Thursday, July 18, 2013

Ride to Victory Translation Part 9: Regional Tournament, Round 1

Part 10 (Upcoming)→
Regional Tournament Hall


Finally, the regional tournament is beginning. Everyone's support brought you here.


Is Kourin-chan here!?


What, you came too Lose-umi?



Aa, Kourin-chaan!



Tch, listen to him.


This place is bigger than I thought. Are you nervous?



I'm sure you'll be fine. If you fight like always, I know you'll have good results.



Everyone, thank you for waiting. At last, we are opening the third block of the Ride to Victory Regional Tournament. The veteran fighters who have each won their shop tournaments have gathered here! In the hot fights unfolding here, who will seize the laurel of victory!? Doctor O-san is here for commentary. I'm getting excited just thinking about it.



Yes. It's quite heardpounding.



Observing the condition of the fights is me, MC Miya. I will send you all a full, live broadcast. Now then, the first round is a match between Card Capital's representative [Player Name] and Yahagi Kyou.



What are you supposed to be? I've never seen your face around here before.


You're not my opponent. Send out Sendou Aichi or Kai Toshiki!


Uh-oh! Yahagi is suddenly provoking his opponent!



So-o exciting.



Well, whatever. I'll deal with you quickly, win and then go on up!




「俺様のターン!」
 "It's the Great Kyou's turn!"
Grade 0
x1 Mecha Trainer (FVG)
x2 Cheer Girl, Marylin HT
x3 Cheerful Lynx DT
x1 Silence Joker CT
x2 Sonic Breaker CT
Grade 1
x1 Wonder Boy
x3 Dudley Dan
x2 Spike Brothers Assault Squad
x1 Cheer Girl, Tiara
Grade 2
x2 Highspeed Brakki
x2 Devil Summoner
Grade 3
x2 Juggernaut Maximum
x4 Sky Diver
(Above are the confirmed cards that we've seen; there are around 24 cards missing from this list, but until complete data can be assembled it should give you an idea of what to expect from Kyou.)

Kyou is running a variation of his Spike Brothers deck, based on his appearance at the anime's first regional tournament. The goal of the deck is to set the field up with Mecha Trainer's search skill and Dudley Dan's counterblast 2 early on, then use a rearguard Sky Diver's skill to set up a chain of consecutive attacks, sacrificing card advantage by moving Diver into the soul when his attack hits to call another Spike Brothers, ideally Juggernaut Maximum. Maximum and Brakki can both soulblast when they attack to get +5000 more power and then cycle back into the deck, creating a string of powerful rearguard lines. There are a lot of issues with the strategy though--first, Kyou has no good grade 3 for the vanguard circle, as they're all 11000 power units with no skills outside of the rearguard circles. Second, Kyou's deck has a lot of weak rearguards, with the 8000 power Devil Summoner, 4000 power Dan and Assault Squad, which makes for an easy defense on your part.

The third issue is how conservative his AI is. Kyou never actually uses his units' skills. He tries to save his counterblast for either Dan or Mecha Trainer but doesn't seem to prioritize them, so whenever he judges whether or not to use one he decides to save it for the other. So he's not actually going to try and set up his field, or use his counterblast at all, and he'll almost always judge using Sky Diver's soul-in or Juggernaut Maximum's deck cycle as too much of a loss in resources at any given moment moment. The AI playing mindgames with itself means that it's harder to lose to Kyou than to win against him, as he's effectively playing with very weak vanilla rearguards and a vanguard line that can't do anything.

In the games where he does do something, there's still a lot that can go wrong with his strategy, as damage checking triggers throws the whole thing off, as do higher-power units that can't be hit by some of the rearguards that he'll call with Sky Diver.



Th, this can't be...there has to be some kind of mistake...that's right. It's decided. Hahaha, hahahaha...I think this is my victory! Uwaaaa!


Oh, Yahagi has run away! The first round is over. The winner, [Player Name]! Having won, it's decided that in the second round [Player Name] will face Usui Yuri.


Phew. It was nerve-wracking, but you did it.



The victory bells are ringing! My disciple.



That's why she's NOT your disciple.



The regional tournament is only just beginning. Do your best.

Part 10 (Upcoming)→