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Old Circuits Die Hard 4: Back with an Uncommon Vengeance!
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"killed" explained in the comments (pretty self explanatory though).
(Final version) Big thanks to @Cryptonight who stuck with it and helped me with rules text.
After talking to my co.judges we have extended the duration of the contest to the following monday, midday. Hoping for a bit more entries
http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/experienced-mutationist?list=user
The card you linked has nothing to do with the contest, though
Edit: fixed the link
Yep. I didn't even notice!
Lol
Next contest in like a monthly contest and I will likely post it next monday, so we're going for a bit of a rest period now
cheers
Anyway, from the bottom and up!
At fourth place: @CrucibleofHate with Cobbledop Golem
There was a lot of talk among judges about this one. The costing of the card and the mechanic was solid for the contest, but we couldn't quite agree on the flavour of the - The card is supposed to be about revenge, yet the art depicts a cute little golem and the flavourtext was whimsical.
Basically, we felt that the card didn't really "embody" what the contest was about fully, but only really halfway.
That said, the card is a good card, make no mistake, but it didn't fit thematically that well. Regardless, it scores fourth place for elegance and balance. Well done.
At third place: @Beeswax with Doleful Banshee
Generally a well-received entry, it did suffer from a few drawback, but let's talk about it's merits first: The card is elegant, and simple. Everything about the card is easily understood upon first glance and it is immediately apparent why the card does what it does, and the thought behind it. Basically, it's a very graceful card.
Banshee's are, as a creature in any setting, beings brought to life through vengeance - It's their thing, which makes the choice of making a banshee a great, and obvious, choice. Simple works.
However, and I am going to quote @Suicidal_Deity, because he put it so eloquently well:
"It doesn't feel vengeful. This triggers on the offensive, and attacking an opponent then punishing them for blocking isn't revenge. This feels as revenge-ish as a Grave Pact. It's a punishment to be sure, but your actions caused it, not theirs. The other situational anomaly I have is if your board gets targeted. If an opponent overloads Electrickery, and you have five creatures, three of which have toughness 1, your other two creatures get killed by the ability. So your banshee takes revenge against your own creatures? And not the opponent who clearly initiated the harm? It feels like we're accepting the ability because it's unique and *can* be vengeful. It feels lost in its own purpose to me though."
Now, I am not saying that I completely agree with Suicidal, but it is a fair point. The card has a lot "holes" where it breaks its own flavour, which is why we have decided to give it third place. It is well put together, but could've used a few revisions to clear up the few rough edges it had.
On second place: @DomriKade, with Tectonic Trap
Second and first place were truly separated by inches.
Tectonic Trap does everything that a revenge card should do - It punishes the opponent for moving against you, and it so do fairly well. The card suffered from a few scratches here and there, such as requiring two legal targets, which quite limits the card. However, in the spirit of the contest, the card goes to the 95% percentile. It is vengeful, BUT only really works if gets to take its revenge, which is the inherent problem of "trap" cards, and that's just how it is - Free cards are overcosted, and thus it should be. Tectonic Trap is a super red card, and it was my personal favourite card in the contest.
Second place goes to DomriKade for his great representation of a mono-red revenge
card.
And finally, first place: @AustinSmith with Gruesome Justice
Now, when I said that first place and second place was seperated by inches, I wasn't kidding. We had quite a bit of discussion about first and second place, and Gruesome Justice just pulled that tiny bit ahead before the finish line.
Gruesome Justice does the ultimate job of being a revenge card. It can ONLY be used something bad happened to you, and it punishes the hardest way possible for an uncommon and hits where it really hurts, just that little bit more Tectonic Trap did.
Gruesome Justices art is also where it scored a few more points. Dude looks pissed. And a bit insane. The right kind of insane.
The flavourtext is great as well, even if I can't quite imagine the guy in the art saying it ^^
As for honorable mentions, I wish to name a single card this time around, which is
Subjugating Fire by @Faiths_Guide.
We had a bunch of cards that were interesting, but it stood out because it was the most discussed card among the judges.
This is a fun card. It is new and interesting, and I for one would never have had the imagination to think it up, however, we had a lot of opinions and back-and-forths on this card. Yes, it is a unique revenge card, but at the end of the day, we had to conclude a few things:
1) The scope of the card is too limited. A card like this is unprintable/unplayable, because you cannot dedicate an entire spot (or 4 spots) in your deck to a card that does nothing else than enable a single one of your other cards in VERY SPECIFIC situations. Both from a player perspective, and a design perspective, the card is not playable.
However, don't get me wrong. The card is imaginative, and it is treading new grounds. It is one of those cards that you read and you go "Huh, right, I can actually do that." and you need to be well-versed in magic to make a card like this. I don't dislike the card, I like it quite a bit, and I was the one originally speaking for the card, but I had to realise that it just wouldn't work in the end. It is a fun concept, but the execution needs work.
2) There was a bit of dissenting opinions on this, but at the end of the day, we didn't feel the card was that vengeful. It was more spiteful than vengeful, and it was more of a "hey let me fix my mistake" rather than "I am going to punish you for foiling my plans", since the card ITSELF did not do any damage, draw you any card, or in general do... anything, other than enabling whatever other red spell you had cast.
I realise a lot of this may sound harsh, but we're not trying to be, merely fair. I hope people will (as I knlook upon Subjugating Fire as an example of a card that needed to be "worked into" another card to make it functional, like putting the effect on a creature to be repeatable or put alongside like "deal 3 damage to target player" or whatnot.
Thank you everyone for participating - I learned a lot from this, and I hope you did too!
Coming up next is a monthly contest, which I will talk more about in its intro post. Should be posted sometime monday, and will likely last for 25 days after that. Stay tuned!
Updated circuit standings:
On a shared first place:
@DomriKade - 3 points
@AustinSmith - 3 points
On a shared second place:
@Superman101 - 2 points
@fabiocbinbutter - 2 points
@Koover - 2 points
@Cadstar369 - 2 points
@Animist - 2 points
On a shared third place:
@kkarn - 1 point
@Mana_M0nger - 1 point
@Faiths_Guide - 1 point
@Cryptonight - 1 point
@Tomigon - 1 point
@MrRansom - 1 point
@Beeswax - 1 point
@CrucibleofHate - 1 point
I think this should be correct
We had DomriKade and Cadstar369 in on a consultation-basis this time around, and we appreciate their thoughts as well
@Grimshac
Huge thanks for the write up regarding Subjugating Fire, really appreciated the insight, also enjoyed reading about the intrigue it instigated (subjugated?), fun to read.
(next time I'll find room for rebound :P)
Thank you for participating!
I'm glad you took the write-up on Subjugating Fire for what it was; Praise... and critique
Rebound-contest for the next weekly after the monthly? Deal!
Suicidal and I are the "resident" judges so to speak, Domri and Cadstar asked to sit in, since I was looking for co-judges, but they it was only for this time around, as I am sort of testing the waters for a third judge, so I am hoping to have more people in and hopefully having both Cadstar and Domri in again some other time to get a better handle on how they work and what their time-contraints looks like
I could share it textually - Once the contests are over, I can ask the judges who participated at the time if they are okay with it. I believe none of us said anything that we wish to hide, haha.
A podcast sounds interesting, huh... never really considered that, but it would actually be much easier to _talk_ to my other judges, since there is often a lot to say, and after you're done talking, you need to address what was said often re-consider what you already said, haha.
Thank you for the idea, it's something I will certainly consider... perhaps if I can get people on board, but it will also depend on who (how many, I guess) is actually interested in listening to it.
I find myself far more compelled, intrigued, and 'at home', judging. It's not self righteous, more so pragmatic. I just enjoy and find myself uniquely astute to being persuaded to other's opinions and beliefs while still holding stoic on my own front. It's an area that doesn't really see a lot of light, in general people judges cards as 'don't get it', 'don't want to get it', 'don't care about it', or 'this card is awesome and you'll never convince me otherwise'. It's a good forum to get into when you surround yourself with like-minded individuals and will find yourself even more inclined when you find those that you respect but disagree with.
@Grimshac and I don't really agree on a lot. And that's why I loved the idea of judging with him. He's an opinionated mind who as most of you know, can be quite often right and not so easily dissuaded from his ideals. So it means if you have an opinion that's different from him and what him to value it, you better bring your A game. That's a pretty enjoyable scenario to me. Ha ha.