humm ..dunno ..if i was judge i probably would do a little more dmg ...like a slap in the wrist because of something so basic that should always be checked ...
Anywyas ..that's why i'm not a judge and it's always subjective
(i didn't check any scores actually)
Yes, it's bad to use an existing card name. The penalty I give varies with how obvious it should have been that the name was taken. If you make a card called Living Airship, I might figure you haven't been playing that long, and simply didn't realize WotC had already used the name. You still should have checked Gatherer, but that's only a "forgot to check Gatherer" minus. If you make a card called Force of Will or Path to Exile, I'm liable to give you an extra "geeze, do you play this game?" deduction.
However, the whole thing is moot, because judges should never change their score because they overlooked something. Odds are that the judge overlooked something on several (or even all) cards they judged, so just because someone noticed a flaw in the judging doesn't mean there aren't other flaws that that person didn't notice.
Here are times when a judge should change their score:
1) When they didn't understand the rules correctly. (Judge - "This card creates an auto-win 1-card combo, -10", Someone Else - "It doesn't work that way, see the comp-rules section xyz.5". Judge - "My bad", changes score.)
2) When a judge makes a math error. (Development 8, Design 8, Polish 5, Total = 16).
3) The judge decides they were too tired/drunk/excited/distracted and made lots of mistakes. In this case, they should throw out ALL of their judgings and start over from scratch. This should NOT happen when someone criticizes their judging of one card, because it is likely to have a greater effect on the score of that one card than any other.
As far as I'm aware, that's about it. And #3 should almost never happen.
P.S. There's a good chance I would also have missed that "Into Thin Air" was an existing card name, although I try to remember to send everything through Gatherer.
Indeed, all players should at least check magiccards.info for name and wording precedents, but if the player fails to do this the judge should definitely spot it and penalise. I wasn't playing during 5th Dawn, so I missed it, but I would certainly check every card if I was a judge.
As for the penalty, I'm not sure for this one. The name doesn't really affect the quality of the card, but it would make the card definitely fail the "Would Wizards print this" test. Someone with more judging experience or the organisers should come up with a ruling here.
It would be pretty boring to be the "spell checking" polish judge.
At least in the previous 3rd rounds we've got 2 judges for each card
and all judges judging each card in last round, when there's less cards to judge.
I personally spent 3-4 hours for my judging bracket.
Most of it on gatherer checking previous similar cards for wording and
balancing scores.
So you stick name, proper wording, whether the card works as intended and formatting under polish. Give them the duty of seeing if the name was used and if the proper wording was used. Design could be about if the card had been done before, what it does and how well it does it. Flavor is obviously the flavor of the card. Does the card's name and effect fit with the flavor of the card? Switch the point system to have 10 in design, 10 in polish and 5 for flavor. Heck maybe even up it to 30 and have 10 points for each.
Yeah, well it's annoying that everyone seems to feel "what's done is done" after the bracket was turned upside-down (and, by the way, after the Round 1 judging deadline passed). No one seemed to share that sentiment yesterday.
This whole episode has left a very poor taste in my mouth.
QFT. In my experience it doesn't matter how much logic you throw at a judge, nothing changes.
Even if the system doesn't get altered to reduce subjectivety, there should atleast be a system for repealling flavor issues. I think If a player can logically explain the flavor of a card within reason, then that player should get high score in flavor. Another point is about whether or not a judge should be allowed to judge the cards effect in standard or if they need to do it in a vacuum. Ruination would be ridiculous in standard now, but when it was printed, it was fine. Who's to say that card should get a low score just because we're in a multicoloured block? These are the ikinds of things that I'm talking about that there are apparently no answers to. I see very simple solutions to them.
Can someone tell me what is happening to the people who were supposed to be judged by Krtzero this past week in the MCC? He was a no-show for judging and I'm wondering what the plan is for this.
I think If a player can logically explain the flavor of a card within reason, then that player should get high score in flavor.
You are very wrong on this point. A card needs to be able to speak for itself. In real magic, you don't open a booster pack and open the first card to have a magic writer pop up on your shoulder and explain the intricacies and nuances of the flavor text. A card that requires an additional explanation in flavor has not got good flavor. Period. The only time a judge should ever change their score for flavor is when they feel they made a really stupid mistake that no one else could make.
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
Isn't a text card required? I can't find anything saying so in the FAQ for MCC (didn't follow the FCC links), and I don't see it in the round thread either.
One of my players didn't submit a text card, but I'm not going to DQ them it wasn't listed anywhere that it was required. (If this hasn't been discussed before, I'd like to bring it up now--while renders are optional, I don't think you should be allowed to skip the text card just because you provided a render).
It has been discussed, but it was not in the current FAQ. The current player will not be penalized.
People: Because image files can cause issues, a text card is a must. Also, it's part of the rules (or it will be part of the official rules henceforth). Post a text card, post a render if you can.
Quote from qqpq »
(Aside: The FAQ could use some editing. If someone PM's me on Tuesday or Wednesday, I'll see if I can take a look at it and PM the results to one of the Hammer team. One example, the last FAQ item says "in edition" which should be "in addition".)
@Sven et al: While I understand what you're saying, you should realize that this has been discussed since the beginning of time. There's no objective way of judging. At all. We try, we really do. And we try to have feedback going around to help judges improve, but the fact of the matter is that no amount of tweaking rubrics is going to allow you to score the same amount with all the judges. If you read articles by WotC you'll realize this is even true at R&D, Maro gets in arguments with people all the time. Suggestions are always welcome, but this is one of those situations where there's really not much that can been done about complaints unless you have concrete ways in which the situation could be improved. We all wish it was an easier problem to tackle.
What if you had different judges judging each card in a different catagory. For instance, what if design, flavor and polish were seperated among different judges. Instead of one judge judging 8 different cards for all subsets, what if that one judge judged 24 cards, but only in the flavor catagory. That way each person has three different eyes on their card and it isn't any more work for the judges. You'll probably only have 3 or four brackets that way aswell. I haven't delved into it much, and it's probably riddled with holes.
Er, without getting into it: no. We're a friendly card competition, not the United Nations. You makes your cards and you takes your chances. Over time, we hope that established, experienced, insightful judges will emerge, but that's not the primary purpose of the competition.
EDIT: OK ...i'm sorry to do this ..but this is one of the things i was talking about. It's in enlights brackets! I just remenbered it now. There was a card with an existing name! And as i recall it i went to see if the judge caught it up...it didn't. THIS PROBABLY SHOULD BE DISCUSSED AT THE ORGANIZERS LEVEL.
Yes, it's bad to use an existing card name. The penalty I give varies with how obvious it should have been that the name was taken. If you make a card called Living Airship, I might figure you haven't been playing that long, and simply didn't realize WotC had already used the name. You still should have checked Gatherer, but that's only a "forgot to check Gatherer" minus. If you make a card called Force of Will or Path to Exile, I'm liable to give you an extra "geeze, do you play this game?" deduction.
Yup, this. In the current situation, I would probably mark off .5 from flavor. But it was missed, so it was missed. End of story.
Quote from qqpq »
However, the whole thing is moot, because judges should never change their score because they overlooked something. Odds are that the judge overlooked something on several (or even all) cards they judged, so just because someone noticed a flaw in the judging doesn't mean there aren't other flaws that that person didn't notice.
Here are times when a judge should change their score:
1) When they didn't understand the rules correctly. (Judge - "This card creates an auto-win 1-card combo, -10", Someone Else - "It doesn't work that way, see the comp-rules section xyz.5". Judge - "My bad", changes score.)
2) When a judge makes a math error. (Development 8, Design 8, Polish 5, Total = 16).
3) The judge decides they were too tired/drunk/excited/distracted and made lots of mistakes. In this case, they should throw out ALL of their judgings and start over from scratch. This should NOT happen when someone criticizes their judging of one card, because it is likely to have a greater effect on the score of that one card than any other.
As far as I'm aware, that's about it. And #3 should almost never happen.
Also QFT. There are grey areas, but in general, these are good guidelines to follow.
Yeah, well it's annoying that everyone seems to feel "what's done is done" after the bracket was turned upside-down (and, by the way, after the Round 1 judging deadline passed). No one seemed to share that sentiment yesterday.
This whole episode has left a very poor taste in my mouth.
WT's "What's done is done" comment could be taken many ways. In the current instance, I'm still conferring with the other organizers, but I'm going to list everyone in Krynthe's pod under Round 2. We'll issue a final decision within 24 hours of this post, well before the end of the round. I encourage everyone in that pod to post a card (or at least be thinking about one) so that whatever the outcome, you're prepared.
Even if the system doesn't get altered to reduce subjectivety, there should atleast be a system for repealling flavor issues. I think If a player can logically explain the flavor of a card within reason, then that player should get high score in flavor.
You are very wrong on this point. A card needs to be able to speak for itself. In real magic, you don't open a booster pack and open the first card to have a magic writer pop up on your shoulder and explain the intricacies and nuances of the flavor text. A card that requires an additional explanation in flavor has not got good flavor. Period. The only time a judge should ever change their score for flavor is when they feel they made a really stupid mistake that no one else could make.
This.
Quote from Svenn »
Another point is about whether or not a judge should be allowed to judge the cards effect in standard or if they need to do it in a vacuum. Ruination would be ridiculous in standard now, but when it was printed, it was fine. Who's to say that card should get a low score just because we're in a multicoloured block? These are the ikinds of things that I'm talking about that there are apparently no answers to. I see very simple solutions to them.
This, too, has been discussed, in detail, if you cared to look up the history (I know it's a little more work to search two old discussion threads, but the info is there). The general concensus is that Standard is king, Limited should be considered, and multiplayer, legacy, etc. get nods when appropriate.
Can someone tell me what is happening to the people who were supposed to be judged by Krtzero this past week in the MCC? He was a no-show for judging and I'm wondering what the plan is for this.
Wow...um, just, wow. I really thought he had posted judgings; that is my bad. Those will be addressed shortly.
You are very wrong on this point. A card needs to be able to speak for itself. In real magic, you don't open a booster pack and open the first card to have a magic writer pop up on your shoulder and explain the intricacies and nuances of the flavor text. A card that requires an additional explanation in flavor has not got good flavor. Period. The only time a judge should ever change their score for flavor is when they feel they made a really stupid mistake that no one else could make.
You both took that entirely wrong. I meant if for some reason they didn't understand the flavor. This happens. A lot. You open a pack and you don't entirely understand the flavor of a card and so you ask your buddy and then suddenly it becomes very obvious. I hate the internet. You can't say I'm wrong without thinking aobut what I was talking about. Flavor text is the exact same thing as telling someone the flavor of the card. Take our last round in the CCL for instance. The round requirement was to make a card that had to do with scouting and there ended up being two camps. One that decided scouting meant looking for lands and one that said scouting meant looking at anything. Who's right? Who's wrong? You can't tell me that each of the players don't have the right to argue their flavor if they got a judge that wanted thei card to have somethig to do with lands. While this contest has nothing to do with the CCL, I'm just trying to make the point that sometimes flavor isn't simple. Different people have different views on what makes sense.
This, too, has been discussed, in detail, if you cared to look up the history (I know it's a little more work to search two old discussion threads, but the info is there). The general concensus is that Standard is king, Limited should be considered, and multiplayer, legacy, etc. get nods when appropriate.
Or, instead of being lame about it, you could look up about ten posts (ironically less than you asked me to do) and you'll see that MCC Hammer said that unless I had any ideas, it wouldn't be discussed. I had ideas. . . like this one that you blew off:
Er, without getting into it: no. We're a friendly card competition, not the United Nations. You makes your cards and you takes your chances. Over time, we hope that established, experienced, insightful judges will emerge, but that's not the primary purpose of the competition.
.
People keep saying it's impossible to help with the subjectivety yet I've been giving ways and you're simply saying no. You're saying it can't be done and I'm saying it's quite easy. How about instead of saying it can't be done you start saying you just don't want to?
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Oh, what's that you say, Karn? You remove poison counters? You should tell that to Mr. Rosewater.
Subjectivity is subjective, it's very difficult for even a group critics to come to a somewhat objective conclusion, let alone a single individual doing so. Also, having different judges judge different aspects of all the cards is still as flawed as having them judge a certain number of cards as a whole. In fact, it could result in more unfair judgements.
E.g. A card is submitted with mechanics and flavor that contridict each other. In this case, which judge would be deducting points? The flavor judge, the mechanics judge, or both? With a single judge this is not an issue. This mode of judging is also unfair to the judges, as different portions of the card take longer to fact check and rate then others.
E.g. A card is submitted with mechanics and flavor that contridict each other. In this case, which judge would be deducting points? The flavor judge, the mechanics judge, or both?
Eh, the person in charge of flavor, of course. The contradiction betwen those two categories only affects flavor, not mechanics. That was a bad example.
You both took that entirely wrong. I meant if for some reason they didn't understand the flavor. This happens. A lot. You open a pack and you don't entirely understand the flavor of a card and so you ask your buddy and then suddenly it becomes very obvious. I hate the internet. You can't say I'm wrong without thinking aobut what I was talking about. Flavor text is the exact same thing as telling someone the flavor of the card. Take our last round in the CCL for instance. The round requirement was to make a card that had to do with scouting and there ended up being two camps. One that decided scouting meant looking for lands and one that said scouting meant looking at anything. Who's right? Who's wrong? You can't tell me that each of the players don't have the right to argue their flavor if they got a judge that wanted thei card to have somethig to do with lands. While this contest has nothing to do with the CCL, I'm just trying to make the point that sometimes flavor isn't simple. Different people have different views on what makes sense.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, flavor isn't simple. Neither is making interesting mechanics or any other part of card design. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that judgings work something like this: Because every judge sees a card from a different point of view, they are going to rate them differently. For flavor, this point difference can be a little bigger than for balance. But I believe that the general outcome of the round would be the same (meaning the people who moved on). In the case of scouting, a good judge should realize that interacting with lands and other types of cards can be very similar, and even if they feel the flavor is a little off, they should still award good points if the concept is good and/or interesting (you just missed this particular judge's sweet spot it all).
Disagreements are common in custom card making, I can almost guarrentee that over 50% of players each round would like to change their judge's view of their card. The problem is, because the disagreement comes from point of view, and not someones mistake, voicing the disagreement will not change the judges view of the card. And what happens when we let everyone argue with their judges to change their score over these small disagreements? We would get so bogged down in arguments that we'd never get past round 1.
Flavor text is the exact same thing as telling someone the flavor of the card.
This is the same argument I'd use to say you should not get to explain the flavor, just toss it in the flavor text.
*Sorry if some of that doesn't make sense, I didn't get much sleep last night and I feel like I need a nap.
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
I definitely understand that something like this couldn't just happen overnight, nor would everyone want it to happen at all, I just feel that a more objective rubric is possible with a little work.
I'd also like to say that I'm not arguing this because of anything that had to do with this past round. I'm advancing and I had no qualms with my judge, so it's not an immediately-after-the-fact problem I'm having, just something I've noticed over time.
I also really don't want this to spiral into a messy fight, rather, I'd just like to have a conversation and to have a little input.
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Oh, what's that you say, Karn? You remove poison counters? You should tell that to Mr. Rosewater.
What about judges who do not have that strong a command of English? For those who have English as their second language, they might be able to understand and judge the other parts of the card just fine, but flavor text is harder to grasp as it uses more uncommon definitions of words, plays on word interactions, and uses harder words in general.
I presume they ask another judge for help sometimes?
I just feel that a more objective rubric is possible with a little work.
Coming up with a uniform objective rubric, in theory, is quite easy. I came up with one a few months ago and proposed it to the MCC organizers. But then I signed on to judge for a month and tried out my rubric. I noticed something: that if you applied a rigid hierarchy of point allocation you ended up with a very close, and kind of high, score range. That's because it's unusual for a card to be extraordinarily better or worse than the others cards in its bracket. In fact, most cards are only slightly better or worse than their competitors, and in subtle ways that can't easily be articulated using a uniform objective rubric. Also, using an objective rubric made it almost impossible for a card to get a perfect score because it measured the submission against the "Platonic Ideal" of a Magic card rather than a standard of what is "good enough" to merit a perfect score.
Overall, I learned that judges require a degree of subjective flexibility to give cards a fair score rather than a mechanical one. You could use the most perfectly-objective rubric in the world, but if you didn't have judges who were reasonable, informed, and experienced to interpret it, you wouldn't end up with good scores. Basically, good judgings are the product of good judges, not good rubrics.
However, I do think that the language of the PJW rubric could be revised to make it more clear, to players and judges, what is being judged. Point allocation, in my opinion, should remain more flexible and be left up to the judges to distribute. Each category must be judged, but the exact number of points awarded would be left up to the judge (except for Bonus and Quality points). An example might be something like this:
Revised MCC Rubric
Design (X/10) Creativity – How original or innovative is the card? Does it present an old idea with a new twist? Does it employ an entirely new mechanic? Aesthetics – How elegant is the card? Does it have a fitting name, subtype, and/or flavor text? If there is a render, does the art fit the card? Potential – Will different player demographics (Spike/Johnny/Timmy) find a use for this card? Does it stand out as a card to build a deck around? Development (X/10) Balance – Does the card's cost match its power? How balanced are its interactions with other cards? Can it be played in constructed, limited, or multiplayer without breaking any of those formats? Viability – How well does this card fit into the color wheel? Does it break or bend the rules of the game? How well does it conform to the current tendencies of the game? Polish (X/5) Bonus (X/2) – One point awarded per satisfied bonus condition. Quality (X/3) – Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar, and templating.
Total: X/25
*Or, as some people suggested a while back, the two Bonus points could be moved to Design and Quality could be moved to Development. Both Design and Development would then be worth 12 points, coming to a total possible score of 24 instead of 25.
Each category must be judged, but the exact number of points awarded would be left up to the judge (except for Bonus and Quality points).
I agree with the vast majority of what you posted, but I feel pretty strongly about disagreeing with this one little piece.
If a card meets the round requirements, it should possible for it to get a perfect score. If you *must* meet the bonus in order to get all the points, then a perfect card that doesn't meet the "bonus" can't get a perfect score.
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I also think the rubric could use some work, but it should be a long, slow, thoughtfully and politely discussed process, probably with its own separate thread.
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I'll try to remember to take a look at the FAQ sometime soon for some general editing type work, etc.
I think all this talk about different rubrics has been chewed on for far too long. I'm positive that the change in score between judges has nothing to do with the rubric they use.
So here is my special offer to test this:
Starting from this round (2), anyone judged by me can PM me after the judging is done with his choice of rubric from any of the other judges rubrics, as well as enLight's from post 136 and the old FCC rubric. I will then re do the judging here on the disscussion forum, to show all that I have not cheated, using the chosen rubric. The contestant can has the score from the second judging if they want, however don't expect a difference in the score of over a point.
Let's just call it an experiment. It should prove that once a judge finds a rubric they are comfortable with, all else just doesn't matter.
If a card meets the round requirements, it should possible for it to get a perfect score. If you *must* meet the bonus in order to get all the points, then a perfect card that doesn't meet the "bonus" can't get a perfect score.
Bonus conditions have always been a part of the MCC (and its ancestor, the FCC). If it is possible to get a perfect score in this competition by ignoring the bonus conditions, then why bother having bonus conditions at all?
I think some incentive should remain in place to encourage players to incorporate the bonus conditions into their cards. 1 point per bonus condition seems to work fine...unless you can think of a better, "point-less," way to reward bonus conditions.
Bonus conditions have always been a part of the MCC (and its ancestor, the FCC). If it is possible to get a perfect score in this competition by ignoring the bonus conditions, then why bother having bonus conditions at all?
I think some incentive should remain in place to encourage players to incorporate the bonus conditions into their cards. 1 point per bonus condition seems to work fine...unless you can think of a better, "point-less," way to reward bonus conditions.
The way I do it is that the "bonus point" gives you 1 "extra" point in a section (currently Polish) if you met it's condition, no matter what else, but it can't raise your score over the max (i.e. 5/5). So, a perfect card scores 5/5 whether or not it meets the bonus. An absolutely terrible card full of errors scores 0/5 if it didn't meet the bonus, and 2/5 if it met both bonuses. Yes, this means nearly everyone gets a 5/5 in the polish section from me, but that could be alleviated by separating the two points and giving one to design and one to development.
In other words, I advocate for the "bonus" only being able to raise your score (never lower it), instead of it only ever being able to lower your score (if you reserve 2 points for the bonuses).
If that last bit didn't make sense, it should be "You met the bonus, +1", not "you didn't meet this bonus, -1". It's largely semantics, but it makes the bonus seem like a reward if it's a plus, while it feels like a punishment if you make it a minus. Also, if the bonus isn't a minus, people might be more encouraged to use better designs that don't meet the bonus.
As an example, there are frequently bonus points for doing things out of color (i.e. direct damage requirement, bonus for nonred and/or nonblack). Many people end up making terrible cards just to get the bonus point. They would do better if they used a good idea that doesn't meet the bonus, because their design and/or development scores would increase by more than 1 point. However, right now, with the bonus in "punishment" mode, they're too scared of "losing" that point to make cards that don't meet the requirement (with a few exceptions).
I agree that the current "bonus" system is silly. qqpq was spot on. If these were truely bonus points, not doing them would have absolutely no effect on your final score. You might as well call them secondary requirements because you lose points if you don't meet them.
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Yes, it's bad to use an existing card name. The penalty I give varies with how obvious it should have been that the name was taken. If you make a card called Living Airship, I might figure you haven't been playing that long, and simply didn't realize WotC had already used the name. You still should have checked Gatherer, but that's only a "forgot to check Gatherer" minus. If you make a card called Force of Will or Path to Exile, I'm liable to give you an extra "geeze, do you play this game?" deduction.
However, the whole thing is moot, because judges should never change their score because they overlooked something. Odds are that the judge overlooked something on several (or even all) cards they judged, so just because someone noticed a flaw in the judging doesn't mean there aren't other flaws that that person didn't notice.
Here are times when a judge should change their score:
1) When they didn't understand the rules correctly. (Judge - "This card creates an auto-win 1-card combo, -10", Someone Else - "It doesn't work that way, see the comp-rules section xyz.5". Judge - "My bad", changes score.)
2) When a judge makes a math error. (Development 8, Design 8, Polish 5, Total = 16).
3) The judge decides they were too tired/drunk/excited/distracted and made lots of mistakes. In this case, they should throw out ALL of their judgings and start over from scratch. This should NOT happen when someone criticizes their judging of one card, because it is likely to have a greater effect on the score of that one card than any other.
As far as I'm aware, that's about it. And #3 should almost never happen.
P.S. There's a good chance I would also have missed that "Into Thin Air" was an existing card name, although I try to remember to send everything through Gatherer.
As for the penalty, I'm not sure for this one. The name doesn't really affect the quality of the card, but it would make the card definitely fail the "Would Wizards print this" test. Someone with more judging experience or the organisers should come up with a ruling here.
So you stick name, proper wording, whether the card works as intended and formatting under polish. Give them the duty of seeing if the name was used and if the proper wording was used. Design could be about if the card had been done before, what it does and how well it does it. Flavor is obviously the flavor of the card. Does the card's name and effect fit with the flavor of the card? Switch the point system to have 10 in design, 10 in polish and 5 for flavor. Heck maybe even up it to 30 and have 10 points for each.
QFT. In my experience it doesn't matter how much logic you throw at a judge, nothing changes.
Even if the system doesn't get altered to reduce subjectivety, there should atleast be a system for repealling flavor issues. I think If a player can logically explain the flavor of a card within reason, then that player should get high score in flavor. Another point is about whether or not a judge should be allowed to judge the cards effect in standard or if they need to do it in a vacuum. Ruination would be ridiculous in standard now, but when it was printed, it was fine. Who's to say that card should get a low score just because we're in a multicoloured block? These are the ikinds of things that I'm talking about that there are apparently no answers to. I see very simple solutions to them.
People: Because image files can cause issues, a text card is a must. Also, it's part of the rules (or it will be part of the official rules henceforth). Post a text card, post a render if you can.
A peer review would be welcome.
QFT.
Er, without getting into it: no. We're a friendly card competition, not the United Nations. You makes your cards and you takes your chances. Over time, we hope that established, experienced, insightful judges will emerge, but that's not the primary purpose of the competition.
Discussed? Yes. EmergencyOMGBBQRingthebells? No.
Yup, this. In the current situation, I would probably mark off .5 from flavor. But it was missed, so it was missed. End of story.
Also QFT. There are grey areas, but in general, these are good guidelines to follow.
WT's "What's done is done" comment could be taken many ways. In the current instance, I'm still conferring with the other organizers, but I'm going to list everyone in Krynthe's pod under Round 2. We'll issue a final decision within 24 hours of this post, well before the end of the round. I encourage everyone in that pod to post a card (or at least be thinking about one) so that whatever the outcome, you're prepared.
Absolutely not...wait:
This.
This, too, has been discussed, in detail, if you cared to look up the history (I know it's a little more work to search two old discussion threads, but the info is there). The general concensus is that Standard is king, Limited should be considered, and multiplayer, legacy, etc. get nods when appropriate.
Wow...um, just, wow. I really thought he had posted judgings; that is my bad. Those will be addressed shortly.
You both took that entirely wrong. I meant if for some reason they didn't understand the flavor. This happens. A lot. You open a pack and you don't entirely understand the flavor of a card and so you ask your buddy and then suddenly it becomes very obvious. I hate the internet. You can't say I'm wrong without thinking aobut what I was talking about. Flavor text is the exact same thing as telling someone the flavor of the card. Take our last round in the CCL for instance. The round requirement was to make a card that had to do with scouting and there ended up being two camps. One that decided scouting meant looking for lands and one that said scouting meant looking at anything. Who's right? Who's wrong? You can't tell me that each of the players don't have the right to argue their flavor if they got a judge that wanted thei card to have somethig to do with lands. While this contest has nothing to do with the CCL, I'm just trying to make the point that sometimes flavor isn't simple. Different people have different views on what makes sense.
Or, instead of being lame about it, you could look up about ten posts (ironically less than you asked me to do) and you'll see that MCC Hammer said that unless I had any ideas, it wouldn't be discussed. I had ideas. . . like this one that you blew off:
.
People keep saying it's impossible to help with the subjectivety yet I've been giving ways and you're simply saying no. You're saying it can't be done and I'm saying it's quite easy. How about instead of saying it can't be done you start saying you just don't want to?
E.g. A card is submitted with mechanics and flavor that contridict each other. In this case, which judge would be deducting points? The flavor judge, the mechanics judge, or both? With a single judge this is not an issue. This mode of judging is also unfair to the judges, as different portions of the card take longer to fact check and rate then others.
Eh, the person in charge of flavor, of course. The contradiction betwen those two categories only affects flavor, not mechanics. That was a bad example.
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Disagreements are common in custom card making, I can almost guarrentee that over 50% of players each round would like to change their judge's view of their card. The problem is, because the disagreement comes from point of view, and not someones mistake, voicing the disagreement will not change the judges view of the card. And what happens when we let everyone argue with their judges to change their score over these small disagreements? We would get so bogged down in arguments that we'd never get past round 1. This is the same argument I'd use to say you should not get to explain the flavor, just toss it in the flavor text.
*Sorry if some of that doesn't make sense, I didn't get much sleep last night and I feel like I need a nap.
I'd also like to say that I'm not arguing this because of anything that had to do with this past round. I'm advancing and I had no qualms with my judge, so it's not an immediately-after-the-fact problem I'm having, just something I've noticed over time.
I also really don't want this to spiral into a messy fight, rather, I'd just like to have a conversation and to have a little input.
Ok sure, here is my two cents:
I agree with everything that 'trip said. In the last post and in general.
It's really is that simple.
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I presume they ask another judge for help sometimes?
Coming up with a uniform objective rubric, in theory, is quite easy. I came up with one a few months ago and proposed it to the MCC organizers. But then I signed on to judge for a month and tried out my rubric. I noticed something: that if you applied a rigid hierarchy of point allocation you ended up with a very close, and kind of high, score range. That's because it's unusual for a card to be extraordinarily better or worse than the others cards in its bracket. In fact, most cards are only slightly better or worse than their competitors, and in subtle ways that can't easily be articulated using a uniform objective rubric. Also, using an objective rubric made it almost impossible for a card to get a perfect score because it measured the submission against the "Platonic Ideal" of a Magic card rather than a standard of what is "good enough" to merit a perfect score.
Overall, I learned that judges require a degree of subjective flexibility to give cards a fair score rather than a mechanical one. You could use the most perfectly-objective rubric in the world, but if you didn't have judges who were reasonable, informed, and experienced to interpret it, you wouldn't end up with good scores. Basically, good judgings are the product of good judges, not good rubrics.
However, I do think that the language of the PJW rubric could be revised to make it more clear, to players and judges, what is being judged. Point allocation, in my opinion, should remain more flexible and be left up to the judges to distribute. Each category must be judged, but the exact number of points awarded would be left up to the judge (except for Bonus and Quality points). An example might be something like this:
Revised MCC Rubric
Design (X/10)
Creativity – How original or innovative is the card? Does it present an old idea with a new twist? Does it employ an entirely new mechanic?
Aesthetics – How elegant is the card? Does it have a fitting name, subtype, and/or flavor text? If there is a render, does the art fit the card?
Potential – Will different player demographics (Spike/Johnny/Timmy) find a use for this card? Does it stand out as a card to build a deck around?
Development (X/10)
Balance – Does the card's cost match its power? How balanced are its interactions with other cards? Can it be played in constructed, limited, or multiplayer without breaking any of those formats?
Viability – How well does this card fit into the color wheel? Does it break or bend the rules of the game? How well does it conform to the current tendencies of the game?
Polish (X/5)
Bonus (X/2) – One point awarded per satisfied bonus condition.
Quality (X/3) – Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar, and templating.
Total: X/25
*Or, as some people suggested a while back, the two Bonus points could be moved to Design and Quality could be moved to Development. Both Design and Development would then be worth 12 points, coming to a total possible score of 24 instead of 25.
Commander: Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer WU
Sorry.
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I agree with the vast majority of what you posted, but I feel pretty strongly about disagreeing with this one little piece.
If a card meets the round requirements, it should possible for it to get a perfect score. If you *must* meet the bonus in order to get all the points, then a perfect card that doesn't meet the "bonus" can't get a perfect score.
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I also think the rubric could use some work, but it should be a long, slow, thoughtfully and politely discussed process, probably with its own separate thread.
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I'll try to remember to take a look at the FAQ sometime soon for some general editing type work, etc.
So here is my special offer to test this:
Starting from this round (2), anyone judged by me can PM me after the judging is done with his choice of rubric from any of the other judges rubrics, as well as enLight's from post 136 and the old FCC rubric. I will then re do the judging here on the disscussion forum, to show all that I have not cheated, using the chosen rubric. The contestant can has the score from the second judging if they want, however don't expect a difference in the score of over a point.
Let's just call it an experiment. It should prove that once a judge finds a rubric they are comfortable with, all else just doesn't matter.
I keep the right to end this offer anytime.
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Yup.
Yup.
Bonus conditions have always been a part of the MCC (and its ancestor, the FCC). If it is possible to get a perfect score in this competition by ignoring the bonus conditions, then why bother having bonus conditions at all?
I think some incentive should remain in place to encourage players to incorporate the bonus conditions into their cards. 1 point per bonus condition seems to work fine...unless you can think of a better, "point-less," way to reward bonus conditions.
Commander: Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer WU
The way I do it is that the "bonus point" gives you 1 "extra" point in a section (currently Polish) if you met it's condition, no matter what else, but it can't raise your score over the max (i.e. 5/5). So, a perfect card scores 5/5 whether or not it meets the bonus. An absolutely terrible card full of errors scores 0/5 if it didn't meet the bonus, and 2/5 if it met both bonuses. Yes, this means nearly everyone gets a 5/5 in the polish section from me, but that could be alleviated by separating the two points and giving one to design and one to development.
In other words, I advocate for the "bonus" only being able to raise your score (never lower it), instead of it only ever being able to lower your score (if you reserve 2 points for the bonuses).
If that last bit didn't make sense, it should be "You met the bonus, +1", not "you didn't meet this bonus, -1". It's largely semantics, but it makes the bonus seem like a reward if it's a plus, while it feels like a punishment if you make it a minus. Also, if the bonus isn't a minus, people might be more encouraged to use better designs that don't meet the bonus.
As an example, there are frequently bonus points for doing things out of color (i.e. direct damage requirement, bonus for nonred and/or nonblack). Many people end up making terrible cards just to get the bonus point. They would do better if they used a good idea that doesn't meet the bonus, because their design and/or development scores would increase by more than 1 point. However, right now, with the bonus in "punishment" mode, they're too scared of "losing" that point to make cards that don't meet the requirement (with a few exceptions).
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