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I'm with th4mo here, there may always be a few people who will try to game the system, but I don't think it's anywhere close to being wide-spread. I would be in favor of awarding the prizes randomly as a reward for your honest vote and participation in the contest. This would greatly simplify the whole process and I think the excitement would still be there because it would almost be like the lottery in winning a prize.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I would like to see a Hall of Fame to showcase winning decks from past years.

I would also be in favor of awarding prizes at random. I haven't seen most of the decks on the list, especially the high-end, limited edition ones. I end up voting for the decks that I think everyone else will vote for. I think we would get a more accurate idea of the decks most folks really liked if we went with random prizes.

My proposal was certainly in line with Th4mo and sinjin7. While the "gaming the system" might be a concern or not (I don't think anyone tries to, but it can condition votes incertain cases), I favor the random system for the simple reason that every forum member opinion is valuable and based on his criteria and experience. Is it fun to see who gets closer to the final list? Of course. Should it be rewarded? I don't really think so. That's why I prefer the draw.

The voting and prize selection was redesigned two years ago to make it less random.

I really don't see any reason to change, nor have I seen anything close to "gaming the system".

I am always willing to change, but change for sake of change - not so much.

It would never be change for change's sake - the system has been criticised each year for exactly the reasons outlined. I don't think it's broken, but I do think it could be better and it cant hurt to explore the options.

Perhaps nothing as cynical as gaming the system has been obvious - but if you go back to the 2014 topic people were quite open in admitting that it would influence how they voted (or that they would try not to let it knowing they would lessen their chances in the contest.)

Having seen it working for a couple of years it cant hurt to put a poll up (which I will do tonight) if only to gauge the general opinion.

I hate to be "that guy" but I still haven't received my Celestial decks so should they still be considered a '16 deck?

Yes - they were on sale in 2016 and shipping definitely started in December - they qualify (just about!)

montecarlojoe wrote:Yes - they were on sale in 2016 and shipping definitely started in December - they qualify (just about!)

Well we're two weeks into January so I'll have to take this up in the Celestial thread I suppose. Thanks!

montecarlojoe wrote:Yes - they were on sale in 2016 and shipping definitely started in December - they qualify (just about!)

Are you sure they started shipping in december??? Last thing I read (this month) was that the decks were still in Taiwan... I'm sure Celestial will have to wait for next year's contest.

Celestial? Nobody has had those in hand yet. Paul *just* put out an instagram re how lovely the shiny seals "will be"...


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My bad - I could have sworn...

It's been a distracting month - perfect storm of illness, injury, job at threat and a death in the family.

On a more positive note the poll is live! The poll will run for 7 days.

Cheers guys

Stepchild wrote:Celestial? Nobody has had those in hand yet. Paul *just* put out an instagram re how lovely the shiny seals "will be"...


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I agree.

Who has a Celestial deck? I have not seen one listed in the thread about new arrivals or mentioned in its own thread.

I think LITURGY Treasure should not be in the list... The sale was in Dec 2016 but the deck shipped in Jan 08 2017 and so far only Europe based people have it in their hands.

I guess what I meant to point out was that the change two years ago to let each winner select from the prize pool was intended both to avoid them getting something they already have and to let the value of the prizes be more in the eye of the beholder, as they say. It might be worth $1.2-98 to me and nothing to someone else, or it could be their personal white whale, or one of them, anyway.

With a draw we'd still do it that way - the first name drawn chooses first and so on.

If we do prize draw, what would you think about not notifying the winner of what they won. Just have it shipped and let them be surprised. Doesn't matter either way to me. I'm not in it for a prize.

I was more thinking of drawing winners rather than drawing for a particular prize. As Mike said it could be mighty frustrating to end up with the one prize you already have 10 of!

Drawing winners who choose their prizes mitigates that for the most part (though not for the last drawn person - that really is pot luck)

montecarlojoe wrote:(though not for the last drawn person - that really is pot luck)

True. But the same situation applies to the last ranked "winner" with the current system.
I think your proposal of randomly drawing winners, then allowing them to select from the prize pool, is perfect.

montecarlojoe wrote:I was more thinking of drawing winners rather than drawing for a particular prize. As Mike said it could be mighty frustrating to end up with the one prize you already have 10 of!

Drawing winners who choose their prizes mitigates that for the most part (though not for the last drawn person - that really is pot luck)

I got ya. Yeah, that sounds like a great plan.

montecarlojoe wrote:With a draw we'd still do it that way - the first name drawn chooses first and so on.

I don't have a problem with it, then. I suppose I misread or misinterpreted it before.

I'll go with whatever the majority here votes. It does provide a way around any possible 'rigging' of the vote, although I seriously doubt that has happened in the past, and don't foresee it in the future.

50/50 so far!

I would really like to see both approaches used. I think it's far too tempting to game the system and pick decks that were popular and well talked about having a certain feature. Based on this having a draw process will get really honest answers.

However, I think in addition it would be cool to let everybody also pick what they think the deck of the year will end up being, but limit it to that to keep it simple. Once all picks are in for all categories and critically for the deck of the year, then all those who guessed that correctly would be honored in a list of correctly picking the deck of the year. From that list, a single name would be drawn to have the honor of picking a bonus prize, perhaps getting the first, 5th or last pick of the prize pool...maybe even a special pre-designated prize.

Guys- I have a question that I don't think was ever asked. Has the previous voting/prize system been off or skewed in any way in the past? Have decks won simply because of popularity or can each deck that won an individual category be justified? I think we're putting the cart before the horse here. While I agree that the current voting/prize system could be flawed and a few bad apples could potentially ruin the whole bunch, I don't think we're there yet. To answer my question I think that if everyone looked back at previous contests you will see that each winning deck won because they deserved it.

And don't get me wrong- I'm not ignorant to the fact that UC popularity skewed at least some of the winners BUT if a deck is popular here there's a pretty decent chance that it's a good deck. I mean I personally take pride in being a part of such a prestigious forum. So why wouldn't I want the decks I talk about most on here to actually be voted for? Catch what I'm throwing?

First I'm super annoyed at this auto logout problem and how it lets you type a response when not logged in. I had a detailed response and then was lost after I was prompted to login. Come on phpBB, fix this!!!!

Anyhow, it comes down to this - are we picking the best deck for each category as a group or picking what we think the majority will think the majority will select? They are two very different things.

Also, I like seeing what people actually selected and this can be lost if people have incentive to pick the popular decks.

Lastly, you are right that a clear winner may win not matter what, but the 2nd/3rd place decks can be edged out. Especially if it's a case where deck A gets 95 votes , deck B gets 3 and deck C has 2. At that point even lesser known decks may actually have a shot, but only a select few will vote for it in a popularity system. I know if there's a prize package I really want it's easy to pick a more popular deck I really liked than one I loved if it's lesser known, especially if the difference is minor.

Again, I think it's fun to pick what deck we think others will pick so that's why it would be neat to keep that as a bonus option for the deck of the year, but the primary voting should be the truth and the rewards should support that.

ecNate wrote:the primary voting should be the truth and the rewards should support that.

This. That's what I thought we've been doing and that's what I'd like to keep doing. There's obviously no way to force this but I think there's enough honest people here that the end result will reflect that.

ecNate wrote: I know if there's a prize package I really want it's easy to pick a more popular deck I really liked than one I loved if it's lesser known, especially if the difference is minor.

A simple way to avoid this would be if non of the prizes were listed prior to the voting.
Only once all votes are in and entries closed does the prize pool become known.

I'm with ecNate. Yes, the most popular decks probably ends up winning anyway, but the lesser known ones will end up with no votes and no recognition because everyone votes for the obvious ones. A draw would prevent this from happening, and we could include an "honourable mentions" section to give the less popular but well done 2nd/3rd places some recognition.

IMO the whole idea of "skillfully guessing which deck will win" is kinda strange. This isn't used anywhere else that I've seen. Voters should be motivated by the outcome alone, not prizes.

Another thing: We should try the prize-draw method at least once before we knock it. Who knows, maybe we'll see some differences in voting from the previous years?

vasta41 wrote:

ecNate wrote:the primary voting should be the truth and the rewards should support that.

This. That's what I thought we've been doing and that's what I'd like to keep doing. There's obviously no way to force this but I think there's enough honest people here that the end result will reflect that.

Even if every voter is honest (and personally, I don't have enough faith in humanity to believe that), they can still be influenced. We're only human, after all.

So the votes are in - on the face of it sticking with the current system is the most popular option.
I won't go through all the maths - but the margin of error on the poll is +/-5.6 votes - which means if we ran it again it could go either way.

I do like the idea of having prize winners picked at random but still running the points for kudos. (would have been great 3rd option!)

I'm just not sure that given the poll if we have a clear mandate to change the way it's run...

I think we are trying to fix something (some things?) that are not broken.

Just my opinion, and my votes don't count, as always. Would not be fair.