Gekiha Dan – Episode 37

Right, first of all, this is probably the first and last time I will ever need to do this:

CONTENT WARNING:
The following episode, and all episodes hereafter until Battle Spirits Brave may contains topics of a sensitive nature, namely topics concerning Sibling Marriage, please read with caution.

So in the last episode! We finally gathered all 6 of the core bearers, the last 2 in the same episode.

So I figure it might be a good time to re-review our cast.

First up is Dan, who bears the Red Core’s Light.

His deck is an Aggro-type deck, which features many Spirits of high BP, and his strongest Spirits wield the powerful Clash Keyword, forcing the enemy to block when they may rather take from the life when handling high BP attacks. His single-minded preference for the keyword earned him the title Clash King.

His current Key Spirit is The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm.

Next up is Clackey Ray, the Bearer of the Yellow Core’s Light.

His deck is constructed of his favourite cards, typically beautiful female spirits, and his strategy favours the Light keyword, allowing him to continuously re-use Magic during the attack step. His mastery of the keyword earned him the title of Noble Youth of Light.

Though his strategy centred on his favourite card, The GreatAngelia Sophia, and the supplementary CleverBeast Iberix, Clackey’s finally revolved his strategy around a singular X-Rare, his current Key Spirit: The ArcAngelia Isfiel.

3rd is Viole Mai, who bears the Purple Core’s Light.

Mai’s deck revolves around combos utilizing the Curse keyword, supported by a powerful Nexus to give her control of the board.

While she’s obtained a stronger spirit since, up til now her faithful Key Spirit has been The SevenShogun Beelzebeat, even now it’s key to her strategy as to unleash the full power of her new card, Beelzebeat must on the field first.

4th is Suzuri, who bears the light of the Blue Core.

Suzuri is unique in the sense that his vast card collection contains many X-Rares, but above all he sees the most success with Blue. Suzuri’s deck, filled with optimal ratios and as many X-Rares as is consistent, can keep the door to victory open in 2 ways, the life via Assault, and the deck through Demolish.

Though he has many X-Rares at his disposal, the only thing consistent among all his decks is the omnipresence of his favoured X-Rare, The GiantEmperor Alexander.

A latecomer to the series, Kenzo was revealed to be the true bearer of the Green Core’s Light after Kajitsu was revealed to be able to use the Light of any Core through her own connection to Mother Core.

A battle perfectionist, Kenzo uses an Aggro styled deck, using Windstorm to open the opponent’s defenses up, only to send a surge of spirits through the opening immediately via Swift.

His ace is The BladeKingBeast Byak-Garo

The Brother of Mother Core’s Bearer, Yuuki bears the Light of the White Core.

Like an indomitable King, he leads his Silver Knights into battle, clad in armor, and fitted with weapons. Yuuki uses a Control strategy, sending out Spirits coated with the Armor Keyword, granting them immunity to effects of a given colour. Allowing them to act independantly of the opponent’s actions, in addition to returning the opponent’s spirits to the hand.

Though his favourite card is his IronKnight Yggdrassil, his Key Spirit is the universally resistant The ArmoredSacred Walhalance.

And that’s the a brief summary of our 6 core bearers current decks and aces.

Now, On with the show!

It seems like someone had a perfectly good read on Yuuki’s mindset. As it seems Leon is trying to find Kajitsu by locating Yuuki.

Curiously, it seems Leon is now handling a small ornate book.

The book Leon is holding is a rather important one in general for the card’s lore. The “Otherworld Observation Records” are essentially, Otherworld King’s written observations about the past, the present… and rather strangely, the future. This “Future” part will be relevant, not in this series but in a different one.

We also learn a bit about Leon here. Leon is from the 15th Century.

Recorded history from that time places it around the time of The Reinnaisance, The Age of Discovery, the Hundred Years war between England and France, and The War of the Roses.

Needless to say, Leon’s playing around in technology far more advanced than his home.

It seems the book has a lot to do with why Leon chooses to serve Otherworld King.

Seems the crew have decided to fully board Yuuki’s ship, given it’s a larger one than the Violet, this makes a lot of sense.

…Seven? Kajitsu may not bear a colour, but that’s only because she bears ALL of them.

So looks like this is a strategy meeting. That’s a fair thing to have, it’s as of yet unclear how in the hell Otherworld King is supposed to be “stopped” in this case when there’s no clear plan yet.

Dan raises a hand to ask the first and most pointless question possible, why is Magisa wearing glasses.

Magisa is down, like, the worst at the moment, it’s normal for her to invest time in appearances that actively make her look attractive.

I have no idea who the hell she’s appealing to, this room is full of 12-15 year olds, aside from maybe Yuuki and Serge, but… People don’t need a reason to feel attractive?

Dan realizes that the plot has devolved considerably from the Horizon Ladders.

Last we learned, the Horizon Ladders, while undesirable, cause damage to Kajitsu when destroyed, so they abandoned trying to destroy them for now.

There’s a Horizon Ladder in each word, and the Red one was destroyed before it was fully completed.

Yuuki and Dan say what they know of the Horizon Ladders and Mother Core currently.

How interesting, Otherworld King makes Grand-Lolo awash with Core energy, as the light of the Core cultivates life.

If the Horizon Ladder’s purpose is to “complete” Mother Core by sapping all of the core energy from Grand-Lolo, then what happens to Grand-Lolo’s ability to sustain life?

I’m aware of how this plot goes so I’m probably making an assumption somewhere.

While a layman might think “Why would being amongst a group of the only 6 people in the universe currently who can take on Otherworld King make me smile?” Suzuri’s entire shtick is that he didn’t have a place to belong to, his Light gave him one.

Kenzo notes that Dan’s rubbed off on everybody, but Suzuri wonders if Dan isn’t a complete weirdo.

Kenzo gives an answer of “Maybe but who cares?”, which is probably the ultimate Dan-answer he could have given.

That happiness you feel for performing moral goods successfully is a combination of Dopamine, the Hormone your body produces for completing a task, and Oxytocin, the hormone you feel for successfully making someone happy. Both have good effects on the mind.

Think of it like your brain rewarding you for doing right by someone else.

Naturally these areas can be damaged though, a lack of ability to produce oxytocin has been linked with a lack of empathy.

Lack of opportunity to produce Oxytocin can stunt a person’s social developments as well, like in Suzuri’s case.

Age doesn’t determine wisdom, the length of time one’s mind is open to learning does.

Modesty is an expression of Wisdom.

Uh oh, the teacher’s caught kids talking in class

the fuck you gonna do Magisa, expell us?

No no Clackey WAIT DON’T MENTION THE CO-

WHAT HAVE YOU STARTED CLACKEY!?

It seems Dan and Zungurii have been keeping their nails completely pristine in the hopes of viewing Suzuri’s collection again.

Personally I’d have loved for them to finish their conversation before devolving into a random collection. Even better if Suzuri distributed his collection to power up the battler’s decks.

After all the only one of these players who is messing with the most optimal version of a deck is Suzuri.

Yeah we should get back to that, I’d certainly like to. It’s more interesting than this scene which seems to serve the purpose of making me say “That’s nice”

Seems Kazan wants a word with his superior.

Kazan believes that, now that Yuuki has decided to walk the path of the White Soldier, he should give Yuuki a card from a man in his era who resembles Yuuki.

…It seems even Kazan has complicated feelings, he was pursuing a goal he could have achieved a lot earlier if he handed that card to Yuuki sooner. In fact if it’s so special why didn’t he use it?

In the same way that Yuuki is currently captain of Kazan’s unit… Though maybe he handed the card over because Yuuki is now even more resembling that captain.

Ah, it seems even though Kazan was working for Otherworld King under Yuuki, he was still undecided about whether or not the course of action he’d chosen was correct.

And so he kept the card to himself, since if he gave it away, he’d have a hard time getting it back.

But now he has decided, and believes 100% that he will not regret that decision later.

And so, Power is placed into the hands of the White Soldier.

This is an odd question for Yuuki to ask, but an explanation will be offered sometime later this episode.

Hoo boy, this is one of the few times I’ll have to go back to earlier shots once the explanation comes out in order to explain these scenes.

This blog doesn’t have sound cues, thankfully, but the siren of the ship just started blaring.

This may be a family show, but this is definitely one of those moments where every adult in the room is thinking “OH MY GOD LEON, FUCK OFF!“

Yuuki makes the obvious suggestion: “Have you tried flying away?“

His Core ship is probably similar in make to Leon’s, so it should be able to keep pace.

The Golden Lion fires a split missile, that… doesn’t hit the ship.

Erm, you missed?

Oh…

So it seems those missiles create a prison of some kind.

It seems that Barrier prevents the ship from moving, the missiles creating that barrier seems to have effectively hi-jacked the ship’s core system, preventing it from starting up.

It doesn’t look like it stops objects moving through it though, just interferes with core systems, as Pantera, a core-powered robot, punches directly through the roof of Yuuki’s ship.

Do you ever wonder if this is how the CIA envisions themselves when their agents are sanctioned to raid a place?

Pantera immediately nabs Kajitsu and shoves Magisa out of the way.

For some reason the rhetoric of “Men shouldn’t hit women” popped into mind, Pantera’s a robot, so his gender likely isn’t assigned based on his biological makeup… because he’s artificial, and the show has already shown the guy has precisely zero reproductive organs, but he certainly expresses himself in a manner that is stereotypically masculine. As such it’d be easy for on-lookers to refer to him with male pronouns.

Ho-lee shit, been a while since we saw Yuuki summon his freaking ICE SWORD.

I love the translation of Dan’s interjection, not “What are you doing?”, “What the hell?”, “Beep Boop”

It’s “This is unreasonable!”

Dan you’re a fighter, why do you sound like your favoured mode of conflict is a cup of tea and a buttered bagel?

Hiding is an incredibly strong word given how many times you’ve “Found” her with them.

Kajitsu prepares to use the power of Mother Core.

Oh geez, now Belga’s involved, and we all know Belga is just an absolute treat to have on screen.

Right? RIGHT?

Seems this time the Golden Lion brought a large amount of extra reinforcements, a whole army to claim Kajitsu.

Leon’s gonna look real stupid if this somehow goes tits up.

Belga says something somewhat hard to parse, stating that Kajitsu shouldn’t “Waste” the power of Mother Core, I don’t quite know what Belga’s talking about but Kajitsu seems to, as she ceases her attempt at utilizing Mother Core’s power.

Belga literally cannot exist for 2 seconds without someone bringing his Dad into the conversation.

Like I know it’s partially his fault for bragging about his father being the White King but it’s still hilarious that because he’s made that his personality, it’s the only thing anyone will talk about it with him.

Belga states his case, Leon is taking Kajitsu, and any further discussion can be taken to the dirt under your shoes.

Magisa thinks this is a terrible joke, as this is the first time all of the Lightbearers have been gathered (this has supposedly never happened, mentioned by Magisa in an earlier episode)

Belga responds to Magisa’s comment by telling her that there is no reason to be thankful for her being alive this long

I don’t even, I’m struggling to properly articulate the sentence I just heard.

It’s not really an order to off themselves, it’s not even “you should have died a while ago”, it’s “Your continued existence provides nothing of value”

Dan isn’t worried, those guns that the Soldiers have don’t even have bullets in them as weapons are frowned upon, they’re nets, about as threatening as a fly.

Belga tries to gloat about how they’re in Otherworld King’s hands, but Yuuki can smell the bullshit from where he’s standing, and contradicts him, stating that Otherworld King probably has nothing to do with this, this is Leon’s plan.

And if there was any doubt in my mind that this was the case, the horse’s mouth tells me itself.

Leon compliments Yuuki’s intelligence. I imagine Leon considers him an adversary of wit in some respects, as the two appear to have been aware of the other’s nature for quite some time, yet being unable to make any moves against the other over it.

Yuuki offers Leon a deal, he’ll resign himself to whatever punishment Leon sees fitting for him, so long as he releases Kajitsu and the other Bearers.

Leon finds this self-sacrificial statement to be rather rich coming from the guy who up until a few days ago was cold-heartedly exacting Otherworld King’s will against his designated role.

Yuuki sees he’s losing ground with Leon based on that statement, so he tries to sweeten the deal, stating that the Bearers will return to Earth, along with Kajitsu, and never return to Grand-Lolo as part of said deal.

He tries to make this seem reasonable by stating it would maintain Otherworld King’s rule, the thing Leon is trying to uphold.

Kajitsu starts acting up the second Yuuki says this, absolutely refusing to even entertain the idea of being separated from her Brother again.

Leon asks… a somewhat odd question. He states that both he and Yuuki have an “understanding” about the Human World, and that Grand-Lolo was the place that they were searching for to live in.

He then asks that, based on this shared goal, why would Yuuki rebel?

Dan is curious as to what this mutual understanding is about the Human World and their desire to remain in Grand-Lolo. There’s a piece of information missing from this puzzle, and that is Yuuki and Kajitsu’s motive for wanting to live in Grand-Lolo.

Yuuki seems a little tired with Leon at this point, and decides if Leon’s not going to make a deal with him, they may as well battle for it. Yuuki will offer the answer to Leon’s question if he does.

Yuuki says the rather grim statement of “there is still the next era” in the event of his own defeat, suggesting he’ll be executed.

Watchers might believe he’s talking about the next era of Bearers, who will stop Otherworld King.

Whatever it is, Kajitsu absolutely is not having it, the forest she cared for in the Green World had been burned to the ground and even that didn’t get her this upset.

What indeed?

Leon acquiesces, he agrees to battle Yuuki, but he only agrees to battle once, meaning that Yuuki needs to win to get any headway.

To the battlefield we go!

Upon entry to the Battlefield, Leon makes the statement that suspected Yuuki never once planned to serve Otherworld King, and had always intended to betray him.

Yuuki agrees, even after all he did, from the beginning, Yuuki had zero intentions of allowing Otherworld King to rule.

Question becomes why.

We’ve learned a few things about Yuuki now:

  • There is a person in the future that reminds Kazan of Yuuki, and Yuuki knows something about this.
  • Yuuki had absolutely zero intention of allowing Otherworld King to do as he pleased, but covertly worked under him.
  • Yuuki seems to be confident that something will happen in “the next era” even if the worst happens to him.
  • Yuuki wanted to live in Grand-Lolo.

Some old information as well lines up with this, such as Yuuki being the only person seemingly unsure about his status as a Human.

It seems Leon’s excellent timing was due to a deep understanding of how Yuuki thinks, knowing he’s an incredibly intelligent person, and using his own intelligence to essentially reverse engineer how he would betray Otherworld King if he were in the White Soldier’s position.

Leon’s quite maliciously ensuring that Kajitsu watches, I presume The Bewitching Leon has a desire to break Kajitsu in order to make her subservient for Otherworld King’s needs.

Yuuki orders Kajitsu not to use her abilities regardless of what happens to him. I imagine this includes the ability to negate Yuuki’s damage, the pain of the core is what gave him the conviction to act, so utilizing it now would negate all that growth.

We get moar flashbacks of their childhood.

If this was any other show, I’d call this closeness cute.

But unfortunately I’m watching this show, and I know better than to do so.

Yuuki makes the first move, ideal for a White deck as it means they can produce a defensive line before the opponent is able to play any Spirits.

Pantera notices Kajitsu’s being awfully compliant all of a sudden, and asks if she’s afraid.

Kajitsu states that she’s not really in a position to do anything, which is true, and moreso she’s afraid because she can’t fight with Yuuki.

Yuuki Turn 1, Yuuki summons The Sacred Gungnir and ends his turn.

Bewitching Turn 2, Leon summons a Lv2 Amenborg. Seems like Leon has decided to lead with Green this time.

He could attack here but chooses not to, ending his turn.

Yuuki Turn 3, he summons The Artifact Fjalar at Lv2.

Yuuki ends his turn.

And Leon must be reading this as I’m typing it, as he also knows that’s a new card!

Armed Machine – Android
[LV1][LV2][LV3] Armor: Red/Green
This Spirit is unaffected by opposing Red/Green Spirit/Nexus/Magic effects.
[LV1][LV2][LV3] Flash
By exhausting this Spirit, during this turn, give an “Armed Machine” family Spirit you control + (this Spirit’s) BP.

A Cost 3 Spirit from BS08, Artifact Fjalar hails from the Armed Machine and Android families.

At all levels it has Armor to Red and Green effects, meaning no Victory Fire or Thorn Prison shenanigans on this one.

Additionally, I believe this is one of the first Spirits we’ve seen that marks it’s own effect during Flash Timing. At all levels, during Flash timing, you may exhaust Fjalar in order to add it’s BP to an Armed Machine Spirit you control.

Interestingly this is an inversion of how normal Armed Machine Key Spirits work, typically they have an effect allowing them to exhaust and add power, but this time, Fjalar can offer its power to any Armed Machine.

Yuuki answers Leon’s curiosity by stating that it isn’t the only new card he’s added to his deck.

Ah not this shit again, now that the battle’s started, Belga’s once again taking action in the meantime.

Dan’s awake this time around, so he vehemently protests this, it’s naturally unfair that Belga gets to subvert the rules by taking action before the result of the match to decide said course of action has concluded.

This appears to not be something Otherworld King has a habit of doing, and seems to be a loophole that Leon frequently abuses in order to get his way in spite of the rule of Battle Spirits.

Apparently Belga also intends to extract Kajitsu from the spectator booth to take her in.

As Dan gets led away, he spots that Suzuri and Kenzo, who have yet to be spotted, have revealed themselves.

…And they’re holding 2 of what I can only see are Metal pipes.

Well if he’s not dead, nor suffering permanent brain damage, he’s definitely going to wake up with a headache.

Now that the brains of the operation has been incapacitated, Kazan uses the confusion to charge one of the soldiers.

Mai also shows off her sick martial art skills again, kicking a different soldier.

Seems Kenzou was able to loot Magisa’s staff off of Belga and hand it back to Magisa, who uses her Magic to undo the Core shackles.

All of these “Violence but not really” scenes.

And Serge is just out here DECKING PEOPLE IN THE FACE.

An inch lower and that man was not having children again.

Dan and Zungurii seem to have managed to acquire their weapons from some of the knocked out guards… But uh, these things fire nets.

So not sure how threatening this is, then again it’s against people who ALSO use net guns.

Ay, the human forces surrender in the face of very clearly being outmuscled by 6 children, one adult, a lady old enough to have been the progenitor of my entire bloodline, and a single Mazoku who to this date does not appear to have utilized any particular magic abilities they’re supposedly known for.

Glad they gave us a win this time, given that Belga has attempted this for the 2nd time now. He deserved every last ounce of pain he felt there.

Bewitching Turn 4.

Leon levels down Amenborg, bringing it to Lv1, then summons Gabunohashi.

Then he deploys a Nexus, The Fruit of Wise Tree.

Well isn’t this familiar.

It appears that Leon’s choice of deck this time around is intended to emulate Kajitsu’s.

Leon plans to either humiliate or shake Yuuki by using Kajitsu’s deck.

Yuuki seems relatively unfazed, hell he seems somewhat amused that Leon would try this.

Attack step, Leon performs a full attack.

Yuuki takes both attacks from the life, dropping to 3.

This seems a bit silly, as Gungnir could block Gabunohashi and Fjalar could block Amenborg, Leon would be out of attackers and Yuuki would have all his lives, I get there’s a Core-based incentive to take lives but I don’t think the core is worth the card advantage Leon would keep.

Oh, come on! He’s back to not feeling pain again? Way to make me feel like an idiot for my earlier claim.

Oh, it seems he isn’t. It’s just that the pain of losing a life doesn’t compare to the pain he feels when he’s away from his Sister.

Is anyone also noticing that that’s not the kind of words you use for a sibling? It’d be a bit difficult to believe anyone loves their own sibling this much.

Leon has no more attackers, he ends his turn.

Leon isn’t worried about losing Spirits with that reckless attack because being open invites Yuuki to attack him, Fruit of Wise Tree earns Leon a core anytime he loses a life.

It seems with the Nexus as a deterrent, Leon’s confident enough even to announce his intent to have Yuuki attack him.

What? That’s rude? Belga you just tried to pull the rug from under Yuuki, go fuck yourself.

Yeah! Tell him Serge.

Now that they’ve kicked out the Golden Lion’s forces, Dan wants to save Kajitsu by going to the Battlefield.

Clackey wants to go too, noting that they really have no idea what it is Leon’s after, especially given he seems to be acting outside of Otherworld King’s direct orders. Even if it is to his benefit.

Everyone else wants to join in as well.

Magisa stops them, saying they can’t all go to the Battlefield.

Apparently there’s something else that needs to be sorted first before they go and rescue Kajitsu.

Yuuki Turn 5, he brings Fjalar to Lv1.

Seems Mai, Magisa, Dan and Clackey were the ones to go for this Rescue operation.

Likelihood is the reason Yuuki took those attacks he could have blocked earlier was to make it significantly easier to summon Walhalance.

The earlier you get an ace out, the more damage it can do to your opponent while they scramble to find an answer or get their own.

With both lives lost, Yuuki had exactly the amount of core needed to summon this without losing a Spirit.

Walhalance is the Armor and Gungnir is the Spear, together symbolizing the White World’s King.

Though supposedly the most recent King was Belga’s father. But that isn’t what Leon means.

He means this.

Yep, Leon just stated that Yuuki is somehow the original White King of Otherworld, Reborn.

Which despite his Human appearance, would give him the soul of an Otherworlder.

Dan is so taken aback by this claim that Dan demands answers from Yuuki about just who the hell he really is.

Though they lost the element of surprise in rescueing Kajitsu, they’ve certainly surprised Leon, who wasn’t expecting them to up and about.

Ah, the important question.

Is Yuuki an Otherworlder?

Yuuki looks to Kajitsu for permission before speaking, and she nods.

Seems whatever it is, this pertains to both of them.

The answer to whether or not Yuuki is a Human OR an Otherworlder, is “Yes”.

I’m not saying much as I’m posting images for context, I’ll summarise the whole sequence afterwards.

Though Magisa seems just as surprised, it seems like this is the first even she’s come across this kind of phenomena.

RIGHTO. And here’s the fucky part I’ve been alluding to this entire series since the very beginning.

The reason for Yuuki and Kajitsu’s somewhat unusually high levels of affection for each other, is because they hold the memories of the White King and Green Princess respectively, Otherworlders who were killed by Otherworld King on their wedding day before their marriage could be completed.

Due to this untimely demise, the souls of those 2 Otherworlders cried out for one another until eventually they were reincarnated as humans… as Brother and Sister.

Needless to say, depending on your point of view, that is Tragic from a Watsonian Standpoint and downright Weird from a Doylist one.

As an added bonus, it seems the memories of these Otherworlders also came with it, their powers, and in Kajitsu’s case, aligned with the activation of her connection to Mother Core.

Psychic abilities, remembering shit that didn’t happen, and talking to flowers and insects and having them understand all happening at once would be a “What the fuck?” moment for anyone.

Not only was she separated and kept in custody after this, the exertion from the use of Mother Core’s power so suddenly with her small body probably knocked Kajitsu the hell out, Hospital was probably hoping to god she didn’t immediately do the same shit on waking up.

Seems their parents noped the fuck out of that scenario. I’m not sure I could blame them to be honest.

“Yeah madam your sibling children have gained a number of magical abilities out of nowhere, oh! Also they’ve gained the memories of a couple-to-be-wed who were brutally murdered right before they tied the knot, have fun.”

YEAH I CAN IMAGINE THAT CAUSING A FEW PROBLEMS THERE YUUKI OL’ PAL.

At least they recognize it’s incredibly fucked up.

Also it seems that at the moment of truth, Kajitsu straight up murdered a bunch of people because she didn’t want to be separated from someone she not only has memories of a romantic love for, but now has a familial love for. Two things which aren’t really meant to coincide.

This is about as sweet as black licorice.

Yuuki attacks with Walhalance, as Leon doesn’t have any blockers, he takes from the life

The Fruit of Wise Tree turns Leon’s pain into power, granting him an additional core from the Void as he lost a life.

Doing it another 4 times certainly will though.

Leon has only 4 lives remaining.

Yuuki seems unfazed by the potential that The Fruit of Wise Tree grants Leon.

Yuuki finishes off his story, ultimately explaining their goal.

The Human World has these things called “Laws” intended to protect the general populace.

If the obvious warrants for their arrest that would have come about as a result of Kajitsu wiping out not only a police force but a series of hospital doctors failed on account of their incredibly young age at the time… then the final stopper in their plan to follow through on ending the curse of their reincarnation is the fact that ON PLANET EARTH, SIBLINGS CAN’T GET MARRIED.

Otherworld it seems, hasn’t quite progressed that far yet! Meaning provided they can stay there, they can fulfill their previous lives’ marriage vows once and for all…

…Except for the fact that completing that vow doesn’t unreincarnate them in any capacity, they’ll be Brother and Sister both before and after their marriage. Good job enjoying that married life with your fucked up family tree.

There’s a heavy suggestion that the reason they want to do this, is because the limbo of death that they suffer through between lives is rather horrid, Yuuki knows through his memories that his current soul calls out to Kajitsu’s like a magnet, preventing either from passing on, that process must be relatively excruciating while they wait for their souls to find a home in a newborn body.

When Kazan answered “No” to Yuuki’s question about the man who resembled him, it raised the possibility that Yuuki succeeds in marrying Kajitsu within this lifetime. And that the resemblance is just a coincidence.

Had Kazan answered “Yes”, it would have suggested that Yuuki fails here, but succeeds in the future, which wouldn’t bolster his resolve quite as much.

Yuuki, ignoring the dangers of Leon’s Nexus, attacks with Fjalar

Oh right, while it is implied that they think the loop will stop if they get married, there’s no actual reason to believe it necessarily will.

Leon takes Fjalar’s attack to the life, dropping to 3 lives.

The Fruit of Wise Tree grants Leon another Core.

Yuuki ends his turn.

Leon, you called yourself clever, came up with a brilliant plan to use Kajitsu’s deck that so far no one has cared about, and now you’re claiming you know all of Yuuki’s moves.

Shut up man, I love your style but your personality is garbage.

HOW IS IT THAT IN THE SAME SHOW, Fuck it, same EPISODE!

As the concept of 2 siblings trying to skip to another world to get hitched.

That I have a 4029 year old Witch and a man who looks like he’s never shaved a day in his life.

Acting like 5 year olds!

Dan makes the suggestion that Yuuki tell Leon to suck a fat one, skip the battle, and take Kajitsu back. Leon isn’t playing fair, there’s no reason Yuuki should.

Well that offended the White Soldier.

So Yuuki isn’t retreating because naturally, they need to be able to defeat Otherworld King, regardless of the short term gains of leaving now, being able to defeat Leon is a requirement to reach him.

Also Leon’s a complete coward, even if he’s using dishonourable tactics (like exacting his will while the battle for permission to do so is still in progress) it’s best not to condone those actions by reacting with your own.

This is the most sane thing you’ve said all Episode, Yuuki.

Pantera notes that in spite of all that’s happened, the Momose Siblings still straightforwardly move toward their goal.

Though Kajitsu notes that they’re only able to do so now because of Dan.

Bewitching Turn 6, aside from the 2 core on his spirits, Leon’s got 9 core in his reserve.

Leon spends 2 of that core to deploy another Fruit of Wise Tree.

Now whenever Leon loses lives, he’ll gain 2 additional core.

Gabunohashi is raised to Lv2.

And out of nowhere, Leon uses Victory Fire.

Victory Fire is a Red Magic so useful at this time that it was run in an immense amount of decks. Even if the colours weren’t suitable.

Green was one of the colours that could utilize it a lot easier thanks to Core Boost enabling the use of many Magic.

It seems this was another of Leon’s tricks, by using Kajitsu’s strategy as a main, he could hide unexpected Magic that Yuuki wouldn’t expect among them.

The Sacred Gungnir is destroyed.

Leon wasn’t familiar with Fjalar however, so he didn’t expect it to have Armor to Red.

Seems Kazan is testing a radio headset with Zungurii, Suzuri and Kenzo for some reason.

Seems like this was the “Other thing” Magisa was on about, as they’re using her special Core-powered Bike.

…Break into what?

What is this plan? Where are you breaking in?

Are they somehow going to break into The Golden Lion from here? Using a Core-powered bike under a barrier that disables Core Systems?

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING, WHAT IS THERE TO BE EXCITED ABOUT?

Seems even with a fully exhausted board, Leon didn’t want to attack into Yuuki with only 3 lives left.

Yuuki Turn 7, he summons The Sacred Laevateinn at Lv2.

Laevateinn will continue to refresh as long as Walhalance defeats Spirits.

Yuuki then uses a new card, Reload Cores.

Main
For each “Armed Machine” family Spirit you control, put a core from the Void to your Reserve.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +3000 BP.

Maybe “New” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, Reload Cores is a White Magic from BS02.

When used during a Main Step, it provides a core from the Void to your reserve for each Spirit you control that’s in the Armed Machine family.

It’s best used when you have at least 3, as you’ll refund the cost you spent to play the card, additionally you’ll have 3 extra core to work with next turn.

Such conditions are the ones Yuuki has on his field right now, as Yuuki has 3 Armed Machines, he refunds the entire cost of the card he just played.

Green is best known for its ability to accumulate large amounts of Core, however White and Blue, to a lesser extent, can also accumulate core from the Void.

Red, Yellow and Purple, inversely, are suited for drawing cards, with Red being the best at doing so.

Now that that’s out of the way, Fjalar is raised to Lv2, and Laevateinn is brought up to Lv3.

Note that Yuuki could have pulled off this play anyway, Reload Cores is just set up for his next turn.

Leon is confident he’ll be able to survive this turn, having 3 lives remaining and 2 spirits.

Laevateinn attacks, and Leon takes it from the life, dropping to 2.

As there are 2 Fruit of Wise Trees now, Leon gains 2 core from the Void rather than 1.

Yuuki attacks with Walhalance, and Leon blocks with Amenborg.

The Lv1 Amenborg doesn’t stand a chance against even a Lv1 Walhalance, so it’s destroyed.

Since Walhalance destroyed a Spirit through a battle of BP, Laevateinn is refreshed.

Laevateinn attacks but this time is blocked by Gabunohashi, as both have 5000 BP, they’re both destroyed.

Yeah but now Leon, you have precisely zero spirits. Which means absolutely nothing to defend you.

Fjalar attacks, as Leon lacks blockers, he has to take from the Life.

Leon drops to a single life remaining.

As Leon lost a life, Leon gains 2 core from the Void, that’s the last amount of core he’ll get from Fruit of Wise Tree now.

That’s the only issue with the card, once you’re on 1 life the card’s first effect is essentially blank.

Still, Leon’s managed to gain a total of 6 core from the Fruit, and 4 core from his lost lives. That’s a LOT of Core.

Without any more attackers, Yuuki ends his turn.

Clackey and Mai note that Yuuki doesn’t have any blockers remaining, and wonder if he made a mistake.

Indeed it was… Though I’m a little puzzled.

Yuuki had a second Sacred Laevateinn, I wonder why he didn’t summon it?

Well, I suppose I can answer that, doing so would have made it impossible to have his on-board Laevateinn at Lv3, this is important as the card would not have refreshed if blocked by Gabunohashi on it’s first attack, as Gabunohashi would have destroyed it.

By going for the Lv3 instead, he was able to coax Leon into taking a life first, then on the refresh, Leon was forced to sacrifice Gabunohashi.

Leon’s main misplay was taking that first attack from Laevateinn, AND then blocking Walhalance.

Had he blocked Laevateinn’s first attack with Gabunohashi, both would be destroyed, then Amenborg could be safely defeated and Leon would be on 2 lives now.

Had Leon taken that attack, and then taken Walhalance’s attack, Fjalar would then be left as a blocker as it wouldn’t have been strong enough to defeat Gabunohashi. And while Leon would only have 1 life, he would have 2 more spirits.

Anyway, the important thing here is Yuuki’s other 2 cards, he has High Elixir and Mist Curtain, meaning he can blank one Spirit’s ability to damage his lives, and he can restore 2 of them.

Mist Curtain is free and High Elixir will be usable after Yuuki drops to 1 life.

Bewitching Turn 8, note that Leon has an extra 6 core than he should have due to his Nexuses, so Leon’s working with a total of 18 core this turn.

3 of which he gives to The Fruit of Wise Tree to bring it to Lv2.

Now on Leon’s end steps, all his Spirits refresh, meaning as long as the BP is high enough, he can attack with impunity.

He then summons another Amenborg, at Lv2.

So far that’s 7 of the 18 core accounted for, 11 left.

Well uh, that was unexpected.

Kajitsu is incredibly surprised to see Hououga.

If it wasn’t apparent, Leon spends 7 core to summon the Green X-Rare from BS06, The Providence Hououga, a Vanity Deity with power similar to that of Catastrophedragon. And also Kajitsu’s Key Spirit.

Hey Dan, welcome to the episode, glad you noticed what everyone else did at the beginning of this match.

Leon enters his attack step and attacks with The Providence Hououga.

Well that’s a rather scenic slowdown, but Yuuki’s not in much danger so I’m not sure what the purpose of it is-

..Oh…

I mean that’s cool but again what’s the- wait.

FUUUUUUUU-

WE HAD A 2-PARTER… 3 EPISODES AGO!

Ugh, I seriously did not remember this episode being a gosh darn 2-parter, now I’m gonna have to save all my opinions for the next one.

The card of the day in this particular case is technically 2 cards.

Because the theme of the day is cards that boost core.

As cards need core to be used, sometimes it can be a good idea to run many cards that have the effect of accumulating core, making it easier to summon difficult spirits much sooner.

A card like The Providence Hououga simply won’t function without Core Boost, given it’s Cost of 10 and it’s equivalent 10 core requirement to reach Lv3, which also happens to be where it’s powerful and repeatable refresh effect is hidden behind.

Anyway, since I’m left without the card I expected to see and well, the card of the day isn’t something I can really deal with.

Sod it, we’ll go out of left field, we’re talking about Core boost? Time to talk about the Charisma Battler’s Green deck for BS08

With some creative use of Inspect Element, I can remove the stupid ban markers that infect the lovely display of the deck.

This is, naturally, a deck centred on The GreatKing Blacktaurus, a Tribute Spirit of Cost 8, the summon of which would naturally require you to accumulate Core.

I won’t discuss the entire card by card but I will talk about some inclusions.

Parasite
[LV1][LV2] (Your Main Step)
When this Spirit becomes the target of Tribute, by exhausting this Spirit, you can summon without using Tribute.
[LV2] (Opposing Attack Step)
When an opposing 6000 BP or less Spirit attacks, the opponent exhausts a Spirit they control.

BlackAmenborg is part of a series of Cost 3s in BS08, all of which who are dark versions of existing spirits, who all have the effect of, when targeted as the Tribute for a Spirit, they can exhaust themselves to ignore the Tribute.

The HellSacred Gungnir Leon used in one episode is also one such card. In practice the best Tribute spirits need cards of cost higher than 6, but Blacktaurus is rare in that it only needs a Cost 3.

Parasite – Shellman
Tribute: Cost 1 or more → Trash
After paying for the summoning cost, you must send all cores from a Cost 1 or more Spirit you control to the Trash.
[LV1][LV2] (When Summoned)
Put two cores from the Void to your Reserve. If an “Antman”-named Spirit was the Tribute, put four cores instead.

Notably there’s a large portion of cards all sharing the name “Antman”, that’s because also sharing the deck is The Queen Antreine. Another tribute spirit who summons herself by tributing a Cost 1 or greater Spirit, the core in this case is sent to the Trash rather than the Void.

Despite being a Tribute Spirit herself, she is designed purely for set up, as if you tribute one of your many “Antman” spirits, she grants you 4 core from the Void.

If you’re curious about what the Antmen individually do, they’re not that interesting, there’s 4 others in the deck:

  • The Soldier Antman is the first of the Antmen, it has Swift and summons as many “Parasite” family spirits from your hand when it’s destroyed at Lv2, provided you don’t use any summon effects.
  • The Worker Antman adds core when it attacks
  • Emeantman is a Cost 1 Antman that adds a core when it’s destroyed.
  • And Yojinbo Antman, the Cost 4, is entirely vanilla.
Armored Beast – Shell Insect
[LV1][LV2] Armor: Red/White
This Spirit is unaffected by opposing Red/White Spirit/Nexus/Magic effects.
[LV2]
Give all your Green Spirits: Armor: Red/White.

A curious addition is this Cost 3 White Spirit who seems a little bit lost to be honest. This is the CoralCrab Siomanekid, from the Armored Beast and Shell Insect families. However the reason it’s here is because the deck is intended to accumulate as much core as possible, meaning there’s plenty to spend on this card’s Lv2, which supports Green Spirits by sharing it’s Armor to Red and White cards with them. It’s quite similar to The IronKnight Yggdrassil in that way.

The card is an excellent addition, due to the prevalance of White Defense Magic, as well as Victory Fire being lumped in to various decks.

Shell Insect – Blade Beast
Tribute : Cost 3 or more → Void
After paying for the summoning cost, you must send all cores from a Cost 3 or more Spirit you control to the Void.
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (When Attacks)
When only the opposing Spirit is destroyed via BP comparison, send an opposing Life to their Reserve.
[LV2][LV3] (When Attacks)
When the opposing Life is reduced, by sending two cores from this Spirit to the Void, refresh this Spirit.

More importantly though, how does The GreatKing Blacktaurus fit into this strategy?

Well with the considerations made for it’s summon in BlackAmenborg and Queen Antraine, and the strong acceleration of Core, Blacktaurus can use the mass accumulation of said Core in order to use it’s Lv2+ effect many times, by using CoralCrab Siomanekid to make it immune to White cards, Mist Curtain can’t be used to make it irrelevant, and as long as Blacktaurus can take lifes, either via it’s first effect or hitting the life directly, it can create a series of infinite attacks, each one guaranteed to lose the opponent some lives and forcing your opponent to either have an answer to it, or lose.

When Core comes so easy, losing some to the Void is a cheap cost to pay.

Anyway, that’s all for this one, I’ll see you all hopefully in the next one…

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.

[LV1][LV2] (Opposing Attack Step)
When blocking an opposing Spirit with the same cost, your “Artificial Soldier” family Spirits do not get exhausted.
[LV2] (Either Attack Step)
Every Cost 3 or more “Artificial Soldier” family Spirit you control gains +2000 BP.

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.

Beast Head

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!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 35

So, while right at the end I talked about the change in ending song, I didn’t actually talk about the change in opening.

While the song hasn’t changed from “Attack! No Limit!”, the animation has, first of course, Kenzo has been added to the 4 core bearers at the beginning.

Yuuki is now displayed in his new, Clad in black uniform.

Otherworld King is portrayed in his Youthful state where he was absent before entirely.

Dark-Crimson appears to have got his own sequence, likely because it’s the symbol of Otherworld’s Three Heads having been used by both Leon and Pantera.

Replacing Dark Siegfried on Dan’s field is now Meteorwurm in this attack sequence (the card however displayed on Dan’s board is still Dark Siegfried)

Pantera and Leon get to have a brief shot as well.

Dan’s transformation sequence now uses his new, Blazing Battle Form rather than his original standard gold one.

As if to highlight Meteorwurm as Dan’s current Key Spirit over Siegwurm, Meteorwurm is the one displayed attacking rather than Siegwurm.

And finally, this segment here displays the usual pose everyone had before, but Kenzo’s added to the mix, Dan is in his new Battle Form, and the Momose Siblings are in their new outfits.

Just thought it was cool to detail.

We enter the episode with the group arriving at Namii’s door, it seems her room is specially marked as the Scorpion mark is glowing purple rather than being blank.

Who the hell needs keys when you have the sheer power of Dan’s fucking foot.

Namii and Mai are nowhere to be seen, seems like. Naturally the end of last episode indicates they likely went elsewhere to battle.

Dan figures they somehow left the prison entirely rather than just… moving to a different part of it.

But I suppose he’s extrapolating that because Namii would have known they were coming for her door, if she wanted to be away it’s because she didn’t want to be caught.

being in the prison makes that difficult.

You might think “Well what if she just wanted to kill Mai?”

Thing is she wouldn’t have kept Mai alive this long if she was going to do that

Mai tries to see if she can’t deter Namii, by suggesting that a person take responsibility for their own mistakes.

But all Namii’s doing is indicating she’s beyond rationality at this point, doesn’t really care about being a good person, just about doing what she feels she wants to do, which is getting revenge on Mai.

Serge seems to have gotten ahead of the rest of the Violet Crew and managed to articulate where Namii and Mai ended up, basically telling them to “Get this over with”

It seems Serge is a little exasperated from all this nonsense and just wants Mai to clobber Namii.

For once, Namii and Mai are able to agree on something, accepting Serge’s impatience and getting the battle started.

Release!

…Apparently now.

Well this is certainly the fastest I’ve seen an episode devolve into a battle, not that I’m complaining, it’s a standard 1v1.

Seems Ryoko has sensed that Mai and Namii have started their battle.

I’d ask how is that possible but then it occurs to me that Magic abilities are in some way related to Core. It’s possible the Core System for the Battlefield can be sensed via Magic.

Oh how nice of the Prison to have a TV system allowing the group to view the battle from this warm toasty room.

But then what’s the point of the GOD DAMN SPECTATOR BOOTH!?

…I feel like calling attention to the fact that the battle is interesting because it’s a battle between women sounds pretty… I dunno, that kind of awareness is a little misplaced.

Seems Ryoko isn’t even going to tolerate even the minorest of narrow-minded comments from Heliostom.

Ryoko further interrupts the fight.

It appears Ryoko has noted the prominence of each of the Purple battlers facing off here. Mai is the designated Purple Soldier, essentially being chosen by the colour itself. While Namii is essentially the most famous battler across the Purple World.

Ryoko states that she’ll basically offer an additional incentive for battle, a reward of sorts.

Whoever wins will receive this card.

That card is the 5th SevenShogun Spirit. An X-Rare by the name of The SevenShogun Asmodios.

If I remember correctly Asmodious is the Demon of Lust, the symbolicness of this will be apparent later.

To just win would be boring however, instead, Ryoko has installed a single copy of the card into each of their decks, both are now playing with 41 card decks, with Asmodious included.

There’s a certain detail about this arrangement that I absolutely abhor because it makes something else seem a little… pre-destined.

Namii is now extra motivated by the promise of an X-Rare for victory.

Mai just comments on the sheer ridiculousness of declaring victory before the battle has even begun, it’s gonna make Namii look incredibly stupid later.

Mai gets the first move.

Mai summons The HellFighter Balam, as all her core is used up, and its the first move, she ends her turn.

Namii summons Ashtal at Lv2 (4000 BP), and ends her turn.

Serge notes that both have summoned a rather high power spirit, Mai went for a Cost 3 and Namii went for a single spirit with high level, but didn’t attack, suggesting a passive strategy.

Namii notes that as servant to both Mazoku and Humans with basically no break in between, Serge must get tired. It seems like Namii’s trying to appeal to a desire to rest in order to get Serge to willingly leave Mai.

Serge’s got the energy output of an exploding star, the strength of a brick shithouse and is built like a male pop idol, man’s got no worries.

Mai deploys her favoured Nexus, The Depths of the Nether World. Now all of her Infernal Lord and Zombie Spirits will gain the Curse keyword if they don’t already have it. Destroying all Spirits that block them even if they lose.

Mai ends her turn, having set up the cards necessary to trigger her Curse Combo when she sees fit, as her Nexus at Lv2 will allow her to shoot cores off of Spirits anytime Curse Spirits attack.

It seems that this strategy was also utilized when Mai first came to Grand-Lolo, and is likely the strategy that defeated Namii the first time.

Mai notes that she’s not only gotten stronger since their last bout, but she’s also gotten cuter.

Not sure about that, so far Mai hasn’t received a single new card to bolster her deck in any satisfying way.

“The 21st Nigh~t of September”

So it seems that they met due to Mai’s first venture into the Purple World, causing a number of opportunistic Otherworlders to target Mai who appeared weak. Seems they had a grudge against her due to being unable to defeat her in battle.

It appears that Namii’s idea of kindness is entirely transactional, when she saved Mai, who was a powerful battler, she expected Mai to make an attempt to repay the favour, producing a mutually beneficial but ultimately transactional friendship.

Mai however is a battler who wishes to be the strongest, and she can’t do that if she’s acting in someone else’s best interests. So she simply thanked Namii and attempted to leave.

It’s an incredibly frustrating thing when you do something for someone else, only for them to treat you poorly for the effort, whether they asked you to do it or not.

But it’s equally as frustrating for someone to do something for you that you didn’t ask them to do, only to expect you to repay them for the effort.

Neither of these responses are ultimately bad or good. People feel the karmic necessity to have good acts be rewarded but there should also not be an expectation on a given person to reward a morally good act they did not ask for.

It’s why I have a rule for things like money-lending or other related tasks, where I only expect to be repaid if I am asked for the service and not if I offered the service. The reason for this is that I shouldn’t offer something I will have trouble doing without later, and it ensures that the people that ask me to inconvenience myself for their sakes know full well that they are doing so and will likely have prepared for that outcome.

It’s a good rule, it hasn’t done me wrong yet and my friends and acquaintances feel it is a fair rule.

And Namii’s response is what puts her in the wrong, she expected her kindness to be transactionally repaid. And so challenged Mai.

Fact of the matter is Mai likely didn’t see a point in battling her for the sake of something she wasn’t willing to give in the first place without any return.

So in order to convince Mai to battle, it’s likely that Namii was willing to give up Beelzebeat, The Violet and Serge if it meant having the chance to force Mai to act within her parameters.

And worse still, after losing that fight, Namii noted that Mai has not had a single hardship since.

…You know, other than the one she’s having right fucking now.

Mai counters that all of this is entirely Namii’s fault, enforcing an ideal on someone who had no obligation to meet it, betting a series of important items to get the chance of obtaining specific performance, lost fairly, and then chose to hold a grudge against Mai instead of thinking about how none of this wouldn’t have happened if she wasn’t acting like a total control freak.

Namii gets to the heart of the matter, it seems like she understands how Mai is viewing the situation, it doesn’t make her any less angry, and she needs a resolution.

She wants closure.

Which… After all that, I suppose is fair, she’s not owed any closure by Mai but wanting it is something anybody would.

I’m also a type of person who absolutely hates being denied closure, I can accept an undesirable end just fine but closure’s really important to me. And the sad part is if someone really wants to hurt me it’s very clear to them that they can do so by denying me closure.

So, rather sadly, I’m probably the type of person who would end up in Namii’s shoes, even though I can plainly see it’s wrong.

…Still even I draw a line at methods, harm the person you want to hurt directly, hurting others is a no-go.

If you’re not sure what “Obstinate” means, either because English isn’t your first language or you very rarely encounter the word (or both!)

To be “Obstinate” is to stubbornly refuse to change your opinion or course of action in spite of reason, argument, or persuasion to do so.

Namii has every reason to blame herself instead of Mai for her own hardships and yet is refusing to do so because she’s too angry to care about the reason, she is a textbook definition of “Obstinate”

…And the sad part is 99% of people on the internet hiding behind the guise of anonymity are Obstinate people. It’s very difficult to compel someone with words alone to avert an undesirable course of action or opinion.

Scorpion Turn 4, Namii summons a 2nd Ashtal and ends her turn.

Reminder that Namii has a fairly good reputation amongst the Purple World, so Ryoko is somewhat surprised that Mai is capable of regarding her with such vitriol.

“Hatred… Injury…”

Kajitsu senses that while Mai fights using her “Light”, something shared between all the Core Soldiers, which I can only presume to be a sequence of positive feelings.

Namii’s battle style is imbued with “Chaotic Feelings”, such as Hatred and Injury. I wonder how such things will translate into the 2 different purple decks.

Viole Turn 5, she summons Demo-Bone.

Demo-Bone is a Zombie, so even though it’s not Lv2, Depths of the Nether World has granted it the Curse keyword.

Balam is raised to Lv3, giving it a BP of 5000, this trumps the Lv2 Ashtal’s 4000.

That means that this particular window is safe to attack under, Balam attacks.

Namii takes from the life, dropping to 4.

Mai leaves Demo-Bone as a blocker. And ends her turn.

Magisa notes that Namii’s hatred seems to rise when Mai damages her life.

Kenzo seems quite scared of the idea of a woman who can and will amplify the intensity of their grudges by enduring situations that can cause them anger.

While not exclusive to women, there are people who find catharsis to be a more attractive than an actual beneficial outcome, and may inflate their upcoming catharsis by allowing themselves to be wronged by a grudge-target, as the intensity of the hatred will increase the intensity of the relief gained from acting on it.

It’s kind of like holding a bathroom trip until you really need it because the relief is much more intense. That sort of thing.

I’d like to take a moment to accentuate just how awesome Namii’s design is?

she’s got a cool coat, a cool hat, flowing long hair, and she’s pretty as well.

Just, what a cool-ass character.

Namii’s turn seems to have been skipped, I don’t believe she actually did anything on her last turn and passed.

so Viole Turn 7.

Mai summons a 2nd Demo-Bone.

Mai attacks with Balam and Demo-Bone, taking 2 lives from Namii, leaving her with 2 lives remaining.

Mai ends her turn.

Brustom seems to be confused, and asks why Namii hasn’t blocked, Demo-Bone only had 1000 BP so it seemed odd that Namii didn’t block

Heliostom responds by asking if his son needs glasses.

But Ryoko quickly chastises Heliostom for using that kind of retort to educate their child.

In essence, this is what I explained before. All of Mai’s Spirits have Curse thanks to Depths of the Nether World, and Mai is having a naturally hard time sticking her Spirits to the board as a result.

So even though Mai is attacking one after another, Namii can’t block without giving up something she genuinely needs, so all she can do is take lives until she can remove the problem.

Mai tries to taunt Namii for her 3 life advantage.

given Namii’s using her anger to keep herself focused, this might be a poor idea.

Scorpion Turn 8, Namii drops Ashtal down to Lv1.

And summons The SkeletonSnake Skullpione at Lv2.

Skullpione’s summon animation starts with this lovely laughing Skeleton rendered infront of our faces.

Before it’s revealed to just be the back of Skullpione’s head. The actual “Scorpion” is a chimera of various bones all attached together.

It’s a Bone Chimera.

But what it also is… is a NEW CARD!

Zombie – Dark Snake
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (Either Main Step)
Besides via Spirit/Nexus/Magic effects, exhaust all Spirits who have their number of cores increased.
[LV2][LV3] (When Attacks)
When this Spirit’s attack reduces the opposing Life, the opponent discards a card from their Hand.

A Cost 6 Purple Spirit from BS08. The SkeletonSnake Skullpione hails from both the Zombie and Dark Snake families.

As a Master Rare, it’s a card similar to an X-Rare that can have a strategy designed around it.

At all levels, during either player’s Main Step, Skullpione exhausts any and all Spirits who have their cores increased, except via effects. This means that to raise a Spirit’s level you must exhaust the spirit, which means it can neither attack nor defend for that round of turns.

At Lv2+ whenever it attacks, if it’s able to take a life, the opponent must discard a card. The hand is an obvious target as it’s the only place where an unseen defense can arise from. To deplete the opposing hand is to deplete the opponent of their ability to surprise you.

In essence, Mai can no longer level up her spirits after they’ve been played without taking them out of the fight for a turn, this doesn’t apply to Spirits she summons as that’s “Selecting a starting Level” for the Spirit in question, but it means that her options are limited.

Skullpione attacks, and Mai takes from the life.

Due to Skullpione’s Lv2 effect, Mai must choose and discard a card, so she discards Berith.

Err… Both can be true, and kind of are in this case.

Namii didn’t so much outsmart Mai, moreso that she simply proceeded as she would have anyway, Curse Combo or not. Mai simply failed to faze her.

I mean she’s on a 2 life deficit, this isn’t a spooky situation for Mai whatsoever.

Oh my god! Suck her dick when it’s actually worth sucking please! She’s losing!

Viole Turn 9, Mai goes full dumbass and raises Demo-Bone’s levels, likely to ensure they aren’t defeated by the Ashtal’s.

As a result of Skullpione’s effect at all levels, since core was added to the Demo-Bones outside of an effect, they’re exhausted.

With only Balam left, Mai ends her turn.

The only reason this play happened is because Mai didn’t know Skullpione’s effect, which is an incredible contrivance but is only possible in card game anime like this.

Scorpion Turn 10, Namii summons Hellscorpio at Lv2.

Namii then uses Mind Control. It’s Main effect now forces each player to send 4 core from among their Spirits to the Trash.

Namii had given Hellscorpio one more core than it needed to be at Lv2, thereby allowing her to take 4 core by levelling Ashtal and Hellscorpio down.

You’ll note that Ashtal was levelled down on an earlier turn, it seems on the skipped turn, Namii levelled up her 2nd Ashtal, and only levelled it down to summon Skullpione.

Mai chooses to take 4 core from both her Demo-Bones, depleting them.

She could have taken 3 core from Balam, 1 core from a Demo-Bone would then clear it, but there are 2 issues with this.

Firstly, Balam has Curse at all levels, and Curse essentially turns any loss into a draw, but a draw still loses you a spirit, Balam being at 2000 BP means it’s got less survivability where as at 5000 BP it can threaten the Ashtal’s without being threatened itself, and can tie with Skullpione, which would be a worthwhile sacrifice.

Secondly, remember Namii uses a Purple Deck, one of the core facets of Purple effects are the removal of Core from Spirits, to sit on 1 core against a Purple deck is asking for a depletion

Skullpione attacks, dropping Mai to 3 lives, and forcing her to discard a card, she chooses “Soul Crash”

That’s pretty sad, Skull Crash’s main effect would let Mai destroy all Exhausted Spirits if she summoned a SevenShogun in the same turn. That was a method to get rid of Skullpione

Namii ends her turn.

Indeed, Mai is using an Aggro Curse deck, while Namii is using a Control deck.

One might wonder if the counter to Skullpione’s first effect is to just shove all your core on your high summoned spirits, but a deck centred on Skullpione is liable to be able to reduce your core, and punish you for trying to raise it.

Skullpione essentially adds a ceiling to your ability to resist standard Purple Core removal, while attacking your hand to reduce the possibility of new cards with high amounts of core appearing.

Ryoko seems to believe that Mai is somehow doomed as a result of this strategy.

Mai’s last turn was a pretty stupid play given that knowledge of Skullpione’s effect would have naturally informed a different action, but guess you gotta display the effect.

Kajitsu comments that Mai is like Light, while Namii is a Shadow.

It’d be pretty cool if we had “Bearer of the Core’s Shadows” but sadly a concept like that won’t come up until Battle Spirits Sword-Eyes.

We’ve still got Brave and Heroes to get through before that.

Serge follows up, essentially stating that the reason Namii and Mai are fighting is because they’re fundamentally different people trying to protect their own ideologies, Namii is trying to punish Mai for not acting according to hers, and Mai is trying to defend the actions she took in accordance with her own.

Naturally, as I said before, Namii being upset by Mai’s callousness wasn’t the problem, it was trying to force Mai to acquiesce to her beliefs that caused her so much anguish.

So that’s what this is, a battle of belief.

Viole Turn 11, Mai draws and plays a guessing game with Namii about the card she drew, the hint being that it’s a card that A. Ties the two of them together, and B. Can bring Mai a great turn-around.

Ding Ding Ding!

Mai summons The SevenShogun Beelzebeat at Lv2, borrowing core from Balam.

As Beelzebeat was given the core during it’s summon, it’s considered to be selecting the starting core for the spirit, and dodges Skullpione’s effect.

Mai activates Beelzebeat’s effect, summoning Curse Spirits from her Trash up to a Total Cost of 13, without paying any core.

She summons the 2 Demo-Bones from her Trash, who’s collective Costs are 2.

For reference, when checking the field for a spirit with Curse, you check to see if a Spirit has the levels required to have the Curse keyword active.

But when checking other areas where Spirit cards can’t be levelled, you merely check if the Curse keyword is on their text. So even though Demo-Bone only gets Curse at Lv2, it’s a Curse Spirit valid for being summoned from the Trash.

The key part here is whether or not you are checking the Spirit or the Card itself, Spirits checks for levels, Cards do not.

Mai ends her turn, with Beelzebeat at 8000 BP, even a Lv3 Skullpione won’t be able to so easily run through Mai’s hand anymore.

I will agree that Mai does lack a certain amount of tact when it comes to handling other people’s feelings

Namii appears to have convinced herself that defeating Mai is the only way to suppress her bitterness over something that is entirely her fault.

Namii activates something on her ring, which causes an image of Zungurii to appear.

Whatever Namii did, it’s caused Zungurii to get swallowed up by some weird energy.

Clackey gets swallowed up by a Purple Tornado.

And Dan is, most brutally, pulled into an Iron Maiden.

It seems Namii’s gone off the deep end, and seems to be using her control of the castle in order to start eliminating Mai’s friends one by one.

Magisa notably thinks this has gone too far and has gone off to assist them.

…What?

Magisa demands Ryoko move, but it seems like for some reason, Ryoko is unwilling to allow Magisa to interfere with the battle.

Whatever Ryoko’s reasons though, Magisa isn’t about to let those Core Soldiers just get swalloed up by the prison just because the person in the way is an old friend.

Someone as reasonable as Ryoko though should have a very good reason for allowing this to happen even though Zungurii, Clackey and Dan aren’t part of this feud.

So, it’s clear that whatever’s happened to them, it’s very strongly implied they’ve either died or been made apart of the Prison given they’ve completely vanished off the face of the Purple World.

Namii justifies her actions because her life took a turn due to Mai, she’s now considering this a fair response.

It seems even Serge is taken aback by the fact that Namii would kill 3 people just to rile up Mai.

Her tone doesn’t convey it very well, but Mai is pissed, noting that Clackey and Dan didn’t come this far just to get killed off by Namii.

Lady is insane and has gone full Blood Knight.

She wants nothing more than to have a fight where she can take her feelings out on Mai, and have Mai take hers out on Namii in turn.

It’d be cool if it wasn’t so cruel.

Scorpion Turn 12, Namii levels down The SkeletonSnake Skullpione to Level 1.

This seems odd at first, Skullpione is her Key Spirit, so it’d be odd to level it down for any reason.

Naturally it’s because Namii no longer needs the card, or rather, the current conditions require that she level it down.

Namii declares Tribute, and summons The SevenShogun Asmodios at Lv2.

I won’t review the card just yet as to do so would spoil a quirk of it’s effect, so I’ll only cover it when Mai uses it.

But in any case, Asmodious’ Tribute requirement is a Spirit with a Cost of 6 or higher, sending all it’s Core to the Void, hence why Skullpione was levelled down, it was Namii’s only available Tribute target.

A bloody Golden Centaur with 4 arms and 4 jagged blades, it’s certainly a cool-ass card

Asmodious’ effect when summoned is activated, sending 2 cores from every single one of Mai’s Spirits to the reserve.

This depletes all but Beelzebeat, who had 3 core, leaving Mai with just a single Spirit.

Namii enters the attack step, and attacks with Ashtal.

Mai takes from the life, falling to 2 lives remaining.

Namii’s 2nd Ashtal attacks, and Mai once again takes from the life. Dropping to 1.

This… seems like a bit of a silly time to attack with Ashtal, Beelzebeat is on 6000 BP and Asmodious is on 9000, Asmodious also has a Double symbol, had Namii attacked with Asmodious here, Mai would have been forced to block with Beelzebeat and would have lost her X-Rare.

And Namii would have had enough attacks to still take the last 2 lives.

Namii attacks with Hellscorpio, but during Flash Timing, Mai uses Bloody Coffin. This lets her destroy an Exhausted Spirit who’s Cost is 4 or less.

The Cost 1 Hellscorpio is destroyed.

WHAT

Namii why didn’t you full attack!

I get that you’re afraid of 2 spirits but GET RID OF THE BEELZEBEAT! Mai either gets 3 attacks on 1 blocker or 2 attacks on no blockers! MAKE HER HAVE IT.

If you’re dead to 2 Spirits either way then there is no reason for you to hold a Spirit for blocking! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?

Mai the only thing Namii is going to regret is her own fucking stupidity at not having Asmodios destroy Beelzebeat.

Namii suddenly turns this into a Humans vs Mazoku issue once again, which might be why she’s feeling so strongly about Mai in particular, because she’s Human.

Namii feels incredibly offended by the idea that someone like Mai can be so prideful while Otherworld King galavants around, branding Mazoku as savages.

This is an incredibly weird scenario where “punching up” isn’t the answer. The Mazoku are incredibly justified in their rage because Otherworld King has been treating them as essentially less than Human, branding them savages and culling their numbers each time they rebel.

As far as they’re concerned they’ve seen no reason to believe any other Human, like Otherworld King, feels any different, in spite of the Core Soldiers saying they don’t agree with Otherworld King, the Mazoku believe that the Core Soldiers are just saying that because they want his position, to control and suppress the Mazoku in Otherworld King’s seat.

Mai says to Namii, and Magisa to Heliostom, that they’ve got them completely wrong, stating to them clearly and bluntly that Dan straight up challenged Otherworld King to a battle.

They’re not disagreeing with Otherworld King on principle, they’re actively opposing the guy and have been trying their best to oust him.

While Mai’s no example of a selfish person, Bashin Dan is anything but, having fought for the Otherworlders consistently with no benefit to himself.

I bet Namii, too focused on Mai, didn’t even bother to think about who Dan was when they entered her Prison.

Viole Turn 13, Mai summons The SevenShogun Asmodios at Lv3.

For the Tribute, Mai offers up the Cost 7 SevenShogun Beelzebeat.

Since Mai has finally summoned the card, let’s discuss it.

Infernal Lord – Nightling
Tribute: Cost 6 or more → Void
After paying for the summoning cost, you must send all cores from a Cost 6 or more Spirit you control to the Void.
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (When Summoned)
Send two cores each from every opposing Spirit to their Reserve. When the Tribute was [The SevenShogun Destlord]/[The SevenShogun Beelzebeat], also, the opponent discards four cards from their Hand.
[LV3] (When Attacks)
Send two cores from any opposing Spirits to the Void.

The Cost 9 Double Symbol Purple X-Rare from BS08.

It’s of the Infernal Lord family, as all of the SevenShogun are, and in addition, it’s also a Nightling.

When Asmodios is summoned, 2 core from every opposing Spirit are sent to the reserve… However if the card offered for Tribute was either The SevenShogun Destlord OR The SevenShogun Beelzebeat, the opponent is additionally forced to discard FOUR cards from their hand.

In most lategame scenarios, that’s an entire hand gone.

Even worse, when it attacks at Lv3, if there are somehow still core on opposing Spirits by this point, Asmodious can send 2 of them to the Void. Never to return.

You can probably see the gripe I have with the card based on this description, Mai’s going to be able to bring out Asmodios’ full power… Because of the Beelzebeat Mai lost to her.

Namii loses 2 core from all her spirits thanks to Mai’s Asmodios’ effect on summon.

This causes all of her spirits aside from Asmodios to be depleted.

Mai then activates the second part of Asmodios’ effect, as Beelzebeat was tributed for Asmodios’ summon, Namii now has to discard 4 cards in her hand.

But since Namii’s hand only contained 4 cards, she no longer has a hand.

Mai attacks with Asmodios and activates it’s Lv3 effect when attacking, allowing her to send a further 2 core to the void.

As the opposing Asmodios only had 2 core remaining, it’s depleted.

This leaves Namii without a board, and worse, without a hand, leaving her precisely zero ways to defend herself from this position, and making her, unambiguously, the loser.

As Asmodios has a Double Symbol, it subtracts 2 lives when it lands, as Namii only had 2 lives remaining, she is reduced to zero.

Namii the Scorpion is defeated, leaving Viole Mai the winner.

And now I’ll discuss my fundamental issue with the battle

It’s very clear that this is being intended to be used as a moral that Namii should really have accepted her loss when she first lost to Mai rather than going on a revenge plot, because it’s painted as if the reason she lost was because Mai was the one currently holding Beelzebeat at the time.

But, that then invalidates the fairness of placing Asmodios in both player’s decks, as Mai’s variation of Asmodios is automatically stronger than Namii’s purely due to the fact that a card required for it’s effect is in one deck and not the other, if Namii had Destlord maybe it’d even the score but that’s not what happened.

They did something to produce a fair fight by placing a new X-Rare in both decks, but then invalidated the fairness because of the way both decks were structured.

If Mai had done something in order to bring out Asmodios’ full potential, like a synergistic strategy, then I’d understand, but she didn’t do that, she didn’t do anything to make Asmodios stronger other than happen to have the card it demanded.

It doesn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth because the show is telling me it was trying to be fair and then showing me why it wasn’t, and it was in the favor of the character I was supposed to be rooting for.

And more than that, they portray to us that Mai is struggling but Namii makes the dumbest play in the world by not attacking with her Lv2 Asmodios.

Mai has 2 cards in her hand, her draw step will produce an Asmodios, and Namii’s Asmodios is bigger than Beelzebeat

If Namii attacks and Mai lacks a response, Mai has to block with Beelzebeat, and Namii knows that Beelzebeat grants benefits when tributed because SHE HAS ASMODIOS’ CARD TEXT ON HER FUCKING FIELD.

outside of Asmodios, Namii essentially has to hope that at least ONE of the 2 cards left in Mai’s hand is not a Spirit, if that’s the case, Namii straight up wins the game, as her 5 card hand next turn almost ensures Namii will have enough to win.

But she doesn’t because she’s an idiot. Now you might ask “Well what if Mai didn’t draw Asmodios”

As long as Mai had any card with Curse available, she could bring Beelzebeat to Lv3, summon a Curse Spirit, and then attack with Beelzebeat at Lv3, if Asmodios blocks, it loses to Beelzebeat’s 10000 BP against 9000, if Asmodios doesn’t block, thanks to Beelzebeat having Curse received from Depths of the Nether World, it’s effect would kick in, and destroy Asmodios anyway because a Curse Spirit damaged Namii’s life and Mai would just win in that scenario.

This seems like a very strong suggestion that Namii, in fact, had White Magic defense in her hand.

IF this was the case then it makes even LESS sense that Namii did not attack with Asmodios, absolutely fucking none.

You do need some god damn brains though, what a complete idiot.

Strangely, it doesn’t appear that Zungurii, Clackey or Dan actually died there.

Well, naturally we’d be without a show if they did but.

It does beg the question what the hell Namii did if she performed an act that could have done all that but not killed them, that would mean Namii wasn’t intending to kill them in the first place.

Serge summarizes, it seems like Namii never actually intended to harm Mai’s friends, the whole point of this whole charade was for Namii to test her current strength against the tougher Mai. She did all this just to push Mai into a mindset where they could battle wholeheartedly.

…It appears Serge was more than just a worker to Namii, which explains why she was so distraught that Mai took him.

Heliostom acquiesces and mellows out a little, noting that the group are fairly different from the humans they know, based on their short time together.

Brustom, ever the X-Rare connoiseur, asks if it’s fine for them to give Mai the Asmodios card, but Ryoko says it’s fine.

Thing is she gave both Mai and Namii a copy, either they were temporarily cloned via magic or Mai gets both copies?

Dan offers a handshake to Mai, thanking her for protecting him back then, and saving him now, but Mai decides to go full Tsundere.

I’m glad that earlier altercation didn’t ruin their friendship, I suppose it’d take more than a bad prank to ruin a 2000+ year friendship.

Namii goes back to commenting on Serge’s situation, confirming that Serge is also in fact a Mazoku.

Namii decides to ask the last remaining thing she’s currently doubting, which is why Serge chose to stay with Mai.

The reason this is a fairly good question is because, in actual fact, Mai never had any intention of having Serge serve her, she just wanted the Beelzebeat, and intended to allow Serge to do as he pleased.

Also it seems “The Violet” is Serge’s ship, not Namii’s, they come as a package. The reason Mai has the Violet is because Serge chooses to assist her, and not because it’s his task designated by Mai.

The ultimate answer Serge gives, is essentially, she was just different from the Humans that were so vehemently blamed by Mazoku, capable of taking what she wanted from him and his ship, she chose to set him free for no other reason than because she wanted to. She was the first human he met that had a good heart, and that just made him want to assist her more.

He probably just wanted to see what a Good Human was like.

With that resolved, the group takes off on their next adventure…

Also looks like Gouda made it out of the wall, seems the Prison, while somewhat horrific and immune to Mother Core’s Power, does have various capacities to release the people that get taken as a Wall carving.

It also somewhat explains why Heliostom was so willing to get nabbed by the wall, he probably had a way of either getting out later, or having Namii release him.

Seeing something that catches her eye, Mai snaps a photo.

And that is because Namii, in spite of all that she lost, has smiled.

Whatever pain she was feeling up until now has been resolved by her ultimately admitting defeat to Mai.

God, imagine eating something often for your dinners on a frequent basis then being dragged away from all that.

You’d start to miss it very strongly.

I’m like that with various things, but since moving away from home I’ve really missed the Spaghetti that my Grandma made me… Thankfully I’ve managed to reproduce it recently so it’s not too bad but I just know the feeling.

What I find hilarious is that while everyone’s eating Curry, to maintain the continuity of Kajitsu saying she can’t eat anything that isn’t sweet, she’s got a plate of pancakes.

Trouble stirs, Yuuki has located them, and rather easily too in spite of the lack of a tracker.

I guess we’ll find out what it is Yuuki plans to do with them, does he plan to take back his Sister by fighting Dan? Or does he intend to join them?

We’ll only find out next episode!

Naturally, you’ve all already heard my gripes with this particular episode’s set up, a fight essentially being fair and not fair based on what idea was necessary at the time, and a moral poorly set up because of a character obtaining victory, not through their own power, but simply because of a previous victory that occurred before the plot even started. Plot armor is meant to be invisible.

Aside from that, the obvious card of the day is the X-Rare both players used, The SevenShogun Asmodios.

What’s a little awkward here is, Charisma Battler Deck samples only started in the middle of BS08, as a result they’ve only got 4 samples, and there isn’t a Purple Deck among them.

Meaning I’ve got precisely zero frame of reference for what an Asmodios deck should even look like.

Even so, I’ve made an attempt, in this case I’ve created a deck centred on all the cards I know Mai has so far, and simply added some staples where necessary.

Asmodios is very hard to number in decks like this, I have this issue with most cards requiring Tribute, the reason being that the card is functionally dead unless I have a Tribute target, as having one is a cost for the summon. Cards like that are real hard to number.

Generally my rule for cards like this is entirely dependant on how often I want to see them, if I want to, or at least don’t mind, seeing the card all the time, even in duplicates, I run 3.

If I want to see a card but would rather not see it too early, or in multiples, I use 2.

And my rule for singular card copies is usually either by restriction in the case of Storm Draw, or in the case of Soul Crash, I do it when the card itself is powerful but conditions must be ideal in order to use it, and the card, while powerful, isn’t actually part of the overarching strategy. Using such cards at 1 essentially means that I can maneuver the strategy to accomodate it if I see it early, knowing I won’t draw a 2nd, or if I see it later I can see if it fits, and if not I’m not liable to get owned by it again, Soul Crash at least functions as a Battle Boost in those scenarios.

Anyway, it’s late and I’ve got stuff to be doing! So I’ll see you all later! Buh-bye!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 34

So there are times for 2-parters, and those are times when a battle is incredibly significant enough to actually demand one.

Dan’s battle with Otherworld King was one such match worthy of a 2-parter episode, I believe Dan’s next match with Otherworld King will ALSO be a 2-part job.

This… This isn’t one of those things, it feels like they wanted to advertise the Tag match one last time, and realised how much information is necessary to cover a whole tag match.

And I don’t like Tag matches…

Oh well, what can ye do?

Let’s finish this off, shall we?

First things first, let’s review where we left off.

It’s a Tag Battle, Clash King Dan and The Noble Youth of Light Clackey are facing off against a Team of Mazoku, The Firm Heliostom and his Son, Brustom.

Dan and Clackey have Meteorwurm at Lv1, Gremly at Lv2, and Froger at Lv3.

Brustom and Heliostom have The Invaded Castle Nexus, Block-Golem, The Gigantic Thor, and The new Blue X-Rare, The GodMadeSoldier Orichalcum-Golem at Lv2.

Team Soldier is currently at a massive 4 life deficit, being at 2 lives up against Team Namii’s 6.

Heliostom taunts Dan, noting that because he’s strong, his body will stand out when added to the Wall decorations.

Again, I’m fairly sure the showriters didn’t realise that this isn’t much better than flat out dying, or hell… Such a prospect sounds quite dark.

Namii’s quite enjoying the prospect of adding Dan and Clackey to suffer on that Wall for all eternity, which is, as Mai says, incredibly warped.

Magisa and Ryoko left the battlefield, I suppose to catch up on what’s been going on, Magisa feels bad that Otherworld King has directly caused the rift in their family.

Ryoko hasn’t said a word whatsoever, so Magisa tries to make small talk about Brustom.

When Magisa tries to casually say “I bet you hardly recognize him” she’s bluntly rebutted by Ryoko answering that she recognizes her son fine, thanks to his eyes not changing.

Ultimately it seems Ryoko has come because Heliostom is here, and she absolutely has zero plans to let Heliostom get his way when it comes to Brustom.

Also she calls him “Husband”, which means marriage is a concept Mazoku use… The question is whether their culture is monogamous.

I won’t cover the Episode title here again, not because of spoilers but because it’s literally uninteresting.

No Joke the title is: Tag Battle! StarEmperorDragon vs. GodMadeSoldier!

Which are the titles of Meteorwurm and Orichalcum-Golem respectively.

Clash King Turn 9.

On Dan’s start step, Heliostom’s The Invaded Castle returns all the Core in their Trash to the Reserve.

Heliostom then boasts that Thor is prepared to protect them… which it really isn’t, as explained in the previous episode, Thor is at Lv1 sitting at 4000 BP with precisely 0 effectiveness other than being 4000 BP.

Brustom is clearly running the same Math as his Dad and getting a different answer, he notes the same possibly Clackey raised of dealing with Orichalcum-Golem, which is that while they could focus on defenses, doing so gives them time to get Magic that can be used to crack their formation.

Brustom recommends going the way they have been, having Orichalcum-Golem continue to chip away at Dan and Clackey’s Decks.

Thor’s one effect at his current level literally doesn’t fucking work without another Armed Machine on board.

I’m not quite sure what the course of action they’re arguing over is, it seems like Heliostom wants to take a defensive position now that their lives are low so as not to lose their lead while Brustom wants to keep attacking to initiate deck destruction.

Speaking of, currently Dan has 28 cards left in his deck, while Clackey has 26.

“You made one mistake that bothered me in particular so I’m going to keep using it as an example anytime you propose an idea I don’t like so I can pick and choose whether or not to trust you”

My guy you’ve spent half the last episode droning on about how you were gonna turn Dan and Clackey into Wall ornaments. Who is boasting!?

Heliostom is adamant, he wants to strategize around Thor.

Clackey makes an attempt to note to Dan the critical need to not make any mistakes here given the situation.

Which is good considering they spent all of last episode bickering like a married couple.

And Clackey’s not even into men!

Dan starts by dropping Gremly to Lv1, and bringing Meteorwurm to Lv3.

Clackey lambasts Dan, asking if he can think of any other card than his Meteorwurm.

In this case however, Dan made the correct decision, he didn’t deplete Gremly, and kept Froger’s BP a high 6000. While also ensuring he could take out Orichalcum-Golem.

Dan enters his attack step, and attacks with Meteorwurm.

Dan uses Meteorwurm’s effect, as Meteorwurm has Clash, it can choose a Spirit to attack instead, selecting Orichalcum-Golem.

Brustom panics, and looks to his father to see if he has any Magic that could be used to rescue Orichalcum-Golem. It appears Heliostom didn’t anticipate Dan would so quickly move to get rid of it.

Let’s see here…

Ah, he does have a way to save Orichalcum-Golem. He can pay for it too.

Avalanche Aura provides 2000 BP to any blocking Spirit. Orichalcum-Golem is staring down 11000 BP with 7000. With 9000 that isn’t enough, but there’s the other Magic in Heliostom’s hand…

Flash
By exhausting a Spirit you control, during this turn, give a Spirit + (the exhausted Spirit’s) BP.

From BS03, a Cost 5 Magic, United Power.

By exhausting a Spirit you control, for the duration of the turn, you can give that exhausted Spirit’s BP to a different Spirit.

By spending 2 Core for Avalanche Aura, and 3 core for United Power for a total of 5 (they currently have 6 available), Orichalcum-Golem’s BP could be raised a further 3000 if they exhaust Block-Golem, and 4000 if they exhaust Thor.

Either puts Orichalcum-Golem to a BP value of at LEAST 12000 BP, which would defeat Meteorwurm and protect Orichalcum-Golem.

Heliostom clearly understands the benefits of Orichalcum-Golem, but his Ego has not only forced him to demand that they center their strategy on Thor despite Brustom’s better suggestion, but now he needs to back it up, and he’s not willing to waste cards that could protect Thor just to defend Orichalcum-Golem…

Lemme rephrase, if a Key Spirit is the Soul of a Battler, Heliostom is unwilling to do anything for Brustom that he wouldn’t do for himself first.

Heliostom’s unwillingness to use his Magic for Brustom’s Spirit has cost them, Orichalcum-Golem has been destroyed, and so has Brustom’s game plan for deck destruction.

When Brustom asks for a justification, Heliostom stubbornly declares that they don’t need deck destruction, the enemy has only 2 lives remaining, they can win the normal way.

My guy, you’re bumping a White deck, you have all the time in the world!

An alternative win condition like Orichalcum-Golem is PERFECT for this strategy.

Heliostom narrowly dodges a boomerang thrown by Ryoko, holy shit what a large boomerang.

Not gonna lie, kinda wish that hit him, that deadbeat really deserves it.

Also seems like the boomerang in question is some nice clothing engineering, her long cuffs at the end of her sleeves are the boomerangs, they must stiffen when removed.

Alternatively it’s a form of Ryoko’s magic, as Mazoku have immense magical power.

Ryoko once again asks, for the sake of her son, why did Heliostom fail to protect Brustom?

Rather than state that he couldn’t protect Thor and lie, he chooses to be honest, declaring that they must “preserve” the trump card, that is, any action to protect a Spirit that could be done to protect Thor is an undesirable one.

Ryoko calls out Heliostom, being the woman who knows him more than anyone. She declares him a “Liar” and simply claims that he’s selfishly hoarding Magic for himself, purely to benefit his own playstyle, Brustom is just supplemental.

Holy fuck this lady has no chill, she even calls out the fact that The Invaded Castle was designed to enable Heliostom to use Magic in spite of spending all his core, and even though he was able to do so, chose not to.

If he’s not gonna use The Invaded Castle for it’s intended purpose because he doesn’t want to protect Brustom then what the hell is the point of it?

Heliostom dodges the subject, simply uttering his chagrin at being accused of being a shitty father by his wife after not seeing either of them in forever.

Ryoko feels like she’s held up Dan’s turn long enough, and asks him to finish them off.

Dan continues, attacking with Froger.

Team Namii take from the life, dropping to 5 lives.

Quite amusingly, Ryoko’s tossed a boomerang to interfere with the Battle system, causing all the damage that would be felt to go to Heliostom, while Brustom feels nothing.

Ryoko smiles at her son, with a gesture that I can only describe to mean “Go have fun.”

Unlike Heliostom, it seems Ryoko has made an effort to maintain an incredibly good relationship with her son.

Quite humorously, Clackey comments on the fact that Ryoko is Brustom’s Mother, claiming its a bit of a surprise and this alone is enough to make Brustom flustered about his parents being here.

Dan ends his turn, Gremly is left as the sole blocker.

Brustom has 2 attackers but it’s unlikely Heliostom will let Brustom attack with Thor even if they can go for game.

The turn moves to Brustom, and Heliostorm once again espouses Thor’s ability to protect them.

Magisa decides to make small talk about marriage, noting how she’s still looking for a Husband, but notes that quarrels between married couples can last a while.

Magisa naturally wants to set an expectation, so she asks Ryoko how long her feud with Heliostom has lasted…

Just to put it into perspective, Heliostom has been fighting with his Wife

For longer than he has been battling (he mentioned last episode he has spent 1000 years battling)

And said feud has lasted for half of Magisa’s total lifespan, she’s 4029 if you don’t recall!

Brustom brings both Gigantic Thor and Block-Golem to their highest levels. Now Thor can block Dan’s Red Spirits with impunity, though his other effects don’t work because there are no other Armed Machines to exhaust or destroy.

Block-Golem attacks, Brustom discards cards from Dan‘s deck this time, 2 for each Nexus he controls. Dan now sits with a deck count of 26.

As Dan is about to declare to take it from the life, Clackey steps in to start defending.

Clackey uses Royal Potion, now all Cost 2 Spirits will be refreshed. The only one is Froger.

Froger needs to keep it’s BP as high as possible or it’ll fall below Block-Golem, so Clackey very carefully pays his core from Meteorwurm, who holds a whopping 6 core.

Now Froger can beat Block-Golem with 6000 BP to Block-Golem’s 5000.

but Brustom uses his own Magic, Magic Hammer.

Main
Discard five cards from the opposing decktop.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +3000 BP.

An oldie but a goodie from BS03, mainly used in Yellow Magic loops to achieve a full deck out, Magic Hammer has a nice Main effect of discarding a whole 5 cards (that’s an 8th of a 40 card deck, and a 7th of a deck that’s had at least 1 turn) from the opposing deck.

But during Flash it’s a 3000 BP battle boost.

Block-Golem now has 8000 BP for this turn, which is stronger than Froger.

Clackey, trying desperately to keep all of his Team’s Spirits preserved, uses Angel Voice.

Flash
When the battle resolves, instead of comparing BP, compare the Levels of the Spirits, and destroy the Spirit with a lower Level. If their Levels are the same, destroy both players’ Spirits.

A BS02 Yellow Magic, meaning it came when the colour was released. It changes the rules of battle to no longer compare BP to win, but compare Levels. It can be a good way of defeating large but lower levelled spirits with even the smallest higher levelled ones. This potency is why it has a minimum cost of 3 core.

Froger remains at Lv3 while Block-Golem only has 2 levels to battle with, leaving Froger the victor.

This time, Clackey decides to have some tact, he apologizes that he had to drop Meteorwurm’s Level to achieve this outcome.

Dan however doesn’t take it to heart, declaring that Clackey is the best at using Magic, given he was able to maneuver a way to defeat the attacker and keep up that situation, all while maintaining Froger’s monstrous Lv3 requirement and keeping Meteorwurm on the field.

That’s fairly good.

Heliostom reassures Brustom that the mistake is fine, as Clackey and Dan only have 2 lives remaining.

This time, Brustom attacks with Thor.

The 1000 BP Gremly doesn’t stand a chance against Thor, Clackey uses it to block anyway, and it’s defeated.

The life hath been protected.

It seems Ryoko is… very proud of her son for trying.

With no more attacks left, Brustom ends his turn.

Serge notes that Clackey and Dan seem to have repaired their teamwork, but note that the timing could have been better, they still have to somehow annihilate 5 sets of lives.

And Dan doesn’t have a Meteor Storm to work with.

Kenzo and Kajitsu have decided to make their way back into the Prison again, Kenzo mentions Kajitsu can rest but Kajitsu seems to be of the opinion that Dan and Clackey are suffering, it makes no sense that she should get a pass just because she’s having a minor headache.

They do however, get a shock, coming across Gouda’s entry into the wall.

Kenzo raises a hopeful possibility that Kajitsu might be able to use Mother Core’s powers to return Gouda from the wall, but Kajitsu maintains that she wouldn’t be able to achieve that.

Dang, this Prison outdoes Mother Core?

Clackey’s turn 11, he decides to get back 6 core by levelling down Froger.

This is then followed by a Lv3 summon of a Spirit named Kikimora.

Toy Beast

Kikimora is a Cost 1 Yellow Spirit from BS08, nothing notable, in the same vain as Babyrouza, it has the Toy Beast family, which didn’t get any particularly notable support at any time.

Mai seems to believe that it’s so ugly that it’s cute.

If anyone’s wondering how that works, er… Try any Dog that’s a Pug or a French Bulldog, it’s that kind of idea.

Clackey follows up, summoning his own X-Rare, the ArcAngelia Isfiel.

Clackey informs Dan that he’s going to try and even out the Life difference between them, but requests that Dan trust him completely in order to let him get those results.

The attack step begins, Kikimora and Froger attack.

Heliostom immediately moves to take from the life.

Notably, this time, when Ryoko attempts to protect Brustom using her Boomerang, Brustom is the one to request that she not do so.

They take both attacks from the Life, dropping them to 3 lives.

It seems Brustom did this to show that he can stomach the pain of battle just fine, and doesn’t need protecting.

Satisfied, Clackey ends his turn.

Heliostom gets a bit uppity about this, asking why Clackey didn’t attack him with an empty board.

Well for starters it’s clear Heliostom intends to refresh Thor soon, secondly, Isfiel is capable of using it’s free magic duplication effect while she’s blocking as well as attacking.

It seems Heliostom’s going to finally start getting aggressive.

You what?

Maybe she’s just really into Game of Thrones.

I was hoping for that last episode and didn’t get it, if I have to suffer you do too Namii.

So back to the Impudent Talk.

Heliostom makes an… odd declaration, stating that he does what he does because it’s in his nature to repel human-kind, and the elimination of humans is his “Way of life”

…Yeah until you run out of humans to repel

What then ya sleazeball?

See, now, the question is, is Ryoko mad because they upset her before and he hasn’t changed?

Or is she mad because that’s what she was charmed by, and it pisses her off now?

Well based on this we now know what’s in Heliostom’s hand.

Heliostom summoned Fenrircannon-MkII, Baldar, and Berserker-Magnum.

The issue here is we didn’t see Magnum until this turn, meaning the 2 cards in Heliostom’s hand are Avalanche Aura and United Power.

The other issue is the choice of Spirits, there aren’t any Armed Machines here for Thor to make a consecutive attack with.

That being said there are still enough attackers to cause Clackey to need defense, Heliostom has 1 more attacker than he needs in order to win.

Clackey admits to Dan he’s got absolutely fuck all for dealing with all 4 of those Spirits with one blocker.

So, Namii’s grudge here is very clear, she wants to hurt Mai as much as possible by doing horrible things to her friends before subjecting them to her, all because she won a battle where she gained The Violet, Serge and Beelzebeat.

But, the sheer evil of it all really makes it hard for me to believe, she’s been boasting her ass off about her battlers, got them offed one by one, and interrupts the damn match every few seconds to say “THIS TIME, THEY GON’ LOSE”

Put up or shut up, Namii.

Heliostom takes this moment to boast about his strength to Magisa, suggesting she may fall for him for it

Magisa I get that you are giving in to whatever lust drives you but his wife is RIGHT. FUCKING. THERE.

Magisa tries to save face, claiming she’s joking, though her follow up clearly indicates that Magisa was 100% after that Heliostom dick.

So it seems like Magisa’s failure to remember people’s names is a running gag of hers, one that Kenzo doesn’t find very funny but Ryoko on the other hand has an incredible sense of humor, finding that absolutely hilarious.

Talk about a nice save, but still, hot diggity damn Magisa was down horrendous for that guy.

Heliostom attacks with Thor, then boasts about how Red decks will lose to Thor if they have no defense…

…What? Thor is, at best an 8000 BP wall, Dan clears it with Meteorwurm by himself!

All it does is prevent a Red Rush.

And that WON’T WORK IF IT’S EXHAUSTED YOU SCHMUCK!

Dan, during Flash timing, uses Victory Fire, he levels down Isfiel and Kikimora to pay for the necessary cost.

Fenrircannon-MkII and Berserker-Magnum are destroyed.

Heliostom no longer has the requisite number of attackers to win.

Seems Heliostom was counting on being able to win here.

We get it, you hate humans, Heliostom.

Dan and Clackey take a life, they now share 1 life remaining.

Heliostom can’t move upon the life now, as he doesn’t have enough attacks to clear the last life, so he ends his turn, with only Baldar as the remaining blocker.

It occurs to me that Clackey only has 1 card in his hand, and given he hasn’t used it yet, we know what card it is, it’s the Wing Boots card he got from Cherubim on his first turn.

Seems they’ve got an understanding of the pet peeves of the other, so Dan apologizes for having to level down Kikimora and Isfiel.

Clackey says it isn’t an issue, as Dan made the correct play, and didn’t sacrifice any of the spirits.

The rift has been sealed.

Mai taunts Namii, noting that she knew Clackey and Dan would make up.

Brustom takes this moment to try and re-assure his father, stating that he will try to end the game on his turn. Brustom looks like he’s going to be taking in how responsible his son is being.

But nope, Heliostom grabs Brustom by his beard, telling him not to act so proud.

God forbid your son tries to take responsibility for fighting for his family, what, that too human for you.

Clackey tells Dan that, at least for this turn, Dan’s kind of on his own, as Clackey only has a Wing Boots.

I’m sure there’s some strat that can work with alongside Meteorwurm’s target attack.

Clash King Turn, Invaded Castle returns all of Team Namii’s core to the reserve.

Dan drops Isfiel to Lv1.

And raises Meteorwurm only to Level 2…

What is the rest of the core needed for?

Oh, been a while since we saw him!

Dan summons the Original Red X-Rare, The DragonEmperor Siegfried!

Dan moves to the attack step, he attacks with Meteorwurm.

Due to Meteorwurm’s Clash, Heliostom is forced to block with the only available Spirit they have…

Gigantic Thor can block Red Spirits without exhausting, however, Thor isn’t capable of blocking if it’s already exhausted, so even though it has a Lv3 of 8000, it can’t stop Meteorwurm’s attack.

Balder’s effect gives it 1000 BP for every exhausted Spirit, there’s only 2 and Balder has 4000 BP, keeping it at 6000. Meteorwurm has 7000 BP.

Heliostom finally uses one of the cards he refused to use, Avalanche Aura, raising Balder’s BP to 8000.

If Meteorwurm isn’t able to reach the life, Dan only has Isfiel and Siegfried, Heliostom and Brustom still have 3 lives.

And since Balder has already blocked, Meteorwurm can’t reach the life from this position…

…Except it can.

Clackey uses the last card in his hand, Wing Boots, granting Meteorwurm the ability to treat itself as having not been blocked if it’s Level isn’t lower than the blocking Spirit.

As Balder and Meteorwurm are both Lv2, Meteorwurm will now ignore Balder’s block.

Meteorwurm’s attack goes straight to the life, and the best part is that Balder’s block wasn’t revoked, it was ignored, so Balder remains exhausted.

Meteorwurm hits the life, dropping Team Namii to 2.

Isfiel attacks, dropping the enemy team to a single remaining Life.

Siegfried attacks.

In the last moments of the battle, in spite of treating him incredibly shittily, Heliostorm moves infront of Brustom, to protect him from the incoming damage.

Siegfried strikes true, reducing Team Namii to 0.

For the last Tag Battle we’ll ever see, Clackey and Dan are the winners!

…Fuck this format, I hate it.

Kenzo arrives right as the battle ends.

Kankuro?!

We’re freaking crossing anime now!

So I’m not too familiar with the joke of Kenzo getting his own name wrong here, my only guess is that “Kankuro” has something similar that could cause Kenzo to extrapolate “Kanzaburo” while still technically spelling his own name.

But I’m not too familiar with Japanese writings.

If you happen to be familiar with the joke being made here:

Ryoko chastises Heliostom, basically saying that just like Otherworld King, the human he hates more than anyone, Heliostom just does what he wants.

Akshually.

Avalanche Aura ended up getting ignored by Wing Boots, and United Power ended up not getting used.

Clackey had Wing Boots the entire time, even if Wing Boots prevented Meteorwurm’s destruction at the time, they would have still survived the turn, and Orichalcum-Golem would have been able to discard more cards from Dan and Clackey’s decks.

There was still a battle to be had, had they done that, it’s not clear that they would have won, but they certainly wouldn’t have lost the way they had.

Ryoko presents her Boomerang to Heliostom’s face, Heliostom clearly wonders if Ryoko intends to kill him personally.

Dan tries to interfere but Magisa prevents him, saying this is something that needs to be resolved by them.

Ryoko decides to call out what precisely she knows is the problem with Heliostom, which explains his constant inability to confront his family, defeat Otherworld King, etcetera.

And that is because Heliostorm is a common trope of a person with great amounts of strength but no bravery to allow him to wield it.

Heliostom counters, but the issue here is his words aren’t the issue, he’s not afraid to say what he wants because the whole point of those strong words is to mask his cowardice

You can say what you want but if your actions don’t match what you’re saying then what does it matter what you say?

Ryoko finally hits the final nerve, she tells Heliostom that he challenged Otherworld King to a Battle, and then realized how afraid he was that he looked for any excuse to run from his family to hide his cowardice. And she insults this cowardice.

Heliostom’s done taking this nonsense, and demands Namii have the Wall take him as a carving.

Hoo boy, just checking out of life because you don’t like a conversation is certainly a choice.

Heliostom gets mocked by Ryoko who comments he’s just proving her point, he’s demanding the wall take him because he is a coward and doesn’t want to continue this conversation with her.

Dan goes to intervene, not wanting to let anyone get taken by the wall just because Namii has a hateboner for Mai.

But Magisa tells him it will be fine

And that’s because Brustom, who’s probably the strongest person in the room physically, aside from Heliostom, is going to try and save his father anyway.

Heliostom tries to appeal to Brustom’s resentment, essentially asking him if the choice Brustom made to become a King instated by Humans make him feel better than whatever his father thinks.

So I’m gonna summarise since it’s a bit scattered. Brustom is essentially saying that he had fun with battling with his Father.

Brustom disagrees with his Father fundamentally concerning Humans, because until he’d met them, he didn’t know anyone else other than his own family, once they arrived with Otherworld King, their knowledge helped enable a large portion of the technology they now use to get around.

Brustom says that Humans granted them Freedom, and that’s why he wanted to work with them.

But even IF Heliostom taught him that Humans were things to be rejected, he still appreciated those lessons because he knew his Father was doing so out of love for his family.

In a sentence, “Dad, I disagree with you, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate what you tried to do, nor does it mean I don’t love you or don’t have fun playing with you.”

Brustom earlier was wary of his father but once he got over it, Brustom became incredibly confident and was working with his Dad in spite of him being an asshole, because he knew that his Dad was, in a somewhat abusive way, acting out of love.

I know that some people might counter “If love causes you to hurt someone it isn’t love” but people are not that simple, people hurt the ones they love all the time, I would only say it isn’t love if said person is using love as a justification for another person’s suffering, then I’d say that isn’t love because that’s a person who wants to hurt someone because they love them.

In this case the pain is an undesirable consequence of how Heliostom is and how he chose to love his Wife and Child, were he a little more honest with himself, he could have probably avoided it, and more importantly, would have.

So remember to look at situations like this with some nuance, it’s easy to call Heliostom an abusive father, and I would agree, but you do need to look at it from his point of view to see whether or not it’s a reconcilable problem.

He’s still a deadbeat Dad and Ryoko needs to have some words with him, but it’s a reparable situation.

Brustom: 1, Wall: ZERO

Ryoko tells Heliostom that from now on, he needs to be honest about when he is scared.

There’s clearly a moral about masculinity here, Heliostom’s ideals of who he should be conflicted with what was best for his family.

Serge notes that this is a family issue being resolved after TWO THOUSAND YEARS!

Which is probably pretty difficult for all of them.

Kajitsu comments on the idea of Family, seeming to give her some pause.

I suppose she’s thinking about her Brother.

Kenzo points out that, while this is nice, Brustom still burnt down the Green World just to smoke out Kajitsu.

But Kenzo tries to resolve it in his own head that Brustom must be an incredibly complicated person deep down if he’s able to have such a happy ending in spite of such horrible acts.

Thankfully, Ryoko is a woman of high moral fortitude, and demands to know if what they just said about Brustom is true from the Horse’s mouth.

Remember kids, in a Court of Law, Apologies are an admission of guilt, and can be used to prove culpability.

So if you didn’t do what you were accused of, don’t apologise.

If you think you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t apologise.

And be very clear what you are apologising for, blanket apologies carry no weight, specific ones show acknowledgement of what the issue is. And mean a lot more to people.

Brustom is dragged away to be punished by his Mother.

Heliostom comments that Ryoko is a harsh woman… but the best people for us tend to be the ones that invest effort making us better people.

There are a lot of girls who take in bad boys because they’re hot hoping they can “fix them”

Ryoko is the type of woman you need to be in order to actually follow through on that goal. She is soft and praiseworthy and respectful and supportive of the people she cares about when they are doing things that benefit themselves without harming others. And only becomes Draconian when they do something that is actively harmful.

– Audible snorting noises –

Heliostom very offhandedly comments that he’d rather have Magisa as his wife because of how harsh Ryoko is, and the response from Ryoko is to belt him with her Boomerang.

I can see why Heliostom would think that, Magisa is… “fun to be around” for Heliostom, but sometimes that can result in exacerbating each other’s worst traits.

What a woman, her Husband was openly considering being unfaitfhul directly infront of her and her response wasn’t to just immediately toss him out but to pull him back in with her bare fucking teeth.

She sees vices as a thing to be resolved rather than a thing to divest herself with, and has a will strong enough to not be broken down by discourse or poor events, or let them affect her judgment like with Magisa’s joke.

And she never uses her own emotions to justify harming others, or making unreasonable demands.

My only gripe is that she’s a bit commanding but I feel like she’s dealing with an absolute tosspot of a Son and an even bigger tosspot of a Husband, she was very supportive of Brustom during his battle which suggests that she’s typically gentle when in a good mood.

And the sky is fucking Purple what else is new?

I don’t even have anything to add, Mai’s just destroying her from the confines of a Prison Cell.

Namii admits that she was unable to cause any of her friends any suffering so far with either of her three battlers.

She then decides to get this situation out of the way, realizing she isn’t going to be able to get to Mai by impersonally taking out her friends, she’s decided she’ll do this the old fashioned way, and take on Mai.

While I won’t say this invalidates this episode and the previous 2, there are some… problematic conclusions to draw here.

Namii could have fought Mai at any point before now but didn’t do so because she wanted to hurt Mai’s allies.

By not doing so, Brustom’s had his character arc completed, as he’s been permanently removed as a problem on account of being reunited with a family who abhors Otherworld King, and Ryoko who clearly doesn’t agree with what Brustom did working for him.

In exchange for reconciling this 2000 Year old feud… Gouda was made a permanent part of the Prison Wall for the rest of eternity by Heliostom punishing him for losing, something not even Kajitsu, who wields the powers of Mother Core which supplies Grand-Lolo with the ability to support life, can reverse.

Just… not sure it was a fair trade there, it’s all nice and dandy but Gouda didn’t really deserve what he got to ensure this happened.

We’re finally moving on, let’s go!

We once again get a small end of episode update on Yuuki’s current position, he’s on quite a nice Core Ship, intending on reaching Kajitsu.

But what happens next is reserved for next episode!

Anyway, we’re finally at that point in the series where I don’t have to actually attempt to produce my own brews, I am unfortunately a fallible human being and I recognize that I’m not the best because I have absolutely no tournament wins to my name.

My only claim to Battle Spirits fame is my love for it’s anime and placing 38th at a Battle Spirits Saga’s first tournament before I quit the game entirely for upsetting me, I might talk about that in it’s own blog post.

However, Battle Spirits started messing around with sample decks, more explicitly there is a “Charisma Battler” Deck page which details all of the decks they use over the course of some series.

“Charisma Battlers” are battlers like Galaxy, who exist as Cameos to the series, but ultimately are roles taken by actual people.

So I’m displaying the first of the Charisma Battler Decks, the theme of course for this one is Brustom’s new ace, The GodMadeSoldier Orichalcum-Golem.

This is a deck that one of the Charisma Battlers posted, and it’s an interesting one, if you remember, Gundinos was a preferred ace for Blue Assault decks because it could perform all of the GiantEmperor Alexander’s functions a little better.

But if Gundinos was the goal, then what was the underlying strategy that demanded the necessary Nexuses? Let’s talk about them!

[LV1][LV2] (Opposing Attack Step)
When an opposing Cost 3 or less Spirit attacks, put a core from the Void to a “Beast Head” family Spirit you control.
[LV2] (Either Attack Step)
All your “Beast Head” family Spirits are treated as being on their highest level.

The Nexus in question chosen to be built around, aside from the other goodstuff Nexuses, was this one, The Gogyo Temple. The reason why is because it has the ability to generate Core in a fairly manipulative way. The first effect is that when an opposing Cost 3 or less Spirit attacks, you gain a core from the Void, placed on a “Beast Head” Spirit you control.

Now, aside from Orichalcum-Golem and Gundinos, the cards you need the core for, every other card in the deck is a Beast Head family card.

But the side strategy in the meantime is fairly nasty as well:

Beast Head – Soldier
[LV1][LV2][LV3]
Neither player can draw outside Draw Step.
Beast Head
[LV1][LV2] (Opposing Attack Step)
This Spirit can block opposing Cost 3 or less Spirits while exhausted.
[LV1][LV2]
When your Nexuses are destroyed, by sending a core from your Field/Reserve to your Trash, one of the destroyed Nexuses returns to the Field, in the same condition.
[LV2]
When the opponents uses a Magic effect, you can negate that effect. Then, return this Nexus to the deckbottom.

The deck is also littered with Beast Heads who have nasty effects producing many many restrictions on what the opponent is able to do.

Firstly, PigMan Chohakkai can prevent players drawing outside the Draw Step, this means that Players can’t access more options.

Bernald is capable of blocking all Spirits that trigger Gogyo Temple’s effect, so if the opponent plays hyper aggressively, you can use Bernald to wall them off by itself.

And The Magic Control Tower, a card that is currently banned as of 2011 due to how potent it was in combination with Gundinos, not only protects your Nexuses from destruction at the cost of a single core, but also has a nasty Lv2 effect that allows you to negate any Magic the opponent uses whenever you want at the cost of returning Magic Control Tower to the bottom of the deck, you could use this to put a stop to counters to the assault strategy, the likelihood your opponent had the same answer to the strategy twice was incredibly nasty and made the deck have a super high amount of Inevitability for what was effectively a beat down.

So, lock the opponent’s options early until you get your hyper-aggressive win condition, powerful deck, and if the life wasn’t an option, Orichalcum-Golem could single handedly wipe out the deck by triggering a high number of card-losses via it’s Demolish.

Even if one assumes you only have 2 Spirits and 2 Nexuses before summoning Orichalcum, Assault at Lv2 means Orichalcum-Golem mills 7 cards per attack.

With 3 attacks, that’s 21 cards, half of the deck, even with 1 less symbol, that’s half the deck after drawing the starting hand.

Orichalcum-Golem has the capacity to clear an entire deck by itself in 2 turns as long as it’s summoned at Lv2.

Other notes include triple Victory Fire, card was that good it was run off colour in other decks, and this one could get reductions. Storm Draw which every deck was running at 1 until it was banned, and Silent Wall for defense.

It’s a cool deck, and I like analyzing the card usage here, as it helps me (and by extension you) think about the full strategy over the course of the game.

Anyway, I yammered on enough.

This is also the first episode where the new ending for Gekiha Dan takes place, called “Galaxy Step”, and is also the only ending theme that actively relates to the game itself, sung by Galaxy’s Voice Actor.

anyway, with that out of the way, I’ll see you in the next one, with fresh, bread and butter, tried and true, one-on-one fight to the death battles!

I can almost taste it! See you round!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 33

I was just minding my own business.

But since you’re here… I may as well shpeal about Gekiha Dan Episode 33.

So Gouda’s got his ass whooped, we’re on to Door number two!

The general ambience of a prison is more of a horror mood than the wall full of fucking living people stuck in it?

I’m sure you’ll say that after they beat this one as well. I’d probably start with someone who can actually compete with a tournament-level fighter like Dan-

Oh…

Oh…

So couple things, WHY IS BRUSTOM HERE?!

…I mean I suppose we’ve enough evidence to suggest that Namii is Otherworld King affiliated, the Prison was an old facility for him, Gouda is familiar with the inhabitants of the wall of souls and oversaw many of their… executions I guess?

Brustom being part of this is plausible.

In the meantime, apparently Zungurii carried Kajitsu back to The Violet.

I’m sorry did I miss something? I wasn’t even aware Kajitsu was feeling unwell. She was completely fine at the previous episode’s end.

BUT WHEN DID THE COLLAPSE HAPPEN? I guess they really didn’t want to animate so many people onscreen so used Kajitsu’s frailty as a reason to get them out of there.

Kenzo assigns himself to stay with Kajitsu, and thereby recuses himself from the plot by being too scared to remain inside the prison.

I mean if I damn near became one with the wall I’d be pretty “NOPE” about it too.

Zungurii goes to do the best thing he can do, provide Kajitsu with sustenance

in this case he even knows her preference, Honey Juice.

In other news, Magisa’s getting a real bad vibe from the Prison.

Gouda slinks away defeated, and a voice in the prison seems to taunt him for his loss.

“An Otherworlder couldn’t defeat a single brat” is certainly an interesting take, normally Humans are universally presented as having a higher baseline aptitude for battle spirits.

Which makes sense given that Battle Spirits is a human creation.

Huh, what tribe is this one from, he’s got WINGS!

D’aww you can’t just spare Gouda and then kill him off the second you introduce a new character, that’s so mean!

Also I am not covering the Episode titles now unless they don’t spoil, so if you don’t see me talk about one, it’s probably because it gives the game away.

Don’t worry Clackey’s not asking Brustom if he’s tired of chasing the Lightbearers.

He’s asking the audience if we’re tired of this fatass constantly being a problem!

Take it eeee~ea~say~

Brustom tells them to chill the fuck out, he’s not here on Otherworld Kingly business. Stating that he genuinely didn’t know he’d be fighting them until now.

Clackey ignores him, asking if Brustom intends to trade Kajitsu for Blue Kingship.

I also hate being ignored, infact fuck you guys I’m rooting for Brustom just for that.

The group finally click, in spite of Brustom’s attempts to explain, that Brustom is here to fight for Namii, and not Otherworld King.

As it turns out, Brustom’s just straight up friends with Namii. Hence why he agreed to come when called over.

…I’m not gonna lie I have absolutely zero idea who Brustom’s trying to follow the footsteps of.

I would presume it’d be Leon? But..

Apparently Serge reacts to this comment, so my only guess is that they mean Brustom intends to follow in Serge’s footsteps.

…Which doesn’t make a lot of sense but I’m not gonna bother analyzing it too deeply.

Brustom asks which of them will fight.

Clackey is the only other available battler, and so he has a claim to the battle by right of rotation.

But Dan stops Clackey, demanding to have the battle by right of revenge.

Dan lost to Brustom’s shoddy White/Blue build last time.

Oh that’s ominous, Brustom intends to make Dan and Clackey part of the wall, and if you actually look at the background, the highlighted heads match the designs of Dan, Clackey and Serge.

Before they can start however, they’re interrupted by a voice from… somewhere.

The Winged Otherworlder we saw approach Gouda earlier has arrived, apparently to assist.

It seems however this winged chap is, it’s Brustom’s Dad.

Though I suppose the wings weren’t hereditary.

That’s an understatement.

More like sideways…

Brustom seems… terrified of this guy… In any case they haven’t been in contact for quite some time.

Also seems like in spite of a highly advanced core system, Otherworld King hasn’t created a phone network yet.

At the very least, regardless of where his fear of his Dad comes from, his Dad does seem to be at least interested in his health.

Ah right, gotta explain for anyone uninitiated.

Japan has many ways to refer to oneself, “Boku” is the standard polite mannerism for a boy to use when referring to themselves, Brustom’s been flinging his weight around both literally and verbally, so the switch to “Boku” here caught Clackey’s attention because for once, Brustom’s being polite.

This man has 3 names, but we only care about the last one, for the purposes of referring to the character, he is Heliostom, father of Brustom.

He acknowledges that he’s Brustom’s father but he also seems to act like it’s not quite the whole story. I suppose among Otherworlders, designations like Parent or Child have different meanings.

Ah lovely, we meet for the first time, a member of the Mazoku.

I won’t call it a “Tribe” like the Gurii or the Mimi Tribe, as Mazoku are actually incredibly varied unlike the rest of the Otherworlders.

What I find odd about this is they only felt it necessary to note that Heliostom was a Mazoku, but the natural extension of this is that Brustom is also a Mazoku due to his lineage.

Mazoku are incredibly violent people, come in many shapes or sizes, have the most innate magic abilities out of any Otherworlder, and moreover, they are even extensively proficient at Battle Spirits. Zungurii and Kenzo’s conversation a few episodes ago suggests that, on average, Humans are superior to Otherworlders in Battle Spirits.

Mazoku however, seem to have bridged that gap.

Bear in mind, Heliostom is a survivor of the Mazoku, they actively opposed Otherworld King and said King saw fit to actually try and get rid of them, whereas he easily suppresses other Otherworlders.

Mazoku also, above all things, despise Humans.

It seems Heliostom’s here to assist Namii, naturally, because what else could go wrong?

It’s very clear Heliostom’s just using this entire situation as an excuse to dunk on Dan and Clackey, for no other reason than being Human.

TvTropes has a page on this, it’s called “Fantastic Racism”

I’m sorry what broke bitch is able afford the upkeep cost of a Prison, a whole ass wine rack, and a personal bodyguard?

Mai also feigns innocence concerning the reason Namii’s flying by the seat of her pants.

So… I suppose Namii is broke?

Lady must have spent an absolute ton on The Violet.

Seems Heliostom’s particular gripe with the Humans is their sense of self-importance. Otherworld King has such a trait in spades.

Sadly when you define a race by a single member of it’s entire species, you start seeing any ounce of a particular trait as equally worthy of scorn as a fully formed vice.

Dan and Clackey’s “Air of self-importance” has precisely nothing to do with why Otherworld King has it.

Serge attempts to reason with Heliostom, stating that they share an enemy, above all, Mazoku truly despise Otherworld King, given he offed many of their numbers, Serge tries to broker a peace by noting that Dan and the rest of the Violet crew are also vehemently opposed to the guy.

All things considered, they should be allies.

Heliostom refuses to differentiate them from Otherworld King however, they share his origin, that being a Human born on Earth.

as far as he’s concerned, that’s enough to treat any and all Humans precisely the same as they’d treat Otherworld King.

The way Heliostom sees Brustom’s demotion to Leon’s Bitch Henchmen is essentially Brustom siding with the Humans, and then getting his Kingship stripped by Humans.

Heliostom lectures Brustom over how that could have helped the Mazoku if he wielded his influence in their favour.

Seems Heliostom’s absolutely ready to fight.

Also his hand looks really odd here but it is drawn correctly, just a weird angle.

…

Absolutely not

let’s not have a Tag Battle

If you wanna fight, fight Heliostom, but don’t suggest terrible ideas.

NO DAN, DON’T AGREE WITH HIM!

Clackey, for these few minutes you are my favourite.

Clackey claims that he shouldn’t tag battle with Dan because Dan’s battle style is incredibly rudimentary, Clackey’s deck is rather complex which will cause the 2 playstyles to mesh horribly.

As for why I don’t like tag battles, they’re an interesting gimmick and it’s certainly a fun way to enjoy a game between 4 people without separating them.

However, there is no official tag battle format in Battle Spirits, or at least, not an up to date one.

Official support for the format was dropped after BS10 due to a particular rule I’ll explain later that modern decks would have had a problem fitting in with at the time, but as a result, it means that these battles are really difficult to analyze with regards to the standard game because there’s a bunch of context-based issues that wouldn’t have otherwise been there.

Like sure 2 cards might have a ton of synergy but in what universe would you ever use those 2 cards together? And pulling it off in a Tag battle naturally doesn’t come with the same issues a Single Battle would have doing the same thing.

You’ll see what I mean.

Famous last words.

Dan’s barebones idea doesn’t sound bad, Clash supplemented by Clackey’s strengthening Magic does sound incredibly cool…

But Clackey’s deck is built around Light Spirits, cards that can refund his Magic, something Dan’s Spirits can’t do.

Either way, the Gate is opened!

And it seems like the Battle System only requires that 2 parties consent to the Tag, regardless of the Tag partners’ wishes.

Zungurii and Magisa try to return to Dan, they seem to pass by where Gouda ran into Heliostom.

…Only to find out that Gouda’s been rendered part of the Wall now. After Dan and Zungurii saved him.

Heliostom really punished the guy after he barely escaped his fate from an altruistic opponent.

Point is, Mazoku are heartless monsters.

Someone who can’t tolerate Humans, much less those who can’t stand against them.

Remove “Tag” from that sentence and we’ll be in agreement.

It seems that Heliostom’s effectiveness in Battle has nothing to do with raw strength… But a high win streak implies one is strong so I don’t really get it.

So his full title as a battler is “The Firm Heliostom”

And one of the potent Mazoku traits is that they live exceptionally long lives.

In fact it’s possible that they’ve achieved genetic immortality, after a Mazoku reaches their adult appearance, they don’t change at all beyond that aside from standard hair growth. We will see a Mazoku become incredibly old with no change to their appearance whatsoever.

As a quick science lesson: there are many theories as to why we age and become frailer and older over time, some believe it’s due to accumulated damage from the Sun and external forces, others believe it’s cell replication making mistakes over extended periods of time. Whatever the reason, our bodies degrade as we get older.

If our body was capable of maintaining the state and health of it’s cells through whatever it was that was damaging them in the first place, we’d be able to achieve a type of Biological Immortality, essentially never aging beyond 25-30 (but still being very killable due to injury or infectious disease)

There is only one animal on earth that has achieved Biological Immortality, and that is the Turritopsis dohrnii… Or the famous Immortal Jellyfish. It can still be eaten or suffer infections which can cause an individual Jellyfish’s death, but when Starving or only slightly injured, they can basically revert to their baby state, and grow up again from there.

There is one other animal that hasn’t been yet labelled biologically immortal but is theorised that it could be, called a “Hydra”, it’s like the baby state of a Jellyfish, a polyp, but in simple terms, it has a high expression of what’s called a FoxO gene, something we humans also have, and this FoxO gene prevents the Hydra’s cells from getting old, causing it to remain youthful.

The Mazoku are likely a humanoid variant of this, sentient beings with a strong or perfected FoxO gene.

My only guess is that if it is isn’t strength that makes Heliostom scary to fight, it must be the sheer experience of his 1000 years of battle.

Magisa’s arrived in the battlefield, and more importantly, it seems her and “He-chan” are old friends.

My guy your son is right there.

It’s clear that Magisa didn’t give birth to Brustom, so Brustom’s Mother is dead, divorced, or Heliostom’s a cheater.

I truly don’t think Brustom gave 2 shits about you, he didn’t even write to you.

It seems Heliostom is quite happy to try and repair his relationship with his son after he was fired from being the Blue King.

You’d think he’d be quite a nice Dad then… so why is Brustom so bloody terrified?

…Given the way her face looks, and the topic of conversation immediately preceding this.

It seems Heliostom liked to get around.

He got that dawg in ’em.

And he certainly got his dawg in them.

So uh, while a kid is likely to simply derive that they were friends.

It’s clear to me, an adult, that these two have a history of staining bedsheets.

Hey I ain’t judging, people can do what they like… and who.

Clackey’s on the marbles.

Dan however seems to imagine them as being complete utter delinquent bikers.

Magisa realizes how embarrassing either designation is and tells them they can think what they want.

Into the match! Turn 1 goes to Dan!

Clackey immediately stops Dan, suggesting they should get their heads together and strategize.

In Cardfight Vanguard’s Tag battle rules, you aren’t allowed to share hand information, but I believe in Battle Spirits and Yu-Gi-Oh, you are.

Though Yu-Gi-Oh! It can be a toss up depending on the game.

Dan however doesn’t feel like strategizing and just wants to play.

This straightforwardness and lack of thought is precisely why Clackey didn’t want to Tag with him.

Also note how their Battle Forms have extra pieces of armor, Dan and Clackey both have small… Tiaras I guess?

The reason for this is to account for the increased number of lives, in a Tag battle, both Teams share 8 lives.

Dan summons Dinonychusaw at Lv2 (4000 BP) and ends his turn.

Magisa takes this moment to explain the Tag battle rules.

Firstly, each player brings their own deck, and take turns one after another, starting from player 1, then the opponent directly across from them, and so on.

While each player on a team share 8 lives to ensure everyone gets a turn (something something Lightspeed Shula), there’s only 4 core in the reserve.

Dan’s just used all of the available core for this turn.

You’re free to attack, defend and otherwise control the cards your teammate has on their field.

But, as a restriction, the 2 paired decks cannot have any cards of a matching colour.

Dan’s deck is pure Red, and Clackey’s deck has a Yellow main, with some Green and White supplemental magic. So this is fine.

This is the rule that mainly kills the format, BS09 started producing a series of cards that supported multicoloured strategies, bear in mind we’re on BS08, not to mention players tend to go off-colour for specific cards for many reasons, the main one being White defensive magic to ensure they’ll live another turn. Imagine being the only player who got to use White Magic?

Each player gets an opportunity to use Flash so I suppose it’s not the worst, but being unable to tag with someone with a Red deck because they have 1 Red card amongst 39 Green ones is a pisstake.

As a result the format was eventually dropped after BS10, and is no longer supported, Tag “style” rules had a weird update in later shows, the main changes being that Teams had a united turn, and took their phases one after the other along with having separate reserves.

Before Brustom makes his move, he runs his intended play by Heliostom.

Heliostom agrees, ordering Brustom to attack.

Brustom summons 2 BattleBeast Bayrouzas and a Block-Golem.

Fighting Beast

Babyrouza’s a Cost 1 BS08 card in the Fighting Beast family, nothing else notable, Fighting Beasts aren’t really a conceptualized deck type and are an unsupported family, often used when they don’t want to add a card to a supported one.

Naturally these also exist for Draft reasons.

Brustom, like his namesake, is playing what appears to be a Blue deck.

Last time he mixed white with it, but for this episode, it’s Pure Blue.

Brustom goes on the offensive, attacking with Babyrouza.

Dan sees the clear difference in BP, Babyrouza’s 1000 BP doesn’t hold a candle to Dinonychusaw’s 4000.

But Clackey interrupts him, choosing to take from the Life.

Team Core Soldier lose a life, dropping to 7.

Brustom continues, attacking with Block-Golem

Clackey has them take another life, dropping them to 6.

Clackey makes a note, that since they share lives, they both get to feel the same damage they would when taking a life normally.

Dan of course, feels exhilerated by this.

I do like tag battles as a concept, there’s nothing quite like a good co-op game. Seamless Co-op Elden Ring is a well-loved mod of Elden Ring for this specific reason.

Brustom double checks with his father that this was a desirable outcome, and Heliostom confirms.

Brustom ends his turn.

So it’s clear that had Dan blocked, Brustom would have simply full attacked, they have 8 lives, so it’s not a scary situation at all whatsoever.

But since Dan didn’t block, Brustom simply kept attacking until the same number of lives were taken that he would have gotten, Clackey choosing to take from the life was probably to make absolutely sure that Brustom wouldn’t have stopped attacking.

Zungurii asks why Brustom doesn’t seem very happy and Serge answers that Heliostom is very clearly in control between the 2 of them. Brustom is terrified of his father’s disapproval and so is treading on eggshells to ensure he doesn’t make a mistake and tick off Heliostom.

Dan naturally confused by Clackey’s plan, demands to know why Clackey took from the life when his Spirit was more than capable of taking out one of Brustom’s attackers.

The answer… is because Clackey wanted to do something with the extra core.

Clackey brings Dinonychusaw to Lv1, which draws Dan’s irritation because Clackey’s basically core hoarding.

Clackey then uses a whopping 5 of the 6 core in his reserve to summon The Angelia Cherubim.

Essentially, the reason Clackey took 2 lives so readily is because he had Cherubim in his hand, and didn’t have enough core to summon it turn 1…

Not that you would WANT to! It’s on-summon effect is terrible with an empty board!

Clackey, Lucky sod that he is, reveals ONE card from the top of his deck thanks to Cherubim’s effect, it’s Wing Boots, a Magic card, which means he can add it to his hand.

Clackey then moves to his attack step, and swings with Dinonychusaw.

Heliostom declares Babyrouza as a blocker. They were expecting to lose one last turn anyway and didn’t, so they’re getting more than they bargained for because of this.

As both have 1000 BP due to Clackey levelling it down, what would have been a clear win is now mutually assurred destruction.

Clackey moves in with Cherubim, and Team Namii take from the life, leaving them with 7.

Dan expresses the point I just made, asking to know why Clackey chose to level down a Spirit who would have otherwise not been destroyed.

Clackey states that it isn’t a problem, as Cherubim can be relied on, and besides, they can always look at her.

Dan’s not quite smellin’ what Clackey’s bakin’, and just answers that they could have also looked at Dinonychusaw. (Who, to be fair, is an immensely cute spirit)

Well this isn’t going to end well, the problem is if you keep sabotaging your partner’s spirits, they’ll have less reduction to work with, and will become hard-pressed to be able to help you.

Clackey and Dan’s hard-headedness causing a rift between the two and resulting in them both taking actions without regard for the other one seems to be a surprise to absolutely nobody.

And now for something completely different.

We’re treated to a Flashback of Brustom’s history.

And oh my god, Brustom’s young design looks absolutely amazing, he had absolutely no business turning into the giant mound of lard he ended up as.

It seems Heliostom is assaulting his son with Lightning Magic over a disagreement they’re having.

Oh wow, at such a young age.

It seems like this was around the time Brustom was offered to become the Blue World’s King under the authority of Otherworld King. Brustom notes that there was “No condition” but clearly fealty was an expectation.

And even so Brustom was replaced later.

Heliostom sees the position for what it is, Brustom would be working for Otherworld King, and his position as Blue King would simply be a method to control the Blue World without having to personally oversee it.

Brustom bites back, stating that Otherworld King is undefeatable, and Heliostom, of all people, should know, given he was a survivor of the Mazoku that Otherworld King defeated.

Heliostom decides that having a Temper is for chumps.

And here we actually get to have a look at Brustom’s mother, who has all of these… weird looking tendrils floating about her “Hair”

Heliostom takes this opportunity to justify his acting against his… I’ll just call her a “Partner”, he justifies acting against his partner’s wishes by placing the blame on her “influence” for Brustom’s acting out.

But you can tell he doesn’t really believe this, because he’s completely unable to look her in the eye and is almost taken aback by her comments.

Heliostom very clearly has trouble regulating his anger and it causes him to act irrationally, you can see he agrees with his partner absolutely.

Brustom moves to defend his mother also, as he too can clearly see that Heliostom’s blowing smoke out of his ass.

Dissatisfied that he can’t change their minds, Heliostom flies off, presumably this was the last time Brustom saw him.

Oh right, I didn’t see it immediately earlier, Brustom’s mother is called “Ryoko”

Firm Turn 4.

Heliostom deploys The Invaded Castle.

Effective use of the lives lost there, he has just enough core to play it without depleting any of Brustom’s Spirits.

[LV1][LV2] (Opposing Start Step)
Send all cores from your Trash to the Reserve.
[LV2] (Your Start Step)
Return an opposing Spirit to the Hand.

A Cost 5 Nexus from BS06, Cost 5 Nexuses are an interesting topic to talk about because the difference between a Nexus you can play on the first turn and a Nexus you can play at any other time is immense enough for vastly different amounts of power.

Case in point, The Invaded Castle has 2 effects, the first at all levels moves all of the core in your Trash to the Reserve during the opposing Start Step.

If you don’t understand what the signifance of that action is, normally during your opponent’s turn you cannot recover core from the Trash, this means that if you want to keep core for a counter magic during your opponent’s turn, you have to avoid spending that core. Sometimes the decision between summoning a spirit or holding onto the core for Magic is a grueling one. This Nexus’ basic effect means you no longer ever have to make that decision again.

At Lv2, which understandably requires 3 core to maintain, allows you a free bounce during your Start Step, which, understandably happens to be right after your opponent’s attack step and well before your own.

All in all this Nexus essentially allows you to curate both your core and the opponent’s field to suit you.

Oh, and this is a White card, which is proof of why Brustom doesn’t have any white in his deck currently.

Heliostom ends his turn.

Dan enters his start step and Heliostom resolves the effect of his Nexus, moving the 5 core he just spent on the card back to his reserve.

Magisa notes that apparently this is Heliostom’s style, being right to the point and “dirty”

…While also being “Kind” to women?

Damn.

From here on out, there are no longer any safe attacks, as long as Heliostom has a hand, each one can be a usable counter card.

Now Dan’s just playing mean, Dan depletes Cherubim entirely.

Needless to say if you’re ever trying out this format and you want to keep your friends, don’t do this.

The issue here is they’re attempting to summon their own cards at the direct expense of the other’s ability to play.

The issue with this kind of sabotage is it can only increase, diminishing Cherubim might mean Spare core for Dan but it means more core spent by Clackey later which might require him to take Dan’s Spirits himself.

Dan uses the extra core to summon The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm and immediately attacks with it.

Clackey tries to remind Dan that Invaded Castle is up, meaning attacking in this specific manner is incredibly silly.

I guess Dan’s thought process is that Meteorwurm’s Lv1 is 6000, the likelihood that either of them have a Card that can wipe it out is low.

As a reminder, Brustom’s Spirits don’t refresh when Heliostom’s refresh step happens, you only refresh the cards on your field even if you can control the cards on your partner’s.

As a result, Team Namii don’t have to block with anything, and fall to 6 lives.

Yeah man, Clackey really needs that for his strategy. Depleting it for Meteorwurm was a little inconsiderate.

Dan protests that there wasn’t enough core, and so Cherubim needed to be sacrificed so Dan could summon his Key Spirit.

Clackey answers, quite correctly, that the enemy had no blockers, and all Meteorwurm did was take a life, that could have been done by any Spirit, and depleting Cherubim wasn’t necessary to achieve anything that couldn’t have been done without summoning Meteorwurm.

Dan protests that this is his playstyle… Which isn’t an argument.

If “This is how you do things” is your argument for actively causing harm to someone else, that’s… not an argument, you’re just stating that what they’re going through is necessary for the sake of your unwillingness to do anything about it.

Fact of the matter is, Dan wanted to summon Meteorwurm, and he didn’t care that he had to step on Clackey’s Spirit to do it, and he clearly doesn’t care that it bothered Clackey either.

Clackey’s no better, having levelled down a perfectly good Dinonychusaw and taking lives unnecessarily so he could summon Cherubim, and while he cared enough to keep Dinonychusaw on the field, he didn’t care enough about it’s capacity to be able to affect the game.

Which makes his argument about Meteorwurm’s necessity this turn incredibly fucking rich.

Heliostom, the man who seems to only think of himself as proven by his flashback with Brustom and his mother, Ryoko, claims that the true nature of Humans are people that only think of themselves…

Everyone’s a Hypocrite.

Someone should remind these 2 that they’re going to become part of the wall if they don’t win.

Brustom once again runs his play by Heliostom, who seems very ecstatic about what Brustom’s about to try.

Oh well that was fucking fast.

Brustom summons The GodMadeSoldier Orichalcum-Golem at Lv2 (7000 BP)

Families: Artificial Soldier, Soldier
[LV1][LV2][LV3] Demolish (When Attacks)
Discard a number of cards from the opposing decktop equal to this Spirit’s LV.
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (When Attacks)
For each Blue symbol on your Field, this Spirit’s Demolish discards +1 card.
[LV2][LV3] Assault: 2 (When Attacks)
This Spirit can, up to twice per turn, be refreshed by exhausting one of your Nexuses.

A BS08 Blue X-Rare out of god-damn nowhere, this is Orichalcum-Golem! A Cost 7 Spirit with 4 Blue reductions, so it can be brought right quite early given the right conditions.

At all levels it holds the Demolish Keyword, but unique to this one’s particular Demolish, it’s 2nd effect, also at all levels, adds an addendum to it’s keyword, increasing the number of discarded cards by the number of Blue Symbols on your field.

From Levels 2 and up, It also has Assault: 2, meaning it can also do a Triple attack combo just like The GiantEmperor Alexander, except this one is clearly more geared for Deck destruction strategies.

For the purposes of Tag Battles, the Start step checks if both you and your partner’s decks hold no cards in them, your Partner can still play with an empty deck if your deck still has cards in it.

Brustom attacks with Orichalcum-Golem, activating Demolish.

Also for the purposes of Tag Battles, if you use an effect that targets a specific opponent, you can select which opponent recieves it.

In this case, Dan is targeted.

Orichalcum-Golem’s level is 2, so Dan loses 2 cards, Extra Draw and Reborn Flame.

Dan’s had about 2 turns, so his deck should be around 32 cards left.

As Brustom holds 3 symbols on his field, he’s able to discard a further three cards from Dan’s deck. Dropping him to 29

Due to some incredible bad luck, Dan loses The Sunstone Shrine, Meteor Storm and Siegwurm, 3 pretty key cards to his new strategy.

The loss of Reborn Flame earlier means Siegwurm isn’t coming back very soon.

Say that to the Cherubim you depleted, cry me a river, Dan.

Brustom activates Assault, exhausting The Invaded Castle to refresh Orichalcum-Golem.

Still needing to address it’s current attack, Team Core Soldier take a life, now dropping to 5.

Brustrom attacks again, this time using Demolish to target Clackey’s deck.

Clackey loses 5 cards from the top of his deck, while he hasn’t had a 2nd turn like Dan yet, he removed a Wing Boots from his deck with Cherubim, so his deck is also at 29 cards now.

Adding further insult to injury, Sophia was among the cards Clackey lost.

Team Core Soldier drop to 4 lives.

Clackey is distraught from the loss of his Key Spirit.

Remember, Deck Destruction is nasty because it tries to win fights before they start. Board states don’t matter when your best cards are gone and your deck is empty.

Dan tries to reassure Clackey that this match is only half over.

Clackey asks what the point in fighting is if you can’t even use the cards you like.

Reminder: Clackey’s battle ideology is that battles must be fun, as such Clackey has produced a deck that is comprised entirely of cards he genuinely likes.

Deck Destruction is a particularly nasty blow to Clackey as he tends to lose out on cards he would very much have liked to use.

Pictured: Clackey, letting it bother him.

Once again, my favourite theme in the series is playing, and I cannot for the life of me identify what the track is.

I’ll keep asking this until I receive it cuz hot damn it’s a good one.

Anyway, Heliostom is feeling just like I do when I hear this theme and wants to get EVEN MORE VIOLENT

My guy doesn’t do skinny jeans, he does happy pants, leave him be.

One can only wonder what would happen if Brustom lashed out at his father, dude is at LEAST a few weight classes above the winged twit.

Brustom attacks with Babyrouza.

Clackey starts playing the blame game which isn’t a particularly helpful thing to do as it doesn’t really further any kind of possible game plan.

I’m not quite sure where this giant pole came from but it’s definitely there.

Where? Oh sorry you don’t see it?

It’s right there, firmly lodged up Dan’s ARSE.

Down to 3 lives our Hero Team goes.

Heliostom continues to make orders of his Son, demanding he keep attacking.

Block-Golem attacks, as there is a Nexus on his Team’s field, Block-Golem destroys 2 cards in an opposing deck.

The target is Clackey, who drops to 27 cards in deck.

Block-Golem strikes true, dropping our Hero Team to a measly 2 lives remaining.

What in the hell is Kajitsu so happy about? The lads are getting their asses completely whooped.

No, but Clackey can lose for him.

Suddenly, we’re interrupted by a looming shadow.

Well who is it this time, is it Leon? Is it Belga?

Is it Brustom’s ass coming into view from all the way in the battlefield?

By virtue of Brustom having half the DNA of this lady I was half right.

It’s Ryoko! Who has appeared out of seemingly nowhere and can apparently glide using the power of a mere umbrella

She’s offering to show Kajitsu and Kenzo where Namii is, to what benefit I have zero clue.

Noble Youth of Light Turn 7, Clackey goes down to 26 cards and summons Gremly and Froger, at Lv2 and Lv3 respectively.

It’s quite comical how much core ends up on Froger due to it’s absolutely comical 7 core requirement to be at Lv3, for 6000 BP.

Watch out, it could tie with a Lv1 Meteorwurm.

Clackey ends his turn, without waging an attack.

Dan is absolutely bothered by the fact that Clackey didn’t wage an attack.

Yes! Look at the board, they’ve got 2 Blockers against 3 attackers and one of them can attack twice!

And sadly, Dan’s attack with Meteorwurm earlier is the reason Clackey can’t do anything, had Meteorwurm been left refreshed for a turn, Clackey would have been able to raise it to Lv3 and target attack Orichalcum-Golem. If Clackey is going to do anything it’s going to be to wait for an opportunity to somehow deal with it using Magic given Meteorwurm is about as helpful as a Chocolate Spatula.

Firm Turn 8.

Heliostom preps to summon something large but he lacks core, so he depletes Babyrouza to make up for it. Notably he does this without running a single thing by his son.

And thus, Heliostom’s Key Spirit is shown to us finally, he summons The Gigantic Thor. We’ve seen Belga use this so there’s no need to cover it again.

Dan seems to have diminished his number of brain cells to a nice, crisp 0, as he expects an attack but Heliostom ends his turn.

I was also expecting one but I forgot that Brustom’s attackers can’t be used on Heliostom’s turn.

Heliostom’s intent is to use his board to raise defense, and Brustom to attack.

Though at the moment he’s not done a very good job, Thor is still at Lv1, so it’s Anti-Red capabilities aren’t even active at the moment.

For those who can’t remember, The Gigantic Thor is capable of blocking Red Spirits without exhausting, essentially allowing it to defend infinitely against Red…

The problem lies with the fact that this level is only available at level 2+

Heliostom orders Brustom to make the next attack forceful.

Heliostom also declares that on Brustom’s Turn, they will win the game.

Clackey notes that the formation as it stands is “Unbelievable”

…It would be, if Thor was at any Level other than the one it’s currently at, what was the point of summoning this 7 core-costed brick to the field?

You didn’t last turn, because ya swung with it, ya dingus.

Clackey gets irritated at Dan again for dismissing Gremly and Froger.

Dan, for the first time in this entire battle, actually decides to talk to Clackey about his thoughts currently, noting that Heliostom’s White deck allows him to cater to his playstyle, White is at home when it’s not attacking, the main problem is that tends to be White’s ultimate weakness, it has a really hard time closing out games on account of it’s defensive nature making attacking essentially undesirable.

But you gotta get lives somehow.

Here, Heliostom doesn’t have to deal with that problem, he can just hide behind Brustom’s attack step.

Dan however declares rather loudly that he’s aware that Brustom isn’t enjoying himself, what was meant to be a fun game between Dan or Clackey and Brustom to settle a score has instead reduced Brustom to a quivering child.

Dan tries to appeal to Brustom, asking if he’s fine being driven from the backseat by his father.

Heliostom tries to counter this, telling Brustom that Humans are known for using their words to make people suffer.

Dan tries to get through to Brustom…

…But Heliostom isn’t having it.

Heliostom loses it, declaring ultimately what his problem is, Otherworld King has attempted to civilize the Mazoku, likely through force, and the Mazoku responded by choosing to act like beasts out of sheer defiance.

They don’t want him as a ruler, if Otherworld King says the Sky is Blue, the Mazoku will stubbornly assert that it’s Red.

While it hasn’t been fully confirmed by the show just yet, I’ll get it out of the way, This is a very clear indication that Namii’s disdain of Mai is not just because of their personal situation, but is also being used to justify a very Mazoku-oriented hatred towards her.

What I’m saying is, Namii seems very clear to me, to be a Mazoku as well, much like Heliostom.

Heliostom once again states his goal, to cleanse Grand-Lolo of ALL humans…

To be fair, Dan also wants to get rid of the Humans from Grand-Lolo, the issue is that while Dan is trying to get rid of the humans causing Grand-Lolo grief, Heliostom is unable… or rather unwilling to differentiate between a Core Soldier fighting for Grand-Lolo like Dan, and a Tyrant like Otherworld King.

We’re interrupted by Ryoko arriving at the Battlefield, Magisa recognizes her, and refers to her by her title, “Boomerang Oryo”

…Which is pronounced like Oreo… or REO…

What other “REO” uses a boomerang like weapon…

Nope, can’t put my finger on it.

Aaand the episode closes out with Brustom recognizing his Mother from halfway across the battlefield…

WHICH GIVEN THE BATTLE ISN’T OVER, MAKES THIS A 2-PARTER

UUUUGH, WOE IS MEEEEE.

There’s no Card of the Day today, the Batosupi Corner at the end of the episode actually tries to highlight the concept of Tag Battles.

So I’m going to use this opportunity to be incredibly annoying, and grab my own card of the day.

Families: Armed Machine, Android
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (When Attacks)
By exhausting one of your “Armed Machine” family Spirits, give this Spirit + (Exhausted Spirit’s BP) BP.
[LV2][LV3] (When Blocks)
When this Spirit blocks an opposing Red Spirit, it doesn’t exhaust.
[LV3] (When Attacks)
At the end of battle, by destroying one of your “Armed Machine” family Spirits, this Spirit refreshes.

We haven’t seen this card in a while, The Gigantic Thor was rather difficult to use back around it’s release due to the fact that one necessarily had to jump through a series of hoops in order to accumulate the requisite amount of “Armed Machine” spirits in order to keep it’s refresh combo going.

Nowadays however there are more tools available, though while I’ve centred this build on the combination of Thor and The Invaded Castle, the likelihood is Thor is being used to help out Walhalance due to Laevateinn supporting both. I’ve also included The Infinite Mother Ship, which will allow us to turn Androids like Vellnd and Droiden into Armed Machines.

You’ll note that The Invaded Castle is being flagged with a legality marker, this is actually because the card is currently limited to one copy per deck as of 2017, the reason for this is due to a quirk of it’s effect returning all core to your reserve interacting rather nastily with a specific gimmick introduced around BS40 that requires a certain kind of core. For the times this deck was made for however, 3 copies is perfectly legal.

Anyway, I’ll be sure to see you next time! Ta-ta!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 32

So, if you recall me talking about “Construction” in Episode 30 of the Gekiha Dan reviews, well I mentioned that deploying your entire Trash full of Nexuses seems strong, however nothing had abused it until now.

So like, this thing happened, This is the most recent banlist that was released 2-3 days after that post was written.

Lo and behold, Construction has been limited to 1!

There’s 2 cards here that are a card-type we haven’t seen yet but one of them has been banned for the same reason Construction has been limited.

So for the purposes of testing something…

Yo guys, could we get the The DarkStones MachineBeastDeity Fenrig back? Thanks.

We start off with a moment of immediate intrigue, Zungurii is now returning a favour from Dan, he wants to give Dan a card.

Dan of course is initially hesitant, knowing that Zungurii took a real long while over the course of several packs in order to gather a full deck of cards, meaning just a single one of those cards could be incredibly valuable to Zungurii even if it’s something like a Cost 0 Lizardedge.

Zungurii is adamant, stating that it’s a present because it is something of immense value to him.

Remember, Presents have twofold value that some people miss, and it’s why you can sometimes offer objectively menial things as strong gifts.

The harder but more ideal present is something of great value to the person you are gifting.

But another, more personal gift, is to give something that has great value to you. Giving up something you value greatly to another person, even if they don’t value it as much, can mean a lot to them.

Through sheer, unadulterated luck, Dan pulls a Red card from Zungurii’s colour salad.

And it’s a recent card too, we can very clearly read the effect here so no reason not to discuss it.

[LV1][LV2] (Your Attack Step)
When a Spirit with Clash you control attacks as the first attack of your turn, and only the opposing Spirit is destroyed by BP comparison, you can destroy any number of opposing Spirits up to a total BP of the Spirit destroyed.
[LV2] (Your Attack Step)
When your Spirits with Clash are destroyed, by sending a core from your Life to the Void, they return to the Field, refreshed.

A Cost 5 Red Nexus from BS08, so far Dan’s not used a single Nexus in any of his battles in spite of having them. Likely because the Nexuses exist to supplant an existing strategy and not to orient his strategy around, this one might change the game however.

The Sunstone Shrine at all levels causes a Domino effect when the first attack of your turn is a Clash spirit and it’s able to destroy something, you can then destroy any number of opposing spirits up to the total BP of the spirit destroyed.

This can still be answered effectively via chump blockers, but there’s no statement that the card must have blocked via Clash…

This means Meteorwurm is capable of target attacking as Dan’s first attack of a turn, into a high BP spirit, and wiping his opponent’s board.

The Lv2 effect is also interesting as it only occurs on Your attack step, which is that Dan can give up lives to the Void to protect his Clash Spirits from going to the Trash when they’re destroyed, remaining on the field refreshed. Meaning when revived this way they can attack again if they were exhausted, not bad for the cost of a Life going to the Void.

“Remain on Field” effects are interesting as the Spirit is technically destroyed (so all effects that assume destruction go off), but the Spirit simply stays put instead of moving zones. Notably the Core does not return to the reserve in this scenario.

Then how do you know whether or not he could use it?

This thing could be supporting an entire family Dan doesn’t even run.

Dan also notes that it’ll be an odd card to use, because Dan’s battle style doesn’t revolve around Nexuses in any capacity.

Julian notes that the card is interesting, and Dan asks if Julian has used it before.

Julian concurs, noting that he also used to be the Red Soldier, and so has an avid familiarity with Red. Sunstone Shrine included.

Julian seems to capitalize on this, offering Dan another card, Meteor Storm.

This one I won’t cover right now for anyone who doesn’t yet know what it does, as the impact it has will be severely lessened if I cover it now

Not so much for Sunstone Shrine has it’s a Nexus, Nexuses are almost always preparational, you can’t really end the game with one like a Magic or a Spirit would.

Julian offers Meteor Storm to Dan, as Dan appears to be the only one who can beat Otherworld King’s Red deck.

I wonder why he’s specifying Red as Otherworld King specializes in all colours, but it’s possible that Otherworld King is well known for matching colours with his opponent whenever possible if his opponent does not dictate a colour for him to use.

Dan hesitates, flashing back to his last battle.

Dan laments, stating that he lost to Otherworld King, because he was so focused on trying to beat the opposing Meteorwurm that he lost sight of all else.

Notably, it’s this type of situation that Meteor Storm helps.

Dan puts his foot down, he seems to steel himself to defeat Otherworld King, not because of his role as the Red Soldier, but before any of that, he’s the Clash King.

And he’s got no business calling himself the Clash King if he’s incapable of defeating an opponent using Clash, and takes the card.

Dan intends to refine his Clash Deck until Otherworld King can no longer put a stop to it.

Kajitsu notes that the “Red Soldier” has awakened.

Mood

Seems Julian’s relieved that Dan is engaging with his cards, and genuinely wants to battle

And now the Episode Title, no spoilers here as we’ve already seen the new card depicted in it

Since the Purple world is quite dark, it looks like the Card Stands here benefit from a nice bright sign.

Purple World looks very “dead”, with sprouts of Crystals erupting from the Earth, Though I suppose it’s rather dependant on how you look at it, in the previous shot all the trees are evidently dead but here the grass and leaves are just Purple.

So now the cast are asking random people about Namii, also suits seem to be really popular in this area and many of the residents look more… Human.

There’s a reason for this, I’ll explain later.

Anyway, this witness knows Namii but hasn’t seen her in ages.

This witness mentions that while they haven’t seen Namii, she is admired in the Purple World as a very cool battler.

This chap straight up hasn’t seen her, and once again, SUITS!

And this useless girl has seen Namii before…

…Wait.

Serge clocks in to where Mai is based on the description of Namii coming from an area that was “like a prison”

Prisons are somewhat designed to favour the occupants against those from outside, so Kenzo figures that this is probably a trap.

On the way there, Serge drops some history, apparently Otherworld King used to wield said Prison in order to hold Otherworlders who defied him, but they’re now defunct.

I suppose the Horizon Ladders make better Prisons, given the Otherworlders are put to work there.

Magisa notes that it’s perfect as a hiding spot, the abandoned and creepy nature of it means it’s unlikely anyone would assume it’s occupied, and even if it was, Namii would have the advantage against adversarial visitors.

Like these guys.

Serge also mentions that apparently Namii has completely changed from the person she used to be, based on Serge’s experience.

Clackey notes that it could be the opposite, that Namii was always that way, and her situation has simply caused her to become more honest about it.

Serge counters that either way, he honestly wouldn’t know, he was merely her servant.

Magisa apparently finds the idea that Serge being Namii’s old servant incredibly scandalous.

Yeah the conditions haven’t really changed at all, Serge is still a Servant, just now he’s serving Mai, apparently.

and Mai somehow “Stole” him.

I feel like there’s a distinctly large age gap between Namii and Mai that would make this incredibly weird for at least one of them.

Serge isn’t even going to try and entertain Magisa’s tease with a reaction.

Which is just as well, because we’re here.

Interestingly, the Prison in question is decorated with the visage of a Battle Spirits card, namely the card called “Bronze-Maiden”, which is a card that sparked a large series of Purple Cost 3s that all draw you a card on summon.

Kenzo seems to think that the attempt at making the place Spooky makes it seem more like an Amusement Park attraction than a Prison.

Clackey asks someone who might have more info based on just generally being completely overpowered, Kajitsu.

Kajitsu answers that what she “feels” is a strong “resentment” coming directly from the prison.

Given it was used to imprison those who defied Otherworld King… That “Resentment” is probably towards him.

And like any place trying to seem the least bit haunted, the doors quickly close behind the cast.

For a place that’s not in use, they certainly didn’t skip out on upgrading it with modern security, Namii’s got eyes on them so much as entering the Prison.

My inner grammatical preference demands I say “Your*”

Also seems like Namii is taunting Serge by calling Mai his “Kitten”

Mai is naturally, significantly more happy to see that Dan has fully recovered from his semi-conscious state, Mai didn’t get to see his brief sequence of being what can only be described as a cow’s arsehole.

Ah yes, the ol’ “LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!” that always hilariously fails to absolve responsibility from just about anybody.

Hey you shit talk Battle Spirits one more god-damn time my three-dimensional ass will belt you back to the god damn rough sketches!

Mai tries to reason with the lady, declaring that revenge is pointless, and even offers back the Beelzebeat she earned from her.

No Mai, don’t back down just because you’re in a compromised position!

Kick her ass the old fashioned way!

Nami however highlights that such a thing is absolutely fucking rich given that Mai was mildly bothered by a single Caterbarga user and went on a complete witchhunt to completely destroy him.

Mai realizes that even if she’s right about revenge, it won’t get through to Namii on account of it being stained by SHEER HYPOCRISY.

Erm, was it ever clear that Namii was in cahoots with Otherworld King? Why would Yuuki of all people know anyway? He’s like the one guy who wasn’t even there!

Namii quits haggling with Mai and lays down the task, it’s quite simple, the group need to defeat all of the Card Battlers stationed in the prison and reach Namii in order to rescue Mai.

Though, tasting your Final defeat sounds… vaguely ominous.

It’d certainly be one way of trapping your enemy, make the front door have no access to the rest of the castle, then lock them in.

Though, rather suspiciously, there is a fully coloured dude in the distance who’s kneeling thereabouts.

Why would they put a statue in a dead end? Hurr durr.

It’s not a statue, obviously, it’s just surprising that they don’t seem to acknowledge the guy at all

They’re already locked in from the earlier door! What is the entire point of locking them in this specific room?

Jesus christ dude, you really tried to use that Morningstar whip to kill a 12 year old and and an even younger Otherworlder?

Well it seems obvious to me that he clearly tripped over, fell, and dropped his Morningstar Flail at just the right angle to turn you into paste had you not moved.

He’s TRYING TO KILL YOU!

Like… the cheese?

This is Gouda, he’s the number one bodyguard, which sounds like complete poppycock given he’s the very first threat Namii throws at them. Clearly he’s not regarded very highly for being her number one bodyguard.

…It’s also possible he’s her only bodyguard.

Also his chin has horns that point up and they bother me immensely.

Well, the thing is Kenzo, Haunted Houses…

…Are meant to be creepy, not fatal.

The wall of people on the, well, wall are moving, and trying to drag in anyone who gets close to it.

Magisa frees Kenzo, and points out that this isn’t just the Prison walls having some extra cool functions.

Every single figure on this melted wall is a living being, either Human or Otherworlder.

So if we were wondering why there wasn’t that many prisoners in here, it’s because they’ve all been added to this wall.

…I suppose that means this guy once worked for Otherworld King, given that this was a place for Otherworld King to send defiant people after defeating them…

Scarily it’s also possible there’s some Lightbearers stuck here.

…They can be appointed? How?

Unless they’re not just confined to this room and can move through the walls, which is equally terrifying.

It seems like the stakes are that those who lose to Gouda will become part of this mass of corpses, which is somewhat more horrific than simply dying.

I’m not sure in what way this is comparable to a battle but sure.

Kajitsu notes that this room, and the corpses in the walls, is the source of the “resentment” she was feeling earlier.

Kenzo initially tries to battle Gouda, but Dan interrupts, stating that he’s gonna be the one to battle.

…Though it appears Gouda has meant this more literally than anticipated, tossing his Morningstar whip again.

Undeterred, Dan stops the Morningstar whip by stepping on the soft “Whip” portion of the weapon.

Clackey notes that what Dan’s doing is incredibly dangerous, as this kind of “Battle” isn’t of the TCG-rules-oriented variety.

And Dan… responds in a rather odd fashion. Somewhat reminiscent to anyone who’s watched ahead. This is the first morsel of who Dan will eventually become.

Dan simply wants to battle, he doesn’t care how, he doesn’t care why, he doesn’t even care about if it’s even a card battle.

Dan is coolly, calmly, and collectively, declaring that he just wants. To. Fight.

Hell yeah it did, because Dan’s just shown an ounce of the person he’s going to become, fully renewed by his repaired core.

My guy wants a battle, I want a battle, and we’re not leaving til we get one.

This does suggest that Core Soldiers are among the imprisoned souls in the wall.

Seems news of Dan’s failure to defeat Otherworld King travelled exceptionally fast, reaching even the muppets of the Purple World.

Dan seems to ignore the fact that others know, focusing on being the Clash King for now.

Release!

Except this time, something different is happening.

That’s right, to mark his resurrection, Dan has a completely new Battle Form, now with extra Red.

It seems that the System that produces the Battle forms can be modified by others, this new Battle form being a gift from Magisa.

This guy was strong enough to win a tournament in the Blue world and piss off Otherworld King, you really think it’ll be that easy?

Mai being completely unfazed by Namii’s words, just being happy that her friend is battling again

It seems Dan intends to take his role as the Clash King even more seriously than he was already.

I wonder what’s caused him to be so hard-focused on Clashing, almost even more than before.

Love it, I really do, can we get to the fight now-

Also damn the Core sections of that Battle Form are clean.

Alright, looks like Gouda Cheese is going first.

Gouda turn 1!

But apparently we gotta interrupt the fight for another sequence of words, seems like Gouda is curious about whether or not Dan intends to face Otherworld King again.

Gouda explains to Dan that the Wall in the room they were just in are, explicitly, traitors to Otherworld King, not necessarily just his opponents…

…But I suppose if you’re an absolute ruler, any opposition is treason so.

Dan tells Gouda that what he says makes no difference if his intent is to make Dan back down out of fear.

Gouda believes that fighting Otherworld King is a lost cause, and the Prison acting as a Pseudo-graveyard is proof of what happens to anyone who has attempted to thwart Otherworld King, and til now no one has succeeded, potentially because it cannot be done.

But Dan claims that dying if he loses, and giving up, are functionally the same when you refuse to accept the alternative. If he’s going to suffer anyway he might as well do the best he can to change it for as long as he can do so.

Seems Gouda’s failed this conversational tactic everytime he’s fought a Core Soldier, they’re too determined in the face of grave consequence.

Gouda finally starts the game, he summons The HellFighter Balam and ends his turn.

I really shouldn’t be surprised that the first Purple World battler is a Purple-user.

It seems like the World you reside in might have a hand in what Colour is better for an Otherworlder.

Clackey notes that Balam has Curse, not that Dan’s deck really runs afoul of it, as Curse is only threatening to Blockers, not attackers.

Dan summons Ankillersaurus and a new card, Dinonychusaw.

Families: Terra Dragon

Dinonychusaw is a Cost 1 Spirit from the Terra Dragon family, much like Rokceratops. From BS08

The main difference between it and Rokceratops is that Dinonychusaw simply doesn’t have Rokceratops’ Lv2. And has it’s Lv3 as a Lv2.

Also this is the 3rd Cost 1 Terra Dragon, there’s another that isn’t used in the series, Ovirapt

The reason this exists however is because most Battle Spirits sets are designed to be used out of the box, each main set product needs the ability to stand on it’s own, it’s supposed to be possible to build a deck from a single product alone.

This is mainly why BS08 instated an X-Rare for each colour mind you, so each colour had a fair chance of doing that.

Also look at the little thing, it’s so CUTE.

Dan attacks with Ankillersaurus and Gouda takes from the life, dropping to 4.

Dan ends his turn.

Gouda Turn 3, Gouda declares that, without Clash, the Clash King isn’t a threat…

…But Clash is his entire gameplan, he’s obviously not going to use it Turn 1, I don’t even think he has a Spirit that can Clash on his first turn.

Gouda summons Humpdump and Skulldemon.

Dan’s trying to get a read on Gouda, he wonders about whether or not Gouda will take an aggressive stance or not.

Gouda attacks with Balam and I for some reason have completely forgotten that this thing has BLUE FIRE JETS.

Dan takes a life, dropping to 4.

Gouda follows up with Skulldemon, which Dan also takes from the life, dropping to 3.

Gouda leaves Humpdump as a blocker, and ends his turn.

Gouda notes that Dan must be a confident battler if he was so readily willing to take lives upfront, but feels secure in his own chances as Dan is at a life disadvantage.

Dan is once again, looking exactly like a version of himself he shouldn’t be for another 18 episodes.

It always feels good to see him like this, it’s like he’s nearing completion.

Clash King Turn 4, Dan brings Ankillersaurus to Lv1.

Dan summons Sabecaulus.

Julian is curious about Dan using Awaken Spirits here, not particularly sure why, given that Awaken was part of Dan’s Clash strategy due to Siegwurm’s effects.

Thanks to having an Awaken Spirit, Ankillersaurus now receives 1000 BP, putting it to 3000.

Now that it has 3000 BP, it attacks.

Dan pulling absolutely zero punches whips out a Victory Fire on his second god damn attack step.

Balam and Humpdump are destroyed, Gouda has no blockers.

Gouda is forced to take a life, dropping to 3 lives.

The Clash King isn’t just back to himself, he’s even better!

Gouda assesses Dan’s strategy, noting that Dan’s aim is to destroy his Spirits.

Gouda still considers himself to be in an okay position, Dan can’t win with a full attack here, so he probably thinks Dan, having wiped out Gouda’s spirits, will be content to end his turn here.

Unfortunately, Gouda’s misjudged.

It’s a young face… But I’m starting to see the character I can’t wait to talk about when he finally arrives.

The cast all note that Dan’s face is starting to look rather fierce and scary, Dan is 100% focused and serious.

Dan throws defense to the wind, performing a full attack.

This is quite nasty as without blockers, Gouda needs 2 spirits to win, and Dan’s practically handing him the Core to do so.

Gouda has no blockers though, so taking both attacks from his life, he’s forced to drop to a single life remaining, if Gouda isn’t able to win, Dan will almost certainly wipe out his last life.

Dan ends his turn.

Dan supplanting his aggressive playstyle with destructive magic seems to be a known strategy of his.

It seems that Gouda’s quite confident being at 1 life, likely an option opened up from the lives he lost.

But before that he roids up by flexing.

Gouda Turn 5, he summons a new card, Demo-Bone!

Families: Zombie
[LV2] Curse (Your Attack Step)
If this spirit is blocked, destroy the spirit that blocked this spirit at the End of Battle Step.

Demo-Bone is a Cost 1 Purple Spirit from BS08, and a rather simple and effective one, it’s a Cost 1 Spirit that can become Level 2 with minimum Core, and gains Curse when it does so.

Such a powerful effect on such a cheap spirit is justified by it’s exceptionally minimal BP, which in the case of Curse is perfectly fine as Curse activates when a Spirit is blocked and defeated. Demo-Bone is essentially the weakest Curse Spirit, and that also means it’s the most likely to have it’s Curse resolve.

Strangely, it’s more like a “chump attacker” than anything, the Cost 1 that takes out anything that tries to block it no matter how strong.

Gouda then gives 4 Core to Skulldemon, this doesn’t quite meet it’s Lv3 requirement but it’s more Core than is necessary for Lv2, which makes it a strange choice.

But this is all planned regardless, because Gouda then uses Mind Control. Now each player needs to send 4 core from their Spirits to the Trash.

Because Dan’s gone wide with his Spirits (Many cheap spirits with low investment), Dan only has 3 core among the 3 spirits available, so his entire board is wiped.

Conversely, the 4 core on Skulldemon was to ensure that Gouda didn’t have to sacrifice any Spirits for Mind Control.

This combo is only made possible because Dan supplied the core necessary to perform it by dropping Gouda’s life to 1, though it’s clear from Gouda’s reserve that he had a Core spare, so being at 2 life would have made the play possible anyway.

…Which just means Dan made the correct decision by full attacking rather than only attacking with 2 spirits, had Dan ended his turn after Ankiller’s attack, Gouda could not have performed this combo while preserving 2 spirits.

It’s likely he could do it preserving just 1 Spirit, which would have been fine at 3 lives.

Once again, seems like a correct decision from Dan to go aggressive.

Gouda has no more resources with which to threaten Dan’s lives, so his field is short a spirit to corner him. Gouda ends his turn with 2 blockers.

Zungurii is puzzled by the non-aggression, and asks why Gouda didn’t attack.

Kenzo roughly explains what I just said, he didn’t have enough attackers to win, and the lost lives would simply become resource. Gouda can’t let a single attack through, and so he needs to diminish the number of opportunities for Dan to get through as much as possible.

This is the issue with being at 1 life as opposed to 2. You basically always need to make the choice that provides the opponent with the least opportunities to pull the rug from under you.

Clash King Turn 6. Dan has roughly 9 core available.

Dan draws Meteorwurm.

Dan then inquires as to whether or not Otherworld King is watching him.

Dan then starts making an impassioned speech, directed at the White Soldier, Momose Yuuki.

Dan uses the passion from the summon of his X-Rare to try and get any kind of sign over to Yuuki that he is declaring that Yuuki and he should fight together to defeat Otherworld King.

Core Soldiers can communicate via their Symbols, so almost certainly this will reach him.

Dan summons The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm.

The Violet Crew are surprised, not expecting Dan to call out to an enemy’s name to encourage them to fight alongside them.

Whatever Dan did, it worked, as Yuuki feels a disturbance.

Notably, Yuuki’s wearing a completely different uniform now from his kingly outfit.

Dan attacks with Meteorwurm and activates Clash, Gouda is forced to choose a blocker, and so chooses his weakest Spirit, Demo-Bone.

With no more attackers, Dan is forced to end his turn.

If Gouda had a low to the ground Spirit he would have summoned it most likely to make a break for Dan’s lives, Dan reducing the number of available Spirits with Meteorwurm at the cost of no blockers should be fine. Gouda is once again in the position where he needs 2 summonable spirits to win, and he wasn’t capable of doing it last turn, unlikely a single draw will make it any more possible.

Julian notes that Meteorwurm truly is Dan’s “Voice of Revival”, though I’m not particularly sure why that Spirit in particular, given Siegfried and Siegwurm also appeared as Voices in Dan’s head.

Kajitsu, either through her intuition or through her connection to Mother Core, is absolutely sure that Dan’s message made it to Yuuki.

Under the circumstances and knowledge gained from last turn, the play made was appropriate.

He couldn’t, Dan had 3 cards in his hand and Meteorwurm was one of them, he likely doesn’t have 3 Spirits to use, diminishing your number of bodies is perfectly fine.

…Shit, 2 summonable Spirits.

It’s clear from the way the animation plays that Skulldevil was the card he drew, and he had been holding onto Pandemium the entire time, otherwise he would have been able to use it last turn and defeat Dan.

In any case, Gouda summons Skulldevil and then SevenShogun Pandemium at Lv2.

While we’ve seen Pandemium before in Toppa, we haven’t seen it in Dan, so let’s cover it.

Families: Evil Deity, Dark Snake
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (Either Attack Step)
When any opposing Spirit is destroyed, draw a card.
[LV2][LV3] (Either Attack Step)
When your Spirit is destroyed by opposing Spirits via BP comparison, exhaust an opposing Spirit.
[LV3] (When Destroyed)
Both players discard five cards from the Hand.

A Cost 8 Purple X-Rare from BS04. The SevenShogun Pandemium is a master of Purple destruction.

While having a low BP count, Pandemium allows the player to draw a card anytime an opposing Spirit is destroyed for any reason, this synergizes well with a deck centralized on Curse, like Gouda’s.

Additionally, from Lv2+, if any of your Spirits are defeated during any attack step, Pandemium can exhaust an opposing Spirit, this allows the destruction of your cards to diminish both attacking and defensive options for the opponent.

Additionally, for the ultimate hail mary, at Lv3, if Pandemium is somehow destroyed, both players are forced to discard 5 cards from the hand. Pandemium’s 1st effect can make this easier to swallow for the user, but in a simplified game state, this can empty the opposing hand of options.

Additionally, Pandemium is a member of The SevenShogun, a collection of 7 X-Rares, not all of which have been released at this point in the show on account of Purple only currently having 5 X-Rares as of BS07, 1 of which is not a SevenShogun.

Indeed, with no Spirits to block, Dan’s life is incredibly vulnerable.

Gouda starts his assault, attacking with Pandemium which Dan takes from the life, dropping him to 2.

Now Gouda follows with… ending his turn?

What?

Zungurii is as confused as I am, asking why Gouda ended his turn instead of gunning for Dan’s lives.

Clackey helps out by explaining that if for some reason Gouda fell short on the last attack, he’d be completely out of blockers.

Pandemium’s Lv2 effect to exhaust Spirits when your own are destroyed makes Gouda’s defensive choices basically twice as effective, plus it’s ability to replenish the hand means Gouda can get back the cards he loses from Clash.

While these are all fair arguments to declare a defensive stance as a safe one, Kenzo is correct here, Gouda’s completely choked.

Dan’s hand consisted of precisely no defensive cards, Dan had an Offensive Aura and The Sunstone Shrine in his hand.

Gouda was likely banking on the fact that, at 1 life, Dan would have just enough core for a Victory Fire provided he sacrificed Meteorwurm, Meteorwurm’s summon left Dan with 2 core, one of which was on Meteorwurm, providing 1 reduction, and only the prospect of losing 2 lives before things got dangerous.

If Dan drew a Spirit on the next turn, Gouda would straight up lose if he didn’t draw a defensive magic off the 2 cards he’d have gained from Victory Fire’s destruction of his 2 spirits.

So he picked the safe play, knowing that unless Dan gets 4 spirits out of a 3 card hand, he can’t threaten Gouda for game…

Under normal circumstances.

Regardless, you have lethal, your opponent has 1 big tall spirit that’s currently exhausted and they only have 2 cards in hand? That’s a moment where you Make. Them. Have. It.

If the only way you die is exactly a card they’ve already burned into drawing 2 into no outs, that’s a risk enough to go for it.

Dan lets Julian know that he’s drawn his card.

Dan raises Meteorwurm to Lv3, giving it 11000 BP and the ability to target attack.

Dan then deploys Zungurii’s Nexus, The Sunstone Shrine.

Clackey is completely taken aback by the sight of Dan using a Nexus, as he literally has never done so up until now in spite of having one in his hand at several points in the series.

Dan enters the attack step.

And Dan’s new Battle form shows off it’s new feature, allowing him to sprout wings!

What purpose does this provide? I have no idea, looks damn cool though. Battle forms changing in response to the battler’s resolve is always a rule of cool rather than a functional one.

Dan attacks with Meteorwurm!

With it’s Lv3 effect, Pandemium is selected as an attack target, so even though it’s Exhausted, it’s forced to block Meteorwurm.

Plus thanks to the rules of target attacks, the pre-block Flash timing is completely skipped.

Dan now activates his new Flash, Meteor Storm!

Flash
During this turn, give a “Wurm”-named Spirit you control:
“(When Attacks) When only the opposing Spirit is destroyed via BP comparison, send a number of cores from the opposing Life to their Reserve equal to the number of symbols this Spirit has.”

Meteor Storm is a Cost 4 Red Magic from BS08. If the effect is confusing, here’s basically how it works.

You use it, then for the rest of the turn, any Spirit with “Wurm” in the name, (So for the moment, Meteorwurm and Siegwurm fit the bill in Dan’s deck) gain an effect while they’re attacking.

If they defeat an opposing Spirit in battle, without being defeated themselves, the opponent loses lives equal to it’s symbols.

Essentially, if Meteorwurm defeats Pandemium in battle, It’s symbols will come out of Gouda’s life.

Pandemium’s BP is no match for Meteorwurm’s, so Pandemium is destroyed.

Due to Dan using a Clash Spirit for his first attack of the turn, and Dan defeating a Spirit during this attack, Dan can now destroy Spirits up to the BP total of the defeated Spirit, in this case, Pandemium’s 6000 BP.

the rest of Gouda’s Spirits are wiped out.

Meteor Storm’s effect resolves, as Meteorwurm was the victor in a battle of BP, it’s 1 symbol comes out of Gouda’s life, as Gouda only had 1 life remaining, Gouda is defeated.

Clash King Dan is the Winner!

Gouda is surprised he defeated, though, in this case he lost because he was playing too safe.

Meteor Storm is a nasty card, as it essentially means that, regardless of the number of Blockers, as long as Dan can get either Meteorwurm or Siegwurm into a battle it’s capable of winning, Dan himself has won the game. It allows Dan to win by clashing, a known downside of the keyword.

I said earlier that the card suited Dan just fine when he was reminiscing about losing to Otherworld King due to tunnel visioning into Meteorwurm, if Dan had Meteor Storm, he could have made that fight matter beyond just defeating the Spirit.

Gouda unfortunately is a bit too close to the wall now.

So I suppose he’s about to join it.

However we’re trying to write heroes here, and Heroes don’t let people die for no reason.

Dan and Zungurii try to stop Gouda becoming one with the wall.

With a little bit of UPPER BODY STRENGTH.

Dan and Zungurii free Gouda from the fate he intended to deal unto them.

Dan gives a mostly stupid reason for doing so, saying that Gouda becoming part of the wall would “Ruin the good mood”.

But ultimately that’s kind of the point, you don’t need a good reason to save somebody’s life, as it turns out, people generally don’t like dying!

Gouda, rather embarrassed at his current situation, attempting to be deadly in physical combat and failing, attempting to scare off Dan, and failing.

Attempting to defeat the Clash King in battle, and failing, and well, I suppose he failed at holding up his own end of the bargain because of Dan as well.

That’s like 4 fails and the only reason he’s still alive is because of the 3rd, Gouda’s not having a good day.

Kenzo notes that the Battle changed the “Mood”, Dan’s force of will has affected the atmosphere around him, first being serious and focused, and then being jovial post-battle, affecting even Gouda.

Mai uses this opportunity to drive in the L that Namii’s just received from The Violet crew.

This also renews Mai’s confidence that she will in fact be saved.

There was apparently a locked door here, which suggests something other than the “Dead End” this was specified to be.

In this case it seems like this Prison is set up in “levels”, so the crew are going to continue to fight battlers until Namii runs out.

Having witnessed this, Julian turns to leave, Magisa pleads with him to stay.

Julian declares that his role in this is over, as there’s no longer any need to worry about Dan, he’s back for good and stronger than ever. He has faith they’ll definitely beat Otherworld King.

Magisa thanks Julian again, calling him the “Red Soldier”, naturally because Julian is very much still Magisa’s Red Soldier.

Julian takes off, with one last statement, rebutting the nickname, and claiming he no longer goes by the title of Red Soldier.

Dan notices Julian is leaving, and we get this lovely shot of Julian’s farewell from the Prison.

This basically signals the end of Julian’s role in Gekiha Dan, a bucket with which Dan pours his ideals into, and then a Mirror with which Dan needed to look into in order to recover from the funk that Julian himself was in.

Now Dan is beyond what Julian suffered, which means Dan not only made the same mistakes Julian did but has started to move beyond them, Dan is officially picking up where Julian left off.

Now Dan will prove that it doesn’t matter who the Red Soldier is so long as they don’t stop getting up no matter how many pieces Otherworld King shatters the Red Symbol into.

…I would like to report that someone has blocked the bathroom, whoever it was is in this very room-
“Him”

There’s not much to go over here, Yuuki makes an impassioned speech to his apparently super loyal men, stating to them, directly, that the Red Soldier has returned, and they’re going to go see him, as well as return to his sister, Kajitsu.

Note the wording on that statement, it’s not “Save” his sister, it’s not “Take back” his sister.

It’s Return To His Sister.

Yuuki has very much made his decision, he plans to realize his destiny as the White Soldier.

Which marks the end of the episode.

So, Dan is back! Which is great, I do feel like more could have been done with Dan’s state after Otherworld King defeats him, the writers very much wanted us to feel the impact of a plot without Dan for a bit, having the Core Soldiers deal with Leon constantly on their tail in the meantime, but once Dan was actually down and out it was resolved fairly quickly, 3 episodes I think.

Zungurii learns to battle, Mai fights Pantera to keep Otherworld King’s forces away from Dan, and then Kenzo fights Leon to stop Dan from being a bitch, there’s not much to go on there, this is all separated by a single episode which has nothing to do with The Violet crew with Yuuki running headfirst into a fight with Suzuri only to immediately lose his X-Rare for… some reason.

That seemed less like “Oh god things suck without Dan” and just business as usual while Dan recovers.

It wasn’t the worst use of the time, but it I don’t think it was the best use either, I think the best out of those use cases was definitely Mai vs Pantera, as Pantera is someone trained to fight Otherworld King and is on par with Leon and Yuuki, and only Dan had beaten him, pitting Mai against Pantera was a pretty good choice then, except then they squandered the intrigue the fight had because Mai played a very specific stall game and didn’t at any point try to win.

Anyway, just my gripes, and no you don’t get a card of the day, because the Card of the Day is the 3-card combo of Meteorwurm, Sunstone Shrine and Meteor Storm.

Eh, I suppose I’ll talk about a quirk of Sunstone Shrine that bothers me.

So, the first effect of Sunstone Shrine is incredibly specific, because it requires a couple things to be effective.

  1. You must attack with a Clash Spirit.
  2. It must be your first attack.
  3. There must be an opposing Spirit.
  4. That Attack must result in the destruction of said opposing Spirit.
  5. The BP of that Spirit needs to be high enough to produce a relevant destruction effect.
  6. There must be Spirits to destroy.

There’s a couple problems with this, namely that Clash Spirits do not get to select what blocks, which means what gets destroyed, or if anything gets destroyed at all, is entirely controlled by your opponent.

They will, naturally, block with the weakest Spirit such that it can’t destroy anything when it falls to your Clash Spirit, and blocking with the weakest Spirit is usually the favourable thing to do anyway, so you’re not really making Clash any harder to deal with. This makes the first effect of Sunstone Shrine an incredibly situational win-more card.

“Win-More” is a descriptor used for cards who’s effects are only useful when you are winning. In essence, they help you win the game faster but don’t in and of themselves win you the game, nor do they stop you from losing.

In this case, Sunstone Shrine rewards you for being blocked in your favour, players typically attack with their strongest spirits to ensure lives are taken and spirits are not destroyed, Low BP spirits are often left as chump blockers.

Naturally, you might have situations where the only available blocking Spirits are Spirits that would result in a hefty loss of Spirits, but again, that’s the Nexus only functioning because of favourable conditions not entirely within your control.

This is where the gripe with the card comes in, the best way to clear as many of Sunstone Shrine’s asinine conditions is to use it alongside a Clash Spirit that can, redundantly, target attack (target attacking already forces a block, so Clash forcing a block becomes pointless)

As by target attacking, you can get around the issue of the opponent’s board state needing to be a certain way for the Nexus to work… And the only Spirit who holds both Clash and an effect that enables Target Attacking…

Is The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm.

The Sunstone Shrine, while appearing to be blanket support for Clash cards, has so many asinine conditions to clear for it’s effect to be useful, that it ultimately only ever supports 1 card reliably, and that card is the one card it was designed for, such that it can the most problematic of those conditions by itself, The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm.

And that makes the card bad, because then the card only works when you have Meteorwurm on the field…

Even so, undeterred, let’s build a deck around The Sunstone Shrine.

Here I’ve attempted to re-do the deck centred on Bragasaur, as Sunstone Shrine only works when Meteorwurm is available, there are ultimately 2 ways to do it, amass a deck full of Spirits with Clash, or produce a way to get Clash on a lot of Spirits, Bragasaur allows Terra Dragons to become Soldiers, and Meteorwurm gives Soldiers Clash at level 2. The rest is a matter of cycling, so we’ve got many Nexuses and Magic that draws us cards to reach our key combo.

Once Sunstone Shrine and Meteorwurm are both in place, in most cases, Meteorwurm will ensure the opponent never has a full board again.

To that end we’ve only got 2 Blizzard Walls, due to our many cycling options, we’re more likely to see it, as such it’s been bumped down to 2 copies so as not to clog our hand.

Anyway, that’s a wrap for today, I’ll see you lot in Episode 33!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 31

If these episodes were a month, we’d be at the end of it.

Welcome back, last episode we had a very ambitious Suzuri vs Yuuki, lore-wise it seemed like a win for Yuuki would be almost obvious given Suzuri’s unusable and static position as Blue King, and the stakes at hand, but surprisingly, Yuuki lost and gave up his White X-Rare.

Dan’s been restored too, so let’s see how this show goes with the Red Soldier back in the game.

Sick, Dan’s ’bout to get his curry.

Dan is however, interrupted by Magisa, and is prevented from consuming the all-encompassing spicy nectar that is Curry.

Magisa, this will be remembered.

But Magisa is pressing Dan for information about their number one enemy of all time, Otherworld King.

Dan explains that Otherworld King was somehow able to become Young during the battle.

You can see where Magisa’s priorities lie, given that she’s regarding this information with pleasant surprise rather than fear.

Kenzo (Calling him Hyoudo is apparently incorrect so Kenzo from now on it shall be) is very evidently highlighting that Otherworld King could barely be called Human with such an ability.

While it seems that Otherworld King can control life by converting it into years, using it to reverse his own aging process, it’s not very clear whether or not that’s an ability he has via Mother Core, or if it’s Magisa’s magic enabling this.

It seems like we’re leaning on “He’s about as powerful as Magisa’s magic was”, given Clackey uses Magisa’s magic as the metric for the extent of his abilities.

Magisa confirms it though, Otherworld King converting the energy generated from a Lightbearer destroying his lives into Youth is a use case for Magisa’s magic.

Erm, priorities?

She’s lucky that given it’s a possibility via her Magic, she can technically get back both.

Looks like today’s battle is going to be a feature match between Kenzo and Pantera, given the records at play here, Kenzo should be more than capable of dealing with Pantera as both have lost to Dan once.

Though there’s the key note that Pantera wasn’t able to use Dark-Crimson against Dan, which might mean the difference.

You’d think, given his newfound Youth and ability to walk that Otherworld King would be doing literally anything other than watching Leon do his job for him.

Leon plans to head for the Yellow World… but judging by the clouds he seems to already be there, so this very clearly makes no sense.

Seems like Leon still intends to capture Kajitsu, his main aim appears to be maintaining Grand-Lolo’s “Control” under the authority of Otherworld King.

He’s certainly a very loyal Lion, I’m still not certain what his particular gripe with Yuuki of all people is.

Back to the Violet crew, Dan thanks everyone for looking after him, least he can do for being doted over by Magisa and Kajitsu.

Zungurii quite happily informs Dan of the fact that he’s had his first battle, but you can see by Dan’s expression here that he’s not quite so happy about it as he should be

Zungurii asks Dan for a battle, likely in order to train so that Zungurii can be more of a help to Dan.

Dan refuses however, incredibly out of character for him, stating that he has made the executive decision to never battle again.

Clackey reacts in just about the way anyone else would, “What the HELL man?”

Fact of the matter is, Dan, if you can’t battle…

There is genuinely no benefit to being here if you’re incapable of battling.

Clackey notes that Mai practically allowed herself to be captured, to be placed in the worst possible situation, just so Dan could recover and fight again.

Dan seems to be completely adamant, even in spite of the effort everyone went through to make sure his soul returned to him, he will not battle, even for his friends.

Oh genuinely go fuck yourself you moody sod.

a World of experience that could at least assist the cast if you don’t intend to use it yourself and you won’t even allow that.

Piss off back to Earth ya damn whingebag.

He’s being a complete jam tart is what he is.

It seems the bruising that Otherworld King left on Dan’s Soul is so bad, that even though his personality has returned to him, and his Red Symbol has been fully restored and hasn’t left him just yet, he’s still so scared of losing a battle that important again that he won’t go anywhere near battle spirits at all.

Even Kenzo’s disappointed. Infact Kenzo’s probably the one most bothered by this, given that Kenzo’s a very strong proponent of adjusting from your losses, but Dan absolutely refuses to do precisely the one thing that all good battlers should.

Serge’s decided not to let this poor news stop their plans, deciding to go into town in order to get more information on where Mai might have gone.

Speaking of Mai, it seems like she’s not having too great a time.

It seems like Mai’s being served god-awful food, Japan rather consistently represents awful-tasting food with a Purple sheen in their anime, I wonder where the source for that is… I suppose it’s the only unnatural colour for otherwise well-cooked foodstuffs that isn’t blue, green, grey or black, as blue or green implies mold (Old food), Grey implies tastelessness, and black implies it’s been burned, it’s hard to convey via colour, that food doesn’t taste good.

It seems Namii is being deliberately destructive, apparently along with her ship and her best card, Mai also got Serge.

There’s an implication she’s poor at cooking but something tells me that she’s deliberately cooked Mai’s food poorly.

Down the hatch.

Namii apologizes profusely for her “Mistake” of burning Mai’s food and adding way too much salt.

Back to the Yellow World, it seems some gossip has made it’s way there, some of the Otherworlders have seen Namii take a Lightbearer.

Luckily for us, this is the line we need in order to connect our detached Lightbearers back with the main plot.

So, being captured by Otherworld King would have been the expected outcome, given that Mai left the Violet in order to intercept one of two pursuants who were directly working under him.

Serge argues that this situation is probably worse, as while Otherworld King may remove the Lightbearers as a means to an end, simply because they stand against him, there’s a unique quirk about this particular person.

Her full title is Namii the Scorpion.

So, Serge was working for Namii before he entered Mai’s employ, and her long Rivalry with Mai in addition to Mai suddenly having 99% of her stuff now, suggests that Namii will have a rather deep-seated hatred for Mai.

So we’ve gone from someone capturing her to suppress retaliation, to someone who actively wishes Mai harm.

Yeah I can see why Serge would consider this to be a worse scenario.

Alright! Time to head to the Purple World! The penultimate World before the White World I think too.

…Oh right, that little Plot thread has gone wholly unresolved… Kenzo still has an active tracker, meaning Otherworld King’s forces still know their location.

And right now they’ve been sitting ducks trying to find info on Mai.

So of course, as soon as they get moving, Leon once again appears in his gargantuan ship out of buttfuck nowhere.

Certainly a change in tactics, due to not being able to chase them into a place with high chance of collision, they’re instead aiming nets at the group.

Due to the incredible about of drifting induced by the assault of nets, The Violet is forced to halt, as Serge accepts that he can’t escape them.

So how do the rules work here, Leon’s already been told to piss off once before, so what’s the circumstances that allow Leon to no longer adhere to the rule that has already been imposed on him?

He went back to Otherworld King first I suppose, but was it once per outing? What constitutes a new outing? Is it daily imposed?

Like where did the buck stop after Clackey kicked his ass last?

Magisa realizes the oddity of how accurately Leon continues to find them in spite of all their attempts to jump worlds and escape.

Belga confirms their suspicions, noting that when Leon defeated Kenzo, he used the opportunity to plant a transmitter on him.

…Personally Belga shouldn’t have said anything and maintained the ruse a little longer.

Kenzo feels exceptionally terrible about being the reason why they were able to be located so frequently.

Also the fuck is Dan doing here so seriously? He’s not going to battle so he’s got no business doing squat here.

Leon’s been carrying you asswipes this entire time.

Magisa quickly puts the ki-bosh on the tracker plan, deciding to bust the thing once and for all.

Magisa and Leon have a disagreement over the method used, Magisa declares the use of a tracker to be “Cowardly”…

Which I find to be a bit odd considering its a device he can use to identify your location, I’m with Leon, if his aim is to find and capture Kajitsu, planting a tracker without informing them about it seems like it would make that task significantly easier.

Leon moves to take the The Violet’s crew prisoner.

But we’re interrupted by a somewhat familiar voice.

That black coat.

Those grey trousers.

The wrinkles on his face.

His evolving butt-chin…

Julian arrives to assist!

I was wondeirng when we’d see this chap again, being the former red soldier the show’s doing a lot of work trying to ensure he did indeed leave a Legacy.

I wonder how he’ll deal with the fact that Dan’s being a complete pansy.

This is a fairly good question, Julian was back in the Blue World, why is he on the Yellow World, and more importantly, why is he helping?

It seems the news that the Red Soldier lost to Otherworld King made it’s way to Julian, so Julian came over to visit him, I guess Julian intends to reconcile with how Dan is feeling now, as Julian refused to battle as a Soldier anymore after losing horribly to said King.

Dan is in that same predicament now.

It seems Leon’s a little too recent to remember Julian, having never met him, which probably means that Pantera of all people was the only “Head” of the Otherworld King at the time Julian was taking him on.

Julian takes particular note of the slimyness of attempting to capture Kajitsu while Dan’s still in a state of BITCH-

Sorry, recovery.

Julian states his case, firstly, that he doesn’t intend to allow Leon to capture Kajitsu as she bears Mother Core’s Light, secondly, that his qualified to do so, being a former Core Soldier.

Leon’s happy to take this dance, noting Julian’s Legendary status, the lack of a smile on his face suggests he’s mentally preparing himself for something difficult.

Ah, if only this show was so cool as to allow a throw down between Julian and Leon.

Unfortunately, this show is not that cool.

Irritated by the fact that Leon basically jump-scared him with a Purple and Blue deck, Kenzo wants a rematch with him, now fully aware of the fact that Leon operates a series of Hybrid Decks in a random rotation

Leon tries to remind Kenzo that the Green Soldier lost to him last time they went at it, the subtitling’s a bit weird but accurately translates what is said, the issue I have is with the statement being made.

Kenzo claims Leon would not of won if Kenzo had advance knowledge of the fact that Leon was using a Hybrid Deck, except Kenzo did have knowledge of this.

The issue wasn’t that Leon was using a Hybrid deck to surprise Kenzo, Kenzo was fully aware that Leon had defeated Mai using a Purple and Yellow Hybrid.

The issue was once Kenzo was up to bat, Leon used a Purple/Blue Hybrid deck, the sudden appearance of the Blue attribute threw off Kenzo’s preparations for a Purple/Yellow deck.

Kenzo however now knows that Leon is fairly skilled with a myriad of decks, and so as long as he doesn’t dismiss the possibility of a colour hitting him from nowhere, he’ll be perfectly fine.

Kenzo then gives his “updated” win/loss record to Leon, noting to Leon that while he may have lost to Dan, that was his first loss, and he’s most certainly never lost to the same opponent twice.

It’s time for… Wait didn’t the Episode Title mention Dark-Crimson’s combo? How is that going to work if Kenzo’s fighting Leon?

In the midst of the gate opening, Julian strongarms Dan, demanding that they watch the battle.

Dan, still scarred by his battle with Otherworld King, vehemently refuses.

Julian states 2 very good reasons as to why Dan really cannot miss out on battles, the first being that he bears the Core’s Light, but even more than that, Kenzo is Dan’s friend and Dan won’t even watch him fight to protect him?

Julian successfully drags Dan into the Spectator Booth.

It looks like this battle will begin with Leon taking the first move.

Ah don’t dick me over like this again! I hated the turn skips in Toppa, I don’t need them here!

It seems even though Dan, Julian and Magisa made it to the spectator booth, it’s not gonna be so easy for the remaining 3 passengers.

Additionally, until that fight finishes…

…Belga is free to do as he pleases, it seems like there’s a hole in the rule of Battle Spirits that essentially means that until a victor is declared and a course of action concluded, no one is obligated to do… well, anything.

After all if Leon takes his time taking out Kenzo, then what rule are they breaking by taking Kajitsu in the meantime?

Clackey’s cool as a cucumber, promptly tells Belga to suck a fat one.

Kajitsu then asks Clackey for some help, asking for the power of his Yellow Light.

It seems we’re gonna witness some more of Kajitsu’s MotherCoreTooOpPlzNerf Powers.

Kajitsu inches closer to Clackey, which would probably make him real happy if it weren’t for the fact that he’s got weapons pointed at his face, and whispers her plan to him so that we, the audience, can’t hear

Whatever it is, Clackey very much had absolutely zero idea Kajitsu was capable of doing this.

Thankfully, we didn’t have any nasty turn skips, it’s simply skipped to the end of Leon’s turn.

Leon has summoned Lizardedge and Ankillersaurus, which means he’s currently using a Red Deck.

This is a pretty bad matchup for Kenzo, given it’s the only colour that’s beaten him so far, Leon likely knows this which is probably why he chose it.

Don’t get too comfortable, Leon has a knack for pulling colours quite literally out of his arse.

Turn 2, Kenzo summons Gabunohashi and ends his turn.

Turn 3, Leon raises Ankillersaurus to Level 3.

Leon then performs a full attack with both Ankillersaurus and Lizardedge, and Kenzo takes a life from both, dropping to 3 lives. Leon ends his turn.

Turn 4, with 7 Core available to spend, Kenzo pays 5 of it to summon The BladeKingBeast Byak-Garo

Probably the fastest I’ve seen an X-Rare summoned, made only possible by Kenzo taking those lives earlier but sweet jesus.

Byak-Garo attacks, Leon having no blockers, takes the attack from his life, dropping him down to 4.

Kenzo ends his turn.

Magisa makes an excellent point, Byak-Garo ate a crapton of Kenzo’s available core that could have been used for more Spirits, at 3 lives, Leon just needs 2 more Spirits to put Kenzo in a really awkward position.

Julian notes that the Green Attribute makes this situation somewhat okay for Kenzo.

Firstly, there’s Swift, Kenzo’s number of blockers per turn is undetermined until the attack step due to the surprise factor of Swift.

But what Julian chooses to focus on is a different, standard strategem for Green decks, that is Core Boost.

Anyone reading has heard this before, but for the uninitiated, Core Boost is a strategy possible in Green decks due to a large portion of it’s card pool having effects that allow you to accelerate the rate in which you produce core.

I wouldn’t believe it so far, given that Kenzo is having his 3rd battle, and he hasn’t used a single card that produces a Core from the Void.

Kenzo’s been using a Swift & Windstorm strategy up until now, a rush deck.

Julian goes on to explain that Green decks having Core Boost as a trait, means that over the course of the game, Kenzo will naturally have more Core than Leon.

He’s essentially saying that Kenzo has inevitability in this battle, as Kenzo will almost always be able to play his hand.

In order to get to inevitability though, he needs to resist Leon’s beatdown.

Julian then notes that by summoning Byak-Garo, a High cost, High BP spirit (and by virtue of this, difficult to remove by a Red deck), Leon will have to play around it, which will slow down his game plan.

This will give Kenzo time to access his Core boost.

Magisa notes that Julian’s still got it.

Oh just FUCK already!

Dan averts his eyes from the battle, not wanting to be any part of a world decided by Battle Spirits that he loved so much less than a week ago.

Julian notes that the only way Dan’s going to recover from his wounded, afraid heart, is to battle again.

And Dan of all people should know that, because Dan did precisely that for Julian.

Yuuki returns to his ship, asking Kazan what’s going on

Kazan reports to Yuuki that Leon has once again gone to retrieve Kajitsu. Yuuki seems rather taken aback by this.

I suppose its because of Leon’s earlier conversation with Otherworld King, that should have indicated that Kajitsu was no longer necessary, also potentially Otherworld King reassuring Yuuki not to worry about Kajitsu in general.

Turn 5, Leon brings Ankillersaurus down to Level 1.

Leon’s got about 7 core to work with, 2 of which are on his Spirits.

Then, spending said 5 available Core, and using Lizardedge’s only core, he summons The DinoCavalry Diridalus..

…Leon appears to be using a copy of Pantera’s deck, I’m not sure if it will be covered whether or not this will be explained.

Leon attacks, with it’s Lv1+ attacking effect, he can destroy a Spirit with 2000 BP or less.

Gabunohashi with 1000 BP is destroyed.

With no blockers remaining, Kenzo is forced to take a life, dropping him to a measly 2.

Back to the hostage situation, Kajitsu and Clackey are ready to execute Kajitsu’s plan.

Kajitsu starts accessing the power from Clackey’s Yellow Core.

This causes the Ship’s Core System to also start giving off light.

I feel like a blinding light diversion won’t work given that the ship would then take the light with it. Plus they’ve already been boarded.

Whatever it is, Belga does realize that Kajitsu is attempting to use her abilities.

Turn 6, Kenzo has 1 Core on Byak-Garo, and 9 core in his reserve.

He adds 3 Core to Byak-Garo to bring it to Lv2. 6 core left.

Now Leon will be left with problems to say the least, he can either block and get his Spirits exhausted, or take lives from Byak-Garo and get his Spirits returned to his hand.

This will slow down Leon incredibly.

Kenzo then summons MachG and Caterbarga, 1 core, and then 2 core, with 2 more core to supply the Spirits.

This leaves Kenzo with 1 Core in his reserve.

We haven’t seen Caterbarga in a while, but it’s effect when summoned exhausts all Cost 1 or below Spirits, this causes Kenzo’s MachG to be exhausted.

Kenzo then follows up with Speed Star, with maximum reductions Kenzo still needs 2 core, so he takes the core from his reserve and the singular Core from MachG.

One might wonder why MachG was summoned then, the answer was because had Kenzo only summoned Caterbarga, he would have had only 2 Core in his Reserve and 2 reductions, meaning he’d need to deplete Caterbarga in order to use it. It’s actually quite an impressive use of Maths.

By spending 1 Core using MachG, he then recovered the core he spent on it by using it for the reduction of 2 cards, essentially recovering the 1 core spent and the 1 core used to maintain it, and using MachG like it was a Cost 0.

Using a 1 cost card to reduce the cost of 1 card by 1 core means you break even and the card had no point being summoned, a 1 cost card that reduces the cost of 2 cards by 1 core means you actively spent less core than you otherwise would have.

It’s quite genius.

Anyway, Speed Star isn’t new, Kenzo used it as a Battle Boost during his battle with Dan I believe, here though, Kenzo is using it’s main effect, which means that now, each time Kenzo’s Spirits take a life from Leon, Kenzo gets an extra 2 core from the Void.

Seems Julian was on the money either way, as Kenzo’s first ever Core boost strategy begins.

Dan doesn’t appear to be stirred.

The only thing “Dan-kun” is watching right now is his relevance as a character in this series dwindling away by the second.

Kenzo attacks with Byak-Garo, notably Byak-Garo’s Lv2 effect requires Kenzo spend 1 core from his reserve, which is currently empty.

However, the turn player gets to select the order of effects that occur at the same time, so Kenzo will be able to resolve Speed Star before Byak-Garo uses it’s effect.

Leon chooses, oddly, to take from the life, this will potentially threaten his Spirits as he could have safely blocked with Ankillersaurus.

And now he’s not going to have either Spirit for reduction, but it’s possible that he needs to maintain a decent number of resources available.

Speed Star resolves, adding 2 core to Kenzo’s reserve.

Kenzo then does as I specified earlier, spending a core he only just gained to activate Byak-Garo’s Lv2 effect.

Ankillersaurus and the horrifically expensive Diridalus are returned to Leon’s hand.

…It’s turn 6, Leon just played a Cost 7 that’s now no longer on his field and his board is empty.

I feel like, at least for this battle, Leon is very much getting his ass whooped.

This however I agree with, if only for the stakes involved given that winning as soon as possible is somewhat desirable to get Otherworld King’s soldiers off their GOD DAMNED BACKS

Caterbarga attacks, as Leon’s board is empty, he’s forced to drop to 2 lives now.

Speed Star resolves, adding 2 more core to Kenzo’s reserve, on his next turn, Kenzo will have, at least 15 core to work with on his next turn.

Kenzo intends to use this battle in order to get Dan out of his funk.

Oh right, out of attackers, Kenzo ends his turn.

It looks like, given that the Lightbearers can share experiences, unlike Julian, Dan can’t get out of feeling what his fellow Soldiers are feeling in their battles by not battling.

Julian likely wanted to capitalize on this connection, hence why he wanted Kenzo to be as close to Dan as possible while he fought.

Notably, the Core’s Light being projected into The Violet’s Core System flickers between Yellow and Green.

Yellow for Clackey’s Core, and Green for Kajitsu’s choice of core.

It seems they’re forcing The Violet to gain a crapton of energy from just the force of their Core alone.

Unfortunately, Otherworld King’s forces are very much up their rear-ends right now, meaning they can’t act too freely.

Also notably, Kajitsu was producing that energy by temporarily merging her Core with Clackey, which given how well associated the Core is with a person’s Psyche, must have felt like an incredibly intimate procedure, I imagine it’d be like feeling the other person’s emotions.

Kajitsu collapses from the strain though, and laments that she hasn’t yet produced enough light.

I guess she’s trying to give The Violet enough power to make a quick getaway?

Leon admits he’s starting to have trouble with Kenzo, I presume Kenzo’s gotten him into a much nastier position than before.

It’s Turn 7, Leon has 10 core to work with.

Leon starts by summoning a 2nd copy of Lizardedge, and his Ankillersaurus again, that’s 3 of that 10 core used up.

…And then leads into a summon chant which begins with this blasphemy.

One can only wonder if Leon’s actually trying to usurp Otherworld King with all his heavy-handed measures and power of suggestion.

Leon summons, for a total cost of 5 core, The MasterDragonRider Dark-Crimson.

This could be quite nasty now, as Kenzo has no blockers with only 2 lives…

Leon activates Dark-Crimson’s effect on-summon, revealing 7 cards from his deck and enabling him to summon a Dragon Knight or Dragon Emperor Spirit, ignoring both it’s Cost and it’s Tribute requirements.

His only target is The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried.

Notably, Dark-Crimson’s effect is now characterized by it calling down Lightning to summon it’s ally.

Regardless, The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried (hereinafter “Dark-Siegfried”) is summoned, ignoring it’s Cost and it’s Tribute, and functionally adding a Cost 9 double-symbolled X-Rare to Leon’s board for no reason.

It’s Pantera’s X-Rare combo, here again.

I wonder if this episode was originally written with Pantera in mind battling Kenzo, but was rewritten at the last minute to have it be a revenge match against Leon and they didn’t have time to change the deck being used.

It’s also entirely possible that since Pantera defeated a Lightbearer using Dark-Crimson, Leon’s more cautiously using the Most Effective Tactic Available (or META) for taking on Lightbearers given he lost to Clackey.

Also, Dan’s finally become invested in a Battle he said he wouldn’t watch, not that he can ignore it thanks to his Red Symbol.

Leon attacks with Dark-Siegfried, as it holds a Double symbol, this threatens to win Leon the game.

Kenzo has a response however.

Firstly, Kenzo uses Thorn Prison, forcing Leon to select 2 unexhausted spirits to exhaust, he selects Lizardedge and Ankillersaurus.

This doesn’t address the incoming attack, however. And Kenzo only has 1 core left in his reserve.

Kenzo then follows up with an additional magic, and one we’ve yet to see, Flock Recovery.

Flash
Target a family. Refresh three Spirits of the target family you control.

It’s a simple Green Magic from BS03, you declare any family in the game, and refresh 3 spirits that have it.

What’s notable here is the Cost, 6 Cost and a maximum of 2 reductions, meaning you’re spending a minimum of 4 core on this card.

And well, Kenzo doesn’t have 4 core in his reserve, but this is recognized don’t worry.

Kenzo declares Blade Beast, as Byak-Garo is a member of that family, Byak-Garo is refreshed.

Byak-Garo was Lv2 at 9000 BP earlier, meaning Kenzo spent the 1 core in his reserve as well as 3 core from Byak-Garo to pay for Flock Recovery, dropping Byak-Garo to Lv1 and 7000 BP.

As Dark-Siegfried’s Lv1 BP is a pitiable 5000, Byak-Garo’s block defeats it.

Indeed, with Dark-Crimson only having 1 Symbol, Leon isn’t capable of winning this turn.

Indeed, Leon has 1 Blocker, and Kenzo only has 2 attackers, while Leon sits on a comfortable 2 lives.

As Kenzo’s hand is empty after that incredible sequence involving Speed Star, Kenzo must draw a Spirit in order to take a win from Leon.

And Leon needs to have zero responses from his currently 3 card hand.

Back to The Violet situation, Zungurii has decided that Violence is ultimately a question, in which the only answer for people ignoring the rule of Battle Spirits is Yes.

We then find out what’s actually in those guns, they don’t shoot lasers or anything relatively deadly.

They shoot nets, which capture Clackey and Zungurii.

Unless those Nets somehow have a way to block fists I’m not sure Zungurii being trapped in it will stop him quite literally kicking the shit out of your Men.

Also these Soldiers are far less terrifying now knowing they don’t actually have any deadly weapons.

Alright, Kenzo Turn 8, No hand, and 13 core without offing a Spirit.

Kenzo needs to draw a Spirit.

He doesn’t get a Spirit, however he arguably got better, Kenzo uses Hand Reverse!

Main
Discard your entire Hand. Then, draw a card for each card in the opposing Hand.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +3000 BP.

We all know this beautiful thing, but just incase you don’t.

Hand Reverse is a powerful Green Draw card from BS01, it’s a 3000 BP Battle boost on a bad day, but on the Main Step, by tossing out your entire hand, you can draw cards equal to the number of cards in your opponent’s hand.

Most importantly, there is no requirement to actually have cards to discard in order to use it!

This is an excellent card for Green decks, as their Core ramping tendencies can leave them with small hands, Hand Reverse enables them to replenish their resources after emptying said hand.

ah right, when I last checked Leon’s hand, it was his Start Step, he hadn’t drawn, Leon actually has a 4 card hand.

This means Kenzo is able to draw 4 new cards.

Caterbarga and Byak-Garo are both raised to Lv2.

And… interestingly, Kenzo doesn’t summon a Spirit yet. Instead moving directly to the attack step.

Likelihood is the cards he’s drawn are Swift Spirits, so it’d be better to summon them during Flash Timing to make it ambiguous what Kenzo is going to do.

anyway, given Byak-Garo’s on-screen, it’s clear Kenzo is declaring an attack with Byak-Garo.

God Leon’s expressions are just… the best.

During Flash Timing, Leon uses Spirit Link.

Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit you control: Awaken During Flash Timing, you can put any number of cores from Spirits you control to this Spirit.”

We haven’t seen this card since Toppa, Spirit Link is a Cost 5 Magic that quite simply grants a Spirit Awaken for a turn.

Though, even if Dark-Crimson absorbs all the core from Ankillersaurus and Lizardedge, it’s Lv2 is only 8000 BP, which isn’t enough to take on a 9000 BP Byak-Garo.

Leon now blocks using Dark-Crimson who currently only holds 6000 BP.

Is he planning to use Awaken?…

Er, apparently not! Leon uses Great Link.

Flash
Send every core from your Trash to a Spirit with Awaken you control. This effect can’t be used in Main Step.

This is a BS04 card that functions exactly like Nature Forces, it moves every core in your Trash to a Spirit who has Awaken.

It’s also banned from tournament play for precisely the same reason as Nature Forces, recovering all your spent Core can essentially allow you to spend more core than you have, and in a worst case scenario, can enable nasty loops when used in decks specializing in Light.

All the Core in Leon’s trash is given to Dark-Crimson, bringing it to Lv3, totalling at 10000 BP. Just 1000 BP higher than Byak-Garo.

Seeing the obvious problem, Kenzo Swift summons 2 MachG’s, now even if Byak-Garo loses, Kenzo has 3 attacks to take out 2 lives.

Leon notes how good that draw from Hand Reverse was, as Kenzo has 1 more attacker than he needs to win off that 4-card draw.

Undeterred, and now with Core to spare from Dark-Crimson, Leon uses Victory Fire.

This wipes out the 2 MachG’s Kenzo just summoned, leaving him once again with 1 attacker short.

Dark-Crimson and Byak-Garo enter showdown, with Byak-Garo losing the fight by 1000 BP.

It seems even with a 4-card draw producing 2 excellent cards, the remainder of his hand isn’t useful.

The sad thing is Kenzo was too hasty on summoning both MachG’s.

If Kenzo had just summoned 1, and then after Byak-Garo’s defeat, attacked with it, Leon would have been forced to use Victory Fire early to destroy that 1 MachG, otherwise he’d lose to an attack from Caterbarga.

And even if he used it, on Caterbarga’s attack, Kenzo could then summon the 2nd MachG, he sequenced the moves improperly, and lost the battle because of it.

Kenzo ends his turn, leaving Caterbarga as a blocker, not that it will help him.

Leon running Victory Fire would almost certainly have been a choice made because he would have seen the effectiveness of it from Dan’s match with Kenzo.

As for the rest, well, of the 4 cards in Leon’s hand, precisely 3 of them enabled to produce a Spirit with Awaken, move his entire Core Trash to said Spirit which just so happened to put it’s BP over Byak-Garo’s and have an out to the contingency set in place for that exact scenario.

Leon must be a squirrel artist, because he drew the fucking nuts.

Pansy Dansy has finally decided to stop being a complete wuss about battling, deciding to call out to Kenzo and leap out of the Spectator booth.

Magisa manages to catch Dan in a bubble just in time to allow him to land safely, because that’s a steep jump.

I’m not quite sure it isn’t, Leon has 3 attackers on his next turn, including a Lv3 Dark-Crimson which will destroy Caterbarga, Kenzo has to defend 2 lives in the meantime with a 2 card hand and potentially no spirits or reductions to cover them.

I’m glad we resolved all of Dan’s lasting trauma by having him watch a battle.

Granted, someone who loves Battle Spirits that much could never be away from it for long, no matter the reason.

Whatever comes, Kenzo is going to face it alongside Dan.

Still, god only knows how there is a turnaround here.

The Core System that was shining earlier is now a deep Red, even without Kajitsu directly supplying it.

The mere Presence of Light coming from Dan’s Core alone is powering The Violet with energy, all the way from the Battlefield.

Hell yeah he is, Dan’s about to beat some ass after this battle’s over.

Bewitching Turn 9. He has a total of 11 Core available.

Dark-Crimson is dropped to Level 2.

Ah, right, the last card in Leon’s hand was the Diridalus that Kenzo bounced.

Meaning EVERY unknown card was a card that helped Leon worm his way out of that loss.

SQUIRREL. ARTIST.

Also notably Leon’s other Spirits are missing, it’s possible they were depleted in order to pay for Spirit Link and Great Link, which would have Costed about 3 Core to use.

This also means that provided Kenzo can survive ONE attack, he can still come back.

Leon attacks with Dark-Crimson, using it’s Lv2 effect, enabling him to destroy a Spirit with 5000 BP or less.

Caterbarga, with 5000 BP, fits the bill, and is destroyed.

Dark-Crimson strikes true, robbing Kenzo of another life, leaving him with 1 remaining.

Diridalus attacks, with 2 cards it would be possible to defend with a Swift summon, but given the music that’s playing and the nature of what’s happening, as well as available episode time… I don’t think Kenzo was being honest about turning this around.

Kenzo takes his last life, and is defeated.

The Winner is The Bewitching Leon!

It seems even though Kenzo has lost, Dan’s revival has fully powered The Violet.

The sheer energy erupting from it blows away the Human forces right off the ship.

Once again, I feel like a casualty is to be expected here, at least ONE of them is going to hit their heads the wrong way.

The Violet escapes!

Leon doesn’t seem particularly worried, even though he’s technically in a worse position than he was before. Given he can no longer rely on Kenzo’s tracker to immediately pinpoint their location.

Yuuki does what I can only describe as a complete bloody vibe check, holding a White Rose, a symbol Kajitsu loves dearly, and notes that it has bloomed in his hands.

He extrapolates from this phenomena that Kajitsu must be safe.

Yuuki’s off on his next adventure.

It seems he’s resolved himself to protect Kajitsu at any and all costs, it’s unclear how he intends to do this, but given the circumstances and how he attempted to enlist the help of another Lightbearer to do so, he may be switching sides.

After all, Leon is determined to capture Kajitsu at all costs, even if it’s of no benefit to Otherworld King, and Yuuki very well can’t stop him while Otherworld King sanctions Leon’s activities.

The intensity of Yuuki’s emotional state however is causing Kazan to be surprised, normally Yuuki is completely unreadable but now he’s visibly resolute.

Back on The Violet, Serge has switched over to Autopilot.

Said Autopilot is set to head towards The Purple World, likely at a reasonable enough pace to keep them away from Leon.

And given that Leon has no frame of reference for where Mai was taken, extrapolating that they’re in the Purple World may be difficult.

The group thank Kenzo for battling, even though he lost, his battle was able to re-awaken Dan, the Light of which enabled The Violet to get moving again so quickly.

At least they recognized the root cause of that was Kenzo.

Dan also thanks Kenzo for returning the Battler in him back to the surface.

Kenzo does what any and all League of Legends players do when they accidentally get ahead through complete luck.

They say it was all Calculated.

Magisa pokes fun at the fact that Kenzo clearly lost, which couldn’t have been part of the plan, and Kenzo claims that was just because Leon was strong.

My guy, Leon had the precise 3 card out to that last turn, Strong my ass.

Magisa pokes fun at him, noting that the first time he lost he cried. Granted he lost a 2nd time and was just surprised to get hit with Blue cards out of nowhere.

The next stop is most definitely set, next time we’ll be in the Purple World!

Seems like Julian’s also tagging along for the ride.

And it’s the end of the episode!

Surprisingly, our card of the day isn’t any of the new Magic Kenzo used against Leon.

Nope, the Card of the day is more like an “Effect” of the day.

Because it once again covers The MasterDragonRider Dark-Crimson.

Sadly, I don’t really have a basis for talking about it, so instead I’ll do what I did last episode, and post a sample deck using the cards featured in the episode!

Since we’ve already done similar with Kenzo, this time let’s produce something akin to what Leon seems to be using.

After examining the cards, mainly the ones revealed via Dark-Crimson, it’s apparent to me that Leon’s using a rather Spirit-Heavy Deck centred on maximizing the effectiveness of Great Link.

Great Link wasn’t banned until 2015 with the introduction of the Burning Soul Era’s mechanic, along with Nature Forces, so we can comfortably run this at 3. That being said the Bandai-TCG plus app still flags the card for being illegal.

We have Ankillersaurus to gain BP from the presence of Awaken Spirits, Awaken Spirits in Pteradia and Sabecaulus, and 2 ways to obtain more Awaken Spirits, using Spirit Link and Meteor Stream Night Sky (which admittedly only grants Awaken to Braver Ark)

It seems like Leon’s leaning with this deck was to make it incredibly ambiguous how much he was actually able to do at any given time, as Great Link on a good day, spends 1 Core in order to refund your entire Core Trash, luring you into attacking believing he had no core for a response, or blocking with a weaker Spirit only to utilize the Spirit Link and Great Link combo for a counterattack.

in essence, Great Link enables Leon to use a poor position as bait. Which is very in character for a man known as “Bewitching Leon”

I was down a card, so while Pteradia wasn’t seen in the game I had a choice between an extra destructive Magic, but it seemed wrong given he had so much focus on Awaken without any real Awaken Spirits outside of the Sabecaulus we saw, so Pteradia was added.

There is one quirky card in the deck and it was seen amongst Pantera’s cards as well, I’ll talk about it.

Families: Dragon, Deified General
[LV1][LV2][LV3] (Your Attack Step)
All your “Deified General” family Spirits gain +2000 BP.
[LV3]
All your “Vanity Deity”/”Deified General” family Spirits are treated as being on their highest levels.

La-Diablord looks to be a strange card here at first, it’s a BS07 Spirit of Cost 4 from the Dragon and Deified General families.

It has 2 effects, during your attack step, all your Deified General Spirits gain 2000 BP, and at Lv3 all your Deified Generals and Vanity Deity spirits are treated as being their highest levels.

This is very clearly a card designed for use alongside Catastrophedragon, so why is it in a deck full of awaken?

Well it has nothing to do with it’s Lv2 effect and everything to do with it’s family, and it’s cost.

La-Diablord is a Cost 4 Red Spirit with 3 reductions, this means that at full reductions you are spending 1 Core on this thing.

Additionally, it has a respectable Level requirement, 4 core for Level 3 is pretty standard, and 7000 BP means it’s hitting the average for a Lv3 Spirit of that cost.

…And then it’s effect during your attack step gives it 2000 BP.

So for 1 Cost, and 4 core, you’ve got a Spirit hitting for 9000 BP, that’s Siegwurm levels of power.

It also, unlike Sabecaulus, lacks the Awaken keyword, meaning with Spirit Link it can suddenly shoot up to 7000 on a block as a surprise, which would take out a Lv1 Dark-Siegfried as clearly evidenced.

So it’s a strong Spirit that can be summoned incredibly cheaply, is why.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough, looking forward to Episode 32! See you then!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 30

Last episode was the unveiling of a fun little X-Rare wasn’t it? In which case let’s. Keep. Going!

Now we know Pantera’s ultimate strategy, a nasty combo involving the synergies of BS08 and BS04’s Red X-Rares, enabling Pantera to produce 2 X-Rares at the cost of 1, with 3 symbols between them.

So it seems the Lightbearer Team are still in the Yellow World.

After Mai went missing last episode, it looks like they had an agreement to go look for their missing Blogger.

Naturally it’s not like most Otherworlders have access to the Internet, apparently, and this particular Otherworlder doesn’t know her.

I imagine this has been on-repeat throughout the Yellow World.

We do switch scenes to a World that doesn’t seem to have the right ambience to be Yellow.

That is because, of course, as we saw in the very first episode, this is the Purple World.

All the buildings are really gothic here, which I suppose is entirely in alignment with the themes of Purple in general.

Looks like that lady took Mai with her to the Purple World and gave her a room.

Now I’d of course, praise the woman for bringing Mai back if this place didn’t resemble a prison.

But apparently no time for that now, we have the Episode Title, which has no new cards displayed but suggests a certain conflict is about to occur.

Meanwhile it seems Kajitsu is attempting to help Dan using Mother Core’s powers.

It looks like Magisa’s washed out magic wasn’t able to fully repair it, even after it sent her into a state of fever, the Core is holding together but just barely, and is still fractured.

Magisa notes that this probably wasn’t just the Otherworld King’s damage, but every ounce of damage Dan had taken since coming to Otherworld contributed to it’s current state.

The Core is “Scarred”

Poor Dan’s locked in his own head, we get to see this symbolic vision of his 3 strongest Red Dragons.

Who… All seem to be treating Dan somewhat roughly.

Well whatever that was, it’s caused Dan to react intensely to it, completely becoming alert.

It seems that Dan’s broken soul in trying to piece itself together has conjured an image of Dan’s Red Dragons, they’re roaring cries of Anger, Sadness and a Prayer to ressurrect.

Given this is taking place within Dan’s Soul, this is probably a very subtle hint that Dan hasn’t given up, Kajitsu’s just examining the image she sees but it’s Dan’s head.

If he sees that the Dragons want him to fight, then he probably also wants to fight.

Dan falls back asleep.

Hot damn, what a debilitating state, really hitting home the amount of damage a loss to Otherworld King can do to you.

Back in the Wisdom Gate, seems Leon and Pantera have visited Otherworld King for something.

Leon resolves to Otherworld King that he won’t lose Kajitsu for a second time, asking to continue pursuing her, I’d imagine.

Leon’s very evidently taken aback by the change in Otherworld King’s appearance, last time Leon saw him he was probably a decrepit old man.

Pantera explains to Leon that this is what happened when the Red Soldier did damage to Otherworld King, it seems like Otherworld King converted the power of the Red Core into “Life”, which manifested itself in regained Youth.

One can only wonder how this works, really, in relation to Otherworld King specifically.

But given that we’ve already been told that the Bearers of the Core’s Light can revitalize the life in Grand-Lolo, it’s possible that the Otherworld King just used his magic to translate that into life for him when dealt damage.

I’m theorizing that he couldn’t have obtained his regained youth without a Lightbearer.

Leon’s thoughts here are weird, it seems like the whole point of Kajitsu was to essentially perform this same function using Mother Core to restore Otherworld King’s Youth… Which is a fairly nasty ulterior motive for keeping Mother Core to himself.

And explains why Otherworld King might be unwilling to give it up, control over a power source that can continuously rejuvenate his life produces functional immortality.

Leon and Pantera leave after this exchange and Yuuki, who was hiding behind armor, pops out.

So the subtitles here are a bit odd but it’s also possible that the Japanese being used here is also causing the story to be spoken in riddles, Yuuki seems confused as to what “this dispute” was for, which I presume he’s referring to Leon trying to pursue Kajitsu, which Leon very clearly now believes Otherworld King no longer needs.

Otherworld King exclaims that Dan’s helped him discover another method to restore Mother Core’s light, which is to damage Core.

It’s unclear if he means the Cores of the Lightbearers specifically, or Life Core in general, which would be odd considering how often battles occur in Otherworld.

I do feel like he’s referring specifically to Lightbearers though, as Otherworld King seems pleased by the fact that even though he completely smashed the Red Symbol in Dan, it still chose to shine.

Yuuki asks a very… odd question to follow up, asking if he should damage his own White Core as well, which should naturally trigger the same outcome.

Otherworld King’s face here suggests that he doesn’t dislike the idea of Yuuki agreeing to go through the same process as Dan.

I wish I could tell you what the hell this means, but I suppose Yuuki is saying that Otherworld King has somehow become stronger than he already is thanks to the new Life restored to his body, and the power now inside it.

It’s hard to see from the screenshots, but it looks like Yuuki was heading to the Blue world castle.

Suzuri is being tended to by his servants, who are noting the fact that Suzuri has entered his 10th Tournament.

It’s unclear whether it’s the 10th Tournament since he became King, 10th Tournament in general, or that his last Tournament was his 10th attempt.

Suzuri claims that Tournaments have never been tough but that he still hasn’t managed to become the Champion.

Suzuri exclaims that he loves Grand-Lolo, because of the difference in rules, which is that Battle Spirits decides everything, a win for someone like him who’s mainly proficient at Battle Spirits.

Suzuri has a flashback to his bullying again, apparently one particular gripe he had was a nickname he was given, “Hidebu”, which takes the “Hide” from “Hideto” and adds a consonant that was never there.

It’s a clear failure to remember his name properly, but rather than relent when Suzuri points out the issue, the Bully doubles down, saying that he took 2 consonants out of his last name, and that should be sufficient.

Not that Suzuri can argue because he has no strength, it’s a fairly nasty manifestation of power. Given enough leverage, anyone can do things that inconvenience others immensely, or say things that are wrong but have them accepted, wrongs become rights when enough power is exercised.

Suzuri has no physical strength, and so couldn’t push back on this bully calling him “Hidebu”, Suzuri had no leverage while the other guy was exercising his leverage of Strength.

I’m a bit more of a violently inclined person, so while I’ve never, since becoming an adult, ran into someone rude enough to use names I didn’t like, anyone who actively attempted to inconvenience me for fun would find it to be significantly painful each and every time until it stopped.

Sometimes fights aren’t about winning, it’s about ensuring that the trouble someone is going through to get you to submit to abuse isn’t worth it for them.

You’re less likely to slam your hands on a table known for giving you splinters.

Suzuri doesn’t want to go back to Earth it seems, he intends to live out the remainder of his days in Grand-Lolo, a place with different ideas of strength, and which suit him more.

So some people might resonate with this feeling but the ultimate goal of any human being is to improve the self. Our selves in reality are forever detached from the selves we wish to be ideal, but the whole point of growth is trying to be the person who we believe to be ideal, even though we never quite reach it because there’s always a rub.

That doesn’t mean we should give up, self improvement is both better for the self, and better for others.

You might argue “Why should I have to change in order to deal with problems caused by other people?” which is fair.

And I’ll tell you, because the only person you get to control in this life is yourself. The statement works backwards, why should other people change their ways to cater to your convenience?

It’s the same concept, you don’t control those people, and there isn’t a single argument you could make that would convince those people that you do, could, or even should.

You DO control you.

With a bit of logic, it’s fair to surmise the difference between becoming someone capable of handling that adversity, and others changing their ways to cater to preserve your convenience is that you can achieve the former through your own power alone, while the latter is impossible via the same method.

Adversity is a test of wills, be someone who can dispel Adversity via their will. And this doesn’t always have to be retaliation, you could be a person strong with negotiation, or strong abilities in ignoring others, just someone capable of changing their current situation in a way that benefits them, it’s not just one route out, but you do need to have the will to do so.

Suzuri notes that his White Collection is incomplete, as Suzuri completely lacks an Armored Sacred Walhalance, and a Sacred Gungnir.

Which from what I can tell appear to be One-of-a-kind cards as they are the Armor and Weapon that designate the White King.

Which is a convenient thought to have when the specific Master of those cards waltzes into your room.

Yuuki makes an earnest plea to Suzuri, claiming that he wants assistance saving Kajitsu, he requests aid from Suzuri.

Suzuri once again, much like he did with the Lightbearers, states firmly that he wants no part in the battle between the Core Lightbearers and Otherworld King.

Yuuki tries to appeal to Suzuri’s sense of danger, noting that neither Leon nor Brustrom have done anything about Suzuri’s position as of yet, especially since Yuuki was the one who helped instate Suzuri.

This makes Suzuri something of Yuuki’s responsibility, Leon and Brustrom would certainly harm him to get at Yuuki.

Also “Cutting off your hand in your sleep” is a weird use of terminology, it could be a Metaphor but it could also be a valid method of preventing someone from battling, after all you need hands to hold cards.

Suzuri responds to this with what I can only describe as a temper tantrum, it seems like Suzuri intends to maintain his position as Blue King no matter what, after all fighting Otherworld King might mean he’s stripped of his position and has to return to a World he hates.

‘Course, Suzuri spots an opportunity in the face of adversity.

Suzuri realizes both he and Yuuki want something out of this, and so sets the stakes for Battle Spirits, agreeing to assist Yuuki in anything he likes as long as Yuuki can defeat him.

In exchange, Suzuri demands The ArmoredSacred Walhalance and The Sacred Gungnir as prizes if Yuuki is unable to defeat him.

He then realizes he’s being incredibly greedy and tries to pass it off as a joke to Yuuki, essentially giving him the option of refusing the battle.

Yuuki dispels Suzuri’s fears, agreeing to the stakes.

One might go “Ayo really? 2 one-of-a-kind cards for some help” doesn’t seem very fair, but 2 things.

Firstly, Suzuri is a card collector, to have him as assistance is to have his entire X-Rare collection at his disposal as well.

Secondly, given that the end goal is saving Kajitsu, giving up 2 cards many will never even see in their lives isn’t even close to the worth of his sister.

Interestingly, the Gate Open sequence causes them to be enveloped in Light like this, which is rather cool.

Yuuki immediately notes that Suzuri has a rather curious look on his face.

Suzuri raises the evident question, Yuuki is seeking out Suzuri’s assistance for help with his Sister, rather than seeking out the near infinite resources at Otherworld King’s disposal, the only reason this could be the case is because Yuuki needs help that the Otherworld King is unwilling to assist with, this is a subversion of his authority.

This also calls into context Yuuki’s statement earlier against Otherworld King, “Should I damage my core as well?” Given that Dan only achieved this after fighting Otherworld King, Yuuki was potentially, and very subtly, asking if he should fight Otherworld King given the King’s recent discovery of being able to Damage cores in order to make Mother Core Shine.

Yuuki dismisses Suzuri’s concern, the subtitle is definitely literal but the sentiment is essentially “Don’t think too hard about it.”

With that, the battle begins, Suzuri gets the first move.

Let’s see if his deck has changed much since inheriting Brustom’s collection.

This isn’t a smoking gun necessarily, but Suzuri didn’t use this card in his last battle against Randel.

After deploying the rather glorious looking “Honourable Fight”, he ends his turn.

“The Honourable Fight” is a new card, so let’s have a look.

[LV1][LV2] (Your Attack Step)
When only the opposing Spirit is destroyed by your Spirit with Demolish via BP comparison, discard a number of cards from the opposing decktop equal to the cost of the destroyed Spirit.
[LV2] (Your End Step)
Refresh all Spirits you control with Demolish.

From now on I’m not gonna bother formatting the Level requirements, while it did replicate how the card was listed it didn’t actually change any of the clarity (and potentially made it worse)

I’ll still format the text as necessary just so it’s more obvious what part of the text we’re looking at.

Anyway, The Honourable Fight is a Cost 4 Blue Nexus from BS06, a card supporting Demolish.

At all levels, whenever one of your Demolish Spirits wins a battle of BP on your attack step, you can also destroy cards in the opposing deck equal to the losing Spirit’s Cost.

At Level 2, all Demolish Spirits are refreshed during the End Step, this requires 3 core to maintain.

It’s a Nexus that favours a heavily aggressive strategy, this card synergizes well with the Demolish keyword as Demolish usually only triggers on attack, this allows the player, at least at Lv2, to essentially attack without regard for leaving Blockers as they’ll regain them at the end of the turn.

This can put the opponent’s Life in danger as well as increasing the amount of Demolish triggers.

Good Nexus.

The turns go a bit rapid fire so I’ll try to keep pace, Turn 2, Yuuki summons The Sacred Gungnir at Lv2, and passes.

Turn 3, Suzuri summons Rock-Golem and Block-Golem, and immediately proceeds to attack with Block-Golem.

Yuuki blocks Block-Golem with Sacred Gungnir, Lv1 Block-Golem’s 3000 BP loses to Sacred Gungnir’s Lv2 BP of 4000.

One might wonder why Suzuri attacked if his Spirit would get destroyed anyway, but what’s glossed over is Block-Golem’s effect when attacking at all levels, Block-Golem destroys 2 cards in the opponent’s deck for every Nexus you control, with a maximum of 4 cards, so Suzuri’s actually attacked Yuuki’s deck here.

Yuuki’s drawn an opening hand of 4 cards and drew 1 for his turn, leaving 35 out of a 40 card deck.

With these 2 cards lost, Yuuki has 33 cards remaining.

Turn 4, dropping Yuuki to 32 cards thanks to drawing, summons Kigna-Swan.

So we skip to Turn 7 but it’s a time-saving measure, and don’t worry Yuuki thankfully explains what happened on Turn 5 and 6.

On Turn 5, Suzuri summoned a BlastingGiant Douglas, he raised it to Level 3 on Turn 7.

On Turn 6 Yuuki drew a card, reducing his deck size to 31, and summoned The Artifact Droiden, Now that it’s Turn 8, Yuuki’s deck size is 30, and Droiden is raised to Level 3, raising it’s base BP to 6000, but Droiden’s effect at Level 2 and up raise all White Spirit BP values by 1000.

Back to linear chronology, it’s Turn 9, and Suzuri raises Rock-Golem to level 3.

It’s a very passive game at the moment, not many attacks being waged.

It’s Turn 10, Yuuki has 29 cards remaining in his deck, Yuuki levels down Kigna-Swan and Droiden back down to Level 1.

With 4 core on his Spirits, Yuuki has 5 Core in his reserve and 3 reductions.

Prime conditions for a powerful Spirit.

Yuuki summons The ArmoredSacred Walhalance, but with a Lv1 BP of 6000, and all his other Spirits being somewhat below that, Suzuri’s 7000 BP spirits might be prompted to attack now.

Yuuki has 4 Spirits though, this could be bait.

Suzuri’s now under conditions where he needs to defeat the X-Rare he so desperately craves.

Suzuri appears to have drawn a good card, it’s Turn 11.

Suzuri drops Douglas to Lv1, and Rock-Golem to Lv2, it’s Turn 11, so Suzuri has 6 core available in his reserve with 2 reductions now.

Suzuri spends 2 of that core to deploy a second copy of The Honourable Fight.

This is quite nasty, The Honourable fight is the type of Nexus where the first effect stacks and the second effect doesn’t need to stack, meaning Suzuri can reap maximum benefits from only having levelled 1 copy, while still stacking heavily damaging Lv1 effects.

Suzuri then summons his X-Rare, The GiantEmperor Alexander, with only 4 core in reserve, it can only be at Lv1, at a measly 6000 BP.

Interesting risk to take.

Suzuri enters his attack step and attacks with The GiantEmperor Alexander.

Suzuri activates Alexander’s Assault, exhausting one of his Honourable Fights to refresh Alexander.

So, there were ultimately 2 options here, Take from the life or block Alexander with Walhalance.

Yuuki evidently thinks the chances of winning is higher as long as his X-Rare is available, either that or Yuuki really needs the Core, but given we’re on Turn 11 I’m fairly sure Core shouldn’t be that hard to come by.

Walhalance and Alexander were both at 6000 BP, both would have been destroyed had they battled, not destroying Alexander just warrants Suzuri attacking again…

…That is unless Yuuki has a Battle trick in his hand that he could use earlier lost lives to obtain.

Which could also allow Yuuki to destroy Alexander using Walhalance on a later attack.

But if Suzuri thinks of that, he might get that Life for free if he doesn’t attack with Alexander on a later attack.

THE DEPTH. IS. ENDLESS.

Yuuki is dropped to 4 lives.

Huh?…

Hold on, that isn’t right. Yuuki was hurt by his life being destroyed.

It seems when Yuuki felt that pain, it resonated with Dan as well.

Suzuri is evidently confused, as he’s well aware that the White Soldier isn’t supposed to feel pain when losing lives.

Based on Yuuki’s reaction, Suzuri’s guess as to why that is happens to be correct, Yuuki’s stark immovability that stressed Dan out was a form of protection from Kajitsu, Kajitsu used Mother Core’s abilities to give Yuuki essentially invincibility to the damage from a Core.

That certainly means that Yuuki is somewhat advantaged by Kajitsu’s presence, the pain of losing life is meant to induce stress in a battler on this kind of field, testing a battler’s willpower and focus.

Yuuki’s been gaming the system, by being protected from pain, the stress that came with it doesn’t interfere with his thoughts. And he’s able to resume battling with no worries.

But also, given Yuuki’s surprise at feeling pain, he’s either forgotten what it feels like, or he wasn’t aware until now that Kajitsu was protecting him, the plausibility of it only reaching him when Suzuri mentions it now.

Could be multiple things, not sure it’s ever indicated which it is.

whichever way it is, the stress caused by pain is now going to affect Yuuki’s play for once.

Suzuri attacks a 2nd and a 3rd time, using the second Honourable Fight to refresh Alexander again, each time Yuuki takes from the life, leaving him with a measly 2.

Given that Yuuki evidently didn’t have a way to bridge the power gap between Walhalance and Alexander, I still feel that after maybe 2 attacks, he should have destroyed Alexander using Walhalance to block.

It’s possible he might have been wary of Strong Draw, a Card Suzuri could use by levelling down Rock-Golem without depleting any Spirits, and would have given Alexander 3000 BP. He’d have lost Walhalance for no reason in that case and be in a worse state.

Being at 2 lives is better than losing his only copy of Walhalance I suppose.

Not so nice now is it Yuuki? The pain of battle.

Suzuri taunts Yuuki, letting him know that the pain that Yuuki’s struggling with is what Dan uses as fuel.

Suzuri’s basically telling Yuuki that Dan is more scary than Yuuki is currently. The painlessness granted by Kajitsu was a crutch.

Suzuri ends his turn.

He also declares that next turn, Suzuri’s “Flow” will continue, essentially his deck is a repeated pattern, focusing on Alexander’s flood of attacks.

Skipping to Turn 13, in which I can only presume Yuuki levelled up his Spirits last turn and nothing more, while dropping to 28 cards in deck.

Suzuri summoned a second GiantEmperor Alexander.

Suzuri does not fuck around, it seems inheriting Brustom’s collection also meant that Suzuri inherited Brustom’s copy of Alexander, either that or the collection had more than the one Brustom had on him.

Either way, unlike most card game anime, Suzuri isn’t operating with single copy aces, he’s got an actual deck here.

On Turn 13, with 4 core on his spirits, Suzuri would have had 6 core left, I’m somewhat surprised he was able to produce a Lv2 Alexander, an action that requires 5 core.

But he summoned a 2nd Alexander, that’s 3 Core for the summon alone and 1 to maintain it’s Lv1. Leaving 2 Core in reserve, and 1 spare core on Rock-Golem as it’s Lv2, So where did the other core come from?

This could be Turn 15 but I haven’t seen a prompt suggesting it is. Which makes this a fuckup.

As Alexander’s at Lv2, he’s permitted to destroy a Spirit of Cost 4 or less, and smash cards in Yuuki’s deck equal to the destroyed Spirit’s Cost.

Suzuri selects the most supportive and highest cost spirit he can select, Droiden.

Also once again, if anyone can find out the theme that plays during this sequence please tell me as it’s my favourite theme in the entire series and isn’t in any of the OSTs available to me.

Yuuki loses 4 cards, as Droiden’s Cost is 4. His deck now dwindles at 24

additionally, Suzuri exhausts The Honourable Fight to refresh Alexander.

This statement from Suzuri suggests to me that this is still Turn 13, so again I ask, where is the extra core?

You could not have summoned a 2nd Alexander and raised your first one to Lv2 without offing a Spirit.

…Hold on I’ve just noticed something. The image before this one, Suzuri’s missing 2 lives.

And on some images earlier, Suzuri’s also missing 1 life. When did Yuuki attacked? It’s never been stated that he has.

He lost 1 life before Walhalance, somehow, and 1 life after, but when is completely unknown.

But I suppose losing 2 lives covers the cost, I just kind of which we knew when that attack happened.

Yuuki’s finally moving for a response.

He uses Holy Elixir.

Holy Elixir restores Yuuki’s life by 1 using a core from his reserve.

Also, apparently Yggdrassil is now here for some bizarre reason. What is happening?

Suzuri notes that 1 life restored won’t stop Suzuri from winning with a full attack.

Assuming Yuuki still has Kigna-swan and Gungnir…

Suzuri has a total of 6 attacks, each attack taking out a Cost 4 or less Spirit, and he’s still addressing this one. Yuuki has 3 lives.

Assuming he blocks this one with a Spirit that would be destroyed anyway, he’d have 3 spirits left, and Suzuri would have 5 attacks remaining, the following attack would destroy Yuuki’s last blocker, leaving 5 attacks to be addressed by 2 blockers.

Suzuri’s correct, a full attack does win him the game here.

Suddenly though, Yuuki explodes.

This takes Suzuri aback, as he wasn’t expecting the Ice cold White Soldier to suddenly flare up.

Yuuki uses his iconic defense, Blizzard Wall and takes Alexander’s attack from the Life, dropping him to 2.

Now having lost a life, Blizzard wall prevents Yuuki losing any more lives from Spirit attacks this turn.

Skipping Turn 14, and Yuuki’s drop to 23 cards, Suzuri summons a 3rd god damn Alexander

Also you can see that notably Suzuri has a 3rd copy of The Honourable Fight on his board.

Which means between just the Alexanders, Suzuri has 6 attacks from 3 Spirits, with Rock-Golem and Douglas that’s 8 attacks.

Suzuri declares that he doesn’t feel as if he can lose.

Yuuki’s starting to burn up again.

Suzuri once again notes that Yuuki is acting incredibly strangely.

It seems like Kajitsu’s had her Mother Core abilities ever since she was a small girl, using it in panic after some complete utter twats who totally deserve it was ruining a rose garden.

…Sending them through a literal god damn tornado seems like excessive retribution.

Granted, if they knew what their asshattery was going to potentially bring upon them, they wouldn’t have tried to trash the flower garden.

She’s eventually calmed down by a tiny and very polite looking Yuuki.

Well isn’t this a nice strong scene of familial duty to one’s relatives. Though protecting your sister being the reason you were born when you’re clearly the elder is certainly a farfetched conclusion.

Yuuki once again declares his resolve to save Kajitsu.

And now we get to the resonance as to why these 2 are battling each other, other than being the Soldiers with the least ties to our main Lightbearer cast (meaning it’s a rather novel contest)

Yuuki is trying, desperately, to save his Sister any way that he can, and Suzuri refuses to help anyone because no one was capable of saving him from his own suffering.

Now we get context for this particularly traumatic sequence of Suzuri’s bullying.

It seems he was trapped in the bathroom and had water tossed over him, the reason the bullies were pissed is because they pressured Suzuri into building a powerful deck for them, he succeeded but they couldn’t make the deck work, Suzuri then drew their ire after articulating that the deck wasn’t the issue, their lack of skill was, which naturally, as the one with unchecked power allows them to ignore facts dictated to them by those with no power, they attempted to retaliate with violence.

Suzuri had to deal with this all of the time, every day he was bullied, exploited for his intelligence, and punished for his abuser’s failures.

Suzuri reaffirms his belief, that Grand-Lolo is a better home for him as Battle Spirits, and not physical strength, decides everything.

This could also be a “strength in numbers is irrelevant” type deal, after all Battle Spirits is a 2 player game (usually), meaning the Battler stands alone, no strength or companions required.

One can impose their rule on an entire world, alone, as long as they’re the strongest…

…Which is eerily how Otherworld King imposes his rule, you can tell this is a vice, not a virtue.

It’s so weird how Brustom’s being presented consistently as a powerful battler, when his only examinable board states were a sea of colourful X-Rares he somehow managed to defeat Suzuri with, and never on-screen, and his White/Blue deck that he defeated Dan with once.

He doesn’t come off as powerful in any way but yet the show acts as if he is and that’s just… not the vibe I get, Brustom’s rather forgettable.

Suzuri declares his resolve to win, but then realizes there’s an awkward silence given he’s in the middle of his own turn, becoming embarrassed by getting that vexed.

Suzuri attacks with his Lv2 Alexander, destroying Yuuki’s Sacred Gungnir and destroying 3 more cards in Yuuki’s deck, leaving him with 20 cards.

Suzuri activates Assault, refreshing Alexander at the cost of exhausting 1 Nexus.

Yuuki chooses to block Alexander with Walhalance.

Suzuri declares it’s a draw at 10000 BP (meaning Walhalance was raised to Lv3 on an earlier turn somewhere), and notes that even with a draw, Suzuri wins with a full attack.

Yuuki activates Walhalance’s Lv2 effect, exhausting a card he hasn’t used before now, The Sacred Laevateinn.

Families: Armed Machine
[LV1][LV2][LV3]
When only the opposing Spirit is destroyed by comparing BP with your [The Gigantic Thor]/[The ArmoredSacred Walhalance], refresh this Spirit.

a Cost 2 White Spirit from BS07, The Sacred Laevateinn is the superior support card to Walhalance in just about every concievable way compared to Gungnir. Having the same baseline BP but a higher max BP.

Additionally, Laevateinn is designed to be exhausted, at All Levels, if either Thor or Walhalance defeats a Spirit via comparing BP, Laevateinn is refreshed, meaning it will always be an available attacker in spite of Thor and Walhallance exhausting it for power.

Well, so long as Walhalance wins.

Laevateinn also beats all other Armed Machines by virtue of BECOMING A GOD-DAMN SWORD!

AND I DIG SWORDS!

Walhalance defeats one of the GiantEmperor Alexanders.

Also this technically removes 2 attacks from the equation, as Alexander was refreshed when this occurred.

Suzuri attacks with his 2nd Alexander, using Assault to Refresh it.

Suzuri then uses Build Up during Flash Timing.

It’s been a minute, but Build Up raises the Level of any Spirit by 1, it’s Cost 3 with 2 Blue Reductions, meaning Suzuri only needs to spend 1 Core for it here.

He uses this to bring Alexander to Lv2 so it’s BP is 10000, this is likely a measure to cover situations where Alexander has been summoned but Suzuri needs it to be a higher level a turn earlier, as the Level raising effect can be used during the Main Step. And is cheaper than the core needed to raise Alexander to Lv2.

Sadly, doing it during Alexander’s attack means he can’t gain Alexander’s destruction effect to destroy Laevateinn.

Yuuki blocks with his Lv3 Yggdrassil, under normal circumstances, Alexander would be the better of the 2, having 10000 BP currently. And Yggdrassil only sits at 9000.

Yuuki however counters using Avalanche Aura, the magic he used to outfox Dan’s power, now this turn, blocking Spirits gain 2000 BP, and if those Spirits happen to have the Armor ability, they gain an additional 2000, putting Yggdrassil at a whopping 13000 BP.

Suzuri attempts to deal with Yuuki’s consecutive Magic, but finds he has no responses in his hand.

Yuuki’s far from done.

Yuuki uses Chivalry, which will refresh every one of Yuuki’s Spirits, as long as only Mounted Warrior family Spirits are able to attack.

Which isn’t a problem as it’s not Yuuki’s turn.

To cover the cost however, he needed to expunge all the core from Laevateinn, depleting it.

Yggdrassil and Walhalance are back up and ready to block again now, and thanks to Avalanche Aura, they’ll gain 4000 BP on block.

Yggdrassil destroys Suzuri’s 2nd Alexander.

Just one X-Rare remains.

Yuuki’s Battle Style is one that favours the use of Magic, he’s a Magic-user for all intents and purposes, filling his board with Spirits and using vast arrays of White Magic to pick apart his opponent’s board and strategy as they’re executing it, producing fragile board states by the time his turn arrives.

The result is a deck that’s rather difficult to crack offensively, a shield that breaks any spear thrust in it’s direction.

As the turn counter proceeds to Turn 16, this means Suzuri’s turn has ended.

On the following Turn 16, Yuuki’s deck drops to 19 cards, and both Yggdrassil and Walhalance attack, destroying Rock-Golem and Alexander as Suzuri chooses to block with it.

This statement is… incredibly weird as it doesn’t make any sense.

Suzuri has 2 lives and a Douglas, sacrificing Alexander was entirely unnecessary here… As he could have blocked with Douglas, or taken 1 life. That would make things precarious but he’d have an Alexander for next turn.

Yuuki has 1 Kigna-swan to his name, but it’s possible that Suzuri is being cautious about reaching for Yuuki’s life with another Alexander attack as Yuuki might still have a White Magic counter.

Still, this guy would sacrifice every last one of his morals for one X-Rare he doesn’t have.

Suzuri draws and his confidence is bolstered, it seems like he’s drawn a card that can let him change the board state.

Also a bit weird, the Nexuses have moved to Suzuri’s front Row.

Ultimately it really doesn’t matter what row the Nexuses are placed in as long as they aren’t distorting what’s actually going on. Usually anything that can attack is placed in front, and Nexuses are placed in the middle, while the Opened Zone gets placed in the back.

Suzuri uses Strong Draw, now he can perform what we in Yu-Gi-Oh! Call “Graceful Charity”

He’s allowed to draw 3 cards and trash 2.

The cards he trashes are “Construction” and “Nexus Attack”

Main
Deploy every Red/Green/Blue Nexus cards from your Trash, without paying the costs.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +3000 BP.
Flash
During this turn, give one of your Spirits with Assault +2000 BP for every exhausted Nexus on your Field.

Construction is a card from BS03, a powerful-in-concept-but-not-quite-in-practice card that deploys every single Red, Green and Blue Nexus from your Trash for absolutely free, theoretically this could enable some really nasty combos but the card is incredibly expensive and building a Blue deck around it can be rather difficult, especially since the cost would leave you open for a turn that your opponent could use to rip you apart. As a result it’s not been touched and is seldom played.

Nexus Attack is a Magic from BS07 that grants 2000 BP to an Assault Spirit for every exhausted Nexus, the issue here is the fact that it requires the Nexus be exhausted first, meaning it’s only 2000 BP on the first swing of an assault spirit, and the opponent is unlikely to somehow threaten the darned thing on attacks 2+

Besides, Suzuri’s got no Nexuses in his Trash, nor an Assault Spirit on his board.

What he does have… is MORE X-RARES.

Suzuri goes balls off the walls and summons The MobileFortress Castle-Golem!

Families: Artificial Soldier
[LV1][LV2] (When Summoned)
For each Nexus you control, discard five cards from the opposing decktop (Max 15).
[LV2] (When Attacks)
For each Blue symbol you control, discard a card from the opposing decktop.

A BS04 Blue X-Rare, a card so darned strong in Nexus strategies it’s run even in Decks that aren’t Blue as an alternate win condition for any deck that mainly produces many Nexuses.

It’s got 2 simple effects, but it’s mainly used for the first, Castle-Golem can destroy 5 cards in the opposing deck for every one of your Nexuses, the limit on this effect being a max of 15 cards.

At Lv2, when it attacks, it also wipes out a single card for every Blue Symbol on your field.

With 3 Nexuses and 2 of these, by the time you’re able to summon 2 Castle-Golem’s, you’ve won the game.

This game’s been going for a while now and Yuuki has only 19 cards left. At this stage, Castle-Golem is capable of wiping out every last card in Yuuki’s deck by itself!

Ah shit, Suzuri’s starting to show the face he only makes when a Deck Out is coming.

Thanks to Castle-Golem’s effect and 3 Nexuses being available, Yuuki’s losing a full 15 cards.

With this, Yuuki is reduced to just 4 cards in his deck, a Level 2 swing from Castle-Golem ends him right here.

But that would be too generous.

No instead Suzuri summons a second MobileFortress Castle-Golem.

The terror of Suzuri’s Deck, an aggro deck that attempts to win using as many Alexander’s as possible to wittle down the opposing life.

But if he somehow fails, the leftover Nexuses are just fuel for his later Castle-Golems.

He might not succeed in his main game plan but he doesn’t need to, how do you stop a 30 card mill when you’ve spent all your resources stopping a wave of attacks?

I know this is done for effect, but it’s also possible that Yuuki had added extra cards to his deck knowing he’d face off against Suzuri’s deck destruction.

Not that it was enough, but hilariously, assuming that a battler is working with 40 cards isn’t a safe assumption in this show.

With that, Yuuki’s hope of being able to save Kajitsu, something he risked his White X-Rare for, vanishes completely.

Rather poetically, Yuuki’s last card is Blizzard Wall, a card he consistently uses to preserve himself on few lives.

Yuuki’s deck is empty, with no way to recover cards before his Start Step, Yuuki has lost the battle.

The first defeat of the White Soldier, and it’s not by Dan, it’s by the Blue Soldier!

Suzuri notes that Yuuki’s behaviour was somewhat odd, and states unusually perceptively, that he’s far too fixated on saving his Sister, to the extent of which that he battled in an incredibly shallow manner, resulting in openings produced from not being able to see the big picture.

He became ultra-fixated in annihilating Alexander to protect his lives that he forgot that Suzuri’s main plan is to destroy his deck.

Suzuri likens it to the purpose of a key card, it’s not enough simply to get them onto the field, they need support in order to let you win the game…

Which is rich coming from a guy who won using 2 copies of an X-Rare that win the game by being summoned.

Suzuri ends off his criticism, before realizing he just launched a criticism, it’d normally draw retaliation from a bully but Yuuki’s no bully, and he takes Suzuri’s criticism to heart.

Yuuki’s rather open to criticsm I thought, he just has a habit of asking incredibly rhetorical questions.

Yuuki notes that the pain of a battler affects his heart, he seems quite fond of it though, so it’s unlikely he’ll be relying on Kajitsu to protect him from that pain from now on. Even after he gets her back.

Undeterred by his failure to recruit Suzuri, he says he’s going to move on.

But not before keeping his end of the deal, The White Soldier is back to stage 1 of his deck, before he obtained Walhalance and Gungnir.

Back in Dan’s psyche, he seems to be reckoning with the apparitions of his Dragons in his head.

His fighting Spirit is returning.

Having shattered his melancholy, Dan is resolved to go back and fight again.

As a result, his Red Symbol is now fully repaired.

This seems to have restored his mind fully as well, as he’s finally attentive of his surroundings.

Zungurii, being the most worried about him out of the lot, straight up attacks him with a hug.

Clackey welcomes back Dan with a handshake, which is classic cool collected Clackey.

Dan seems to acknowledge Kajitsu having been there a while now, telling her about how he felt Yuuki, likely through the pain of his core.

Kajitsu seems to have felt him as well, granted she doesn’t seem bothered by his pain. It’s also possible she felt the change in his heart that’s starting to occur thanks to the pain of the core.

Naturally, after you take a bigass nap for several days, you’re bound to have some god damn cravings, Dan asks Zungurii for some good old fashioned curry!

I had curry today, coincidentally, a good ol’ Chicken Jalfrezi

Very pleased.

Suzuri has finally completed his White Collection, Notably Suzuri’s not like most other collectors in that he actually gives his collection some exercise, putting his most prized cards into effective, well-oiled decks designed to draw out their most supreme abilities.

Ah the age old contradictory question that all selfish fighters ask. “What is the gain in fighting for others”

The issue is unfortunately the question itself. And likely stems from his bullying.

Suzuri has never helped someone willingly, he’s been forced to do so, and has been punished when it’s failed, additionally, no one has ever attempted to help him willingly either.

As such he’s never truly felt the rush of Oxytocin that floods your system when you help someone else and are well and truly thanked, so he’s unable to understand why fighting for others would ever feel good.

Suzuri states that Dan is also the type to fight for others, and dismisses the thought entirely, deciding that he and Dan have nothing to do with each other.

I suppose this nasty thought process was completely reinforced by Yuuki’s desire to help his Sister being defeated by Suzuri’s desire for Yuuki’s rare cards.

Back to an update on Mai’s situation, she’s finally woken up!

And she very much is in a prison cell, hoo boy.

Sadly, Mai’s mystery saviour only responds to Mai’s question by asking how Serge is doing, so however this lady is, she believes Mai’s Violet is hers, and is acquainted with Serge.

Apparently Mai seems quite cordial with her, remembering her name.

This rather… Well-endowed edgelord of a lady, is called “Namii”

And she doesn’t seem to be nearly as fond of Mai as Mai seems to be of her.

Ah yeesh, I can understand that feeling, when someone wrongs you in an incredibly deep way but suffers no karmic retribution for it. It appears Mai has “Stolen” Namii’s best card, I presume that means that Mai’s Beelzebeat was not originally hers.

If I had a good memory of someone who stole something from me and suffered no consequences, that grudge would be incredibly difficult to wash out

Though given this statement, it seems like Namii had her things not quite “Stolen” as opposed to spoils offered in a battle against Mai, which Namii then lost and Mai claimed as hers.

I can understand being a little bitter about it but you very much could have avoided that by not battling her?

Whatever it is, we get a fade out view of the Prison Mai is trapped in, before the Episode closes out.

Alright! Card o’ the day!

Naturally, the darn card of the day is The MobileFortress Castle-Golem, as before I don’t really have anything to say I haven’t already said… Sooooo….

But I will cover a mistake I made, I said the card Suzuri dropped was Construction, but actually it occurs to me that it was not.

Main
By destroying a Nexus you control, summon a Blue Cost 4 or less Spirit card from your Hand, without paying the cost.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +2000 BP.

I was thrown off because the same spirit appears in both, but I’ve preserved the mistake because I like to be honest.

The card he discarded was infact “Reclamation”, it’s a Battle Boost on a bad day, but on a Good day you can destroy a Nexus card in order to summon a Cost 4 or less Blue Spirit from your hand, for no cost.

It’s not great but some Nexuses really want to get destroyed, this card allows you to do so, that’s basically it.

In exchange for the mistake and poor lackluster Card-of-the-day review due to me talking about the card so much upfront, here’s an attempt at recreating the type of Deck Suzuri was using in today’s episode, naturally this won’t work against any kind of modern deck but for format restricted, I imagine you could get some mileage out of this.

Til next time!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 29

Last episode, we had Zungurii play his first battle, and the plot moved precisely nowhere, but it was a cute episode highlighting a number of rookie mistakes a player might make.

This time we’ll be moving back to the plot, as we’ve seen comatose Dan be returned to the group by Yuuki, in spite of the fact that Dan was to be relocated to the Red Horizon Ladder.

Despite the fact that the cast have only been in the Yellow World for a grand total of a single episode, they’re already moving on.

I suppose it makes sense, Yuuki was able to find them using Otherworld King’s resources, so if Yuuki could find them, it won’t be long before anyone else does.

Dan is unresponsive, and not eating it seems.

Dan’s Core is completely shattered, but not entirely gone.

Hah, I actually didn’t recall this bit, but Dan’s Red Symbol is actually repaired by Magisa.

This suggests to me that without Magisa, Dan would have remained in that soulless, broken state until the end of time. Which is a nightmare to think about, since the Otherworld King basically rendered the poor kid functionally braindead.

Restoring his Symbol seems to have restored his soul to his body at least.

He’s even responsive, which begs the question as to why he’s unresponsive now.

In spite of the damage done to Dan’s Soul via his Symbol, it looks like emotionally, he still hasn’t quite recovered from that Battle, Dan needs time to think.

More specifically, time to sort his thoughts out until he’s ready to rise up again as the Red Soldier.

Magisa completely collapses as a result of this though.

Seems like repairing Dan’s symbol was well beyond the limits of what she could do normally with her remaining “Washed out Magic”, but this does mean that this is within her abilities should she have her true magic.

I suppose it makes sense, it’s possible Otherworld King was using Magisa’s magic to shatter the Symbol in the first place.

To that end, the lady needs some SLEEP, having burned all of her energy doing that one spell.

In spite of his non-present state, Dan does have the faculties necessary to actually eat Zungurii’s curry however.

Unfortunately, Dan decides to go the way of Magisa, and fall completely asleep.

Clackey tries to reassure Zungurii and Hyoudo’s worries, saying it’s “Just like the Clash King to overheat” and that Dan will be back once he rests up a little.

The group resolve to ensure that there is at least some leftover curry for when Dan wakes up.

The hell is my leftover curry! I want more curry now and this sucks!

And I just had the stuff 2 days ago and yesterday.

Curry is life.

It appears that Kajitsu can use her abilities as Mother Core’s bearer to locate nearby affiliates of Otherworld King, noting that they’ve found them again.

Mai’s starting to become bothered, noting that it doesn’t matter where they go, they keep being found.

At some point one can only wonder how they’re locating you

Clackey notes that until Dan wakes, it’ll be up to the other Lightbearers to take the active role in battling for the moment, that means we aren’t seeing the return of the Clash King just yet.

Zungurii also intends to assist, having battled recently himself.

…Though judging by the pot and ladels he’s armed with I presume “Doing his best” means in the Kitchen, not the Battlefield.

Mai is mocking this from a gendered standpoint but you can tell from Kajitsu’s face that she has no idea what the fuck Mai is going on about.

Mai certainly has a way of acting like a complete bitch at the drop of a hat.

It seems like Serge knows something the others don’t, pressing some kind of button, and warning the others not to make “Too much noise” so as not to draw suspicion.

This is where the Episode Title would drop, buuuuut I’ve decided it’s probably best not to cover this one as it tends to be a little Spoilerific, and if you’re reading from here and either don’t remember or never watched this show, that would be unfun.

So, proceeding onward.

So everyone up until now has chased The Violet, a Core-powered ship, by Core-powered ship, naturally.

Pantera however is a Core-powered Robot.

And as so, doesn’t even need a crew of pilots or anything apparently

He’s off chasing The Violet on FOOT.

Just the subsequent hilarity of “Yeah he’s a dude in a well tailored suit but y’know, you gotta remember that since he isn’t human and can’t get tired, he’ll just do the most nonsensical superhuman shit ever”

News travels fast among Otherworld King’s forces, it seems Pantera’s already noted Yuuki’s treachery in leaving Dan with the Lightbearers instead of the intended destination.

Back at the Castle.

Looks like we’re getting a Yuuki centric scene.

It appears Yuuki is conflicted, it looks like he isn’t even particularly sure as to why he returned Dan to his friends in spite of a direct order from Otherworld King.

Yuuki runs into Leon, who mentions to Yuuki that Dan was potentially “aided in his escape”

So it seems like the official report from whoever I guess, is that Dan somehow escaped on his own.

Dan’s state at the time he lost to Otherworld King was privy to precisely 3 people, Yuuki, Pantera and Otherworld King himself, I’m a little surprised Pantera hasn’t put two and two together and made mention of it.

Then again we know that machine has the capacity to lie.

Yuuki mentions that it’s probably just a rumor, and that Leon’s indirectly accusing Yuuki of aiding Dan.

Yuuki just shuts it down, and expresses irritation at whoever’s spreading rumors, thing is Yuuki’s quite stoic about things even when they go against his plans, so a direct dissent towards a rumor that doesn’t benefit him could tip Leon off.

Leon phrases a couple things in weird ways but it could be the subtitling being a bit odd due to a more literal translation.

It seems to me from this exchange that Leon is somewhat surprised that Yuuki doesn’t have more to say to him, considering that Leon just went out of his way to terrorize his Sister in the worst way possible.

Christ this could be the sickest 500 IQ play ever, It’s possible Leon knew that being rampantly negligent of Kajitsu’s safety when attempting to capture her would rile up Yuuki, who cares for nothing else, but the fact that Yuuki hasn’t raised any irritation about this incident, and simply dispelled a rumor calmly could also be a tip off to Leon that Yuuki’s trying to hide something under a guise of calm. The issue is Yuuki should be anything but.

The cleverest deductions are the ones that come up as a result of a lack of evidence, in this case, something that should exist as a result of the facts but doesn’t, in this particular case, Yuuki should be irate with Leon over Kajitsu but hasn’t said a single word about it.

I suppose it’s not enough evidence anyhow, Leon is determined to oust Yuuki as one of the Three Heads, and Yuuki could always hide behind Otherworld King’s statement to not worry about his Sister.

…Well then that sped things along quickly, it looks like Mai left The Violet entirely to intercept Pantera.

Pantera demands that Mai tell him the location of Dan should he defeat her.

Mai agrees to the terms, and a battle is underway.

Gate Open!

Release!

Damn, Pantera doesn’t even give 2 shits about the disobeyed order, he just wants a reason to square off with Dan again

What an absolute chad.

Mai tries to rile up Pantera but doesn’t really seem to get any headway, it seems appealing to Pantera’s anger isn’t going to get anywhere.

I’m glad the hilarity of Pantera entering his battle form by stripping is finally acknowledged, poor Mai got a shock there.

Oh fuck off show.

So not so subtly, the fact that the blush hasn’t left Mai’s face once she realised what she was dealing with suggests one of 2 things, she was embarrassed about her reaction, OR she’s actively interested in Pantera’s physical make up (he is built like a man with decent abs after all)

Now, I don’t think its the embarrassment part, because she’s stroking her hair after saying that there wasn’t a problem, which is something she only does when she’s being dishonest with her feelings, it’s a tell.

I suppose a girl her age would be interested in things like that, and Pantera’s a bit more… exposed than most other battlers but come ooooon.

Ugh… This isn’t the worst thing that happens, trudge through, Ace.

It looks like The Violet is being pursued in spite of Pantera having found Mai, so I suppose more forces showed up.

Serge kicks The Violet into high gear and speeds up.

Kajitsu, Dan and Magisa are flung in many directions, being caught by the other passengers on board.

Also if you’re watching the show, please, look at the animation of Kajitsu flying into Clackey’s arm, it is the most jank thing I’ve ever seen.

Looks like Belga is the one commandeering this particular chase squad, I wonder where Brustom’s run off to then.

Well, the Violet is significantly larger than your ship, what if Serge just suddenly breaks here?

It’d be a risk but I’d hazard a guess everyone on The Violet would survive and your sorry asses would be jam.

It appears that on Belga’s radar to keep track of The Violet, 2 signals that appear to match The Violet’s have started to appear, which is incredibly odd.

The battle against Pantera appears to have skipped to Turn 3, which is acceptable so long as we can still extrapolate what happened in the previous turns.

Mai deploys a Purple Nexus, The Cursed Shrine.

Lv1-Lv2
Purple Spirits you control gain +1000 BP.
Lv2 [Opposing Attack Step]
When opposing Spirit is exhausted, draw a card.

A very simple Purple Nexus from SD01, so in the same structure deck as Dan’s Siegwurm. At all levels it boosts your Purple spirits by 1000 BP, but with 2 core, at Lv2, any opposing Spirit being exhausted enables you to draw a Card.

Purple have quite a few Nexuses that can apply a deficit to Exhausted cards, either by being exhausted or by punishing them for exhausting, in this case, Mai will gain card advantage if Pantera chooses to be aggressive, which given one of his colours is Red, is very likely.

Mai ends her turn.

The Lightbearers are still being tailed, Zungurii mentions that they need to move faster.

It appears that The Violet has a problem with it’s Core Cooling Device, essentially the Core is overheating which is impacting The Violet’s performance.

Clackey asks where it is, but Serge’s expression suggests that attempting to replace it while in transit, and at this speed no less, would be incredibly incompatible with life.

Unfortunately, Belga’s own ship is now within RAMMING SPEED.

So of course, Serge agrees to inform Clackey where the cooling device is so they can fix it.

okay, we are in officially unacceptable levels of skipping, god dammit.

Waddya mean TURN 6!

AND HOW IN THE HELL ARE YOU SUMMONING A DIRIDALUS ON TURN 6.

God damn.

A DarkDinohound, Pantera’s Battle form still holds all of his lives… that’s 7 core he’s on then, he’d need at least 2 reductions to make Diridalus stick, and even then he’d have to deplete one of them unless it was a Nexus.

But I suppose we’ll never know.

Diridalus attacks.

Due to it’s effect, a 2000 BP or less Spirit is destroyed, seems the target is Humpdump.

…Who promptly just explodes.

It seems Cursed Shrine was raised to Lv2, Mai is allowed to draw a card in response to Diridalus’ attack now.

Notably, Diridalus and Cursed Shrine activate at the same time, when resolving who activates their effect first, it’s the Turn player who gets to choose the order in which effects resolve. This includes optional ones, if Cursed Shrine gave Mai the option to draw a card rather than just drawing one, Pantera could force Mai to make the decision about whether or not to do so before using Diridalus’ effect.

No difference made here but can be a relevant one for different cards.

It seems they’re finally using the “Main attack” wording, which is to say that they’re done resolving all of the stuff they want to do concerning the attack, and that they’re now asking whether or not the opponent wants to block or not.

Mai takes Diridalus to the face.

Mai’s Battle Form had all her lives intact as well, so she’s on 4 lives now.

Pantera attacks with DarkDinohound again, and Mai once again draws another card, it seems she still has a Balam on her field.

DarkDinohound strikes true, reducing Mai to only 3 lives.

We finally get a look at Pantera’s field, he seems to have a Rainydle we didn’t see before this, but as I said before, Pantera could not summon Diridalus on Turn 6 without a life lost, not without depleting at least one of his Spirits.

Judging by Pantera’s 3-card hand and 3-card board, we can assume he did deplete a spirit that wasn’t shown though, as this means Pantera’s lost a card, 4 card start with 3 draws means there should be 7 total.

Mai’s putting on a brave face but that bit of sweat on her head indicates that she’s struggling immensely.

Pantera ends his turn.

Also Cursed Shrine isn’t just for drawing Key Spirits, even if that is the purpose of it in this deck. Cursed Shrine can be used to keep the hand full of Flash responses for when things get a bit hairy, which can make a particularly defensive player annoying to punch through.

Back to what I can only describe as an incredibly well-animated episode of Wacky racers

While one would normally question sending a literal child into conditions like that, Zungurii is the one with the most upper body strength out of the entire group, being a member of the physically powerful Gurii-tribe.

Which means provided a good grip, Zungurii will have the easiest time getting to it.

Jesus, Belga’s expression there making me genuinely worried, he’s presented as kind of a joke villain when pit against Yuuki but otherwise he’s presented as somewhat cruel, if kind of logical.

Did the writer have a change of heart for Belga? Or maybe they switched out the writers at some point?

Zungurii’s made it to the Core Cooling System.

I feel like Murphy’s Law is apt here.

Clackey to the rescue, making a sick-ass catch of Zungurii before he goes to give the Yellow World a kiss at terminal velocity.

Seems that the show chooses to not attempt the tense scene of getting to the Core Cooling System twice, good on them

“…It breaks”

Sorry what? The thing designed to keep the ship cool breaks down completely if it gets too hot?

what?

It’s meant to inhibit, what do you mean it completely fails to perform it’s function passed a certain level of heat?

Bear in mind an overheating system can have a fully functioning coolant, but it’s obviously not enough to cause the entire machine to fail.

But the coolant breaking beyond that baseline sounds like god awful coolant.

Seems like the Core that runs the ship is now once again fully functional.

Seems like running at standard capacity, The Violet outperforms any Otherworld King issued Core Ship, which given Otherworld King rules this world seems like a bit of an oversight.

Defenses? What defenses?

Did The Violet have like a forcefield they could have used this entire time that just ceases functioning because of bad coolant?

I’m sorry that feels rather significant to fix.

Given that Heat was the problem though it’s possible The Violet’s Cooling system was damaged due to traveling through the Green World’s Forest Fire.

This adds a whole new meaning to “Eat my dust”

…Though it appears they ate a lot more than dust.

Either The Violet took a sharp turn or they were able to jump to another world, which makes Mai’s predicament a little… precarious given she can’t return home.

These turn-skipping crimes are starting to really bloody upset me.

They’ve skipped increments of 3 turns rather than playing out the game, and I would have really liked to see the game.

Mai summons 3 spirits, Balam, Humpdump and Ashtal.

Pantera starts to analyse what’s happening, noting that Mai is summoning nothing but low cost spirits.

…Which seems to me like she’s trying to buy time. Which means that Cursed Shrine isn’t there to help Mai summon her Key Spirit, it’s there to help her amass a board of weenies at basically all times regardless of how aggressive Pantera is.

Looks like she must have tuned her deck for this specific strategy before leaving.

What happens twice will happen thrice…

But that works both in Pantera’s favour and against him.

Diridalus attacks, due to it’s effect when attacking, Humpdump is destroyed.

Cursed Shrine allows Mai to refund the card she lost in Humpdump by drawing a card thanks to Diridalus attacking.

Balam blocks, but it’s BP doesn’t really vibe with Diridalus’, so it’s destroyed.

That being said, a Lv3 Balam could have squared off with a Lv1 Diridalus.

Pantera is once again puzzled, Mai has no Key Spirit, but she keeps running out defenses and getting them wiped out.

Pantera finally clicks, Mai’s not actually trying to win, she’s built a deck that is designed to continually replenish her defenses in order to run up the clock.

The question then becomes why she’s doing this. Why does Mai want to make the fight last longer when it doesn’t proceed to a win condition?

This explains why they made the personally controversial opinion to create a skippy fight, it would be meaningful if Mai were trying to win, but in this case, it’s Turn 14 and Mai has made no advance to complete her win condition, to show the whole fight would be boring.

In which case, I can forgive Gekiha Dan for this, as there’s nothing interesting going on, it’s just a sequence of Mai constantly drawing Spirits, running them out, and then getting them blown up.

I love the smell of new cards in the evening!

Main
Send all but one core from a Spirit to its owner’s Reserve.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +3000 BP.

Weakness is a Purple Magic from BS03, it’s got a standard issue 3000 BP battle boost to account for the fact that it’s first effect is restricted to the Main Step, however the Main Step effect…

Has the ability to drop an opposing Spirit to only having a single core.

This synergizes well with Diridalus, as it can drop an opposing Spirit’s BP to it’s Lv1 value, which for many Spirits under a certain cost, will be within that 2000 BP range.

Pantera uses Weakness to drop one of Mai’s Ashtals down to Lv1. Where it sits at 1000 BP.

Also as a note, the “High Ranker Battle” theme is playing.

I do very much appreciate the special effects the Magic has on the Spirits.

But the Metal man ain’t done! He follows up with Buster Javelin!

We saw this card in an earlier episode, when used during the Main Phase, it can destroy a Nexus, and if it does destroy one, the user can draw a card.

Cursed Shrine is wiped out, now Mai won’t be able to endlessly replenish her defenses.

This puts Mai in a bit of a pickle if she can’t supply herself with another copy of the Cursed Shrine.

But even so, at least for this turn, Pantera can massively reduce Mai’s resources.

Pantera’s “Red Hot” persona is starting to come out, by preventing the constant resource loop, he’s now intending to force her to meet him head on with what’s currently in her hand. If she can’t meet him with any reasonable resistance, she’s cooked.

It seems Mai’s not that shallow however, she has some kind of contingency for when The Cursed Shrine became the target.

Mai starts off by summoning Skulldemon, I believe we’ve seen this card, it’s a simple Spirit that gets Curse from Lv2 onward.

Mai finally brings out the Curse Champion, The SevenShogun Beelzebeat.

Pantera’s taken aback, this does set him at a bit of a disadvantage, X-Rares tend to be powerful Boss monsters that are worth designing a deck entirely focused on, Pantera hasn’t shown any such card so far, instead using a general strategy with Diridalus at the centre.

Mai activates Beelzebeat’s effect when summoned, now she can resurrect any Spirit cards with the Curse Keyword and summon them at no extra cost.

Mai uses Beelzebeat to revive 2 Humpdumps and 2 Balams, a collective cost of 12.

The Cursed Shrine creating a massive defensive strategy allowing Mai to cycle through her deck of cards by using them as chump blockers is an excellent one for utilizing the effect of The SevenShogun Beelzebeat.

Pantera examines the field, Mai has 6 attackers, and she only needs 4 to make it through in order to win, with only a single Hellscorpio on Pantera’s field, Pantera has no way of defending, he notes that victory is very clear here.

But Mai doesn’t go for it, she ends her turn.

Pantera is taken aback by this, but the motive is clear to the rest of us at least.

The longer Pantera is held up in this battle, the longer the Lightbearer cast have to make distance between themselves and Pantera.

If Mai wins early, Pantera doesn’t get his answer, but then he’s free to go looking for The Violet again.

The Lightbearer crew didn’t jump worlds yet, but they’ve successfully lost Belga’s line of sight.

And in other good news, Magisa’s awake.

It seems we’re getting a Flashback of Mai’s plan from Serge’s memories.

Seems from the beginning they knew that both Pantera and Belga were after them

It seems that the Bitch-sona was Mai attempting to not draw suspicion to herself, and to keep the crew concerned with their tails instead of whoever else was chasing them.

Mai intended to deal with Pantera so that Serge only had to lose Belga.

The Violet comes packaged with a “Dummy Balloon” which resembles The Violet at a distance, which can be used to drop as a decoy, this explains the “2 Signals” Belga was seeing, the 2nd Signal was Mai inside the Dummy Ship.

This is one loyal Butler for sure.

Back to the battle …Erm, thats a summon chant, reserved for Key Spirit-level cards.

What’s he doing?

Dropping a whole ass X-Rare that’s what, and LOOK AT THE ART.

From BS08 onward they experimented a lot with getting cards that started exiting the confines of the card border, as it turns out you don’t need the whole border to confirm all of the card’s rules and contents.

A BS08, Red X-Rare is summoned!

Families: Dragon Knight, Dragon Emperor
Lv1-Lv2-Lv3 [When Summoned]
Reveal seven cards from your decktop. You can summon all “Dragon Emperor”/”Dragon Knight” family Spirit cards among them, without paying the cost and without using Tribute. However, any [When Summoned] effects of these Spirits can’t activate. Discard any remaining cards.
Lv2-Lv3 [When Attacks]
For each “Dragon Emperor” family Spirit you control, destroy an opposing 5000 BP or less Spirit.

A Red X-Rare Spirit from BS08, it’s The MasterDragonRider Dark-Crimson!

Hailing from the Dragon Knight and Dragon Emperor Families, on-summon it can reveal 7 cards from the decktop, and summon every single Dragon Emperor and Dragon Knight Spirit among them without paying any costs or using Tribute, the only downside is their effects When summoned don’t activate.

All other cards hit the Trash. That’s up to 7 super powerful spirits for no cost as many of the Dragon Emperors and Dragon Knights are High Cost Double Symbol Spirits requiring a Tribute.

If that wasn’t enough, at Levels 2 and up, whenever Dark-Crimson attacks, it can wipe out a 5000 BP or below Spirit for every Dragon Emperor on the field.

Dark-Crimson itself is a Dragon Emperor, meaning for something that Costs about the same as Diridalus, and has ONE MORE reduction on it, it can hit a much higher baseline than Diridalus can.

Pantera activates Dark-Crimson’s summon effect, revealing 7 cards.

I’d love to review them all, but instead I’ll just link the cards we haven’t seen, in total, he reveals:

There is only one Dragon Emperor in this list,

So Pantera summons an age-old enemy, The iconic Spirit of the Nazo-Otonas, the first Tribute Spirit, The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried!

And to say this old bean doesn’t look great in this new CGI would be a disservice. It is beautiful.

Families: Dragon Emperor, Ancient Dragon
Tribute: Cost 6 or more → Void
After paying for the summoning cost, you must send all core from a Cost 6 or more Spirit you control to the Void.
Lv2-Lv3 [When Attacks]
When only the opposing Spirit is destroyed via BP comparison, draw a card.
Lv3 [When Attacks]
Destroy every non-Red 4000 BP or less Spirit.

The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried, the reccurring evil X-Rare that opposed Toppa again and again and again, even appearing as the penultimate hurdle before Catastrophedragon.

Dark Siegfried as it will be hereto referred is an X-Rare from BS04 of the Dragon Emperor family, enabling Dark-Crimson to summon it.

Normally you would need to offer up a Spirit of Cost 6 or more by sending all it’s Core to the Void, but Dark-Crimson voids that condition in addition to it’s entire 9 Core cost, in exchange for disabling an effect on-summon it doesn’t have.

At Lv2 upwards, Dark Siegfried will draw cards anytime it defeats a Spirit in a battle where it was attacking, and at Lv3 is it’s most potent effect, wiping out any and all non-Red spirits that have the misfortune of holding 4000 or less BP.

This is quite nasty, by summoning a single X-Rare, which should already be potent enough, Pantera has accessed a 2nd, much nastier X-Rare, who’s power was otherwise limited by it’s prohibitively high cost, for the low cost of completely free.

If this doesn’t indicate Pantera as the ultimate successor to Nine, I don’t know what does!

Pantera attacks, with Dark Siegfried at Lv3, all of Mai’s Spirits, aside from Beelzebeat are completely wiped out, due to being Spirits that aren’t Red with BP below 4000.

Given that Pantera calls it the “DarkDragonEmperor” Combo, it’s clear that Dark Siegfried is his Key Spirit (HE’S A NAZO-OTONA, JUST ACCEPT IT), and Dark-Crimson is just an X-Rare intended to get him there.

Pantera enters the Main attack, Mai now has to decide what to do.

Naturally, taking 2 lives from a single attack is bad business, Beelzebeat is the one to block.

Which is a shame, had it remained another turn, it’s Lv2 effect would have enabled it to clear Pantera’s board of Spirits.

Sadly, at no level does Beelzebeat even compare to Dark Siegfried’s 12000 BP at Lv3.

Pantera follows up with an attack from Diridalus, which Mai takes from the life, we’ve missed a couple turns but it seems she only has 1 remaining now.

With her board picked clean of Spirits and her hand reduced to a measly 2, Mai has no defense with which to address Dark-Crimson’s attack.

With no such response, Mai has her last life wiped out.

Pantera is the winner.

Pantera immediately moves to ask Mai why she intended to stall for time.

Mai admits that it was to let The Violet, which carried Dan, time to escape, as a result of this reasoning though, Mai has no idea where Dan or The Violet is currently located.

Mai apologizes for lying, but Pantera forgives her immediately, noting that it’s human to do so.

When pressed about why she would risk her life on a lie, Mai simply answers that she wanted to protect and do something for Team Lightbearer.

Pantera then notes that if the question was indeed so complicated, others wouldn’t have been able to answer it.

Pantera then takes after Dan’s words again, thanking Mai for a good battle and offering a handshake.

Mai refuses the handshake, which Pantera accepts.

I understand that Pantera’s lack of offense is due to being either semi-emotionless, or immature enough to not realise the offense they’re intending, but I’d strive to have a stoicness like that, able to just take the disrespect of people on the chin.

Battles on the Battlefield are draining, and an extensive one like that has taken all the energy out of Mai, causing her to collapse.

Back at the ship, Clackey’s apparently livid at the fact that Mai ran off without telling anyone in order to become a decoy.

Sadly, when prompted as to why Mai chose to do that without going through a single soul to let them know what was going on, Serge notes that she had already decided on that course of action the second the situation arose, noting that Mai would likely have been unreasonable and adamant about going ahead with the plan even if she had consulted everybody.

Clackey begs to differ, claiming that he would have probably been able to talk her out of it.

Thing is, Mai executed a pretty good plan, if there was a likelihood she would have been talked out of it for sentimental reasons, that could have informed her decision not to run it by anyone else.

Zungurii bursts into tears, the last time a Lightbearer got robbed from them he turned into a husk.

The high emotions of the situation seem to cause Dan to stir, he’s able to muster up some confident words in spite of his weak state, stating that Mai will return, because she bears the Purple Core’s Light.

The fact that even someone in as frail a state as Dan’s is confident of Mai’s safety seems to cheer everyone else up.

To round off this scene, Magisa catches Kajitsu, staring directly at Dan.

I suppose she’s pondering as much as her Brother is, as to why Yuuki saved Dan, defying a direct order from Otherworld King.

We return to the scene of the false Violet, a rather aloof and sick as hell looking woman in dark clothing comes along, noting the Violet as her ship.

Seemingly offended by the Dummy Balloon being there, she destroys the large balloon by slicing it with a card.

Because you know, Cardboard is incredibly sharp and capable of slicing through many thick materials.

Just how thin was that Dummy Balloon!?

It seems this lady is familiar with Viole Mai, and based on her ears, she’s an Otherworlder, infact she seems to have similar features to Serge.

…And even more unsettling, she’s holding a card, we can’t see the text but we can see a name.

The SkeletonSnake Skullpione.

But of course, I’m not going to review that now, so we’ll just have to leave it for next time!

Cuz the Episode’s over!

Ah, nice to return back to the main plot, what I don’t appreciate is the incessent Turn Skipping, I would have rathered a full fight but I understand that the context didn’t allow for such a nasty gameplan to be displayed in it’s entirety onscreen.

It still infuriates me however.

Pantera’s got not one, but TWO X-Rares at his disposal, and one is capable of summoning the other, suddenly Pantera has gone from pitifully efficient with a Diridalus to an active threat.

Notably, both instances where Pantera would have lost were both a result of being in a poor situation well before he was able to summon Dark-Crimson, given he defeated once only on Diridalus, and almost defeated again with only Diridalus. Pantera should hopefully clear that up the next time he fights or this is gonna feel real dumb.

Naturally the Card of the Day is the new BS08 X-Rare, Dark-Crimson.

Families: Dragon Knight, Dragon Emperor
Tribute: Cost 3 or more → Trash
After paying for the summoning cost, you must send all cores from a Cost 3 or more Spirit you control to the Trash.
Lv1-Lv2-Lv3 [When Summoned]
Destroy every 3000 BP or less Spirit. For each Spirit destroyed by this effect, put a core from the Void to this Spirit.
Lv3 [When Attacks]
This Spirit gains +5000 BP.

One of the potent series of cards that can benefit from Dark-Crimson, is the extensive “Sieg-Crimson” series, this is a series of Cost 6 Multi-coloured Tribute Spirits that all carry Double Symbols.

They all share the same effect, a when summon effect (that’ll be voided by Dark-Crimson) that wipes out every 3000 BP or less Spirit, giving Sieg-Crimson a core for each victim, and an effect at Lv3 that boosts it’s BP by 5000 on swing.

These cards appeared as Promos but were re-released in SD04, a Structure deck that came out around BS08, and thanks to being so numerous, can all be summoned off of Dark-Crimson’s effect, summoning 1 Double Symbol to the board like that is already quite nasty, but summoning multiple?

Dark-Crimson has a lot of potential, and due to the ever-growing addition of “Dragon Emperor” and “Dragon Knight” spirits, Dark-Crimson only continues to gain cards it can summon.

One such series of cards even as far as BS36 that could consider using Dark-Crimson was an archetype of Dragon Emperors known as the “FiveGoodDragonEmperors”, a series of multi-coloured Red cards that could all had high original costs but could all be summoned as Cost 5, they gained effects when summoned as their Higher, Original Cost however.

These were also all double symbolled, but could be summoned for cheaper than the Sieg-Crimsons, all had separate effects instead of the matching ones Sieg-Crimson has, and wouldn’t live or die by Dark-Crimson’s effect anyway.

Dark Crimson has plenty of potential, making it an incredibly fun card to use.

Anyway, I’ve nattered on enough, I’ll see you lot in Episode 30! Cya later!

Gekiha Dan – Episode 28

Dreading this.

Dreading this so much

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

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

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

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

Starting off with a lovely scene that is obviously happening

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

Therefore, it’s a Dream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lv1-Lv2
When your Nexuses are destroyed by opposing Spirit/Nexus/Magic effect, the opponent returns three of their Spirits to the decktop in any order.
Lv2 [Opposing Attack Step]
Once per turn, when your Spirit blocks an opposing Spirit without Tribute, your Spirit don’t become exhausted.
Main
For the duration of this turn, all 3-Cost or lower Spirits can neither attack nor block.
Flash
For the duration of this turn, one of your Spirits gains +1000BP.
Lv2 [When Destroyed]
The opponent choose a card from their Hand and return it to the decktop.

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

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

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

Besides maybe No Entry, Zungurii got hot garbage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mai finds the prospect of this hilarious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kotarou demands that someone untie Zungurii… for some reason.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What on earth is happening?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seems Kotarou is going first.

Kotarou draws a card and completely passes.

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

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

Zungurii’s first turn ever begins.

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

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

Then Zungurii attempts to summon The UnicornDragon Volsung.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Families: Emperor Beast, Song Bird
Lv1-Lv2-Lv3 [Your Attack Step]
When your “Pentan”-named Spirit is destroyed, refresh this Spirit.
Lv2-Lv3
All “Pentan”-named Spirit cards in your Hand become Cost 3.
Lv3
For each “Pentan”-named Spirit you control, this Spirit gains +1000 BP.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s Zungurii’s turn.

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

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

Scatterbrains, the lot of em.

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

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

That’s… quite an awesome Summon entrance.

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

Families: Ancient Dragon
Lv1-LV2-Lv3 [When Destroyed]
Your spirits with 2 or more gems get +5000BP until end of turn.
Lv2-Lv3 [When Attacks]
This spirit gets +3000BP until end of turn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ichirou appears to be wearing a suit under his.

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

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

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

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

Families: Song Bird, Drifting Spirit
Lv3 [Your Draw Step]
If you control a total of three or more “Pentan”/”Empereur”-named Spirits, you draw +1 card.

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

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

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

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

There are only 2 cool life states.

Winning with 5 lives, and winning with 1.

There are no other cool life numbers.

He’s on 2 lives, he’s fiiiiine…

…Ish.

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

Oh right, didn’t Zungurii lose 2 lives?

This is what I can only describe as instant karma

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

…And given the cost, probably only BlackMonoqueiroz

I disagree, small child with sideburns.

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

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

Losing lives OP.

…Oh that’s dumb.

That’s incredibly dumb.

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

Main
Both players send a total of four cores from Spirits they control to the owner’s Trash.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +2000 BP.

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

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

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

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

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

Good on Zungurii for realizing he made a mistake.

Bad on him for not realizing how costly said mistake was

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

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

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

There’s plenty funny about it though

Ichirou boasts about Kotarou’s power.

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

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

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

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

Families: Fighting Beast
Lv1-Lv2-Lv3 [When Destroyed]
Move cards from the top of your opponent’s Deck to their Trash equal to the number of cores on this spirit.

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

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

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

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

Zungurii’s eyes just seem to say “BITCH WHAT IS IT NOW!?“

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

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

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

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

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

I see the lemmings are as exasperated as I am.

Except for Hyoudo, LOOK AT HIM.

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

ahem, moving on…

Oooh, now that’s a good card.

Kotarou summons The FortuneTeller Pentan at Lv2.

Families: Song Bird, Drifting Spirit
Lv1-Lv2 [When Summoned]
By putting a Magic card from your Hand onto the Opened Zone, draw a card.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Main
Choose and return a Magic card from your Trash to the Hand.
Flash
During this turn, give a Spirit +4000 BP.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before the battle you muppet.

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

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

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

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

Families: Song Bird, Drifting Spirit
Lv1
While you control three or more Yellow Spirits/Nexuses, give your Magic cards an extra Yellow reduction symbol.
Lv2
While you control three or more Yellow Spirits/Nexuses, give your Magic cards two extra Yellow reduction symbols.

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

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

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

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

Postman Pentan which was attacking, was destroyed.

Under normal circumstances, probably not, but.

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

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

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

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

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

Families: Machine Beast

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

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

Main
Exhaust all Lv1 spirits.
Flash
Target spirit gets +4000BP until end of turn.

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

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

And then Zungurii notes the fine print.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kotarou moves straight to the attack step.

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

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

Flash
Move 2 cores from your Reserve to your Life. You cannot play another “High Elixir” spell this turn.

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

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

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

All his Spirits besides Iberix have 1 core each…

Zungurii goes to 3 lives…

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

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

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

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

Zungurii’s turn, he plays Extra Draw.

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

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

There’s a mistake here!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zungurii then summons The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm, at Lv2!

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

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

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

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

He attacks, using Clash to force Kotarou to block.

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

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

Zungurii wins his first ever battle.

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

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

People should not cry at the first hurdle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is a reasonable fear.

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

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

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

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

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

Kajitsu looks less than pleased.

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

Oh, and he appears to have brought Dan…

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

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

Which marks the end of the episode.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Toodles!

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