Yes, but the heroes need to lose at least once. That is one of Wizard's biggest failings. Haruto never lost. It would have made far more sense to have him lose, someone becomes a Phantom, and that be the reason for the Infinity stone being created.

Him being Zero feels much more like a catalyst for the bigger character progression and not the be all end all of his development. We have more than 30 episodes ahead of us so Chase is most definitely not done yet.

In regards to the Roidmudes. Why is it a problem that they are not slaughtering humans left and right? During the Global Freeze they tried exactly that and were completely beaten by one single person. Of course they dont try the same again now that they have to face Kamen Rider again especially since Drive is much more powerful than Proto-Drive was and he even has help now thanks to Mach being there.

Going into an all out attack would be the most dumbest thing the Roidmudes could ever do. Sitting back, hiding and trying to evolve unnoticed so that they can get stronger than the Riders is much more intelligent on their part.

Except they weren't supposed to make more Phantoms. Fueki didn't need Phantoms, he needed Wizards. The entire point of the Phantoms was to find three more Wizards; if that didn't work, Fueki didn't want to risk having another Phoenix or Gremlin come along that could potentially interfere with his plan.

You're right, but neither Medusa nor the other Phantoms (except maybe Gremlin) knew this. Meaning they sucked at their job, big time.

Also, I believe while the exact plan was to find Wizards, making Phantoms wasn’t a disadvantage, but part of the plan. The thing Fueki wanted was to make as many Gates as possible to fall into despair, and find those strong enough to chain their inner phantoms so they develop the potential to become Wizards.

His plan was obviously to make as many Phantoms as possible in his Carbunkle-form, and if a Gate would show potential he would just port in as the White Wizard and "save" them.

It's not like he chose the most incompetent Phantoms so Haruto could defeat them and save the Gates all the time.

Yes, but we did not need the series to spend 45 episodes on a group that was utterly pointless. They should have gotten rid of the Phantoms by the halfway mark since they did not need to exist.

It's a shame the Phantoms' origins would've explained more if they were connected to OOO's time since the Philosopher's stone thing.

And of course Fueki would've discovered the Phantoms if they were actually monsters sealed away by ancient mages long ago, and Fueki would've made a deal with one of them if they help him revive his daughter.

Just a theory.

I actually dont mind the origin the Phantom had in the actual show. There was lots of untapped potential in that the Phantom would eventually find out that they are just a byproduct of Fueki experiments and having three groups working against each other in the end. With Fueki, Haruto and the other Phantom all working against each other.

But this sadly never happened.

I would've been better off if the Phantoms were actually monsters based on mythical creatures sealed away by ancient mages (the ones who sealed Chimaera).

In Fueki's case though, one of the Phantoms (if not Gremlin, but someone else) spoke to him and that they would help him fulfill his dream of reviving his sick daughter if they had him find a way to release them. Either as a full-fledged Phantom or a Gate sealing some of them to become mages themselves.

Meh. Rather have something new than the generic and rider typical "They were ancient monsters sealed away hundreds of years ago" storyline.

Good point.

That said, I still can't get behind the idea that gaining information from duplicating a pervert, painter, or author forwards their goals in any way. What are the exact logistics there? How do they decide who to copy and how it will give them any of the data they need? On top of that, how does simply helping a human instead of copying them accomplish anything at all? These are things I've had trouble understanding since episode 1.