The MCC Discussion Thread

[Riria]

I'm leaving the website. Congratulations to @slimytrout for winning July MCC!

[Rithaniel]

I'm leaving the website. Congratulations to @slimytrout for winning July MCC!

Er, this is a surprise. I don't know what prompted this, but I hope things are all okay on your side. Either way, you will be missed.

Since you've already submitted a trio of cards, we could still finish up the round if @slimytrout would like to take an attempt at the challenge.

[void_nothing]

Right - you can still win one last contest even if you don't come back to this site. We will miss you here, but unless you feel the need to withdraw your entry itself, I don't see the harm in actually judging the finals. After all, you made it this far!

[slimytrout]

Definitely sorry to see you go! It seems like both of the judges are still down to judge, so I will submit my entry as well and maybe Riria will get a victory from the beyond.

[Ink-Treader]

My Round 2 judgments for August are complete.

[Raptorchan]

Damn, due to Oxford comma being a thing, slimytrout really dodged a bullet here.

[slimytrout]

Damn, due to Oxford comma being a thing, slimytrout really dodged a bullet here.

Not sure I follow?

[Raptorchan]

Damn, due to Oxford comma being a thing, slimytrout really dodged a bullet here.

Not sure I follow?

If I were judging you, I would consider deducting points for Quality because of "menace, deathtouch, and lifelink", but I checked and found out that Oxford comma rule exists, so in the end it's not a mistake.

[slimytrout]

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, magic templating does use the Oxford comma (see Grimdancer for the exact same set of words) so in fact it would be wrong to not include the comma. Didn't quite understand your phrasing because if the Oxford comma didn't exist then I wouldn't have used it

[Raptorchan]

Done. Looks like we have six (!) contenders for round 3.

@void_nothing, I personally sincerely wish you luck in the future contests, but for Queen Uleté's sake, make your designs less wordy.

[void_nothing]

Hey, no hard feelings, I knew that idea got away from me...

Anyway, both blocks had a third person advance due to ties! Really interesting.

[Rithaniel]

Thanks for the judgments, Raptorchan. It's amazing we managed to make it to the third round with six people. That doesn't happen very often. In fact, I don't know the last time it happened. I'm looking forward what we see in the next round.

So, below, in the spoiler, I have a response to a part of the judgment on my card. It is not meant to change the scores or anything, but the reasoning behind the points being taken off made me want to reply.

Counter

Show

Hide

(1,5/3) Flavor - Flavor text feels kinda dull and a bit too explanational, and more important, Totem Armor doesn't have flavorful connection to Gargoyles or reconfigure artifacts.

So, a totem is "a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol," and a gargoyle on Catholic churches is a symbol/sacred object that is meant to be a spirit being that protects the church from evil. The flavor here is a gargoyle that can transform into an actual armored suit. If anything were going to have a claim to totem armor, it's a gargoyle that can transform into an actual armored suit.

Also, I made original flavor for this card. Ankri Bay is a place of my own creation. My card, as far as I can tell, is the only card in the round that had that much original flavor. Not only did it have a flavor concept for what this gargoyle is, but it had a place for the gargoyle to be from. Yet I had points lost for it being too "explanational?" I think the word you wanted was "explanatory," but my flavor text just gives a greater context around these gargoyles, how they fit into the world, and how the world feels about them. What else could you ask for?

[Raptorchan]

@Rithaniel: Correct, the right term is "Explanatory", that's me being not English native so mistakes like that can happen. What I wanted to criticize (and maybe was a bit too harsh for someone's tastes, but whatever) is an unnecessary explanation of already known facts that gargoyles are statues meant to protect, which, I believe, is a common knowledge for everyone who knows what garoyles are. It turning into a protective gear or whatever is pretty much self-explanatory too, just when you see Reconfigure mechanic. So I believe we have a "show, don't tell" situation here.
About Totem Armor: I was not criticizing what it does, only how it was flavored. Totem Armor is a pretty well known mechanic tied to Zendikar Umbras. I totally got you wanted your gargoyle to be protective, but you had to use not the beast suitable named mechanic and even change how mechanically it works. You could just use Totem Armor rules text on the card without naming a mechanic - in this case it would have been both an understandable throwback and still fulfilled Subchallenge 1, because, in fact, combination of Hexproof + Reconfigure was already enough to pass.
IMO, all of you guys tried to fulfill both options of Subchallenge 1, which wasn't needed and sometimes lead to a bit too complicated designs.

Due to personal reasons, Round 3 (including judgings) comes soon and stays for about 12 days. Stay tuned.

PS. Also, the last time we had 6 players for round 3 happened not so long ago!

[bravelion83]

Also, the last time we had 6 players for round 3 happened not so long ago!

Yes, but that was planned. Here it's due to a double tie, and that's the really unusual thing. Here it wasn't planned, it just happened. There's the difference.

EDIT - I've reread the judgment and I've only noticed now about me somehow, I don't even know how myself, forgetting to write the word "token". Now I'm literally facepalming myself... And if I hadn't done that it wouldn't have been a tie, so all of this wouldn't have happened! In the end, I guess you have to thank me if you will have an even number of players in the versus round! 😊

In July, as host, I wanted to have more players in later round, which would have been interesting in my opinion due to the nature of the month's challenges. (WOE month in September will be much simpler, I can already tell you that.)

[Rithaniel]

Correct, the right term is "Explanatory", that's me being not English native so mistakes like that can happen.

Ah, I didn't know that English wasn't your first language. I never would have guessed. Also, honestly, "explanational" might be a new word, but I knew exactly what you meant to say. So it's still good communication.

(and maybe was a bit too harsh for someone's tastes, but whatever)

Don't worry about being too harsh. I think your reasoning is largely fair throughout all the reviews you've written. I just found that I had a definite opinion in this one space and wanted to share. I hope my response to the judgement didn't come off as harsh, either.

So I believe we have a "show, don't tell" situation here.

Okay, so you think the name and mechanics of the card conveyed the idea well, but then that the flavor text should have been omitted to improve the flavor score? But the flavor text doesn't talk about the gargoyle being a protective figure. It talks about Ankri Bay being a safe place, and the gargoyles being unsettling.

About Totem Armor: Totem Armor is a pretty well known mechanic tied to Zendikar Umbras. You could just use Totem Armor rules text on the card without naming a mechanic, because, in fact, combination of Hexproof + Reconfigure was already enough to pass.

The flavor of putting totem armor on an actual totem was too good to pass up. Sure, 'Umbra' is generally the word you use to signify "this card has totem armor," but Modern Horizons has a habit of bending flavor for the sake of a design. Take Scurry Oak, for example. Evolve on a creature that has nothing to do with the Simic. Or Caprichrome, putting (a form of) devour on a definitely-non-Jund creature.

[Rithaniel]

@slimytrout We're actually past the deadline, but since I forgot to give a courtesy ping, I'm gonna extend the deadline. At first I'm just gonna make it be 24 hours, but if you need longer, just let me know.

[Rithaniel]

Alright, judgements are in and slimytrout is the winner of the round, as Riria predicted.

Also, yes, I did go for a quarter point. With three cards and three psychographics, there's a lot of granularity. I didn't want to do a 1/3 points, either.

If anyone has feedback on the July MCC, let me know. It was something of an experiment.

[Ink-Treader]

Finished my August Round 3 judgments.

[bravelion83]

The judge signup thread for September is up. Round 1 will be posted on September 1st.

[haywire]

If I had a nickel for every time I wrote an essay for an mcc card and was completely oblivious to how obviously run-on it was, I think I'd have a nickel for every month I've done MCC.

[bravelion83]

Round 1 for September is up.

[Raptorchan]

August round 3 judgements are done, round 4 soon with three contestants who made it.

[bravelion83]

@Raptorchan Thanks for the judgment, I knew and agree the power level is high on my card, but I thought it could be fine because we are designing for a Modern Horizon kind of set and not for a premiere set. I agree that if Iri's Nest was to be printed in a premiere set, its power level would need to be adjusted, but as you specified Modern Horizons in the challenge, and given that it's the theme of the month, I thought "hey, this could be fine there!" Thanks anyway. As for your question:

Here is another question - do you need to specify that you cast the spell without paying its mana cost when the spell itself doesn't have any? I really wanted to ask it, but then I checked and find out that Suspend spells without mana cost do the same. Weird. But totally precedented.

Yes, "without paying its mana cost" is needed even if the spell doesn't have any. The reason is that having no mana cost doesn't represent 0 or something saying "you might just skip paying the mana cost", rather it's an unpayable cost. You can't pay a mana cost that doesn't exist. Notice the reminder text "Unpayable costs can't be paid" that you find on (the Oracle text of mostly old) cards that don't have a mana cost. If you try to cast such a spell normally, you would fail the step of paying the cost in the process of casting a spell, and the game would see that as an illegal action and rewind the casting of the spell. But "without paying its mana cost" is an alternative cost, which can be applied instead of the normal non-existent and thus unpayable mana cost in that step of the process, letting you advance past that and finish the process with the spell successfully cast. That's the technical reason. Nothing more than a rules issue that many players would probably not even care about. I do, as a big rules fan and potential judge if it weren't for other private personal things that don't allow that.

Another very recent example is Siege battles from MOM, they need to allow you to cast the back face transformed "without paying its mana cost" even if the back face doesn't have one exactly for this reason. The reminder text doesn't mention it, but the CR do:

310.11b Sieges have the intrinsic ability "When the last defense counter is removed from this permanent, exile it, then you may cast it transformed without paying its mana cost."

Also, notice that there is no mention of "defeating" a battle in the CR. What you do is "removing the last defense counter". That's another case where the reminder text is misleading. There are many of those in Magic history, including in recent times. Always check the CR, never trust reminder text.

Again, thanks for the judgment. Awating Round 4 now!

[Raptorchan]

Round 4 is up.

[haywire]

@bravelion83 for subchallenge 1 on September round 1, just to be sure, would a card that says "As long as you control a Food token..." count? It references Food tokens, but doesn't "use" them per say.