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This summer will be a great time for all the fans of Digimon, The trading card game and for all those in love of opening packs and finding new cards. In fact, I think I am not the only one looking forward to the two new sets that will be released very close to each other in a few weeks. The first one is planned to be on the shelves in UK on the 23rd of June and it is the new theme booster set "EX-04 Alternative Being". This set is the 4th EX type of set for this game and the 16th set overall to be released in the English region.
Right Out Of The Booster: What Can I Pull?
At the moment, EX04 set is expected to include 40 Non-Foil Commons, 26 Non-Foil Uncommons, 22 Foil Rares, 14 Foil Super Rares, 2 Textured Secret Rares and 19 Textured Alternative Arts. The overall collection is slightly smaller as typical for EX sets as they are designed around a theme and to provide new support to existing decks.
Each pack will contain as usual 12 cards with 2 Rares/Super Rares/Secret Rares/Alternative Arts and each box will include 24 booster packs for a total of 288 cards. Each box will also come with a box topper pack featuring one out of 7 alternative art cards: Matt Ishida & Tai Kamiya (EX4-061); Kiriha Aonuma & Nene Amano (EX4-062); Henry Wong & Shu-Chong Wong (EX4-063); Keenan Crier (EX4-064); Golden Beast Blade & Red Dragon Bullet (EX4-066); Digital Translator (EX4-072); Omnimon Zwart Defeat (BT5-112). This last one, Omnimon Zwart Defeat will have a very low pull rate in all English box.
What Are The Best Things To Look Forward To In Ex-4?
There is a lot of interesting new cards and strategies to look forward in the theme booster set EX-04, Alternative being. The first one is the introduction of a new triggered effect keyword called "Alliance". This new ability is able to link a series of effects that can stack together to create interesting new combos. For example, the Rookie Digimons “Terriermon”, “Terriermon Assistant” and “Lopmon” have the inherited effect to digivolve the Digimon into a 2-colour green Digimon card for a reduced cost by suspending another of the player's Digimon. Suspending a Digimon can also be used to increase the DP of the Champion “BlackGargomon” by the DP of another Digimon just before attacking. The first impression is that the Alliance mechanics will make lower lever Digimons more effective and able to survive longer than usual. The Mega of this evolution line, “BlackMegaGargomon”, will then be able to use all the low level Digimon in play to unsuspend and attack multiple times.
As Alliance is making its first appearance in this set, the Terriermon/ Lopmon cards would be the only ones featuring it at the moment. Personally, I would be interested to see if this mechanics will be used more in future sets.
The other main reason to look forward to EX-04 set is the “Omnimon” deck the Royal Knight born from the fusion of WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. The newer Black Agumon and Gabumon's evolution lines released in this set have abilities that can synergize in order to bring to the field the final evolutions of both Digimons. For example, Agumon has an “on play” effect that allows the player to pick 1 Digimon card with Greymon and 1 Digimon card with Gabumon, Garurumon, or Omnimon among the first three cards in the deck. Gabumon has the same type of effect and the same type of synergistic ability characterize the Lv4, Lv5 and Lv6 Digimon of this deck .
The ultimate goal of this deck would be to DNA Digivolve your two Lv6 Digimon into Omnimon
Alter-S to create an incredibly powerful Boss. This amazing Digimon has a lot of interesting abilities including the one that allows him to leave one BlitzGreymon and one CresGarurumon on the field in the event Omnimon would have to leave the battle area.
I think the deck looks very promising and I love the fact you can get most of the cards you need by opening just a single box. Of course, finding the low-pull rate card from the Box topper would be perfect if you are looking to play this deck.
Final Thoughts: Who Would Like This Set?
Personally, I have very high expectations for EX-04, Alternative Being. The first two sets released in 2023 were quite good and they enabled the creation of nice and strategic decks. So far, and purely based on the card list, I think EX-04 would also be a very good collection and I am really looking forward to getting my hands on it.
Investing in a box would likely be a good choice for anyone interested in the new Omnimon deck and if you are also interested to stock the new support for Gallantmon, Greymon or BlueFlare army. On the other hand, it would likely be quite easy to find all the cards you need to make a deck based on the new alliance mechanics as they are all low rarity ones. If you are interested only in trying out the new mechanics, I would not recommend investing in a full box but perhaps just to open a few booster packs to pull those cards (and perhaps some other rare ones in the process).