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H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 13 08:47 PM UTC:Poor ★

The Drunk Elephant was removed at the advent of drops for a reason. When royals in Shogi reach the promotion zone it becomes practically impossible to checkmate them: they can be easily defended by surrounding them with Tokins, which are easily obtained by dropping Pawns around them and moving those once. The Tokins will protect each other, and form an unbreakable wall, which only gives you Pawns in hand  when you try to sacrifice your way through it. And Shogi pieces are quite weak when they have to attack backwards to begin with; the cheapest pieces (Lance and Knight) would likely not be able to attack the castle in the promotion zone at all.

With a Drunk Elephant you can quite easily promote it by dropping it in the promotion zone, and if both players do that the game is an almost certain draw. That you can allow your King to be captured once you have a Prince in the zone, and then drop that in the zone too makes the game totally unwinnable.


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