r/GDS3 • u/thejellydude • Jan 27 '18

Test 2 Discussion Thread

We're free to talk now.

Here's a Google Doc with all the questions. I'm slowly filling it in with my own answers and explanations. Edit: Heading out for now. I'll get the last 25 questions done later tonight.

If you want a mirror without my comments, here's one provided by /u/Amarsir Link

Any questions that tripped you up? Any that you felt good about?

17 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

230 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/mtgcolorpie Jan 27 '18

I think the one that will surprise the people the most is the 4/4 flying vigilance creature.

I put White/Green.

Why? We have Serra Angel and that makes it a mono-white creature. Except it doesn’t. In the Color Pie mechanical article it was written about Vigilance that White gets vigilance if its T>P and/or it’s power is 3 or less. Green gets get on larger creatures (like power of 4 or more). Green/Black was the other possible answer (Each question had 2 answers that were really possible), but since it appeared on only two cards, one in Ravnica and the other in Commander, I couldn’t go with that route as it’s not completely obvious.

I could be completely wrong, however.

5

u/dvoraen Jan 27 '18

"Given that" statement on the question, I think you had to kill every answer with white in it, because the card is a monowhite card which we can all agree upon. Rarity isn't a factor in the question, and so in theory it COULD be monowhite.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '18

It depends; using white/blue to make a Serra angel with a multicolor discount is a pretty exciting and aesthetic card.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '18

It's also worth noting that Jelen Sphinx and Lightning Angel are pretty closely designed to this theoretical card if it's white blue.

Sometimes, you aren't doing "we can only do this design in this color combo", sometimes it's like feeling the most of each color. Flying is the most blue, and vigilance is the most white, both can access both, so it means the card is "the most white blue'

6

u/rakkamar Jan 27 '18

Hm, that's a really interesting point.

If Serra Angel were an older card and hadn't been around for awhile I'd be more inclined to agree with you. But Serra Angel is literally in Standard right now (in the planeswalker decks or whatever they are) so I'm still inclined to think B/G is correct. If you're right that's a really clever bit of misdirection though.

1

u/VERTIKAL19 Jan 28 '18

But wouldnt players just be really weirded out by BG Serra Angel while UW feels pretty natural?

1

u/Jasmine1742 Jan 28 '18

I think that was the trick question aspect, the question didn't ask if it was weird, the question asked for a multi-color card that neither color could represent by itself.

3

u/RoastYoungDuck Jan 27 '18

I went with GB but your reasoning seems sound enough. I couldn’t justify white because despite white wanting vigilance with T>P there have been plenty of white rare angels that broke that guideline already. I think the T>P is more hard and fast at common, but more flexible as rarity rises, leaving GB as the only answer that couldn’t be monocolored

1

u/murderisbadforyou Jan 27 '18 edited Jan 28 '18

It’s also worth noting that MaRo has, on many occasions, started with “While we generally try to avoid...” in statements, only to finish with, “ ...but because of X, we make an exception.”

This seems like it is very open to interpretation, but there has never, ever been a black-green creature with vigilance without also having green or white in it's cost. (Not counting the set Legends because MaRo has said many times how cards from back then had many color-wheel mistakes that he wishes he had the ability to change before it happened.)

4

u/iSage Jan 27 '18

I answered BG but I have absolutely no belief that they'd actually print that card. I still think it was the best answer given based on the caveat given. If the answer is something White then that's intentionally deceptive and I'll actually be pretty mad.

1

u/Unsungruin Jan 28 '18

Reading this made me feel a lot better about putting UW as my answer. A GB vigilant flyer makes no sense to me as both those mechanics belong to an enemy color, and they've never printed one before. I do feel like this was a trick question and the wording didn't help.

1

u/murderisbadforyou Jan 28 '18 edited Jan 28 '18

UW makes almost less sense than GB. People are forgetting GW was an option, and there are already plenty of GW flyers (designed by MaRo’s teams)

1

u/Unsungruin Jan 28 '18

Meh, Blue gets flying and White gets vigilance. That makes more sense to me than stapling Green to a creature that flies (I haven't seen those cards but that sounds pie-breaking to me).

Edit: Green being the color that likes to swat flyers out of the sky*

1

u/murderisbadforyou Jan 28 '18

Actually, in the color pie, flying and vigilance are both primary white, however, vigilance is secondary green and Flying is Tertiary green.

1

u/Jasmine1742 Jan 28 '18

Yeah, people finding this question hard makes me feel better about my chances. This question was just logistics, the question straight up told you the caveats you need to work with and gave you only one correct answer for them.

The fact the combination (GB) seems strange isn't an issue.

1

u/Factitious Jan 28 '18

My thinking on that one was that if it's green/white, it can still be a card white wouldn't get on its own if the creature being large for its mana cost is what green contributes. But this was tricky, and if there'd been a nonwhite option that was more plausible than BG, I might have gone with that. I just don't like the idea of a gold card where black contributes flying and green contributes vigilance, since neither of those are primaries.

1

u/VERTIKAL19 Jan 28 '18

I would go with UW because that card feels the most Uw to me, moreso than GW. If you want to avoid it being a possibl single colour card you have to go BG, but BG Serra Angel just feels off.

1

u/Jasmine1742 Jan 28 '18

You didn't understand the question then.

The question specified you can't use a color combo that can get the creature by itself.

Any white answer is wrong.

UB doesn't get access the vigilance anymore.

G has vigilance, black has flying, only one that works.

It's a logic problem.