This has been a delightful round to watch, and throughout the competition I have felt that both builders performed excellently and they were really very well matched overall. But as a judge, I sadly have to put one ahead of the other, even though both definitely have what it takes to be an Iron Builder!

When it comes to build quality, both builders have put out one excellent build after the other, and it's hard to fault them on anything in them. Some stand-out builds for me are Kit's ""Now I'm the King of the Builders"" and Caleb's ""From the Jaws of Defeat"". These both portray some animals that are looking very much alive. Presentation-wise they are also both doing excellently, although I'm not a fan of the wooden backgrounds in either ""Building Till the Cows Come Home"" or ""Sea Serpent - Redux"". The builds most elevated by their presentation are for me Kit's ""Biting off more than you can chew"", with the shark under water and the reflection of the boat, and Caleb's ""The Sapphire Express"", with the smoke and blurred background giving it a sense of motion. In the end, I am going to award this category to Kit, as in general I feel he is putting more complexity into his builds and thus showing off his amazing mastery of the brick that bit much more.

Parts usage is my favourite category and what I always felt was the most important part of an Iron Builder competition. It's all about being creative with the seed piece after all! Caleb did really well at putting the saddle to a prominent use in all of his builds, and it rarely feels forced. Some really notable uses from him include the use as an apron, a flower vase, scales and as the most integral part of an entire train. Kit uses a different strategy, where he's cramming as many uses of the part as he can into his builds, some really good, some more forced, and some uses disappear in the whole of the build, but overall it's impressive how many things he was able to make with a dark azure saddle. I really like the monkey statue head, the mech head, the shark mouth, the little shelf/bookcase and the clever uses in the tractor. And while he does have some uses of the piece that disappear into the whole or don't really work that well, most his builds have at least one really good use of the piece making the other uses work as supporting roles, and that is why I'm awarding this category as well to Kit, for his share amount of ideas on how to use a very clunky piece.

For overall performance, both builders have a varied range of builds, covering different scales, creatures, characters, small scenes and larger builds. And while there are some seed piece uses for the ""Iron Builder bingo card"" (fences, roof shingles, scales, mech parts...), they both make the uses feel fresh and not rehashes of previous Iron Builder rounds. It's also been a lot of fun seeing the puns and back and forth banter between the two, as well as the title of Kit's final build referencing the title of Caleb's first. What tips the scale for me in this category is how Caleb never lets the seed piece drown or play a secondary role, even when he has multiple uses in one build. His only seed piece use that feels a bit forced is on the horse, where it's making the horse look like it's missing some chunks in its belly, but I'll let that slide for the humour in reversing the saddle to use it on a horse without being a saddle. Kit has multiple uses of the piece where he might have been better off leaving them out (like on the staircase in the Final Dawn, or the bottom of the gate in ""A Minifigure's House is his Castle""), or where it takes a while to even notice the best use of the seed piece in the build (like the monkey statue head, where the big monkey is stealing the show, or as what appears to be a micro scale vendor stall in ""Child's Play"", but is completely out of focus, and I didn't even notice it until I was staring at the builds almost with a magnifying glass to try and separate these two). Kit also has some issues with keeping everything connected at properly straight angles it seems, as there are some parts of his builds that probably should be straight but aren't, and I'm guessing this comes from the stress of time in some really complex builds.

But overall, well done both of you, sadly you were put up against each other and only one can emerge victorious.

An impressive round between two talented builders of comparable skill and interests! This was a difficult round to judge as both builders were neck and neck in every category. The horse saddle was a very challenging piece to use with a bizarre shape and texture. It forced the builders to stretch their imaginations on what objects and patterns can be represented with this part.

For parts usage, my rule of thumb for scoring this is whether the piece is a highlight of the MOC and if it’s the best piece for that purpose. The best examples from this round are Calebs’s sea monster and medieval ship. The former uses the saddle for scales and defines the overall look of the creature. The ship uses the saddles as ornate drapes, which are eyecatchings and I couldn’t think of a better part suited for that purpose. I also liked Kit’s use of the saddle in the bumper cars scene, and the rollercoaster in the background is another great example featuring the part in a very believable sense.

For build quality, both builders again came very close. Neither showed clearly better building skills or presentation than the other, so I had to look at each build closely for technical considerations. In that regard Caleb’s builds appeared more solid than Kit’s. A lot of builders like to explore unusual connections to achieve unique textures and shapes, and these examples are really prevalent in castle builds stemming from the Derfel Cadarn style. If done right, they can create elaborate shapes and textures, but with the time constraints of Iron Builder, trying to connect parts in usual ways end up looking rushed. The art museum scene by Kit is ambitious in trying to capture the arches and vault, but the end result appeared flimsy with the staircase and slanted railing.

This is my first time judging the performance category, and while both performers pulled off proportionately peppery puns and had equally diverse builds, the win for this category goes to Kit for drawing first and last blood and for having one more build than Caleb.

Congratulations to both builders for another extremely entertaining round of Iron Builder, but also to the team for picking such a fascinating seed part. Unlike a lot of the other previous seed parts, the Friends Horse Saddle does not have one or two obvious “front” side, I would argue it provides distinctly different opportunities from any side you look at it, as demonstrated masterfully by Kit and Caleb. It also have all these little details and wildly organic lines and shapes already sculpted into the element itself, that the builders must somehow make sense of in their models, or as showcased here, use to their advantage to get that extra detail you don’t always get making things out of LEGO bricks.

For parts usage, I would like to hand it to Caleb. It was a tough call because in my opinion both of you did a fantastic job. In the end of the day, I think Caleb managed to impress me just a little more several occasions by using the less-utilized sides/potentials of the part, like embracing that square underside as the side texture of “The Sapphire Express”, the beautiful pattern created by combining it with other parts on the side of “6057: Sea Serpent – Redux”, and the incredible combo use for that flower pot in “Open for Business”. Extra shout out for the brilliant idea of using the saddles to create a saddle on “The Golden Rider”: it was clever on a conceptual level given what Iron Builder is about, and the execution was just as clever.

For Build Quality, it was another tough call but I have given it to Kit in the end. While both of you have handed in some incredible models, I think Kit manages to put in more fun little details and part usage on his entries beyond the seed part, like the throne in “Now I’m the King of the Builders …”, the mechanical details in “The Iron Sentinel”, the roof in “Building Till the Cows Come Home”, the ski lift in “Morning’s First Snowflake” etc. Caleb’s model on the other hands have a relatively simplistic and clean approach to everything else in the scene outside the use of the seed part. In addition, I also think that overall, Kit has a more striking use of colours and better presentation that really sells the stories for me.

Last but not least, for the overall performance, I have decided to give it to Caleb in the end. Both of you are pretty strong in the game of puns and reparteé, but I think Caleb won my vote with the excessive train puns. On top of that, I also think Caleb has delivered slightly more diverse models when you consider the theme/scale/topics. Once again, kudos to both builders and I can’t wait to see more awesome builds from you guys in the future!