How to win Iron Chef?

[el minster]

How does one play/win Iron Chef Optimization Challange?

[Bucky]

You play by PMing the chairperson (who made the first post in the thread) a valid build, in the form dictated in the "Presentation" section, prior to the deadline mentioned in the "Cooking Time" section.

You win by impressing the volunteer judges more than anyone else.

[MinimanMidget]

You read the first post in an Iron Chef thread, which tells you how to do these things in far more detail then you're likely to get here.

[daremetoidareyo]

Too many variables: don't play to win; play to impress.

Tips:
+put your build name in the PM subject to the chair
+cite sources
+highlight all of the abilities of the special ingredients, not just the obviously good ones, and look for ways to use them unconventuonally
+Double check skill points
+Dragonwraught kobold are true dragons.
+Tell us why this build is cool

Good luck and have fun and be brave

[Gusmo]

In addition to what's already been said, perhaps look at some past winners, and see how they were presented to judges. The quality of how entries are presented to judges matters perhaps as much as the entry itself. This is true in most contexts that involve opinion-based judging, such is the nature of human persuasion.

[Darrin]

This thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?545591-Inside-the-Kitchen-Mind-of-an-Iron-Chef) might be a good place to start.

I made an attempt to categorize (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=22699897&postcount=7) some of the "methods" for putting together an Iron Chef build, but I don't think the categories quite caught on.

Trying to medal in Iron Chef can be very frustrating... particularly when each ingredient may take 1-2 months to complete. You can sometimes improve your chances of medaling by entering an IC with a very weak ingredient, as many regular chefs may decline to enter if they can't put together a strong build. But you can't really predict who will judge, what criteria they'll use, or how they evaluate the entries. If there's only one judge, then they are usually just ranking the entries in whatever order they like.

The best way to get better at Iron Chef? Volunteer to judge.

[Zaq]

The best way to get better at Iron Chef? Volunteer to judge.

This! This this this. Thiiiiiiiiiiisssssssss.

It is an extremely true statement. Judging made me SO MUCH BETTER at competing it's not even funny. (Judging is also a TON of work, but it's mostly fun work. Mostly.)

Otherwise? Practice. Don't be afraid to experiment. Don't talk yourself out of things! It's okay to be risky and goofy and out there. I've had several builds where I was shooting for HM and accidentally ended up with gold, surprising me every time.

I've also won a few times simply by being the "last person standing," meaning that one or more judges were lukewarm on me but were savage towards the others. So just try not to lose easy points doing things that piss judges off... but that's also somewhat impossible, both because you never know who's going to judge and you also don't want to be afraid to try crazy things! It's an art, not a science. It's okay.

Seriously though, judge. When you put yourself in the judge's shoes and see what it's like, you gain a much deeper understanding of what a judge is likely to care about and how you can impress them.

Also, remember that you don't have to be perfect to win. Gold goes to the highest score, not the highest possible score.

[DeAnno]

To offer a complementing point to the above: don't be afraid to play to your own strengths. Like, risky and goofy can definitely work for anyone, but that's Zaq's game, so it makes good sense that it'll work very well for Zaq. My game is slick and elegant, and if I tried to make all my entries feel more like Zaq entries I don't think they'd turn out as well.

Everyone, and also every gaming group, is going to have optimization territory they're more used to treading, and when you're covering it it'll show. You won't make as many little mistakes, you won't miss as many subtle optimizations (some of these little known or perhaps even undiscovered in the gitp meta), and most importantly you'll be usually much more effective at presenting what you've made. Often when you do this your build will seem boring and vanilla to you, but often part of that is just because it's something you're personally used to seeing, and the polish of actually table tested tactics often shows in a write-up.

Also, I agree that it's super difficult to predict how competitive your entry will be until it's actually judged. I usually feel pretty good about my entries when I make them, but for the one Iron Chef I won recently I had way less confidence than usual when sending it in.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

In addition to the above:

I'm always very happy to see a story, fluff-piece, background, or some such for a build. They make it way more memorable (which you want as an entrant), are fun to write and to read, and can often show off how your build works. Plus, sometimes they're directly worth points in the Originality category (as a judge, I tend to give up to a full +1 points for the fluff). You can get a surprising amount across with just a little work; one of the best fluff-pieces I've seen was a picture of some bubbles in a dark lake and a few lines from a children's rhyme about a serial killer/bogeyman, instantly setting the tone and establishing what kind of character this was.

Spell out exactly what your character can do. All their cool tricks, what exactly those feats and class features are doing for you, the whole works. This can feel weird, since you've spent hours working on it so a lot of it seems obvious to you, but it won't feel obvious to a judge that's just gone through three other entrees. This goes double for how you're using the Secret Ingredient of the round.

[Zaq]

To offer a complementing point to the above: don't be afraid to play to your own strengths. Like, risky and goofy can definitely work for anyone, but that's Zaq's game, so it makes good sense that it'll work very well for Zaq. My game is slick and elegant, and if I tried to make all my entries feel more like Zaq entries I don't think they'd turn out as well.

I was about to play this off until I thought about my last, like, eight entries or so. Yeah, okay. Story checks out. I'll take your complementing point as a compliment!

My point about not talking yourself out of things stands regardless, though! Don't say "oh no, I can't do X even though that was my natural inclination." You totally can too do X, and it'll probably work better than something that doesn't feel right to you!

Also, don't be afraid to follow the build wherever it leads. It might end up taking you down paths that you absolutely never expected or intended at the start! If it feels natural, there's probably a reason for that and it's okay to trust your instincts.