Astral's Advent Observations: The Kuriquel - DAY 12!

Welcome back to Astral's Advent Observations: The Kuriquel! Hope you've been enjoying things so far and that I've done a moderately decent job of providing mildly entertaining content related to trading cards.

Day 12! We're officially halfway there!

This guy gets aROUND! It's Sphere Kuriboh! (Sorry, I was having too much of a ball.)

General Observation:

Not only is Sphere Kuriboh super useful for protection thanks to its ability to switch any of your opponent's attacking Monsters into defense position, but you can also use this card from the graveyard as fodder for a ritual summon, making this card a definite boon for Ritual Decks.

Trivia Observation:

Sphere Kuriboh was originally printed in the TCG set Dimension of Chaos. He's made only a single appearance in an anime so far: in VRAINS when Playmaker uses copies of him to dodge security during a hacking attempt.

Other trivia of note is that he might be based on The Winged Dragon of Ra's Sphere Mode due to the similarities in design and his Japanese name actually translates to "Kuriball." (Sharing the name of one of the effects of the five Kuriboh Brothers in Season 4 of the original anime.)

Personal Observation:

Heh, I mostly know this guy for being ANNOYING in Duel Links. Someone ALWAYS seems to have a copy in their hand.

Sphere Kuriboh's gotta roll, but stay tuned for tomorrow's entry on Astral's Advent Observations: The Kuriquel! (Most likely with significantly less ball puns.)

Astral's Advent Observations: The Kuriquel - DAY 11!

Hello again for the eleventh time and welcome back to another sparkly new (at least until tomorrow) edition of Astral's Advent Observations: The Kuriquel! We've been having some festive fun with a little help from a box full of Kuriboh cards. What will we find today?

Box #11 brings us...

...our first Link Monster, Linkuriboh!

General Observation:

Gonna level with you guys: I'm still only one full season into VRAINS and a bit more casual on the card game side of things, so I haven't wrapped my head fully around all the rules and such involving Link Monsters. Thus, this installment'll be a little lighter on the potential strategies.

Anyway, Linkuriboh has the power to reduce any opponent's Monster's ATK to 0 by tributing itself when your foe declares an attack from said Monster. He can also bounce back to the field from the grave once per turn as long as you tribute a level 1 Monster (which you'll probably have since that's his summoning condition), so as long as you have the proper Monster, Linky'll always have your back!

Trivia Observation:

Linkuriboh was originally printed as a Shonen Jump promo card (for September and November 2017 in Japan and North America respectively) before later being reprinted in both the Codebreaker Starter Deck and the Duel Power box. It's currently the ONLY member of the Kuriboh family who resides in the Extra Deck.

Aside from some minor cameos in Season 1, he made his full-on anime debut in Episode 43 of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS (the beginning of Season 2) where Ai meets his old buddy Linky after returning to a ruined Cyberse. After finding the place otherwise deserted, Ai took Linky with him to reunite with Yusaku/Playmaker and Linky was added to his deck soon after. Ai's pretty affectionate towards Linkuriboh (He was the one who gave him the nickname "Linky") and cheers him on whenever he's called to help out in a duel.

Personal Observation:

Haha, I knew Linky would be along eventually, but not this soon! Very fun card to finally own now that I've started VRAINS Season 2. Wait...DM, GX, 5D's, Zexal,...and VRAINS? Why do I get the feeling that something's very conspicuously missing here? #knowingsmile

Linky's gotta bounce, but be back here tomorrow for another Kuriboh spotlight on Day 12 of Astral's Advent Observations: The Kuriquel!