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Hey everyone,

The original rules of YCM were commissioned and written way back in 2007 with some additions in early 2008, and since then the site has obviously changed dramatically. It's about time a new set of rules was drafted and written to replace the outdated rules, and that they be simplified and easy to understand. The amount of rules has been dropped from 24 into 7, making them much easier to read. As a result of this update, the original rules are null and void from this point on, and may no longer be referenced.

If you have any questions about these new rules, feel free to contact myself or any other member of staff. Special thanks go to Tkill93 and Azuh, who helped with the original rules, JoshIcy and Browarod, who were instrumental in the creation of these new rules, and Crab Helmet, who gave some useful feedback post-drafting. If you'd like to use these rules for purposes outside of YCM, please contact me and ask for permission beforehand.

Cheers, Reece (a.k.a. Frunk).


Rule 1: Staff have final say


Moderators of YCM have been appointed to their positions because they have the confidence of the administration. This means, essentially, whatever they say goes, whether it be locking a thread or banning a member. If you are not a moderator yourself, you do not have a say on what the site moderation does - that is called "backseat moderation". If you want to help the moderation team, the best thing you can do is use the Report system, which is done by clicking the "Report" button that appears beneath every post.

You must follow moderators instructions at all times. It's their job to keep the forum running smoothly and if they ask you to do something it is indeed for the good of the forum.

Moderators do, however, have to abide by these rules, so if you feel a moderator has made an incorrect or unfair decision, bring it up with them in a calm manner. Attacking a moderator will likely get you into even more trouble. If that does not work, feel free to contact an administrator.

These rules are purposefully vague as there is no way that every breach of them can possibly be anticipated. Stating something was not precisely covered in the rules will be ignored. Staff do indeed have the final say.


Rule 2: No inappropriate content


YCM is a family-friendly forum home to users of all ages. Members may not post, or link to, anything that a reasonable person would consider far beyond the bounds of PG-13, including, but not limited to, coarse language, any form of pornography, and derogatory or discriminatory material or content. What is inappropriate will be determined by moderators on a case-by-case basis. If you are unsure, feel free to PM a member of staff and ask for clarification before you make your post.


Rule 3: No illegal content


Simply, it is prohibited for users to post any content that breaks any laws or infringes copyright. This includes, but is not limited to, information and resources relating to hacking, promotion of terrorism (including cyber-terrorism), and so on. If you are unsure, feel free to PM a member of staff and ask for clarification before you make your post.

Also, it is strictly prohibited to breach privacy of anyone, whether they be a member of YCM or not. You may not post any real-world information, like full names, addresses, etc., and, notably including, logs of IM conversations, private messages (if a PM breaks a rule, PM a moderator directly - do not quote it on the forum), emails or other such information without express permission of all parties involved.


Rule 4: No plagiarism


"Plagiarism", as defined in the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary, is the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." On YCM, it is strictly prohibited to post anything that is not your own, original work, and claim it as your own.


Rule 5: No spamming


"Spam" has many definitions and comes in many forms. On YCM, it is prohibited to consistently make short posts, posting twice in a row of the same thread within a 24-hour period, post a thread in the wrong location (i.e. You cannot post your created Yu-Gi-Oh! cards outside the Custom Cards section, etc.), intentionally go off-topic in a thread, flood any part of the board with threads and/or replies, "stalk" another member's threads and/or replies, make threads and/or replies identical or almost identical in nature to ones that already exist, and etc. If you are unsure, feel free to PM a member of staff and ask for clarification before you make your post.

Advertising also falls within the bounds of spam. On YCM, while some things are acceptable, it is prohibited to advertise real-life products or similar, non-internet related goods, services, or information anywhere on YCM, whether it being in a thread, reply or profile field. Additionally, it is prohibited to post threads or replies advertising non-YCM websites, like blogs, forums and online-shopping sites. However, it is acceptable to place links to user-owned blogs, forums and other websites that do not advertise any of the aforementioned real-world goods, and additionally don't infringe the rules of YCM, in profile fields only.


Rule 6: No trolling


Like Spam, "trolling" has many defintions and comes in many forms. Posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response and disrupting normal, civil, on-topic discussion is just one definition of trolling on YCM. Essentially, if you are told by a moderator that you are trolling, you must cease that behaviour.

YCM is a place where nobody should feel harassed. Harrassing another member of YCM in any way, on or off the forum, will never be tolerated, no matter what you think that person did to "deserve" such treatment.


Rule 7: No account or feature abuse


Membership to YCM is a privledge, not a right. It is obviously prohibited for any member to abuse any part of their account or other feature of the site, namely profile information fields, avatars, signatures, the calendar, the Private Message system, the Report system, the Reputation system, the Points system, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Maker, and/or of course access to the board itself, and/or utilise these privledges in order to break any rules.

Members of YCM are not allowed more than one account. There is no reason for you to have more, and any "double accounts", and potentially your "main account", will be banned.

In conclusion, the sole intent and purpose of these rules is so that every member of YCM can enjoy this great site to the fullest. If you read through them and intend on obeying them to as close to the letter as possible, you have mine and the rest of the YCM staff's personal thanks.

I've purchased a new skin option for the forum, "Velvet Blue". I modified it a bit to better fit the YCM community.

Yes, the long awaited Xyz's are finally going to be implemented into the cardmaker. It has also been decided that while we've got the support of YCMaker a complete redesign of every template in the cardmaker would be ideal. Besides the change in aesthetic design, YCMaker stated the cardmaker will be re-written to have better text effects, other changes in regards to both the writing and differences in aesthetics are still being conceptualized as we are still in the early planning stages. I'll try my best to update the public with any info I come across pertaining to the former, and will almost surely produce updates regarding the actual design so that the community can play a part in the design of the templates. 

 

As for who will be designing the templates, I've decided to lead a small team of capable designers to ensure quality and uniformity are prioritized. As far as specifics on the designers, it's still yet to be decided, I've got two in mind but I'm still very much open to the possibility of variation. For more information pertaining to the actual design process or to apply for a position on the team, see this thread.

 

 

 

 

 

Last update: 11th September, 2011

High-Definition Yu-Gi-Oh Card Template v1.4
High quality, XYZ templates, holofoil, fake attributes and stuff!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Downloads
1.a. For Photoshop Users
1.a.i. Add-ons
1.b. For GIMP Users
1.c. Fonts (required)
2. Information
2.a.i  Examples
2.a.ii Cards/sets by others
2.b. Version History
2.c. FAQ (All your questions answered already!)

I hope this will help you get around.

---

FOR PHOTOSHOP USERS
Updated: 4-18-2011 (Links below)

>> PLEASE NOTE:
These templates are made by me, for Photoshop users.
You will find examples for them in the EXAMPLES section.
Password if any: Touma

Monster Card v1.4 (25mb ZIP) Includes XYZ template and Holos!
Monster Card v1.3 (19mb ZIP) Includes XYZ template!
Monster Card v1.2 (18mb ZIP)
Monster Card v1.1 (14 mb RAR)
Spell/Trap Card v1.2 (10mb ZIP)

• • •

>> Under this sections are Photoshop modifications of my template

Japanese Monster v1.2.5 (24mb PSD) by ¤ßϯ¤
EXAMPLE

Japanese Monster v1.3.1 (24mb PSD) by Phoenix19 includes BT's Exceed Link taken down on request of Bt
Japanese Spell/Trap v1.2.5 (24mb PSD) by Phoenix

ADD-ONS
7 new fake attributes added.

---

FOR GIMP USERS
Updated: 9-11-2011

11th September update:

GIMP templates were reuploaded by the sexy ANBU. Thanks a lot!

(Version unknown, they downloaded it around February)

English Template

Japanese Template

--

Monster Card v1.4 for GIMP (40mb XCF) also includes Ra template,
made by Deathly Fiend of YMC

Newly Edited Monster Template (26mb XCF) by Deathly Fiend of YMC

I edited this from BT's GIMP template and Pheonix19's Photoshop Japanese Template. Give them the credit, but I am the one who created the RANKS. This template contains Exceed Monsters. Hope this is helpful.
Example.

• • •

Monster Card v1.2.5 (24mb XCF) made by Bt
Japanese Monster Card v1.2.8 (24mb XCF) made by Bt
Spell/Trap Card v1.1 (13mb XCF) made by Bt
Japanese Spell/Trap Card v1.1 (13mb XCF) made by Bt
No password!

---

FONTS

ITC Stone Serif (free, required for normal card lores and Spell/Trap card custom types.)
ITC Stone Serif (Mirror) (Mirror for the above link.)
Matrix fonts (Link not by me. I take no responsibility for the contents of this link.)

---

EXAMPLES
Not posted as images since they were too big. Click on the respective links to view a type of card. Tags next to links are mostly self-explanatory

Exceed Monster Card By gokuthepower
Normal Monster Card
Effect Monster Card GOLD
Ritual Monster Card
Fusion Monster Card
Synchro Monster Card
Dark Synchro Monster Card
Custom Colored Monster GOLD By ≈ƒizz≈
Token By ≈ƒizz≈
Normal Spell Card
Field Spell Card OLD EXAMPLE GOLD
Continous Trap Card
Holofoil Test

OTHERS' EXAMPLES

Zextra's set
Spoon's set
A Card by iFantasy

If any of the threads listed here is too old, please do not necrobump. Thanks.

---

VERSION HISTORY
Updated: 4-18-2011

Pre-alpha:Supported only effect monster cards, LQ
v1.0: Supported all official types except synchros and exceeds HQ
v1.1: Synchros and dark synchros added
v1.2: Spell/Traps also supported
v1.3: Exceed monsters added. Gold foil bug fixed, default card is exceed
v1.4: Holosheets have been added, default card is now Effect Monster again
v1.4.1: 7 new fake attributes added as an add-on.

Thank you for your support throughout the development process!

Help + FAQ
Updated: 4-18-2011

I ASSUME YOU ALREADY HAVE BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF GIMP/PHOTOSHOP.
If you don't, here's a guide for Photoshop users:

Open photoshop, click File->Open and choose the template PSD.

To edit~
Name: click on the name layer in the layers panel, choose text tool (the "[T]" icon) and click on the card name in the window. then type the new name
Circulation, Set ID, Password, Type, Effect, ATK, DEF, Creator (exceed only) also follow the same procedure.
Level: Open the level layer group by clicking on the arrow next to the Layer Group. Then disable the level layers you don't want by clicking on their eye icons. If a layer doesn't have the icon, it won't be seen. e.g. If I want LV4, I will remove the eye icons from LV5,LV6,LV7...LV11
Picture: Paste the picture onto the template, press Ctrl+T to resize it to fit insize the frame box exactly, then click on any tool on the tool bar and make your choice at the dialog box that appears.
Holo sticker: Use the eye icons to enable the sticker you want and disable the other(s)
To make Exceed Cards: Enable (click the empty box next to the layer icon to bring the 'eye') all green layers (some are in layer groups)

• What type of monster cards are supported?
All that I know of: Normal, Effect, Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Dark Synchro, Token, Exceed + an additional recolorable background is supplied, which by default comes in Slifer Red color.

• What type of Spells/Traps are supported?
All known types are supported

• I don't have the right fonts!
All required font links are provided in this post.

• Some elements seem choppy.
Since I could not find HQ images of WATER attribute or Dark Synchro level stars, they are upscaled and look choppy. They will be fixed if in later versions someone can provide HQ images of such icons.

• I don't think this alignment of [card part] is correct.
All layers can be moved It's recommended that you do not move the non-text layers. Creator can only be Edited for Exceed Monsters.

• So this is free? Or maybe it's too good to be free
*sigh* Yes it is. I did put in at least 10-12 hours of total effort into making this, so I hope you like it. Payment is not required but reps/donations/thankful comments are very much appreciated. Read for rights below.

• What about rights? So I can't do anything to this since it's free?
Do whatever you want to this PSD, just don't do two things:
1. Don't claim it as your own (you don't have to always credit if you use it, although that would be nice.)
2. Don't sell it in a shop. Please refrain from selling individual elements from this template too, I have ripped them ALL myself (unless otherwise stated).
3. You can mirror this link but don't post it outside this thread.

Permission to use elements has been given to: Zextra
(Requests can be made, but I reserve the right to decide whether permission can be given or not.)

• I don't think I require such a huge template...
After finishing your card, merge all layers and use the Image Size command and then use Save As jpeg or whatever, OR save a copy of the template itself resized [without merging], which you can use to make your cards.

• Can you guarantee updates?
Patience is the key, no 'guarantee' as such though.

Suggestions, questions and constructive criticism is very much welcome

=How to not be considered a "Noob"=

This thread has won YCM's "Best Tutorial Award" for Winter 2012.  Soon the image for that will be up on here, in this place.

=Prologue=

Okay.  Don’t press that X button in the right top corner.  It’s better to spend 20 minutes on reading than being kicked out of here.  I said it.  If you don’t listen and go on with making your cards with no backgrounds, that’s fine by me.  

The word “noob” sounds a bit offending for some, and usually I don’t use it.  However, it cannot be denied the fact that a large number of “newbs” are, at the same time, what most consider “noobs”.  

Just being new isn’t the reason one calls someone a “noob”.  In fact, I know several members with over 5000 posts that are considered noobs by everyone else.  For someone to be called so, he person must have done something annoying, against the rules, etc…

I do not want more people to leave YCM without knowing why they were flamed, thinking that the “bullies” of it were too horrid to withstand.  It’s not that they are bullies; they were just being annoyed by you.

What are you? A newb? If so, I recommend you definitely read this.  It is far from finished, yet it includes most information I have considered “noobish” so far.  

All I want to say is that this is for your good.  

All of the list except No. 1 and No. 2 would, unless going over a degree, not ban you.  (For those now knowing, this site has a "banning" effect.  Any rule-breakers get banned for some period of time.  For instance: me for spamming.  Yes, it's happened.)  Still, regardless of illegal or not, doing many of these would definitely make you look stupid.  Or rather, even one of them.  It pretty much becomes a mental ban since everyone hates you. I’d recommend you don’t do these.  

A more elaborated version comes next of this list.


=List=

1. Double accounting (and all those rule-breaking, like posting in the wrong section as well)

2. Necrobumping

3. Grammar and spelling

4. Not reading rule stickies

5. Calling others "noobs"

6. Bashing others when your information is quite wrong

7. Hundred “lol”s / too much smilies / Caps Lock

8. Using too much curse words

9. Confusing "personal opinions" with "facts"

10. Failtrolling
10-1. Whining
10-2. Overreacting to “mean people” and fighting back
10-3. Thinking “I’m cool and the best”
10-4. Posting in TCG without knowing the meta etc.
10-5. Generally acting in a way others say "no" to

---

1. Double accounting (and all those rule-breaking, like posting in the wrong section as well)

Ah, yes.  Double accounts.  They are the most horrid form of annoyance one can make besides heavy spamming, since everyone wants to do it, but yet are forbid from doing so.  It is extremely hard to make a comeback after doing one, and the only person I know who was able of doing that was Evergreen.  After he once got banned when he was a newb, he came back one month later a lot “better”.  But most cases would close by the perma-ban, the ultimate weapon Moderators have, that disable your computer from accessing YCM itself.  DO NOT DO THIS WHATEVER HAPPENS.  

---

2. Necrobumping

Necrobumping is the act of posting in threads more than a month old (threads you didn't make).  The rule that it is illegal was enforced because old, boring threads revived, and caused trouble.  If you find a necrobumped thread, I suggest you do not post in it unless at least 3 people posted after the necrobumping.  If the necrobumper realizes and deletes the post when you are the person who posted right after, you would be accused wrongly.  

Back when I was a "New Member", I did many of these, and Blood Rose (now called Yin) warned me by 20%.  The first warning I got.  So technically, it’s wrong of me to bash at other necrobumpers, but this is for your good.  I advice you do not necrobump.  Wouldn’t ban you unless you do it multiple times, but it would look annoying.  

---

3. Grammar and spelling

In a cyberworld where faces don’t exist, we must rely on posts to create our personality.  Whilst some use the right spelling, grammar and stuff, others don’t.  So let’s say that you want to write the following.  

“Let’s have a discussion about Stardust Dragon.”

“hey guys lets discus on stardust dragon,”

Or,

“Hi, Hovering Pizza.  How are you doing?”

“hi Hovering Pizza, how r u doing”

Which sounds “logical”? Which sounds “idiotic”?

I recommend that (well, spelling misses may be occasional, but) you at least write “I” as “I”, and “you” as “you”.  Capitalizing where it should be capitalized would also make you look less 6-year-oldish.  

---

4. Not reading rule stickies

This is a common mistake a large number of people do.  Including the more older members.  

Stickies most likely contain the rules, and therefore tend to be important.  

In addition, if a newb has a question, it is most likely that the answer is here:

http://forum.yugiohc...d-answers-here/
NOTE-In the case you want to do something someone else did, and the answer is not in the Question Stickies, PM the person who did it or ask him in his profile.  The person who did it knows how to, so most likely he would answer if you take out a rep bill.

---

5. Calling others "noobs"

Chaos Modding: Seriously.  Someone uses Rainbow Dark Dragon? Just think of the summoning conditions, or get the hell out of this place, noob.

Dorkplant: YOU'RE MEAN AND RUDE!! SERIOUSLY, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE LIKE THAT, IM NOT A NOOB, YOU ARE!!!

Fantom Poxas: Chaos Modding is right.  Rainbow Dark is unneeded.

Dorkplant: No, RAINBOW DRAGON IS GOOD, WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE UNDERSTAND, ALL THE GUYS HERE ARE NOOBS!!!


In this case, Chaos Modding and Fantom Poxas are absolutely right.  Dorkplant must have felt rude at Chaos Modding, but nonetheless it would be even more "noobish" to call others noobs.  This could be applied to when you call others noobs, when they are actually pretty descent.  Amazingly, a lot of members, even LV 4's and 5's, also do the same.  

---

6. Bashing others when your information is quite wrong

Noob 1: My friend used Caius, so I used Stardust lolololol
Fantom Roxas: Stardust can't negate Caius, Dorkplant.  Caius removes the card from play.  Stardust can only negate destroying effects.
Dorkplant: What the f*** is your problem.  Seriously, you've got to be joking.  Look at Caius's effect, it says "destroy and remove from play".  Idiots shouldn't post in this forum.  Bye, and get banned, f***er.  

To those who don't know, Caius's real effect is:
When this card is Tribute Summoned, remove from play 1 card on the field. If it was a DARK Monster Card, inflict 1000 damage to your opponent.
And Stardust is:
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
You can Tribute this card to negate the activation of a Spell Card, Trap Card, or Effect Monster's effect that destroys a card(s) on the field, and destroy that card. If you negate an effect this way, you can Special Summon this card from your Graveyard during the End Phase. (Copied from wiki.)

Anyhow, don't flame or be mean against someone until you get real information.  Also, you shouldn't be mean against anybody till you get 5 stars.  I don't care of the level of a member, but some old guys do for some weird reason, and wouldn't like it if they get treated bad by a member with 50 post count.  

---

7. Hundred “lol”s / too much smilies / Caps Lock

Let's take a look at this lovable thread folks.
Dorkplant: lol, i was playing with friends and he got out 2 stardusts in a turn, lol. so i lost           So guys, discuss on stardust lol

A general "noob post".  While it says nothing wrong or trollish, it uses three "lol"s and multiple unneeded faces.

Well, some argue that faces and "lol"s are a good thing, like when you're mocking someone trying to get out a friendly manner in introductions and the sort.  

Wait, what?

No.  Hell no.  

I advice you.  NEVER use “lol” before you've earned your reputation.  Even once.  I’ve said it.  (I occasionally use it, but that's when I'm being the "Idiot Lord" style member.)

And the reason for using “lol” is to skip the step of expressing their emotions using actual words.  That’s fine by most, but it makes them look vocabulary-lacking and somewhat idiotic in the "noob" fashion.

Smilies, on the other hand, are fine at 1.  2 or more? Forget it.

---

8. Using too much curse words

What the f***ing hell b****ing a**hole s***ty c*** is this!?

…Yeah.  

I’m not saying curse words are the most horrible thing in the world, that that the rule should ban anyone using them, since there are worse problems out there, and I’m not really sure if this can be even classified as a problem.  Most people in this forum are 13 or older, and by that age all of us would know curse words anyways.  Apart from that, we all hate 4kids for a reason.  And I use them too.  A lot.

I personally believe there's no problem when you curse when writing right info.  But when you're breaking one of the other principles here, AND at the same time you're cursing, it becomes just irritating for us.  

---

9. Confusing "personal opinions" with "facts"

Quite a lot of high-level members do this too.  For instance, let's say someone is having an argument with another person about whether OCG (official card grammar) is important for card making or not.  

Drunk: IDK about OCG.  The effect is bland.  But 8/10 since the pic is as awesome as hell.  
Dorkplant: OCG is extremely important.  The pic is irrelevant to card making skills.

Dorkplant has certainly got Drunk to be irritated in one way or another.  Notice how he said "is"? If the thing you're discussing is something that changes from person to person, you shouldn't say "is".  Instead of saying "OCG is extremely important", say "I personally believe OCG is extremely important", and it wouldn't get anyone to hate you.  “I personally believe” is more commonly known as “IMO” (in my opinion).  

---

10. Failtrolling

This is the most common noobish act seen in YCM.  There are several types to it.

NOTE-There are two types of trolling.  One type is Crab Helmet, the "good" trolls that are admired.  They're also damn hard to achieve.  This is the other one, the one that's annoying.

---

10-1. Whining

Lobster Helmet: I’m going to need a Hopeless Dragon deck recipe.  Paying 500 points and a rep.  Start, guys!

Grinne: Okay, here.  *Posts*

Dorkplant: Here’s mine.  *Posts*

Lobster Helmet: Okay, I’ll choose Grinne.  Sorry, Dorkplant!

Dorkplant: WHY DIDN’T YOU CHOOSE ME, I HATE YOU, GET OUT OF THIS SITE


Dorkplant sounds noobish doesn’t he?

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10-2. Overreacting to “mean people” and fighting back

Think of your school.  Are there no bullies? Are there no annoying people? Really? Are you sure? Hell no.  Think back, there must be one.  

In fact there are no really jerky members in YCM.  Most of them get disgusted and eventually leave.  When someone thinks someone else is mean, it’s just that that someone created the reason.  Just fix what they told you. You’ve got to live knowing that.  If you can't deal with it, then it'll be hard to go on forever in here.

Dorkplant: I made a card, guys look *Posts in Any Other Cards*

Pin: This thing is horrid.  First, the pic is extremely overused, and doesn’t have a background.  Then, it’s a LV 1 monster that has 9999 ATK, and while its Template is that of a Normal Monster, it has an effect saying…what? Its OCG (Official Card Grammar) is horrid, but seems a bit like “This card can only be summoned by tributing three dragon-type monsters”.  Okay, seriously.  I’ve had enough of this bulls***.  0/10.  

Dorkplant: You’re rude, why can’t you respect others!!!

Dorkplant could have just ignored what Pin said, and gone without overreacting.  That would have been much more efficient and better for both people.  This includes:

-Negrepping back NEG REPS HAVE BEEN DISABLED.
-Flaming back
-Spamming back
-Failtrolling back

---

10-3. Thinking “I’m cool and the best”

Most of the time, if you make your first card, chances are that it’ll get 6/10 or something.  If worse, 4/10 or less are possible.  Learn from other tuts, or veteran card makers so that you can get good at card making.  

The same applies to other things you create.  

Also, it’s a good idea to not call your stuff “awesome” from yourself.  It makes you look narcissist.  Most likely you are, if you called your stuff “awesome”.  So don't name your RC thread "Awesome set made by me".  

Similar is when you say something that makes no sense.  Making “I am the ultimate dark lord mwahahaha” your signature is just stupid.  Another version is when you make your siggy, avi, username and photo all Kaiba (or some other random character) related, claiming to be actually him.  Because well, yeah, that it’s as stupid as Barney.

Add that making your avi spongebob wouldn’t make your first repute good either.

---

10-4. Posting in TCG without knowing the meta etc.

In short, I want to say that if you think Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon is the best card ever, and Battle Ox is great, don’t post in TCG.  Many people in TCG have good humor, but they’re also known for being slightly nasty against people who don’t know what cards are really strong.  Many others are the same.  So beware if you’re not that good at the game.  

There are easy ways of checking whether you’re suited for posting there.  One is posting your deck in “Decks” and seeing how people react.  Or, you can take this simple test.  
(1) Why was Rescue Cat forbidden? Think using cards from the X-Saber Archetype.  
(2) Which deck is stronger, Exodia or Gravekeepers?
(3) Think of a way to summon 3 LV 9 Synchros on the first turn.  You can use cards in the limited list.  
(4) Is the card card Yata-Garasu good?


If you couldn’t get at least 2 right, then study more about meta before you come.

Some of these similar things can also get you in trouble:

1. Posting horrid cards in contests

2. Posting Fan Fics with at least two of: (i) horrible grammar, (ii) spelling, (iii)plot and (iv) detail

3. Posting horrid GFX

I’ve had some things with 3.  My advice: don’t use Kid Pix in GFX.  

There’s also a

4. Suggesting meaningless suggestions

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10-5. Generally acting in a way others say “no” to

This is a common thing many noobs do in the TCG.  
For instance, let's say someone thinks that "Wave-Motion Cannon" is a great card that should be ran in any deck.  
For those of you who don't know:
Wave-Motion Cannon
Continuous Spell Card
During your Main Phase, you can send this card to the Graveyard to inflict 1000 points of damage to your opponent for each of your Standby Phases that have passed since this card was activated.
Basically, win in 8 turns.
On first glance it's awesome, and so many mistake this as a "staple" (a card that should be run in almost any deck because it is very strong.  Mystical Space Typhoon, Torrential Tribute, etc).  However, in most decks this card will disrupt the concept and most likely result in having your dedicated deck go less smoothly.  In addition, most chances are it'll be destroyed by the opponent before you activate in this quick meta.  Besides, most good decks can end the game in like, 5 or under turns either way.  
The TCG players of YCM tend to be fussy on this matter.  
It's ok to say something others take as wrong - in fact, that's how we learn.  But if you're going to stick to your first (and most likely wrong sort of) TCG theory, chances are you'll be called a failtroll.  You need to be tractable.  This goes for not only internet sites, but for the general world of now.  
...Whoa, what am I talking about in a children's card game forum...

---

Hoping this would reduce the number of “noobs” and increase the number of “newbs”…

-End Game / =The End Gamer= / Evangelion / Darkplant / Darkplant - PAIN / Darkplant - FEAR / Darkplant - VENOM


If you have anything to add, please reply.  Reps as prizes.  I know this is undone.  JG, many others, thanks for the grammar help.  Phantom Roxas, thanks for the stickying.

Winners List


Grand Prize:  VanitusGamer
Second Prize:  ~Shadow of Alpha~
Third Prize:  snowyash07

Congratulations to the winners! Check your inboxes for more info.

Official 2010 Holiday Raffle

To celebrate the season, I've decided to raffle off a number of prizes to anyone willing to enter.
To enter the raffle, simply post in this thread.
For even better odds, "Like" this page (the Facebook button is at the bottom of this thread) and include that you did in your post. If you don't tell me you liked the page, I will assume you didn't. Only members registered prior to the post time of this thread are allowed to enter. 3 lucky winners will be selected near the end of Christmas day, contacted via Facebook, and will be awarded the following prizes in the order drawn:

Update: To enter, all you need to do is post in this thread. Liking this page on Facebook will earn you an additional ticket in the raffle. Please post here confirming that you Liked the thread (I can't see who has liked it). When winners are selected, you will need to PM me a link to your facebook so I can confirm you did indeed like the page).

Prizes

Grand Prize:
5 Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Hidden Arsenal 3 Booster Packs


Second Prize:
3 Yu-Gi-Oh! Gx Cyberdark Impact Booster Packs


Third Prize:
1 YuGiOh 5D's Shining Darkness Booster Pack



Good Luck!

No.

I am contemplating banning you. And this topic is locked for slander. c:

Please Do it...

*Sigh* This might take a little while.

You guys can all be happy now:

+



=

Doomed Custom Card Images V.2.1





You may use all the images here for cards or what ever with out cost. As long as credit is given or a disclaimer is in place.






Newest Stuff
Old Stuff
*Very Old Stuff*

05I29I2011 Pack 19: [5/5]









Next Pack finished until: 6I5I2011

Credit to: Inferno Knight LC
Okay, so this is my first image archive with images that I have been editing for my own and other cards. Hope you like them and please criticize them.
Rules
1. If you use, you must give me credit.
2. You must ask the person for use, if wanting to use a requested image.
3. I will talk through PM if you want me to change anything about an image.
4. Images will be made from the number 3 to 5 per week.
5. You can make me an image, and it will be in the GYFT section.
Disclaimer:
1. My backgrounds are found on Google, Photobucket or DeviantArt(with permission)
2. My renders are found on Cyanide, Renderat, Planetrenders or by Renji.
THE FINAL WEEK

Used for some Cards here and There...






There you go...more to come
Imma Add a Request List coz while this is for Showcase...I'll only make pics at request...to show them all and then people will be able to use them whenever they want...

Waiting/Next to come List:
EMPTIED Due to hiatus
Currently Status: Closed
Next Opening: T/A

NEWS:
Starting this Saturday April 2, the archive update will be of 5 images per week ... All of them in the day Saturday afternoon ...

Thank you very much for your patience.

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Follow the Rules. So as long as they are acceptable ones. (We all haven't once and a while.)

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Hi folks, it’s Darkplant. The http://forum.yugiohc...kbuilding-faq/'>last Basic Deck Building Guide Thread was made back in 2010, and I feel that 4 formats are quite enough to change stuff. So, I decided to go for this to help you newcomers of this site. Lick my feet.

Now, let me say this before anything: Unless you happen to be the champion of all of the shop tournaments near you (which most of you aren’t), I suggest you read this. No, actually, you’ve GOT TO read this. I 100% guarantee, this guide will help you become much skilled at building powerful decks.

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=Table of Contents=
I: The Importance of Choosing a Deck Goal
II: The Importance of Staples
III: The Importance of 40
IV: The Importance of Multiples and Searchers
V: The Importance of “Absolute Inferiors” and “Situational Unusables”
VI: The Importance of Monster/Spell/Trap Ratios
VII: Building the Extra Deck
VIII: The Importance of Card Advantage
IX: The Importance of Consistency
X: How to Modify Your Deck
XI: Building the Side Deck
XI-I. Siding to Take Advantage of your Opponent's Weaknesses
XI-II. Siding Against Deck Makeup
XI-III. Siding to Build on Your Deck's Strengths/Cover Weaknesses
XI-IV. Siding to Counter Your Opponent's Side Deck
XI-V. General Side Deck Construction
XI-VI. Siding
EXTRA XII: Is Netdecking a Sin?
EXTRA XIII: Using Dueling Network

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I. The Importance of Choosing a Deck Goal

Now, the first 3 sections of this guide are majorly aimed to lead beginning duelists towards the right way of thinking, to slowly take apart the bricks of wrong beliefs they believe in and in its place stack up piles of pure gold. First I’ll start with this: The Importance of Choosing a Deck Goal. This Deck Goal, also known as a Win Condition, is what the deck should be aimed for. It’s quite crucial for decks.

Why’s that?

Decks exist to…well, duh, win. If a deck can’t win, it sucks, and I think anyone with a working brain can understand that too. Unless you’re going for Self-Destruct Button or Self OTK (both nothing but troll decks), every deck needs its own way to gain victory. For instance, if you’re going to build a deck based around Uria, Lord of Searing Flames, its win condition is to summon Uria and annihilate the opponent with its massive ATK. Or, if your deck is going to be based around Final Countdown, its win condition is to activate Final Countdown, stall for 20 turns, and win. You get the point.
But then, you might think, does that mean that my deck is bad? Well, my deck runs many powerful cards like Swords of Revealing Light, Magic Cylinder, Gene-Warped Warwolf and other stuff. I think it’s better than those decks focusing on a single theme because they’re too reliant on that single strategy.

Well, my answer is: No. A common mistake seen in many beginning duelists is that they randomly throw cards they thought were cool into a pile of 40 to 60 cards, and call it a deck, but this is, simply put, the wrong way of doing stuff. (No, listen! Don’t press that Red X! Keep on reading!)

This, the fact every deck needs a win condition, isn’t just my personal opinion; it’s a 100% officially confirmed fact. It’s virtually the same thing as how headaches ache and geniuses are smart. That sort of “deck” isn’t really a “deck”; it’s a pile of cardboard. Long ago, in the dawn of the game, there was a time when those types of deck ruled, but ever since the rise of Effect Monsters (which could be like, an event that happened before YOU were born, if you’re in elementary), decks that don’t have a win condition have sucked. Hard. Why is that?

That is because, very simply put, if a deck doesn’t have synergy, it loses. If a deck has synergy, it wins.

What is synergy, then?

Synergy is, according to the Oxford Dictionary:

Pronunciation: /ˈsɪnədʒi/
Noun [Mass Noun]
The interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

In the case with Yugioh, Synergy is basically the use of two or more cards that produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. One very easy example of this is Dark Hole and Monster Reborn. You nuke the field with Dark Hole, and then use Monster Reborn on the powerful monster that was just killed so that it’s guaranteed a direct attack. Of course, these two cards are very powerful on their own, but by combining them, they created synergy and resulted in a game-turning move.

The best example of when synergy creates madness is probably in the case with the tournament-level deck known as Inzektors. Inzektor Dragonfly and Centipede activate their uber-powerful effects when cards equipped to them are sent to the Graveyard, and Inzektor Hornet and Ladybug can send themselves to the Graveyard to activate equally uber-powerful effects. This is the reason Inzektors are tournament-level: They have amazing synergy with each other.

If you use a 60-card deck with no win condition (let’s say that aforementioned deck running Swords, Magic Cylinder and Gene-Warped,) chances you can pull off a combo like Inzektors can are EXTREMELY slim. While these cards may be powerful on their own to an extent, they lose before the power of synergy.

On the other hand, decks aimed at a particular Win Condition have many cards that synergy with each other. An opening hand of 6 cards can unleash powers equal to that of 10 normal cards. Isn’t that quite splendid? And see, that’s exactly why those decks win.

Well, they often say in anime that friendship can beat anything. Okay, so maybe normal friendship can’t, but friendship between card effects CAN.

Speaking of anime, anime characters play decks that don’t have synergy but win. I’ve even heard someone say that’s proof decks with no concepts are good.

…Are they stupid?

It’s an anime. It’s entertainment. If the main character keeps on using the same strategy over and over again it becomes boring, so the writers give the main character random cards and stuff. That’s why anime characters almost never use the same strategy twice and…

…Oh, Yuma with his Utopia Ray OTK?

…Forget it.

Anyhow, now care to see why I said that synergy is important, and every deck needs its Win Condition?

Now then, now that you’ve (probably) understood that Win Conditions are necessary, let’s move onto a different level.

After hearing the above stuff, maybe some people will think “Okay, let’s make a deck that has a good win condition!” and go make a deck with a concept – let’s say, Machines. But this guy seems to have done it wrong. Take a look at it:
…Well, see the problem with this? Well, four to be exact. One is directly connected to something I already talked over, so I’ll explain it now.

I decided to waste my time writing that terrible decklist because many beginning duelists do this type of mistake too: They think “Machine deck” “Dragon deck” etc. is considered a valid deck. THIS IS WRONG.

Why? Well, I said that “a deck needs synergy”. The above decklist maybe a “Machine deck”, but it doesn’t have a single card that supports Machine-Types, so it doesn’t have synergy. In a way, it’s even worse than normal cardboard piles given how it restricts the things you can throw in. If you’re making a “Machine deck”, there should be a reason it’s a Machine Deck, instead of…let’s say, Sea Serpents.

Well, if it’s a Machine Deck, Machines have tons of good support, so you should be running them unless you’ve got a reason not to. Limiter Removal, Machina Fortress, etc. Also, DARK Level 4 Machines have synergy with Black Salvo, one of the best Tuners ever.

However, do keep in mind that just because you chose a win condition for a deck, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run things that don’t match with it. Some cards are so powerful they can be ran in almost anything without much thinking and be expected to work amazing. And remember how I said “three problems” with the above list? Well, the second one is that it’s too Highlander (runs too many cards at 1), and the third is the problem with balance, but those are for later. The final problem leads us to the second section of this guide: The Importance of Staples.

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II: The Importance of Staples

So, this section is titled “The Importance of Staples”, but what are “Staples” anyways?
“Staples” in this case refers to the cards that can be ran in almost all decks and directly lead to victories. The most major ones are:

Spells
1x Dark Hole
1x Monster Reborn
1x Heavy Storm

Traps
2x Solemn Warning
1x Solemn Judgment
2x Torrential Tribute

In addition, many decks nowadays tend to run 2 or 3 Effect Veiler. Book of Moon, Mirror Force and 2 or 3 Mystical Space Typhoon are also very important additions to most decks. These cards are quite flexible, and can get you out of situations otherwise difficult to overcome.

However, this rule does not work for all decks. Exodia decks, for example, shouldn’t run any Traps because they want to get all the combo parts as fast as possible. Likewise, decks running Jinzo and/or Royal Decree shouldn’t run many Traps, so they could take out the above Staple Traps during the process of deck building.

Overall, however, you should just remember to run them and you’re fine.

Now, since there’s nothing much more to discuss here, how about I tell you guys exactly what’s so good about the Solemn Trio.

Solemn Judgment and Solemn Warning are known by tournament players as amazing Traps. In fact, many would argue they are the three best Traps in the format.

Many beginning players are puzzled by this. The Solemn Trio require loads of Life Points, and on first glance they MAY seem horrible. However, these three all have effects that make up for it, because many cards in this meta are so powerful you can’t let the opponent even summon it.

In other words, if you let Inzektor Dragonfly or Evolzar Laggia be summoned, it’s pretty much gg*. At least I’d lose 2000 Life Points over 8000. (*gg=Abbreviation for “Good game”. Used often in the online site Dueling Network.) Besides, even if you have only 50 LP left when the duel ends, it’s fine as it’s not 0. So, many duelists try to fit the Solemn Trio into most of their decks.

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III. The Importance of 40

Okay, let’s put it nice and simple: If you think 60-card-decks are the best type of deck possible, you’re doing it wrong. And no, this isn’t a random guy from nowhere telling you that you’re doing it wrong. It’s a semi-competitive player who just came back from topping locals. Believe me, there are only a countable number of decks in which there’s an excuse to not making your deck 40 to 45 cards.

Now, the biggest question is: Why?

Simple. Because, if you can draw all the cards you want, you win. …Duh. See why I said “simple”?

In sections I and II, I explained the importance of having a win condition, and focusing your deck on it. Well, let’s look at this from two viewpoints.

Firstly, the chances of drawing a particular Limited Staple in your opening hand with a 40-card deck are without doubt higher than the chances of drawing a particular Staple in your opening hand with a 60-card deck. This makes it easier for you to draw Dark Hole, Monster Reborn, Heavy Storm, and the crew. Staples are called Staples because they win, and the more you can draw card that win, chances you win rise. I don’t think we’re doing advanced stuff here.

Secondly (similarly to above), the chances of drawing 2 particular Combo Parts in your opening hand with a 40-card deck are without doubt higher than the chances of drawing those 2 particular Combo Parts in your opening hand with a 60-card deck. And of course, if you can pull off a combo and activate synergy, chances you win rise. Again, this is pretty easy to understand. If you still can’t understand, try it. That’s the best way.

Of course, there are some irregulars to this rule. However, there are only a countable number of them, and until you become a skilled, tournament-level player, you shouldn’t try to increase the number of cards in your deck.

It can be said that the smaller your deck, the better it is. However, knowing ONLY that isn’t enough. You also need something else, and that’s written in Section IV.

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IV: The Importance of Multiples and Searchers

In Section III, I explained how 40 decks are superior to 60-card ones, but that’s under the assumption you’re running the same number of Staples and/or Combo Parts. What do I mean?

I mean that, the chances of opening up with Card A in your hand in a 60-card deck that runs 3 Copies of Card A > the chances of opening up with Card A in your hand in a 40-card deck that runs 1 Copy of Card A. Pretty obvious math, but anyways.

Meaning, you should run the powerhouses and combo-key cards at maximum number. This increases the chances of getting good hands. For instance, most Inzektor Decks run 3 each of Hornet, Ladybug, Centipede, and Dragonfly. Also, a Rescue Rabbit Deck would always run 3 Rabbit and 3 Tour Guide.

Of course, this does not always work. For instance, Uria Decks may not always run Uria at 3 because it can clog at over 2. Also, Gadget Decks may run only 2 of each Gadget because they need only 1 in the opening hand. But, it goes for most decks so it’s something worth noting.

Speaking of Gadgets, effects that search/draw cards win games. There are two reasons for this.

One is quite clear: By searching or drawing cards, you can increase the number of possible moves, and create your combos faster too. For instance, Pot of Duality is often used to search cards you want in that particular situation. Also, if you run 3 cards that can search a specific card that you also run at 3, that’s pretty much the same thing as running 6 copies of it (Take a look at Hieratic Seal of Convocation, which allows a Hieratic Player to pretty much run 6 copies of Tefnuit. Or Su. Whatever he doesn’t have to complete the Hieratic OTK).

Another is, while it seems irrelevant on first glance, simply thinning the deck. If you search or draw, the number of cards in your deck is inevitably decreased by 1. This means, from that second and then on, the chances of drawing stuff you want in normal draws becomes that of when you’re using a 39-card deck. If you get what I mean. If you didn’t, reread it and I think you’ll understand. This might not be a large difference if it’s just 1 card, but the searches and draws stack up till it starts to affect the chances of drawing key cards considerably.

Some of the most splashable draw engines are Pot of Duality and Cardcar D. Upstart Goblin is another option. Decks running 7+ DARK Monsters can also benefit from Allure of Darkness.

IMPORTANT NOTE-The expected value of how many copies of a card you can draw in the opening hand of a 40-card deck is “How many copies of it you run” X 0.15. So, in the aforementioned Hieratic Deck, 3 copies each of Tefnuit and Hieratic Seal of Convocation means the expected value of how many of them you can draw in the first turn is 6x0.15=0.90.

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V: The Importance of “Absolute Inferiors” and “Situational Unusables”

Both of these two words are things I made up for this guide, so they aren’t official terms. But I feel it’s quite an important thing for beginners to know.

Let’s take a look at Hero Barrier, an Elemental HERO support card that negates an attack.

Many beginners may want to run this in Elemental HERO decks, thinking it increases the synergy of the deck. However, this is a mistake. This is because there are countless cards strictly better than Hero Barrier in any given situation, such as:

-Mirror Force
-Sakuretsu Armor
-Dimensional Prison
-Draining Shield
-Magic Cylinder
-Threatening Roar
-Waboku
-Negate Attack

…Pretty damn lot, huh?

Hero Barrier requires a HERO, and only negates one attack. Meanwhile, Mirror Force doesn’t require a HERO, and destroys the attacking monster too. Sakuretsu Armor is similar, but destroys only 1 monster. Dimensional Prison is a Banish version of Sakuretsu Armor…and so on. By this time you can probably see that there is not a single reason to run Hero Barrier in any given deck. Let’s call these types of cards Absolute Inferiors. Because, well, they’re absolutely inferior to others.

Absolute Inferiors are never to be ran, unless when you want to run over 4 copies of its Absolute Superior that you can’t search. For instance, even if you feel that you want to run 4 Mystical Space Typhoons, you can’t. You can, however, run an additional Dust Tornado, normally inferior to Mystical Space Typhoon, and cover it up. However, if there’s a card like this:

Additional Wind
Normal Spell
Add 1 “Mystical Space Typhoon” from your Deck to your hand.

Then, you should probably be running it over that Dust Tornado.

Also, at times Absolute Inferiors can be overall better than the Absolute Superior due to support. For instance, Hieratic Seal of the Sun Dragon Overlord may seem like an Absolute Inferior to Rabidragon, but it can benefit from support of the Hieratics, and its low ATK also enables many fun combos.

Now onto “Situational Unusables”.

Let’s take a look at Rainbow Dark Dragon, a card many beginners tend to run in any DARK deck.  Rainbow Dark Dragon may look like a very useful card on first glance to a beginner. It’s got a 4000 bulk and can be SS-ed from the hand. But, in fact it’s considered terrible outside its own deck because it’s a Situational Unusable.  

A Situational Unusable is a card that can be only used under specific circumstances, and is therefore considered too hard to summon or activate. Rainbow Dark Dragon requires 7 DARK Monsters in your Graveyard to summon, which is quite hard to achieve unless it’s VERY later-game. Unless you use cards like Armageddon Knight or Dark Grepher, a normal 40-card deck running 20 DARKs and no draw/search engines would take approximately 8 turns to even draw 7 DARK decks anyways. Even if you DO run Armageddon Knight and Dark Grepher, the fact remains firm that Rainbow Dark Dragon can often rot in the hand.

Situational Unusables are considered weak because unless their conditions are fulfilled, they are completely useless dead draws; in most cases, you will not be lucky enough to draw them at the same time as the other card that they absolutely require, which means that that particular draw has essentially been wasted. Imagine if you were suddenly told in the middle of a duel by the judge that you can’t draw anything next turn. You’d punch that judge in the face wouldn’t you? But running too much Situational Unusables can very easily create a similar situation. Except, in that case you’ve got to punch yourself.

Not all seemingly situational cards are really situational. For instance, Dark Armed Dragon can seem like a Situational Unusable at first glance, but in fact it’s very easy to summon. At times, you may need to testplay cards yourself to see if it’s a Situational Unusable or not.

Most of the time, it is best to not run Absolute Inferiors or Situational Unusables.

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VI: The Importance of Monster/Spell/Trap Ratios

Many beginners already know this, but in most decks, you should run monsters and Spell/Traps at an approx. 1:1 ratio. Of course, this doesn’t go for everything, though.

For instance, Anti-Meta Elemental HERO Beatdown Decks may run 10 or less monsters. This is for two reasons – one, they run Reinforcement of the Army and E – Emergency Call, both Spell Cards that pretty much act as monsters. And two, they run multiple copies of Elemental HERO Bubbleman, which is a card that is useless in decks running many monsters.

Also, Gallis Decks run 40 Monsters and no Traps, to complete its OTK/FTK. And, they run cards like Effect Veiler to make up for the lack of Spell/Traps. As shown in these two cases, the 1:1 rule can be ignored completely in some decks.

If you can’t find enough monsters that fit into your deck, that probably means it’s fine without 20. Likewise, if you feel you don’t need 20 Spell/Traps, you probably don’t.

Some cards like Effect Veiler, Maxx “C”, and D.D. Crow are rarely summoned, and act more like Traps. These are often called Hand Traps, and it could be better to count them in Spell/Traps.

Okay, so up to here I’ve explained most stuff about the Main Deck. So, obviously, the next step is to explain about the http://yugioh.wikia....iki/Extra_Deck'>Extra.

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VII: Building the Extra Deck

In the cases with most decks, A POWERFUL EXTRA DECK IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS A POWERFUL MAIN DECK. This is because while cards in the Main Deck are useless unless they come to the hand, Synchro and Xyz Monsters can be used from multiple situations. For instance, you have to draw Foolish Burial to use it, but Lavalval Chain can activate the same effect as Foolish Burial at any time, as long as you have 2 Level 4 Monsters.

Now, first: I explained in Section IV to run multiple copies of powerful cards. However, save for several irregulars, this does NOT go for the Extra Deck. The reason is rather simple.

Good duelists run multiple copies of powerful cards in the Main Deck to increase the chances of drawing it. However, how many copies of Stardust Dragon you run obviously does NOT increase the chances of summoning it. It does, however, increase the chances of summoning a second copy from 0% to 100%, and this is why I said “save for several irregulars”. If a deck constantly wants to summon over 2 copies of the same Extra-Decked Monster, you should run multiple copies of it. Otherwise, run 1 each of everything. There are only 15 slots for the Extra Deck, and the more options you have, the better your chances of victory are.

Then, most of you will be thinking: What are the best options?

So, for those of you thinking like that, here’s a list of the several best Generic (Generic = “Not having summoning requirements except Levels”. For instance, Constellar Pleiades and Chaos King Archfiend are not generic, while Maestroke the Symphony Djinn and Black Rose Dragon are) Xyz and Synchro monsters for each Rank/Level. Cards already released in the TCG are bolded. Others are OCG only. The higher the place in the section is, the better it is in most decks (for instance, in Rank 3s requiring 2 materials, Wind-Up Zenmaines > Leviair the Sea Dragon > Number 17: Leviathan Dragon > …etc.) However, this is (i) just my personal opinion, and (ii) does not go for all decks. This is just some advice, and does NOT go for everything. Also, Xyz Monsters requiring over 3 materials are generally looked down upon, but depending on the deck, it could be more powerful than a weak Xyz Monster of the same Rank with 2 materials.



Now onto the non-Generics worth using. You may have realized that there are a low number of generic Synchros compared to Xyz – that is because most of the best Synchros are non-generic. Now, the list is very long, and it took me several hours to copy-paste everything. All my wasted computer time.


…*Pant pant pant pant pant*

…I hope…you…got…the…idea.

*Faints*

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VIII: The Importance of Card Advantage

...I’m…back…to…normal. Yeah. Damn, that list was so…yeah.

Okay, back onto topic: When you’re going to create a deck that can win, Card Advantage is a very important aspect. The next several paragraphs are copy-pasted from Crab Helemet’s previous Deck Building FAQ, because I felt it was written perfectly:

Card Advantage is determined by how many cards your hand contains compared to your opponent's hand - your Hand Advantage - and how many cards your field contains compared to your opponent's field - your Field Advantage. Essentially, a player can be considered to "have" cards in their hand and field (but not in their deck and Graveyard), and card advantage is about increasing the number of cards that you "have" compared to the number of cards that your opponent "has".

For example, Two-Pronged Attack requires the user to lose three cards he or she controls - two monsters and Two-Pronged Attack itself - in order to eliminate a single monster the opponent controls. This means that Two-Pronged Attack hurts the user by putting the user two points of card advantage behind the opponent. This is represented in standard notation as a "-2". Meanwhile, cards like Smashing Ground and Destiny Draw, which do not put the user behind at all in terms of card advantage, are called "+0", as the user "breaks even". Most good cards are +0 or better; -1 cards drain the user's card advantage.

Card advantage does not take into account Life Points and is generally considered to be more important than Life Points - thus, cards like Ookazi are -1 in terms of card advantage, as the user gives them up to obtain no more cards and remove no cards from the opponent. This is because a player with more card advantage can expect in the remainder of the game to be able to do much more Life Point damage to the opponent, while a player with low card advantage is unlikely to be as effective. A Life Point advantage, on the other hand, is no nearly as useful, as having higher Life Points does not provide any system with which to gain even more Life Point advantage - the only Life Point that makes any difference is the last one. (Darkplant Note-Remember how I said the Solemn Trio are amazing? Well, this is exactly what I meant.)

Note that analyzing the effect on card advantage of a card is not the singular, final way of analyzing its strength. For example, Thunder Dragon is a pure +1 in terms of card advantage, but the cards it adds to the hand are basically useless, which means that it is not widely used. Meanwhile, Foolish Burial is a -1 in terms of card advantage, but it is capable of setting up powerful plays, so it is still considered a very good card.

Now, back to me, Darkplant.

I said in Section V to not run Situational Unusables. This is because if a card rots in the hand, it’s virtually the same thing as nothing, and that draw becomes useless. Compared to when you drew a useful card, it’s a -1.

Also, many staples can generate mass advantage. Take Dark Hole and Heavy Storm for example.

Now, back to the point.

Powerful decks are normally defined by being able to consistently either (i) OTK, or (ii) generate mass advantage. Hieratics, Chaos Dragons, etc. belong in (i) and are often called OTK Decks (in a way, Wind-Ups can be seen as an OTK deck too, because the opponent is often left with nothing to do after the loop activates successfully and pretty much has to surrender). Inzektors, DinoRabbit, and Dark Worlds etc. belong in (ii) and are often called Control Decks. Most of the time, Control Decks are more likely to top tournaments than OTK Decks, because OTK Decks often throw out most of its protective cards, and are easily steamrolled if their main strategy gets countered in the Side Deck. OTK Decks generally end up in 2nd~8th place, but if its user knows well how to counter the counters, chances of victory are undeniable.

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IX: The Importance of Consistency

Consistency is, according to the Oxford Dictionary, “the quality of always behaving in the same way or of having the same opinions, standard, etc.” In Yugioh, Consistency refers to “the quality of always being able to pull off its combos or winning plays, etc.” Of course, consistent decks are more likely to win compared to inconsistent decks, because they can almost always get their combo parts in the opening hand.

All of the tournament-level decks I mentioned in Section VI are consistent. Hieratics and Chaos Dragons can consistently OTK, while Inzektors can consistently complete the hideously overpowered Inzektor Loop (Dragonfly + Hornet/Ladybug). DinoRabbit can consistently summon multiple copies of the dreaded Evolzar Laggia, their win condition ace monster that’s a walking Solemn Judgment. Dark Worlds can consistently rip apart the opponent’s strategies with Dragged Down into the Grave, and gain mass card advantage through Gate of the Dark World and Grapha, Dragon Lord of the Dark World.

Well, now that I explained Card Advantage and Consistency, a question: What do you do when you find your deck can’t generate much card advantage and/or isn’t consistent? Let’s move onto Section X: How to Modify Your Deck.

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X: How to Modify Your Deck

Now that you’ve chosen your concept, thrown in the staples and searchers and draw engines, made the deck 40 cards, taken out the Absolute Inferiors and Situationals, and set the Monster/S/T ratio to the ideal form for the concept, you might have a very consistent and advantage-generating deck at your disposal. However, chances are it still needs some fixing.

When you’re editing a deck, keep in mind the obvious fact that you’re taking cards out and throwing cards in. In other words, you’re taking the useless cards out and throwing the needed cards in.  Deck Editing is basically an infinite loop version of this.  

For instance, let’s say you start your Inzektor Deck like:

After several test plays, you realize you often get dead draws.  This is because Inzektor Giga-Mantis, Ant, and Verdant Sanctuary are not worth running at 3 in this deck.  Giga-Mantis is a dead draw if you don’t have an Inzektor.  Ant and Verdant Sanctuary are useless, each because Dragonfly and Centipede’s effects don’t activate in the Damage Step so Ant can’t trigger them, and Dragonfly and Centipede give you enough searching power so Verdant Sanctuary isn’t needed.  

Also, Dark Armed Dragon turned out not very useful since Hornet destroys everything on its own.  

After taking out the 10, you decide to throw in things that can solve problems about the deck.  For instance, if you found Inzektor Dragonfly can’t activate all the time because of Solemns and Veilers, you can run Call of the Haunted to solve that problem.  If you always got OTK’ed by Chaos Dragons and Grapha was a constant threat, it may be best to run Bottomless Trap Hole.  And since Inzektor Ladybug acted as an out when you couldn’t draw Hornet, you should decide to run 3 copies of it.

-3 Giga-Mantis
-3 Ant
-3 Verdant Sanctuary
-1 Dark Armed Dragon

+3 Call of the Haunted
+2 Bottomless Trap Hole
+2 Inzektor Ladybug

Now, there are still 3 slots left.  Here, you could run 3 Pot of Dualities, because they increase the overall consistency of a deck.  IMPORTANT: If a deck is inconsistent, try running 3 PoD at a start.

Now, revised:


Now the deck is much better.  However, after some tests, you realize something.

Giga-Mantis WAS important.

Gigamantis can OTK when combined with Hornet.  And, it’s easily searchable via Centipede.  You think of running 3 again, but remember how it clogged.  Two? No, still not the best idea.  

…Running at 1?

Yes, that’s the answer.  If a card can have explosive powers, and is searchable by consistent means, but can rot in the hand at times, it’s a good idea to try it at 1.  Giga-Mantis is the perfect example of this.  

What should you take out now? Well, if you felt you don’t need 3 Haunted, you can take that out.  Let’s say you did that.

So, now it’s:


Now, only 1 card has changed, but this is quite enough to raise the win ratio of the deck dramatically given how Giga-Mantis can OTK.  

Up to here, I’ve explained how to create your own deck and edit it to make it better.  But there’s another approach to building decks.  

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EXTRA XI: Building the Side Deck

Now that we’ve built the Main and Extra Decks and edited them to make it stronger, let’s move onto the Side Deck.

Unlike the other two, at least I think most people don’t use the Side Deck in duels against friends, and so not many people know how to build it competitively.  This is because Side Decks are meant for Matches, the rules set for Official Tournaments.  Of course, competitive duelists might test their decks in Matches with friends, but anyways.  

Given how I’ve written a lot of stuff up to here, you might be thinking I’m a world-level duelist, but in fact, I myself am far from an expert with Side Decking.  Sure, I am an experienced player, and I have enough skills to consistently top the locals nearby, but those locals are far from the best.  When I go to the larger ones, I can’t get past the third round consistently.  

Well, since this is meant to be a perfect guide, I have to make a Side Deck section too.  So, to do that, I got some help from another famous member of the TCG Section, Agro.  Most of the following in this section was written by him, and then edited a bit by me.  Thanks!

NOTE-To make it easier to read, Agro divided this into 6 sections.

XI-I. Siding to Take Advantage of your Opponent's Weaknesses

This is the most important reason why Side Decks directly lead to victory, and arguably, the original thing for which the Side Deck was created. You use the Side Deck to side into cards that attack the weaknesses in your Opponent's deck.

The first thing to remember is that ALL decks have a weakness.  Why? Because all the good decks rely on synergy.  While synergy may be amazing as I explained earlier, it also means that a deck needs to rely on a strategy, and it becomes utterly useless if that strategy is foiled.  A consistent strength always means a consistent weakness.  (And if your opponent DOESN’T have a strategy, you should be able to win without siding.)  

Inzektors may be able to work with each other by using Dragonfly and Centipede to continuously use Hornet, Ladybug, and Hopper, but that also means that they rely on having those three cards in the hand or Graveyard, where they can be Equipped to other Inzektors. Therein is the weakness of the deck: If they can't fetch Hornet, Ladybug or Hopper, they can’t complete their overpowered combos and their synergy is eliminated.  Without those three, Inzektors can’t activate their effects, and become nothing but worthless Vanillas.  

In simpler terms, this method of Side Decking is meant to limit what the opponent can do, and, inevitably, stop the deck from achieving its Deck Goal.  

Inzektors rely on the Graveyard, so you’ve got to attack the Opponent's Graveyard. The same can be said of Chaos Dragons, Lavals, Dark Worlds, or Hieratics, all of which can be considered top tier-material in the OCG or TCG.  Likewise, any Rabbit deck relies on using Rescue Rabbit's effect to bring out their win conditions, so, as you can expect, the idea would be to stop Rabbit from reaching the field. But finding the card to side against Rabbit may be harder than against Inzektors.

If you think about it, Rabbit's combo to bring out their main cards takes a few steps, going first from Rabbit, then to the two Normal Monsters that the opponent Special Summons, then to the monster they intend to use to attempt to win with (most likely Evolzar Laggia or Dolkka). Any of the points up to bringing the final monster out can be attacked by a side deck card.  

Even the win condition can be a card that one could side against, mainly to remove it. Snowman Eater is commonly sided against Dino Rabbit because if it's attacked by Evolzar Laggia, Laggia won't be able to stop it from destroying it, thereby eliminating the win condition.

So that's the first idea: Siding against the strategy of the deck to attempt to stop it from doing what it wants to do. Simple enough, right? The more a card does to stop a deck, the better it is as a side option.

XI-II. Siding Against Deck Makeup

I'll make this simple to understand from the get-go. The second way to side against a deck is to attack the structure of the deck.

An interesting thing to note about decks these days is that the cards within may share similarities. Decks like Dino Rabbit or Inzektors use many key monsters with low ATK power, as well as key cards with high ATK power. Either of these traits can be attacked (for example, you can use Chain Disappearance to take out low ATK monsters or Bottomless Trap Hole to take out high ATK monsters)

Other similarities you may see are that a certain deck may use the same Attribute. In those cases, you can use cards that attack the fact that your Opponent only uses one Attribute. Inzektors and Dark Worlds are all DARK, therefore you can side against them by using something like Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror to negate all their effects.

You can do the same thing with Types instead of Attributes. The best example of this is versus Machine Decks, where you can use cards like Cyber Dragon (along with Chimeratech Fortress Dragon) or System Down to eliminate all your opponent's Machine-Types.

The basic idea is that, if a deck uses many cards that are similar in one way or another, you can side in cards that attack that similarity. Similarities can even be as simple as having unusually high numbers of Monsters, Spells, or Traps; even that can be something to attack.

For Spells or Traps, you can have cards like Royal Decree, or for more general backrow removal, any extra Mystical Space Typhoons or Dust Tornadoes. For Monsters, you have Skill Drain to take out effects, or cards like Smashing Ground or Soul Taker to simply eliminate them.  

You can also attack a Deck's variety.  If your opponent uses many Types/Attributes, it’s not a good idea to use pinpoint-killer cards like Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror or System Down, but you can side in cards that punish “running many Types/Attributes” instead for a devastating blow.  There are not many cards that belong in this category; in fact, there are only 2 of them even worth talking about.  However, these two, Rivalry of Warlords and Gozen Match (both Continuous Traps that force a duelist to use only one Type or Attribute, respectively), are both extremely efficient against decks with variety.  

That’s pretty much it for this section.  

XI-III. Siding to Build on Your Deck's Strengths/Cover Weaknesses

Usually, these types of cards are those that can be ran in the Main Deck, but aren’t because they’re useless in some common matchups.  There aren't many examples of cards like this, as cards that attack the opponent are much better and more commonly sided, but there are certainly more than a few that address these issues.

A good example of one of these cards is Return from the Different Dimension. Chaos Dragons sometimes decide to run this card, but most duelists will side it. The reason for this is that while it can, many times, bring out many monsters in an OTK scenario, if the matchup won't end up banishing monsters consistently, the card won't be as consistent.

D.D Crow is more generic, and can also be thought of as one of these cards. Crow is very good against many matchups, but it's terrible against others. With that in mind, it’s usually sided instead of main'd, since it's not considered important enough to keep in the Main Deck and can be easily be sided in in a matchup that requires it. Other examples of this type of Side-Decked card can be Super Polymerization in HEROs and Dark Smog in Dark Worlds.

Siding is more than just strengthening your matchup; it's also making sure that your deck doesn't lose to the basic ideas of the matchup.  And speaking of which, most of you might have already realized: Just countering your opponent isn’t enough.  Why? Because, your opponent will also try to counter you too.  

XI-IV. Siding to Counter Your Opponent's Side Deck

Even if you can side against an opponent's Deck, you also need to know what your opponent will try to side against you. Against Chaos Dragons or Inzektors, a Dino Rabbit deck will try to side in Macro Cosmos to crush the win condition of the deck. Given how your opponent will be siding too, you’ve got to side not only against your opponent's Deck, but also your opponent's Side deck.

Many competitive players use this idea when creating their side deck, and it derives from the basis of knowing your own deck. If you don't know your own deck's strengths and weaknesses, you'll never be able to properly side as your opponent will always be one step ahead of you.  

This changes with every deck, of course, but an example of what I mean here is along the same line of thinking as what I said at the end of Section III. You're siding to eliminate your deck's weaknesses.  In a match-up against Dino Rabbit, Graveyard-manipulating decks such as Dark Worlds, Chaos Dragons and Inzektors will side in Royal Decree or other Spell/Trap destruction because they know what a Dino Rabbit deck will try to do to them (as already mentioned, Macro Cosmos).

XI-V. General Side Deck Construction

While many cards are very good to side against certain decks, they may not all be the best choices. No cards should be sided in if they directly affect your own deck's consistency and can stop your own deck's win condition too. You won't side in Macro Cosmos if you're running Chaos Dragons and you won't side in Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror if you're running Dark Worlds.  Why? Because it crushes your own strategy too.  

That being said, there are some cards that can be played around. Koa'ki Meiru Drago can be sided into Chaos Dragons even though its effects negatively impact every other monster in the deck because it can easily be removed from the field and then brought back without no trouble at all to the user.  (Similarly, back when Royal Oppression was at 1, Blackwings ran it without any problem.  The objective was to activate it AFTER you spammed the field, and leave your opponent with no resources to clear the field.)  

Much like Extra Decks, remember that having a maxed out side deck doesn't decrease deck consistency and, in fact, only increases your options, so you should always be playing with 15 cards in the side deck. When making decisions on what to use those 15 cards for, your best bet is to focus the majority on cards that attack the win condition of other decks and focus only a small bit, or none at all, on increasing your own deck's defenses.  (However, much like Main Decks, you’re better off running multiples of strong cards in the Side Deck.  Obviously, because cards in the Side Deck mainly go into the Main Deck and are useless unless you draw them.)

The side cards best used towards covering your own deck's weaknesses are only really necessary if the weakness is extremely apparent. Chaos Dragons and Inzektors almost NEED to side in Royal Decree because of how easily a card like Macro Cosmos, which is run or sided in Dino Rabbits (one of the best and most used decks, I might add), can utterly destroy them.

Remember to look at the decks that you'll normally play and know their strengths and weaknesses when deciding what to side. After all, you won't ever need to side against a deck you'll never see played.

At the time of this article's writing, the top decks (in the TCG) are Dino Rabbit, Chaos Dragons, Inzektors, HEROs, and Dark Worlds, so if you're going to side against ANYTHING, your best bet is to side against these decks.

Another thing to note when looking at those decks is to see if there are cards that work against many of them. Inzektors and Dark Worlds can both be stopped by Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror, so rather than put two different cards into the side deck to deal with the two decks, you can just side in one and have more space for other decks.

Remember though, that just because a deck is topping at an YCS doesn't mean that the decks you will play will be those decks. Each area has its own niche. For all you know, your locals could be filled with a ton of Ninja players! There'd be little point in siding against all the top tier decks if you don't face them, right? So be sure to check out what type of decks you'll facing, to know just what type of decks you should be siding for.

XI-VI. Siding

So now you've built your side deck. Now, how do you use it?

Well, this is actually pretty simple, and all you really need to do is understand a few key principles.

First off: When taking cards out of your Main Deck, take the cards that are least helpful in your matchup.

Sometimes this may come down to you just having an inkling of doubt about whether you should take it out. After all, you spent so much time making that deck the way you want it, if you look at it while siding you may see just a bunch of cards that are too important to possibly take out. That being said, you don't always NEED to side. Sometimes you may not have the resources or your matchup is just that good enough anyway.  

For instance, against Hieratics, Heavy Storm is useless.  Against Dark Worlds, you should take out your Effect Veilers.  

Secondly: Don't throw everything in.  

Oh look, all of these cards can be sided against the opponent's deck and be used very well, let’s throw them all in – that’s what most beginner professionals think, but most of the time, it’s not that easy. It's not an exact science, though, really, not much of siding ever is, but it's important to know when siding in certain cards will only work to hurt consistency.  If you lose consistency because you throw in too many anti-opponent cards, that defeats the purpose completely.  

Most of the time, you should side 7 at most.  This is because, as explained in Section IV, the expected value of how many copies of a card you can draw in the opening hand of a 40-card deck is “How many copies of it you run” X 0.15 (yeah, as far as games of luck go, mathematics solve everything).  This means, if you side in 7 cards, you’re bound to draw approximately 1 card you sided in.  More than that, and it becomes difficult for you to set up your own strategy.  

Third: Don’t take out the cards that can increase consistency.

The act of siding itself is a double-edged sword; cards originally in your deck were all there for the sole purpose of winning anyways, and taking them out can result in very dangerous issues.  Consistency drops drastically if you side out the wrong cards, and at times, you could have been better off without siding.  Yes, consistency.  Not again, you groan, but it’s the inescapable truth.  The game is basically MADE OF consistency.  

Well, some beginners side out Pot of Duality and Cardcar-D against bad match-ups because they think it doesn’t directly lead to victory.  Most of the time, this is a bad idea – in fact, consistency-increasing cards like draw engines/searchers act crucially in the second and third duels of a match.  

Fourth: Don’t take out too many monsters.  

At times, beginners take out many monsters in a side change because they feel they’re unneeded.  Again, a mistake.  This could lead to many hands that can disrupt the opponent, but never get its combos working.  Of course, you can’t win with that.  

In some cases, you can even take out the staples when side changing.  For instance, against Hieratics and Dark Worlds, you can take out Dark Hole and throw a Bottomless in instead.  That’s better than taking out a crucial monster.

Fifth: Obviously, never take out combo parts.  

I don’t think I need to explain on this.  If you’re taking out your Inzektor Dragonflys to increase your Anti-Macro-Cosmos cards, you deserve to go down a lava pit for stupidity.  

Well, those are pretty much it.  Good luck with your siding.

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EXTRA XII: Is Netdecking a Sin?

Netdecking is the act of copying a decklist you saw on the internet and using it yourself.  Now, some may think, “that’s unfair!” But, I personally think this is quite fine in some cases.

One example of what I consider “fine netdecking” is when you want to look at how a particular deck moves – because, the best option is to use it yourself.  For instance, if you can’t beat the Karakuri decks dominating your locals, you might want to netdeck it and see how it moves.  During the duels, you find what exactly can annoy a Karakuri player most, and likewise, what sort of enemy it can crush with ease.  After those test duels, you can edit your side deck and give it a solution to Karakuris.  In other words, netdecking a deck allows you to see its strong and weak points.  I mentioned in Section XI about how you can you use your Side Deck to destroy the key strategies of the opponents’ decks, but to do that, you’ve got to know how they work.  

Also, decks posted on the internet are generally better than those beginning players create.  By looking at them, you can learn their techniques and, in a way, basically get advice straight from the pros.  If you just copy-paste without thinking, that’s a bad netdeck.  But if you think carefully – “Why does this guy run this?” “Should I really run this too?” “Does this fit my playstyle?” – that’s perfectly fine, at least in my opinion.  The easiest way to learn is to look at the best stuff.

Finally, when creating a new deck you have no idea how to make, you can first netdeck and then edit it to your choice.  When you want to know about an undermeta (non-competitive) deck, this comes in quite handy at times because no one around you knows how to build it right.  

Well, but of course you can’t go buying all the cards in the things you netdeck.  One way is to use Proxies.  Proxying is the act of printing cards out on your home printer and cutting them out, and using them in card sleeves with real (useless) cards under them.  Of course you can’t use Proxied cards at tournaments, but it’s fine when you duel with friends as long as you tell them before the duel.  

Then there’s Dueling Network.

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EXTRA XIII: Using Dueling Network

Dueling Network is…basically a revolution to deck creators.  It’s an amazing site that allows you to create hundreds and thousands of decks on its server.  For free.  With no downloading required.  This means Konami’s Yugioh Online is officially s***.  

The link to Dueling Network is here.  

Before using: There are two problems with Dueling Network that you must know.

One: Some of the people on Dueling Network don’t know manners.  If you don’t want to get into stupid fights with people who claim you’re a retard just because you used Evolzar Laggia, the best idea is to duel with your friends only.  There’s a “Friend” function on DN, and it allows you to always see your online friends on the site once you add them to your Friend List.  

Two: Unlike Yugioh Online, Dueling Network’s Dueling Function is completely manual.  For instance, if you want to use Lonefire Blossom, first you hover your mouse over the Lonefire Blosssom in your hand, and click “Normal Summon”.  Lonefire Blossom will be Normal Summoned.  Then, when you hover over the Lonefire, instead of the “Activate Effect” pop-up commonly seen in Konami’s games, there pops up a bunch of possible things to do above, including things you can’t do in that situation (Change Control, Banish, etc.).  Choose “Send To Graveyard”, hover over your deck, click “View”.  Scroll through your deck, hover over the Plant-Type you want Special Summoned, and Click “SS” from the options.  Finally, the monster will be Special Summoned.  

Sounds hard? Well, for the first few duels it might be, but you’ll learn.  

Dueling Network allows you to create and test any deck for free.  If you want to build a deck in real life, first test it on Dueling Network, and THEN buy the things at your local card shops or Troll and Toad.com.  Or, you can simply go test a new deck idea in your spare time.  Beware of enraged mothers screaming at you to study when doing this.  

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I think that’s all for now, folks.  Hope you learned lots from reading this, and good luck with your future deck building.  

If you have a suggestion, say it here and I’ll fix it.  Happy to be a help for one of the largest children’s-card-game communities in the world, and hope the newcomers read this and learn.  Again, thanks to Agro for helping me.  Also thanks to Rai. for fixing the url coding.  And last but not least, jabber2033 who notified me that aforementioned coding problems also made it a giant wall of text and allowed me to fix it. Cheers!  

-Darkplant

BTW, this is the March 2012 Format guide.  The game constantly changes - as long as I’m active, I’ll write a new one every format and update this thread, once we can all say for sure what the best decks are.  

Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10th-13th: Regular updates every day! Have fun, people.



Note and Disclaimer: All images are mine, unless stated. All knowledge is not solely mine, but simply me passing it on to everyone else. I do not intend to claim ownership of any images that do not belong to me. Any images I use to show bad examples are not used in order to insult, simply as a way to give other people a visual understanding for those who do learn visually.

Table of Contents And Navigator
Use Ctrl/Cmd + F to skip to the desired section.

A. The Basics And The Slightly Advanced Stuff

--- A.I.0. Colour Theory
--------- A.I.I. Hue, Saturation and Lightness
--------- A.I.II. Colour Schemes

--- A.II.0 Focus, For Goodness Sake
--------- A.II.I. Focals
--------- A.II.II. Depth and Flow

--- A.III.0 The Rule of Thirds

B. Starting And 'Ze Making

--- B.I.0. The World is your Canvas
--------- B.I.I. Dimensions

--- B.II.0. The Tools of the Trade (The Basics)
--------- B.II.I. Brushing like a Boss
--------- B.II.II. The Selection Tools
--------- B.II.III. Gradients
--------- B.II.IIII. Smudging

--- B.III.0. Typography
--------- B.III.I. Font
--------- B.III.II. General Tips on using Text Anywhere
--------- B.III.III. Tag Styles of Typography
--------- B.III.IIII. Placing Text

C. The Encyclopedia of Tricks and Tips

--- C.I.0. Up, Down, Left, Right
---------C.I.I. How to devamp sprite scenes

A. The Basics And The Slightly Advanced Stuff

Before you do anything, you must have a good understanding of several things. We shall cover some of them below. Without sufficient preparation and skill, you can lose direction and you won't have a firm anchor to start on, metaphorically-wise.

A.I.0. Colour Theory

This may seem simple at first but don't underestimate the power of colour. It defines art, and a good combination can really capture moments. Use it as a powerful tool, not simply a forced choice you have to make.

Primary Colour: Yellow, red and blue are regarded as the three primary colours of art. This is because, as pigments, they cannot be made from any other combination of pigments. However, sometimes (especially in digital art), green; red and blue are regarded as the primary colours. This is because RGB (Red Green Blue) is how light is composed, with every colour on the light spectrum being made up of  different amounts of those 3 colours.

Secondary Colour: A secondary colour is a colour composed from two primary colours. We can see that the 3 secondary colours are orange, purple and green. Orange is made from red and yellow; purple from red and blue; and green from blue and yellow. To change the hue of the colour towards either of their components, simply add more of that colour (this is how to form tertiary colours).

Tertiary Colour: There are 6 tertiary colours, basically between a secondary and one of its component primaries. Try and guess which of the below colours are made from which secondary and which primary!

From left to right: Vermillon, Amber, Chartreuse, Cyan, Indigo, Violet Red

Colour Temperature: Colour temperature is a term to describe how hot or cold a colour is. Compare these two greys:

Which seems warmer and which seems cooler? The one on the left should feel cooler and the one on the right should feel warmer.

So what did I do to the greys to make it feel like that? I added 6% blue to the one on the left and 6% yellow to the one on the right.



Now, I've added 10% blue and 10% yellow to these whites. Which would you most associate with an office or a bathroom and which one would you associate with a living room or a kitchen?

As you can see, it's important to consider the temperature of your colours.


A.I.I. Hue, Saturation and Lightness

We've covered hue in the previous part. It is another word for colour, basically. Now, for saturation and lightness.

Saturation: Have you heard people talk about saturated fats or learnt about saturated solutions in science? Well, it's a similar principle in art. "How saturated a colour is" is literally how much colour is in it.

Left to right: 0 Saturation, 20 Saturation, 40 Saturation, 60 Saturation, 80 Saturation, 100 Saturation

Lightness: Lightness is literally how light a colour is. You can see it easily in black and white:

Left to right: 100 Lightness, 80 Lightness, 60 Lightness, 40 Lightness, 20 Lightness, 0 Lightness
You can also see it as 0 Shadow, 20 Shadow, 40 Shadow, 60 Shadow, 80 Shadow, 100 Shadow

A.I.II. Colour Schemes

You must find a scheme for each piece of work you do. Throwing around random colours does not work. Trust me. You must use colours that work with each other.

Complementary Colour Scheme: You will hear many people talk of complementary colours. Basically, on a colour wheel, complementary colours are sat opposite on it. They are complete opposites to each other. Complementary Colour Schemes often have much more contrast than any other scheme can provide. However, it is hard to balance colours in it so be careful.

Now, what do you notice about the colours on the left? Highlight the empty line underneath this for the answer.
They're all primary colours.
Now, what colours make up the secondary colours on the right? Highlight the empty line underneath this for the answer.
The other two primary colours that isn't the primary colour on the left.

Also, note that these are for pigment colours. For digital art, it is often easier to use the following combinations:

Red Cyan
Yellow Blue
Green Magenta

Split Complementary Colour Scheme: This is a slight variation on the complementary colour scheme. One of the complementary colours is spread either side of it into a colour range. Imagine this as a fork with two prongs. The start of the handle is one of the complementary colours while the two prongs are the borders of the colour range of the other colour. They have a greater colour range and can provide more interesting compositions but are even harder to balance for colours.

These are 3 of the 9 Split Complementary Colour Schemes that are there. Generally, people tend to use the warmer colour as the singular colour to put emphasis on it.

Analogous Colour Scheme: Anologous, or corresponding, colour schemes use colours close to each other on the colour wheel to provide an interesting, yet simple, result but they can lack contrast.

Triadic Colour Scheme: It is a scheme of 3 colours evenly dispersed around the colour wheel. Please note there are two colour wheels: one that mixes paint, or pigments, while the other mixes colours as your eyes would (RGB). I will be referring to the digital colour wheel most of the time from now. Triadic Colour Schemes can provide a lot of contrast but, with many of the others, very hard to balance.

Tetradic Colour Scheme: Or the Double Complementary Scheme. This basically takes 2 colours, of analogous hue, and also adds their complementary colours into the mix. You end up with 4 balanced, harmonized colours. Using this can be hard and it is wise to dilute some of the 4 colours.

A.II.0. Focus, For Goodness Sake

We'll be focusing on focals in this section. What is a focal? Well, it's what your piece of art has a focus on, as the name suggests.

A.II.I. Focals

Tag by Blesh

When you look at this rather magnificent tag by Blesh, what is the first thing that you look at? You automatically look at the centerpiece, the focus : the render. This is true for many, many tags and is an important principle to understand.

Tag by Tainted Prophecy

What do you notice about the render here? You should be able to see that it has a white colour cast on it and that it is slightly blurred. He may have intended for a movement-type effect, but the overall execution is poor and does not give a pleasing look.

A.II.II. Depth and Flow

These two components are greatly related to your focal. Depth is the pseudo 3-dimensional look you can get while flow is the direction of your render. I'll cover tricks later but at the moment, I shall just talk about the basics.

Depth: As said, depth is the feel of 3D in a piece. It's very important otherwise your piece can look flat and uninteresting. Let's take Blesh's tag as an example again:

The edges are very dark compared to where the focal is. This is one of the many tricks for depth. Burning, or darkening, the edges of a piece and dodging, or lightening, the focal can really lift a piece up. Another thing to notice is that, compared to the area around the focal, detail is much less around the edges. Another good trick for depth is that you can blur the background and/or sharpen the foreground to add more of the 3D effect.

Flow: Flow is a difficult but important thing to learn. When you choose a render or stock image, you usually must choose something with a good flow. Some people don't and add artificial flow later but, for beginners, it's good to learn how to find good images at first.

Image property of dA deviant, summer-shadow. Visit her!

This has a good flow. It should become apparent after adding in a few arrows here and there...

Streamlined things are much easier to add flow to. So, aim to find suitable renders for that very reason.

A.III.0. The Rule of Thirds
Suggested by Madsen.

The rule of thirds applies more to photographers and digital artists but it's very useful nevertheless. The main theory is that you should crop and work on a canvas split into thirds, not halves. This is via 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines. Here's an example courtesy of Wikipedia:

The same image has been cropped two different ways. In the first, it's been cropped via 1 horizontal and 1 vertical line - splitting it in half both ways. Doesn't look very natural, does it? The second is much better, everything is placed on the line guides. It adds more atmosphere if you use the rule of thirds.

A particularly important thing to notice is where the horizon is. It should cover two-thirds of the picture. In the first picture, it only makes up half the picture.

B. Starting and 'Ze Making

B.II.0. The World is your Canvas

What is your canvas? Well, like in traditional art, it's what you are working on. It'll look something like this (I use Photoshop Elements 9):

May seem obvious but it brings me on to my next point:

B.II.I. Dimensions

You must choose the dimensions of your piece carefully. The wrong dimensions can ruin a piece and distract your eyes from the focal. In digital art, you have much more freedom as all you need to do is quickly place in 2 numbers and you're done (of course, this is more complicated for professional artists, with things like resolution to be taken in). For tags, I like to split them into 3 different dimension categories:

Horizontal: The most common size for tags. Great for beginners and the easiest to work with. Usually 400-600 x 150-250.

Vertical: Slightly harder to use but gives good results if done properly. If you have a long render, especially if it's a side-view of a person, vertical sizes can help. Usually, 100-250 x 400-600.

Large Horizontal: These give a more art piece feel. Many people use these with a small focal and then use various details in the rest of the piece. Usually 200-400 x 500-700.

B.II.0. The Tools of the Trade (The Basics)

What can you do in any editing program without those tools that are installed. I shall quickly go over the more important ones for graphic designers and tag-makers. But not in detail. Yet. That shall come later.

B.II.I. Brushing like a Boss

Brushes. Some of the most important tools. We shall cover some of things that comprise the art of brushing.

Hardness: Hardness is how hard the edges of a brush is.

These are all the same size brush, but with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% hardnesses.


Spacing: This setting basically is, when you brush, how far apart the brushstrokes are. Usually, at standard spacing (25%), a long line brushed onto a canvas would be solid. However, at different settings, you achieve other results:

25 Spacing, 50 Spacing, 75 Spacing and 100 Spacing

B.II.II. The Selection Tools

The selection tools are one of the tools that come under the category: "When used correctly, you shouldn't know that you used them". Basically, a good selection is one that can't be seen in the final result. they can be split into various categories:

- The Marquee Tools
- The Selection Brushes
- The Magic Wand
- The Lasso Tools


Marquee Tools: The marquee tools are the first two tools seen below the title. You can make fixed shape selections with them which makes them good for selecting a whole canvas, adding atmosphere etc. They work best with feathering but I shall talk a bit more about that later.

The Selection Brushes: The selection brushses come under Quick Selection and Normal Selection. The main difference is that the Quick Selection Brush 'snaps' to the outlines of objects. But be careful as it can make inaccurate selections if you're object is the same colour and/or shade as its background. The normal brush is slightly more time-consuming but is worth the effort.

Magic Wand: Magic Wand is similar to Quick Selection but a little quicker. One click in an area will automatically make a selection with the same sort of colour/shade as that area. Refrain from using this tool for rendering as it will end up with bad results most of the time.

Lasso Tools: These are basically standard if you're doing rendering. You can make free selections around an object either with the polygonal or the normal lasso. Polygonal lets you do it in steps but you end up with slightly jagged surfaces. The normal lasso is a hard tool to use but can end up with good results, especially with smaller objects.

Feathering: Feathering is basically selections' equivalent to hardness on brushes. You can feather a selection by x amount of pixels in order to soften the edges of that selection. It is found in Select > Feather or, depending on your version, Select > Modify > Feather

These selections of 600 x 150 have been filled with black. The one on the top however has been feathered by 10 pixels.

Refine Edge: Very useful for renders or complicated selections with lasso, this tool will smooth out your edges via 3 commands.: smoothing, feathering and contracting/expanding.

Smoothing will remove any edges from your selection, making it more rounded.
Feathering has been mentioned already.
Expanding/contracting will increase or decrease the size of your selection.

B.II.III. Gradients

Gradients are a very useful tool, for many things but must be used in certain ways for the best effect. I shall demonstrate it later with with a piece of pixel art. First, I'll take you through the types of gradient.

Linear gradients: These gradients are from foreground to background colour, unless you use one of the default gradients installed. Instead of a background colour, you can use a transparency instead. You can drag from point A to point B in order to make a smooth transition between those colours from A to B.

Radial gradients: These gradients work in the same way as linear ones, in terms of dragging but instead from a point, it will create a feathered circle round the point (depending on how far you dragged it).

Bi-Linear gradients: When you drag a line, it'll create two linear gradients on the outsides of that line and foreground colour on the inside. There is a specialised trick to this known as light leaks. It is made with vintage cameras when, while processing the film, light comes under the film and therefore putting streaks of light through it. It can be re-created using digital techniques. Don't use it in most other situations though.

Angle gradients: Also known as conical gradients, these create a linear gradient but bended around a point. Has specialised uses in which it can be used but otherwise stay away unless you are experienced with them. The uses will be covered later (examples of which are sunbursts and metallic shading).

Diamond gradients: The name is self-explanatory. Don't use them unless you have a reason. Results are hit and miss except if you are experienced with them.

Now, to show you some tricks with a sprite example.

Image property of dA deviant, scarex3wer. Visit him!

This is already fairly good and an excellent piece but I'm going to show you some tricks.

Start Result



End Result



Download this small file to see how it's done.

First, hide the top 3 layers (Final Touches, Bottom-Right Darken, Top-Left Brighten). Now, we'll go through step-by-step on what each layer does.

Un-hide Top-Left Brighten. This is a gradient from #e2f2df to transparent. It is from the top-left of the canvas to the bottom-right. What this layer does is provide a very small contrast boost to the areas where the gradient is and its main purpose is to generally boost the brightness up. Note it is on Soft Light.

Un-hide Bottom-Right Darken. This is a gradient from #282d37 to transparent. It is from the bottom-right of the canvas to the top-left. What this layer does is provide a very small contrast boost to the areas where the gradient is and its main purpose is to generally darken it up. Note it is on Soft Light.

Un-hide Final Touches. Above the statue, I used three small radial gradients of #e2f2df to transparent once again in order to brighten that are. Then, at where the deepest point of the left pool would be, I placed a radial gradient of #282d37 to transparent in order to darken it.

B.II.IIII. Smudging

Smudging is one of the most useful tools within tagging. It has become a distinctive style in which you use smudging to create streaks of colour and various lines. Here's an example.

Image property of dA deviant, ZCTgfx. Visit him!

This is an abstract piece while you can also use it for a complimentary effect.

Image property of dA deviant, Koepaard. Visit him!

First, let's go over the basics of smudging. Smudging is based on a principle in which that it takes pixels from where you smudge to where you want to smudge it to. The further you drag it, the less pixels being dragged. Doing smudging is using the basic principles of using a brush, it's the same. The difference is that smudging also has a strength, from 0 to 100% which decides how strong the smudging is initially.

Both circles are 25 pixels in diameter with 100 Hardness. The brush I used for smudging had the same setting but was 12 pixels in size. In the first circle, I smudged from the circle outwards. In the second, I smudged from the outside into the circle. Another thing to note is that the smudging strength was 75%.

You can also change the shape of the brush. This is how you get the most effective result using smudging. I usually use a chalk brush:

It is important to regularly change brush size and shape in a piece to get varied and interesting results.

B.III.0. Typography

Typography. So many attempt it but very little can get it right. There are several things to cover here. First, of course, is font. Second, is placement. These are the most important things about typography when it comes to tags.

B.III.I. Font

Font is that one thing that really defines text. Which is why you must take this part so seriously during the process. You can place them in 3 main categories:

Sans serif: These fonts are often modern and simplistic. It literally means 'without serif', serif being those ornaments on the edges of fonts like Times New Roman. Helvetica and Arial are the most common example.
Serif: Times New Roman is a good example of a serif font. They have those hooks at the edge of the letters, these are the serif.
Decorative: These are party fonts, dingbats and other fonts that are have more decoration than just serifs.

Here is my big list of good fonts that I currently have and use (a lot of the fonts are free from dafont.com so go there for resources):

Okay, this is my next point:

Do not use Comic Sans. Just don't. Ever. Please.

It's just such a bad font. In fact, I believe there's a 'Ban Comic Sans' movement.

B.III.II. General Tips on using Text Anywhere

Although this is the part on using typography in tags, I'll sidestep to using text in other situations. Let me first go to Powerpoint presentations. Those default templates aren't the nicest things in the world, are they? Here's some tips for doing it:

B.III.III. Tag Styles of Typography

There are many ways in which you can use typography within a tag. I like to split it into several categories:

Minimalist: Text that is used in very small amounts, simply as a decoration instead of a focal.
Supportive: Text that is similar to minimalist styles, but used at a larger size and for supporting the focal (or even as a sub-focal itself).
Focalized: This is very complicated, stylized or large text used as the focal itself.

Some examples of each style:

Minimalist

Image property of dA deviant, jugga-lizzle. Visit her!

Supportive


Image property of dA deviant, Narudan. Visit him!


Even though I wrote Minimalism on this tag, don't get confused. This is supportive text, and bordering onto focalized text.

Focalized


Image property of dA deviant, aznnerd09. Visit him!


Image property of dA deviant, taco-pirate. Visit him!

B.III.IIII. Placing Text

One of the more important things in using text. It's especially important when doing minimalist and supportive text.

Imagine a box around your focal like this:

The ideal place to put your text is on one of the four crosses there. Other acceptable positions are the middle vertical sections on the left or right of your focal or just above or below the crosses.

A common mistake in placing text is placing it in the corner. This is effective sometimes, but beginners should stay away from the corners because amateur typography along with corner placing makes it a useless feature to the piece. Remember that text should help your piece, not just as something to fill space.

C. The Encyclopedia of Tricks and Tips

C.I.0. Up, Down, Left, Right

Spriting is usually much more complicated than it seems. There are several tricks you can use in order to improve sprite scenes.

C.I.I. How to devamp sprite scenes

Navigate to B.II.III. Gradients and copy the piece into a canvas.

Then, take a middle green and a bright cyan as your foreground and background colours.

Now, make a new layer.

With the gradient tool, draw a gradient from top to bottom. Turn the layer blending mode to Hard Mix.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

 

So this is the end. I'm about 85% sure I've alienated the majority of the YCM population by now, so for the minority of you that remain-and for the even smaller minority that actually care enough to read this-I'd like to say thank you.

 

I've only spent about one and half years here and it feels like forever. Why? Well, frankly, it was because of the people I spent it with. I'm not gonna mention EVERYONE I've met on here in this monologue, but I honestly can't think of a single person I hate on YCM that's been here for long enough for me to talk with consistently… which is a feat, as I'm sure Desu would tell me.

 

I may have not been the best, the kindest, the coolest, or the brightest member here (each of which, I'm sure some of you will be responding to with "you bet you weren't"), but even with all that I truly felt accepted here. Which is something I've had trouble finding in other places. I felt like I've learned a lot from coming here in that regard as well. There's a lot of people in my life now, irl, that I feel like I can call friends, and I'm not sure if that would be the case if I hadn't spent so much time interacting with the members here. And even though this site has drained the majority of my productivity and free time in the year and a half I've been here, I'm truly happy that I was able to spend it here.

 

And now, as I leave, as I break all ties with YCM… well, I can't say it's been easy. There are certainly people who are and will be angry with me over things I've done or leaving on such short notice now. I can't say I haven't thought about that a lot, and I apologize if I've been inconsiderate at times. I hate leaving things on a sour note. 

 

For those of you who DO hate me, either through my rather abrupt departure or from something I've said in any of the ridiculous amounts of posts I've made in the time I've been here, I'm sorry for whatever I did. I don't try to hurt anyone or get on anyone's bad side, but one way or another, it happens. However you feel about me, know that I don't harbor any ill-will towards any of you (that are not named PooperTrooper) and I hope one day, you'll reconcile your feelings of discontent and anger towards me. Optimistically, I'd even hope you'd realize there were probably a lot of good times we've spent together.

 

I think I'm gonna pull a Matt here and just walk through everything that's happened to me since I started here at YCM. So sit back and relax folks, cause this may take a while… or just skip to the part where I talk about people. Either or, I know you guys don't like reading stuff.

 

I don't know what happened first, but somehow I ended up on the Cardmaker Wikia. It was there that I stumbled onto some cards that were made by a guy who was writing a fic on YCM. Finding that cool, and being an avid writer, I decided to try my hand. Enter, my first fix, The Wanderer. I spent about a month writing 10 chapters for that fic before actually posting on YCM… which sounds pretty cool until you realize that I spent another year writing the next two. This is where I met a lot of the members that I've grown an affinity towards, even if I don't talk to any of you that often. It's where I came in and it's a section I still feel attached to.

 

Of course, I didn't stay there. I ended up moving to Realistic Cards… and eventually to Written Cards when I realized that I hated making the actual cards. Written is SOOOOOOO much easier. Safe to say what's become of that, no? I was named best cardmaker at the last YCM Awards, so I'd say that's one hell of an accomplishment considering what site we're on. …okay, so it's a pretty insignificant title, but I felt like I'd accomplished something, so let me have this one!

 

Alongside that, I quickly started posting a hells-ton in the TCG section. I've been told I'm considered one of the top players there, though even then, I don't consider myself that good at the game… many would then input that this is because the playerbase on YCM is crap… I disagree. You guys are great. Maybe not the best competitively, but better people to play against than half the people at my locals, so that's pretty swell.

 

With that out of the way, let me just talk about some members that I really owe a lot to. I'll go alphabetically:

 

Aisu: …wait, I'll think of something to say. GODDAMMIT BRAIN, WORK. Well… I'm assuming that your placement here will alert you to what I think of you. GOOD NEWS! It involves two thumbs up.

 

Armz: You're the coolest cat on the block. Bar none. It's a shame I never really got to know you personally, because in every other way, I kinda felt like we were buds. …I was kinda hoping I'd have more to say about you, but I think I've probably summed up all the awesome experiences I've had with you with those few sentences. By the way, if you were actually gonna go through with those Transformers things you were planning on making, I'd still love to help out if I can. Send me a PM about that before I leave and we'll talk a bit on it. 

 

Black: I will absolutely never completely understand how you feel about me. It's not possible, I suppose, no matter how many times you tell me. xD Well, you've been great, I must say. There are times we didn't see eye to eye, of course, and whatever you may call our relations was anything but smooth, but overall, I can really only think of you in a positive light. You were a real mentor and friend while I was here and I thank you for that. I hope you and Caeda live happily ever after, cause you two deserve it. 

 

Caeda: I felt like I had to include you in here since I talked about you in Black's thing. But don't let that make you think I don't like you! You were great, I must say! You gave me a self-esteem boost on more than one occasion, and considering how low it normally is, that's an accomplishment that I really must thank you for. We may not talk much or whatever, but it was nice knowing you and like I said before, I hope you and Black have a happy life together.

 

Canadian: It may have been sporadically, and almost nonexistent, but every once in a blue moon, you'd catch me when I was in the dumps and pick me back up. There's not really much I can say about you, but I really felt like I should include you 'cause you were a real bro. Thanks man.

 

Ciaossunic: Boss, besides Mako, you're probably the most likable person on the entire site. I can't think of a single time I've gotten either angry or whatever negative emotion you can think of with you. The way you tend to play everything off with a laugh is truly admirable and I wish I could be as mature as you are in those situations. Plus you've probably given me the majority of my reps, and in a world where my ego gets ripped apart faster than a jumbo present on Christmas morn', that really means a lot.

 

Demmy: We may be on bad terms at the moment, but on-and-off for the majority of the time I've been here, I've felt that you're one of the closest people I've been to on this site. Even if you don't think it anymore, I have, and do still consider you a good friend. And while we'll most likely never talk to each other again, I just want to thank you for all the time we spent together. It meant a lot.

 

Desu: You'll probably respond to this in the same unimpressed-or-negative response you normally give everything, but I still don't think poorly of you, no matter what I've said. Sure, you may have your quirks, but we all do, and when it comes down to it, I seriously can't actually say that my overall view of you is a negative one. I'd hate to have the last thing I said to you be on a negative note, so I do hope you'll take this to heart, no matter how sarcastic your response will probably be.

 

Kyng: Uhhhhh… not sure what you think of me anymore, but I always liked you. Sad that we haven't talked in a while, but whatever. I'm glad to have known you. Plain and simple fact.

 

Larry: Whatever happened to you, good luck. You were the UX in CRUX. Oh, you don't know what that means? Me neither. Good luck to you man, even though I may never know why you cut everyone from your contacts.

 

Lunar: God, there's so many things I could say about you, mostly positive things. We've been friends for so long, it feels weird not having much I feel I should say. We don't talk much anymore. You send me a text once in a while, but they're always for the same reason. I dunno if you're ever gonna read this, but I enjoyed the time we spent together. At some point I'll probably cut ties in the other ways I have to contact you as well, but I just want you to know that I'm happy I was able to know you, that I was able to help you through rough times, and I hope for the best for you in all of your future endeavors.

 

Mako: You are far and away my best friend on here. Ignoring politics, which we've managed to do quite well, I might add, I can't say I've noticed a single interest that we've differed too greatly on. I said it once, and I'm pretty sure you still have me quoted in your sig, you're basically the most generic protagonist of any story of all time, except you don't have any actual flaws. I'm happy to call you a friend and I know you still have me on PSN, Skype, and whatever billion other things that you have to contact me with. I'll see you 'round, buddy.

 

Matt: Oh, wait, you're not here anymore… WHELP! In case anyone still has him on something, just let him know I posted about him. He may not have cared much for me, as most don't, but I really liked Matt. I really must have some natural affinity towards the mainstays of the creative writing section, since that's where I started out, and really everyone there has been great.

 

Opal: Somehow, it's a real shame I'll never get to talk to you again. Who else is going to fill my ears with K-Pop that I don't really feel like listening to? I kid, of course, but for some reason or another-and I'm sure I'm not the only person who felt this on YCM-I've enjoyed having you around, whether on Skype or YCM. It's weird, and I'm not even sure why I thought it was enough to put you on here, but here you are, and YCM Weekly was a thing… (best incoherent and random transition ever)

 

Phantom Roxas: I… well, I wasn't going to mention you until I got to Matt and realized that you've been a great guy throughout the time I've been here. I'm including you here specifically to give special mention to your Phantom Divinations because they were both enjoyable and really helped me as a writer. Thanks a lot.

 

.Rai: You've won every hipster-off in my book (sorry everyone else). For some ungodly reason, I feel like I can relate to you about a lot of artsy things, and of the few people on here I could ever talk to about something like that, I always liked to hear what you had to say. It's a shame I never got to talk to you at length outside the simple posts on YCM, and it'd be cool if I could get in contact with you outside of YCM even now, since, honestly, I'll probably need a guy who's really good with Graphic Design in the future. Send me a PM at some point before I leave.

 

Raine: No idea what I'm gonna say here. Frankly, there's probably too much to say here. You are by and far the most random person on the face of the planet, and maybe one of these days we'll meet up at a con or something and I'll be able to hang out with you in person… wait, that's not allowed, isn't it?

 

Rapidfire: Hi there. I don't think there's much I need to say to you, especially considering you have me as a contact. Even if we don't talk much at all, let me know if you need any help critiquing something of your writing or something like that. Anything else that I think about you, I'm about 99% sure you already know without me saying a thing.

 

Rinne: I don't know why, but I still think you're the coolest mod on the site. Don't ask questions, just accept the compliment. Creative Writing Section FTW.

 

Star (Zero/Neo/Accel/Alistair): Not sure how many more people even call you by Star anymore, but that's what I met you as and that's the only name I really feel like calling you now that I'm heading off. You were the first person who I ever really talked much too on YCM, and you can't begin to understand how much that means to me. I'm serious. I don't know what you think of me, but I mean that. Oh, and sorry about not being a good reader, reviewer, and failing to ever finish writing anything I started. I hope you enjoyed what I did. Thanks for everything.

 

Zextra: I made you a nickname and you're really cool about it. I don't think I have to say much else to explain what that entails (even though you're hardly on half the time) It's really been a treat to talk with you when I could. Keep it up, SZ.

 

 

Oh, god, that's a lot more than I was expecting to write. WOW. I'm about 80% sure I probably forgot someone that I wanted to mention, so if you even barely interacted with me, thanks for that, everything about YCM has influenced me one way or another, and I'm really happy and thankful for every second of it.

 

And as I wrap this up, I should probably talk about WHY I'm leaving.

 

Well, there are a few reasons, though a select few of you may not exactly accept them as more important than whatever relations I've made with you guys. Let me just start this by saying that I'm sorry if I hurt anyone by exiting stage-left so suddenly, but I feel that this is in my best interests. YCM is just time draining. I'll sit down, ready to look at YCM for five minutes before I have to get going in the morning, and twenty minutes later, I'll finally be off. It's a sad fact, but it's true. As for why I've been cutting off connections with so many people… it's partly because I don't want a straight path to coming back, but also because, well… unless it has to do with something I'm doing in the future, I'd prefer to keep my relationships with people I've met irl. I know a few people don't like that, and I'm sorry about that, but it's just something I have to do. People come into and go out of our lives, and I'm really thankful with how much I've learned about relationships and interacting with people from you guys. I wish you all the best, and I hope that whatever space I leave behind (if any) gets filled by someone good. You guys deserve it.

 

(Insert allegorical bullshit here aaaaaaaand…)

 

As my boat sails off into the distance, I hope people are satisfied with their time with me and that whatever ending people may be experiencing in my chapter here, they remember it fondly.

 

On good terms.

 

It's all I've ever really wanted.

 

I'm making this post 24 hours before I leave to clear everything up and get some last words in with people here. Also, cause I'm a real selfish bastard who loves seeing if people will say anything good about him.

 

Oh, and two last requests.

1. Getting enough likes to get over 1000 reps would be a cool way to go out.

2. If someone would give supertrooper enough negative reps to make no one listen to him, that'd be cool.

 

Anyway, thank you all for being here,

 

I'll see ya'll round the block.

 

Dear Konami~

What the hell did you just friggin' make, Konami? I’ll have you know I'm a seasoned veteran of Yugioh in the field of card games, and I’ve been involved in numerous formats in this game, and I have over 300 confirmed victories. I am skilled in children's card games and I’m the top duelist in the entire US playerbase. You are nothing to me but just another opponent. I will defeat you the hell out with my skills the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my amazing words. You think you can get away with making that crap to show us over the Internet? Think again, dumbass. As we speak I am contacting my elite team of duelist across the USA and your company is being traced right now so you better prepare your deck, maggot. The duel that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re already defeated, Konami. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can duel you in over nine thousand ways, and that’s just with my amazing play style. Not only am I extensively skilled in Turbo Duels, but I have access to the entire game's card pool and I will use it to its full extent to reduce your Life Points to zero, you idiot. If only you could have known what idiotically, bad design your little “balanced” card was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have second guessed those drawbacks you wanted to add. But you didn't, you didn’t, and now you’re just wrecking the game, you profit-whoring idiot. I will rain fury all over you and you will loose the duel. You’re absolutely defeated, Konami.

o.k dude i'll start posting stuff that i FULLY drew.

o.k dude i'll start posting stuff that i FULLY drew.

You better. Because if you post something that you didn't create and claim it as your own, I will be there. For I am not the hero this forum needs. I am the hero this forum deserves.

 

オシリスの天空竜
星10　神属性　幻神獣族　攻?　守?

このカードを通常召喚する場合、自分フィールド上の モンスター３体をリリースして召喚しなければならない。 このカードの召喚は無効化されない。
このカードが召喚に成功した時、魔法・罠・効果モンスターの効果は発動できない。このカードは特殊召喚した場合エンドフェイズ時に墓地へ送られる。
このカードの攻撃力・守備力は自分の手札の枚数×1000ポイントアップする。
相手モンスターが攻撃表示で召喚・特殊召喚された時、そのモンスターの攻撃力を2000ポイントダウンする。0になった場合そのモンスターを破壊する。

In short:
Osiris the Sky Dragon
Level 10 GOD Divine-Beast [?/?]
Needs 3 tributes. Summon can't be negated, and no S/T/Eff Monsters' effs can be activated in responce to its summon.  If this is SS-ed, send it to the Graveyard at the EP.  This card's ATK and DEF are the number of cards in your hand x1000.  When your opponent Summons a monster in Attack Position, decrease its ATK by 2000.  If it becomes 0, destroy it.

FUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH