I've always wondered, how long do people spend on their judgings? I usually spend about 10-15 minutes on each card to judge.
25-30 minutes on average for me. So ten cards...equals 5 hours. I'm not complaining, because I like to take them seriously and provide extensive feedback. After all, that was what interested me in this competition in the first place, way back when it was mod-run. You could post five custom cards in your own thread in the main forum and get maybe a line or two on each, but what you submitted to the FCC (as it was then)? You got a full writeup of all the pros, cons, etc.
It's mildly frustrating that neither of my judges seemed to take into account that since my card says "target player" you can give it to yourself, which means that it absolutely cannot have a CMC of 2.
I've never asked or checked, do I need a render of the card for any of the rounds? That would be awesome...
Ikeda's card looked amazing last month.
I can't remember the last time I stooped (:p) to submitting a card without a render. Seriously: I really get into my card-making. If it doesn't have a render, I feel like I've failed.
Renders aren't necessary, but they may help for flavor points.
Agreed, although this is much less of a focus for me as a judge than it used to be. The whole artwork-attribution blow up followed by the restructuring of the MCC (or was it the other way around?) adjusted my thinking and I now (correctly) acknowledge the card concept as being a complete meal of meat and potatoes, regardless of render. A render is just a (sparkly) teeny-tiny cherry on top (of meat and potatoes? eww....).
We strongly encourage renders in the final round so that our Hall of Champions looks more impressive. In fact, there once was an unfinished discussion about final round bonuses for renders...
Koth is hard to design for. Cards that amplify him, or work synergistically with him are usually broken.
The opposite is true with Tezzeret. Cards designed for that cyborg planeswalker are usually underpowered. Easy to desing in a block like either of the mirrodin blocks, but not every where else..
Elspeth is easy to design for, but can still be done well or poorly. I thought about taking Elspeth's influence to the plane of Kamigawa, but I fell in love with what I had.
I will attest to Koth being hard to design for. I'm happy with my current submission, but it was a LONG trek to get there. (On the other hand, I happily have three other card ideas that came out of the process.) I think there's solid competition, though. Several of the Koth ideas have really good innovation and/or potential...
I chose not to go with Tezzeret mainly because of your concern, but also because Tezzeret seems like such a "build this deck" kind of card.
Elspeth was an option...but I was finding better red-oriented art.
We definitely have two front-runners at the moment, but they're close enough that AI's judgings could potentially make a difference. I've PM'd AI about finishing, indicating that it would be ok with me if she didn't have time to finish, but that her results might make a difference, so hopefully we hear from her shortly. I'm out all weekend and will likely not have internet access, so I apologize if we don't get final resolution until Monday.
FYI, I've run out of free time for the day, and tomorrow is going to be busy, too. I will try to get my round 4 judgings finished...but it may be slow coming.
Kensei, while I understand your frustration (believe me, I do), I feel like a line has to be drawn somewhere. In this case, it seems clearer than usual, with designation made in this thread (among which purposes is discussing what fits round requirements). It would have been nice to have had it noted in a "Clarifications" spoiler, but I have to question whether you would have seen them even if they had been. Again, I'm sorry that the result means the DQ of three designers, but given the ruling in-thread, we didn't feel like we should make exception here.
On a related note, my judgings (except for Mr. Quidam's) are up.
@Pseudofate: I don't know...I still think the mana cost is a little high, but where I really want to put it is 1.5, which leads me to think that it should do something slightly different, like produce one mana of any color. Like I mentioned, a sorcery that searches for a forest or swamp would have garnered a higher balance score from me.
Well, it does seem as though quite a few people have cards that mention the keyword, but don't have it themselves. Is this grounds for a DQ, or is it too harsh in this case to do so for people who didn't read this thread recently?
If it says "has dredge, gravestorm, or unearth" in the requirements, that would imply having the keyword itself. But if it said something like "has the words dredge, gravestorm, or unearth in the rules text", then having something mentioning the ability would fit.
Yeah, as I started looking at my group, I noticed that DerangedHermit's card was somewhat questionable. Scanning the other entries, it seems that Mr. Quidam and Kensei also have questionable entries (as does swishh for his hypothetical judge's entry, not that that matters).
I'll chat with the other organizers and get back to this thread with an answer as soon as I can; in the meantime, please be aware that you may still need to judge those entries if you are their judge, depending on what our final decision is.
25-30 minutes on average for me. So ten cards...equals 5 hours. I'm not complaining, because I like to take them seriously and provide extensive feedback. After all, that was what interested me in this competition in the first place, way back when it was mod-run. You could post five custom cards in your own thread in the main forum and get maybe a line or two on each, but what you submitted to the FCC (as it was then)? You got a full writeup of all the pros, cons, etc.
EDIT: Some comments/questions from the Round 2 thread:
So make a card that makes it a good ability. Whiner.
Put "=New Title" after "spoiler" in the spoiler brackets. For instance,
[spoiler=Look Ma, No Hands]Tada![/spoiler]
results in:
I can't remember the last time I stooped (:p) to submitting a card without a render. Seriously: I really get into my card-making. If it doesn't have a render, I feel like I've failed.
Agreed, although this is much less of a focus for me as a judge than it used to be. The whole artwork-attribution blow up followed by the restructuring of the MCC (or was it the other way around?) adjusted my thinking and I now (correctly) acknowledge the card concept as being a complete meal of meat and potatoes, regardless of render. A render is just a (sparkly) teeny-tiny cherry on top (of meat and potatoes? eww....).
We strongly encourage renders in the final round so that our Hall of Champions looks more impressive. In fact, there once was an unfinished discussion about final round bonuses for renders...
I will attest to Koth being hard to design for. I'm happy with my current submission, but it was a LONG trek to get there. (On the other hand, I happily have three other card ideas that came out of the process.) I think there's solid competition, though. Several of the Koth ideas have really good innovation and/or potential...
I chose not to go with Tezzeret mainly because of your concern, but also because Tezzeret seems like such a "build this deck" kind of card.
Elspeth was an option...but I was finding better red-oriented art.
Sorry...I've been sick.
We definitely have two front-runners at the moment, but they're close enough that AI's judgings could potentially make a difference. I've PM'd AI about finishing, indicating that it would be ok with me if she didn't have time to finish, but that her results might make a difference, so hopefully we hear from her shortly. I'm out all weekend and will likely not have internet access, so I apologize if we don't get final resolution until Monday.
On a related note, my judgings (except for Mr. Quidam's) are up.
@Pseudofate: I don't know...I still think the mana cost is a little high, but where I really want to put it is 1.5, which leads me to think that it should do something slightly different, like produce one mana of any color. Like I mentioned, a sorcery that searches for a forest or swamp would have garnered a higher balance score from me.
Yeah, as I started looking at my group, I noticed that DerangedHermit's card was somewhat questionable. Scanning the other entries, it seems that Mr. Quidam and Kensei also have questionable entries (as does swishh for his hypothetical judge's entry, not that that matters).
I'll chat with the other organizers and get back to this thread with an answer as soon as I can; in the meantime, please be aware that you may still need to judge those entries if you are their judge, depending on what our final decision is.