The strongest Digimon TCG cards released in 2024

2024 was an incredible year for the Digimon card game. With countless collectible and competitive sets released throughout the year, the game is primed for final unification with the Japanese version in 2025. Bandai printed some of the best cards this year, including some that we wish would stick around in 2024.

Generic cards like Ukkomon became a staple in almost every deck and provided room for a few more newcomers, while X-Antibody cards continued their dominance and some of them even received a spot on the Limited and Restricted lists. This has been one of the best years to be a Digimon card game fan.

9

Shoto Kazama

Make everything a blocker

With the release of the Digimon Liberator webcomic, fans were introduced to some incredible new Digimon (Pteromon and Shoemon), but protagonist Shoto Kazama turned the meta and control decks into an absolute threat.

Shoto's effect of granting one of your Digimon blockers is not limited to Liberator-type Digimon, creating huge towers like Mother D-Reaper and inescapable walls that will have you scratching your head as to how to climb them. With MedievalGallantmon releasing in early 2025, this green tamer will continue his reign in upcoming sets.

8

Scramble

Save your stacks

The Scramble cards in the Special Limited Set have changed the game for the better. These option cards gave decks based on a single stack a sort of recursion engine. You can play a rookie for free and stack your deck with a card you'll need in the following round.

There were many cards similar to Scrambles, such as the Memory Boosts and Training cards, but these are so useful that it will be a while before we see a replacement.

7

Imperialdramon: Paladin Mode ACE

Best counterattack against purple

Most ACE cards are very specific to their archetype or Digimon line, but since Imperialdramon has three different colors, this card is one of the most general level 7 ACEs that any deck can use.

If you've ever played the Digimon card game, you know how powerful the color purple is. Typically made up of powerful draw and discard engines, these decks can quickly reach their winning state and wipe out your boards. With Paladin Mode's effect of clearing all deck trash, you'll set those pesky decks way back.

6

X antibody protoform

To defeat the X-Program!

When released in BT17 Secret Crisis, the fan-favorite purple dog from the Digimon Seekers web novel was a popular deck. It is fast and could perform a one-turn kill (OTK) as early as turn two. As more support was released after its debut, the deck became even more consistent, making it one of the top decks of 2024.

The deck doesn't offer much flexibility outside of the OTK and without archetype protection it can be a bit weak, but with the release of the Scramble cards, Fenriloogamon became one of the best in the game.

5

AncientGarurumon

Bounce all security

Hybrids have been a threat to the game since BT06 Double Diamond. In particular, Blue Hybrid was such an overpowered deck that the Tamer card Tommy Himi had to be on Bandai's list of banned and restricted cards for some time.

With this version of AncientGarurumon, the new version of Blue Hybrid is even faster and combined with Ukkomon cards, the search and drawing engine has power unmatched by other decks. The best thing about this card is that the card pool around it is extremely versatile, making each deck combination different from the rest.

4

Paildramon

Stingmon and ExVeemon! Jogress!

Imperialdramon has long been one of the best decks in the meta and competitive space. It's fast, aggressive, and with strong tamer cards like Davis and Ken, the deck is capable of outplaying any opponent. Paildramon and its debut keyword Partition provided the deck with an additional layer of protection alongside its signature jamming.

Paildramon allows you to aggressively deal damage while simultaneously freezing your opponent's board. Combined with the set's Imperialdramon, Paildramon is the core of the deck.

3

Ukkomon

The nightmare of many

Love it or hate it, this card is one of the most important of the year. With the release of Ukkomon, any deck that had room for one or two rookies and had consistency issues became significantly better. This Ukkomon, along with its promo counterpart, was a must in most aggressive decks.

Luckily, the promo version was ultimately limited to one copy per deck to avoid a lot of unfair loops, but we Fenriloogamon players still have the movie antagonist to help us in our card search.

2

Apocalymon

Grind your cards away!

As English gamers, we didn't get to experience the full power of Apocalymon upon release. After its long reign in the Japanese meta, Bandai decided to limit the card to one copy per week following its release in the West.

Although some people were upset that a Secret Rare card was limited, the card was quite unhealthy for the game as its effect could result in the opponent being forced out of the game without them even realizing it. You can still play the card, albeit with less consistency, but if you're looking for a cheeky way to defeat your opponent, Apocalymon is the card you're looking for.

1

Magnamon (X-antibody)

The huge Golden Wall

The mighty wall. The mighty royal knight. This Magnamon was the first to be released as a three-color card. This was very problematic as it gave the deck access to various removal and defense option cards while also presenting a giant wall for players to climb over.

Other card games like Yu-Gi-Oh! There are many cards that are unaffected by other cards' effects, but Digimon didn't have this effect until Magnamon, which changed the entire landscape of what the game would be for the rest of the year.