Make it So Challenge #5: Ready, Set, Reactor!

by Charlie Plaine, Make it So Host

24th January 2014

Welcome to the second half of Make it So in which the challenges get bigger, and the contestants begin to work in teams for their submissions. For these challenges, there are less restrictions on card types, and the challenges are built around accomplishing a design goal. The judges and the public will have to decide how well each team does on each challenge, as they have through the individual challenges.

Before we introduce how the team phase will work, we have an announcement to make regarding our contestants. Due to change in their circumstances, two (2) of our contestants have had to bow out of Make it So. David Wong-Faull (Dogbert) and Philip H. (Verad) will no longer be participating for the remainder of the competition. In their places, our alternates will join the game and take over their positions. First alternate Daniel Matteson (OKCoyote) will take Philip's position; and second alternate Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13) will take David's. In order to give Matthew a fair chance to compete, he will be given the same score as the lowest score for Challenge #4 (instead of a 0 since no card was submitted). We wish all of our contestants the best of luck in the second half of the competition.

For the team phase, we will be doing something different in this competition that we have done in previous years: changing the teams. We will be rotating the teams for each challenge so that every contestant will work with every other contestant exactly once. This will not only give the contestants a chance to work with a variety of people and give us a chance to observe the team dynamics, but will ensure that every contestant has a chance to claim one of the finalist positions.

When you vote on the submissions, they will be grouped by team. You will be asked to score and comment on each individual card, and then to comment on the submission as a whole; specifically as to how the submission meets the goals of the challenge. There will be more cards per challenge in order to give the contestants more freedom to work and exercise their creative muscles. So with that out of the way, let's get to the meat and potatoes: this week's challenge.

What Kind of Reaction Are You Looking For?
For this week's challenge, the teams are being asked to design a new Reactor Core card in order to create, and then support, a new deck type for Complete play. Reactor Core cards, introduced in the recently released Emissary, are play engines based on Deep Space Nine stories, and in particular, the icon (created by Reshape the Quadrant). A play engine is a card that enables cards to enter into play, typically granting the ability for a subset of cards to do so either for free or to an unusual location. However, cards often have another function as well - the sky is really the limit here, in terms of what they can and can not do. These should almost always be incidents - they don't have to be, but it does tend to be the best fit mechanically for the cards.

The goal of this challenge is to introduce a new deck type to the Complete card pool with one (1) new card and five (5) additional cards. These cards can be anything the teams wish them to be, but the entire suite should work together in support of the new card. The easiest answer is to create personnel and ship(s) that directly benefit from the card's text, but there are other options and we are looking forward to seeing what the teams create. As a side note, the priority with this assignment is to create a deck that works well in Complete card pool play; the Block card pool is not a priority. It's always good when cards (and decks) can exist in multiple formats, but the quality of the cards shouldn't be lowered to make them work in Block in addition to in Complete.

Challenge #5: Ready, Set, Reactor!
The teams' challenge this week is to design a suite of six (6) cards centered around a new Reactor Core () card. Other than the one card, these can be any card type the teams wish (and they can read MiS Lessons #3 for some details on the card types). These suites of cards should enable a new (or variant) deck in the Complete card pool, and the judges will be looking to see how well this goal is accomplished by the submissions.

The judges will be rating your cards on how well they make use of the principles of First Edition design, including elegance of implementation, respect of precedent, creativity and understanding of the state of the game. Hopefully the community will use this challenge's discussion thread to let you know what they're looking for too, but beware: it's impossible to please everyone!

Your entries are due by 11:59 PM server time (Eastern Standard) on Friday, January 31st, 2014. Entries must be sent via PM to MidnightLich on the forums and not posted anywhere else. Voting and judging will be done anonymously, so you may not talk about your cards during the judging period. You will have the opportunity to discuss them after voting is complete. Late entries may be accepted, at a penalty, at the discretion of the judges.

Good luck, and may all reactions be what you expect!

Discuss this article in this thread.