Contest Archives • June MCC - Judge signup thread

As is tradition by now, this month we will celebrate the latest premier set, in this case Outlaws of Thunder Junction, by exploring its mechanics and themes, as usual in this kind of MCC months.

Here is this month's calendar, with a few additional notes:If you want to sign up as a judge for this month's MCC, just reply to this thread, but please be aware of a little extra something that's essential for the MCC month to proceed as planned at the proper pace:

By signing up as a judge this month, you are giving me, as host, full permission to take over your bracket and do it myself if you haven't posted your judgments within the judging deadline.

This is to avoid the problem of the contest being slowed down by late judgments and possibly proceed with the same pace I and Ryder kept on January, and I on March, and that should be the normal pace of this contest in my opinion. It was also the "change" that got the most positive feedback on both January and March, and I can easily see why. In fact, it's a point that I've been bringing up for a very long time, probably years by now. The rest on the months this year so far have been good enough on this regard too. Let's do it again this month. This is the reason for the additional clause bolded above.

Still taking feedback from January and March into account, one of the factor who allowed us to have a proper pacing was split weekends, with one day between Saturday or Sunday falling in the design phase and the other in the judging phase. I'm doing split weekends this month again, as you can see in the calendar above. I will strive to enforce that calendar in all the ways I possibly can.

The bolded clause above also helps guarantee that the calendar at the top of this post will be respected. Now you all know the planned design and judging deadlines for the whole month. Please make sure to play or judge accordingly and everything will be fine.

If you already know you can't keep up with that calendar for any reason (first and foremost real life reasons of course), I kindly ask you NOT to sign up as a judge this month. What I'm looking for and what I need to properly enforce this calendar is someone who is able to keep up with that calendar reliably, every single week. Of course, things can happen in real life that we can't possibly expect or foresee during the month, such as myself hosting December and my father dying right as Round 2 was happening. Should something like that happen to you in real life, remember this: you will not be alone. Your fellow judge(s) will be there to help you. And if it's just me, I will be there to help you. Just pm me saying that you won't be able to make your judgments on time and I will take care of it. What I'm talking about is the same kind of collaboration as when my father died in December while I was also hosting the DCC, one of my fellow DCC hosts essentially took over the rest of the month (it was void_nothing in this case, but I'm sure Rithaniel would have done it too). This is exactly what I'm talking about: if a sudden problem arises in real life that causes you to not be able to respect the judging deadline, I will do what void_nothing did for me in the December DCC and be there for you. This is at the same time a promise and a requirement on my part as host for this month.

I hope this extra requirement to sign up as a judge will allow us to repeat what we did in January and March and finish the contest only two days into the next month. I'm very determined to do it again, exactly as I was in January and March. On January, we proved that it's possible. On March, we proved that it's repeatable. This month, I want to confirm that it's repeatable, and that, to say it with an expression that we're using a lot in my family after my father's death, that it can be our new normality for the MCC. It was actually the old normality, as things went back when we still were on Salvation, but I want to bring it back and turn the old normality into the new normality. It appears that it's actually slowly becoming the new normality, and I want to keep that going.

Also, Round 3 pairings being based on the total score from Rounds 1 and 2 will be returning as well. It went over very well on December, January, and March, but this month I'm trying a different matching, as you can see in the calendar above: assuming six players in Round 3, it will be 1st vs. 4th (instead of 6th) and 3rd vs. 6th (instead of 4th), the pairing of 2nd vs. 5th doesn't change. This is to try to reduce bad feelings for the lower ranked players, which was an important piece of feedback from March. This alternative system was also proposed by one of you in that same feedback, and while it wasn't my own idea, I think it might help with that problem, so thanks again to the person who sent that in the March feedback Google Form.

Split Subchallenges will return as well, but there are tweaks there too. In Round 1, both Subchallenges will be classic additional requirements each worth 1 point. In Rounds 2 and 3, Subchallenge 1 will be a classic one worth 1 point while Subchallenge 2 will be split in two requirements each worth 0.5 points. In Round 4, both Subchallenges will be split, for a total of four additional requirements each worth 0.5 points. I'm using split Subchallenges as a means to increase the difficulty from one round to the next, as I believe it should always be in the MCC.

This month I will try another experiment, and this is my own idea instead. Every Main Challenge will include an "intended flavor" that your submission is expected to match, and that IS also a part of the Main Challenge. How well your card matches the intended flavor WILL be judged in the Main Challenge section of the rubric. Here I'm taking advantage that the Main Challenge section is not meant to be 2 free points to everyone, but rather a full spectrum. How good the flavor is will be judged in Flavor instead, as usual.

There will be another feedback session after this month is over, probably with fewer questions than March unless something goes wrong during this month.

All of that said, let's go back to my normal pattern for the judge signup thread.

---

If you've already judged before in the MCC, just post in this thread and that's enough.
Otherwise, if you've never judged before, there is a little extra step required: please try to judge the sample card you can find below with the MCC rubric and post your sample judgment here. I will reply to you as soon as possible with my own thoughts about it and if you did good enough of a job, I will officially welcome you as an MCC judge.

Anyway, whether you've already judged the MCC or not, please remember the extra timing requirement this month though before deciding whether to sign up here or not! (See above.) Even if that prevents you from signing up as a judge this month, I will be more than happy to have you as a player!


As always, since I am hosting, I am also going to be a judge. We might or might not need another judge depending on how high the player participation will be. If player participation is so high that more judges will be required I will certainly not complain! That's a problem that I actually would like to have! But if the participation is too low, I am also ready to judge solo, as both void_nothing and myself have already done multiple times in still relatively recent times.

Judge signups will stay open until the design deadline for Round 1 or until we get enough judges, whichever comes first. The judge signups will be going on in parallel with Round 1.

Round 1 will be posted later tonight. Outlaws from all over the Multiverse, prepare your weapons! Your adventure on Thunder Junction is about to begin! Can't you see that Omenpath that has opened right in front of you? Will you dare to cross it?

Statistics: Posted by bravelion83 — 2 weeks ago — Replies 2 — Views 120

---