or...you could try a little harder, ask other peoples opinions, grade it yourself, compare it to cards of similar marks, read articles here and on the wizards site for how the mechanics/colors should interact, and most importantly keep at it.
edit: and shorten your sig. it more than quadrouples your post length.
I agree on both counts, but I'll elaborate on the first part. I had a long run of round one eliminations in the FCC days. I did just what you said, and before long I was a regular round 3 player. For some reason I transcended round two, but I digress. One thing that helped me was that some of the time I would feel that I had the better card (as one naturally does because you see all that is good with your card and only some of what is good of your opponent's card) and in the beginning I would complain about it.
Zanny77, I suggest you bookmark Gatherer and look up similar to your current ideas. On the specific subject of your card, I agree with KoolKoal for the most part. If you did your homework, you would have pulled up Titanic Ultimatum and really all you did was make an instant version, which incidentally requires less colored mana and makes better use of high amounts of mana. Yeah sometimes it's better to have the ultimatum, but really the point here is that this card is designed to work in a way such that you can turn an entire game around on a single attack (or defense technically) and the shift from Sorcery to Instant was a bad call. I could give more advice if you want it, but listening to current judges is more likely to cause a turnaround for next month.
The MCC hammer can feel free to move me to "On sabatical" now. I'm only going to post in the final round if there's some card that single-handedly pulls me out of my despair of negativity or the number of judges is just that critically low even with M_E. As for next month, well good luck with that. I suggest the April organizer PM everyone on the sabbatical list / retired list because fewer judges means more stress on the remaining ones and thus faster burnout.
Take my rubric suggestions as you will, but regardless I'm taking at least next month off. I would suggest at the very least deciding everything that is important and make sure that it's clear what is Design and what is Development. Renaming some categories might help make things more clear, but I don't think it would be bad to list some things that don't come up all that often. After all, they are suggested areas to discuss and sometimes these categories don't apply. Say the MCC would do something like the current Design Idol where everyone has to make colorshifts, creativity is hard to apply at all. I remember one FCC where Balance was completely non-applicable, April 2008 round one. So why not list a few more categories than are necessary and let judges address the most relevant two or three? I liked splitting balance up in two parts because it (1) stresses that balance is overall more important than any other single development catagory, (2) means that if a card is rampantly over the curve but there is a meta-game factor preventing it from becoming abusive it would have some points taken off and (3) it encourages players to look up comparable cards and I feel too many players don't do that. Let me illustrate with an example, let's say someone makes an over-the-top Dragon whose ONLY balancing factor is that everyone and their dog runs Baneslayer Angel, like Shivan Dragon with 7 power and trample, someone would argue that the dragon would not disrupt standard and they might be true but this is poor custom card philosophy. Incidentally BSA-related arguments are in the top three reasons I'm taking off from MtgSal for an in-determinant amount of time because if Tarmogoyf was the FCC's version of Godwin's law then BSA is the MCC's.
I would suggest that players be given a link to Gatherer and be suggested to use it. If it were me I'd post this every round, but every round 1 would be sufficient. Most of us already know about search engines but it is irritating to judge some cards that one wonders if the creator has ever played back in the dinosaur days of Ravnica.
I think that some category should definitively include rarity, as often players don't even include one or don't pay it any thought. If "potential" didn't cut it then maybe somewhere else but it should definitely factor in somewhere. Maybe a fourth catagory in Design and Development could clear some things up since there are some things that seem like they should impact design but it's hard to say exactly where. Suppose:
Design: As above Elegance - Is the design easily understood? Is it as simple as it needs to be, or would it be a headache to keep track of? Creativity - As above. Note that Creativity seems to include Flavor, as originality is not limited to just the mechanics. Potential - As above Realization - How well would this card fit into a set at its rarity? Is it compatible with existing cards? Does it create or destroy future design space?
Development: As above Viability - As above. I think this would best if listed first, since when it's hard to tell what a card is supposed to do I always have to make an assumption that colors Balance. Power - Does the card's cost match its power? How does this card stack up next to existing cards? Impact - Can it be played in constructed, limited, or multiplayer without breaking any of those formats? Note this is just balance put into two catagories. I think it's more clear this way, and seeing as balance is generally more heavily weighted than creative writing it wouldn't hurt to have it encompass two related categories. Creative Writing - As above. BTW, I love "Does the flavor text feel natural and professional?"
Potential - As above Challenge As above. Quality (X/3) Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar. If the round requirement is not clearly satisfied but you do not feel disqualification is in order, the suggested deduction is one point here. If a bonus challenge is ambiguous you feel is poorly met, award it in Challenge and take it into account here but don't take off more than the challenge was worth.
Er, well the clarification was conspicuously absent so it's hard to call anyone out for not meeting the requirement. Personally I wouldn't call it a "free spell" in the urza's saga block mechanic sense but really the worst thing that should happen given the situation is a minor polish deduction and even that's dubiously necessary.
I'm done with round 3. I made both matches closer than how I truly feel because I hate it when one judge has a strong preference worth a 2 point shift and another has just as strong preference the other direction for 5 points and one judge defeats the purpose of these matches being decided by two judges in the first place.
I'm done with my bracket. I don't think the challenges can be blamed for my general negativity, so I'm definitely taking off for a while after this month is up. I think it's a bad round when I give lower than 16, except for maybe sometimes in the first round when it's someone's first time playing and they make just too many amateur mistakes. I can't allow myself to think that the problem is the players, because true or false that's a bad attitude to have. I must assume that I'm applying some unreasonable standard.
If I don't finish by midnight say from me posing power from the white death, take the top four from what I have done. There are two I haven't finished, one I want to DQ and the other I want to do some looking into it but initial impression is that it won't make the cut.
So I will be available for February judging, but my time is completely spoken for untill Monday. If I disappear for longer it's because I've developed a real life, but I think we all know that's not going to happen.
I've been extremely busy with real life stuff, so don't wait on me for the final round. I'll get to it if I can, but I'd rather abstain than give a less than full effort. I don't suspect I'll have to drop out of February judging.
I agree on both counts, but I'll elaborate on the first part. I had a long run of round one eliminations in the FCC days. I did just what you said, and before long I was a regular round 3 player. For some reason I transcended round two, but I digress. One thing that helped me was that some of the time I would feel that I had the better card (as one naturally does because you see all that is good with your card and only some of what is good of your opponent's card) and in the beginning I would complain about it.
Zanny77, I suggest you bookmark Gatherer and look up similar to your current ideas. On the specific subject of your card, I agree with KoolKoal for the most part. If you did your homework, you would have pulled up Titanic Ultimatum and really all you did was make an instant version, which incidentally requires less colored mana and makes better use of high amounts of mana. Yeah sometimes it's better to have the ultimatum, but really the point here is that this card is designed to work in a way such that you can turn an entire game around on a single attack (or defense technically) and the shift from Sorcery to Instant was a bad call. I could give more advice if you want it, but listening to current judges is more likely to cause a turnaround for next month.
I would suggest that players be given a link to Gatherer and be suggested to use it. If it were me I'd post this every round, but every round 1 would be sufficient. Most of us already know about search engines but it is irritating to judge some cards that one wonders if the creator has ever played back in the dinosaur days of Ravnica.
Design: As above
Elegance - Is the design easily understood? Is it as simple as it needs to be, or would it be a headache to keep track of?
Creativity - As above. Note that Creativity seems to include Flavor, as originality is not limited to just the mechanics.
Potential - As above
Realization - How well would this card fit into a set at its rarity? Is it compatible with existing cards? Does it create or destroy future design space?
Development: As above
Viability - As above. I think this would best if listed first, since when it's hard to tell what a card is supposed to do I always have to make an assumption that colors Balance.
Power - Does the card's cost match its power? How does this card stack up next to existing cards?
Impact - Can it be played in constructed, limited, or multiplayer without breaking any of those formats? Note this is just balance put into two catagories. I think it's more clear this way, and seeing as balance is generally more heavily weighted than creative writing it wouldn't hurt to have it encompass two related categories.
Creative Writing - As above. BTW, I love "Does the flavor text feel natural and professional?"
Potential - As above
Challenge As above.
Quality (X/3) Points deducted for incorrect spelling, grammar. If the round requirement is not clearly satisfied but you do not feel disqualification is in order, the suggested deduction is one point here. If a bonus challenge is ambiguous you feel is poorly met, award it in Challenge and take it into account here but don't take off more than the challenge was worth.
How often do your contestants want to massage you? Maybe you're just too sexy for the MCC, but I've never had this happen.