decks

The Best Digimon Cards and Decks for TCG Tournaments

This article is part of our Collector’s Digest editorial series powered by: The new Digimon TCG finally made its English debut earlier this year, and it’s already making a name for itself. More players flock to the game with the release of each new set, and a real tournament scene is starting to heat up.  If you want to enter a tournament and make real waves, you can’t just play with any old deck. Here’s a look at some decks making waves in the Digimon TCG scene and how to put them together: Rookie Rush Average overall price: $100-200 If…
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Link Tank: Jack Quaid on Lower Decks, Superman, and The Boys Season 3

Jack Quaid has been slowly invading fandoms. His latest feat? Voicing Superman in HBO Max’s upcoming animated series My Adventures With Superman. “Whichever fandom you belong to, there’s a good chance Jack Quaid is involved. After two seasons playing vigilante Hughie Campbell on Amazon’s smash-hit series The Boys, Quaid joined the Star Trek franchise, lending his nervous vocal stylings to the role of Brad Boimler in Paramount+’s animated Lower Decks.“ Read more at Inverse. This June marks the 51st anniversary of the first ever pride march in the U.S. Learn some historical facts about Pride Month, and how it came…
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10 Best Hearthstone Forged in The Barrens Decks For the New Expansion Meta

Hearthstone‘s newest expansion (the Horde-themed Forged in the Barrens) is finally here, which means that it’s time to find your favorite new deck that will dominate the meta and make opponents question their own deckbuilding decisions. The good news is that the quality of the Forged in the Barrens set and recent changes to Hearthstone‘s card format mean that it’s actually possible to play competitively with a variety of interesting builds. In fact, you may even be able to climb to the top of Hearthstone‘s competitive ladder with some of the weirdest and wildest decks I’ve seen in years. If…
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Best Starter Decks for The Digimon Card Game

Presented by: The end of 2020 marked the English-language release of Digimon Card Game, the new trading card game based on the eponymous digital monsters. Like the previous iterations, and the anime they all draw from, Digimon Card Game is about digivolving your favorite creatures in order to eventually overwhelm your opponent. Whether it’s summoning from your hand, or growing them from digi-eggs as hatchlings, Digimon involves always being on the offensive to achieve victory. A standard game plays out between two players, each having five life points, represented by “security cards,” and the winner is the player who removes…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Continues What Is Becoming a Trek Season Finale Tradition

This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Picard. As the enemy starships are closing in, and all hope is lost, our heroes in a battered starship look up, and see that: yes, another ship has just warped in. They’re about to be rescued! Everything is going to be OK!  In Star Trek, we’ve gotten used to this kind of last-minute starship rescue scene, with the most famous example probably being the Enterprise-E coming to the rescue of Worf and the Defiant in Star Trek: First Contact. But, in the Lower Decks Season 1 finale,…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1 Finale Easter Eggs & References

This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 1 finale. In terms of references, if “No Small Parts” was the only episode of Star Trek you’d ever seen, you would have been given a crash course on the entire franchise. Seriously, if you wanted to explain to someone, very quickly, what Star Trek was about, it would probably be easier to just have them watch the 26-minutes of the Star Trek: Lower Decks finale, “No Small Parts.” The Easter eggs and references start with The Original Series and end up with a big shout-out to the…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 10 Review: No Small Parts

This Star Trek: Lower Decks review contains spoilers. Since it debuted, Star Trek: Lower Decks has made no bones about being a quirky sequel to The Next Generation. Yes, there are Easter eggs from Deep Space Nine to Enterprise, but the tone and spirit of the show is firmly TNG. And, in the finale episode of its first season, Lower Decks brings back a tradition that TNG arguably perfected: The season finale that makes you love the show ten times more than you already did. The season finale of Lower Decks — “No Small Parts” — is not the best…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 9 Review: Crisis Point

This Star Trek: Lower Decks review contains spoilers. Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 9 If you had to pick one Star Trek thing to represent the entire franchise and put that piece of media on a Golden Record, would you select an excellent Trek movie or a fantastic Trek episode? This division is at the heart of “Crisis Point,” a brazen episode of Lower Decks that brings a fresh perspective to the basic differences between Trek movies and Trek episodes.  And though this episode is startlingly on-the-nose, it paradoxically makes an argument that maybe, the very best of Trek can…
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How Will Hearthstone’s Nerfs Impact the Game’s Best Decks?

Hearthstone‘s ever-evolving competitive meta was once again shaken up by the reveal of the game’s upcoming 18.4 patch. While only two competitive cards (Tortollan Pilgrim and Guardian Animals) are set to be nerfed as part of Hearthstone‘s next update, the nerfs themselves are notable enough to ensure that the next season of the CCG’s competitive scene is going to look slightly different. We don’t suspect many previously downtrodden decks will suddenly rise to the top, but certain subtle shifts in the competitive scene could impact the viability of previously popular builds. So if you’re just looking to climb the competitive…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 8 Easter Eggs & References

This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers. If anyone was on the fence as to whether or not the Lower Deckers in Star Trek: Lower Decks were also giant in-universe Star Trek fans, the latest episode, “Veritas,” will reveal the truth. Mariner, Rutherford, Tendi and Boimler know their Trek history better than most real life Trekkies. And to prove it, this episode has more Easter eggs and deep-cuts than (mabye) all the other episodes combined. From discussions about the hair styles of obsecure TNG characters, to some very big homages to a big seen in Star Trek VI, this…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 8 Review: Veritas

This Star Trek: Lower Decks review contains spoilers. One of the reasons Star Trek is is so resilient is that it has the ability to dip into a variety of genres. From whodunnit mystery to gothic romance to several straight-up westerns, Trek is much more than a simple space opera. But, the one genre we sometimes forget that Star Trek freaking loves is the courtroom drama. In the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the crew of the USS Cerritos reminds us that for whatever reason, sometimes the best way to explore the Final Frontier is inside of something…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Post-Voyager Q Explained

This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains minor spoilers for “Veritas.” The voice-cameo of Jon de Lancie as Q in Episode 8 of Lower Decks is easily the series’ biggest callback to Star Trek: The Next Generation yet. In fact, the way Q appears in this episode is very reminiscent of how we think of him in TNG, down to his iconic judge’s robes, and his taunts about “testing humanity.” But, on some level, it feels like Q has actually regressed a bit. He’s still hilarious, but wasn’t he slightly more responsible the last time we saw him in canon?…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks – Is That an Edosian?!?

This article contains Star Trek: Lower Decks spoilers. Because it happens in 2380, Star Trek: Lower Decks is, in theory, a direct sequel to ‘90s era of the franchise. But, spiritually, it sometimes feels like more of a sequel to the first animated Trek series, the 1973 show Star Trek: The Animated Series. So far, Lower Decks has brought back one very obscure shape-shifting alien from that show (the Vendosian in Episode 2) and made references to at least one other, specifically the plant-based aliens the Phylosians in Episode 5. But the throwback alien reference in Star Trek: Lower Decks…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 7 Review: Much Ado About Boimler

This Star Trek: Lower Decks review contains spoilers. Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 7 Unlike the most recent Star Trek shows, one of the appealing things about Star Trek: Lower Decks is that nearly all of its episodes are self-contained. There hasn’t been a season-long mystery to solve, and for the most part, you can watch the episodes totally out of order. That said, there is one nagging mystery that was quietly mentioned in the very first episode, that finally, appears to have been solved. Basically, is Ensign Mariner good at her job on accident or occasionally bad at her…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 6 — Riker & USS Titan Easter Egg Explained

This STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS review contains spoilers. Because Star Trek: Lower Decks happens right after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, we know a few things about the TNG crew of the USS Enterprise at this time. For one thing, Picard is still in command of the USS Enterprise-E—at least he will be for the next few years. But, in the latest episode of Lower Decks—“Terminal Provocations”—we also got one roundabout reference to Will Riker, Deanna Troi, and the starship USS Titan. Here’s what the Titan Easter egg at the end of “Terminal Provocations” means, and why it might create yet…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks to Feature John De Lancie as Q

During the panel for Star Trek: Lower Decks on Tuesday (September 8) as part of CBS All Access’ Star Trek Day festivities, showrunner Mike McMahan revealed that two legacy Star Trek actors will both make appearances during the second half of the animated series’ premiere season. First, McMahan spilled that John de Lancie will make a brief cameo as Q, the all-powerful, extra-dimensional entity who made his very first appearance on the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Encounter at Farpoint,” back in 1987. De Lancie’s Q became a recurring foil for Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), appearing…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 5 – All the Easter Eggs and References

This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks episode 5. This episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks pays tribute to the oldest Trek monster of them all, slips in a few overt references to Enterprise, and even gives us a Geordi La Forge teddy bear. Although Star Trek Day isn’t until next week, on September 8, Star Trek: Lower Decks is paying tribute to the first aired Trek episode of all time by stuffing its latest episode with more references to the franchise than its ever done before. Yes, somehow, “Cupid’s Errant Arrow,” seems to have more shout-outs and…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks DS9 Flashback Raises Canon Questions

Spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Lower Decks episode 5, “Cupid’s Errant Arrow.”  In Star Trek: Lower Decks episode 5, “Cupid’s Errant Arrow,” we get our first flashback of this series. This flashback takes us back to very familiar territory, specifically some uniform styles we’ve seen before, and a very familiar space station. But, beyond the novelty factor, what did this scene tell us about Star Trek canon relative to Lower Decks? Here’s what this brief flashback reveals, and what it might mean for a new way to think about Trek canon as a whole. When the Star Trek: Lower Decks…
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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 5 Review – Cupid’s Errant Arrow

This Star Trek: Lower Decks review contains spoilers. Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 5 Sherlock Holmes once said (while kind of quoting the King James Bible) “there’s nothing new under the sun.” For serious science fiction writers and fans, this tends to be true, too. After all, the website TV Tropes is dominated by sci-fi plot devices for a reason. What has always made Star Trek unique is that it’s dodged the worst kinds of sci-fi plot devices, or, at the very least, made cheesy sci-fi plot devices seem new and interesting? Or…maybe…Star Trek succeeded because it leaned-into some of…
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Is Star Trek: Lower Decks Canon? Here’s How to Settle the Debate

Spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Lower Decks episodes 1-4. When it comes to heated fandom discussions about what counts and what doesn’t count, relative to “canon,” the only thing more hotly debated than Star Wars canon, is easily, Star Trek canon. Back in the ‘70s, if you dipped into the letters sections of certain fanzines, you’d find people who argued that the third season of The Original Series wasn’t canon because some of the episodes didn’t make sense or were just outright bad. (We’re looking at you, “Spock’s Brain.”) The point is, debating specific aspects of Star Trek as non-canon…
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