March Madness 2023: 4 Enter, 2 Leave

by Charlie Plaine, Staff Writer

5th April 2023

Hello all! The record-breaking 5th annual First Edition March Madness continues, as 105 of you voted in last week's Elite 8 poll. That means we've managed to get the double prize threshold every week. With just two weeks to go, can we keep it up? I sure hope so, because I'm loving drawing 4 winners each week and I want to keep it up. Oh, and by the way, this year's average participation - with 2 weeks to go - is higher than any other past version of this. Thank you so much!

Here are the prize winners from last week:

• enabrantain (Random 1E Borderless Promo)
• Ed Keogh (Random 1E Borderless Promo)
• captain_janman (Random 1E Promo)
• johnyocum (Random 1E Promo)

Our warehouse team has been creating and shipping orders as we go - hopefully some of the early winners have seen their prizes already. This week's winners should be no different. And now, let's take a look at the results from the bonus poll last week. In that poll, we gave you potential gametext for the 8 cards cut from the Sweet 16. We asked you to rank each card on a scale from 1 (Terrible) to 5 (Fantastic). After tallying all the votes, the winning card is Ten Forward. The famous bar/lounge from the U.S.S. Enterprise-D will enter design, along with all of the previous winners.

Speaking of those prizes, I've had some people express concern that giving out all these extra design prizes will cheapen the final result. Well, let me set your mind at ease: there is a massive surprise in store for the eventual winner. It will eclipse the usual prize and any of the second chance prizes won so far. We haven't revealed it in order to keep your voting strategies the same throughout, but I hope you'll trust us that the final winner will be very nicely rewarded.

Okay, on to the results from the Elite 8:

Elite 8 Bracket
Lower Decks: Fleet Operations (3) puts an end to Starbase 375's (1) run, squeaking by with a buzzer-beating 53-52 upset.
The Infamous Facepalm (13) continues its unlikely Cinderella story, upsetting Kosst Amojan (4) with an impressive 58-47 win.
Transporter Duplication (6) barely held on to win against Treacherous Sisko (4) with a 53-52 upset.
Utopia Planetia Fleet Year (8) dominated Acting Captain Beverly (2), putting her out of the game with a 64-41 win.

As far as I can tell, this week was a first for First Edition March Madness with all 4 matches ending in upsets. That means our Final 4 cards are a #3 seed, a #6 seed, a #8 seed, and a #13 seed. Last year's runner up, Transporter Duplication, is the only card remaining that was not from a user submission. These 4 have survived against 60 other card concepts, and some just by the skin of their teeth. What will happen this week as you guys vote for the penultimate time? Let's find out - here is the bracket for the Final 4:

Vote in the Final 4 Bracket

Once again, the fates of these cards are in your hands. Your votes and your votes alone will determine which of these cards will face off in the championship match next week. You can vote in each match based on any criteria you like. And once again, if we get more than 100 participants this week the prize pool will be doubled. The ball is in your court, now - good luck and have fun. Voting will be open until NOON Pacific on Monday, April 10th. And don't forget to join the discussion on our Gameplay (1E) forum to speculate on what might happen next!

Discuss this article in this thread.