banner


Gallery
Articles
Power Chart
Price Guide
Index




Digi-Battle

Articles

Chaos to Order: Regrouping and 'preliminary phase'

 In this article, what looks like the final article in the series, D. REGROUP will be explained, and anything relative too it. You may notice a few things similar to the first article, and for good reason -This runs into the first article.

 To start off, here's what the rules say for D. REGROUP:

=====

 First, you must restore your hand to 10 cards by drawing from your ONLINE deck. Players may discard as many cards from their hand to OFFLINE as they wish, and draw as many new cards from their Online deck as needed to restore their hand to 10 cards. (This is the only time when you may restore your hand.)

 When there are not enough cards remaining in the Online deck to restore your hand to 10 cards, draw down to zero, then send ALL the cards on your side of the board, except the Rookie, Offline. Shuffle them and place them face down Online. You may then draw as many as needed to restore your hand to 10 cards.

 Note: If at any time during play the number of your Online cards goes down to zero (either by your action or your opponent's), you must send ALL the cards on your side of the board, except the Rookie, Offline. Then shuffle them and place them face down Online before resuming play.

 At this point, players have the option of changing their Rookie (if they have one showing on the Duel Zone). To set up a change, place the new Rookie face down on top of the old Rookie. (The old Rookie remains under the new Rookie.) If you have a Champion card with the Requirements to Digivolve your new Rookie to the next level, place it face down on the Digivolve Zone. When it's your turn to Digivolve, you'll turn over both the new Rookie and the Champion in the Digivolve Zone, and you'll send the old Rookie Offline.

 Players may prepare to Digivolve any Digimon on their Duel Zone by placing the next-level card (with the correct Digivolve Requirements) face down on the Digivolve Zone.

Winner of the last Duel initiates the new Duel by starting at step #2 of B. DIGIVOLVE. If the last Duel ended in a tie, the player who went first last time initiates the new Duel.

=====

 I'm sure most of you have guessed this already, but for those who haven't, the first sentence in the first paragraph tells what you have to do, and the rest of the paragraph tells how to do that. You *Don't* get to draw until you're hand is back to 10 cards, then Offline from what you've drawn, and then draw again; that would go against the rules. At the start of Regroup, you Offline as many cards as you wish from your hand and then draw from your Online deck until you've got 10 cards in your hand. Period. 'What if I don't want to draw until my hand has 10 cards? Can I draw to a lower number like 9 or 8?', you ask? The answer is 'no'. You have to draw until your hand is restored to 10 cards.

  In the second paragraph you might have noticed "...then send ALL the cards on your side of the board, except the Rookie, Offline." This doesn't include cards in your hand because it's not on the board/playing mat. Any cards in your hand when you deck out stays in your hand. When shuffling your Offline cards to place face down Online, the cards should be face down when you're shuffling them otherwise it defeats the purpose of placing them face down when you place them Online.

 The third paragraph, where it says "Note: If at any time during play the number of your Online cards goes down to zero...", is when you may play St-120 Resist Downgrade -During the Battle/Attack Phase. You may not play St-120 Resist Downgrade during Regroup, so I've found, because the rules doesn't cover Option cards being played in Regroup except in the 'preliminary phase' (And by then you would have already sent all your Digimon, except Rookie, Offline).

 "At this point, players have the option of changing their Rookie..." is the start of the 'preliminary phase' within the Regroup Phase. This is also where all the tough questions start... You may be asking 'What if I Don't have a Rookie showing on the Duel Zone? What if it's a Digimon of another level?' If you have a Champion, Ultimate, or Mega on the Duel Zone, you may not change your Rookie. If you have no Digimon on your Duel Zone, then you obviously can't Change your Rookie, but you may place one face down on the Duel Zone (it will be turned face-up in the Digivolve Phase when it's your turn to Digivolve). 'What if I don't want to place a new Rookie just yet?', you ask? Then you don't have too. After all, the rules don't actually say what happens if there isn't a Digimon in the Duel Zone; I'm just using logic to fill in the blanks since the rules and Customer Support didn't - -;; and an answer must be given.

 'May I have more than 2 Rookies in the Duel Zone at once?', you ask? The answer to that would have to be 'yes', but only one of them may be active in a Duel. The rules indicate by  the word 'may' in "Players may prepare to Digivolve any Digimon on their Duel Zone..." that you have a choice whether or not to Digivolve, so you don't Have to Digivolve the same turn you change your Rookie. All Rookies that aren't the active ('new') Rookie should be Under the active ('new') Rookie when the change takes place. You may change your active Rookie with another Rookie in your Duel Zone under your active Rookie if you so desire (Basically, if you have a Rookie Digimon under your active Rookie and want to change your active Rookie with a Rookie underneath it, one that has been your active Rookie before, you may do so during the 'preliminary phase'). 'How many Rookies am I allowed to have under my active one?', you ask? As many as you want as long as you only change your Rookie once during each Regroup and your Online deck doesn't go to zero. 'What happens to the Rookies under my active one if I deck out', you ask? The rules say that all the cards on your side of the board except your Rookie, which means your active/current Rookie, goes Offline when you deck out. 'All the cards' includes all the Rookie cards that are inactive (under your active/current Rookie) too. 'What happens to my inactive Rookies if I Digivolve?', you ask? They would go Offline. 'May I change my Rookie during the Digivolve Phase?', you ask? The answer is 'no', and that can be confirmed with what I found in file DB-Bandai_Answers-Jayzhee:

*****

4. If I'm second player and I've set up to change rookies, can I change my
mind and offline that rookie after my opponent digivolves?

A. NO. Once either Digivolving phase starts, both players can not change the
rookie.

*****

 'What if I want to Digivolve my Rookie to a higher level than Champion? Can I do that?', you ask? Well, considering the 'old school' Rookies couldn't Digivolve to anything But Champion (which explains the examples in the rules), I would think you could. However, the next-level card Must have your Rookie's name in it's Digivolve Requirements. The only Rookies that can Digivolve to a higher level than Champion are St-66 Goburimon (who can DNA with Bo-25 Snimon [Champion] to St-144 Tekkamon [Ultimate]) and Bo-218 Impmon (who can Digivolve to Bo-303 Beelzemon [Mega] if Impmon is facing an Ultimate or Mega). Just remember that you have to fulfill the Digivolve Requirements when it's your turn to Digivolve or your next-level Digimon will be sent Offline, according to the rules.

 Now this brings me to something I forgot to put in in the first article... How do you fulfill the Digivolve Requirements on Bo-223 BlackWarGrowlmon in Booster 5? The Digivolve Requirements say "Send BlackGrowlmon on Duel Zone Offline and place this card on your Attack Phase." However, the rules say:

===

2. Player who goes first turns over the card on the Digivolve Zone and places it face up on top of the card on the Duel Zone.
3. Player completes turn by fulfilling any Digivolve Requirements shown on the next-level card.

===

If the player who passes has a card face down on the Digivolve Zone, he must move it to Offline, in other words, "Use it, or lose it."

===

 Notice that the second quote says "If the player who passes...", which means that if you start fulfilling the Digivolve Requirements for BlackWarGrowlmon by sending your Growlmon on the Duel Zone Offline, your BlackWarGrowlmon can stay in the Digivolve Zone until your Attack/Battle Phase without going Offline thus allowing you to completely fulfill the Digivolve Requirements. However, it should be noted that the Digivolve Requirements probably means your first turn in the Attack/Battle Phase, so the BlackWarGrowlmon in your Digivolve Zone would go Offline if you don't place it in the Duel Zone then. 'If I don't, would I get my BlackGrowlmon back'? you ask? That's another good question, and one that I can't give a clear answer too. Since you would have already sent it Offline, you probably shouldn't get it back. However, it was sent Offline as part of the Digivolve Requirements for a card you didn't Digivolve too... Whether or not you can get your BlackGrowlmon back after you've Offlined it as part of BlackWarGrowlmon's Digivolve Requirements (if you don't complete the Digivolution) should be discussed and agreed apon by the players before starting the game. Although, I wouldn't use BlackWarGrowlmon anyway because of it's Special Effect (see near the bottom of article 3). Something to note for all other Digivolutions, though, is in file DB-Bandai_Answers-Jayzhee:

*****

3. Do your champion and ultimate digimon go offline when you digivolve to
the next level?

A. NO. Place next level Digimon on the Champion Digimon or Ultimate Digimon.
If you lose the duel, you have send all cards except Rookie to Offline area.

*****

 A slightly related question to the 'no Digimon in the Duel Zone' thing is how a winner is determined if there is no Digimon in one of the players Duel Zones. If you or your opponent ends up with no Digimon in one of your Duel Zones during the Battle/Attack Phase, you can't realy calculate and compare Digimon Power after both players pass because there isn't an opposing Digimon to compare Digimon Power with. Therefore, neither player would win and no points would be scored for defeating the opponent because there isn't one there. Any Option cards that is supposed to go Offline at the end of the Duel would go Offline as normal; any Option cards that goes Offline when the Digimon loses would stay on the Power Port since the Digimon wouldn't have lost. You can not Digivolve when you don't have a Digimon in the Duel Zone because there isn't a Digimon to Digivolve from -You have to place a Rookie in the preliminary phase before you can place a next-level card in the Digivolve Zone or Digivolve during your turn in the Digivolve Phase.

===

Winner of the last Duel initiates the new Duel by starting at step #2 of B. DIGIVOLVE. If the last Duel ended in a tie, the player who went first last time initiates the new Duel.

===

 This is the last paragraph in D. REGROUP, and this says how to start the next duel which would begin at step 2 of B. DIGIVOLVE:

===

2. Player who goes first turns over the card on the Digivolve Zone and places it face up on top of the card on the Duel Zone.

===

 Now for those of you who read the last article and are still wondering when exactly a Digimon's Special Effect restarts, for the sake of fair play it would have to restart at the beginning of the 'preliminary phase'. 'Why?', you ask? Because it would be unfair on the second player if it didn't. If the first player has a Digimon with, say, the Special Effect to void one Option card or more and that Special Effect hasn't been used up during the Battle/Attack Phase, the Special Effect would still be very active by the 'preliminary phase' if it doesn't restart before then. What's the significance behind that? Simply, with that type of Special Effect that hasn't restarted yet, the first player may very well be able to void the opponent's Digivolve card, then start the Digivolve Phase (restarting the Special Effect), and be able to use the Special Effect during the Digivolve and Battle/Attack Phases too. Needless to say, that would be unfair on someone. 'But hold on, since the preliminary phase is part of Regroup, and it doesn't end until the next duel is started, wouldn't the Special Effect be restarted during the current duel allowing the Digimon to use the Special Effect twice in the same duel?? You said that couldn't be done!!' you say? Well yes, I did. However, if the Special Effect only gets restarted at the start of the Digivolve Phase it would be unfair on the second player. Besides that, the 'preliminary phase' for the first duel of the game is in the Digivolve Phase, not Regroup. Since it's called a 'phase', the point could be argued that it may be part of Regroup but not necessarily part of the duel that just ended -like a bridge between duels where it's not part of the last duel but also not realy part of the one about to begin.

 'Now where does it say anything about this preliminary phase thing?!?' you ask? It talked about it in Bo-293 Apokarimon's Special Effect: "Special effect: Place Mephistomon card on your Duel Zone at next preliminary phase when you lose the Duel." 'But hold on, you said that card should be banned, and how can that Special Effect work when Apokarimon would be Offline and You said that a Digimon's Special Effect stops when the Digimon is Offline!?!' you say? Yes, Apokarimon should be banned because the Digivolve Requirements are flawed, and no, the Special Effect wouldn't take effect even if you could get Apokarimon in the Duel Zone because it would be Offline by the time the Special Effect would have to take place. Why mention it then? Because Apokarimon's Special Effect is one of the few places it talks about the 'preliminary phase', and that phase is vital to understanding how and when things on certain cards works.

 That concludes my article series on explaining Digi-Battle. I hope this has been a help to someone, although it's obviously to late since the new game will be here soon... In any case, for those of you who still enjoy Digi-Battle, this article series is meant to explain things and stop fights over what each player thinks is supposed to happen in the game. Have fun! :-)

 -CyberDramon