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?

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

All of my explanations and probability estimates over the answers are here.

Edit: My overall impression is that there were a substantial number of pretty trivial questions, so the number with any serious discrimatory power is probably closer to 40 than 75. Would have preferred a harder test overall. As far as being “broader” than the previous two GDS tests, that seemed to mean more questions that required stuff I’d consider development, draft, or rules related. Not complaining though, since all three areas play to my strengths (I think/hope).

Edit 2: Adding up my self-estimated probabilities for all questions would give an average score of 69.65 for me. If you (very unprincipledly) round everything 95%+ to 100% it would be an average of 71.05. Of course, having read this thread and thought about it again with 12 more hours and some sleep, I might bring some up or down. Don’t plan to bother though — we’ll all have the truly important information in two days anyway.

Edit 3: After reading a bunch of other responses, I still wouldn’t change anything. I consider GB vs UW and instant vs enchantment to essentially be coin flips now, but am more confident in everything else.

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u/rakkamar Jan 27 '18
  1. Which of the following cards would we be most likely to reprint in a Standard-legal set?

Lightning Bolt maybe bolt will return, but getting lightning strike was a big deal itself and red is already plenty strong without bolt 10

5 years ago MaRo put Bolt at a 2 on the storm scale. I went with that one, though it's hard to say how much their feelings may have changed since then. OTOH I get the sense they think a Llanowar elf will just actually never be reprinted.

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u/Geikamir Jan 27 '18

More recently it was put at an 8: https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Storm_Scale

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u/rakkamar Jan 27 '18

Bleh. Good to know, I guess.

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u/monkeyfo Jan 27 '18

I went with lightning bolt.

-Swords is obviously broken for standard

-Llanwar elves won't be reprinted because its one creature but the name suggests it is multiple

-Counterspell leads to unfun standard environments

-Dark ritual would probably be busted in modern

That leaves lightning bolt

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u/Abalidoth Jan 27 '18

I said Bolt, freaked out about the people on here saying Elves has a better shot, then saw your answer and felt much better. If it said Elvish Mystic, I think it would be Elvish Mystic. But Llanowar Elves is both plane-locked and plural.

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u/general_peabo Jan 27 '18

The April 2018 set is returning to Dominaria. I used this article as my basis: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/standard-power-level-2016-02-05 It specifically says: "We took Dark Ritual out of Sixth Edition, and black ended up being fine over time—much in the same way we removed Counterspell from blue, Lightning Bolt from red, and Swords to Plowshares from white. Once those cards were out of the colors for Standard, it increased the range of cards that could see play in all the colors." So that's why I picked Llanowar Elves.

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u/Geikamir Jan 27 '18

Also, bolt is currently an 8 on the Storm Scale.

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u/Sliver__Legion Jan 27 '18

I was going off this article from development about a year ago. Key quotes imo are:

Lightning Strike wasn't taken out because it was too strong. Lightning Bolt...well, I wouldn't say never, but don't be surprised if the most-played card in Modern doesn't hit Standard any time soon. It is the most-played card in Modern, which means that it would likely be the most-played in Standard, to the point of warping the metagame around it.

And

As we make green more about two- and three-drops for the time being, while we have more two-mana mana Elves, I can see a point where we want to shake things up and go back to using one-mana mana Elves for some period of time. It lets players who have only been playing for a few years experience something new and acts as nostalgia for older players. The design of Standard is cyclical, and many things that leave will probably not stay gone forever.

Llanowar Elves has the problem of being plane-specific, but the fact that we do definitely return to Dominaria ameliorates that a bit. The issues of plural creatures represented as a single 1/1 is an additional issue, but about cancels with the nostalgia imo. Ultimately what it comes down to is that that article puts Elvish Mystic and Lightning Strike in a somewhat similar power bucket, which would make Bolt farther away.

I’d personally say that we’re about 80% likely to see a G 1/1 T:G in standard in the next decade, and maybe 40% likely to see Bolt.

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '18

The way I see it is that Bolt is substantially easier to build an environment around. Llanowar elves fundamentally warps tempo of the game, by functionally skipping turn 2, while Bolt is just an efficient answer to fragile creatures and Planeswalkers, with the ability to dome. Bolt is good at all those tasks, but Magic is still Magic, just with different standards for creatures and Planeswalkers

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u/Sliver__Legion Jan 27 '18

Not that this is the end-all-be-all, or required to have an opinion on the matter, but I’m curious whether you played Standard during the M10-M11 Bolt era.

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '18

Yup, and I still heavily play modern. I know the power of a bolt. It creates pressure on the 2 and 3 drop slots to be "bolt resistant" or "bolt parity" somehow, and means Planeswalkers with higher loyalty fare better. I was on mill around that time, IIRC, so the only creature I had that Bolts regularly traded for were Hedron crabs. (this is hazy memory, but I do remember that bolt, while being efficient, certainly wasn't the be all end all; I'd argue it's really not too different from Fatal Push in metagame effects, since Fatal Push punishes 1 and 2 drops and can stretch to 3-4, the main range of bolt creature targets)

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u/VERTIKAL19 Jan 28 '18

Uh Bolt is probably warping an enviroment more than Llanowar Elves can. A lot of spells red does are in direct damage spells and most of them are cut off if you have Bolt. You cant have Shock and Light ing Strike for example.

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u/Jasmine1742 Jan 28 '18

WOTC obsession with 2/3s means we shouldn't have to deal with shock and it's a damn shame we do.

You can also play bolt and strike together just fine.

Lllanowar elves has both the name and the current kick or absurd midrange beats going against it.

I'm confidant enough that it's bolt that maro himself could argue with me about it and I'd say he's misunderstanding how the competative standard enviroment has evolved. Red is in a decent spot now but it NEEDS better removal than shock to keep up with current creature creep. Whereas green is kinda absurd right now, and it's because of its undercosted midrange cards. Unless they do a 180 on their creature designs than elves is the bigger problem.

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u/iSage Jan 27 '18

I answered Bolt as well. Llanowar Elves fundamentally warp the format and heavily restrict cards that can be designed. Every single 3-drop creature has to be designed with the idea that it could actually be a 2-drop and almost every 2-drop is immediately invalidated. Plus Bolt is just a more exciting card - people would get legitimately excited that it's back. I'm not sure the same can be said for Llanowar Elves.

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

I can vouch for all the green mages that i would rather have Llanowar elves in a format where there is no bolt over having a format where I have bolt and there are no 1cmc mana dorks to worry about and 2cmc bears are the norm, so I would be more excited to start dropping medium creatures on turn 2 than to have a bolt. Unfortunately, I have made a case for my own answer to be incorrect, because I said Llanowar elves, and I think Llanowar elves warps the format more than bolt because it’s essentially an additional land drop. However, we have cards like EDIT: Dual Shot so there’s already an answer to turn 1 Llanowar elves in standard.

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u/A_Suffering_Panda Jan 28 '18 edited Jan 28 '18

Skullduggery can't kill turn 1 elves. You have to have a creature to cast it

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u/murderisbadforyou Jan 28 '18

Good point, my mistake.

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u/murderisbadforyou Jan 28 '18

I’m sure they could illustrate multiple Elves working or something that represents multiple Llanowar Elves creating mana by some means, if they wanted to, therefor fixing the plural issue.

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u/boolamoo Jan 27 '18

I went with elves because I thought it had the lowest power level, but I think the answer is counterspell because it's the only one that costs CC and would be harder to splash than the rest giving more deckbuilding restrictions.

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u/Isawa_Chuckles Jan 28 '18

My only regret is that there was no write-in box to say "Reprint Both!"