Greetings Pilots and eXode Citizens!

The time has finally come and we are proud, and ready, to announce the winners of our first-ever Planetary Challenge Contest! To read more about the contest and see a full list of the entrants please check out our announcement post here.

After countless hours of reading (and re-reading) all the entries our exhaustive pursuit to name the winners is finally behind us! We had many internal discussions and never imagined what a difficult task it would be. Also, we never imagined the thought and hard work put into it by the eXode community and for that, we are extremely grateful!

Everyone did an amazing job and we are sure you all learned an immense amount about your cards and their mechanics, so that alone is a major success. Well done!

Without further ado, here are the top four winners of the contest.

In Fourth Place

@raudell with the entry Colonizing H24 - an eXode Planetary Challenge deck.

Unfortunately, there are no prizes for fourth place.

However, we want to give credit for an amazing build. This strong military selection provides for a great deck and displays a powerfully weaponized colony. Equipping the secret agent as the origin, and supplying plenty of fire support, ensures that the colony will operate secretly and securely. A great aspect of this build was a fully equipped crew that used all equipment available.

In Third Place

@veryanprime with the entry Exode H24 Contest Entry: The Power of Science

Reward: Three Booster Packs

This entry was an amazing use of the Science Faction to colonize H24. This build is complete with an armed science crew, maintenance crew, supplied with a diverse team to manage a long-term colony, and even a little firepower to fend off an alien attack. The well-designed exploration team would be a huge advantage to exploit all of H24’s resources. The chances of a successful colony are high with this build, well done!

Although not a factor for making third place, a special shout out to @veryanprime for bringing a Red Shirt Unstable Genius to H24. We'd love to learn if he's going to be a recurring character or the first to be shot by the neighboring aliens.

In Second Place

@apprentice001 with the entry My eXoSetup for the First Planetary Challenge

Reward: Five Booster Packs

This entry was a work of beauty and the content inside was also top-notch! The custom graphics aided in explaining a nearly flawless selection. Minus a few small details (origins cannot be equipped) this build made for an exemplary work of exodeness. An amazing layout that displays much knowledge of the game.

In First Place

@digital-wisdom with the entry EXODE: H24 Planetary Challenge, Take II

Reward: Tom Settler Essentials Pack

Finally, the First place winner! This entry had everything we wanted and more. Correct layout, well thought out and detailed explanations of decisions, and a best possible scenario for selecting a build. The analysis was in-depth and can be used as a guide to help others when they are preparing to select a deck for evac. In this entry, we see the different possibilities by using multiple factions for one layout. Having multiple factions offers much diversity and when you choose the right one's they can work well together as is the case here. Super job and you nailed it!

Secret Rewards!

We promised you some secret rewards in the competition and while not all secrets were found, we still have some lucky winners that will receive their bonus boosters!

The Lack of Nutrition Challenge

As you know, H24 is lacking in terms of nutritious plant and animal life so it's very important to bring some kind of food with you. While there are many ways to feed your colony, we had one thing in mind especially:

Tom Settler's Soup and Cook was the perfect choice to bring with for your colonization of H24. It has food, water, and it even makes your colonists happy while they use it. So we thought, why not make everybody happy who brought it as well?

We had 3 captains that agreed with our idea, congratulations to @raudell, @apprentice001, and @blockmonster! You've earned yourself a bonus booster each!

The Starters Challenge

This one was tricky, but as you might have learned from our contest, eXode is designed for players at every level to win rewards! So anybody using only a starter deck could have won an additional booster as well! Captain @apprentice001 got very close to that secret objective, but ultimately missed to fulfill it just as well.

So sadly, we don't have any winners for that one.

The Hardfork challenge

Maybe everyone already forgot, or maybe the launch of eXode on Hive has healed the wounds, but H24 was created in the likeness of the Hardfork 23 that created Hive. Hardfork 24 means Hive will no longer be a clone of Steemit, but it will be it's own entity. So yes, sadly no one saw the connection. Or at least, no one mentioned it!

The Make an amazing Article Challenge

Our last bonus objective wasn't planned initially but to tell you the truth, we were really blown away by the number of articles we got out of the challenge. Everybody put so much thought, time, and effort into making their contribution that we felt like we can't let anybody walk away from the contest without at least a little something to show for.

So since this challenge was all about Colonization, we are awarding everybody with a small gift to help you with your efforts once the real Colonization starts!

Congratulations @digital-wisdom, @revisesociology, @slabakbg, @nachofigx, @eyebroo, @veryanprime, @raudell, @apprentice001, @paleshelter, @nockzonk, @hooiyewlim, @palasatenea, @kobusu, @proto26, and @blockmonster - you are all winners in the Make an amazing article-Challenge and everyone of you will receive a WHC Unit as additional reward - thank you all guys!

Just like everybody else, we learned a lot from having this first contest and we are already excited to get our second iteration going! Our next contest will have a more specific setting, more secrets, and hopefully even more reading for the community and us. We can't wait to get back to you with all the details, so stay tuned for round 2 in just a few days!