The MCC Discussion Thread

[slimytrout]

I think that while this request might seem reasonable on its face, it's actually like asking for a list that says "which abilities are appealing to Timmies?" Could a person write up such a list? Given enough time, probably. Would there be differences of opinion on that list? Definitely. Exceptions to the list that can't be articulated until they come up? Almost certainly. Gray areas that could go either way depending on the context and the phase of the moon and what you had for lunch? For sure. This is the sort of thing that goes into judging any sort of creative endeavor. The MCC might present a facade of rigorous evaluation, but we all know that judges are just people, as is made clear whenever two experienced judges give quite different scores to the same card, which happens with some frequency.

I think that what bravelion is really getting at is that there are no "untouchable" sections of the rules. If you design a mechanic that is super cool and exciting but requires the reshaping of the combat phase, then that's a card that people will get excited about. But while last strike was a very flavorful mechanic that would allow some fun things like triple strike, ultimately it wouldn't be usable on that many cards because it's actually quite a large downside and dissuades attacking (on defense a 4/4 last strike can hold off two 2/2's just like a normal 4/4, but on offense the 4/4 doesn't even kill one of them if they double block), so it just wasn't worth the effort required to write so many new combat rules.

For your example of an enchantment Lesson, there's a similar balancing game to be done: the upsides of such a thing are, ultimately, pretty minor. It allows learn to grab cards other than instants and sorceries, which is fine, but it's not like learn/lesson was such a popular mechanic in the first place (in the bottom 50% of mechanics according to WotC's polling), in large part because it's not playable in EDH which enchantment Lessons don't have any effect on. On the other hand, as bravelion said, the portion of the rules that it effects is pretty significant. So on balance I (and many others) would conclude that this is not a change that would improve the game, which we shorthanded as saying "the rules don't allow it." But I hope this longer explanation helps.

[void_nothing]

I would say even more to the point: When is it worth the trouble to break a rule and when is it not? Also, is it a default or a constraint?

[bravelion83]

That's all good, but as someone actively looking to bend and break the rules I would like a hard reference, which sections of the CR are untouchable and which we can alter while designing our cards.

Potentially you can alter anything, you just have to think about whether it's worth it. slimytrout just provided a perfect explanation of this, so I will just refer to that instead of writing another long post that would essentially be the exact same things just written with different words. Literally what slimytrout just said.

When is it worth the trouble to break a rule and when is it not?

I don't think there is a general answer to this question. It's something that must be judged case by case in my opinion.

EDIT - I've just reread the article void linked. I didn't remember it and it was an excellent reread. I think it's something everybody interested in this discussion we're having here should read, or reread if they've already read it. That essentially provides the answer to Ryder's question: you can break defaults, but you can't break constraints. You just have to understand which of the two what you want to break is.

[haywire]

I am really sorry for my late submission for January round 3; as I had mentioned in my last post here, I've spent the week driving across the US, conveniently at the same time as a major storm, and everything else was kind of on pause. I just remembered about the contest and quickly put together a submission, but it is late so of it needs to be dqed I totally get it.

[Ryder]

Sorry @haywire, we need to follow the protocol. In a month where submission order kind-of matters, I shouldn't let it slip. I'll still share my thoughts about your card, though you're effectively DQ'd.

@bravelion83 for visibility.

[bravelion83]

Sorry @haywire, we need to follow the protocol. In a month where submission order kind-of matters, I shouldn't let it slip. I'll still share my thoughts about your card, though you're effectively DQ'd.

@bravelion83 for visibility.

I don't agree that much with this DQ (you hadn't posted yet in the thread saying officially that the round is closed, but on the other side the deadline must be enforced, it's not an easy decision to make), but you're the host this month so you have the final word. I will do the same as you.

EDIT - My judgments for January Round 3 are complete. As always, they are not final until the judging deadline, but I don't see any big changes coming. Tomorrow I will reread these and write judgments for the final round of December.

[haywire]

@bravelion83 While, like I said, I did come up with this from beginning to end in about 10 minutes since I had been distracted by my irl stuff, I would like to speak to my thought behind the card. It was intended to be a card that lets you win the game if you have a "can't lose the game" effect in play, such as Platinum Angel. It was intentionally impossible to work in any other scenario.

I personally thought it was pretty easy to understand as a set-up combo piece that required a can't lose effect to function, and given that in eternal formats this could become a turn 2 win with angel's grace, I was far more worried about it being overpowered than underpowered.

Obviously it doesn't matter anyway because of the DQ (which I, btw, totally understand, I missed the deadline), I was honestly pretty surprised by this judgement. I kind of thought the card explained itself, and that most players would arrive to the correct common sense answer that this requires a "can't lose" effect to work, and that it was a solid, bordering on overpowered effect in eternal formats due to the couple low mana can't lose the game effects that are playable.

Also, @Ryder, just wanted to say I totally understand the DQ, I missed the deadline. Appreciate your commitment to keeping January strictly on track time-wise

[void_nothing]

I do think I need to say that like bravelion, I don't like this decision. It is, however, not my decision to make. That's entirely the host's prerogative - but DQing under these circumstances, especially in the versus round where it leads to a contestant getting a free bye into the finals, leaves a bad taste.

[bravelion83]

@bravelion83 While, like I said, I did come up with this from beginning to end in about 10 minutes since I had been distracted by my irl stuff, I would like to speak to my thought behind the card. It was intended to be a card that lets you win the game if you have a "can't lose the game" effect in play, such as Platinum Angel. It was intentionally impossible to work in any other scenario.

I personally thought it was pretty easy to understand as a set-up combo piece that required a can't lose effect to function, and given that in eternal formats this could become a turn 2 win with angel's grace, I was far more worried about it being overpowered than underpowered.

Obviously it doesn't matter anyway because of the DQ (which I, btw, totally understand, I missed the deadline), I was honestly pretty surprised by this judgement. I kind of thought the card explained itself, and that most players would arrive to the correct common sense answer that this requires a "can't lose" effect to work, and that it was a solid, bordering on overpowered effect in eternal formats due to the couple low mana can't lose the game effects that are playable.

I thought it was not intentional, but just an oversight due to the hurry IRL that you had talked about. Then I'll just say the card is very narrow, too narrow in my opinion. You need a very specific kind of card for it to work as intended, a kind of which there aren't that many in existence. And while I'm not at all an eternal formats expert, the contrary actually, Legacy, Vintage, and Commander are literally the only major formats I've never played, not even once in my life, I've only seen them played, all three of them, but never played myself, I do understand that the card was designed exactly for those formats, where that kind of needed card to work is much more abundant. In any other formats, it's mostly unplayable. I don't think there is any "can't lose" card in Standard at the moment. Maybe one or two in Pioneer, for sure Platinum Angel and Platinum Emperion in Modern, but I can't think of many other ones. In short, it's still a card that requires other cards to work, one of those they call A + B cards, the problem is that if this is A, the B it needs is very specific and too hard to find on average, making the A card very (too?) narrow to use. Even if I knew that was intentional and not just an oversight, I don't think the score would have been much higher. Higher for sure, but not too much. As you said yourself, all of this is purely theoretical discussion, and totally useless in practice given your DQ (I totally share the "bad taste" void_nothing mentioned), so I see no point in editing my judgment in the light of this. Thanks anyway for sharing your real intent behind the card.

[Ryder]

@bravelion83 I'll get to it in my judgement / review, but Cloudsteel Kirin is Standard legal

[bravelion83]

@bravelion83 I'll get to it in my judgement / review, but Cloudsteel Kirin is Standard legal

Correct, somehow I forgot it and didn't find it. Still, it doesn't change my opinion of the card.

[Ryder]

My judgements for January Round 3 are in. A close one, well done all.

[Komandon]

I'm confused. It's a verses round but two judges. So? Is it just added to the total of round 1 and 2?

Second question. I see others have done this but I for too much to explain why feel I need permission. Can I explain why I did certain things to my card. For example. Guessing flavor is more than just the name. I used Akki because it's the type of goblins in Kamigawa. But I should get a minus because I just found a shaman that has too similar a name. 😞. So even if it's not a legendary it's a bad name. I was too focused a spell from Strixhaven instant and sorceries related.

[Raptorchan]

What done is done, and judges have their final say. I lost this round, no problems.
But I still want to explain something.
@Ryder

Uniqueness - Not being able to find a Plains is a... unique win condition

That's, in fact, not what the card does. Its win condition is not finding any lands.

White doesn'tget hard ramp

What's hard is up to you, but there are plenty of cards that give you Plains in monowhite - it started with "if an opponent controls more lands than you", but now they simply give you Plains.

(2/3) Quality - It's missing "and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order" (-1).

My card shuffles instead of putting cards to the bottom, bit is this a mistake worth punishing?..
@bravelion83
You seem to be quite harsh this time so I lost lots of points here, but let me explain.

The letter of the challenge are met just fine. The spirit less so, because winning by using this card is almost impossible, or anyway not realistic, as it requires you to play a deck with no lands at all. (See Balance.)

First, you can have a deck that has "no lands", but only virtually - because Modal DFC lands exist and Goblin Charbelcher deck that wins by resolving ability is a thing - you still have lands in your deck, but they "don't count" when you activate an ability.
Second, you can win through easiest combos - let it be Mana Severance or the obvious reference to my knight's name - Endless Horizons which I personally consider the best option.
Need to note, all that works with stuff like Laboratory Maniac and similar cards works here just fine - you may have no lands in the deck, but you may have no cards in your deck as well, and it's a viable strategy. And after all, LabMan is the only card in Magic that can "win you the game" AND was printed (not originally, but still) as uncommon...
In conclusion, I really tried to make a card that can be also viable in eternal formats, not just constructed and limited.
That's all.

[Ryder]

I'm confused. It's a verses round but two judges. So? Is it just added to the total of round 1 and 2?

Second question. I see others have done this but I for too much to explain why feel I need permission. Can I explain why I did certain things to my card. For example. Guessing flavor is more than just the name. I used Akki because it's the type of goblins in Kamigawa. But I should get a minus because I just found a shaman that has too similar a name. 😞. So even if it's not a legendary it's a bad name. I was too focused a spell from Strixhaven instant and sorceries related.

Scores of rounds 1 and 2 don't matter anymore. Scores from individual judges in this round will be summed to form the final score.
Thanks for explaining to us your thought process, it makes sense. I guess you got a bit unlucky here.

What done is done, and judges have their final say. I lost this round, no problems.

That's the point of us finishing early, you can appeal and we can correct our scores if something is truly wrong!

That's, in fact, not what the card does. Its win condition is not finding any lands.

You're correct here, my apologies. The score is the same though.

What's hard is up to you

White can find Plains, but cannot put it onto the battlefield if it's not a balancing effect like Knight of the White Orchid.

My card shuffles instead of putting cards to the bottom, bit is this a mistake worth punishing?..

Interestingly enough, we're both wrong. It should be "then shuffle the rest into your library." as on Aspiring Champion.

[Raptorchan]

What's hard is up to you

White can find Plains, but cannot put it onto the battlefield if it's not a balancing effect like Knight of the White Orchid.

Hah. Guess I should have been going that way - putting plains into hand, it doesn't really affect win condition at all.

[Komandon]

@Ryder even if round 1 and 2 mattered I wouldn't have qualified for round 4.

I do wonder. You said " (2/3) Flavor - Can't help myself thinking it's a name and the card is missing the Legendary supertype.". Was it not being a legendary a mark down for me.

Other parts including the cost of the first effect for an uncommon I added lands and artifacts due to a non-tap for 1 was creatures. Dark-Dweller Oracle. Not as unique just rare even though that's a common. I thought the added win con and for red being Treasures heavy and late gain not so much need for lands the tapped was ok. No tapping would I thought be to powerful. It was rare in the two other printings. But made a common in Double Masters 2022. So another reason for it being uncommon and tap ability. Felted too powerful.

I understand the wording is very messed up in the second ability. I wanted to figure out a win con card in uncommon since I can't actually find any. If I was allowed to do a rare I would have made it a noncreature artifact. Creature I thought gave it enough vulnerability to be uncommon.
I based win con of the card around Seize the Storm even though that's instants and sorceries. And makes a token. I thought it was in Strixhaven but it's Midnight Hunt.

There is always next month.

[bravelion83]

I wanted to figure out a win con card in uncommon since I can't actually find any.

That's the problem with most cards this round. You all wanted to push "you win the game" at uncommon just to meet the Subchallenge, but the resulting cards still needed to be rare. That's what happens when you try to force a Subchallenge into your design, you end up losing more in other areas.

If I was allowed to do a rare I would have made it a noncreature artifact.

You were allowed to do a rare. The "uncommon" rarity requirement was a Subchallenge, and you can give up those. Again, I actually think most cards this round would have benefitted from giving up the "make it uncommon" Subchallenge and just making the card a rare as it clearly wants to be. Subchallenges are not automatic, nor are they meant to be.

EDIT - Working on judgments for December Round 4 right now, I'm trying to get them out asap.

[Subject16]

That's the problem with most cards this round. You all wanted to push "you win the game" at uncommon just to meet the Subchallenge, but the resulting cards still needed to be rare. That's what happens when you try to force a Subchallenge into your design, you end up losing more in other areas.

If it isn't viable for anyone to try and meet the requirements of a subchallenge, why make it a subchallenge at all?

I would be interested in seeing what designs others would have come up with that fit the subchallenge that isn't either too strong or too complicated for uncommon. (Personally, I designed the win condition to be complicated specifically so that it wouldn't be easy to achieve in a limited environment. Which is also why I made it legendary since it's more balanced for limited and legendaries are allowed to be a little more complicated).

[Raptorchan]

That's the problem with most cards this round. You all wanted to push "you win the game" at uncommon just to meet the Subchallenge, but the resulting cards still needed to be rare. That's what happens when you try to force a Subchallenge into your design, you end up losing more in other areas.

If it isn't viable for anyone to try and meet the requirements of a subchallenge, why make it a subchallenge at all?

I would be interested in seeing what designs others would have come up with that fit the subchallenge that isn't either too strong or too complicated for uncommon. (Personally, I designed the win condition to be complicated specifically so that it wouldn't be easy to achieve in a limited environment. Which is also why I made it legendary since it's more balanced for limited and legendaries are allowed to be a little more complicated).

Basically this. The subchallenge is here, but if you meet it (which, I assume, is the goal), you still lose points because resulting design doesn't make much sense from the design philosophy standpoint. That's... just weird.

[bravelion83]

The goal of the Subchallenges is not to be automatically met, but to give you additional requirements and restrictions to get additional points, but not at the expense of the quality of the design. They shouldn't be too easy to do without damaging that quality. They are supposed to be additional hoops that you have to jump through while still keeping your overall design at a good enough quality to achieve good scores in the other areas. A player who is able to make a card that's still a good design while also fulfilling additional restrictions is deserving the additional points. A player who stubbornly tries to meet the additional requirements anyway but makes their card worse than it would be if they ignored them is not deserving the extra points. Meeting all three challenges is supposed to be difficult. Not impossible, but still difficult enough for those extra points to actually mean something. Sometimes it's supposed to be better to ignore a Subchallenge if you have a good enough design, and at the contrary, sometimes it's not worth it to force a Subchallenge if you doing so makes your card design worse than it would be otherwise.

[void_nothing]

Sure, but in this case, it seems like meeting the challenges while not getting docked points was impossible. It feels like a trick.

[Ryder]

Sure, but in this case, it seems like meeting the challenges while not getting docked points was impossible. It feels like a trick.

Who knows, maybe it was a trap and I never expected to see a card that would do it correctly?

I had a professor at my university who gave us bonus assignments. One of them was the 3n + 1. Some of us knew people had been trying to solve it for decades with no success and passed on it. Others tried. Had they known it was borderline impossible, they wouldn't. But there was a chance one of them would actually solve it.

Some of this round's entries were pretty close to being valid "win the game" cards at Uncommon. Awesome stuff.

[bravelion83]

bonus assignments

That's exactly what Subchallenges are meant to be. But for the record, it's also supposed to be possible for a player to meet all of them if they wish. Difficult for sure, but not impossible.

Some of this round's entries were pretty close to being valid "win the game" cards at Uncommon.

I'm honestly not sure I agree about this. What I saw is a bunch of card who wanted to be rare but couldn't because of the Subchallenge. But that's just my own opinion, nothing more than that.

[Subject16]

Who knows, maybe it was a trap and I never expected to see a card that would do it correctly?

If this is the case then I really don't like this. What does this accomplish? Like void_nothing said, this feels like we're being tricked rather than challenged, and I don't appreciate it. If I see a subchallenge, I believe there's an expectation on behalf of the judges that it's viable in their eyes. Everyone tried to hit the mark you set and got punished for it. Who does this benefit?

I'll reiterate again: If you didn't expect anyone to be able to fulfill the challenge, why make the choice to set it at all? Should we be expecting subchallenges of a similar type going forward? Do we now have to play mind games with the judges?