Plug-In Backup—Keep your DP even when you evolve.
What’s good about it: Since you often have to make tough choices about what to rack, this eliminates that responsibility by taking all those cards back. Since it has “recycle any 3”, you’ll get to choose which cards are returned—including partner, Ace, DATA, Firewalls, situationally good cards, and anything the opponent trashed or sniped that you wish to keep. What’s bad about it: Early game, you don’t have much to recycle. Requires evolving by DP and provides no discount. In fact, discounts of any kind make this hypothetically less useful since racking means needing the Backup less. On the same note, it doesn’t shine by default in decks that can evolve with 1 rack. This effect can be a low return value unless planned for properly. While rare, it can’t take anything from DP unless it’s a Digimon card. Tips: Make sure you’re not trying to use lots of external DP-gain effects such as [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/002-Monodramon.png” name=”Monodramon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/043-Raremon.png” name=”Raremon”], or evo bonuses for this. If you do, you’ll lose out on a lot of its potency. This is similar to a [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/182-Vending-Machine.png” name=”Vending Machine”] that you use during evolution. If you’ve already used [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/099-SuperTag.png” name=”Super Tag”] or some other method of “ignore DP”, Plug-In Backup interferes heavily with this by taking everything back into hand. This card is best used a little after the early game, when you have some trash to recycle or in decks that need to rack more; OR after deliberately using a mulligan a few times to search your Ace, use it, evolve with this, then recycle the Ace. A property common to all “recycle any” cards is the ability to trash your deck on purpose of the bulk cards, then put the strongest cards back in for easy access later. Since it’s a Plug-In, it benefits from [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/019-PluginQ.png” name=”Reload Plug-In Q”] (Quick), which gives it another draw 1 if Q is in the Destiny Zone—even more cards!Backup asks two opposing things of you: Ensure you can be independent with your evolution (no DP reduction necessary), and rack more than 1 cards to make best use of it. Normally, if not using your Evolution card to make the evolve itself easier, you should at least have high +P or low DP cost, to ensure fast and smooth evolution. Therefore, what Backup actually asks is that you make best use of it in decks that have trouble evolving, which will pay everything back to you. In some ways, this is more powerful than Super Tag since you can re-use all the DP for different purposes. In other ways, it’s worse—if you need to re-rack them, it’s going to take time.
If you evolve fast and regularly, [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/036-BurstGrowth.png” name=”Burst Growth”] is probably better than Backup. If you’re slow or have high trash costs and low hand (or need to maintain hand), Backup is great. The [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/136-WhamonU.png” name=”Whamon”] Level U support and [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/145-Wargreymon.png” name=”Wargreymon”] or [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/090-Rusttyrannomon.png” name=”Rusttyrannomon”] Activate both benefit from larger hands. In those Level M cases, it’s difficult to keep the hand size large due evolution requiring resources from hand. Backup can ensure a much more potent and more reliable activation. A minor point, but using DP to evolve to [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/001-Herculeskabuterimon.png” name=”Herculeskabuterimon”] means everything in DP is taken, you might draw 2, and that massive hand of cards is protected from discard, plus your deck is now 3 cards larger which helps enable the deck protection passive.
If you get the evo-bonus of [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/148-Rosemon.png” name=”Rosemon”] or [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/008-Megidramon.png” name=”Megidramon”] (when evolving by DP of course), an added Backup is a total of Recycle any 8! That’s a very powerful way to create the most potent deck for upcoming plays. This also heavily fuels discard costs such as an attached TOY [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/034-Missile-Pod.png” name=”Missile Pod”] and [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/065-MetalParts.png” name=”Metal Parts”], where every discard counts.
[card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/016-Puppet-Switch.png” name=”Puppet Switch”] is a notoriously strong card but it can’t be used with Backup! Pay attention to where Plug-In Backup is restricted to only taking “Digimon DP”. [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/030-Kyuubimon.png” name=”Kyubimon”] particularly loves and hates this plugin. Love because you can switch what supports Kyubimon activates at no extra DP cost to you. Hate because you may not want to switch, but using this in the same deck will eventually force one or else face the consequences of a dead Evolution card in hand.As we see, Plug-In Backup is best in decks that “slow rack” and can obtain all their DP from Digimon cards in that zone. It’s very specific but there are several cards that shine extra bright this way. Any Digimon with “Put this into DP.” somewhere in its effects, such as [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/041-Ogremon.png” name=”Ogremon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/031-Armadillomon.png” name=”Armadillomon”] (or [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/039-Armadillomon.png” name=”Armadillomon”]), [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/014-Mushroomon.png” name=”Mushroomon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/043-Patamon.png” name=”Patamon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/036-Falcomon.png” name=”Falcomon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/051-Akatorimon.png” name=”Akatorimon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/134-Angewomon.png” name=”Angewomon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/089-Devimon.png” name=”Devimon”], [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/048-Minotaurmon.png” name=”Minotaurmon”]…this list could go on for a while. In the great case of PR [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/009-Witchmon.png” name=”Witchmon”], she doesn’t just put herself into DP, she can also be used after you take all yours with Backup and swap DP with the opponent to give them 0 DP. Weirder, you could swap and then play backup, giving you the unprecedented ability to hold your opponent’s cards in your hand! Also any evo-bonus with “Put … into DP” (usually the top 1 Digimon of deck), example being [card img=”https://www.v-mundi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/090-Devidramon.png” name=”Devidramon”]. So when using this card with a huge list of Digimon, there’s a lot of value that can be had for re-using those same cards over and over.
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