2019 'Deck of the Year' Awards: DISCUSSION

[Bradius]

I am just outspokenly bias towards Bicycle decks.

What?

I had no idea.

[STLBluesNut]

update: i forgot to mention that we should rename "Best Pips" category to "Best PipChicks"

Nope, there is only one Pipchick and she is the best. Loaded category.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

[Magic Tapp]

I cannot believe it is this hard to lobby for this category. You people against this are nuts. I do not have the time not the energy to argue this anymore. Bicycle is the only card brand 99% of the world knows but you'd rather vote on a deck that looks good in a fan? If you guys are just sore and pissy that NPCC doesn't get its own category then maybe they should try to create a brand as strong and famous as Bicycle. Same for all other factories. And maybe then they can be considered in a "Best Brand" category.
To discriminate against USPCC because they create the hands-down, number 1 most selling deck in the world is ludicrous to me. But like I said, I'm spent. Do what you want, I don't care anymore.

Paul - firstly, whenever someone addresses others as "you people", that is not particularly nice. Secondly, and more importantly, why should we grant award to an otherwise inferior deck simply because it is a Bicycle one? If there is one with a nice tuck or courts or pips, that is one thing but the awards need to be decided on their merits rather than the name that is slapped on the tuck.

Last but not least, if we resort to a "Best Brand" category, what would define a brand? If it is only Bicycle, than that is rather daft. Are KWP or Oath or S17 brands - one might argue that at least some of them are.

All in all, if I were to choose in between best art and best Bike categories, I would go for the former.

[Harvonsgard]

You people against this are nuts.

That's what they always say

[MagikFingerz]

I don't think this applies. I wouldn't say this forum is a business venture, nor would I ever want it to be. A lot would be done differently if the main goal of this website was to generate revenue, and not for the better.

1. Sure it's not a business!

<PROMO> That is why it's important to donate some $$$ to keep this forum running. Here is a thread where you can donate $5/10/20 monthly.
One time donations are also possible: Donate to "Friends of UC" & your UC Wall of Heroes
</PROMO>

2. Having a sponsor is not that bad and much better than accepting prizes from designers. One week ago, USPCC sponsored two years of "Bicycle Playing Card Collectors" FB group, provided three gift cards ($100+$100+$50) to members. Just FYI. Why not?

It's not a for-profit business, and you know that's what I meant. I'm fine with not getting gift cards if it means not selling out the integrity of this contest.

[vasta41]

...why should we grant award to an otherwise inferior deck simply because it is a Bicycle one? If there is one with a nice tuck or courts or pips, that is one thing but the awards need to be decided on their merits rather than the name that is slapped on the tuck.

Last but not least, if we resort to a "Best Brand" category, what would define a brand? If it is only Bicycle, than that is rather daft. Are KWP or Oath or S17 brands - one might argue that at least some of them are.

All in all, if I were to choose in between best art and best Bike categories, I would go for the former.

IMO flashcards said it best:

Your basic Bike can't compete with a Lotrek or JR and shouldn't have too. Just because it doesn't cost $99 doesn't mean it can't be a great deck.

If you don't believe that then we will have to agree to disagree. I've seen plenty of great Bicycle-branded decks fly by the wayside over the years simply because they didn't fall into a preexisting voting category. I lost no sleep over this but I'm just trying to give those decks a home; decks greater than the sum of their parts that I personally deem to be worthy enough to have a home.

Paul - firstly, whenever someone addresses others as "you people", that is not particularly nice.

Not that I owe you an explanation but I used that phrase as an all-encompassing term in a completely non-disrespectful way. I'm sure any objective person would realize that. So please keep your morality lessons off this forum.

[Magic Tapp]

Not that I owe you an explanation but I used that phrase as an all-encompassing term in a completely non-disrespectful way. I'm sure any objective person would realize that. So please keep your morality lessons off this forum.

Indeed, you do not owe me one but equally you do not have a right to tell me what to say or not to say.

[theCapraAegagrus]

How have these awards become divisive?

[PipChick]

Hi y'all!

Firstly, I just wanna give a not so quick update on where we seem to be at:

2. the Master List Google doc is, to the best of my abilities, *almost* complete and will be ready/available in it's entirety by this upcoming Monday, November 25th
   
   
3. the Nominations thread will also be opened this upcoming Monday, November 25th
   
   
4. the official time period for nomination submissions will be accepted from Monday, November 25th - Monday, January 6th, 2020. ***After Monday, January 6th, no new/last-minute nominations will be accepted - no exceptions*** (sorry, but I allowed nominations to be submitted right up until voting opened last year and, in all honesty, it was an added point of unnecessary stress as we had already allotted quite a bit of time for nominations to be submitted prior to voting and, yet, there were still people trying to get noms submitted in the 11th hour... thanks, but no thanks lol. This period allows a full, 6-week time frame which is more than enough time for anyone to be able to submit nominations for recognition in the DOTY awards - no exceptions so please start thinking ahead about it now if you need to)
   
   
5. the official open voting time period of UC's DOTY event has been changed to run from Friday, Jan. 10th - Friday, Jan. 31st, 2020
   
   
6. the DOTY Timeline has been editted/adjusted to reflect these new scheduling changes and can be reviewed here. Any questions/comments/concerns/suggestions/etc. please don't hesitate to bring them up here and we'll address them as early on as we can so we can keep on track with planning so everything can run as smoothly as possible - thanks!

. . . . .

So, that brings us to our next topic in regards to the possible inclusion of one or more new DOTY award categories: I've been following along closely with your feedback and keeping track of the all the very valid reasoning and rational expressed on both ends of the spectrum in favor and against proposal of including a 'Best Art Deck' category and, most particularly, a 'Best Branded Deck' category into our DOTY award line-up.

'Best Art Deck': While yes, there have been quite a few decks to come out this year in particular that wouldn't necessarily fit too well into many of the other categories (ie. transformation decks), should we be deciding to induct a special category solely for the purpose of giving those specific decks we have in mind the spotlight this year when, generally, decks like these are released far and few between? We can also simply amend the defining parameters of the 'Best Non-Poker Deck' category to also include such particular decks and that may be a more practical solution at this time - what do y'all think?

Regardless, most generally seem pretty indifferent to the inclusion of a 'Best Art Deck' category with not a whole lot of strong opinions expressed in favor nor against adding it to our DOTY awards.... so, if there's not a lot of excitement from the community for this category in general, I feel that there doesn't seem like a strong enough reason to include it just for the sake of including it... What do y'all think? Perhaps this is one that can be left out this year? Would anyone *really* care one way or the other? If not (which, that seems to be the consensus at the time of writing this post) and unless it becomes apparent otherwise from a strong last-minute outpour of support from the community as a whole, then perhaps this will have to be a category that is left out for now and we can very much still re-address whether or not it's worth including in next year's event.

And as for the 'Best Branded Deck' category... the inclusion of this is one seems to be a topic the community is most passionate about debating at the moment. However, as of now and from those that have expressed an opinion one way or another, it appears that thoughts on the matter are, at best, pretty evenly split and we're at a stalemate... should these discussions perhaps also be tabled this year and re-addressed again next year when our community may be more or less united in agreement??

Lastly, I want to take a moment thank all of you for taking the time and thoughtful consideration in passionately participating in these discussions - I really love seeing so many members of the UC fam come together to help plan and organize this community event - THANK YOU! I do also feel I need to remind and make clear that although *I* have my own personal thoughts on each of the specific matters at hand and, in all honesty, am pretty torn as I find myself agreeing with many of the awesome points y'all are bringing up on both sides of the table, the decisions we come to together are made with the community as a whole in mind. With that said, it's seems only fair and most practical that if there's no clear majority of unanimous agreement from the community in support of making big changes, then - love it or hate it - no changes will be made and y'all will just have to agree to disagree and we'll leave it at that so we can move on in planning and preparations. I seriously got nuthin' but mad love, respect and appreciation for each and every one of y'all as you're ALL what makes UC the best ever so please understand that although there are challenges and disagreements, the planning, organization and management of the DOTYs are all done with every intention of ensuring that this is, to the best of our collective abilities, an event to represent us ALL here at UC and, as always, to make this year the best DOTYs ever!

So, as it stands, shall we just simply keep the 15 categories that we have from last year and move on?

Because, unless y'all are serious about coming to a unanimous agreement, I don't see any reason to continue further debating these issues at hand if everyone is set firm in their opinions on the matter as we'll still just continue to be stuck in a deadlock as we are now that'll prevent us from keeping on track with our timeline and moving on...

. . . . .

If/when y'all are ready to move on, we do still have a few topics of importance to address:

TOPICS OF IMPORTANCE TO ADDRESS

• [_] Promotional Graphic(s) : do you or perhaps someone you know have the skillz to create a promotional graphic or few for UC? Would you wanna get involved and help out? Last year, I was able to recruit the help of a designer friend of mine to take the time to make 2 graphics for us and, in combo with my own very limited skills, just simply added clipart to them for reuse several times over in promotion of the DOTYs both here at UC as well as reddit, IG and FB... but, since this *is* a community event, it'd be great if there's perhaps someone within the UC community that would also be willing to donate whatever time/effort they may have towards working together to create something for our event. If not, I suppose I can resort back once again to asking my friend to create something as a personal favor with the understanding from all of you that it is a personal favor and we'd be giving her free reign to create something as she'd like it which would likely look similar to what we used last year... I dunno how y'all felt about the promo last year but, again, not being a person that has the skillz to create something on my own, it was honestly the best I could do with what I had So this year, any suggestions or constructive criticism, or help would be greatly appreciated from all of us

• [_] Rules of Participation & Voting : please first refer to those stated in last year's event here and please feel free to bring up any areas you see that have been or may be a potential area of concern so we can work on improvement

• [_] Announcement of DOTY Award Winners & Prize Giveaway Winners : as you may or may not have noticed, the tentative DOTY timeline above currently has the announcement of the DOTY Award Winners & the Prize Giveaway Winners scheduled one week apart - I propose that we make this change so that the Giveaway aspect of our event does not overshadow the honor and recognition of the DOTY Award Winners... any thoughts? yay or nay?

• [_] Prize Giveaway Contest : we absolutely will need to implement a new rule about a time-limit by which giveaway winners must claim their prize within. I very much still stand by many of my own sentiments regarding last year's issues of AWOL participants as stated here but would love to hear what y'all think regarding the scenario brought forth and how we can most effectively avoid running into such issues again in this year's event

• [_] Additional concerns : anything else y'all would like to see be addressed? Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? Please don't hesitate to express anything on your mind regarding the DOTYs and we'll absolutely include it to this list and do our best to discuss it. The goal with this thread is not only give you the opportunity to do so but also for all of us to, the best of our collective ability as a community, come to a consensus in how this event is managed and run - as I said before, the DOTYs are for all of you! So get involved and voice your thoughts on how we can make it bigger and better than ever for everyone!

The sooner we can check these off our list as having been addressed and agreed upon by all, the sooner we can focus our time, attention and efforts on other matters to make this year the best DOTYs ever - thanks!

[vasta41]

And as for the 'Best Branded Deck' cagegory... the inclusion of this is one seems to be a topic the community is most passionate about debating at the moment. However, as of now and from those that have expressed an opinion one way or another, it appears that thoughts on the matter are, at best, pretty evenly split and we're at a stalemate... should these discussions perhaps also be tabled this year and re-addressed again next year when our community may be more or less united in agreement??

That happened last year. And the year before that. And so on. Unless we take this to an official vote, like I said before I have no interest arguing this anymore.

[MURRAY]

[Bradius]

If Lotrek ever finishes and releases his Hieronymus Bosch deck, Pip will make sure there is a Best Hieronymus Bosch Deck category.

[PipChick]

And as for the 'Best Branded Deck' cagegory... the inclusion of this is one seems to be a topic the community is most passionate about debating at the moment. However, as of now and from those that have expressed an opinion one way or another, it appears that thoughts on the matter are, at best, pretty evenly split and we're at a stalemate... should these discussions perhaps also be tabled this year and re-addressed again next year when our community may be more or less united in agreement??

That happened last year. And the year before that. And so on. Unless we take this to an official vote, like I said before I have no interest arguing this anymore.

[MURRAY]

I feel your frustrations - believe me - truly, I do.

But the way I see it is that those members of the community who are most invested in this event are those getting involved early on right now and voicing out their thoughts and opinions on such matters... if this small sample size of super committed and passionate UC members cannot and will not come to a unanimous agreement, how do you suppose we can get others to? I mean, we shouldn't just add in a new DOTY award category just for the sake of being able to unless there's a majority of expressed interest in doing so... And I'm not arguing for or against such a category, just simply pointing out that there's not enough support on one side or the other and if we continue to remain in a deadlocked stalemate as we are, we won't be able to keep on track and move forward.

As a community, we're clearly split. So, can we at the very least agree that changes shouldn't be made if we can't get a majority rule by which the community can, as a whole, stand behind together?

Maybe that'll change next year, (and I seriously hope it does regardless of what the outcome may be) but for now, it'd be a futile effort and a waste of time to continue to debate back and forth over and over and over again if there's unfortunately not going to be any resolution in sight

just my 2 cents

[Outsider]

I'm not really invested in any of this, I just had an evening to BS a little and don't really comprehend what the intended purpose of a specifically "branded deck" category is. I kind of assumed it was so drugstore decks would get some exposure and proceeded from there. If Paul really does care that much about it being branded vs in-house decks I wasn't being facetious when I said just go for it. The fact that I don't "get it" would be nothing new, people do lots of things I don't grok.

I mean, I kinda hope it's not actually a mono-brand category that ends up giving awards to custom decks that happened to have a logo because I think that's silly, but also, who cares that much what I think?

[Romeril]

yes, we did have a 'Best Uncut' category in the past, but part of the reason it had been cut (haha, I'm still punny and you know it ) from our line-up is that we were/are trying to keep the DOTYs as streamlined as possible since having sooo many categories and feels of being overwhelmed was one expressed reason people had pointed to as choosing not to participate in the past. This is also why I'm a bit resistant to continue to add any more than perhaps 1 new 'Best Art Deck' category... This was actually a compromise I had suggested last year to these very same concerns

This pretty much sums up my thoughts. Right now, as it stands, I think there are 15 categories. Much more than that it gets kind of daunting, less fun, and more of a chore to vote. Especially for someone like me who maybe puts too much thought into making a decision. I think if there is a category that people want to add, the majority should want that category, and also maybe should agree on a category to eliminate to make room for the new category.

Just my two cents. Thought I would add my voice to all the others here.

[STLBluesNut]

Can we all at least agree that whatever happens with the DOTY categories and votes, that we need another twopiece video of him boxing up his award donation?

That was priceless.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

[BaconWise]

Can we all at least agree that whatever happens with the DOTY categories and votes, that we need another twopiece video of him boxing up his award donation?

That was priceless.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

Can someone edit the video to include sound effects for the decks zipping through the air? Perhaps a small explosion each time he makes it into the shipping box? It could be a real production

[Bradius]

Can we all at least agree that whatever happens with the DOTY categories and votes, that we need another twopiece video of him boxing up his award donation?

That was priceless.

Using advanced and proprietary technology...



Of course that might also be the Australian Customs Officials. I am not too sure.

[STLBluesNut]

Can someone edit the video to include sound effects for the decks zipping through the air? Perhaps a small explosion each time he makes it into the shipping box? It could be a real production [emoji38] [emoji38] [emoji38]

Definitely some broken glass sounds as well lol.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

[justplaycards]

More than happy to do some promotional graphics. Just DM me an example of what you did last year and the format sizes you need...

[PipChick]

More than happy to do some promotional graphics. Just DM me an example of what you did last year and the format sizes you need...

Hi JPC!

OMG - WOW! That'd be beyond amazing! I'm so sorry for the delay in responding back to you both here in the thread and privately - I've just been super-duper busy with the holiday coming up and whatnot but on behalf of the entire community, thank you so very, very much for your offer and I'll be sending you a message shortly to discuss specific details so we can work together and see what we can do!

. . . . .

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Please take a look at the thread here and read through the important information carefully about the thread and how to submit nominations for recognition in the DOTYs.

If you have any comments/questions/concerns regarding the nomination process or anything relating to the DOTY Awards, as always, please feel free to either address it openly here in this discussion thread or you may also reach out to me privately through PM.

Thanks everyone for your participation and I hope to see some awesome nominations submitted!

GET NOM'IN! lol

[Räpylätassu]

Just sent a big pile of nominations!

[Harvonsgard]

I've just worked myself through the list of the 2019 releases...

First of all, thanks to whomever is/was compiling it. Second my apologies, on behalf, to that/the person/s that had to put so much waste on that list. Quite amazing what gets funded and what not. Can't wait to see more nominees in the categories. No surprises yet .

[macstrat]

I always feel guilty voting for decks I havent actually seen in person...

[Strag]

Nothing wrong with appreciating a good design even if you don't own it

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

[STLBluesNut]

I always feel guilty voting for decks I havent actually seen in person...

I can understand this.

I feel that pictures in this medium seem pretty good to judge a deck on though. This isn't like game or movie awards where you can't really get much of a real sense of it unless you played or watched it.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

[Conturbia]

Hi I want to thank you for the nomination of Pinocchio, also on behalf of Elettra Deganello

[akicer]

I'd like to advise to take Charlemagne off the nomination list as it's not delivered and likely to be a scam

[Räpylätassu]

I'd like to advise to take Charlemagne off the nomination list as it's not delivered and likely to be a scam

I have received my decks from the creator. Not a scam but the project got screwed when the customs on the Russian-Estonian border seized the decks and does not release them.

That however does not justify that the creator just stopped communicating at one point once the customs saga just kept going.

[Bradius]

I never received my Charlemagne rewards. No communication from the creator either.

[hsbc]

I'm also waiting for my Charlemagne deck - at this point I'll be shocked and pleasantly surprised if I ever get it