Two quick notes before we get to the judge’s comments. First of all, if you follow us on Twitter, we announced the bottom two earlier on Thursday. We also do things like sneak peek articles, various and sundry, mention the occasional spoiler card, post newsletter announcements, and so
much more there as well. If you think you might be interested in such things, the accounts to follow are as… follows:
@starcitygames
for StarCityGames.com,
@mixedknuts
for Ted,
@misterorange
for Evan,
@mulldrifting
for Lauren,
@ferretthimself
for uh yeah, and
@thepchapin
for The Innovator.
Second, we originally had six people for the first knockout round, but Daniel Sawler M.D. had to drop out to focus on saving people’s lives. Bad news for us because his initial article was pretty good, but probably good news to the people of Canadia! Glad we could help, oh friends of the North!
Tom Reeve
Ferrett
: Tom’s a strong lead here, since both of his articles have delved deep into Magic’s drafting history to figure out universal Draft principles. It’s actually a really good choice strategically for the Talent Search – when you’re discussing decks in older formats and fundamentals, you dodge the whole “OMG YOUR SCARS PICK SUCK YOU STUPID N00B” that often loses you the Spike vote, stat. Sadly, while you dodge the crushing disdain of better players, you also lose the chance for people to tune in for the latest and greatest Scars technology, costing you overall hits. So for you, I’d really like to see you keep up the quality when you start discussing archetypes/trends in the current format. I suspect you can, handily.
Evan
: Really enjoyed it! I loved the long look back at historical Draft formats (some of which I’m well aware of) and how their pieces interlock and work with new ones and so on. Totally sweet. As a theory piece, it’s incredibly strong.
Problem? A little dry. I’d love for you to try to weave a narrative here or put a bit more flavor in your bits. I’m diggin’ the cut-and-dry thing because it’s Raw Theory┢ and that is sexy to deconstruct, but there’s also something to be said for making us
feel
something as well as learn something. For example, weaving a tale of how you applied these lessons and culminating in the final lesson (and the finals of some event) would’ve been a great bowtie. Even “Who’s the Beatdown?” is still a story about a match Flores was watching at a tournament.
Regardless, well done!
Patrick:
So first, Tom has definitely emerged as the Limited writer to beat. Both of his articles were excellent in a genre that’s historically very difficult to write about in a way that’s going to be interesting to most players beyond just watching a draft. The biggest obstacle I see in front of Tom is demonstrating his ability to write articles about current Draft strategy and tactics. Articles like these are awesome, but I could totally see them coming from someone that doesn’t always write about Limited, as they are timeless theory pieces. It remains to be seen if Tom can keep up when it comes to actually walk through a modern draft. He’s such a strong theorist and writer, I very much hope his drafting ability can keep up, as I’m very sure he will be able to discuss modern picks with the same strength he did historical ones.
Additionally, I would suggest Tom give a little more “candy” to the reader. Constructed writers have decklists to fall back on; Limited writers have to work for it a little more. There’s more to the game than just saying useful things; you want the reader to feel like they got something useful out the gate, as it can give them momentum. Sometimes, it’s as easy as comparing a few modern picks like Grasp of Darkness vs. Plague Stinger and providing some very easy bite-size ideas that someone can walk away with on a conscious level (letting the deeper strategy sit below the surface).
Ted:
I don’t think Tom is the Limited
writer
to beat, but I do think he’s the Limited strategist to beat. His writing has a maturity about it that almost no other contestant has right now, and it’s probably because he’s been on the firing line as a columnist and coverage reporter for other games. Obviously since all of us are old (Evan in real years, even if not necessarily in Magic years), we all appreciate an approach that incorporates nostalgia as well as strong reasoning and good writing.
In short, I thought the article was very strong, and I’m perfectly happy the voters saw fit to keep you around for another round.
Christopher Shelley
Ferrett
: Chris, Chris, come on – you know you want to look good in this Talent Search, right? You knew how you’d done in that Prerelease, right? Â So why the heck did you choose an event where you bombed out? It just looks bad, starting 0-2, and then you interrupt it in the middle with an (admittedly entertaining) aside on how you play other games, and by the time we get to the end I’m left with a scrubby taste in my mouth. Now, as someone who built scrubby Sealed decks for a long time, I’m not one to talk – but I think it cost you votes, both in the choice of Sealed (never as interesting as Draft except when PTQ time rolls around) and in your choice of games.
If
you make it to the next round, my advice: show off your wins, or go into why you lost a lot more thoroughly… Because this one left me feeling like it’s not quite entertaining to be a clean read in itself, and it lacked the strategy to bolster it.
Evan
: Oh boy, Chris. What to do.
Here’s what we don’t do: We don’t say we suck (per your last article), have won nothing, and know nothing about the format… then try to write a strategy article on the format. Then build the wrong deck after explaining the right deck then telling us you’re one of
those
guys who make us wait infinitely so you can fulfill some trivial ‘game’ with other people who are now also annoyed at your split attention!
Grr.
Breathe, breathe.
Seriously, man. I want to pull for everyone in this contest, but I went from frustration with the lecture about how bad infect was to the infect deck you built into you playing a trivial ‘game’ that in the end makes many people upset and frustrated just so you can keep your mind humming along. 😐
Patrick:
“I’m not a pro; hell, I’ve never even won a PTQ and generally consider myself a rather poor player.” That is how you start your article out? This is a talent search and the category you entered is for Limited strategy. That line could’ve been appropriate for casual or mixed media, but in this category, there is a high desire for someone we can learn from, regularly and often. No need to be fake, but if you come out the gate with this, you’re going to lose the audience. Unfortunately, from here you launch into a lengthy discussion of how terrible you are which segways into discussion on how you’re planning to retire in nine months. Personally, I hope that the winner of this talent search is still able to play and write nine months from now. The bowling story was very entertaining and reflected the author’s strength as a writer, a strength that gives great hope.
Unfortunately, I didn’t buy the connection to the Magic article; though I would’ve preferred to have just read the bowling article. The connection is what? That you can learn from people who are good at something? Exactly, and remember the reader is like you in the story, wanting to learn from the guy with all of the strikes. As for the second article, were you trying to top the first article in terms of making yourself look bad? I disagreed with your card evaluations, strategy, deckbuilding choices, and wasn’t surprised at all to learn of the terrible finish. What is surprising that this would be the best foot forward you are presenting to try to win the contest. You have some ability as a writer, but it seems that Limited Magic strategy might not be the best use of your talents, at least not right now.
Ted:
I was excited by what you put together last time, but this time around it felt like you voted yourself off the island. The intro was a problem, the style was a problem, the apologies were a problem – it translated to the entire article being a problem. I’m sorry, Chris, but this didn’t cut it for me or anybody else.
Chris, you are in the bottom two.
Jon Corpora
Ferrett:
Props, of course, for referencing your first article early on – you want people to think of you as a brand in this contest, and you’re the only one who did that. But you’re going to answer an important question for me in this contest: will people vote for a guy with little strategy, but a fantastic style? What you write is really, really fun, but will those mean ol’ Spikes vote you down because of it? I have no clue, and it’s hard to hand out great Magic advice when you don’t actually have any. But of the actual
writers
here, I bow to your mad skillz, for you are entertaining and grand. I’d be happy to see you sweep your way in.
Evan:
Loved. It. You got a tweet from me, and I wanted to try and make sure everyone saw what awesome
writing
was on display here. Completely hilarious opener. Creating comedic bits in writing is very tough (performing them live is even tougher!), but you pulled it off, and I found myself cackling multiple times through the piece.
That said, strategy-wise, could probably use some more ‘tech’ and ‘theory’ or what have you. The whole bit about the bluff was cute, but I think
writing more about your Sealed and how it fared would’ve helped a great deal more. You don’t have to give us a whole tournament report, but how
did
that Sealed fare? You spoke so much of the choices and their importance, but in the real world did you just flood out each game?
Nevertheless this contest is about finding awesome
writers
who I’m excited to reach more of each week. You are on your way.
Patrick:
A very stark contrast to Shelley, in that while he doesn’t contain much strategic content, he does not aspire to, nor does he waste our time undermining his own authority. Instead, he’s just an awesome writer that is so entertaining that even discussion of Limited is well worth a read. If Tom is the Limited writer to beat on strategy, Jon is the Limited writer to beat on writing. Certainly my favorite articles to read for entertainment and regardless of the outcome of this contest, I want to read more from the author, as his style is super-sweet. If he wants to win this contest, I strongly suggest going deep into the tank and finding a little useful strategic content. Even Rizzo provided some strategic content. No question, though, you are a ton of fun to read, and I hope you find useful things to talk about so you can keep advancing, if only so that I’ll be able to read more from you.
Ted:
It’s early, but Jon is already on the short list for best writer in the competition. He has style, he crosses genres with pop culture references, and while the article doesn’t overwhelm us with strategy or theory, it doesn’t need to. The point of the contest is to find new
writers
who are fun to read. This does that in spades.
Jon, you’re into the next round.
Barry Diwell
Ferrett:
What we have here is some nicely written strategy that’s a little dry after the run of puns in the beginning… Which are admirable, don’t get me wrong. What I see here is a good article by a moderately good player, with some nice advice that doesn’t really stick in my head all that well – I’d find it a useful exercise to compare deckbuilding, but I didn’t take anything away from it aside from the strategy. You’d be a writer I’d be happy to have on board for me, because I suspect you can churn out good analyses that will keep people happy… but I also think it’d take a little more personality flowing into your pieces to really push you to the top tier of “OMG ANOTHER BARRY DIWELL ARTICLE, I’M SO EXCITED.” So my advice? Keep the strategy, shake in even a little more weirdness.
Evan:
The puns! The puns I say! The writing? Dry. The voice? Okay. I thought it was solid.
While I wasn’t expecting to uncover anything but decent writing, I found that the best puns are those that you use sparingly and for maximum effect. It’s funner to find the pun than it-find-you, ya know? (Which it did, a LOT, in those opening few sentences. Pee-yew.)
Again, a solid piece. Didn’t laugh, didn’t get frustrated (the 41 card deck thing was a little odd…), and tried to shield myself from Pun Overload as much as possible. Basically, I’d suggest you get drier and hide your puns better (almost got me with that Disperse one in the P.S.) or get more multimedia on us. You used pictures to great effect.
A good effort. I hope we see beyond your current pieces to better ones in the future!
Patrick:
Maybe it’s just Greed on my part, but I was with you during the puns but, horror of horrors, the disharmony between them and the wretched dry writing that can best be described as a wall of dust means that to avoid fate as a falling star you gotta cleanse your style of the “start with puns” then “turn off personality for the rust of the forgettable strategic talk” thing you got going. I may be invoking prejudice, but I have visions of it not taking divine intervention for you to come back like a boomerang, more of a eureka moment leading to a divine transformation when you rebirth your style. Puns can be useful, but it is a raging bull that one has to be all or nothing on for them to have character. Recall the infinite authority on pun abomination, LSV, and how he oozes with personality even when not making them. The competition is fierce, and you face a wall of opposition with giant strength, but you have tremendous potential if you can emerge from your cocoon in time.
Ted:
Barry and I talked during the week about the disconnect between the introduction and the rest of this article. I think the short turnaround here got him, and he could see pretty clearly where stylistic choices were made that weren’t the best. Unlike the other judges here, I’m not a pun addict, but I do appreciate that there is an oddness to your style and you should feel free to explore that. Obviously we’re not putting huge emphasis on strategic correctness as part of this contest, so let yourself experiment a little more and feel free to let ‘Barry’ shine through.
Unfortunately Barry, the voters put you in the bottom two.
Kaloyan Kirilov
Ferrett
: Of everyone here, you were the boldest, making actual picks in the format, and pointing out new ways to use old cards. Our audience frickin’ loves that. And of these articles, you’re the only one I actually learned something from – I’d never thought of using Tainted Strike defensively. Well done. That said, the rest of the card evaluations felt like filler to me, with one-line summaries that felt kind of obvious. I mean, being correct is nice, but providing something surprising is even better. That said, the first half of the article was strong, making you definitely a frontrunner.
Evan
: I loved this article! I thought it had a great mixture of wit and strategy. I felt that while Tom gave us the business historically, you showed the actual applications of thinking beyond what your opponents were expecting. I see this type of thing happening all the time—i.e., the Brad Nelson goes all Green strategy—and I love the different ways this article showed it working. Bomb rares at the end was funny and true (the best kind of comedy), and this is probably my favorite of the bunch, narrowing out Tom’s excellent article that didn’t have the humor this one had.
First half was much better than the latter half, but you got the Johnnies minds a-thinkin’ and the Spikes drooling to use unconventional strategies. A win.
Patrick
: A lot of interesting takeaways, particularly the second article. You actually said stuff of consequence, which is so often overlooked. Writing Limited is a very difficult undertaking, but I loved having a lot of bite-size pieces of information that can help me on their own. For sure in the top two for strategic content, the material was also well written. With so much tactical info, it would be nice to see a little more strategic, over-arching talking. I am interested to see what the author can do discussing archetypes, and it would have been nice if he had gotten a little more into the story where he was sitting next to Nassif. Basically, the info was good, though would have liked it tied together a little neater and with a little more personality. Certainly solid writing so far.
Ted
: I have to admit, I’m excited that the guy from Bulgaria seems to have the greatest potential to surprise and impress us. You have an entire untapped cultural experience to pull from, you seem to be a solid player and theorist, and you’re a pretty good writer (in your second language) as well. There’s definitely enough here for me to want to see what you can do next time, which is always a good thing.
Kaloyan, you are in to the next round.
Â
And the person eliminated this week is:
Christopher Shelley
Thank you for participating Chris and the best of luck in whatever you do next.