Welp. That's frustrating. Most of the questions I got wrong felt like complete guesswork. Can't wait till Maro puts out his article explaining each answer so I can feel stupid.
Richard Garfield would have failed this test. I was afraid this would happen. The tests are overkill. They have probably eliminated some of the better actual designers from participating. But poorly worded trick questions are par for the course. I'm sure it makes them feel smart to ask stupid questions that could only possibly be answered by people who are in R&D or already happen to think exactly like R&D. Who, by the way, are blind to their holier-than-thou, know-it-all arrogance (they're almost as humble as Donald Trump) until they have no other choice to admit error because, oh I don't know, they've had to ban 5 cards in Standard and sales plummet.
Richard Garfield would have failed this test. I was afraid this would happen. The tests are overkill. They have probably eliminated some of the better actual designers from participating. But poorly worded trick questions are par for the course. I'm sure it makes them feel smart to ask stupid questions that could only possibly be answered by people who are in R&D or already happen to think exactly like R&D. Who, by the way, are blind to their holier-than-thou, know-it-all arrogance (they're almost as humble as Donald Trump) until they have no other choice to admit error because, oh I don't know, they've had to ban 5 cards in Standard and sales plummet.
That's kinda how I fell right now.
After having taken the test, I felt a little anxious but confident that if it was scored like the last one that I was gaurenteed in. Even if they made it twice as strict I would of been in. But instead of a 12% margin of error they cut it to 3%. I got 71 out of 75.
The difference between who is a better designer is not decided by 3 trick questions or questions about they're new design/development team jobs, it's about their understanding of fun, the fundamentals of the actual games design, and the creativity to think a bit differently then the people already working there.
I'm angry at the unreasonably high standard on this test that is being used to eliminate many great candidates who have great ideas and aiding the ones who meticulous follow podcast and tiny details. Those are the people who only know magic, and in the end will not add much to the game. I'm also angry at myself for not doing better on the two questions that would of made the cut.
I know how to compete at card design. I would of kicked arse.
Well the really stupid questions (Play Design costing, Elves vs Bolt) threw the podcast listeners off too, no one was like "Oh Maro gave the answer to this in Podcast #352, nerds" on reddit.
I'll say this in Maro's defense; there were simply too many good designers for the size of the "real" competition they wanted to host. 3000 people submitted essays, and even if only 10% of those people are competent designers that deserve consideration – and this is from a pool entrenched enough to write a few thousand words about Magic in their spare time! – they still need to eliminate two thirds of that group to get a sample size they could possibly hope to accurately evaluate. Good designers were necessarily gonna be tossed regardless of how amazing their selection process was.
And so Maro hopefully writes an automated test that can at least pick out the "right" top third of our good designer pool, or 3% of the total. Except there's no automated test that could possibly distinguish between top 10% or top 5% or top 1% in a creative field. The Math SAT is a longer test, calibrated for years with a huge sample size, and with subject matter way less creative and subjective than card design... and my sister still got 95th percentile because she missed ONE of 100+ math questions from a stupid carry error. If the SAT can't tell top 5% from top 1% (and she's 1%), what hope in freaking hell does Maro have? There is necessarily going to be some arbitrary filter on our group. There must, statistically must, be some element of unimportant subject matter, or podcast favoritism, or sheer dumb luck from guesses on poorly worded questions.
It really sucks getting eliminated for stupid arbitrary reasons*, but it's literally unavoidable that it'd happen to highly qualified designers and it's truly not Maro's fault.
*Also sucks when you dodge the stupid arbitrary pitfalls!... and then full punt on two of the easiest questions.
I'm not saying it's his fault, and I realize they only have enough time to consider so many designers. It's just a pity the talent that gets overlooked based on one or two questions. I feel like a contestant on american idol who got thrown out before singing my audition because I missed one question on a music theory test.
As emperor of GDS4, I would drop all pretense and straight randomly eliminate all but 1000 contestants before the essay portion began (maybe do one essay+confirmation email just to check seriousness). Would be real annoying and silly, but probably spare frustration and essay workloads in the long run.
Yeah, I got cut too because I was overthinking a number of them, and in the wrong way. I think my final score was around 68?, based on the comparison answers for those who passed.
That said, @Black Temple Guardian: #4-6 were: red-green, uncommon (rare was likely the other accepted answer due to the deathtouch typo), and "changing haste for double strike". The reasons being, in short: red-green is the best overlap (particularly with the +1/+1 added), it's mostly keyword soup pulling it into uncommon (rare due to how deathtouch and trample interact), and taking haste off of there completely kills it as a Threaten variant so it's the least likely change to be made.
On the plus side, I'll be posting a big pile of stuff that was brainstorming towards what the Design Test / Trial 3 would have been. Part of it was me coming up with reasonably-printable mechanics for a hypothetical Ravnica 3. That was a self-given exercise just for lols, but it's also how I came to one of my essay answers.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
I think we successfully figured out the answers from passed people,
here's the answer key for those curious.
The felidar guardian question was in fact not a trick question, lol. I'll politely ask Maro for some brownie points.
EDIT: Ok it may be less depressing not to check. I got a 71, I would have passed had I not punted two of the easiest questions on the test.
Good luck to everyone who advanced.
After having taken the test, I felt a little anxious but confident that if it was scored like the last one that I was gaurenteed in. Even if they made it twice as strict I would of been in. But instead of a 12% margin of error they cut it to 3%. I got 71 out of 75.
The difference between who is a better designer is not decided by 3 trick questions or questions about they're new design/development team jobs, it's about their understanding of fun, the fundamentals of the actual games design, and the creativity to think a bit differently then the people already working there.
I'm angry at the unreasonably high standard on this test that is being used to eliminate many great candidates who have great ideas and aiding the ones who meticulous follow podcast and tiny details. Those are the people who only know magic, and in the end will not add much to the game. I'm also angry at myself for not doing better on the two questions that would of made the cut.
I know how to compete at card design. I would of kicked arse.
I'll say this in Maro's defense; there were simply too many good designers for the size of the "real" competition they wanted to host. 3000 people submitted essays, and even if only 10% of those people are competent designers that deserve consideration – and this is from a pool entrenched enough to write a few thousand words about Magic in their spare time! – they still need to eliminate two thirds of that group to get a sample size they could possibly hope to accurately evaluate. Good designers were necessarily gonna be tossed regardless of how amazing their selection process was.
And so Maro hopefully writes an automated test that can at least pick out the "right" top third of our good designer pool, or 3% of the total. Except there's no automated test that could possibly distinguish between top 10% or top 5% or top 1% in a creative field. The Math SAT is a longer test, calibrated for years with a huge sample size, and with subject matter way less creative and subjective than card design... and my sister still got 95th percentile because she missed ONE of 100+ math questions from a stupid carry error. If the SAT can't tell top 5% from top 1% (and she's 1%), what hope in freaking hell does Maro have? There is necessarily going to be some arbitrary filter on our group. There must, statistically must, be some element of unimportant subject matter, or podcast favoritism, or sheer dumb luck from guesses on poorly worded questions.
It really sucks getting eliminated for stupid arbitrary reasons*, but it's literally unavoidable that it'd happen to highly qualified designers and it's truly not Maro's fault.
*Also sucks when you dodge the stupid arbitrary pitfalls!... and then full punt on two of the easiest questions.
As emperor of GDS4, I would drop all pretense and straight randomly eliminate all but 1000 contestants before the essay portion began (maybe do one essay+confirmation email just to check seriousness). Would be real annoying and silly, but probably spare frustration and essay workloads in the long run.
That said, @Black Temple Guardian: #4-6 were: red-green, uncommon (rare was likely the other accepted answer due to the deathtouch typo), and "changing haste for double strike". The reasons being, in short: red-green is the best overlap (particularly with the +1/+1 added), it's mostly keyword soup pulling it into uncommon (rare due to how deathtouch and trample interact), and taking haste off of there completely kills it as a Threaten variant so it's the least likely change to be made.
On the plus side, I'll be posting a big pile of stuff that was brainstorming towards what the Design Test / Trial 3 would have been. Part of it was me coming up with reasonably-printable mechanics for a hypothetical Ravnica 3. That was a self-given exercise just for lols, but it's also how I came to one of my essay answers.
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/great-designer-search-3-meet-top-8-2018-03-09
Some pretty good designs here, I love Scott Wilson's in particular.