Gekiha Dan – Episode 45

Righto, if you’re not caught up, read the last episode

if you are caught up, then well, we all know what happened last episode.

Kajitsu is Dead.

Slain by Otherworld King.

The closer we get to the end of the series, the closer we get to righting that awful wrong. Let’s get a move on.

naturally the Episode opens up on Yuuki still anguishing over the death of his Sister, it’s quite a recent event so the fact that he isn’t a complete mess is probably a testament to either his strength of will, or the awfulness of the situation.

Yuuki states to Dan that he’d normally think it was disgraceful for a person to anguish so painfully over something they can’t control, he’s a rather stoic individual.

And then comments that before now, he didn’t know a person could be so emotionally damaged to this extent.

Back at the Wisdom Gate, Leon apparently has something to say to Otherworld King.

Leon expresses a desire to personally eradicate the Core Soldiers, rather than letting them helplessly flail about while they work to get a foothold that will let them challenge Otherworld King.

Especially Dan, who was able to challenge Otherworld King once before.

As Leon preaches his case, Otherworld King tells Leon to prove that he’s prepared to throw away everything for Otherworld King.

This statement feels rather backhanded for some reason, and it likely is.

Looks like we’ll be finishing off a couple of loose ends, in this case, The Bewitching Leon.

ah, looks like even the Humans from other Eras who were in Grand-Lolo have arrived at this one, as Revolver West, from the Old West, is here.

Well I guess we won’t have to wait as long as we expected to get into the weeds with ol’ Leon. Fine then! Bring it on you Gold-Clad Kitten.

Clackey initially voices a desire to take on Leon, noting that he understands how Leon works and can work around his tactics, a fair shake.

Dan interjects, as he’s the only one who hasn’t fought Leon yet besides Suzuri.

Magisa however tells them all to hold on.

Zungurii questions why Magisa is stopping them, as Magisa with her magic is better suited to take on Otherworld King, the Core Soldiers should take on Leon, it’s a fair split responsibility.

Magisa refuses however, noting that fighting Core Soldiers is probably Leon’s intent, and they can’t risk wasting a Core Soldier on Leon, especially since his tricky deck might actually let him win.

So… it will be Magisa, who takes on Leon.

Dan and Clackey relent, seeing no issues with Magisa’s plan.

Mai concurs, and Yuuki, who had intended to also battle Leon (which I would have loved to see a rage-filled Yuuki ripping Leon to shreds but we did technically do that once already) sits down as a form of non-verbal consent.

And just incase you thought it’d be a cop out battle of Magic, nope! Magisa’s power stems from her deck, and she’s gon’ USE IT.

Leon comments it’s been a while since he saw Magisa’s Battle form, meaning that Magisa’s power must have only been stolen within the last 50 or so years.

One might argue that Otherworld’s awkward time-axis means humans don’t age but Otherworld King very clearly did.

Unless they age super slowly but I can’t imagine that being true if it was never mentioned anywhere.

Magisa seems rather overjoyed at being able to finally pop someone like Leon in the face personally rather than hiding behind Dan.

The idea of a World Government is it’s own political concept, some believe it’ll be inevitable that a World Government forms due to Globalization (As technology allows us to access other parts of the world easier, our individual positions in the world matters less), but others believe that such a Government type would simply be a vehicle for mass abuse if someone like say Otherworld King were to take over.

The World isn’t tired, he just murdered a 12 year old because it benefitted him, he’s not a saviour, his claim to Kingship was by right of conquest (which just means he doesn’t have any rights to kingship other than no one else can physically take it from him), and he’s not even excellent.

Leon seems honest today, he engages the statement with earnest, asking why Magisa finds that particularly funny.

God that head tilt, I fuckin’ love this woman’s expressions. Such a sassy character and I’m here for it.

That’s also a valid question, Leon’s support of Otherworld seems uncharacteristic given he’s Human

Leon simply calls hypocrisy on that one, Magisa’s an Otherworlder supporting Earth.

They realise that their situations being similar but completely inversed from each other makes it clear to the 2 that they will never fundamentally agree on anything other than that they disagree.

As a rare situation, we’re actually gonna see Magisa’s full opening hand, but there’s a lotta frames soooo..

Her opening hand is 2 Fruit of Wise Trees, a Holy Elixir, and Blizzard Wall…

Like this hand can do a LOT of living but that’s all it can do.

From the outset, we can see that Magisa’s using what appears to be Green and White.

Leon makes the first move, Bewitching Turn 1

Leon summons Beatbeetle at Lv2, and Dio-Mantis, and ends his turn.

Today he plays Green.

Otherworld Witch Turn 2, she draws Thorn Prison.

Egghh, another Defensive card, but its not like she has zero plays, she can deploy that Nexus and then hope.

Magisa deploys The Fruit of Wise Tree and ends her turn.

Suzuri its turn fucking 2, there’s no flow to keep yet. Get out of here with these dumbass comments.

Bewitching Turn 3, he brings Beatbeetle to Lv1.

Leon then uses Speed Star, now everytime Leon damages the life this turn, he’ll get 2 core in his reserve from the Void

This will let him outpace The Fruit of Wise Tree.

Leon attacks with Beatbeetle, and Magisa takes a life.

Both Leon and Magisa’s effects go off, Leon gains 2 core from Speed Star, and Magisa gains 1 core from The Fruit of Wise Tree.

Dio-Mantis then attacks, and both Leon and Magisa repeat the same dance, Leon gains 2 core, and Magisa gains 1 core.

While Leon is outpacing Magisa’s Core boost, the total amount of core gained is the same, as Magisa also gets a life in her reserve.

Leon ends his turn.

Magisa and Leon are both using similar strategies, using Green to get a core boost.

However, even if they boost core at the same rate, Magisa’s down 2 lives and 2 spirits, so Leon still has the advantage.

It appears Magisa’s collapsed after taking those 2 lives.

Leon picks up on this, noting that Magisa must have still needed time to fully recover her health after expunging all her Magic in Dan’s fight against Dr. Franker and she hasn’t got that, so she’s unable to manage the pain of life loss.

Magisa’s exhaustion turns to a smile, as since her use of Magic is linked directly to her ownership of her deck, the ability to even take damage this way is proof she has her deck, and that she can still use the full powers of her Magic.

So it’s a nice thing, even if it is difficult to cope with

Otherworld Witch Turn 4, Magisa comes to the same conclusion I did, that her hand is flat GARBAGE.

However, she draws a potential out!

Magic Book is a Yellow Cost 5 Magic from BS02, it’s a draw Magic for Magic focused decks. It allows a player to “Open” any number of Magic cards, and draw a card for each.

If you don’t remember what “Opening” is, its placing a card from the hand onto the “Opened Zone”, Cards in the Opened Zone may have their cost paid and used as if they were in your hand but effects requiring they be in your hand cannot be used from there, and effects that target your hand don’t affect the Opened Zone.

Magisa has 3 Magic in her hand, this card would be an effective draw 3 in this situation, the downside being Leon gets to see 3 of Magisa’s Magic before she uses it.

Magisa has roughly 10 core to work with, so she spends 3 of it to place another Fruit of Wise Tree.

Then she uses another 5 to hard-play Magic Book. By “Hard-play” I mean she spent the maximum amount of core that could be spent on the card.

What? Who bluffs a Magic Book? What benefit would that give her?

How would one even do that?

Magisa reveals all THREE of her Magic cards, and Opens them.

Magisa then draws 3 cards from her deck as she opened 3. We don’t actually get to see these cards.

Magisa ends her turn.

Zungurii finds it odd that Magisa somehow didn’t draw a single Spirit, it’s simple enough to conclude that Magisa might have a bad hand.

But she just played 2 Green Nexuses, Revealed 2 White Magic, and used a Yellow Magic, that’s enough information to realize this deck might be a tad… odd.

Dan however catches on that Magisa isn’t at all surprised by her situation, which means one thing, she knew she could potentially get a hand like that.

The time has come for audience to receive answers and so Leon does that job for us.

THAT’S RIGHT BABY

MAGISA HAS A MEME DECK!

She’s got 1 singular Spirit in that entire deck.

The rest is just Magic and Nexus, baybeeeeee.

Gods, and most of it is Magic anyway!

Magic Decks like this are rather hard to handle, Magic doesn’t tend to stick around after you use it, and so can’t provide Cost Reduction after using their one-time effects.

Naturally Magisa’s no idiot, that’s what The Fruit of Wise Tree is for.

Gods it’s a legitimate question you got to ask yourself before playing bad decks but hot damn this episode has some bangers.

Magisa maintains that it is the Ultimate Magic Deck, and it won’t lose to Leon OR Otherworld King…

In spite of the fact that Otherworld King did infact beat her once and steal all her magic.

I mean that’s certainly the plan but the whole point of a deck like that is to live until that happens so easier said than done…

Plus Magisa’s just going to Thorn Prison your ass the second you attack.

This time, Leon’s X-Rare is The SavageKnight Hercules!

Seems that Leon’s deck resembles Revolver West’s at the moment.

Leon enters his attack step and attacks with Hercules.

Dio-Mantis and Beatbeetle are exhausted, as the only targets for the effect.

Hercules takes a life and Magisa gains 2 more core from the Void thanks to her Nexuses.

Nexi? Nexuses?

I hate the English language. And it’s my mother tongue.

Leon ends his turn, I suppose now that he knows Magisa has only 1 Spirit, he’s full attacking as much as possible, knowing he’s unlikely to have all his lives dropped to 0 to a sudden flood of Spirits.

Leon notes to Magisa that she’s not capable of holding out forever, with only 2 lives and a deck full of Magic.

Confidence? Or blind courage? I wonder.

Suzuri and Kenzo discuss how Magisa intends to get to her single Spirit, which is clearly key to her combo, from a deck of still 31 cards.

To think with all the tactical prowess Leon boasts, he’s about to get ultimately screwed by a single bout of good luck.

Magisa gave Dan a transforming Battle Form, seems like her old Battle Form also had transforming features when summoning her ace.

The MagicalEmpress Ambrocius is summoned.

Let’s talk about it!

BS09’s Yellow X-Rare, a Cost 7 Yellow Spirit.

Couple things to note is that it’s solely from the Dark Artes family, so it’s not in a well-supported family of cards. It’s Cost 7 but unusually it has only 2 Yellow reductions, meaning you’re paying at least 5 for this thing, you’d need 5 core left over to summon it at Lv3.

Even at Lv3, it’s max BP is a measly 8000. All these poor traits as a Spirit indicate a potentially powerful effect.

So! At all levels, whenever your life is reduced by an opposing Spirit, you can return a Yellow Magic from the Trash to the hand. A defensive ability, not too notable really, plus the only Yellow Magic Magisa has right now is Magic Book.

At Lv2 onwards, when you OR the opponent uses Magic, Ambrocius refreshes. And suddenly the combo starts to make sense.

The idea of Magisa’s deck is to continually use Magic to keep refreshing Ambrocius as much as possible.

To assist with this, at Lv3, during either attack step, you may use Yellow Magic from your hand OR opened zone… at no cost.

Fueled with enough Yellow Magic you can take 5 lives with this thing all at once.

For a Magic Deck like Magisa’s, this is the only Spirit she needs.

…She should still run more copies of it though.

Otherworld Witch Magisa, ends her turn.

Side note, the eyecatches in the centre of the episode are unique here, showing Magisa as she’s the main battler this episode.

Leon reassures himself, claiming he has nothing to worry about.

But Magisa notes this is the complete opposite of Leon’s battle style

Leon’s battle style isn’t well defined, but I presume it’s that Leon is tricky because he amasses a collection of Spirits of varying colours, which allows him to widen his options when it comes to countering with Magic.

Magisa however, has one strategy, to get one spirit out, and support it and only it with a deck containing at most 36 Magic, ultimately a heavily aggressive style using low spirits while Leon uses a defensive style with various.

Leon concurs with this, stating he and Magisa don’t match anywhere.

Magisa’s deck has a key weakness, with only one spirit she has only 1 angle of attack.

If Ambrocius is destroyed, Leon wins. Magisa literally goes down with her Key Spirit.

Leon resolves himself to win so he can see the Wonderful World Otherworld King is creating.

But Magisa notes that the only reason he even wants Earth, is because of Otherworld King.

Magisa states that all they’re doing is conquering, when Otherworld King came to Grand-Lolo, it was bustling with life, but through his confiscations and subjugations, Grand-Lolo hasn’t exactly thrived with his presence, much less the humans who follow him hoping to expand into Grand-Lolo.

So he goes in, completely ruins one world when the core system should be keeping it thriving, and then moves onto the more lush Earth in an attempt to rule over the Humans there?

Magisa’s claiming that Earth is just convenient for them, and there’s no way to know that uniting the 2 worlds will necessarily make it better when the only example Otherworld King has is ruining his last rodeo.

And how many sacrifices need to be made before you get what you want?

If there’s not an answer to that question, then someone hasn’t done a clear risk assessment. You’re just throwing corpses into the pile not even knowing what the outcome will be.

So I might have made a mistake when mentioning Leon’s backstory, it’s due to the way the subtitles are ordered in that scene.

Leon isn’t from the 15th Century, that’s the date that Otherworld Observations was written, because it’s Otherworld King’s book, and Otherworld King is from the 15th century (meaning it was before Portugal discovered Japan)

Leon is a Gold Miner, he worked to obtain Gold for the wealthy, who would then either use it or sell it off to maintain their fortune. While not earning much value himself.

He’s also from the same era as Revolver West.

While this might seem like an interesting coincidence, Grand-Lolo connects to very specific eras of time, likely such that no one can meet their past or future selves from a given Era (but they may meet an ancestor)

As such there’s liable to be quite a few people coming from the same time.

It seems Leon was downtrodden with the life he had as a Gold Miner, not having much value working for the people that he was.

He’d hoped to get away from his life, go to Grand-Lolo and change everything.

It seems it was Leon that also pleaded with Revolver to have him come to Grand-Lolo with him.

I wonder… Leon states Otherworld King gave that to him but it’s possible he only discovered the book somewhere and reading about it, I imagine he must have had some way to confirm it’s existence, it’s possible they were able to find the gate to Grand-Lolo.

Though given that Grand-Lolo time isn’t very linear it’s also possible that Otherworld King wrote it and then had it returned to the 15th Century such that Leon would receive it, hence why Leon believes he was given that book.

This man just doesn’t miss.

Revolver is the most based character in this entire series, I also want to teach the world how delicious curry is.

But most of all, I’d rather teach the world how fun Battle Spirits is, but I’m a long way from doing that…

Leon seems to be of the opinion that he successfully threw away his life in order to get to Grand-Lolo, and risked it while he was there to get to where he is…

…But is that true? Grand-Lolo connects to his Era still, nothing stops him going back, how do you throw away something will still be there when all is said and done?

Whoa, that wasn’t there before.

Erm, Bewitching Turn 7, Leon seems to have summoned 2 Kigna-Swans.

And it’s his attack step, he attacks with one of them.

Also once again! My favourite theme is playing!

I am once again asking, if anyone knows what this track is or where I can listen to it, tell me.

Magisa responds to Kigna-Swans attack with Blizzard Wall, the most painful card to use at 2 life, as it means the opponent can only leave you with 1.

Kigna-Swan takes a life from Magisa, and she gains 2 core from her Fruit of Wise Trees. Magisa now has 1 life remaining.

Thanks to Ambrocius’ effect at all levels, as Magisa lost life to an opposing Spirit’s attack, she recovers the 1 Yellow Magic in her Trash, Magic Book.

Leon ends his turn.

A card you knew she had no less, she still has Holy Elixir too.

Otherworld Witch Turn 8, Magisa brings Ambrocius back to Lv3.

She then uses Magic Book, she can Open as many magics as she likes to draw that many cards.

Magisa’s mostly been casting from her Open Zone, so her hand should be rather full.

Magisa Opens… what the fuck is this deck?

She opens:

• Victory Fire
• Danse Macabre
• Heavy Gate
• Dream Chest

Victory Fire makes sense, Danse Macabre sounds like a death sentence in her deck, Heavy Gate I can reasonably see working as it prevents blocks too, and… Dream Chest?

Sorry was Dream Ribbon having a snooze? It’s a removal card sure but damn.

Magisa then draws 4 new cards:

• Trident Flare
• Wing Boots
• the 3rd copy of The Fruit of Wise Tree
• Blizzard Wall.

Besides Trident Flare this isn’t too whacky but what the hell was that last drop?

Magisa’s lost 4 lives, has had 4 core steps, started with 4 core, and gained 8 core from effects.

Totalling 20 core, she’s only spent 4 of it, with 5 on Ambrocius, Magisa has 11 core she can use freely, and 15 without losing Ambrocius.

This next section is narrated by Suzuri, but screw that guy, that’s what you have me for.

Bewitching Turn 9. Leon summons his White X-Rare, The IceBeast Mam-Morl.

Leon attacks with Mam-Morl, during Flash timing, Magisa spends 4 core using Heavy Gate.

7 Core remain.

Heavy Gate prevents all of Leon’s Cost 1 or below Spirits from attacking or blocking, so Leon’s 2 Kigna-Swans and Beatbeetle can’t move.

Magisa spends a further 4 core (3 left) using Holy Elixir.

This moves a core from Magisa’s Reserve to her life, (2 core left)

Magisa takes Mam-Morl’s attack from the life, resulting in The 2 Fruit of Wise Trees giving her 2 additional Core in addition to the life lost, she now has 5 core in her reserve.

As Magisa took damage from a Spirit, she can retrieve a Yellow Magic from her trash, she returns Heavy Gate.

Leon attempts to attack with SavageKnight Hercules, but Magisa uses her now 5 core in Reserve to use Dream Chest, returning it to the Top of Leon’s Deck.

As Dio-Mantis is now the only available attacker, Leon can’t safely attack with it as it will just be destroyed by Ambrocius.

Leon ends his turn, sadly that Heavy Gate refund is going to cost him dearly.

As by running afoul of it, Magisa can ensure his Spirits can’t even block this turn either, only Dio-Mantis will be capable of defending.

Magisa has finally made a note of Leon’s somewhat hard-focus on the fact that he is “Prepared”

Magisa’s been through a lot.

Magisa is stating that she is prepared to do anything to protect them, she’s prepared because she knows precisely what will happen to her if she fails.

They’re both “prepared” to do anything for their goals… which means that at the conclusion of this battle, one of them is going to lose everything. In what way I’m not certain, but they can’t simply walk away from this if they’re not prepared to take what comes with losing.

Also notably this is the 2nd time Leon has used Mam-Morl, he’s using a White and Green deck featuring Mam-Morl (again) and Revolver’s cards, his friend.

Given his strong associations with HellSacred Gungnir, it’s possible that Leon’s main colour is in fact White, and Mam-Morl is his true Key Spirit. A Defensive Spirit with high armor to other colours is definitely suited to him.

Otherworld Witch Turn 10, Magisa brings Ambrocius to Lv3.

This is odd because she had just enough core to not have to pay from Ambrocius when doing her Magic defense earlier, though she could have paid from Ambrocius anyway.

Magisa’s Total Core this turn is 23, 5 on Ambrocius makes 18.

Magisa attacks!

During Flash Timing, Magisa uses Victory Fire, destroying both Dio-Mantis and Beatbeetle.

Combo time, Magisa uses Ambrocius’ Lv2+ effect, since she used Magic, it refreshes.

Kenzo clocks the strategy of the deck, Magisa intends to continue casting Magic after Magic until Ambrocius takes all of Leon’s lives.

You can spout nonsense Leon, but you do need to stop the attack.

Magisa uses Ambrocius’ Lv3 effect to use a Yellow Magic at no cost, she uses Heavy Gate free o’ charge.

Leon’s Kigna-Swans are rendered unable to attack or Block this turn.

Worse still, Leon’s modes of defense consist of MachG, even if summoned with Swift, he can’t block due to Heavy Gate changing blocking rules, not affecting current Spirits.

That last card Divine Wind is quite interesting.

A Cost 2 Green Magic, Leon can’t use it because it would give a battle boost which doesn’t help a block.

But during the Main Step, you’d be able to use this card to summon any Spirit with Cost equal or less to the number of Core in Trash, this card’s nuts, as it lets you essentially spend a lot of core, then as long as you’re using a Green base, you can summon any spirit off of this.

Leon is likely using it so he can spend large amounts of Core, then summon Mam-Morl if he hasn’t drawn enough White Spirits.

Leon takes his first damage of the game, dropping to 4 lives

Leon’s realized how screwed he is.

Magisa attacks again, this time she uses Danse Macabre.

For the discard, she tosses out the one card in her hand that isn’t a Magic, The Fruit of Wise Tree.

Mam-Morl has no Armor at Level 1, so it’s selected as the target for Danse Macabre, having it’s 1 core removed from it, and it’s depleted.

Leon seems to recall a time when the Otherworld Observation Records flew away from him, and he caught it, the light suggests this was the method he used to get to Grand-Lolo.

Leon drops to 3 lives.

As Magisa used a Magic, Ambrocius’ effect refreshes it.

and yeah it’s pretty over, Leon has no way of accessing any more cards in his deck, hell the next card he’s going to draw isn’t an out either, it’s SavageKnight Hercules.

Without a way to stop Magisa using magic, this doesn’t end.

Magisa attacks, this time she uses Trident Flare, now Magisa gets to destroy 3 spirits with 3000 BP or less, and destroys Leon’s Kigna-Swans

Leon is now out of Spirits entirely.

Leon remembers the time he met Otherworld King after first arriving in Otherworld

2 lives remain.

Ambrocius is refreshed, and so it attacks again, Magisa uses Wing Boots at no cost thanks to Ambrocius’ Lv3 effect.

Interesting, from the moment Otherworld King met him, he noted that Leon needed to throw away everything, he’s repeated it again now. So it’s clear that whatever he meant by that, Leon hasn’t proved he could do it yet.

1 life remains.

Said Leon, staring down a way he could lose.

also Leon has had 6 battles in this series, he’s lost to Clackey and Yuuki once.

Guy’s got a 50/50 win rate, “no way I could lose”, all I need to do is call tails.

…And are you prepared to throw that all away, Leon, if you can’t uphold the rules?

Magisa launches the final attack on Leon using Ambrocius, and snatches his final life.

Magic Combo complete.

With zero lives, The Bewitching Leon is defeated.

Otherworld Witch Magisa is the Winner!

As long as she draws her 1 Spirit from a 40 card deck.

…Otherworld King is doing something with the clocks in light of her victory over Leon.

The Core Soldiers congratulate Magisa on her victory.

Yep, that’s Magisa’s first and last episode as a card battler, still, decks like that are excellent examples to use for single episodes, Battle Spirits isn’t all competitive feasibility, the amount of meme-worthy decks that can still execute gameplans are endless.

The Golden Lion is headed in their direction… at increasing Speed.

Having lost, he plans to ram them, solving the problem through force…

and notably, irregardless of Otherworld King’s rule.

Ayo Magisa hold up

One of Magisa’s more incredible feats, she’s able to erect a Magic barrier, much like the one in the battlefield, to block Leon’s Core Ship.

Leon once again declares that he’s prepared… notably “Kakugo”, the word they use can also mean resolve.

For a brief moment, Magisa gains a surge of energy, and turns Golden.

…Which is interesting foreshadowing actually.

Mostly because of this little thing, but we’ll get to that in… 3 more series.

So we’ll be waiting a while.

With her newfound surge of energy, Magisa deflects the Golden Lion safely into the stones below, without harming anyone.

Leon refuses to take this lying down, trying desperately to get the Golden Lion running again so he can kill the Core Soldiers.

It’s clear Leon is loyal to Otherworld King, but it’s clearly not because of their shared dream.

The promise of a new world meant that Leon could freely leave his old life behind. And become something more than the worthless Gold Miner he was.

Leon is motivated not by loyalty, or agreement.

The Bewitching Leon acts as he does, Flagrantly abusing the loophole in the rule of Battle Spirits, manipulating those around him to act in his favour, buttering up Otherworld King at every turn.

He wants to see Otherworld King ultimately succeed, and the Core Soldiers ultimately fail.

Because he is scared.

And Otherworld King has no need of fearful servants, willing to step on even the rules he himself instated, even if it is to benefit him.

Because for Leon to benefit Otherworld King, is to please Otherworld King, and to please Otherworld King reduces the likelihood

…that he’ll have to go back to that life.

Grand-Lolo seems to still have a tenuous connection with the Eras it linked to, by invoking some Magic into those clocks, Otherworld King was able to send Leon back to the point in time he left from, the Old west.

Where Leon will be forced to return to his life as a Gold Miner, Grand-Lolo being connected to the Era of the Core Soldiers means Leon has no means to come back to Grand-Lolo either.

As far as we’re concerned, his life as The Bewitching Leon is no more. Now he’s been returned to a simple Gold Miner, far in time, so that he can no longer corrupt Otherworld King’s rule of Battle Spirits any further.

Funny, he spent the entire episode sure that he could throw it all away, but I suppose Otherworld King mentioned that Leon needed to wrestle with the possibility that he’d have to be able to throw his new life away as well.

And as if to add insult to injury, Leon’s copy of Otherworld Observation crumbles to dust, removing the last possible method to access Otherworld.

On top of not having fully recovered however, and then needing to unleash a huge amount of power to flip the Golden Lion, Magisa must be all kinds of worn out.

But it seems like her being perfected means that she doesn’t go full fever mode, just needs a bit of sleep, much like anyone else who wears themselves out.

Sleep is important people, gives you energy, this blog will still be here in the morning so anyone staying awake late to read, go to sleep!

Revolver West has a rather profound moment here, he talks about the “Size” of a person’s happiness, and how a “spoonful” was enough for him.

What he means is, that Leon pursued his own happiness with a deathly fervor, focused so much on maximizing his own happiness, and unable to be content with the small benefits of his day to day life that were brought to him.

Leon was not a person who was content with what he had, there was always a necessity to want more, always an envy for the wealthy people he served. When Otherworld King promised more with the united worlds, Leon did everything in his power, whether Otherworld King approved it or not, to achieve it.

Revolver West, however, is simply happy ensuring that someone new every day likes his curry, and even if his circumstances aren’t even ideal, he’s content enough that he won’t strive for more.

There is no correct value of happiness that a person should have, it’s why Revolver West wasn’t in full agreement with Leon’s dreams… Revolver didn’t need to change everything to be happy, and because of that, he’s going to lose precisely nothing if he ever returns back to his own time.

With that, Revolver says one last goodbye to his friend, though it may not be goodbye for long if the Core Soldiers have anything to say.

That’s the end of the Episode. Suppose we should talk about Leon.

The Bewitching Leon is a character that’s introduced very well. He’s presented as one of Otherworld King’s Three Heads, of equal standing to Yuuki Momose, who had shown how well he outmatched Dan earlier. Through that, an indication of Leon’s power is shown.

He then goes on to show his mastery over many colours, defeating Mai, and Kenzo, but losing to Clackey, though he loses to him, the loss is somewhat graceful, he then goes on to win against Kenzo again. He’s also shown to be rather ruthless, circumventing the rule of Battle Spirits by acting in his interests while waiting for the battle to conclude.

However, between his battle with Yuuki and his battle with Magisa his character somewhat takes a nosedive, after losing to Yuuki in a somewhat glorious manner, Leon suddenly stops thinking. Hell even before that when his strategy is “Turn bird sideways until you win” and then got surprised when it didn’t work.

Which was a conscious decision mind you, he had spirits he actively chose not to use because he wanted to humiliate Yuuki with Hououga, I don’t recall that kind of callousness to be any portion of his character, he seemed typically ruthless and thorough.

He goes from this cold, calculating individual who tries to strong-arm his way through any situation that’s not yet decided on, to someone who just continually sucks Otherworld King’s dick until the guy tells him to jump off a cliff, which he so does.

I get that they wanted to have Otherworld King punish Leon for his continual disregard of the rules of Battle Spirits but they did so with him spending that entire last game screaming that he’s prepared, full attacking for no reason, and worse still, not having any of his usual counter magic to put a stop to Magisa’s attacks.

The writing was kind of in a corner, so naturally because of the way Ambrocius functioned, they decided to go with having him holding onto MachGs, cards he could defend with but otherwise couldn’t use but then the result is just that the guy who’s been playing rather intelligently until now full attacked 4 turns in a row and then died.

I do wonder if it’s my bias for his style talking, or perhaps that I’m not quite seeing the catharsis they intended by punishing Leon in the best way possible: Sending him back to the place he was willing to give up everything to stay away from, by making him seem as pathetic as possible.

It’s just, egh. Leon’s final end here has no payoff because it seemed like his earlier loss to Yuuki started with him petering out mid match.

In any case, Leon was a character that started very strong, and then presumably due to time constraints, the character couldn’t be retired in a very satisfying way. He’s a character who displays mastery of many colours excellently and was prevented from doing so in his final stand.

I very much do like Leon, though unfortunately I’m not sure there are any mechanisms to do more with him given the story.

Anyway, Card of the day!

Naturally, it’s Ambrocius, and I actually left something to talk about for it!

So, this many covers a quirk involving the combination of it’s Lv2 and 3, It lets you use Yellow Magic at no Cost, and refreshes anytime you use any Magic.

Now, the quirk with this card becomes, well if I always have a Yellow Magic, Ambrocius attacks forever.

Well, we can’t produce an infinite hand, even with all of our other 39 cards being Magic, Ambrocius can only attack 40 times.

…But there is a way to make it attack infinitely. A way so that you always have Magic.

This is Gleam Hope, a BS04 magic, nothing too flashy, but it enables one to give any Spirit Light.

Now, giving Ambrocius Light means that Ambrocius can recover the Yellow Magic used at the end of her battle…

See the combo?

With just Gleam Hope, one other Yellow Magic, and an Ambrocius at Lv3, you produce an infinite attack combo that will not end until your opponent stops it.

This is the reason for Ambrocius’ horrid cost and low stats, it’s to provide as many ways to get around the Infinite attack combo as possible. As that’s a win condition.

That being said, Magisa’s deck doesn’t look entirely set up to use that combo, or they would have displayed it. Here’s a version I’ve made based on the cards used, I’ve taken some liberties with the build however generally because this deck isn’t capable of cycling well with just Magic Book.

So my additions are the following:

• The Fruit of Life – a Nexus that draws for losing lives and can be levelled to perform the same function as Wise Tree
• The Burning Canyon – a Nexus that enables the cycling of cards one at a time, this can let one dig through the deck twice as fast. Also raises Ambrocius BP when levelled
• Double Draw – It draws 2, what more do you want? Also gets a reduction from Burning Canyon
• Silent Wall – Ending the attack step is probably a necessity, as we need to stall out until the right cars are drawn.

Needless to say however, this deck is god awful, Magisa took the problem of needing a lot of Magic to supply Ambrocius’ refresh with and answered it by making it almost every other card. She has to basically hope that she draws the right cards fast enough before the opponent pinpoints her strategy, otherwise they’ll do as Leon did and start rushing her.

This almost demands and necessitates drawing a Green Nexus for an opening, otherwise you’re kind of boned.

There are of course, significantly better ways to do this.

But for that, I’ll need a little help from my friend Galaxy. As it’s another Charisma Battler Showcase Deck.

This is a… Aside from the 45 card count, this is a far more sensible Ambrocius build, this one uses various cycling methods such as Kleio, Storm Draw, Cherubim.

It also makes use of this card, The Blessed Sanctuary which achieves a similar goal as The Fruit of Life, but starts with Core, and levels up for draw, and more importantly, triggers on Yellow Spirit destruction, not life loss.

It’s also using something that became more doable in BS08, The DogGeneral Cu-Sith and The Angelia Salaty, that is a strategy supported with Holy Life. By enabling an aggressive playstyle early through those 2 Spirits, you can gain more lives, allowing you to accumulate more core via damage,.

Also rather sensibly, Invisible Cloak is here, though not a Yellow Magic, it can definitely assist the problem of blocking, as an unblockable Ambrocius can’t have it’s low BP abused.

Remember to use these decks responsibly, and of course, I cannot testify to the efficacy of these decks myself.

Anyway, off to the next one, if we weren’t in the endgame before, we are now.