Gekiha Dan – Episode 28

Dreading this.

Dreading this so much

but it’s in the way, and I made Soaker a promise I’d skip nothing.

So let’s just get right into this shall we?

Last episode we had the grueling tail of Dan getting absolutely dumpstered by the Otherworld King.

This Episode will be the complete opposite end of seriousness, potentially as a way to “Sober up” from the sheer seriousness of the last episode.

Starting off with a lovely scene that is obviously happening

I’ll nip this in the bud since it’s not a revelation or even a poor guess, this doesn’t follow on naturally from the previous episode.

Therefore, it’s a Dream.

It seems like Zungurii’s having a crisis, believing he may not be able to see Dan again due to his loss to Brustrom and his subsequent loss to the Otherworld King, a person Dan promised to defeat.

Okay that’s actually quite cute, Zungurii’s kept to his word from many episodes ago, choosing to “Build up from this”, he’s been adding cards to a deck starting with the Lizardedge he received from Dan in Episode 2

He’s even made a patchwork deck case for himself too, it’s adorable.

Alright, this is going to start a trend and said trend is going to bother me, every alternating series starting from now (so next series won’t have it but the series after will) will have a character dedicated to a very specific kind of deck, that deck is the undying, memetic, and utterly annoying, Pentan-series. The card you’re seeing in the title is the original Pentan, if it’s summoned I’ll review but uuugh…

Pentan decks are funny in hindsight but when they take up a whole episode they just infuriate me.

Surprisingly, we’ve actually made it to the Yellow World.

It’s quite peaceful, almost like a combo of the Green and Blue worlds.

You can see the group in the bottom right corner there, though it doesn’t look like they brought Kajitsu with them. I guess she’s taking a chill pill in the Violet.

Plus having her out in the open is a risk, besides, anyone who tries to get through to her on the Violet has to deal with SERGE.

A peaceful town not interested in conflict would make a good place to hide, assuming your enemy doesn’t mind razing such a peaceful town just for harboring you, intentionally or otherwise.

Interesting, the Card Stands in the Red World and Blue World were glorified bars ultimately, comprised of wood interiors and mostly grey

But comparatively, this one actually looks like a Card Shop.

In my trip to Japan I never actually witnessed one of these machines but it seems like Zungurii’s going to pull from a Gacha machine to obtain a card pack.

He’s apparently aiming for a Siegwurm, that being Dan’s ace. You’d think he’d aim a bit higher for a Meteorwurm no?

Granted that’s an X-Rare and far less likely.

Well, he got a Red card, but ultimately he didn’t get what he was after.

But also, I get the distinct feeling he might have been pulling from the wrong pack, the presence of a Rainydle suggests to me he was pulling from BS07, which I’m fairly sure doesn’t contain a Siegwurm?

So he wasn’t getting anything like that at all, let’s look at what he did get though

Besides Rainydle, he got a White Nexus similar to the card Dan was holding, allowing a Spirit to block a Tribute Spirit without exhausting once per turn.

A Card called “No Entry” which inhibits Cost 3 or below Spirits from attacking or Blocking as a Main effect, prevents weenie walls.

And The FortuneTeller Deasha, which when destroyed at Lv2 forces the opponent to move a card from the hand on top of their deck, which isn’t useful at all.

Besides maybe No Entry, Zungurii got hot garbage.

It helps if you try and buy an SD01 Deck rather than trying to pull a Siegwurm from a Pack it’s not in.

Magisa has a gander at what Zungurii’s doing, wondering if Zungurii intends to become a Card battler.

Hah, poor kid, Zungurii’s finding out things as he goes along, he’s ultimately not had the basic rules very well explained to him, so all his learning is through osmosis.

Something assumed like a 40 card deck minimum would likely be an oversight he’d make without a rulebook.

On a basic level, yes this is basically the idea, the core of any deck is what you’re trying to do.

Hyoudo points out that this isn’t always so simple as just “This is the card I want to win with”, he specifically says you need to think about what cards to combine to start building the deck.

After all, a single Spirit has many synergies, but choosing to focus on one given synergy can help narrow down what cards you can support it with.

Then once you know what you want to achieve, the rest becomes trying to get you there.

It seems Zungurii is short 2 cards, he just pulled 4 earlier so he’s just fine in the card number department.

Seems Zungurii already has at least an inkling of what he wants to do, he wants to take Dan’s place as the group’s battler, to that end he also wants to inherit Dan’s style, that being Siegwurm.

Seems we got a sinister on-looker with some very square glasses.

Oh, that’s unfortunate, I guess that count was including the cards he just pulled. So Zungurii only has 38 cards.

Clackey decides to get Zungurii 1 card closer to that ever elusive 40, by handing him a copy of The CleverBeast Iberix.

One might think “Hold up, but that’s a core part of his strategy!”

In this show, characters can and do regularly wield more than 1 copy of important cards. It’ll be more evident during the next series but in this case, Clackey has more than just the 1 Iberix lurking around in his deck.

We get this incredibly silly exchange between Clackey and Zungurii, Clackey recommends Zungurii use a Yellow Deck which given Zungurii’s surroundings may be better, as Clackey can better teach him Yellow than he could any other colour.

Zungurii’s very clear on wanting to make use of a Red Deck like Dan’s however.

We interrupt this colour discussion to bring you an army of Pentans.

And for some reason every god damn series has a character completely obsessed with them.

So this twit is “Kotarou”, who is preparing himself one of many boiled eggs.

He’s also got himself what I can only assume to be a flavoured Tea based on the shape of the bottle.

It seems Kotarou has somehow caught wind of Zungurii wanting a Siegwurm, and like the child he is, has given a name to Zungurii that isn’t his.

Kotarou seems to have a Siegwurm on hand that he’s willing to give to Zungurii… just so long as he and every one of his friends become his servants.

Seems Kotarou’s managed to develop himself an entire Pentan Empire.

Mai finds the prospect of this hilarious.

Also she’s holding something that looks very distinctly like a Beer Glass, and those flushed cheeks make her seem drunk, even though she very clearly shouldn’t be because she’s 13 and nowhere near old enough to drink…

Thing is we saw Magisa drinking the precise same thing in an earlier and being very evidently drunk as a result…

…So I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see that.

Magisa takes note of some of the people in uniform, namely three very distinct looking Pentans

Turns out, by some god awful miracle, Dark King Jin has become wrapped up in this as well.

In his embarrassment, Jin knocks over a Pentan, and thanks to the Domino effect, causes Kotarou to smash his face directly into the egg he was eating.

Hell Hath no Fury like a Woman Scorned, but Women Hath no Fury like a Spoiled Child Injured.

Well they certainly appear to have been captured. Kotarou has officially outdone Leon in that department.

They don’t look particularly worried though, naturally a child isn’t exactly someone with the kind of power that could really threaten any of them so I suppose they’re playing along.

Jin is very much being very prickly about the details of how he and his Deathmatch gang ended up in the service of Kotarou.

Magisa decides to cut the crap and see what’s going on, asking to see who’s in charge.

…And apparently we get an answer, the guy who was spying on Zungurii earlier. A Battle Spirits Instructor by the name of “Tanaka Ichirou”… How astonishingly normal.

Apparently Ichirou is assisting Kotarou in trying to create an Empire “for the Pentan, of the Pentan and by the Pentan”, he’s trying to amass members of it’s population until he has enough to establish it.

One of the rules of it’s members is that apparently, the Pentan costume must be worn basically at all times.

If you don’t understand how irritating this episode is, you’re weird.

Kotarou demands that someone untie Zungurii… for some reason.

Glad we’ve gotten “Chibisuke” out of the way.

Ichirou lays out the conditions, Zungurii is to be offered a battle with the Emperor, Kotarou, if Zungurii is able to win, he’ll be given Siegwurm as a reward.

the issue is, even if Zungurii could be given Siegwurm as a victory, his deck is currently not suitable for battle, consisting of only 39 cards.

Kotarou decides the occasion is special enough, so he chooses to lend Siegwurm to Zungurii in advance of the match, this gives Zungurii not only the ability to use his current favourite card, but also gives him a legal deck to use for the match.

Jin tries to inform Magisa that she should prevent Zungurii from fighting Kotarou, the reason being that apparently Kotarou is so insanely strong that he was able to somehow take out the entire Deathmatch group.

Zungurii doesn’t stand a chance against someone like that.

Magisa doesn’t seem particularly worried, it’s a child after all.

Once again highlighting that the Gurii tribe are monkey-themed, Zungurii’s “Gate Open” sequence… consists of him peeling and eating a Banana.

What on earth is happening?

Zungurii’s is very impressed with his first Battle Form, apparently being something akin to a robe of Bananas…

Clackey doesn’t seem to like it very much, personally I don’t have a problem with the design, Banana-themed or not, the shape’s quite nice.

Kotarou points out that he apparently hasn’t lost a single game until now.

So judging from this reputation, and the fact that he defeated the Deathmatch group, he should be on par with most of the underlings working for Otherworld King like Cursed Kazan or Magical Crown.

Zungurii confirms he also hasn’t lost a single game before.

The statement, examined by it’s letter is completely true, Zungurii has not lost a single game of battle spirits before.

The spirit of the statement however, is entirely false, as it implies that Zungurii is potent enough to have never lost, when in actual fact, he has also never won before. Making his skills equivalent to his wins divided by his losses, undefinable.

Surprisingly big dreams from a child this young, Kotarou’s sinister ultimate goal in establishing the Pentan Empire is to produce an eternal empire with the population at it’s highest number, by integrating everyone and everything into the Pentan Empire, there will no longer be a need to fight, and the world will be peaceful.

I can’t help but feel like a couple details will need ironing out here but hey, a One World Government isn’t a bad start for a child his age.

Seems Kotarou is going first.

Kotarou draws a card and completely passes.

He doesn’t look worried about essentially drawing a hand of bricks.

Or maybe his deck is Magic oriented? Waiting for an attack to wipe out some weenies?

Zungurii’s first turn ever begins.

I’m kind of impressed Zungurii remembers the orders of the steps, then again the steps are announced very loudly when battlers are fighting, so it is something Zungurii may remember.

Now for something unique to people playing their first ever card game, Zungurii draws a card he likes and makes no effort to hide what the card is, even announcing it’s name, he has to be told by Magisa that the hand is hidden information and he isn’t supposed to willingly reveal it.

Then Zungurii attempts to summon The UnicornDragon Volsung.

Zungurii is puzzled when the thankfully automatic Battlefield system doesn’t quite heed his bullshit.

Magisa informs Zungurii that Costs are a thing, as UnicornDragon Volsung has a cost of 7, Zungurii isn’t allowed to summon it using only 5 core.

Zungurii realizes his oopsie and bounces back by just ending his turn.

Mai forgives Zungurii’s pretty arse play, commenting that beginners can be liable to build decks filled with incredibly high-costing cards, resulting in a game state where those players can’t use any of their cards until a few turns later.

Hyoudo is… less willing to forgive Zungurii’s mistakes, given Zungurii is playing a game with some non-negligible stakes.

Kotarou’s move is once again a dud, he draws and ends his turn.

Even Zungurii, who’s a beginner, is somewhat floored by this.

I figure Zungurii isn’t the type to be stupid enough to not know there’s a card he can play in his hand, so Zungurii I could see about not having a bad hand.

But supposedly, Jin advocates for Kotarou, stating that Kotarou has a tendency to act weak, and then suddenly goes on the offensive, which appears to be the strategy that defeated them.

Ichirou states that there is apparently a legend that Kotarou is an Invincible Card Battler, and that he’ll eventually make his awesome power known.

I normally don’t cover the eyecatches, but this one’s rather unique, given it’s one of the only times we’ll see Zungurii in an eyecatch.

Here he’s holding a butchering knife and is about to draw one.

But it’s a hilarious fake out, given said butchering knife was infact a stored Banana that he then eats.

It’s an amusing little use of the Eyecatches, also it seems the theme of Zungurii in general is Bananas.

We’re on Turn 5, seeing as we skipped turn 4 I guess Zungurii had a dud turn again.

Hoo boy, “The Penpress” is summoned to the field…

uuughh, I really don’t wanna talk about Pentans but whatcha gonna do?

Hoo boy, a Cost 5 Yellow Spirit from BS07, like all Pentans it’s a member of the Song Bird family.

What’s unusual is the fact that this one is also of the Emperor Beast family.

Normally Pentans have a second family of “Drifting Spirit” but this one seems to be holding a Red-exclusive Family, for all the good that does it. (I’m sure one madman out there has found a beneficial use for this synergy)

Anyway, Penpress has 3 effects, one active from each level which are all easy to obtain, requiring 1 core per level, the first enables a nasty rush strategem by refreshing itself whenever a Pentan is destroyed on your own attack step, Pentans do not carry high BP in general so this is quite easy to do.

The second effect is incredibly nasty, any “Pentan” card in the hand becomes Cost 3, this does not change the card’s reductions nor does it stop them from applying, meaning beyond 3 symbols, any high cost Pentan with 3 reductions is FREE.

Finally, Penpress can boost her own BP values by 1000 for every Pentan on your field.

This is the first instance of a specific “Archetype” in Battle Spirits, an “Archetype” is a term pulled from Yu-Gi-Oh!, referring to a series of cards sharing a property in their name, and the support cards for said Archetype do so by targeting that specific property in their name, in this case, the property being targeted in Battle Spirits is being “Pentan”-named, which is to say, any card with the word “Pentan” in it’s name.

In any case, this explains Kotarou’s ability to overwhelm Jin in spite of a potentially high costed deck, Penpress turns all the high cost Pentans into Cost 3.

Kotarou moves to his attack step, immediately going for it with Penpress.

Zungurii loses a life from Penpress’ attack, leaving him with 4 Core.

Zungurii’s a rather tough cookie, much like the Gurri-tribe in general, so he’s quite resistant to the pain of the Battlefield.

Well that’s a familiar line, as a reminder, the core lost from lives go to your reserve, so yes, enduring pain for your spirits does indeed grant you strength, and enable your Spirits to become stronger.

It’s a very… poetic game mechanic, being able to suffer in order to protect and strengthen your spirits.

Mai questions Zungurii’s appeased reaction and Magisa answers that Zungurii wants to battle the same way Dan does.

The only issue with Dan’s battle style is it’s inherently risky, dropping lives for an early core advantage isn’t a bad idea but firstly the opponent needs to give it to you, and secondly, once you’re down that low, you need to make sure you win the fight quickly or you’ll find that last life slipping between your fingers.

Suddenly, a number of Pentans come in and assault Magisa.

Apparently a rare feature of the battle system in Otherworld is that it can perform incredibly specific enforcements of certain rules, in this case, Zungurii’s life loss will turn one of Zungurii’s group into a Pentan.

Who built this battle system? It’s clearly sci-fi in some respects and fantasy in others, what madman included a Pentan enforcement system?!

Magisa finds the Pentans rather cute so she doesn’t seem too bothered by the prospect of wearing a Pentan outfit.

It’s Zungurii’s turn.

Apparently somewhere between the last few turns Zungurii has forgotten what order the steps are in.

Quite hilariously once he actually performs the Core Step correctly he forgets about the Draw Step he was about to perform.

Scatterbrains, the lot of em.

Still, we’re finally here, also WHAT IS THAT HAND?!

Zungurii has a myriad of colours in that hand of his, sweet jesus.

That’s… quite an awesome Summon entrance.

Zungurii has to attack with Volsung before we get a decent look at it, anyway this is the first we’ve seen Volsung this series so let’s go over it again

A BS05 Red Spirit of the Ancient Dragon family, Volsung’s rather weak for the Cost you need to invest to play it, it gets around the weak baseline by becoming rather potent beyond Lv2.

At all levels when it’s destroyed, any multi-symbol spirit can gain 5000 BP for the turn, for all the good BP benefits an already strong spirit, for reference only Tribute spirits so far hold double symbols. The only other way to achieve one without is to use Double Hearts. In any case something relatively tough would need to take down Volsung in order to get the BP bonus, the alternative of course, is blowing it up yourself with an effect, but I can’t think of too many situations where that would be useful. Incredibly niche effect.

The Lv2 onward effect is a simple 3000 BP boost when attacking, which means at Lv3 it can reach Meteorwurm levels of strength on it’s own. Which can be nice.

It’s an Uncommon Cost 7 though, so it’s power isn’t meant to be particularly outrageous.

Kotarou has no blockers so Volsung gobbles up a life, now leaving Kotarou with 4.

Ichirou cries out to Kotarou, trying to make sure he’s okay, and Magisa looks over confused as to why Ichirou would care that much…

I mean, snotty brat or not that’s still a kid, does Duty of Care not apply in Otherworld?

Hyoudo and Mai cry foul, as the system appears to have done nothing to benefit the group for Kotarou losing a life, which isn’t very fair.

Ichirou finally realizes his dream as the Male stripper he always wanted to be, declaring he’ll even the odds by doing exactly that.

Magisa and Mai are initially disturbed by the possibility of a middle-aged man going butt-naked infront of them, but they forget that the Pentan suits are roomy enough to allow for anyone to wear standard clothing beneath them.

Ichirou appears to be wearing a suit under his.

This could be bad, Zungurii wasted all his core summoning Volsung and immediately swung with it, leaving 4 lives open.

Kotarou is down a life and is on his 3rd Core Step, besides the Core maintaining Penpress he’s got 7 core to work with, and a level on Penpress would make summoning Pentans easier.

He does… precisely none of the above and summons The Postman Pentan at Lv3.

So this is a misplay as by levelling Penpress he could have spent 1 less Core for it.

Postman Pentan’s a Cost 4 Yellow Spirit from BS04, holding the standard Song Bird and Drifting Spirit families.

It doesn’t have many effects, only having 1 at Lv3, which is that you draw an additional card for your Draw Step if you control 3 Spirits that have the “Pentan” and/or the “Empereur” name.

There is a member of the Pentan series known as “The Kaiser Empereur”, the lack of “Pentan” in the name makes that a bit difficult to support though, so it simply includes the naming of that card.

Kotarou full attacks, and Zungurii takes the whole attack, dropping to a measly 2 lives.

There are only 2 cool life states.

Winning with 5 lives, and winning with 1.

There are no other cool life numbers.

He’s on 2 lives, he’s fiiiiine…

…Ish.

Mai, how about you try blocking 2 penguins when your only Unicorn Dragon which you waited 3 turns to summon is turned sideways?

Oh right, didn’t Zungurii lose 2 lives?

This is what I can only describe as instant karma

Adding to the High Cost soup, Zungurii summons BlackMonoqueiroz, now all his Shellman and Shell Insects gain 3000 BP for this turn, including BlackMonoqueiroz

…And given the cost, probably only BlackMonoqueiroz

I disagree, small child with sideburns.

Surprised he has the core for it, it’s Turn 8, so with 3 lives lost, Zungurii has 11 core to work with.

He’s just spent 5 of it and 2 are on his Spirits, so 4 core left.

Losing lives OP.

…Oh that’s dumb.

That’s incredibly dumb.

Hoo boy, did we cover Mind Control on this series? I don’t think we did…

An old card from BS02, Mind Control forces both players to send 4 cores from their Spirits to the Trash. This card is quite potent because of the fact that Battle Spirits is a “Complete as much as possible” type game, meaning even if one player can’t complete their own part of the effect, the other player still has to.

In this case though, Zungurii’s fired this Magic without thinking, he now needs to send the only 2 core he has left from his Spirits to the Trash.

…And Kotarou has a Postman Pentan with 4 core. He’s only losing 1 Spirit.

Worst part is Zungurii has 2 lives and absolutely 0 core, he’s incapable of defending himself here.

There are ways around this restriction that the turn player can freely set up, they can empty their field of Spirits, forcing only the Opponent to bear the Curse, or more weirdly, they can ensure that the only Spirit they have which has such Core can’t have that core removed.

Good on Zungurii for realizing he made a mistake.

Bad on him for not realizing how costly said mistake was

Hwat? Not even a level up? Maybe even a summon? Nothing?

Well, Penpress attacks, and Zungurii takes a life. Leaving him with a measly 1.

The menacing Pentans, Hyoudo’s anguished scream and the hilarious cut out to him being in a Pentan costume is just the most adorable thing ever.

There’s plenty funny about it though

Ichirou boasts about Kotarou’s power.

But it’s very apparent that Kotarou doesn’t have much skill, so far he’s been getting by much like Zungurii has, the seat of his pants.

The entire Deathmatch group lost to this kid, by the way.

Zungurii’s turn, with 13 core available, he summons both The CleverBeast Iberix and The BattleBeast Rhino-Ceros

Rhino-Ceros is new, let’s have a look!

Rhino-Ceros is a Cost 4 Blue Spirit from BS03, the first Blue Set

Rhino-Ceros has the rather potent ability of being able to destroy cards in the opponent’s deck equal to the number of Cores on it when it’s destroyed.

At Lv7, which comes out to a generous 7000 BP for a Cost 4 Spirit, that’s 7 cards the opponent would lose.

As with all deck destruction though, it’s a strategem that only really works in concert with other Deck Destruction cards, you can’t really half-ass a Deck Destruction, unless your deck somehow operates with cards in the opposing Trash.

Zungurii moves to be aggressive again, having more strong spirits, but Magisa interrupts him, suggesting that might not be the best course of action if Zungurii wants to win.

Zungurii re-evaluates the board state upon that prompt, realizing that it’s really not a good idea to attack right now, choosing to defend, and so ends his turn.

Er… This isn’t a strategy, it’s a tactic.

The difference being that a strategy is an overarching plan that is intended to obtain a goal, tactics are the steps taken to achieve that goal.

Zungurii has no long term goal that could be called a strategy, he’s simply implementing a “tactic” to achieve the short term goal of protecting his 1 life.

I see the lemmings are as exasperated as I am.

Except for Hyoudo, LOOK AT HIM.

HE’S LIVING HIS BEST LIFE IN THAT GREEN PENGUIN SUIT, IT’S SO CUTE-

ahem, moving on…

Oooh, now that’s a good card.

Kotarou summons The FortuneTeller Pentan at Lv2.

A Cost 3 Yellow Spirit from BS06, Sure it’s a Pentan, and you might not think much of it, but this one is awesome.

FortuneTeller Pentan can “Open” a Magic from your hand in exchange for drawing a card, what is “Opening” you may ask? Well it’s placing a card from your hand into the “Opened” Zone.

The “Opened Zone” is essentially an area where you can play cards as if they were in your hand, the Wiki and English playing Battle Spirits community call this the “Removed” Zone but while it could be correct I freaking hate it because it doesn’t really explain what the zone does.

The main differences between what the Opened Zone is, and what and your Hand is that face up cards in the Opened Zone are public knowledge, both players may verify them at any time.

The other is that cards in the Opened Zone are not cards in your hand, so any effects referencing the hand do not affect the Opened Zone, and any such card dictating you play a card from your Hand cannot use a card from the Opened Zone.

For all other purposes though, that Opened Zone is a 2nd Hand, meaning FortuneTeller Pentan functionally reveals a Magic to draw an extra card on summon, it’s great draw power.

The card Kotarou revealed was Shining Magic, a Cost 8 Yellow Magic from BS03 and a card that Meganeko used in Toppa Bashin, this card allows you to recover a Magic from the Trash to the Hand at a minimum cost of 5 freaking core.

Naturally the benefits of this are only really shown when this card is used alongside the ArcAngelia Mikafar, who can no longer wield the card in question because Mikafar is BANNED!

Kotarou attacks FortuneTeller, which is then blocked by Rhino-Ceros.

Both spirits share a BP value, so both are destroyed.

Kotarou misplayed massively, he’s had more than enough core to level up his Spirits and has simply chosen not to level up his Penpress, who could reach 5000 BP and assist Kotarou’s summons.

Kotarou can’t beat Iberix with 4000 BP with his 3000 BP Penpress, so he ends his turn.

Zungurii gets confused as to why cards were milled from Kotarou’s deck, prompting this hilarious reaction from Hyoudo telling him to read the cards in his deck.

Zungurii would fit in just fine playing Yu-Gi-Oh!

Before the battle you muppet.

Zungurii upgrades Iberix to Lv2, meaning it’s Light ability is now active.

Zungurii then follows up with Ankillersaurus, a card he previously gave Dan, and Fenrircannon MK-II, both of which we’ve seen before so nothing to cover.

Zungurii ends his turn, declaring his intent to protect his lives.

Hoo boy, Kotarou’s turn, he summons Postman Pentan, at Lv3 again, for some inconcievable reason, and a regular Pentan!

A simple refresher for anyone who doesn’t remember ol’ Pentan, Pentan provides Yellow reduction symbols to your Magic while you control 3 or more Yellow Spirits and Nexuses, one per each of it’s Levels.

Wait, hold on, last turn he had 14 core available, 6 are currently on his Spirits and he spent 7.

Zungurii should only have 1 core left, what’s he doing?

Flame Cyclone? That lets Zungurii wipe out any Spirit with 5000 or less BP.

Postman Pentan which was attacking, was destroyed.

Under normal circumstances, probably not, but.

Iberix’s effect at all levels is to provide a Yellow reduction to all Magic in Zungurii’s hand, he had 2 reductions, so he only needed 3 Core, by levelling down Fenrircannon Mk-II, he could pay for it.

He’s still a moron however, this wasn’t the most optimized version of this play he could have made.

Iberix had more than enough BP to destroy Postman Pentan, Zungurii could have blocked, then fired Flame Cyclone to take out Penpress or Pentan, leaving Kotarou with 1 blocker for Zungurii’s 3 Spirits.

That would have been a good time to start taking some lives.

Turn 14, Zungurii’s operating with 15 core, 4 of which are on his Spirits, so 11 free core.

Zungurii summons Kigna-Swan, a Cost 1 White Spirit from BS07, it’s a Vanilla, and it’s only other notable qualities is it’s Machine Beast family, still an okay card to use.

Then Zungurii casts for a whopping Cost of 6, (thankfully reduced by 1 due to Iberix), Jungle Law.

A simple BS04 Magic that exhausts every Spirit that’s Lv1… slight problem.

The Lv1 Pentan and Penpress on Kotarou’s field are exhausted.

And then Zungurii notes the fine print.

Now, Fenrircannon-MK II, Ankillersaurus, and the Kigna-swan he just summoned are all Exhausted.

Nothing like little Kotarou patting himself on the back for his opponent’s misplays.

Dan’s currently in a coma for this exact reason, I wouldn’t exactly be following his example.

Zungurii’s plan was somewhat sound, sadly he didn’t quite know he’d get so royally screwed over by Jungle Law’s intricate text, had it worked like he expected he’d have had 4 Spirits to win with.

Jumping into an attack now after running headfirst into said fine text is very risky!

Kotarou is dropped to 3 lives, Zungurii has no attackers left.

To account for the fairness of the rules, Dark King Jin has been released from Pentan-hood.

…Yes, that’s how the game works, good job Kotarou.

Kotarou moves straight to the attack step.

Pentan attacks, if Zungurii doesn’t have a plan now, well.

Zungurii casts High Elixir, surprisingly he has a fair amount of reductions for it, thanks to Iberix providing it a reduction symbol and his own 2 White Symbols, Zungurii need only use 5 core.

High Elixir is essentially a doubled up version of the Holy Elixir Leon was using, from BS03, it moves 2 core from the Reserve to the Life.

Sadly, if I’ve calculated correctly, Zungurii needs 5 core to play this, and he only has 5 core in his reserve.

He needs to spend 3 of that core, and 2 core from somewhere else.

All his Spirits besides Iberix have 1 core each…

Zungurii goes to 3 lives…

Now, paying correctly, he’ll only lose 1 spirit.

…Except we never find out what he sacrificed because it’s never shown. Zungurii takes a life, dropping back down to 2.

Isn’t that what you were winning with the whole time Kotarou?

Thing is, the law of Beginner’s Luck seems like it’s a 1:1 ratio, the more Beginner you are, the more Luck at your disposal.

Zungurii’s turn, he plays Extra Draw.

Now he can draw 2 cards, and if the 3rd card is a Red Spirit, he can add that card to his hand as well.

Oh? That’s interesting, we now get a look at Zungurii’s board, Fenrircannon MK-II and Kigna-swan are no longer there, and Iberix has dropped back down to Lv1.

There’s a mistake here!

Zungurii began his turn with 3 Spirits, a White Spirit, Iberix and Ankillersaurus, he has 4 core across them, It was turn 14, meaning Zungurii was on his 7th Core step on a single life remaining (4 lives lost)

4 + 7 + 4 – 4 = 11, so he had 11 core in reserve.

He summons Kigna-swan, dropping him down to 10, as it’s a free play thanks to the White symbol on his field, and he only needs 1 core to maintain.

He then plays Jungle Law, which should have been a Cost of 5 thanks to Iberix giving it a reduction, leaving 5 core in Zungurii’s reserve, and 5 core across his spirits.

When Zungurii played High Elixir, with 2 White Symbols and Iberix, he should have reduced it’s Cost to 5, meaning with the 2 lives coming from his reserve, he could spend 3 from his Reserve, and 2 from his spirits, meaning he could level down Iberix and deplete 1 other Spirit.

But Iberix is level 1, and the other 2 spirits are gone, this is entirely possible (as you can pay core from anywhere) but if it’s the case then either Zungurii’s misplayed or the Writers fucked up!

Zungurii reveals The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm, as it’s a Red Spirit, Zungurii can add it to his hand.

Zungurii pays close attention to Siegwurm’s cost, summoning the Rainydle he just pulled from a pack to the field.

Zungurii then summons The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm, at Lv2!

He did however, slightly botch Dan’s summoning chant, saying “Kanazuchi” (Iron Hammer) instead of “Ikazuchi” (Thunder)

Regardless, Zungurii’s maneuvered from a Field comprised mostly of White defensive Spirits to an offensive board of Red.

Well that certainly makes your earlier decision to hand him the card look incredibly stupid now doesn’t it?

Zungurii may have flubbed the rest of the rules, but above anything else, Zungurii at least knows how to use a Siegwurm.

He attacks, using Clash to force Kotarou to block.

Penpress as the only blocker is forced to face it, which Siegwurm defeats easily.

Zungurii full attacks, and with Kotarou at 3 life and no blockers, Kotarou loses all of his lives.

Zungurii wins his first ever battle.

Seems everyone’s taken off, as the Pentan Empire has been dissolved thanks to Zungurii’s victory.

That’s… Well I won’t call it sexist because the sentiment is that this particular child should be strong and resilient toward adversity, but claiming it’s the duty of a boy as opposed to the duty of everyone is a little shortsighted.

People should not cry at the first hurdle.

And this is apparently “the reveal” that Kotarou is infact Ichirou’s son.

Ichirou, Kotarou, I mean it was pretty obvious, how else could a Battle Spirits Instructor make it into the Pentan Empire?

So it appears that Ichirou tends to spend most of his working days away from home (this is quite normal in Japanese families, overwork is an incredible issue for that culture, which is strange given it’s very difficult to fire someone in Japan unless they’re doing something illegal)

So as a result Kotarou didn’t really warm up to his Dad due to lack of proximity, Ichirou was able to bridge this gap using Battle Spirits as an icebreaker.

Damn Hyoudo, wasn’t even going for the jugular, just nuke the entire town why don’t you?

Ah yes, next you should probably teach him that enslavement is wrong.

Kotarou, in his tantrum, demands the Siegwurm he offered as a reward for victory to Zungurii.

Ichirou attempts to try and impose some sense of authority over his child, telling him to keep his promise.

Yeah this is just about the only way for a parent to guarantee this, it’s an incredibly stupid idea to bet something you have no intention of giving up.

Zungurii decides to be the bigger kid, offering Siegwurm back to Kotarou.

Ichirou clearly seeing the problem feels as if this may cause his son to develop an expectation that if he whines loud enough, he’s exempt from any consequences of his own actions.

Which is a reasonable fear.

Zungurii brushes it off, deciding that he’s managed to use it on the Battlefield once, so he’s completely satisfied now, deciding to leave Siegwurm’s usage to Dan.

Essentially, Zungurii plans to use his own style from now on, which is cool given he used so many different colours of Spirits today.

The two shake on it, and Kotarou cheers up, complimenting Zungurii on his strength and clearly being more invested in Battle Spirits as a result.

We jump to a celebration of Zungurii’s first battle and Victory, they seem to have all been given Banana cake, served by Serge if that Apron is any indication.

Hilariously, Magisa’s kept the Pentan costume she was given as well.

Kajitsu looks less than pleased.

The festival is interrupted by the arrival of none other than Yuuki.

Oh, and he appears to have brought Dan…

Which is odd, considering that I believe Yuuki was asked to leave his half-dead body at the Red Horizon Ladder.

Zungurii runs over to see Dan, only to find him in the same state he was after being defeated by Otherworld King.

Which marks the end of the episode.

Well I didn’t hate that as much as I remembered hating it I will not lie to you.

Ultimately it just ended up being an incredibly cute battle, but I suppose in most contexts I really don’t like Zungurii in any sense of the word. Characters designed to be annoying rub me the wrong way.

But at the same time, once I delve into his character arc and understand what he is narratively trying to be, it’s a lot more tolerable, and the episode just becomes something incredibly cute instead of a complete waste of my time.

so I’ll take back what I said at the beginning of the Episode, this one is fine, It gets a pass from me.

So, rather than a card of the day, the end segment covers the idea of building a deck.

And that while it’s okay to use your favourite cards, you need to consider the average costs of those cards.

The concept they’re talking about has a term in MTG, it’s called a “Mana curve”, that is, the theory that because you more cards as the game drags on longer, it is better to use more cards that cost less than cards that cost more.

In Battle Spirits, you start with 4 core, this means the majority of the cards you want to include in your Deck need to be around Cost 4 (3 if it’s a Spirit as a Spirit is technically +1 cost due to Level maintenance) or less.

In Battle Spirits it’ll be difficult to articulate what kind of deck ratio is a nice one to go with, because it depends on the deck, if you have lots of Cost 4 removal magic, you might get away with defending for a few turns before playing a bigger spirit rather than using small low to the ground ones.

Typically though, you want at least half of your deck to consist of cards you can use on your first turn, or that you can use on the opponent’s first attack step.

Anyway, that covers that, time to get back to the plot in the next one! See you all next time!

Toodles!