"I tried positive thinking once."

I was still very early into the Digimon TCG when this deck was released, but as soon as it was, I got it, and slowly started to get EX7 support from local players who, despite not knowing me super well yet, were INCREDIBLY gracious, kind, and helpful, in helping me start to get cards I needed. I'll forever be grateful for the help I got which allowed me to get this deck started.

The deck's goal is pretty simple: you build up to your level 6 Cendrillmon, who plays Familiar tokens which she can blow up at the end of your turn to swing with Overclock, which can get you extra swings in a turn, or can protect herself from leaving the field by blowing up those Familiar tokens, and when those Familiar tokens are deleted, they give your opponent -3000 DP, so with enough tokens blowing up, you can start chipping away at an opponent's field!

It wasn't super strong at first, having its core gameplay intact but with not nearly enough driving power, mostly just having EX7 Cendrillmon who could swing both on your turn and with Overclock, giving -6000 DP each time, which with two swings would be enough to get rid of just about every level 6 Digimon who wasn't immune.

In January of 2025 came a tournament promo pack that had a promo Shoeshoemon who could play herself if she was checked in Security, and on play/when digivolving she would play a Familiar Token, allowing you to get more board presence. This card really helped start to give the deck more power and speed, and for a long, long time was the best card in the deck, at least until EX9...

EX9 focused on Arisa's sister, Mirai Kinosaki, and her partner Hanimon, who also ended up being a Puppet Digimon. The line of Hanimon -> Kokeshimon -> Karakurumon -> Kaguyamon were MASSIVE for the deck, with Karakurumon from EX9 being one of the three best cards for the deck (the other two, in my opinion, are that promo Shoeshoemon I mentioned earlier and the EX9 Mirai tamer card). Kaguya helped blow your opponent's board up, protect your own security and board, and got to play cards from trash. The inherits from Hani and Kokeshi could let you stop attacks if you blew up one of your Familiars or puppets, and Karakuru would Digivolve into a level 6 (either Cendrillmon or Kaguyamon) for free by deleting one of your Familiars or puppets, giving it tons of speed as you laddered up and established a strong defensive board presence from the word go. Mirai can play puppets for reduced cost when a puppet Digimon digivolves.

BT22 brought Arisa's level 7, Nyabootmon, who does lingering DP minus (arguably one of the two strongest effects in the game when it comes to removal) and can play more puppets, and culminated in EX11, with the new Cendrillmon playing as many tokens as your opponent has Digimon, letting you absolutely SWARM your opponent, and in conjunction with EX9 Kaguyamon, gives you a terrifying board that can block any attack.

The card that's between the deck box window card (the structure deck Cendrillmon I got from a friend, a special alt art from a Premium Bandai set, and the alt art of EX9 Mirai Kinosaki) is one of the SPs from EX11, which features art from the Digimon Liberator web comic, as well as a beautiful art of Arisa riding on Cendrillmon's shoulder. Cendrillmon is one of my favorite Digimon, and probably my favorite Mega, and I had to get it. One of our local players pulled it from their box, and with the help of another friend, I was able to buy it, and it is probably my prized card alongside the 2 Star Hudies I have.

I also use the Arisa/Violet sleeves for my deck (Arisa and Violet Liberator are lesbians you can't change my mind) and the Shoemon sleeves for my eggs/tokens.

I played in an online regionals for the Digimon TCG in April, taking OTK Puppets to the event (a variation on the deck that relies on memory manipulation with the BT15 egg Nyaromon in order to steal turn from your opponent after putting them to one memory, in order to swing and overclock multiple times and try to kill them in one turn) and ended up placing 64th out of 384 people.

It was a really tough event that lasted the entire day and drained me to the point that I slept most of the next day. I started off very poorly, misplaying in the first round that would've gotten me the win, and getting absolutely dumpstered in the second round because I never found a level 5 (my list at the time was only playing 6, which felt really bad lol). Then I went on a 5 round tear, going 5-2, including against Medusa twice, notoriously one of Puppets' worst matchups, before losing against a third Medusa and winning in the last round against a Vortexdramon player by getting INCREDIBLY lucky and drawing my one of Nyabootmon in both games to out their Vortexdramon.

I had spent months from EX11 releasing in February to the regional in April refining, preparing, and grinding with the deck, becoming a bit of a sweatlord at locals in order to push myself because I wanted nothing more than to see how well I could do.

Others from my local scene went to an in-person regional the next day, and out of everyone from our scene, I did the best with a 6-3 record across the two events. It was SO satisfying to know my hard work with my favorite deck paid off. I truly love this deck, and it is everything I love playing in this game, the true definitive deck for it: playing out a lot of Digimon for free via effects, making a big, big board, and destroying my opponent as a result.

Even if I may grumble about the formats we're in with the Digimon TCG, how much the power floor and power ceiling are climbing with each new set, I love this deck and it will always be my de facto deck. I'm called the Mistress of Puppets at my locals, and people know to be ready to give it their all when I pull the deck out, even though it hasn't gotten support since February. Our local game store had a store championship, and I got 5th with the deck out of 18 people, including a win in a very close puppet mirror round 1 that literally relied on me pulling a 2 cost training card so I could choke my opponent enough + make sure I could keep turn with my Cendrillmon the next turn.

So, I NEVER expected or planned to make this deck! At our store's release event I pulled the 2 Star Hudiemon (featured on the right in the above picture) and freaked the fuck out, then made it my mission to alt out the deck as much as I could and play it! This lead to me getting a second 2 Star Hudiemon in the process, as well as alting out every card but the BT22 Mirei Mikaguras which cost like $70 a card so I will never alt those (plus there's SPs which I don't have the money for lmao).

The deck follows the usual kind of way I love to play: go wide, blow my opponent to hell, but with an added feature of "use a bunch of option cards to limit my opponent by stunning their Digimon and Tamers, de-digivolving them, and just blowing them up". It's SUCH a fun deck and slamming down a Tamer feels so satisfying on turn one, knowing you're just setting up early to get ready to steamroll through them! Hudiemon plays out more Digimon, and you use Alliance through Hudiemon and Erika in order to tear through your opponent's security and then DNA Digivolve to get that last hit you need to win.

Hudie was such a controversial deck for some reason because people though Hudiemon was TOO strong which was always something funny when you consider that Apocalymon from BT15 briefly lived at 4 copies in Japan and had to be pre-limited before the set came out in the west. Hudiemon is a really neat deck that excels when slinging options as much as you can for defense and building up for a quick kill (although I think the Shakkoumon limit was somewhat justified I also don't think Hudiemon deserved THAT level of hate given how powerful other decks have been and how few tops Hudie has had even at its most powerful).

The deck also had some official sleeves featuring the Hudie tamers, so I HAD to grab those, and god they look so nice.

As for the Nokia in the deck box, that was a card I won at our store's Evolution Cup with Hudie! It's a special foil version of the BT5 Nokia that has this heart pattern in the foil that's so cute. I managed to barely clinch it out in a terrifyingly close game against Machinedramon by making greatly judicious use of my option cards in order to make sure Machinedramon couldn't take me down. It felt SO good to win a cool prize card like this for the first time! I keep this as the card in the deck box window because how can I not?

@digiweek 2022: day 7 <3

I arranged a square format for Twitter & IG because they don't let me post really fun long pictures, so here's that also!