How to Upgrade Your New Digimon TCG Jesmon ST-12 Starter Deck

With the Digimon TCG’s new Xros (Cross) Encounter BT10 set, the Jesmon ST-12 starter deck is one of the two new ready-to-play decks being released alongside this awesome expansion. Playing with this deck straight out of the box is fun and easy to do, so make sure to get a few games in with it if you’re new to the Digimon TCG or new to this Digimon character. After you understand the basics of how it works, you’ll be ready to upgrade the Digimon Jesmon ST-12 starter deck for more power and enjoyment. If haven’t heard already, there’s also a new Digimon Survive video game that was released with the rising success of the Digimon Franchise.

Upgrading the Digimon TCG Jesmon ST-12 Starter Deck

The basic strategy of this deck focuses on putting out a good amount of Huckmon and Dragonkin Digimon to swarm with, and then evolving one or two of your Digimon into level 6 Megas supported by additional Sistermon Digimon. Starting from this point, we’ll remove and add cards to enhance this strategy, while suggesting other options that will give more strategic variety to help keep your opponents guessing.

Eggs and Rookies for Your Jesmon Starter Deck

For your eggs, the included 4x copies of the Gurimon ST12-01 gives your digivolved Digimon a +1,000 DP boost as long as you have at least 2 Digimon in play. The DP buff is nice, but negligible when compared to the Gurimon from BT8-001 whose inherited effect lets you draw 1 when attacking with a DP of at least 6000. Therefore, remove the 4 Digi-eggs from the starter and replace them with the card drawing Gurimon.

When it comes to your rookies, you’ll be using plenty due to all of their effects. You’ll need to remove:

• 4x Candlemon ST-02 – This Digimon has no abilities and doesn’t offer anything to your deck.
• 1x Sistermon Blanc ST12-12 – To continue building your synergy and combos with Sistermon characters, you’ll keep this card in your deck, but reduce the starter deck’s 3x copies to help make space for other cards.

Later on, you’ll remove more cards, but for now you’ll need to add:

• 1x Huckmon ST12-02 – One is already included the starter deck, and 1 more is a great help. You’ll want to keep one of these guys out on the field without digivolving since their effect lets you gain 1 memory once per turn when you play a Sistermon card.
• 4x Huckmon BT6-009 – This Huckmon is absolutely necessary since his search effect is always extremely valuable to help you find tune your hand and smooth out bad draws.
• 4x Huckmon BT7-009 – Another card searching Huckmon from another set, this guy’s redundancy adds more consistency, and this is an inheritable effect when attacking with your Digivolved character.
• 2-3x Solarmon ST12-03 – Depending on how many players are using blockers in your meta, you can change the number of these you play to prevent your opponents from reducing their play costs.

Champions and Ultimates for Your Jesmon Starter Deck

Up next are the Champions and Ultimates that start to help your deck pack a punch as your characters level up and grow in power and effects.

You can remove:

• 4x Meramon – This vanilla character is simply filler in your starter deck and doesn’t add any effects or good stats to your lineup.
• 4x Skullmeramon – Just like Meramon, he’s filler and doesn’t add anything to your deck’s strategy.
• 2x Sistermon Ciel ST12-13 – She’s necessary because your other cards will need her type in play to activate effects, but we’ll add other options. Keeping two is good enough for her on play effects.

To continue building up your team, you’ll steady your count of Champions and Ultimates with:

• 4x Baohuckman ST12-06 – We’ll keep all included copies of this guy because he’ll be the one with inherited effect that helps boost DP by +1,000.
• 4x Baohuckman BT6-011 – Adding him to our deck gives a powerful attack effect that deletes an opposing Digimon with 5,000 DP or less as long as you have a Sistermon in play. This is perfect to have for a defensive option.
• 1x Savior Huckmon BT6-15 – We can only have one since it’s limited by official Bandai tournament rules. Its inherited ability to unsuspend is amazing.
• 4x Savior Huckmon ST12-08 – attack digimon unsuspended, inherited effect free play is powerful to multiplying your Digimon forces
• 2x Sistermon Ciel BT10-085 – This new Sistermon synergizes great with Jesmon and Dragonkin.
• 2x Sistermon Ciel BT8-084 – Being able to gain memory and boost your Huckmons during all turns is a must-have effect in play.
• 1x Sistermon Siel (Awakenend) BT7-083 – It’s a huge boon being able to delete your opponent’s Digimon and when she’s deleted, you get to recycle one of your cards to use again.

Megas for Your Jesmon Starter Deck

To finish your team’s powerful evolutions, we’ll put together a variety of game-ending level 6 characters that’ll help finalize your goal for victory.

• 1x Gankoomon ST12-11 – is powerful for more late game recursion and removal and compliments the two Jesmon included, but if you want to focus purely on Jesmon, you can cut down gankoomon, or you can do 2x Jesmon and 2x Gankoomon, or do 3x Jesmon and 1x Gankoomon.
• 1x Gankoomon (X Antibody) – If you’re going to be playing the Gankoomon above, this is the perfect support card that you’ll be able to take advantage of. Depending on how consistent you want this evolution line to be, you can make room for up to 3x copies of both this and the above card.
• 2x Jesmon (X Antibody) BT10-016 – This new Jesmon mega is a bomb by with Piercing and he gives all your other Digimon +2,000 DP, so it acts as a game-ending play for this deck’s strategy.
• 1x Jesmon GX BT10-112 – This level 7 secret rare has a really good Digivolve effect that you don’t need every game, but when you do get it, it makes it presence felt with numerous effects such as Blitz, Blocker, and Security attack +1.
• 2x Sistermon Blanc BT6-082 – You’ll want to see at least of her during your games since she draws you a card and gives all your Sisters the Blocking ability to help you protect your security.

Pricey and Competitive Options

If you have the funds and want to start getting hardcore competitive, you can add:

• 1x Kimeramon BT8-084 – This character has a huge built-in DP boost and a board wiping removal effect, plus this Ultimate evolves over your Sistermon, talk about synergy!
• 1x Omnimon (X Antibody) BT10-86 – This popular guy is a Royal Knight which is great for Jesmon, and it’s just an absurdly powerful card for a monumental offensive boost.

Option and Tamer Cards for Your Jesmon Starter Deck

This decks doesn’t have a ton of Option cards, but you’ll need to include a few that have important interactions. For starters, you can remove the following from your starter deck and set them aside:

• 4x Aus Generics ST-14 – This is a decent Option card, but we’ll need to cut it for now to make room for other more impactful cards.
• 2x Quake! Blast! Fire! Father! ST12-16 – This card is terribly expensive to play and you’d need 4 copies if you wanted to try and gamble it being played for free from your Security. That’s too risky, so we’ll cut it for other more consistent card choices.

The cards you’ll want to add are:

• 1x From Master to Disciple ST12-15 – The starter deck includes 2x copies, but let’s add more because it’s great to see consistently.
• 1x Red Memory Boost P-035 – This promo card add more consistent memory boost, which is a necessity.
• 2x Judgement of the Blade BT6-093 – This Option lets you attack any unsuspended Digimon so you can take out troublesome characters, and its free security effect can swing the game back in your favor.
• 2x Crimson Blaze BT8-097 – This card helps clear the battlefield of all your opponent’s cards with 6000 or less DP which can swing things back in your favor or help you catch up.
• 1x A Delicate Plan BT3-097 – Having one of these in hand during the turn that you go in for the win helps ensures victory. You don’t always need to get this, but when you do, you can be more confident in your final attack.
• 3x Hiro Amanokawa BT8-086 – If you feel more comfortable with a tamer, this budget guy helps stabilize your memory.

This is a great starter deck to help you get going into the Digimon TCG world as it gives you plenty of playsets that include four copies of useful cards. With all the choices here, you’ll have more cards than allowed in your deck, so you’ll need to cut down the cards to exactly 50 by reducing the ones that don’t fit your playstyle or the ones you feel like you don’t need to see as often. Enjoy your new Jesmon starter deck and don’t forget to read our Digimon Survive video game review as well.