Council of Elrond

Hello dear MECCG community,

It's been two years since the last election, and that means it is time for a new election that will define a new chapter in the Council of Elrond history.

Voting will start on January 13th, 2025, and will be open for two weeks. After that, a new charter will be formed.

We would like to invite any volunteers who think that they could do something useful for this game. Here's a list of things we've been working on for the last two years, that hopefully can serve as an example of what being a member of the Council of Elrond is about:

- Remastered Rules containing all rules into a new format with more precise language: https://www.councilofelrond.org/rules/

- A new online platform that can run into any browser, that has managed to gather players from all over the world: https://play.meccg.com/

- Organized online tournaments: https://play.meccg.com/tournaments

- Periodic ruling digests with official answers to the many rules questions that arise during games: viewforum.php?f=163

- An official card database: viewforum.php?f=186

- Updated website: https://councilofelrond.org

- Updated forum: https://councilofelrond.org/forum

- Taking care and moderating the different communication channels.

- Video tutorials on how to play the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyw-jyN6nhQ



If you want to be a candidate, please post a reply in this same thread telling more about yourself, your involvement with MECCG and your ideas for the new term. Feel free to ask any questions here or via PM.


List of candidates so far (open until January 12th):

DamienX207
Felipe Silva
Siraynad
Bruce
Mordakai
Goblin King
Sarma72

Hi all, my name is Ethan and I served on the Council of Elrond for the term that is now coming to a close. Please consider this my re-application thereof.

I believe wholeheartedly in the role that the CoE fills for the worldwide playerbase of MeCCG, and although I know all too well that this work can be grueling and the feedback sometimes equally so, I humbly believe that I can contribute enough to the Council and its playerbase that I am game to take on another term. I would stress to anyone considering nomination: please be ready to give this your all, because that's what it takes and what our community deserves!

To summarize my background:
- I started playing MeCCG in 1996, stopped a few years later, and then started playing again about 8 years ago. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien, I respect the designers of MeCCG and want to preserve their legacy as best as possible, and I honor the importance of properly stewarding this game into the future.
- I've served on nonprofit Boards of Directors in the "real world," so I have experience participating in these sorts of committees. As an example, I advocated for our current Council to publish official minutes of our meetings like a nonprofit board in order to promote transparency.
- As a member of the CoE's Rules Committee, I poured countless hours into helping create our new tournament rulebook with the clarity and precision that CoE tournament play has previously lacked, with the additional goal of preserving the framework that we had inherited from ICE and previous Councils.
- I worked on a "Beginner Rules" version of that new rulebook (which can be viewed by going to the above link and clicking the button in the upper-right corner) because I'm an ardent believer that the CoE should facilitate the game's accessibility whenever and however possible.
- Also as a member of the Rules Committee, I helped provide English proofreading and educated feedback on our many ruling digests. We had a lot of super knowledgeable people in our group of volunteers and I don't want to overshadow their insights whatsoever (we couldn't have done it without all of you!), but given the variety of native languages represented in our community, I do believe that my education as a native English speaker and my own extensive research were beneficial to our committee.
- As a member of the CoE's Administrative Committee, I pushed to create our new Council of Elrond tournament policies, evolving the original Council of Lorien policies from some 25 years ago with the accumulated knowledge that tournament play has since provided (and again, I would stress that many members of the current CoE gave input on this project!).
- And finally, also as a member of the Administrative Committee, I pushed to update the Council Charter so that it accurately represents how the CoE functions. When there was community pushback on the Charter's removal of the ratification process, I moved to update the Charter again according to the community's preferences. And based on that experience, I also proposed adding a new mechanism to remove councilmembers who aren't meeting the community's standards in the future.

I want to stress that serving the community is integral to how I view the Council of Elrond. If the community at large is vocalizing that something needs to be changed or done differently, whether in terms of the tournament rules or policies or operations or whatever else, I am personally always going to listen with an open mind and do what I can to make it happen. I don't pretend to know better than anyone else, as my fellow councilmembers will surely attest!

With that said, these would be my primary goals for a new term:
- Building off the new tournament rulebook (which covers the rules of the game itself), my foremost hope is for the Rules Committee to now take the next step of creating an online database where both players and tournament coordinators can type in any card name and immediately view all of the current rulings and clarifications for that card, without having to dig through untold numbers of digests and Usenet posts to try to piece together an answer to a card-specific question. In my head, I would love to compile something like the "Oracle" database that WotC has created for Magic: The Gathering. I do expect that a project of such magnitude would take a ton of time, but I think it would be worth it to further solidify the CoE's rules for official tournament play.
- I'm a professional video editor in the "real world," so I'd love to work with the CoE to create an official Council of Elrond video tutorial for new players to learn the game in 20 minutes or so, with top-of-the-line polish, 3D motion graphics, etc. I fully respect and support everyone who has created their own video tutorials over the years (the more, the better!), but I think my expertise could help us increase accessibility for new players even more.
- Given that the cost of physical MeCCG cards often creates a barrier to entry for new players, I would push for projects that make it easier for novices to start playing at home. Talking to some of our fellow community members, I understand that the player-run governing bodies for various other "dead" games (e.g. the Star Wars CCG) accept donations of physical cards in order to get spare commons and uncommons in the hands of new players for cheap, which I definitely think is an idea worth exploring. Other possibilities might include an automated "MPCFill"-style platform where proxies could be readily purchased online, or a web app that creates customized proxy PDFs for printing at home (or at the least hosts PDFs of the challenge decks) - of course, ensuring that any project is legal from a copyright perspective, which I happen to have experience navigating in my professional work.
- And finally, I believe strongly that a fair playing field for CoE tournaments should be expected and enforced. Now that the new tournament policies are in place, my goal would be ensuring that regular tournaments are held according to those policies so that an equitable tournament environment can be created and maintained for everyone.

In closing, thank you for your time and consideration. If you are considering nominating yourself, let me emphasize that you don't need to write as much as I just did! And thank you for the opportunity to serve on this body for the past two years. I hope that I have represented this community well. TYTY!

Hello guys:

I'm Felipe (Fisilva), current member of the CoE, and I'd like to be a candidate for the next period.

I'm a proud member of the very small and isolated chilean meccg community (we call ourselves "The Council of the Bay of Belfalas", given there are almost no people here anyway )
Have been playing online since the pandemic, and I think I have played about 90% of the tournaments available in the spanish-speaking community in that period. And have participated in all available tournaments in the new play.meccg.com platform (ended in 5th place in the online-Worlds!). So, overall, I think I have a good grasp of the competitive aspect of the game by now.

In the CoE, I have collaborated in the Public relations committee, in the Administrative committee and in the Rules committee.

If you choose me, I'd like to focus on the ruling aspect, and been able to provide support for the players in that area

Felipe

Hello everyone,

My name is Miguel Ortiz, but everyone calls me Migue. My nickname is Siraynad, and I would like to run for the new COE term.

My story as a player begins much like most of yours, back in the 90s, playing with the few cards I could afford from decks and boosters. I played with friends, and looking back now, I realize we got so many things wrong, haha! We misinterpreted plenty of rules, but we had a great time. In 2000, I stopped playing until 2020. During the pandemic, I started collecting and playing again, but this time online. I learned to play correctly thanks to having access to manuals, CRFs, errata, etc., on the pages that have kept this game alive, and most importantly, thanks to the willingness of experienced players who helped us learn. They did so through tutorials, videos, games, and tournaments organized by both the COR and the COE.

Thanks to all of this, I've become a fairly skilled player. I've won several small and medium-sized tournaments, and in larger ones, I won the Imladris Tournament in 2023 and was the undefeated MVP in the rounds, finishing 3rd in the finals of the 2024 Online World Championship. Additionally, since 2022, I’ve been supporting the COR (Council of Rivendell) in organizing online tournaments and maintaining the statistics for all online tournaments from 2020 to 2023. This effort allowed us to create an annual ranking and a historical ranking for online tournaments.

If you vote for me, I’d like to contribute to the COE with my experience in organizing tournaments and maintaining their statistics. My goal is to bring variety to tournaments and design both an annual and a historical World online ranking. We’ve seen that these kinds of initiatives add value to tournaments, making participation more engaging and fun for the community by providing objectives for each game, each tournament, and even medium- and long-term goals through the rankings. This helps build an active and enjoyable community for this game we all love so much.

Best regards,

Migue.

Dear MECCG community,

My name is Bruno, I come from Italy, and I've been a devoted player for the last 20 years, approximatively.

I'm running for the CoE because I want to help keeping up the great job that's been done in the last years. The community has been very active and my intent is to give my contribution so that our community keeps on following this path and possibly grows even further.

Promoting the new online platform play.meccg com is in my opinion a crucial point. My goal would be encourage players who don't use the platform yet to get familiar with it, for example by organizing many tournaments for beginners.

Another thing which could help promoting the game would be translating as many online resources as possible in various languages. I'm thinking about he Website meccg.com, rulesbooks (expecially the upcoming unified one), cards and so on. The more accessible the information, the easier to involve potential new players and promote engagement in the dorment old ones.

As a final note, I commit to be highly receptive of any proposal and ideas coming from within the community, and to make sure any proposal gets discussed and evaluated.

Looking forward to do my best for our favourite game.

Bruno

Hi there, dear community:

My name is Alvaro, I'm from Spain. I've been a MECCG player since the beginning (with an hiatus of several years), and I also was a member of the Council charter that is ending now, in Admin and Organized Play commitees, primarily taking care of online tournaments and specially liaising with face-to-face Worlds organizers. I'd love to keep my presence there, as I think I have some valuable skills in the field, and I also contributed to some extent to online promoting and aducating (you can check my YouTube channel here). I am also member of the Council of Rivendel (Spain), so a promptly liaison with them can be quite useful, spacially for online tournament agenda coordination.

From here I humbly run for one seat in the Council of Elrond. Best regards, community,

Alvaro

Greetings MECCG Community,
My real name is Ralph and I’m running for a seat on the Council of Elrond.
I began playing the game when it came out and I’ve never stopped (but I’m still not very good). I did manage to win one ring tournament and got second in another back in the 1990s. Ancient History.
More recently I’ve been part of an active community in California. For decades, loyal fans of this game have been gathering infrequently but regularly at gaming conventions up and down the state.
In 2023, I was the organizer for Worlds in Sacramento, CA. It was the return of MECCG Worlds to the USA after 9 years away. In the aftermath of that fine event, I, with the help of others, have launched Muster For Middle Earth, an annual MECCG and LotR LCG event similar to the annual Lure of Middle Earth event held each year in Germany.
The first Muster for Middle Earth was held in San Jose, CA in 2024 and the next event will be in March in Las Vegas NV.
I’m a strong advocate for rebuilding and reinvigorating the MECCG community in the USA and the Americas. In the last three years we’ve managed to awaken a dozen of so sleeping ents with MECCG collections big and small in California. We’ve also introduced a handful of players to the joys of this game and managed to help them start a small collection of cards that they can call their own.
I’m running for the council for the riches, the fame and the glory. HA! That’s a joke. I want to do it for the community and the wonderful players I’ve met over the decades. My goal is to bring people from this international community together. If I were to have a character card in this game my class would be Diplomat and not Warrior (or Scout or Ranger or Sage). I have no interest in supporting any particular philosophy when it comes to the rules and how they can be changed. I’m also one of the most technologically illiterate people you will meet online. I can barely function on the web at all. (But I’ll apply myself and learn some day, I PROMISE.)
So what use am I? Well, I love public relations and I love promoting this game and organizing play. And I respect and applaud all of the volunteers who bring to the table some of the many skills I lack.
So vote for me, or better yet, walk with me. Join me on this road that goes ever on and on.
Thanks,
Ralph (aka Goblin King)

Dear all,

In the end I too am willing to run again. My main focus will be keep help organising online tournaments, as indeed this is what I enjoy doing most. In this respect, I am looking forward to work also with others both in and outside the council. I also want to try broadening the community by helping new players and see if we can find way to bring back some lost or nearly-lost MECCG communities (e.g. the Easterlings) and reach those Tolkien loving countries that simply were not in the marketable list for translation back in the ICE era. I'm no expert of translations but I'd love to set up a sub-group dedicated to translating cards in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian etc, e.g. following the example of some French heroes here.

Cheers,
Marc

Thank you to everyone who has valiantly accepted the challenge of honoring our beloved card game.

According to our Charter:

II. Method of Election (or Removal)

a) Electorate: Each member of the active player community, defined as membership on the
Council forum, will be entitled to cast votes in the election (or removal) of Council members.

b) Election procedure: The current Chair will be responsible for organizing the election and
creating a voting topic on the forum, or else delegating another Council member willing to
perform this task. An independent non-Board member will be selected to audit the final voting
results and ensure their accuracy. If more than nine persons are nominated, a ballot will be
conducted to determine which candidates are appointed; each forum voter will vote for two
fewer candidates than the total number of those running for election, and the nine nominees
with the highest total votes will be appointed to the new Council. If the number of candidates
running for election is exactly five, six, seven, eight, or nine, all those running will be appointed
to the new Council and no vote will be held. If there are fewer than five candidates, the
appointment of a new Council will be postponed until a minimum of five candidates are
nominated.

Since we have exactly 7 candidates, no elections need to be held, and these 7 candidates will be appointed as the new Council of Elrond. Seven is also a nice odd number for a council

I will contact and organize the new members and soon the new council will be announced and official.