Archetypes

Want to get into digica but not sure where to start? Want to see if you can play your blorbo? Here's a semi-comprehensive list of the currently-available archetypes, with descriptions of their approximate deals and how they're supposed to work, so you can see what appeals to you.

Last updated 2025-06-29

From Adventure 99

• WarGreymon (KR)
  Towers-y control deck with a bit of flexibility in the choice of upper end. It uses <Raid> and the original X-Antibody option card as its main offensive tools, and certain upper ends allow trashing opponent security when a Digimon unsuspends. It's not very fast and there's a lot of things that can just tell it to fuck off, but at a rogue level it can be quite fun.
• MetalGarurumon (BM)
  Do you like spamming a morbillion Tamers? How about spamming a morbillion Tamers while attacking and getting free evos for it? This is an unsuspend-heavy pseudo-OTK/aggro deck that focuses on efficiently ramming into the opponent's face over and over while drawing half your deck, but it doesn't get much DP, so it has to choose between <Jamming> and tamer-playing stonks.
• Hououmon (EN: "Phoenixmon") ("Red Birds") (R)
  Basically, your monsters want to kill themselves and they have five billion effects that all proc when they do so. The boss monster adds an extra trigger to these effects so they all go off at the end of the attack, and the Tamer watches for the effects that recycle cards from the trash and lets you play out extra bodies. With a proper setup, this can deal 4 security's worth of damage on a single swing!
• TyrantKabuterimon ("Insects") (G)
  Get big, become unaffected, and do big unga bunga attacks while repeatedly sending your opponent's Digimon to the bottom of the deck (and occasionally killing their Tamers). However, you're not unaffected by option cards, so you can still get your day fucked up, and the presence of Omegamon Alter-S (which can just make itself unredirectable) hard walls it out of the meta.
• Dark Masters ("Omegazoo") (KM)
  A zoo engine that relies on level 5s that delete their own bodies (such as the ever-helpful D-Reaper egg) to spawn level 6s in raising at the end of the turn. The deck's gimmick involves evolving these level 6s into Omegamon Zwart (EN: "Omnimon Zwart"), and from there shuffling between Omegamon variants to do chungus swings while playing out ACEs cheaply.

From Adventure 02

• Imperialdramon (BGW)
  Blue pile slop deck that works by preventing the opponent from playing the game. It's not very meta-relevant these days, but it's a pain in the ass to fight, so if you build this, people will not want to fight you.
• Imperialdramon (RM)
  A fun and powerful combo deck featuring heavy aggro, fast rebuilds, and a fuck ton of removal. Its top end features a floodgate preventing the opponent from playing by effects, and if your opponent removes your top end, you can just immediately start building back up.
• Magnamon (YBK)
  A beatdown deck that fields <Armor Purge> level 4s that want to die badly so that they can evolve into other Armor Forms and unsuspend. Accordingly, it really needs to see a specific Tamer, otherwise it doesn't function if they survive in security, but if it does get the Tamer it can just repeatedly slam into the opponent's face for infinite stonks. It also has an unaffected blocker as a top end, but paradoxically the deck as it's currently played actively wants to avoid using it, because it's overcosted and is significantly harder to do the beatdown with.
• Rapidmon X-Antibody (GY)
  This deck's gimmick is "skip levels, and also basically everything is a blast target." It really needs another wave of support to be even remotely viable, but it's a pretty fun aggro deck.
• Valkyrimon (RY)
  The weakest of the 02 jogress decks, it utilizes DP-threshold removal to either dismantle an opponent's board or do big chungus checks, but not both. It features a ridiculously strong ACE level 6, and a non-ACE level 6 that categorically can't be blocked, but isn't very consistent due to the colors involved.
• Vikemon (BY)
  A deck that combines stripping sources, bouncing, security management, and <De-Evolve> to create a pretty decent control package. Plus, it also has <Ice Clad>, causing its DP to effectively not matter when battling opponent Digimon on account of being a jogress deck with functionally unlimited sources.
• Cherubimon (GM)
  The original <Alliance> deck, it fields a number of effects that let your Digimon evolve for a reduced cost when they're being <Alliance>d with. It can be a bit finicky to handle, but if you pop off, you can ramp a single body into a full field of a level 6 and multiple alliance bodies, and give your opponent massive debuffs while you're at it.
• BelialVamdemon (EN: "MaloMyotismon") (M)
  Cycling the trash YuGiOh-style to summon big bodies on opponent's turn. The gimmick is that the Tamers kill themselves to play things out; the level 5s in turn play out Tamers when deleted, enabling a surprisingly powerful trash turbo engine that, under ideal circumstances, can swarm the field while controlling the opponent's board.
• Eosmon (W)
  A swarm deck that makes both sides play out a lot of Tamers, gets swole from playing out Tamers, prevents them from unsuspending, and de-evolves you. Since it can play out any white Tamer by an effect, it's primed to make maximum use of the generic goodstuff Tamers Digimon Kaiser and Hokuto Amanokawa. Since Quartzmon can evolve on a white level 6 it can then use it as a finisher for very cheap.

From Tamers

• Megidramon (MR)
  Using powerful trash-based effects, evolve mid-attack into a huge beatstick and do three checks, at the end of which you dismantle literally everything on both sides of the field. By doing so, you recycle a lower-play-cost body, enabling further recursion from trash. However, it has access to an option called Gravity Crush that Bandai really should have limited when they had the chance, allowing particularly skeletal builds to just extend their turn infinitely and OTK.
• Dukemon (EN: "Gallantmon") (RBY)
  An alleged crowd control deck that has the capacity to rip five security at once with a perfect stack, so if you sit in raising and spam search power, your opponent will have an extremely hard time interacting with you. It's unaffected by Digimon effects while it has negative memory, meaning it requires extremely specific counters to interact with at all, and gains an absurd amount of DP as it climbs to ensure that it will always be the bigger chungus. However, a lot of decks in the current meta will just kill it before it finds its pieces, so since it has negligible defensive power, it's becoming unpopular.
• Sakuyamon (Y)
  A braindead OTK deck that shuffles trainings and scrambles around to turbo into an X-Antibody level 6 as fast as possible, which then evolves mid-attack into a level 7 <Security Attack +1> beatstick for literally free and unsuspend while doing so, while also boasting control pieces that wear away the opponent's capacity to handle the beatstick.
• Taomon Turbo (YW)
  By using the option card Mega Digimon Assembly in conjunction with powerful engine pieces such as Taomon ACE, cheaply create level 7 towers while drawing a lot. Since the towers are jogressed, they can swing the turn they're created.
• Devas/Four Holy Beasts (EN: "Four Sovereigns") (🏳️‍🌈)
  A zoo deck that makes use of ACE removal that kills opponent Digimon when deleted, and once its trash is sufficiently stacked, it summons a 15k unaffected beatstick that, by bottomdecking cards from the trash, wipes the board when it attacks. However, it matches up poorly into literally all removal.
• Beelzebumon (M)
  Let's go gambling~! *BZZZZT* Aw dangit *BZZZZT* aw dangit *BZZZZT* aw dangit *BZZZZT* aw dangit *BZZZZT* aw dangit *BZZZZT* [sounds of dying by decking self out]
• Justimon (K)
  An option-spam deck whose gimmick revolves around form-switching level 6s that evolve on each other to proc effects. Furthermore, the tamer can cheat out a level 5 for free by trashing options from the field. The option spam itself isn't very good, but the top ends are, so it's also common to see it run as a pile deck that completely ignores the option gimmick.
• D-Reaper (W)
  A control deck whose gimmick is "you use a big body on the field that can't attack in order to speed up how fast you can do things." It also features a defensive field spell that reduces DP on incoming attacks, as well as a Digimon that spits herself out from evolution sources to redirect attacks into her (this redirect happens only after <Raid>) and provide additional debuffs. However, the vast majority of the deck's cards do laughably little, and it's largely being carried by its three entire cards of modern support and an older one that recovers when played.

From Frontier

• KaiserGreymon (EN: "EmperorGreymon") (RGB)
  The original unga bunga deck, it just rapidly accumulates bonus DP as it climbs and then swings at end of turn for ludicrous checks. A recent wave of support gave it access to source-trashing, making it significantly more useful in modern metas.
  • KaiserGreymon pile ("RGB Hybrid") (RGB)
    A variation on the deck that features all three of the tamers whose spirits contribute to KaiserGreymon as well as their evolution lines. The BT-21 tamer provides it with a free-evolution effect at Start of Main if you have enough names, giving its memory curve a huge boost since the alternate spirits are overcosted on out-of-line prevos.
• AncientGreymon ("Red Hybrid") (RM)
  The red/purple equivalent of AncientGarurumon, except it doesn't have the sauce AncientGarurumon has and its boss monster is also more underwhelming, so it's not as good. You can do really silly shit with it, just don't expect it to be good.
• AncientGarurumon ("Blue Hybrid") (BY)
  A hybrid deck (evolves on a Tamer) that swings with a level 4, and while it's swinging, climbs the ladder into a level 6 that helps clear the opponent's board, then explodes to climb the ladder again. Often run over a red base because using a red draw egg is worth completely losing out on any other form of buildup. However, it severely struggles with memory generation, and as such has fallen off as everything else got more efficient.
  • MagnaGarurumon pile ("YMK Hybrid") (YMK)
    The Spirits of Light counterpart to RGB Hybrid, with an identical setup and gimmick; while it doesn't have a free-evolve tamer, it does get access to pieces of Purple Hybrid's engine, however the lack of a good base means it's really suffering.
• BlackSeraphimon (EN: "ShadowSeraphimon") ("Black Hybrid") (KY)
  A control deck that spams blocker hybrids and taunts out a powerful ACE that blows up the opponent's board. Since several mindlink Tamers are black, they can eject themselves from the stack at end of turn to serve as a base for more hybrids.
• Velgrmon ("Purple Hybrid") (M)
  Change the colors of opponent Digimon, preventing them from being used to blast evolve. Then, get big and ungabunga, and blow yourself up and recycle. This deck used to be a lot more aggravating than it is right now, due to having access to a generic tamer and memory gain option that could be recycled for literally zero effort to enable extreme turn extensions, but a recent banlist limited the option and banned the tamer entirely, so it's fairer now.
• Dynasmon (YR)
  A funny hubris deck that trashes its own security in order to become the big chungus and block/raid for silly numbers. It runs an option card that, when used, places itself at the bottom of security, where it recovers from deck if it's trashed or checked as the last security card.
• LordKnightmon (Y)
  An archetype dating from the first year of the game, and the original go-wide deck, two cards of recent support suddenly caused its viability to shoot up. The deck cares about Royal Knight prevos with the [Warrior] trait, and BT5 LordKnightmon can play them out on attack; this notably allows you to use Grademon to give the central tower +5000 DP and digimon effect immunity, on top of its native All Turns DP buff per other digimon in play. Because its level 5s are ungodly expensive to evolve into, it has trouble recovering if dealt with early (or if you just ignore it and rush it down faster than it can set up), but a full boardstate rapidly snowballs into total dominance.
• Lucemon (YM)
  Everything costs way too much memory, but in optimal circumstances, you essentially force your opponent to either (1) continuously blow up their own shit or (2) let you recover endlessly while trashing their own security.

From Savers

• ShineGreymon (RY)
  Masaru Daimon (EN: "Marcus Damon") punches you in the face, and it reduces your DP. The deck essentially revolves around suspending as many Tamers as possible as fast as possible to do your climb, featuring a level 5 that can spontaneously produce 3 checks with <Piercing> under optimal conditions. The level 5s all have inherits that protect your Tamers by putting them in security, threatening even more DP minus if your opponent attacks you.
• MirageGaogamon (B)
  A deck that was deservedly struck down by the recent banlist. With the aggravating turn-steal machine limited to one, it's functionally just a worse version of MetalGarurumon (swing, unsuspend, rinse, repeat) but with less risk of decking yourself out.
• Rosemon (G)
  Another deck's engine strapped to an underwhelming boss monster.
• Ravemon (MG)
  At the end of the turn, you blow yourself up to rip cards from the opponent's hand. Then, you play yourself back out. Its level 3s are good, and its level 6s/7s are good, but because the connective tissue does fuck-all it sucks pretty bad.
• Sleipmon (EN: "Kentaurosmon") (Y)
  Same gameplan as Dynasmon, but with a more consistent buildup, more unsuspend power, and more access to bodies that play themselves out of security when trashed through.
• Royal Knights (🏳️‍🌈)
  A Tier 1 megazoo deck that spawns a bunch of big bodies for reduced cost that control the opponent's board, then on its finishing turn plays them all out at once with its boss monster. The kicker is, it doesn't have to do a finishing turn, because it has access to so much hard aggro that it can and does win off chip damage. Plus, it also has tools like JESmon GX ACE to allow it to do its finishing turn early under the right circumstances, and its dedicated tamer partners with an Omekamon to provide incredibly aggravating jumpscares that either block or clear the board whenever a security is removed.

From Xros Wars

• "Xros Heart" (🏳️‍🌈)
  Several unrelated playstyles in a trench coat.
  • Shoutmon EX6 (🏳️‍🌈)
    The most basic form of Xros Heart, it focuses on rapidly accumulating the components' evolved forms underneath your Tamers, then playing out an extremely cheap body that debuffs the entire opponent field per color in sources, while also playing out an additional smaller body as an <Alliance> target. It can be built either for aggro (cycling low-level searchers like RaptorSparrowmon to get a bunch of draws) or control (utilizing the unevolved forms' effects to cheaply evolve into their higher forms under your Tamers).
  • Shoutmon X5/X7 ("Low End Turbo") (RK)
    A playstyle that focuses on setting up and tearing down low-end xrosses for a memory-efficient beatdown. It's often paired with generic black aces like BlackSeraphimon and Darkdramon in place of a typical high end, though X7 and Superior Mode occasionally make appearances as 1-ofs as well. These decks often don't run the evolved forms, or use them at very low quantities as an emergency measure; while the evolved forms have rules text allowing them to substitute for the unevolved forms in xrosses, they cannot be recycled by <Material Save>.
  • Xros Heart engine Duftmon (EN: "Leopardmon") ("Xros Duft") (GY)
    A swarm deck that utilizes the fact that most of Xros Heart's level 5s are green in order to go into Duftmon, which then plays out the unevolved green mons from hand without paying the cost, allowing their effects to get them a free evo into their evolved counterparts from under your Tamers. Bricks hard if it doesn't see 5s and the yellow tamer early enough, but if it gets its engine online it can do some ridiculous things. Furthermore, Duftmon ACE threatens the level 5s at counter timing and can steal turn if a blocker dies, which can be devastating.
• ZekeGreymon ("Blue Flare") (BK)
  Pretty easy to pick up. <Jamming> and unsuspending go brr, and with recent support it also has access to <De-Evolve>. This deck boasts the single greatest search power in the game, in the form of a cost-5 option card that searches six cards deep, takes two of them to the hand and also plays out a Tamer while it's at it.
• Mervamon/Anubimon (M)
  A swarm deck that makes use of powerful purple tools to play things with <Retaliation> out from the trash and give them <Rush>. Its adherents often describe it as "a deck from the future," as it was broken as shit the set it released, but still feels like it was made for the modern day.
• DarkKnightmon ("Twilight") (KM)
  A DigiXros deck that focuses around concentrated <De-Evolve> by dropping DarkKnightmons for 4 memory, then using them as a blast target to play more DarkKnightmons. Once you reach LordKnightmon, you give things <Collision> for even more bullshit, and rip and tear with <Alliance>/<Piercing> and <Security Attack +1> inherits. One of your Tamers is a memory boost in all but name, which one of your other Tamers can crack to get a free evo into BT22 LordKnightmon for an end of turn swing and extra swarming.
  • LordKnightmon X-Antibody, trashbox variant (M)
    By using a bunch of generic purple goodstuff, skip the entire buildup and turbo straight into LKX, then unga bunga. People dislike this one a lot for being boring as hell and falling over in a stiff breeze, and it's very rarely played, but due to being highroll-friendly it was popular in best of 1 formats when it came out.
• Dorbickmon (R)
  Get dummy draw power off of generic red goodstuff so that you can slap down a perfect 5-card xros for 3 memory. Dorbick has <Rush> and an [On Play] pop effect, so by packing as much security attack and optionally an unsuspend inherit under it as possible, aim to kill from 5 security, covering your bases with an OmegaX for game. As the game gets more and more powerful dragons, the solution space gets progressively wider, enabling it to get more and more stonks!
• ZeedMillenniummon (KRM)
  Trash combos for days! Technically a hybrid deck, because one of the two secret rares it uses evolves on its main Tamer if and only if the deck's main searcher has been placed under her. Through absurdly powerful delay options, it can convert a single level 5 and a 6 in the hand into three level 7s and completely fuck up the opponent's board, but it's lacking in search power so it can sometimes be bricky on the climb up.
• Bagramon (M)
  I, uh, don't know much about it. Reliable sources tell me (1) it's not very good (2) 90% of its effects trigger only when an opponent does something.

From Hunters

• Arresterdramon Superior Mode ("Hunters") (M)
  Reduce evo costs by placing generic inherits underneath the body you're evolving, and assemble a big stack that can swing without suspending. Your boss monster is level 5, not that you'd know it from how much passive DP it gets on both players' turn; if not dealt with early, it can casually tear through entire fields while burning opponent security. However, because of how much a developed board consists of sitting on a level 5, it's uniquely vulnerable to <De-Evolve>-based decks.
• Shoutmon DX ("Xros Hunters") (RY)
  A deck that exploits the heavy overlap between cards with the [Xros Heart] trait and cards with <Save> in their text to create a Shoutmon tribal deck with a Hunters playstyle. The gimmick revolves around an OmegaShoutmon whose [End of Attack] skill, should it survive the battle, allows it to recycle itself to play other [Xros Heart] trait digimon for a reduced cost. This allows otherwise-prohibitively-expensive xrosses like Mervamon or Shoutmon DX to enter regular rotation, being given a pseudo-Blitz by the deck's Tamer to swing even if turn is passed.

From Cyber Sleuth

• CS: Cyber Sleuth (GYK)
  The Galaxy toolbox for a new age, featuring the partner lines of protagonists Ami Aiba and Keisuke Amasawa in addition to a bunch of miscellaneous plot-relevant lines. The buildup focuses hard on memory efficiency, enabling a ridiculously fast climb into a variety of unsuspending level 6 bosses, using the supplemental Tamers to provide recursion and rebuild.
• Omegamon (EN: "Omnimon") (RB)
  A deck whose gimmick is to slap a large body directly, which then quickly turbos your level 3 into a boss monster. The boss monster provides heavy removal and can demolish security really quickly if left unchecked, and additionally uses <Decode> to spit out the level 3s that formed it if it would be removed.
• Diaboromon (K)
  The original go wide deck, whose top end spams tokens for breathing and <De-Evolve>s/deletes the opponent's board when tokens are played. Recent support features <Alliance> to provide harder aggro and an attack-redirection Tamer, while an older top end gives <Jamming>/<Blocker> to all of the tokens for defense. In addition, it boasts the rare ability to completely turn off the When Evolving effects of level 7s.
• Gaioumon (RK)
  A defensive variant of WarGreymon that focuses predominantly on trashing security by forcing target redirects and deleting large bodies, with immunity supplied by the Tamer. It features an EX4 boss card that promises a free end of turn evo into Ittou no Kata whenever they actually get around to implementing it (right now it's used to change stances into the other Gaioumon cards).
• Alphamon (KY)
  The "1v1 me fairly, coward" deck, it focuses around building a big stack with good inherits and challenging the opponent to swing over it. It's a highly granular archetype that makes use of a lot of different mechanics, but unfortunately it matches up poorly against removal and source trashing, making it really bad into most of the current meta.
• Boltmon (MR)
  A silly aggro deck whose gimmick is that all of its mons have [Main] effects that pay memory to do things like "delete an opponent's body" or "play out an alliance target" and then swing by effect. Jimiken (the deck's main Tamer) allows you to activate a [Main] effect and refund memory at the time of play/evolution, and the boss monster is a big Assembly bungus that inherits all the [Main] effects of its evolution sources with the Flame trait to rush for big damage while blowing up the opponent's field. However, for some reason Bandai just didn't give it an archetypal bottom end? So you have to run unrelated level 3s with goodstuff inherits as space-filler, which is weird and drags the deck's viability down.
• Mastemon (YM)
  The strongest control deck in the game, with positive matchups against literally anything whose main form of removal is attacking. It rapidly sets up level 6 jogresses that swarm while trashing the opponent's security in addition to supplying tamer hate, and its setup is extremely cheap due to a stance-change Tamer that also sets up its reduced-cost evos.
• Eater (W)
  A deeply mediocre megazoo that's also a hybrid deck. By loading up its egg with cost-reduction inherits, eventually reach a state where you can play out the other three copies of the egg and mindlink to give them <Rush>. The issue is that the hybrids, which are the main form of damage until the Mother Eater turn, do fuck-all and cost way too much, and if the Mother Eater turn doesn't kill you just kind of sit there.
• Light Fang/Night Claw
  Actually two semi-related decks.
  • Galaxy (B)
    A deck that uses the powerful memory management tools offered by GraceNova's buildup without any of the actual top ends, culminating in a huge stack that can then go into whatever level 6 you want. This allows powerful blue pieces like Invisimon and Dukemon X-Antibody to be toolboxed as top ends for a quick setup, but in exchange, you have very little defensive power.
    
  • GraceNovamon (RB)
    Sacrificing the toolboxing power of actual Galaxy, climb into a heavily protected level 7 jogress and swing, then unsuspend to swing again at end of turn. In doing so, you get an absurd amount of source trashing power and rip through the opponent's board extremely fast, and if you are outed you can rebuild extremely efficiently with the purple Tamer.

From Appmon

• Gaiamon (WR)
  While unable to have more than one or two inherits online at a time, it nonetheless boasts a highly accessible combo to produce 2 checks with <Raid>/<Piercing> at 11000 DP for 2 memory off a 4 and a Tamer. Once you reach the 6, you can trash security while controlling the opponent's board and utilizing powerful protection effects, and the deck's delay option increases the consistency with which you can perform these combos.
• Ouranosmon (YW)
  A swarm deck with a stupid amount of DP reduction, its gimmick is to flood the board with low-level bodies to <Alliance> with, then link to them from the central tower's sources. Its defense relies very hard on the DP reduction for damage mitigation, and otherwise just tries to swarm faster than the opponent can break it down (fielding recursion effects and <Scapegoat> for this purpose).

From Adventure 2020

• Omegamon Alter-S (EN: "Omnimon Alter-S") (K)
  A stupidly effective combo deck that ramps on almost no memory into a level 5 that stuns an opponent body, then ramps further into an immune chungus level 7 that explodes the opponent's board and, due to its inherited effects, can't be redirected in any way. The gimmick is that, at End of Attack timing, the tower plays out the jogress materials from its sources and places itself on top of security, whereupon you can just keep jogressing until the enemy explodes. If you passed turn on the way up, then you can also sit on your level 6s, because one of them protects from any removal at all by jogressing into the immune level 7. I genuinely don't know of any counterplay to this deck other than Cendrillmon, which can end attacks without battling.
• Algomon (EN: "Argomon") (GM)
  A rogue deck focused around telling Tamers to sit the fuck down. It severely suffers from having only one wave of support; the intent is to suspend your own Tamers to get memory and draws, then kill your own level 5 to gain memory and play a level 6 that sucks up sources from the trash. Notably, it does not have access to <Rush>, and its On Play/When Evolving pops either one level 6 or two level 3s, which is extremely underwhelming. Just about the only thing it attempts to do that actually works is that the level 5's inherit can suspend one of its Tamers to unsuspend the body the inherit is under, but due to having only one wave, over half the deck is effectively vanilla, so it's not worth it.
• Goddramon (EN: "Goldramon") ("Four Great Dragons") (YR)
  A token-generation deck with an option-spam playstyle and an inconsistent buildup. Its gameplan is to set up blockers, swing with <Raid>, and optionally play out level 6s by effect at the cost of deleting them at the end of opponent's turn. Due to the buildup being jank as hell and all your searchers bot-decking half your cards, it is arguably more popular to run Goddramon as a top end over a Puppet base than it is to actually run the deck tribal.
• Abbadomon (K)
  A megazoo 50-copies deck whose egg plays out bodies for a reduced cost scaling off the number of eggs in play, culminating in a level 6 that, when all 4 eggs are on the board somewhere, cheats a level 7 beatstick (Abbadomon Core) with a fuck ton of keywords into raising. If your opponent swings at all while Core is in raising, it can immediately move itself to the battle area and tuck sources from the trash to explode the opponent's field, while reloading the egg deck with all 4 eggs in play. The critical downside is that the egg doesn't reduce the cost of playing, it plays for a reduced cost, so a single Psychemon shuts it down (the cheapest floodgate removal in black costs 3 memory), but it's still an incredibly viable deck that feels good to pop off with.

From Ghost Game

• Siriusmon (RM)
  By getting an obscene amount of draw power, turbo a big-ass stack really fast to become a big beatstick that can prevent itself from being removed by trashing its inherits. The deck gets stonks for doing literally nothing, and can pierce for 3 checks on a stack for very little memory cost, with security trashing as a bonus.
• Amphimon (B)
  Self-handrip to unsuspend and trash sources, I think?? People have tried to cook with it, but until literally BT-21, Ghost Game decks were universally sad because they got support that just didn't work.
• Diarbbitmon (G)
  Basically a prototype for a later season's protagonist deck, but with none of the sauce that makes said protagonist deck any good. See above re: Ghost Game decks are sad.
• Invisimon (BK)
  Due to debuting in Liberator instead of actual Ghost Game, the Espimon line has a semi-competent deck. It revolves around flipping the opponent's security face-up and hiding the top card of your stack in security when you attack, whereupon it gets played out at the end of the opponent's turn like Ravemon. That said, the buildup suffers from having only one wave of support, so Invisimon by itself is often run in other blue or black decks as a generic top end.

From Seekers

• Fenriloogamon (MR)
  A swarm deck that, utilizing an absurdly broken egg that is somehow not the card that got hit for the deck, efficiently climbs into a 6 (and/or a jogress 7) while getting out a bunch of <Alliance> checks. The deck's gimmick extends the end of turn condition from "pass 0 memory" to "pass -2 memory," enabling some pretty bullshit combo lines. Post-banlist it's less monotonous than it once was, since it has to use a toolbox approach for its upper ends, but it's still reasonably strong.
• Kazuchimon (YG)
  Try to stay at 3 security because half your effects won't fire if you have more and half your effects won't fire if you have less. With plenty of tools for getting to 3 and staying there, including an end-of-attack unsuspend by trashing security, this deck boasts a blast jogress level 7 that can fieldwipe with relative ease.
• Brigadramon (K)
  Swarm deck that plays out a bunch of small guys and also has generic access to <Jamming> and <Reboot>. Combines play-cost-based deletion with effects that reduce play costs, in addition to the best ACE in the game, which packs a powerful deletion effect onto a card with <Scapegoat> to make it really hard to get rid of. In a meta where Gravity Crush exists, it's not going to do so well, but at a casual level it can be pretty engaging.
• Numemon (K)
  Once, long ago, this was the scourge of the game. Nowadays it's had two of its most important pieces limited to 1, so it basically does the same shit as always but slower and less effectively. Its deal is basically "be sticky and have <Rush>," making it the closest thing to a viable rookie-rush playstyle this game has ever had, but with its strongest recursion tool limited to 1 it's seen essentially no play and the evil is defeated.
• Death-X-DORUgoramon (EN: "DexDorugoramon") (MK)
  You put cards in the trash that protect you from deletion by, when your body would be deleted, evolving into them instead. Features <Collision>, powerful bursts of <De-Evolve>, and even a little Tamer hate, plus an all-unsuspend for additional stonks. However, since it really needs to see a specific Tamer, and that Tamer is a memory setter that mindlinks so it doesn't gain value from multiple copies, right now it's in the "new support pls" waitlist.
  • Purple base Death-X-DORUgoramon (MK)
    By using a lower end consisting of Loogamons and the BT17 Bowmon (i.e. the one that isn't busted as all fuck) instead of DORUmons, you can make the deck slightly more memory efficient in exchange for losing access to some of your tools.

From Liberator

• Zephagamon (G)
  The protagonist deck that stole Diarbbitmon's gimmick. It has a bunch of effects that suspend opponent Digimon to do things, and then at the end of the turn it swings into them for massive damage. It also features the single most generic Tamer in the game, who can give <Blocker> and <Piercing> to anything in the game at the end of the turn (and if it's an in-archetype level 5 or higher, it unsuspends). An alternative level 6 gives it access to <Alliance>, as well as offering DP deletion when a Digimon is played; all of these can blast into a level 6 ACE that gives you an extra unsuspend to push for lethal.
• Cendrillmon (Y)
  Absolutely flood the field with [Puppet]-trait Digimon and tokens, using your central towers to give them all <Alliance>/<Blocker> and swing again without suspending at the end of the turn. Their effects have cost only in technicality, because the cost is "delete one of your other Digimon," and whenever that happens they get infinite stonks by playing out a bunch of others and ripping through the opponent's board. Furthermore, since the towers are protected by the infinite stonks generator that is deleting their other bodies, their defense is practically unbreakable.
• BeelStarmon X-Antibody ("Three Musketeers") (M)
  Shuffle options around that place themselves into your Digimon's own evolution sources. Then, trash them from sources to activate a secondary effect. By making use of Satellamon's evolution line, it's possible to efficiently climb into a 6 and trash two of your opponent's security before they get a chance to do anything at all!
• Necromon (M)
  By swinging at the end of the turn at the cost of blowing up the attacker, repeatedly swarm and rebuild while controlling the opponent's board.
• Ryugumon ("Aquatics") (B)
  You put your own cards into sources, you play your own cards out from sources. Features a type of protection that, when you'd be removed from the battle area, plays out sources. The level 7 boss card, Ariemon, spits out a ridiculous number of extra bodies to get a morbillion additional swings.
• Pyramidimon (K)
  Place additional evolution sources under your tower as you climb, and attempt to OTK by trashing them. When cards are trashed, further reload with a promo tamer, and under good conditions you can cycle sources reasonably efficiently.
• Medusamon (R)
  Your opponent is forced to play [Petrification] tokens to their field. These tokens can't swing, and when they are deleted (such as by the memory-setter's effect), they trash your opponent's top security for you. Combine them with swarm effects that trigger when a security is removed, as well as the new keyword <Progress>, which protects the stack from all opponent effects as long as the Digimon is attacking, and you have a sauceful yet really annoying red playstyle.
• Ragnamon (EN: "Galacticmon") (K)
  Build into a level 5 fast and then evolve it for full cost into a strong level 6 with a lot of DP and conditional protection from all removal by sending sources to the bottom of the deck. The Tamer allows for <De-Evolve> by bottom-decking sources, which is useful because many sources of immunity to Digimon effects don't prevent Tamer effects, and this procs an unsuspend or a floodgate-pop inherit. It also boasts the funniest option card in the game, which if not dealt with will instantly reduce the opponent's security to 1.
• HeavyMetaldramon (MR)
  By ripping your own hand into the trash very fast, fill the board with dragons that all have <Rush> and make an End of Turn attack courtesy of the memory setter, with security attack bonus from an inherit that doesn't even have to be in the stack that swings. It's an interesting aggressive playstyle that's fun to use and fun to counterplay, but the tradeoff is that if your field is completely wiped, you can't do shit.
• Royal Base ("Bees") (GK)
  I heard you like X-Antibodies so I put Protoform in a deck that directly benefits from having a stacked security and that lets you recycle that Protoform back into your hand at the start of your main! Get big, get loads of security, unga bunga, and kill. Features generic mindlink Tamer Yulin (or Kosuke, depending on the build), who can go into any X-Antibody stack to give it free <Reboot>/<Alliance> (or <Piercing>/<Blocker>).
• Hexeblaumon/Skadimon ("Ice-Snow") (BY)
  Strip your opponent's evolution sources very very fast. Floodgate them with Hexeblaumon, or banish their Digimon to security with Skadimon. Either way, you can then unga bunga with <Piercing>, <Security Attack +1>, and the unique effect <Ice Clad>, which changes the rules of battle to decide the victor by number of evolution sources instead of DP.
• Dinomon/Tyranomon (RG)
  So you get really fucking big while you're swinging, and then you force your opponent to only be able to attack your suspended Digimon. You also have <Fortitude>, so if they delete you, you just play yourself back out and suspend yourself again. It's pretty fun.

Liberator NPC Decks: "Fields"

Fields are a concept from the old v-pets, referring essentially to a Digimon's natural habitat and the types of evolution it tends to experience. (Non-v-pet fans may recognize it from V-Tamer 01, where each of the five Tags was guarded by a Perfect-level hailing from the corresponding Field.) As they describe tendencies rather than immutable aspects, the same species of Digimon can appear in multiple Fields. Originally, there were six fields, and these are the ones the card game recognizes; two others were retroactively added during the Savers era.

In Liberator, certain in-game NPCs run themed Field decks, using the roster of the corresponding Pendulum Color v-pet. These all share certain common features: they all run a 2-cost field spell that gives a small but significant buff to all of your Digimon with the trait, they all run a 3-color jogress level 7 as their boss monster that plays out a high play cost's worth of Digimon when jogressed into, and they all run an upper end with an end-of-turn jogress effect. These decks are:

• NSp: Nature Spirits (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Tlalocmon (GKY)
  This deck's main gimmick is an egg which allows Digimon to attack by effect when your Digimon are played, synergizing with the field spell providing generic <Alliance> and the end-of-turn jogress to potentially check 4 security in one turn.
• DS: Deep Savers (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Aegisdramon (BKY)
  This deck's main gimmick is a variety of effects which disable the opponent's ability to interact with the boardstate as long as the player has 1 or more memory. To this end, it runs an egg which sets memory to 1 if the player has 0 memory. The boss monster further fucks things up by floodgating [On Play] effects while the player has 1 or less memory.
• NSo: Nightmare Soldiers (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Voltobautamon (EN: "Boltboutamon") (MKY)
  This deck has access to Tamer removal, and boasts a fast jogress buildup even below level 7. By using a variety of extremely-low-cost level 5s and below it enables a quick buildup into Callismon for control power, while setting up the trash for Voltobautamon's effect.
• WG: Wind Guardians (GB)
  Boss monster: Cernumon (GYB)
  This deck's main gimmick is fast mid-attack evolution ramping, with its secondary boss monster of Griffomon acting as both a swarm tool and an evo enabler, and fielding additional effects that allow it to produce several additional evos in the same <Vortex> timing. Once jogressed, Cernumon keeps the board refreshed with additional mons whenever your bodies leave the battle area.

Other V-Pet-Based Decks

Certain non-Pendulum virtual pets also have trait decks, but theirs have different structures.

• ACCEL (YG)
  Boss monster: Chaosmon Valdur Arm (YG)
  A jogress deck that uses the evolution lines of the components of Chaosmon in order to do big checks with Partition level 7s; the deck's main gimmick blows up its own Partition bodies (by giving them -30000 DP, thus killing them by a means other than the player's own effect) at the end of the opponent's turn to recycle the bodies and do even more checks. It suffers from the lack of a third level 3, but the upper end is extremely satisfying.
• DM: Digital Monster (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: Varies depending on version
  An unconventional stack deck that simulates the process of training a v-pet by placing cards in evolution sources face-down and scaling its effects by the number of face-down cards. Multiple variations of this deck exist because they gave each of the five versions of the DM its own trait but also made their cards interoperable.
  • Ver.1 (🏳️‍🌈)
    Boss monster: ShinMonzaemon (YM)
    Focuses around direct hard aggro and placing small bodies in security, using <Security Attack +1> stacks and swarm tools to maintain offensive pressure. <Armor Purge> makes it really annoying for deletion-heavy decks to get rid of, and rebuilds are extremely fast.
  • Ver.2 (🏳️‍🌈)
    Boss monster: CresGarurumon ACE (BK)
    Doesn't have a gameplan because no two cards in the deck agree on what they want it to do and there's no payoff.
  • Ver.3 (🏳️‍🌈)
    Boss monster: HiAndromon ACE (KY)
    Focuses around hard stall, with DP reduction, recovery, and barrier. Has very limited kill power but puts all of its effort into being unbelievably annoying to play against.
  • Ver.4 (🏳️‍🌈)
    Boss monster: Titamon ACE (MG)
    Focuses around swarming, using <Scapegoat>/<Alliance> to keep the board alive and attempt offensive pressure. However, once active, the top end mostly just sits in place.
  • Ver.5 (🏳️‍🌈)
    Boss monster: Mugendramon (K)
    Focuses around combined offense and defense, using a big bungus stack to pierce through enemy mons, no-sell deletions, and trash security. Note that archetypal Ver.5 is distinct from the standard Mugendramon deck, which is run as a megazoo.
  • Chimairamon (EN: "Kimeramon") (🏳️‍🌈)
    Boss monster: Chimairamon (W)
    Focuses around milling yourself to fill the trash with goodstuff inherits, allowing you to summon a big Assembly body with <Rush> that rips the opponent's board in half and can swing big chungus. Problem being, it has issues recurring the card that allows it to mill itself.

Decks Not Listed Above (not from anything, or are from something niche)

• HeavyLeomon, from ReArise (GK)
  The original <Fortitude> deck, it does big chungus plays with the option card Final Zubagon Punch. I'm not sufficiently versed in it to make statements about how it plays, but essentially the level 4s let you evolve into a level 5 mid-swing, and then the level 6s do big plays. Tech in Parasimon, a card that places itself from the hand into the sources of a green Digimon, for extra Fortitude power.
• Mugendramon (EN: "Machinedramon"), from World 1 (KR)
  A toolboxy zoo deck that gets big and unga bungas with a wide variety of black and red [Cyborg] inherits. By copying the [On Play] effects of its cyborgs, it gains consistent access to <Rush> and protection, allowing it to become a genuine midrange deck. Features a Tamer that can redirect opponent attacks into your boss monster without blocking. Using the Ver.4 Megadramon, it can attempt to kill itself to unsuspend, detach the Megadramon to prevent itself from being removed, then evolve into Chaosdramon or its X-Antibody to re-attach the Megadra for a ridiculous amount of extra damage.
• Seven Great Demon Lords (M)
  Basically Royal Knights but less bullshit, because it has extremely limited capacity for chip damage and has to bet everything on Ogudomon's finishing blow. The best way to survive against it is to either rush it down before it can do anything, which is a reasonable ask given how slowly it plays compared to the current meta, or ensure you always have 8 or more total bodies and security cards, which is a tall order when it deals in lots and lots of removal.
• BloomLordmon (G)
  The deck alluded to when I described Rosemon as having "another deck's engine." The gameplan essentially revolves around going really wide for very little memory, then going into the level 6 and doing a fuck ton of checks. Hasn't seen support in a while, but it can be a dangerous matchup if you're not careful due to its status as a green goodstuff deck allowing it to steal support from any reasonably competent green deck.
• RagnaLoardmon (RK)
  I heard you liked effects so I put [Hand] effects on your cards so you can get evolution sources while you gain effects. If it pops off it can do silly shit, but it mostly sees its cards used as enablers in other archetypes.
• Volcanicdramon/Metallicdramon, from Linkz (KR)
  A deck whose gimmick is big [On Play] plays, while floodgating on evolution in exchange for costing 5. Its main Tamer, Hina Kurihara, suspends herself when an in-archetype Digimon evolves to use its [On Play] when evolving. Uses Dorbickmon to make explosive plays by xrossing a card on the field to use its float skill, then jogress for game.
• JESmon, from... uhh... he was in something, right? (R)
  An aggro deck that plays out puppets named [Sistermon] by effects, uses them to combo off a series of free evolutions into JESmon or its X-Antibody form, then performs three checks while setting up a blast and/or jogress to level 7. There's a toolboxy approach where the same cards can let you take either an offensive or defensive stance depending on what free evos you make, and as a bonus it can prevent opponent digimon/tamers from suspending while also healing its own security. That said, it lives and dies on the highroll. Either it does everything or it does nothing, there is no in-between.
• Examon (BGR)
  A level-skipping deck that turbos from level 5 directly into a jogress level 7 with a bunch of keywords. It features suspend-locking, forced taunting, self-restanding blockers, fast demolition of security, <Evade> providing a little extra spice, and an X-Antibody level 3 that can cheat the memory curve and enable EoT jogress for a highly consistent beatdown. A fun thing about this deck is that both level 5s and the green level 6 have the right traits to have its (non-once-per-turn) [On Play]/[When Evolving] repeated by EX3 Hina, allowing even just two tamers to completely fuck up an opponent's board.
• GigaSeadramon (BK)
  An honest aggro deck that boasts a fast climb using the original [X Antibody] option card, the gimmick is to <De-Evolve 2> when a body is spit out, including itself. However, the low end is super underwhelming, so it's common to use its top end as a black X-Antibody goodstuff over a different engine.

Trait Pile Decks

The trait pile decks (occasionally referred to derisively by the community as "slop pile") are archetypes entirely unrelated to the digimon they contain, and are generated purely artificially by the post-hoc assignment of a "series trait," which as the name suggests is a trait named after the series the archetype's members originate from.

• CHRONICLE (KYR)
  Boss monster: Alphamon Ouryuken ACE
  A pretty creatively designed deck that utilizes [When Attacking] triggers and tamer effects in conjunction with BT9 X-Antibody to turbo up the chain in breeding, allowing you to consistently push out every turn without having to worry about running out of eggs. Unfortunately, however, it's extremely reliant on seeing its exact chains, so there's very little flexibility and if a deck can no-sell the one thing it does then it's just going to fizzle.
• SEEKERS (YM)
  Boss monster: Fenriloogamon Takemikazuchi ACE
  An incoherent deck that doesn't work. All of its cards (except the egg) are good individually in some build of either Kazuchimon or Fenriloogamon, but collectively they do not come together to form a cohesive whole. The result is a deck with an identity crisis that feels bad to run.
• ADVENTURE (🏳️‍🌈)
  Boss monster: WarGreymon ACE/MetalGarurumon ACE
  Your tamers all reduce the hard play cost of your digimon, and your digimon effects scale based on the number of colors among your tamers. When you have 3 colors, you go dummy hard with free-evo effects; each of the 5s can swing by effect when another digimon is played, and also gains <Alliance> (which it also has as an inherit). It further boasts a setter that can free-play a digimon with cost determined by colors in play by bottom-decking itself.
• HERO (RY)
  Boss monster: Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode
  By mixing the gimmicks of Red Hybrid, Siriusmon, Hunters, and Adventure, create an unexpectedly coherent version of the classical red slop pile. HERO can build stacks extremely cheaply, but these stacks are incredibly barebones due to the absolute lack of variety in inherits, so it basically just gives them a bunch of DP and peaces out. That said, it builds extremely fast, so if it outspeeds you, you will die.