Lol she got cocky a near end but good she won. Think time for her to reveal herself. Can't wait for another guys reaction. Gentlemen is acutally a girl.

That was some BS spell card but it kinda fine i guess. Also we all know with the current brackets, noone gonna lose

Checkmate being a 0 cost spell that can give a 13/13>15/15 follower storm is a little too much. The card is still not in the game yet so I hope they balance it out when they add it to the game

Nice episode, good battle

finally, Shion/Gentleman got their first on-screen win

now with Shion's Chess Rune deck pretty much has been fully revealed, and with some of her cards having made it to the game, time for some comparison:

1. Magical Pawn
while in the anime it was a collectible card that is also generated by many other cards, the mobile game made it strictly a token . this means you can't have any copy of Magical Pawn itself in the deck.
the other difference is, Pawn in mobile game is not a 2/1 but rather a 1/1. to compensate, it has Rush on default and does become 2/1 after 8 other allied Pawns have left the field with no "attack becomes 1 after attacking" drawback. they don't gain Storm upon reaching this requirement in the mobile game however, while in anime it does. but it's not a big deal as you'll see later down this essay 👀

2. Magical Strategy
this is the 2pp spell that summons 2 pawns, but with enhance 6 that instead summon a Knight and a Bishop. in the mobile game, it doesn't have enhance and only summons 1 Pawn. they compensate this change twofold: it draws a card, and after 8 Pawns left the field it instead summon 2 Pawns and draw 2 cards.

3. Magical Rook
In anime, this summons 2 Pawns with Ward. It also has effect thay discounts highest cost cards in your hand when a Pawn is destroyed. It also can be played as 1pp spell using Accelerate to return all Pawns to your hand and buff Defense to your followers on play double the amount of returned Pawns, also give them Ward.
In mobile game, it only summons 2 Pawns without giving them Ward. It also has no Accelerate nor the discounting ability. It does, however, have Evolve effect that heals your leader by 2 and recovers 1 playpoint. So you can make more tempo play going second with evolving this card into any 2pp play turn 4.

4. Magical Knight
This will be the one getting most positive changes in mobile game.
in anime, it's 3pp 3/1 with Rush that creates a Pawn on attack. pretty weak all things considered.
so the mobile game dev decided to make it a 6pp 3/2 Storm that creates 2 Pawns upon being played. Also, its cost is reduced whenever a Pawn left the field while Knight is in your hand. Even with the Chess Rune deck in mobile game not having all their cards yet, it is very easy to make this a 0pp 3/2 that can attack enemy leader right away. the Pawns having Rush on base in mobile game also makes it a really great tempo swing as you can trade with enemy followers right away with the Pawns.

5. Mayti, Mystic Queen
Another card getting positive changes to mobile game.
in anime, it simply tutors a 1pp card from your deck to your hand. It also creates Pawns whenever you play a spell.
In mobile game, she doesn't tutor stuf. The Pawn creation is also limited to once per turn. However, it gains another once per turn ability to give you a Magical Strategy spell to your hand when a Pawn enters the field. To accomodate this ability, she gives a 0pp Pawn to your hand upon evolving. So the ideal turn 4 going second play would be Evolving Mayti, play the 0pp Pawn, then play a spell (which you'll guarantee to have bcos Mayti will give you Magical Strategy after playing the 0pp Pawn). she's even more of a Pawn factory in the mobile game, so to speak, despite the once per turn limitation on her abilities.

6. Mystic King
the big bad himself. in the anime, he starts with 20pp costs and you had to have him in his hand to get his costa reduces by your Pawns being destroyed. You have Rook to double the discount on each Pawn's destruction, but it will still be a long process to get him playable. and even when you do, you need Evolve to get him to summon 4 Pawns instead of just 2. and if he's destroyed, you lose the game.

the mobile game fixed ALL of these problems. First, he starts with 13pp costs instead of 20 (originally he costs 16pp when first implemented a week ago, but quickly gets buffed to lower costs). this alone is a massive cut in costs and thus playability. next, they change the way his cost reduction works. instead of reducing 1 costs for each Pawn destroyed when he's in your hand, it instead reduces its costs by 8 at your end of turn when he's in your hand and you alrdy have at least 8 Pawns left the field. this is massive change bcos it doesn't demand you to have King at your starting hand. you just need to have him around the time you will reach the Pawn requirement. btw, the Pawn requirement specifically says "leave play" and not "destroyed". As you see in this episode, Shinobu uses a boardwipe banish to remove Shion's Pawns, resulting them in leaving the board but not counted as being destroyed. This doesn't affect mobile game King bcos being banished also counts as leaving play. being returned to your hand is also leaving play. basically the only counter to this mechanism is transforming the Pawns, and transformation effect is very rare in this game let alone one that hits multiple targets.
mobile game King also summons all 4 Pawns when you play it without having to evolve. in fact, he has no evolve effect. he also doesn't have the game-losing Last Words, so having mobile game King destroyed doesn't result in insta-lose.
now the kicker: mobile game King has additional effect, where it buffs Pawns that enter the field with +1/+1 and Storm. this results in giving you board of 13/13 (King) and 4 3/2 Pawns that can attack leader directly.

now with all that being said, the deck still lacks power compared to Rune's other strategies currently in Rotation (spellboost and earth rite), but it also feels that it might just need 1 or 2 cards to either make it have more aggression or to speed up the Pawn generation process. Magical Bishop, Blitz, Battery, and Checkmate has not yet being implemented to the mobile game so it is a guarantee that Chess Rune will get more support in the future.

getting King to your hand is also not as much of a problem in the mobile game bcos you have access to more great draw spells, one of which can even tutor the king specifically as it adds highest costs Runecraft follower in your deck to your hand and discounts its costs by 2 (https://svgdb.me/cards/1233... ). all in all, the mobile game devs managed to make Chess Rune has the potential to be the next rune playstyle for future meta.

Very late but I want to point out that Anime mystic king reduces its cost in deck as well. When you draw it from your deck its cost is reduced by the amount of pawns that got destroyed THEN it also gets reduced whenever one gets destroyed while it is on your hand as well. Its cost reduction doesn't require it to be in your hand unless you want to use Rook to cost it down further

Ok, good to go

I'm currently reading*

You're so kind to recommend .

Worst character got the worst win

Based about worst character.