Gekiha Dan – Episode 36

So, last episode we resolved the Namii subplot, we’ve got 14 episodes left of this anime, so I suppose it’s about time we get into the 3rd act.

And for an excellent start to it, we have Yuuki descending upon The Violet.

Out to meet the group himself!

I have a weakness for Black uniforms unfortunately, dude looks so god damn cool

Dan asks Yuuki why he’s here as if he’s some kind of Jedi from Star Wars.

The first thing Yuuki does is offer his thanks for doing him just about the biggest solid they can do. And he’s about to ask them for another one.

He’s finally crossed the border of no return, Yuuki wants to help Dan and the other Core Soldiers defeat Otherworld King. He’s gonna finally fulfill his role as the White Soldier.

The Core Soldiers are pretty skeptic about the honesty of Yuuki’s word here.

And from a 3rd party standpoint it’d be easy to understand that Yuuki has a habit of keeping his thoughts close to his chest, but as far as we know he has not told a single lie in this entire series.

The only person who has told a lie about Yuuki, is Kajitsu. And that was in the first battle Dan had with Yuuki, where Dan discovered Yuuki’s immunity to the Pain of a Battler, and Kajitsu stated it was because Yuuki was Omnipotent.

But see it from their end, Yuuki hasn’t been forthright with his thoughts and has been opposing them all this time, Leon has attempted underhanded tactics before as well and it’s very easy to judge someone by the people they surround themselves with.

There’s every reason to distrust him, regardless of his specific pattern of behaviour suggesting otherwise.

Yuuki states that he assisted Otherworld King in maintaining control over Grand-Lolo as one of his Three heads, it’s likely his effectiveness in doing so that got him that position to begin with.

However, now Otherworld King has regained his Youth and isn’t in any particular need of the strength of others, so he’s setting his sights on controlling Mother Core so that he can preserve it indefinitely.

To do so however, requires Kajitsu, and it seems Yuuki’s come to the conclusion that Otherworld King’s plans for Kajitsu, even if they are in Mother Core’s best interests, they may not necessarily be in Kajitsu’s.

And well, it’s a good argument, as the Core Soldiers have it on very good authority that Yuuki, more than anything, loves his Sister and wants to protect her.

Yuuki’s also been set back an X-Rare and a 1-of-a-kind common, his deck is back to square 1 and he’s no closer to beating Otherworld King than he was at the beginning of the series.

Yuuki reiterates his offer, he wishes to help them fight Otherworld King, and more honestly, states that his reason for doing so is protecting Kajitsu.

Dan has had time, more than anyone on this ship has had, to get to know Yuuki, the only one who outdoes his understanding of Yuuki is Kazan and Kajitsu.

and Kajitsu would be biased, so Dan has the best metric for judging Yuuki’s offer here.

And lo and behold, he agrees.

It seems whatever they were just talking about just now isn’t being picked up by the Ship’s monitor, so the group inside The Violet weren’t able to hear Yuuki’s explanation just now

Zungurii protests, this guy straight up enslaved Zungurii’s family against their wills to build a Horizon Ladder

Dan tries to explain to Zungurii in terms he can understand, right now, Yuuki only wants to protect his family, and to that end he’s willing to betray his boss.

Zungurii’s grown a bit since handling Kajitsu, once he realizes that Yuuki’s doing all this because he wants to protect his sister, Zungurii had a common frame of reference with which to understand what he wants.

This makes it easier for Zungurii to accept working with Yuuki, who til now has been his mortal enemy.

Clackey’s rather spiteful of Yuuki’s actions, he decides that, rather than trust Yuuki as a person, he trusts in the fact that Yuuki is the White Soldier, and is just as bound by his mission to defeat Otherworld King as they are.

Kajitsu runs up to Yuuki, having not seen her beloved Brother in just about yonks. So it’s clear she’s on board.

Mai decides that Yuuki joining up means that it’s time to take their mission a little more seriously.

Besides, she now has one more reason to take out Otherworld King, and that’s for Namii and the other Mazoku.

Kenzo also consents to Yuuki joining up, and then comments that without Kenzo, Yuuki would have been powerless anyway, humble brag humble brag.

Magisa wonders if Kenzo’s fast acceptance and humblest of brags had more to do with the fact that Yuuki and Kajitsu were his first friends in this world, and so he might have been a bit lonely without Yuuki.

With that, our number of total coloured bearers is 5.

We have one more colour to fill in.

So now our next destination is set, it’s time to visit the Blue world one more time, in order to tear the King from his throne.

Seems in spite of it being a few days, Suzuri’s last battle with Yuuki has left a lasting impression on him.

Suzuri dwells on the idea of fighting for someone else’s sake, and decides he doesn’t really like it.

Oh boy, trouble in paradise, it seems that someone didn’t get the memo when he asked for no pineapples.

Suzuri ultimately sits back and decides he doesn’t care all that much, as a King his hardships are very few.

Compared to where he’s come from, and what’s happened to him, he can handle someone messing up his food.

Also, not wanting Pineapple in your Sweet & Sour is a perfectly normal thing, I find it can sometimes sweeten the sauce too much if the chunks are left there.

Naturally Yuuki’s not exactly gonna get permission to re-enter the castle after being expelled once.

We can fix that of course, by simply not asking

Cya wall.

Seems in spite of their somewhat rude entrypoint, they’ve been given an audience anyway.

Suzuri’s such a nice king.

Naturally, Yuuki’s here again to once again ask for Suzuri’s power, though this time it’s to take on Otherworld King rather than the ambiguous line of “Saving Kajitsu”

Regardless, Suzuri has precisely zero intention of leaving his post, for any reason.

Suzuri outlines the key problems with having him battle Otherworld King, his position was granted to him by the guy, so if he fights against Otherworld King he’d lose his position.

…And defeating Otherworld King is not a worthwhile trade for giving up his comfortable lifestyle.

Kenzo and Dan criticize Suzuri’s self-centered thinking, and Suzuri realizes he’s having the exact same argument he had with Yuuki, they want to fight for the sake of others and consider that a justifiable reason to take action, while Suzuri does not.

Suzuri cuts the crap with a god damn sawblade and practically shreds right to the chase, they battle, and if Dan is able to defeat him, he’ll act as they demand of him.

If Suzuri wins however, he will take Dan’s entire deck.

Aaand not just Dan’s, infact if Dan loses, Suzuri will claim the decks of all the Core Soldiers and Zungurii.

In spite of the steep cost and very clearly imbalanced conditions, Dan agrees.

Naturally, everyone’s somewhat worried that they’re placing their decks, which is as Dan described to be the Life of a Battler, on the line just to acquire Suzuri’s help.

Dan reckons that he can’t lose the chance to have Suzuri and unite all 6 Core Soldiers together against Otherworld King, and that such a risk is necessary.

I suppose he’s coming from the stance of: “Well if we lose then we can’t beat Otherworld King anyway so it doesn’t matter what Suzuri asks for because we have to win“

We get going, to the Battlefield!

As a weird note, I dunno how these booths work but it seems like Yuuki just straight up gets his own.

Suzuri comments on Dan’s battle form but Dan isn’t having it, Suzuri’s just forced them to put 7 decks are on the line for this fight so I imagine Dan’s not too amused at all.

Blue Soldier Turn 1, Suzuri summons Block-Golem and ends his turn.

Clash King Turn 2, Dan summons Dinonychusaw at Lv2 and Rainydle.

Dan attacks with Rainydle, and Suzuri takes from the life, dropping to 4.

Notably, Block-Golem could have destroyed Rainydle, the only reason he’d want to take it is if he wants the core for something. Dan’s either read this intention and used the opportunity to drop Suzuri’s lives, or he was fishing for Suzuri’s intentions with this attack.

Moves performed to gain information can tend to be referred to as “scouting”, when the potential for behaviour is ambiguous, you run headfirst into that decision to see how the opponent will act, which gives you information.

Blue Soldier Turn 3, Suzuri deploys a new Nexus, The Golem Factory.

a Cost 3 Blue Nexus from BS07. At all levels if Artificial Soldier family spirits block Spirits with the same cost, they don’t exhaust. This is incredibly conditional but it can offer Suzuri some extra defensive options.

And at Lv2, Artificial Soldiers that have a Cost of 3 or higher gain 2000 BP on either attack step.

It’s not particularly strong, the power boost is nice but somewhat unnecessary for Artificial Soldiers, a family generally driven towards deck destruction, however the big thing here is the cost, the Nexus is Cost 3, which makes it easy to play and doesn’t impose any unnecessary restrictions or complicated effects on him, given that Suzuri is using an Assault-centred deck, Cost 3 Nexuses are quite desirable.

Suzuri summons Rock-Golem at Lv2.

Suzuri now attacks with Block-Golem.

as Suzuri holds 1 Nexus, Block-Golem’s effect activates during it’s attack, destroying 2 cards in Dan’s deck.

Dan’s deck drops to 33.

Dan blocks with Dinonychusaw, it’s 4000 BP is over Block-Golem’s 3000, so Dinonychusaw destroys Block-Golem, and Suzuri ends his turn.

This is a fairly good move, Dan’s seen that Suzuri’s interested in taking damage to play his cards, so now Dan’s method of counterattack will be to reduce Suzuri’s board presence.

More importantly, Deck destruction requires consistent waves of Spirits, so reducing the number of cards that can do so can buy him time.

Suzuri has left Rock-Golem as a blocker.

Clash King Turn 4, Dan skips his Main step and immediately enters the attack step.

Dan attacks with Dinonychusaw, and Suzuri takes from the life, dropping to 3 lives.

Dan ends his turn, leaving Rainydle as blocker.

It seems the peanut gallery are noting that Dan is being very heavily aggressive against Suzuri while trying not to make a mistake. He’s getting every small advantage he can to make sure Suzuri joins them.

Suzuri doesn’t seem so bothered however, declaring that he remains the King of Battle Spirits.

Suzuri needs core, so he drops Rock-Golem to Lv1.

Suzuri summons a second copy of Block-Golem, alongside The BattleBeast Rhino-Ceros.

Suzuri attacks with Block-Golem, as he has 1 Nexus, Block-Golem discards 2 cards from Dan’s deck, dropping him to 30.

The cards discarded are Victory Fire and The Fall of Meteorite, nothing too important.

Dan takes from the life, taking his first damage of the game, dropping to 4 lives.

Rock-Golem attacks, and Suzuri activates Demolish. Discarding 1 card for each of Rock-Golem’s Levels.

As Rock-Golem is Lv1, it discards 1 card, dropping Dan to 29.

Dan also takes this from the life, dropping to 3.

Suzuri ends his turn, leaving Rhino-Ceros as a blocker, Rhino-Ceros is an ideal blocker as it can discard cards from Dan’s deck when its destroyed.

Clash King Turn 6.

Sorry if it seems like I’m just going through the motions, there is legitimately no talk during this match so far. I promise you.

To be honest I like it this way, lets me focus on the match.

Dan drops Dinonychusaw and Rainydle to Lv1.

Holy fuck that’s cool, Dan summons The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm at Lv2, now complete with a new summoning animation for Dan.

The summon itself is as normal, but Dan’s animation when he summons it changed, which is fine, I like the battlers animations more than the cards themselves.

As a reminder, Suzuri hasn’t had much first-hand experience handling Meteorwurm yet, so Siegwurm is probably the last hallmark of Dan acting within Suzuri’s experience.

Dan attacks with Siegwurm, and activates Clash, now Suzuri is forced to perform a block if he is able to.

As Rhino-Ceros is the only blocker, it’s destroyed by Siegwurm.

As Rhino-Ceros was destroyed, Dan’s deck loses cards equivalent to the number of Cores on Rhino-Ceros.

The reason Suzuri levelled down Rock-Golem was so that he could supply more core to Rhino-Ceros, knowing Dan would eventually perform a Clash.

on Turn 5 Suzuri had 8 core available (4 + 2 lives lost + 2 core steps)

With 1 core on Rock-Golem, 1 core spent on Block-Golem, 1 core maintaining block-Golem and 2 core spent for Rhino-Ceros, that left 3 core maximum for Rhino-Ceros, which is 1 core off of it being Lv2. (which is why Suzuri didn’t declare it’s Lv2)

Operating on this assumption that Suzuri used the maximum core, Dan loses 3 cards from his deck, plus the 1 from his draw this turn, leaving Dan with 25 cards in his deck.

Suzuri tries to spook Dan, noting that he’s capable of decking out Dan under these conditions.

He then boasts his strength, stating he’ll “teach” Dan what it takes to stop a King.

Dan is unfazed, commenting that nothing since fighting Otherworld King has really been outside of his power or expectation, even Suzuri.

He then uses that statement as a jumping point to try and convince Suzuri to help them.

Suzuri notes that Dan’s eyes look as scary as Yuuki’s did back when Yuuki battled Suzuri, a complete determined look that seems to cause Suzuri to be riddled with fear.

Dan continues, attacking with Dinonychusaw.

During Flash Timing, Dan then uses Victory Fire.

Dan is slightly out of core, so he’s forced to use 2 core from Siegwurm and 1 Core from Rainydle.

As Rainydle no longer has any core, it’s depleted.

I find this move to be a bit odd, as Dan could have allowed Dinonychusaw to strike Suzuri and then use Victory Fire on the Rainydle attack, but Suzuri has 3 Core available in his reserve and 2 on his spirits, it’s possible Dan is trying to play around something that costs at least 4 core but I couldn’t tell you what it is.

It’s also possible that Dan didn’t want to level down Dinonychusaw for any reason, and leave himself with 2 Spirits below 3000 BP, thereby not running afoul of a surprise Victory Fire which at this time people did tech as an off-colour counter card.

Suzuri’s decision to supply core to Rhino-Ceros left Rock-Golem vulnerable to Victory Fire however, it and Block-Golem are destroyed, leaving Suzuri with only the Golem Factory on his field.

Without Blockers, Dinonychusaw hits home, dropping Suzuri to 2 lives.

Due to the way Suzuri falls over, we can actually spy what his current hand is… and it’s not good.

Suzuri only has BattleBeast Babyrouza, and a 2nd Golem Factory in his hand.

He can’t mount a comeback or perform any particularly grandiose plays of Deck Destruction with that.

Dan can quite obviously tell his winning, quite hard mind you, he’s got an excessive lead on Suzuri, he pre-emptively asks Suzuri to come with him.

And now, for the first time ever, Suzuri…

…Runs from the fight.

So yeah apparently you can just exit the Battlefield, for any reason, at anytime. And we’re 36 episodes in and Suzuri is the first person to try this.

So, Suzuri has ran off to his safespace, that is, a place he consistently hides whenever he feels stressed out or scared.

It seems even in the short time he’s been King, it’s occurred frequently enough that his 2 servants have picked up on it.

Kenzo decides to be an insensitive prick and call Suzuri a weirdo. But I suppose what else could we expect Kenzo to be if not insensitive?

If you think someone’s choice of safe space is strange, then its probable that you don’t have the whole picture about why they chose that space in particular. And besides, places like these are somewhat universal, everyone has a place they feel safe.

That place is usually home, however Suzuri’s situation made home a difficult option.

Dan demands Suzuri come out of the Crapper and fight him.

Suzuri states that the battle is completely meaningless, and demands that the Core Soldiers leave the Blue World.

Yeah it certainly wasn’t, but this is a common thing with children around this age. Often times schools would put a ban on trading cards because of children regretting trades made, getting scammed out of their cards, or rather stupidly, betting their cards on ante matches and then losing, and disliking the result.

Suzuri’s behaviour is quite similar, he’s made a bet and has entered, but now that it’s clear Suzuri can’t use his superior skill to avoid his end of the bet, he’s scared to death, and is trying to get out of the deal entirely.

…Okay I’m being willfully obtuse here, there’s more to it than that.

Dan tries to plead with Suzuri over the bleakness of it all, without the 6th Core Soldier, the main cast can’t save da worl.

The reason Suzuri ran is because of the responsibility tied with lending them his power. It requires him to fight for the sake of others and he’s not capable of doing that. He’d be actively walking into conflict, which is something he vehemently hates.

The reason the bathroom is Suzuri’s safespace is because of how nasty his bullies in particular were, he’d never make it home in time, so he’d leg it to the bathroom and lock the door, which at the very least the bullies couldn’t break without bringing the wrath of the faculty down upon him.

The age old question of “Why didn’t he tell a teacher” might come to mind, but uh, School staff have been historically bad at resolving conflict between students until it escalates to a certain point, by the time that happens it’s either too late for one of various reasons, or it’s when the victim has blown a fuse in order to defend themselves and are subsequently punished for doing so in spite of not being the instigator.

The only reason Dan is even here is because he’s too weak to take on Otherworld King on his own. Dan knows full well how a weak person feels.

It seems that once Suzuri found something he enjoyed, in Battle Spirits, Suzuri’s proficiency came with a fear of losing, which likely translated into his strong ability to compose decks.

Worse still, the notoriety that came with it, or perhaps, one of the bullies being on the receiving end of Suzuri’s single-minded victories, resulted in one of his precious cards being stolen, and the bullies kept being dicks anyway.

This Elementary Schooler doesn’t know dick about being bullied, Kenzo at the very least seems willfully oblivious to when someone means to tease him.

At least in Grand-Lolo, and here especially as Blue King, Suzuri can be as far away from that world as possible, where his victories are glorified, the rules of those battles absolute, and where violence isn’t tolerated.

Because of all of the above reasons, he claims he simply isn’t strong enough to fight for someone else, there is a genuine fear of waging war against Otherworld King here.

Yuuki rebutts Suzuri’s claim that he is weak, because Yuuki has fought Suzuri before, and knows full well that Suzuri is a strong person.

Yuuki drops what is a fairly hard truth unfortunately and many wouldn’t be able to accept it quite so easily as Suzuri does here.

Ultimately, the World sucks, and you are only one person, so it’s clear you can’t change the World as a single person.

You can however change yourself in order to be the kind of person who can function in the world around you.

There’s a bit of japanese collectivism hidden amongst this statement, namely that Suzuri needs to fulfill the role he’s been given which many will vehemently disagree with on a fundamental level but try to ignore that for a second.

If you’re a person who is struggling with a problem, and you feel your ability to deal with that problem is due to a fatal flaw about you as a person, at some point you must ask yourself if you are okay with the person you are now. If you’re being bullied, you need to ask if you’re okay being the type of person who lets bullies beat down on them, if you’re being exploited, you need to wonder if you’re fine being someone without a backbone.

Even if it is that you shouldn’t have to change anything, even assuming that is true, the fact of the matter is, whoever has the power to stop what is happening clearly isn’t and doesn’t believe they should. You then have to ask if you’re okay spending the rest of your life suffering in the same way you are now. If that answer is “No” then you must at least begin to start looking into how you can change your situation starting with the type of person you are.

You need to go from “I can’t fix this” to “I don’t know how to fix this”, and from there to “How do I fix this”?

It may not make things better right away, hell, things might even get worse before they do, but the point is that things start to change, and they change by your hand, and if you keep focusing on trying to make things better for yourself rather than helplessly screaming into the void for something to do it for you, things will get better.

With the obvious caveat of “Don’t be stupid.” as that seems to be a caveat that needs to be outlined for everything at this point.

Yuuki believes he’s said everything that needs to be said, and tells Dan that beyond this, there’s nothing more they can say to him, it’s up to Suzuri whether or not he wants to proceed.

Dan tells Suzuri he’ll be waiting at the Battlefield, and that he believes in Suzuri that he’ll come back to finish what he started.

Suzuri questions Dan’s belief for a moment.

And ultimately declares that he does not in fact, like the way he is now. With a lovely symbolism of him opening the bathroom door finally.

Suzuri takes his first step into the rest of his life, Dan didn’t even make it to the battlefield.

With Suzuri’s resolve rekindled, Suzuri asks Dan, in a rather roundabout way, if they can return to battling.

AAAAAAAND We’re back ladies and gentleman, it seems one of our players had to go have an emotional character development oriented breakdown in the bathroom but now with that plot out of the way it’s back to the match!

Suzuri hangs on the words of Yuuki, noting that if Yuuki could change by battling Suzuri of all people, then Suzuri must have the power to change too.

Suzuri adjusts his gloves and begins the Blue Soldier Turn 7.

That’s a tough draw, Suzuri draws PantherMan Berserkas, and is forced to summon both it and Babyrouza. Berserkas at Lv2 and Babyrouza at Lv3.

PantherMan Berserkas is a Cost 1 card from BS07, a Blue Spirit from the Beast Head family.

It’s vanilla sure, but it’s BP values are solid, 2000 at Lv1, 4000 at Lv2, and 6000 at Lv3, all on a Cost 1 Spirit is nothing to scoff at.

As an aside, Babyrouza’s Lv3 BP is 5000.

Suzuri ends his turn with just this, he doesn’t have the capacity to attack into Dan’s field with his measly 2 life.

Clash King Turn 8.

Dan summons his Key Spirit, The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm, at Lv2 (7000 BP) and immediately attacks with it.

Due to it’s Clash ability, Suzuri is forced to block.

Suzuri blocks with Berserkas and Berserkas is destroyed.

Dan then ends his turn, he levelled down Siegwurm to Lv1 (4000 BP) when he used Victory Fire, it doesn’t have enough BP to take out the Cost 1 Babyrouza, who holds 5000 at Lv3.

Blue Soldier Turn 9.

Suzuri topdecks and summons The GodMadeSoldier Orichalcum-Golem at Lv3.

Can always count on Suzuri to use the newest X-Rares after all.

Suzuri attacks and activates Assault, by exhausting The Golem Factory, Orichalcum-Golem refreshes.

Orichalcum-Golem activates it’s Demolish, discarding cards from Dan’s deck equal to it’s level.

It’s other effect at all levels modifies Demolish to add a card for every Blue symbol on Suzuri’s field.

In total, Dan loses 3 cards for levels and 3 cards for symbols, for a total of 6, leaving Dan with a deck of 19 cards.

Dan sends out Dinonychusaw to block, and the poor little Terra Dragon is deleted by the 10000 BP X-Rare.

Leaving Orichalcum-Golem refreshed, Suzuri ends his turn.

I find it a bit odd that they only note the Refresh when the attack ends, though in reality, the Spirit refreshes immediately and attacks while refreshed.

This can be relevant for some cards.

Very oddly, Magisa makes an incorrect comment here. She claims that to increase Suzuri’s deck destruction, Suzuri has started suicidally attacking with his Spirits…

…But in reality, Suzuri left Orichalcum-Golem as a Blocker, and Orichalcum-Golem had no blockers that could harm him when it attacked, the thing about refreshing attackers is that, as long as they’re unchallenged, they’re kind of like having free attacks.

Dan compliments Suzuri, stating that he has no idea why Suzuri would be bullied having these kinds of fun battles.

Dan makes the somewhat hilarious suggestion of teaching the bullies Battle Spirits, by fighting them as Suzuri is doing now.

Bullies generally don’t have your best interests in mind, there are cases when a bully can become mindful when a victim starts to actively extend their hand to them in friendship in order to stop the bullying, but in the majority of cases, bullies are just assholes.

In Suzuri’s case though, we know his history involved Battle Spirits and that the bullies engaged with it in some way and due to Suzuri’s involvement or other, caused them to become agitated.

With that in mind, if they’re already mildly interested in the game, that can be used as a facilitator for a friendship as long as Suzuri doesn’t take shit lying down.

Clash King Turn 10

Dan summons Sabecaulus (3000 BP) and Ankillersaurus at Lv3.

As Dan has Clash and Awaken Spirits on his board, Ankillersaurus gains 1000 BP, making it’s Lv3 BP 5000

Hrm, we seem to be getting more context about Suzuri’s bullying situation, it looks like the irritated Bully who blamed Suzuri for a deck losing didn’t have particularly good battle tactics, but they weren’t able to gain any from Suzuri because Suzuri was so afraid of being struck for losing that he purposefully did what we call sandbagging.

Suzuri is a Blue specialist, but he was purposefully playing poorly using colours he wasn’t suited to when playing against them. “Sandbagging” is a term used usually in fighting games, when a player who mains a specific character chooses to play either a character that’s notoriously bad, or a character they have no idea how to play. This can be done for various reasons, the most common being that they know they can win, even with a bad character against their current opponent, done like this, it can be seen as disrespectful.

Sometimes though it’s for other reasons, such as:

• Knowing they will lose a fight, so rather than play their main, they play a different character for deniability (e.g. “Who knows how it’d have gone if I played my REAL character”)
• The fight’s result doesn’t matter to the player in the grand scheme of things, so they select it for fun. (usually happens when player has achieved enough wins to go through to the next round but still has matches to play)
• They’ve been bribed in some way or otherwise want to lose.

Suzuri is clearly case 3, he didn’t want to anger his opponents by winning, so he orchestrated his own losses.

Suzuri admits that Dan was able to break Suzuri out of his funk.

Suzuri’s intense persona has bubbled back up to the surface, now no longer suppressed by his fear.

Suzuri’s sheer confidence seems to tip off Dan and the spectators that Suzuri may have something powerful.

Those paying attention know what that last card is, It’s a 2nd copy of The Golem Factory.

Dan tells Suzuri that from now on, he should never look away again.

Essentially telling him to do as he’s doing now, and allow himself to be intense.

Dan could win here, but doing so would require him to sacrifice Siegwurm and Meteorwurm in order to do so.

Not only is doing that just not his style, but he’s clearly wary of whatever it is in Suzuri’s hand after his demeanor changed.

Dan could have levelled up his Clash Spirits, thinking about it, he had the necessary core to make Meteorwurm capable of target attacking, and Siegwurm capable of clashing with Babyrouza.

Doing so would leave Dan’s board empty, but Suzuri would only have 2 cards in his hand…

…Ah but it’s a Golem Factory and one other card, if Suzuri drew Alexander in that scenario Dan would lose as those 2 cards can produce three attacks.

Full attacking here and that last card being a response leaves Orichalcum Golem on the field without any BP from Dan to clear the 10000 BP wall, meaning Suzuri drawing a Nexus OR a Spirit loses him the game.

So he could take out Suzuri’s board, and die to exactly Alexander, or swarm and aim for the life and die to any response + a non-magic draw.

We know Suzuri lacks a response right now but Dan’s decision isn’t incorrect if he needs knowledge he can’t have in order to find the “correct” one.

the 3rd and most safest option, is Dan can protect himself by amassing Spirits. The issue here is Orichalcum-Golem’s double assault which with a deck of 18, might finish off Dan.

Blue Soldier Turn 11.

Suzuri deploys the 2nd Golem Factory in his hand.

Suzuri then levels down Babyrouza and Orichalcum-Golem, Babyrouza to Lv1 and Orichalcum-Golem to Lv2.

Suzuri then summons the card he drew off the top, The GiantEmperor Alexander at Lv2.

This means that Dan made the correct play in not defeating Suzuri’s spirits.

This is nothing new, to date, Suzuri has only had a single battle so far where he’s only summoned 1 X-Rare.

Aww fuck not the EYE LINES.

They’re too cool!

Suzuri attacks with Alexander and triggers it’s effect at Lv2.

Now Suzuri can destroy a Spirit with a Cost of 4 or lower.

Dan conveniently placed one for Suzuri last turn in Sabecaulus, and so Sabecaulus is destroyed.

Alexander’s 2nd part to this effect is that he’ll discard from Dan’s deck equal to the Cost of the Spirit destroyed, as such, Dan’s deck loses 4 cards, he has 14 remaining.

Dan blocks with Ankillersaurus.

But as Alexander has 10000 BP at Lv2, it’s defeated.

Suzuri activates Alexander’s Assault, exhausting 1 Golem Factory to refresh Alexander.

Suzuri isn’t done, he now attacks with the Lv2 Orichalcum-Golem, and uses Demolish.

Suzuri’s got a Lv2 Orichalcum-Golem, and 5 symbols on his field.

Dan loses 7 cards card from his deck, dropping him from 14 to-

…What?

Did I miscalculate somewhere? Or is this a fuckup? Welp, time to review by turn.

1. Suzuri’s turn, Dan has 36 cards
2. Dan draws, 35 cards
3. Suzuri attacks with Block-Golem, milling 2 cards, Dan has 33 cards.
4. Dan draws, 32 cards.
5. Suzuri attacks with a 2nd Block-Golem, losing 2 cards, Rock-Golem uses Demolish for 1 card, totalling 3, Dan has 29 cards.
6. Dan draws for 28 cards, then Clashes into a Rhino-Ceros with 3 core, 25 cards.
7. Turn 7, Suzuri doesn’t mill any cards, so no change.
8. Dan draws, 24 cards.
9. Suzuri summons Orichalcum-Golem at Lv3 and attacks with 3 symbols, milling 6, leaving 18 cards.
10. Dan draws, 17 cards.
11. Current Turn, Suzuri summons Alexander and attacks, destroying Sabecaulus and milling 4 cards, leaving Dan with 13.

So I’ve missed a draw on Turn 8, but I’m not the only one who’s wrong, Clackey says before this that “He’ll be able to discard 20 cards” assuming it’s for the whole turn, but even if I play nice and assume Rhino-Ceros had only 1 core for some reason (though we KNOW it could have a maximum of 3 for that turn), Dan would have started that turn with 19.

THE RAREST OF FUCKUPS.

Though it’s possible that the subtitles are just slightly inaccurate and that he meant to say Dan had under 20 cards, which would be true.

Though Suzuri definitely can’t mill for 20 this turn anyway, he blocked with the Ankillersaurus that would have made that possible.

Dan takes a life, dropping to 2.

Suzuri uses Assault on the Orichalcum-Golem, refreshing it.

Suzuri then ends his turn, he could attack with both X-Rares again but Dan would only sacrifice Siegwurm potentially, and he’d only destroy 7 more cards, leaving Dan with 6, if Dan’s hand contains 2 spirits and he draws a 3rd, OR if Dan holds at least 1 Spirit and he’s either holding onto or draws an Extra Draw, Suzuri loses the game as his hand is currently empty.

Post Edit Verus: After re-reading this, I completely forgot that Orichalcum-Golem had just performed a mill this turn, by the calculations made earlier, Dan currently only has 6 cards in his deck. Suzuri could have attacked for game here. The only way Dan ends up with more cards in his deck is if he added more, which the anime sometimes but doesn’t always allude to. As long as you assume that Dan is working with a 50 card deck (the number most battlers go for when increasing deck size for blue) then it’s fine.

This way though, Dan can only take out one of his big hitters as only Meteorwurm is strong enough to take them on at their strongest.

Come on, you saw him against Randel, throw his actual deck against Kenzo and Kenzo woulda been cooked from turn 1.

Magisa notes that Suzuri has created an “unthinkable combo” of Demolish and Assault between 2 X-Rares…

…What? It’s a BASIC Assault Deck with an Artificial Soldier baseline, what the hell are you on?

Yuuki says the only thing I agree with, which is that in spite of the situation, Suzuri has still got a board state that allows him to both attack, defend and refresh adequately. It’s still pretty precarious for Dan.

Dan’s going to go down to 12 cards in his deck next turn and he’ll have 3 cards in hand, if he’s unable to defeat Suzuri from this position, Suzuri will be able to level up Orichalcum-Golem and attack twice at Lv3, destroying a total of 16 cards on it’s own, and defeating Dan entirely.

And before you say “Well Lv3 Meteorwurm can block at 11000”, Golem Factory’s Lv2 effect can raise Orichalcum-Golem by 2000 per each one at Lv2, just one makes Orichalcum-Golem undefeatable by Meteorwurm.

Clash King Turn 12, Dan goes down to 12 cards in his deck.

…That could work.

Dan deploys the Sunstone Shrine, also known as “Meteorwurm needed a buff”, now if Dan’s first attack uses a Clash Spirit and defeats an opposing Spirit, Dan will be able to wipe out Spirits up to that Destroyed Spirit’s BP.

Dan then brings Meteorwurm up to Lv3.

As the Sunstone Shrine is present, and Dan’s Key Spirit is at Lv3, Dans Battle Form does what it did last time, and spreads out some beautiful wings.

Dan attacks with Meteorwurm, using it’s Lv3 effect, it target attacks Alexander.

If Alexander is destroyed, Dan will be able to destroy Spirits up to 10000 BP.

To add insult to injury, Dan uses Meteor Storm during Flash Timing, selecting Meteorwurm.

Now when Meteorwurm defeats a Spirit in battle, it will send opposing lives to the reserve equal to the number of it’s symbols.

Without a hand, Suzuri has no hope in hell in raising Alexander’s BP from this position.

Due to Meteor Storm’s effect, Meteorwurm’s symbols come out of Suzuri’s life, dropping him to 1.

Sunstone Shrine activates, A Spirit was defeated on the first attack of the turn by a Clash Spirit, so Orichalcum-Golem, who holds 7000 BP, and Babyrouza, who holds 1000, are destroyed, as their BP combined doesn’t reach Alexander’s 10000.

Sadly Dan’s little spectacle only works for one attack, gotta cool off.

Even so, Dan has one final attacker, Dan attacks with The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm.

Nor a hand with which to counter.

But Suzuri ain’t afraid anymore.

Siegwurm’s strike lands, taking the final life from Suzuri, leaving him with zip, zilch, nada.

Clash King Dan is the winner!

I will say, this battle is a rather good one, the sudden interruption mid-fight to resolve Suzuri’s issues is a weird one but I believe they dragged it outside the battlefield so as to indicate to us that it was a bit of a break, then the battlefield was kept for moar fighting.

It’s a fun episode, I like it a lot.

Dan wastes precisely zero time in following up on the terms of the battle.

Suzuri decides to be a bit of a Tsundere and act like he’s not happy about it.

I missed the frame, not going back for it, Suzuri offers his arm to Dan, but behind that arm is a big ass smile.

So he’s not that choked up.

Suzuri asks his Servants, though given the way he speaks to them, they’re just very nicely dressed aides, to look after the Castle (and I guess the World) while he’s away, and thanks them for everything.

Also yes Suzuri is blushing but he’s doing so out of embarrassment, he’s trying to thank them for looking after him.

It appears Suzuri was a particularly gentle king at least, especially with these 2, so they very much appreciate him and ask him to stay safe.

Before Suzuri gets moving, he remembers something.

Well it’s a good thing Yuuki hadn’t battled between Suzuri and the resolution of this subplot, because y’know, having to fight an X-Rare level enemy without his own would have been too interesting, apparently.

Yeah, and Blue cards, the hell would you need White ones for?

Though he’s just being coy, he’s acting insincere but his face betrays him, it seems that in spite of wanting to hoard X-Rares, the way he builds decks to utilize them suggests that more than anything, he likes to see rare cards used.

And either way, if he’s got a collection, he may as well share power, so he hands back Yuuki’s X-Rare to him.

This somewhat implies that the cards when displayed are infact sleeved (just in clear sleeves or in BS official sleeves), however Suzuri’s use of Gloves indicates that the Battlefield doesn’t allow them to be because of how gentle he treats them.

And we end off on that!

No dicking around with extra frames!

No wasted screentime.

That was a good episode, infact this is probably one of my favourites just because of how clear cut and no nonsense it is. They set up the issue to be addressed, went to address it, took a break for finally getting to the core of it, and went back to the battle. The pace of the battle as a result didn’t die because of a series of bickering causing me to forget who’s god damn turn it was.

I like it, more of this please.

Card of the day for today is… Well, it’s a card we saw 3 episodes ago, Orichalcum-Golem. For some reason.

We talked about this card… quite literally to death over episodes 33 and 34. I don’t really see what more I could say about it now.

And I have no real deck ideas to offer because, well, I showed a Charisma Battler example deck at the end of Episode 34.

This show is pretty mean to me, I’m not gonna lie, nothing for it though, guess I’ll leave it for today.

We’ll see you lot in the next one! And don’t worry, I’ll have something to display here ready for the end of next episode, I promise… mostly because I checked first.

Jog on you lot!