And so, MasterWarlord finally has won a contest! It has been a long time coming and I felt like this was a pretty fitting contest for him to win, as he really put out a good contest this time around and Yangus felt a lot more deserving and definitive for him. With me having won MYM14, FA winning MYM15, Kat winning MYM16, Smady winning MYM17 and now Warlord winning MYM18, I'm the one with the longest time from my win now! Who knows, I'm the OP next contest and I did win the contest I OP'd...but sample size of one. So a round of applause for a well deserved winner and I am sure that along with Smady, Warlord goes into the next contest as one of the prospective favorites to win.
Warlord is also only the second MYMer to win more than two contests, even if some of them are old: MYM6, MYM8 and MYM18 (A full MYM Decade!). If Warlord wins next contest, he'll tie Smady for the most contest wins of any MYMer with 4 (Smady has MYM5, 11, 12 and 17!), but FA can tie Warlord if he wins next contest (13 and 15) and he came incredibly close this contest, while I can join the rather elite 2-contest-wins club (Warlord, Smady, FA, Rool and Kupa) if I win next time...
But of course, there's plenty of other people who could win too! JOE, prospective leader, not only was pretty actibe this contest, but expects to be even more active in MYM19, and he hit 16th with Zer0 this contest as well, not to mention people like Muno and Jamie made some pretty clear strides as well. But enough about specific people, I'm gonna start going down the Top 50 and pick some sets out.
Metireon: The second place set by only one point, it was a nailbiter to see who we would be talking about getting their 3rd contest win! Metireon was a set I really liked and while I don't think many people counted it as a big frontrunner, I was pretty confident in the possibility heading into voting and hearing people's reaction to it. Getting 2nd was certainly a huge success for ForwardArrow and I certainly hope gives him some great confidence heading into MYM19, as Metireon was pretty clearly his best since MYM15. Basically everyone liked this set to some degree and it was certainly very worthy on its own, and it felt pretty great to have it be the "winner" of the JOE Challenge.
Kristoph Gavin: I knew Kristoph was liked and considered it another potential frontrunner and it got 4th, which is pretty fitting for the edgy Gavin, who is probably getting off to the 4 is death references he can make in court now. This wasn't one of my favorite Smady sets this contest, but when he makes four sets I can SV, well that isn't exactly a big downside is it? This set had some people who really liked it and was the set people said was their favorite set second most after Yangus (outside of their own sets) and so it was extremely deserving of its 4th place for certain. Manfred way back in MYM12 got 5th, so we can now definitively say Kristoph is OBVIOUSLY the superior character here.
Matador: Speaking of favorite sets, Matador was my favorite set from the contest, so seeing it manage to get into the Top 5 despite two Weak Votes was a real treat, and as I expected it had some pretty big fans. I'm glad to see it right up there with the other big Smady set in Kristoph and it is a style that I definitely would like to see more of from Smady in the future. It even got the ForwardArrow SV!
Jecht: The JOE challenge produced this set for 6th in addition to the 9th placed Lord Galf, 2nd placed Metireon, 14th placed Garnet and 23rd placed Yomi! I thought this set was a pretty big treat with the similiar style to Matador, so I am pleased to see it get so high. I'm sure it burns Jecht's ego to just miss Top 5, though.
Allen O'Neill: And the winner for most misspelled-in-votelists name in MY18 goes to...
John Kasich Allen O'Neill! Or was it O'Neil? Perhaps O'Niell?? Anyway, O'Neill was pretty fun, and was one of the few frontrunners early on, but it ended up faltering a little, and I was surprised it ended up behind The Butcher, even if only by one spot. I will say that considering the quality of the Top 10 in this contest, having O'Neill around here feels about right: O'Neill was my 5th favorite Smady set this contest and it ended up the 5th highest Smady set, the most I would say is that it and The Butcher would feel more as anticipated swapped.
Garnet: I was pretty excited for this set when I finished it and while it did squeak outside of the Top 10, I was glad as many people liked it as they did, and thought it was really nice to see UserShadow bring out a high profile set like this again. In a weaker contest, this would be a Top 5 frontrunner style set, but in a strong contest like this and with some noticable detractors it ended up a still very respectable 14th. This was the most sets from UserShadow we've seen in a while and personally I hope he manages a multiset contest next time too, because his movesets are always a treat in some manner, with Colonel.EXE/Tangrowth placing right next to each other and Colonel.EXE having some people who noticably liked it in JOE and Jamie.
Zer0: I was pretty worried this set would get decimated for a while with the great end of contest rush and knowing WL/Bionichute didn't like it, but it managed to pick up enough of a solid fanbase to get just outside of the Top 15, which felt about correct for the set even if I liked it more.
Yomi Mekura: This may have been only 2 places higher than Triforce Heroes, but I do feel it along with some other sets like Alolan Trainer showed marked improvement from you Muno, and this set felt like it even had some stronger supporters than TFH, gaining a super vote unlike TFH. This set was a whole WV away from a tie for 20th, so perhaps next time you'll break into the Top 20? You seem to have a lot ready for opening day from what I hear, so I'm excited to see how you evolve from here!
Diancie: Probably one of the placements which most surprised me, I was expecting Diancie to hit Top 25 myself, not to get the same placings as your last Crystal Princess, although it did so against much tougher competition. This was a set which I feel was pretty underrated overall. It is noticable than Jamie also voted for the first time this contest, a trend I certainly hope continues into next contest. Try not to be such a stranger next time! If you get more than one set out a contest, you could make some pretty interestin' strides I think.
The Great Mighty Poo, Panther King, Professor von Kripplespac: Grouping all three of
@brostulip 's sets together here as this is more of an address to Brostulip directly. While I was one of the people who in general liked the sets less than others, I am still pretty happy to see some Brostulip representation on the Top 50 and I do think you have some good potential. Lets see how next contest goes, alright? I look forward to it.
Marina Cannonvale, Doppelganger Tsukika, Doppelganger Shirogane: Once again grouping the sets together as this is thoughts on all of them a fair deal, I am actually surprised these all placed so low! Well, except Marina, she is basically where I expected, but Shirogane I thought was gonna see more Warlordian appeal, while Tsukika I thought would have a few fans elsewhere, but they just didn't manage the fans I expected, most noticably I expected Warlord to like more of them. Hopefully we'll see more Kat sets, though, because it'd be a shame if he went out on a 27th placing after all the joy he has brought since MYM12, and I highly doubt that his quality is gonna be put out to pasture so soon.
Excitebiker: Not too much to say here but I just wanted to say I was surprised this set placed and even got an RV! Just goes to show you that making a set you think is "simple" or "throwaway" isn't bad, sometimes it garners a surprising fan base!
Now then, you may have noticed something missing from a T50 Retrospective and that is discussion of the user's own sets. That is because I have decided to tackle them 1-by-1 and didn't want them to interrupt my discussion of everyone else, so lets have at it!
Artorias the Abysswalker: This set may have just missed T10 by about as close as you can, tied for 10th and losing the tiebreaker by 1 point!, but the fact that it was my highest placing set makes me very happy, as I was expecting it to get bumped off of a lot of SV lists for 10th~ RV or so and I was worried it would end up below Gluth and The Butcher. Artorias was a set that I was personally very happy with when making and put a lot of effort into, but thought it wouldn't go over terribly well with people. Obviously I was mistaken! I didn't have a lot of confidence in this being a successful set when posted, but I did also set out to accomplish essentially everything I wanted (I wanted to make some MUs I did not end up doing) in this set. In this regard, it reminds me of my MYM15 Youmu Konpaku moveset, which followed a similiar arc.
I also thought this set was an especially strong showing of Artorias' character that was really captured well here and that overall it captured the feel of a Dark Souls game incredibly well. Thank you, everyone who supported this set!
The Butcher: The Butcher was a set I made slowly, was planned out a fair deal before the start of the contest, finished just barely outside of the Top 10 and was my other quite liked set. Despite that, overall this set left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth by the end, and I thought it was my most overrated set this contest. I do quite like the mechanic and I thought the set had a lot of fun stuff with the gameplay around the blood droplets, the flavor of the set is quite palpable and it DOES have some neat melee, plus the Furnace Blast...
But the melee ultimately disappointed me a lot, coming off of Count Dooku and especially after writing Artorias and seeing sets like Matador, Jecht and Metireon. I find it very unmemorable compared to my other sets and I was reaching for a decent deal of them, and I ultimately felt like the melee game was not as cohesive as I'd like. That's not to say the set is BAD, but I just ultimately felt that it was more of a good set then a great one, and I don't think it'll be looked back on as fondly as some others.
Anti-Mage: 17th! If you had told me when I was making this set it would be my 3rd highest placing set and beat out Gluth and Zyra, I would probably not have believed you. This set had one of my more interesting design periods in my career, being made in small chunks, practically one move or less a day for like two weeks, as I worked on other sets and got stuck or just wanted to work on things but wasn't sure what, specifically Artorias and my unreleased Antonidas set (which maybe I will release next contest?). The last half of this moveset was made in basically one day when I decided I should push it out after I had written so much. I didn't think much of the set making it and wasn't sure it would place, I figured it would place low though.
People's reactions to the set did improve my opinion of it though, although I still wouldn't say it is one of my best either, I also feel it is more of a 7 star-ish good set, nonetheless it had some noticable people who liked it, with a surprising Warlord Super Vote being the biggest one, and I feel pretty happy with the set unsurprisingly. My shortest moveset this contest at barely 6.5k words: More words doesn't always equal higher placing!
Gluth: Glad to see this set sneak into the Top 20, this set one that had been a LONG time coming, being about 1/3rd finished all the way back in Make Your Move 16, so seeing it come out now and do good was a treat. I got some inspiration halfway through the contest to improve the set, which I feel probably drastically improved the set's placing and surprisingly put Gluth on two SV lists! I'm not quite sure if I liked it as much as that, but I would say I am happier with it than The Butcher or Anti-Mage, and it was fun to write for the most part. Fun fact: The reason I strove to get this set out was that I knew I had it sitting around and had made Ekko's Up Special. Since I didn't want Gluth to seem like he was ripping off Ekko when I had previewed him out and knew people liked his ideas and armed with knowledge of making Ekko's Up Special, I powered through and finished this set so it could come out at the same time as Ekko, although I posted Ekko first since I knew Smady/Warlord/FA would have some pre-thoughts on Gluth due to previewing the set.
The other thing to talk about this set is that it inspired two notable sets, Shadow Teddie with his pits, and the preview of Gluth helped inspire Yangus' Neutral Special, to have any of my sets inspire other good sets at all is an honor, and both Smady and Warlord certainly improved on the ideas, as can be seen by the placings.
Zyra: Another one of my opening day sets, Zyra had been sitting in my preview queue for quite a while, I made it sometime during 16-17 I believe? Specifically, I began work on this set after Judge Nemo was made and received and IIRC after Nemo had aged for me, maybe it was after I reread it some for deciding where to rank Cornello? Anyway, though, Zyra was made to be my own take on the "every move is a minion" style of Judge Nemo, so I went into this set with the pre-condition that everything except the grab had to make a minion, using the seed mechanic. I stalled a lot after the Specials and 1-2 Smashes, not really anything specific, just was generally struggling.
I got a few ideas for some of the normal moves and minions in the Standards after and ended up finishing the set in about 2 days afterwards, which is probably why the minions after were so much more eclectic. Zyra is pretty flawed I feel, like The Butcher I don't think I make the game outside of her gimmick good enough, but she is a fun enough set with people who liked her and a set I feel is still a good representative of the character and whatnot, and I feel it has some good stuff worth ripping out later too.
Tutankoopa: While I felt like The Butcher was my most overrated MYM18 set, I feel like Tutankoopa was my most underrated, as it was a set that I quite liked when posting (although it needed tweaks to fix many meme exploits I missed making it in one day) and I actually felt it was one of my stronger MYM18 showings. It was a set that, at the least, accomplished what I set out to do with it: Remix a Rool classic with a modern edge that nonetheless retains the ideas of the original. I don't think there's really many minion sets out there that play like Tutankoopa and that the set ended up with some pretty impressive depth while remaining down to earth. Terraforming, minion manipulation, projectile play, item play! There's a lot at work here.
I was actually hoping when this was posted it could be Top 10 material (as the very high end of what it'd do), but it was pretty obviously not meant to be even once the fixes to the issues were in, however I did hope it could scab out a Super Vote in voting at least, and that it would crack Top 25. While it did miss that mark, 26th in a 3-way tie for the 24/25/26 spot, Jamie liked it quite a lot and ended up giving it a Super Vote, so I am glad that someone liked it as much as I was hoping as I made it.
Joe DiMaggio: Joe DiMaggio 32nd! I was worried this set would even place! I thought Joe was the worst of my opening day sets and would struggle to place, but it ended up with some pleasing places on people's votelists and was even IvanQuote's favorite set of the contest, a reminder that small sets for fun aren't something you should just ignore, and that sometimes memes can be dreams. Joe was basically just made due to watching exciting baseball stuff, listening to Mrs. Robinson and thinking how I have wanted to make a new baseball set after Randy Johnson, so it wasn't a set I thought deeply about, although I did get some simple ideas to edit it to be better later on. Slightly above average and I am certainly glad I made it.
Electivire: If Tutankoopa is not my most underrated set IMO this contest, then it is Electivire, a set which felt somewhat ignored by the end but which I personally quite enjoyed making, although I did need to repeatedly tone the power of the set down. Not surprising, as I intentionally tried to push this set's numbers a bit to the edge and see what would happen. Electivire was my idea of making a bit of a heavyweight, rushdown style "Bruiser", who wants to get in close and not necessarily get very far, but doesn't do huge comboing either, and I felt he successful pulled this goal off. Inspired by DM's Electivire set, I also wanted to mix in a slightly more logical but similiar Motor Drive system, and made some use/reference of that set during production. I actually ended up feeling this set was on Zyra/Butcher tiering for me, so take that as you will. I can't be unhappy it placed and didn't expect it to go very high, so.
Dragonslayer Armour: A sequel to Artorias and what was planned to be the 2nd in a series of 3 Dark Souls sets, the Dark Souls 3 set never finished because I got a bit pulled apart by different ideas and characters for it. The Armour had a simple thought: He is a big, lumbering brute with a big defensive advantage that brings with it many statistical weaknesses and has to be tackled in a Dark Soulsian manner, and which specifically allows him to approach projectile opponents in a Scizor/Chesnaught style. The Thunder mechanics ended up being my favorite part of the set and I would really like to make a set more fully exploring this concept. Ultimately ended up about where I expected and I like the set, but it is another set with pretty extreme balance and some other issues, I did feel that the melee was pretty dang good though.
Roy Koopa: Tied for 50th on the raw list, but lost to Kripplespac by a mere single point. I thought this set was a shoe-in to place over the ccontest just from snagging RVs/WVs, but it ended up only tying with 4 WVs as the top 50 was incredibly hard to get into, and I never made some edits I couldn't fully figure out to make it better. Considering that Roy has been in production since MYM14, yes MYM14!, just getting the set out felt like a good thing, and I feel it is a good set and better than Joe DiMaggio, although noticably worse than Electivire/Dragonslayer Armour. It wouldn't surprise me if I made more Koopalings in the future, who may have more success.
Leoric, the Skeleton King: Hoo boy. Leoric was originally intended to be a Halloween project, but not only did the set end up massive (Over 12k words!), but it was very unfun to write and ended up, in my opinion, being pretty bad. The melee stretches it, feels forced and while it has some pretty cool stuff like Forward Smash, ultimately it just doesn't make a good or coherent gameplan, the mechanic has some fun ideas but the way I took it compared to the other thing I had in mind with it (N'Dour and Geb from JJBA) just made it worse overall. It was a good learning experience, but I felt it was clearly my worst MYM18 set by the end, and a distaste to write.
Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time: I'm kinda sad this set couldn't get just one more WV to place, as it is one I am still undecided on, despite a lot of people being sure it is trash, although I wouldn't say it is necessarily good, as it is pretty flawed, but this is a take on a time travel idea I had that is similiar, although admittedly I feel worse handled, to a Yoshikage Kira preview I have around that I could still finish some day. It has the Gluth style Up Special here, not Anti-Mage style as that is more Mewtwo-ish, and I really got a feel for it here over Gluth, the move was specifically why I tunneled pretty hard on making this set and ultimately actually really enjoyed making it, along with the fact it is around the time I got decent with making GIFs and got to make some swanky GIFs of his stuff. Along with taking ideas from one of my old favorites, Youmu Konpaku, this was a set I had high hopes for on release, but which ultimately flounded. I feel this is another set with a lot of good ideas worth ripping out and in the end I enjoy it and had a blast making it.
Ultimately, MYM18 was a very fun contest, I was a lot more active than my memetic MYM17 contest and a lot of improvements all around from basically everyone in the contest: Smady, IMO, even managed to improve upon his glorious MYM17, and got more sets out even!
It all leaves me very excited for the next contest, which I will have the honor of OPing, and makes me want to start some new
Projects up for it...
A great 2017 and Make Your Move 19 to all!
And...
Congratulations to MasterWarlord, for the win he well deserved to have, I'm happy for you.