All players have a favorite deck to play, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't own other cards to round out their collection. From cards that every deck runs to ones that it is debatable whether they should be legal to play, staple cards will help any player in the direst situations mid-match.
Digimon TCG is still a fairly young game and although a lot of the most prominent staple cards are from older sets, it is still relatively easy to obtain a lot of these power cards. Unlike other card games such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering, Digimon TCG is a very cheap game to get started with.
10 Ice Wall!
There is a reason why this card is limited to one in the Digimon TCG. Ice Wall is, hands down, the most oppressive card in the game. It slows down your opponent by giving their Digimon an effect that reads "When Attacking: Lose two memory" until the end of their turn.
This effect paired with its low cost of one memory, which blue decks can usually gain back with ease, gives players the option to choke their opponent out of memory by forcing them to either attack and pass turn due to the memory gain or to set up for their next turn. A cold yet effective maneuver for those in a pinch.
9 Hammer Spark
Just because the effect is simple it does not mean it's not good. Gaining one memory is the most basic an effect can be in Digimon TCG and Hammer Spark lets the player do it for free. It's almost never a dead card in hand since it can be used to essentially play a card for a cheaper cost and extend plays, or it can be used to choke your opponent out of memory if they do not have a memory fixer tamer set up.
It also doubles as a security bomb since when checked in security, its effect becomes a gain two memory effect, slowing down the opponent, or even at times passing the turn completely.
8 Cocytus Breath
Blue is probably Bandai's favorite color because of the way they keep giving blue all the power cards, such as the many Armor Form cards available in the game. Cocytus Breath is the most powerful removal card, period. It doesn't delete a Digimon like Gaia Force; instead, it returns the Digimon to the player's hand. Doing so dodges any "on deletion" effects while still trashing all the digivolution cards in its sources.
It does cost seven memory to play like all the other hard removal options in the game, but Cocytus Breath's versatility to be used in decks that can splash in a blue engine makes its high cost an incredible payoff.
7 BT1 T.K. Takaishi
Memory fixer tamers are some of the most important cards to include in any deck, but when playing yellow, the most important thing in the deck is playing cards that allow the player to stall the opponent's recovery. There are plenty of cards that can give the deck the recovery it needs, but T.K. not only sets the player at three memory every turn, it also lets the player look at their security stack and grab a card out of it. And if it is yellow, the player gets to recover.
Knowledge of what is in the security stack is too valuable and can alter your strategy if you know your opponent will be attacking in the following turns.
6 Memory Boosts
Memory Boost cards are single-handedly the most versatile cards in the game. Cards that search for other ones within the deck are very important to the game, but the generic cards that just search for any color Digimon are sometimes handier than searching for a card with a specific trait or prefix in its name.
There are other kinds of boosts as well that do different things within all the many archetypes, such as trashing from the deck or even stripping sources from Digimon in play. The card also has a secondary effect known as a Delay, which allows the player to send the card to the trash the turn after it is played and gain two memory by doing so. That two extra memory can come in handy when climbing up the powerful digivolutions in a single turn.
5 Calling From The Darkness
Purple decks are the most at home when they are constantly trashing cards from their hand or deck, but what happens when the player is forced to trash a piece for their many powerful loops and combos? That's when Calling From The Darkness comes in. The card allows the player to delete one of their Digimon, then return up to two Digimon cards from the trash.
The effect is very powerful to delete your Digimon with any "On Deletion" effects, but what makes it even stronger is actually how Digimon TCG works. Since the card doesn't read "if you do" after the "delete one of your Digimon," it makes the deletion effect technically optional. That means that you can activate this card without having any Digimon in play. Free two cards in hand!
4 BT1 Tai Kamiya
Like in most card games that have color archetypes, red is the deck to go if you want to play aggressively. Tai Kamiya is a staple for every red deck. It reads, "All of your red Digimon with five or more digivolution cards get Security Attack +1."
Most of the decks in red allow you to build up those extra security attacks quickly, but Tai Kamiya gives the player that last check to really compete with all the other one-turn kill decks running amok in the format.
3 Memory Blocker Rookies
Memory is the most important resource in the game. There are plenty of card effects that give the players memory. Either by attacking, having a Digimon of a specific color, or even Digivolving. These effects come from all types of cards. That's why cards like ModokiBetamon, BT3 Gazimon, and BT3 Terriermon are integral to slowing down your opponent's momentum.
These cards block any memory gain besides gain from tamer effects as long as they are in the battle area. Especially with an OTK meta in BT9, where decks like Alphamon make one big stack that can gain tons of memory from a single Digimon.
2 DeathXmon
There are very few cards in the Digimon TCG that feel incredibly oppressive when they hit the board. Cards like Susanoomon and Ordinemon are difficult to play around but playing them requires a bit of setup, a good chunk of memory to boot, and they are self-contained within their archetype. DeathXmon is a different story.
This card is a generic black and purple card that can be splashed into almost every deck as a tech card for certain matchups. Not only does it punish players for going wide on their boards and playing itself for a very low cost of memory, but it continues the pressure by deleting the opponent's lowest-cost Digimon at the end of their turn.
1 Kongou
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Stall cards in Digimon are very strong since there aren't as many OTK decks as in other card games, such as Yu-Gi-Oh. Plus, the way that security works means that you have to constantly be aware that when attacking you could hit something deadly such as a Chaos Degradation. Kongou is one of those very powerful options that can give you one more turn to set up your plays.
Not only does it freeze any of the opponent's Digimon whose play costs are seven or less, but it also prevents the opponent from adding cards to security stacks. That means that the opponent can't recover, and it negates Chaos Degradation if activated, even in security.