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After a long wait, the newest Digimon Core Booster set is finally due to release on the 21st of July 2023. I know the excitement for this set has been building up steadily since its announcement last year and surely I am not the only one that has been looking to the card list of this set to plan their next competitive deck. With so many good cards, the new key-words and the support to all the Royal Knights archetypes there is a lot to love in this set but let's look in more details on what we expect to find in it.
Right out of the booster: what can I pull? BT-13: Versus Royal Knights is the 13th core Booster Set released worldwide. The set will include 44 Common cards, 30 Uncommon cards, 26 Rare cards, 10 Super Rare cards and, as usual, 2 Secret Rares for a total of 112 cards. 24 cards will also be available as alternative art including one in gold foil for each of the 13 Royal knights included in this set.
In addition, this set will include 2 box toppers. The first one will feature an alternative art of one tamer for each main Digimon colour: Marcus Damon BT13-095, Thomas H. Norstein BT13-097, Richard Sampson BT13-098, Yoshino Fujieda BT13-100, Miki Kurosaki & Megumi Shirakawa BT13-101 and Keenan Crier BT13-102. Fun fact: as two of these tamers are double colour cards the yellow deck would have three supports in total among the cards in the box topper.
The second box topper will include “a preview of a new mechanic for Starter Decks 15-16, scheduled for release in Summer 2023!”. This seems quite exciting considering the new Starter decks will feature Garurumon and WarGreymon with the Ace version of both cards. Taking into account that both Evolution lines also received support in the June Theme Booster set EX-04: Alternative being these second box topper looks quite interesting.
What Are The Best Things To Look Forward In BT-13?
First of all, BT-13 will introduce 4 Digimon with [Burst Mode]. Basing on Digimon lore, Burst Mode is considered a power that can exceed the Ultimate Level at a cost of triggering negative effects when used. For example, the new BT-13 ShineGreymon can Burst Digivolve from a Lv6 ShineGreymon for zero by returning a Marcus Damon from field to hand. This Marcus can then come back for free as a Digimon with 12000 DP and Rush; once it becomes suspended after attacking, it will allow the player to trash one of the opponent security stack. Unfortunately, ShineGreymon Burst mode will digivolve back to its Lv6 at the end of the round by trashing the top digivolution card but sure this effect opens up to interesting strategies.
The other significant new entries to look after in BT-13 are Yggdrasil and the 13 Royal Knights cards. Yggdrasil or King Drasil is the host computer that rules over the Digital World while the Royal Knights are the defenders of the Digital World. In BT-13, Yggdrasil is a white Digi-egg similar to Mother D-Reaper. The strategy will aim to exploit the On-Play effects of different Royal Knights while accumulating them as digivolution cards of Yggdrasil. When you have at least 5 Royal Knights under Yggdrasil, Omegamon can be played to bring on the field all the 5 Royal knights as Digimons with Rush without paying the play cost. It goes without saying that this move would likely close the game.
In addition to the above, each of the Royal Knights released in BT-13 are very playable cards that
should be able to buff their own deck archetypes adding a lot of value to this set.
Final Thoughts: Who Would Like This Set?
BT-13: Vs Royal Knights seems a very good set and it is likely to be the best set of 2023. The set not only provides new interesting mechanics and a new powerful deck, but also a lot of cards to be used in a variety of decks. Some of these cards will build on top of the support provided to the Royal Knights Archetype in 2023 while others will open up to further development (Bust mode for example).
Overall, I think that investing in one or more boxes of BT-13 would probably pay off in the long run as the value of the cards linked to the Royal Knights is likely to remain quite high for a while. Perhaps this can also be an opportunity to use cards from any previous Deck featuring a single Royal Knight to try out a great Yggdrasil deck. Finally, if you have already pulled some ShineGreymon support from BT-12 and EX-04, you may find value in BT-13 cards as they would complete the set for quite a competitive deck.