Five Things I Prefer About the Digimon Card Game Compared to Pokémon

With the official release of the Digimon Card Game (DCG) on January 29th it's a good time to look at some of the pros and cons of the game before deciding whether or not to start playing. I was lucky enough to pre-order the three starter decks during the pre-release event in November. After spending some time playing the game with friends, here are the top five things I prefer about it compared to the Pokémon Trading Card Game (PTCG).

Price

By my math, the cost per card of Digimon is lower compared to Pokémon. This isn't the most important factor, but it is worth considering since trading card games (TCGs) can get expensive. I estimate that a Pokémon card costs about 40 cents, and a Digimon card costs about 33 cents. I arrived at this cost by taking the cost of a booster box divided by the number cards in a booster box, with one caveat that I will explain after the math.

A Pokémon Vivid Voltage Booster Box costs ~$144 dollars and contains 36 packs with 10 cards each, not counting the energy card or Pokémon Trading Card Game Online (PTCGO) code card. That’s a total of 360 cards. $144 divided by 360 is .4, or 40 cents per card.

A Digimon Booster Box retails for ~$96 and contains 24 packs with 12 cards each for a total of 288 cards. $96 divided by 288 is .33… or 33.3 cents.

Another way to look at it is for every $2 you spend, you get one more Digimon card.

Starter Decks

The three starter decks for the DCG are fun to play out of the box and they also come with a booster pack. Digimon starter decks contain exclusive cards that aren’t available in booster packs, so there’s a pretty good reason to buy them. Also, a DCG starter deck comes with a booster pack, so you could potentially start customizing your deck right away.

Starter decks in Pokémon have become better over the years, but there is one big problem with them;  they’re almost completely irrelevant to the competitive meta. Starter decks are generally built around Stage 2 Pokémon, whereas meta decks generally focus on cards with rule boxes such as Pokémon Tag-Team GX, Pokémon V, and Pokémon VMAX. What this means is that when you’re playing with starter decks, you’re essentially playing a different game that won’t be representative of how people will be playing at events or card shops in your area. This ties nicely into the next factor.

Evolution Mechanic

I think this is my favorite part about the DCG compared to the PTCG. In Pokémon, decks composed with lots of evolution cards generally suffer because they require more setup. In order to play a Stage 2 Blastoise, first you have to put down a basic Squirtle, then evolve it to a Stage 1 Wartortle on the following turn. Finally you can evolve to a Stage 2 Blastoise on the turn after that. Evolution is slow, and evolution cards in your hand can be “dead” if you don’t have the required cards on the field. Not only that, but most Stage 2 Pokémon aren’t that powerful compared to Pokémon GX and Pokémon V, which means you could spend a lot of time setting and be at a disadvantage afterward.

This is quite a bit different to Digimon, and might be confusing to players who aren’t familiar with it. In the DCG, any monster can evolve into any other monster as long as it meets the requirements. Each monster card has a level between 2 and 7 (with level 1 being skipped over, although it could potentially be added into the game later) and a color (Black, Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, or Purple). If you have a Level 3 Purple Digimon on your side of the field, you can evolve it into any monster in your hand that evolves from a level two purple Digimon. Two examples would be Wizardmon or Garurumon. In general it’s easier to evolve cards, and even better is that when you do evolve a monster you get to draw one card from your deck. You get a lot of benefits from evolving monsters in the DCG, and it’s one of the core mechanics of the game.

Evolution is an important part of both franchises. It’s a shame that evolution in PTCG is frustrating. Thankfully in the DCG it’s fun and rewarding.

Card Construction

Something interesting I noticed is that Digimon cards feel much more sturdy compared to Pokémon Cards. I wanted to find out why that was so I weighed and measured the cards using a kitchen scale and some digital calipers. The weight of the cards appeared to be equal. 10 cards weigh 17 grams, and 50 cards weigh 88 grams, so I’d say each card weighs about 1.76 grams. My scale isn’t the most accurate and there could be a weight difference that it’s not picking. I was, however, able to measure a difference in the thickness of the cards. I measured 10 cards at 4 points on each card and on average Digimon cards are about .32 mm thick, and Pokémon cards are about .29 mm thick. 0.03 mm isn’t a huge amount, but it was big enough for me to notice. How important this is is up for debate, but I really like the way the Digimon cards feel.

The Memory System

I think this is the best thing about the DCG. The memory system is a resource mechanic that determines what a player can do during their turn. You can think of the memory gauge as a pendulum that swings back and forth between you and your opponent. You'll start your turn with a certain amount of memory which you spend to play cards, whether that’s calling monsters to the field, evolving existing monsters, or playing option cards. As you play cards, your memory gauge will get closer to 0. Once it crosses over 0, it becomes a positive number on your opponent’s side. This also triggers your opponent’s turn to start. This is a very cool way of maintaining the pace of the game, and there are a lot of cool strategies you can implement. You can play conservatively and force your opponent to start their turn with very little memory, or you can play aggressively and put big cards on your side of the field with the downside that your opponent will be able to do more during their next turn. The system adds a layer of tactics that are fun to play with.

The Digimon Card Game has a lot to offer, and if you’re interested in playing a trading card game it’s worth checking out.