Okay, this is taking longer than I expected. Just for reference so y'all know what's taking me so long now, since I did start judging on the 17th like I mentioned I would, the reviews of the first 23 entries (out of 37) total 3634 words and 6 pages on a google doc (the one I'll be sharing when I give the rankings so you all have my full feedback on your cards). Once again, my apologies for how long this is taking!
@CassZero I doubt it. It's gone into judging and that, and it's basically just been moved forward into this circuit season from the last one because that judging's been taking a while.
On that note, I'm just going to @Arceus8523 in a probably-unnecessary potentially-annoying reminder.
In all fairness, I should've had this done sooner. I tend to bite off more than I can chew when deciding for myself what I want to provide content-wise as the judge (namely the form and degree of feedback I want to give), and then I end up puttering out before I finish judging all the entries. It's one of the big reasons I don't host my own contests.
Firstly, I'd like to apologize for how long it took me to judge this. I know this challenge was promoted to a circuit challenge and that many of you have been eagerly awaiting to hear about the top entries, and particularly the winner given the nature of the prize. I hope at the very least that the feedback I give on each of your entries makes it worth the wait.
Secondly, a bit on what I was looking for as the judge for this event.@murkletins trusted me to judge this and thus gave me very little in the way of criteria or qualifications beyond what was stated in the initial post. I was pleased to see that there was a plethora of very strong entries from some of MTG Cardsmith's finest creators. Thus, to narrow things down, I had to put my own set of criteria in place, which is (in order from most important to least important): 1. Is this design a strong top-down design evoking the flavor of the creature, character, and/or event depicted? Top-down designs are designs that start out as a flavorful concept (e.g. A Dragon hoarding treasure) and then the mechanics are designed around the flavorful idea (e.g. Hoarding Dragon). In a challenge about mythological creatures, I was really looking for strong representations of the myths being presented on the cards. 2. How well designed are the mechanics of the card? Even when creating top-down designs, a card can't sacrifice all of its functionality to be flavorful. It still needs to present a coherent design that will excite players and make them want to sleeve up the card and play it. The strongest entries were ones that could marry evocative flavor with exciting mechanics to create cards that I could see really exciting players. Also wrapped up in this point is whether or not the card is balanced for play and weather the card felt fitting of its rarity. 3. How "clean" was the card overall? Was it worded correctly? Did it have art of comparable quality to official MTG art? Is the artist credited? Are no words running off the edge of the card? Are costs and abilities worded and formatted correctly? Just generally all the nitpicky and syntaxy stuff that goes into a card and really pushes it to the next level. This didn't effect my judging too much, but if a card showed no regard for proper MTG formatting, it was much more likely to rank lower in my books.
Finally, the rankings! (5th Place) Honorable Mention:@SpellPiper2213 with Angel of the Choir (4th Place) Honorable Mention:@ChoyBoi with Vuldur, He Who Hoards 3rd Place: @MemoryHead with Molten Roar 2nd Place:@Ranshi with Shipwrecker Muse 1st Place:@IronCrusher with Moonflower Siren
And with that, the only other thing I can really say is that I had a really tough time judging this. There were a lot of really strong entries from a lot of really strong designers, and I felt really bad needing parse down to just the top 5 like this, especially when needing to figure out the last 2-3 rankings. For those of you in the top rankings, get in contact with @murkletins for prizes, as I am merely judging on their behalf.
I thank you all for your patience and once again really apologize for how long this took, but hopefully this was worth the wait. As I said, I'll be happy to provide more feedback and answer additional questions in my DM if you have them. Congrats to the winners, and to everyone who participated, despite the amount of time it took, I had a really great time judging and got to see a lot of really cool designs come to fruition from this!
@Arceus8523 No problem on the long process. There were a fair few cards that you had to review, and I don't rue you for it. It was certainly a long process, but I feel like the feedback will be helpful for making cards in the future. Thanks for hosting the contest!
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Good luck to everyone!
P.S. When making planeswalkers, I find it best to get a character with a bunch of images out there so different versions can be made.
On that note, I'm just going to @Arceus8523 in a probably-unnecessary potentially-annoying reminder.
Also, don't worry, I'm super glad this is getting judged! Conflicts irl tend to interefere with these things sometimes.
At long last, it is time to announce the winners!
Firstly, I'd like to apologize for how long it took me to judge this. I know this challenge was promoted to a circuit challenge and that many of you have been eagerly awaiting to hear about the top entries, and particularly the winner given the nature of the prize. I hope at the very least that the feedback I give on each of your entries makes it worth the wait.
Secondly, a bit on what I was looking for as the judge for this event. @murkletins trusted me to judge this and thus gave me very little in the way of criteria or qualifications beyond what was stated in the initial post. I was pleased to see that there was a plethora of very strong entries from some of MTG Cardsmith's finest creators. Thus, to narrow things down, I had to put my own set of criteria in place, which is (in order from most important to least important):
1. Is this design a strong top-down design evoking the flavor of the creature, character, and/or event depicted? Top-down designs are designs that start out as a flavorful concept (e.g. A Dragon hoarding treasure) and then the mechanics are designed around the flavorful idea (e.g. Hoarding Dragon). In a challenge about mythological creatures, I was really looking for strong representations of the myths being presented on the cards.
2. How well designed are the mechanics of the card? Even when creating top-down designs, a card can't sacrifice all of its functionality to be flavorful. It still needs to present a coherent design that will excite players and make them want to sleeve up the card and play it. The strongest entries were ones that could marry evocative flavor with exciting mechanics to create cards that I could see really exciting players. Also wrapped up in this point is whether or not the card is balanced for play and weather the card felt fitting of its rarity.
3. How "clean" was the card overall? Was it worded correctly? Did it have art of comparable quality to official MTG art? Is the artist credited? Are no words running off the edge of the card? Are costs and abilities worded and formatted correctly? Just generally all the nitpicky and syntaxy stuff that goes into a card and really pushes it to the next level. This didn't effect my judging too much, but if a card showed no regard for proper MTG formatting, it was much more likely to rank lower in my books.
Thirdly, and the main thing that took me so long on judging, I have written a review for each of your entries. For my full thoughts on your cards please check there and then feel free to DM me if you have any further questions or want more elaboration.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PbnadFKPKv3cLOOxvO4DXg_-5laUpzqinx2ex5Gy7l0/edit?usp=sharing
Finally, the rankings!
(5th Place) Honorable Mention: @SpellPiper2213 with Angel of the Choir
(4th Place) Honorable Mention: @ChoyBoi with Vuldur, He Who Hoards
3rd Place: @MemoryHead with Molten Roar
2nd Place: @Ranshi with Shipwrecker Muse
1st Place: @IronCrusher with Moonflower Siren
And with that, the only other thing I can really say is that I had a really tough time judging this. There were a lot of really strong entries from a lot of really strong designers, and I felt really bad needing parse down to just the top 5 like this, especially when needing to figure out the last 2-3 rankings. For those of you in the top rankings, get in contact with @murkletins for prizes, as I am merely judging on their behalf.
I thank you all for your patience and once again really apologize for how long this took, but hopefully this was worth the wait. As I said, I'll be happy to provide more feedback and answer additional questions in my DM if you have them. Congrats to the winners, and to everyone who participated, despite the amount of time it took, I had a really great time judging and got to see a lot of really cool designs come to fruition from this!
@murkletins how many months of premium is the prize tier I got?