Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #521: GDS3 Trial 2, Part 1

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

In this podcast, I go over the answers for the first 25 questions in the Trial 2 multiple-choice test for the Great Designer Search 3.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so last time I talked all about the first trial of the GDS, the essay trial. So today I'm going to start a podcast, probably multiple podcasts since there's a lot of questions, about trial two, the multiple choice test. So let me sort of set up what was going on here, and then I will walk through the test and the answers. Okay, so on, what was it, January 26th, Friday, January 26th, we had the second trial. So the first trial required you to turn in essay questions. 3,000, I think 56 people took the test.

And the problem always with the test is only we can grade about 100 people. So about 100 people can take the design trial. And so we knew there'd be more people. We didn't know how many people, obviously. We didn't expect 3,000. So we increased the test by 50%. So GDS 1 was 35 questions. GDS 2 was 50 questions. So for GDS 3, we had 75 questions. So I believe in the previous test, I think GDS 1, you could miss five questions. In GDS 2, I think you could miss six questions. It would turn out that you could miss only two questions on this test.

We tried making it hard. In fact, I think the test was quite hard. I looked at all the results and a lot of people missed a lot of questions. There were a lot of challenging questions, but in the end, it came down to a score of 73. You needed 73 out of 75. So once again, only 3% were able to advance because out of 3,000 plus, only about 100 could be read. So in the end, the way it broke was at 73, we had 94 people. Now it was closer to 100. I believe if we had gone to 72, we had 200 people, which was double what I'd be able to read. So we had a cut at 73. Okay. There were a few issues along the way. I'll hit those on the

questions where the issues popped up. But anyway, let's get started. So for the first question, there's a card. There's a bunch of cards on the sets where I made up a card and asked you questions about it. So the card is called Scrappy Survivor. Does not have a mana cost, but we tell you it has a converted mana cost of six. It's a creature, but we didn't tell you the creature type. Five, five, menace prowess. So question number one is, what's the most appropriate color for this card? Oh, by the way, before I go into this, I did post on my, there's a column in February.

I did a column, a two-part column on this test. In that column is the test. So if you want to take the test and see how you did, the test lets you take it, and then there's a score thing so you can score it. There's a key, answer key. So if you want to take that before you listen to me here, you can do that.

You can stop right now and go do that. Or you can try to answer along as I talk, but I'm not going to slow down. I'm just going to give the answer. So if you want to take the test before you listen to this, you can go take the test. We always like letting the audience get involved. Okay, so what color is Scrappy Survivor? A. White. B. Blue. C. Black. D. Red. E. Green.

What we need to do is look at Menace and look at Prowess. So Menace is primary in black, secondary in red. Prowess is primary in blue, secondary in red. So the one color you can make this in, if it was a mono-colored card, would be red. So the answer is D, red. Question number two, what's the most appropriate rarity for this card? A, common. B, uncommon. C, rare. D, mythic rare. Okay, so this is a 5-5 creature. Usually in red, we tend to top out red at about four power creatures. There are exceptions. Every once in a blue moon, based on the set, red will get a little bit bigger. But usually, we top out about four power. And even if we happen to put a five power creature in red, which we do infrequently, but occasionally,

the fact that it has two different abilities, sometimes we'll put multiple keywords on small creatures, but the idea that it's a bigger creature for starters and it has two keywords, you know, prowess for something, something that we occasionally do in common, but we've been pushing more and more higher rarities. Anyway, all these factors together mean that this isn't a common, but it's really meant for limited. It's not particularly splashy or something that,

you know, converted mana costs six. It's not like something where sometimes what happens for constructed purposes, if we price stuff for constructed, sometimes we'll put it up in rarity so it doesn't mess with limited. If we put cards that are too aggressively costed in limited, they can mess things up. So sometimes we push cards up. That's why we do the converted mana cost. You know, this card was costed super aggressively for constructed. Maybe, maybe be rare. But it's really not that splashy. It's not pushed for constructed. So this card is uncommon. So the answer is B, uncommon. Questions three. You are changing one of Scrappy Survivor's keywords to another one. Which of the following combinations would result in a card that couldn't be

mono-colored? So first is A is First Strike Prowess, B is Hexproof Prowess, C is Lifelink Menace, D is Menace Vigilance. Okay, so let's take a look here. So A is First Strike Prowess. Well, First Strike is primary in red and white, and

Prowess is primary blue, secondary red. So that card, A, could be done as a mono-red card, so that's not the right answer. B, hexproof is primary in blue, secondary in red. I'm sorry, hexproof is primary in blue, secondary in green. Prowess is primary in blue, secondary in red. So B could be done in mono blue. Hexproof prowess could be done in mono blue.

C, lifelink menace. Lifelink is primary in white and black. Menace is primary in black, secondary in red. So that card could be done in mono black. So C is not the right answer. D, Menace is primary black, secondary red. Vigilance is primary white, secondary green. Okay, those two don't overlap. Okay, there's no way to do a Menace Vigilance creature that's a mono colored creature. So D is the correct answer, Menace and Vigilance. The next three questions.

Four, five, and six. Use a card called Come Work for Me Temporarily. It has a converted mana cost of four. We don't tell you the cost, the mana cost. It's a sorcery. Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap it. It gets plus one, plus one, and gains haste, hexproof, and trample until end of turn.

One note, by the way, is we use the same card for four, five, and six. But there's a typo. An early version of the test, instead of hexproof, it was deathtouch. And on cards four and six, we changed it correctly. But on card five, we did not. So when I get to card five, I'll talk about that. That actually did affect how we graded the test. Okay, so number four. What is the most appropriate color combination for this multicolor

card? A, red-white. B, blue-red. C, black-green. D, red-green. E, white-black. Now, taking a creature, untapping it, and then being able to gain control of it for the turn is an ability we call Threaden in red. It's a red ability. It's something red does. Blue will steal creatures, but when blue steals things, it's a permanent steal. So that ability, that half the card is red. So the card has to have red in it. It's a base red ability.

So C is black-green and E is white-black. Neither of those have red in it. That can't be the right answer. So now we have A, red-white, B, blue-red, and D, red-green. It's still possible answers. Okay, so let's look at what it does. It grants plus one, plus one.

Any color can do that. There's certain colors that lean more toward doing that. We'll get back to that in a second. It gains haste. Haste is primary in red, secondary in black. Hexproof. Hexproof's primary in blue, secondary in green. And trample. Trample's primary in green, secondary and black, hexproof, hexproof primary and blue, secondary and green, and trample. Trample is primary and green, secondary and red. Okay, red can do haste and red can do trample, but red can't do hexproof. So

since hexproof is in blue and green, white is not a viable answer. White does not grant hexproof to creatures, occasionally grants it to players. But anyway, white is not the correct answer. So red, white is not the correct answer. So now we got down to blue, red, and red, green. Now be aware, 3,000 people are taking this test. There's some hard questions. This one gets a little harder in the nuance. Okay, so now it could be blue, red, or red, green. How do we tell the difference? Well, there's a couple things. One is, let's look at the abilities. One of the things we often do when making three abilities on a multicolored card is ability one is primary

or secondary in the first color, ability two is primary or secondary in the second color, and ability three is primary or secondary in both colors. So one of the ways to make something feel like it's multicolored is do one of each and one that's both. Now, if that is true, haste is red, hexproof is green, trample is red and green. That allows us to do that. Also, plus one plus one leans more toward green than blue, and the overall effect is a little more red green than it is red blue. So all those combinations is red, green is just a better choice. Could we do this in red, blue? It's possible. It's just not as good a choice. It's not the most appropriate. The most appropriate is red, green. And like I said, that was a hard question. A bunch of people missed that question. That was a hard question. Okay, number five. So this is the one where the card mistakenly

said death touch instead of hexproof. We did fix the typo. The test went up at 6 a.m. We fixed the typo at 6.05 a.m. But because some people might have printed up the test and not looked at it, or it was possible to not realize it was a typo, what we did is we gave the answer for each version. So, what is the most appropriate rarity

for this card? As is, granting Haste, Hexproof, and Trample, it's a little much for Common. We tend to do this effect at Common, but we don't tack on a lot of other things. Obviously, it naturally has Haste, and sometimes we might do a, like, if it was just plus,

gains Haste and plus one, plus one, okay, that we could do a common. The fact that it grants two other abilities just makes it a little bit more complex, a little more than we would do a common. So the answer we were looking for was uncommon, B, uncommon. It really isn't splashy enough to be a rare. And obviously, if it's not splashy enough to be a rare,

it's not splashy enough to be a mythic rare. This card's more made for limited than it would be made for constructed. So uncommon's the right choice. But when we had Death Touch on it, the combination of Death Touch and Trample is really complex. So complex that we don't naturally tend to put the two abilities together. So if we made a card where they did get put together, there's a good chance we'd have pushed the card to rare just because of rules confusion. So if we made this card and we put them on the same card, rare was an acceptable answer when Death Touch was a card.

So because we had that typo and there is a reasonable belief that the answer would be rare, we accepted both uncommon and rare as a correct answer on this question. It's the only question where we accepted two answers and rare as a correct answer on this question. It's the only question where we accepted two answers, but this is one of them. I mean, this is the one where we did accept two answers. So if B, uncommon, was the correct answer with hexproof being the thing given, if death such is given, rare would be the correct answer. Or rare is at least an acceptable answer. I guess there's still an argument to be made, but I believe that if that color combination, we'd stick with that rare. So I believe rare is the correct answer with the typo.

Okay, question number six. If we aren't planning to change the color combination, which change are we least likely to make? A, change sorcery to instant. B, change haste to double strike. C, change plus one to plus two. D, change from hexproof to this creature must be blacked this turn of fable. And E, change from trample, this creature can be blacked by creatures with power two or less. Okay, let's start with the easy ones first.

Change plus one plus one to plus two plus two. That's a minor change that has more to do with how we want the effect to happen. You know, it might affect costing or something, but it doesn't affect the design. We could do plus one, plus one, or plus two, plus two. Like I said, this card is probably uncommon anyway, so a little more of a boost is fine. So anyway, no reason we can't do that. Change from Death Touch to This Creature Must Be Blocked is turn of Abel.

Death Touch is in green on this card. This Creature Must Be Blocked of Abel is in green. So basically, it's a green effect. Change to a green effect. No harm, no foul. That change can be made. Change from trample to this creature can't be blocked by creatures with power two or less. R&D calls that, what do we call it?

Daunt is what we call it. Daunt is primary in green, but we do it a little bit in red. So it's an ability that shows up in red and green. Trample's ability in red and green. Primary green, secondary red. Kind of like Daunt is primary in green, but we do it a little bit in red. So it's an ability that shows up in red and green. Trample's ability in red and green. Primary green, secondary red. Kind of like Daunt. So, yeah, we could have made that change. That change would have worked just as fine as well. Okay.

So we get down to A and B. Change sorcerer to instant or change haste to double strike. I will note, by the way, on this test, there was another typo. Instead of saying, on D, instead of saying this creature must be blocked this turn of Fable, we said each turn of Fable, slightly off the template. But being a slightly non-perfect template is not a reason we wouldn't do it comparative to some of the other things here, which are much, much more major things. So although we had a typo, it didn't change the answer, so we didn't give an altered answer. Both versions have the same answer. Okay, so change sorcery instant is a somewhat good

answer. We don't often do red stealing effects as instants, usually because we want red to be aggressive and use it offensively and not defensively. But we have done it as an instant. It's something we do on occasion. It's something we do rarely, but something we're willing to do. Change haste to double strike. Now it's a little sneaky, because haste is in red, double strike is in red. If you're only thinking about the color applications of this, it doesn't change the colors. But you've got to remember what are the things doing on the cards. Haste is here because you're stealing the creature.

And it's a sorcery, and at the end of the turn it has to go back. If you don't give the creature haste, there's not a lot of use you get to do with it. It really undermines what the card does. And beyond that, even if we somehow thought, like, oh, there's combinations to use with it, it's just confusing. When we do an effect and we always do it one way, we have to be very careful to do it one way, we have to be very careful to do it differently without a strong reason to do it. And really, there's no reason

not to have haste. It would confuse people. It'd be unintuitive. People would play it wrong. And the card is not a particularly interesting card if you don't have haste. So the correct answer is B, change haste to double strike. For those that answered A, A is a good second answer. It's just not the number one answer. It's not the change we're least likely to make. Once again, as I said, we had a lot of people taking this test. We needed some hard questions. That was one of the hard questions.

Okay, number seven. Which phrase is something a follower of White's philosophy is least likely to say? A. A system without structure is a system asking to fail. B, evil must be stopped preemptively. D, nothing can go wrong if you act from the heart. I'm sorry, C, nothing can go wrong if you act from the heart.

D, sometimes the individual suffers so a larger group can thrive. Or E, violence is never preferred but is occasionally necessary. Okay, let's look at A. A system without structure is a system asking to fail. White is all about organization. It's all about system. It's all about structure. That is as white as it gets. B. Evil must be preemptively stopped.

White, in general, believes in not striking first. White is like, it's not until you show me that you're dangerous that I will hit you. White has a number of effects that sort of wait until it takes damage or it affects things in combat. But white does believe that there are exceptions to that rule. And one of the exceptions is if something's evil enough, white will be proactive. White will make cards that directly kill black or red creatures, for example. So white does believe that evil must be

preemptively stopped. I'm going to skip C for a second. D, sometimes the individual suffers so the larger group can thrive. White is all about the good of the group, and it does believe that the rights of individuals is less important than the rights of the group. So that's completely true for white. E, violence is never preferred, but is occasionally necessary. White will build armies. White will go on crusades. White will use violence if white feels it's necessary. White is the color that least likes to use violence. You know, instead of killing you, white will often lock you up.

But, white will use violence. There is a time and place that white uses it. So E is white. C, nothing can go wrong if you act from your heart. That is a very red statement. White believes that when you act from your heart, you might do things, for example, where you prioritize yourself rather than the group. Acting from your heart, White believes, is one of the reasons that people can be chaotic or make less optimal decisions.

So C is the correct answer. That is not something White would say. Number eight. Which phrase is something a follower of Blue's philosophy is least likely to say? A. Action should only follow thought. B, every person has the ability to become anything. C, a fear of change is dangerous. D, tools are an important part of society.

Or E, you are shaped more by your genes than your experience. A, action should only follow thought. That is very much something Blue believes. Blue believes in thinking first, acting second. B, every person has the ability to become anything. Blue is a believer of tabula rasa, that you are born a blank slate and that through experience and education

and the right equipment, you can become anything. So blue definitely believes that. A fear of change is dangerous. Blue very much believes in the power of change. So blue believes that a fear of change is in fact dangerous. D, tools are an important part of any society. Yes, blue both believes in the idea of society and is a big believer of tools. It's one of the three

things that helps you realize your ideal. You need education, experience, and tools. And so blue very much believes in tools. E. You are shaped more by your genes than by your experience. It is taking the nature side in the nature versus nurture

argument. That is the green-blue conflict. Except that is the green side and not the blue side. Green believes in the nature side of things. That you are not shaped more by your genes than your experience. So E is the correct answer. Nine. Which phrase is something a follower of Black's philosophy is least likely to say?

A. The difference between success and failure is a willingness to do what needs to be done. B, I didn't create this system. I just understand how to take advantage of it. C, only I choose what path I walk. D, sometimes you have to put yourself ahead of others. I said you have to put others ahead of yourself. E, the weak serve a purpose. They are a resource of the strong.

A, the difference between success and failure is a willingness to do what needs to be done. This is very black. Black believes it is this willingness to do whatever that is its greatest strength. B, I didn't create the system. I just understand how to take advantage of it. B is very much about understanding how to take advantage of things.

You know, B very much looks to say, you know, B doesn't necessarily need to create things as much as it needs to understand how to exploit them. So B is very much a black thing. C, only I choose what path I walk. In the green-black conflict, black has free will versus green's determinism. So this is very much a black thing. Black is the one who determines what it gets to do.

E, the weak serve a purpose. They are a resource of the strong. Black definitely believes that. Black believes that the weak exist to serve the strong. So that's very much a black thing. So D, sometimes you have to put others ahead of yourself. Black is a selfish color. That is not something black believes in.

Black believes that putting others ahead of your own, others instead of you is a white thing and shows how white is weak according to black. So D is the correct answer. 10, which phrase is something a follower of red's philosophy is least likely to say? thing and shows how white is weak, according to Black. So D is the correct answer. Ten. Which phrase is something a follower of Red's philosophy is least likely to say? A. Mistakes should be avoided at all costs. B. The greatest regrets are about things you didn't do, not things you did.

C. Life is messy. D. A life without passion is a life unlived. E. The fewer rules, the better. So we'll start with B this time. The greatest regrets are about things you didn't do, not things you did. Yes, red is all about action and following your heart and doing what comes to you. The great regrets

are not about doing things, but not doing things. C, life is messy. Red believes that. Red believes that, you know, red embraces chaos and red embraces the idea that part of living life is that it can get messy. And red embraces the idea that part of living life is that it can get messy. And Red embraces the fact that life is messy.

D, a life without passion is a life unlived. Red very much follows its heart. Red believes in its passion. Red believes that the goal of life is to follow your passion. So yes, a life without passion is to Red a life unlived. E, the fewer rules, the better. Red's not a big believer in rules. Red wants to do what it wants to do. It sees its enemy, White, makes the rules. Red does not like rules. So Red believes the less rules, the better. Red, not a big believer in rules. Red wants to do what it wants to do.

It sees its enemy white makes the rules. Red does not like rules. So red believes the less rules, the better. A, mistakes should be avoided at all costs. Nope. Red believes that act now and that part of following your passion is sometimes the wrong thing happens. Sometimes, you know, life is messy. Things don't always work out.

So mistakes to red are great learning experiences. It's how you get better. Blue is the one that sort of doesn't want to make a mistake. Red, red's more the one to make a mistake. Red actually thinks mistakes are good. That you learn from mistakes. Red sees value in mistakes. So A, mistakes should be avoided at all costs, is the correct answer.

Not something red would say. Number 11, which phrase is something a follow ofup to Green's philosophy is least likely to say? A, adaptation is a slow process. B, all life is interconnected. C, killing for sport is just a part of life. D, the key to happiness is accepting the world as it's meant to be. Or E, you were born into your role. Well, A, adaptation is a slow process.

Green accepts change, but accepts change through adaptation, through growth, and that usually, usually is a slow process. B, all life is interconnected. Yes, Green believes in the web of life. Green definitely believes life's all interconnected. The key to happiness is accepting the world as it's meant to be. That is the heart of Green's philosophy. The world is correct as is. You just have to accept and understand how it is and not try to change it. E, you are born into your life. You're born into your role.

Yes, this is the black-green conflict, green side of it. Green believes that you are predetermined the role. You are born into your role. You don't learn your role. You were born with the role. The key to life is figuring out what role you were born into. That's very green. So C, killing for sport is just a part of life.

Green understands that things will kill other things through necessity. If I need to eat, there's reasons that things will kill other things. But killing for sport, artificial death, death used for a means other than serving a specific purpose, that is very antithetical to green. Green does not believe in killing for sport. Green believes that death used improperly is a problem. Black is fine with it, but green is not.

So the correct answer there is C. Number 12, if you were willing to bring back the Battlecry mechanic in a Ravnica set, what guild would be the best match for the mechanic? A. Azorius, B. Boros, C, Gruul. D, Rakdos. Or E, Selesnya. Okay, so this is a combat mechanic, Battlecry. It says that when you attack all your other creatures you attack with you, you get plus one plus oh.

So it is very combat ordered. It is very aggressive. Azorius is much more a controlling guild. Does not make sense in Azorius. Gruul is aggressive. I mean, Boros obviously Mazorius. Gruul is aggressive. I mean, Boros obviously is very aggressive. Gruul is aggressive. Rakdos is more reckless

and aggressive. I mean, it's aggressive, but in a very different way. Selesnya, so Selesnya, Gruul, and Boros all have some use that they would mechanically make sense, but if you're going, I mean, Battle Cry has a military feel to it. It has aggressive feel to it.

And the color combination that's the most about in combat tricks and stuff is the Boros. The Boros B is the correct answer here. Yeah, Gruul and Selesnya are definitely things that could make use of the mechanic, but not as efficiently, not as flavorfully, not as cleanly and clearly as Boros. B. Okay, number 13. Which effect is usually seen on more instants than sorceries? A. Direct damage.

B. Discard effects. C. Land destruction. D. Land fetching. E. Reanimation. Well, discard effects are mostly done on sorceries, so we don't like you making people discard the card they drew before they have a chance to play it. Land destructions done as sorcery, so we don't like you making people discard the card they drew before they have a chance to play it. Land destructions are mostly sorcery, just because a lot of people get confused about the response of casting spells if people destroy their land.

It doesn't stop the casting of the spell, but it's confusing people. Land fetching, we tend to like you to play your land in your turn. It just makes it cleaner to track when land's been played. And E, reanimation. We usually like reanimation to be more aggressive than defensive, and if it was an instant, you would surprise, use it to kill things, and that's really not the point of reanimation.

Direct damage, on the other hand, we make as both instant and sorcery, and we actually make it slightly more in instants than we do in sorcery, so A is the correct answer. Okay, next is a card that we're going to ask about. Long-acting giant growth. Two and a green, sorcery. Target creature gets plus three, plus three until end of turn. At the beginning of your next upkeep, that we're going to ask about. Long-acting giant growth. Two and a green. Sorcery. Target creature gets plus three, plus three until end of turn.

At the beginning of your next upkeep, that creature gets plus two, plus two until end of turn. At the beginning of your next upkeep after that, that creature gets plus one, plus one until end of turn. What is the biggest problem design-wise with this card above? A. The spell is too cheap. B. The spell requires you to track things for three turns without any way to mark it. C. The spell should be an instant so that it can work in combat. D. The spell should get bigger over time, not smaller, to build in excitement.

E. The spell should let you target different creatures because the first one might die. A. The spell is too cheap. It's not too cheap, but also that's something that's more decided later on when we start doing balance. And this particular one, the cost is pretty close to correct.

C, the spell should be an instant so they can work in combat. You know, a lot of times we do giant growths, things like this that have bigger effects, we are more willing to do at sorcery speed. So this is not something that necessarily needs the instant element of it. D, the spell should get bigger over time, not smaller in excitement. Possibly. I mean, if we were going to do this in a way that we would do it, that's not a bad

note, you know, that sort of grows over time. But, the other thing to remember is it's always the same creature. So if I make the creature a little bit bigger and it dies, I don't get the later one. So, on some level, the way that this one currently works, you probably do want the bigger one first, so that you don't lose the creature. E, the spell

lets you target different creatures, because the first one might die. It's tricky to do that, and you have a lot of delayed effects. So, changing the effect of the creature, at least as a sorcery, exacerbates the real problem, which is B.

The spell requires you to track things for three turns without any way to mark it. That is the biggest problem. The other things are, some of them are relevant problems, but they're smaller problems. The real big thing is, we don't tend to make you do something beyond the turn that you cast it, where you just have to remember what's going on. Everyone's in a blue moon. We have effects that end in the beginning of your opponent's end step, or maybe your end step. We'll do that on occasion, not a common.

beginning of your opponent's end step or maybe your end step. We'll do that on occasion, not a common. But if we were going to do this card, you know, we're more likely to do as an aura that adds counters or something. We would do something that gives you a memory of what's going on. We would not do this card without some memory aid.

Especially over the fact that it lasts three turns, which is pretty long, and that the effect each turn is a different effect. Okay. Next, Mysterio. So, no mana cost, we don't tell you the mana cost, but it has a conversion of mana cost of four, star, star, flash, and card names power and

toughness are each equal to the number of cards in your hand. If the above card was a hybrid creature, what colors would it be? A, white-blue, B, black-red, C, blue-black, D, blue-red, E, green-blue. So this is a hybrid card, so that means you always have to show up in both colors. B, black, red. C, blue, black. D, blue, red. E, green, blue. So this is a hybrid card, so that means the abilities have to show up in both colors.

Well, basically, it has two abilities. It's Flash. That's in green and blue. Primary blue, secondary green. Flash does show up in tertiary and the other colors when the ability doesn't make sense without Flash. Like, it's something that has an ETB effect that's reactive, for example.

The other ability is what we call the Morrow ability, first seen on a card called Morrow, named after yours truly, made by yours truly. And the Morrow ability is primary blue, secondary, and green. So we have an ability that is in blue and green and an ability that's in blue and green. So E, green, blue, is the correct answer.

Okay, question 15. and green and an ability that's in blue and green. So E, green, blue is the correct answer. Okay. Question 15. Question 15? Yeah, question 15 is... Wait, it's 15 or 16. Did I say 15? I just said 15. We're on to 16. What is the most likely rarity for the above card? A, common. B, uncommon.

C, rare. D, mythic rare. Okay, so one can just go back and look at Marrows. Marrows tend to be done at rare. I think we've done a whole bunch of Marrows over the years, and almost all of them, other than maybe one or two, have been rare.

The fact that we're in addition to adding Flash to this card, it adds a little something extra. This is really going to be a rare card. It's not splashy enough or unique enough to be a mythic rare. It doesn't have the extra oomph. We would add something else that's kind of over and above. It would be a mythic rare.

But this effect is something we do at rare. So this is the answer C, rare. Okay, number 17. What ability could be added to this creature without changing its colors? So this is another tough one. Like I said, we have some hard cards.

So A, at the end of your turn, untap card name. B, card name can't be blocked by more than one creature. C, card name must be blocked and able. D, whenever card name deals damage to an opponent, draw a card. E, whenever a creature dies, put a plus counter on, whenever a creature dies, put a plus one plus counter on Cartney. Okay, so let's walk through these. Okay, I'm going to jump around

a little bit. So B, Cartney can't be blocked by more than one creature. That is an ability we do in green we call stalking. Not something we do in blue. Blue does have, you know, evasion, but it doesn't have

that particular evasion. So this is a hybrid card, which means it has to be an ability that both blue and green do. Only green does that ability. C, card that must be blocked if able. Another ability done in green but not done in blue. Blue can make things block, but it doesn't have... So, once again, we're being tricky.

Blue sometimes will mess in with making things block, but it doesn't tend to have the ability on its own creature. It tends to be an effect that makes other things block. E, whenever a creature dies, put a plus or plus or counter on card name. That is an ability that's a primary black ability. We've dabbled a little bit with it in green. I would say it's sort of secondary in green,

although we don't do the ability all that much. I think we did the ability as Grixis once, where we made a little cycle in Grixis, so there's one blue card that on a world where we bended toward it did it. But that doesn't really make it a blue ability. It makes it that we bent once toward there.

And it's important to understand when something does something versus, okay, you know, it's part of a cycle and we're doing something. You know, Grixis was a world of death. You know, sometimes we will bend a little bit within a world. But that was the only time we'd ever done it. It means it's not a base blue ability. Okay, so now let's get to the harder one.

So A, at the end of your turn, untap card name. So in blue, we do let blue untapped creatures. Usually it's activated, but in theory it could be triggered. Green, we don't... Green will have effects that untapped creatures, you know, untapped and blocked,

for example, we'll do that sometimes. Or, sometimes when we're doing... when we would want to grant vigilance, but we can't because of timing. For example, when I deal combat damage, it's too late to grant vigilance. So sometimes what we'll do is we'll untap other creatures

as a way to sort of give things vigilance without being able to technically give them vigilance. But green does not untap itself. You know, if we wanted to, at the end of the turn, untap a green card, we would just give it vigilance. So this is something that sort of plays around in space that is not quite how blue does it and not how green does it, but close. But once again,

this is a hybrid card. It is not how mono green does it. I can argue that mono blue could do this, but you know, it is not something mono green does. Now I can argue that mono blue could do this, but it is not something mono green does. Now, D, whenever a card name deals damage to an opponent draw a card, that's Curiosity. I do know it didn't say Combat Damage. We most often say Combat Damage. We don't always, but we usually do. In retrospect, I would have

written Combat Damage on this just because I think that unnecessarily confused people, but that wasn't the intent. Anyway, Curiosity is an ability that is both in blue and in green. And since this is a hybrid card, you want an ability that's squarely in both colors. This ability is squarely in both colors. So that makes

D the correct answer. 18. A player finishes their first game of Magic. Which of the following do we care most about? A. They have a favorite card. B. They've seen most of the card types and most of the evergreen keywords. C. They see the potential

depth of the game. D. They understand the cards in their deck. Or E. They want to play again. So this is us testing a little bit of understanding the beginner player experience. And this one has a clean and simple answer, which is E. They want to play again.

A. They have a favorite card. It's nice if it happens, not crucial. But if it happens, you know, it's kind of nice. They have seen most of the card types and most of the evergreen keywords. No, not important. In fact, if I could have them not see everything, it would make the game a little less complicated and a little less overwhelming for them. I would prefer to do that.

So B is something I don't even want them to do. C, they see the potential depth of the game. Once again, I want them to get the game and enjoy the game. I don't need them to see the depth of the game the first time they play it through. If they happen to see it, that's fine. It's not a bad thing. If the player really is into games and is able to, you know, understand just with one game the depth the game has, that's okay, but it's not essential for people to see that. D, they understand the cards in their deck. Nice! It's the depth the game has, that's okay, but it's not essential for people to see that. D, they understand the cards in their deck. Nice! It's nice if the game ends and they know what their cards do.

That will help them play the second game. But, once again, not crucial. They can misplay cards. That doesn't matter. What really, really matters is if they had a good enough experience, they want to play again. Because if they play again, they will learn how all the cards work. They will see all the cards. They will get a favorite card. They will see the depth. All these other things will happen. If they play again, all the cards work. They will see all the cards. They will get a favorite card. They will see the deck play. All these other things will

happen. If they play again, all the other things will eventually happen. But if they don't want to play again, it won't matter. So E is the correct answer. 19. When designing a card for Spike, which of the following is most important? A. The card is a low casting cost. B. The card produces card advantage. C. The card is very open

ended. D. The card lets Spike feel they outplayed their opponent. Or E. The card tells Spike what the deck is about. So Spike is a psychographic. We want to understand if you get the psychographic. And the key here is what exactly does Spike like about a card? Well, Spike likes to prove themselves. Spike likes to show what they're capable of. So what Spike likes most is a card that the skill level of the card is dependent upon how it is played. Spike really, really likes cards where their skill can make the card better.

If they want to show off what they can do, it's really fun to play with a card where, you know, the card gets better the skill of the player. Factor of Fiction, for example, was really, really popular with Spike because a bad player playing a Factor of Fiction, you know, was really, really popular with spikes because, you know, a bad player playing a Factor of Fiction,

you know, it was okay. A good player playing it was really powerful. But it wasn't really powerful for everybody. It was really powerful for the better players.

And anyway, spikes tend to like that. So D, the cardless spike feel they outplayed their opponent is the correct answer. A card has a low

casting cost. I mean, spikes like efficient cards, but it's not crucial. There's cards with not a low casting cost that spike likes, Spike's like efficient cards, but it's not crucial. There's cards with not a low casting cost Spike likes. Card producers have card advantage? In general, Spike likes card advantage. But there's cards that make card advantage that aren't good enough cards to play.

That doesn't even mean he'll necessarily play it. The card is very open-ended? You know, in general, Spike likes more open-ended cards than not. But very efficient cards that do a specific thing, Spike can love quite a bit. The card tells Spike what the deck is about. Not necessarily. You know, Spike can sort of figure out how to put things together. It's not important.

You know, part of the cool things of proving things is proving that you have the skill to recognize what and where cards go. So a card being easy to understand isn't necessarily going to make Spike happier. But Spike feeling that they get to outplay their opponent, that really is a big thing. So D is the correct answer. Okay, number 20. Design considers a card too slow for tournament play.

What does that mean? A, it makes too many matches run over time in tournaments. B, the player with the card would monopolize too much of the play time in tournaments. C, the opponent will call a judge too often with the request of slow play. The card would monopolize too much of the playtime in tournaments. C. The opponent will call a judge too often with the request of slow play. The card would cause problems for coverage as it would

require too much commentary on the same card. Or E. The game would take more than 15 turns. This was another hard one. Really, the crux is, if it's too slow for tournament play, what does that mean? It means it hurts tournaments. Well, how does something hurt

tournaments? So you have to sort of understand the nature of what matters most about the tournament. And one of the biggest things about running tournaments is efficiency of the tournament. Having matches run long affects everybody. You know, slow play, it's something judges can deal with. Commentary, something the commentators can deal with. There's a lot of other factors that other people can deal with. But if matches go along, it affects everybody. Not just the people whose matches go along, but everybody in the tournament. Because the tournament can't start its next round until the match is done.

And so matches running long is actually a pretty big issue. So one of the things in design we're very careful about is being aware of making cards that make matches run long. We're very conscious about that. So the correct answer is A, it makes too many matches run over time in tournaments. The other factors are important. Yeah, we don't want one player monopolizing too much time. We don't want things that people will play slow.

We want coverage to be easy. We don't want the game to take too long. There's things that care, but at the crux of this is, as far as tournament play, we're talking about tournaments, we don't want to make tournaments run long. That is problematic. Okay, question number 21.

You're working on the next commander decks. Which is the most important goal? A. The colors are equally represented. B. The commanders inspire people to build new decks. C, the deck has a brand new theme. D, designing new cards for legacy and vintage. E, the decks are based on popular commander decks.

A, the colors are equally represented. Eh, we try to have a rough balance, but it doesn't matter that they're equal. C, the deck has a brand new theme. Sometimes we do that, but sometimes the popular theme players have liked before. D, designing new cards for legacy and vintage. We tried that early on. It actually caused a problem. It made decks sell out, not because the players who we wanted to get them could get them, and it caused us problems.

So that's not something we try to do anymore. E, the decks are based on popular commander decks. They can be. They can be new. They can be based on things. You know, we try to have a mix. We try to hit themes that are already popular. We try to make some new themes. We want a mix. So E is not the correct answer.

B, the commanders inspire people to build decks. New decks is the right answer. We want to make commanders that inspire people to play commander. And we want to definitely, you know, let people make things they currently make, but also encourage people to make new things. Number 22. Which of the Vaughn creatures is the weakest

in a typical standard legal draft format and then question 23 is which is the strongest so same choices A 1G22 1 in a green 2-2 B 3 in a green 4-4 C 5 in a green 6-6

D 7 in a green 8-8 E 9 in a green 10-10 so the weakest is the 9 in green 10-10 it's a 10 mana card just even being able to play it yes it's powerful

if you can play it. How many limited games do you get to 10-mana? Not a lot. And so it's a dead card so much of the time. I mean, there are games in which you can't even play it. And so it's the weakest card just because it's unlimited. It sits dead in your hand so much.

Which of the following creatures is the strongest? One green for 2-2 is under the curve. Usually you get more than that for 2-2. 3-green for 4-4 is good. 5 1 green for 2-2 is under the curve. Usually you get more than that for 2-2. 3 green for 4-4 is good. 5 green for 6-6 is good. The 8 and 10 D and E are strong, but once again, you don't get to play them that much.

It's pretty expensive to get them out. Between the two of them, because you get the 4 mana 4-4 out a little bit more, it allows you to be aggressive at a time where being aggressive is pretty valuable at the 4 spot. It's the stronger card. Number 24. The lead of a set has removed a black instant removal spell from their set and asks you to create potential replacement designs. Which of these qualities is most important for your design? A. It's a black card. B. It's an innovative card. C. It's an instant. D. It's a powerful card. E. It's a removal card. If there's a black hole, the most important thing is A, it's a black card.

Yes. The fact that it's innovative is nice, but not always crucial. The fact that it's powerful is not necessarily always needed. The fact that it's an instant and a removal are both things that, you know, if you can fill the hole

with what the hole was, that is nice. But when the dust settles, the most important thing is that you're filling the hole, which is the black hole. So it's black. A is the correct answer. Okay, last question for today.

I'm actually at work, but I want to finish up. It looks like I'm going to do three of these, 25 each. So, okay, why do green's common creatures tend to be a bit more efficient than white's? A, green is the enemy of blue and black. B, green players love powerful creatures. C, white is the enemy of black and red. D, white is stronger removal. E, White is the enemy of black and red. D. White is stronger removal.

E. This is the way it's always been. So A. Green is the enemy of blue and black. And C. White is the enemy of black and red. It has nothing to do with anything. B. Green players love powerful creatures. They do, but that's not the reason. I think green creatures like the creatures... We're mixing up the cart and the horse here.

Green tends to be more powerful, which is why people like the creatures in green. Not people... The creatures are more powerful because people like the creatures in green. It's the power that drew people to green in the first place. Okay, E. This is the way it's always been.

That is not a reason to do things. There is some inertia. Green has been the creature caller, but really inertia... We will change things if there's a better reason to do it. So that's not really the reason to make decisions. It's a reason to consider things, but there are other factors at hand. D, white is stronger removal.

That is the correct answer. D, white is stronger removal. And what that means is, white is more able to get things out of the way. And so green's answers to getting through creature stall is its creatures, its size of its creatures. So that is an element of green that's an important element. And so that is why the correct answer is D. Okay guys, I'm gonna probably do two more of these because it's apparent I can do about 25 per podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to

this. It was a fun test to take, a fun test to write. I was told it was a fun test to take a fun test to write I was told it was a fun test to take so I hope you guys are enjoying it and I will see you next time but I'm now at work so we all know what that means it means instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic I'll see you all next time

bye bye