The results from the final pre-Renton challenge are here! Here are the discussion threads for discussion the challenge, the designs, the judge calls, and the elimination, plus a good place to congratulate the top 3. We're finally caught up with the actual GDS in real time!
Contestant Challenge 5 Discussion Threads
The judging on this one was very interesting compared to previous rounds. They all seemed very engaged in everybody's entries. Compare that to the art-focused round where not a few of the judges' comments seem very phoned in.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to those moving on.
The biggest difference between this challenge and the previous ones (I mean other than having to design 40% more cards) is that the sets the contestants were designing for were already defined. That means everyone is on the same page and you don't get any stupid "hey, you should have used +1/+1 counters here" comments when the contestant is designing for a set that uses -1/-1 counters.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about this challenge is the number of commons you had to design also the comment about conditional 3/3 for one was weird given wild nacatl and many others. We need more Wild Nacatl level commons.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Wild Nacatl would be a 3/3 if it was printed today.
DeleteIndividual two power one drops aren't too big of a deal, but in bulk they overwhelm a limited format (see Masters 25, for example).
I think R&D's feeling is that the best way to avoid that is just not to print any one drops with two or more power at common. The occasional Elite Vanguard won't hurt, but if you've ever had an opponent play one drop into two one drops on the play in limited, you know it isn't very fun or interesting.
An important (and problematic) part of WOTC's limited design process is that they do very, very little playtesting. As such, even if they could push this line without warping things, they don't have the resources to try it.
You will also see this "don't do anything risky because we don't playtest enough to catch it" philosophy in Melissa's critique of Ari's Common 1/3 with Artifactfall Mill 2. This would almost certainly be totally fine, but the developers react viscerally negatively to the idea, because if they print it and it is not fine it might destroy a whole limited format.
And I am under the impression the game doesn't need to be powered down but nacatl was banned in modern. Sometimes it is better to be cautious.
Delete