Cardfight Vanguard 20 – dragons vs undead pirates

Kai's level 0 vanguard.

Cardfight! Vanguard episode 20 covers match two of the regional tournament’s final round. Kai faces off against the member of team Handsome that says “Kaboom” (or zapaing, or something) a lot. Since Kai is the most awesomest player, there was never much of a chance that he would lose, but the match gave Aichi an opportunity to learn a thing or two by watching the master at work.

Zombie lookout -- Kaboom-kun's level 0 vanguard.

While this episode predominately concerns Kai’s match in the final round round of the regional final, Kai first gives Aichi some incentive to stick around despite his pre-fight jitters. Kai then proceeds to destroy his opponent despite Kaboom-kun’s protests that previous experience fighting at the national level makes him nearly invincible.

As you can see, the Gran Blue deck has an undead pirate theme.

As I guessed last week, Kai’s opponent is fighting with the same Gran Blue deck that Nagisa’s brother uses. As Aichi watches Kai’s fight, then, he gets a better understanding of how to fight against such an opponent. Kai even subtly gives Aichi a hint, by guiding him into closely watching the game, during which Aichi recognizes a critical tactic, Captain Nightmist’s counterblast let’s him return a card from the drop zone, creating a regenerative cycle, which provides the Gran Blue fighter more attacks. Aichi fell to this tactic in his battle against Nagisa’s brother in an earlier episode. Now Aichi knows that his opponent is not unstoppable, and won’t be taken by surprise with the regeneration tactic.

Ultra Rare, are they really just an idol group?

In the meantime, Ultra Rare watch the match from their break room. They say that their responsibilities end when they hand out the award to the winning team. Is that really all there is? I’m still suspicious. Why do they have their own secret card shop with the super holographic Vanguard system, then? Even if Aichi’s match takes twice as long as Kai’s or Kamui’s that would still leave extra time at the end of the season. It just seems there is another shoe here, waiting to drop.