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[RESULTS] Pack and Play: The HALF-Great Designer Search 3 — Challenge 6
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Comments
Commons first.
Card number one:
This is a card very much meant for limited. It's the reward for making a half decent Merfolk tribal deck. Nothing much else to say here.
Card Two:
Honestly, I'm just surprised that Chivalry isn't already a card name. This is meant to be as uniform as a card as possible, so you could feasibly put it in any set, kind of like Lightning Strike or Divination. The cantrip might push it over the edge of fair for a 1 cost, though.
Card 3:
You all know that I had to put in a chupacabra. This one is a creature that works as some decent removal for limited late game. Just call it Ravenous Chupaca's little brother.
Card 4:
This one is either broken or really bad. I really can't tell. It is fixing, however, and the cantrip helps too. Now that I think about it,, sacrificing a forest to get a Gaia's Cradle is a bit too good for a common. Oh well.
Card 5:
You get a cookie if you can guess what card this is referencing. Instead of a cantrip, it's a 2/1 flying body that costs 1 more. seems like a good trade to me. also you can kill it immediately when it enters with it's own ability, Which can cause some funny, albeit useless scenarios. Also synergises with Enrage, but you knew that.
Uncommons next.
Card 6:
This is my restraint 2 card. It's a dinosaur lord with a decent Enrage ability, assuming you don't get it killed. The "not already damaged clause is so it doesn't go infinite with another copy of itself.
Card 7:
This sword is lightweight, and thusly easy and quick to equip. I see it as an easy and repeatable combat trick that your opponents totally see coming. It'll really be good in limited, though.
And finally... The Rare:
Card 8:
This is the one that I'm relly proud of. So proud of, in fact, that I'm planning to make a cycle of these for each of the faction leaders: W/B for Elenda, R/B for Angrath, G/R for Huatli, and U/G for Kumena. Anyway, this is meant to be a charm that becomes a command late game. this is so the card can be balanced, while not feeling too underpowered on a later turn. I feel that all of the effects fit Azor well too. the counterspell and the tap effects make sense with his Azoriousness, while the draw mode, of course, references Sphinx's revelation. The art is originally for Sphinx's Decree, by the way, in case you didn't know.
That's it! Hope you all have a nice rest of your weekend!
P.S: Yes, I messed that up before, the announced deadline is on Sunday, not Saturday as usual, my bad.
Uncommons (Constraint 2: Named character - Vona's Sargent)
Rare
Thank you all for participating! Because this round is harder to judge than usual (there are more entries per contestant and I have to check design articles for every set involved) the judging phase is going to be longer than usual. Hopefully, the results are up next week-end ^^
You'll find below the overall review for each entry, sometimes followed by these little medals:
ORIGINALITY MEDAL — Your cards did something mechanically novel.
FLAVOUR MEDAL — Your cards captured the flavour essence of your set.
REALISM MEDAL — Your cards looked like they could be printed without change.
ELEGANCE MEDAL — Your cards had clever details about them.
*DING* — You get a *DING* whenever you break one of the contest rules.
@sanjaya666
The themes of the set are appearing nice and clear, and you managed to fit most of the mechanics with the exception of double-faced cards. They were a few details that were off sometimes (colour, rarity, balance) but overall the entry felt pretty realistic.
@ElMagici
The mechanical aspect of the entry was very reminiscent of the Kamigawa block with a lot of fiddliness to it, which is a real upside here. The main flavour themes were also present. However, the balancing and rarity of the cards were a little uneven.
@shadow123
The feel of the set was well respected in this entry, we could see the main themes and mechanic all make an appearance to form a quite complete package. The general balance seemed to be a bit skewed though, with a lot of slightly overpowered cards.
@Undead
I really like how you put a lot of thoughts in the creatures types you chose, they’re very diversified and give the right feel to the entry. There were a lot of clever mechanical variations and the gameplay feel of the set was well-conveyed.
@bnew07
I found the level of details in this entry absolutely mind-blowing, every single card is carefully crafted to care about everything around it in the set. This made for an extremely realistic and elegant entry.
@Bowler218
First, you get a *DING* for designing six commons and one uncommons instead of five commons and two uncommons. The entry was missing the basics I’m afraid, none of the card really worked, some important themes are missing etc...
@Je_Suis_Oluwa
There are a lot of good mechanical ideas and overall a strong fell of the set, though Simic and Orzhov are weirdly absent from the entry while Rakdos is over-represented. Besides, I think four out of the five commons are actually uncommons in disguise.
@Faiths_Guide
There is a good mix of every mechanic and creature subtypes, the main themes of the set are present, though several cards don’t feel very specific to the flavour of Theros when you put them together. The general level of synergy also seem a bit low (outside the enchantment-matter theme). It’s a really solid pack in term of realism, but maybe not the most exciting design wise.
@ouser94501
The Ixalan flavour was really strong in this entry, with many facets of the set being represented. You didn’t really touch on the Vampires and Pirates tribes though. Overall, the entry felt quite solid with some nice innovations thrown in.
@TheCenterOfTheUniverse
This entry is very flavourful! It went through most of the main mechanical themes of Dominaria and innovated here and there while still respecting the set overall feel.
@DomriKade
All the main themes of the set are represented in the entry, no card is wasted on anything that’s not directly improving the feel of Ixalan. It’s full of innovative twists and is overall well-balanced, though the commons are slightly over-complex.
This last podium will be a Top 5!
@Faiths_Guide I really liked how your entry weaved the enchantment theme into the set in a stronger manner than the original set. Mechanically, I thought it was a very elegant entry that did an excellent job at showing what the gameplay of Theros was about. I was missing a few twists though, the card that felt the most original to me was Spellspark Warmonger. When I just looked at the cards together without focusing on the gameplay implications, I also didn't get a strong Theros feel. Notably, more than half the names could have been used on about any plane. I really liked the diversity of the creature types though, that felt very much like Theros.
@TheCenterOfTheUniverse What I appreciated the most in this entry was all the original details at common. The crazy filtering ability of Tolarian Academic, the built-in Arc Runner on Roar of Shiv, or Purge of Beniala mentioning Sagas are all things that are slightly out of the ordinary but would make realistic variations. The higher rarities cards all have a nice core concept but made choices in the execution that I don't always agree on, which is why I didn't ranked this entry higher.
@Undead This pack has a lot of daring variations on common staple effects. It was one of the most exciting entries to read, with a lot of elegance put in those variations. But making a lot of bold choices bring some risk, and I think the commons taken together mostly don't feel like commons. It's a very fun pack, full of surprises and flavour, but it felt slightly too unrealistic to rank above the next best entries.
@bnew07 I really enjoyed reading the commentaries alongside your cards. There's a level of detail in this pack that no other entry could compete with, not even the winner. Basically, you made sure that if any archetype could pay the mana cost of a card, it had even a bit of synergy built into it. There are a few choices I don't necessarily agree with, but the main reason this pack did not rank first is because it's so perfectly aligned with the mechanics of the set that it's sometimes missing a bit of spice, the cards are perfectly realistic but don't always leave an impression mechanically.
@DomriKade This pack was a really impressive statement of MTG design! I liked that all cards had something to tell on multiple levels. They all proposed something new mechanically for the game as a whole, they all strongly conveyed the flavour of Ixalan, and they all added different possibilities of gameplay to their respective archetypes. It's not perfect, my main issue being how the commons are a bit complex when taken together, but I felt that it was well-compensated by the elegance and originality of the whole pack.
___
Congratulations everyone! It was a really interesting last round to close this challenge series, with a lot of difficult choices to make ^^
As usual, I adjusted the prizes for the winners to accommodate for the Top 5 composition:
- @DomriKade — Which 5 cards of your choice do you want me to favourite?
- @bnew07 — Which 4 cards of your choice do you want me to favourite?
- @Undead — Which 3 cards of your choice do you want me to favourite?
- @TheCenterOfTheUniverse — Which 2 cards of your choice do you want me to favourite?
- @Faiths_Guide — Which 1 card of your choice do you want me to favourite?
I want to thank you all for participating in this Half-Great Designer Search, whether you took part in just one round or all of them. It was a really crazy ride to judge this, but I really enjoyed all the wonderful entries I got. The Great Designer Search is a crazy difficult challenge to take, I was super surprised to see how many people participated, some people even managed to do the whole competition from round 1 to round 6 without missing a single challenge! Congratulations and thank you again everyone =D And if you have any feedback on how the challenges were hosted, don't hesitate to share it as well ^^
Here's the score system I used:
Whenever you got ranked in a challenge, I gave you an increasing number of points:
FIRST PLACE = 10 points
SECOND PLACE = 7 points
THIRD PLACE = 4 points
FOURTH PLACE = 2 points
FIFTH PLACE = 1 point
You also got 1 point for each medal you won in each contest.
Here's the global ranking:
So congratulations @bnew07 to win the biggest number of points over all challenges!
Let me throw in five additional favourites of your choice as a reward =D
What about minus 1 point for each *DING*? I'm still curious how, or if, those factor into judging. :P
Congrats @DomriKade and @bnew07! Thanks for the amazing batch of top tier challenges, @ningyounk.
Ooh I didn't think of that. Well that's pretty spicy. If you get -1 point per *DING* you receive in the competition... you and bnew07 are actually ex aequo for first place!
As far as I'm concerned, you two where on each other's toes during the whole competition when it comes to ranking so you're definitely ex aequo to me whatever metrics we use ^^ You two really put on a show x)
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/slippery-shifter
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/the-ringmaster
Third place overall makes me very happy! These contests have been an absolute blast and really stretched my cardsmithing abilities to their limit. Your total dedication to creating an amazing contest and judging with immense precision could not be more clear, and your creative feedback is immensely useful. Thanks a lot.
Thanks to @ningyounk for organizing all the contests and congrats to the winners!
Seriously, this was a very fun challenge, and I regret not having played from the beginning. Your feedback helped me as a designer. I suggest you do more similar contests in the future.
XD
I had fun just watching this unfold! Excellent job @ningyouNK!!
Favourited! ^^
I have a small set of cards of mine I like but it's most exciting when you stumble across a card you like while browsing. If you'd prefer I request specifically you can send me a message and I'll shoot some your way.
Can you favorite these two:
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/oath-of-geminae
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/underrealm-flourishing-1
Favourited!
@KorandAngels
Yeap, we have reached the final challenge of the GDS3!
Thanks a lot! I know first hand how much time and effort it takes to judge a series of challenges of this scale, and you did an awesome job!
Can you please fave:
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/sin-shielder-angel?list=set&set=30793
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/duplicitous-confidant?list=set&set=30793
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/eclipse-elemental?list=set&set=30793
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/ixidors-phoenix?list=set&set=30793
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/curious-cryptologist
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/justicar-of-equality
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/line-of-succession-1
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/appeal-to-the-crowd
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/exemplar-of-the-realm
Favourited!
Some day, when I'm recovered from this marathon, we ought to host a proper multi-judges challenge series together!
Ya man! Keep in mind, I'm not very smart :P
I think that is an excellent idea. We could even all participate if the other two judged each of our entries for that challenge.
Know you're busy, just didn't want this completely forgotten :P
It's true I haven't seen this kind of challenge in a while! We could try to brainstorm a little on what would be a good set of rules, see if we can set something up! I'll send PMs when I have time!
*ThumbsUp*