#I think the main problem is that i don't like my contest entry so i don't see the point on finishing

[sherlock-is-ace]

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[holyshonks]

Halo World Championship Afterthoughts

Now that I'm home from HWC weekend, I thought I'd share my thoughts on whether its worth it to go.

For starters, I'm definitely a lore person, but the event as a whole is heavily tailored towards the esports component (that is, after all, the main event). I don't follow Halo esports closely, but I do play multiplayer and like watching games, so this was still enjoyable for me.

The event is smaller than it may look if you watched the streams. It was essentially one large room, with the games happening on one side and the community stage on the other. This is why you can clearly hear cheers if you watch the streams.

There were a handful of booths, but again, they are tailored towards the esports teams. You could visit all the booths in less than an hour.

The rest of the space is set up for PvP matches for different Halo games. I didn't participate in any of it so I can't comment on the prizes or experience.

Friday was definitely the best day for lore fans. Most of the discussion of things coming to the Halo universe and events tailored to book readers and nerds were on Friday.

On Saturday the panels continued, but I only ended up attending one because we arrived later and spent time watching the games.

Sunday is completely devoted to the finals and there was no community stage.

The lowlights:

Since the event space is so small, there really isn't a whole lot to do if you're not watching the games. This wasn't a huge problem for us, since you can come and go from the venue, so we filled the time walking around Seattle's downtown (its very close to Pike Place) or starting the day doing something else before making our way over. But if you have no other plans and are just there for panels, I can see this becoming dull fast.

The overall quality of the panels was so-so. You could tell from the set up that the vast majority of the budget is (perhaps rightfully) devoted to the games. The video and sound quality of the main stage was fantastic. The community stage? Not so much. I was also annoyed that the actual schedule of community stage events wasn't released until a few days before the event, so it was impossible to plan a day around them ahead of time.

The highlights:

I thought the community stage panels that I attended were fun and interesting. It's a little grassroots, but that added a quaint quality for me.

There's a ton of opportunities to win prizes, both on the main stage and the community stage. If you are willing to jump and flail to get picked, you could win some really cool shit. The main stage was giving things away between each game to the winners of rock-paper-scissors games, so, seriously, low barrier to entry prizes abound. By the finals, fans were chucking team merch into the crowd.

Speaking of merch, finding new Halo merch in the year of our lord 2024 felt so nice. It brought back feelings of being able to walk into a Game Stop or even a Walmart and finding my friend Master Chief there. There wasn't a ton of selection, but since Halo 2 is having an anniversary this year, there was some nice stuff to celebrate that and I really like what I came home with.

There were also many amazing cosplayers every day of the event. The cosplay contest is a lot of fun, and there were some truly jaw-dropping skills on display.

Overall, I think the biggest highlight for me was spending a weekend in a space where Halo is relevant. Truly, it was a vibes thing. Everyone there liked Halo. Everyone there was ready to cheer about new things coming to Halo. If you bought anything besides lunch, it was a Halo thing. The energy was high and going nuts with people in the crowd during the finals was a lot of fun (especially since I didn't care who won so it was very much a "I just hope both teams have fun" thing for me).

So, is it worth it?

For me, getting there was kind of a pain. Seattle is pretty far-flung, and although the finals aren't always in Seattle, they have been for the past two years, and may continue to be. Notably, I saw some decorations that appeared to be on loan from formally-known-as 343 Studios, and I imagine that's easier to do when you're only bringing them within the same state.

If someone has absolutely zero interest in esports whatsoever, then it might not be worth the $75 price tag. Having the main lore events on a weekday was also annoying, and made flights harder to find. Since everything is streamed, you won't really miss anything if you choose to watch at home except the opportunity for prizes and the vibes.

I would definitely go again if it was closer, but I might not go if travel is a major PITA again. Honestly, I had been insistent on going this year bc (1) based on some things I have planned I don't know if I'll be able to go next year, and (2) there were rumblings that there wouldn't even be a world championship next year (which have since been debunked, as the 2025 event was confirmed).

Overall, I had a lot of fun submerging my brain in 100% pure Halo for a weekend, and if I could swing it, I would go again.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #16

16. PORTUGAL Iolanda - "Grito" 10th place

Decade Ranking: 56/153 [Above Circus Mircus, below Alika]

OH NOES THE FINGERNAILS!! SO BLATANTLY POLITICAL!! I legit had to zoom and enhance to even NOTICE, jesus christ EBU.

For an entry that I have ranked relatively high, Iolanda is such a pain to write about? I feel like the appeal and placement are both obvious? There are also no real fun things about it? It's all fairly cut and dry (hence why I skipped yesterday to give myself extra think time for the write-up).

I find it hard to believe that anyone can muster up feelings beyond 'yah this is good, next one please' for a song of Grito's calibre. Especially over the more immediate (read: better) "Pelas Costuras"?

That said, I must soldier on and write a few more words. "Grito" is actually a pretty competent Growth Ballad. It starts slowly but then gradually builds up the tension. It handles the overcoming of inner demons with a beautiful touch of melancholy (it IS Portugal after all), and never stays too long in its phases.

In other words: it dodges the main pitfall of many other cerebral ballads: Despite what Joel and Myff were insinuating (Aus NQ'd, in your FACE) Grito is not boring.

But it's also not that engaging of a composition. My gripe with it is that it banged the hardest in studio for me, and studio cuts just... don't matter to me? At last not post-show. I get all of my listens from Youtube, not Spotify. In the studio version, "Grito" goes from zero to hero IMMEDIATELY at the first chorus, and doesn't back down. It goes quite hard. Live, the transition is more gradual and subdued, which pulls me into the immersion at a later point. Almost too late? "Grito" is a slow burner, and I'm not a patient man. You need to make me care about you immediately, not until you're halfway through the song.

It makes sense that Iolanda was sort of the Alika of the year resultswise (getting a good amount of jury votes into a negative televote) but she had the opposite problem for me. Alika came across like she was aimlessly screaming at a mic without any sophistication. Iolanda came across as frosty introvert who deliberately held back on purpose to sound frail before the big note. BELT WOMAN, YOUR SONG DEMANDS IT.

Eventually, she did. And it was pretty good.

That was a really good climax. Grito succeeds where Ramonda and Before the Party's Over (and in a sense Veronika which I'll address in a few days) struggled with or even outright failed to do.

So going into the contest from FdC, I always expected Portugal to be a qualifier (why were SO many people sleeping on it? I know a lot of eurofans are dumb (sadly, not of the mute variety), but also hard of hearing?) but I was hoping for Iolanda to inject more life into her song. This was why I had difficulty getting into her at FdC.

and she... sorta did?

Like, if I'm honest, the performance wasn't enough to fully win me over. It went from a 7 to a 7.5, it's not the LEAP forward I had hoped.

However, Portugal managed to elevate the act from its FdC counterpart, and respected the song's strengths. Befitting the lyrics, Iolanda ~transformed into a better verison of herself~, serving personality.

The staging in Sweden was also better - the use of the cubes to create a confined space for an intimate performance, the interactive choreography and the camerawork that framed it beautifully were great. In FdC, it felt like Iolanda had too many ideas for her staging, and they were poorly implemented. In Sweden, it clicked together smoothly. Her styling was great (die Joel!). She got the message across, while staying classy and sophisticated, which I suppose is Portugal's entire spiel at Eurovision nowadays.

In terms of my personal preferences though, it doesn't set my soul on fire, or makes me raise roofs tonight. Iolanda was good across the board, so she makes perfect sense as a high jury carry, but at the same time she also makes perfect sense as a televote bottomfeeder. It cuts both ways - "Grito" is good on all accounts, and outstanding at none, nor particularly is it particularly high on Fun Factor. It's too polished and competent for that. Like, "Grito" is not Eurovision. it is a well-executed live of a well-written song that found it's way there by winning the NF. It's highbrow. And I can appreciate that, but ultimately, others this year have delivered entires that were more to in line with the vibes I like to receive from my Eurovision entries.

AND NOW WE'RE MOVING UP A TIER. Here are whoever's left:

Which one is #YOUR favourite?

THE RANKING

[whats-another-song-contest]

Where are Our Million Voices?

Though I do like Tattoo, I honestly don't get the hype around it. It's a good song, and an amazing performance, but compared to a lot of the other ESC entries this year it sounds dated. My mum has an expression we've applied to a lot of the mello songs this year: 'kindergarten pop'. While Tattoo certainly sounds a lot more mature than most of the other songs, it still has those schlager derivative mello-pop undertones we've heard develop and flourish over the past quarter century. And therein lies the problem: "quarter century".

One of the main drawing points of Hold Me Closer last year was, for me at least, the fact that it didn't sound so distinctly mello. It felt fresh. I'd say the main reason for this is that it wasn't written by Jokerdebb Gjansson, but rather by newer talent who (I presume) viewed mello as a springboard to move further, not as a factory floor where they hoped to find full-time employment.

The entry I've most felt this energy from this year is Six Feet Under, and looking at its writers we once again find that three of them are members of the band itself, and two of them completely new to the competition. These two are the first ones listed, which I assume means they're the main contributors. But like I've mentioned on here before, I find the refrain of this entry too simple and way too tame. Since I'm not familiar with the band's music from before I can't say if this is their usual style or a deviation from it, but my feeling is that this is where the mello producers have poked their fingers in the cookie jar.

I don't recall the entire process for selecting which entries get to participate, but I think I remember it involving communication between the contest producers and the song writers. The producers will send notes to the writers about things they want tweaked (and idk, maybe attach new writers to rework parts of submitted songs?), and I suspect this is a big reason why every mello song sounds like an alternate assembly of the same lego set.

My point: we need to invest in more and new toys to play with, and trust different people to play with them. More genres, different writers and performers—less repetition, more humanity. Genres exist for a reason: to speak to different aspects of the human condition. Each one has its own thesis, but by always walking the tightrope between them mello waters genres down until they lose their core appeal. Jack of all trades; master of none.

True diversity or representation isn't about finding the narrow overlap between every genre and making yourself cosy within that least offensive, widest appeal, marketing friendly corridor; let's throw open the doors! Give me entries I can love with all my heart, or despise with a burning passion. Lord knows I'm the furthest thing from a music snob—radio-friendly pop is my bread and butter—but I'm tired of shrugging every entry off as a more or less favourable variation of 'meh'—that is the opposite of entertainment.

Mello's greatest asset is the often spectacular staging of its entries, especially since this is the part where a lot of other countries end up letting their performers down. Although I'm the first to point out that Eurovision is about an entire performance and not just the song, mello has now reached the point where the music is the bottleneck holding back the quality of the performances—in a music competition. I hope Tattoo wins mello this year and that it goes on to do well at ESC, because Loreen and her performance deserve it. But an ESC winner? Personally I don't think so.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[inventors-fair]

All's Eve that Ends Eve: Halloween Commentary

There were lots of surprising entries knocking on the door this week! I think that my favorite part were both the similarities and differences that people chose when looking at their cards. It felt like there were quite a few types represented, too, at least two of each type excluding Planeswalkers and Battles. The ways that people changed creature types as well were multitudinous and exciting. I'm glad to be able to come back to this level of new and unique card designs.

Some of the wording was a little off, but that's okay when fleshing out cards with these kinds of complex mechanics. I want to point out that there were some cards that didn't adhere to the requirements, though, and you'll see them when we go through; read every part of the contest when we get there, folks, just in case. The main point of this contest was to take a normal creature on the battlefield (or going to be, anyway) and change it so that its presence on the battlefield is altered—hence, the no-tokens rule.

Another thing: card names. Sometimes there's high-impact, but quite a few weren't as adventurous as they could be, certainly not as evocative. I want to emphasize the need to stand out with how your card name impacts its mood; a winning card needs to be as complete as it can be (art excluded) and that includes a unique name. Try to fit the name to your flavor as completely as possible before submitting. What new mood can you emphasize or bring to light?

Judge Picks are cards I wanted to highlight for some reason or other, to draw specific attention to and recognize particular decisions. Let's go to the next door:

~

@batatafilosofal — Possessor Hive (JUDGE PICK)

I want this card to be a little bit worse than something like Apprentice Necromancer, and, well, it's a little bit...better than comparable. The fact that it gets multiple graveyards with no end-of-turn sac clause is really, really strong. Whether or not this could be a rare is debatable; I think changing some costs/stats could keep it where it is. I want to like this card's power level more than I do; is it a caution thing or just the fact that reanimation has burned us before? I couldn't say.

Flavorfully, though, I love what you've done with the place. I can very clearly envision the manner in which a crowd of insects begins to prop up the body of a recently deceased (or not-so-recently deceased) creature and buzz it around in a horrifying manner. It's not just that they're part of the body—the body becomes the swarm! The name's fantastic and, I gotta say, the ability is very good. This card in general is good. There's only the question of how cheap reanimation can be. In a commander set, this could've been fine; we've seen how that stuff gets pushed, for sure. Standard/premier wise? I'm cautious. Keep this one in the books, though, as a neat trick.

~

@bergdg — Durhim of the Wilds

Wild Shape indeed! I knew I'd seen that wording somewhere before. I think that this card's a strong legendary creature that could see play in limited with no problem. Whether or not you based it more on D&D/AFR stuff, well, I wouldn't know—I have no inclination towards that lore or learning about that lore by any means. Character-wise, I think that it's quite interesting and sensible to have this archetype in these colors.

I think that this is a solid card that I wish could fit one more bullet point just to mirror the cards that have come before it. Perhaps that would've made for a more memorable character: three unique shapes with more unique abilities. Having two is fine for limited, and this is a good use of mana with the evasion and evasion-benefitting ability going hand-in-hand. I think that this card's technical solidification is just...traditional? I don't have anything to critique, genuinely, but I also don't have much that I can say I absolutely love about it. If we ever get an Inventor's Fair cube, like I've mentioned before, I could see this going in for sure.

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@curiooftheheart — Method Acting

I was about to have a time talking about the implications of three-mana Emrakuls and what that would do to a format where you can token something out and then swing as early as turn two. But for FOUR mana? Practically unplayable, thank goodness. ... That's weirdly not sarcasm and I don't know what to do with it. Obviously for two mana it would be broken, and three's still strong as hell, but four just feels useless. I think this is one of those cards for people to have fun with first and foremost. I mean, it's a card based on theatre—how serious can we take it? (Disclaimer: I was a theatre arts minor, I can make fun of us.)

Backing up, because I'll be honest: I do actually love the flavor here. It's silly and fantastical and kind of disjointed because nothing would actually transform the actor into the creature, but at the same time it almost feels like it's in the Performer's head, and that makes it all the sillier. Perhaps at a lower cost it could've kept a smaller P/T, actually, and with that set you can swing with a 2/2 Emrakul instead of a 15/15 early in the game. Whatever works, right? Four mana feels just out of reach to be competitive but this whole card feels absolutely fun, that fun was poured into it and fun will be poured out. I can think of at least two LGS folks that would build decks around this card, no question, just for the sake of it. Isn't that what art's about?

~

@deg99 — Half-Orc Heritage

This is a moment where you've stumbled across the quite unfortunate case where I've tried playing with backgrounds, I've seen a lot of backgrounds, I've played with Baldur's Gate exactly twice fully in limited, and I'm just not someone who can judge or enjoy background cards. The concept is...not part of the Magic I play. As for whether this card is good... I'm gonna say yes, but I have no affinity for what it means in the D&D world. Can someone just, like, be half-orc? Does it affect gameplay? These are rhetorical questions because I don't want anyone to explain it to me. If you're someone reading this sometime in the future, please don't explain it to me.

How it works in Magic is self-explanatory. A buff for more aggressive commanders is totally reasonable in limited, and the only minor frustration is the fact that if your commander is getting removed and placed back in the command zone more than, like, two or three times, either you're playing an expensive sacrifice deck OR you're not winning that game regardless. Now, if it gave all your attacking Orcs a buff, or even all your attacking creatures, that would be a much greater impact. The current impact feels fine but not great. Most of the time, I'd rather have an equipment that would give this buff to anything I wanted without caring about the command zone in my deck.

~

@dimestoretajic — Suspicious Bite/Lycanthropy

This is a theoretically clever and flavorful way of demonstrating how werewolves could work as an aura, or rather how lycanthropy can be represented. The reality is that you can't play this unless you've attacked into a board where a werewolf will either be killed or bounce off, and that's antithetical to the werewolf gameplan. If your opponent is at all expecting this, then there's hardly a point in blocking and they can adjust their own gameplan while you have a dead card in your hand. Fighting and biting is fun, but those are, again, primarily removal spells.

What I'm trying to say is that this card is operating in an ideal scenario that's unlikely to align with the game state in a way that's advantageous to you. Also, what happens if it's night and you cast this? ... Okay, Curse of Leeches helps with this. And then, it turns back into day—and the aura falls off unless the same creature had been dealt damage with a werewolf in the current turn. Wait, hold on—the turn after you play this, unless it turns to night in the same turn, which it can't because you're casting a spell, the aura will fall off because the creature won't have been dealt werewolf damage. Okay, I'm glad I could work that out, because I knew something was a little weird. Phew. So... Sorry, that was a lot to say. Ultimately, I think you put too many wolf-eggs in one basket and this card is ultimately non-functional. Simplicity is the key to making these kinds of ideas work; maybe focus on one aspect of lycanthropes at a time, with more specific/flavorful names.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Haunting Visions

Part of this week's prompt was specifically not to create a token of a different type, in the Mandatory section. Still, all is forgiven, let's take this card at its face value. And my verdict: this card's really good. It's a good combination of death token effects and illusion typal stuff that we've seen in a couple sets at higher rarities. The clause restriction is just what it needs and the tokens could create a loop with ETB recursion triggers (Eternal Witness and the like), but at least the creature itself is more fragile.

How could we have fit it into this contest? Perhaps having the creatures coming back with illusory counters could've been reasonable, or just having them be haunted so as to avoid Solemnity loops (i.e. they just become illusions and exile themselves for the rest of their time on the battlefield). Some AD into whether or not we're seeing this from a necromancer's perspective could've been nice as well. Just things to consider, most importantly: making sure that the effect and the contest line up.

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@hypexion — Necrockmancy

This effect is quite interesting. I read your note about flavor intentions, and I don't hate this effect, and I just need to be honest: this name's over the too-silly line for me and that's about all I'll say there. For the rest of this, I wanna talk about how interesting this card could be in limited. I like the fact that you can reanimate lands, which implies a couple graveyard shenanigans in this set, and I'm a big fan of that. Making them into 4/4s is pretty neat, too. Changing a LAND'S type, or at least having that be an option, into another creature—I dunno, technically that's the part that doesn't precisely fit the contest, but it's the most interesting to me in the context of your immortality-through-lithomancy idea.

Small note: not giving the land haste is a little irksome considering modern templating, but that's just one consideration. Big note: this is less of a note and more of a possibility, but I wonder if you could somehow do both here. Like, what if you returned a land, then exiled the creature, and the land became a copy of the creature but as a 4/4 Elemental with haste in addition to its other types? Whether or not that would fit the contest is negotiable and could be adjusted, but I actually love the concept you've brought to the table here.

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@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Captivating Pond (JUDGE PICK)

Ah, and the return to the strange faeries! Or kodama, and not the Kamigawa kind. The little boys. Anyway! We've got ourselves a great card here. Let's talk about the critiques first: The name and flavor text are both good—genuinely, they're fine. I feel that there could be room for more emotional resonance in them, or at least an angle that prompts an emotional stance. Who's going to the pond? Why? It's a little odd as well to have a location be the name of a sorcery. I know that I also rag on you for flavor text sometimes, but hey, this one's a thumbs-up for me. Standard fantasy and perfectly fitting of the ability.

And what a nice ability it is! Insanely powerful, too, in a limited format at least. That internal activation grant is wordy, but heck, it does need to be exactly that, doesn't it. Ah well. Control magic effects are fewer and farther between these days, as far as I can tell, and when they do show up, they have to be unique. This one certainly fits the bill! It fits quite clearly into a typal set with some elements therein, and stealing an Elf to turn into an Elemental is quite fun indeed. I imagine faerie shenanigans, but hey, who knows what you can do with it? All in all, I'm a fan.

~

@misterstingyjack — Brinebellow Gullmage (JUDGE PICK)

We have, again, a card that turns a bunch of stuff into 1/1 fliers. I think I'm starting to see a pattern here! I like this card's name immensely, I'll say that for a fact. I'm surprised that it keeps their abilities in the same way, but I suppose I could've said the same for the insect-making thingymabobber. Right! Anyway, this card rocks and for the exact same reasons, except it's a little less targeted, which is okay, and temporary, which is also okay, with a name that kicks ass in a high fantasy way.

You probably could've used Polymorphist's Jest as a baseline, honestly, insofar as the ability would've read: "When ~ enters the battlefield, each creature target player controls becomes a white Bird with base power and toughness 1/1 and flying." Which might hit the Gullmage, but maybe you can say "each non-Bird" or something. You do need that "base" in there, I believe. I'm curious about the unearthing as well. What about this card would suggest the ability to unearth itself from a flavorful perspective? It's not a zombie or a robot, so I'm completely out of ideas. Still, I'm curious what your take on that is—and having it just be pragmatically exciting is fine too.

~

@mmmmmin — Recreation 102: Introduction

As mentioned, the contest was specifically about changing a creature's type to another type without making a token, transforming it in that manner. This card is... Okay, let's break a couple things down here. This feels like a good time, actually, to talk about recreation and introduction, starting with:

Hybrid! Hybrid is a super-cool way that cards can be played. What it means is that the card, by itself, has to be able to do what either one of those colors can do by itself. This card presumably counters the spell (we'll get to that in a second), which mono-green cannot do color-pie wise.

Resolution! The question then becomes: what exactly is this card trying to do? Transform a creature, perhaps, but the way it's worded, I can see your intention is to have a creature spell resolve as a Fractal instead of its usual body. How you've worded it is to turn a spell (which only exists on the stack) into a creature (which only exists on the battlefield). So how would this spell be worded, then? I believe you're looking for: "Choose up to one target creature spell. As that spell resolves this turn, the creature that spell becomes as it resolves becomes a blue and green Fractal with base power and toughness 0/0. It gains "This creature enters the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to its mana value" and loses all other abilities." That's probably not even accurate, honestly, but I had to go to extreme measures to make sure that that's even close. The point is: this card probably doesn't work as intended without really messing with the rules.

Names! We're in a place where I don't fully understand what you're talking about with this card, or at least that resonance doesn't come across in the name. Picking a punchy, poetic, evocative name can be hard with the amount of cards that have been printed, but the one we have here isn't fully informing me. I'm really not sure what you mean to get across.

In general: Always check with the workshop to make sure that your card works the way you intend to, that the name and abilities make sense, and that weird stuff isn't happening. Pop over to the Discord if you want, or simply browse Scryfall for the kind of wording that you might need.

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@nine-effing-hells — Xenagos Seeks the Stars

And the stars align, or rather, they're going to. I do love how absolutely, absurdly more powerful Xenagos the God is than Xenagos the world-hopping planeswalker who, as far as I know, we saw only on his home plan before getting god-ganked. But regardless. The story of Xenagos leads me to wonder just what that first chapter is doing. I get the other two, especially the last one, and it's an exceptionally clever use of this contest with Magic's history, but what's ramp, what's ramp got to do with it? Personally, I'd've preferred that it dealt damage or something, but that's a me thing. Pragmatically it's still quite powerful.

The whole thing is pretty darn powerful and I like that! In limited, it's not the most devastating card for a mythic, and I could see an argument for rare. It's a good saga, though, one that does a lot to enforce the story—whoa, wait, WAIT, I just noticed that the two middle chapters are the same, not one singular chapter-two. Cool! I mean, hell, it could still be rare, but that is a super cool touch I just noticed, dang. Right, anyway! This card. I like the present moment of godliness and I like the presentation overall. Two small notes for ya. Firstly, you should be able to adjust chapter locations and font sizes on MSE to even things out. Secondly, that last chapter can say "...becomes a God enchantment in addition to its other types" like how Abuelo's Awakening and Daxos's Torment work. One more for the cube!

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@reaperfromtheabyss — Potion of Lycanthropy

Glug glug, it's werewolf HRT, gimme the goods. But where in the world are we gonna see a werewolf potion, and are you going to tell Innistrad about it?? Let's back up for a hot second here. I'm making a little bit of fun of the name because it kinda sounds like a D&D item, but the card itself is pretty good. Perhaps it could've been simplified by just making the creature a werewolf instead of jumping through that hoop because, well, where else are you going to get werewolves except for the place where werewolves aren't made by potions and therefore aren't an issue. But! Threaten effects! Interestingly enough, both werewolf-themed cards in this contest are threaten effects. Speaks to that notion of, like, losing control, I suppose.

When you have a card whose basis does have that pragmatic here-it-is kind of vibe, though, where the name is self-explanatory, you run into the issue that the emotional resonance is about as deep as Potion of Healing or Wizard's Spellbook—reasonable, but they need to do a LOT of work to convince us that they're resonant in the world and not just placeholder names. Considering that this card does exactly what it says on the tin, I still just want just that little edge more, direction or flavor, to give it an emotional in. Again, the card is good, the card is playable, and I'm hankering for my heart to jump with it.

~

@salamileg — Work Together

Talking about names, we indeed come to a point where the name is similar to both the base concept and to other cards (namely Band Together and Stick together)—and as a result needs to stand out more than ever. For the most part, I'm actually impressed. Allies are quite the type to get more support for this contest, although I have to say: looking through the available cards, I can't think of much that would actually benefit from having Allies that aren't actively entering the battlefield. Still, the concept is cute!

For wording, did you intend for the Ally type to last forever? If that's intentional, then that's clever, but harder to track later on; I think I'd prefer that it be tied to the rest of the EOT clause. And for final notes, I really would've liked either flavor text and/or some artistic context for this card, because it feels a little early-concept at the moment without them. We have a good base here, but what more can we add to really round it out?

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@stareyedesper — Pull from the Abyss (JUDGE PICK)

I kinda adore this card, honestly. Quickly, I wanna note the wording, because I believe it should say: "...base power and toughness 6/6, GAINS flying, and is..." etc. Might just be a typo. Man, there's a lot of stuff I need to catch up on when it comes to proper wording, not gonna lie. I also had no idea that this wasn't already a card name, honestly! I was thinking of Pull from the Deep, which is a totally other card, and not half as cool as this. An eleven-mana aura... I think that this card's really messed up but in the best possible way. It's hard to fully utilize if you're a new player, I imagine, or at least it's difficult to do right, but the concept is easy and fun. Getting a 6/6 for BB, essentially, is the ultimate goal, but one never knows how it'll turn out.

The funny part is that because it's an aura, it's actually really hard to mess with in the world of, like, animation and enchantment manipulation, or at least as far as I can tell. Having such a high mana value is always a risk, but isn't that just how these things work out? Delve is a messed-up mechanic and we're absolutely here for it. This card speaks to me because of the specificity of its mechanics and I can envision the card you want to show here in all its demonic glory. Or whatever the opposite of glory is on the holiness spectrum.

~

@stupidstupidratcreatures — Solicitor's Costume

This card is...heh. I'm gonna go for silly in the fun way. While I'm usually not one to go for the one-to-one real world analogs—this card is no exception; I can feel that the name and flavor text wouldn't be around on whatever printed card happens to be finalized, and that the trick-or-treating feel of it is one degree off from where I want it to be. But, the card itself is pushed, interesting, and pretty cool otherwise. "Pushed," I say, because the repeatable artifacts and evasion and easy trigger are more powerful than the average common, in my opinion, but it's far from broken.

Small wording note: the type-changing to Dinosaur should come before the ability-granting of trample. Also, if you were going to really lean in to the trick-or-treating side, why not have it be on combat damage instead of attacking, like it has to knock to get the candy? I think Giant's Skewer did something similar-ish but with a different flavor. Seriously, though, I want to find an angle where this AWESOME art description can be used with this ability and not have it feel like a holiday-specific card. I ain't saying it's bad, but how can we keep our distance a little? It...feels disingenuous somewhat with the "holiday contest" being what it is, but that was more of a framing device than an insistence on theme. I kinda feel bad for the elf, honestly. They dressed up and everything.

~

@wolkemesser — Retired Mentor

This card does not work in the CR. Thank goodness, honestly, because that makes the rest of my commentary easy to talk about. Just to break it down: what you're doing here is setting a base P/T, and if your commander has another characteristic-defining ability that conflicts with this card's characteristic-defining abilities, then the layers/rules just straight-up don't like it. That's the crash course and I truly don't know how to explain it further, but someone more rules-savvy can. Granting other abilities is a major issue when other card's abilities negate the ability for those abilities to do what they want. AND this one also gives all your creatures defender, so I'm sure as hell not playing it in 99% of my decks.

Flavorfully, this is still...nice? The end of it is nice. The flavor text is D&D speak, which I still gag about on cards because of who I am as a person, but the intent is kind and loving and so I really shouldn't push the issue. It's a neat little experiment that happens to have rules clashing. Why not grant activated and triggered abilities, y'know? Something simple, something not-quite-that. Because as it stands, Karlach makes this card so brokenly broken. And Burakos decks swing for a zillion every turn. ... WILSON-TRON.

Thank you all for your entries. Time to shut off the porch light. @abelzumi

[deep-hearts-core]

2005 - semifinal

originally posted 7/21/20

Austria It's cute at best. I like the girl singer's voice here, and I love the traditional Alpine folk music that's being used as a base for this. Not a particularly strong number though. Seemed like maybe the singers were off-beat during the chorus? Or maybe the instrumental was just poorly assembled. Either is possible. Lithuania Little By Little doesn't suck. The styling here is fucking awful - Laura's outfit, hair, and makeup made it difficult for me to watch her. Her voice is also not a favorite of mine; while she doesn't have a bad voice, she was on key and all that, it just felt like rough going, like she wasn't particularly well trained. The song itself is actually pretty good though. Portugal That fucking sucked. People voted for this? I'm sorry, I just can't believe that. The vocals here were TERRIBLE, bad enough that I can't even comment on the quality of the song because I cannot for the life of me parse out a vocal line. I don't know if they were having problems with their mics or what, but every other word they sang was missing. The staging was equally terrible. It was hella unsynchronized and just made the stage look crowded.

Moldova  I can't tell if this song is supposed to be, like, absurdist or something. Moldova is always weird and so of course their debut is one of the weirdest of them all... the melody is catchy but aspects of the staging confuse me (what is the lead singer wearing? Is that traditional Moldovan dress or... something else? And why is the grandmother figure in a literal rocking chair for much of the song?) and there are a couple of racist lines in the lyrics, so, well. It's one of those things that's alright to listen to, as long as you don't listen too hard. Latvia This is one of the only songs I knew from this year going in - I really enjoy the studio version of this. I found myself kind of underwhelmed by the live, though. It's a very soft, chill song and I like the straightforward way they staged this, but the vocals here weren't awesome. The guy on the lower harmony was a little flat sometimes and there were instances where the harmonies were weird or one of them was significantly louder than the other. Monaco It's very nice! Classic Eurovision here. Lise has a nice voice and, although that dress was rather loud, for the most part she had pretty good styling too. I don't understand how this placed so low? I mean, I know this style of the song is jury bait in the era of no juries, but second-to-last is just upsetting. Israel Not that different from Monaco's entry in some senses... even with the loud dress! While this is a nice enough song, I feel like the background singers were definitely carrying Shiri through much of it, especially in the choruses. In the first verse she keeps falling a little short of the notes.

Belarus I like the costume concept that's going on here. The song is okay, it's very generic and for-the-time. My main problem is Angelica's vocals. They just. They don't sound right. There's a few notes she doesn't hit and a few places where her timbre just goes really brassy in a way that I don't like. Netherlands A solid, standard ballad! Glennis has a strong voice for most of this, the staging is simple - maybe a bit overly so, but not too badly - and the song is pretty good too. Like with Monaco, this one is very much styled for older Eurovision, which means that it didn't do well in 2005, which didn't quite have the nostalgia for moving ballads that the contest does today. Iceland I love All Out Of Luck, but I do not love this. Selma herself is an awesome performer with a good voice, but the song is all over the place - the chorus and the first verse, for example, feel very different, and the transition is slippery. I also can't quite comprehend what exactly it is that Selma's wearing but it does not look good on her, and I don't think it could look good on anyone.

Belgium Another one harkening back to the olden days of Eurovision. Nuno has a strong voice and the song has a really nice build to it - unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing happening in the staging, which sends the song way down in my opinion. Simple staging is okay sometimes but this? This was just lazy. Estonia Mostly, this song suffers for how young it is. Vocals are eh, song is trying too hard to be hype, but that could have been overcome with the right group and the right staging. Here, though, with the chunky bead strings and the bedazzled tee shirts, these girls look like the teenagers they are. I can't find a birth year source on most of the girls, but Laura for example would have been sixteen or seventeen for this performance, and it REALLY shows. Norway [heavy sigh] ah yes, it's glam rock again. This song is oddly familiar? Like it definitely sounds like something I would have heard on the radio growing up, which is a little disconcerting because I definitely did not listen to this song as a child. Like it came out in the right time frame, but I'm American, so like. Anyways. The song itself is... not bad? But I do take issue with the styling, maybe even more issue than I did with Sweden 2007. And lastly, can I just say. That band name? Not the vibes. Romania The first verse of this is very good, but once the chorus kicks in it becomes actually very generic. In the musical sense, that is. Luminita has a good voice and she seems to be a good performer, too, but in all honesty I can't focus on it. Her styling here was TERRIBLE and the set design was just as bad. The barrels being yellow just made me think of toxic waste or something.

Hungary Whoa, this one is pretty good! I like the rhythmic element to this song and also the folk dancing. Styling here is nice too. My only issue is with the singer's voice? It's not bad but it's awfully forward and nasal. Finland It's alright. I kind of vibe with it, actually. It's very dated but Geir has a nice voice and it's just... it's very chill. North Macedonia This feels more dated than the rest of them, somehow. Maybe it's the styling. Either way, the song is actually pretty enjoyable. The "la la lejla" hook is catchy and I also really love the bridge. Andorra An overall poor showing. It's not, like, terrible but the only impression it leaves is "oh wow, they are... wearing leaves, it looks like". Good vocals I guess.

Switzerland I am not super enthusiastic about this one. It is, solidly, Alright. I like the lead singer and the way this was set up, but I'm not sold on the song itself. The transition between verse and chorus is weird. Croatia I'm kind of bored by this one? I think part of it is that we've just reached That Point in the semifinal because of how many songs there are, but also, like. There's nothing super stunning about this, full stop. It's not even bad it's just unimpressive. Bulgaria I don't like jazz and this is no exception. We're gonna leave it at that. Ireland This is kind of fun, actually. I like the Irish dancing at the bridge and the chorus is pretty catchy. I don't know why these two were billed as "Donna and Joe" when it was really just Donna carrying the song... not that I mind that, I like her voice and presence. Joe, however, seemed incredibly awkward onstage, so that's one of my main complaints with this performance.

Slovenia The song itself is miles better than his 2017 entry. Stop is actually interesting. Things happen. There is rock guitar. In terms of presentation, actually, it's worse. In my 2017 ranking, I mentioned feeling conflicted because the staging was REALLY GOOD but the song sucked and Omar is a terrible person? Yeah, not so here. Omar looks like he has no idea what he's doing. He isn't even looking at the camera half the time. Denmark It's good! Jakob has a voice that I really like, and while the song isn't that impressive, it's fun and it's catchy and I can already tell that I'll be able to remember this really well. The staging is really cute too! Poland This one feels really hectic. Not entirely bad but there's a lot going on and it just moves at this frenetic pace. I do like the Polish musical influences though - I prefer this to My Slowianie lol!

My personal qualifiers Hungary Latvia Denmark Ireland Monaco Netherlands Norway Moldova Israel North Macedonia Miscellaneous thoughts I think this whole "Pavlo and Masha argue about how to start the semifinal" was funny, but I also felt like it was leading up to Ruslana performing, and then that didn't happen, so. Some disappointment there. Yeah, overall I'm not a big fan of these hosts so far. It's not even about their English, they just seem really awkward with each other and they don't have a funny script.

[cs-discourse]

here we go

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179953845684/uuuuwuu-every1-whos-concerned-abt-biased-judging

ok this attitude has been pissing me off long enough that it's time for one of my Big Ole Posts (tm) about how shitty this is! thanks. 

uuuuwuu every1 whos concerned abt biased judging in comps is just soooow entitled !!!1 i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11 bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1 also my last braincell just died pleas h

so here's the og post in question for quick reference

i honestly have no idea why people keep bringing up this idea of bias in judging competitions because, while i do think there is a type of bias that certainly exists, i think a lot of so-called "bias" that people have is ... not whatsoever like what people think it is lol. artists are people and there's always going to be SOME kind of bias no matter what you do, because it's literally fuckin impossible to NOT be biased. by that i mean:

your taste in plots/types of characters/medias influence your judging

quality of writing or art can influence your judging

the person who's applying for the adopt you may have previous judgement about

even if you say you aren't biased, you STILL have preferences and tastes in things that you prefer more than others, which in of itself is a kind of bias

people who know you (friends for example) will naturally know what your taste is. 

a competition is judged based on what form the artist thinks is best, right? 

NEWSFLASH EVERYONE'S IDEA OF "WHAT'S BEST" IS DIFFERENT FROM PERSON TO PERSON ..... "BEST" is literally the most subjective thing there is, and while i agree that there are certain aspects of art and writing that you can use as objective measurements of tangible skill, it's... still subjective. what people think is "best" will vary from person to person because we all have different tastes. so, essentially, this boils down to the idea that the winner of an adopt competition will ALWAYS be the form the artist liked best, because that is what the artist perceives as best. so like. when people appear biased in adopt competitions towards friends or certain circles, it's probably because they're literally friends because they have similar tastes in things, and therefore the form the artist likes best is naturally going to be from someone who shares similar tastes. 

so whenever i hear about """bias""" in competitions i just kind of roll my eyes tbqh because it's usually followed by complaints of "BUT I PUT IN SO MUCH EFFORT" or "I WROTE SO MUCH MORE THAN THE WINNER" uhhhh. if adopt contests were won by effort alone it wouldn't be a contest, it'd be an endurance test lol. literally just "who has the most time to waste writing out 60000k words of absolute meaningless fluff"... because, i hate to break it to you, but ANYONE can write 5000 words of mindless drivel that has literally no substance to it. 

now in caps for emphasis. takes a deep breath

THERE IS NO SKILL NEEDED TO BLOAT YOUR WORD COUNT. 

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE WELL TO WRITE 5000 WORDS.

YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW HOW TO TYPE AND PUT SENTENCES TOGETHER.

quality > quantity, always. like, i'm sorry you put in so many hours of effort but, those people who win with MUCH smaller wordcounts... did they not work to get as good as they did with writing? you put in 5 hours into one tryout. but others, take me for example: i have been writing for over 10 bloody years. i've worked hard to improve my writing, so you can't tell me i "didn't put in as much effort" as you because i did. i put in YEARS of work to get better so doing simple things would take me LESS time now. inb4 IT'S UNFAIR! dude, the literal definition of a contest is for the best to win. it wouldn't be a contest if it wasn't like that lol. it'd just be charity. what you should be doing instead of complaining about it is ASKING FOR CRIT and WORKING TO IMPROVE like a good sport? i get that it's discouraging but you should be prepared to lose when you join a contest. it's valid to be upset about but the moment you say you deserve it more than others JUST because of your effort, then i have a problem. 

and you know, there's gonna be times where i think a comp winner is objectively less skilled than other tryouts. honestly i just kind of shrug that off on account of different taste lol. sometimes that's just how it be, bc of those predetermined biases i mentioned before, and maybe a judge and i are just in completely stages of life so what i call quality might not appeal to the judge. that's also fine. anyway this really got off on a tangent but i'm leaving it in bc i think it needs saying. back to the og post

 > i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11

wtf didn't i address this in a different post

here let me link it for you

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179841459154/post179838988303-the-difference-is-that-you-have

which was replying to this: https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179838988303/179837734509-idk-anon-i-kinda-agree-with-the

i said it once but i'll say it again: artist entries aren't main adopts lol. people don't work for artist entries. all you fucking do is post on one like "can i have this pls" .. there is... no effort put into that lol. main adopts you WORK for. it's a CONTEST. claiming an artist entry is NOT a contest. if a bunch of little nasty gremlins come running up to me like a hungry horde trying to be the first one to claim my design, i think giving friends first pick is COMPLETELY FINE, BECAUSE WHAT DID ANYONE ELSE DO TO "DESERVE" THAT DESIGN? nothing. you did. nothing. you're literally coming here with this attitude that NOT GIVING THINGS AWAY TO STRANGERS FOR FREE SOMEHOW EQUALS BIAS? i literally do not understand your logic whatsoever. like. i'm trying really fucking hard. at least with main adopts the "payment" is the effort you put in trying to answer the artist's prompt. i know i sound super dumb repeating myself but i don't know how much simpler i can make this concept tbh

and this is EXACTLY why i say ya'll are fucking entitled because merc and any of the kal artists could be making REAL $$$$ selling their own designs and adoptables and art and NOT deal with all the bs ya'll throw at them. they're literally here because the ENJOY MAKING ((( FREE ))) CONTENT for you, and they're not obligated to do this. they can stop whenever they want. if you had to pay per hour for the length of time collectively worked by ANY species artist staff, the lot of you would be fucking broke. i'm actually constantly shocked that species artists work like, 8 hours or more on some of these gorgeous designs just to give them away for free in a contest. 

so, yeah, as someone who hasn't spent my entire life on CS (i've only been here for a year and a half), ya'll seem pretty fucking entitled to me lol. the world outside CS rarely gives out such gorgeous designs in write-to-adopt contests so i'm honestly baffled at the amount of bloody entitlement i see

>bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1 

this part i don't actually understand what you mean. do you mean they... help judge other comps? or like, enter them? i don't get what you mean by "weigh in" but listen, lol. just because something DOES happen doesn't mean it gives you a good reason to assume the worst. i mean... of course it happens. it's statistically impossible for skewed contests and bias to NOT happen, because there's always going to be cases of it happening. but like, what proof do you have that merc will be biased lol? like, real proof? because your main point i've basically debunked and don't believe in at all. do better than "i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11" because this doesn't make any sense to me for the reasons i already listed above lmao. if artist entries were supposed to be contests they'd be contests. what the hell makes you important enough to get first dibs on a stranger's work. ARTIST ENTRIES AREN'T EVEN MADE TO BE GIVEN AWAY, THEY'RE MADE AS ARTIST ENTRIES.... LIKE.... JESUS i struggle to understand ya'll

anyway im done here, if you wanna actually talk and debate this hmu on discord at lysander#9229 bc if you actually talk to me instead of spew this hot mess on the blog i might actually listen to you and change my mind and be nice about it instead of being a condescending bitch. 

wait one more thing

>also my last braincell just died pleas h

yea clearly

p.s., why do you ppl keep going to the blog to give critique on merc's designs when on literally every other design merc makes there's this:

https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3950980

here i even linked it for you. idk why it's so hard for yall to give constructive crit like decent human beings

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #24

24. LATVIA Sudden Lights - "Aija"28th place

Decade Ranking: 68/116 [Above Malik, below Andrea]

So you know who were kind of boring? Yeah... 😬

Ya sorry gays, I tried! I tried to like "Aija", but it's just not for me. It barely passed me by in Supernova (Discord Friends: "omg sudden lights are great and should win supernova" / Me, with genuine confusion: "which one was that again? 😐 :checks: Oh, i have that one bottom three. 😁") and idk. I liked Supernova 2023 and to me Sudden Lights were firmly in the "Sang some words for three minutes" category. Slow and anemic isn't my game. Especially for a rock entry, wtf? I watch Eurovision for the thrill, not to be put to sleep.

Still, it seemed that Latvia were on to something. "Intimacy" and "Has Great Vocals" aren't the most exciting characteristics on a slow song, but they provided the bare bones for a potentially engaging entry if done right. Besides, I am a great sucker for underdogs and storylines where they overcome all the odds stacks against them. Latvia hadn't qualified in a televote since Justs. As a rare non-embarrassing and non-hopeless Latvian act, Sudden Lights felt like they could make it through. With at least eight acts in the Semi that deserved to be eliminated more (oh, 2023) and arguably the best male vocalist in the contest, their first Grand Final since 2016 was just within grasp!

Except, they didn't qualify and that made me realize that my first impression of "Aija" was the correct one. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Latvia deserved to be eliminated, but... I also don't think they specifically deserved to not be eliminated either? All Latvia needed to be was "not boring", and they failed. This talk about "Aija" secretly being "a hidden gem" just really isn't true, beyond the fact that Andrejs can sing really well. "Aija" spent three minutes building up to a to a BIG VOCAL and then staged it like this:

and dimmed the volume of Andrejs's mic on top of that??

When it came down to the wire, Latvia ran into their old troubles of failing to adapt their staging to a bigger podium (how on Earth is this still an issue?! It's been an ongoing problem since Line!!!!) which meant the intimacy they were aiming for never fully came across, and well, there goes their main USP if I'm honest. I'd wish Latvia luck for 2024, but honestly, this non-qualification proved Latvia's issue is one of skill and not luck, and that is something only they themselves can amend.

THE RANKING

Everyone not elimated made it to ~Very Mild Like~ hooray! The Harsh Words continue though.

[deep-hearts-core]

2018 - semifinal 1

originally posted 5/13/20

Thoughts before watching Alright, we're heading into more familiar territory for me. I've heard the studio version of a number of the songs in the 2018 contest and I've liked a lot of them. I didn't watch this show live, so I don't know anything about the hosts or whatnot, and have only seen a couple of the live performances. I'll be watching the 2018-2014 shows through the German Eurovision website. They're available there with German commentary. I speak some German so this is a fun exercise for me lol. Azerbaijan Song is very... standard Swedish export. It's not bad and Aisel is an OK singer live. If I remember correctly, this was the tougher semi and this ended up falling through. Staging was weird - I liked it at first but there's an awful lot of running. Iceland A disappointment from Iceland. I like a lot of their less-popular entries but this is just boring. Ari is a strong vocalist, but my issue isn't with him so much as it is with the song, and with the underwhelming staging. Albania I'll get hate from the fandom for this, but I'm not crazy about it. Eugent's a good singer and he gets props from me for keeping his song in Albanian but it just doesn't click with me. Belgium This one's underrated. Not great but I feel like it doesn't get as much credit as it deserves. Sennek's got a great voice and a decent stage presence, and the song is actually pretty good. Staging killed this one IMO. I think using the main stage could have saved this - seeing Sennek being serious and as elegant as she could be in that dress, against the backdrop of the fans, was a little jarring. Czechia I need to establish first that I LOVE this song. I listen to the studio version all the time. And I love Mikolas as a performer and I know that he'd been injured and that the staging was adapted. But it's just not as fun live! Once Mikolas starts moving he really is fun to watch and gets everyone excited but I feel like too much of the performance was him standing there. I know Czechia did the best they could trying to change the staging in such a short time (he literally got injured at the jury rehearsal) but idk I feel like he could have moved around a little more. The fun of this song isn't in the vocals or the lyrics it's in the VIBE, the fun you have while singing or listening. I love dancing to this song and making a fool of myself while doing it and it's a shame that Czechia wasn't able to show that off this performance. Lithuania This was good, fight me! Staged really well and an absolutely beautiful song. My only problem with this performance is that Ieva seemed to move between vocal quality very awkwardly, sometimes sounding timid, sometimes not holding back, sometimes really pushing her sound into the back of her throat. Israel Oh, Netta. I want to start by saying that that staging was an EYESORE. I'm not going to make a judgement on whether it was cultural appropriation, because I'm white and it's not my place, but it sure was not the best to look at. For the most part, I like songs and stage performances I can take seriously, and this just wasn't it. I think Netta's a good singer and Toy is an alright song, and I found the use of a loop machine actually really clever (but I'm not sure if she actually used it... maybe her backup singers were doing the sounds? I feel like that somehow breaks the rules about recorded vocals). It simply isn't for me. Belarus Seriously disappointed by this one. Belarus usually does an OK job with staging but this just sucked. As I understand the song underwent a pretty significant revamp that hurt its chances badly. The chorus is nice to listen to, though, and I wish Alekseev had allowed himself to belt more instead of trying to be tender. Tender is OK sometimes, but didn't work for this song. Estonia This was so fucking creative. It's definitely different, a standout, and it was staged really well. Estonia did a great job with what they had (that is, a less-than-conducive stage design). The dress effect was really cool

and I don't think I've seen anything like it. Moldova's 2013 entry comes close but that dress was cool in a different way. The musical style isn't my favorite to see in Eurovision (and I just generally don't like opera) but Elina has an amazing voice and the song was generally well put together so I think it worked. Bulgaria This is another one I listen to a lot - probably one of my favorites of the year. It's a really well composed song with good live vocalists and a pretty good stage performance too. Great song, didn't trainwreck live. What more can you ask for? Macedonia I enjoyed this one. The singer has a great voice and it was staged pretty well all things considered. The song did feel like it was two songs stitched together - the verses one and everything else another - and that outfit really did suck, but I actually don't hate it. Croatia Franka is really fun to watch. She has a lot of presence, staging was decent, song was good. I love me a good triple meter. Her voice isn't my favorite, though. All in all I don't dislike this one, definitely a solid entry for Croatia. Austria Pretty good. Cesar has a very pleasant voice and the song is fun. Staging could have been done a lot better. Don't hate it. Not crazy about it but definitely one of the better entries of the night, I think. Greece I can't figure out exactly what I dislike about it. The song is pretty, the live vocals are okay, and the staging is okay, but something about this doesn't vibe with me and leaves my impression of the song solidly mediocre. I guess I feel like Yianni's vocals weren't right for the song? Finland I like it! Saara has one of my favorite voices so far and the song is good. I don't have strong feelings on the staging. Armenia Kinda underwhelming, but it's a nice song and I really like the staging design. Switzerland Can't believe this didn't qualify! Strong stage presence from Corinne and overall a really great song. The fire sparkler was a nice touch although it did fuck up the lighting, I think? Ireland Another of my favorites. A very sweet song that's genuinely just nice to listen to. Definitely the best entry from Ireland in a while. Cyprus So, I hadn't actually heard the original version of the song before now, only covers. It's alright. Definitely a really strong performance and a fun song to listen to, even if Eleni's live vocals leave something to be desired. My personal qualifiers Bulgaria Ireland Switzerland Finland Lithuania Czechia Cyprus Belgium Austria Estonia Miscellaneous thoughts Filomena is really funny in the green room! I like her a lot. Mikolas rapping was also priceless. Love the guy. I was on my way out of the Eurovision fandom in 2018, but I feel like a lot of people said this was the hell semi? I don't agree. Like, I know the top two of the whole contest were in this semi but overall I was really disappointed by the songs and performances. In my opinion this is only the hell semi in that a lot of the songs were so solidly mediocre that it was really just a toss-up to which ones would get through.