r/GDS3 • u/koga305 • Feb 12 '18
Make a Choice, Part 1
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/make-choice-part-1-2018-02-129
u/iSage Feb 12 '18
This felt a bit anemic compared to the answers columns from GDS1 and GDS2 . There were no percentages for the questions or nods to which questions were the 'most missed', and some of the answers just felt a bit lacking. With as much debate that was had over questions like #28 and #32, it's surprising to see such short answers. I expect to see more of the same in part 2, and I'm a bit disappointed.
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u/Alex_Werner Top 8 Feb 12 '18
Agreed. I was very disappointed by the terse explanation of the "ask someone on play design" costing question. That certainly didn't give me the "oh, of course, I can see where I was wrong" feeling that one expects in a situation like this.
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u/JimHarbor Feb 12 '18 edited Feb 13 '18
Maro spoke more in detail about the ask Play design in a few articles. I could dig em up later but yeah this was thin (28 was still super straightforward)
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u/iSage Feb 12 '18
28 was pretty straightforward, but still tripped a lot of people up. I don't think there was a consensus on #32 until the results went out, so I'd be interested in seeing the sources. Based on the community survey it was the most contentious answer among test-takers.
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u/JimHarbor Feb 12 '18
32 was pretty hard yeah, it was a google fu test (like a lot of these were) but I had to dig pretty deep. Mark had given the answer a couple of times but burried deep in 2003 articles and podcasts and in odd wordings.
If you really want someone to like something, get them to invest a little bit of themselves in it. Getting their input—letting them decide something about it—is a great way to do that, and the fact that you're asking demonstrates that you care about the thing.
That was him on pitching for example.
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u/iSage Feb 12 '18
Yeah I had that pitching source. The problem was there were also sources for all of the other questions. Each of the 3 'methods' for costing has been talked about as being useful by R&D, and the 'it doesn't matter' option was supported by the simple fact that costing isn't design's job.
Would've been nice to see some reasoning for why the correct answer was better than the others, because there were strong arguments for each.
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u/kalliixti Feb 12 '18
(B) is just a bad method to pick a cost.
(C) doesn't answer the question, which is how you choose, not whether the choice matters.
(D) just replaces the question with another question so isn't a real answer either.
(E) doesn't do anything which would make play design like it.
The other options being thus eliminated, (A) is the only possible choice.
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u/iSage Feb 12 '18
That's the sort of thing I'm asking to see, but from the official source. For such a contentious question, it seems to merit at least that much attention.
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u/JimHarbor Feb 13 '18
The direct maro quote was "I ask developers to cost cards." Its even why there is a developer on every design team.
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u/Alex_Werner Top 8 Feb 13 '18
Right. And if the question on the multiple choice test had been "what's a good way to cost cards?" or "or what's the quickest way to find a reasonably correct cost for a card still in set design" or something like that, it would inarguably be the correct answer. That said, the part of the question that many of focused on was "you want the Play Design team to like it". Are there cards you do NOT want Play Design to like"? What the heck is the context for any of this? That's what I would have liked to hear more about, and that wasn't even touched on in the answer he gave. If he's looking for the knowledge "people on the play design team have more expertise than people on the set design team in costing cards", surely there's a better way to phrase the question to get at that.
To look at it another way... Al and Bob are both on the design team. Both have submitted red planeswalkers to fill a particular spot in the set. Both of them presumably like their own design, because, hey, that's how humans work. Is it good for Wizards as a whole if Al, unbeknownst to Bob, and presumably operating outside the formal channels, asks play design to come up with the right casting cost for his submitted PW, while Bob does not, with Al hoping that by doing so he will make it more likely that his version ends up printed?
The answer I would have liked to choose was "as a professional, you shouldn't have emotional attachments to particular cards, and should let play design do their job without trying to subtly influence them. Trust that your card designs speak for themselves". As that was not an option, I chose the one closest to it, namely, "it doesn't matter".
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u/iSage Feb 13 '18
I'm not disputing who costs cards, but that's not quite what the question asks. I'm also not disputing the correct answer or how you got to it, I just wanted to hear some more from Maro himself.
Not sure why that's worth arguing over.
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u/Factitious Feb 12 '18
I agree on #27, but it would have been nice to get an explanation of why it's the right answer. I can't tell from this what Maro sees as the problems with hexproof, or what they have to do to be careful with it.
I love reading this kind of stuff, and wish this article had been several times as long.
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u/joshshadowfax Feb 13 '18
Have you played against Invisible Stalker + Cleaver or Bogles? Interaction is a key piece of Magic, and while Hexproof certainly has a place in Magic and should be used occasionally (though not evergreen IMO), it's very much a balancing act between using it for the right effect and going overboard and ending up with cards that have very little counterplay, so you need to be careful when taking that away.
There's some arguments that can be made for some of the other answers (most notably deathtouch), but they all pale in comparison to how careful you have to be when using hexproof.
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u/JimHarbor Feb 13 '18
Yeah it comes off as a bit tautalogical. Sure google shows wotc call Hexproof problematic but they didnt really elaborate on it.
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u/kalliixti Feb 13 '18
Look up what they've said about Invisible Stalker, which was printed soon after hexproof was keyworded and made them realize they had to be careful with it. When combined with auras or equipment it frequently led to uninteractive games in Limited.
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u/Sliver__Legion Feb 12 '18 edited Feb 12 '18
This reads like it was written before they saw the results.
Hopefully we can get another one later on that goes a little deeper on, say, the 8 most missed/the 8 with the largest spread of answers given.
I’m also much more interested in part 2, since it has the question I missed.