Saturday, April 27, 2013

Ride to Victory Translation Part 3: Shop Tournament Round 1

←Part 2
Card Capital


Now, finally the shop tournament is beginning. To start with we'll announce the competition pairings. The first match of the first round will be [Player Name] versus Katsuragi Kamui!


Starting with the first round, you're the unlucky person that got matched with me, huh?



Nice to meet you.



N-U yo.



...I see. This is your first time joining the shop tournament. It's fine, man. After all, Kamui the great will loan you some cash. Let's fight with all our strength!


Kamui-san. You mean to say "a practice match."



PM yo...



R, really!? That's dangerous. I almost gave up this month's allowance.

The original joke is that Kamui was confusing 胸を貸してやる mune wo kashite yaru "to let a less skilled person practice on" with 金を貸してやる kane wo kashite yaru "to lend money." I almost gave up translating when I realized I would have to localize these.



Oh, boy...



OB yo...



Well, now that we've pulled ourselves together, this is the start of the first round. Both of you, do your best!


Even if you're nervous, it'll be okay. Relax, and your fight will go fine.



Let's go! Take a good look at Kamui the great's deck!



Kamui-san, do your best!


DYB!



Grade 0
x2 Battleraizer ST (FVG)
x3 Round Girl, Clara HT
Grade 1
x3 Death Army Guy
x1 The Screamin' and Dancin' Announcer, Shout
x2 Twin Blader
x2 Tough Boy 
Grade 2
x3 Genocide Jack
x3 King of Sword
Grade 3
x3 Asura Kaiser
x2 Death Metal Droid
(Above are the confirmed cards that we've seen; there are around 26 cards missing from this list, but until complete data can be assembled it should give you an idea of what to expect from Kamui.)

Kamui is the first opponent you'll encounter that has a retreating first vanguard. His AI favors moving it behind the vanguard, so that he doesn't have to dedicate a booster early on; because Death Army Guy is really a booster that he wants to save for his rearguards, Battleraizer helps him not have to worry about that until he hits grade 3 when he has more freedom of choice. The deck uses a lot of small counterblasts with Genocide Jack and Metal Droid, but is missing the unflipping engine from the early episodes of the anime. Genocide Jack is his preferred grade 2 ride, so be aware that because Jack gets +5000 when he's boosted by a Nova Grappler, he can pretty well take full advantage of his stand triggers by going in with rearguards at you first, then using Jack's power boost to nullify any triggers you damage check so that it still takes 15000 to fully stop. This also means that grade lock hurts him less than it would the other characters.

There doesn't seem to be any Death Army Lady in his deck for the practical reason that Kamui would have nothing to stand with Asura Kaiser's skill if he had an entire Death Army line going. Also note that his "worst case scenario" is a lot less worse than Izaki's, since that involves riding Death Metal who can still go 20-21000 each turn with a cheap counterblast, something that Kaiser cannot do. His main goal is to ride Kaiser, then field rearguards with Death Army Guy boosting; when Kaiser drive checks one of his grade 3s, he gets to stand the rearguard and Death Army Guy then stands himself, getting in an extra attack out of them at full-power. This gets really dangerous with Metal Droid, but because Kamui likes to dedicate to the field so early, his hand size is lower in the midgame and he ends up with a lot of grade 3s in hand when his strategy is going off, which makes defense harder to play for him. Because of this, you want to focus on stretching out the difference in damage, since while Kamui has a hard time defending once his damage zone expands, he has a very easy time replacing his rearguards. Battleraizer's ability to return to the deck also means that he maintains a high trigger ratio throughout the fight, but only on the offensive side of things.



I lost...you're pretty good.



Congratulations. You got through the first round!



It's our much-anticipated newcomer's debut. That was a fun fight just now.



All right, I decided! From now on I'm cheering for you.



W, wait Kamui-san!



WK!


It's fine. This girl's got good prospects. Do your best from now on!


←Part 2