ROUND TWO:
In the battle of the split permanents, Kenaron bested his opponent against Pseudofate in what was a very close match decided by half a point. Kenaron's simpler submission managed to triumph over the risk his opponent took.
ROUND THREE:
Kenaron managed to make good with the TV/Movie challenge by taking advantage of sci-fi legend Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask to make this card. In a slightly anticlimatic twist, his opponent was disqualified for editing his card after time was called.
This might make people rethink about encouraging opponents to join the final round next time...
While the round was very close with many entries doing very well in what is considered uncharted territory, Kenaron managed to get consistently high scores all throughout with this take on Troll Ascetic, as did the Cantripmancer and genesys who are 2nd and 3rd place respectively. With a margin of 4 points when taking Jozan's judgings into account, Kenaron wins the last FCC of 2008.
Considering that Kenaron almost bowed out of the round, this may be the biggest irony in FCC history.
True. Also ironic is that you my judge (Shepard again for further irony) round two said that the green part of my card was the weaker side and then Matca Rioters gets spoiled for Conflux. It's been a month of delicious irony.
Looking back through the previous rounds, I remembered that this is also the month that I rickrolled the FCC. In my post I had links to all of the players in my bracket, but the link to my card on my post was rickrolled. This was then copied to the main post without correcting this immediately.
I wanted to say some things about the other cards of the final round. In terms of visual spectacle I think genesys took the cake. If MSE ever makes a colorless snow template it should be that or what fissionessence did.
About Cantripmancer's card, if the land to be sacrifice had to be snow things could very well have turned out differently. It would still be possible to get a dual land using Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and a Snow-Covered Island, and during CS's legality it's not like the tomb didn't see every deck that was even part black. It's not fair to consider it broken as is though, as how often does your opponent have three creatures to be targeted on your second turn anyway? It's clearly not a turn two card is my point.
The thing about Cantrips card isn't mainly the cost, it's that it costs so little to get a very large effect out of it with minimal drawback. a 4 for 2 is nothing to scoff at, and most of the time late game it is merely a 4 for 1 since the land doesn't matter at that point.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to spiderboy4 for the great avatar and sig from High Light Studios!
As mentioned in another thread, I lost by one word. If I had added either "basic" or "snow" to "...sacrifice a [] land.", I think my sad-art card would have taken the trophy. Like I said: by "this" much (being 4-5 characters).
Just for posterity, I NEVER meant it to be that powerful. I rarely play anything other than casual and sealed, so I don't often think about dual lands...the intent was to be able to get one effect or the other, neither of which (by itself) I felt was too powerful for the double restriction of using snow mana AND saccing a land.
If CM's card did say basic you could still get both effects, though not easily. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and a Snow-Covered Island would let you play it and sed island is both basic and a swamp. There wasn't a one word fix, but if somehow you couldn't get multiple effects it would have done significantly better and possibly won.
Yeah, true 'dat. It is legendary, and not the kind of legendary that you still want to have 4 of in a deck.
While we're on the subject of the other cards of the round, I'm not sure how many people noticed the meteorological pun Milldawg set up. For those who mist it, you can Forecast a Cold Front.
Yes, it was a compliment. I thought you had me when the round closed. I thought Rimeborn Drake (sorry the earlier link didn't go to your post) was better than my card. I would have comboed vigilance with the untap preventing effect over a pump ability that you might have difficulty using to great effect, but really that's the extent of my criticism. Well, that and the bit about the round requirement. In contrast to what some judges feel, I don't think a 5 cost 2/3 creature with flying is too good. If mono green can have creature damage in the form of Mouth of Ronom I'm okay with with an Aven Flock variant.
I suppose it is time that somebody said something about my card though. My basic process was that 3C can get a 3/3 in any color as a common, so a creature that was straight up 4 for a 3/3 with no text could probably work if be rather dull. I figure that just about everybody can pay S to target it, and I say this because I've white decks with no effects dealing with snow run some Snow-Covered Plains. The metagame could easily make his text irrelevant, but the tradeoff is that would leave you open to Zombie Musher and someone could use both in the same deck. If your opponent doesn't run snow a 3/3 with shroud isn't the end of the world, it's just frustrating to some decktypes.
The wording is a hybridization of Autumn Willow and Zerapa Minotaur.
I really like this card. It reminds me of Glittering Lynx, a card that on paper doesn't look too impressive but actually is quite solid in play. And I think "solid" really defines this card. He's not a gamebreaker but you know you're getting a sturdy body at a good cost. If someone makes a snow deck with 3 or more colors you'd be hard pressed to find a creature that's easier to play and could cause some matchup problems.
That is a valid criticism, I don't really know what kind of player would want to run my card. It's filler for a multicolor snow deck, the kind of thing you run if you like Diamond Faerie but can't be bothered with snow duals. You could argue it's usefulness in red against mono white, as it can't be Oblivion Ring'd and can fight Paladin En-Vec, but coldsnap was in the same time frame as Ghostfire so that point breaks down. I've also stated that I've seen white weenie decks with no snow abilities use Snow-Covered Plains, so that wouldn't even help any. So pretty much it's for the casual croud, and wouldn't be bad in a five color snow theme deck. It'd would serve the same function as Phyrexian Ironfoot except that it can't be Shattered or Naturalized.
And of coarse this would be a staple for Yeti tribal.
I really like the card too. It's very flavorful, and quite a good card. I mean, if you lack snow mana... you're looking at a major beating. I also understand how you felt and with your objections noted.
I did read over your objections, but I felt that you were stretching on very thin ice... I mean, Elemental Resonance as an issue with Snow Mana? I'm pretty that Elemental Resonance will not keep a member of R&D from designing a card with snow mana as part of the cost because of the "issue" of whether it will create snow mana or just colorless mana.
(An aside to this: Usually when a card adds mana equal to a card's mana, it will in this case probably just add Colorless mana; cards that usually care "type" of mana, like Ice Cauldron, will usually note this. Look at the rulling for Doubling Cube because it addresses "doubling" mana with requirements, and how it "removes the requirements" from the doubled mana. The way "snow" mana is understood in the rules: the snow symbol stands for "mana that was generated from a snow permanent". Elemental Resonance would be creating the mana, so it would count 4 colorless... but it would generate the mana, not the Yeti, so it would be basic colorless mana. End aside.)
Overall, though, I liked this FFC. Unique and different. Makes sure everyone thinks outside the box.
This is a really major aside, but I went to your link about June's FFC and I was going through the "free spells" and I came across Ikeda's submission "Blind Insight"... and then I read through how the judges judged the card itself... and I think most people don't understand how Panglacial Wurm works, but it would seem none of the judges realized how over-powered Blind Insight is.
Whenever a spell or ability has both "search" and "library" in it, then cards that are played this way "become available" options to cast. In his case, "Unveil" triggers. In the case of a spell resolving, or something... it's not good. A spell is still actually on the stack while resolving, so you could never actually use any "Unveil" cards while still on the stack... plus, the broken part about the Unveil mechanic is the existence of the Onslaught fetchlands.
When you break a fetchland, you immediately pay 0 and "unveil" Blind Insight, then you do it again, and again, and again... the reason you can do this for all 4 is because of this: resolution of spells played while searching libraries (based on bullet points from WotC ruling on Panglacial Wurm) doesn't happen until the search effect has finished, then the spells "played while searching the library" are cast. So, in this scenario, you break a fetchland, then search up all four copies of Blind Insight, pay their 0 activation cost, then fetch your land....once it hits play and you shuffle, all 4 Blind Insights go onto the stack (and even though the spell's ability says "while there are no spells on the stack", you actually paid 0 when no spells were on the stack... so you met that requirement while searching the library, which doesn't matter when they are actually cast.)
I know this is way off topic, but I just wanted to point out that Blind Insight is like ... I don't know, the most broken card I've ever, ever, ever seen created so far... in Vintage, turn 1, pop a fetchland for Underground Sea, cast all 4 Blind Insight's, draw 4 cards, and I've got a 10 card hand with 4 Spell Count, and 5 cards (2 away from Threshold) already... If I were playing Storm w/Tendrils of Agony, I'm pretty sure I would just win right there after that line of play... and all it cost me 1 Life.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In response to your Brainstorm, I use Vedalken Orrery to play Chains of Mephistopheles as an instant."
-- Duncan McGregor, DCI L3 Judge, while playing his "judgebreaker" deck in an IRL EDH game
Funny, I have been looking over the previous months myself. And yeah, Blind Insight is one of the most broken cards I've ever seen in the FCC. Also that round there was Random Encounter, another extremely broken card. Really, June was a bad month. I think if someone made soulless Stone Rain variant number 273 they would have won by a landslide, but nobody was willing to give up the bonus point for having no mana cost. But this is getting terribly off topic.
Yeah, it was a bad month... but man, some of those are interesting to read!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In response to your Brainstorm, I use Vedalken Orrery to play Chains of Mephistopheles as an instant."
-- Duncan McGregor, DCI L3 Judge, while playing his "judgebreaker" deck in an IRL EDH game
June and December had a similar problem, the round asked players to do make something that WotC would never do. Not that there's anything inherently sacred about what is official, in fact the opposite is more likely true. But judging the cards from June or December without the considerations for the respective requirements makes most of the cards (including my Albadian Yeti) look bad. Rounds like June and December finals are fair territory, but I'd prefer chose sort of challenges stay to the earlier rounds.
To illustrate my point, I'll get us even further off topic. The best card I ever designed for the FCC, nay the best card I've ever designed, was an Un-Glued styled enchantment. It was in April Round 1 and the link to it is here. I recommend looking at the render first, then once you digested that check out the text card. It was a fun round but it didn't test designer's skills. It wasn't important to know the right casting cost for various effects and there was no requirement to understand how the card would impact tournament play. Having a good Un-card requires some skill, but people would be screaming bloody murder if it was ever the final round requirement. The resulting card would certainly not win the Card of the Year, as I want to point out that neither Albadian Yeti nor Equistrike have a single vote in that poll as of the time of this post, and I don't expect that to change.
Oh yes, everyone reading this I want to encourage you check out the FCC Card of the Year 2008 Voting thread. I'm not trying to plug for votes, at least not for Albadian Yeti. Please don't waste a vote on this card, check out the eleven more worthy cards of the year.
Look, I feel Abadian Yeti is nowhere near card of the year. Really I do. I'm not a fan of Equistrike, an opinion I stated on more than one occasion including when I judged it, but it's no longer the least popular FCC winner on the card of the year thread. This card is, and I expect it to stay that way. I expect the voting to finish with not a single person saying that Abadian Yeti was card of the year, and why should they? If anyone really likes this then they surely like Mistress of Oblivion better. I mean, between the two I'd vote for Mistress of Oblivion, though it should be noted that voting for Albadian Yeti would get me DQ'ed but if that weren't the case I still wouldn't vote for Albadian Yeti.
There is this idea that I'm belittling my card for attention, and I'd like to give a reasoned counterargument. Nobody has anything to say about Albadian Yeti, it simply is what it is. It doesn't inspire a new build nor have a place in an existing deck type, the most realistic compliment it has been given is that it would be played in a draft, but really any creature gets played in fraft unless it's sub-Chimney Imp. It's obviously more useful than Chimney Imp, it'd be harder not to unless your draft doesn't include sources of snow mana. So it's filler for an outdated deck type or a casual card, but what kind of card can't be a casual card?
Getting away from the drama and more on the card this thread is supposed to be about, if Abaldian Yeti were given out as a promo card for some reason (let's say something like Fruitcake Elemental, and you got a play set) who would use it and what kind of deck would you put it in?
And honestly, your card is fine. It's decently creative, well balanced, and certainly among the best cards of the round. It was a tough round, and ultimately the most elegantly designed card won: yours. Elegant design seems to be something that you're very good at. Your January round 1 card left me very impressed.
Congratulations on a well deserved win. Swallow the self depreciation and accept a compliment!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
--- BRG :: Hey, guess what? It's cool to reply to my private messages. I even prefer it! No, just because I'm judging the FFC doesn't make it awkward. Seriously. :: GRB
I have been hard on myself, or rather hard on my card this time around. I went with instinct instead of my the usual methodological approach, which means that I can't replicate it's success. I relentlessly overanalyze everything I make for the FCC, and the thing here is that I can't find a fair benchmark to compare Albadian Yeti to. Your opinions of it reflect your assumptions, if you assume they don't play snow at all it's easy to see it as too good and if you assume your opponent always plays snow then it's text is a petty nuisance and it's stats don't make up for it. It's not like you can say your opponent has a 47% chance of having snow mana by your fourth turn, depending on your assumptions about their snow mana capabilities you can conclude it's very strong or very weak. But it's always one or the other, over the curve or under the curve. It's never right on, so it would take real playtesting to figure out if it's actually as good as it seems.
Conversely, there are fair benchmarks for Rimeborn Drake. 5 can get a 2/3 creature with flying, and this is fact not overpowered. Really an artifact could do what it does, nevermind the snow funny buisiness, and the fact that it can't be shattered doesn't mean much since that means it can be terrored and I see a lot more terrors and shriekmaws then artifact destruction. I'd bet that nobody can build a deck that breaks it, but a lot of people would want to play with it - thus making it a perfectly balanced card in my book.
On a related note, December is the only month where I was in the finals and didn't PM any judge. Well, that is except for Howler13, but I told him that I wasn't trying to get points. I told him that I felt it was a bum thing to do taking off points when I used ~ instead of my card's name. But that was it! I avoided the usual post-round whining that decides things so often. I believe it's never happened that someone whined about their scores and lost points for it, so a player is always benefited by whining to the fullest extend they can. I hope this is a new direction for the FCC and not just a fluke.
June and December had a similar problem, the round asked players to do make something that WotC would never do.
How can you possibly make that statement? While the argument could be made about the snow mana round, making a sorcery without a mana cost is something that WotC did do. There was nothing wrong with that round, it was just very hard.
The best card I ever designed for the FCC, nay the best card I've ever designed, was an Un-Glued styled enchantment. It was in April Round 1 and the link to it is here.
I find this fascinating. I thought the idea was clever and card in Braille was amusing, but the design itself was pretty poor. Ignore the fact that this card is 100% unplayable without knowing the rules text ahead of time via a spoiler (which is a pretty darn huge fact to ignore); the design itself just doesn't do anything fun. It's only function is to remove any decision making whatsoever from cards in your hand.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Golden Rule of forums: If you're going to be rude, be right. If you might be wrong, be polite.
How can you possibly make that statement? While the argument could be made about the snow mana round, making a sorcery without a mana cost is something that WotC did do. There was nothing wrong with that round, it was just very hard.
Allright, you got me there. The round requirement is something they do all the time, sorceries are in every set. The round requirement plus bonus points together is something WotC would be extremely hesitant to do, which is to say a sorcery without a cost or keywords. Costless sorceries are fine, Evermind in particular, but I'm surprised how strongly people clung on to the bonus points given how detrimental they were to design. I have to admit it is not exactly like December, but I don't think the FCC went to as good design space in June if not by necessity then by choice.
I find this fascinating. I thought the idea was clever and card in Braille was amusing, but the design itself was pretty poor. Ignore the fact that this card is 100% unplayable without knowing the rules text ahead of time via a spoiler (which is a pretty darn huge fact to ignore); the design itself just doesn't do anything fun. It's only function is to remove any decision making whatsoever from cards in your hand.
Part of the fun I thought was the fact that it's called Blind Man's Bluff and chances are that the only players who can read it are blind, so they could just lie to you about what it does. That said, it's rules text would have to be in the Un-whatever set faq. I can't imagine enjoy a game involving my card, but then again I can't imagine enjoying a game envolving un-cards in general. What makes a good un-card is a mystery to me, most of them remove strategy all together when they aren't actively encouraging cheating. So I really don't care about what happens when an un-card hits play because by then I've already removed myself from that, I judge un-cards by their "can a card do that?!?" quality and it's hunor value. Here's the test: if you imagine Mark Rosewater dressed up in a chicken suit handling a rules dispute involving your un-card and this thought doesn't make you giggle then you should try again. After coming up with Blind Man's Bluff, I nearly peed myself at the thought of chicken suit MaRo reading it's text off his cheat sheet.
The round requirement plus bonus points together is something WotC would be extremely hesitant to do, which is to say a sorcery without a cost or keywords.
*Ahem* You misread/are misreading the bonus points. Players were not allowed to use existing keywords; they were perfectly able to make up a new keyword.
*Ahem* You misread/are misreading the bonus points. Players were not allowed to use existing keywords; they were perfectly able to make up a new keyword.
True, but making a new keyword is really hard. I mean, really hard. I don't think I can make a good keyword to save my life. I mean, I did it once in March, but otherwise I avoid it whenever possible. When making a keyword you have to be distinct enough from existing keywords to justify it's keyword status, and it'd have to be general enough to justify being keyworded. Making a keyword is harder than just making a card, but maybe it's just me.
Several people did use keywords, Blind Insight mentioned earlier made a keyword, even though I didn't like the card I can see potential for a keyword like that. There were two sorceries with a keyword saying you can play it for a specified cost as soon as you draw it, which while a creative way of being able to play something without a cost they ran into two issues. For one it doesn't work in the rules, and secondly if you can only play it in reaction to something else then wouldn't that make it an instant?
Nobody tried this technicality, but you didn't say no keywords ever printed, just none in print. So could someone have used an out-of-print existing keyword? I'm not sure how long they keep printing a new set, so arguably flashback could have been in if someone explored that technicality.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
RECAP OF EVENTS:
ROUND ONE:
After many questions answered amidst a big complication over the simple premise of making a card with just twelve words of rules text, Kenaron manages to take second place in his bracket with a card that actually managed to fit in all the necessary text for hellbent.
ROUND TWO:
In the battle of the split permanents, Kenaron bested his opponent against Pseudofate in what was a very close match decided by half a point. Kenaron's simpler submission managed to triumph over the risk his opponent took.
ROUND THREE:
Kenaron managed to make good with the TV/Movie challenge by taking advantage of sci-fi legend Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask to make this card. In a slightly anticlimatic twist, his opponent was disqualified for editing his card after time was called.
FINAL ROUND:
If there is anything ironic about this round, it is that Kenaron almost boycotted this round on the grounds that this card will never realistically see print. Then again, after some words from other participants, he changed his mind and entered his submission.
This might make people rethink about encouraging opponents to join the final round next time...
While the round was very close with many entries doing very well in what is considered uncharted territory, Kenaron managed to get consistently high scores all throughout with this take on Troll Ascetic, as did the Cantripmancer and genesys who are 2nd and 3rd place respectively. With a margin of 4 points when taking Jozan's judgings into account, Kenaron wins the last FCC of 2008.
Kenaron, your objections are duly noted.
Link to current contents of Cube here.
SSC 8-Way Forum Draft
Current Pick: 1-6
Link to team assignments here.
SSC Forum Draft
Current Pick: 2-5
Link to pick here.
True. Also ironic is that you my judge (Shepard again for further irony) round two said that the green part of my card was the weaker side and then Matca Rioters gets spoiled for Conflux. It's been a month of delicious irony.
(Missed it by this much.)
I loled at the Get Smart reference.
Thanks to spiderboy4 for the great avatar and sig from High Light Studios!
I wanted to say some things about the other cards of the final round. In terms of visual spectacle I think genesys took the cake. If MSE ever makes a colorless snow template it should be that or what fissionessence did.
About Cantripmancer's card, if the land to be sacrifice had to be snow things could very well have turned out differently. It would still be possible to get a dual land using Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and a Snow-Covered Island, and during CS's legality it's not like the tomb didn't see every deck that was even part black. It's not fair to consider it broken as is though, as how often does your opponent have three creatures to be targeted on your second turn anyway? It's clearly not a turn two card is my point.
Thanks to spiderboy4 for the great avatar and sig from High Light Studios!
Just for posterity, I NEVER meant it to be that powerful. I rarely play anything other than casual and sealed, so I don't often think about dual lands...the intent was to be able to get one effect or the other, neither of which (by itself) I felt was too powerful for the double restriction of using snow mana AND saccing a land.
Thanks to spiderboy4 for the great avatar and sig from High Light Studios!
While we're on the subject of the other cards of the round, I'm not sure how many people noticed the meteorological pun Milldawg set up. For those who mist it, you can Forecast a Cold Front.
I suppose it is time that somebody said something about my card though. My basic process was that 3C can get a 3/3 in any color as a common, so a creature that was straight up 4 for a 3/3 with no text could probably work if be rather dull. I figure that just about everybody can pay S to target it, and I say this because I've white decks with no effects dealing with snow run some Snow-Covered Plains. The metagame could easily make his text irrelevant, but the tradeoff is that would leave you open to Zombie Musher and someone could use both in the same deck. If your opponent doesn't run snow a 3/3 with shroud isn't the end of the world, it's just frustrating to some decktypes.
The wording is a hybridization of Autumn Willow and Zerapa Minotaur.
Congrats, Kenaron!
And of coarse this would be a staple for Yeti tribal.
"Sarcasm is the body's natural defense against Stupidity"
I did read over your objections, but I felt that you were stretching on very thin ice... I mean, Elemental Resonance as an issue with Snow Mana? I'm pretty that Elemental Resonance will not keep a member of R&D from designing a card with snow mana as part of the cost because of the "issue" of whether it will create snow mana or just colorless mana.
(An aside to this: Usually when a card adds mana equal to a card's mana, it will in this case probably just add Colorless mana; cards that usually care "type" of mana, like Ice Cauldron, will usually note this. Look at the rulling for Doubling Cube because it addresses "doubling" mana with requirements, and how it "removes the requirements" from the doubled mana. The way "snow" mana is understood in the rules: the snow symbol stands for "mana that was generated from a snow permanent". Elemental Resonance would be creating the mana, so it would count 4 colorless... but it would generate the mana, not the Yeti, so it would be basic colorless mana. End aside.)
Overall, though, I liked this FFC. Unique and different. Makes sure everyone thinks outside the box.
This is a really major aside, but I went to your link about June's FFC and I was going through the "free spells" and I came across Ikeda's submission "Blind Insight"... and then I read through how the judges judged the card itself... and I think most people don't understand how Panglacial Wurm works, but it would seem none of the judges realized how over-powered Blind Insight is.
Whenever a spell or ability has both "search" and "library" in it, then cards that are played this way "become available" options to cast. In his case, "Unveil" triggers. In the case of a spell resolving, or something... it's not good. A spell is still actually on the stack while resolving, so you could never actually use any "Unveil" cards while still on the stack... plus, the broken part about the Unveil mechanic is the existence of the Onslaught fetchlands.
When you break a fetchland, you immediately pay 0 and "unveil" Blind Insight, then you do it again, and again, and again... the reason you can do this for all 4 is because of this: resolution of spells played while searching libraries (based on bullet points from WotC ruling on Panglacial Wurm) doesn't happen until the search effect has finished, then the spells "played while searching the library" are cast. So, in this scenario, you break a fetchland, then search up all four copies of Blind Insight, pay their 0 activation cost, then fetch your land....once it hits play and you shuffle, all 4 Blind Insights go onto the stack (and even though the spell's ability says "while there are no spells on the stack", you actually paid 0 when no spells were on the stack... so you met that requirement while searching the library, which doesn't matter when they are actually cast.)
I know this is way off topic, but I just wanted to point out that Blind Insight is like ... I don't know, the most broken card I've ever, ever, ever seen created so far... in Vintage, turn 1, pop a fetchland for Underground Sea, cast all 4 Blind Insight's, draw 4 cards, and I've got a 10 card hand with 4 Spell Count, and 5 cards (2 away from Threshold) already... If I were playing Storm w/Tendrils of Agony, I'm pretty sure I would just win right there after that line of play... and all it cost me 1 Life.
-- Duncan McGregor, DCI L3 Judge, while playing his "judgebreaker" deck in an IRL EDH game
-- Duncan McGregor, DCI L3 Judge, while playing his "judgebreaker" deck in an IRL EDH game
To illustrate my point, I'll get us even further off topic. The best card I ever designed for the FCC, nay the best card I've ever designed, was an Un-Glued styled enchantment. It was in April Round 1 and the link to it is here. I recommend looking at the render first, then once you digested that check out the text card. It was a fun round but it didn't test designer's skills. It wasn't important to know the right casting cost for various effects and there was no requirement to understand how the card would impact tournament play. Having a good Un-card requires some skill, but people would be screaming bloody murder if it was ever the final round requirement. The resulting card would certainly not win the Card of the Year, as I want to point out that neither Albadian Yeti nor Equistrike have a single vote in that poll as of the time of this post, and I don't expect that to change.
Oh yes, everyone reading this I want to encourage you check out the FCC Card of the Year 2008 Voting thread. I'm not trying to plug for votes, at least not for Albadian Yeti. Please don't waste a vote on this card, check out the eleven more worthy cards of the year.
There is this idea that I'm belittling my card for attention, and I'd like to give a reasoned counterargument. Nobody has anything to say about Albadian Yeti, it simply is what it is. It doesn't inspire a new build nor have a place in an existing deck type, the most realistic compliment it has been given is that it would be played in a draft, but really any creature gets played in fraft unless it's sub-Chimney Imp. It's obviously more useful than Chimney Imp, it'd be harder not to unless your draft doesn't include sources of snow mana. So it's filler for an outdated deck type or a casual card, but what kind of card can't be a casual card?
Getting away from the drama and more on the card this thread is supposed to be about, if Abaldian Yeti were given out as a promo card for some reason (let's say something like Fruitcake Elemental, and you got a play set) who would use it and what kind of deck would you put it in?
You're leet, Kenaron!
And honestly, your card is fine. It's decently creative, well balanced, and certainly among the best cards of the round. It was a tough round, and ultimately the most elegantly designed card won: yours. Elegant design seems to be something that you're very good at. Your January round 1 card left me very impressed.
Congratulations on a well deserved win. Swallow the self depreciation and accept a compliment!
---
BRG :: Hey, guess what? It's cool to reply to my private messages. I even prefer it! No, just because I'm judging the FFC doesn't make it awkward. Seriously. :: GRB
Conversely, there are fair benchmarks for Rimeborn Drake. 5 can get a 2/3 creature with flying, and this is fact not overpowered. Really an artifact could do what it does, nevermind the snow funny buisiness, and the fact that it can't be shattered doesn't mean much since that means it can be terrored and I see a lot more terrors and shriekmaws then artifact destruction. I'd bet that nobody can build a deck that breaks it, but a lot of people would want to play with it - thus making it a perfectly balanced card in my book.
On a related note, December is the only month where I was in the finals and didn't PM any judge. Well, that is except for Howler13, but I told him that I wasn't trying to get points. I told him that I felt it was a bum thing to do taking off points when I used ~ instead of my card's name. But that was it! I avoided the usual post-round whining that decides things so often. I believe it's never happened that someone whined about their scores and lost points for it, so a player is always benefited by whining to the fullest extend they can. I hope this is a new direction for the FCC and not just a fluke.
How can you possibly make that statement? While the argument could be made about the snow mana round, making a sorcery without a mana cost is something that WotC did do. There was nothing wrong with that round, it was just very hard.
I find this fascinating. I thought the idea was clever and card in Braille was amusing, but the design itself was pretty poor. Ignore the fact that this card is 100% unplayable without knowing the rules text ahead of time via a spoiler (which is a pretty darn huge fact to ignore); the design itself just doesn't do anything fun. It's only function is to remove any decision making whatsoever from cards in your hand.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
Allright, you got me there. The round requirement is something they do all the time, sorceries are in every set. The round requirement plus bonus points together is something WotC would be extremely hesitant to do, which is to say a sorcery without a cost or keywords. Costless sorceries are fine, Evermind in particular, but I'm surprised how strongly people clung on to the bonus points given how detrimental they were to design. I have to admit it is not exactly like December, but I don't think the FCC went to as good design space in June if not by necessity then by choice.
Part of the fun I thought was the fact that it's called Blind Man's Bluff and chances are that the only players who can read it are blind, so they could just lie to you about what it does. That said, it's rules text would have to be in the Un-whatever set faq. I can't imagine enjoy a game involving my card, but then again I can't imagine enjoying a game envolving un-cards in general. What makes a good un-card is a mystery to me, most of them remove strategy all together when they aren't actively encouraging cheating. So I really don't care about what happens when an un-card hits play because by then I've already removed myself from that, I judge un-cards by their "can a card do that?!?" quality and it's hunor value. Here's the test: if you imagine Mark Rosewater dressed up in a chicken suit handling a rules dispute involving your un-card and this thought doesn't make you giggle then you should try again. After coming up with Blind Man's Bluff, I nearly peed myself at the thought of chicken suit MaRo reading it's text off his cheat sheet.
*Ahem* You misread/are misreading the bonus points. Players were not allowed to use existing keywords; they were perfectly able to make up a new keyword.
That explains a lot, and is amusing to boot.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
True, but making a new keyword is really hard. I mean, really hard. I don't think I can make a good keyword to save my life. I mean, I did it once in March, but otherwise I avoid it whenever possible. When making a keyword you have to be distinct enough from existing keywords to justify it's keyword status, and it'd have to be general enough to justify being keyworded. Making a keyword is harder than just making a card, but maybe it's just me.
Several people did use keywords, Blind Insight mentioned earlier made a keyword, even though I didn't like the card I can see potential for a keyword like that. There were two sorceries with a keyword saying you can play it for a specified cost as soon as you draw it, which while a creative way of being able to play something without a cost they ran into two issues. For one it doesn't work in the rules, and secondly if you can only play it in reaction to something else then wouldn't that make it an instant?
Nobody tried this technicality, but you didn't say no keywords ever printed, just none in print. So could someone have used an out-of-print existing keyword? I'm not sure how long they keep printing a new set, so arguably flashback could have been in if someone explored that technicality.