TLDR: I suggest we specify in the rules that you can't use the 4 non-available cards in the game, as well as only allowing the default banlist + 1 banned card.

Recently started picking this game again, and I want to suggest some stuff so we can establish rules and agree on them.

I found out that when you get a certain percentage of cards (I think 90%) the game lets you play with one forbidden card in your deck. I propose that we can use this forbidden card in decks for Stone Seal Challengue categories, since it's a mechanic of the game and they already are kind of "NG+" categories.

On the other side I know that at the time, you could download certain stuff to the game, and some stuff you could only get it by downloading it, so I recommend we ban all of those for speedrunning, mainly because it's not available anymore (Haven't actually checked but I guess it's not available anymore since the NDS services have been down for years), a lot of these are different banlists, and there might be other ways to get it into the game but I think it's better to stick with the default banlist.

Also there are 4 cards that thecnically exist in the game, but are not available to get in-game (Not sure how you could get them other than with cheat codes, maybe they were also available for download), so I suggest we forbid these cards also: -Obelisk the Tormentor -Slifer the Sky Dragon -The Winged Dragon of Ra -Thunder King

Those are my suggestions for now, I know not a lot of people are interested in this game but I'm making this post so other mods understand the reasoning behind the rules for these categories when I add them to the leaderboard.

Also I want to ask if the method of timing for the Stone Seal Challengues is good, I think it's fine as it's easy to time, but I don't know, I came up with those years ago and I'm open to change it if there is a better timing method.

Personally I wasn't behind any of these original rules and i am relatively uneducated on this specific game. I would say I agree on most everything, though if a banlist is obtainable within the game itself (without downloading/cheating and such) I would still have that banlist be selectable in some capacity, though I dunno the extent of options there to be honest.

Timing i find to be fine on the stone seal challenges, dunno how much you could really change there, atleast the "Success" end timing feels consistent with alot of the other games.

Thanks for your answer, just to clarify, there are no banlists obtainable in-game other than the default one, the only thing you can unlock is the ability to use one forbidden card in the decks you play, but there are no other banlists available unless you download them.

No event cards, no downloadable banlists. 1 banned card allowed is fine. Its not like i already have verified runs which use the one banned card feature.

the three god cards and thundergod were event cards to my knowledge. Also they dont really matter in the context of deckbuilding for the challenges. But banning them for clarity is the best.

For Timing the starting point of choosing Yes is suboptimal. You cant really perfectly time it easly. the visual indicator for choosing yes is the red-yellow outline on the Yes botton because besides me being unsure if it is actually accurate its also a pain to pinpoint the first time it happens.

Also (this only matters for all seals) banning resetting mid duel leads to more interesting deckbuilding because consistency is a way bigger factor.

So my supposed ruleset: Beat all Stone Seal Challenges

• You beat a Challenge when "Success" is shown at the end of it
• You can beat the challenges in any oder you like
• All cards are allowed which are optainable on a offline game
• Godcards,Thunder King Rai-Oh and cards only aviable via cheating are banned
• You are allowed to use the "Up to one forbidden card" banlist
• The run must be done in a single segment with no resetts
• MelonDS and Desmume 0.9.11 are the only allowed emulators.

Timing: The Timing starts with the first frame before the unselected part of the menu moved right when selecting "Yes" on the first challenge. The Timing ends with the last frame before the "Duel Result" blend in after getting "Success" on the last stone seal challenge.

I disagree with banning resets for all seals, I don't think it makes a lot of sense, it's a good strategy to know when is a good idea to reset when a duel is going too slow, and if you're aiming for a very good time you probably just want to reset the entire run anyway.

I agree that selecting yes might not be the best to time, so I'm open to change it, same for the last frame, will have to check which one is easier to time.

Honestly depends on how you look on the game, yes resetting is a strategic descission in speedgames where you need luck etc. But YuGiOh is build around to basically not depend on to much luck. Banning Resetts gives incentives to build a consistent deck which is a great part of actual yugioh. Its basically the descission to value short term evaluation of a hand or good deckbuilding, deck expertise and playing in a well thought out order its also the descission how to work with a (in modern yugioh terms) brick. So short term descission making vs routing and deck expertise. In the end you still have the option to just give up after some rounds.

Also generally building a run around resetts makes it long term way more frustrating if those resetts arent for actual RNG manipulation but just a brute force reroll.

EDIT: Also from a moderation perspective resettheavy runs need more control and proof, because they are prone to splicing.

EDIT2: I dont know how i forgot this back then, but fair timing Emulator vs Hardware is extremely hard to do if there are resetts, because emulators are faster and adding a penalty will either give an advantage to hardware or dont do enough)