Ultimate Card Maker Tournament 2010

aurelio wrote:

Sad to say but I agree. I've been checking daily and nothings going anywhere. RIP card making.

Round 5 starts up this weekend. I promise. I've been busy and had to talk to judges this week, especially new ones, about how it works. They should be okay. Pairings posted this weekend. Sorry.

As a side, it makes me still wish I posted cards at Bandai, to maximize exposure, but with their no images policy, I'd rather just post here. Still, I don't think card-making, as a whole, is dead, just that the group is changing, as some come in, more leave, and some develop nagging cases of Life Syndrome. I don't know what the group who might still be only Bandai are like, but yeah, I want my works to be easily seen.

mendokuse: 23 + 19.75 = 42.75

venkelos: 22 + 20.5 = 42.50

By .25 of a point mendokuse takes the win! Sorry venkelos, better luck next year!

VSA: 20

Susano'o: 15

VSA takes the win, better luck next year Susano'o!

Seems my Judges didn't judge Round 4. My 2 substitute Judges will be doing that, Hikari Link and hahonryuu by the end of the night. If they are finished they should post their Judgings and the Top 8 Bracket will be posted then.

MJM wrote:

mendokuse: 23 + 19.75 = 42.75

venkelos: 22 + 20.5 = 42.50

By .25 of a point mendokuse takes the win! Sorry venkelos, better luck next year!

VSA: 20

Susano'o: 15

VSA takes the win, better luck next year Susano'o!

Seems my Judges didn't judge Round 4. My 2 substitute Judges will be doing that, Hikari Link and hahonryuu by the end of the night. If they are finished they should post their Judgings and the Top 8 Bracket will be posted then.

I can take it, and that close of a margin is much less than I expected. Good win Mendo.

Results will be in soon, just want to check on something with MJM before I post.

Advanced apology. Those of you used tor reading my posts on bandai...well you know what you are in for. I have a tendency to over explain things and draw out what should be short posts into novels. I feel I really limited myself though. Took some editing and rewriting, but its much shorter than it was :p.


Lava Style: Lava Geyser


Effect/Cost/Req: Not super expensive, screws a team without totally nuking it, added effect of milling the deck. I like it. 5/5

Picture: Nice but seems mildly fuzzy. If not fuzzy, something just seems to bug me about it that I can't quite put my finger on. Good regardless. 4/5

Text: Slightly off. Name font seems a tad to small and flavor text seems a Tad to big. But very close, I had to look at a real jutsu and flip between the images for a bit to see it, so bravo. 3.5/5

Spelling: Needs an "of" in the requirements. 4/5

Creativity: Damage/mill combos need to happen more often in the real game. 5/5

Overall score: 21.5/25


Lightning Blade

Effect/Cost/Req: Good. True to the rock paper scissors of the elemental hierarchy, which is neat. Screws an entire team, which is always nice. 4/5

Picture: Also rather fuzzy, though not enough to be distracting. And I almost wanna say that it was just the nature of the pic you decided to use. 4/5

Text: Name appears to be spot on. Though the flavor text seems to have issues. I was a fan of "make your own cards" for a while and IIRC font style/size has been an issue since forever. And I realize the limitations of not having the exact same stuff the real card makers for Bandai have. But, limitations or not, a mistake is a mistake. 4.5/5

Spelling: 5/5

Creativity: Kinda boring. Must be a million LB's with damaging effects for similar/cheaper costs. Only thing really creative about it is the part with it killing earth ninjas instead of just injuring them. 3/5

Overall score: 20.5/25



Shared Pain

Effect/Cost/Req: First glance I almost considered it to be too expensive. 2 for a -2 that hurt your team as well unless you had a medical ninja or Kakuzu? And for a real hit to team power it takes 3 to make it a -4. Then it dawned on me that it didn't require Hidan. It could be used early on with some Ino or other low turn medical ninja to put some early hurt on them. No requirement that definitely helped the card. However seems a bit too splashable. 4/5

Picture: Nice and clear. Good picture overall as well. 5/5

Text: Only Issue I can see is with the flavor text again. 4.5/5

Spelling: Wording with the coins was weird. 4/5

Creativity: It's kind of hard to find a debuff creative. Bonus points for it being a, potentially, large debuff with no requirement and for using the ever so rare Y=X times 2. 3/5.

Overall score: 21.5/25

Chidori

Effect/Cost/Req: Well I think I can see what you were trying to do. Though I think there were better ways to do it. The way you did it I believe hurt the card more than it gave taijutsu a new toy. Particularly yet another fairly generic pump. Something they, and lightning in general, have been getting since the dawn of Naruto. Sometimes to greater effect than other times. But it is a pretty decent pump, for a seemingly fair price and can't be negated. but with only 2 users. really probably only 1 if this is stuck in a taijutsu deck...I'm not sure it's enough. 3/5

Picture: Not sure if its your fault or the pictures fault but Sasuke looks kinda...odd. 3/5

Text: the effect text doesn't seem to be uniform. The top half seems to be a bit bigger than the bottom half. 3/5

Spelling: Quotation errors. 4/5

Creativity: Well a chidori that gives a + and only a + is certainly rare/unheard of. but Like I said with the above, pumps with no real twist to them are kinda, well, boring. Maybe an added effect or basing the pump off of something other than how much chakra you paid, or in this case being a set pump. 3/5

Overall score: 16/25

Note: I've been informed that one or more of these cards were made before Expert was revealed, however a similar mechanic has existed since at least set 18, with Hokage Style: Elder Jutsu, so treat every instance of Expert as "If the user is/has x, y effect happens."

MJM asked me to do this. Sorry if it is a little late, but he didn't actually tell me when to have it up by.

Lava Style: Lava Geyser

Artwork: 4/5
It isn’t exactly an engaging picture. Though you didn’t have much to work with, the art is extremely boring. That said, given what it is, it looks just fine

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 5/5
Everything seems to check out here too.

Spelling: 4.5/5
You forgot the “of” in “Printed Entrance cost of 4 or more” so I knocked off half a point.

Effect: 4.5/5
A very balanced effect overall. It certainly fits the theme of mill and definitely provides it with some much needed power. It’s not overpowered by dealing actual damage and it isn’t underpowered by targeting only the team battling against the user. My one and only complaint about this card is it doesn’t have Expert [Roshi]: or Expert [Lava]: or something to that effect. That would have been the icing on the cake.

Overall: 23/25


Lightning Blade

Artwork: 4.5/5
The slightest amount of fuzziness hurt you, but the art selection is just such a perfect picture that it barely matters and I imagine that it would be unnoticeable when foiled.

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 5/5
Everything seems to check out here too.

Spelling: 4.5/5
It’s all mostly fine, but some of the wording is a bit outdated. The quotations around Kakashi’s name are no longer necessary and now for target 2 they would say “Every Earth Ninja battling against the user.” It’s not a major problem, so I knocked off half a point.

Effect: 3.5/5
I’m sorry to say that this is the cards one failing. As a Super Rare, I’d expect a lot from it, but even as a rare, I’d expect something more from it. Because the user is already limited to just Kakashi, I think it can afford to be stronger. If target two was something like Earth and Water, it might be acceptable or if the requirement was different and the effect of target 2 were instead Expert [Kakashi]: it would be better, but as-is, it just feels too underwhelming to me. Between the specific user and the secondary target only targeting a specific type of ninja, I just can’t quite get on board with this card.

Overall: 22.5


Shared Pain

Artwork: 5/5
This is simply beautiful art that fits the card perfectly.

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 5/5
Everything seems to check out here too.

Spelling: 4.5
The wording felt a bit awkward. Not wrong, just kind of tough to follow. Also, the first time when you said -1/-1 Ninja Blade coin(s) was inconsistent with when you said -1/-1 coins. The latter is by far the better choice.

Effect:
3.5/5
I’m not going to lie, this is a really good card. In fact, that’s the one sin of this card, it’s too good.
The cost should have a specific symbol to help limit usage. I think “Fire | X or Lightning | X” would be a better cost. This is especially true when you look at the combination effect. Medical is mainly Wind, yet as-is, this card can be splash and abuse it easily. That leads to my next point, the Requirements.

This card lacks any sort Requirement, so it can easily be used by a chump blocker to just destroy a perfectly good ninja far too easily. It needs to at least be a turn 4 or higher ninja, I think.

The fact that the user gains protection from being removed from play for the turn is also kind of powerful. I understand the concept, but maybe if you were to make that part Expert [Hidan]:, I could accept it.

Finally, the Y seems like too much to me. Giving X amount of -1/-1 is already good enough. Doubling what you pay is not acceptable for a permanent effect. If you want to give -1/-1 coins, you should give coins equal to X, but if you want to use Y, the effect should only last for the turn. The former is definitely the better way to go, particularly due to Chibi Hidan, which I gather this was supposed to pair with.

This was really hard to score because I really liked the effect and I thought it was really interesting, but it was really just too good. I really think the rarity should be higher. It’s easily at least a rare.

Overall: 23


Chidori

Artwork: 3.5/5
It looks pretty grainy and on top of that, just feels off in some way.

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 4/5
The Requirements are ever so slightly big. It’s slight, but noticeable to me and kind of jarring. Also seems like there is a lot of room between the Requirements and Effect.

Spelling: 3.5/5
Quotes aren’t necessary around Sasuke’s name. Taijutsu Combat Attribute is unnecessary, Taijutsu will suffice. Even by old standards, Sasuke’s name would be in separate quotes from Taijutsu, as seen in any Rasengan. Lastly, I don’t care for the flavor text. I feel you could have used a better quote, but even with this one, you should have at least capitalized One Thousand Birds. They are little things, but they add up.

Effect: 2/5
Sorry, but there are quite a few things I don’t like about this card.

For starters, I don’t think it should be just Lighting. I understand you are supposed to do a Lightning card, but consider Kakashi and Sasuke’s element.
I understand why you have Taijutsu Sasuke as a requirement, but it doesn’t help the card and it excludes a lot of potential users unnecessarily.

The actual effect is probably the most disappointing. It’s just such a generic pump that it is hardly even worth looking at. There are so many that are easier to play that the amount being pumped isn’t worth it.

Making it impossible to negate hardly does anything, since most people wouldn’t be negating a straight pump anyway. It would have to give an additional effect for that to be relevant in any way.

The effect is just kind of disappointing and underwhelming and it isn’t really worthy of being a rare.

Overall: 18/25

Maybe it's not the best thing to say, but I'm somewhat glad that my card was seen as too good. I think removal jutsus are too prevalent, and I wanted to make a -1/-1 coin jutsu to go with the chibi Hidan (I made this card shortly after it was previewed... so I wasn't even aware of "expert" at the time, haha) but I struggled with making it relevant to most recent jutsu lineups. I'm happy that I accomplished that, at least.

Anyway, thank you for the timely judging, and I hope that you can find the time to do the same for the remaining rounds as well! Thanks~!

Shino'sDad: 21.5 + 23 = 44.5

Megamarik: 20.5 + 22.5 = 43

Lovely Ino: 21.5 + 23 = 44.5

Chidoricurrent2: 16 + 18 =34

Shino'sDad and Lovely Ino move on! Sorry Megamarki and CC2, better luck next year!

So hahonryuu and Hikari Link are my new judges in addition to Thayli and, maybe, Tsu. Please welcome them. Also, we know hahonryuu used a different format, he's been instructed to use the same format as everyone else from now on. Thanks!



The above are the brackets for the next few rounds. Pairings and all. Congratulations to everyone above! Remember, the round starts... NOW!

Note: Top 4 and Top 2 won't have any restrictions other than the fact that the card has to be a Ninja.

Hikari Link wrote:

[b]Chidori

Artwork: 3.5/5
It looks pretty grainy and on top of that, just feels off in some way.

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 4/5
The Requirements are ever so slightly big. It’s slight, but noticeable to me and kind of jarring. Also seems like there is a lot of room between the Requirements and Effect.

Spelling: 3.5/5
Quotes aren’t necessary around Sasuke’s name. Taijutsu Combat Attribute is unnecessary, Taijutsu will suffice. Even by old standards, Sasuke’s name would be in separate quotes from Taijutsu, as seen in any Rasengan. Lastly, I don’t care for the flavor text. I feel you could have used a better quote, but even with this one, you should have at least capitalized One Thousand Birds. They are little things, but they add up.

Effect: 2/5
Sorry, but there are quite a few things I don’t like about this card.

For starters, I don’t think it should be just Lighting. I understand you are supposed to do a Lightning card, but consider Kakashi and Sasuke’s element.
I understand why you have Taijutsu Sasuke as a requirement, but it doesn’t help the card and it excludes a lot of potential users unnecessarily.

The actual effect is probably the most disappointing. It’s just such a generic pump that it is hardly even worth looking at. There are so many that are easier to play that the amount being pumped isn’t worth it.

Making it impossible to negate hardly does anything, since most people wouldn’t be negating a straight pump anyway. It would have to give an additional effect for that to be relevant in any way.

The effect is just kind of disappointing and underwhelming and it isn’t really worthy of being a rare.

Overall: 18/25

no arguements here. XD to be honest i whipped this up in about 7 minutes. >.<

One step closer on ending this. I'm up

Talk about hugging the deadline; I guess everybody is going to post today?

When did I become the person to post the first card in a round!? I thought I was the last second deadline guy.



Hope you like

Well here is my card



I felt that the Three Tails needed some props to the power that it has. The jutsu can be used by some of the more powerful water ninja like Orochimaru, the Second Hokage and more. The idea was that if it was used by the Three Tails when it isn't blocked you could basically stop your opponents ninja from going out to battle. Now the reason for the effects is because of the power of the Three Tails. As for the expert effect its because the mist created by the Three Tails is a genjutsu mist. I didn't give it any effect text because the Three Tails doesn't say anything.

Ah yes, Wind Slicer. The Jutsu, or should I say the swords, of Kujaku from the Four Celestials. The first Bandai made incarnation of the Jutsu/Weapon was pretty bad. Especially when in the same set as Wind Scythe Jutsu. This one pumps the user if Jutsu are negated. But what if no Jutsu are negated? If the user has Weapon Combat Attribute, everything your opponent uses is negated! So +X/+X and your opponent having negated Jutsu? Seems good but not too good, allowing it to have the Rare Rarity.

Alright here is my card. At the current position of the Naruto CCG this card isnt that great. However once we get all of the sound Ninja 4 this card should improve in terms of playability. Now to stop things like a turn 1 S2 sasuke I added EC must be met. Now although that effect stops sasuke it kind of doesnt do much good for the Sound Ninja but if you think of it in terms of you have a crummy turn 0-3 Sound Ninja 4 in play and you want to get something bigger out but you cant seem to draw into your S1 this card brings out the S2 from the Base state sound Ninja. Oh! you could also add this to lightning (if you wanted) to play that smexy 4 tailed naruto...

Well hopefully it puts up some sort of fight, enjoy:

Nice card n4e it has great capabilities in other decks that want to put better reinforcement cards in play. With that said when I think about it something does seem kind of broken to use it to remove a Jiraiya, Shima, or Fakasuku and put in play the beast of a Sage Mode Jiraiya. Thats one of the first things that I would use the card for. I hope my card can compete with yours.

UchihaKyoji23 wrote:

Nice card n4e it has great capabilities in other decks that want to put better reinforcement cards in play. With that said when I think about it something does seem kind of broken to use it to remove a Jiraiya, Shima, or Fakasuku and put in play the beast of a Sage Mode Jiraiya. Thats one of the first things that I would use the card for. I hope my card can compete with yours.

>.< Never thought about that. Well that just made my card unbelievably broken.

Good luck MJM and the others who are in this round.

Today's a bit of a busy day for me and I'm going to leave soon, so I will try and have my results up tonight or sometime tomorrow

Holy crap I'm still here!

Shino'sDad wrote:

Holy crap I'm still here!

Yep though I don't have a clue when our rounds are actually gonna start...

mendokuse wrote:

Shino'sDad wrote:

Holy crap I'm still here!

Yep though I don't have a clue when our rounds are actually gonna start...

April 2, maybe?

Here you go everybody. Sorry it's kinda late in the week, but I just started up a new semester and I've had a lot of important stuff to take care of, including barely keeping two clubs afloat and learning a new language. I'll probably start posting results earlier from here on out. I'm sure you contestants are eager to see your scores, so I don't want to keep you waiting longer than necessary.

Wind Slicer
Artwork: 4.5/5
Art looks really clear and nice. Definitely wind being sliced. Even so, it feels kind of boring.

Layout: 5 /5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 5 /5
Everything seems to check out here too.

Spelling: 3.5/5
The wording of the effect is pretty bad. The +X/+X that it gives should be set by a static condition when it resolves. The fact that it constantly changes defeats the purpose of X. What it should say is something along the lines of “The user gets +1/+1 during this turn every time a jutsu is negated this turn.” Because X isn’t serving the normal function,
One other problem is that it should say Expert [“Weapon”], since they are currently doing away with unnecessary reference to combat attribute, as seen with The Soul of Pain and The Eyes of Pain in set 20, as well as various other cards.

Effect: 4 /5
This is definitely an interesting card and it is nice that it is clearly drawing from the original Wind Slicer, but there are a few small problems.

The first is the cost. It should be used late in the chain to optimize the effect, but it costs so much that it is hard to do so. If it had a primary effect that didn’t pump off of negation or the negation was a primary effect, I’d say it was fine. As it stands though, it has to be used by a turn 3 or higher weapon ninja or it is just a cheesy pump. Considering that Wind has always had cheap situational negation and this card is really meant for later in the chain, I think it would be fine to let it cost 2 Wind.

The second problem is that it gives a +1 even if your stuff is negated, which seems kind of illogical.

Overall: 22/25


Substitution Jutsu
Artwork: 5/5
This is perfect art for Substitution Jutsu and really clear.

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 4/5
It looks fine, but lack of flavor text hurts it greatly.

Spelling: 4.5/5
The only problem here is the wording of the first part. Rather than being unaffected by your opponent’s cards, it should say opponent’s effects.

Effect: 3/5
The first part of this effect is extremely generic. While it is somewhat fitting, it’s too broad. It really would be better if they were only unaffected by jutsu effect, because it would better fit the jutsu’s true nature.

The second part is where the real problem rises. This effect is ridiculously overpowered. This completely shuts down the opponent and yet you are still free to use effects. So going first, you completely freeze your opponent for the turn and can fire away with no fear of repercussions, plus you end up with an OC guy. A card should not just break the chain like that. Even Kakashi & 4th stop both players from using effects and they are an SR, yet this uncommon just completely obliterates that? I don’t think so.

Overall: 21.5/25


Unleashing the Curse
Artwork: 5/5
Very little could suit this card better in terms of art.

Layout: 5 /5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 5/5
Everything seems to check out here too.

Spelling: 3.5/5
I feel the card should really target the user. Also, very importantly, the Expert on here says The Sound Four Ninja, even though Bandai has always used The Four Sound Ninja, so there is technically nobody to get this effect. Term consistency is very important.

Effect: 3/5
The concept is interesting and I like your explanation of it, but the usefulness is still kind of low for it's intended purpose. To make matters worse, the card is pretty expensive. I think 1 Water or 2 would be fine. Right now it’s a pretty big cost considering the restriction on Entrance cost and the fact that they can already be put in play fairly easily. The Expert is also kind of bland. I don’t know; maybe throw in a growth coin or something? It could do with some restriction, since as it stands, it could get out Sage Mode and 4 Tails far too easily. I know it’s supposed to be a cool trick, but it’s kind of too much and detracts away from the true purpose, which I take it is to get the Sound Four out.

Overall: 21.5/25


Water Jet Blast
Artwork: 5/5
Great shot with interesting stuff happening.

Layout: 5/5
There is nothing off that I can see. It looks perfect to me.

Text: 3.5/5
The effect text font is too small. It should be bigger, considering all that extra room. Also, lack of flavor text is kind of lame. Sure, t didn't talk, but even a "Raaaaar!!!" or *Boom!!!* or something would have done the trick. It could also have been a comment from an onlooker.

Spelling: 5/5
It seems flawless in this regard.

Effect: 5/5
I honestly can’t see anything wrong with the effect. Considering the element, there is plenty of disposable chakra to pay the cost. I’m also glad it isn’t usable from the chakra area, because between Sasuke [Eyes of the Serpent] and the Three Tails locking guys down, it might be too ridiculous. It’s not weak at all, but at the same time, it isn’t too powerful.

Overall: 23.5/25