Community

Dec 20, 2010 -- 5:44PM, Garmichael wrote:

This thread is for discussion of this Feature Article, which goes live Wednesday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Loucks moved on? That cannot possibly be right. 

It appears that my opinions are almost polar opposites of what the judges' have said, even though we picked up most of the same issues with the cards. I liked most things the judges didn't like, and they panned all the things I did like. But then again, my opinions were polar opposites of just about everyone in the thread too, so at least I'm consistent. \:>

Where I'm from, it's currently summer, and water goes down the plughole the correct way - clockwise.

*Raises hand to be Antipodean Guest Judge*



Also, is the "logline game" necessary? It seems to me to be a game of Pin The Tail On The Donkey.

MaRo's closing comments on each contestant seem to provide a pretty good hint about their elimination prospects.  Maybe it's just a matter of perspective, and this pattern would disappear if I weren't reading Fleisher->Woodward.  Last week, he told Loucks to get rid of Illuminate.  This week, he says Loucks needs to "start realizing [his] potential."

Do they even know who they're eliminating when they write the closing impressions?  Does MaRo's impression just carry the most weight?  I don't know, but even after the thrashing Loucks got, those final words had me waiting to see who would mess up worse.

Woodward got a bit of a raw deal this week.  That's not to say I think the judges made the wrong call with what they had; the alien hybrids were pretty bizarre and I the alt-win cycle was just a weaker retread of Battle of Wits & friends, as cool as the red one was.  Still, I feel like Devon Rule's world has the most ambiguous flavor of all eight finalists'.  True, he (she?) has reached the finals and passed two eliminations with it him/herself, but I imagine it's one of those things that makes a lot more sense in your head than when you try to put it on paper.  Okay, black has the gold/mercantilism thing.  Now how does flameweaving-turned-to-combat magic differ from normal fire magic on a mechanical level?  One road to success this week was taking a mechanic to which the judges had reacted positively (Dig, Reflect, Incarnate, Requiem) and expand it into a cycle.  Gold was undoubtedly the best single mechanic out of Devon's submission, but defined from inception as being exclusive to black.

It was a disadvantage built into the challenge- six worlds, they can't be equally rich design space.  We can't say if different pairings would or wouldn't have seen different results.

Anyway, I haven't been following the GDS community hub, but is the free submission process closed?  That is, for the next challenge are the contestants stuck with whatever has been submitted so far for designing their perfect booster?

Dec 22, 2010 -- 1:35AM, goblinrecruiter wrote:

In other words, printing the card:

Face Punch
B
Sorcery
Punch target player in the face. That player loses 4 life.

puts pressure on players to play Magic without having a face. It's too fun to have a face.

Once again, Ken displays his ignorance of the rules.

A player without a face would still be a legal target for this spell, since it only requires a "target player", not a "target player with a face".  The player would not be punched in the face (since that is an impossible action), but would still lose 4 life.

I'm pretty sure only the most hardcore of Spikes will think that "not getting punched in the face but 4 direct damage for 1cc" is worse than the other way around =p

Dec 21, 2010 -- 10:40PM, oraymw wrote:

Jon Loucks goes on again. He must have bribed the judges, because he has proven that he is a terrible designer over and over and over and over again.

There must be some kind of favoritism going on here. Congratulations Loucks. You get another chance even though you are the worst designer in the competition. And you get the chance because someone likes you. 

In the end, this is not a "who is the best designer contest" (although it is presented as one) but a "who would we like as intern contest". This could skew judgement.

Also, remember that judgement is a culmination of all weeks. Jonathon still had his "preview week top submission" buffer, but I get fromt he comments that this is definitely spent now.

Dec 21, 2010 -- 10:20PM, Pegaweb wrote:

Also, is the "logline game" necessary? It seems to me to be a game of Pin The Tail On The Donkey.

I've seen people posting the actual loglines from the magic sets of the last few years (on the boards, on the wiki, I don't remember). That should give some direction, and also shows how far off the current submitted ones are.