Vote for December's Golden Variants!

Post from the vote in November:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/vote-for-novembers-golden-variants

Not sure on what some of the terms in this post mean? Have any other questions? See any typos? Feel free to ask and comment below!

(Scroll down to the bold text if you want to know how to vote without reading my entire message )

Hello Custom Variants community!

Welcome to the last Golden Variant vote of 2024! December is coming soon, and after that the end of the year. It's amazing how much we've come as a club since February.

Here's our year in review thus far:

• 100s of variants submitted and reviewed (exact number not clear due to numbering bug)
• 14 WoFs (Wheel of Fortunes) accepted
• 8 NCVs (New Custom Variants) accepted
• 42 Golden Variant arenas by the end of 2024
• 3 Platinum Variant arenas by the end of 2024
• 4000+ new members (!!)
• Most Popular NCV: Minihouse by @MrKheese (600+ daily games/700+ active players, Platinum Variant #1)

Just looking at this, this may have been one of the best years for Custom Variants ever! Thank you to everyone for your ongoing support for this club and the work that we all collectively do.

On another note, at the time of the writing of this post, there are 17 variants currently Under Review; as you might expect, this is not exactly ideal, but we're working on it! We've been seeing a huge increase in NCV submissions specifically, which take longer to review. As we go into 2025, we'll make sure that we can improve this process.

Another improvement we are hoping to make is to also encourage activity in 4P FFA and 4P Teams (non-Self-Partner) variants. In the past few years, activity for those variants have drastically decreased, and this is not something that we want! We are open to any and all suggestions, so please contact us by DMing one of the admins (of this club) if you have any!

Now with that, let's get into the details!

Want to see what variants were featured in previous Golden Variant arenas?

See the schedule here:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/2024-golden-variant-schedule

This month's format:

• Four arenas, starting in December at 4 PM PST on Fridays (12 AM UTC on Saturdays)
• Golden Variant arenas will be 72 hours long, and Platinum Variant arenas will be 168 hours (1 week) long

What you're voting for:

• Week 1 (December 6) will be a Golden Variant arena of the winner of StrawPoll #1 (Teams SP)
• Week 2 (December 13) will be a Golden Variant arena of the winner of StrawPoll #2 (2 Player)
• Week 3 (December 20) will be a Golden Variant arena of the winner of StrawPoll #3 (Teams SP)
• Week 4 (December 27) will be a Platinum Variant arena of the winner of StrawPoll #4 (Platinum)

What is Platinum Variant?

Platinum Variant was introduced this year as part of the revival of the Golden Variant cycle.

• Platinum Variant votes are special votes held once every 3 months (quarter)
• Candidates are the five Golden Variants with the most arena activity from a given quarter
• Winners of the Platinum Variant vote are considered the fastest rising variants and will likely become even more popular in the future
• Previous winners were Minihouse (by @MrKheese) and Ambush (by @coolthing)

Who are the candidates this quarter for Platinum Variant?

This quarter, the candidates are:

• The Lake (by @2bHNST)
• Best Friends Forever (by @stupnik_2_0)
• Rubicon (by @josephruhf)
• Explosive Magic (by @BN1208)
• Saturn's Rings (by @asthebird)

The voting process:

• 3 Golden Variant StrawPolls, 1 Platinum Variant StrawPoll
• 3 variants per Golden Variant vote, 5 variants (listed above) for Platinum Variant vote
• Ranked-choice voting
• Each StrawPoll will have 1 winner (calculated using StrawPoll's ranked-choice vote system), and will be selected and scheduled as described above
• The polls will close on November 29 at 4 PM PST (November 30 at 12 AM UTC)

StrawPoll Links:

• #1 (Teams SP): https://strawpoll.com/7MZ0kNvOrgo
• #2 (2 Player): https://strawpoll.com/X3nkPlNaLgE
• #3 (Teams SP): https://strawpoll.com/7rnzV8zJlnO
• #4 (Platinum Variant): https://strawpoll.com/GPgVYX9JBna

Happy voting!

oh well. I guess no accepteds of mine this year.

Go asthebird!

THE LAKE FOREVER!

how

is

the

lake

good

saturn's rings for the win.

I'm sorry but Chaturajj Alt Teams does not look like a good Self-partnering variant to vote for.

Explosive Magic

Well, we all know what I'm voting for the Platinum Variant: Saturn's Rings.

YES STC IS A CANDIDATE FOR GOLDEN VARIANT!!!!!

Oh yeah, Pit Racer exists. Imma vote that one.

What is STC?

Hmm, Explosive Magic seems fun.

SATURNS RINGS!!!

Hmmmmmmm.... Wonder who made it...

Hmm, good question. Maybe he’s somewhere around here. . . hmm. . .

Obviously it was me, right guys?

I could've sworn it was my variant.

well i coulda sworn it was mine but some guy stole the privilege away >:/

Wait, lemme check the data base. And it's by ... Allanzixi??

He did it.

I love when 1/3 of recent submissions have gd level names.

That's my alt account.

Sorry, I misread the name, I was looking at the variant above it. It says .... "avalonianisawesome." Wait, that's WildFox's alt.

WildFox is also my alt account. avalonianisawesome is my alt's alt.