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That was a surprisingly simple episode, with a really good tutorial absolutely ruined by a horrible translation. The official translations were never great, but what the gently caress's been going on with NEXT? Did they just fire everyone and got bootleg Google Translate on this poo poo? Kazuma's pretty great, although I hope he breaks out of the "I may lose here I surrender" mentality soon because he needs to understand that Triggers are brought forth not by luck but by bullshit plot power, and thus as a main character he has nothing to fear. I hope he destroys Taiyou next episode, because gently caress Taiyou. Also the opening still uses scenes from episode 1 but we did get the actual ending this time! Am and Luna have new designs so I'm sure they'll appear somewhere down the line, but I see the ending is also not even remotely trying to hide the lesbians so...why did the episodes proper do so? I mean, Bushiroad even put up a Valentine's Day tweet with those two, I really don't get it.
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Oct 10, 2016 03:24
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What I suspect they're going to do here is basically do a lower-key version of what Sailor Moon did with Haruka (Uranus) and Michiru (Neptune): they don't say that they're dating on screen, but it's incredibly obvious. I guess it's just not going to be much of a thing for anybody since that's not the kind of show that it is. Although it was pretty obvious that the episode where Tokoha, Kumi, Am, and Luna all went out was double date.
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Oct 10, 2016 09:11
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Well, Shouji just single-handedly made sure this season is going to be awesome. If I'd realized poo poo would turn out this way, I would've done another semi-liveblog, but I didn't, so oh well. Anyway, now we know what Ritual is, and holy poo poo was I off base: Ritual is a conditional check, but the condition is "have three G1s in the drop zone." And like holy gently caress dude, if you do not have three G1s in the drop as loving Shadow Paladin, what the hell are you doing? Plus thanks to cards like Aurageyser, you can hit the Ritual requirements trivially: stride into Aurageyser, use Luard's skill and eat your starter to get a Black-winged Swordbreaker and Night Sky Eagle. Use Swordbreaker to soul blast the G1 in your soul and draw, then shove the starter in the soul to power up Swordbreaker. Swing with the Eagle/Swordbreaker column, retire it with Aurageyser, and oh hey would you look at that you're at GB2 with Ritual active and a bunch of cards in hand. Another thing I was super happy to see is that Shadows got a G-Guard worth a flying gently caress: Dark Dragon, Plotmaker Dragon, which is "if Ritual, +10k shield." There might be other wrinkles, but I doubt it. I like this one because it plays well with Ludvik, whose thing is "when you G-Guard with it, pick a G1 or less on the field and throw it in the guardian circle too." Which wasn't too bad with Claret Sword Dragon, because you'd have spent Night Sky Eagles or Swordbreakers taking up space, and you can just superior call something worth having later. So far I fuckin' love this guy and I will be making another Shadow Paladin deck, because that's what I do. Next week we get to see Shion's new teammate with the Narukami stuff. He seems kind of timid from the preview, which is pretty different from the usual Narukami player. MechaCrash fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Oct 16, 2016 |
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Oct 16, 2016 04:28
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I'm glad Kazuma beat Taiyou because Kazuma is cool and fun and Taiyou is a poo poo. I am, however, also happy that Taiyou and Chrono forced him into the team so we get one cool protagonist this season. That said, Kazuma you're kind of dumb. You've had Luard for years, and yet you didn't know his Ritual? Read your own cards! But whatever, he's cool as hell and I like Ritual so I'm glad we get another cool as hell Shadow Paladin player to join Ren, evil Aichi and Kanzaki in the ranks of cool as hell Shadow Paladin players. Which is everyone, except for Yuya who was still fine. Also Ritual seems like a genuinely neat mechanic that works perfectly for the self-retiring Shadow Paladins. Subtitles are still poo poo. I still don't get how Bushi got somehow even worse at subbing things. Oh, and we finally got the actual full opening animation! Not like it does anything too cool with that time, just everyone's Avatars attacking ending with Chrono as Chronojet attacking Onimaru. But hell, at least it's not recycling episode 1 animation now, that was really off-putting.
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Oct 16, 2016 04:43
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I do have one minor concern, come to think of it: since Kazuma is using entirely new Shadow Paladin stuff, where are Ren, Rati, and Kanzaki going to be? Although this is the first time a Shadow Paladin player was one of the protagonists from the start. The other Shadow players were originally antagonists.
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Oct 16, 2016 13:31
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On the one hand, no Kazuma. On the other hand, no Chrono either. I'll take it. Keeping the legacy of the Cardfight Club alive is a pretty solid way to go about this, and the fight was pretty good too. Obviously, not a whole lot of hard information on new cards, although I did like seeing VMAX. I'm pretty sure that its "your field is empty, therefore take a damage" thing is restricted to only if the opponent is at four or less, because allowing that to be a killing blow is a bit much. I'm also very curious what the rest of the new Altmile's stuff does, since we saw the "call at the start of your ride phase" thing, which I assume is to tie in to other Royal strides that power up rearguards when you Stride them. I also like that they showed Hayao blew his entire hand guarding against early attacks and then had nothing to show for it, because that's a very good lesson: sometimes you've got to just take it on the chin so you can go ham next turn.
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Oct 23, 2016 04:55
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Man, it's pretty sad to see Fukuhara's Vanguard Club fall this badly, but then again, when your standard of success is Ren...I guess there's nowhere to go but down. Still, way too down, but at least there's hopes of getting it back up now that Generation Master and resident badass Shion is in. I expected Hayao to be timid from how he appears in the opening and ending and that was very definitely not misleading. That said, he seems to improve fast, so that's good, and I'm glad Thunderstrike finally gets to appear after the only post-keywords Narukami user (that is, Kai) used a Dragonic Kaiser build instead. VMAX seems pretty cool as well, but I always liked non-battle damage skills for some reason. It's me, I'm the guy who thinks Vortex Dragonewt was cool as hell and Overlord Mk-20 was lame.
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Oct 24, 2016 04:56
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Can we have a whole series of master manipulator, Shion Kiba? Because dang, that was great. He played everyone to his advantage. I can't say I dislike just how willing he's become to do some pretty shady stuff (even if this episode was light on that) to get to his goals, Shion is cool. Also it's becoming more and more clear just how out of place Hayao is in the team he leads. Generation Master, someone that was offered a place as Clan Master, both of which were part of extremely powerful teams...and some guy who has never played professionally. Mamoru wasn't wrong when he pointed out the sheer difference in experience. I'm glad the series isn't trying to hide it though, Hayao is weaker than the rest but at least he's growing. I'm sure he'll be fine by the time the U20 tournament happens.
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Nov 2, 2016 12:13
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Shion played Rin like a fiddle and it was great. 
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Nov 2, 2016 23:00
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Everything looked really pretty this episode. I like those art bumps, I wish they happened more often in anime. That said, I can't stop paying attention to how Shion's eyes are drawn now, it's like he's either constantly sleepy or trying to be sexy (and succeeding, but that's another matter entirely). Chrono and Shion's rivalry is pretty neat, and while I wish we had gotten to see the whole fight, the series pointing out how it went (a complete tie, 3-3) is probably better because anything else would feel unfulfilling or something. They work really well together, and I'm glad Chrono's character has grown enough I can say I actually like him at times now. Shion's cool as hell but he's been super cool since Kai got to him. The other fights were unimportant so I'm not mad they got skipped. Pretty obvious results too, although points to Kazuma for abusing guards for Ritual, that was clever. And points to Chrono and Shion for rather impressive barrages of attacks and guards. So cool! Next, we get our amigo and...an amigo of his? I wonder what's up with that guy.
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Nov 6, 2016 17:59
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Hopefully, Jaime dials it the gently caress back. Or, if not, gets shut down so hard Leon feels it on the wind. I don't know the full deal of the new guy, but apparently he plays Musketeers. I'm quite looking forward to seeing how that goes, and if it's going to make me dismantle my Cecilia deck again. Kazuma dropping the two Swordbreakers for Ritual was fantastic, because a Swordbreaker in the hand is basically useless. I initially had no idea how he was able to use Dragdriver's skill after using Dragheart, but I realized that the two cards he sent back are the G2 that got punched by VMAX and whatever he threw away to pay for the PG. So he still had three in the drop and Ritual activated. It's also good to see because it shows that you can use Dragdriver's on-stride skill first if you want, so you can call three G1s and then eat one (as he did here to get his counterblast right back and also two more things). And I'm glad it's not just me that noticed that Shion got super pretty. What the hell happened?
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Nov 7, 2016 02:22
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Artstyle change, or just growth since he's a year older now, but it's pretty undeniable how Shion's drawn a lot prettier now, and considering how he was meant to be pretty in previous seasons, that's pretty big. His eyes especially, that half-closed eyes look...geez. I'm honestly surprised they aren't showing him surrounded by women that much. Though I guess Hayao is basically fulfilling the same purpouse now...
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Nov 7, 2016 03:11
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As per usual, let's start with the translation complaints: those subs were really delayed. C'mon, this is an official translation, get a timer! Miguel was nice, as was seeing France. Tokoha felt...really off this episode, like far weaker than usual, not to mention how her voice sounded completely different. I'm not sure if it's the same VA trying to sound older or she got changed. That said, the Miguel bits were cute and the fight was neat, even if it was hard to follow. Jaime was surprisingly understated this episode too, but I guess that comes with not being that prevalent in it. We got our first hints of a plot too, beyond the U20 championship, with Miguel's brand and forcing that Image onto Tokoha. I'm guessing Onimaru has one of those too. And with that and his dreams Miguel will clearly be an important ch... ...oh he's loving dead. Literally dead. In Vanguard, a card game anime. Holy poo poo.
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Nov 13, 2016 03:23
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Good ear: Tokoha did indeed get recast. She was played by Emi Nitta, but now she's done by Aina Aiba. I don't know why the change, but I suspect that there was a scandal. Usually it takes a voice actor dying to get them to recast someone. The Musketeers look like they're doing their same old "eat rearguards to get new rearguards" thing, although if they added a new wrinkle, it's hard to say, because they were too busy building up "Tokoha in Paris and meeting Miguel" to really focus on what any of the cards are or what they do. I think the big one is that now instead of "eat rearguards to maybe fix columns," it's "eat one, get two." I was initially growing concerned that they were going to shoehorn in a romance plotline for Tokoha (c'mon guys she's got Kumi back home), but, uh. Yeah. I think that might've been unfounded. I wasn't expecting that to happen, but it does leave me with the concern of "if this guy's now pushing up daisies instead of playing them, who's going to rep Musketeers?"
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Nov 13, 2016 05:20
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Tokoha knew this fucker for two days. We knew him for, what, ten minutes? I don't give a poo poo that this guy is dead. What, did Emi Nitta take Tokoha's spine with her when she left? Holy poo poo.
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Nov 23, 2016 13:33
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Eh, I'd say anyone would be kind of shook if the person they just met and formed a sort-of friendship with suddenly died. It's a bit overblown, but I can see it happening, which doesn't change how Tokoha does feel a lot weaker this season. Hopefully with her entering the U20 that'll change. Also I'm pretty sure there was some degree of brainwashing involved. We know Miguel had weird powers.
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Nov 23, 2016 14:53
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Jaime being a goon is great. Nobody playing along is even better. Kazuma still gives no fucks. That's why he's not Naoki v2: Naoki would be all fired up by now, Kazuma has nary a poo poo to give. Kazuma getting shut down by Tokoha's trigger taught him a very important lesson: if you have a rearguard column that can be blocked with a 5k guard, use it first. Otherwise if they get a trigger, you can't hit. I would've done it differently, though: I would've kept Rute behind the vanguard, and put both of the others in one column. You get two attacks instead of three, but you're not boned by a trigger as Kazuma was here. Unlike when I've offered opinions like this in the past, though, I don't think this was a bad play, Kazuma just decided to go for a gamble with an early rush, and it didn't work out. That happens. I appreciated how they leaned on the fast forward button for the early parts of the fight. In these days of decks based on Generation Break, nothing cool is going to happen in the first few turns. It'd be nice if we saw drive checks, but I guess if they don't show it, we can assume no triggers were hit and nothing important happened. Other than Anelma slamming Liafail directly in the dick with her rake. Tokoha does not gently caress around. I found it interesting that Kazuma kept Rute on the field. It makes sense, though: the grade 1 he rode, the Swordbreaker he sacrificed for Luard, plus the one he sacrificed to make Tokoha retire her two rearguards? That's three G1s in the drop, so he's primed for Ritual later. His last turn is the point where I'd Stride into Spectral Blaster Diablo, the restander. But that's Ren's thing, and as I've said in the past, the show won't cross the streams on ace cards. It'll do it for lesser stuff like Gyva (that was one of Kanzaki's cards), but big signature cards? Nope, those remain exclusive. It's why neither Shion nor Taiyou will ever use any form of Alfred. His earlier decision to use Swordbreaker as the sacrifice instead of Rute winds up paying off later, when he used it to power up rearguard columns and get big numbers when he needs them. He also did a pretty good job of setting up a nice beefy field, and his decision to use Luard's Ritual instead of pitching the spare Luard he drew makes sense: by using Luard's Ritual, he could use Gyva to pitch the Luard he drew and draw two more cards instead. I did wince a little when he said "I've got plenty of cards and she's at five damage, same as me." Because the major difference is that Kazuma spent all of his counterblast, while Tokoha had all of hers available. And a Neo Nectar player with a bunch of counterblast is probably about to swing for huge, doubly so when their back is against the wall. And make no mistake, Tokoha's back was against the wall. If Kazuma had healed out from under that attack, I think he would've clinched it, depending on if one of the cards in his hand was a critical trigger or a grade 3. See, when he's looking at his hand thinking "I have plenty," the card second from the right was a Death Feather Eagle, a critical trigger. When he's looking at his hand to determine if he can stop everything, it's a Death Spray Dragon, a grade 3. If the initial shot with the critical was accurate, then he could've survived: take the VG, heal out from under it, guard the column on his left for 25k (he had 25 in hand plus an intercept), perfect guard the column on his right. If the later shot with two grade threes in hand was accurate, he was 5k short of surviving. Anyway, I think this highlights a problem with Stride Luard: yeah, it's pretty good, but it doesn't really push for game the way "kill your poo poo, get some crit" or "you can't guard unless you eat your field" or "I STAND LOL" can. I think it solves one of the problems Shadow Paladin had in that it was lacking in mid-tier strides between "the thing you use to get you into Generation Break" and "push for game," but because the "push for game" cards are signature for someone else, Kazuma can't use them. I guess Aurageyser Damned was the closest we had to mid-tier? But the fact that you had to eat three cards, got two back, and wouldn't necessarily kill anything in exchange made it a little dicey. At least you were guaranteed the extra critical if you used it right.
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Nov 27, 2016 14:14
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I really, really like that triumphant song that played last episode and this one during Tokoha's turns. I guess it's meant to be Tokoha's song considering it has only played for her, and it's as cool of a song as she deserves. I hope we get lots of it. Kazuma needs to get over his poo poo but I'm glad he hasn't, it'd be a bit underwhelming if he got over it in only two fights against Chrono. He really needs to just accept there's better people than him though, he didn't lose against random idiots (say, Taiyou), he lost against two of the three Generation Masters, some of the best in Japan. Either that or just git gud, I guess, though he's pretty good already. Poor Jaime, I think the mask is cool. He needs to settle on a name though, but I'm glad he's sticking around as the coach to Tokoha's team. Shin was cool in that role for Q4 and I'm sure Jaime will be cool too.
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Nov 29, 2016 02:05
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The first bits of the show were mostly to set up the plot, and I rather liked that people call Chrono on his poo poo (more on that shortly). It'd be nice if Tokoha and Kumi put up with Jaime a little less, though. Dude's a goon and not in the good way. Team Trinity Dragon was, once again, really good, and I liked Tsuneto talking big right up until he saw he was fighting Mamoru. And in round 2 he talked big again until he got dropkicked through the floor, and you'd think they'd do something to make sure you didn't face the same person twice in a row. But we only saw snippets of his fight because the dude's a punchline. I'm curious what the Tachikaze clan leader had in her hand. She guarded against the first rearguard attack with two triggers, so she couldn't stop the second, which meant Chrono got a second swing with Crossover. Which was fully revealed, by the way, but the short version is "call two different Chronojets, if either one hits you can put both in the soul to restand your vanguard." I couldn't help but notice that he drove check a Chronofang Tiger G, though, which makes me wonder what Chrono's G3 lineup looks like. Does he not have both Chronojets maxed out? Running less than four of each of these super critical cards seems dumb, especially in light of the fact that he's probably got a bunch of poo poo that breaks if he rides the Chronofang. Maybe he's got four of each and an extra Chronofang G? I don't know why he'd do that, though. Maybe he has them because they do something as a rearguard? But that leaves the issue of "binding poo poo is beneficial in a Chronofang deck, not so much for Chronojet." Well, we only got the one bit of that turn, I'm more interested in the fight of Kazuma versus Mamoru. Shadows are all about retiring their own rearguards, and that's hard when the other guy blew them the gently caress up. Plus I really like Kazuma. It was interesting to see him just drop his hand and go all in with an early rush, because like Mamoru said: who gives a poo poo? If Mamoru kills it, it's helping Kazuma get to Ritual. If he doesn't kill it, then Kazuma can eat it to pay for Ritual. The fact that one of the cards called was Grim Reaper might've been a problem, but oh well. Leaving the Howl Owl out for a bit also made sense, because it will let Kazuma attack for a decent number without risking the actually useful unit to direct attack, and if he gets something better to use later, he can just shove it in the soul to power something up. Shadows going full aggro on Kagero isn't a bad idea, because if you give them time to set up, they'll burn down all your poo poo and leave you with nothing. When Kazuma went into his second Stride, though, it really drove home that I think Shadows could really use a card like Luard. They've got some decent first strides with stuff like Aurageyser to get right into GB2, and amazing finishers with cards like Phantom Blaster Diablo and Spectral Blaster Diablo, but they don't really have anything that fills in the middle. Luard can mostly be that card, because it does something potentially big and flashy without devouring all of your resources to go for what had better be a killing blow. Or you can use Luard as a first stride if the situation calls for it, since it doesn't have any Generation Break requirements, just Ritual. Mind your soul if you do that, though! Chrono going on about Mamoru using a G-Guard to let him go right into Taiten being a brilliant move annoyed me. That's not a brilliant move, that's just basic strategy, and it actually has a minor downside: you have to flip a Taiten to get anything out of it, and only get to kill one thing. If you get the first stride and use Vortex Desire (which Mamoru won't, that's Kai's thing) and use the attack to flip a Taiten, then on your next turn you can stride into Taiten #2, then flip either Taiten #3 or Sebreeze depending on if you need to kill two things or three. Also depending on how many times you think you're going to get to do it: Taiten doesn't give a poo poo what it flips, so you could theoretically pull it off four times. But I'm curious why he didn't blow up the Rute, because the Rute was actually a threat, albeit a minor one. There's also Ritual to consider, but since Kazuma already met the conditions and Mamoru couldn't touch the drop zone, that's not much of a factor. Without knowing exactly what Kazuma had in his hand, I don't know how much sense him rolling over like that made. A 26k/2 crit attack coming for your face backed by triple drive is no joke, and the only way for Kazuma out from under that particular turn was if the two unknown cards were triggers: use them to guard Taiten and hope Mamoru doesn't get a critical, then drop all three of his grade 2s to guard the rearguard column. Mamoru playing both Nadels in the same column was a good move, by the way: if he played them on their own, then that's two attacks that need to be guarded for 5k each, minimum two cards. Putting them together means one attack to be guarded for a minimum 15k, which is also a minimum of two cards, but anything that could stop "one 22k" could stop "two 11k." The reverse is not true. Plus if Kazuma somehow healed out from under the Taiten attack, one big rearguard column could still hit him, the two small ones could not. But since Kazuma did roll over, I'm assuming that he didn't have enough guard to stop it all and just gave up. I would've at least tried to guard Taiten and then hoped for a heal off the rearguard, but that's why Chrono gave Kazuma the talking-to. And here's where I come back to the "call Chrono on his poo poo" portion. Seeing Chrono get slugged was incredibly unsatisfying, because the one loving time someone feeds him a knuckle sandwich, Chrono was right: Kazuma just rolled over and gave up. Now, I can understand just rolling over and giving up if there is zero chance of survival, like "I'm at five damage, can't guard everything, and you just strode Nouvelle Vague so my heals don't work," or the far shorter "I have zero heals in the deck," but neither of those was the case. Hopefully Kazuma gets his poo poo sorted out.  But next week we get to see Spike Brothers in action, so that's going to be pretty cool!
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Dec 4, 2016 08:07
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Man, the art this episode was bad. I guess it wasn't that important so the budget was low, but still, everything looked off-model all the time. That's bad. Also I love how weirdly aggresive this card game anime has gotten since two seasons ago. I hope physical violence keeps being a thing.
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Dec 4, 2016 15:07
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Rewatching the Chrono versus Tachikaze Clan Leader fight, she screwed up. Chrono swung with Crossover, and she took the hit, which was smart. Chrono then swung with a rearguard, and she guarded it, and that was the fuckup. She should have just taken the first Chronojet on the chin. Chrono could then either pay the cost right away and give up his second rearguard attack, or he could hope to hit again and she could block that one with only the one trigger. If she'd taken the hit and Chrono then swung again with the Crossover, she could use the two triggers in her hand plus some other 5k shield (I assume she had at least one) to make the re-stand two to pass. If she did that, it'd hurt and her hand would be down, but she would've survived.
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Dec 4, 2016 18:01
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Man, Chrono's getting the poo poo kicked out of him lately, isn't he? Oddly, I find it's making him more tolerable. Probably because it's showing his Plot Armor isn't impenetrable. Or maybe it's because I like him better as a cheerleader/mentor than protagonist? Now with the elephant in the room addressed, I suspect that "island" is some bit of Japanese punk slang that got a too-literal translation, and those two guys throwing Kazuma under the bus was not surprising. I also liked Chrono being all "yeah sure I'm Kazuma" and acting hard until the real one showed up. And just in case anyone was wondering, no, Bad End's boss is not the guy who was cheating against Kai. I checked. Anyway, on to the actual fight: I really liked the "here's an arbitrary restriction because gently caress you" nature of things, especially because the last time they tried that was with Shion removing twelve triggers from his deck, thus ensuring he'd check the last ones when he needed them (a more appropriate penalty in that fight would have been "you're trying to get their avatar cards back so you can't use yours, remove all Altmiles from your deck"). And it was nice that they pointed out that having the two damage start face up wouldn't be much of a "gently caress you," so face down, because no seriously gently caress you. And starting at two against Spike Brothers? poo poo, that's super harsh, because their entire thing is pushing you into a corner, and then swinging for huge repeatedly. I really liked how they handled the "bind and then call right back out" thing, with the cards vanishing off the field, appeared on the sidelines with a very fancy bottle of energy drink, and blipped back on to the field. But like I've said before, that all showed the huge weakness of Spike Brothers: when you go for it, you're going all in and there's no turning back, because if you don't secure the kill with that turn, you have no cards in hand and no field. Kazuma's flashback stuff makes me think that the shadowy figure that he couldn't measure up to was Kazumi Onimaru, the Nubatama guy from the first episode that stomped Chrono into the ground. On an tangential note, the Ritual of Dragon Sorcery trial deck is out. I got my pair, and one of them had the hot stamped Luard in it! So that was pretty cool. Once set 9 hits, I'll have everything I need together for my own Luard deck, which is as follows: Luard deck posted:G3: 4 x Dragheart, Luard, 4 x Deathspray Dragon The idea is that Luard is the thing what makes the deck go, and Deathspray can be used to get rid of spent G1s or just get them in the drop for Ritual, plus it's nice to kill the other guy's poo poo. The Dragwizard G2s are support for Ritual that swing hard enough to not need a booster, so that's all good. The Gyvas are there because between Knies and Night Sky, they can still hit good numbers, and I can use them to pitch the 3s I won't have to pitch for Stride. The Esras, Knies, and Abyssals are all obvious Luard/Ritual support, and the Night Skies instead of Swordbreakers are mostly "I have three soul at most and my big Cool poo poo moves need me to soul blast, I can't afford the soul for Swordbreaker" with a side of "I only have four and I'm not taking any out of my Claret deck." Triggers are obvious by now: Stands only help if there's something to stand and Shadows probably won't have that, and draws don't win games. The G-Zone I'm still a bit iffy on. I've got the two Carnivores because they can help me gently caress poo poo up, although I'm waffling on if I should replace one with Grim Recruiter. Phantom Blaster Diablo needs no explanation, beyond "if you don't have at least two you're doing something weird or doing something wrong." Spectral Blaster Diablo is a one-of because I am not going to get to do that poo poo twice, and the four Luards are there so I can vomit up a bunch of rearguards at will. Don't be afraid to use Luard to get some back in the deck with his Ritual if you have to! And Sebreeze is, of course, an anti-squatting measure. The Ludvik is there because of Ritual concerns, the Plotmakers because they guard for huge in the right conditions, and the Dizmel for just in case situations. Possible changes to the deck are swapping out Gororo for a regular crit because the "Gororo can't guard alone" thing has proven a problem; changing out some or all of the Night Sky Eagles for Swordbreakers for the extra drawing (just mind your soul if you do that), and trading out the Gyvas for Balberiths to make 21k columns with superior called Knies or any kind of Night Sky, or a vanilla 10k to be a good thing to ride, form a good column with a Night Sky, and if you're running Swordbreaker then it can always cover for the relative crappiness of their power; or changing out Esras for Karma Collector for the unflipping.
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Dec 11, 2016 19:39
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quote:Man, Chrono's getting the poo poo kicked out of him lately, isn't he? Oddly, I find it's making him more tolerable. Probably because it's showing his Plot Armor isn't impenetrable. Or maybe it's because I like him better as a cheerleader/mentor than protagonist? Again, this has gotten really violent for a card game anime, and i love it. Also Chrono's grown a lot since the series began, I think we can leave our hate of him behind. He's cool now. I'm glad Kazuma has finally gotten over his poo poo and can now play card games to the end while shouting loudly for no reason (his VA does some pretty good screaming). Maybe he can even leave the darkness and join the light or...something, to that extent. Apparently you can play card games illegally. Admittedly, considering the other gang was fully willing to kidnap and beat the poo poo out of people, I can see why. Next episode will be so sad though. It's the last chance to get into U20 and the fight's between the lovable underdogs Trinity Dragon and the protagonists. Poor Trinity Dragon.
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Dec 12, 2016 00:24
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So re: my dislike of Chrono, I will admit that's pretty much all baggage at this point. Yeah, I know Chrono is going to win his match, but I can't blame that on plot armor just yet, because he has to move on or the show kind of gets derailed. But the devil is in the details, so we'll see if he outplays Tsunato or bullshits a win. Commander Laurel D is pretty cool, and I like that its measly 4k power is something you really have to work around. You're essentially missing nothing when you use it, too, because if you hit, great! You get to swing with your vanguard again! If you miss, oh well, you get to stand all the rearguards you just used. Which makes me wonder why the hell Karl is bothering with stands. Maybe it has a good effect? More likely "what triggers go with what clans" is something the writers are still working on. Speaking of things the writers are working on, Taiyou might have hosed up on that turn, because he guarded the trigger-boosted column (guard 15) instead of the unboosted one (guard 10). Now if his goal was "clear out spaces to superior call a ton of poo poo," okay that makes sense, but I don't know G-Golds well enough to make that particular call. Another thing this episode did that I like is that one of the key skills for Vanguard is knowing when to give a sharp jab and keep most of your strength in reserve, and when to just wind up and cut loose for a killshot. Which is what Spikes are all about, but that's from last week's episode. Kazuma actually studying was god drat amazing, but ever so gratifying. It's hard to be good at the game if you don't know how anything else works. It's also nice that he didn't roll over and die, but Kei did cock it up: he could have swung with the column that had a critical on it, so Kazuma would need two heals to win. On the turn of Kazuma's we got to see, I think he could've won it if he had Spectral Blaster Diablo, because I don't think Kei had enough in his hand to stop two Vanguard attacks, although he would've had to call and retire differently to get the two counterblast he'd need. Phantom Blaster Diablo wouldn't have helped, because he had two cards on the field to eat. Situations like this are why I think Dragdriver, Luard is pretty baller: you need something, and too many of the Shadow strides are "go big or go home," and there's times it's too early or risky to go all in. But the turn where we got a cliffhanger? Yeah, in a real game it'd be "Kazuma goes into Phantom Blaster Diablo, the hammer comes down." Now that's not the kind of sure-fire win it used to be, because G-Guards can get around Diablo's skill, and with a ten card hand I wouldn't want to say "Diablo will clinch this win for sure because he won't have a G-Gard." But like I said, sometimes you gotta go for it, and when both players are at five damage and you have to chew through a ten card hand? Yeah, that's do or die time. He's obviously going to win, but the question is if he's going to Dragdriver a high power field or show us a new Stride or what.
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Dec 18, 2016 06:35
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Kazuma is genuinely growing as a character and that's always wonderful to watch. And talking about wonderful growth, Trinity Dragon have gotten really cool. Karl's fight against Taiyou was great and I'm glad he beat him down because I still really dislike Taiyou. Chrono has gotten cool but Taiyou still feels like the biggest waste of space even when he's a proper main character now unlike what he was in Stride Gate. I'm still sad Tridra is losing this for the plot to continue even if I know Chrono vs Tsuneto will be cool because drat, they deserve the win. Don't leave them out of the U20, they're so cool.
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Dec 18, 2016 06:45
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I was hoping for a new Stride, but I guess the new card smell hasn't worn off Dragdriver yet, so he went for the "call over entire field, swing for huge" path. I stand by Phantom Blaster Diablo being the better option, but since that's still Ren's toy and the main characters stay away from each other's major things, there you go. Chrono looks like he's half-assing the Zodiac Time Beasts, as seen by some of his cards: Heart Thump Worker, History Maker Dragon, and the stride fodder are all perfectly okay cards to keep around depending on how you built your deck, but since it's more "halfassed ZTBs" than "all in Chronojet," eh, I'm iffy on his deck's quality. Especially because he's using the Zodiac Time Beast perfect guard, which only works when you toss other Zodiac Time Beasts. I want to see that bite him in the rear end, but that's not coming from a "gently caress Chrono" place, that's coming from a "pick a thing and do that thing" place. Now here's the part where I have to say things that I really do not want to say: this episode shows why Oracle Think Tank sucks so bad that nobody used it at the last major Bushiroad event. Details escape me, but when one of the original protagonist clans has zero decks entered and the tie-in clan Touken Ranbu gets two, you know something's hosed. Kamususanoo isn't very good, because it gains the on-hit skill of "check the top two, one goes to hand, other goes to bottom," which is the same as Soaring Auspicious Beast, Kirin that is also not hugely threatening. If you've already got something face up in the G-Zone, and thanks to the G-Guard, Tsunato did, then all of your rearguards get +2k. And here I'm going to pause and point out that this came out in Moonlit Dragonfang, just like Dragonic Vanquisher Voltage, which gains its first stride of "on hit, opponent retires something, then you bind two from drop," and a GB3 of "your front row gets +3k per opponent's bound card." So while Voltage's GB3 has a condition and Kamususanoo's doesn't, that condition is trivial to hit (especially since Vanquisher's stride skill is to retire and bind something) and you get way better payoff, since as we saw here, the power from Kamususanoo barely matters, and only the extra power from his rearguard's Oracle made it relevant. So his GB3 ability got him one stage of extra power on one column, good job. The other reason that Oracle Think Tank is kind of a mess was even hinted at by Tsunato himself: a whole bunch of their Cool poo poo is tied to the Oracle keyword, which means "have five cards in hand." Now, I will grant that there's probably more going on that we don't know exactly, but once again the nearest Narukami equivalent blows the Oracle card out of the water. The new Kamususanoo lets you counterblast 2 to draw until you have five cards, activating Oracle. This, combined with Susanoo's stride skill, let him go from "topdeck a grade 3" to "six cards in hand," four of which he called, because he couldn't get boosters for his vanguard if he wanted any of his Oracle stuff to work, and the operating theory for Kamususanoo (at least according to the wiki) is that this new Kamususanoo has "Oracle: front row gets +5k." Compare this to Dragonic Vanquisher "VMAX": for every face up Vanquisher in your G-Zone, you can punch one rearguard when you swing, and you're probably going to have at least two due to Voltage, and on top of that, there's GB3, Thunderstrike 5: after you swing, if your opponent has no rearguards, CB2 to deal a damage with no other requirements or limitations. That is way better than "draw a bunch depending on how badly you hosed up." If it were an ACT it might be better, because then you could play a bunch of poo poo and draw back up to five, but we can tell from the timing that it is not. Ultimately, though, in regards to my feelings depending on how Chrono took this, and he didn't plot armor his way past someone he had no business beating. I do think Tsunato hosed up, however: had he taken the Crossover attack in the face, then Chrono would have gotten a critical and a heal. Tsunato would have gotten a critical and a heal as well, hanging on with five damage but being at 21k, and he could have easily guarded against Chrono's two attacks. But next week, everybody gets to chill at a resort, so I suspect they're going to do something cute with it, and the way Rin is walking out of the room but then stops and turns around? I think Shion's going to play her like a fiddle again.
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Dec 25, 2016 15:39
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I'm still sad they lost. Trinity Dragon totally deserved the win after working so hard. They were so cool too. Also it's good to know Chrono still has Gear Groovy, I thought we'd see this a whole one time and then never again like Majesty Lord Blaster. Next episode is a break one so we know poo poo will get absolutely real, this is Vanguard after all.
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Dec 25, 2016 17:13
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We at least had a very good reason for never seeing Majesty Lord Blaster again: it was used by Aichi in the climax of the first season, and the entire premise and setup of the second was "these clans are gone and nobody remembers them, have Golds instead." They got unsealed, but by that point Aichi stuck with Gold Paladins. Royals are back, but he moved on to Seekers in the movie. I have no idea what he'd be using these days, though. Maybe the new Alfred support coming in the Try 3 set.
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Dec 25, 2016 21:47
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Normally if I don't give thoughts on an episode, it means it was boring or something. Not this time, I was just busy on Sunday. I really liked this one! Sure, there was barely any Vanguard in it, but sometimes you need to take a breather in between product launches. I mean major plot beats. And by "plot beats" I mean "new product." (I'd say "let's not kid ourselves, this is a commercial" but we all know that.) Showing how the former members of Try 3 deal with their new teams was pretty nice. I liked the bits in the curry shop, and started laughing when Chrono collapsed and they started using the Serious poo poo music. Enishi being confused by the cutesy additions to his name is going to be a fun running gag, and i liked Henri trying and failing to stand up to Rin. Because c'mon, dude's a timid waifu type, he's not going to stand up to the team's easily manipulated attack dog. The teams are also nice too. I liked Hell & Heaven, and am curious what the deal with Team Shin Nippon is. I suspect that they're going to follow up on the old team of Chrono's dad, Shin, and Mr. Mark. I'm also curious what their clans are going to be. We have two clans featuring ninjas (Murakumo and Nubatama), but what's the third going to be? The only other clan I can think of that's japan.jpg is Oracle Think Tank, and they suck. Bringing back Rummy Labyrinth is nice, but the fact that they're called "Team Rummy Labyrinth with Saya" just shows what a third wheel Saya is. I'd wonder if this would hint that Bermuda Triangle gets to do...anything in the future, but Saya's a character that they pulled out of their rear end for one episode in season 5 to shill the new Bermuda Triangle stuff, and then brought back for one episode in season 8 along with two freshly rear end-pulled characters in a completely skippable filler episode where nothing happened. So I'm not expecting Bermudas to matter or get a ton of support. Sure, Emi is there and she plays Bermudas, but who knows. And on a side note, Team Hell & Heaven is actually illegal: Nagisa and Kamui both play Nova Grappler, and you can't double up on teams like that. Someone's going to have to move and we never saw either play anything else. Plus we got confirmation that it was indeed Oniyama who was beating Kazuma's rear end all those years ago, but they weren't exactly being subtle with that.
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Jan 9, 2017 17:59
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Maybe Nagisa will play Granblue to not repeat clans. Her entire previous team played Granblue after all. Or maybe they'll just not follow the real rules and have both Kamui and Nagisa with Nova Grappler, who knows? I'm more interested in the fact that Kamui did enter. I spent the entire season until now wondering why Kamui wasn't entering when he's not 20 yet, apparently the reason is "yes he is entering why would you ever expect otherwise". Bringing both of his love interests makes for one hell of a team too, plus it'll let us see Nagisa and Emi interact with each other, something that I don't think has happened yet. Those three should be amusing and competent, a good combination. The curry match was hilarious. Great use of music too. The whole "win a ticket for a park" thing felt a bit random though, since we spend a second there before moving on to Chrono vs Kazuma. All of the character moments were great, honestly. Since G stopped being awful, I said that they really do excel at character-driven, slice of life episodes and it keeps being true.
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Jan 9, 2017 21:13
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There's already official art showing the teams, and it shows that Nagisa is playing Nova Grappler. I suspect that for the sake of the show, she's going to play a different deck from Kamui. I'm expecting Kamui to be using the Exxtreme Battler line, and Nagisa will be using Beast Deities. She might use Blaukluger stuff, though, since that's getting support in set 10.
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Jan 10, 2017 20:48
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If you're going to say that, you could at least post the art, i haven't seen anything myself.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:05
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I don't know where the official source is, but this is the best I can do. I can't read the names or what it says, but the teams: Striders, Jaime Flowers, the Fukuhara Vanguard Club, Rummy Labyrinth with Saya (sup third wheel), Team Hell & Heaven, Team Defrider, and Team Shin Nippon. Everyone is still playing the clans they were, and you can see on Team Hell & Heaven that Kamui and Nagisa are playing the same clan.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:35
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This is another "would've talked about it ASAP but was busy this weekend" thing. Anyway. The Fidar thing sounds pretty cool, and it reminds me of the old Microprose version of Magic: the Gathering. In that, you were a Standard RPG Dude rolling about the overworld, and there were enemies on the overworld, and if you encountered them you had a game of Magic, and "beat monsters and take their stuff because that's back before all the CCG makers realized ante is a loving terrible idea" was one of the major ways you got more and better poo poo, plus the way it handled dungeons and stuff was cool. Less cool are the specifics, with "if you get beaten you lose half your points" and "first 16 to hit 50 points go through" and "if all of your team gets beaten at the same time you're out," but this is another one of those things where the rules will never be used in reality so who cares, this poo poo's for dramatic tension. Jaime flipping his poo poo cheering for Tokoha was pretty funny, and so was him getting recognized right away and denying it's him without even missing a beat or changing tone. Team Shin Nippon was pretty great, and the last member going "yeah Nubatama's nice but I like Link Joker" was kind of funny. Although I suspect that the big deal here is more "the Major Antagonist this season is already a Nubatama user, we don't want to build/support a second deck for the clan, so gently caress it this one uses Link Joker now to avoid toe-stepping." The fight was pretty nice, but I think they glossed over a bit too much, probably to make sure they don't blow too much of the set too early. All we got was a little taste, and I liked it. I'm hoping that Tachikaze Guy comes back and we get a more detailed look at what the gently caress is going on once we've seen more stuff from the set. I'd need to double check specifics but I thing that Tachikaze Guy might have botched attack order? But I'm not sure. Either way, the whole thing was pretty rad. But here's the thing that caught my eye and made me go "wait what" so I rewound it and watched again: the Murakumo player flipped something in the G-Zone, and then picked up two face-up cards in the G-Zone. I have no idea what they were or what's going on, but I have this feeling that they're being called as rearguards or some insane poo poo somehow.
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Jan 17, 2017 03:05
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MechaCrash posted:But here's the thing that caught my eye and made me go "wait what" so I rewound it and watched again: the Murakumo player flipped something in the G-Zone, and then picked up two face-up cards in the G-Zone. I have no idea what they were or what's going on, but I have this feeling that they're being called as rearguards or some insane poo poo somehow. I noticed this too, and I'm genuinely curious what it is about. I guess we'll know soon enough. As it is this episode was...okay? I don't think it was really interesting and the fight was okay at best. Team Shin Nippon is pretty lame, I expected more.
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Jan 17, 2017 03:28
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Goddamn Team Shin Nippon is really anime. Hot-blooded, not too intelligent, but very magnetic protagonist (and apparently bi?), cool-headed but secretly passionate second in command, and a loonie as the third. Jesus. Also two thirds are very androgynous. Apparently they're all male? I really doubted both Makoto and Noa, and in fact even now I'm not sure if Noa being a dude wasn't a sub error. They might just be a woman that uses "boku", it does happen in anime! Yasuie Gouma is a fun new card. Apparently G-Rearguards are indeed a thing with it, which is really unique! And cool! Also cool: the new Quintet Wall, getting an extra Shield boost is good! And I find it hilarious that Kazuma's last failed win attempt was to force Makoto to drop his hand - the very same tactics that led to Murakumo being created in the first place, because of the fear of Nubatama's hand control and how far it could go. That last part was a serious unexpected moment, I thought they'd complete the trio by having Taiyou fight Noa. But no, Tokoha. We're sending everyone but Chrono into the Drop Zone it seems! Also from the next episode, Kamui's fighting the Kyou of Team Demise...poor guy. Finally, uhh...Miguel being part of Diffrider was really obvious, but also basically proves that the other two have the same weird crest power he did. His replacement too, probably.
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Jan 22, 2017 04:38
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I think that the field/hand wrecking of Draganger, Ogma is going to be kept in check by a few things: it's Ritual 5, instead of 3, and also it requires you to eat a bunch of your own G1s. So yeah, I can use it to shred your hand and/or field, but whoa nelly am I paying through the loving nose for it. I'm very curious if the "superior call a G-Unit" thing does anything else. If it doesn't, then I think it's going to slide down into the realm of cards that have cool tricks, but aren't actually all that good. Throwing G-Units on the field is nice and all, but unless it does something as a rearguard, then all it's got is swinging for bigger numbers, which isn't hugely impressive. Nice, yes, but only if you can do it repeatedly and reliably. I definitely got the feeling that Team Shin Nippon was written and structured as if they were the protagonists. I like that, it gives me a reason to give a gently caress about any of 'em. The fights were pretty good, even if the main Shadow Paladin versus Murakumo one was kind of short, but this one was short because it went kind of fast, not because it was artificially truncated. Although Kazuma had two fuckups in there: the first was when he put Swordbreaker behind Morfessa and Abyssal Owl behind Uscias, because Uscias being boosted by a 6k or 7k didn't matter. Morfessa having a 6 or 7 behind her did matter. That didn't ultimately matter, though, because Morfessa got Quintet Walled, and I think there was enough shield there to stop it either way. The other fuckup was stop running loving draw triggers you would've won if that were a critical. Anyway, next week is going to be interesting, because Sugiru Kariya the Link Joker using punk from the original Team Demise (yes, I had to look up his name) is coming back. Between this and the Link Joker user on Team Shin Nippon, are we getting more Star-vader stuff? If we get more Deletor stuff, it won't be in the show, because that was a very specific bit of plot for the movie (also Deletors, while cool, are complete garbage). Also... Blaze Dragon posted:Goddamn Team Shin Nippon is really anime. Hot-blooded, not too intelligent, but very magnetic protagonist (and apparently bi?), cool-headed but secretly passionate second in command, and a loonie as the third. So it wasn't just me who noticed that!
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Jan 22, 2017 06:00
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 This was really cool but it doesn't make up for how terribly Tokoha is being treated this season. Between Tokoha's current personality, the horrible lack of budget in this episode and Taiyou winning, I can't say I enjoyed it! Pretty much the only good thing was seeing Kariya having grown and become a pretty nice guy.
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Jan 29, 2017 03:29
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Blaze Dragon posted:Pretty much the only good thing was seeing Kariya having grown and become a pretty nice guy. Yeah. That was actually a surprisingly nice thing to see. It is good that after all of Kanzaki's POWER MEANS EVERYTHING, just about everyone from Royal branch has turned around. Well, aside from the obvious fringe case that we had to deal with all the way through Stride Gate. And it did remind me, again, about how Kanzaki's POWER mindset in and of itself was not really THAT bad. It was really the extent that he took it to. Essentially, "Strength is good" vs "STRENGTH IS ABSOLUTE". Striving to be more powerful, better than you were or are, is not a bad thing. But when that power lust becomes all encompassing, then we get to the situation that Royal Sanctuary was in back at the start of G. Blah blah blah, repeating obvious morals and lessons from much earlier, blah blah blah. ANYWAY, the actual episode at hand. Yeah, the Tokoha/Taiyou fight was nice to see in the sense of HOLY poo poo NUMBERS! on Tokoha's part. But that aside, holy poo poo can they stop taking a proverbial dump on her for ONE moment? Also, seeing Kamui get the hilarious "I'mma do my Stand Everything thing now with good numbers. Have fun Guarding. GG." on Kariya was a nice break from the main fight. As well as the aforementioned Kariya seemingly being a chill, friendly dude now. I really hope they do SOMETHING better with Tokoha's arc soon. I will say that her whole Onimaru research and discovery about Miguel's connection to him is fine. After all, it's a means to help push her along in the sense of bettering herself after that major loss that also happened to Shion. But basically shutting her down IMMEDIATELY after finding all of that out, and sending her right back into the Drop Zone...if there's a better, plausible way to kill any personal momentum, I can't think of one. Lastly, I honestly don't have a huge problem with Taiyou. I mean, sure, he didn't really deserve the Team Main Character spot he was given during Ryuzu's whole Stride Gate plot. But he is still the one character that Chrono pretty much directly helped that has stuck around as a friend (albeit not as much as Shion and Tokoha for obvious team reasons). He's had a bit of his own growth, even if it was related to the WORST character from The Company (Seriously, that kid really was a little poo poo, but we don't need to remember him). And him having been a good bit of a hanger-on aside (mostly due to writing), he's not that bad. I mean, yeah, having this fight happen when it did was really bad for Tokoha. But there's not really too much that can be done about it due to plot convenience/contrivance and how the U20 works, and whatever. But hey, I could be completely wrong about how I'm thinking. Maybe I'm remembering things wrong considering it's been quite a while since G started. And I'll even fully admit that I did end up skipping a lot of early G, jumping back in after you guys said it got better. Only going back to watch the Team Caesar episode because I so missed them. And I still do. I want new Super Dimensional Robo cards. I don't actually even play the card game itself, but I so want them to be a thing again. I miss Daiyusha and Daikaiser. 
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Jan 29, 2017 15:07
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About the only thing I can say about the episode that didn't get covered is that Favorite Champ, Victor loses two drive checks each time it stands, and that stacks. So the first swing gets three drive checks, the second swing gets one, and every swing after that gets you nothing. You can keep standing as many times as you want as long as you have cards to pay for it, though! But yeah, you guys covered it.Volfogg posted:I want new Super Dimensional Robo cards. I don't actually even play the card game itself, but I so want them to be a thing again. I miss Daiyusha and Daikaiser. You're in luck!  The Trinity Dragon character booster has three new Dimensional Robos, plus two reprints (one of which has not previously come to America). To save you digging, they are:
The reprints we already got is the break ride Daikaiser, and the one we didn't get is Dimensional Robo, Kaiser Grader. You know how you can use Shadowkaiser with Daikaiser to go into Great Daikaiser? This lets you do that with Kaizard into Daikaiser. If you have a shitload of free counterblast, you could in theory make your first attack against your opponent a crossbreaked Great Daikaiser: ride Kaizard, use Kaiser Grader to ride Daikaiser, use Shadowkaiser to ride Great Daikaiser, swing at their grade 1 with 23k, two critical, triple drive, and guard break that they're just going to take because holy poo poo if they got you at the five damage you need to pull this off on your first attack you have already lost. But hey, it's a thing you can do! And I suspect it's going to be the solution to one of those "win in one turn" puzzles in one of the Vanguard 3DS games. MechaCrash fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 16:23
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