Deck Deep Dive: Bagra Army

BT26 is upon and there's going to a lot of Time Stranger support supplementing a lot of decks. However, there's a bit of support for other decks that went rogue and snuck into the set. Today, we're going to be talking about deck that received a singular card with the little-egg-that-could in Monimon: Bagra Army. 

As a forewarning, this is going to be a long, semi-thorough look at the Bagra Army deck. We'll be taking a look at the archetype, playlines/combos, and how this new support affects the deck overall. 

Monimon is the deck's first dedicated egg allowing the user to trash any 2 Bagra Army-traited tucked cards (under Bagra Digimon) to play, or use, another Bagra Army card to be reduced by 2 when attacking. Immediately, this fits the theme of what the deck is trying to do in activivating the inherits of the draw 1 cards, filling up trash, and playing all of the Lvl 3's and 4's for cheap. When the stars align it even allows you to play your boss monsters for much cheaper when comboing with their DigiXros and/or utilizing Yuu Amano. In short, the new egg allows for different playstyles within the deck to achieve your end-game much faster, but requires more strategic play and forward thinking to prevent costly misplays. It cannot be overstated enough that Monimon is best used with the EX10 support that allows for more draw power. A pure memory stealing deck doesn't fully utilize this new egg.

 

You'll need to priortize getting your tamers on the board as soon as possible. If your hand doesn't have a tamer, or searchers to find them, you'll be better off with a mulligan to start the game. Without them your board will be easily wiped leaving you with little follow-up to restablish yourself. Yuu Amano is the main piece of the entire deck that allows it to function optimally. Tucking Digimon under him grants a draw 1, gain 1 memory once per turn, every turn. When you hard play a Digimon it can reduce the play cost from 2-6 by tucking cards from under the tamer to under the Digimon. Yuu Amano & Nene Amano act as a draw engine and a temporary place to tuck your resources, so nothing goes to waste until you have Yuu Amano available. The card also allows you to DigiXros from trash and under tamers as a minor bonus.

 

 

Two of your Lvl 3's, in Chikurimon and ChuuChuumon, are primarily for searching for your pieces. Their memory stealing inherits are nice, but you won't have to worry about those until late-game, and you can always grab them from under your tamers, or trash, when you need them. ChuuChuumon is valuable at every point in the game. It is the only card that can tuck cards under tamers and Digimon. If your opponent allows it to stay on board it can load up your tamers for plays later on or under your Lvl 6's and 7's to continue activating their effects and stealing memory or drawing. It also feeds Monimon resources every turn to continue paying Bagra Army cards for less. Incredibley dangerous if ignored.

 

Monimon can takea chunk of the play cost off your tamers, or it'll allow you to play your Digimon that set-up your tamers. Damemon sets a tamer up on play, or SkullKnightmon plays one on deletion. Having two bodies on the board with save and a tamer is a good set-up to start snowballing. Unless your opponent specializes in bottom-decking or returning cards to the hand you'll quickly gather resources under your tamers from deletion, draw more cards, and gain more memory. Be wary of cards that delete tamers and try to establish yourself from a playable position if you foresee that happening.

 

 

 

 SkullKnightmon and DeadlyAxemon at first glance seem lackluster, but they're meant to help in filling your trash for DarknessBagramon and Astral Snatcher. Being able to delete smaller Digimon and fetching from your trash have their place as well. Their inherits don't synergize well with the gameplan of stealing memory on your opponent's turn, and drawing more, but we shouldn't be running 4x of these anyway. Having blocker and retaliation at certain points do have their purpose in stalling your opponent as most of the time you'll be playing from behind to establish your board. The opponent will risk their own deletion and/or losing memory on their own turn if used properly.

 

Damemon is one of the more important cards for Bagra Army. Monimon can play it for 2, then Damemon can tuck a card under Yuu Amano to trigger draw 2, gain 1 memory. Tucking Tuwarmon is the card we'll be looking to tuck when doing this. The combo is getting Damemon deleted to play Tuwarmon for free from under the tamer, and checking security with Tuwarmon while it has rush. This can be used as a possible OTK that we'll cover at the end. If you're playing from behind you can also DigiXros, or use Yuu Amano for a resource, to then trash its resource and gain blocker and retaliation. It's preferable to grab a card with a draw 1 inheritable when doing this. 

  

DarkKnightmon is going to be the only Lvl 5 that sees meaningful play in this deck. It has a strong inherit in redirecting attacks, acts as a DigiXros for DarknessBagramon, and if it's on the board it can evade de-digivolving for a turn and gains +3k to possibly swing for 2 security if SkullKnightmon is under it. If it does get deleted it can spit out a Lvl 4, or lower, from under it to maintain a board presence. It's critical here to understand what you're trying to accomplish and which cards you play out. The on-plays, and later on the inherits, of the Lvl 3's and 4's are critical in finding your pieces and building back up to your end-game.

Bagramon is necessary for the deck for it's removal ability, trashing security, and DigiXros for DarknessBagramon. After that it truly depends on your playstyle, and the meta, for which cards you include in the deck and which you leave out. Lilithmon helps you make a wide board, Tactimon provides removal protection, and Blastmon does sizable security checks or forces blockers when attacking. Personally, in the BT26 format, Tactimon and Blastmon are too easy for the opponent to play around and not proc their effects, unlike Bagramon and Lilithmon. These two in particular punish your opponent for hard playing or digivolving Digimon. This is harder to avoid than what Tactimon and Blastmon require in being soft-walls against deletion and attacking, and more often than not there will be multiple on-plays or digivolving effects that remove them before you can use their full potential. Tactimon and Blastmon are best utilized at 1-2 each, if included, where their main focus is to power up DarknessBagramon.

DarknessBagramon is your boss monster that can wall off your opponent if all of your Lvl 6's are tucked under it. However, it's difficult to pull off as you need to find them, trash/tuck them, and then retrieve them safely. It's a very high risk, high reward strategy as more often than not you won't find them all in time. If you're playing correctly you will only need 1-2 of your Lvl 6's to end the game. While DarknessBagramon can delete any tamer or Digimon, the true power in this card is grabbing resources out of your trash to tuck. This'll allow you to grab whatever you need for the situation (extra Lvl 6 effects, memory stealing, draw power, +1 security check, etc.). In theory, by the time he hits the board you should be prepared for any situation. 

There aren't any Bagra Army traited option cards, so Monimon can't utilize them, but there are cards that need to be included to cover your bases. Buzzing Fist is a cheap option that searches, fills your trash, and tucks cards under your tamer to potentially make it cost 1 on use. Astral Snatcher is going to be your best bet for removing Digimon with immunity to Digimon effects, and restores your resources under a tamer or Digimon from the trash. Demonic Disaster enables an OTK strategy at 2 memory if you have 1 SkullKnightmon under your Lvl 6 or 7, Monimon on the board to play Damemon and tuck Tuwarmon, and Yuu Amano. Tricky to pull off, but viable. 

There are other cards that could potentially find use in Bagra Army decks dependant on their match-up, so please feel free to play around and find what best suits you. I'll leave a list of cards here that myself and others have found as good choices to tech in and find combos for: MadLeomon, MadLeomon: Armed Mode, MadLeomon, Damemon, Shoutmon (King Version), Tagiru Akashi, Tuwarmon, Soundbirdmon, Monimon, Cupimon, DemiMeramon, Purple Scramble, Death Claw, Calling From the Darkness, Hell's Gate.

I hope this helps in better understanding how Bagra Army works. I would suggest buying cards now if the deck interests you since the new Monimon is a good indicator the deck will be receiving support in the future in the form of DUAL or option cards. Overall, it's a C tier deck that can be pushed to steal some matches with a good pilot that understands the decks limitations.

For my own personal decklist, I'll leave a link here.

Thanks for sticking around if you made it this far, and until next time Tamers!