One-mana wonders! **Circuit Challenge**

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Comments

  • edited October 2020
    @Commando Thank you for the second place! Congrats to all the other winners and HM's too. I think there were some other cool entries that definitely deserved the top spots, but that's okay, I guess.

    Knowing that this is your first challenge, it's totally fine, even if I don't agree with the way this was judged. My first challenge crashed and burned completely. I made a mechanic challenge with broken mechanics for my first one lol.

    This was really fun for me just to come up with ideas for, even without the second place! I can always assist in judging (techniques?) if you need them in the future.

    Everyone makes mistakes, and I bet everyone here can acknowledge that. Many of us (including me) are busy with school work too, so I can understand the stress of judging such a huge challenge for the first time in addition to finishing all your school work. You're an awesome cardsmith, so keep going!

    Have a great day!
  • I can't speak for everyone else but in no way does it hurt my view of you as a smith or a person. it was an honest mistake and one that can serve as a good learning experience. Your contest blew up more than you were probably anticipating. In the future, it's definitely okay to take some extra time to judge if you need it. Overall, although the judging method needs improvement, it was definitely a fun contest to design cards for!
  • @Commando
    It certainly won't harm our view of you and we look forward to more challenges. In this case, for being worth points for the Circuit, for a premium month and featured card, nerves were more excited, but feel welcome. I am also new here, starting in May.  :D
  • I am also new; I started in September. There'll be a lot more good contests you'll make @Commando, I can feel it.
  • @shadow123 I'm really glad that you enjoyed this challenge even though my method of judging the cards was flawed. I will take a break from making another challenge so I can improve on making better challenges and better scoring methods so I will be able to create a challenge that everyone can compete and have fun in. 

    @Usaername The challenge did blow up A LOT more than I expected it to and was a bit worried I would mess up really bad (Which I did) but know I know what the worst can happen, I'm not afraid to keep on making challenges. I learned from Richard Garfield that "A mistake is not you being bad at something, it's you trying to make an idea that is not yet polished." I don't know if he said those exact words but I remember hearing something similar in one of his interviews. This will help guide me to not make the same mistakes as I did with this challenge. 
  • I'm a bit upset about the results of this challenge. I wouldn't be commenting about this if this wasn't part of the seasonal circuit challenges.

    "... the results of the challenge based on the number of favorites the card had" is what irks me the most. What kind of impression does the results of this challenge give to newer cardsmiths? Better make bots when creating entries so they can pump them full of fake favorites, increasing their chances of winning in future contests/challenges? Instead of a card-design challenge this was mostly a popularity contest!

    @Commando - I get it that you are pretty new and you haven't judged many, if any challenges before, but this is not how you judge cards. Many cards with good designs get many favorites, but not all well-designed cards get as lucky. You should have asked other cardsmiths for help in judging if you felt like school was taking too much of your time, or heck, let somebody else judge the challenge for you!

    @Corwinnn - I most certainly am not the only one who is not satisfied with the way this challenge was judged. Winners/honorable mentions might not want this, and I agree some cards that did win are pretty good, but I want some other cardsmith(s) to re-judge this challenge OR void the circuit points from this challenge completely.
  • kinda harsh there @TenebrisNemo. You could at least let the guy take more time to judge his own challenge...
  • @Usaername - Obviously they don't need more time to judge as the results are out already. They could have said that they need more time to judge before announcing winners, as there were quite many entries, and I would not have had any problems with that.
  • @TenebrisNemo Would you like me to make a new process judging these cards that gives everyone a chance? Because I will gladly do it.
  • @Commando - Sure, I would not have any problems with that either. You should also consider having other judge(s) as you go through the cards again. It would be wise, since there are so many decent entries.
  • @TenebrisNemo I will do this in order to make a more balanced form of judging. Thank you for your time and patience and I sincerely apologize for my improper method of judging. 
  • @Commando If you want to rejudge, I don’t think there’s a problem with that. Yes, it’s sad I might lose my second place, but I think fairness is very important in the end.

    You should make sure to contact @Corwinnn if you want to change some of the results.

    Again, no need to apologize. We’re all human. We make mistakes :smile:. I’ll support whatever decision you make.
  • edited October 2020
    Don't be too harsh with @Commando. I usually select more seasoned judges for the Circuit Challenges and I should have given more details on how to judge for Circuit Challenges, but lately we've had mostly Saga style challenges and they don't lend well to Circuit Challenges. Even the Mystery Box Challenge was adapted to a become a Circuit Challenge thanks to all the hard work done by @jpastor, and normally I wouldn't turn a limited entry elimination challenge into a circuit challenge, but it was a great idea.

    I did look at the cards that were selected before they were posted... all good cards, and I couldn't find fault with them being picked. I had some other favorites that I would have picked, but that's why we try to mix up the challenges, so that the same people aren't picking the same Cardsmiths in every challenge. It's also the reason I suggested choosing some HM's, because there were a LOT of great entries (The challenge itself was a great one!). I should not have put a relative newbie in the predicament of judging for the Circuit, knowing full well how many entries a Circuit Challenge can get.

    Those of us who have been around long enough know that good cards can go unnoticed and not garner the favorites they deserve. I'm certain Commando thought it would be a good rubric to let the favorites speak for themselves. It wasn't a bad idea, just an inexperienced one and if anyone is to fault for that, it would be me.

    All that being said, I've updated the Circuit based on the judgement rendered. If Commando ends up revising the winner's list, anyone who loses a spot will still make Honorable Mention. However, if Commando finds that there isn't enough time now with school and other life issues, and agrees to a volunteer judge, I will also give anyone who loses a spot their HM points. The Volunteer Judge would receive 1/2 CP as judge, and be ineligible to get additional CP from this challenge.

    Of course we would need a volunteer judge who hasn't already judged this season. (This eliminates shadow123, jpastor, Tomigon, JayfeatherMTG33 and Myself). If a volunteer judge is required, and none is found, we will leave the judgement as it stands.
  • Oh, and the Circuit Ends on Halloween!! Muahahahaha!
  • I don't care what the contest results are, it was still fun to enter :)

    It is funny that I could've picked cards that would've won by this metric from my collection though XD
  • @Corwinnn
    Saving the day as always! hahaha

    I personally think that a rejugding (haha is that even a word?) of some kind would be beneficial for the community as a whole. Because there was so much interest in this challenge, from all levels of the community, we shouldn't just leave it as be.

    Commando just made a mistake and that's not anything to make a deal out of. If anything, I think that the onus of this falls on those of us who have been here a long time to just help this situation out. 

    Everyone here is saying favorites isn't a good metric for judging, yet no one, other than @TenebrisNemo has mentioned any why. As a community, let's not talk like we all know the standards, but like we are actually engaged with new members and want them to succeed and learn and join us instead of talking cryptically.

    As I understand it, there's three reasons that judging based on favorites is not the greatest idea:
    1. As Tenebris has pointed out, this lends itself to the creation of bot accounts to bolster cards, and we don't like that
    2. This challenge involved the use of old cards. If you look at the winners and honorable mentions, a single card was made within the time period. The furthest back was made in 2016 (I feel OLD hahaha). That means that these cards have simply had a longer time to garner favorites (and get favorites from other contests importantly!), so they've had a larger opportunity to be seen
    3. There are some cardsmiths who have large followings. Many of their cards receive massive amounts of favorites because they are seen by many more people because of these larger followings (the main page only shows four the four top cards and the four most recent, but if you follow a smith, you can see all of their recent creations pretty easily!)

    These criteria are where the criticisms largely come from.


  • Continuing (Sorry that I'm just ranting now hahaha)

    Perhaps this is only because this is a circuit challenge.

    To be honest, I couldn't care less that it's a circuit challenge. I care more about the community. I want us to be a cool, chill place where cardsmiths can make cards and be wickedly creative, not just someplace where the same top cardsmiths come to get their egos stroked all the time.

    We're being critical of the way that the contest is being judged? Why aren't we as a community being critical of the way we are participating, especially us cardsmiths that have been around for such a long time??? I know that many of us ancient cardsmiths are guilty of this:
    image

    So why don't we also talk about the fact that the top cards are mostly old cards from smiths who have been here a long time? Why shouldn't we smiths who have been here for eons hold ourselves to higher standards in these contests too?

    At the end of the day, many of these contests that allow old entries feature some sort of "I'm just happy for the contest, I don't really care about winning" with a winning old card that already had like 20 favorites. And please don't take this the wrong way because I have done this myself. This to me just seems to be a disingenuous statement from people who clearly have the creativity to create new cards that fit the challenge.

    So, I'll end my rant with this.

    Cardsmiths who have been here a long time: what are you joining these contests for? What is it to prove? Is it just for fun? What can we do as older cardsmiths to help make this community more friendly and open to newer smiths who are just starting on their journey?

    To newer cardsmiths: Keep smithing. Sometimes, you might make a card you love that no one sees. Sometimes you might make a meh card that everyone loves. It's hit or miss. But after being here for a long time, just have fun! The more you have fun making cards thinking that no one will ever see them or appreciate them, the more it will be awesome when it happens! Your worth as a cardsmith isn't defined by how many people clicked some random button to give it a like. Cheers!

    Sorry for my 5 am rant.
  • I would offer to re-judge, but alas, I am a participant.
  • @Ranshi
    I think you can! Corwinnn provided some guidelines for just that in their longer comment just above!
  • Oh! So it would seem!

    @Corwinnn, I'll judge this contest!
  • @Ranshi, I hope you do.
  • @Corwinnn, should I get to it, or do I need to wait for some official go-ahead?
  • Sorry, I was a little busy @Ranshi let's see what @Commando wants to do first.
  • @Corwinnn I give permission to @Ranshi to rejudge the contest. 
  • Alright! I have judged the contest! (It was hard; there were so many great designs here...)

    Let's get things started with the Honorable Mentions!
     
    The first honorable mention is Preemptive Shielding by @Usaername! This was easily one of my favorite designs I had to pick from but it fell into the pitfall that it effectively was just giving your creatures hexproof until end of turn with extra steps.

    The second honorable mention is Animation Vessel by @shadow123! I remember when this card was featured and I love it just as much now, but when getting down to the nitty-gritty, it effectively does nothing on its own. While not necessarily a bad thing, it does detract a bit from the design's impact in my opinion.

    Congrats, you two on the honorable mention and your 0.25 CP!

    Onto the top 3 placers!!!

    3rd Place: Mourning Veteran by @TenebrisNemo
    In our first bout of judging, Arceus and I already discussed the virtues of this card. However, the value of quite easily getting a 3/3 for one hybrid mana is too much value, and that was the primary flaw I saw in this card. Congratulations on 3rd place and your 0.5 CP!

    2nd Place: Penny for Your Thoughts by @Animist
    I love this card very much. It is so realistic and it's delightful in its name! Everything about it just ties together so nicely. However, it might be just me, but the one drop discard control sorceries have been done to death, but that was just a minor gripe with it. I know it's not a very good thing to hold against the card, but I had to find something to determine the difference between first and second place... Congrats on your second-place position, and on winning 0.75 CP!


    And now finally, drum roll please for the winner of One Mana Wonders!!!

    1st Place: Scattermind Sprite by @MemoryHead
    image
    I love everything about this design. Right out. Everything about the card makes me smile, and even though the idea of countering yourself to counter someone else might seem clunky to some, the combo value of it brings a smile to my face, and I would love to see this played in a commander game, where the stack can get huge! Congratulations on winning One-Mana Wonders and a Circuit Point!

    My apologies if there are those who don't agree with my judging, as some of the aspects came down to personal preference. I tried to look at the designs like @DomriKade described reviewing designs from the Designer Gauntlet, looking at how things would actually be played, and what distinguishes things. Anyway, yeah... great concept for a contest, @Commando! And everyone deserves to pat yourself on the back; this was really hard to judge! There were so many good designs entered!
  • edited October 2020
    Welp. There goes my 2nd place.

    I'm definitely more happy that the results were sorted out fairly. Thanks to @Ranshi ; for re-judging this and to @Commando for such a fun contest! Each of the top 3 definitely deserve their spot! Congrats!

    (My card was never featured btw, it was just highly on popular :smile: )
    @Corwinnn How will circuit points be awarded?
  • Thanks @Ranshi & @Commando
    Here are the final Circuit Points...

    1st Place - No Change. MemoryHead already has the points awarded.
    2nd Place - +1/2 CP to Animist. 1/4 CP had been awarded previously.
                    -  shadow123 will lose 1/2 CP, leaving him with 1/4 CP for HM
    3rd Place - +1/2 CP will go to TenebrisNemo
                   - Ranshi will stay the same for Judging (1/2 CP)
    HM's - Usaername will get 1/2 CP
            - Ral1000 & crawdadsarewelcome will keep their 1/4 CP
  • Circuit Points have been added and/or redistributed and/or left alone!
  • Congrats to all the winners! I didn't participate but I'm glad everything got cleared up!
This discussion has been closed.