Post by voltaic-qui on Apr 9, 2018 22:54:35 GMT
Hello everyone, your featured set editor speaking. I have good news-- the first round of polls for the 2018 MSE Awards are up!
In previous years, the modteam decided what cards and sets would make the end-of-year polls, which resulted in some selections that went contrary to public opinion in the name of "fairness." The most infamous example is how A Tourney at Whiterun was left off the Best Set poll in 2016 because it was already on the Best Creative poll. So in 2017, we changed the format around: we did four quarterly preliminary polls, from which we got the best set/card of each "season," and pitted them against each other in the end of year poll. This has greatly reduced the need for weird mod judgment calls while also avoiding the recency bias that tends to plague annual awards. So we're keeping it.
There are currently three polls up. Note that you can vote for multiple options in each poll (including your own, if you're nominated)
Best Set of 2018 Q1: This award goes to the best set overall. The best combination of mechanics, design, playability, flavor, and everything else that makes a set good.
Best Creative Design of 2018 Q1: This award goes to the set with the best creative design-- flavor, worldbuilding, art selection, story, and characterization.
Best Card of 2018 Q1: This award goes to the best card to win the Card of the Week Contest.
At the end of the year, there'll be a wildcard poll, where the runners-up for each quarter's polls will duke it out for the fifth and final slot in the final polls. The winners of those polls will be the Best Set, Creative, and Card of 2018. Their creators will get nice badges, and the former two will get their own pages on the Featured Sets tab, which we've slightly retooled.
The mods will still select the finalists for the Best Supplemental Set and Mechanic of the Year polls, although when the time comes to pick, I will ask for public suggestions for both. The Community Award will be 100% up to the mods.
Some notes about the selection criteria, and what sets are eligible for best set/creative. I've bolded the important bits.
1. Sets need to have been made with Magic Set Editor. Duh.
1a. Posting an individual card render made with mtg.design or MTGCardsmith is acceptable, although literally everyone will side-eye you.
2. Sets need to have 60+ original cards (e.g., not reprints, WOTC or otherwise) to be eligible for Best Set or Best Creative Design. Sets consisting wholly of original cards with set sizes under 60 are still eligible for Best Supplemental Set; reprint-only sets (e.g., Featured Sets Remastered, or a standalone Masterpiece series) are completely ineligible.
2a. Duel Decks are supplemental products and will be treated as such.
3. Fan projects for third-party (non-Magic: the Gathering) IPs are ineligible for Best Creative Design. You didn't invent My Little Pony.
3a. Note that we've loosened this restriction: return sets are now eligible for Best Creative Design. Your fanset where Elesh Norn and Nicol Bolas team up to kill Emrakul on Ravnica will not win Best Creative Design, but that's another matter entirely.
4. For a set to be eligible for the polls for its respective quarter, both of the following must be true: Its set file must have been made publicly available on the Magic Set Editor forums during that quarter, and its first release in any form must have been within the same quarter as that set file release. Let's go over the consequences of that.
4a. Reuploads of your sets from the old MSE forums are just that-- reuploads.
4b. Reuploading a set you posted, for instance, on MTGSalvation in 2016 doesn't count either: having a set released in 2016 as a candidate in the Best Set of 2018 poll is anachronistic, to say the least.
4c. An update, remake, or retool of an existing set does not count as a new set unless the retool is so extensive that it's actually a new set (e.g., Mukrasa Overhaul).
4d. Non-hypothetical change: in the past, we've had several sets run in these polls that were released exclusively via the MSE Lackey plugin but never saw an official release on the forums. Starting in 2018 Q2, this is not okay anymore. These are forum contests; sets not posted on the forums can't really compete. (Death of Yakizma has been grandfathered in.)
Have fun partaking in the democratic process. I'll see you in a few weeks to unveil the new Featured Sets section.
In previous years, the modteam decided what cards and sets would make the end-of-year polls, which resulted in some selections that went contrary to public opinion in the name of "fairness." The most infamous example is how A Tourney at Whiterun was left off the Best Set poll in 2016 because it was already on the Best Creative poll. So in 2017, we changed the format around: we did four quarterly preliminary polls, from which we got the best set/card of each "season," and pitted them against each other in the end of year poll. This has greatly reduced the need for weird mod judgment calls while also avoiding the recency bias that tends to plague annual awards. So we're keeping it.
There are currently three polls up. Note that you can vote for multiple options in each poll (including your own, if you're nominated)
Best Set of 2018 Q1: This award goes to the best set overall. The best combination of mechanics, design, playability, flavor, and everything else that makes a set good.
Best Creative Design of 2018 Q1: This award goes to the set with the best creative design-- flavor, worldbuilding, art selection, story, and characterization.
Best Card of 2018 Q1: This award goes to the best card to win the Card of the Week Contest.
At the end of the year, there'll be a wildcard poll, where the runners-up for each quarter's polls will duke it out for the fifth and final slot in the final polls. The winners of those polls will be the Best Set, Creative, and Card of 2018. Their creators will get nice badges, and the former two will get their own pages on the Featured Sets tab, which we've slightly retooled.
The mods will still select the finalists for the Best Supplemental Set and Mechanic of the Year polls, although when the time comes to pick, I will ask for public suggestions for both. The Community Award will be 100% up to the mods.
Some notes about the selection criteria, and what sets are eligible for best set/creative. I've bolded the important bits.
1. Sets need to have been made with Magic Set Editor. Duh.
1a. Posting an individual card render made with mtg.design or MTGCardsmith is acceptable, although literally everyone will side-eye you.
2. Sets need to have 60+ original cards (e.g., not reprints, WOTC or otherwise) to be eligible for Best Set or Best Creative Design. Sets consisting wholly of original cards with set sizes under 60 are still eligible for Best Supplemental Set; reprint-only sets (e.g., Featured Sets Remastered, or a standalone Masterpiece series) are completely ineligible.
2a. Duel Decks are supplemental products and will be treated as such.
3. Fan projects for third-party (non-Magic: the Gathering) IPs are ineligible for Best Creative Design. You didn't invent My Little Pony.
3a. Note that we've loosened this restriction: return sets are now eligible for Best Creative Design. Your fanset where Elesh Norn and Nicol Bolas team up to kill Emrakul on Ravnica will not win Best Creative Design, but that's another matter entirely.
4. For a set to be eligible for the polls for its respective quarter, both of the following must be true: Its set file must have been made publicly available on the Magic Set Editor forums during that quarter, and its first release in any form must have been within the same quarter as that set file release. Let's go over the consequences of that.
4a. Reuploads of your sets from the old MSE forums are just that-- reuploads.
4b. Reuploading a set you posted, for instance, on MTGSalvation in 2016 doesn't count either: having a set released in 2016 as a candidate in the Best Set of 2018 poll is anachronistic, to say the least.
4c. An update, remake, or retool of an existing set does not count as a new set unless the retool is so extensive that it's actually a new set (e.g., Mukrasa Overhaul).
4d. Non-hypothetical change: in the past, we've had several sets run in these polls that were released exclusively via the MSE Lackey plugin but never saw an official release on the forums. Starting in 2018 Q2, this is not okay anymore. These are forum contests; sets not posted on the forums can't really compete. (Death of Yakizma has been grandfathered in.)
Have fun partaking in the democratic process. I'll see you in a few weeks to unveil the new Featured Sets section.
