Pattern Recognition #154 - The Great Designer Search

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

28 May 2020

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition! This is TappedOut.net's longest running article series. In it, I aim to bring to you each week a new article about some piece of Magic, be it a card, a mechanic, a deck, or something more fundamental or abstract. I am something of an Old Fogey and part-time Smart Ass, so I sometimes talk out my ass. Feel free to dissent or just plain old correct me! I also have a Patreon if you feel like helping out.

The Great Designer Search.

You know, there's a lot I can say about it, and a lot I will say about it. But in the en, the GDS is more at this point about the rosy view of history that we have about Wizards and Magic in general. As you read through my article, please keep in mind that the first of these was nearly 15 years ago, and the last was ... two years ago? Really? It seems a lot longer. But such is the nature of looking through what most certainly is not a Lens of Clarity. Not even Glasses of Urza.

The first Great Designer Search, held in the fall of 2006, was a glorified interview and hiring process done by Wizards in the vein of a reality show, rather than more traditional processes. It was run by Mark Rosewater, with the assistance Aaron Forsythe, Devin Low, Gleemax and at one point, Brady Dommermuth.

The format of all future GDS' was set in this first version, and honestly, for an open application process, it's pretty decent. I can see that thought was put into this before a word of it was breathed outside of Wizards.

The first thing all applicants had to do was to provide short essay styled answers to 10 questions. These had to be 250 to 350 words each, and the intent was not just to get answers to the questions, but also to gage the participants willingness to put effort into their application.

And just to give you a point as to how long each answer had to be, by the end of this sentence and ignoring the introductory paragraph that I simply copy and paste, I will wave written 290 words. So while each answer was short, there still had to be content to it.

These ten questions ran the gamut from "Introduce Yourself", which should be easy to do, but can be quite hard when you're trying to sell yourself as a viable candidate in so few or too many words. On the other hand, questions such as "How does Mana Screw positively affect the game in three ways?" was much harder to answer, forcing people, again, to not commit to rote answers and actually thing and put effort into the results.

One of the questions though, is something that only really clicked with me in later years after Rosewater accidentally revealed his preferred answer. You see, he asked if you had to remove a card type from the game (being Land, Creature, Enchantment, Artifact, Instant or Sorcery) from the game, which would you do and why?

I recall my answer being Lands were the most removable. That your other card types can double as a resource, suggesting a way in which the game could be played without them. That, instead of playing a Plains and using that to cast a Benalish Hero, you could instead play a card in hand onto the table as a "Resource". So that Serra Angel in your hand? You could save it for later as a creature, or you could turn it into a resource that would give you or on your turn. Of course, this would require rebuilding the game from the ground up, and I admitted as such in lieu of one of the other questions - that being what change to the game would you suggest to Richard Garfield in the design process for Alpha.

At the time, Rosewater pointed out that Artifacts and Enchantments had the most overlap, and while that has been refined in the past few years, it's a sticking and sore point that came from the initial creation of Magic and its Fantasy roots. But in the end, the difference between the two isn't really what they can do, but rather who can remove them. To whit, by preventing and from taking out enchantments (and non-creature artifacts for just ) you can differentiate those colours from , who wound up setting the difference between Disenchant and Naturalize with Nature's Chant from Modern Horizons.

But in the years since, it seems like Rosewater's preferred answer is to remove Instants from the game, with the logic being that there is nothing that an Instant can do that cannot be done by either making the card a Sorcery with Flash, or by making Instants into a subtype of Sorcery that had rules incorporated into them much like how at the time, Walls had Defender by definition. This was the answer championed by Mark Gottlieb.

In jest, it was proposed that anyone who suggested Creatures would instantly go into the rejection pile. This was a sensible choice, and I'm glad I didn't suggest Creatures.

The second stage - which I did get into - was a 35 multiple choice questionnaire with a tight time limit to complete. While people had to think about the first questions, now they had to work under a crunch. According to Rosewater, no one got a perfect score, and the final cutoff for correct answers to move onto the next step was 30 out of 35.

I did not pass this test. I like to think that I got 29 answers correct, but in retrospect, who knows?

The third test was given to the 136 people who passed with sufficient grade, the multiple choice test. This test was to design six cards, with converted casting costs from to , in all five colours (and one colourless), and having two cards at each rarity. As this was the days before Mythic Rare, that meant Common, Uncommon and Rare.

Of these submissions, the best 15 were selected, and the process moved on to the design challenges. These were a series of 6 week-long challenges with tight controls over input and expected output. Specific requirements for cards were laid down, up and including individual pieces of art that had to be used. After each week, the poorest contestants were let go and the remaining participants had the challenge increased.

The final challenge was two part. In it, the remaining three contestants were flown over to Wizards HQ and after social interactions, were given actual proper interviews with various people including Mark Rosewater. These were your traditional sit-down-and-talk interviews that you would find with any job application.

Finally, the last test was a two hour time limit where they had to do a crash replacement for Opposition in the Urza's Destiny block. The card had to be a Rare, had to use the same art as Opposition did, and had to fit alphabetically between Metathran Elite and Private Research.

I can't find any record of what the final three answers were, Wizard's website is very difficult to navigate at the best of times, and digging into articles from a decade and a half ago is onerous at best.

And the winner was Alexis Janson, though she and the other finalists - Ken Nagel and Grame Hopkins (in addition to participant Mark Globus) - were all hired by Wizards.

The Second Great Designer Search was held four years later, and it followed the same format as the first, but with two separate caveats.

The first is that while the first GDS gave focus to individual cards in a vacuum, the second GDS was a product of the time, and the focus on sets and blocks designed to work with each other and flow into one another. Thus, after the essay and multiple choice questions weeded out those who wanted, but couldn't, the remaining participants were asked to provide a synopsis, themes and example cards for the first set in a block.

The second change was that Wizards was experimenting with running their own Wiki at the time, and each participant had to incorporate the wiki into their submissions as well as community suggestions in order to see how each prospective contestant would handle being in charge of a team of many voices, each with their own ideas about how to do things.

I didn't participate, though I cannot remember why. Heck, I barely remember following it. I suppose because of the Wiki focus, I was turned off the idea of participating. But honestly, that was ten years ago, and I'm willing to let bygones be bygones.

The design challenges for this Search focused a lot on the commons of the set, and with a lot of thought given to how these cards would play with each other, culminating in creating a "Perfect" Booster pack, designed to show off the set in all its glory in a mere 15 cards, followed by designing an Intro Deck for their set.

The final challenge, after the live interviews, was the same as the previous GDS. Except this time the card to be replaced was Steamflogger Boss and in the end, Ethan Fleischer was crowned the winner, and Shawn Main was also hired along with two major participants from the wiki.

Of note, two of the mechanics born from this Search found their way into Gatecrash as Evolve and Battalion, the guild mechanics for the Simic and the Boros respectively. In addition, in response so some feedback at the essay level, was given the ability to "Loot" their deck, to draw an discard in the same action, starting with Faithless Looting and going forward from there.

Finally, the Great Designer Search 3 was run in the second quarter of 2018, ending with the release of Dominaria as a set. I was unable to participate as one of the legal requirements was to be a US citizen, and as I am Canadian (sorry).

Like the previous two, the first two steps involved Essay questions, followed by a 75(!) multiple choice questionnaire. The sheer volume of participants, upwards of 7000 for the first step and just over 3000 for the second, kinda broke the systems Wizards was using, causing no end of technical issues and eventually requiring Mark Rosewater to step in and help sort things out through the Blogatog.

The design challenges this time around were sorted into the idea of Themes, starting with the first challenge being to reinforce an existing Tribe that hasn't seen a lot of support with eight cards across all rarities. Then there was the theme of flavour with a circus, themes of mechanics, of art and then building cards to fit the theme of a preexisting set.

The last challenge was the same as the previous two, only this time, the card to be replaced was Seance from Dark Ascension.

In the end, Ari Nieh was the winner, announced during the Pro Tour for Dominaria.

The Great Designer Challenges are fun to watch, not only because you get to see some really good (and really bad) ideas, but because they give a taste of what Wizards might be doing in the future. That you can choose and root for your favourite potential designer is something that can appeal to anyone.

The winners and other hired people are those who have demonstrated a commitment to the design and development of Magic that many, many of their prospective fellows cannot (yet) reach. We know that with these people, the future of Magic is in good hands.

But the GDS is not without its flaws.

First is something that I recall being mentioned in passing by Rosewater, though for the life of me I cannot be certain of my memory here. He accepted that one of the great flaws of the first GDS, and partly in the second was that he - and he had to accept personal responsibility as the final decisions rested with him - found himself looking more at people who agreed with him rather than those who went in their own ways. A sort of 'Yes Man'-ism that's found in all sort of interview processes and beyond. It's the idea that those who agree with you are more appealing and those who disagree, who challenge you - even with the best of intentions - are to be rejected.

This is something that I think can be seen with the arc of the GDS's and the thoughts going into them, especially the second one with the focus on set and by association, block building.

The GDS is a good thing, but the more I think about it, the more I find the execution flawed. It's not something that I can really put my finger on, but rather it is a vague feeling that there is something off about the whole process. It can't be the yes-man-isms, as that's something that has been recognized. It can't be the whole "Reality Show" aspect to it because as I keep thinking about the whole thing, I just don't see it. It's not 'Reality', it's more along the lines of transparency to show that these decisions are not being made in a void.

I don't know. I've been off-base before, and I know I will be again.

But regardless, I still enjoy the idea of the Great Designer Search, and on occasion (when I'm not researching them), I go back and review the submissions for my own amusement and appreciation. Not that I agree with everything and everyone in the process, but it's the thought that counts.

So, let us wait for the GDS4. And hopefully, I'll be able to participate. Or at least use this blog to show off my answers when the time rolls around.

Until then, I would like to hear what you have to say about your experiences - or none - with the Great Designer Search. Then, join me next week when I talk about a different subject.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!