This version of the card game has been out about as long as the anime was. I began collecting them pretty early on beginning with the first starter set. Although I didn't really have anyone to play the card game with, they were still cool card that I enjoyed collecting. The first starter deck and the first two booster sets had excellent images of some of the original digimon artwork. Below is an outline of the cards:
Starting with Booster 3, however, Bandai completely changed the card layout, trying to go for a more 'high-tech' look. But they didn't stop there. They then ditched the original artwork completely and remade the images to a CG format. Some of them came out alright, but others were just ugly. What's even worse still is the fact that they changed the backs of the cards too; now if you're playing someone, you can easilly tell whether they're using recent cards just by looking at the backs.
The basic idea of the card game is pretty simple; since your attack power depends on your opponent's battle type, it works a lot like Rock, Paper, Scissors; red is strong against yellow, yellow is strong against green, and green is strong against red. There are exceptions, though. Option cards come into play which can shift the results one way or another. Digivolving also increases your chances of winning, but being at a higher level doesn't guarantee a victory. When you defeat your opponent, you earn points, based on the chart at the bottom of the card. Usually, you get more points for beating opponents at a higher level than you. According to the written rules, the winner of the game is the first to reach 1000 points. Below is a list of the cards in the US card game. Also, certain cards are either holofoils or gold-lettered. Those cards are especially rare. In Boosters 1 & 2, only certain cards were like that (if you were lucky, you may also get a holofoil version of a card from Starter 1). After that, though, the booster sets had a holofoil version of every card; they were just more rare than the others. Plus, the attack value of their signature attack was improved by 10.
