Firstly, I just want to say that this round was exceedingly hard to judge - two talented builders at the height of their game cranking out some of their best builds at record pace. Every entry really let each builder's personality and style shine through and clearly show, "Oh, that's definitely a Caleb build" or "Oh, that's totally a Jonah build." The Minecraft Trident as a seed part, a bit on the nose with Caleb's reputation, has 4 avenues of attack to exploit: the overall shape, the trident prongs, the ribbed handle, and the diamond shaped pommel. It was very engaging to see how our competitors approached this challenge!

To remain as objective as possible, I created a rubric with subcomponents for each category to be judged against:

Parts Usage: Vitalness, Natural/Unforced Feel, and Imaginative Use (NPU)

Build Quality: Technical Ability, Aesthetics, and Presentation

Performance: Build Variety and Inter-MOC References / "Back and Forth"

Except for Performance, each build was rated out of 10 for each subcomponent and then averaged for the category for the builder. It was extremely close!

Parts Usage:
For Caleb's best usage, I found The Palace Gardens to be his top entry: vital to the work, naturally integrated into the architecture, and imaginative in use. Overall, he was fairly consistent in making the seed part integral to the builds and finding new and imaginative use cases. I found he was a bit "hit or miss" for natural uses. This in particular stands out with finding his footing at the beginning - the draping vines in "Into the Unknown" and the bottom of the desk in "Are ya winning, son?" felt a bit shoe-horned and detracted from already quality usage in other places. For Caleb's least impressive usage, I found "Trinity" to ultimately be underwhelmingly used in the foreground and functionally equivalent with other bar elements in the background. For Jonah's best usage, "Old Navy Pier" is the best entry in the entire round and my personal favorite from this competition. The focal point of the build, used in a brilliant way, with seamless integration into the surrounding world. However, while Jonah may have had higher highs across this category, I felt he also had lower lows with "Child's Play", for example, which lacked innovation or a crucial use case. A few other weaker entries with "Oh, An Airplane!" or "Sweet Dreams" just didn't use the part to its fullest potential. While both competitors had excellent usage throughout, the more consistent performance from Caleb I believe ultimately led to the average coming out in his favor and the category going to him.

Caleb: 7.8/10
Jonah: 7.7/10

Build Quality:
For Caleb's best build quality entry, it's a toss up between "The Sun Stone" and "To the Sky". Each are technically impressive, well detailed, and have a consummate polish as bold, cohesive models. For Caleb's least impressive build quality entry, his aesthetics dragged a bit as I found the usage of the eyes in "Lizard" and "The Green Knight", while admirable, to be distracting and drifting into the uncanny valley. Tonally just didn't match and something like muted approach could have played better. He otherwise maintained solid technical ability and consistent presentation. For Jonah's best build quality, once again, "Old Navy Pier" takes the cake. Technically impressive, thoughtfully composed, and well presented. Overall, Jonah's presentation was consistently superb and thoughtful, ahead of Caleb's, by nearly always adding little flairs to set them apart and feel special (Video for "Old Navy Pier", Blur in "Riding in Style", Layout in "No Pain, No Gain", etc.). His aesthetics remained solid and consistent. However, for Jonah's least impressive for build quality, I found there was ultimately a lack of technical chops exercised in examples like "Child’s Play", "Sweet Dreams", and "Nighttime Stories". Not to say a minimalist style is bad, but I can't help but feel there was some "wow-factor" potential left on the table, potentially due to the time crunch. These had very straight-forward construction and I would have liked to see the MOCs further fleshed out and the technical chops shown. Ultimately, for that reason I believe it brought the average down a bit for Jonah, enough for Caleb to clinch ahead.

Caleb: 8.5/10
Jonah: 8.4/10

Performance:
As someone who finds pun-related humor to be unbearable, I forwent that subcategory and focused exclusively on Build Variety and any back-and-forth references between builds. While Caleb did have some direct response MOCs (the buoy and the emoji), these were not official entries. Fun none the same! However, Jonah's use of Caleb's "Lizard" is the perfect subtle detail in the spirit of the friendly, sparring tone of Iron Builder. For Build Variety, while Jonah had fewer entries, I ultimately found him switching up his style, variety, and visual appearance more, as Caleb would tend to go back to familiar themes and subjects, particularly in the last couple of entries (Castle and Adventurers). This read as Caleb playing it a bit safe, with Jonah risking a bit more. And for that reason and the one before, this category goes to Jonah.

With the categories this close, it was an awesome match to watch and wishing nothing but the best for you both! - Casey

Whew, what a round! Both builders can be proud of themselves, as this round once again kept true to the Iron Builder -brand with some truly innovative parts use and builds sure to become IB-classics.

I'm sure the trident was an interesting piece to build around, as what is basically a stick offers a huge amount of possibilities for building. Both builders managed to utilize the versatility the part offered with its simple shape combined with intricate textures. My favourite uses include Jonah´s dragon with its spikes along with the geniously crafted crown. Using the business end of the trident as an USB port is also worth mentioning.

Both contestants also managed to work around the limitations set by the uncommon colour of the piece, and mostly managed to avoid the seed parts standing out too much compared to the rest of the builds. Perfect examples of this are the aged copper decorations of Caleb´s dwarven mine, and the tongue of a hungry sand green frog. And I admit, using the Minecraft trident as a Minecraft trident got a chuckle out of me. Jonah´s use of the piece still felt slightly more varied and creative to me, and so the win for this category goes to him.

The build quality was another tight one with both contestants bringing their A-game. It was an interesting battle of two builders with quite different yet flexible styles. Jonah clearly preferred smaller models with clean presentation; his rice field was my favourite of the round in this aspect. Caleb wasn't lacking in this category either, as best demonstrated by his massive yet well lit and framed knight. Caleb also had what was possibly my favourite build of the round with his magnificent Sun Stone! I say possibly, because I´m having a very hard time deciding between that and Jonah´s motorized ferris wheel. It was a close contest, but Jonah´s overall output felt more consistent to me, and so I awarded this category to him.

Overall performance was also hard to judge. Both Jonah and Caleb built in a variety of scales, using forced perspective and other clever tricks to their advantage. However, Caleb managed to churn out a few more builds compared to his adversary. The age-old mantra ""quality over quantity"" is a bit hard to apply here, since Caleb managed to keep the quality of even his larger builds impressively high. I´ll leave rating the smack talk and puns to audience acclamation, and crown Caleb the winner of the final category.

So there we have it. Huge thanks to the two builders for delivering such an entertaining round, hoping to see more from you soon!

Congratulations to both builders for a truly entertaining round of Iron Builder - this is hands down the toughest round of Iron Builder I’ve got to judge because of how close the levels of both builders are. I would’ve called for a draw if possible, but since it’s a contest for the grand title, I have made the tough decision by considering even the smallest details in each and every entry to arrive at this conclusion.

Let’s start with parts usage. The Minecaft Trident is an interesting piece, but I would argue that it isn’t one of the most challenging ones we have seen in the contest, as it size allows it to be used as various details in various objects. There are 3 obvious features on the element to be utilized: the prongs, the handle, and the tip with the square decoration. Both builders have demonstrated excellent usage of these features on the element, but there are a few occasions when such features are used in more unexpected ways, and I think that deserves some extra points. For me, Jonah’s Ferris Wheel in “Old Navy Pier” and the USB port “Is your USB key as cool as mine?” does exactly that, the trident really blended into the build and became something else, that I could’ve easily overlooked if I wasn’t judging them for the round. Another aspect that I looked at when making the call, was how well did the seed element blend within the models, and I think in that regard, some of Caleb’s entries such as “Are ya winning, son?” and “Eat Your Veggies!” just feels slightly too deliberate with the usage of the seed element for my taste.

For Build Quality, it was another tough call but I have given it to Caleb in the end. Both builders have made some incredible models, excellent choice of colours, clean executions and lovely composition in almost every entry. In the end, it really just comes down to who got more entries that I would consider as a highlight regarding the build itself, Caleb just won my heart by a hair with “Reclaiming Erebor”, “The Factory”, “The Sun Stone” and “Grasshopper” – such wonderful models!

Last but not least, for the overall performance, I have decided to give it to Jonah. Both of you have given out some very diverse models both in subjects and scales, but Jonah won me over in the end with the overall presentations – the webpage for “No Pain, No Gain” and the closing short film really got me! Once again, kudos to both builders and I can’t wait to see more awesome builds from you guys in the future!