I asked the player, Joshua Whearry his thoughts on the game Battle spirits since his journey playing the game recently. Here are his thoughts:

“What are my thoughts on Battle Spirits (BSS)? That's a bit of a difficult question to answer, being so new to the IP and all. I have experience in various card games-- Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Pokemon, Cardfight Vanguard (CFV), Shadow Verse, Magic the Gathering (MTG) and even experience creating two TCGs; but it's still a bit hard to pin down what I think about Battle Spirits.

All of those games are uniquely different in how they hadle resources and determining the winner. Yu-Gi-Oh, MTG, and Shadow Verse use some form of life and when it runs down to 0 a winner is determined. Pokemon, Digimon, and Cardfight Vanguard all use cards from the deck as life. Pokemon used cards as "prizes," Digimon has it's shields, and Vanguard takes damage-- all of which come from the deck at the start of or during the game.

Resources kind of follow a similar ebb and flow. Yu-Gi-Oh uses no resources, but has restrictions on when cards can be played. MTG, Pokemon, Vanguard, and Shadowverse as use a seperate form of counter as resources-- lands, energy, counterblasting (a mechanic that uses turning damage facedown), and play points as resource. Battle Spirits is unique in that it uses cores to respresent both life and resource. As if that wasn't enough, none of the other games need anything to sustain a creature; but BSS is different in that cores represent everything the game has to offer, and is used to do pretty much everything in the game.

That's something that takes a bit of getting used to. Use too many cores summoning, and you won't be able to play spells or Nexus'. Want to play spells, you may have to limit how wide your board is. Creatures also gain levels through cores, so units are weaker with less cores and more powerful with more. It's honestly a lot to think about. I've learned in playing BSS that a lot of previous TCG experience could mean diddly squat when translated to BSS. Sure, it will help with decision making-- something other members of Battlecore and previously the Core Knights will tell you is my calling card-- but not much else.

It's taken a bit of time to get used to core management, and it's something that sets BSS apart from other games in that you don't have to worry about so much when managing your resources. I've only played in one major tournament. Battle Spirits version of regional events, the Grand Open, and somehow I managed to qualify for their national event called ProFest. Despite that accomplishment, I can still say this game is an entirely different animal-- and I'm not quite comfortable with it. With Vanguard, I reached a point where I knew I was a top tier player. This game keeps me on my toes.

That being said, like I said earlier a couple of things of transferred nicely. In Vanguard we had something called "magic numbers," which were basically the sweet spots of where you wanted your attacking power or defensive power to be to make your opponent use more resources or for you to use less resources defending. In BSS, there's a point threshold where the power caps off at each level. Level 1 is around 4k, Level 2 is around 8k, and Level 3 is north of 10000-- meaning if I want to take on a creature I know just about where to expect my power to be at each level based on the cost of the card. It's all complicated tech stuff that I'm sure the masses already understand... right? Right?

You're gonna make me say it, huh? Basically, if you wanna hit certain cards consistently, then you've gotta hit those numbers-- and you plan around it in your destruction effect selection, board disruption, etc, etc. Simple, yeah?

Overall, I think Battle Spirits is a game that's a bit harder to get into than other ones and has a very high skill ceiling. I don't think it will ever reach "Big 3" status. Pokemon, MTG, and Yu-Gi-Oh have a pretty firm hold  on those spots; but I think it's a game that could cosistently be in that second tier where Vanguard exists. We won't talk about One Piece TCG as depending on who you talk to it can fall just about anywhere on that spectrum; but it's pretty uniform between all card players who the top dogs are.

I'll be in Florida for Profest in January, and I've struggled to build confidence in the game as a whole because it's so complicated-- so if you're reading those and wondering whether you want to get into the game, I say go for it. It has a bigger learning curve, but I think it's definitely worth it if you can stick through the growing pains. It has been for me. Maybe I'll be World Champion the next time you hear from me!”

-Joshua Whearry

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