MTGNexus

Let's make it official. The winner is slimytrout. Congratulations!

Thanks! This was a super fun and elegant month, so congrats to you!

Just a thought, what if the finalists from the previous month judged the next month? We'd get some nice judge rotation and quality this way

I don't think there should be an obligation to do it, for a couple reasons:

1) Given the time commitments of judging, it's not the sort of thing that should be foisted on people -- could lead to a lot of delays and unhappiness.
2) Typically the host also judges, which usually wouldn't work out if the 3 finalists were all judges.
3) In theory, making it to the finals does not inherently make you a good judge, so first-timers should probably still have to fill out a sample rubric.

That being said, I don't think it's a bad idea at all to establish a tradition of finalists being, shall we say, encouraged, to sign up to judge the next month -- as you say, it would lead to a better sharing of judging among competitors.

An opt-out system? The finalists judge unless they say they can't / don't want to? They should also have the priority in hosting

Players and judges are well defined roles and completely separated. Players can't judge. That's the CCL.

I'm also repeatedly facepalming for having missed the reminder text. Devotion was a later addition on my card, that's why I missed it.

@bravelion83 I was talking about the NEXT month

I was talking in general seeing the discussion going on here. The MCC is made like that and you can't have players judging. Honestly I'm worried by what you want to do next month. You know me, and you know me well, so it shouldn't surprise you.

@bravelion83 -- I think maybe there's some confusion here. Ryder wasn't saying anything about having players judge while they're competing, nor was he referring to actually next month (i.e., August). He was saying that we should encourage the competitors who were finalists in the previous month to sign up to be judges for the subsequent month. For example, in that scenario, Ryder, Phyrexian Editor, and I would be the judges for the ongoing July contest, and would not be competing in it. Unless I'm very mistaken, I don't think you would have a problem with that, since there is plenty of precedent for players competing in the contest one month and judging it the next -- you, Ryder, and I have all done it on different occasions, so I'm hard pressed to see the problem.

Definitely against obligating anyone to judge. The MCC is run on a volunteer basis, and I'm not sure how we'd even enforce the alternative? If the idea would be to give infractions if the finalists we'd shanghaied refused to judge, then that'd be entirely out of the question.

I'm all for starting a tradition of volunteering if you made it to the finals, though.

slimytrout wrote: ↑

3 years ago

so I'm hard pressed to see the problem

This is what I agree with. There is no problem with the MCC as it is. We can talk about the rubric, only talk at this stage, but everything that goes against the established structure of the MCC, like inviting players to judge the next month, will never have my own support. If they want, they will volunteer without any invitation. That's how myself, Ryder, and everybody else who did, played one month and judged in the next, or vice versa. You can already do this if you want. Again, players and judge are completely separate roles and they should stay so. So I'm also against this personally:

slimytrout wrote: ↑

3 years ago

we should encourage the competitors who were finalists in the previous month to sign up to be judges for the subsequent month

void_nothing wrote: ↑

3 years ago

I'm all for starting a tradition of volunteering if you made it to the finals, though.

I'm not, as I explained above. Actually there is a problem with the MCC, and it's the lack / low number of players, not judges. That's what we should focus on in my opinion. How can we "invite" more players to play, not more judges to judge? We usually have enough judges but not enough players lately at the time of the design deadline. How do we solve this?

...but users who played one month can judge the next month. And vice versa. The organizers and players of every contest are always drawn from the same pool of users, and there's a chronic problem - less so lately, thankfully - of finding judges before the first round deadline, so can you articulate a legitimate reason not to amicably ask people who did well one month to judge the following month, if they can? The way you're phrasing your response makes it sound like you're against anyone who has ever played ever judging, which is absolute nonsense.

There's a big distinction between "amicably asking people to judge" and "obligating people to judge" and I think Bravelion is mostly nervous about the latter being a thing.

Though, I think that, if a round is having trouble filling out judge spots, the host should be free to extend invitations to any particular person on the forum.

void_nothing wrote: ↑

3 years ago

...but users who played one month can judge the next month. And vice versa. The organizers and players of every contest are always drawn from the same pool of users, and there's a chronic problem - less so lately, thankfully - of finding judges before the first round deadline, so can you articulate a legitimate reason not to amicably ask people who did well one month to judge the following month, if they can? The way you're phrasing your response makes it sound like you're against anyone who has ever played ever judging, which is absolute nonsense.

I'm against making it a hard rule, that the finalist must judge the following month. And anyway, if they want they already can, without being asked.

Rithaniel wrote: ↑

3 years ago

There's a big distinction between "amicably asking people to judge" and "obligating people to judge" and I think Bravelion is mostly nervous about the latter being a thing.

Exactly. This is the point. Thanks @Rithaniel for clarifying. Optional is acceptable but making the step to mandatory is too easy for my taste.

Yeah, I don't think any of us (except maybe Ryder -- don't want to put words in their mouth) is in favor of obligating people to judge -- I outlined multiple reasons I was opposed to it in an earlier post, and I'm sure I didn't even cover all of them. And I do understand your concerns about a slippery slope, but I really think it's unlikely to come to that. After all, the CCL host routinely has to plead with people to submit more critiques, so it's hardly like the societal pressure being applied on this forum is so stifling that people feel obligated to do things even if they don't want to.

Even though I prefer structures with clear responsibilities (not relying on volunteers) I totally get the reasons why we can only ask and encourage the players to judge. I didn't want the discussion to focus on te idea of forcing people to do anything.

Anyway, I believe we all agree that the finalists of the previous month can be asked directly to judge the next one

Hey everyone - I think I've hit upon a solution to an ongoing issue. I'm going to condense hosting signups for the monthly contests into one thread here. If you want to host an MCC in the near future, please post there, even if you've already asked - this lets me reconfirm with all the potential hosts and keep their names and host months organized.

@Ryder, probably it will not matter, but Henlock's submission is a creature, so it does not satisfy second subchallange.

Thanks, corrected,

This round many players fell into the trap of going for all of the subchallenges and failing to provide overall quality. Only @bravelion83 managed to create a good card within all of the constraints. I'm surprised only Lorn Asbord Schutta went for the split card, it seemed like the easiest route.

@Henlock Only a few hours remain in July Round 3!

Adjusted scores for @Phyrexian Editor and @slimytrout. You were both right.

Btw slimy, I remember now why I like your mechanic :D

void_nothing wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Subchallenge 1: Your card's rules text uses a word that currently does not appear in any card's Oracle rules text.

And now I feel like less of an [EXPLETIVE] for some of the subchallenges I thought of for next month. Thanks for that, void.

Oof, I hope I didn't make it too similar to what you had planned. (Or do you just mean you plan to have subchallenges that will be difficult to design around? Because those are totally fair game.)

Multiple clarification questions on that subchallenge:

1) Did you mean to allow words within that card's name? I.e., "Frustration Bolt deals 3 damage to any target" seems like it would currently qualify but that might not be what you meant.

2) How do forms of existing words count? I.e. "remove" is used on many cards but "removing" is not -- what is the status of "removing"?

void_nothing wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Oof, I hope I didn't make it too similar to what you had planned. (Or do you just mean you plan to have subchallenges that will be difficult to design around? Because those are totally fair game.)

Degree of difficulty/complexity. All the Rounds will share a Subchallenge to match the month's theme. It's going to be tricky to get that extra point in August.

Around 48 hours from now I'll be kicking off Round 1. No banner art, though, Not in this old timer's skillset.