netn10 is right. Don't give up! You don't know how many times I've designed a card that I loved and expected to get a lot of votes and then got zero or one vote. I usually take note of those. You know when the last one was? Just a few days ago. On the 13th, I post this card:
Living Loot UB
Sorcery (U)
Choose a card at random from target opponent's hand. Manifest that card.
(Put it onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it's a creature card.)
Every loot, a new surprise.
It's perfect! Simple, elegant, effective, a use of manifest that has never been done before, not even once... A card like this must easily win the day, right? ONE VOTE!
The day before, I had posted this:
Strategy Meeting RW
Sorcery (U)
Exile the top two cards of your library. Each other player exiles the top card of their library. Until the end of their next turn, each player may play cards they own exiled with Strategy Meeting.
(If a player casts a spell this way, they still pay its costs. A player can play a land this way only if they have an available land play remaining.)
Impulsive draw meets "everybody draws" in white. Original, gave you one more card than your opponents, I concede only one point: that the text isn't as short as I would have liked. For all the rest it was perfect! Maybe it shouldn't have won the day, but it should have definitely gotten a lot of votes, right? Well, is TWO "a lot" to you? Not to me! And anyway this card was perfect for one of those custom sets I'm designing, so in there it went immediately regardless.
And the day before that, this:
Stormwreck Phoenix 3RR
Creature — Phoenix (R)
Flying, haste
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if there are three or more artifact cards in your graveyard, return Stormwreck Phoenix from your graveyard to the battlefield.
"I'm a failure, I'm the wreckage in the storm. I'm enlightened, unafraid I am reborn."
—Tesseract, Phoenix
4/3
Ok, this was designed top down from the lyrics of a song I like a lot, but doesn't have any problem, right? It follows the typical pattern of phoenixes in Magic, and even uses a variation on a known mechanic (metalcraft) as the reanimation condition. The text was not too long, elegant, and easy to understand. The card makes complete sense from a holistic point of view. Can you guess how many votes it got? ONE! I still haven't understood why.
Yes, that's three days in a row that what has happened to you now has happened to me, and I still haven't understood the reasons for most of those cards. They're not failures. They're not bad designs. One thing that doesn't help me is that I still haven't got who we're designing for. Is the majority of the voters Timmy, Johnny, or Spike? Why do designs that are clearly worse than mine get more votes? Please, let me know if you ever find an answer to these questions, because I still haven't any. I've been playing in the DCC on and off for years, since 2014, and do you know how many times I've won the month in five years? Once, and tied. Yes, the DCC is the most difficult contest for me, because I still haven't understood after so much times what makes a card successful here.
Do you know when was the last time I've won a day? The day before the Phoenix, with the card I had designed for another contest (CCL) and didn't meet the challenge there, so I just posted it here instead. This card:
Zhalfirin Rift 1UR
Sorcery (R)
Take an extra turn after this one. At the beginning of that turn's end step, you lose the game unless you cast three or more spell that turn.
Exile Zhalfirin Rift.
It took three sparks to close a single rift.
Honestly? I wouldn't have given it two cents. It had been designed for a different contest, uses mechanics I don't like, and I'd personally never call this an interesting design. The only good thing I still see in this card is the elegance of the number three being unintentionally (strange but true!) repeated in rules text and flavor text. I thought "no way this gets voted." It won the day. I got a +7 out of it! And if we go even before that, the two multicolored adventures I had spent so much time designing? One zero votes and the other one. And what about another card I really liked, the Cryptogoyf?
Cryptogoyf GG
Creature — Lhurgoyf (R)
As Cryptogoyf enters the battlefield, exile up to two cards from graveyards.
Cryptogoyf's power and toughness are each equal to the number of card types among cards exiled with Cryptogoyf.
Whenever Cryptogoyf attacks, you may exile target card from a graveyard.
A crypt is its lair, and the past its food.
*/*
ONE VOTE!
So, please, don't give up! Think that there are people like me who have been around for years, and still don't understand the best strategy here. I win with cards that I'm convinced are going to lose and vice versa. It happens almost every day to me. You know what's the fact probably? That everybody judges based on different things, and it's very difficult to make a thing that satisfies me, who like short and elegant designs, and an Uber-Johnny, say, at the same time.
So you're talking about this card:
folding_music wrote: ↑4 years ago
Mimi's Headband
Artifact - Equipment (C)
At the beginning of each upkeep, untap equipped creature.
Equipped creature is a Cat in addition to its other creature types.
Equip
How does someone like me see this? First, I read the name. There's no way I'll ever vote a card with this absurd of a name. Who's Mimi? A famous (but dead) Italian singer had that as her nickname, but I don't think it's her here. And what's a Headband? I feel like there must be a pun that I'm missing, otherwise it would never be printed for real. I'm looking for things that could see print for real here as in all contests. And I haven't read yet the rest of the card! Often at this point I wouldn't even read the rest of the card and I'd just move on to the next. But let's say that I've chosen to stay here anyway and keep reading it anyway. Ok, it's a common Equipment for two mana. No problem. The first ability is fine, even though we've seen it so many times, but in fact it's probably my favorite part of the card for exactly that reason. It's something I could see on a real card. Then I read the second ability. Talk about some trinket text. It does so little in practice that it might just as well not be there. There is no synergy between the two abilities, with one that's just trinket text at best. Would I really vote for such a card? Obviously not. Yes, then there's the equip ability, but that's fine. I'm still wondering why the second ability is there, both in the sense that I'm still wondering it as I read the equip ability and finish to read the card, and in the sense that I'm still wondering it now that I've quoted it and that I've reread it to talk about it here. As I finish reading, what's left in my mind is: "Why is that second ability even there? And on a card with such a bad name (bad in the sense of unprintable, not in a vacuum)? I don't vote for it, and really move on this time.
Look, I've got the impression from several clues that you're a pretty big music fan. I am too. I have mental health issues, and there are mostly two things that keep me going on: music, and Magic. Yes, I think everybody knows by now that my favorite band is Linkin Park, but I listen to a lot of music, even niche bands, like the Phoenix likely demonstrates. Nobody knows Tesseract here in Italy. Literally. I've discovered them by chance while watching music videos on youtube. And I can also play music, in fact I can play keyboards and guitars, and if I had to learn a third instrument it would be drums. And now I feel like revealing a secret: I also
write music. I have two notebooks and several files chock full of songs, music and lyrics, all written by myself. I've let nobody ever listen to one of my songs, ever. Not even once in real life, and there are very few people who know I do that. My songs can get very personal, and they usually do. It's the same freedom of expression that I've found in writing stories (my 1200-page long story that you might have read about lately). When I have a crisis and nobody to talk to, I either go to the keyboards and improvise (many of my songs have been born like that) or I go to my pc, enter one of my worlds, enter the mind of one of my characters and let them go through what I am going through in that moment, sometimes literally, other times figuratively. And I can assure you it does work! I always feel better after doing either thing. Well, now I guess that myself writing songs is no longer a secret, after writing it on the internet. I don't care. I felt like writing it, and I did. Period.
The problem is not that I have anything personal against you and that that's why I rarely vote for your cards. No, it's not that, because I don't have anything against you, and in fact if we knew each other better I'm convinced we'd definitely find some things we have in common, like our love for music. The problem is that if I don't like what you consider your best design, it means either one of two things: you have to get better as a designer, or I as a judge. The latter is definitely true, even if I'm probably the most experienced judge in the MCC (this month is my 39th, more than three years!), but I still feel there are areas where I should improve (namely Uniqueness, and probably Appeal too). I don't know if the former is true, but if it is and you want/need help, just ask! I'm here! I've been playing Magic since 2005, never stopped, and I've been reading Maro since then too. I'm not the best designer in the world, otherwise I'd be working at Wizards right now, but I feel like I can defend myself. I've also been designing custom cards since 2006 from time to time, seriously since 2010, and got involved here in 2014. Really, if you need help, I'm here. Or to know my opinion on some particular card you've designed, provided it's actually worth (my opinion, not your card). Or even just to talk, really. You know what's one of my favorite songs by Linkin Park? "Roads Untraveled". It's just so different from their usual style, yet so beautiful. And how does it end? With a line that I want to dedicate to you know: "May your love never end / and if you need a friend / there's a seat here alongside me."
Really, I'm here, with that seat alongside me. And if you want to get better as a designer by actually designing whole custom sets, I'm open to that too. I've got two projects going on right now, but I could still add a third. There are still many planeswalkers in my table in need of a home plane and an origin story... Far less than some time ago, but there are still five at least.
And please don't think I don't care about you. I care about everybody here, and I hope spending the last hour and fifteen minutes writing this spoiler is a demonstration of that. I'm also on Discord if you're there and want to talk to me personally. I'm still bravelion83 there too, as everywhere on the internet. If you want my four-digit code, again, just ask. Privately, of course.
In the meantime, don't give up! Too bad you haven't posted a card today. If you had done, I would have probably voted for it regardless of how much I liked it, just to give you a signal. One that I hope I've still been able to give you by spending almost one hour and a half now just writing this spoiler. And I apologize for any typos that might still be there after revision.
Seriously, if you need and want, feel free to contact me in private. I'm here, and I'll always be there for you just like for anybody else here.
If you want, I hope to hear from you soon. And I also hope to see more cards from you soon.
—Leo