Digimon COTD: Reload

Reload—Refresh all the things!

What’s good about it: As an ACE, it pulls its weight in utility by providing any two cards from the deck and effectively making trash costs—or opposing trash strategies, null. You get a full deck, a full hand (some of which is picked), and to setup part of the deck going forward. It’s a great preparatory tool for the transition into late game. And if willing to give up on the huge effect of a late game deck refresh, it can still be used to refresh the hand and pick any 2 early on, which in some cases can be more effective earlier game.

What’s bad about it: You don’t get to keep your current hand. It’s not always a bad thing but it’s worth noting that it will reduce its efficacy window if you have to give up other critical in-hand cards, then waste some of your 2 picks on those cards again. You can also lose out on the effectiveness of the deck refresh if you haven’t gotten any trash-cost cards or you are forced to play it early. Like Polymorphic Code, you get a hand of 4 that turn; unlike it, Reload is voidable and is your only support for turn.

Tips: Once you decide Reload is best for your deck, always try to maximize every bonus it provides. This goes without saying, but it can be tricky if you plan for a deck of trash costs for heavy effects (Mega Chip, Mega Disk, Phantomon, Dark Wings, Giga Cannon, et al) and end up trashing the Reload without any way to recover it. The good news is Reload can be gained back with “recycle any 1” effects. Some evolution boxes will make this a practical ACE search when combined with reckless trashing, which Reload would then erase as if it never happened, effectively making high-trash costs in your deck into ACE-power cards! In addition, cards like Aquilamon are intensely powerful when combined with Reload, since this gives you effectively 5 copies of the Reload for purposes of sequencing: now you’re more likely to draw the Reload earlier than trash cards.

Alice White

Alice is the webmaster of VMundi, author, and editor. She has over 11 years of publishing experience writing articles for various self-run sites. Her interests include game design, writing romance fiction, economics, Game Theory, graphical design, and mathematics.

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