Choosing a winner with a public vote is great, because it's interactive. Which is what PureMTGO is all about.
Using a panel of judges is another great way to choose a winner, because the "best" deck will win fairly.
I say move on with the original plan (or second plan really) with this contest and ignore the gripers. All 10 decks are excellent and deserving. Wether they get there by campaign or by great deck design.
With the next contest (hopefuly one of many to come). I say get the best of both worlds by selecting the judges from the PureMTGO and Magic-playing community.
Here's how...
Sift through the initial sumbmissions just as before, gleaning a top ten. Then put them to the judging panel. The panel would be a motley crew of article writers, MTGO tourney winners, past contest winners, and myself of course for having these brilliant ideas. Maybe it could be possible to have some MTG celebs pitch in; Nassif, Garfeild or Rosewater. Assuming somebody has those connections.
As for the griping, suck it up. This contest is going to the designer with the best build and the one who cared enough about his/her creation (or the incredible prizes) to rally his people behind it. Jump on the band wagon and do the same for your own or favorite build or jump off. Either way... please stop griping.
I think using cascade with split cards is clever enough. Using Research to dump slit cards into your library to cascade into? I love it! I don't care if the deck is any good, it has made me chuckle.
You could make an argument for P1P1 o-ring since the hegemon pretty much only gets played in esper based decks. I might take the o-ring, but I'd probably take the bomb over it in hopes i could play it. I'd probably have stuck to red p1p3 on the stinger, its a ridiculous card and fits in aggro and control decks alike. It would have been a more flexible pick for you i think but i guess it worked out ok for you anyway.
In p1p5 I'd take the thoctar as a clear signal the guys to my right are not in Naya and snatch it up over the scourge. This call right here put you in the finals because it gave you the shenanigans in the 3rd pack.
P1P7 You pass a benediction for quasi-fixing. Gift is a 23rd card, benediction is nuts in naya. You could also take the excommunicate here.
p1p8 Iguanar hands down
p2p1 Rupture spire. I know you have more impressive cards to take over the fixing, but compare the cards you picked over the fixing to the cards you did pick or could have picked in the third pack. Griffin, enlisted worm, hushblade. See the power difference? I'd have rather taken the bounties here as well over the aven because then you don't have to take the fixing over the better picks you will get in reborn. Note that dark temper can be pretty decent in any GRx deck because of hackblade's. If you get one or two in reborn it brings it up a notch. Still, rupture spire may be the best fixing your going to see out of the rest of your picks and you currently have none to speak of. Rupture spire also cycles your thunder.
p2p3 You won't play the slavedriver. The lapse or the creature are the only real picks here for you. It bears mentioning that late game kraniocerous can be almost unkillable by damage.
p2p4 Ember weaver is better for your deck. Reach might be a defensive ability, but 3 first strike dmg is nothing to sneeze at, and he even solves some really problematic flying creatures with pump(roar in your case).
p3p1 Pridemage is amazing. Maybe one of the best two drops since he can solve so many issues and he swings for three. Unless my opponent is esper I'd rather play a pridemage on turn 3 than a renegade. The other guy is maybe a md card, would always be MD material if his ability was a may ability. You never want to hit one of your posts turn three :-(
You right about the recluse as well. He's a great fixer, because if you don't need him for fixing early on he's a very solid creature. He has won me games before.
Not a bad draft overall though. You read your signals properly and jumped into the correct shard. Nice work, and thanks for sharing!
It's not totally different, it's drawing attention to the contest. Judging by the number of votes that have been received in total by the decks, it seems to me that it is very necessary to draw some attention here. There are alot of Magic Online players out there and this is a sad number of total votes.
Asking someone to come vote certainly doesn't mean they will vote for a particular deck... you're making them aware of the contest, and I think most people have enough of a brain to actually look at the decks before they vote. Sure, they know which deck was built by the person who told them about the contest, but they have total free choice in casting their vote.
p1p3 vithian stinger,
p1p4 seaside citadel (since you could still either go naya or esper splash red and bloodpire is only a solid card)
p1p7 angelic benidiction or excommunicate are both better options, or you could have started moving into 5cc at that point with courier's capsule.
p1p8 (solidly aggro at this point) hissing iguanar for sure, does the same as welkin for 2 less mana,
p2p1 yeah sacellum archers for sure
p2p3 krainoceros
p2p4 ember weaver (if the aven could become 4 or 5 toughness maybe but at a 2/3 not that impressive
p3p1 yea quasali
p3p5 pale recluse
p3p6 grixxled leotao, godtracker is just garbage
anyhow thats my take on it, grats on getting to the finals.
Yeah, I don't see what point you are trying to make...
This is totally the same as rallying and voting for Presidency: asking people to consider voting for someone (or - in this case - a deckbuild). People make choices based on their believes what is right and who is the better/best kandidate (or - in this case - the better/best deck). The fact that you might or might not agree with the majority of these people doesn't make rallying bad or the elected person (or deck) not rightfully elected or a less good President/deck for that matter.
I myself can tell you from experience those people will often even vote for other kandidates instead, due to the fact they don't like the aggressive approach. We ain't all sheep...
Yes However this is totally different, the votes are suppose to be based on how good or how much one likes the deck, not based on how many ppl you can rally. Same for goin for Presidency but ppl realize that when they vote.. its a bit of a situation when voting for decks.
I definitely agree with all of you who suggested I should have taken Thought Hemmorhage over the Deadshot Minotaur. At the time, I didn't realize it was a 3-4 ticket rare. Rest assured in the future I will take it in that same spot.
The Retaliator Griffin actually won me a game. I think it was in round 2, my opponent had two 5 powered green guys out and just couldn't attack me because the griffin would be large enough to give him lethal damage. It's a card I'm happy to play, but in all honesty I got lucky that he had no removal, I wouldn't pick it too high.
You all make very valid points and overall I can't completely disagree with too much. Looking back, the Hissing Iguanar is probably the best card for my deck. I tend to undervalue him.
Just curious but a guy who mulls to 5 and gets his first three creatures killed and then keeps a 2 lander and never draws a land is your "MTGO Moron of the Week".
Sorry, but this statement kind of makes you sound not soo friendly...and thats being a lot more friendly than your comment.
Do these get proofread? I know English isn't the author's first language, so the grammatical errors are totally understandable, but they'd be a VERY easy fix for a proofreader, and that would make them a better read.
I actually think it's pretty funny that people get mad about someone trying to get some grassroots support for themselves. What's wrong with asking people to vote? Show me one single example in the history of the world where people did not try to rally support for something that is being put to a vote. Come on, wake up.
It's a little bit surprising for me that the two most boring decks are the ones getting the most votes. Deck 3 is already confirmed to be trying to raly votes for itself and deck 10 is pretty clearly also getting an unusual amount. To be quite honest I think these two shouldn't be allowed to win, plain//simple.
I say give the people's vote to deck 1, it seems to have the most legit votes (it's also my personal favorite :P )
Deck #9 creator here,
I tested a lot of your suggestions and here's why I didn't use them. Not trying to be combative, just thought I'd note that I put a lot of testing and thought into this deck.
Not Enough Monsters- This is what Congregate at Dawn is for. The searcher is also the reason a lot of the creatures are singletons. Also note that there's a sub-theme of reanimation, so even if there's only one copy there's a good chance you might see them come into play more than once.
Board resetters- this is why i included malfegor. I know he's not so great, but I like him better than the Child because he doesn't get rid of my Impromptu Raid.
On the Turn into Mist Issue- I had this in the deck for quite a while, but it simply wasn't useful often enough. Alot of the monsters are really so brutal that they only need to be in play for a turn to do their thing. It was just a dead card too often. Also, please note that the deck plays Saffi, which works like turn to mist the majority of the time and is also a solid creature. Her plus large creature is one of the many-mini-combos with congregate and raid.
Protection- I really felt like their wasn't enough room for this. It is, as you said, essentially a combo deck, and watering it down like that would weaken it, I feel. The Kitchen Finks and Selkies are really my conceit to this, and they also work well with all the comes into play stuff. Protective spells also make it more likely you'll whiff with Aethermage's Touch.
3x Raid- The problem is you REALLY don't want two of them. Aethermage's touch is intended to be kind of a backup plan. And as someone pointed out, I did put 3 congregates into the deck. They're a key ingredient as you pointed out.
I urge everyone to try the deck for themselves, just for kicks. It's a lot of fun.
Thanks for showing how abandoning your first pick rare can still work out for you. All too often my thought process is:
First pick = "Looks like we're going to Yemen!" (mentally committing to a shard/color)
Second pick = "Dang, maybe I should change... no, it's probably just a fluke. Stay the course!"
Third pick = "Wow, I REALLY should switch... but I just passed the last set of cards by and I don't want to get screwed in pack 2."
Fourth pick = "DANG IT! I should have switched!! Well it's DEFINITELY too late to switch after sending 2 consecutive signals."
Fifth pick = "Blech... Time to start praying Round 2 brings me something to salvage this nightmare."
I'll have to remember this article next time I sit down to play.
Yep this was my first article. Thank you all for your supportive comments and constructive feedback! I am currently working on another budget deck for another one, I figure it's a fun way to spend the server downtime. Not that I'm an addict, nerd, or obsessed. ;)
Do people realize that the popular vote is only 40% of the final score? The other 60% of the score DOES come from the 2 judges, 30% from each judge. So... yes, someone can sway the popular vote part of the competition, but if their deck sucks their not going to win anyway.
Magic exists outside of MTGO. This comes from R&D and other people not worried solely about MTGO and with no direct responsibility for MTGO. Not every new thing is an excuse to bitch about the current state of the client.
... and you started with a bug that isn't even important and is a minor side effect of an intended restriction.
Amen.
Choosing a winner with a public vote is great, because it's interactive. Which is what PureMTGO is all about.
Using a panel of judges is another great way to choose a winner, because the "best" deck will win fairly.
I say move on with the original plan (or second plan really) with this contest and ignore the gripers. All 10 decks are excellent and deserving. Wether they get there by campaign or by great deck design.
With the next contest (hopefuly one of many to come). I say get the best of both worlds by selecting the judges from the PureMTGO and Magic-playing community.
Here's how...
Sift through the initial sumbmissions just as before, gleaning a top ten. Then put them to the judging panel. The panel would be a motley crew of article writers, MTGO tourney winners, past contest winners, and myself of course for having these brilliant ideas. Maybe it could be possible to have some MTG celebs pitch in; Nassif, Garfeild or Rosewater. Assuming somebody has those connections.
As for the griping, suck it up. This contest is going to the designer with the best build and the one who cared enough about his/her creation (or the incredible prizes) to rally his people behind it. Jump on the band wagon and do the same for your own or favorite build or jump off. Either way... please stop griping.
I think using cascade with split cards is clever enough. Using Research to dump slit cards into your library to cascade into? I love it! I don't care if the deck is any good, it has made me chuckle.
Huh, they are 4$ (well. they're out, but I think I'll pick some up now)
Unfortunately, breeding pool is still 15$ and my decks still persist to turn out UG
You could make an argument for P1P1 o-ring since the hegemon pretty much only gets played in esper based decks. I might take the o-ring, but I'd probably take the bomb over it in hopes i could play it. I'd probably have stuck to red p1p3 on the stinger, its a ridiculous card and fits in aggro and control decks alike. It would have been a more flexible pick for you i think but i guess it worked out ok for you anyway.
In p1p5 I'd take the thoctar as a clear signal the guys to my right are not in Naya and snatch it up over the scourge. This call right here put you in the finals because it gave you the shenanigans in the 3rd pack.
P1P7 You pass a benediction for quasi-fixing. Gift is a 23rd card, benediction is nuts in naya. You could also take the excommunicate here.
p1p8 Iguanar hands down
p2p1 Rupture spire. I know you have more impressive cards to take over the fixing, but compare the cards you picked over the fixing to the cards you did pick or could have picked in the third pack. Griffin, enlisted worm, hushblade. See the power difference? I'd have rather taken the bounties here as well over the aven because then you don't have to take the fixing over the better picks you will get in reborn. Note that dark temper can be pretty decent in any GRx deck because of hackblade's. If you get one or two in reborn it brings it up a notch. Still, rupture spire may be the best fixing your going to see out of the rest of your picks and you currently have none to speak of. Rupture spire also cycles your thunder.
p2p3 You won't play the slavedriver. The lapse or the creature are the only real picks here for you. It bears mentioning that late game kraniocerous can be almost unkillable by damage.
p2p4 Ember weaver is better for your deck. Reach might be a defensive ability, but 3 first strike dmg is nothing to sneeze at, and he even solves some really problematic flying creatures with pump(roar in your case).
p3p1 Pridemage is amazing. Maybe one of the best two drops since he can solve so many issues and he swings for three. Unless my opponent is esper I'd rather play a pridemage on turn 3 than a renegade. The other guy is maybe a md card, would always be MD material if his ability was a may ability. You never want to hit one of your posts turn three :-(
You right about the recluse as well. He's a great fixer, because if you don't need him for fixing early on he's a very solid creature. He has won me games before.
Not a bad draft overall though. You read your signals properly and jumped into the correct shard. Nice work, and thanks for sharing!
It's not totally different, it's drawing attention to the contest. Judging by the number of votes that have been received in total by the decks, it seems to me that it is very necessary to draw some attention here. There are alot of Magic Online players out there and this is a sad number of total votes.
Asking someone to come vote certainly doesn't mean they will vote for a particular deck... you're making them aware of the contest, and I think most people have enough of a brain to actually look at the decks before they vote. Sure, they know which deck was built by the person who told them about the contest, but they have total free choice in casting their vote.
p1p3 vithian stinger,
p1p4 seaside citadel (since you could still either go naya or esper splash red and bloodpire is only a solid card)
p1p7 angelic benidiction or excommunicate are both better options, or you could have started moving into 5cc at that point with courier's capsule.
p1p8 (solidly aggro at this point) hissing iguanar for sure, does the same as welkin for 2 less mana,
p2p1 yeah sacellum archers for sure
p2p3 krainoceros
p2p4 ember weaver (if the aven could become 4 or 5 toughness maybe but at a 2/3 not that impressive
p3p1 yea quasali
p3p5 pale recluse
p3p6 grixxled leotao, godtracker is just garbage
anyhow thats my take on it, grats on getting to the finals.
Yeah, I don't see what point you are trying to make...
This is totally the same as rallying and voting for Presidency: asking people to consider voting for someone (or - in this case - a deckbuild). People make choices based on their believes what is right and who is the better/best kandidate (or - in this case - the better/best deck). The fact that you might or might not agree with the majority of these people doesn't make rallying bad or the elected person (or deck) not rightfully elected or a less good President/deck for that matter.
I myself can tell you from experience those people will often even vote for other kandidates instead, due to the fact they don't like the aggressive approach. We ain't all sheep...
Yes However this is totally different, the votes are suppose to be based on how good or how much one likes the deck, not based on how many ppl you can rally. Same for goin for Presidency but ppl realize that when they vote.. its a bit of a situation when voting for decks.
Yeah, I totally have to agree with Epilogue on this one!
For instance look at the US running for President. Asking people to vote for you doesn't mean they will or that they can't make up their own minds.
It happens all around and it brings a lot of attention and visitors to puremtgo.com and mtgotraders.com. I don't see anything wrong with this.
Haha, thanks for the comments guys.
I definitely agree with all of you who suggested I should have taken Thought Hemmorhage over the Deadshot Minotaur. At the time, I didn't realize it was a 3-4 ticket rare. Rest assured in the future I will take it in that same spot.
The Retaliator Griffin actually won me a game. I think it was in round 2, my opponent had two 5 powered green guys out and just couldn't attack me because the griffin would be large enough to give him lethal damage. It's a card I'm happy to play, but in all honesty I got lucky that he had no removal, I wouldn't pick it too high.
You all make very valid points and overall I can't completely disagree with too much. Looking back, the Hissing Iguanar is probably the best card for my deck. I tend to undervalue him.
Just curious but a guy who mulls to 5 and gets his first three creatures killed and then keeps a 2 lander and never draws a land is your "MTGO Moron of the Week".
Sorry, but this statement kind of makes you sound not soo friendly...and thats being a lot more friendly than your comment.
-M
Do these get proofread? I know English isn't the author's first language, so the grammatical errors are totally understandable, but they'd be a VERY easy fix for a proofreader, and that would make them a better read.
Thanks. :) I might have a candidate up for the budget contest, so hold that thought.
I actually think it's pretty funny that people get mad about someone trying to get some grassroots support for themselves. What's wrong with asking people to vote? Show me one single example in the history of the world where people did not try to rally support for something that is being put to a vote. Come on, wake up.
It's a little bit surprising for me that the two most boring decks are the ones getting the most votes. Deck 3 is already confirmed to be trying to raly votes for itself and deck 10 is pretty clearly also getting an unusual amount. To be quite honest I think these two shouldn't be allowed to win, plain//simple.
I say give the people's vote to deck 1, it seems to have the most legit votes (it's also my personal favorite :P )
Deck #9 creator here,
I tested a lot of your suggestions and here's why I didn't use them. Not trying to be combative, just thought I'd note that I put a lot of testing and thought into this deck.
Not Enough Monsters- This is what Congregate at Dawn is for. The searcher is also the reason a lot of the creatures are singletons. Also note that there's a sub-theme of reanimation, so even if there's only one copy there's a good chance you might see them come into play more than once.
Board resetters- this is why i included malfegor. I know he's not so great, but I like him better than the Child because he doesn't get rid of my Impromptu Raid.
On the Turn into Mist Issue- I had this in the deck for quite a while, but it simply wasn't useful often enough. Alot of the monsters are really so brutal that they only need to be in play for a turn to do their thing. It was just a dead card too often. Also, please note that the deck plays Saffi, which works like turn to mist the majority of the time and is also a solid creature. Her plus large creature is one of the many-mini-combos with congregate and raid.
Protection- I really felt like their wasn't enough room for this. It is, as you said, essentially a combo deck, and watering it down like that would weaken it, I feel. The Kitchen Finks and Selkies are really my conceit to this, and they also work well with all the comes into play stuff. Protective spells also make it more likely you'll whiff with Aethermage's Touch.
3x Raid- The problem is you REALLY don't want two of them. Aethermage's touch is intended to be kind of a backup plan. And as someone pointed out, I did put 3 congregates into the deck. They're a key ingredient as you pointed out.
I urge everyone to try the deck for themselves, just for kicks. It's a lot of fun.
This is what I found at MTG online in Classifieds Area today (posted by Aiden...):
"Please Vote for Deck #3 for the KlydoScope Deck Contest :) its part of puremtgo"
Are you kiddin' me? C'mon guys, be serious.....
i definitely think you pick squire over the hunt pride. the hunt pride is pretty bad, and the squire is one of the better early drops in the block
Thanks for showing how abandoning your first pick rare can still work out for you. All too often my thought process is:
First pick = "Looks like we're going to Yemen!" (mentally committing to a shard/color)
Second pick = "Dang, maybe I should change... no, it's probably just a fluke. Stay the course!"
Third pick = "Wow, I REALLY should switch... but I just passed the last set of cards by and I don't want to get screwed in pack 2."
Fourth pick = "DANG IT! I should have switched!! Well it's DEFINITELY too late to switch after sending 2 consecutive signals."
Fifth pick = "Blech... Time to start praying Round 2 brings me something to salvage this nightmare."
I'll have to remember this article next time I sit down to play.
Yep this was my first article. Thank you all for your supportive comments and constructive feedback! I am currently working on another budget deck for another one, I figure it's a fun way to spend the server downtime. Not that I'm an addict, nerd, or obsessed. ;)
Do people realize that the popular vote is only 40% of the final score? The other 60% of the score DOES come from the 2 judges, 30% from each judge. So... yes, someone can sway the popular vote part of the competition, but if their deck sucks their not going to win anyway.
mtgotraders.com has Watery Grave right now for $4.
Can I vote on your decks here for that contest? Nice Job.
Magic exists outside of MTGO. This comes from R&D and other people not worried solely about MTGO and with no direct responsibility for MTGO. Not every new thing is an excuse to bitch about the current state of the client.
... and you started with a bug that isn't even important and is a minor side effect of an intended restriction.