I genuinely believe that Vineyard could have been great. I failed to actually demonstrate that. Also, shout-out to Abolish playing absolutely zero role in every single match.
You blow up/force sac my Lotus Bloom before I can cast balance in the main phase.
Ack. So my original list was Plateau+Silence, which is usually way better in the context of a balance deck. But unfortunately you can cast a balance off one land in this particular format, so I panic swapped to Volcanic + one mana counter spell (which could have been a 2 mana counterspell).
2 | 0 X 1 6 3 3 0 | 11
1. 0-6, I can counter Vineyard... but unfortunately that gives you a 2/2 to beat me down with, and then you blow up the bloom before my main phase.
2. X
3. 1-4, as per your analysis.
4. 6-0, Foil and Swan trade, balance gets ya.
5. 3-3. On my play, I play my land a turn before Bloom comes in. Either you kill land and let lotus through, or you hold CS and that trades for swan song. On the draw, you can both blow up land and counter bloom.
6. 3-3. On my play: I play Garg on T1, go to 18. On your T2, I swan song the god and go to 16, you get 10 gobbos + swan. I go to 4 on the attack, crack bloom and balance, win with 1 life remaining (phew!). On draw I lose.
7. 0-6, depths OP rito pls nerf.
I'd support a depths ban. It seems like the go to two-card combo, especially in rampy formats where you get to swing on T3.
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.
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.
^ Yeeeeah. Frankly all the options sucked, I dunno why "only flickers creatures and artifacts" wasn't on there. Maybe they really wanted to preserve the (non-infinite) planeswalker synergy?
There were 3 times as many test takers on this one, the cutoff was definitely gonna be proportionally higher. That said god DAMN that's high, I thought it'd be ~70.
Well shoot. I know I missed #2 and #5, so I need to nail EVERY question outside of them to pass. And there's at least 3 questions I'm 50:50 on or worse.
I actually "played" the test more aggressively because I thought the threshold would be really high (though not THAT high). You could (just) pass GDS2 by nailing the more straightforward questions, but if the threshold was any higher you'd need to get a good chunk of the trick questions as well. So I went against test-taking advice and intentionally second guessed myself on my second readthrough, trying really hard to catch those trap/trick questions. I'd more than likely just overthink some questions and score lower than I would have, but that doesn't matter if I'm already below the pass threshold – a 65 and a 60 fail just the same. But there was a reasonable chance I'd nail the required trap questions and pass.
E: There was apparently a typo on #5 and Maro is counting both versions as correct. If the typo somehow pushed it down to a common, I get some breathing room.
I just went with Boros. Aggressive combat-focused creature-wide faction would love having Battle Cry, and it's already in WR! I could see it justified in Gruul or Selesnya (as a token spam payoff), but Boros is the most natural fit.
Other questions I'm not sure on:
20. Design considers a card “too slow for tournament play.” What does that mean?
I guessed tournament overtime, but I hadn't heard the term before and wasn't sure.
35. Assuming the creature is strong enough to see Standard play, which of the following isn't a good quality for a green creature to have?
I'm assuming the non-combat related draw, but there's precedent for that. Do they consider those mistakes?
53. Which of the following changes is Set Design most likely to make to this card?
Wasn't sure on this one at all, I guessed fix to a locked number.
72. Which of the following is the most important reason that some cards' mana costs are higher than others?
I put "So that people will play them later in the game", but I could see "To make cards different" being correct.
@Flicker I went with EtB tapped, it's inelegant but otherwise solves the problem (the 3 card combo with annointer priest or w/e isn't remotely close to standard playable). I was really surprised "restrict to creatures+artifacts" wasn't on there, that was what Sam said he would have done in hindsight. That was a little of why I smelled a trap; if they weren't giving us the obvious straightforward answer, they're probably doing something tricky with the question.
Although someone pointed out Del Tora said they'd have added better interaction, so I think that's probably the right answer.
I think it's also too big for red at common - typically green gets 1-2 and blue gets 0-1 large common creatures, but red/white/black don't.
Ehh Red gets stuff like Granitic Titan and Desert Cerodon, it's not that out there size wise. But the double combat keyword definitely pushes it to uncommon (maybe it could be common if needed, but it wouldn't start there).
Well if it makes you feel better, the highest score at WotC was only a 74/75.
How many more people signed up this year than GDS2? The pass threshold last year was 44/50, so a similar threshold would be a doable 66. But if more people signed up that threshold is gonna be pushed upwards.
I know for a fact I got two (embarrassingly easy) questions wrong, two I guessed between two options, and four I'm not sure on but >50% on the correct answer. So assuming my hit rate was 95% on the rest of the questions (3 wrong out of the remaining ~65), I'm in good shape to pass the 66 threshold but would need some luck to break 70 or something.
The mean spirited trap I was talking about was the Felidar Guardian Question, #44. The slow flicker change is the cleanest way of fixing the interaction, and would be 100% correct in a vacuum. But the flicker effects in Kaledash block were all fast flickers, and R&D makes an explicit point not to mix the two in the same set.
The iconic reprint question i.e #46 annoyed me. I think this was also a trap and you were supposed to pick lightning bolt, because Llanowar Elves has flavor issues that prevent a reprint. Except a. We're going to Dominaria literally next set b. the core sets are back. So Lightning Bolt can be in any set and possibly reprinted, but given Llanowar Elves can be in the set it's the far more likely reprint, and there's a nonzero but smaller amount of sets it can be in. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On the other hand, I'm a complete idiot and overthought first creature's rarity (it's pretty clearly an uncommon) and the #7 rarity (I had an argument for why the hexproof didn't actually matter and didn't increase the complexity over common-rarity threaten effects... but forgot it was a multicolored card!).
I caught one very mean spirited trap that'll probably be the 80%+ incorrect question, but overall this seemed easier than GDS2's multiple choice.
And here's my trial one summaries, I went out there for #3 and especially #10.
2. Cycling promotion for reasons stated above. Also suggested a possible name change to "Rethink" or "Reconsider".
3. Equipment demotion to deciduous/Storm Scale 3. Repeat effects have always been problematic, and it seems like they've been struggling with equipment designs for a while now. The common/uncommon equipment have been super similar for ages, and we haven't had a constructed playable one in years (Runechanter's Pike was the last one by my figure). Vehicles play in a similar creature enhancement space, but as non recurring artifact creatures they're way easier to design and vary.
4. Get them playing asap, if they have TCG experience show how Magic differs in simple ways with common decks (e.g if they're from hearthstone, make a deck with instant speed interaction, discard, and defensive creatures to show defender's advantage).
5. Modularity of cards, sheer number of different formats and ways to play.
6. Barriers to entry in multiple different fashions.
7. Converge from BFZ. Way undersupported, terrible common payoffs, placed in an inappropriate set, and centered in a color so bad that pros were advocating to never draft it.
8. Kaladesh, limited was too complex.
9. BFZ, the Eldrazi faction was super cool, and were a great lower cost execution of the tribe.
10. Try to alleviate mana screw somewhat. Wouldn't blindly implement, but would like to seriously test: "Once per game, if you would draw your card for turn, you may instead play a special tapped colorless mana land (counts as land drop for turn)". Variant might be "Only after Turn X". Would have a "token" card with the rules all on it, though not required to use it.
I really didn't like this week's format. IMO it was overcomplicated (3 different effects), breakable by several cards (Land Equilibrium, Leyline of Sancticity, Eternal Scourge) and causing too much counting (How many lands do I have, should I use them to shoot creatures or to cast spells or to go to the face?).
Eh I thought this was reasonably interesting, and I think the three abilities made sense together (sac stuff, exile clause so we don't get the obvious sac loops).
You blow up/force sac my Lotus Bloom before I can cast balance in the main phase.
2 | 0 X 1 6 3 3 0 | 11
1. 0-6, I can counter Vineyard... but unfortunately that gives you a 2/2 to beat me down with, and then you blow up the bloom before my main phase.
2. X
3. 1-4, as per your analysis.
4. 6-0, Foil and Swan trade, balance gets ya.
5. 3-3. On my play, I play my land a turn before Bloom comes in. Either you kill land and let lotus through, or you hold CS and that trades for swan song. On the draw, you can both blow up land and counter bloom.
6. 3-3. On my play: I play Garg on T1, go to 18. On your T2, I swan song the god and go to 16, you get 10 gobbos + swan. I go to 4 on the attack, crack bloom and balance, win with 1 life remaining (phew!). On draw I lose.
7. 0-6, depths OP rito pls nerf.
I'd support a depths ban. It seems like the go to two-card combo, especially in rampy formats where you get to swing on T3.
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.
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 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.
There were 3 times as many test takers on this one, the cutoff was definitely gonna be proportionally higher. That said god DAMN that's high, I thought it'd be ~70.
Well shoot. I know I missed #2 and #5, so I need to nail EVERY question outside of them to pass. And there's at least 3 questions I'm 50:50 on or worse.
I actually "played" the test more aggressively because I thought the threshold would be really high (though not THAT high). You could (just) pass GDS2 by nailing the more straightforward questions, but if the threshold was any higher you'd need to get a good chunk of the trick questions as well. So I went against test-taking advice and intentionally second guessed myself on my second readthrough, trying really hard to catch those trap/trick questions. I'd more than likely just overthink some questions and score lower than I would have, but that doesn't matter if I'm already below the pass threshold – a 65 and a 60 fail just the same. But there was a reasonable chance I'd nail the required trap questions and pass.
E: There was apparently a typo on #5 and Maro is counting both versions as correct. If the typo somehow pushed it down to a common, I get some breathing room.
Other questions I'm not sure on:
20. Design considers a card “too slow for tournament play.” What does that mean?
I guessed tournament overtime, but I hadn't heard the term before and wasn't sure.
35. Assuming the creature is strong enough to see Standard play, which of the following isn't a good quality for a green creature to have?
I'm assuming the non-combat related draw, but there's precedent for that. Do they consider those mistakes?
53. Which of the following changes is Set Design most likely to make to this card?
Wasn't sure on this one at all, I guessed fix to a locked number.
72. Which of the following is the most important reason that some cards' mana costs are higher than others?
I put "So that people will play them later in the game", but I could see "To make cards different" being correct.
Man I'm so mad I punted #2 and #5 like that.
Although someone pointed out Del Tora said they'd have added better interaction, so I think that's probably the right answer.
Ehh Red gets stuff like Granitic Titan and Desert Cerodon, it's not that out there size wise. But the double combat keyword definitely pushes it to uncommon (maybe it could be common if needed, but it wouldn't start there).
How many more people signed up this year than GDS2? The pass threshold last year was 44/50, so a similar threshold would be a doable 66. But if more people signed up that threshold is gonna be pushed upwards.
I know for a fact I got two (embarrassingly easy) questions wrong, two I guessed between two options, and four I'm not sure on but >50% on the correct answer. So assuming my hit rate was 95% on the rest of the questions (3 wrong out of the remaining ~65), I'm in good shape to pass the 66 threshold but would need some luck to break 70 or something.
The mean spirited trap I was talking about was the Felidar Guardian Question, #44. The slow flicker change is the cleanest way of fixing the interaction, and would be 100% correct in a vacuum. But the flicker effects in Kaledash block were all fast flickers, and R&D makes an explicit point not to mix the two in the same set.
The iconic reprint question i.e #46 annoyed me. I think this was also a trap and you were supposed to pick lightning bolt, because Llanowar Elves has flavor issues that prevent a reprint. Except a. We're going to Dominaria literally next set b. the core sets are back. So Lightning Bolt can be in any set and possibly reprinted, but given Llanowar Elves can be in the set it's the far more likely reprint, and there's a nonzero but smaller amount of sets it can be in. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On the other hand, I'm a complete idiot and overthought first creature's rarity (it's pretty clearly an uncommon) and the #7 rarity (I had an argument for why the hexproof didn't actually matter and didn't increase the complexity over common-rarity threaten effects... but forgot it was a multicolored card!).
And here's my trial one summaries, I went out there for #3 and especially #10.
2. Cycling promotion for reasons stated above. Also suggested a possible name change to "Rethink" or "Reconsider".
3. Equipment demotion to deciduous/Storm Scale 3. Repeat effects have always been problematic, and it seems like they've been struggling with equipment designs for a while now. The common/uncommon equipment have been super similar for ages, and we haven't had a constructed playable one in years (Runechanter's Pike was the last one by my figure). Vehicles play in a similar creature enhancement space, but as non recurring artifact creatures they're way easier to design and vary.
4. Get them playing asap, if they have TCG experience show how Magic differs in simple ways with common decks (e.g if they're from hearthstone, make a deck with instant speed interaction, discard, and defensive creatures to show defender's advantage).
5. Modularity of cards, sheer number of different formats and ways to play.
6. Barriers to entry in multiple different fashions.
7. Converge from BFZ. Way undersupported, terrible common payoffs, placed in an inappropriate set, and centered in a color so bad that pros were advocating to never draft it.
8. Kaladesh, limited was too complex.
9. BFZ, the Eldrazi faction was super cool, and were a great lower cost execution of the tribe.
10. Try to alleviate mana screw somewhat. Wouldn't blindly implement, but would like to seriously test: "Once per game, if you would draw your card for turn, you may instead play a special tapped colorless mana land (counts as land drop for turn)". Variant might be "Only after Turn X". Would have a "token" card with the rules all on it, though not required to use it.
Eh I thought this was reasonably interesting, and I think the three abilities made sense together (sac stuff, exile clause so we don't get the obvious sac loops).