately allowed him to extend a combo using it as a resource later in the game. Unfortunately, it wasn’t caught by either play nor the judge at the time, however keen eyes in twitch chat were able to point it out. This game would be the last game taken by Usman in the event, with Saf closing out Game 3 less than 20 minutes later.

By this time, TJ defeated the last undefeated player in the pair down. Meaning this final game would bring an end to the event. Its important to note draws do give 1 point in Swiss. Though, they are treated as losses when deciding the last undefeated player of the event. The stream was hosted on Organized Play Events’ Twitch channel of the same name.

Ulforce finally wins an Ultimate Cup

Digimon returned on Sunday alongside the other Bandai trading card games Dragonball, Battle Spirit Saga, and One Piece. The Ultimate Cup side format adds some additional restrictions to deck building. It limits some extra cards to 1 copy per deck and some outright bans. The main focus of the format is that decks are limited to a single colour per deck. Cards that are 2 colour must also contain the main colour of the deck.

It was here we saw the consistent return of Beelzemon, as players in this format were given much more notice to adjust to the limiting of EX2-068 Impmon to 1, which was mirrored in the June 1 Ban list for the main format. It was joined by expected meta representatives Machinedramon, Bloomlordmon and Red Hybrid for the majority of top 16 representation. The final round, however, featured a mirror match between the long underperforming mega threat UlforceVeedramon (Ulforce). The deck only received 1 new piece in BT12, which appears to be enough, in addition to consistency hits to its competitors.

Familiar Faces in Ultimate Cup’s Top 8

Jonny Lo returned to Ultimate Cup’s Top 8 for the second time, since the March 11th online Raid ‘n’ Trade Ultimate Cup during BT11’s meta.
Doing so thanks to strong resistances that helped him float to the top of the 4-1-1 finishers. Derek improved on his Friday performance with 7th place, switching from the multicolor but largely red Dorbickmon to black based Machinedramon. He joined players “LordofHalifax”, Matthew Barrett and “Bossun” joined Friday’s commentators “Jowgenetsu” and “Bradleyea” at a X-1 record, with Ulforce pilot “Gollum” taking the event at a 6-0 record.

Ultimate Cup’s eventual champion deck comes as quite the surprise to those keeping track of results across the format. Initial hype for Ulforce began with its new wave of support in BT11, and announcement of the monocolor format for Ultimate Cup. Unfortunately, conversion rate on the deck has been less than stellar compared to other expected favorites. This has lead to Ulforce being regarded as a threat only on paper rather than in practice until this result.

The new ban list and its effect on Digimon Regional formats

It is likely that this result is, in part, due to Bloomlordmon’s additional limiting, reducing Hydramon to 1. This means that Bloomlordmon players are now only allowed 1 Hydramon, 1 Blossomon, 1 Hidden Potential Discovered and 1 Argomon. Bloomlordmon has been one of the most consistently strong Ultimate Cup decks since BT10, so it should come as no surprise that the deck is under heavy regulation.

Beelzemon also struggled to maintain its consistent presence in top 16 pre ban list. EX2-068 Impmon was the only casualty for Beelzemon players, matching its limited status in the Ultimate Cup format. Whilst we do expect this to be a speedbump for the deck, this is a noticeable departure, likely due to the lack of preparation UK players were given. The ban list went into effect the day before the event. But the ban was announced May 26. Shipping delays that kept the UK without their cards for upwards of three week. So testing time was tight for the event. Plenty of which, for those on the effected decks, went out the window after key pieces were limited to 1.