The MCC Discussion Thread

[void_nothing]

Is there a host lined up for July yet? If not, I could start preparing a theme.

There is not yet, and I would love to have you do just that!

[void_nothing]

My own judgments for June Round 1 have been completed. You can find them at the bottom of the linked post. Still waiting for @void_nothing's ones.

I'm aiming to finish these tonight. I've been unexpectedly very busy over the past 3 or 4 days. Thanks for reminding me.

Edit: About 50% done, but I will have to finish tomorrow. Apologies for the delay.

[bravelion83]

Round 2 for June is up. I had said that choosing Alara in Round 1 came with its own risks...

[Raptorchan]

Can my card for round 2 be colorless in mana cost but "This card is all colors" in the rules text?

[bravelion83]

Can my card for round 2 be colorless in mana cost but "This card is all colors" in the rules text?

It wouldn't be a colorless card, so no, I'm sorry. You specifically have to make an actually colorless card, that is with no colored mana in the mana cost, with no color indicator, AND with no CDAs making it any color(s), including the one you proposed. For you specifically, this round is particularly challenging, I know, and it might not even be the end of it... I'm sorry. I had said in advance that choosing Alara in Round 1 would have come with consequences...

[Raptorchan]

Can my card for round 2 be colorless in mana cost but "This card is all colors" in the rules text?

It wouldn't be a colorless card, so no, I'm sorry. You specifically have to make an actually colorless card, that is with no colored mana in the mana cost, with no color indicator, AND with no CDAs making it any color, including the one you proposed. For you specifically, this round is particularly challenging, I know, and it might not even be the end of it... I'm sorry. I had said in advance that choosing Alara in Round 1 would have come with consequences...

No problem, a colorless card is possible. But I'd like to make sure that further rounds can be passed at least in theory, i.e. meeting clarifications for next rounds in doable even for those who choose Alara.

[bravelion83]

further rounds can be passed at least in theory, i.e. meeting clarifications for next rounds in doable even for those who choose Alara.

You've essentially forced yourself to choose Ravnica and make colorless cards in all future rounds. That's technically doable, but you have to do it every round from now on should you pass Round 2.

[slimytrout]

I'm a little bit confused by Subchallenge 1 -- If our Round 1 card couldn't go outside the colors of its battle, and our Round 2 card can't go outside the colors of its battle, and our Round 2 battle can't share any colors with our Round 1 battle, then how could our Round 2 card share any colors with our Round 1 card? Or am I missing something?

(P.S. I know this might seem like I'm being pedantic, but I'm asking because I feel like I barely understand the various requirements so I'm genuinely worried that I've misunderstood somehow.)

[bravelion83]

No, there is no misunderstanding here, it's a mistake on my part due to a last-minute change to the challenges I did behind the scenes right before posting the round. Part of what's now the Main Challenge was in Subchallenge 1, so it was possible. Now not anymore. I moved that part and broke everything. I'm really sorry to everybody. I pulled my own Skullclamp: let's make a little change to make it more interesting! It turns out I unintentionally broke my own challenge. I'm sorry. I thought about changing Subchallenge 1, but as some players have already posted their submissions, it doesn't feel fair to them if I change the Subchallenge to fix the round now. I think I'll leave things as they are and let everybody enjoy their free point for Subchallenge 1. I see no way to fix this that isn't unfair to the players who have already posted.

@Venedrex @Subject16 I've sent a pm to both of you, who are the two players that have already posted a card, with a proposed change to Subchallenge 1. As you two are the only two players that have already posted your submission, I'm asking permission to both of you before doing it. Please reply via pm asap.

@Everybody else instead: if those two players will give me permission, Subchallenge 1 will change. Until I don't get both players' permission, I'm not changing it, but be aware before you post your submission that Subchallenge 1 is subject to change as soon as I get those permissions, so it might be advisable to wait for updates here before you post.

EDIT - Update June 17th 10:37 Central European: One of those two players replied to my pm agreeing to the change. I'm still waiting for a reply from the other one.

EDIT - Final (hopefully) update June 17th 15:50 Central European: the other permission has arrived as well. Now that I have permission from both players, Subchallenge 1 officially changes to caring about card types instead of colors. The following is the new Subchallenge 1:

Subchallenge 1 - Your card doesn't share any colors card types with your card from Round 1.

I'm going to update the round thread right now. To partially make up for all the inconvenience, I'm extending both the design and the judging deadline by one day. I'm also going to recheck again the challenges I've planned up for future rounds to make sure nothing like this happens again in Rounds 3 and 4, but that's something on my end behind the scenes that you all don't have to worry about. Again, I'm deeply sorry. Now let's see what awesome designs you all can come up with!

Oh, and obviously many thanks to @slimytrout for catching the bug and reporting it here.

[netn10]

Congratulations to @Venedrex, the winner of May 2023 MCC!

[MonoRedMage]

Plane: Dominaria

Fall of Angelfire 3W
Enchantment {U}
Flash
At the beginning of the declare blockers step, if one or more creatures your opponents control are attacking, incubate 2. (Create an Incubator token with two +1/+1 counters on it and "2: Transform this artifact." It transforms into a 0/0 Phyrexian artifact creature.)
Whenever you attack with one or more Phyrexians, you may pay 2. When you do, tap target creature.
The Church of Angelfire's holy militancy became mindless relentlessness.

...Oops. (I was pretty confused by all the "must share a color" and "can't share a color"s...)

[bravelion83]

Plane: Dominaria

Fall of Angelfire 3W
Enchantment {U}
Flash
At the beginning of the declare blockers step, if one or more creatures your opponents control are attacking, incubate 2. (Create an Incubator token with two +1/+1 counters on it and "2: Transform this artifact." It transforms into a 0/0 Phyrexian artifact creature.)
Whenever you attack with one or more Phyrexians, you may pay 2. When you do, tap target creature.
The Church of Angelfire's holy militancy became mindless relentlessness.

...Oops. (I was pretty confused by all the "must share a color" and "can't share a color"s...)

You chose Kylem in Round 1, which has a red/white battle card in MOM. For this round, start by choosing another battle card from MOM and compare it with Kylem. The two battle cards from MOM can't share any colors. In your case, Dominaria shares a color with Kylem (white), so you can't choose Dominaria for Round 2. You can choose Kamigawa though, as Kamigawa has a mono-blue battle card in MOM, so it shares no colors with Kylem. Once you've chosen a new battle card from MOM for Round 2, design a card that's not a battle and that stays within the colors of that new battle card (in this case Kamigawa). This is the Main Challenge.

The spirit is it forces you to go from a plane to a totally different one, like the Phyrexians invaded most existing planes. You see Phyrexians invading Kylem, a red/white plane, but also Kamigawa, a blue plane, and so on, all different kinds of planes with no mercy or caring about their colors or other qualities, and our focus in the set is not on any single plane rather we jump from plane to plane seeing how the Phyrexians invaded that specific plane and how its denizens defeated them, if they did. That's the idea. I recognize that the execution needs to be complex, and that's why I used underlined text to highlight the most important parts.

(The new) Subchallenge 1, at the contrary, compares card types between the card you designed this round and the one you designed in Round 1. It doesn't care about battle cards from MOM at all, it only looks at your own submissions. In your case, in Round 1 you designed a sorcery, so if you want to meet Subchallenge 1 in Round 2 you can design anything but a sorcery (and a battle, that's forbidden by the Main Challenge).

Hope this helps to clarify things a little bit more. If any of you has any more doubts, feel free to ask here.

[Raptorchan]

@bravelion83 guess I am dropping from this month, making one colorless Ravnica card is okay, but making colorless Ravnica cards for the rest of the month is a bit too much for me.

[bravelion83]

I'm very sorry, but I had said and given advanced warning that choosing Alara in Round 1 would have come with consequences. I'm sad to see you drop but I also thank you because by letting me know at this time you're allowing the contest to advance. See you next month!

[bravelion83]

My own judgments for June Round 2 have been completed. You can find them at the bottom of the linked post. Still waiting for @void_nothing's ones.

[void_nothing]

Due to some catastrophic delays in my travel plans currently, I'm unable to complete my MCC judgments at this time. I'll begin working on them as soon as I am either home or situated in a hotel, but I'm not sure when either of those will happen. I'm extremely sorry for this delay.

[bravelion83]

Due to some catastrophic delays in my travel plans currently, I'm unable to complete my MCC judgments at this time. I'll begin working on them as soon as I am either home or situated in a hotel, but I'm not sure when either of those will happen. I'm extremely sorry for this delay.

Would you prefer if I took care of your bracket myself to let the contest advance and you come back to judge the next round? If so, please let me know asap so that I can start working on it.

[void_nothing]

Due to some catastrophic delays in my travel plans currently, I'm unable to complete my MCC judgments at this time. I'll begin working on them as soon as I am either home or situated in a hotel, but I'm not sure when either of those will happen. I'm extremely sorry for this delay.

Would you prefer if I took care of your bracket myself to let the contest advance and you come back to judge the next round? If so, please let me know asap so that I can start working on it.

I'd really appreciate that. If you do so, I can focus on getting the CCL on track in the near future and judge the MCC round 3 and 4 with you. Thank you so much.

[bravelion83]

Due to some catastrophic delays in my travel plans currently, I'm unable to complete my MCC judgments at this time. I'll begin working on them as soon as I am either home or situated in a hotel, but I'm not sure when either of those will happen. I'm extremely sorry for this delay.

Would you prefer if I took care of your bracket myself to let the contest advance and you come back to judge the next round? If so, please let me know asap so that I can start working on it.

I'd really appreciate that. If you do so, I can focus on getting the CCL on track in the near future and judge the MCC round 3 and 4 with you. Thank you so much.

I will start later tonight and make as fast as I can, no worries!

[bravelion83]

Due to unfortunately having to DQ Riria's card for not meeting Round 2's Main Challenge (the submitted card and the chosen MOM battle card do NOT share rarity as the Main Challenge required), the list of players that advance to Round 3 is already known regardless of the results of my judgment of void_nothing's bracket (which will come anyway, don't worry), so I just went ahead and posted Round 3 right now to let the contest advance. I will still post my full judgment of void_nothing's Round 2 bracket as soon as I have it completed.

In the meantime, enjoy Round 3. I tried to be as clear as I could in the challenges and even added extra explanations and a full list of steps to follow and also a list of the colors still available to each single player. I hope that's enough, but if you still have any doubts, please first check the clarifications spoiler in the OP, then, if it's not answered there feel free to ask right here.

[Rithaniel]

July MCC Round 1 is up. Sorry for the delay in posting.

[haywire]

@Rithaniel more of a preemptive question, but is flavor vs rules text measured in lines or characters (or something else)? The most notable case I'm curious about would be if the flavor text takes the form of a quote, where there's a newline then an author, it might be more lines than rules text but less characters.

[Rithaniel]

@Rithaniel more of a preemptive question, but is flavor vs rules text measured in lines or characters (or something else)? The most notable case I'm curious about would be if the flavor text takes the form of a quote, where there's a newline then an author, it might be more lines than rules text but less characters.

We're going for overall characters. I'll add that to the clarifications.

[Henlock]

@bravelion83 I know it's kind of late, but I wanted to share some clarifications about my round 2 card regarding flavor and rarity. The choice of Theros is important here, since the name of the back, Men of Many Devices, is one of the epithets of Odysseus. The cards aims to illustrate a Trojan Horse scenario.
Regarding rarity, the complexity it presents is that it is an incubator card, so the way it works is not intuitive within the environment of MOM, where effects that transform incubators expressely say "incubator token". I even liked how this fit, as the incubator is not a real one.

[Rithaniel]

Alright, folks, we have about 18 hours left in the round. If you want to play, make sure you get your cards in.