The last episode was an unceremonious 2-parter, so the only thing we can really do here is move on from where we left off, isn’t it?
When we left off, it was the end of Silver Knight Turn 8. Yuuki has an exhausted Grand-Woden and Fjalar, and 4 lives remaining.
It is now Clash King Turn 9, Dan has a completely empty board, a single life remaining, and his Siegwurm has just been destroyed. The last time his key spirits were destroyed he lost his will to fight. Making this a good callback.
Dan’s also got 5 cards before his draw step, so he’s at least working with a full hand and not going in with low resources.
Granted, refilling his board might eat into that total.
Last episode, we learned that Dan’s aim in this battle, is to reverse the damage to Yuuki’s Symbol by inflicting damage to his lives. It’s either an idea from the fact that Otherworld King used that energy to restore his Youth, or it’s a callback to what Julian thought about when Dan was in that state, that battling was the key to restore a broken Soldier.
Dan notes that Yuuki’s likely figured out what Dan’s doing already, having taken damage once and had part of his symbol repaired. But Yuuki’s still fighting hard, because there isn’t going to be a better time to have this rematch.
For once this isn’t a case of “God dammit this isn’t the time”, this match isn’t only a way to restore Yuuki and resolve a rivalry, but it’s also a test to see if Dan has the ability Yuuki doesn’t, as he’ll need such a thing to defeat Otherworld King.
Otherworld King notes Dan’s rather disadvantageous position, he’s staring down 2 Spirits, one is a powerful Tribute Spirit, with an empty board and a 3-life deficit.
Clashing from this position will be difficult anyway, given Yuuki’s board is exhausted.
Otherworld King seems to have noticed he’s been played, and what Dan’s attempting to do with the battle, he’s been very aware of the states of Light Bearer symbols, so he’s likely noticed that first instance of damage started repairing Yuuki’s
Dan summons Erimakilizard and Rainydle, then he deploys The Sunstone Shrine.
It may not be something that works without the Clash effect running, but Nexuses are also permanent symbols that must be removed with effects and not in battle.
With now maximum reductions, Dan uses his 2nd Extra Draw of the game, and draws 2 Dinonychusaws.
He’s now permitted to reveal a 3rd card.
Yuuki wonders what Dan will do if the card on top of his deck isn’t a Spirit.
Naturally the smartass answer is “Well it’ll just go to the top of his deck” but ultimately it means that Dan isn’t getting an important card this turn OR next turn.
Dan reveals the 3rd card, and its a Red Spirit, The SupernovaDragon Siegwurm-Nova.
So it’s added to his hand.
Dan’s lack of a pokerface betrays the benefit of what he was after, but this isn’t useful information as Dan would have been forced to reveal Nova to confirm it was a Red Spirit.
Dan comments that right now, he needs blockers, he wants to summon Nova, but he needs to protect his life AND he actually needs a Tribute for it.
And right now he does nae have one.
Dan summons the 2 Dinonychusaws he drew, both at Lv2.
This sounds so incredibly sarcastic even though it isn’t.
But from Yuuki’s point of view at least, he’s got nothing, if Dan chose to full attack here, Yuuki’s hand is Hououga and Balder. He wouldn’t be doing a thing with it. Yuuki’s lost this turn.
Dan’s figured from this reaction that Yuuki does indeed know that Dan’s trying to repair his Symbol, but the issue is if Dan full attacks here, that’ll be the end of it, and he won’t have shown Nova to Otherworld King.
Something he needs to do to buy him a little good faith, as Otherworld King seems to be being picky about his opponents, having directly challenged Yuuki rather than Dan.
Seems even through expressions alone on a TV screen, Otherworld King and Dan are aware of how the other is currently thinking, Dan ends his turn.
Yuuki’s naturally taken aback, Dan had the game, so he’s wondering why he didn’t intensely attack as the old Dan would have in this situation.
Dan rather obtusely reminds Yuuki that he’s only got a single life left.
Well, as George Washington would (supposedly, the quote is attributed to him) have me believe, the best offense is a good defense…
One can discourage attacking if the risk of the opponent’s failure is instant loss.
Dan says he’s not defending because he thinks he can do it, but that he needs to defend in order to win.
Even if Dan were fighting for Kajitsu’s sake, it’d be easy to let Yuuki sacrifice himself in that scenario.
No, whether it be for Yuuki’s Symbol, or Kajitsu’s resurrection, Dan is fighting to ensure Yuuki is happy too.
For something else, we get to see the progress of Clackey’s battle with Belga.
I see Belga’s still up to his usual tricks, using Thor and Mjolnir.
Berserker-Magnum’s there too, it’s an interesting choice, but good if you’re using Artifact Plant, which can turn Cost 2s into Armed Machines.
I have never heard something so untrue in my life…
Gods, they’re birds of a feather these 2.
They’re having a Bishounen-off
Imagine designing a user interface that has random binary running around in the background.
And before you ask, no, programmers nor hackers tend to parse things in Binary, there’s a concept known as “human readable” which if something generally isn’t, it’s near impossible to work with.
The Virus has been launched into some Government headquarters, we have no idea which. Somehow it will spread across the world… somehow.
Why does it have a designed animation for it leaving when the UI has nothing to do with actual functionality?
Having 6 monitors all connected to cameras across the world is far more plausible than whatever the hell is going on in Mai’s Laptop.
Silver Knight Turn 10, Yuuki summons The ShieldSoldier Balder and raises Fjalar to Lv3.
Yuuki notes that Dan will continue to run out Spirits to his field until he’s able to summon Nova, so Yuuki’s plan will be to keep attacking such that Dan is forced to defend.
Yuuki attacks with Grand-Woden
Dan blocks with Erimakilizard and it’s destroyed.
Yuuki trash talks Dan after that block, lamenting how much card advantage Dan is losing just to be able to summon Nova. He even gave up a Win for it.
Yuuki’s all smiles though, he seems to be enjoying himself.
Yuuki attacks with Fjalar.
With an exhausted Armed Machine, Grand-Woden is refreshed.
Fjalar is blocked by Rainydle, and Rainydle is destroyed.
Grand-Woden attacks for a 2nd time, and Dan blocks with Dinonychusaw, which is destroyed.
So we have a Dan battling like Yuuki, and a Yuuki battling like Dan, they’ve swapped places.
It seems that battling that way is a form of communication however, Yuuki is battling like Dan to mirror Dan’s defensive play to show that he understands what Dan is trying to do.
Yuuki ends his turn.
Dan is worried about the 2 cards in Yuuki’s hand, wondering if Yuuki will try to end the game on his next turn.
I can’t tell if he means the aim of summoning Siegwurm-Nova, or the aim of repairing Yuuki’s core?
The Virus has struck, now Human soldiers everywhere have their systems frozen by a massive, twerking, fat Brustom.
…What about the missiles?
WHAT?
HOW DOES A SYSTEM FREEZE CAUSE YOUR MISSILES TO AUTO-DEPLOY, WHAT KIND OF GOD-AWFUL FAILSAFE IS THAT!?
This show does not understand anything about computers.
What’s even weirder is that the Otherworld forces are able to accurately identify that the Human Government forces have malfunctioning machinery… somehow, while not having any visual on their monitors whatsoever.
Ah, the blame game begins, if they doubt the Core System their faith in Otherworld King will diminish, and the Humans will defy him.
Serge’s observed from the chaos outside that the human fleet are currently having destructive problems.
Now if any of those missiles hits a ship and someone dies, that’s on Mai and Kenzo
That will at LEAST be a manslaughter charge or 2.
Oh jesus christ curse my poor timing I caught Mai’s face on the WORST frame.
Your move, Otherworld Forces.
It seems that the Human forces are successfully distracted, but Zungurii and Kazan, who want to get to Otherworld Castle, still have to deal with the Otherworld forces before they can do so.
It seems that the Core Systems are not so easily connected with each other on similar networks or frequencies that would enable a virus to spread like that, as a result just infecting The Violet with the Brustom Virus wouldn’t cause it to spread on it’s own.
Serge tries to see what he can do about this.
Okay so this does seem to clarify that Yuuki is aware of the fact that Siegwurm-Nova is coming and is trying to win before then.
So now Dan needs to bet on a card coming like right now that will let him summon it.
Dan draws and subsequently uses Reborn Flame
Now Dan can recover a Spirit from his Trash to his hand.
Dan returns Siegwurm to his hand from the Trash.
Additionally, Reborn Flame adds an additional red cost reduction icon to every Astral Dragon in Dan’s hand.
Dan summons Lizardedge.
Finally, Dan summons The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm.
Next, by Tributing Siegwurm…
Levelling down Dinonychusaw and depleting Lizardedge.
Dan summons The SupernovaDragon Siegwurm-Nova
Otherworld King figures that the summon of Siegwurm-Nova means the match is over.
Dan activates The SupernovaDragon Siegwurm-Nova’s effect when summoned.
As a “Siegwurm”-named Spirit was offered up as the Tribute, Dan recovers core from the Void until his Life has 5 again.
Now all the work Yuuki did taking said lives needs to be redone.
Yuuki’s pleased to see Nova.
Dan attacks with Siegwurm-Nova, and Yuuki immediately declares to take it from the life.
Dan activates Siegwurm-Nova’s Lv2 effect when attacking, allowing him to destroy Spirits within a budget of 10000 BP. He selects Grand-Woden, who’s maximum BP is 10000 BP.
Grand-Woden is destroyed.
Alright slow down there it’s not even the game-ending move holy shit what’s with all the HAM.
Yuuki takes Siegwurm-Nova’s Double symbol, dropping immediately down to 2 lives.
The burning flames of Nova gives life to Yuuki’s symbol, repairing it even further.
Dan ends his turn.
Yuuki’s exhausted, and in his exhaustion we can see what his hand looks like.
He has, rather clearly, both Hououga and Ragna-Rock in his hand.
Which is… pretty poor.
Also Dan gets a new, unique eyecatch for the mid-episode break.
Suzuri pokes Brustom to see if they’re finished planting, but Brustom says it ain’t finished.
The best context is no context.
Suzuri laments that for all the X-Rares in the world, planting enough trees in time to get the ball rolling is literally impossible for two people.
And as if to guide Suzuri’s foot into the crevice where he talks from. People show up.
Boomerang Oryo, also known as Ryoko, Heliostom, The 2 female aides of the Blue King.
Gaius Bando, Kako Omasu Hanaji Buu Gaana, Rocchi, Randel of the Ryuki Tribe and Dark King Jin along with the rest of the Deathmatch Group
All came outta nowhere lightning fast-
I’m kidding, that’s a dated reference, but everyone from the Blue World Tournament has arrived to help.
Silver Knight Turn 12, Yuuki draws and summons The IronKnight Yggdrassil.
Due to it’s effect, all Spirits with 3000 BP or less are returned to the hand, only Dinonychusaw fits the bill, so it’s the only spirit returned to the hand.
Yuuki notes however that Dan must have expected such a thing.
Yuuki drops Fjalar and Balder to Level 1.
He then tributes Yggdrassil.
Yuuki summons The DoomKnightLord Ragna-Rock.
With Ragna-Rock’s effect when summoned, as Yggdrassil was the tribute, Ragna-Rock gains 6 core from the void, bringing it up to Lv3 instantly.
Yuuki uses the spare core to raise Fjalar and Balder back to Lv2.
With Ragna-Rock at Lv3, Yuuki has enough attacks to do a total of 6 damage to Dan’s lives, and Dan has zero blockers.
He does however, have a single card in his hand we don’t know about, other than Dinonychusaw.
Yuuki enters his attack step, and moves first with Fjalar.
Dan takes from the life, and drops to 4.
Yuuki notes that this turn, he should be able to defeat Dan.
Which as I noted above, is true, he should in theory.
Dan’s not concerned in the slightest however, he just cares about the fight.
Yuuki attacks with Balder but the second he does prompts Dan to use the last unknown card in his hand, Flame Cyclone, which destroys Balder.
Unable to finish off Dan and unwilling to give him more core than necessary, Yuuki ends his turn.
Literally no one cares what you see right now Otherworld King, wait your turn, cool shit’s happening.
Yuuki looks at the Hououga in his hand before stating that this is probably fine.
Yuuki sees his own defeat in sight.
Elsewhere, Clackey has managed to defeat Belga, I wonder how close that was.
No, Belga won instantly and then tripped on a Lego on his way out.
Of course Clackey won, what?
Clackey concurs that he won, but that Belga was stubborn.
However it’s over now, so Belga must now concede and retreat his forces.
Yeah that kind of flies in the face of Otherworld King’s rule, Belga’s really saying “yeah fuck you, you don’t have the firepower to enforce the verdict of the match”
When Belga gives the order to fire however, nothing happens.
Whatever Belga tried to do, it was clearly unable to function because of the Brustom Virus.
Get wrecked.
Clash King Turn 13, Dan raises Siegwurm-Nova and Sunstone Shrine to their maximum Levels
Dan attacks with Siegwurm-Nova
It’s Lv3 status grants it the Clash effect. Now Yuuki is forced to block it.
Yuuki, naturally, has only one choice he can make, he blocks with The DoomKnightLord Ragna-Rock.
Due to Ragna-Rock’s effect, Fjalar is now refreshed.
This is one of those sequences where I could not possibly convey the sheer amount of awesome going on in any number of frames.
I will say however, if you can do so, watch the episode.
2 Cost 9 Tribute Spirits with Double symbols battle it out at Lv3 with equal BP, therefore, Both are destroyed.
Yuuki could exhaust Fjalar to have Ragna-Rock win, but then he’d fall victim to what happens next.
Dan activates the Sunstone Shrine’s Lv2 effect
Since a Clash Spirit was destroyed during Dan’s attack Step, he can send one of his own lives to the Void in order to have it remain on the field in a Refreshed state.
“Remain on Field” effects in the anime are represented less as a failure to destroy but more accurately as “Destroyed but resurrected immediately”
Nova attacks once more.
Yuuki, knowing that Dan would resurrect Siegwurm-Nova using Sunstone Shrine, blocks with the Fjalar he left refreshed.
Dan however, has the out, using Meteor Storm.
Siegwurm-Nova defeats The Artifact Fjalar.
And due to it’s effect granted to it by Meteor Storm, Yuuki is now dealt damage equivalent to Nova’s symbols, reducing him to 0.
Yuuki’s symbol is fully restored to it’s original shine.
And Clash King Dan is the winner!
With Yuuki’s symbol restored, Dan explains that doing so was his entire plan from the start of the battle, Yuuki asks Dan to forgive him for being so much trouble, presumably over needing this kind of battle-therapy in the first place.
By breaking down a person’s symbol, and then reconstructing it, you can cause a Light Bearer to undergo a large amount of self-reflection in a rather short time.
Seems like the side effect of this however is frontloading all the relevant stress and trauma associated.
But naturally, Dan wanted to take advantage of this, it’s not that he doesn’t care about Kajitsu but Kajitsu is just a little lower on the list of priorities.
Yuuki finalizes his thoughts and comes to his conclusion, Kajitsu is dead, and right now there is something far more important than resurrecting her.
Otherworld King perceptively notes that even if Yuuki can revive Kajitsu, that would sacrifice his mission to protect the world as a Bearer of the Core’s Light.
Thanks to Dan, Yuuki’s now looking at the bigger picture, and Otherworld King isn’t what he should be focusing on, it should be putting a stop to the Chaos he’s inflicting.
Otherworld King says the equivalent of “I dare you to try” before summoning forth the power of Mother Core.
The sudden change in Mother Core’s Light has caused the Core system to fluctuate in a way that disrupts The Violet’s systems.
Including the lights, this causes a blackout.
But if it’s disrupting the core system, then The Violet shouldn’t be the only one affected, as Magisa notes
Mai and Kenzo tune in to Kazan’s ship again, checking to see if his ship is okay.
As the Ship is a custom-built model and not a mass produced one, the Core System is handled a bit differently and thus is resistant to the effects Mother Core has on the Core System in general.
Mai points out that given this is the case, they should be able to get to Otherworld King’s castle now as the humans are disrupted by a Virus and Otherworld forces are being disrupted by their own boss.
Kazan gives the order, onto Otherworld King’s castle!
George Thorman likens the events transpiring with Mother Core to be like having a 2nd Sun.
Otherworld King uses Mother Core’s power, which seems to manifest as him reducing every thing he’s hoarded inside the Wisdom Gate to sand, and absorbing it.
One could say he’s internalizing all the physical wisdom he’s accumulated.
This seems to result in Otherworld King being able to activate his enhanced Battle Form outside the Battle System.
And then he just fucks off
…
I’m messing around, this is not how this goes, but it would be hilarious if it did.
Otherworld King once again solidifies his God complex, declaring that he is the only existence that matters when it comes to Earth.
He then states that the World is going to change immediately, so there is no need to rebuild it.
And then he leaves!
It was at this moment that Dan knew.
…He fucked up.
Unfortunately Dan has this lovely thing called Dumb luck, known in the narrative business as Plot Armor.
and Zungurii’s arrived to help through the convenient hole that Otherworld King left.
So, Otherworld King’s castle seems to be crumbling to pieces, all that wisdom, just gone.
Also we can all agree whoever was in that Core ship is absolutely bloody dead, right?
We have casualties.
You know I get the feeling that for Otherworld King this is precisely like deleting all of his deck recipes in his favourite card game sim so he can start over from scratch.
It is just as painful.
Zungurii was a hero today, he was able to do something for Dan other than make him nice spicy hot curry.
Yuuki comments that this is the first time since he’s lost Kajitsu that he genuinely feels like she’s been freed from her burden rather than being painfully excised from it.
Yuuki lets Dan know about the last card that was in his hand, and Dan asks why Yuuki never summoned it.
I… I really don’t think there was ever a good opportunity to do so, Raw summoning a Cost 10 spirit generally doesn’t go well, every single play Yuuki made was more optimal than that.
Though it was in Yuuki’s deck before this, Yuuki notes that the card should probably not battle anymore.
Hououga isn’t a great card in Yuuki’s deck anyway, but it’s a fair way to keep his sister’s memory at peace, by ensuring at least her copy of Hououga is no longer used to fight.
Dan asks when precisely Yuuki realised that Dan was trying to restore his symbol.
Yuuki showed signs of knowing before he lost, but it seems like he didn’t fully believe it up until Dan defeated him. Only then did he realise that Dan had intended on that the whole time.
And now for something completely different.
Local man climbs a mountain and then screams at the sky.
Using his powers, Otherworld King forces the Core System to do as he said it could to George Thorman, forcibly accelerating the decay of Earth by instantly finalizing mass pollution, degradation and climate change.
It is through this despair inflicted by him that Otherworld King hopes to force the Earth to undergo Humanity’s evolution, so that they feel the despair he did, so that they ascend the same way he did.
This ends the episode.
First note, Dan using Flame Cyclone instantly ruins the deck recipe I created for Dan’s current deck yesterday, now I have to remake the darn thing.
I suppose it is appropriate however, as the Card of the day features Siegwurm-Nova’s on-summon effect concerning the restoration of lives.
Not only that, Dan’s deck will undergo a somewhat unique change for the next battle specifically, so what I display here will be my attempt at Dan’s final deck of Gekiha Dan.
For reference, this covers the collection of episodes since receiving Siegwurm-Nova from Pantera, up until the start of his next battle with Otherworld King.
The only real “wut” here is the fact that Dan doesn’t have a single battle trick, but with the way the deck is composed it doesn’t really need one, as Sunstone Shrine allows his big Clash Spirits to simply attack again when they unceremoniously lose.
Dan’s deck really varies at the beginning of the series but since his revival after being defeated by Otherworld King it’s remained relatively consistent.
I presume the preference for doing it this way is to ensure Dan is as far removed from Bashin as possible, as all the cards he uses aside from Flame Cyclone, Buster Spear, Lizardedge and Siegfried are cards released in SD01, or BS06 onward.
And Siegfried’s inclusion seems like a deliberate choice to unite Dan with Bashin spiritually, as I believe this is the only time, ever, where a protagonist uses a previous protagonist’s Key Spirit.
And this includes the same protagonist between series mind you, er, spoilers, Dan will return as the protagonist of the next series, but due to reasons, he won’t use any of the cards he does in this one (which is a good thing)
anyway, I’ve yammered on enough, enjoy the deck and I’ll get myself onto that final Battle we’ve been waiting for.
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