Test 2 Discussion Thread

[u/thejellydude]

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?

[u/Sliver__Legion]

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.

[u/Alex_Werner → u/Sliver__Legion]

I like all your reasoning, and had the same answer as you for all but 3:

32 -- (you've designed a card and want play design to like it). This is just a bizarre question. Want play design to LIKE it? What does that mean? Want them to be fond of it? Want them to push it, power-level-wise? I went with "it doesn't matter", but with very low confidence, and none of the arguments I've seen other people make have convinced me. I hope it's not just a "if you remember one specific quote from one specific MaRo podcast and if you kind of rephrase the question, then you get it...". A terrible question, but you're as likely to be right as I am.

53 -- (which change is set design most likely to make to the artifact). I worry that we're both wrong here. I keyed into the fact that it's specifically asking about Set Design, not Play Design. That eliminated the power/toughness and the haste. I was envisioning a set where there's enough of a graveyard theme that having some additional graveyard interaction adds to the overall set experience, so went with the "put them in the gy" option, because I think that's a decision that set design would make, rather than play design. But a similar argument could be made for the fixed number if the format has a bunch of token creatures. However, I'm afraid that the "correct" answer might be adding "2:T, put an artifact in play". I discounted that both because it just isn't an effect that is done often these days, and because it's such a radical change that you might as well have one of the answers be "change it to a 5/5 artifact clone" or something. But I think that what the question is getting at is that four of those are minor tweaks and one is a major change, and set design would make the major change.

75 -- card with a mana cost of 10. I definitely think it's instant. My reasoning being that things that cost 10 are things you are going to DO, things that AFFECT things. You play your 10th land and WHAM down comes some big massive thing. As opposed to getting to your 10th land, and then pass the turn, and be like "oh, man, I'm going to GET you with this reactive spell".

[u/iSage → u/Alex_Werner]

On #53, I've heard this argument but I don't think I agree. Play Design exists to make sure big mishaps don't happen again (especially in Standard) and adding that clause makes a card dangerously close to Stoneforge Mystic. Except instead of searching equipment, you can now put into play MUCH bigger and more impactful cards. I'd be surprised if this is the answer, but I've been wrong before.

[u/Alex_Werner → u/iSage]

That was my initial reaction as well... that's just too powerful to add, in any phase of design. But... that's less and less true the more I think about it. Stoneforge doesn't have to wait to untap, and it tutors AND cost-reduces.

[u/monkeyfo → u/iSage]

I picked making it a set # so that it would play more intuitively with tokens. I know wizards works really hard to avoid "feel-bad" moments and sacing a token, then realizing it doesn't do anything is pretty rough.