2020 'Deck of the Year' Awards - UC x P52

[MSimonart]

Pip, go check the 2nd place 'use of color' and 3rd place 'back design' in your post. Small typing errors / wrong name.

And I think you've inverted the honorable mention and the first place on 'best back design' (that's a joke though)

[Harvonsgard]

It seems to be the rule would be simple: can you play a card game with the cards? No = non-poker deck

Tarot is a game of cards, just sayin'.

[Decknowledgy]

2cents before it's too late as only half of the winners were announced. As you may know, I was always skeptical about DOTY (and I don't care about the results). But now I am concerned (and still skeptical). It's no longer UC DOTY, and it's sad. Bring it back to UC! It must be UC members-only voting. I don't think UC needs such a big event as it's a small community. Otherwise, results are very vulnerable as simple promotion strategies work well in this setup (more surprises to come).

I respect what @PipChick did! No questions!

p.s. No mention of Lotrek's decks is LOL, 2nd place for Keymaster is LOL, 1st place for Dark Kingdom Joker is LOL, etc.

Was going to say something but Alex had said it clearly here, completely agree.
However, there are a few more comments I'd like to make about this format.

1. Platform:
For me, the gripe I have is completely moving the voting and announcements to Instagram. Since this year's event turned out to be a UC x P52 event, moving the event and advertising to Instagram is definitely the way to lure more people to this forum. However, when looking at UC, there's basically minimal to no spontaneous updates, announcements, or "eventful" feel for the DOTY awards. Not only has the awards been announced on Instagram, the prize draw became a cross promo for P52 x Deckin Around on YouTube with no early announcements here (it was posted by @Strag who saw it on reddit). So where is the UnitedCardists involvement in all this? To me it seems that in order to entice more people to join in the vote the whole event was moved from UC and brought to Instagram, and there's not sense of participation in it for the active members here anymore. This must be stressed again: Not all UC members are on Instagram, and this is proven many times when some members are unaware of the Instagram posts and news being posted here.

2. Voters Identity?
Seeing the results of this year had me confounded in several categories. A lot of the winners felt like they were chosen by popular vote---popular meaning the general card community. Being on UC long enough you'll recognize that the design preferences between the most active threads/decks on UC and the selected winners of this year's categories don't really fit. Although the voting rules have said that one should state their UC membership ID to complete the voting, I wonder how strict this rule was? The voting system doesn't really block you from voting if anyone just types a random ID name, as far as I know. The takeaway from Deckin Around's prize drawing live video was that there were 900+ voters and a lot of the prize winners were Russian names, but when did UC have so many Russian members? This brings back the question again: so is DOTY now an open event for the general card community or is it just for UC? I don't really feel that it's the latter. The results definitely reflect decks that were highly promoted and advertised across different platforms instead of those cherished and praised on UC. It definitely brought more attention to Portfolio52's Instagram page and website (which is a good thing), but attention to UC, this forum? I truly wonder.

EDIT: Point 2 has nothing to do with with who deserves to win the voter's giveaway raffle, just using the Russian names as an observation that there might be non UC members involved in the voting. Alex has given voting data explanation here in this thread.

3. The Final Verdict
All in all, I'm not putting blame on the organizers of the DOTY awards this year, as we all know DOTY and UC have always been operating at minimum human resource. Best I can think of is that by moving this year's voting to a separate system and promoting it fully on Instagram are bold and experimental moves that are welcome. However, while the DOTY awards bloom on Instagram, there is a sense of lacking on this forum where things are pretty much uneventful except for Pip's reminders and posts. In terms of the results, I'm happy if they reflect what the general mass considers and how the voting drew more attention to the DOTY awards. But the format that the DOTY awards took on this year has moved much away from its UC roots, as UC members probably would have assumed. "Wasn't DOTY always a strictly UC members' voting?" This is the question lingering in the air of this forum I feel. I just hope that the success of this format could be taken in as an analytical result for future awards, and that the balance can be restored where cross-platform promotions join in hand with the OG forum-base community. Once again, I fully appreciate the dedication, time, and effort that Pip, Alex, the Portfolio52 team, and the UC organizers have put into this event. Hopefully this year serves as a successful experiment and UC could still remain as the focus for future events.

EDIT: The final verdict was made without the knowledge that the main event and publicity was basically presented and organized by merely two people: Alex and Pipchick. And as discussed and brainstormed later, this year's DOTY does not evolve around UC in order to reach out to the wider community per se.

[Strag]

I certainly don't want to disperage the work done by PipChick and the rest but I was supremely disappointed by the "show" last night. I don't know who Tyler and Steve are but I was not impressed by their comments (in particular they decided it was funny to make fun of peoples nicknames) or the fact that "all Russian names look alike". Alex's comments that the whole nomination process should also be completely on P52 and not UC means that this absolutely will turn into a popularity contest and not one for and by the UC community.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's prefectly fine for there to be a set of P52s playing card awards, but these (the DOTYs) were started by the UC community and some of the prizes were donated by the UC community and instead they are going to go to people outside to community. I mean that seems to go against the spirit of the awards, why they were started and why people were gifting prizes but I dunno. I stayed up late to watch last night and turned it off after 30 minutes with the negative comments about the nomination process and the rather cringe comments that I saw on YouTube and complete lack (during my time) of mention of UC.

I love this community and I think there is tremendous value from our discussions here but I really don't think these awards are reflective of this community, which I think was always the intent.

I should also note that the $52 Art of Play vouchers are pretty much useless to international buyers due to the insane shipping costs charged by AoP to us.

You can watch a VOD here of the giveaway: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/909074710

Just want to emphasize again, this is NOT a rant against all the hard work that Alex, PipChick and others put into this event, its just feedback and observations to be taken into consideration for the future. Having done these sorts of endeavours myself in another life, I am more than aware how thankless a job it really is.

[masagin303]

I don't know who Tyler and Steve are but I was not impressed by their comments (in particular they decided it was funny to make fun of peoples nicknames) or the fact that "all Russian names look alike".

Same here. Especially this Steve dude was terribly unprofessional and rude, On top of what you mentioned, he several times just jumped into Pipchick's middle of a sentence. Please, never more.

[Decknowledgy]

I don't know who Tyler and Steve are but I was not impressed by their comments (in particular they decided it was funny to make fun of peoples nicknames) or the fact that "all Russian names look alike".

Same here. Especially this Steve dude was terribly unprofessional and rude, On top of what you mentioned, he several times just jumped into Pipchick's middle of a sentence. Please, never more.

Last time when they had Lorenzo on as a guest, several times Steve would interrupt Lorenzo in the middle of the speech because someone had made a donation in the chat, disregarding the fact that Lorenzo was in the middle of his flow and thought.

[Bradius]

As I didn't help with this year's event, I feel that my right to gripe is weak at best. If I want to criticize, then I should help organize the event at least in some meaningful way. With that disclaimer out of the way, please let me proceed...

The UC DOTY was much more aggressively promoted last year in an effort to get more than 50 voters, which honestly is about the number of active UC posters....sad, but our group of active posters is rather limited. It is what it is. I thought last year was a great success, but it took a lot out of PipChick as she took the brunt of the workload. Honestly, trying to organize this event, even on a small scale is no small effort. As we expand the number of voters, we do loose our (UC active contributers) "voice" in the voting.

The advantages of getting a larger pool of voters: 1) it adds to the overall validation of the results as it gets more people involved and wider opinions. 2) It is less of a "club" voting. I say this in the negative and insular use of the word "club", where a few snobs argue over stuff the common collector couldn't care less about., 3) We get to pull in new sponsorships. I didn't realize the huge prize Cartamundi donated for the winner of the UC DOTY. If this event had been handled like it had a few years ago, there would be a zero chance of Cartamundi offering that kind of contribution. We may want to keep it where the award is more of a name thing, but that prize is notable.

With all of the prize offerings and the way we have handled prize selections in the past, I do like how it was done randomly this time. It was a new try, and I think it worked better. At least now I can get my prizes hopefully shipped off shortly and not have to follow a thread for months. I see that as an improvement.

Thanks to Alex to help with the voting system. Even if we kept voting smaller, we really needed a better method of recording votes. So, thank you Alex for stepping up with this effort.

All above said, I am concerned that if we continue down this path, UC DOTY will become a popularity contest where highly popular hype deck sellers can easily overwhelm really well designed decks by smaller creators. I don't have a great solution at this point, but it is a potentially big problem. The day a NOC gets voted DOTY is the day I give up on UC DOTY. I am honestly worried such a thing could come to pass. Creators like Alain Benoit would not stand a chance.

[Strag]

One thing to consider is that the more prizes that are offered (to the voters) the MUCH more likely it is that people who don't give a crap about the awards only vote in order to get prizes. Also I would wonder what measures were put in place to avoid fraudulent and/or multiple voters? It would be VERY easy and the work of a few hours to create a way to vote multiple hundreds of times with different and unique emails, names, IPs etc.

[bdawg923]

Keep the awards away from the Deckin around people. Isn't Steve the one who was getting offended when people had questions for the Marvelous hummingbird deck? He was defending them like he was an employee, then it was discovered they're a deckin around sponsor. That show sucks and I'd also be pissed if I watched Steve interrupting people and making fun of their names like some kind of clown.

I agree with the general sentiment. This contest was started by UC and should more or less stay focused here on the forums and not on every other platform. A UC contest award giveaway was covered by some random youtubers on Twitch. That doesn't make much sense.

[BaconWise]

I think this is one of those "precipice" moments for the UC forum, for sure. I really enjoyed the DotY format and all of the wonderful awards and prizes, but I can certainly see the identity of UC fading into the background as the DotY train gathers momentum. After the success of this year's awards, it's hard to imagine we would ever look back to the old format. Don't get me wrong: the old format is what got me interested in UC, and the card community, in the first place. I had to become a member and make a post and put some effort into being eligible (TGW (Omar) is the one to blame for subjecting this forum to my smartass and ridiculous commentary, by the way. ) A part of me wants to preserve that experience as a rite of passage and to preserve the voice this community has in the DotY awards. The other part of me welcomes the influx of potential future collectors or designers who are encouraged and inspired by seeing these great projects.

I totally understand the feeling that it will become a popularity contest and that we could potentially see hype brands push out the custom designers. I don't know how you avoid that possibility or the possibility of fraud, aside from requiring participation in the forum. I don't think that was a requirement this year, unless I am mistaken. Requiring participation would help weed out quite a few who just want to vote for a popular brand. They are lazy and going through steps is not something they would bother to do - especially if it a bogus profile.

The question is: do we resist or embrace the growth? It's a very difficult discussion, for sure.

That being said, I am forever grateful for PipChick's leadership and the ingenuity to get P52 and Alex involved. There were many others who helped on the committee and I look forward to helping for the 2021 DotY's in any way I can. It's a thankless and complicated job so THANK YOU!

[Decknowledgy]

3) We get to pull in new sponsorships. I didn't realize the huge prize Cartamundi donated for the winner of the UC DOTY. If this event had been handled like it had a few years ago, there would be a zero chance of Cartamundi offering that kind of contribution. We may want to keep it where the award is more of a name thing, but that prize is notable.

With all of the prize offerings and the way we have handled prize selections in the past, I do like how it was done randomly this time. It was a new try, and I think it worked better. At least now I can get my prizes hopefully shipped off shortly and not have to follow a thread for months. I see that as an improvement.

This got me wondering about a very fundamental question: were the prizes for the voters necessary from the beginning? I probably don't have enough experience to say much about this since I've only voted in 3 DOTY awards. Has the DOTY award always been that members who voted get entered into a giveaway raffle?

From what I remembered, the prizes were a good will offer between members instead of these massive sponsorship it's getting at the moment. Frankly, I find it weird that the voters are eligible for winning prizes when the point of the voting was supposed to be to focus on the decks, producers, and winners. What started as a good will among members have blown up to a full-scale sponsorship and promos and plugs for bigger companies, which feels odd to be honest. I'm not saying that any sponsorship is bad, like we all know that companies like JPGames, KWP, Thirdway, etc. are good friends of UC and participates a lot around here. Their intention is sincere while some big ballers in the business may just be using the event for plugging their products. At least it's obvious this year.

One thing to consider is that the more prizes that are offered (to the voters) the MUCH more likely it is that people who don't give a crap about the awards only vote in order to get prizes. Also I would wonder what measures were put in place to avoid fraudulent and/or multiple voters? It would be VERY easy and the work of a few hours to create a way to vote multiple hundreds of times with different and unique emails, names, IPs etc.

So Strag's observation is legit. What if, the thing that entices people to vote was the giveaway alone and not the simple and genuine motivation to encourage deck designers who've produced great deck designs in the past year? Personally I'm completely happy with not getting any prizes at all, because all I've wanted in the 3 years that I've voted was to let the designers know that they are supported, admired, and loved by the (UC) community. As bots become a major problem in the card community during many releases, I also see the danger of not setting up a stricter validation of who gets to vote, voting from where, and how many times a particular ID has voted (it should be strictly ONE). I don't see a reason why a bot user wouldn't take advantage of the loose system to get more chances to win the generous giveaways.

Just putting this here as a reminder to what the real spirit behind the DOTY awards is.

[andreac75]

I have 2 simple questions (I hope so...)

1. Last year I won a prize but since the bad situation in Italy (Covid was starting to spread) I preferred to pass and I asked to donate the prize for this year giveaway. Was it used?
2. Since we're from different part of the world, is there any list of giveaway winners?

Thanks

[IAmTheChin]

Hi guys, just wanted to give my two cents here having been part of the growth. It was brought up multiple times that Pip was going to drop the DOTYs due to the immense work. It was only after we talked and introduced the idea of a custom build on P52 to create structure that this event even happened this year.

Our goal was to help provide exposure to artists and decks through growing the event. Had I understood that people wanted to keep it limited, I nor Pip would have spent the significant resources of time and money into this. P52 partnered to create something fun to engage the community as a whole, not just UC. I apologize if I misunderstood as this goal became a lens for how all decisions managing this event were made: reducing obstacles and encouraging open participation.
This being said, without this shift I don’t think we would have been able to give the significant recognition to artists, especially with the sponsorships from Cartamundi or Legends, which I found to be a great achievement for the market and for the winners which would not have happened otherwise.

The giveaway was reluctantly kept because we thought it would help the transition to scale. The irony is that due to the success, there was also a lot more sponsors this year. While there were UC prize contributors the majority came from non-UC contributors as it scaled. Listing winners would have been easiest but we made an extra effort to cross platform to reach a larger audience. Whether or not that decision was correct is up to you, but the decision did come from the best intentions. I am happy to drop this portion in the future as it is a devastatingly large portion of work (almost a 2nd event) that I find irrelevant to the main goal.

2. Since we're from different part of the world, is there any list of giveaway winners?

We're currently matching everyone up and each winner/donor should receive a message to their email associated with their account of who they need to contact. Once matched you will be able to sort addresses, shipping details, and any other nitty gritty necessary. There were about 160 gifts given out last night so it'll take a bit of time for us to get it sorted.

At the end of the day it sounds like a lot of the reservation revolves around handling growth which comes with any democratic vote. I’m not looking to step on any toes and if people want to maintain the clubhouse feel I’m happy to shift gears and P52 can do its own thing. But if it really is just about the prizes, the solution could just be as simple as keeping the giveaway as a UC thing. I think few people realize the actual gravity to the amount of work involved in running this kind of event so it does make us feel extremely disheartened seeing these kinds of comments after that much effort was put forth.

[PipChick]

I just want to say that you all have seriously broken what little spirit I had in ever even thinking to take on this event for yet *another* year... I cannot express enough how hurt I am after so much personal sacrifice that no one could possibly ever even imagine nor any sane person would put themselves through and I did, yet again, to serve the greater card community... I'm heartbroken and I'm sorry that despite all of our very absolute best efforts and wholehearted intentions, it still wasn't enough and probably never will be...

[Stud722]

I just want to say that you all have seriously broken what little spirit I had in ever even thinking to take on this event for yet *another* year... I cannot express enough how hurt I am after so much personal sacrifice that no one could possibly ever even imagine nor any sane person put themselves through and I did, yet again, to serve the greater card community... I'm heartbroken and I'm sorry that despite all of our very absolute best efforts and intentions, it still wasn't enough and probably never will be...

Pip,
I just wanted to let you know that I truly appreciate all the hard work and dedication that you put into this event. I hope that you know that there are quite a few of us that are grateful for you and your time. No event will ever satisfy 100% of the people. Everyone will have an opinion. Change is hard but necessary to evolve. You are apprecaited!

[MagikFingerz]

Alex and Pip: People are just voicing their comments and opinions, there's no need to take it as criticism or negative judgement. The event that has been quite similar for many years changed a lot this year, many of those changes were not announced, and it's understandable that people want to share their thoughts on this. Let's just have a discussion without making things overly personal.

[hsbc]

Nooooo Pip you did nothing wrong and put together yet another awesome event!!! I think MagikFingerz has it, it's just a LOT different (and faster!) from years before

[hsbc]

.... I do not and never have been given access to *any* of the United Cardists social media accounts despite several attempts at inquire of it specifically for promotion of this event and of the literally HUNDREDS of DOTY graphics I poured countless hours into making up over the past 3 years and tagging and sending over, Mike has only ever reposted 3 (none for this year)...

....

I think it reflects better being promoted on the P52 accounts as a community event rather than just on my *own personal* account which I've sacrificed for UC and sorta for nothin' too since it never even makes it onto the *actual* "official" UC account...

And this is a big red flag Who is in charge of UC's social media and what possible excuse is there to not let PipChick in? Hell give the account over to her totally It feels odd to complain that the DOTYs are much less UC-centric when apparently the UC powers that be don't really care at all??

[Decknowledgy]

Alex and Pip, I'm quoting both of you here without the contents just for the sake that this feedback I'm making gets through you.

I seriously, and sincerely, hope that both of you have not misread my messages earlier. I understand how easy it is to feel put down by any kind of "criticism," which in my terms, is actually trying to help a little by "troubleshooting" as I would call it. I am sorry that I couldn't join in the organization as much as I'd like due to my personal responsibilities. By no means my comments earlier were to downplay the efforts, dedication, and the money (to put it bluntly) that both of you and the team have put into the DOTY awards. I hope by saying this and making it clear what my intentions were, you could read my earlier comments in a different perspective.

To simplify my earlier points:
1. The format was great, but UC's involvement felt lacking. This could be solved just by tweaking a bit next year by providing some more attachments to this forum. Believe me, to make UC members feel included it's not that hard and complicated, and I'm sure a lot of us would be happy to help out in terms of making announcements accessible on this forum.

2. The major question: Is DOTY ever a UC-based event or not? In the past, I thought so; in the outcome of this year's event plus Alex's latest response, it seems not???? I'm genuinely confused because the way both of you put it made it sound like this event was destined to be opened for the wider playing card community, while in the past the DOTY awards were always rooted in UC. I just yearn for some clarification. Why is clarification important? Because it concerns the nature of the DOTY awards. If it's clear from the get-go that the definition of the DOTY awards was fluid and you wanted it to be an event for the general playing card community, then I fully accept and happily scrape whatever feedback I've given. The reason I'm asking is that the nature of the event was never stated clearly from the start, or probably I've missed it (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I hope that clears the air... And Pip don't cry!!!!

[Timmargh]

PipChick and Alex (there may be others, I don't know who) worked their asses off to improve the DotY, to make the vote easier for us and, I assume, themselves, brought in more sponsors to expand awareness and reward voters, and some of you are complaining?

It feels odd to complain that the DOTYs are much less UC-centric when apparently the UC powers that be don't really care at all??

Exactly:

[…] I do not and never have been given access to *any* of the United Cardists social media accounts despite several attempts at inquire of it specifically for promotion of this event and of the literally HUNDREDS of DOTY graphics I poured countless hours into making up over the past 3 years and tagging and sending over, Mike has only ever reposted 3 (none for this year)... I am the one posting on the P52 account because I have no official platform to do so for UC... this is what's sad... I think it reflects better being promoted on the P52 accounts as a community event rather than just on my *own personal* account which I've sacrificed for UC and sorta for nothin' too since it never even makes it onto the *actual* "official" UC account...

[MSimonart]

In my opinion, this is not the place to voice criticism on the organization of the awards.
They aren't even over yet, awards winners still have to be announced and this is still the official UC page for the announcement of these awards!

Sure part of getting the results is voicing your content/disappointment about winners, that's all part of the fun.
But just out of respect for those who organized this event, I don't think any disappointment with the winners should be correlated with the way it was organized in this thread.

And it's not because I don't think good points/concerns are brought up here, it's because you can't ask the organizers to already reasonably reflect on their past work while they are still in fact finishing up the event. And they probably need another week after it before the stress and tension is relieved and they contemplate the idea of reflection/evaluation. And probably for Alex as well, but certainly for PipChick, we have witnessed the stress and rush she was in to have this event organized in time and as best she possibly could with the resources and the passion she had.

It would have been a way better way to have a new thread called 'Feedback on the awards', at least there people could have already voiced their concerns/opinions on the organization and on one side it leaves the organizers the time to settle down before going into that thread and checking what went well, what could be better next time, but it also leaves the official award thread cleaner and make it possible to have conversations about the winners/decks, anything which isn't directly related to the organization.

I'll just say this about how I feel the awards went (without yet going into much detail):

- I think that the way you have organized this offers such a broad spectrum of incredible added value, and the amount of paths that can be explored thanks to this work far outweigh the legitimate concerns already voiced. True, this was an experiment, but it was an incredibly successful one.
- I think it's unacceptable that PipChick (and probably Alex and others) have had to sacrifice so much time on the organization of these awards in such a little time-frame. Even though they did it with passion and care, and there will always be some rush just before and during an event, the DOTY are a yearly contest, and so we always have a full year to prepare it. I think if we ever want to organize it again and continue improving it, we need that full year to do it. And certainly for upcoming year, a lot of brainstorming and preparing will have to be done and the more people are involved in this and the earlier we start, the more relaxed and enjoyable the event can be for everyone.

[Romeril]

Hi, I know I don’t post here much, but I felt like I couldn’t scroll last all of this with out saying a few words. I’ll apologize in advance for my lack of eloquence.
I’m saddened by what I have read here. While I don’t think it was anyone’s intention to cut PipChick down, some of you have completely smashed her spirit. She saved this event, she asked for help, as you all know it is a huge endeavor; how many of you offered to help? She was faced by roadblock after roadblock from UC, not only did partnering with P52 make the event possible this year, but it also grew! Having Cartamundi, Legends, and Shuffled Ink donate credit to winners is amazing! I am most excited about the winner of the Best Rookie Deck, will have 2,000 reasons to continue and make a second deck. I would much rather have the Doty’s be large enough for this to happen than it remain small and limited only to this forum. After all, we can still come back here to the forums and discuss the results (can you believe that Keymaster did not win Best Non-Poker Deck?!? He was robbed!)

My wife and I were brainstorming some possibilities: maybe in each category there could be a first, second, and third place, and also a UC pick that is decided only by UC voters. As far as the possibility of a NOC deck being nominated, what about the possibility of UC members being to the Doty’s what the academy is to the academy awards? Only UC does the nominations, but then everyone can vote? Just spitballing here.

Anyway, thank you Pip and Alex for saving the Doty’s. I love the event and look forward to it. By and large these Doty’s were a huge success only made possible by your efforts.

[MagikFingerz]

My wife and I were brainstorming some possibilities: maybe in each category there could be a first, second, and third place, and also a UC pick that is decided only by UC voters. As far as the possibility of a NOC deck being nominated, what about the possibility of UC members being to the Doty’s what the academy is to the academy awards? Only UC does the nominations, but then everyone can vote? Just spitballing here.

I really like these ideas! Sounds like a great way to keep the DOTY's a "UC event" while also being able to grow the event as a whole.

[BaconWise]

My wife and I were brainstorming some possibilities: maybe in each category there could be a first, second, and third place, and also a UC pick that is decided only by UC voters. As far as the possibility of a NOC deck being nominated, what about the possibility of UC members being to the Doty’s what the academy is to the academy awards? Only UC does the nominations, but then everyone can vote? Just spitballing here.

I really like these ideas! Sounds like a great way to keep the DOTY's a "UC event" while also being able to grow the event as a whole.

Seconded. Thirded as well. Might as well write me down for Fourthed through Twenty-Ninth while you're at it. I love the idea of a UC Selection for the DotY categories, as well as a nominating committee. Good stuff!

[Timmargh]

My wife and I were brainstorming some possibilities: maybe in each category there could be a first, second, and third place, and also a UC pick that is decided only by UC voters. As far as the possibility of a NOC deck being nominated, what about the possibility of UC members being to the Doty’s what the academy is to the academy awards? Only UC does the nominations, but then everyone can vote? Just spitballing here.

I really like these ideas! Sounds like a great way to keep the DOTY's a "UC event" while also being able to grow the event as a whole.

Seconded. Thirded as well. Might as well write me down for Fourthed through Twenty-Ninth while you're at it. I love the idea of a UC Selection for the DotY categories, as well as a nominating committee. Good stuff!

Thirtythended

[bdawg923]

My wife and I were brainstorming some possibilities: maybe in each category there could be a first, second, and third place, and also a UC pick that is decided only by UC voters. As far as the possibility of a NOC deck being nominated, what about the possibility of UC members being to the Doty’s what the academy is to the academy awards? Only UC does the nominations, but then everyone can vote? Just spitballing here.

I really like these ideas! Sounds like a great way to keep the DOTY's a "UC event" while also being able to grow the event as a whole.

Seconded. Thirded as well. Might as well write me down for Fourthed through Twenty-Ninth while you're at it. I love the idea of a UC Selection for the DotY categories, as well as a nominating committee. Good stuff!

Thirtythended

Thirthyfirsted

(Also I hope my comments before didn't come off as criticism of pipchick or Alex. It was more unexpected than anything I guess that the event branched out so fast without much notice. The work you both put into the event in this limited amount of time was basically a miracle so awesome job both of you)

[montenzi]

So Strag's observation is legit. What if, the thing that entices people to vote was the giveaway alone and not the simple and genuine motivation to encourage deck designers who've produced great deck designs in the past year? Personally I'm completely happy with not getting any prizes at all, because all I've wanted in the 3 years that I've voted was to let the designers know that they are supported, admired, and loved by the (UC) community. As bots become a major problem in the card community during many releases, I also see the danger of not setting up a stricter validation of who gets to vote, voting from where, and how many times a particular ID has voted (it should be strictly ONE). I don't see a reason why a bot user wouldn't take advantage of the loose system to get more chances to win the generous giveaways.

Just putting this here as a reminder to what the real spirit behind the DOTY awards is.

This! It is already happening. And trust me, it is so easy to fake this voting system! Even this year, 30% of giveaway prizes went to Russians It's interesting to know why.
There should not be a giveaway at all! And maybe no prizes for designers. Otherwise, it's a magnet to all possible problems.

I’m not looking to step on any toes and if people want to maintain the clubhouse feel I’m happy to shift gears and P52 can do its own thing.

Are you going to hijack this event? As far as I understand, this year DOTY was already P52 branded. Well, it's not your fault, but if it happens, it means UC is dead as UC management allows this to happen! @MikeRatledge?

The day a NOC gets voted DOTY is the day I give up on UC DOTY. I am honestly worried such a thing could come to pass.

edited: Exactly! A couple of years ago, I tried to remove my decks from any voting/nomination, etc. (and I still want it each year). I even tried to drop my nomination to the 52 Plus Jokers award (it was a failed attempt). For me, it makes no sense to participate in such events for many reasons. But both DOTY and 52+J were the best in this industry! This year DOTY lost its value (unfortunately) and will be yet another hype contest if nothing changes. IMHO. I know some of you don't like what I say, but it does not matter. It's just my personal opinion.

[hsbc]

..... I even tried to drop my nomination to the 52 Plus Jokers award (it was a failed attempt) .....

Can I ask why??

[nur1988]

Hi, I know I don’t post here much, but I felt like I couldn’t scroll last all of this with out saying a few words. I’ll apologize in advance for my lack of eloquence.
I’m saddened by what I have read here. While I don’t think it was anyone’s intention to cut PipChick down, some of you have completely smashed her spirit. She saved this event, she asked for help, as you all know it is a huge endeavor; how many of you offered to help? She was faced by roadblock after roadblock from UC, not only did partnering with P52 make the event possible this year, but it also grew! Having Cartamundi, Legends, and Shuffled Ink donate credit to winners is amazing! I am most excited about the winner of the Best Rookie Deck, will have 2,000 reasons to continue and make a second deck. I would much rather have the Doty’s be large enough for this to happen than it remain small and limited only to this forum. After all, we can still come back here to the forums and discuss the results (can you believe that Keymaster did not win Best Non-Poker Deck?!? He was robbed!)

My wife and I were brainstorming some possibilities: maybe in each category there could be a first, second, and third place, and also a UC pick that is decided only by UC voters. As far as the possibility of a NOC deck being nominated, what about the possibility of UC members being to the Doty’s what the academy is to the academy awards? Only UC does the nominations, but then everyone can vote? Just spitballing here.

Anyway, thank you Pip and Alex for saving the Doty’s. I love the event and look forward to it. By and large these Doty’s were a huge success only made possible by your efforts.

I mean, if you've read Matt's response and you're still complaining then you're stubborn af!

Especially the part about asking for help!! Pip came to people on UC asking for help. It's all good when you're spit balling but when it came to crunch time, no one was available. I read over the comments when help was requested and people threw their name in the hat - and I know for a fact the majority didn't come through. And you call UC a close knit community?! You should be lifting and encouraging one of your own, not killing their spirit after everything Pip has done over the years?! Honestly, Pip, you should take a step back and see how it handles without you.

Of course the prizes enticed people to vote. DOTY should be for the entire community, not just UC. There are people out there who are discouraged from joining because people do shit on others and it becomes toxic. Please note this as I've experienced this level of toxicity in the past and nothing was done!
That's down to poor management.

I'm glad Alex and Portfolio52 stepped in. They put it out there to get people involved and it worked wonders! And if you do your own thing, Alex, count me in!

Same as last year, you had people who had little to no activity on forums vote because prizes were involved. May not have been in large numbers, but it happened.

I get everyone has an opinion and is entitled to it but DOTY should be on a larger scale. Its a way of everyone voting for their favourite design and that's exact what happened. Also, Montenzi mentioned 30%of the prizes went to Russians - most likely those who are a huge fan of Zhade's work. But who cares if the prizes went to them, this isn't an 'I deserve it more than them' situation, which it certainly sounds like, to me.

Moving past that and addressing the last bit Matt mentions. I wholeheartedly agree that there should be a small panel of judges who thrown some names in the hat (low poly sharks getting in there is beyond me) Voting should still be open for everyone!

[guru]

You did an awesome job @PipChick. Kudos!!!

2 years back, DOTY used to get a handful of voters (remember it was 14 two years back), you made an impact on the numbers and the reach. You should be proud. You executed & learned from previous DoTY and re-executed again through a new collaboration. This is a win in my book.