You've probably seen a message like this while browsing declined variants:

Just a short reason! Did the CGAs fall asleep before writing the decline reason??

Then you look at the time the variant was posted: an hour ago!

What are autodeclines?

The scenario you just saw was of an autodeclined variant, and you might be wondering a lot of things about how they work and why they exist!

A variant is autodeclined for a variety of reasons, and we'll touch on 6 of the major reasons in this post, as well as give real examples of them:

Reason #1: Forced Win/Draw

Reason #2: Forced Opening

Reason #3: Lack of Strategy

Reason #4: Requirements Not Met (RNM)

Reason #5: Similarity to Previously Accepted/Declined Variants and Reusing Concepts

Reason #6: Plagiarism

An autodecline is when a variant is declined before testing or after a very short test, and is done only by a CGA, and not NCV Testers. CGAs will never autodecline a variant without being confident, as this is an individual decision that still requires mindfulness of the guidelines. We don't autodecline a variant because we dislike the creator, or because of any other personal bias.

Autodeclines happen because CGAs identify key features of a variant that are flawed enough to warrant immediate feedback; after all, it would be a shame to wait potentially weeks for the entire official testing team to vote on a variant, only to find out that there was a big issue there the entire time...

(Note: In variants shown today that have Fog of War, the fog will be removed so that the screenshot can be clearer.)

Reason #1: Forced Win/Draw

(Variants used as example: https://variants.world/posts/288 and https://variants.world/posts/314)

Generally, saying that a variant has a forced win for one side or that it's a draw is hard to do because a human mind can't take into account all the possible lines. Of course, we have Fairy Stockfish on our side, but that's really only viable in some cases. The testing team of CGAs and NCV Testers still need to examine the variant for a variety of things, past just using an eval bar.

However, there are some cases where the CGAs can easily look at the variant and analyze it, with "WoF | Foggy Valley" and recently declined "WoF | A" being an example.

In Foggy Valley, we start with this position, and immediately we can see an issue: since this is Fog of War, there is no way for Black to know if White's amazon is checking the Black king. For example, when White plays Af5+:

Black is now faced with a dilemma of whether or not to move Kd3. Again, they have no idea whether or not White is checking them. For all they know, White could've moved Ae5 instead, in which case they would be moving their king into check, losing the game.

In this case, White would almost certainly have a forced win, as they play this psychological game on their opponent. The game is neither fun nor balanced.

In A, players must place down 2 pieces: an amazon and a king, on the two backmost squares. Because there aren't many options for moving, it's again pretty easy to tell with just a bit of analysis what will happen. With perfect play, this is the position reached on the 6th move:

And now, no side can make any progress, due to the blockade! Thus, we can confidently say that this is a forced draw.

Reason #2: Forced Opening

(Variant used as example: https://variants.world/posts/215)

Although this is one of the main features of a forced win or draw, it's definitely deserving of its own reason just because of the wide variety of scenarios it can occur in.

Forced opening autodeclines generally occur when there is a distinct line of opening moves at the start that make the starting position redundant. Confused? Just ask yourself when looking a variant: "Would this variant make sense if the position after the opening was made the starting position?"

Let's look at "NCV | The Chaotic Structure" as an example.

Here, you are given 120 points and a piece bank to setup pieces before the start of the game. Sergeants can be placed on the 5th and 6th rank. Now, because this has atomic and fog of war as gamerules, getting "cannon fodder" (basically, pieces you can just throw at your opponent) is really important. As a result, this is what the position is after the 16th move:

Going back the question I posed at the start and changing it up a bit, let's ask: "Is it really necessary to make players sit through these 16 moves just for the same position to be reached every time?"

If you answered no, then you'd be correct. Although this variant is not necessarily a forced draw and has some decent gameplay, the opening is basically redundant, which is why it was autodeclined.

Reason #3: Lack of Strategy

(Variant used as example: https://variants.world/posts/292)

Lack of strategy is applicable whenever a variant is simple enough that a player can make random or the most basic moves and still keep the balance going.

This is usually tied into Reason #1 as well, but there is another definition that is not as related: lack of strategy can also be apparent when it relies too heavily on bots deciding the outcome of the game (usually those that you can't manipulate, and especially those that are immune to being captured).

In "WoF | Race to Liberty", Yellow moves first in this battle for KOTH on the furthermost rank, and Blue and Red are immune Futers that move toward Yellow and Green. This is an important thing to remember for later on, since it can really affect the outcome of the game.

Generally, Yellow will win by default since they will reach the Hill first. In that case, this variant would be autodeclined mainly because of Reason #1, but see above for a possible position...

Here, Yellow did nothing wrong and kept moving their king up. However, the blue xiangqi horses blocked the path, letting Green finish first by pure luck.

When we are discussing WoFs (being short for Wheel of Fortune), they're fast-paced variants that may have a small element of luck, in a way that makes the variant fun to play. This does NOT mean that variants can be forced, or that a player's complete dominance of a game can be instantly reversed by no fault of their own by a bot's moves.

(See here for more information: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/4pc-wheel-of-fortune-information-1)

Reason #4: Requirements Not Met (RNM)

You might be asking me now: "GS, wasn't the RNM tag removed once we moved to Variants World (https://variants.world)?"

Well, yes, but also not quite.

Since we moved to Variants World, the system has been great at automatically detecting when requirements aren't being met. For example, if you tried to submit a variant where the gamerules were different in every game, you'd be barred from even submitting that variant.

However, autodeclines for RNM can still happen after a variant has been posted, for a few small reasons:

The variant's testing games were played with the intention of toeing the requirements (e.g., the requirements state games need to be at least 5 moves long and not have early resignations, and someone plays a game that is 6 moves long on purpose.)

The title of the variant is a default name (e.g., Custom position Giveaway Hill).

The title of the variant is irrelevant to the variant, inappropriate, political for no reason, controversial, and/or offensive (e.g., the 69th Battalion of the Federalist Party of Flat Earth Spider-Man)

The shape of the variant is clearly obscene and/or meant to offend others (e.g., a variant that uses walls to spell out "KKK").

There actually haven't been many variants declined for these reasons, and so there's not much need to give an example here, as it seems pretty straightforward already.

Generally, the CGAs will give 24 hours notice for the author to explain why the issues are present (e.g., was it an accident, can this issue be fixed, etc.) before declining the variant, but in some cases they won't do so.

Reason #5a: Similarity to Previously Accepted/Declined Variants

(Variants used as examples: https://variants.world/posts/24)

"NCV | Knightchess" is one of those classic examples that every variant creator should know! I mean, it's even on the NCV Tester Application, which hasn't closed yet, and yet here I am spoiling the answer to that question...

"Knight Chess", "Upgraded Chess", "Fairy Knight Chess", etc., are all names for variant of a similar concept where pieces in a standard position are replaced with their fairy counterparts.

For more scenarios where variants can be autodeclined, check out the guide I made back in February of this year:

(See: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/how-not-to-make-a-variant)

We can't really accept this variant because: a.) we already tested variations of this variant in the past and they weren't fun to play and were declined and b.) no effort was put into actually creating the variant.

Reason 5b: Reusing Concepts

(Variants used as examples: https://variants.world/posts/10163 / https://variants.world/posts/326, https://variants.world/posts/231 / https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/ncp-thermopylae-1)

This is a tricky one to explain, mainly because this is something that usually used as a reason for declining after the entire testing team has tested a variant, and not an autodecline. In addition, it's not something that we started autodeclining for until March of this year.

Regardless, @qilp (our head CGA)'s announcement/guide is extremely helpful. It even has a TL;DR, which explains it much better than I could've, and I strongly urge anyone reading this to read that as well.

(See: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/how-to-make-new-variants-accepted)

Here's one example:

In "WoF | ☉" (shown on the left), the premise of the game is to gain control of the board by utilizing sergeants. In the variant, you have to strategically plan captures in order to not blunder or allow KOTH, checkmate, or promotion. In "WoF | Lobotomy Force" (shown on the right), a similar thing is happening, where sergeants battle it out in the hopes of getting to the other end and promoting in order to checkmate the enemy royal.

Both of these are using the same concept of "board of sergeants battle to try to get to other side", and while ☉ was accepted, Lobotomy Force was not, since it didn't really feel like it added a lot to the concept. In other words, it's a discussion of "why should I play this variant when this really similar and better implemented variant already exists?"

In a similar fashion, we can also see this in "NCV | Thermopylae" and "WoF | Fun Chess". Try to see if you can see why Fun Chess (on the right) was declined by noting the similarities and differences in execution of the concept!

Reason #6: Plagiarism

We all know what plagiarism is in writing from our language arts classes in school, but how does that work in custom variants creation?

In variants, plagiarism, in essence, is taking someone else's work without crediting them and/or without putting your own twist on it. In some cases even if you credit someone, it's still plagiarism. See below for our definition on it:

If you...

submit a variant that someone else made before they got to submit it, it's PLAGIARISM (even if you got permission!).

submit a variant that you worked with somebody else on and didn't credit them, it's PLAGIARISM (by dictionary definition not necessarily, but it's still rule-breaking!)

submit a variant that has already been declined or accepted, it's PLAGIARISM.

submit a revised version of a variant that has been declined and the author didn't give you permission, it's PLAGIARISM, unless the post is extremely old. Contact a CGA if you have concerns.

submit a "sequel" to a variant that has already been accepted, it's NOT PLAGIARISM.

Again, this should be pretty clear, and it's a (potentially) bannable offense, so I'm not going to give any real examples on this either

What can I do to avoid getting my variant autodeclined?

To answer that question, don't be too stressed about it! These are things you should already be looking out for when testing variants in general. Getting autodeclined isn't common per say, so this post was just made to address the small rise in variants that fall under the category.

The #1 thing I will ALWAYS recommend is to test effectively! Some tips that I always found useful while creating variants (3 of which have been accepted, although others have more than 10) before I became a CGA and some things I learned are:

While testing, experiment and test with multiple time controls. Slow time controls (like 10|15) are good for weeding out balance and opening issues, and fast time controls (like 1 min) are good for seeing if the variant is still fun to play in speed chess (and in the case of WoFs, just in general).

Test with people of varying skill levels. In many cases, inviting a CGA to your testing sessions is one of the best things that will ever happen to you, especially if you ask them to give honest feedback. A random player who accidentally stumbles into your variant might give you some insight on how a new player might play your variant if it were accepted, but they aren't going to give you any personal feedback.

When testing with a friend, for some of your testing games, delegate one person to be attacker and another defender. This is really helpful when testing to see if one color can win by force, shuffle and force a draw, if the strategy is too dry, etc. The defending player can also play for a draw, and see if draws can be forced, especially on small boards and simple variants like "WoF | A", which I talked about in earlier this post. CGAs love to use this when testing variant submissions, and you can do it too!

Go wild: Try the most ridiculous ideas, like moving your king immediately out into the open in KOTH variants. You never know if you're missing out on a forced line that could've been easily found, or a new strategy!

With that, thank you for reading through this entire guide! Please comment down below if you have any feedback or found this useful!

(P.S., I already know some of you are going to be mad that I made this post and instantly downvote. Autodecline has been around since the start of Custom Variants. If you have criticism, please give constructive feedback instead of just telling us "autodecline should not exist".)

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