XD
Friday, March 2, 2012
Oh Yugi
Haven't been keeping with our update schedule as planned because of crazy all up and down going on. So here's Yugi being out of character to tide ya'll over!
XD
XD
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Yu-Gi-Oh! Solitaire (or, as my kid brother likes to call it, AUTO-OPPONENT BLAST!)
For a while now, I've been considering how one would create a Yu-Gi-Oh! solitaire format. After some inspiration from a Magic: The Gathering multiplayer format (here, if you're curious) and some experimenting, I've come up with a basic structure that I think makes for a robust single-player game. Note that this format probably won't be helpful in improving your gameplay against a living opponent; there are no allowances for bluffing, metagaming, or other psychological aspects. The (imaginary) opponent is rock-dumb by necessity; it can't "reason," but instead relies on a set of "instincts" (rules) that I have provided. Feel free to experiment with your own variations (and even to share).
One key to a format of this nature is that it should be intuitive; I've tried to make this as much so as possible. I've helped my kid brother (who is 10) play it a few times, and he seems to have picked up on the basics pretty quickly. (At any rate, he always realizes right away when the opponent is likely to have a big turn.) Something that amazes me a bit about the format is that many of the cards that feel like well-balanced cards for it are actually some of the worst cards in the game. (If you want a sampling, either of cards I've actually put into the experimental version of the deck or cards I think potentially would work [possibly, in fringe cases, with additional rule suggestions], ask in the comments.)
The key here, of course, is to have fun, especially with cards that you wouldn't necessarily do anything with otherwise. While it can be wearing, the (imaginary) opponent can provide an interesting and unique experience, as it is innately powerful and relentless, even with a huge pile of weak cards.
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REQUIRED MATERIALS:
-For the opponent:
A large number of Monster cards. (Preferably, Normal Monsters and effectless Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, and Xyz Monsters, and Effect Monsters with simple effects that don't require any decision making processes.) These are the opponent's Deck. Do not separate out Extra Deck Monsters; they go in the opponent's Main Deck. When I say "a large number," we're talking a hundred or more-forty cards is almost certainly too few (although older versions I experimented with needed more cards, I've streamlined things a bit so that fewer cards are more viable) unless you're going to experiment with some of the odder variations.
A standard Duel mat.
-For you:
A playable Yu-Gi-Oh! deck.
A way to track your Life Points. (I recommend keeping a calculator on hand.)
You play as normal; it's your (imaginary) opponent who plays by special rules.
RULE 1: SHIELDS
At the start of the game, put the top five cards of the opponent's Deck face down in the opponent's Magic/Spell/Trap Zones. These are the opponent's Shields. If you've ever played Duel Masters, you'll be familiar with the general idea, but there are some differences here.
When attacking the opponent directly, pick a Shield. That Shield is flipped up, and your attacking Monster's ATK are compared to the Shield Monster's ATK and DEF. If the Shield's ATK OR DEF are higher than the attacking Monster's, the Shield isn't destroyed. If your attacking Monster has lower ATK, it is destroyed. (No damage is inflicted... unless you want to raise the difficulty level. It's still a Damage Step regardless, so you could use cards like Honest normally.)
Shield Monsters aren't treated as Monsters on the Field, and can't be affected by any card effects. (I suppose you could have effects for these Monsters applied, especially if you want to up the difficulty level; just keep in mind that there's no way to counter those effects except get rid of the Shields.)
The opponent has no Life Points. Instead, once you have destroyed all the opponent's Shields, you must simply attack directly one more time to win.
This rule exists primarily to simplify the things you need to keep track of. Only one Life Point total is much easier to track, especially if you're masochistic like me and try to do it in your head. Note that it means your Deck will need to be more focused on battle than your usual play style might be.
RULE 2: OPPONENT SUMMONING PROCESS
The opponent doesn't draw cards or have a hand. (If cards would somehow be added to the opponent's hand, instead they're placed in random order on top of the opponent's Deck.)
Depending on the number of Monsters you control and the number of Monsters the opponent controls (remember, don't count the Shields!), the opponent begins one of two automatic Summoning procedures. The opponent never needs to meet any Summoning requirements of any kind.
If you have any Monsters that are face down, it will place all Monsters in attack mode. It will place all Monsters that have a higher ATK than the current weakest stat among your face up Monsters in attack mode. If it has any Monsters that meet those requirements in defense mode from previous turns, it will switch them to attack mode, too; if it has any Monsters that are weaker than any of your Monsters and have a higher DEF than ATK, it will switch them to defense mode. (Take any stat changes that Monsters may have into account during this process.) Any Monsters it does not choose to Summon in attack mode are summoned in defense mode.
If you choose to give the opponent Flip Effect Monsters or other Monsters with effects that activate when flipped, have it Set them instead (but keep in mind that there shouldn't be any decision-making effects, so the flip effects that actually make sense for the opponent are few and far between).
-SWARM!: If you control more Monsters than the opponent, the opponent Swarms. Start this process by placing the top card of the opponent's Deck face up in the Extra Deck Zone. Check that card's Level or Rank. Then, start taking cards from the top of the opponent's Deck and Special Summoning them, up to the Level/Rank of the card you put in the Extra Deck Zone. If the opponent runs out of Monster Zones and there are still more cards left, put the next card in the Field Zone, and then stop the process. Once you complete this process, put all cards other than the top card of the Extra Deck Zone and the Field Zone that are in those Zones in the opponent's Graveyard.
-SIEGE!: If the opponent controls an equal or greater number of Monsters, the opponent Sieges. If the opponent has an open Monster Zone, the top card of the opponent's Deck is Summoned. Count that card's Level/Rank, and pick up cards from the top of the opponent's Deck equal to that number (if it isn't, put the top card of the opponent's Deck in the Field Zone in the same way you would if Swarming). Attach any cards with the same Attribute as the Summoned Monster to that Monster; these Monsters have their ATK/DEF added to that Monster's. (Don't treat them as Equipment cards, even though that's essentially what they are; just imagine that they're part of the Monster.) This effect can't be negated because it doesn't come from a card, and so regardless of effects such as Imperial Order, Jinzo, or Skill Drain, this stat boost remains. If you want to reduce difficulty somewhat, you can choose to ignore this effect, or to ignore the Swarm procedure (which actually makes games drag out much longer). If you want to raise the difficulty and you're having the opponent use Effect Monsters, you can have the Siege-attached Monsters' effects be added to the Siege Summoned Monsters.
-PURE INSANITY!: For greater difficulty, instead of using the above rules, have the opponent use the Siege Summon procedure, and *then* additionally use the Swarm Summon procedure. (For a slightly lower level of difficulty, have the opponent Swarm, then Siege. Why is it lower difficulty this way? The Siege Summons will be successful less often.) For the highest and most ridiculous level of difficulty possible, use the Swarm Summon procedure, but treat each Monster the opponent Summons as if it has been Siege Summoned.
-STORM!: As an addendum, if you're wondering why you're sticking Monsters in the Extra Deck and Field Zones, it's because of this rule. The ATK/DEF of Monsters whose Attributes match the Attribute of the Monster in the Field Zone are increased by the ATK/DEF of that Monster. To reduce the difficulty, you can ignore this rule (even if the Monsters you give the opponent are weak, they can be quite strong with this effect going), or choose to have Storm only be active if the Attribute of the Monster in the Extra Deck Zone matches the Attribute of the Field Zone Monster.
Note that any cards you have that would interact with the opponent's Extra Deck/Field Zone cards don't interact with these cards, as they aren't following the normal rules for those Zones.
-A note on Xyz Monsters: Obviously, they won't naturally have a way to get their Xyz Materials if you're using these methods. A few possible rules for giving Xyz Monsters their Materials for the opponent:
+If you don't mind the Swarm Summoned Xyz Monsters being at full power, just have all the opponent's Xyz Monsters randomly attach cards from the Graveyard or the top of the Deck equal to their default number of Materials to them.
+If you like the idea of the Siege Summoned Monsters having their full potential effects or more, you can either use the above method only for Siege Summoned Monsters, or have any cards that fail to attach for the Siege stat boost be attached as Xyz Material instead/additionally.
RULE 3: OPPONENT'S BATTLE PHASE
Once the opponent has gone through the turn's Summoning process, the opponent starts attacking. The weakest Monster that can attack attacks a random face down Monster you control (assuming one exists) or the weakest face up Monster you control (randomly choosing between equally weak Monsters). If the opponent controls multiple Monsters with the same ATK, one is randomly selected to attack. If there are no face up Monsters that have an equal or lower ATK or a lower DEF among your Monsters to a Monster that would attack by this procedure, that Monster doesn't attack. If your Field is empty, the opponent attacks with all Monsters, starting with the weakest and working up to the strongest.
Note that this would probably be a robust procedure for programming an AI opponent in a computer game, although not necessarily a smart procedure.
RULE 4: VICTORY
Obviously, if you manage to eliminate all the opponent's Shields and then attack directly again, you win. However, a few other notes are important:
-For a lower difficulty level, have the opponent lose when it decks out, or have it simply sit and do nothing when it would Summon. If the opponent's Deck is particularly thin, I wouldn't necessarily suggest this method.
-For a higher difficulty level, whenever the opponent runs out of cards, pause in the middle of whatever procedure you're performing to shuffle the opponent's Graveyard and replace the Deck with it. This can potentially turn the game into a survival game, as getting through all the opponent's Monsters is difficult when Swarming happens every turn. It also might be a way to allow a thinner opponent Deck to last longer; perhaps you could set some kind of limit, or have the opponent lose a Shield whenever it recycled, and if it has no Shields, it can't recycle.
-For the highest difficulty level, YOU lose when the opponent decks out. I came up with this when the first ever game of the format, in much cruder form, stalled out and the opponent was effectively stalling almost indefinitely despite having lost all its Shields thanks to massive Swarm Summons every turn; if the opponent is weak for whatever reason, this can spice things up a bit.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
-Since I don't mention it elsewhere: You take the first turn.
-Many cards are useless for your Deck in this format. Don't bother with cards like Trap Hole (which only works on Normal Summoned Monsters, although there are fringe cases where it would do something, but I wouldn't recommend it) or Mystical Space Typhoon (your opponent has no Magic/Spell/Trap cards, remember?). Focus on ways to eliminate as many Monsters as possible and then swing in directly with as many Monsters as possible. Also note that certain cards, such as Spirit Reaper and Gravity Bind, are potentially very unfair because the opponent generally has no way to get around them. If you do use cards with long-term defensive effects, it'd be fairer and more fun to stick with cards with once-or-twice per turn effects, such as Fortress Warrior or Scrap-Iron Scarecrow.
-Note that the format has an easy way to increase or decrease the difficulty level of the opponent just by changing up the composition of the opponent's Monsters. More matching Attributes lead to bigger Siege Monsters and Storm effects, and higher Levels/Ranks lead to bigger Swarms and Siege Monsters. If you're having the opponent lose/cease Summoning when it decks out, a thicker Deck will also increase difficulty, although it will decrease difficulty if you're a bit crazy and want the opponent to auto-win when it decks out.
-If you want the opponent to use Effect Monsters and Magic/Spell/Trap cards, keep in mind that they must be simple ones, and you should use the following simple rules and procedures... but note that they add an additional layer of complexity (especially Magic/Spell/Trap Cards).
-Effect Monsters should have effects that don't require decision making, such as paying costs or selecting targets. You can choose to ignore costs for some cards, but others just wouldn't work without costs (e.g., if Cannon Soldier had its cost eliminated, it'd just kill you instantly whenever it was Summoned). Extremely simple decisions, such as "should I do this all-upside thing or not?" can be ignored, e.g. using Grenosaurus's effect, despite having a cost, is a no-brainer-if you can pay the cost, you're going to, and so the opponent always will. If you must have the opponent use targeting effects, have it select the strongest Monster (in terms of its current battle stat) on your Field (if a negative effect) or its own (if a positive effect), or perhaps experiment to see what works best for you.
-Magic/Spell/Trap cards are a slightly more complex issue. I'd suggest that, if you use them, you should keep them simple (Fissure, Dark Hole, etc.) and don't choose any cards for the opponent that have specific timing requirements, as few of those cards make sense at other times. If you're having the opponent use them, during Summoning procedures, if a M/S/T card is the first card flipped up, activate it and then treat the next card as the first card for the procedure. (This means that it will get tons of free activations if you give it lots of M/S/T cards.) During the procedure, whenever an M/S/T card would be "Summoned" or placed in the Field Zone by that procedure, instead activate it, and continue the procedure normally (it does count towards the number of Summons). You probably shouldn't use Continuous M/S/T cards at all, as they'd probably be awkward and confusing without proper Zones to put them in. If a M/S/T card is revealed as a Shield, have the opponent activate it immediately, and it goes to the Graveyard. If you have the opponent use Trap Monsters, treat them as Monsters for the process (ones with timing requirements for the effects that let them be Summoned aren't good choices).
-To make it more fun, while the main purpose of the format is obviously to play a game by yourself, you can form a team of players all up against the opponent. You can ramp up the opponent as necessary; the only way to determine how strong it needs to be is experiment. However, I'm pretty sure it can scale up to a pretty high number of players easily.
-If you're having trouble figuring out how to do something, feel free to ask about it. I think I've covered everything, but I'm hardly perfect.
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Well, there you go. A little late for Make Single People Feel Miserable Day, I guess...
(Once again, if you want to try this out, feel free to ask questions.)
-Signing off.
One key to a format of this nature is that it should be intuitive; I've tried to make this as much so as possible. I've helped my kid brother (who is 10) play it a few times, and he seems to have picked up on the basics pretty quickly. (At any rate, he always realizes right away when the opponent is likely to have a big turn.) Something that amazes me a bit about the format is that many of the cards that feel like well-balanced cards for it are actually some of the worst cards in the game. (If you want a sampling, either of cards I've actually put into the experimental version of the deck or cards I think potentially would work [possibly, in fringe cases, with additional rule suggestions], ask in the comments.)
The key here, of course, is to have fun, especially with cards that you wouldn't necessarily do anything with otherwise. While it can be wearing, the (imaginary) opponent can provide an interesting and unique experience, as it is innately powerful and relentless, even with a huge pile of weak cards.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQUIRED MATERIALS:
-For the opponent:
A large number of Monster cards. (Preferably, Normal Monsters and effectless Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, and Xyz Monsters, and Effect Monsters with simple effects that don't require any decision making processes.) These are the opponent's Deck. Do not separate out Extra Deck Monsters; they go in the opponent's Main Deck. When I say "a large number," we're talking a hundred or more-forty cards is almost certainly too few (although older versions I experimented with needed more cards, I've streamlined things a bit so that fewer cards are more viable) unless you're going to experiment with some of the odder variations.
A standard Duel mat.
-For you:
A playable Yu-Gi-Oh! deck.
A way to track your Life Points. (I recommend keeping a calculator on hand.)
You play as normal; it's your (imaginary) opponent who plays by special rules.
RULE 1: SHIELDS
At the start of the game, put the top five cards of the opponent's Deck face down in the opponent's Magic/Spell/Trap Zones. These are the opponent's Shields. If you've ever played Duel Masters, you'll be familiar with the general idea, but there are some differences here.
When attacking the opponent directly, pick a Shield. That Shield is flipped up, and your attacking Monster's ATK are compared to the Shield Monster's ATK and DEF. If the Shield's ATK OR DEF are higher than the attacking Monster's, the Shield isn't destroyed. If your attacking Monster has lower ATK, it is destroyed. (No damage is inflicted... unless you want to raise the difficulty level. It's still a Damage Step regardless, so you could use cards like Honest normally.)
Shield Monsters aren't treated as Monsters on the Field, and can't be affected by any card effects. (I suppose you could have effects for these Monsters applied, especially if you want to up the difficulty level; just keep in mind that there's no way to counter those effects except get rid of the Shields.)
The opponent has no Life Points. Instead, once you have destroyed all the opponent's Shields, you must simply attack directly one more time to win.
This rule exists primarily to simplify the things you need to keep track of. Only one Life Point total is much easier to track, especially if you're masochistic like me and try to do it in your head. Note that it means your Deck will need to be more focused on battle than your usual play style might be.
RULE 2: OPPONENT SUMMONING PROCESS
The opponent doesn't draw cards or have a hand. (If cards would somehow be added to the opponent's hand, instead they're placed in random order on top of the opponent's Deck.)
Depending on the number of Monsters you control and the number of Monsters the opponent controls (remember, don't count the Shields!), the opponent begins one of two automatic Summoning procedures. The opponent never needs to meet any Summoning requirements of any kind.
If you have any Monsters that are face down, it will place all Monsters in attack mode. It will place all Monsters that have a higher ATK than the current weakest stat among your face up Monsters in attack mode. If it has any Monsters that meet those requirements in defense mode from previous turns, it will switch them to attack mode, too; if it has any Monsters that are weaker than any of your Monsters and have a higher DEF than ATK, it will switch them to defense mode. (Take any stat changes that Monsters may have into account during this process.) Any Monsters it does not choose to Summon in attack mode are summoned in defense mode.
If you choose to give the opponent Flip Effect Monsters or other Monsters with effects that activate when flipped, have it Set them instead (but keep in mind that there shouldn't be any decision-making effects, so the flip effects that actually make sense for the opponent are few and far between).
-SWARM!: If you control more Monsters than the opponent, the opponent Swarms. Start this process by placing the top card of the opponent's Deck face up in the Extra Deck Zone. Check that card's Level or Rank. Then, start taking cards from the top of the opponent's Deck and Special Summoning them, up to the Level/Rank of the card you put in the Extra Deck Zone. If the opponent runs out of Monster Zones and there are still more cards left, put the next card in the Field Zone, and then stop the process. Once you complete this process, put all cards other than the top card of the Extra Deck Zone and the Field Zone that are in those Zones in the opponent's Graveyard.
-SIEGE!: If the opponent controls an equal or greater number of Monsters, the opponent Sieges. If the opponent has an open Monster Zone, the top card of the opponent's Deck is Summoned. Count that card's Level/Rank, and pick up cards from the top of the opponent's Deck equal to that number (if it isn't, put the top card of the opponent's Deck in the Field Zone in the same way you would if Swarming). Attach any cards with the same Attribute as the Summoned Monster to that Monster; these Monsters have their ATK/DEF added to that Monster's. (Don't treat them as Equipment cards, even though that's essentially what they are; just imagine that they're part of the Monster.) This effect can't be negated because it doesn't come from a card, and so regardless of effects such as Imperial Order, Jinzo, or Skill Drain, this stat boost remains. If you want to reduce difficulty somewhat, you can choose to ignore this effect, or to ignore the Swarm procedure (which actually makes games drag out much longer). If you want to raise the difficulty and you're having the opponent use Effect Monsters, you can have the Siege-attached Monsters' effects be added to the Siege Summoned Monsters.
-PURE INSANITY!: For greater difficulty, instead of using the above rules, have the opponent use the Siege Summon procedure, and *then* additionally use the Swarm Summon procedure. (For a slightly lower level of difficulty, have the opponent Swarm, then Siege. Why is it lower difficulty this way? The Siege Summons will be successful less often.) For the highest and most ridiculous level of difficulty possible, use the Swarm Summon procedure, but treat each Monster the opponent Summons as if it has been Siege Summoned.
-STORM!: As an addendum, if you're wondering why you're sticking Monsters in the Extra Deck and Field Zones, it's because of this rule. The ATK/DEF of Monsters whose Attributes match the Attribute of the Monster in the Field Zone are increased by the ATK/DEF of that Monster. To reduce the difficulty, you can ignore this rule (even if the Monsters you give the opponent are weak, they can be quite strong with this effect going), or choose to have Storm only be active if the Attribute of the Monster in the Extra Deck Zone matches the Attribute of the Field Zone Monster.
Note that any cards you have that would interact with the opponent's Extra Deck/Field Zone cards don't interact with these cards, as they aren't following the normal rules for those Zones.
-A note on Xyz Monsters: Obviously, they won't naturally have a way to get their Xyz Materials if you're using these methods. A few possible rules for giving Xyz Monsters their Materials for the opponent:
+If you don't mind the Swarm Summoned Xyz Monsters being at full power, just have all the opponent's Xyz Monsters randomly attach cards from the Graveyard or the top of the Deck equal to their default number of Materials to them.
+If you like the idea of the Siege Summoned Monsters having their full potential effects or more, you can either use the above method only for Siege Summoned Monsters, or have any cards that fail to attach for the Siege stat boost be attached as Xyz Material instead/additionally.
RULE 3: OPPONENT'S BATTLE PHASE
Once the opponent has gone through the turn's Summoning process, the opponent starts attacking. The weakest Monster that can attack attacks a random face down Monster you control (assuming one exists) or the weakest face up Monster you control (randomly choosing between equally weak Monsters). If the opponent controls multiple Monsters with the same ATK, one is randomly selected to attack. If there are no face up Monsters that have an equal or lower ATK or a lower DEF among your Monsters to a Monster that would attack by this procedure, that Monster doesn't attack. If your Field is empty, the opponent attacks with all Monsters, starting with the weakest and working up to the strongest.
Note that this would probably be a robust procedure for programming an AI opponent in a computer game, although not necessarily a smart procedure.
RULE 4: VICTORY
Obviously, if you manage to eliminate all the opponent's Shields and then attack directly again, you win. However, a few other notes are important:
-For a lower difficulty level, have the opponent lose when it decks out, or have it simply sit and do nothing when it would Summon. If the opponent's Deck is particularly thin, I wouldn't necessarily suggest this method.
-For a higher difficulty level, whenever the opponent runs out of cards, pause in the middle of whatever procedure you're performing to shuffle the opponent's Graveyard and replace the Deck with it. This can potentially turn the game into a survival game, as getting through all the opponent's Monsters is difficult when Swarming happens every turn. It also might be a way to allow a thinner opponent Deck to last longer; perhaps you could set some kind of limit, or have the opponent lose a Shield whenever it recycled, and if it has no Shields, it can't recycle.
-For the highest difficulty level, YOU lose when the opponent decks out. I came up with this when the first ever game of the format, in much cruder form, stalled out and the opponent was effectively stalling almost indefinitely despite having lost all its Shields thanks to massive Swarm Summons every turn; if the opponent is weak for whatever reason, this can spice things up a bit.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
-Since I don't mention it elsewhere: You take the first turn.
-Many cards are useless for your Deck in this format. Don't bother with cards like Trap Hole (which only works on Normal Summoned Monsters, although there are fringe cases where it would do something, but I wouldn't recommend it) or Mystical Space Typhoon (your opponent has no Magic/Spell/Trap cards, remember?). Focus on ways to eliminate as many Monsters as possible and then swing in directly with as many Monsters as possible. Also note that certain cards, such as Spirit Reaper and Gravity Bind, are potentially very unfair because the opponent generally has no way to get around them. If you do use cards with long-term defensive effects, it'd be fairer and more fun to stick with cards with once-or-twice per turn effects, such as Fortress Warrior or Scrap-Iron Scarecrow.
-Note that the format has an easy way to increase or decrease the difficulty level of the opponent just by changing up the composition of the opponent's Monsters. More matching Attributes lead to bigger Siege Monsters and Storm effects, and higher Levels/Ranks lead to bigger Swarms and Siege Monsters. If you're having the opponent lose/cease Summoning when it decks out, a thicker Deck will also increase difficulty, although it will decrease difficulty if you're a bit crazy and want the opponent to auto-win when it decks out.
-If you want the opponent to use Effect Monsters and Magic/Spell/Trap cards, keep in mind that they must be simple ones, and you should use the following simple rules and procedures... but note that they add an additional layer of complexity (especially Magic/Spell/Trap Cards).
-Effect Monsters should have effects that don't require decision making, such as paying costs or selecting targets. You can choose to ignore costs for some cards, but others just wouldn't work without costs (e.g., if Cannon Soldier had its cost eliminated, it'd just kill you instantly whenever it was Summoned). Extremely simple decisions, such as "should I do this all-upside thing or not?" can be ignored, e.g. using Grenosaurus's effect, despite having a cost, is a no-brainer-if you can pay the cost, you're going to, and so the opponent always will. If you must have the opponent use targeting effects, have it select the strongest Monster (in terms of its current battle stat) on your Field (if a negative effect) or its own (if a positive effect), or perhaps experiment to see what works best for you.
-Magic/Spell/Trap cards are a slightly more complex issue. I'd suggest that, if you use them, you should keep them simple (Fissure, Dark Hole, etc.) and don't choose any cards for the opponent that have specific timing requirements, as few of those cards make sense at other times. If you're having the opponent use them, during Summoning procedures, if a M/S/T card is the first card flipped up, activate it and then treat the next card as the first card for the procedure. (This means that it will get tons of free activations if you give it lots of M/S/T cards.) During the procedure, whenever an M/S/T card would be "Summoned" or placed in the Field Zone by that procedure, instead activate it, and continue the procedure normally (it does count towards the number of Summons). You probably shouldn't use Continuous M/S/T cards at all, as they'd probably be awkward and confusing without proper Zones to put them in. If a M/S/T card is revealed as a Shield, have the opponent activate it immediately, and it goes to the Graveyard. If you have the opponent use Trap Monsters, treat them as Monsters for the process (ones with timing requirements for the effects that let them be Summoned aren't good choices).
-To make it more fun, while the main purpose of the format is obviously to play a game by yourself, you can form a team of players all up against the opponent. You can ramp up the opponent as necessary; the only way to determine how strong it needs to be is experiment. However, I'm pretty sure it can scale up to a pretty high number of players easily.
-If you're having trouble figuring out how to do something, feel free to ask about it. I think I've covered everything, but I'm hardly perfect.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, there you go. A little late for Make Single People Feel Miserable Day, I guess...
(Once again, if you want to try this out, feel free to ask questions.)
-Signing off.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Character Study: Mai Valentine
AUTHOR'S NOTE: There is a possibility I'm coming back to change bits and pieces of this later, as it was posted when I was short on time and was written a while ago. I don't think so, though. Also, as a reminder, these character studies follow mixed continuity. In any event, Happy Valentine's Day!
Character Study: Mai Valentine
Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Twenty-three to Twenty-four
Character Archetype: The Femme Fatale crossed with the Good Goddess, seasoned with a touch of Mentor.
Probable Element and Alignment: Wind/Air, swings between Chaotic Good and Evil.
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: She's overly familiar, and is very outspoken.
Mai is another one of those characters who is much deeper than the casual fan gives her credit for (If I find another reference to her being an anime Paris Hilton, or any other vapidly chosen blonde flavor of the month... Raar. I may have to start injuring people.) Most fans find her very hard to hate, even when they don't want her to "steal" Joey. It's possible that she's just the kind of female character that American audiences have an easier time accepting-- while highly atypical of such, she's an obviously feministic character. She's also someone who's been around the block a few times, and spends most of the series wrestling with old scars.
Mai got out into the world at a fairly young age; according to the Japanese, she was orphaned, while the dub implies that she was neglected and says that her parents were never home. This is one of the few times I prefer and defer to the dub version of a backstory: beyond Mai making for one too many orphans in the cast, her frivolous behavior in Duelist Kingdom reminds me of a person whose parents tried to buy her affections, and that shot of a little girl alone at a window late at night doesn't seem at all like an orphanage setting to me. (An orphanage would have had a strict curfew. And probably wouldn't have been a mansion.) At any rate, Mai seems to have ended up on her own as soon as she was an adult, possibly younger, either because of "unfriendly" caregivers dumping her out as soon as they could, or because she was desperate to get out of an enormous empty house.
In order to support herself, Mai seems to have chosen a path that required wit and wiles: she becomes a house gambler on a casino ship of some kind. Whether she took this path because she was working with what she had in brains or in beauty is impossible to tell, but it would have forced her to become good at manipulating people, and fast.
I tend to suspect that if Mai had any friends at this point, they would have been other casino bunnies taking her under their wing, because of Mai's consistent behavior with the younger female members of the cast: despite having reason to fight with Téa, she was kind and offered advice, while Serenity was quickly under her wing and stayed there. I think that Mai sees this as the thing women do for each other: they protect and help one another, and if they have to, they beat a little toughness into each other. Mai doesn't believe in deep friendship at her first appearance, but she does believe in Sisterhood. (One wonders if, in Serenity, Mai saw a little bit of the scared girl she used to be. She definitely likes Serenity very well, regardless.)
As for the men, Mai clearly found them generally disappointing. She probably had good reason to, as well- there were surely other Jean Claude Magnums back there, all egotistical and shallow, crazy in their own ways. At a casino, regardless of whether she was in a place where gambling was legal, shady characters would have skirted the edge of Mai's life on a regular basis. So not only were the men shallow and annoying, they were probably often dangerous, and there was no way of telling who was and who wasn't. Little wonder that Mai would be constantly on guard, moving among people like this.
Once she got out of the casino, there's some indication that Mai then dueled in some less "family friendly" tournaments, making enough money to live comfortably and shining enough to attract the attention of I2's talent scouts for Duelist Kingdom. I highly doubt that Mai started as a Duelist: she's the same age as Pegasus, probably was in the casino before he got Duel Monsters off the ground (might have been out on her own before Pegasus even aquired the Millenium Eye) and probably picked up Duel Monsters later because it struck her as more challenging and interesting. I don't know if she started the game before or after leaving the casino, or if it was a catalyst for her being able to get out of the casino. I doubt that it matters much outside of speculative fanfiction. In any case, at this point the game is just that; a game that happens to rake in enough money for her to exploit it. If it means anything deeper to Mai, she hasn't realized it yet. It would have been during this time period that she met and shot down Jean Claude.
Thus we come to Duelist Kingdom. Mai is a hardened warrior in many ways now, clever, tough and dangerous. But I wouldn't say she's all the way grown up. In a lot of ways, especially socially, she's still that little girl standing alone by the window in the middle of the night. Yugi and company are the most sane and decent people she's been thrown in with in a long time, and she's not entirely sure what to make of them.
She's puzzled at how Joey treats her, perplexed that Yugi can be both gentle and strong enough to stand up for both himself and other people, and shaken, because she didn't really believe that decent people exist. She also realizes for the first time, when Joey beats her, that yes, she IS proud of her dueling skills, dammit, and yes, this game does mean something to her! (We never hear of her cheating after dueling Joey, so it's possible she's decided that cheating at the game means she's treating it too frivolously.) And when Yugi helps her, he helps her out of the simple compassion out of his own heart, and Mai is stunned. How, she wonders, can people be this way? How could someone like this even survive?
Mai says it herself: Nobody's done anything for her like what Yugi does by dueling Panik on her behalf. Nobody's ever potentially risked his life for her, and nobody's ever done anything out of simply caring about what happens to her. Mai has eight star chips the evening of the first day, and Yugi wins them back for her. She could have easily been in the castle before noon of the next day, and the old Mai would have been waiting for them with a smug grin and a flirtatiously unsettling wave. But the new Mai doesn't even arrive at the castle until the sky is starting to go scarlet: She spent the entire day getting eight star chips she didn't need, not even knowing that Yugi would potentially need them himself. Moreover, she also earned herself two more stars, meaning that Mai could have been in the castle the first night, if she'd only worked hard enough. She goes to quite a bit of trouble to repay her debt, and turns her matronly "tough love" on Yugi in the meantime. (She's been turning it on Téa since Day 1; it's actually during their duel together that Mai realizes that Téa is plenty tough and really doesn't need Mai's wing.)
So Mai is maturing into a more rounded person, taking what she already knows about tough love and learning how to tell when someone deserves it, and combining that with the new generosity of spirit that Yugi has shown her. (How far she's yet willing to go, we don't really know; after all, she didn't need the entry card she gave Joey anymore, but what it represented to her was still pretty powerful.)
Something that makes Mai already more mature than most of the cast is that she knows when to quit. Mai is one of maybe two characters to surrender in a duel, and the first that we see. She knows Yugi has her outmatched, she knows that she's been drawn into an inevitable checkmate by someone she can accept as a spectacular duelist, one she "can't even keep up with on the sidelines." And instead of pitching a fit or swearing revenge, like at least half of Yugi's other opponents, Mai cedes the duel. This could be a sign of new maturity, but I think it's a facet of maturity that Mai already brought to the tournament. Yugi has also treated her with respect she's rarely gotten from a man, and Mai returns it with interest. (So, okay, she might not have surrendered like that to any other man, but I doubt she would have needed to. I mean, really.)
During the first VR arc, Mai seems more comfortable than during Duelist Kingdom, possibly because being part of an active team is something she finds appealing. She instantly agrees to help, both showing her continuing gratitude and the fact that it's Not Okay with her if her bosses start kidnapping teenagers. (That would be Seto, btw.) Mai is very kind to Mokuba, displaying none of her usual animosity or guile toward males she's not familiar with; this is probably because Mokuba is a child, and one that she knows has already been through quite a lot. Mai is downright maternal with Mokuba (who doesn't seem to quite realize.) She treats Yugi as a friend and equal, and the two admire their new outfits together. (XDDD)
And last but not least, she's all over Joey in these episodes. She jokes that Joey isn't noticing the "real woman" right next to him when Joey charges after Adina. She even hugs him enthusiastically, jumping on the poor boy when he's half naked in a bearskin (no wonder Joey freaks out, when I say it like THAT. XD) And she's so inflamed with rage, passion and pain when Joey "dies," that she charges in completely without thinking, which is absolutely nothing like Mai.
Mai during Battle City is slightly more guarded again. She's back into her Tournie Mode, and though she seems to have been keeping out of her old circles, she doesn't waste time any more than she did in Duelist Kingdom. She was probably on her way to the Finals location even when she almost ran over Duke and Serenity. (Either that, or she was looking for Joey and Yugi, intent on giving them a ride because she knew they'd need one. Which is an entertaining thought.) A lot of what we get on Mai here is backstory, and the fact that Mai is now weary of her old life and willing to leave it behind in favor of new memories.
Then Joey inadvertently hurts her feelings by lying about his dream-- and then Yami Marik hits her with a Shadow Game that turns out to be one of the most violently traumatic things she's ever gone through, followed up by a Punishment Game that is slow torture and by its very nature meant to shake her very being to the core.
I tend to think, while parts of it were a touch clumsily done, that what happened with Mai during the Oriechalcos arc was actually the result of post-traumatic stress. She chose to act like everything was fine when it wasn't, and things that might not have bothered her in the past are now crushing. Valon's method of "therapy" is to play into her depression and anxiety, and while he loves her, he's exactly the opposite of what she needs, despite being a listening ear. He maneuvers her into blaming people for not giving help she didn't ask for, and encourages her to stir her own anger and lash out. Mai IS brainwashed, just not by magical means.
It's understandable, then, that Joey has to work so hard to remind her that yes, he does care about her, that her passion for him is love, not hatred, and that he'll do anything for her, even give up his soul.
So what does Mai do? She charges right into another confrontation without thinking, just like when Joey "died" against the Ultimate Dragon. Mai is a reasonable, level headed, calculating woman, but her raging love throws all of that right out the window. And like after Duelist Kingdom, Mai takes off to sort her own heart out. (You can keep your "She wants to be a better Duelist!" comments to yourself, thank you. She wants to be a better duelist? Yugi has taught her that a duelist has honor, strength, gentleness and love. She wants to be a better person. That's what she leaves to work on.)
I tend to think Mai will do better this time, even though I have to wag a finger at her for just sprinting off again (with Valon it's probably for the best, since he needs to do some sorting out of his own, but Joey is very connected to her best potential support group: Téa, Serenity and Yugi.) If the epilogue with Vivian is any indication, she's already better off than at the end of Battle City.
Final Distillation:
Mai's story is about breaking through jadedness into wholeness.
Mai is not only clever, she's very intelligent.
She became who she is in order to survive.
Mai forgets herself when her temper flares up enough.
Mai is a feminist, and held Sisterhood above any other bonds prior to Duelist Kingdom.
She still holds Sisterhood very high.
Mai has a motherly side, which she turns on random women and specific men in the form of tough love.
Mai is totally unabashed about using the tools at her disposal, and is a master at manipulating people.
Mai wants to be whole very, very badly, and spends most of her life (all of her life up until the end of the series) trying for it.
Character Study: Mai Valentine
Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Twenty-three to Twenty-four
Character Archetype: The Femme Fatale crossed with the Good Goddess, seasoned with a touch of Mentor.
Probable Element and Alignment: Wind/Air, swings between Chaotic Good and Evil.
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: She's overly familiar, and is very outspoken.
Mai is another one of those characters who is much deeper than the casual fan gives her credit for (If I find another reference to her being an anime Paris Hilton, or any other vapidly chosen blonde flavor of the month... Raar. I may have to start injuring people.) Most fans find her very hard to hate, even when they don't want her to "steal" Joey. It's possible that she's just the kind of female character that American audiences have an easier time accepting-- while highly atypical of such, she's an obviously feministic character. She's also someone who's been around the block a few times, and spends most of the series wrestling with old scars.
Mai got out into the world at a fairly young age; according to the Japanese, she was orphaned, while the dub implies that she was neglected and says that her parents were never home. This is one of the few times I prefer and defer to the dub version of a backstory: beyond Mai making for one too many orphans in the cast, her frivolous behavior in Duelist Kingdom reminds me of a person whose parents tried to buy her affections, and that shot of a little girl alone at a window late at night doesn't seem at all like an orphanage setting to me. (An orphanage would have had a strict curfew. And probably wouldn't have been a mansion.) At any rate, Mai seems to have ended up on her own as soon as she was an adult, possibly younger, either because of "unfriendly" caregivers dumping her out as soon as they could, or because she was desperate to get out of an enormous empty house.
In order to support herself, Mai seems to have chosen a path that required wit and wiles: she becomes a house gambler on a casino ship of some kind. Whether she took this path because she was working with what she had in brains or in beauty is impossible to tell, but it would have forced her to become good at manipulating people, and fast.
I tend to suspect that if Mai had any friends at this point, they would have been other casino bunnies taking her under their wing, because of Mai's consistent behavior with the younger female members of the cast: despite having reason to fight with Téa, she was kind and offered advice, while Serenity was quickly under her wing and stayed there. I think that Mai sees this as the thing women do for each other: they protect and help one another, and if they have to, they beat a little toughness into each other. Mai doesn't believe in deep friendship at her first appearance, but she does believe in Sisterhood. (One wonders if, in Serenity, Mai saw a little bit of the scared girl she used to be. She definitely likes Serenity very well, regardless.)
As for the men, Mai clearly found them generally disappointing. She probably had good reason to, as well- there were surely other Jean Claude Magnums back there, all egotistical and shallow, crazy in their own ways. At a casino, regardless of whether she was in a place where gambling was legal, shady characters would have skirted the edge of Mai's life on a regular basis. So not only were the men shallow and annoying, they were probably often dangerous, and there was no way of telling who was and who wasn't. Little wonder that Mai would be constantly on guard, moving among people like this.
Once she got out of the casino, there's some indication that Mai then dueled in some less "family friendly" tournaments, making enough money to live comfortably and shining enough to attract the attention of I2's talent scouts for Duelist Kingdom. I highly doubt that Mai started as a Duelist: she's the same age as Pegasus, probably was in the casino before he got Duel Monsters off the ground (might have been out on her own before Pegasus even aquired the Millenium Eye) and probably picked up Duel Monsters later because it struck her as more challenging and interesting. I don't know if she started the game before or after leaving the casino, or if it was a catalyst for her being able to get out of the casino. I doubt that it matters much outside of speculative fanfiction. In any case, at this point the game is just that; a game that happens to rake in enough money for her to exploit it. If it means anything deeper to Mai, she hasn't realized it yet. It would have been during this time period that she met and shot down Jean Claude.
Thus we come to Duelist Kingdom. Mai is a hardened warrior in many ways now, clever, tough and dangerous. But I wouldn't say she's all the way grown up. In a lot of ways, especially socially, she's still that little girl standing alone by the window in the middle of the night. Yugi and company are the most sane and decent people she's been thrown in with in a long time, and she's not entirely sure what to make of them.
She's puzzled at how Joey treats her, perplexed that Yugi can be both gentle and strong enough to stand up for both himself and other people, and shaken, because she didn't really believe that decent people exist. She also realizes for the first time, when Joey beats her, that yes, she IS proud of her dueling skills, dammit, and yes, this game does mean something to her! (We never hear of her cheating after dueling Joey, so it's possible she's decided that cheating at the game means she's treating it too frivolously.) And when Yugi helps her, he helps her out of the simple compassion out of his own heart, and Mai is stunned. How, she wonders, can people be this way? How could someone like this even survive?
Mai says it herself: Nobody's done anything for her like what Yugi does by dueling Panik on her behalf. Nobody's ever potentially risked his life for her, and nobody's ever done anything out of simply caring about what happens to her. Mai has eight star chips the evening of the first day, and Yugi wins them back for her. She could have easily been in the castle before noon of the next day, and the old Mai would have been waiting for them with a smug grin and a flirtatiously unsettling wave. But the new Mai doesn't even arrive at the castle until the sky is starting to go scarlet: She spent the entire day getting eight star chips she didn't need, not even knowing that Yugi would potentially need them himself. Moreover, she also earned herself two more stars, meaning that Mai could have been in the castle the first night, if she'd only worked hard enough. She goes to quite a bit of trouble to repay her debt, and turns her matronly "tough love" on Yugi in the meantime. (She's been turning it on Téa since Day 1; it's actually during their duel together that Mai realizes that Téa is plenty tough and really doesn't need Mai's wing.)
So Mai is maturing into a more rounded person, taking what she already knows about tough love and learning how to tell when someone deserves it, and combining that with the new generosity of spirit that Yugi has shown her. (How far she's yet willing to go, we don't really know; after all, she didn't need the entry card she gave Joey anymore, but what it represented to her was still pretty powerful.)
Something that makes Mai already more mature than most of the cast is that she knows when to quit. Mai is one of maybe two characters to surrender in a duel, and the first that we see. She knows Yugi has her outmatched, she knows that she's been drawn into an inevitable checkmate by someone she can accept as a spectacular duelist, one she "can't even keep up with on the sidelines." And instead of pitching a fit or swearing revenge, like at least half of Yugi's other opponents, Mai cedes the duel. This could be a sign of new maturity, but I think it's a facet of maturity that Mai already brought to the tournament. Yugi has also treated her with respect she's rarely gotten from a man, and Mai returns it with interest. (So, okay, she might not have surrendered like that to any other man, but I doubt she would have needed to. I mean, really.)
During the first VR arc, Mai seems more comfortable than during Duelist Kingdom, possibly because being part of an active team is something she finds appealing. She instantly agrees to help, both showing her continuing gratitude and the fact that it's Not Okay with her if her bosses start kidnapping teenagers. (That would be Seto, btw.) Mai is very kind to Mokuba, displaying none of her usual animosity or guile toward males she's not familiar with; this is probably because Mokuba is a child, and one that she knows has already been through quite a lot. Mai is downright maternal with Mokuba (who doesn't seem to quite realize.) She treats Yugi as a friend and equal, and the two admire their new outfits together. (XDDD)
And last but not least, she's all over Joey in these episodes. She jokes that Joey isn't noticing the "real woman" right next to him when Joey charges after Adina. She even hugs him enthusiastically, jumping on the poor boy when he's half naked in a bearskin (no wonder Joey freaks out, when I say it like THAT. XD) And she's so inflamed with rage, passion and pain when Joey "dies," that she charges in completely without thinking, which is absolutely nothing like Mai.
Mai during Battle City is slightly more guarded again. She's back into her Tournie Mode, and though she seems to have been keeping out of her old circles, she doesn't waste time any more than she did in Duelist Kingdom. She was probably on her way to the Finals location even when she almost ran over Duke and Serenity. (Either that, or she was looking for Joey and Yugi, intent on giving them a ride because she knew they'd need one. Which is an entertaining thought.) A lot of what we get on Mai here is backstory, and the fact that Mai is now weary of her old life and willing to leave it behind in favor of new memories.
Then Joey inadvertently hurts her feelings by lying about his dream-- and then Yami Marik hits her with a Shadow Game that turns out to be one of the most violently traumatic things she's ever gone through, followed up by a Punishment Game that is slow torture and by its very nature meant to shake her very being to the core.
I tend to think, while parts of it were a touch clumsily done, that what happened with Mai during the Oriechalcos arc was actually the result of post-traumatic stress. She chose to act like everything was fine when it wasn't, and things that might not have bothered her in the past are now crushing. Valon's method of "therapy" is to play into her depression and anxiety, and while he loves her, he's exactly the opposite of what she needs, despite being a listening ear. He maneuvers her into blaming people for not giving help she didn't ask for, and encourages her to stir her own anger and lash out. Mai IS brainwashed, just not by magical means.
It's understandable, then, that Joey has to work so hard to remind her that yes, he does care about her, that her passion for him is love, not hatred, and that he'll do anything for her, even give up his soul.
So what does Mai do? She charges right into another confrontation without thinking, just like when Joey "died" against the Ultimate Dragon. Mai is a reasonable, level headed, calculating woman, but her raging love throws all of that right out the window. And like after Duelist Kingdom, Mai takes off to sort her own heart out. (You can keep your "She wants to be a better Duelist!" comments to yourself, thank you. She wants to be a better duelist? Yugi has taught her that a duelist has honor, strength, gentleness and love. She wants to be a better person. That's what she leaves to work on.)
I tend to think Mai will do better this time, even though I have to wag a finger at her for just sprinting off again (with Valon it's probably for the best, since he needs to do some sorting out of his own, but Joey is very connected to her best potential support group: Téa, Serenity and Yugi.) If the epilogue with Vivian is any indication, she's already better off than at the end of Battle City.
Final Distillation:
Mai's story is about breaking through jadedness into wholeness.
Mai is not only clever, she's very intelligent.
She became who she is in order to survive.
Mai forgets herself when her temper flares up enough.
Mai is a feminist, and held Sisterhood above any other bonds prior to Duelist Kingdom.
She still holds Sisterhood very high.
Mai has a motherly side, which she turns on random women and specific men in the form of tough love.
Mai is totally unabashed about using the tools at her disposal, and is a master at manipulating people.
Mai wants to be whole very, very badly, and spends most of her life (all of her life up until the end of the series) trying for it.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
In light of Love and Rock and Roll starting...
Mai's "Jean Claude Proposed!" face. XDAlso, first page of Love and Rock and Roll, for someone stumbling in here unawares and wondering why this is appropriate.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Invid's Bizarre Card Ramblings #2: Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End-
Here we are with another of these talks about cards on a blog about a comic where there hasn't actually been any dueling.
This week's entry is not, and hopefully will never be, a real card.
If you have any familiarity with the real life version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, you are likely aware that there are a couple of Monsters who are often regarded as the strongest ever printed who happen to have "Chaos" in their original Japanese names: "Black Luster Soldier (originally "Chaos Soldier") -Envoy of the Beginning-" and "Chaos Emperor Dragon -Envoy of the End-". There is also a lesser but still powerful Monster called "Chaos Sorcerer" who is a similar if weaker card. (There's also Dark Magician of Chaos, a similarly insanely powerful card, but it doesn't factor into this discussion as it isn't actually related to these cards despite its name.)
These Chaos Monsters were an early experiment in creating strong cards with steep requirements. Konami quickly discovered, however, that these particular cards did not have nearly steep enough of a cost.
In case you don't feel like clicking on the links and investigating the cards yourself (and don't know much about the cards), the Envoys and Chaos Sorcerer require you to banish a Light Monster and a Dark Monster from your Graveyard in order to Summon them. Yes, just one each. Why the Envoys, who have 3000 ATK apiece, have the same requirements as the comparatively wretchedly small Chaos Sorceror (2300 ATK) is a mystery for the ages.
Supposedly, Light and Dark Monsters aren't supposed to work well together. However, there have always been plenty of solid Dark Monsters in the game, and a few good Light ones had come out only a little while before. The game also had Painful Choice, a card that ultimately wasn't painful at all, as it let you take five cards from your Deck and get one in your hand and four in the Graveyard. (The "painful" part was that your opponent chose which cards go where. Not really much of a drawback when you want those cards in the Graveyard, as Konami would soon realize. Painful Choice was restricted to one for most of its history, until Konami introduced banning cards, after which it has been permanently banned.)
The ease of summoning these cards meant that people were willing to try, and it turned out that 3000 ATK Monsters with incredibly strong effects were worth the investment. Chaos Emperor Dragon blows up both player's fields and hands (and incidentally inflicts damage), letting you set up an instant unbreakable lock (earning it one of the top spots on the first list of banned cards, and also an eternal spot), Black Luster Soldier can potentially attack twice or, instead of attacking, banish an opponent's Monster (has been restricted for a long time, although it took longer than Chaos Emperor Dragon, and was banned for a long time, although again it took longer, and has seen an apparently experimental unbanning recently), and Chaos Sorcerer can banish a face up Monster (it's been on and off the banlist at multiple levels of restriction). As all of these cards are also Special Summons, they don't even restrict your Normal Summon for the turn (a key to setting up the Yata-Lock that Chaos Emperor Dragon enabled in the old days).
So why am I talking about some of the most powerful cards in the game, cards which likely shouldn't have been printed or which have been in decks that are unfairly powerful?
Because they've got nothing on this one: Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End- (link)!
Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End-
Light Attribute/Warrior Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 2000
Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) by banishing 1 LIGHT Warrior-Type and 1 DARK Fiend-Type monster from your Graveyard. Cards and effects cannot be activated in response to this card's Special Summon. You can pay 1000 Life Points; banish all cards your opponent controls and all cards in your opponent's hand and Graveyard, then inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each card banished by this effect.
Now, what makes this card so much more vicious and nasty than any of the other cards I've been talking about?
Well, the first part is its requirement: It needs its Light Monster to be a Warrior and its Dark Monster to be a Fiend, but that's not necessarily an additional requirement.
See, the first Chaos decklist I heard of used Light Warriors and Dark Fiends as its staple Monsters already. So this card could be put in that deck with essentially no changes. Not only that, but in a pinch, if one was playing multiples, this card would fit the requirement itself.
So it looks restrictive, but it really isn't.
The next part is that cards can't be used in response to it being Special Summoned. Cards with effects like this exist, but haven't been used much that I can tell because they're usually expensive. As I've established, though, that wouldn't hurt this guy at all, because he'd be playable even if he wasn't essentially uncounterable. Players have always been able to use cards like Solemn Judgment to stop guys like this, but here it wouldn't work. Since the days of the original Chaos Monsters, card rulings have changed, and the original Chaos Monsters are a little weaker than they used to be due to these changes, but those same rulings don't affect this card because of this line of text.
Now, here's the doozy: Pay 1000 Life Points to banish all cards in your opponent's hand, and on your opponent's Field, and in your opponent's Graveyard, and inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each card banished this way.
I'm not even sure how to express the unfairness and brutality of this effect. Basically, the only way to stop it is with the counter trap Divine Wrath (there are very few other cards that could), thanks to Solemn Judgment having no effect on it. (Solemn Judgment is supposed to stop everything. It doesn't, but most of the exceptions are defensive cards.) If it just banished your Graveyard, or your hand, or your Field, there would be a faint semblance of fairness, and there would be ways to counter this card.
But banishing the Field means there are very few cards that can do anything to protect you (Reborn Tengu, Waboku, Threatening Roar, Hallowed Life Barrier, Rainbow Life, and that's about it), banishing your hand means that most of the things players rely on for escaping nasty pinches like this don't work (Effect Veiler could probably shut it down), and the Graveyard is also gone (Necro Gardna and probably Damage Eater would provide a small amount of protection). The only cards listed that could actually keep you from taking huge amounts of damage are Hallowed Life Barrier and Rainbow Life, and they're Trap cards, which means that you need to have them set and they'll be vulnerable there-everything else on the list can only stop Chaos End Ruler's attack or its effect damage. (Reborn Tengu can't even actually do either of these things-it'd only be a help if Chaos End Ruler's controller didn't have enough Life Points to activate its effect more than once.)
The reason this is so bad is because, other than the Life Point cost, there's no drawback to this whatsoever. Most defensive cards care more about being sent to the Graveyard or destroyed, and this dodges both of those. And as long as there isn't one of the few Trap cards that can stop it involved, if this card gets summoned, the player who didn't play it is going to take huge amounts of damage, guaranteed, whether the 3500 ATK of Chaos End Ruler, the multiple of 500 from its effect (which will nearly always be absurdly huge), or both. This card could easily deal 8000+ damage in the turn it comes down, with no assistance or combo setups, virtually for free.
And the best part? It leaves the other player with nothing, and the single card that the other player draws the following turn probably won't be able to do squat to Chaos End Ruler, especially if it's a Trap card or a Monster.
They ought to call it "Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of Unfairness and Epic Ragequits-".
(If you're wondering where the card comes from, it's mentioned as a rare banned card in an episode of ZeXaL. Whoever made it up in-universe was a sick puppy; whoever made it up for the show should be watched carefully, and kept away from the real card game.)
-Signing off.
This week's entry is not, and hopefully will never be, a real card.
If you have any familiarity with the real life version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, you are likely aware that there are a couple of Monsters who are often regarded as the strongest ever printed who happen to have "Chaos" in their original Japanese names: "Black Luster Soldier (originally "Chaos Soldier") -Envoy of the Beginning-" and "Chaos Emperor Dragon -Envoy of the End-". There is also a lesser but still powerful Monster called "Chaos Sorcerer" who is a similar if weaker card. (There's also Dark Magician of Chaos, a similarly insanely powerful card, but it doesn't factor into this discussion as it isn't actually related to these cards despite its name.)
These Chaos Monsters were an early experiment in creating strong cards with steep requirements. Konami quickly discovered, however, that these particular cards did not have nearly steep enough of a cost.
In case you don't feel like clicking on the links and investigating the cards yourself (and don't know much about the cards), the Envoys and Chaos Sorcerer require you to banish a Light Monster and a Dark Monster from your Graveyard in order to Summon them. Yes, just one each. Why the Envoys, who have 3000 ATK apiece, have the same requirements as the comparatively wretchedly small Chaos Sorceror (2300 ATK) is a mystery for the ages.
Supposedly, Light and Dark Monsters aren't supposed to work well together. However, there have always been plenty of solid Dark Monsters in the game, and a few good Light ones had come out only a little while before. The game also had Painful Choice, a card that ultimately wasn't painful at all, as it let you take five cards from your Deck and get one in your hand and four in the Graveyard. (The "painful" part was that your opponent chose which cards go where. Not really much of a drawback when you want those cards in the Graveyard, as Konami would soon realize. Painful Choice was restricted to one for most of its history, until Konami introduced banning cards, after which it has been permanently banned.)
The ease of summoning these cards meant that people were willing to try, and it turned out that 3000 ATK Monsters with incredibly strong effects were worth the investment. Chaos Emperor Dragon blows up both player's fields and hands (and incidentally inflicts damage), letting you set up an instant unbreakable lock (earning it one of the top spots on the first list of banned cards, and also an eternal spot), Black Luster Soldier can potentially attack twice or, instead of attacking, banish an opponent's Monster (has been restricted for a long time, although it took longer than Chaos Emperor Dragon, and was banned for a long time, although again it took longer, and has seen an apparently experimental unbanning recently), and Chaos Sorcerer can banish a face up Monster (it's been on and off the banlist at multiple levels of restriction). As all of these cards are also Special Summons, they don't even restrict your Normal Summon for the turn (a key to setting up the Yata-Lock that Chaos Emperor Dragon enabled in the old days).
So why am I talking about some of the most powerful cards in the game, cards which likely shouldn't have been printed or which have been in decks that are unfairly powerful?
Because they've got nothing on this one: Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End- (link)!
Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End-
Light Attribute/Warrior Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 2000
Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) by banishing 1 LIGHT Warrior-Type and 1 DARK Fiend-Type monster from your Graveyard. Cards and effects cannot be activated in response to this card's Special Summon. You can pay 1000 Life Points; banish all cards your opponent controls and all cards in your opponent's hand and Graveyard, then inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each card banished by this effect.
Now, what makes this card so much more vicious and nasty than any of the other cards I've been talking about?
Well, the first part is its requirement: It needs its Light Monster to be a Warrior and its Dark Monster to be a Fiend, but that's not necessarily an additional requirement.
See, the first Chaos decklist I heard of used Light Warriors and Dark Fiends as its staple Monsters already. So this card could be put in that deck with essentially no changes. Not only that, but in a pinch, if one was playing multiples, this card would fit the requirement itself.
So it looks restrictive, but it really isn't.
The next part is that cards can't be used in response to it being Special Summoned. Cards with effects like this exist, but haven't been used much that I can tell because they're usually expensive. As I've established, though, that wouldn't hurt this guy at all, because he'd be playable even if he wasn't essentially uncounterable. Players have always been able to use cards like Solemn Judgment to stop guys like this, but here it wouldn't work. Since the days of the original Chaos Monsters, card rulings have changed, and the original Chaos Monsters are a little weaker than they used to be due to these changes, but those same rulings don't affect this card because of this line of text.
Now, here's the doozy: Pay 1000 Life Points to banish all cards in your opponent's hand, and on your opponent's Field, and in your opponent's Graveyard, and inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each card banished this way.
I'm not even sure how to express the unfairness and brutality of this effect. Basically, the only way to stop it is with the counter trap Divine Wrath (there are very few other cards that could), thanks to Solemn Judgment having no effect on it. (Solemn Judgment is supposed to stop everything. It doesn't, but most of the exceptions are defensive cards.) If it just banished your Graveyard, or your hand, or your Field, there would be a faint semblance of fairness, and there would be ways to counter this card.
But banishing the Field means there are very few cards that can do anything to protect you (Reborn Tengu, Waboku, Threatening Roar, Hallowed Life Barrier, Rainbow Life, and that's about it), banishing your hand means that most of the things players rely on for escaping nasty pinches like this don't work (Effect Veiler could probably shut it down), and the Graveyard is also gone (Necro Gardna and probably Damage Eater would provide a small amount of protection). The only cards listed that could actually keep you from taking huge amounts of damage are Hallowed Life Barrier and Rainbow Life, and they're Trap cards, which means that you need to have them set and they'll be vulnerable there-everything else on the list can only stop Chaos End Ruler's attack or its effect damage. (Reborn Tengu can't even actually do either of these things-it'd only be a help if Chaos End Ruler's controller didn't have enough Life Points to activate its effect more than once.)
The reason this is so bad is because, other than the Life Point cost, there's no drawback to this whatsoever. Most defensive cards care more about being sent to the Graveyard or destroyed, and this dodges both of those. And as long as there isn't one of the few Trap cards that can stop it involved, if this card gets summoned, the player who didn't play it is going to take huge amounts of damage, guaranteed, whether the 3500 ATK of Chaos End Ruler, the multiple of 500 from its effect (which will nearly always be absurdly huge), or both. This card could easily deal 8000+ damage in the turn it comes down, with no assistance or combo setups, virtually for free.
And the best part? It leaves the other player with nothing, and the single card that the other player draws the following turn probably won't be able to do squat to Chaos End Ruler, especially if it's a Trap card or a Monster.
They ought to call it "Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of Unfairness and Epic Ragequits-".
(If you're wondering where the card comes from, it's mentioned as a rare banned card in an episode of ZeXaL. Whoever made it up in-universe was a sick puppy; whoever made it up for the show should be watched carefully, and kept away from the real card game.)
-Signing off.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Invid's Bizarre Card Ramblings #1: Theinen the Great Sphinx
Hey, people who are mostly from DeviantArt who probably care less about the card game than about how awesome GDG's comic craft is! I'm here to talk about cards!
A long-standing gripe I have with the card game is that they monkey with effects for what often seems like no good reason. Other times, there's clearly a good reason. Meet high-class good reason, Theinen the Great Sphinx (link to a picture)!
Theinen (pronounced "Thin-e-in" for some reason) the Great Sphinx (Japanese name: Sphinx Androgynous)
Light Attribute/Beast Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 3000
All versions of the card have the above characteristics. Now, let's turn to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game wiki for the effect of the card in the real life game.
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by paying 500 Life Points when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" (Japanese name: Gynosphinx, hence "Sphinx Androgynous") on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time; then you can Special Summon this monster from your hand or Deck.
When this card is Special Summoned successfully, pay 500 Life Points to increase the ATK of this card by 3000 points until the end of the End Phase.
I recall that this card was touted in promotional materials as "the strongest monster ever made" when the movie came out; I suppose a potential 6500 ATK is pretty impressive.
However, the effect of the card was radically different in The Pyramid of Light. Its ATK rose not to 6500, but to 35,000, which is a rather significant difference. Let's see what the wiki has to say about it:
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Set this card as a Normal Magic/Spell Card. This card cannot be Special Summoned except from your Magic/Spell & Trap Card Zone when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time. When this card is Special Summoned successfully, increase this card's ATK by 30,000 points.
The first part actually makes some sense-Anubis did indeed set the card on the Field, and presumably it was not as a Monster. The part that doesn't: How do you add 30,000 to 3500 to get 35,000? (Another speculative version of the effect mentioned on the wiki involved suggesting that it merely had its ATK multiplied by ten, which would have made sense; more sense than the wrong number, anyway.)
Answer: You don't. They've got it wrong. In fact, it's not even a fixed increase.
How do I know? I checked.
The nice thing about The Pyramid of Light is that the English version is the only English release with readable card text. And while it's a borderline case, I could read it well enough that I can tell you what the effect was (simplified to help the important bits stand out):
When an "Andro Sphinx" and a "Sphinx Teleia" on your Field are destroyed at the same time, pay 1000 Life Points to Special Summon this card. (I don't recall being able to tell if it specified where from.) When this card is Special Summoned, pay 1000 Life Points to increase this card's ATK by the combined ATK of all Monsters in your Graveyard.
Now, it's possible that someone affiliated with the wiki examined the footage and concluded that this couldn't have been the effect. They're wrong, but it's understandable. Why would they have assumed it was incorrect? Because several cards clearly must have had different effects in Pyramid of Light, and they would have assumed they didn't, because that's just how they think over there.
Specifically, in the TCG, Peten the Dark Clownremoves itself from the game banishes itself* in order to summon another copy of itself. If it did so in the movie, the total for Theinen's ATK would have been off; however, it matches if Peten's effect was different and simply activated when it was sent to the Graveyard. (There's a similar issue with the other two Sphinxes, as their TCG characteristics would have meant they'd be banished when the Pyramid of Light card is destroyed, but one can easily come to the same conclusion regarding those. Another issue of sorts involves Life Point totals, as Anubis inherited Kaiba's Life Points and the other Sphinxes needed 500 Life Points apiece to be summoned, but one can assume that's another difference. There may be other points of divergence, but I don't recall at the moment.) If Theinen's effect is based on the ATK of Monsters in its Graveyard (which Anubis again inherited from Kaiba), it would also explain the "dead souls set free" remark.
Which makes me wish the animators had cared enough to depict the "dead souls" as the spirits of Kaiba's monsters, so that the audience could more intuitively understand just what Anubis was doing.
So,myth busted mystery solved.
*I'm super happy about this new piece of terminology. It's great that they've simplified an aspect of the game so much with a single piece of changed terminology. I'm sure they more or less ganked the idea from Magic: The Gathering, but that's not really bad...
-Signing off.
A long-standing gripe I have with the card game is that they monkey with effects for what often seems like no good reason. Other times, there's clearly a good reason. Meet high-class good reason, Theinen the Great Sphinx (link to a picture)!
Theinen (pronounced "Thin-e-in" for some reason) the Great Sphinx (Japanese name: Sphinx Androgynous)
Light Attribute/Beast Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 3000
All versions of the card have the above characteristics. Now, let's turn to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game wiki for the effect of the card in the real life game.
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by paying 500 Life Points when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" (Japanese name: Gynosphinx, hence "Sphinx Androgynous") on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time; then you can Special Summon this monster from your hand or Deck.
When this card is Special Summoned successfully, pay 500 Life Points to increase the ATK of this card by 3000 points until the end of the End Phase.
I recall that this card was touted in promotional materials as "the strongest monster ever made" when the movie came out; I suppose a potential 6500 ATK is pretty impressive.
However, the effect of the card was radically different in The Pyramid of Light. Its ATK rose not to 6500, but to 35,000, which is a rather significant difference. Let's see what the wiki has to say about it:
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Set this card as a Normal Magic/Spell Card. This card cannot be Special Summoned except from your Magic/Spell & Trap Card Zone when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time. When this card is Special Summoned successfully, increase this card's ATK by 30,000 points.
The first part actually makes some sense-Anubis did indeed set the card on the Field, and presumably it was not as a Monster. The part that doesn't: How do you add 30,000 to 3500 to get 35,000? (Another speculative version of the effect mentioned on the wiki involved suggesting that it merely had its ATK multiplied by ten, which would have made sense; more sense than the wrong number, anyway.)
Answer: You don't. They've got it wrong. In fact, it's not even a fixed increase.
How do I know? I checked.
The nice thing about The Pyramid of Light is that the English version is the only English release with readable card text. And while it's a borderline case, I could read it well enough that I can tell you what the effect was (simplified to help the important bits stand out):
When an "Andro Sphinx" and a "Sphinx Teleia" on your Field are destroyed at the same time, pay 1000 Life Points to Special Summon this card. (I don't recall being able to tell if it specified where from.) When this card is Special Summoned, pay 1000 Life Points to increase this card's ATK by the combined ATK of all Monsters in your Graveyard.
Now, it's possible that someone affiliated with the wiki examined the footage and concluded that this couldn't have been the effect. They're wrong, but it's understandable. Why would they have assumed it was incorrect? Because several cards clearly must have had different effects in Pyramid of Light, and they would have assumed they didn't, because that's just how they think over there.
Specifically, in the TCG, Peten the Dark Clown
Which makes me wish the animators had cared enough to depict the "dead souls" as the spirits of Kaiba's monsters, so that the audience could more intuitively understand just what Anubis was doing.
So,
*I'm super happy about this new piece of terminology. It's great that they've simplified an aspect of the game so much with a single piece of changed terminology. I'm sure they more or less ganked the idea from Magic: The Gathering, but that's not really bad...
-Signing off.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Little Voices: Page 38-55
Good GRIEF it's about darn time I did another commentary. And it only took several months and ribbing from Invid, too. We'll only be going to page 55, because going all the way to the end is just too much in one sitting.
So last time we left off, Ryou had discovered the other Bakura was still living in his head, and that Bakura has amnesia. On page 38, we see that he's taken off and Téa has no idea where.
A lot of stuff changed at the last minute in this set of pages. First of all, I was originally going to have some pages involving Kaiba's storyline right after Ryou discovers Yami B is still alive. I decided that would be too confusing and therefore pushed the pages back, instead moving into this scene right away. I mentioned this in the DeviantArt artist's comments. What I didn't mention is that, originally, I had intended to show Ryou and Téa's parting, a short conversation that I've been wrestling with on and off for two years. I had finally come up with a version that I liked, yet ironically, the page count was getting much too high and the story was getting a bit ponderous and bloated.
Furthermore, I wanted very much to show Tristan getting back from Singapore, but every idea I had for a page that did so was bland and not nearly informative enough (After all, we already knew from Duke that he was on vacation.) I am of the opinion that every page should either be interesting, funny, or at least move the plot along. While I wanted Tristan to show up more in the story (I hate it when people forget he exists) the pages I was coming up with just weren't enough of any of those requirements. So I grafted the two scenes together, discarding Ryou's actual departure in favor of showing a homecoming by Tristan instead. The original discussion between Téa and Ryou was two pages, so I cut three pages down to one.
(This is another place where I might consider posting the discarded first drafts someday.)
Tristan knows that Kaiba is sick and that he collapsed at a tournament because it was all over the tabloids. (The Big Eye: "Seto Kaiba at DEATH'S DOOR!?? Tournament Collapse!" There would be a quote right on the cover from Kaiba, too: "I'm not dying!" says CEO.) Also his friends tell him about these things.
I love page 39 for like a gazillion reasons. CX I probably should have done something with Marik's subplot (the Ishtar clan revealing itself to the world and promptly getting into a legal fight with the Egyptian government) during Magic Light, but quite frankly Magic Light didn't have "room" for that part of the story, and anyway I tend to think the reveal happened either before or after Magic Light's time period. I do, however, think that "Marik VS The Supreme Council of Antiquities" makes an awesome title for a story. XD There will be a lot more of that plot to show up, and I plan on doing a short (non full length story, so it doesn't count as one of the seven) set of pages involving the conflict coming to a head in between Little Voices and the next storyline. Marik will have a lot of fun and so will you.
His conflict with the Egyptian government is slightly inspired by the trouble that Native Americans still have dealing with the United States government, incidentally. Ironically, the United States will eventually become one of Marik's better allies in the matter. I don't see any conflict with what would happen in reality at all here: the US loves to make up for its mistakes by helping the wrong people. (Not that I think the US shouldn't help people. We just shouldn't do it for some of the reasons that we do, we should do it because we're nice people.)
Anyway, there's a bit of confusion between whether Ryou just opened the door through brute force or picked the lock. My original intent was that he picked the lock, so automatically that he didn't quite realize he was doing it, but I also don't really see a need to make that clear in the comic. The scene's funny, that's what's important.
I love drawing Marik. I love drawing Marik, and I love fiddling with his jewelry instead of just keeping it to what we see during the series. :) I also love lotus blossoms. 'Nuff said.
I suspect that Marik watches Duel Monster tournaments and has actually noticed Yugi acting like Atem all on his own, but he probably also keeps a certain amount of contact with Yugi, and with the others.
Marik is adorable when he's being socially awkward. XD
Page 40 was originally going to be over hot tea, but it occured to me that Ryou probably came in from at least ninety-degree weather (That's about thirty-two degrees Celsius). So yeah, nix on the hot tea.
Ryou gets a lot of weird flak over the fact that he writes letters to Amane. Personally I think the people who fetishize it have more wrong with them than Ryou does: it would be much creepier if Ryou kept a little RPG style doll of her and talked to it. There are a lot of ways of grieving, and writing letters to the lost is one of the more common ones, both in Japan and America.
On the other hand, a lot of people also feel alone in their grief, and it wouldn't shock me if Ryou does too-- he doesn't seem to me like he took her death well, and it also doesn't seem like he and his father pulled together over the loss of his sister and mother at all. So there's him worrying about whether it makes him crazy.
Again, Marik is uniquely suited to talk to Ryou about that kind of thing; he's not only lost quite a lot more than the average modern teenager, he's from a culture that really valued the importance of communing with the dead as part of dealing with loss, and there's no way an ancient Egyptian would have told Ryou writing letters to a dead person and then offering them up to her was crazy or even remotely creepy.
Panel 1-3 of page 41 is pretty much a recap, but it seemed sort of necessary for the characters to lay out what's on the table, just to lead into the final panel. Naturally, Ryou's a little shocked. Personally I feel he's a little disturbed at the idea of owning someone. There's also just the fact that he's so damn tired of dealing with Yami B at this point.
I think on page 42 what Marik means by "taking him off" Ryou's hands is, quite simply, that Marik's responsibility as a Tombkeeper includes things like Yami Bakura.
There's a certain section of the fandom who insist that Marik is still totally going to be messed up Yami Marik style, even after the series, and that the only thing that will get rid of Yami Marik is years and years of therapy.
No. I have taken a class in psychology and totally understand their reasoning, but that is not what happened at the end of Battle City. Yami Marik may have started as a mental disorder, but he didn't end as one, whatever he was. Because he could strap Marik's soul up in the corner the way he had separated Yugi and Atem to do the same thing, he and Marik are clearly distinct souls. Because Marik could "visit" Odion when his soul had been mostly eaten up, they are clearly distinct souls.
So my post-series Marik is relatively mentally stable and no longer has dissociative personality disorder, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. Magic has been shown in Yugioh to clearly be able to fix brains anyway (Kaiba). Marik probably still needs a bit of therapy, but not so much that he can't help Ryou with his problem now.
I tend to think the reason he knows how Ryou should go about calling Yami B forth has either something to do with my mildly random rant, with the fact that he's been talking to Yugi, or simply with the fact that Marik seems to me to be rather educated, magic-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if the heads of the Ishtar clan classified as being some level of sorcerer.
Ryou goes along with it on page 43 because he doesn't know what else to do more than anything. I like this page because it shows how fully in control Ryou actually is, whether he realizes it or not-- not only is Yami B being very childlike (the way the shadows hide his face was intended to call back to the way his face was mostly hidden by shadows when he witnessed Kul Elna's destruction) but he's also being totally compliant to Ryou's will, despite the fact that it's difficult for him. Ryou doesn't help him for several reasons, one of which being that he's still a little afraid of actually approaching Yami B, but also because he simply wants to make Yami B do things for himself. He's a compassionate guy, but he's not THAT warm toward Yami B yet.
The series had several interesting ways to show one soul switching out for another, usually between Yugi and Atem. The "hands touching" method isn't the most original, but it's also one of my favorites. Go figure.
Marik doesn't expect Yami B to remember him on page 44 (although Yami B himself is frustrated and more than a little upset that he doesn't). Once again I went for "little kid Bakura" faces, because that's what I wanted to show: Everything that made him crazy has been blasted away. A frightened child is all that's left. Obviously he's still himself, which is what I wanted to be seen with the serious face he makes when he calls himself an avenger, but he's also more himself than he's been in several thousand years. (If that makes sense.)
The line "I wanted Ryou safe" is both a self-reassurance that he's not a bad person, despite the fact that he's sure he's done something wrong, and an admonition toward Marik himself. "I wanted Ryou safe, and you wanted to let a big red dragon spit on him!!" Not that Yami B actually remembers this; it's more like he's looking in on things inside Ryou's memories. That's also why he "fled."
I love Roo's face in the second panel of page 45. Also, Marik's not sure how much sense Ryou's explanation actually makes. B[
One of the commentors made the best statement in regards to page 46: that Yami Bakura being human means that he can change. Yes. This is exactly it. The other point of this page was to point out the fact that yes, I DO know that I draw Bakura taller than he was in the series. XD
Ryou develops a slight case of Yami B's eye shadows on page 47. Uh oh. Also I finally stopped copping out and actually tried to draw Odion's facial tat. Booya.
We have another cameo on page 48; Angela the dragon, who belongs to Lady Blackwings of Deviantart. She's a nice lady and does pretty colors. O_O Poor Yami B is basically the kitten in Ryou's basement right now. I also feel that this page shows one of the ways that Ryou IS a good person, despite everything: He doesn't trust the guy and dislikes that he's basically been forced into nursing him, but the sad puppy face Yami B is making still works on him, and he's still being kind to him.
I've always been mildly fascinated with Thief King Bakura's life before he became part of the Yami Bakura entity. Invid and I agree that what happened in the Millenium World arc couldn't have been exactly what truly happened in the past (more like a "summary" of what had happened, altered by the modern elements added to it and by the fact that it was actually a role-playing game), so there's a lot of questions left unanswered. But he was probably the one character who was up to the most interesting mayhem.
On page 49 I chose to add the "meanwhile" note, something I don't normally do, mainly because the Bakura scene set was so long. I have always had it in my head that Bakura's visit to Marik takes place around the same time or slightly after Yugi, Joey, Serenity and Rebecca visit the Kaiba mansion, but I was concerned that chopping the scenes apart would be too confusing, and I really don't like being confusing. :x (I'm aware of the fact that I still am anyway.)
I love that Mokuba screams Yugi, Joey, and Serenity's names in all capital letters, but Rebecca's name is said with normal capitalization like it's just sort of added on. Also, that last panel was one of many panels that was a lot easier to draw because Invid is nice and lets me borrow his portable DVD player: Instead of trying to dig up my manga volumes, which are notoriously insidious to find (I swear they're alive and do it on purpose) I could just grab one of the Duelist Kingdom DVDs and put the DVD player on my desk. XD (This is one of many reasons why I simply find it easier to write a story following mostly anime continuity- that and the fact that parts of the manga send my suspension of disbelief crashing through the floor, and then it drowns in the sea below while flailing around for a tiny key that probably floated a hundred feet away by the time it should have reached my poor, poor suspension of disbelief. >_<)
And since I got a laptop recently, it's going to be even easier than that- Now I can just save screenshots and use those. Yay, technology! XD
I love Roland to pieces. I sort of ad-libbed a lot of the furniture on page 50, but I figure if Kaiba really does have OCD or something, it probably gets moved around enough that it doesn't matter. Kaiba's bed is a totally different one from the one that is briefly shown in Magic Light. I could say something like "Well, this is a fancomic and I was being less careful about references and junk during Magic Light YOU'RE NOT PAYING ME to read this so don't complain," but that's not how I feel about it: The fact that I'm not making any money off this doesn't mean I don't care about it. So my official explanation is actually that Kaiba was sleeping in a guest room that one time, because burning his clothes in a wastebasket filled his room with a smoky smell that he couldn't sleep with. XD (Well sure, it was on a balcony, but he left his door open, so the smell still got in.) (Yes, this is how much of a nerd I am.)
In the original version of the fanfic that became this comic, it was actually going to be Serenity that went in to talk to Kaiba, and worse, she visited him alone. I wrote the original idea several years ago, and that's my only excuse. Past-me mostly cared about her agendas, while Current-me cares more about the fact that Joey knows Kaiba better than Serenity does and is more likely to understand Kaiba's hangups right away, and that Serenity is much more timid than Joey is. This is one of the reasons I'm not bothered by my own writing process taking a long time: Fics end up less stupid because of it. I love page 51 because that maid is totally talking in lolcatspeak, and Kaiba totally just nearly dropped an F-bomb. XD The sketch version of this page featured Kaiba snuggling down further into the bedding contentedly before realizing someone (who wasn't Mokuba) was sitting next to him, but it wasn't particularly clear what was happening-- it looked more like Joey was snuggling into Kaiba. For obvious reasons (this scene is homoerotic enough!) I chose to have him say "Mnf?" instead.
Also, Kaiba hires no maids under the age of 25 in my universe. I just want to make that clear: Women who don't look like they could be Mokuba's mom need not apply. XD I gave her a French Maid style costume anyway, just because it's so very anime for her to be wearing one.
In panel 3 of page 52, Kaiba's muffled words are "Oh Gawd!" If you look closely, you'll see that Joey has chosen to wrap his legs around Kaiba's right arm. Kaiba finds this incredibly disturbing. XD
Some of the way Joey's talking about healing on page 53 caused a reader or two to wonder just how sick Kaiba actually is, since a lot of people don't think of the flu as being a life-threatening illness and it almost sounded as though that's what Joey was saying, that Kaiba was dying or something.
The common flu is one of those funny illnesses that, when a person gets it, can either run its course if the person is getting proper treatment, or can, if the person is NOT getting proper treatment, get worse and worse and worse. Kaiba is essentially prolonging the amount of time that he's sick by being difficult to take care of. XD That's part of what Joey's telling him off for, anyhow.
Another side to it is the fact that Joey knows that Kaiba's still a little out of wack over the car accident. This whole scene became a scene about how Kaiba couldn't even apologize to Joey when he thought Joey was awake, and now is the first time Joey's outright told him that it's okay and they can move on. They're communicating better than they were back at Duelist Kingdom, but it's not the kind of communication you normally see between two healthy people. Page 54 turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted it, and while it's not as heavy impact as a scene about Kaiba standing in the rain so nobody bothers him at his father's grave, I'm still quite pleased with the moment and consider it quite important.
At this point in the story, Joey's opinion about Kaiba has morphed into sadness that Kaiba's so messed up.
And of course, the delectable page 55, which I simply cannot leave out. Look at that Roland! Look at hiiim!! XD Mokuba would seem to have funny ideas about how to get people to relax. Also, as noted in the page comments, Earl Grey is considered by some to be a breakfast tea. I thought it was a bit funnier than coffee.
In this fancomic, as a totally random aside, I chose to have Roland's full name be "Roland Isono," as Isono is his Japanese name. This seemed like a fairly economical solution: His dub name is the only given name I've known the character to have, and his Japanese name is the only family name I've known the character to have. And they sound comfortable when said aloud next to one another.
Next commentary, I'll probably try to plow all the way to the end! Yay! XD
So last time we left off, Ryou had discovered the other Bakura was still living in his head, and that Bakura has amnesia. On page 38, we see that he's taken off and Téa has no idea where.
A lot of stuff changed at the last minute in this set of pages. First of all, I was originally going to have some pages involving Kaiba's storyline right after Ryou discovers Yami B is still alive. I decided that would be too confusing and therefore pushed the pages back, instead moving into this scene right away. I mentioned this in the DeviantArt artist's comments. What I didn't mention is that, originally, I had intended to show Ryou and Téa's parting, a short conversation that I've been wrestling with on and off for two years. I had finally come up with a version that I liked, yet ironically, the page count was getting much too high and the story was getting a bit ponderous and bloated.
Furthermore, I wanted very much to show Tristan getting back from Singapore, but every idea I had for a page that did so was bland and not nearly informative enough (After all, we already knew from Duke that he was on vacation.) I am of the opinion that every page should either be interesting, funny, or at least move the plot along. While I wanted Tristan to show up more in the story (I hate it when people forget he exists) the pages I was coming up with just weren't enough of any of those requirements. So I grafted the two scenes together, discarding Ryou's actual departure in favor of showing a homecoming by Tristan instead. The original discussion between Téa and Ryou was two pages, so I cut three pages down to one.
(This is another place where I might consider posting the discarded first drafts someday.)
Tristan knows that Kaiba is sick and that he collapsed at a tournament because it was all over the tabloids. (The Big Eye: "Seto Kaiba at DEATH'S DOOR!?? Tournament Collapse!" There would be a quote right on the cover from Kaiba, too: "I'm not dying!" says CEO.) Also his friends tell him about these things.
I love page 39 for like a gazillion reasons. CX I probably should have done something with Marik's subplot (the Ishtar clan revealing itself to the world and promptly getting into a legal fight with the Egyptian government) during Magic Light, but quite frankly Magic Light didn't have "room" for that part of the story, and anyway I tend to think the reveal happened either before or after Magic Light's time period. I do, however, think that "Marik VS The Supreme Council of Antiquities" makes an awesome title for a story. XD There will be a lot more of that plot to show up, and I plan on doing a short (non full length story, so it doesn't count as one of the seven) set of pages involving the conflict coming to a head in between Little Voices and the next storyline. Marik will have a lot of fun and so will you.
His conflict with the Egyptian government is slightly inspired by the trouble that Native Americans still have dealing with the United States government, incidentally. Ironically, the United States will eventually become one of Marik's better allies in the matter. I don't see any conflict with what would happen in reality at all here: the US loves to make up for its mistakes by helping the wrong people. (Not that I think the US shouldn't help people. We just shouldn't do it for some of the reasons that we do, we should do it because we're nice people.)
Anyway, there's a bit of confusion between whether Ryou just opened the door through brute force or picked the lock. My original intent was that he picked the lock, so automatically that he didn't quite realize he was doing it, but I also don't really see a need to make that clear in the comic. The scene's funny, that's what's important.
I love drawing Marik. I love drawing Marik, and I love fiddling with his jewelry instead of just keeping it to what we see during the series. :) I also love lotus blossoms. 'Nuff said.
I suspect that Marik watches Duel Monster tournaments and has actually noticed Yugi acting like Atem all on his own, but he probably also keeps a certain amount of contact with Yugi, and with the others.
Marik is adorable when he's being socially awkward. XD
Page 40 was originally going to be over hot tea, but it occured to me that Ryou probably came in from at least ninety-degree weather (That's about thirty-two degrees Celsius). So yeah, nix on the hot tea.
Ryou gets a lot of weird flak over the fact that he writes letters to Amane. Personally I think the people who fetishize it have more wrong with them than Ryou does: it would be much creepier if Ryou kept a little RPG style doll of her and talked to it. There are a lot of ways of grieving, and writing letters to the lost is one of the more common ones, both in Japan and America.
On the other hand, a lot of people also feel alone in their grief, and it wouldn't shock me if Ryou does too-- he doesn't seem to me like he took her death well, and it also doesn't seem like he and his father pulled together over the loss of his sister and mother at all. So there's him worrying about whether it makes him crazy.
Again, Marik is uniquely suited to talk to Ryou about that kind of thing; he's not only lost quite a lot more than the average modern teenager, he's from a culture that really valued the importance of communing with the dead as part of dealing with loss, and there's no way an ancient Egyptian would have told Ryou writing letters to a dead person and then offering them up to her was crazy or even remotely creepy.
Panel 1-3 of page 41 is pretty much a recap, but it seemed sort of necessary for the characters to lay out what's on the table, just to lead into the final panel. Naturally, Ryou's a little shocked. Personally I feel he's a little disturbed at the idea of owning someone. There's also just the fact that he's so damn tired of dealing with Yami B at this point.
I think on page 42 what Marik means by "taking him off" Ryou's hands is, quite simply, that Marik's responsibility as a Tombkeeper includes things like Yami Bakura.
There's a certain section of the fandom who insist that Marik is still totally going to be messed up Yami Marik style, even after the series, and that the only thing that will get rid of Yami Marik is years and years of therapy.
No. I have taken a class in psychology and totally understand their reasoning, but that is not what happened at the end of Battle City. Yami Marik may have started as a mental disorder, but he didn't end as one, whatever he was. Because he could strap Marik's soul up in the corner the way he had separated Yugi and Atem to do the same thing, he and Marik are clearly distinct souls. Because Marik could "visit" Odion when his soul had been mostly eaten up, they are clearly distinct souls.
So my post-series Marik is relatively mentally stable and no longer has dissociative personality disorder, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. Magic has been shown in Yugioh to clearly be able to fix brains anyway (Kaiba). Marik probably still needs a bit of therapy, but not so much that he can't help Ryou with his problem now.
I tend to think the reason he knows how Ryou should go about calling Yami B forth has either something to do with my mildly random rant, with the fact that he's been talking to Yugi, or simply with the fact that Marik seems to me to be rather educated, magic-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if the heads of the Ishtar clan classified as being some level of sorcerer.
Ryou goes along with it on page 43 because he doesn't know what else to do more than anything. I like this page because it shows how fully in control Ryou actually is, whether he realizes it or not-- not only is Yami B being very childlike (the way the shadows hide his face was intended to call back to the way his face was mostly hidden by shadows when he witnessed Kul Elna's destruction) but he's also being totally compliant to Ryou's will, despite the fact that it's difficult for him. Ryou doesn't help him for several reasons, one of which being that he's still a little afraid of actually approaching Yami B, but also because he simply wants to make Yami B do things for himself. He's a compassionate guy, but he's not THAT warm toward Yami B yet.
The series had several interesting ways to show one soul switching out for another, usually between Yugi and Atem. The "hands touching" method isn't the most original, but it's also one of my favorites. Go figure.
Marik doesn't expect Yami B to remember him on page 44 (although Yami B himself is frustrated and more than a little upset that he doesn't). Once again I went for "little kid Bakura" faces, because that's what I wanted to show: Everything that made him crazy has been blasted away. A frightened child is all that's left. Obviously he's still himself, which is what I wanted to be seen with the serious face he makes when he calls himself an avenger, but he's also more himself than he's been in several thousand years. (If that makes sense.)
The line "I wanted Ryou safe" is both a self-reassurance that he's not a bad person, despite the fact that he's sure he's done something wrong, and an admonition toward Marik himself. "I wanted Ryou safe, and you wanted to let a big red dragon spit on him!!" Not that Yami B actually remembers this; it's more like he's looking in on things inside Ryou's memories. That's also why he "fled."
I love Roo's face in the second panel of page 45. Also, Marik's not sure how much sense Ryou's explanation actually makes. B[
One of the commentors made the best statement in regards to page 46: that Yami Bakura being human means that he can change. Yes. This is exactly it. The other point of this page was to point out the fact that yes, I DO know that I draw Bakura taller than he was in the series. XD
Ryou develops a slight case of Yami B's eye shadows on page 47. Uh oh. Also I finally stopped copping out and actually tried to draw Odion's facial tat. Booya.
We have another cameo on page 48; Angela the dragon, who belongs to Lady Blackwings of Deviantart. She's a nice lady and does pretty colors. O_O Poor Yami B is basically the kitten in Ryou's basement right now. I also feel that this page shows one of the ways that Ryou IS a good person, despite everything: He doesn't trust the guy and dislikes that he's basically been forced into nursing him, but the sad puppy face Yami B is making still works on him, and he's still being kind to him.
I've always been mildly fascinated with Thief King Bakura's life before he became part of the Yami Bakura entity. Invid and I agree that what happened in the Millenium World arc couldn't have been exactly what truly happened in the past (more like a "summary" of what had happened, altered by the modern elements added to it and by the fact that it was actually a role-playing game), so there's a lot of questions left unanswered. But he was probably the one character who was up to the most interesting mayhem.
On page 49 I chose to add the "meanwhile" note, something I don't normally do, mainly because the Bakura scene set was so long. I have always had it in my head that Bakura's visit to Marik takes place around the same time or slightly after Yugi, Joey, Serenity and Rebecca visit the Kaiba mansion, but I was concerned that chopping the scenes apart would be too confusing, and I really don't like being confusing. :x (I'm aware of the fact that I still am anyway.)
I love that Mokuba screams Yugi, Joey, and Serenity's names in all capital letters, but Rebecca's name is said with normal capitalization like it's just sort of added on. Also, that last panel was one of many panels that was a lot easier to draw because Invid is nice and lets me borrow his portable DVD player: Instead of trying to dig up my manga volumes, which are notoriously insidious to find (I swear they're alive and do it on purpose) I could just grab one of the Duelist Kingdom DVDs and put the DVD player on my desk. XD (This is one of many reasons why I simply find it easier to write a story following mostly anime continuity- that and the fact that parts of the manga send my suspension of disbelief crashing through the floor, and then it drowns in the sea below while flailing around for a tiny key that probably floated a hundred feet away by the time it should have reached my poor, poor suspension of disbelief. >_<)
And since I got a laptop recently, it's going to be even easier than that- Now I can just save screenshots and use those. Yay, technology! XD
I love Roland to pieces. I sort of ad-libbed a lot of the furniture on page 50, but I figure if Kaiba really does have OCD or something, it probably gets moved around enough that it doesn't matter. Kaiba's bed is a totally different one from the one that is briefly shown in Magic Light. I could say something like "Well, this is a fancomic and I was being less careful about references and junk during Magic Light YOU'RE NOT PAYING ME to read this so don't complain," but that's not how I feel about it: The fact that I'm not making any money off this doesn't mean I don't care about it. So my official explanation is actually that Kaiba was sleeping in a guest room that one time, because burning his clothes in a wastebasket filled his room with a smoky smell that he couldn't sleep with. XD (Well sure, it was on a balcony, but he left his door open, so the smell still got in.) (Yes, this is how much of a nerd I am.)
In the original version of the fanfic that became this comic, it was actually going to be Serenity that went in to talk to Kaiba, and worse, she visited him alone. I wrote the original idea several years ago, and that's my only excuse. Past-me mostly cared about her agendas, while Current-me cares more about the fact that Joey knows Kaiba better than Serenity does and is more likely to understand Kaiba's hangups right away, and that Serenity is much more timid than Joey is. This is one of the reasons I'm not bothered by my own writing process taking a long time: Fics end up less stupid because of it. I love page 51 because that maid is totally talking in lolcatspeak, and Kaiba totally just nearly dropped an F-bomb. XD The sketch version of this page featured Kaiba snuggling down further into the bedding contentedly before realizing someone (who wasn't Mokuba) was sitting next to him, but it wasn't particularly clear what was happening-- it looked more like Joey was snuggling into Kaiba. For obvious reasons (this scene is homoerotic enough!) I chose to have him say "Mnf?" instead.
Also, Kaiba hires no maids under the age of 25 in my universe. I just want to make that clear: Women who don't look like they could be Mokuba's mom need not apply. XD I gave her a French Maid style costume anyway, just because it's so very anime for her to be wearing one.
In panel 3 of page 52, Kaiba's muffled words are "Oh Gawd!" If you look closely, you'll see that Joey has chosen to wrap his legs around Kaiba's right arm. Kaiba finds this incredibly disturbing. XD
Some of the way Joey's talking about healing on page 53 caused a reader or two to wonder just how sick Kaiba actually is, since a lot of people don't think of the flu as being a life-threatening illness and it almost sounded as though that's what Joey was saying, that Kaiba was dying or something.
The common flu is one of those funny illnesses that, when a person gets it, can either run its course if the person is getting proper treatment, or can, if the person is NOT getting proper treatment, get worse and worse and worse. Kaiba is essentially prolonging the amount of time that he's sick by being difficult to take care of. XD That's part of what Joey's telling him off for, anyhow.
Another side to it is the fact that Joey knows that Kaiba's still a little out of wack over the car accident. This whole scene became a scene about how Kaiba couldn't even apologize to Joey when he thought Joey was awake, and now is the first time Joey's outright told him that it's okay and they can move on. They're communicating better than they were back at Duelist Kingdom, but it's not the kind of communication you normally see between two healthy people. Page 54 turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted it, and while it's not as heavy impact as a scene about Kaiba standing in the rain so nobody bothers him at his father's grave, I'm still quite pleased with the moment and consider it quite important.
At this point in the story, Joey's opinion about Kaiba has morphed into sadness that Kaiba's so messed up.
And of course, the delectable page 55, which I simply cannot leave out. Look at that Roland! Look at hiiim!! XD Mokuba would seem to have funny ideas about how to get people to relax. Also, as noted in the page comments, Earl Grey is considered by some to be a breakfast tea. I thought it was a bit funnier than coffee.
In this fancomic, as a totally random aside, I chose to have Roland's full name be "Roland Isono," as Isono is his Japanese name. This seemed like a fairly economical solution: His dub name is the only given name I've known the character to have, and his Japanese name is the only family name I've known the character to have. And they sound comfortable when said aloud next to one another.
Next commentary, I'll probably try to plow all the way to the end! Yay! XD
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