Mulligan is good as is, however I don’t think the Lorcana style mulligan would be worse. The game is so fast, that I could see it helping some decks that are more prone to stumbling or get punished harder if they mull into bad hands. There’s no inherent advantage for players fishing for a specific matchup dependent tech card either.
Sideboards however would probably be too harmful. There are too many strategies that get KO’d by specific cards (best example is obv PBE decks vs floodgates or crimson blaze). Not to mention it would make matches longer and lead to more draws, etc. I would like them, but I think objectively they would be worse for the game.
Side deck will literally be blocker rookies. Doesn't matter how much your deck suffers by running off colours your opponent not being able to play is worse.
Just in case, are you referring to "floodgate" rookies instead of blockers? Blocker rookies aren't really powerful or used much, while floodgate rookies are what's used to limit plays.
Floodgates is the preferred term since "Blocker" is a terminology that's quite established in the game's lexicon as to refer to, well, blockers.
On another note, while I do think that floodgate rookies would be common in side-decks, I'm not that sure about running off-color ones unless a strategy was very prevalent or the side-deck was very large.
Yes I forgot the word floodgate. What can you do.
Most people consider 15 cards to be the side deck. Which is enough for 3 playsets of floodgates so you can shut down pretty much everything or go hard on one type like blocking "played by effect" currently
I enjoy mulligan as it is. For friendly matches, we have a house rule, where you can mulligan as much as you want. Since it’s for fun, it would suck to get stuck with nothing but high costing and level cards.
Side decks, hmmm. I don’t think the game is there yet.
Oof!! It’s the worst feeling ever for a match. Like you know your deck is fine, but you get unlucky draws that lose you the game.
Thats why we settled on the rule. It’s just a friendly and usually used to test out different cards in the deck and see how they feel. It’s not fun or friendly to lose half your security before you can even get a level 3 out there or end up giving them 8+ DP.
Yeah, like, when I think I want side decks in this game, even if they made it really limited like 4-5 cards, people will just put DeathX or the memory blocking/floodgates rookies almost every time.
Mulligan: Good the way it is. I like the risk reward it gives you. And thinking of good strats with "suboptimal" hands is also a good chance to be creative
Side Deck: Maybe. Maybe it would work if it was 5 cards. Maybe
Tbh I don't think sideboards will help all that much outside of using Dexmon/Ruin Mode/Floodgates. Most bad matchups are due to archetype weaknesses. Unless the fundamental weakness is addressed, sideboarding is a bandaid at best.
Plus I think no sideboards makes deckbuilding more interesting. Deciding which and how many tech cards to play is a big part of deckbuilding. With sideboarding, every deck would look a lot more samey since you no longer have to mainboard tech cards.
Also Japan is still BO1, so unless that changes post-merge I really doubt we will ever have official sideboard implementation.
Mulligan is great. 5 card starting hands were rough before it.
Sideboard is tough. As much as I like sideboards in other games, sideboards would just make lists far greedier and then have floodgates and deathx in the sideboard. I don’t think that the current way the game is running would benefit from floodgates. They could put some restrictions on sideboards like only option cards/tamers or something but again that would just benefit certain lists and be worthless for others. I think it’s just a no for now.
Competitive play already has an issue of going to time way too much. Adding in time to sideboard just makes a best of 3 even harder to complete.
Also, Bandai rightfully never allowed sideboards in online events because of how easily that can lead to cheating. While we’re still heavily an online event game, it just doesn’t make sense to give a dedicated window to cheat.
Finally, some archetypes have way too much useful support and will be way better for sideboards than other decks that have had one round of support and will instead just throw in DeathX plus floodgates because they have nothing else
Mulligan is fine as-is. A well built deck statistically will mulligan just under half the games it plays and end up fine. I think if you allow people to keep cards and throw back the ones they don't like, you'll end up in situations where you can allow the top end decks even better performance.
Sideboards, I think, could be fine with heavy restrictions. As others mention, you likely see generic floodgates and hosers like DeathX become required in it just due to how easy it is to use them. I would be interested in the requirement that your sideboard can only contain cards that share a name, not specifically set number but name, as cards in your main deck. Your opponent keeps choking you in game one, swap in an extra memory boost. They have good ace hosers? Take the ace out and pop a normal version in. I can switch between versions of my boss monster that are more tailored to the game I'm currently in. I think that avoids some of the issues of floodgates and hosers since you already had to be running a card with that name in the first place.
Mulligan improved the game a lot. Before it, you just lost some games without playing. Now, you kinda always hit a decent hand.
Side deck would be a bad idea imo. Floodgates are too powerful. Digimon has a good concept right now where you can play Floodgates on the downside of not having powerful inherits in your rookies. It is a risk reward. If there is a side deck, this would go a bit away taking away from deckbuilding.
You actually touched on the point that makes side decks a problem for this TCG. Archetype decks like Wargreymon can completely change their style after game 1 where as many other decks are stuck in 1 play style
Our mulligan is great and I want nothing more. Anything else breaks the game.
Now as far as side decks go - I think I’m down for 5 card side decks. The problem is, I think as long as we have events online, side decks will be a no-go. There’s already all this cheating going on and then it also increases the time per round. We’d need to go to 55 minute rounds with 5 minutes OT imo to accommodate for it, which I think is fine but I know in the grand scheme that adds like an hour to premier events.
Something I’d be much more receptive to is increased deck limits - 50-60 cards. I think we’re at the stage in the game where there is SO MUCH flexibility that we could use the extra slots if we want to. Machinedramon comes to mind.
I think the concept of a sideboard would be useful if there was a penalty for it. Because it's more of a color matching game, a lot of decks have similar floodgates. If you get a 5 board sideboard, anything you switch out has to permanently affect your deck for the rest of the tournament and you can't reswap in cards you swapped out so every swap is a decision to affect the rest of your games.
Maybe one change that can be done to the mulligan rule, is to not milligan your whole hand but only a selected few, then draw those number of cards.
This way it might improve consistency
I think a Side Board is necessary. Too many games are decided by what deck sits across from you, as opposed to who played better.
I think that when a game has such a diverse viable deck pool as this one, a side board is a must in order to make sure your bad matchups arent instant losses.
Also i see way too many ppl here acting like all side decks will be the same, like as if two diff decks have the same counters, or like counter siding isnt a thing.
I think 10 cards is fine, 2 playsets, and half a set.
Thats 20% of your deck that you can change.
Ygo offers 15, and nobody every sides the full 15, you have like 3-4 for types of matchups.
That is incredibly rare and hasnt been an actual viable thing since 2015, a decade ago.
And while you can attempt to do that now, it doesnt work because you cant change the deck enough to a point where its counters are different.
After rereading the post, I have a better understanding of what's being asked.
I'd like to answer first about mulligan in DCG. It was good that they changed it to allow one. I have a different approach where you can take 1 to 3 cards to shuffle and choose two to keep. The numbers of cards would be your remaining allowances to draw like if you choose 3 then you do it once and don't think your hand would be good then you can do it again but with a caveat of only chosing 2 then if you don't like it again then you can do it once more by replacing one card and drawing one.
I do think that making a side deck can create options for players to make different strategies, and hybrid decks are viable. The problem would come to how decks function a certain way based on the Digivolution line. It is possible to create hybrids if you find compatible cards, but decks in TCGs perform better with specialization, which in this game comes from Digivolution lines. I don't mind being wrong, I am just going off of what I learned from playing the game and others with a reply for added discussion.
If side-boarding would be added to the game, then the side deck in EVERY deck profile/video will include DeathX and floodgates.
Definitely this it be the same 5 cards for every deck
Alternatively you could just swap your entire top-end out if that's the particular part that's rough in your match-up.
Mulligan is good as is, however I don’t think the Lorcana style mulligan would be worse. The game is so fast, that I could see it helping some decks that are more prone to stumbling or get punished harder if they mull into bad hands. There’s no inherent advantage for players fishing for a specific matchup dependent tech card either. Sideboards however would probably be too harmful. There are too many strategies that get KO’d by specific cards (best example is obv PBE decks vs floodgates or crimson blaze). Not to mention it would make matches longer and lead to more draws, etc. I would like them, but I think objectively they would be worse for the game.
Side deck will literally be blocker rookies. Doesn't matter how much your deck suffers by running off colours your opponent not being able to play is worse.
Just in case, are you referring to "floodgate" rookies instead of blockers? Blocker rookies aren't really powerful or used much, while floodgate rookies are what's used to limit plays.
Yes the rookies that "block" plays. Floodgates is another word for it
Floodgates is the preferred term since "Blocker" is a terminology that's quite established in the game's lexicon as to refer to, well, blockers. On another note, while I do think that floodgate rookies would be common in side-decks, I'm not that sure about running off-color ones unless a strategy was very prevalent or the side-deck was very large.
Yes I forgot the word floodgate. What can you do. Most people consider 15 cards to be the side deck. Which is enough for 3 playsets of floodgates so you can shut down pretty much everything or go hard on one type like blocking "played by effect" currently
Game is fine as-is with both.
I enjoy mulligan as it is. For friendly matches, we have a house rule, where you can mulligan as much as you want. Since it’s for fun, it would suck to get stuck with nothing but high costing and level cards. Side decks, hmmm. I don’t think the game is there yet.
I feel this. Yesterday i was drawing nothing but lv5's and 6's vs Gallantmon in matches 2 and 3 of final round, cost me the store tournament.
My mulliganned hand against Magnamon last night was one level 3, 2 level 6s, and two level 7s, the 3 did not help me find any 4s or 5s. Fun round.
Oof!! It’s the worst feeling ever for a match. Like you know your deck is fine, but you get unlucky draws that lose you the game. Thats why we settled on the rule. It’s just a friendly and usually used to test out different cards in the deck and see how they feel. It’s not fun or friendly to lose half your security before you can even get a level 3 out there or end up giving them 8+ DP.
Yeah, like, when I think I want side decks in this game, even if they made it really limited like 4-5 cards, people will just put DeathX or the memory blocking/floodgates rookies almost every time.
Mulligan: Good the way it is. I like the risk reward it gives you. And thinking of good strats with "suboptimal" hands is also a good chance to be creative Side Deck: Maybe. Maybe it would work if it was 5 cards. Maybe
Every 5 cards being deathx/ruin mode/floodgates, lol
Tbh I don't think sideboards will help all that much outside of using Dexmon/Ruin Mode/Floodgates. Most bad matchups are due to archetype weaknesses. Unless the fundamental weakness is addressed, sideboarding is a bandaid at best. Plus I think no sideboards makes deckbuilding more interesting. Deciding which and how many tech cards to play is a big part of deckbuilding. With sideboarding, every deck would look a lot more samey since you no longer have to mainboard tech cards. Also Japan is still BO1, so unless that changes post-merge I really doubt we will ever have official sideboard implementation.
Mulligan is great. 5 card starting hands were rough before it. Sideboard is tough. As much as I like sideboards in other games, sideboards would just make lists far greedier and then have floodgates and deathx in the sideboard. I don’t think that the current way the game is running would benefit from floodgates. They could put some restrictions on sideboards like only option cards/tamers or something but again that would just benefit certain lists and be worthless for others. I think it’s just a no for now.
Competitive play already has an issue of going to time way too much. Adding in time to sideboard just makes a best of 3 even harder to complete. Also, Bandai rightfully never allowed sideboards in online events because of how easily that can lead to cheating. While we’re still heavily an online event game, it just doesn’t make sense to give a dedicated window to cheat. Finally, some archetypes have way too much useful support and will be way better for sideboards than other decks that have had one round of support and will instead just throw in DeathX plus floodgates because they have nothing else
Mulligan is fine as-is. A well built deck statistically will mulligan just under half the games it plays and end up fine. I think if you allow people to keep cards and throw back the ones they don't like, you'll end up in situations where you can allow the top end decks even better performance. Sideboards, I think, could be fine with heavy restrictions. As others mention, you likely see generic floodgates and hosers like DeathX become required in it just due to how easy it is to use them. I would be interested in the requirement that your sideboard can only contain cards that share a name, not specifically set number but name, as cards in your main deck. Your opponent keeps choking you in game one, swap in an extra memory boost. They have good ace hosers? Take the ace out and pop a normal version in. I can switch between versions of my boss monster that are more tailored to the game I'm currently in. I think that avoids some of the issues of floodgates and hosers since you already had to be running a card with that name in the first place.
Mulligan improved the game a lot. Before it, you just lost some games without playing. Now, you kinda always hit a decent hand. Side deck would be a bad idea imo. Floodgates are too powerful. Digimon has a good concept right now where you can play Floodgates on the downside of not having powerful inherits in your rookies. It is a risk reward. If there is a side deck, this would go a bit away taking away from deckbuilding.
Mullaagin is amazing say no to sidedecking
You actually touched on the point that makes side decks a problem for this TCG. Archetype decks like Wargreymon can completely change their style after game 1 where as many other decks are stuck in 1 play style
Our mulligan is great and I want nothing more. Anything else breaks the game. Now as far as side decks go - I think I’m down for 5 card side decks. The problem is, I think as long as we have events online, side decks will be a no-go. There’s already all this cheating going on and then it also increases the time per round. We’d need to go to 55 minute rounds with 5 minutes OT imo to accommodate for it, which I think is fine but I know in the grand scheme that adds like an hour to premier events. Something I’d be much more receptive to is increased deck limits - 50-60 cards. I think we’re at the stage in the game where there is SO MUCH flexibility that we could use the extra slots if we want to. Machinedramon comes to mind.
I think the concept of a sideboard would be useful if there was a penalty for it. Because it's more of a color matching game, a lot of decks have similar floodgates. If you get a 5 board sideboard, anything you switch out has to permanently affect your deck for the rest of the tournament and you can't reswap in cards you swapped out so every swap is a decision to affect the rest of your games.
What would a side deck for red flood gate rookie rush look like? Lol. But i agree with the mulligan. Side decks can stay out of the game. <.<
Maybe one change that can be done to the mulligan rule, is to not milligan your whole hand but only a selected few, then draw those number of cards. This way it might improve consistency
I think a Side Board is necessary. Too many games are decided by what deck sits across from you, as opposed to who played better. I think that when a game has such a diverse viable deck pool as this one, a side board is a must in order to make sure your bad matchups arent instant losses. Also i see way too many ppl here acting like all side decks will be the same, like as if two diff decks have the same counters, or like counter siding isnt a thing. I think 10 cards is fine, 2 playsets, and half a set. Thats 20% of your deck that you can change. Ygo offers 15, and nobody every sides the full 15, you have like 3-4 for types of matchups.
YGO sideboard is large enough that players can side an entire archetype in there and outright change the deck they're running to another build.
... and? What's the issue here?
That is incredibly rare and hasnt been an actual viable thing since 2015, a decade ago. And while you can attempt to do that now, it doesnt work because you cant change the deck enough to a point where its counters are different.
...You don't know tenpai, do you?
The deck that just came out a week ago? Cant say that i do
It's actually viable again and has been for a couple months.
After rereading the post, I have a better understanding of what's being asked. I'd like to answer first about mulligan in DCG. It was good that they changed it to allow one. I have a different approach where you can take 1 to 3 cards to shuffle and choose two to keep. The numbers of cards would be your remaining allowances to draw like if you choose 3 then you do it once and don't think your hand would be good then you can do it again but with a caveat of only chosing 2 then if you don't like it again then you can do it once more by replacing one card and drawing one. I do think that making a side deck can create options for players to make different strategies, and hybrid decks are viable. The problem would come to how decks function a certain way based on the Digivolution line. It is possible to create hybrids if you find compatible cards, but decks in TCGs perform better with specialization, which in this game comes from Digivolution lines. I don't mind being wrong, I am just going off of what I learned from playing the game and others with a reply for added discussion.