#this piece is so seasons greasons to me

[aji-fried]

traveling

[pinkprimrose05]

Decklist Contraption - Holiday Special!

Warning: Long post

*inhales*

*clears throat*

*pushes up glasses*

*adjusts bunch of plushies- uh- ahem.*

Season's greasons, Duelists! A very merry Zarcmas to all!!

(Oh God it's the 8th time now what the fuck-)

Today I present you a very silly, very convoluted, veeeeery sacky decklist in the spirit of the holidays. Ever wondered how it'd feel like to end the duel before it begins? Well, you're in luck, because I have one such method of highly fluctuating consistency!

Introducing.... Tricksturbance Strategy Turbo!

The premise is very simple, in spite of all the variables. You need to go first, punt Z-ARC into the Pendulum zone, and set down either (or both) of Trickstar Reincarnation and Disturbance Strategy, all before your opponent's main phase.

Every card in the deck plays a part in that (to the best of its barely coherent ability)- and that's what I'll be detailing below!

Main Deck (40 cards):

1x Odd-Eyes Arc Pendulum Dragon: Just fodder for Celestial Soul, really.

3x Supreme King Gate Magician: The main playmaker on the Z-ARC side of the combo; he can search out either of the two Souls to get you to your dragon overlord.

2-3x Supreme King Gate Zero: A pendulum scale for Gate Magician's self-summoning effect, nothing more, nothing less. Ratio interchangeable with Darkwurm. Oh, speaking of...

2-3x Supreme King Dragon Darkwurm: Self-summoning little guy that searches Gate Magician or Gate Zero, in case you didn't open with both.

2x Cup of Ace: Card advantage. RNG-dependent, but oh well.

3x Dragon Shrine: Mill Darkwurm, summon Darkwurm from grave, profit.

1x Upstart Goblin: Card advantage again.

1x Foolish Burial: Darkwurm mill. Again.

3x Pot of Prosperity: More card advantage, with the added bonus of potentially jackpotting a missing combo piece.

3x Wings of Light: Universal Supreme King searcher (have you noticed how that side keeps searching itself? Yeah it's still janky as fuck. Somehow.)

3x Trickstar Reincarnation: Key card #1! Basically resets your opponent's hand (and can revive a Trickstar, but that's irrelevant here.)

3x Oops!: Self-destruction button. Pops 1 of your own monsters, which is A Lot more useful than it looks on the surface.

3x Trap Tracks: Great role consolidator, and arguably the lynchpin of this deck. Pops 1 monster, sets 1 trap from the deck- precisely what you need to pull off the combo. It does have antisynergy with Trap Trick, though, so do watch out for that.

1x Soul of The Supreme Celestial King: First (and better, and costlier) choice of your two gateways to Z-ARC. If the opponent somehow interrupts your silly goofy combo, you can spring this on them midway through their own combo, and..... uhhh.... pray for a win by beatdown. Lmao.

3x Disturbance Strategy: Key card #2!! Alternate option to Reincarnation, resets your opponent's hand via shuffling instead of banishing their starter opening.

2x Trap Trick: Worse Trap Tracks, but useful in a jiffy. Gets you to Oops, Reincarnation, Disturbance, or one of the two Souls. Whichever it is you're missing. Again, do beware this can't tutor Trap Tracks (or you won't be able to resolve more Traps for the turn).

3x Soul of The Supreme King: One good ol' Z-ARC at the small cost of, uh, half your LP. This isn't half as bad as it looks, trust me- it's actually more reliable than its Celestial counterpart, since it doesn't need Gate Magician to stay on field.

Extra Deck (15 cards):

Up to 9x Dimension Dragons (or variants), as fodder for Gate Magician and Celestial Soul.

3x Flex spots where you put whatever, because empty ED spots lowkey look bad.

3x Supreme King Z-ARC: Key card #3!!! The star of this hotpot of cards, widely known for board wipes... and significantly less so for his Pendulum effects. This is why you need a self-destruct button, by the way.....

...Figured out the combo yet?

Steps:

1) Go first. If you go second, then what are you even doing? Magic your way into it, idk (I did say this was of highly fluctuating consistency).

2) Cycle through the bajillion searches and draws in your deck to end on 1 each of Z-ARC (or a way to summon him at the start of turn 2), a way to destroy him (Oops or Trap Tracks), a hand reset (Reincarnation or Disturbance- or Trap Trick, if you can't get to either), by the end of turn 1. If Trap Tracks was your choice of pop, this excuses not having a hand reset because you can just dig it out from the Deck.

3) Turn 2 begins. In the draw phase, flip your pop. This gets Z-ARC to the Pendulum zone, and from there you proceed to the standby phase.

4) In said phase, flip up the hand reset so your opponent has to redraw a hand. This is where Z-ARC's second Pendulum effect triggers... and promptly destroys the new hand they just drew.

Yes.

Every single card of it.

Congratulations; they can't start a thing now, and will either quit on the spot or... watch you tickle them with battle damage?

(Sometimes they can still play, but kicking off a combo from the GY is something special to just a few decks. Besides, the sight of their hand going POOF! is still priceless, even if it doesn't win you the game then and there.)

Aaaand there you have it! Results are pretty much guaranteed to be atrocious, but hey, it's still a fun experience to pull off at times!! Here's your cookie for sticking around, by the way- have fun dueling, and happy holidays!

(shhhhh it's still the 25th in some places-)

[mrultra100]

Let's be frank here; 2023 was one helluva year when it came to expanding my artistic range. Maybe of y'all may know me as the "V-Mary/Maryanna guy", but a goal that I set myself up at the start of the year was to experiment and expand the list of what I usual drew. And that's exactly what I did.

From the top of my head, I've done things like paleoart, expanded more on drawing human bodies, added some new series to the list of things that I draw, finally got my first-ever commission, partook in a monthly drawing challenge that I created myself, worked on my idea for a Johnny Test reboot some more (Although I wish I made even more for that series), drew up other people's OCs, and more! Overall, I'm very happy with how this year when for me. And while it's gonna be a while before big art pieces start picking up again, I'm hoping to continue growing and improving my craft to be even better in the new year. Things are only gonna get bigger and grander from here on out. I just wanna thank everyone for supporting me this year. I'm very grateful for the friends, family, and fans that I've made along the way in this journey so far, and I'm FAR from done.

May your Season's have alot of Greason's, and I'll see you all in the new year. Cheers!

[oscartwofoxtrot]

Seasons greasons in advance, it's your Secret Santa scouting out the neighborhood before the chimneys are plumbed! Your gift's been bubbling on the stove (translation: rereading Valiant over and over), but alas, I have very little familiarity with Halo 4, so I have to ask. Did you have any inspirational images from the game that stuck with you when you were writing it, and/or do you have any ideas/preferences on what Brad's Spartan armor/Nate-as-AI look like (color, build, etc.)?

Season’s greasons my beloved secret santa! Already very excited to see what you’re cooking up <3

Worry not, I have plenty of links to the indispensible Halo wiki, Halopedia (idk how invested you are in Valiant, but be aware of potential spoilers for the rest of Halo 4 if you decide to go poking around!) – and please feel free to ask me for any more info or references if you need them :)

How I visualise Brad and Nate is roughly as they appear in my pinned post. Brad’s armour is sort of a combination of this character’s armour – mainly the metallic blue paint + silver visor colour scheme and the chestplate design – with Master Chief’s Halo 4/5 look (see here, here, here, here, here). The latter is probably a lot easier to get decent images of though, so if you just want to use a recoloured version of the Master Chief then that also works great!

Nate’s a bit trickier since he’s more of a composite. I picture him as green in colour, and dressed in a UNSC jumpsuit similar to this (see also), but with the circuitboard patterns of Cortana’s Halo 4 design. Generally I prefer to think of him with slightly longer hair than he has in GK, a la this or this perhaps, but I guess it really depends on what refs you can get ahold of (Stark Sands have a consistent haircut challenge)

As for inspirational images, there’s a few concept art pieces I find quite striking, like this, this or this. Landscape-wise, Requiem’s giant floating towers spring to mind. I guess for me the definitive scene from the early chapters of Valiant is Nate revealing that he’s going Rampant, which is based off the beginning of this level in Halo 4. Maybe it’s because I’ve been writing about it recently, but the oft-referenced, as-yet-undiscussed moment from before the events of Valiant where Brad rescues Nate from the Gravemind has been on my mind a lot as well. It’s a very sweet scene in Halo 3 – you can watch it here.

Hopefully that covers everything. Thanks for the ask, and have a great holiday season!