I took copious notes during the test so that I could review them here with you. Additions in italics.To discuss your own or others' responses to the GDS3 Multiple Choice Quiz, visit the GDS3 Trial 2 Open Thread and look for the thread relating to the question at hand.
Click through to see my last 25 answers and rationale. 1-25. 26-50.
51. What are the MOST appropriate colors for this card?
Junkpile EngineerRed-white
[CMC: 3]
Creature — Human Artificer
3/2
2, Sacrifice an artifact: Look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the converted mana cost of the sacrificed artifact. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in random order.
White-black
Blue-red
Green-blue
Black-red
Red is most likely to sacrifice an artifact. Blue is most likely to look at X cards and keep one.
>>Blue-red<< 99%
52. What is the MOST appropriate rarity for this card?
Junkpile EngineerUncommon
[CMC: 3]
Creature — Human Artificer
3/2
2, Sacrifice an artifact: Look at the top X cards of your library where X is the converted mana cost of the sacrificed artifact. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Mythic rare
Common
Rare
This can turn any non-token artifact into a card for every {2} you spend. Being able to draw that many cards—especially with card selection—is too dangerous for uncommon. Not being able to sack clues and treasures keep this out of mythic.
>>Rare<< 90%
53. Which of the following changes is Set Design MOST likely to make to this card?
Junkpile EngineerGive the creature haste. — irrelevant
[CMC: 3]
Creature — Human Artificer
3/2
2, Sacrifice an artifact: Look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the converted mana cost of the sacrificed artifact. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Add the ability “2,T: Put an artifact card from your hand onto the battlefield.” — crowding, distracting, and too powerful.
Make the power and toughness the same. — sure. squaring doesn't matter here, though.
Put the cards revealed into the graveyard. — sure, it's faster and reads worse, but it's stronger: filling your graveyard. As a repeated effect, faster matters.
Change the number of cards looked at to a locked number rather than caring about converted mana cost. — simpler but more powerful. Lets us care about artifact tokens, which is good when they exist (arguably a concern more for Play Design). (Morbid Curiosity is the latest card to care about CMC of a sacrificed artifact.) As a repeated effect, simpler matters. 7 lines versus 5. Choosing from 6 cards could be annoying.
Set Design as opposed to Vision Design or Play Design. This line of reasoning didn't help much except that Set Design would be more concerned with synergies within the set, and Play Design without… but we don't know what's in the set!
The complexity of this effect is not inherently a concern because this card is rare, but the complexity of executing it over and over again is. That and limiting how many cards a player can sift through pushed me toward this answer.
>>Change the number of cards looked at to a locked number rather than caring about converted mana cost.<< 75%
>>Put the cards revealed into the graveyard<< 25%
54. What are the MOST appropriate colors for this card?
Dead Man WalkingBlue-red — no reanimation
[CMC: 7]
Creature — Shapeshifter Wizard
1/1
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, return target creature card from any graveyard to the battlefield under your control. All your creatures then become copies of that creature.
Red-green — no reanimation
Black-green — Black resurrects, green makes copies of itself.
Green-blue — no reanimation
Blue-black — Black resurrects, blue copies other things.
MCP:
"Reanimation" (Return a creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield.) — Primary: black — Secondary: white, red, and green — Tertiary: blue
Copying permanents, permanently — Primary: blue — Not mentioned, but green does this rarely too. (Essence of the Wild, etc)
Both Shapeshifter and Wizard are bluer creature types than green.
As this effectively clones the creature you return, let's go blue.
But this really could be a black-green card thanks to cards like Essence of the Wild and Permeating Mass.)
>>Blue-black<< 80%
>>Black-green<< 20%
55. What is the MOST appropriate rarity for this card?
Dead Man WalkingCommon — HA
[CMC: 7]
Creature — Shapeshifter Wizard
1/1
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, return target creature card from any graveyard to the battlefield under your control. All your creatures then become copies of that creature.
Uncommon — No
Rare — good
Mythic rare — great. This has the potential to turn an army into something devastating and win on the spot (and will _at_least_ be two of your best deadies.)
>>Mythic rare<< 95%
56. What change would design not make?
Dead Man WalkingHave it only get creatures out of the opponent's graveyard. — Mitigates degeneracy, increases variance
[CMC: 7]
Creature — Shapeshifter Wizard
1/1
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, return target creature card from any graveyard to the battlefield under your control. All your creatures then become copies of that creature.
Have it only get creatures from out of your graveyard. — Increases homogeneity.
Make it a 0/0 creature. — Too slow to copy itself with a trigger, might as well be a sorcery.
Have the returned creature be sacrificed at end of turn. — sure... but it's weird your creature remain copies of it.
Give the creature flash. — too much, but fine whatever.
>>Make it a 0/0 creature.<< 95%
57. You're designing a set that returns to a plane we've been to before and plan to have Humans, Wolves, and Spirits. Which world would be MOST appropriate?
Amonkhet — 0 wolves
Ixalan — 0 wolves
Kaladesh — 0 wolves
Zendikar — 0 wolvesInnistrad — Shadows had 14 non-werewolf wolves, and Innistrad had 12. Both featured humans and spirits as a tribe.
Innistrad was my instinct, but I was surprised to find literally zero wolves in all four other sets.
>>Innistrad<< 100%
58. Which of the following attributes can a card in a Standard-legal set not mechanically care about?
Card subtypes
Card supertypes
Expansion symbol
Mana cost
Power/toughness
>>Expansion symbol<< 100%
Finally a question we specifically covered in our practice test!
59. Which of the following abilities is R&D LEAST likely to put on a mono-red creature in an upcoming set?
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you may return target sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.
T: Draw a card, then discard a card.
[MANA]: CARDNAME gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
CARDNAME must attack if able.
Creatures you control have haste.
MCP:
Return target sorcery from graveyard to hand — Primary: red — Secondary: blue
"Looting" (Draw a card and discard a card.) — Primary: blue
>>T: Draw a card, then discard a card.<< 100%
60. According to current design standards, which of the following "enters-the-battlefield" effects is LEAST likely to be on a common creature?
"You may return target creature to its owner's hand." — annoying this can create a loop with itself. Deadeye Rig-Hauler says it's fine.
"Destroy target enchantment an opponent controls." — fine
"Target creature can't block this turn." — fine
"Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn." — fine
"Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand." — can create a loop with a second copy. Gravedigger's uncommon now.
I was tempted by the bounce effect, since you can bounce and replay your own creature as often as you have the mana, which is a more direct loop than having two Gravediggers, but infinite bounce has no inherent value where infinite recursion does. And Gatherer showed a bunch of common Man-o'-War. Mans o' War. Men o' War.
>>"Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand."<< 98%
>>"You may return target creature to its owner's hand."<< 2%
61. Which of the following sets isn't designed around factions?
Ixalan — 4 factions
Ravnica — 10
Khans of Tarkir — 5
Amonkhet — 0
Shards of Alara — 5
>>Amonkhet<< 100%
62. Which of the following mechanics would be the best fit for the Simic guild from Ravnica?
Proliferate — would play well with evolve and graft
Undying — mechanically fair, but off-theme
Entwine — we want creatures!
Dash — speed is not Simic
Rebound — we want creatures!
>>Proliferate<< 99%
63. Secondary—This is the color (or colors) that an ability shows up in on a somewhat regular basis, but not as often as the primary and not always in as low of rarity as the primary. If the effect is something we do a lot of, the secondary color will usually get the ability in MOST sets.
Which color is secondary at trample?
Black
White
Blue
Red
Green
MCP:
Trample — Primary: green — Secondary: red — Tertiary: white, blue, and black
>>Red<< 100%
64. Secondary—This is the color (or colors) that an ability shows up in on a somewhat regular basis, but not as often as the primary and not always in as low of rarity as the primary. If the effect is something we do a lot of, the secondary color will usually get the ability in MOST sets.
Which color is secondary at haste?
Red
White
Black
Green
Blue
MCP:
Haste — Primary: red — Secondary: black — Tertiary: green
>>Black<< 100%
65. Secondary—This is the color (or colors) that an ability shows up in on a somewhat regular basis, but not as often as the primary and not always in as low of rarity as the primary. If the effect is something we do a lot of, the secondary color will usually get the ability in MOST sets.
Which color is secondary at vigilance?
Black
Green
White
Blue
Red
MCP:
Vigilance—Primary: white—Secondary: green
>>Green<< 100%
66. What kinds of creatures can green destroy?
Blue creatures and black creatures
Attacking creatures and blocking creatures
Tapped creatures and enchanted creatures
White creatures and red creatures
Artifact creatures and flying creatures — These kind.
>>Artifact creatures and flying creatures<< 100%
67. Which of the following mechanics is not an ability word?
Awaken
Morbid
Landfall
Hellbent
Delirium
>>Awaken<< 100%
68. Why doesn’t common often have seven-mana instants and sorceries?
They are hard to design. — bad
It’s too complex for beginners. — false
It makes the math too hard. — weak
It’s too impactful for common. — true
Common creatures need to be more expensive than the instants and sorceries. — maybe? If this were stated "Expensive cards need to be more creatures than instants and sorceries" it would make more sense.
>>It’s too impactful for common.<< 90%
I'd never though much about this before. I guess since most sorcery-/instant-based removal is cheaper than (or comparable to) what it removes—and because creatures are spells the can deal damage to your opponent every turn until they're killed or you win—a seven-mana sorcery would have to be better than a seven-mana creature, and that's just too much for common. See Boulderfall.
69. Which world has had the MOST expansions set on it?
Ravnica — 6
Zendikar — 5
Innistrad — 5
Mirrodin — 6
Dominaria — ~23
>>Dominaria<< 99%
70. A linear mechanic is one that encourages players to build around a specific aspect. Which of the following mechanics is the LEAST linear?
Rally — most
Energy — most
Delirium — very
Morph — somewhat, because you need multiple morphs to bluff
Transform — least, because there is no benefit to multiple transform cards
>>Transform<< 99%
71. Which of the following formats can't the card Power Conduit from Mirrodin be played in?
Modern
Legacy
Vintage
Commander
Pauper
Gatherer showed Power Conduit is legal in the first four formats:
Format Legality
Modern Legal
Mirrodin Block Legal
Legacy Legal
Vintage Legal
Commander Legal
Looking up the base rule of Pauper confirms it's the exception:
"Pauper is a Magic Online format in which all cards used must have been printed at the common rarity in a Magic Online set or product." Power Conduit has only ever been uncommon.
>>Pauper<< 100%
72. Which of the following is the MOST important reason that some cards' mana costs are higher than others?
To make the cards different — weak
Higher mana costs are a hint to new players that the cards are more powerful — fair
To encourage players to "splash" an additional color in their decks — what? how?
So that people will play them later in the game — uh, yeah.
To encourage players to put more lands in their decks — ehhhh, no
>>So that people will play them later in the game<< 99%
Woo, Magic fundamentals!
73. Which of the following is the MOST important reason for the color pie to exist?
It increases the number of distinct cards that can be designed. — weak
It allows a wider variety of costs. — weak
It expands the color palette usable in the art. — weak
It adds more symbols to the game. — awful
It encourages deck and gameplay diversity. — great
>>It encourages deck and gameplay diversity.<< 100%
Notice how 73's answers have punctuation, but 72's don't? A strong sign they written by different people.
74. Which of the following effects is design allowed to use on a Standard-legal black-bordered card?
Affecting a future game with the same opponent — nah
Rolling a six-sided die — I guess? Seems bad... No examples.
Having a card coexist in more than one zone — nah
Making a choice secret from the other player(s) — hmm. Menacing Ogre from Onslaught
Putting a card in your hand you do not own — never
Menacing Ogre made this choice crystal clear. I'm surprised that's the only card ever to let players make secret choices in Standard.
>>Making a choice secret from the other player(s)<< 99%
75. You're designing a card with a converted mana cost of 10. Which of these card types is it LEAST likely to be?
Instant — 0 (above 10 is Blinkmoth Infusion)
Artifact — 10
Creature — 19
Enchantment — 1
Sorcery — 9
If you're spending 10 mana, it's going to be epic enough you can do it on your turn.
>>Instant<< 95%
>>Enchantment<< 5%
If you're eager to discuss something I've written here, please do. If you want to share your own answer or discuss a specific question, the GDS3 Trial 2 Open Thread is the better place.
Technically every tutor is a secret choice. Like demonic tutor.
ReplyDeleteThe rules give "choice" a specific meaning, which we see on cards like Dispossess, Arcane Adaptation, and Menacing Ogre. "Search for a card" doesn't count.
DeleteWhat about Goblin Game?
DeleteThat one's weird enough that I wouldn't rely on it as the only precedent for "choice", even though the mechanic is very similar to Menacing Ogre.
DeleteThey also just did that secrey choice Cat and secret choices were done in CSN Not standard I know but still shows its possible in black border.
ReplyDelete54. I'm more confident about blue-black being right. Green only does this as creatures making other creatures copies of themselves. When it's on other spells its blue.
ReplyDelete68. Less confident about "impactful" being right. I was actually considering "hard to design [subject to common constraints]" for a while.
72. I disagreed on this one! Based on reading Maro's Drive to Work on the mana system, I concluded "To make the cards different" was a better answer.
75. I also said instant, but I was less confident. The case for "enchantment" is that it often doesn't impact the board on the same turn. Omniscience is the only 10+ cost CMC enchantment and there are actually several more 9+ CMC instants.
Otherwise I was in agreement.
I agreed with all except 72, where I put "To make the cards different". I felt that I went with the broader answer most of the time when I had a choice as those were mostly the correct answers in GDS2. I'm willing to be wrong on this one.
ReplyDeleteI was on the fence about the rarity of the UB Reanimate/Clone because of Deceiver of Forms, but I ultimately felt like it was definitely cool enough to be mythic (and at least cooler than, say, Trapjaw Tyrant).
Also, I had found a source that said Morph was 'very linear'.
Feeling great.
I had all the same answers as Jay in this batch, but 72 was the one I dithered on the most for the same reasons you did. More and more convinced you’re right, though.
DeleteFor 68 I did choose hard to design, but it felt like such a bad answer, but MARO always says commons are hard to design, and instant and sorceries are even harder to design.
ReplyDeleteHmm, we need to investigate this further. Maybe this weekend's design challenge could be "design a 7+ mana common instant or sorcery"?
DeleteIt's funny because sometimes "it's hard to do" is Wizards' for "so we don't do it much" and sometimes it's Wizards' for "but we've got the best, most passionate people and aren't afraid of a little hard work."
DeleteYeah, Jay which is why I thought it was a bad answer, but if you look at 7 mana instant and sorceries almost all of them are deal 4 damage gain 4 life or close to it, which brought me to hard to design.
DeleteThe "they" was also really ambiguous here. Technically, grammatically speaking, in response to the question "Why doesn’t common often have seven-mana instants and sorceries?" the word "they" would seem to refer just to "seven-mana instants and sorceries" -- the preceding noun phrase. And indisputably, these are not hard to design. The common ones, are, sure. And maybe the wording was meant for "they" to refer to common ones. But that's just not how the question was worded, since "common" is not included in that noun phrase. I will now take off my "GMAT tutor" hat and admit that I have no idea whether they were trying to be this particular about the wording.
DeleteI answered identically on all of these.
ReplyDeleteThanks for doing this! It's made me feel much, much better about my own answers.
52. I wavered about rarity with cards like duskwatch recruiter and etherium astrolabe, but came to the conclusion that recruiter was pushed, and this card really ought to be a rare, even setting aside the fact that it's selection not advantage.
ReplyDelete53. Play design would be more likely to make the little tweaks like +1 toughness or granting haste. Putting artifacts into play turns this into something resembling tinker on a stick, which sounds all kinds of broken. Putting the cards into the graveyard is also dangerous, plus the card doesn't actually reveal which makes me more certain this was a throw-away answer the writer didn't review before finalizing the question. Locking the number both simplifies the card and locks its upper bound, while also making the card have more uses with things like clue tokens. Agreed.
55. This guy inspires magical christmas land thoughts, which is one of the marquis elements of mythic rares. Agreed!
56. 0/0 creatures with EtB effects are sorceries that are too cute by half. I agree.
58. Comprehensive rules 206.1 "The expansion symbol indicates which Magic set a card is from. It’s a small icon normally printed below the right edge of the illustration. It has no effect on game play"
68. I agonized over this one. Something Maro says over and over is commons are hard to design. That was my first instinct. But that's all commons. So I did a gatherer search cross-referencing instant/sorceries by cmc and rarity. There is a stark trend of the cmc increasing with the rarity. But that only confirms the question. I looked a little deeper and many rare expensive sorceries/instants are souped up common effects. I finally settled on it being too hard to design expensive instant/sorceries which both justify their cost and their rarity, which pushed me more to 'too impactful' as the specific additional restriction they have over all commons (which are already hard to design). Agreed.
70. Maro specifically calls out Morph and Energy as linear mechanics, although I can't remember the articles, which made this one pretty clear cut for me.
72. The only other answer which comes close was 'to make them different' but cards can be different with the same cost, and in fact can be more different for the same cost than they can for the same effect at different costs. Agreed, but it took me longer.
73. Restrictions breed creativity. The color pie is one of Magic's primary sets of restrictions. I wrote one of my essays on this. I would be extra sad if I got this wrong because it means I fundamentally misunderstand one of the core tenants of magic.
74. Currently the only one covered in the comprehensive rules (Un-rules don't count) is secret choices. Menacing Ogre is a splashy example, but a subtler example is simultaneous discard.
75. There's a pretty clear trend of instants being the least common type starting at CMC 5. They are about half as common as the next most scarce type of enchantments. From design perspective, I can think of a lot more space around paying oodles of mana for a permanent effect than a one shot one that doesn't say "You Win The Game" Agreed.
Same answers for 70 of 75. Hopefully that means we both made it (fingers crossed!)
53 was the one I kept thinking through while working out at the gym. I was thrown that one of the options wasn't to require the creature tap to work. So then, after realizing they intentionally want players to activate it multiple times I realized this won't actually work with artifact token decks, which is obviously where it's supposed to fit. So I made the same choice here.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, though, I figured the multiple triggers meant that this thing needed to be be mythic rare.
Also note for 56 that as a 0/0 creature two of these with no other creature in graveyards draw the game. Definitely that's an issue.
ReplyDeleteOr win it with anything good that triggers on creature ETB/LTB/etc.
DeleteAlso, if there are no creatures in the graveyard then it will ETB, die instantly to state-based effects, be forced to target itself, and wipe your entire board by cloning them into 0/0s.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteComprehensive rules 704.3
DeleteThe creature dies before the triggers go on the stack. This wraths your board if there's nothing else to target. Then it comes back and reanimates anything else you had, or itself. If you pick itself, you get a 1 card infinite death and etb trigger combo.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIt seems, upon a quick Magic Online test run, that you are correct. My bad, sorry for doubting you!
DeleteOk. I agreed on all of these except I screwed up the rarity questions.
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking the which set questions were trick questions because they seemed too obvious, but I gave the obvious answers anyway.
53 is the question I'm most interested in reading the actual answer to. I could really see this going either way between graveyard and fixed number based on what else is in the set. Like, if this guy is in Shadows Over Inistrad, the graveyard interactions become a lot more important and the token artifact interactions are a lot less because those are cantrip clues anyway. If the card is in Kaladesh the graveyard is more a Play Design issue (Amonkhet interactions) and being able to sac Fabricate tokens to it for profit is better. I think ultimately what pushes me over towards fixed number is that this design would make a lot more sense in a set like Kaladesh or Ixalan than Innistrad.
ReplyDelete