If I have a true sickness, it’s that I create whacked contests. (Well, and that I unintentionally talk like a”G” at Magic tournaments – but I still don’t ‘role deep’ – and that my articles are often too long and equate to”a trail mix for the insane” {nice quote, Scott}, and that I’m too parenthetical or elliptical…)
Okay, so I have a lot of sickness in me. But we’re focusing on the contests here, people. Follow along.
Last year, when I was in my”writing for Brainburst” phase I devised the coolest contest I could as the time – I let the readers choose my deck for Regionals from a list of four that I provided. I also promised them if they chose wisely (and I played well), our fates would be intertwined and I would provide them all with a token of my esteem. Well, it worked, I sent out over a hundred”tokens of esteem” after Regionals last year to the readers who chose Smoke and Fog, and that contest will be making a comeback in a couple of weeks.
Aside: Those bastards over at Wizards (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) always get to run the best contests in the business because they, like, let you choose 8th Edition, or help design a card, or let misguided malcontents like Wayne Alward (again, I mean that in the nicest possible way) design whole new mechanics. Me, I have to work with the limited resources at hand.
Today, however, I have a different contest to discuss…
We all know that tech wants to be secret. When pros have tech, they keep that sh*t locked away tighter than a… Well, we all know that Ferrett is going to edit whatever way I finish that sentence, so let’s just say they keep it tight. However, every so often you will hear of a team that has tech pimping their information to another team prior to the tournament in order to reap some early benefits. The other person or team signs a Non-Disclosure Agreement, gets the benefits of everybody else’s hard work, and at the end of the day the team developing the tech gets to say”Mah tech betta have ma money…” faster than ODB on a Friday night (though with less rhythm – since these are Magic players, after all).
Here’s the deal: I know you have tech. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you walk, the way you flip your long, greasy, scraggly hair.
I want to buy it from you.
That’s where the title comes in. I’m going to offer fifty bucks in cold, hard cash (or check, money order, or Paypal) to whomever submits the best deck (as judged by Jimmy Bean and myself). The person submitting the second best deck will receive twenty dollars in cash. That’s straight dollah bills, y’all, delivered courtesy of my bank account directly to you.
Now before you go saying,”Whoa Kanoot! I need that tech to give me an edge at Regionals,” let me ‘splain something to you: Unlike in jolly old England, where your chance to qualify for Nationals is a ludicrous one in eight, your chance to qualify for U.S. Nationals is more like 1 in 8 times 8 – or one in sixty-four. In fact, in some places your chance to qualify for U.S. Nationals is more like one in eighty. The amount of luck involved in qualifying for Nationals is almost astronomical, therefore leaking your tech now and winning fifty bucks will have almost no impact on your ability to qualify – but since you are probably an impoverished Magic player, it may make a substantial impact on your bank account. And who knows? We just might make your deck better.
I’m only going to post a measly five decklists anyway, so there’s a distinct possibility that sending me your tech will have no effect whatsoever on whether people will know your deck prior to Regionals. The risk factor here is low.
Not only that – but in spite of how much it pains me to say it, my name is not Kai Mowshowitz. When I write about something, a million Magic players don’t sit up and take notice; most of them just yawn and go back to playing their computer games. Therefore, if your deck is chosen as one of the five, maybe one in every four of your opponents will have any clue about what your deck might be if it wins the contest. Last year, I received five hundred e-mails (a ridiculous number) about the contest I ran – and in ten rounds of play, only two people had even heard of the deck. Magic celebrity is a such a fickle thing.
Last, but not least, whatever deck that we pick as the winner will also be chosen as one of the four potential decks for me to play at Regionals this year. Every time I write about it, it will have your name attached to it. (Limited) Magic fame and stardom will be within your grasp.
So here are the details:
1) You will send your decklists via e-mail to [email protected] (submissions via the forums will not be accepted).
2) You must include your name and return e-mail address with the submission. Only one submission per player will be accepted.
2) Submissions will be accepted until Monday, March 3rd.
3) Once all submissions are in, Jimmy Bean and I will review the decks and pick a Top 5. I will then write an article about the strengths of each deck.
4) The Top 5 decks will then be placed in our forums for readers to comment on them.
5) Final judging will take into account originality, power, consistency, and”oh my God, that’s so cool/broken/whatever” factors. We will then rank the decks from one to five and I will publish the results, along with our comments. The judgments of Jim and myself are final and non-negotiable.
6) First prize will be one Ulysses S. Grant (or fifty American dollars, to those of you who don’t speak dead presidents). Second prize will be an Andrew Jackson (twenty bucks). Prizes three through five will be the merciless taunting of your deck for not coming in first or second.
Additional Notes:
1) Please feel free to name your deck. Jim and I both love naming decks, but these are not our own creations and therefore should be named by you with tenderness and love.
2) Also please include a description of what the purpose behind the deck is, how it is to be played, and any matchup information that you have discovered. I’m going to be writing an article about the decks, but that doesn’t mean I will immediately know everything about them, so giving me these details will be important.
3) You may include a sideboard, but it is not necessary and will not affect the judging. We fully expect sideboards to be the sort of things that are cobbled together ten minutes before registration ends.
So there’s the deal: My hope is that right now you guys are thinking”Aw naw, hell naw boy, y’all done up and done it again,” and designed a contest that is timely, rewarding, and downright fun, but we shall see…
One last note: Remember that originality will be a key factor in making the decision here, therefore sending me one of the decks that I posted in my Gauntlet article (erm, which I will post soon, he says as he dodges elbows from his editor) without major revisions will severely decrease your chances of winning.
Best of luck,
The Holy Knut
[email protected]