The Security Stack, and How a Digimon Game Actually Ends

By CardSpicy Founder · October 6, 2026

Quick answer

CardSpicy explains the Digimon Card Game from the publisher’s rules, and a game is decided by a defensive wall of five cards taken from the top of your own deck rather than by a life total.

The Digimon Card Game is played with a defensive wall in front of each player. It is not a hand and it is not a life total: it is five cards taken from the top of your own deck, and games end when it runs out.

Five cards, face down

After shuffling, each player places the top five cards of their deck face down in their security stack, without looking at them. The stack sits between the player and the opponent, and it is checked when the player is attacked rather than when they choose to look.

How a game ends

A player loses if they are attacked with zero cards remaining in their security stack. That is the primary end of a game: shrink the stack to nothing, then land one more attack. A player also loses if they cannot draw when the rules require it, which makes an empty deck a loss condition in its own right rather than a nuisance.

What happens when security is attacked

The top card is revealed. If it is a Digimon, a battle is conducted against it. If it is an Option or Tamer card, it normally goes to the trash unless the card carries a security effect — a printed ability that activates when the card is revealed. That is why the composition of a deck matters to a stack the player never chose card by card.

You build the stack out of your own deck

Because the five cards come from the top of your own shuffled deck, what stands behind you is a deckbuilding decision even though it is not a card-by-card one. One of the seven colours, yellow, is built around manipulating it — the index groups the colours by what they are for.

The draw and the first turn

Draws come from the same deck the security stack came from, so the two run down together. The player who goes first skips the draw phase of their first turn, which is worth remembering when you are counting how long a deck can last.

What this page does not claim

No prices, and no card counts. The rules here are quoted from the publisher’s own rules and glossary, and the digivolution article covers the other half of how a board is built.

Frequently asked questions

How many cards are in a security stack?

Five. After shuffling, each player places the top five cards of their deck face down in the security stack without looking at them.

How do you lose a game of the Digimon Card Game?

Two ways. You lose if you are attacked while your security stack holds no cards, and you lose if you cannot draw when the rules require it.

What happens when the top security card is revealed?

If it is a Digimon, a battle is conducted against it. If it is an Option or Tamer card, it normally goes to the trash unless it carries a security effect, which activates when the card is revealed.

Do you choose which cards go into security?

No. Security is the top five cards of your shuffled deck, placed face down without looking at them. What you can influence is what is in the deck in the first place.

Does the first player draw on their first turn?

No. The player who goes first skips the draw phase of their first turn.

Sources

Rules wording is quoted from Bandai’s own rules and glossary at the date cited and is subject to change. This page is rules and identification, not valuation: we publish no price for Digimon cards, because we have not yet run a checked pull of graded sales for the game.

Related reading

• The Digimon card index — colours and card types
• Digivolution and sources, explained
• The memory gauge: how a turn ends

Where to go next

• The CardSpicy card index — every card we track, with its PSA 10 population and market history (195 cards).
• The illustrator index — every artist behind those cards, card by card (110 artists).