slimytrout wrote: ↑3 years agoIt's somewhat painful for me to do this, as it will likely lead to my being eliminated, but Scarbo had a point taken away unfairly in Quality: the flip 'walkers refer to themselves by gender (see Liliana, Heretical Healer) for whatever reason, so the submitted version is correct.
To leave myself some shred of hope of advancing, I am also going to argue (although I understand if you still disagree) that I don't think that my submission is too powerful to be an uncommon, or at least not a full point's deduction away -- yes, it's good if you're beating your opponent down and can punish them for stumbling, but it's absolutely worthless in a board stall or if you're behind -- compare it to Reconnaissance Mission just in this set, which is of comparable power level and has cycling and yet is not a particularly high pick. My card is in a common vein of red uncommon enchantments (Burning Vengeance, Ghirapur Aether Grid, etc.) which are situationally quite powerful but are absolutely useless in the wrong board state. Moreover, the division between uncommon/rare is not entirely one of power level anyway -- if you read this article, Mark explains that in fact limited build-around cards like these are ones that belong at uncommon, especially in this case where having multiple in your deck would not be absurdly powerful (in fact, an opening hand with two of these would probably be pretty awful).
I really appreciate you defending another contestant. I already clarified that situation.
Now, on to your card. I totally understand your criticism of my judgment, and I've already shown that I'm willing to change the score because I own up to my mistakes, but in your case, I stand behind what I've said.
I agree on the points that you raise, especially with the comparisons to Recon Mission and Burning Vengeance (even though the last one was arguably one of the strongest uncommon build-arounds in both the limited environments it was in), but I have to respectfully disagree on the point that multiples of them wouldn't make them more powerful, since then you would need less creatures to connect to make a dragon, which would then help you connect more and make even more dragons. Also, the reasoning that it's useless if you're behind can be applied to virtually any card, because if my opponent is beating me in the air or on the ground, even a Planeswalker like Lukka, Narset or Vivien (just to mention some from the new set) won't help me get out of that situation.
Besides, one of the reasons behind a full point docking is that the most likely scenario for this card to be in a set would be in one that already supports a Treasure theme (as it find really hard to fathom a Core Set introducing this card as a one-of Treasure maker), and that's where the card really becomes obscene, because it means that cards like Sailor of Means come with a 1/4 of a hasty dragon attached to them, or Contract Killing (which is a removal you'd play regardless) gives you half a dragon. Reiterating the comparison I've already made to Storm the Vault (which is a rare, btw), and expanding on it, there's a reason behind the fact that Storm gives you only one treasure if you connect, and that's because the potential for skipping way ahead of your curve is very real there, while the downside is very low, since in limited most of the times you'd close your games by just attacking.
Now, if the treasure making clause was like Storm the Vault or the dragon token didn't have haste, your card would've gotten full points, but as it is, it provides you too much value for something you'd be doing anyway. Uncommon buildarounds make you play around a certain playstyle and reward you for it, but attacking is something you would do in any game.
I hope I didn't come across as stubborn or hostile, I just wanted to explain the reasoning behind my judging.
Anyways, as you have seen, all the cards were within a half a point difference, so it means that the round was really tight. I'm sorry if you had to get the axe, and I understand that losing by that little of a difference might make you paradoxically feel even worse than losing by a 5 points difference, but this is just a testament of your quality as a custom card maker.
I, for one, was really sad to see your card lose, as it was probably the one I would've liked to see printed the most, but when judging I must suppress my personal likings and be more objective as possible.
I wish you good luck in the next month contest.