Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #561: GDS3 Final Day

Episode Date: August 10, 2018

After three trials and five design challenges, the GDS3 top three came to Wizards' offices for the final day of the competition. This podcasts talks all about the final day of GDS3.

I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so yesterday was the final, the final day of the Great Designer Search 3. So I'm going to sort of talk a little bit about setup, how we got there, and then I'm going to talk about the final day. Okay, so back in December, we announced that we were doing the third Great Designer Search. So back in December, we announced that we were doing the Third Great Designer Search. And we had, I think, you could sign up if you were interested, meaning we would contact you with the information once, because January was when the, it would start to try to, the trials would start, because there were three trials. So 8,000 people signed up.

Trial one had, you had to write 3,000 words worth of essays, 10 essay questions, 300 words apiece. And 3,000, just slightly over 3,000 people did the essays and then qualified for trial two, which was a multiple choice test, with 75 questions. You needed to get 73. We did not expect 3,000 people to take the test. And then from there trial three was a design test

in which you had to design I think it was 10 cards. And so basically what happened is we ended up picking eight people on the design test. So essentially what happened was to qualify

the top eight you had to excel at all the trials. You obviously had to get 73 or better on trial two. You had to write really interesting essay answers on trial one and you had a really good design test on trial three. And the way it worked was the judges for the event were me representing vision design, Eric Lauer representing set design, and Melissa Datorre representing play design. Also, Eli Schifrin, the rules manager, he wasn't officially a judge, but he would chime in with rules things whenever he saw them.

And then we have a guest judge each time. So I'm going to quickly walk through the challenges. So for the very first, we reviewed the design test, and our special guest judge was Ethan Fleischer, the winner of the second grade designer search. And what happened was, the design test, J. Treat was number one, and then number two was Ari, Ari Nia. Number three was Jeremy, Jeremynia. Number three was Jeremy. Jeremy Geist, I can't remember all their last names. Number four, I believe, was Scott. Number five was Chris, I believe.

Number six was Linus. Number seven was Ryan. Number eight was Alex. So that was how the first one came out. I'm not sure I remember the ordering of everything. I haven't remembered that first one because we talked a lot about it. So anyway, those are the people that qualified for top eight. One of the things is there was a lot of discussion about the top eight. We actually, the way it worked was I got 97 things, put them into three buckets,

The way it worked was I got 97 things, put them into three buckets, ended up getting 37 in the yes bucket, I think, and then did further reviewing on those and ended up getting 15 for the final that I brought all the judges in. I think we got down to 15 and brought all the other judges in. And all the judges, including Mark Gottlieb, by the way, who's kind of a behind-the-scenes judge, he's the manager of the, I'm not sure what you would call it, but the position. Anyway, so we had like a two-plus hour meeting that actually ended up in several different rooms. In the end, we picked our top

eight, but it was a lot going. I wrote an article, by the way, that showed the other people that had done, I think all the other people that had done the highest on the design test. So I showed, beyond the eight people, I think I showed 11 other people's work. So those are the kind of people that came the closest to making it. And you can see one of my articles, right? I talked about that. Okay, so we do the judging and we move on to challenge number one. Design challenge number one was a tribal design challenge where you had to pick a tribe. And the way it worked was first come, first served. And everybody picked their tribes, although Jay took a long time to pick his tribe.

Like everyone picked, on Thursday, we let them pick, and Jay, I think, ended up picking, like, Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening. Everybody else picked on Thursday. Anyway, at the end of that, I believe Jeremy won that one. I think Ari came in second, and Chris came in third. You'll notice that those are the final three that happened to end up being the final three. So basically what happened in the first

challenge was Jay, who had done really good on the design test, didn't do quite as well. He had done shamans and he was trying something experimental. It didn't quite work. He was kind of middle of the pack because we liked that he was trying something different, but it didn't quite work. So he was trying something different, but it didn't quite work.

So he didn't get full credit because it didn't quite work. But he got some credit as he was pushing boundaries a little bit. And neither Ryan nor Alex did all that great. So in Design Challenge 1, the guest judge was Alexis Jansen, who was the winner of the first Great Designer Search 11 years ago. So what happened was, obviously, the top three we didn't consider getting rid of. Now, note, what it is is it's your conglomerate, how you're doing all along.

It's not the final test that gets you kicked out. It's all the challenges and the design test put together. It's all your work put together. So after the first design challenge, really it was between Ryan and Alex. We had a lot of debates. The judges went back and forth. Scott didn't have a great second challenge, but he had done a little better on the first challenge. Linus, we also talked a little bit about Linus. Linus had done

better on, I think, better on the, he was, I think Linus might have come in fourth on that challenge. So anyway, it ended up becoming between Ryan and Alex, a lot of this conversation. In the end, we chose to get rid of Alex. Once again, let me stress that all the eight designers I thought were really talented and really good. It's just a competition. Someone's

got to go. So when I talk about elimination, it's, please, I don't want anyone to read that as we didn't like them or didn't think they were good designers. Just look, we got eight great designers and every week we had to knock somebody out. So Alex sadly got knocked out the week one. So challenge number two was a top-down challenge. We had made Bigtopia, which was a circus world. And I gave them 25 names of cards. We had made Bigtopia, which was a circus world. And I gave them 25 names of cards. And then they had to design eight cards.

They could choose any eight they wanted, but there were a bunch of parameters. They had to hit, there were certain that had color variation. And there's some stuff they had to do and certain rarities and stuff. Anyway, coming out of that, our guest judge was Aaron Forsyth. And interestingly, the top-down challenge was the most divisive for the judges. If you read over the judge comments, it's the challenge that is the most of, I like this, I don't like this at all. And there's a little bit of taste at top-down.

It's definitely a little more subjective than objective. In the end, Scott won that one, although I should point out Scott won not because everybody thought he had the best thing. There's just a lot of ups and downs and Scott was the one that everybody universally believed was not bad, that

was solid. Nobody had Scott as their number one pick, interestingly, but nobody had Scott near the bottom. And other top picks, other people had near the bottom. So it was a very weird week. This is my favorite. Well, I thought they did the worst.

Normally, if you notice in our judging, it was much tighter than that. But the top-down challenge seemed to be the quirky one. And so the big question there was what to do. Jay had not a great turn again, but I think Linus had a slightly worse week. Ryan had rebounded,

so the top, Scott ended up being in the first place, Jeremy was in second place, and Ryan was in third place. So while Ryan was on the cutting block, we thought Ryan actually

had a good week, so Ryan sort of staved off elimination for a week. And in third place. So while Ryan was on the cutting block, we thought Ryan actually had a good week. So Ryan sort of staved off elimination for a week. And in the place, Linus ended up going. So Linus got removed from the second challenge. So the third design challenge was a mechanic challenge. Interesting, a little trivia, by the way. Originally, the mechanic challenge was going to be the fourth challenge.

The art challenge was going to be the third challenge. But my judge for the art challenge, Jenna, was on vacation that week. So we weren't able to, so I swapped it so we could use Jenna. Anyway, the mechanic is actually pretty hard. I think the mechanic challenge is the one that overall the designers did the worst on. And it's one of the hardest things to do. Designing mechanics is mega hard, especially when we gave them a bunch of parameters they had to work with, because they were designing something that had common cards, and there's a lot of, making something big enough that it spreads across different rarities, it is

challenging, and it was definitely very hard. For that challenge, Ryan actually rose to the occasion. Ryan won that challenge. Who was second that week? I think second that week was Jeremy second that week, or was Chris? Chris might have been second that week. Maybe Chris was second that week, and was Ari third? It was either Jeremy or Ari was third that week. Anyway, the guest judge for

the mechanic episode was Jules, Jules Robbins, who actually had worked really, really hard during the second grade designer search. We had a public element where people could submit cards on a wiki and Jules had done a lot. And in fact, one of the things that got him in the door was a couple of the Ethan and Sean who Jules had made cards for really spoke up for him and said that they really were impressed with his designs. And so while he wasn't actually in the second grade designer search as a contestant, in a lot of ways we contribute his work from the great designer search too as the thing that really got his foot in the door. And Jules is also one of the people, along with Ethan and Scott and a bunch of other people, who founded Goblin Artisans, of which Ari and Jay and I think Ryan are all on Goblin Artisans, of which Ari and Jay were, and I think Ryan

are all on Goblin Artisans. Anyway, so challenge number three was the mechanic challenge. Yeah, it was Ryan, Chris, and either Jeremy or Ari. So that was the one that Jay had a really strong start. Like I said, with the tribal ones, he had tried something interesting. It didn't quite work, but he got points for at least sort of being bold. His top-down Challenge 2 and his mechanics, neither of them really sing. And so, sadly, Jay got cut on Challenge 3. Sadly, Jay got cut on challenge three.

So challenge four was the art challenge. And that is where we gave them 10 constraints and 12 pieces of art. So they had a design card. And the constraints were like, it's a common green non-creature. It's kind of stuff like we're doing a hole filling like we would do in a set and telling them what we needed. And then they also had to balance. They had to pick 10 of the 12 pieces of art to try to match up. And the art was picked and designed in such a way that it wasn't an easy fit.

You had to kind of work a little bit to stretch things. And our guest judge that week was Jenna Helen, who is, um, on the creative team, who, Jenna more just judged kind of what she thought of, uh, the card concepting matching what the mechanics did. Um, and that week, the winner of the challenge was Ari. Um, I believe, I think Jeremy came in second that week. And who came in third? I don't, I don't have all this off the top of my head.

I don't remember who was third on the art challenge. I do know that that one was talking to us between Ryan and Scott who would go. Maybe Chris come in third. The conversation that week was between Ryan and Scott. But I think that Scott had... Or maybe Scott came in third. Scott ended up doing well enough that we ended up... That Ryan ended up going after the fourth challenge.

And then we got to the fifth challenge. The fifth design challenge was another first-come, first-served challenge. They had to pick a booster pack, a black border that had a 15-card booster pack. And then they had to design all new cards that fit the parameters of the booster pack from that set. So, let's see. Chris, Jay came in first and picked Khans of Tarkir. Ari was second and picked Scars of Mirrodin.

I believe Scott was third and picked Innistrad. In fact, Scott originally tried to pick New Phyrexia, but by the rules, since Ari had picked Scars of Mirrodin, originally tried to pick New Phyrexia, but by the rules, since Ari had picked Skarsgård and Mirrodin, he couldn't have New Phyrexia in the same block. So he ended up picking Innistrad. And then the latest, which was still the same day, but around 4 o'clock, everybody else had picked, it was like noon, Chris picked Guildpact.

So anyway, they turned it in. Ari won that challenge Jeremy came in second, Chris came in third and Scott came in fourth Scott had come into the challenge kind of in last place and well I think Scott actually did a good job

I think I mean the final challenge was really really good oh the guest judge was Ken Nagle who came second in the first grade design research and I think it's the best that all of them did. I think the fifth challenge, while being a really hard challenge, I think it's the one that they did the best at as a whole. And while Scott did a good job, the other three, I think, did a better job. And Scott also had come in, you know, Scott was the one that was fighting to stay in, and Scott ended up getting kicked out.

So that means we ended up with Ari and Jeremy and Chris. So what we did is they got invited out for the final three. So by the way, what was going on was, due to some factors behind the scenes, we ended up having to do it. The original plan was going to be 12 weeks long. Every judging would be broken to do it. The original plan was going to be 12 weeks long. Every judging would be broken into two weeks. The first week would be the upper half of the pool and the second week, the lower half. For the design test, obviously no one would get eliminated, but for each of the following ones, you would know, oh, you're in the upper half, no way

you're getting eliminated. And then the lower half, oh, which of the lower half is getting eliminated? And the idea was it was going to take over 12 weeks um due to factors i can't really get into that didn't happen uh so we ended up doing it all the content uh in the show and then twice a week so we ended up having sort of four times the volume than we originally intended i know that was a lot and uh i i apologize um but i we a lot of people uh we had a lot, and I apologize. But a lot of people, we had a lot of people reading all the stuff. I got a lot of very kind comments. And I also got teased a lot for some of my judging decisions.

Apparently a unicycle, it's very controversial whether or not it's equipment or a vehicle. Since a unicycle in the real world actually is a vehicle, I was in the vehicle camp. The interesting thing about the challenge in which they, the top-down circuit challenge was, I did not let, they only get one mechanic, including deciduous mechanics, and vehicles are deciduous. So if they wanted to use vehicle, they had to use up their one slot. So a bunch of them that did equipment was kind of also because they really didn't have vehicles available to them, but they wanted to use another mechanic. A little side note. I also mistakenly called a turtle a snake,

although his shoulder things look like snakes. But anyway, for all my commentary and all, I felt like all these pearls of wisdom I tried to give, those are the stuff that I tend to get called on the silly things where I call something different than people thought it would. Anyway, I was really happy with all the judging that came out, by the way. I thought Eric and Melissa and Eli and all the judges did an awesome job. If you haven't had a chance to see this, definitely go check it out.

If you like making magic cards or are interested in how magic cards are made, there's so much data and so much sort of talking about us analyzing things. And you look at the card and go, ooh, that seems just fine. And then we'll pick it apart and say, oh, or sometimes we like it. But sometimes it's like, oh, well, here's the thing you didn't think about. And there's so many

little details about making a magic card. And there's so many little facets you have to think about. And I might talk about color pie. Or Eric might talk about how it would fit in the set. Or Melissa might talk about how it plays in think about. And, you know, I might talk about color pie, or Eric might talk about how it would fit in the set, or Melissa might talk about how it plays in a tournament. You know, all these different factors. Anyway, it's pretty cool. Okay, so it is now time for the final three.

So the way it works is, and this is how it works for both GDS1 and GDS2, we do three trials, we do five challenges, and in the end, three people are left. Now, GDS-1 had 15 people in it. We knocked out more than one per time. In fact, I think it started with 15 and then eliminated three, three, two, two, two, I think is what happened. Anyway, so we fly them out. So what happened was Tuesday, they flew out on Tuesday, June 5th, is when they came out. Right now, I'm recording this on Wednesday, June 6th. Not often you know the exact date I'm recording something.

Also, you can tell you how far in events I do these things, because obviously you're listening to this on some date, and I record this on June 6th. Obviously, you're listening to this on some date, and I record this on June 6th. Anyway, so the, sorry, we called them out. They came out on Monday, because basically the challenge was all day Tuesday. It was a full day on Tuesday. So Monday night, I and Mark Gottlieb and Stephanie Mitchell and Ben Hayes took them out to dinner. Stephanie, for those who don't know, Stephanie

was the, helped me, she was the person that did all the behind the scenes work, all the administrative work, which is a huge amount of work. I joke that I'm not sure who did the most work on this challenge, whether it was one of the designers, me, or Stephanie, but we all did a lot of work to put this all together,

and so hats off to Stephanie. Anyway, the four of us took them out to dinner. We went to a nice place I'd mentioned called The Red House, which is literally a red house, and we had a chance

to sort of chat with them and sort of get to know them. Obviously, I'd read other essays and I had been communicating with them through the contest but that's more formal. This was a little more informal. Have a chance to sort of talk a little bit

and find out about them. And also, one of the things we wanted to do was look, the final day is really intimidating. Really, really intimidating. I've talked to all the former GDS people. For all these people, this is something that really matters to them. It's something that's really important.

Winning is a big deal. And, you know, when you're done, I'm like, okay, here's a chance for something I've always dreamed of doing. And I'm one of three people for this opportunity. You know, it is definitely nerve-wracking. So we took them out to dinner the night before to sort of hopefully calm them a little bit.

It's funny, all day long I kept trying to say, okay, guys, you can relax. And Chris would go, I'm not going to relax. He goes, when this is done, I will relax. But right now I'm not going to relax. So he'd just be very honest. Okay, so we started our day early in the morning. this is done, I will relax. But right now, I'm not going to relax. So, just be very honest. Okay. So, we started our day early in the morning.

So, the first thing we did, we started at 9 in the morning, was I took them on a tour. So, understand the importance of the fact that they got to go on a tour is we've never given public tours. Wizards never has done that. I mean, if you ever visit the offices, there's a fourth floor lobby that's public that you

can come see. You can come see Mitzi, take a picture. Um, but the offices themselves are open. We don't do tours. Um, for a long time, we used to do private tours in that, you know, every once in a while, someone would come and we, it was a special thing when we give a tour. And then about two years ago, from on high, we got no tours, no more tours. We cannot give tours. So we've not given tours for a while. Um, so in order to give

a tour, I had to get special dispensation, dispensation, special permission. Um, and I got it. Uh, and so we were able to give a tour. Um, I can't really tell you too much about the tour, uh, cause they are all, they were all signed NDAs. I can't really tell you too much about the tour because they are all signed NDAs. I can't talk about the tour, but it was cool. They sold cool stuff. It was fun. And so we did that. And then, starting

at 9.30, so we did a tour for half an hour, it was time for the gauntlet! Dun-dun-dun! So the gauntlet is something we've done every single time. It's something that we've done at every GDS finals so far. I mean, it's the third one. And so what it is is there were three rooms.

Each room had four people in it. So let's see if I can remember this correctly. So the first room was me, Melissa Totoro, Eric Lauer, and Eli Schifrin. So this was the judges from the Great Designer Search, or at least all the regular judges. Room two was Mark Gottlieb, Ben Hayes, Max McCall, and Brian Cauley.

And that was a lot of managers. Those are all people that do different managing. And then, and Mark Otley would be the manager of the winner. And then the third room was Aaron Forsyth, Ken Troop, Mark Lobis, and Jess. And those were more the bosses, as we call them. That's how they refer to themselves. So basically the way it worked is each person went in a room, had an hour to sit down, chatted with the people in the room,

and then at the end of the hour we'd rotate them. So it was three hours long, an hour per room. And there just was a lot of talk. And different rooms, I think, talked about different things. But we went through that. And what we did is all 12 of the people in the gauntlet, on the employee side, took notes. And from those notes, we had a general sense

of how all the people did. Everybody did well. So what I'm talking about now is in comparison to each other, nobody dropped below the line. Everybody did a good job. It's more a matter of how much did they excel for the gauntlet.

So Chris ended up getting the highest marks on the gauntlet. So Chris ended up getting the highest marks on the gauntlet. Ari was second, and Jeremy was third. Oh, let me talk a little bit about, sorry, coming into this, because a lot of this is talking about the winner. So coming into this event, both Ari and Jeremy, I think, had made top three five times. I think each of them didn't make top three once.

Ari had won two of the challenges. Jeremy had won one of the challenges. Although Jeremy did manage to come in second three times. Ari came in first, first, and second. And Jeremy came in second, second, second, second, I believe. Ari had a third or two. Anyway, Ari came in a little bit ahead of Jeremy

because Ari had won more challenges and he had won challenges a little later. The challenges got a little harder as they went along. Now, you had less people you were competing against, that is true, but we designed the challenges to kind of get harder as they went along. Now you had less people you're competing against, that is true, but then we were we designed the challenges to kind of get harder as you went along. So he won the last two challenges which were two of the hardest challenges and another big thing about this competition was a lot of what we were looking for was improvement, was we

were giving you notes and you were listening to our notes and you were adapting to the notes and so a lot of the grading was not just how you did on the challenge, but also how you adapted to the notes that were given to you on the challenge. And so the fact that Ari had done a little bit better later on, once again, Ari came in first on the fourth and fifth challenges, and Jeremy came in second. So it was close. But Ari had a little bit of an edge.

So coming into the competition, Ari had the edge, Jeremy was behind him, and then Chris was behind him. That was sort of the pecking order coming in so far. And remember, we judge on everything all combined. So coming in a bit ahead was significant. But anyway, we did the gauntlet. Chris did the strongest in the gauntlet based on all the feedback. Now once again, I'm talking about conglomerate.

Every single person was picked by multiple people as who they thought did the best. So it is not, I mean, Chris had the overall strongest performance based on all the conglomerate. But it was definitely, they all did well. Chris did a little better. Ari's second, Jeremy's in third. Okay, then we had lunch. And normally on Tuesdays, we have... One of the things we realized a while back

is we weren't playing enough. We do a lot of playtesting, but we wanted to be playing a little more with finished cards and just be a little more familiar with the latest set. Because one of the things that happens is you play a set and get very familiar with it, but then you move on. And by the time the set comes out, well, the thing you're playing now is, you know, a year to a year and a half away.

So we started playing Magic on Tuesdays to allow us just to play with the current set, just make sure we're more familiar with the set that's currently out. And, hey, we get to play Magic. We like playing Magic. And what we do on Tuesdays is we bring in lunch. So some days it's pizza. Yesterday it was Greek food. Sometimes it's Mexican. There's a wide variety of different food options.

They change it up. Yesterday was Greek food. And then we play Dominaria. So we had an hour and a half. Basically let them decompress. The gauntlet is three hours of talking is a long time. And so they got to decompress a little bit. All of them actually ended up playing.

If you check to my Twitter, I took pictures of all this. So I took pictures of everybody playing. So all of them were playing. I don't know how they did. I believe R&D beat them mostly in the game. So once again, I'm sure their minds were very preoccupied thinking of all the stuff going on that day. But anyway, we had a relaxing lunch, or I guess R&D had a relaxing lunch.

I'm sure they were still nervous. And then after lunch, it was time for the final challenge. So the final challenge is something we've done. I did the same thing we've done the last two times. I'm going to stick with tradition. So basically what we do is it is a last-minute replacement. So what that means is, so it was Dark Ascension, and at the last minute, the development team came to us and said,

oh, no, the card Seance is broken. We need to replace Seance. And then Bran comes to us and says, Well, you know, the name always made us a little nervous. Can we just change the name? If you're going to change the mechanic anyway, could we please change the name? So the challenge was, the set ships tomorrow.

We have to be down tomorrow. And so at the last minute, we have to change something. So be down tomorrow. We have to, we have to, and so we, at the last minute, have to change something. So, we, the art is already locked in. It's got to be that art, but it's not going to be called Seance.

But it had, because of the collector number, it was locked in between, what was it? It was in between Sanctuary Cat and Silverclaw Griffin.

So, the name had to fit in between that. It was a white rare, so it had to make sense for a white rare. They had to look at the other things that were in the set

to make sure it sort of fit and didn't do something other cards were doing. There was no time to playtest it, so they couldn't push it. They had to try to do something that wasn't going to be

potentially dangerous without us testing it. And the way it worked is they each had an hour. So what they were given was a dictionary, a copy of the file of Dark Ascension, a notebook,

and a pen, and each given their own room. We had these little conference rooms, these little glass conference rooms. We put them in the three glass conference rooms. I took pictures of this as well. The conference rooms, by the way, have white walls, white boards for walls.

So Chris ended up writing all over the boards because he likes white boards. I think both Ari and Jeremy just wrote it on the notebook we gave them. So anyway, what happened was they had an hour. They had an hour, and the instructions they were given is they needed to come up with three unique cards.

Each card had to do something mechanically different, and each one had to have a unique name. So don't use the same name multiple times. And so a lot of this challenge was about taking a lot of the skills we had asked for during the course of the challenge. They were designing to art. They were designing to constraints. They were designing to rarity.

So a lot of the skills we'd been testing all during the competition were sort of all coming together and now doing it once and doing it under a time pressure. Remember, all the challenges, we would send them around noon on Thursday, the challenge, and they had till Sunday midnight. So they roughly had three and a half days every time to do a challenge. Now they had an hour. Now given they only had to do three cards rather than eight cards, but still they had to do an hour. Then the second half is we pulled them in, along

with all the judges, so me and Melissa and Eric and Eli and Mark Gottlieb, who was judge behind the scene, we pulled them in, and we put all nine cards up on the wall, and then all together as a team, we walked through to figure out what the right card for the hole was.

And part of it was us going through and saying which card, like Melissa walked through and said which card she thought were too risky from a play design standpoint. We eliminated those. Eli walked through and talked a little bit about what rules issues were.

We ended up tweaking a few things. And then we talked about positioning of what was too close to what was already in the file. That eliminated a bunch of stuff. So in the end, we ended up tweaking a few things, and then we talked about positioning of what was too close to what was already in the file. That eliminated a bunch of stuff. So in the end, we ended up getting three cards we got down to. Interestingly, one from each contestant. One from Ari, one from Chris, one from Jeremy.

By the way, there's an article that should have already been up by the time you heard this, where I go through all their choices and talk about what we did. I'm not going to go into great detail there. But the article, I am planning to go into, or I haven't written it yet. But you guys should have read it. I am planning to go into detail in that article. So in the future, when you read the article that I haven't written yet, it should be awesome.

So anyway, we went through, we even pulled in creative to ask a question about, there was a card that was a pro-human card, and Dark Ascension was all about the humans losing badly. And we're like, is that okay? Um, but because it was a defensive card, uh, they said they felt okay because humans were banding together to protect themselves. So it was ruled okay. Um, but anyway, after a lot of discussion, uh, and a lot of, uh of talk, we ended up picking a card. We ended up picking Jeremy's card. But everybody did a really good job and everybody really contributed a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts. And all the cards they designed were very interesting.

So in the end, I asked all the judges how they felt the final thing went. Um, so in the end, we, I asked all the judges how they felt the final thing went. Um, they felt that once again, all the contestants did well, but when sort of having to order them, they had Jeremy winning the final challenge with Ari coming in second and Chris coming in third. Um, so sort of the reverse of what had happened, uh, at the gauntlet. Um, so then it was time to do the final, get all the judges together. The, the designers got

a little bit of a break and we had our final meeting, our final judge meeting. So for those that don't know, the way it worked every time we had to eliminate somebody was all the judges involved,

which would be me and Melissa and Eric along with Gottlieb, who was the judge behind the scenes, and our guest judge would come, and we would walk and talk through what was going on. Now, remember, at the meetings, we had two jobs. One was we had to eliminate somebody,

and the other was we had to pick the top three for that challenge. So when picking the top three, we only looked at that challenge, because who won that challenge. But for elimination, it was always all the work they had done up to date. So usually, though the guest judge was there, usually it would be the other four of us figuring who went. And the way it would work is we had a system where you would stick people in the top, the middle, or the bottom.

And then there was a sort of a pointing system. And then that would give us a general sense of where the group thought people were. And then there tended to be the people at the bottom, and then we would argue with the people at the bottom about who should we keep and who should we get rid of. So this was a little different. Normally, I mean, we always pick top three, but that was always for the individual challenge.

So we first walked through all the data from the gauntlet and all the data from the final challenge. And like I said, so it went Chris, Ari, Jeremy from the gauntlet and all the data from the final challenge, and like I said, so it went Chris, Ari, Jeremy for the gauntlet. It went Jeremy, Ari, Chris for the final challenge. And, as I said, coming into the

competition, it was Ari, Jeremy, Chris. So we talked a little bit. The first thing we realized was, well, Chris had done awesome work. He did some amazing videos. If you haven't seen them, you should watch. They talked about...

By the way, if you want, for those beyond just reading the actual, the magic website of the competition itself, which is all the challenges, all the cards, all the judge comments, all or almost all, I don't know if Linus wrote anything. Um, Ari and Jeremy and Ryan and, um, Scott, uh, all wrote, or am I missing somebody? Um, Alex wrote something on Reddit, but he didn't write it on Goblin Artisan, so I'm not sure how easy that is to find. I don't think Linus ever wrote anything. Um, the other five, oh, Jay. and Artisan, so I'm not sure how easy that is to find. I don't think Linus ever wrote anything. The other five... Oh, and Jay. Okay, so

Ari and Jeremy and Jay and Ryan and Scott all wrote articles on Goblin Artisan, which should still be there if you want to sort of see what they thought about each challenge and what they thought about how they did and what the reaction to the judge comments. Chris

did his, notovern Artisans but as a video series, which you can find on YouTube. I linked to it long ago on YouTube. But if you search Chris Mooney on YouTube, you should find it.

Or GDS3, I assume also. Anyway, so if you're really interested in hearing behind-the-scenes information, almost everybody, Alex also wrote something that was on Reddit,

but it's Not Ungovern Artisans. And I don't know of, I didn't see Linus for anything, he could have, and just not in the place that I saw. Also, there were interviews, Government Artisans also did interviews with everybody earlier in the process, so there's a lot of information, if you want to go more behind the scenes, there was a lot of material to read.

Anyway, we thought Chris did a really good job, we were super impressed with him with the interview. But as far as the competition, Chris had come in in third place. And while he did do really well in the gauntlet, he came in third place in the design challenge. And it was pretty clear to us that Chris didn't win the overall thing. So we eliminated Chris. That's the first thing that happened. And it was down between Ari and Jeremy.

And we looked back at all their work. And like I said, both of them had excelled. Both of them had come in top two numerous times. Both of them had won a challenge. Ari had won two challenges. Jeremy had come in second, I think, three times. So anyway, they both had done really well. And Jeremy had won the final challenge.

So one of the big questions was, so coming into the competition, Ari was ahead of Jeremy. Had Jeremy caught up to Ari and passed him? You know, had Jeremy. And so we went back and forth. And there was a lot of discussion. Like I said, everybody was impressed with the final three. I got

individual comments from multiple people on each of them individually. And so everybody was really impressed with the final three. But only one can win. So we went back and forth on Ari and Jeremy. Those were definitely the two that were in contention for it. But in the end, we decided the winner was Ari. What we had thought was Ari

had come in the lead, and we felt like Jeremy had just not quite gained enough ground. He obviously had done well in the challenge, but a little bit better than Ari, but he also had done worse than Ari in the gauntlet, and so we kind of felt like Jeremy probably inched up a little bit, just because the design challenge was more important than the gauntlet, but not enough to pass Ari, and so Ari was the winner. So what happened then was we went to do an interview, so although the event took place on Tuesday the 5th, we did not announce, once again, it hasn't happened yet from my timeline, but the plan is tomorrow, the 6th for you guys, Thursday the 6th,

is when officially we announce it. We do a live streaming thing. We're going to announce it on the stream. But because they were here on Tuesday and the live stream's on Thursday, I went on the live stream, or I will go on the live stream. It's hard to talk past tense when it's my future. But I, in theory, was on the live stream, or I will go on the live stream. Hard to talk past tense when it's my future. But I, in theory, was on the live stream. I think it's scheduled to be.

And we did a video on Tuesday, because they all flew out on Wednesday. So we did a video on Tuesday of Ari and I. In fact, we're up in a, all the rooms in Wizards are named after Wizards properties. A lot of magic. So there's a room called the Meditation Realm. And on the wall is a giant picture of Nicole Bullis' Meditation Realm. And so we did the interview in front of that. We needed to do it all in one take because of the time.

We weren't going to do any editing. And I managed to mess it up numerous times. Ari did a great job. I messed it up like four times. And I don't think they're going to do any outtakes, but I did mess it up. And one of the funny things was that they had asked us to look at it. So I start looking at the camera, then I bring in Ari, we talk, because it surprised me who was one, and then we talk, and in the end, we're supposed to go look back at the camera.

And the take that we really, really liked,'re supposed to go look back at the camera, and the take that we really, really liked, Ari and I both looked back at the camera, like, at the same speed, and it looked weirdly robotic, so I think they're going to cut before we look back at the camera. But you can sneak and see if you look back at the camera. It was, uh, the whole, the interview went really well. It was our favorite interview, and then

we looked freaky as we, like, our heads turned back at the exact same, like, slowly at the exact same time back to the camera. Anyway. So I interviewed Ari, learned, I mean,

I already knew some stuff because I had talked to him, but he introduced himself, told a little bit about himself. We talked a little bit about what his favorite challenges were, favorite card was. But anyway,

and then after that, then we had a night of drafting with R&D. So we brought in some pizza. And I actually, I had stayed up Monday night, but I had to go home Tuesday night because of some family stuff. But they got a draft, and they got drafted with R&D. And, you know, not every day you get a draft with R&D, so that was a lot of fun. At least they told me it was a lot of fun. And anyway, and then they all went home. So that, my friends, was the great

designer search. So a little sort of a moment to work, but I first want to say hats off to the top eight. I really thought all the top eight was a great group. I was super impressed. One of the things that I know it's hard because the judges tend to be critical. Like a lot of the, I mean, we try to say where we like things when we like things. But a lot of what makes the judging kind of fun for the audience and, and to be honest, helpful for the designers is sort of pointing out areas for growth or where something could have been better. And so while we were very critical, the challenges that we gave to those players were really hard. I felt it's all like Project Runway or one of the reality shows where we're giving them tasks that we would do,

but in much, well, hey, sometimes not even with more restrictions than even we would have and in a time frame way shorter than we would have. So three and a half days is not a lot of time. And the challenges we gave them were quite challenging. And so I know it's very easy to go, oh, these cards aren't all perfect, but you're comparing them to real Magic cards where an entire team works on them for a year and a half or more, you know, with constant refining and constant

playtesting, yeah, real magic cards should just read better than something a bunch of talented people made over three days. So they did a great job and, you know, it was really, every time we do a great designer search, I mean, like the first one came about because I was trying to find a way to find designers and it worked so well that both the second and the third time I mean, there's always been behind the scenes logistical things but R&D has never not wanted to do another GDS and so the big question is, will there be a GDS4?

I think there will be, I don't think it'll be for a while my running joke is is the next one happens when we forget how much work the last one was. But I really think that this was another very successful great designer search. I think we found some really exciting people. I think that we, I was very happy. I mean, the only negative on my side is, and once again, this was factors I could not control. I do wish the thing had been spread out. I know in its condensed form,

it was really, really hard for people to catch up and read. We're also going to change it so that we're putting null things in so you won't know who necessarily won if you come in late. We're trying to fix all that. So I got a lot of notes. There's a lot of things I would, some tweaks I would do for the fourth grade designer search. And I was really touched by the way that 3,000 people did the essays.

Like that's a lot of work. And the fact that, I mean, that meant there were 3,000 people. I mean, this is what's really touching for me, which is essentially what I was doing is saying, hey, who would like to do what I do and go through a lot to have the opportunity, even just have the opportunity to do it? You know, it's not even for sure you're going to do it. This is, you're going to do a lot of work. And maybe, maybe, maybe, if you're lucky, you know, you can win this thing.

And 3,000 people, I mean, 8,000 were interested. 3,000 actually did the work, which is a lot of work, and took the test and all that. So it is quite humbling to see so many people so excited to do what I do. And so I want to thank everybody

who participated at any level. I like all the feedback. I'm glad. Once again, every trial can be done better every trial is good to get feedback multiple choice tests are always hard to make um i definitely realized that next time i gotta make a harder test there were too many sort of easy questions on the test um the goal is not to make the people pass by getting like i want you to be able to miss more than two

questions um so once again there always is ongoing discussion. Is there a way to replace the multiple choice test? Problem is we need something because there's so many people enter. That is an objective way to narrow down because the design tests, we can only grade so many. We can't grade 3,000. So, anyway, that is the Threats to Data Search. Congratulations to Ari

he really blew me away blew all the designers away did some awesome work some amazing stuff and I hope I hope you guys enjoyed it I hope for the people

who are listening to this I know not everybody but if you've not I will say this as I'm driving into work if you ignored this whole thing and never looked at it take a peek

it really is if you like at all understanding how magic cards get made, which I find most people play Magic and Joy, this is a really insightful way to sort of see stuff and it has a lot of drama to it, I mean I guess if you're listening to this you know who won

but there's a lot of drama in it along the mean, I guess if you're listening to this, you know who won. But there was a lot of drama in it along the way, and it's fun. It's a neat experience. I plan to do a Great Designer Search 4 at some point. Like I said, the program has been so successful that I hopefully would like to continue it. It won't be in the near future. But anyway, guys, I hope you guys enjoyed today's sort of jaunt through the whole Great Designer Search. Once again, I want to thank

every, all, I want to thank Alex and Linus and Jay and Ryan and Scott and Chris and Jeremy and Ari. I want to thank all my judges, Melissa and Eric and Eli and all the judges Melissa and Eric and Eli

and all the guest judges Ethan and Alexis and Aaron and Jules and Jenna and Ken I want to thank Stephanie for doing probably a lion's share of work behind the scenes and I want to thank

everybody who just even participated whether or not you tried out or whether you just read the material and contributed in giving feedback thanks to everybody who was involved I really had a great time with this and anyway I'm now at work

so we all know what that means it means it's the end of my drive to work instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic see you guys next time