Gai-Asuras

Gai-Asura (ガイ・アスラ) is an archetype of Red Spirits and Ultimates first introduced in BS10. It only has few members, but its significance in the game and anime allows it to remain memorable to the players. In the anime, Otherworld King from Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan and Hansoro from Saikyo Ginga Ultimate Zero Battle Spirits are the main users of this archetype.
== Etymology ==
The name "Gai-Asura" is a combination of "Gaia", a Greek primordial deity personifying the Earth, and "Asura", a class of beings in Indian religions, which is described as power-seeking. The name is further represented by Gai-Asura's representation of the Earth in the Astral Deity family, and its destructive design and nature in both the anime and the card lore.
== Play Style ==
Beginning from the first Gai-Asura card, The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura, the archetype carries on possessing the keyword Ultra Awaken, making the deck leaning on finishing games by continuous attacks. As Gai-Asura is very high cost, and the amount of cores needed for Ultra Awaken depends on match-ups, causing the original deck to often mix with Green for more core boost or White for a steady development. Being in the Astral Dragon family, Gai-Asura has plenty of support from the Red sides. There are also a lot of general Red Nexuses which can relieve the summon cost, such as The Wandering Sky Temple.
However, the need of multiple Flash Timings gives the opponent plenty of chances for all kinds of counters. Gai-Asura may also suffer under "destroy on refresh" effects such as that of The Crown of the Starlit Sky. Core lock and refresh lock from the opponent can also shut down the deck completely. Also, with the nature of unable to remove cores from Gai-Asura, there is a need to monitor spare cores for any kind of defence in case a lethal attack fails, adding to the difficulty of piloting the deck.
During the Ultimate era, Ultimate-Gai-Asura is introduced, going towards a slightly different direction than the original Gai-Asura. Instead of continuous refresh, this Gai-Asura is given life burn and Spirit-recycling effects, shaped for a Red control deck. The idea is to attack with Ultimate-Gai-Asura once per turn, slowly diminishing the opposing Life through life burn. However, as a result, the deck became too slow for the meta at that moment, especially since the Purple/White deck and Purple Rush deck were still around.
At the start of True Rebirth era, The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura X, which can flip into The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura X -Lucent Rebirth-, is introduced, and is the most updated Gai-Asura deck which can still be seen in the latest meta environment. Besides the Astral Deity and Astral Dragon families, Gai-Asura X is also given the Primal family, extending its utility to one of the newest supports. With the help of The Phantom Star Creation Place, which can change Gai-Asura X's cost to Cost 6, unlike the original deck, this deck does not put in too much effort on stalling the game for enough cores. The Red Primal deck in nature often consists a lot of Nexuses, so it is not hard to stack six Red reductions on the field for a Cost 0 Gai-Asura X summon. The B side of Gai-Asura X also introduces two new keywords, Phantom Return and Phantom Awaken. Phantom Return, in short, allows Gai-Asura X to stay on field when destroyed; while Phantom Awaken allows it to also take the cores from the Counter Area to refresh, eliminating the absolute need of another Spirit on the field. The Red Primal cards have a variety of counter effects, such as negating White effects and preventing the end of Attack Step, making the continuous attack easier to become lethal.
== Trivia ==
* This archetype had hold records in many aspects of the game, but most of these records have been broken by other newer cards.
** The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura is the first card with Lv4.
** The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura was also once the Spirit with highest BP, but was easily broken by a powercreep of BP during the Burning Legend era, where there were five Spirit cards having BP higher than 30000, with The WarParamount MaximumDragon having 999999 BP, remaining as the card with the highest BP up to this day.
** Ultimate-Gai-Asura is the first card with Lv5.
** Ultimate-Gai-Asura was also once the card with the highest BP, but again this was broken by MaximumDragon. However, the record still holds if only counting the Ultimate cards.
* Slave-GaiAsura is not considered in the archetype as it is missing the interpunct in the Japanese name (represented by a dash in the English name).
* The Rebirth of Gai-Asura X is a reference to a scene in the anime Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan, when Otherworld King's key card, which was supposed to be The EarthDragonDeity Gai-Asura, changes its appearance to The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura when levelled up to Lv4.
** This scene is also the first moment in the anime where a card changes its appearance purely for aesthetic reasons, without the help of any game mechanics.
== See Also ==
*List of "Gai-Asura"-named cards
*List of "Gai-Asura" supports
*
Category:Archetype