Gekiha Dan – Episode 24

I got completely jipped out of a fight last episode, yes it was plot relevant but you think I watch Card Game anime just so I can not watch card games?

Come on now.

Especially since we’re so close to seeing Otherworld King for the first time, he’s been completely offscreen for so long.

Naturally though, given we’re so close to the Halfway point, I get the sneaking suspicion the show will attempt to exert the coolness of having a main antagonist who doesn’t appear for half the show.

Seems we’re starting with Pantera deliberating in a lone room.

He’s… Got a fair few incredibly human objects in his room, a Globe, a Television, a Washing Machine.

Oh you can’t fly this under the radar with me, Pantera has a flashback where he says the name of “Meteorwurm” but that isn’t what he says

His actual line was “Is that the Red Soldier’s Deck?”

It seems the makeup of Dan’s deck, and his choice of Key card has Pantera interested in the type of person Dan is.

Also, Pantera’s pose here is quite memorable.

It’s the thinking pose of the famed statue, “The Thinker”

So, the guy is very clearly meant to emulate some kind of Robot here, but you can tell by the edges of his eyes that they’re octagonal-cut rubies.

It could also just be oddly cut red glass but you don’t tend to cut glass like that, you’d expect it to be flat.

It seems Pantera’s opened the gate to go... somewhere.

But given that opening the gate is usually reserved for battles, and Pantera has no opponent, our only assumption is that it’s the same situation as Dan’s gate opening at the end of last episode.

…Therefore, he’s headed to the same place.

The Episode title signifies one of the new cards that’ll be appearing, but more importantly, covers a very interesting statement.

We know from the tint of the Title that the new card is very clearly Red, which suggests that Dan will be fighting, for the first time since Julian, a Red deck.

Now even between similar colours, the deck type can be very different depending on what the battler wishes to focus on, a single colour has many attributes, and when colours are mixed, you’re usually only trying to reap one of these attributes. You can however also focus on these attributes single-mindedly when building a single colour too.

In this case, it’s “Clash vs Destruction” which suggests that the Deck Dan will be facing is a “Destruction” deck, namely, a deck that focuses on the common Red trope of BP-Based destruction effects.

It seems the gate opening has created a spiraling stairway that leeds all the way up and good god I do not want to even think about climbing it.

Yeah, in 3-5 business days.

It seems like Yuuki wasn’t expecting Dan to be missing here, dude has vamooshed.

I guess when you have several rules for opening the gate, some can intersect in nasty ways like now.

Yuuki’s also noticed that Dan’s deck is completely missing.

It’s kind of admirable how somewhat unshakeable Yuuki is, he called for Dan expecting him to be there but he wasn’t visibly shaken when it turned out he wasn’t, he deals with surprise very well.

Don’t be silly Dan.

The Sun isn’t out for another… 52 sets.

Which is weird considering the sky still lights up during the day, you’d think the sun would be accompanying it but nope.

Also this is the place where Yuuki battled Belga. I figured it was the White World before.

But apparently this space lies between Earth and Grand-Lolo, connecting the 2 together.

Damn, guy’s so powerful he gets his own Mini world.

I guess Grand-Lolo’s Sky is lit by it’s Sun, but otherwise the Sun isn’t actually visible except in this strange mid-way space between Earth and Grand-Lolo.

Kind of reminds me of Elysium in Saint Seiya, the Realm of Hades separate from the World of the Dead that also required an incredibly complex gateway to reach.

Pantera’s a rather jovial individual, introducing himself to Dan the second he’s pressed.

Valid question, though not the right one, given that it was Dan that was moved, not Yuuki.

What an incredibly useless answer, where in your logic circuits did you pull that out of if you weren’t a sentient living being?

Wait, is that-?

If you’re wondering how that’s being held together in spite of being thrown, it’s not anime logic, Pantera in the time during Dan opening the gate has somehow snatched Dan’s deck from Yuuki’s pocket, and carefully added 2 plastic straps to keep the deck held together as he tossed it.

How crafty.

Also I absolutely love tossing complete decks when they have those nice straps on them.

Feels so nice.

Dan presses Pantera for why he was given his deck back by him, if Pantera works for Otherworld King.

The answer is that his role as “Lance of the Otherworlders” is more literal than it seems, Pantera was created in order to defeat his creator.

I suppose its some kind of situation where Otherworld King needs to be absolutely certain he can overcome any and all battlers in order for his rule to be maintained, after all, instating a rule of Battle Spirits over Military Might would fall over the second he lost.

Pantera’s his measure to ensure that if the Otherworlders can beat him, they will have through him.

Left with no other way but up, it seems Yuuki has to climb the steps to proceed.

Waddya mean “What does he want”, did you not get the order? Otherworld King wanted to see the Red Soldier.

Yuuki dodging any fucking direct question asked of his intentions like his life actually depends on it.

Honestly, the amount of direct questions that’s been fired in his general direction that he has willingly and directly answered could be counted on one fucking hand.

We about to see them throw down?

Nothing much to talk about here, Yuuki’s confirming Leon’s information that Otherworld King was to have a meeting with Dan.

Leon expresses confusion at this turn of events, and questions Otherworld King’s thoughts, and Yuuki maintains that he was just told by Pantera to take Dan to Otherworld King.

Looks like with this exchange, it’s incredibly rare for Otherworld King to split information between the Three Heads, if one of them is told something directly, the other two tend to receive the message as well.

In this case, Pantera was the one who told Yuuki about this audience, and Leon was unaware of it until recently.

…Which means Pantera was likely lying.

Jesus christ, 38 million battles?!

Assuming every battle takes about 20 minutes to resolve, that means he has 1455 YEARS of PURE BATTLE DATA in his brain.

And in spite of having something along the lines of 1400+ years of experience in battling, he still can’t beat Otherworld King.

I’d make a joke about how Dan can’t count but it’s really hard to follow when someone throws a number that large and that exact at you.

And there’s gotta be an upper limit to how strong you can ultimately get.

Pantera has enough knowledge to solve the format and he still can’t defeat Otherworld King?

Noted, Otherworld King is able to consistently defeat an AI with 1455 years worth of matches.

I presume this will have some kind of explanation as to why this is relevant?

I can only presume that Pantera’s data shows an evident correlation between Battlers who held incredibly hot-blooded souls and the amount of victories against poor odds.

Though its normal to not feed back an AI’s work through itself, I wonder if he doesn’t compare his own battles to see if his own battles match that correlation.

Better than analyzed Data?

Wait how does one extrapolate such a conclusion like that? Maybe there was a disconnect between the actual abilities of a hot-blooded battler and the evident results they were getting?

…Oh, he’s taking Julian at his word.

Wait that makes even less sense.

Ahh, this at least explains Pantera’s interest in Dan, in Dan’s deck, Pantera has noticed the presence of Meteorwurm, the style is also similar, and so Pantera likens Dan to the likes of Julian.

Ahh, I see, so all of Pantera’s data up until Battling Julian made sense, but Julian’s Data didn’t mesh with any of Pantera’s data due to his hot-blooded heart.

Hence, Pantera’s been dead-focused on analyzing a “Burning Heart” to try and make up for what he lacks, because his battle with Julian was such an outlier.

Okay, I see the logic here then.

Pantera has noted anomalies when it comes to Battlers with Burning Hearts, they produce battles that don’t line up with expected data to the battler’s benefit.

As such, Pantera has been hard-focused on the power a Burning Heart provides, he wants to battle Dan as he believes Dan also holds such a heart in order to further understand it, and perhaps, be able to emulate, create, or make up for the differences that heart creates.

He believes once he makes up that difference, he’ll be capable of fighting Otherworld King.

Time for Dan and Pantera to throw down, hopefully they don’t pull another Magical Crown and interrupt it before it gets going.

But before they proceed to opening some gates, Pantera thanks Dan and uses the ol’ “Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu”

“It will be my pleasure” is certainly one suitable translation but it’s a little hard of a phrase to translate, you often use it when entering someone’s household or when you stay with someone, it’s like a “Please look after me” kind of phrase.

I feel like Julian was halfway fucking with this guy.

But it’s also clear Pantera really respects Julian in a weird sort of way.

…Ah, I was wondering what was the deal with the last bearers of the core’s light.

It seems that Pantera was the hurdle they got stopped at, they couldn’t deal with the ever-evolving Battle Spirits AI.

It seems after fighting Julian and defeating the last generation of Lightbearers, Pantera adopted the moniker of “Red Hot Pantera”, in an effort to simulate the Burning Heart he believes he lacks.

Seems Dan’s acknowledging the test here, Pantera was the hurdle the last Lightbearers faced, and Pantera has never defeated Otherworld King, so Pantera is the hurdle Dan must overcome in order to be fit to face him.

Dan declares that it’s Pantera who isn’t fit to be Otherworld King’s opponent.

Well, they both kind of have a bone to pick, so they’re fighting over who gets to take him on.

Dan opens the gate, time for a battle.

Normally when someone enters the Battlefield their Battle Form is automatically fitted to them, Pantera doesn’t seem to have received one.

I’m sure one day we will have clothing that’s this easy to pull off… But until then.

That’s some bullshit.

It seems like Pantera’s automatically fitted with Life holders, and as such, has no need for a Battle Form, similar to Yuuki’s outfit, as it already holds life, he isn’t fitted with a new one.

Pantera’s got the first move!

That… isn’t what I’d expect necessarily from “Red Hot Pantera”, or the Episode Title, or Pantera’s uniform at all.

Pantera’s played The HellFighter Balam of all things.

Been a while since we’ve seen Balam, the last purple battler was bloody Yamigarasu and he was a disaster.

You’d think so wouldn’t you? Though back in these days Mixed colour could come out of nowhere.

Nowadays decks are so finely tuned and knitted that seeing one card could inform you about the entire build.

Huh, it seems Dan appears to believe that a Purple deck has more inevitability than Red does…

…But I feel like Red is the deck with the least inevitability in most cases anyway so this seems like an odd thing to say. Maybe Green might have less?

Interesting spread, a Cost 0 and a Cost 4, that’s used up all of Dan’s Core.

Dan attacks with Sabecaulus, and Pantera takes from the life.

Sabecaulus and Balam share BP, Pantera could block but then he’d be left without Spirits.

Bit of a weird question to ask Turn 1, you only took 1 life.

Hrm… I suppose this makes sense, if the card or mechanic a battler chooses to build around is the core of the deck, then it reflects their soul at the time of building it, all other choices are made with that core in mind, so it wouldn’t be wrong to say that a Battler’s Spirits are their Soul.

Seems Pantera’s getting invested.

Looks like we’re taking a break from the battle to cover what’s going on with Team Lightbearer.

Seems Kajitsu is still not having fun with whatever’s smacking Mother Core.

How does one determine where the hell you are in this pseudo-Hyperspace that The Violet is in?

I suppose it doesn’t really matter, I presume it’s like a road, if you’ve been before or you’ve seen a map you have some idea of where you are relative to the destination.

Into the Green World we are, and as expected, it’s covered in Greenery.

Though, taking a sickly girl to a place covered in Nature is not too nonsensical, some people find it hard to breathe in places filled with buildings, people and cars, and regularly enjoy escaping to incredibly foresty areas so they can breathe easier.

Huh, a dark cloud heading toward them, I wonder what that could be-

Ahh jesus, nothing like a giant torrent of Otherworldly Insects.

So unless Otherworld just doesn’t have diseases, it’s a complete miracle that these lot didn’t get something from these extraterrestrial bugs.

Though it appears these are just Otherworldly bees as they’re stinging people rather than being say, mosquitos.

Kajitsu displays her control over Insects, the “Insect-Loving Princess” indeed.

The remaining Insects promptly leave The Violet.

I love it when the characters in the show have the exact same thought I do 2 seconds later.

Am I that predictable?

As an interesting stroke of luck, it appears that wherever they exited was also pretty darn close to the Green Horizon Ladder.

This one in particular’s covered in moss.

Though, it occurs to me that they only disabled the Core System in the Blue world, and didn’t actually destroy a Horizon Ladder per se.

Unless the Core System and Horizon Ladder were the same thing but I highly doubt it, looked very different.

Nothing like Yuuki feeling the premonition of his Sister.

What precisely triggered that? Who knows!

You’d think Yuuki would learn to keep his incredibly deep thoughts to himself and not share them with literally everyone in the room for no reason.

I can only wonder why in the hell they even bothered climbing so many stairs before doing this in the first place

I guess there’s a set amount of distance you have to be from a Battlefield fight before being able to teleport to it?

But hey they’re here now.

It’s possible that Pantera does intend to reward Dan with meeting with Otherworld King, but needed to use that situation as a pretense for getting Dan where he wanted to be for a Battle.

Leon notes that “Telling Lies” is a very Human trait.

Dan ends his turn with just Erimakilizard.

Dan’s trying to be the beatdown here, hence the attack with Sabecaulus.

Anyway, off to Pantera’s turn!

Well that’s not Purple.

Pantera summons DarkDinohound and ends his turn.

Well it appears Pantera’s actually playing a Red/Purple mixed build.

Red and Purple share a trait of being able to amass many draws and can destroy Spirits via many effects, synergistically, Purple Core removal can be used to put a Spirit in range of a BP destruction effect on account of it’s lower level

Dan enters his turn and summons a Lv2 Erimakilizard and an Ankillersaurus.

Does it? Ankillersaurus and the Lv2 Erimakilizard aren’t capable of pushing through Pantera’s Dinohound OR his Balam.

Infact I’m surprised he didn’t level his Ankillersaurus to Lv2 with that core he gave to Erimakilizard.

This is gonna get blocked, there’s no way it doesn’t.

Ankillersaurus has only 2000 BP, both of Pantera’s Spirits have 3000

…I tell a lie, only Dinohound has 3000 BP, I appear to have forgotten Balam starts with a BP of 2000.

I suppose with many choices of what to block with his Dinohound, you kind of need to decide what Life total you’re happy dropping to.

Anyway, Pantera takes Ankillersaurus’ attack, going to 3 life.

This one’s actually scary as it can’t be blocked without losing a spirit, 3000 BP.

Pantera humbly drops to 2 lives.

For someone who has 1455 years of battle experience, across 38 million card battles, you’d think he wouldn’t be getting mollywhopped this hard.

He’s summoned 2 lackluster defenders with no synergy and eaten every attack so far.

Well, the weaker one would get blocked by Balam and the stronger would be destroyed by DarkDinohound.

Dan would lose 2 spirits for Pantera to lose nothing.

I would have probably blocked that first attack from Ankillersaurus.

Yuuki notes that Dan is “starting to change” again, I mean I suppose?

Ankillersaurus as a first attack was a little strange but it was most likely a read on Dan’s part, or a form of scouting.

Scouting is when you take an action to determine what an opponent’s plan is, if Dan attacked with Ankillersaurus and DarkDinohound blocked it, he’d figure out Pantera was trying to buy time for something, to take lives here means Pantera’s likely trying to gather core.

Dan would then be free to make different attacking decisions afterward.

And with many Spirits on board one can afford to take risks like that.

Pantera summons 2 Lizardedges.

Dan comments on this as to have 2 would mean he had one in his hand when he summoned DarkDinohound, it could have been a free reduction for it.

But Pantera didn’t do so.

Following up, Pantera summons his Key Spirit The DinoCavalry Diridalus.

Naturally, it’s a new card, so let’s talk about it!

a Red Master Rare Spirit from BS03, and visibly, actually rather weak.

It’s a Cost 7 with only 3 reductions, meaning you’re paying 4 for this on any good day, additionally it starts with a stat total of 5000, and only goes to 6000 at Lv2. Which isn’t much at all.

It’s best effect is the first one, able to wipe out a chump blocker whenever it swings, and it’s Lv2 effect can increase the overall power of your board as long as they only have 1 core.

Main issue with it is that because it only gets that effect at Lv2, it’s unable to benefit itself with it.

I dunno, this just seems really lackluster to me for some reason, and it’s a Master Rare. For reference, Master Rares tend to be the kind of cards you can have as Key Spirits aside from X-Rares.

I suppose in a deck with many low to the ground spirits that can rack up it’s reductions quickly, it can essentially be the difference maker between 2 Weenie decks, but any deck wielding a high enough BP stat that Diridalus can’t punch through?

I guess in the situation where there’s a 7000 BP spirit the plan is to flood the board with small weenies that get a Power boost from it’s Lv2 but I feel like besides infinite blockers (which do occur) that kind of addresses every problem in the game with or without Diridalus? What does he actually do for that situation?

It’s just a little odd, I’m not a fan.

Pantera moves immediately, attacking with Diridalus, activating it’s Lv1 effect to destroy a 2000 BP or below spirit.

Only one of 2 targets, and both are Erimakilizard, one Erimakilizard is destroyed.

Dan takes it from the life, dropping to 4 lives.

Pantera follows up with Balam, taking another life from Dan. Leaving him with 3.

Pantera then ends his turn.

Yuuki takes a moment to check the board, noting that while Pantera has 5 Spirits, 3 of which can block, he’s only got 2 lives remaining, whereas Dan is sitting comfortably on 3 Spirits and 3 Lives.

Dan Levels up Ankillersaurus

And follows up by summoning his Key Spirit, The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm.

Ankillersaurus attacks, Pantera’s got 3 blockers, and going to 1 life would be dangerous, so clearly he’s going to-

…Huh?

This seems like an incredibly odd decision, but I suppose the only Life that matters is your last one.

Oh good, I’m glad I’m not the only one who found this move a little quirky, I was starting to think I might have been a complete moron.

Leon comments on Pantera’s choice, dropping this statement, which I’m not particularly sure what it means to be honest. I can’t recall any specifics between Leon and Pantera.

Dan attacks with Meteorwurm, as Meteorwurm is only at Lv1, it’s unable to perform it’s target attack effect, instead settling for Clash.

Lizardedge is the unfortunate victim of that one.

Dan evaluates the board, noting that Pantera taking a life there meant that he still preserved a high number of Spirits, 4 to be precise, Dan only has 2 blockers and Diridalus is going to wipe out one of them, if he attacks all at once, Dan’s 3 lives are in trouble.

2 Blockers and 2 attackers isn’t a recipe for winning unfortunately, Dan ends his turn.

This is… actually pretty spooky, Dan’s in a really awkward position right now.

Pantera’s taken aback, having calculated an attack that ultimately didn’t arrive.

I suppose he was assessing based on the Pattern of his aggression and Sabecaulus having a decent BP value, Dan could theoretically have Sabecaulus tie with DarkDinohound and have his last Erimakilizard crash into Lizardedge.

This would leave Pantera with 2 spirits remaining, and nothing to destroy, Pantera would then need a Spirit on his next turn in order to win.

But even if the next turn goes as planned Dan would be incredibly low on resources to hit that last life next time depending on what the 3 cards in Pantera’s hand would be.

High board presence is more options ultimately, even if the board state is more complicated.

Pantera notes that Dan still has hope for victory here, though personally I think this is a worse position than the alternative.

Seems Pantera’s getting completely wrapped up in this, what an impressionable AI.

Seems Pantera is trying to emulate a Burning Heart.

And he summons The HellFencer Berith at Lv2.

hoo boy, I haven’t seen this card in a hot minute and I don’t remember if we’ve covered it, I think we have?

Ah yes, Mai used it in Episode 14 against Clackey, alright. No need to cover.

Pantera uses Berith’s effect when summoned to send up to 3 core from an opposing Spirit to the reserve, provided it doesn’t drop them below a single core.

This puts Ankillersaurus to Lv1, 2000 BP, and well in range of Diridalus, however Ankillersaurus won’t be Pantera’s target.

Diridalus attacks, destroying Erimakilizard, now Dan has only a single blocker to contest Pantera’s 5 Spirits on 4 lives.

Erm, it’s an effect that triggers on attack? It’ll trigger as many times as that happens Dan.

Dan takes Diridalus’ attack from the Life. Dan is left with 2 remaining.

Pantera attacks with Berith, and activates it’s effect at Lv2, which lets it shoot 1 core off an opposing Spirit and send it to the Reserve.

Meteorwurm was summoned at Lv1, so unfortunately it only had 1 core to spare, Meteorwurm’s been depleted.

You have to be incredibly careful playing against purple, as those single core shoot effects come really easy, and really fast.

It seems like Pantera’s Red/Purple Hybrid is designed precisely as one of my suggestions said, it’s designed to reduce Core and wipe out small Spirits, Diridalus has synergy with Purple cards as they can drop smaller spirits to be in range of Diridalus’ effect.

Additionally, with Diridalus destroying the smaller Spirits, larger Spirits will be more difficult to summon, resulting in them having no core, Pantera can then capitalize on this scenario by sending their often singular core back to the reserve.

It’s an incredibly convoluted form of resource control.

Dan notes that since he only has Spirits with Low BP, his board is ripe for the picking with the style of deck Pantera has.

To that end, Dan decides to start getting rid of potential attackers, using Victory Fire.

Dan’s able to destroy 2 Spirits with 3000 BP or less, he selects DarkDinohound with 3000 BP and Balam with 2000 BP.

Dan blocks Berith using Sabecaulus, 5000 to 3000, not a contest, Berith destroys Sabecaulus.

Indeed, though I’m not sure blocking Berith was necessary, had he taken that life, Pantera would have had 1 Lizardedge to address Dan’s 1 life and his Sabecaulus, and if he had a Flash to take care of that he would have done so on Berith’s attack.

This would leave Dan an extra spirit, an extra core, and an extra reduction for his counterattack.

Leon notes that usually a card battler is very reliant on their Key Spirit, seeing your Key card get vaporized in such a fashion can be really demoralising, and I’ve known some people to scoop once they lose their win con.

But a game isn’t over til the last card is played or the last life is taken, etc etc.

As Pantera questions why he wasn’t able to win that turn, his last life (which is, poetically placed above where his heart would be) starts to react.

It seems Dan’s managed to reach the state Julian was able to, forcing Pantera to somehow feel the desire to battle more against him.

The Robot is enjoying himself.

Ah it’s always good to have that feeling, that one friend of yours that just really makes battling so incredibly fun.

I have a few friends like that myself, though the one I get the opportunity to battle the least is certainly the one who makes me feel this way the most.

“This heart”? It seems like Pantera’s finally managed to conceptualize his own Heart, or at least, understand what he’s feeling in the Heart he’s been given.

Pantera ends his turn.

“Red Hot Pantera” has finally come into his namesake, he seems quite happy to have discovered his own Burning Heart.

Pantera’s telling Dan to try and go all out for Pantera’s last life this turn, probably so he can heat up more, but it’s also probably the best bet.

Seems all that Heat coming off of Pantera is difficult to manage.

Only a single Lizardedge remains to block, Dan just needs 2 attackers.

I don’t believe Ankillersaurus was defeated last turn either, so he just needs to summon 1 Spirit.

Of course, the thing giving Dan pause is the 2 cards in Pantera’s hand, even if Pantera is cornered, if those 2 cards are able to defend him in any way, an all out attack might leave Dan in a compromising position.

Of course, Dan’s got a style and a title to uphold, to not attempt to gun for that last life here would be a disgrace to his name.

Dan uses Reborn Flame, now he can return a Spirit from the Trash to the hand.

Dan adds Meteorwurm back to his hand from the Trash.

And as if it could be any other play, Dan subsequently summons Meteorwurm, functionally resurrecting it for a grand total of 9 god damn core.

Dan attacks with Ankillersaurus, which is blocked by Lizardedge.

Lizardedge’s Lv1 BP of 1000 doesn’t beat Ankillersaurus’ 2000 BP, Lizardedge is destroyed.

Pantera no longer has any blockers.

Suddenly Dan becomes animated like it’s Episode 4 of Gurren Lagann… If you know, you know.

He attacks with Meteorwurm.

Pantera unfortunately had no options in his hand, and takes his last life.

Aww, that’s a little tragic, Pantera’s fully capable of Burning up and matching Dan’s energy, but he’s still operating under the assumption that he doesn’t have that strength because he lacks a Human heart.

Er, probably? He wasted 9 core re-summoning a Cost 7 Spirit…

I suppose without any other options it was probably the only attack he could make, but I wouldn’t call it a good attack.

Coulda
Woulda
Shoulda

Didn’t.

Pantera questions why Dan attacked from that position, as Pantera still could have had defensive magic and Dan would certainly have lost then.

Well, 2 reasons really. The first and simplest was that Dan was in a precarious situation of his own, with 1 card in hand, and 2 Spirits, even if Dan left full blockers, Berith would have shot a core off of Meteorwurm and Diridalus would have destroyed Ankillersaurus, Dan’s last 2 lives were up for grabs.

The second reason is a style of play often associated with Magic: The Gathering when it comes to being in a bad situation and you’re dealing with information you don’t know. Namely, Dan had no way of guessing what those 2 cards were, not a hope in hell of surviving the following turn, so he went with the only tactic he had left.

He had to “Make Them Have It”

By “it” in this instance, we mean the “Out” to that situation, a card that could have stopped Dan’s attack. “Make Them Have It” is a creed where if you have a situation where you can win provided your opponent has no unseen responses, you go for it, this is to essentially force them to have the response that would otherwise mess you up, or they straight up lose.

The discussion’s a little more in depth than this, more clearly, “Make Them Have It” is one of the 2 answers to the question of what to do when you don’t know if they have a specific response to your current play, the other is “Play Around It”

The reason why one might want to do one or the other entirely depends on each individual game. If I know Dan’s holding Victory Fire and it’s the only thing I know that will stop my current attack step, whether or not I want to “Make Them Have It” or “Play Around It” depends entirely on which situations are lethal and which are not.

Usually, you want to select the option that leaves you in a better position after the fact. If playing around an out leaves you in a lethal position, and playing into it doesn’t, play into it.

If playing around it leaves you fine but playing into it can kill you, obviously don’t.

The true decision making comes when both are liable to produce the same result, if playing into an answer OR playing around an answer doesn’t kill you, then you need to assess numbers and see which one leaves you in a better position, as you’ll eventually need to ultimately “ask the question” of whether or not they have the answer eventually.

And finally, the easiest decision is when both playing around it and playing into it likely results in a lethal position for you. You pick the one that gets you the win faster.

Dan’s case, the play was going for game, he had 1 card, he could have tried to play around defensive magic but with 2 cards constantly diminishing his resources that he was incapable of getting rid of he would have been in an ever degrading position every turn he did not go for game, and Pantera would still draw cards leading to a higher possibility he could answer.

If Pantera did have an answer, Dan was screwed anyway.

So the only option left was available: “Make Them Have It”

a 1% chance of victory was better than 0%, it’s the fact that it wouldn’t have worked out if he made any other choice. It was the only one that could.

Oh, that’s an interesting angle of discussion, let’s see…

Dan’s argument is that a majority of Pantera’s Spirits had particularly high costs, besides the 2 Lizardedge he didn’t summon a single Spirit below a Cost of 3.

Dan reckoned that the reason he sent out so many high cost spirits was to account for a poor hand, he also left 3 blockers on a turn where Dan had 3 attackers, and would have needed 2 more spirits to win from that position.

Based on Pantera’s pattern of behaviour it would be reasonable to surmise that Pantera had no defensive magic, hence why he played so cautiously until he was able to significantly reduce Dan’s board presence. He was flying by the seat of his pants.

Victory Fire was an unknown quantity before the penultimate turn, Pantera never depleted any of his Spirits either. There was reasonable consideration for board presence to justify the possibility that no defense magic existed in his hand.

Battling in general is very profound.

Seems Pantera has no intention of going back on his word, even though a strong possibility exists he was lying.

D’awww, I like the book ends here. Julian taught Pantera manners to show before a battle, Dan’s now teaching Pantera manners to use after a battle.

Well, I mean, if he lied in order to create a premise in which Dan would battle, then it naturally follows that the premise itself could be a lie too.

Though I’m sure Pantera wasn’t programmed to lie, so his capacity for it may be limited.

The one that gets us into the second half of Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan, hopefully?

Oh, he’s still going.

Leon seems to believe that he has far more control over Otherworld than he actually does, it’s a little egotistical to believe that he has any kind of hand in the meeting between Dan and the Otherworld King.

Ah yes, the ol’ “I control everything and everything is according to plan except for this one prick“

Well now, it appears Leon intends to start making moves against Yuuki, for… some reason. Probably because he’s a Lightbearer and they all ultimately need to be eliminated for the sake of Otherworld King’s safety.

To that end, he plans to start making moves towards capturing Kajitsu, likely to use her as a bargaining chip.

Dan, Yuuki and Pantera make their way up the Stairway to the Otherworld King.

Marking the end of the episode.

Naturally, the card of the Day was The DinoCavalry Diridalus, the Key Spirit of Pantera during that battle.

I was glossing around some of the earlier cards to maybe try and understand what precisely was going the hell on when it came to Diridalus’ destruction effects.

Then it occurred to me, at the time Diridalus’ was released, his ability to freely destroy a Spirit anytime it attacked was rather… Unique, 2000 or less BP is a wide range at a time where 3000 was considered relatively high. Anything Cost 2 or below is covered under that net at lower levels.

And even at this particular time, BS07, the only cards that cover that part of the effect better than Diridalus are 3-fold.

The first 2 are X-Rares from BS04 and BS05, DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried and SacredEmperor Siegfrieden.

The DarkDragonEmperor can wipe out all Non-Red Spirits with 4000 BP or less, naturally this has the obvious caveat of simply not working against Red AND needing a Lv3 Cost 9 Tribute Spirit to work, Siegfrieden can pop 2 Spirits of BP 7000 or less but needs a whopping 6 core for that Lv3 effect too.

Notably, these are somewhat less accessible than Diridalus, because they require a Tribute of a Cost 6 or greater Spirit to even play them, so by the time you’re getting them out, you’ve probably already summoned a Diridalus anyway.

The last one is HalberdBraver Arc, who has Diridalus’ effect on attack at Lv2 and 3 on a Cost 4 spirit, it can even reach Diridalus’ BP value at 6000 with 5 core maintaining it. The difference here is Arc is designed to put the ki-bosh on Weenie rushes while Diridalus supports them, this is because Arc’s effect at all levels prevents Cost 2 or lower Spirits from damaging either player’s life.

That being said, you could run Arc in a deck that includes Diridalus, as a form of board control and survivability until he comes out.

But you’re still running into the issue that Diridalus beats over basically nothing.

Anyway, I’ve yammered on plenty, I can’t wait to meet the Otherworld King soon. I can feel it.

See you in the next one!