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by The Society of Card Gardens. . 187 reads.

The Gardener's Gazette, edition 19


The Gardener's Gazette

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of the The Gardener Gazette! The Gazette is released monthly and keeps gardeners and guests alike informed on the happenings within the Card Gardening Society. We also wish a Happy New Year for all of the Card Gardens and NationStates, because this is the first edition of 2022!


Garden Insight
by Giovanniland

As you might already know, the Garden Insight article reports interesting happenings in the Gardens during the month before the one our edition is actually published in. This time I write about December 2021, the last month of the year, and a quieter month overall but still fairly active. Early in the month, effects of the membership purge of late November, that reduced membership from 44 to 22 Gardeners. The general opinion was that, even though it was a saddening event, it is also important to maintain activity, while others jokingly commented that they welcomed a greater chance to win giveaways.

The Card Question of the Week prompts continued through December, with Gardeners encouraged to answer questions about trading cards, for fun and activity rather than prizes. December's themes included Gardeners' opinions on the Gardens overall, suggestions or ideas for what the Gardens can do in the future, and hopes or expectations for 2022 in the trading cards game. This month, examples of members that actively contributed were Panagouge, Fauzjhia, Indusse, Vylixan, and Marxmeans; with Marxmeans notably giving several interesting ideas for future activities.

Meanwhile, other channels such as the Garden Displays and the Farmers' Market were also active. For example, Vylixan announced that their Season 2 collection of all cards from The Pacific was complete, after the last card of Nieuw Oknomi was collected. They also later showcased an interesting collection idea, namely “Vide quam captiosus sim, sermone Latino!” on their puppet Vylixan Athena, which groups cards with Latin mottoes. I (Giovanniland) also commented about the addition of a legendary card to my 1984-themed deck of the Miniplenty, namely Season 1 The Free Joy State.

Later in the month, the holidays season saw many Gardeners wishing a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to others, while a special Christmas giveaway featured two Season 1 legendaries, namely Frisbeeteria and Testlandia. And of course, I can't forget the tradition to mention in this Garden Insight the names of new members that joined the Gardens recently! Welcome to Varanius, a returning member, and New Makasta, newcomer to the Gardens! Stay tuned for the next edition of this summary.


Winners of the Month
by Giovanniland

Just like the previous month, December also had a total of thirteen giveaways. Some notable legendaries awarded were the Season 2 card of Cavallino33, a ceased-to-exist nation with a valuable card due to that very fact, and two Season 1 legendaries as part of a special Christmas giveaway—Frisbeeteria and Testlandia were both given on the same day alongside the weekly Epic package.

A notable happening throughout the month were the rerolls, as there were several cases in which random selection gave the same number twice in a row. This happened twice in the early part of the month, and during the Christmas giveaway, there were three instances of a number in a row (a one in 8000 chance)! A Gardener could've won both Season 1 legendaries and the Epic package of the day, but alas, they only won the Epics. This is due to the fact December was the first full month after the membership purge in late November, which also explains how Eshialand, Indusse, and Laudesia all won twice in the month.

Besides these three double wins, there were seven other Gardens that won either a Legendary card or an Epic package. The full list can seen below, and furthermore, in this edition of the Gazette you can also see an interesting review of giveaways for the year of 2021. Be sure to check it out!

Nation

Number of Wins

Indusse

2

Laudesia

2

Eshialand

2

Seanat

1

Fauzjhia

1

Porflox

1

Deretania

1

9003

1

Marxmeans

1

Grand Abaco

1


The Giveaways of 2021
by Giovanniland

Welcome to the second part of the Gardens' giveaways retrospective! Following a very successful first edition last year, we decided to bring it back and review giveaway statistics, now for a full year. During the past twelve months, a total of 154 giveaways were hosted, which is coincidentally exactly double the amount of 2020, due to the increase of weekly giveaways from 2 to 3 and the fact we now have 12 months to analyze as opposed to 8. The number of different winners also increased, from 30 in 2020 to 46 in 2021; and a few changes to the mechanics were made throughout this period. This article will have interesting statistics related to giveaways!

The first giveaway of 2021 was an Epic package given away on Friday, January 1st, and included the cards of De Hork, Voortrek, Reqovia, Kiaville, and Herya won by Mediobogdum. Six days later it was time for the first legendary giveaway, a Season 2 Reploid Productions card that was given away to Apabeossie. Those two giveaways were held by former main administrator The unified missourtama states, but due to the October transition of power, the last giveaway of the year was announced by Giovanniland—and it was the legendary Season 2 Goodnamesarerare card.

Throughout the 154 giveaways, there were 2 people each winning eight, seven, and six times, 3 people winning five times, 13 people winning four times, 7 people winning three times, 7 people winning twice and 10 people winning once. The graph below shows all Gardeners who have won at least three giveaways, with all others grouped into the "Others" category (24 giveaways won in total). Of these, Grea Kriopia, Destructive Government Economic System, Laudesia, Oofery, Pytong, Ronodin, and Varanius all won twice each. Meanwhile, the following 10 Gardeners—Alfonzo, Cirrus Azale, Minskiev, Nacoa dya, New Sunville, Sputtopia, The Atlae Isles, The United Peoples of Centrism, Witchcraft and Sorcery, and Wymondham—were the ones that won one giveaway each.

Some important changes were made to the giveaways during 2021. In the day of January 23rd, The unified missourtama states announced that a second Legendary giveaway would start taking place due to the increase of members and donations, which has happened ever since. Instead of a Legendary giveaway every Thursday and an Epic one every Friday, the Gardens now have the first Legendary giveaway every Monday, and the two other ones (Epic and second Legendary) every Friday.

During April, the Beldum Bot stopped working for unknown reasons, so TUMS decided to change the random number generator to Mimu, that is still used today. Another example of rule change was in late June, with rule saying that "a giveaway would be rerolled if the previous winner had no deck capacity" being repealed with support from several Gardeners. Instead, winners are contacted and must make space or provide another nation to receive the gift until the next giveaway happens, else the card is randomly given away to someone else.

Last but not least, some interesting stats were selected to bring this article to a perfect end:

Most wins – 8 (Apabeossie and Economichunger)

Least wins – 0 (any member not mentioned in the table above)

Closest two giveaway wins by a single member – Economichunger (January 29th and February 5th), The Holy Principality of Saint Mark (April 9th and 16th), Luna Amore (June 4th and 11th), Narvatus (July 9th and 16th), Indusse (December 10th and 17th)

Farthest two giveaway wins by a single member – Destructive Government Economic System (March 5th and September 24th), then Pytong (February 19th and August 30th)

Two wins in one month, twice – Fauzjhia (March and November)

Two wins in one month, once – Apabeossie (January), Recuecn (February), Economichunger (March), Elegarth (April), The Holy Principality of Saint Mark (April), Inven (April), Luna Amore (June), The Salaxalans (June), Narvatus (July), Oofery (July), Vylixan (July), Deretania (July), Grea Kriopia (October), Indusse (December), Laudesia (December), Eshialand (December)

Most valuable legendary gifted* – Season 1 Testlandia given to Laudesia (500.00 MV)

Least valuable legendary gifted* – Season 2 ABU AMMAR given to Cirrus Azale (6.50 MV)

*note: market value calculated at the time of publication.


The Return of the Monthly Contest
by Giovanniland

In the 18th edition of the Gazette, I stated that "the Gardens will temporarily stay without a monthly contest running, partly because of the holidays and also because there are some upcoming plans and ideas for the Society currently being thought of."

However, they are returning this month! Thanks to an idea by Marxmeans earlier last month, we will run our first Collection Bracket. If you ask how it works, Gardeners will have a two-week submission period to link me one (and only one) collection that they own either in their main nation or puppet, submiting its link to Giovanniland by Discord DM or NationStates telegram until 23:59 UTC of January 25th, 2022. You can additionally submit a short explanation of the collection theme if you so desire, although this is not mandatory.

After that, pairs of collections will compete through popular vote, the number of rounds of course depending on how many submissions there are. The winner will receive a Legendary card, though additional rewards may be sent out depending on the number of entrants! So think about what collections you have that could potentially win this tournament, and let me know once you've decided. It is as easy as choosing a collection, sending me a link, and then participating on the popular vote to decide the winner.


See you all next month for another Gardener's Gazette edition. Credits to Giovanniland for leading the newspaper publication and writing the articles!

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