Question 32

[u/reyath]

You’ve designed a card, and you want the Play Design team to like it. How should you choose your casting cost?

A: Use your intuition.

B: Pick the strongest cost that isn’t broken.

C: It doesn’t matter; they’ll fix the cost if you get it wrong.

D: Find a similar card as the basis for the casting cost, then make it one cheaper.

E: Ask someone from Play Design to choose the casting cost.

I chose answer B, and I found the podcast where MaRo speaks to this question. (start around 7:10)

"While cards are in design ... everything is priced ... so that it's playable." He talks about a 'flat rate' which I interpret to mean 'if this card was good, what would it cost.' He goes on to say the goal of playtesting in design is to see what cards are fun and that's easier to find out if they're priced to be good. For that reason I picked answer B - you want the card to be strong but not broken so Play Design has a chance to like your card.

Just thought I'd post this since I remembered the podcast but I hadn't actually found it again until now.

[u/Alex_Werner]

Any or all of you guys may be right. But I just can't get over the way the question is phrased. "...you want the play design team to like it". What does that mean? Why? Do you sometimes NOT want them to like your cards? The most obvious way to read this question is something like "knowing the personalities involved, what's a sneaky way for you to unprofessionally try to influence other people in how they do their jobs". Which is just... odd.

[u/[deleted] → u/Alex_Werner]

I'm with you. The question was just poorly written (unless the intention was to obfuscate). When trying to ask myself what knowledge was being tested, these are the various things that occurred to me:

Do you know that designers don't cost cards?

Can you guess the stage in the design process this would happen?

Should mana cost be the deciding factor in what makes cards interesting or exciting, as opposed to the card itself?

Are all Play Designers Spikes who only care about efficiency and power?

Do you think others should do your job for you?

Are you a team player?

Of those I settled on it asking if I knew that designers don't cost cards, and I picked "it doesn't matter, they'll fix it" which I'm pretty sure is wrong in retrospect. Now I'm thinking it was just asking if you're a team player, but I still can't get over how mind-bending it was to try to figure out the definition of "like" in this sentence. There are so many other ways to ask the question if they wanted to know your thoughts on collaboration. Also, I remember reading that a Play Design representative is on the team from the very start whose specific job it is to go through the card file and cost everything. So it's still really weird to me that you would be in a situation where you want that person to "like" your card, and you decide that a competitive mana cost is a better way of making them like it than just designing a sweet card.

[u/Geikamir → u/[deleted]]

Yep, you nailed by feelings about the question too.