The only concern I have about the "number of mulligans" accusations is that this is sometimes a function of a player's deck. Like, playing aggro you have a lot less "Let's see what happens" keep hands then you do versus control, especially in slower formats.
Is that an unfounded concern?
No, it's a real concern. You would have to adjust for deck archetypes and even then you'd only be able to get a list of people to put under additional scrutiny. You wouldn't be able to draw any conclusions from mulligan data alone.
The only concern I have about the "number of mulligans" accusations is that this is sometimes a function of a player's deck. Like, playing aggro you have a lot less "Let's see what happens" keep hands then you do versus control, especially in slower formats.
Is that an unfounded concern?
No, it's a real concern. You would have to adjust for deck archetypes and even then you'd only be able to get a list of people to put under additional scrutiny. You wouldn't be able to draw any conclusions from mulligan data alone.
In a view of Limited:
1 time mulligan is quite normal happens often.
Mulligan to 5 ?
Well thats much more rare, if that happens multiple times, thats a damn strong signal something is fishy, its just THAT unlikely.
And even if anyone gets a false positive, this is just a "signal" that something is likely to be fishy, and would mean judges would look more into it (watch closer and the like).
Number of mulligans is for sure a way to get that signal data, but its just one of many "signals" that add up to help find at least a bunch of cheaters that do it regularly.
At the TCG MaxPoint I went to this weekend, it seemed like a lot of people were going the extra mile to make it clear they weren't looking at their opponents' decks while shuffling them. While it's good that cheaters get caught, I am worried that the playing environment may become somewhat toxic as a result, with well-meaning players being afraid of doing something wrong that will lead to accusations of cheating.
This whole business is just giving me another reason to stick to my decision not to shuffle my opponent's deck. I usually go with a 2-4 stack cut instead. If I don't shuffle my opponent's deck, I don't have to ever worry about doing something wrong in the shuffling process that leads to suspicion. This is on top of my previous reasons (I am clumsy when it comes to shuffling and I don't want to get a warning for accidentally spilling my opponent's deck on the table with cards landing face up, and also I don't want to completely mess up a mash-shuffle and damage my opponent's expensive cards).
I would argue that what you are talking about is already happening. Rules lawyering is a thing. And that leads people to be extra careful about accidently drawing extra cards or somehow having an illegal deck... or all the little things they could get a game loss over. Something that the majority of people probably wouldn't make a big deal over if they knew it was completely innocent. But occasionally you run into guys that like to use any means necessary to win and because of those guys you have to be on guard.
I think in the case of the shuffling thing, you have even less to worry about because it's really hard to catch that kind of cheating. It's only been caught on camera IIRC. And I don't think people are going to just openly accuse their opponents of cheating to their face.
To be fair though rules lawyering has been toxic for a long time now. How many game losses have there been lately from people not revealing morphs at the end of games, worse still people who actively wait until they shuffle up to get the free game, that's against the spirit of the game if you ask me.
At least people being wary about cheating is at the expense of people with malicious intent.
To be fair though rules lawyering has been toxic for a long time now. How many game losses have there been lately from people not revealing morphs at the end of games, worse still people who actively wait until they shuffle up to get the free game, that's against the spirit of the game if you ask me.
At least people being wary about cheating is at the expense of people with malicious intent.
There actually aren't THAT many ways that you can just flatout scam a game loss away from people. But I've heard of stories where someone will have a game in the bag and his opponent will try to claim he drew an extra card, or that his life total is lower than it really is. And because the opponent kept good notes and the other guy didn't, a judge will usually side with the opponent. That's why they say you shouldn't rely on your opponent to keep track of life totals.
In the case of claiming they are cheating via shuffling a weird way. You just aren't going to get punished for it unless there is a lot of evidence you are doing it. They aren't going to just DQ someone just because their opponent said so. And therefore... I don't think people have anything to worry about because no one is actually calling cheater on opponents. I think what most people would do if they suspected an opponent of cheating is they would get a judge to watch the game.
I am actually interested in how the following scenario plays out at a tournament.
Player A: I presented my deck to player B and he shuffled meticulously, I then drew a land. The odds of me drawing a land there were 10%. THis then happened again when the odds were 8%. He used the same technique.
Player B: I didn't see any cards while shuffling the deck.
Judge: ????????
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0.8% is really common, that's 1 in 125 situations. With fetchlands even in standard people are shuffling decks say 3 times each per game. That's 6 shuffles per. The situation you described would happen 1 in 21 games, or to someone literally every round at an FNM.
No, it's fine. However, obviously not everybody can do this at a bigger tournament, as players outnumber judges 10 to 1 or more.
I would suggest that someone do this if they feel suspicious about their opponent's shuffling.
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Is cheating simply a sign of deeper issues, like lacking respect for opponents and the game and wotc ?
I bet at least half the mtg players hear stuff like "that kid game again ?" whenever they come
home from being away for hours having done whatever.
And does this explain the stupidity of doing it in front of camera ? Maybe *in front of camera* is exactly what
Bertoncini and co wants ?
Let's be careful: Jared Boettcher has not been found guilty yet.
I personally believe a suspension would be odd based only on the video evidence. There is no "smoking gun" or evidence from the video that he did indeed cheat, only that he "could have" cheated (which is not enough evidence for a suspension IMO and hence the "witch-hunt").
OTOH people deserve at least a second chance. People make foolish things all the time, perhaps because they don't really realize the consequences, and a severe slap on the wrist just might scare them straight. If there's a permanent ban, perhaps it should be the second time they are caught.
What I would agree on, however, is that the consequences for first-time cheaters should be more severe in order to really teach them a lesson. Up to taking it to police officials (after all, there are money prices at tournaments, and cheating in one could be considered a form of fraud). In other words, they might think that cheating is rather inconsequential (what does getting a two-year ban really matter? not much, really), so they should get a nasty surprise when the thing goes to the police. If that doesn't scare them straight, then perma-ban them.
...
What about people that have cheated in tournaments for over 5 years??
It used to be a rule that you were entitled to have last cut after your opponent shuffled your deck after you shuffled your deck, however that rule was removed a while ago.
It seems odd to me that a cut is not required after a shuffle. I can understand not being allowed to cut my own deck after my opponent has shuffled; I can not understand why I may not ask my opponent to cut my deck after he has shuffled it. In my opinion, a cut should always be the last action after a shuffle and before the deck is presented.
I play another card game (bridge) where shuffling is important. A few years ago there was a cheating allegation that could have been avoided if the player in question had simple cut the deck after shuffling. After the accusation, I started paying attention to shuffling, cutting, and dealing habits. They are overall rather poor, few players cut, many expose cards during the shuffle and/or deal. I believe that in the overwhelming majority of cases, these things are inadvertent (except for the lack of a cut which is just lazy or ignorance of the importance) rather than an effort to gain advantage.
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It seems odd to me that a cut is not required after a shuffle. I can understand not being allowed to cut my own deck after my opponent has shuffled; I can not understand why I may not ask my opponent to cut my deck after he has shuffled it. In my opinion, a cut should always be the last action after a shuffle and before the deck is presented.
There's many ways to fake cut (or only cut cards below a certain number of top cards), so a simple cut wouldn't work.
I did suggest a while back a possible simple solution to this (but not all) problems: Have the person cut the deck into 3 or more piles. Then you point/select the order & let him re-stack according to your choice. This way you can't cut to a specific card by touch, and you can prevent him from loading the top card/cards.
Maybe a solution would be to "burn" a certain number of cards after each time a deck is presented. Only instead of taking the cards out of play, they are instead placed on the bottom of the deck.
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"Because we cannot prevent draws in paper Magic we allow IDs. If we could prevent draws we would not have IDs in paper Magic. " Scott Larabee.
Maybe a solution would be to "burn" a certain number of cards after each time a deck is presented. Only instead of taking the cards out of play, they are instead placed on the bottom of the deck.
Right. Well, I never play at a high level, but if I did, and I made a top8 or something, then I'd consider doing this. Obviously I don't want to be a burden but if I made it far enough in the tournament that there few players and more judges around I'd ask, if I thiught it was worth it.
I made a mistake when I didn't do this at an FNM. There was a player who is a very good player and has been around for forever, although he rotates from LGS to LGS. He is even considered somewhat a friend. He did a specific 3 pile shuffling and cut one time at FNM and every single person seemed to get mulligans like crazy. I heard about it during previous rounds, so I watched him carefully. Sure enough, I mulled to 4 the first game, and 5 in the second game. My big mistake was not asking a Judge to shuffle, but I couldn't visually see anything wrong with his shuffling other than "3 piles isn't randomizing the deck." I told myself the next FNM I would ask a Judge to shuffle when I was paired vs. him. I didn't see him for another few months. After beating me during that round, he was at 4-0 with 1-2 more rounds (can't remember exactly how many) to go. So it seemed to be working, although he has a higher play skill also than anyone else at that LGS too.
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I've seen a lot of discussion about mulligan data in this thread and how it could be misleading, as some decks are more likely to mulligan. If you get paired up vs. those decks a lot, you'd have a higher Opponent Mulligan Rate (OMR) than the average player.
There's a pretty simple solution to this: Compare the number of mulligans each opponent took to the number of mulls they took in the other rounds they played in. If a player mulls 4-5 times against you, but averages 4 mulls per round anyways, then you're probably not stacking their deck. On the other hand, if everyone you play against mulls 2-3 times but averages >1 mulligans in their other rounds, that's a bit suspicious.
So it's not that the data isn't informative, you just have to interpret it correctly.
I've seen a lot of discussion about mulligan data in this thread and how it could be misleading, as some decks are more likely to mulligan. If you get paired up vs. those decks a lot, you'd have a higher Opponent Mulligan Rate (OMR) than the average player.
There's a pretty simple solution to this: Compare the number of mulligans each opponent took to the number of mulls they took in the other rounds they played in. If a player mulls 4-5 times against you, but averages 4 mulls per round anyways, then you're probably not stacking their deck. On the other hand, if everyone you play against mulls 2-3 times but averages >1 mulligans in their other rounds, that's a bit suspicious.
So it's not that the data isn't informative, you just have to interpret it correctly.
I don't know if you need to go that far, or more importantly if you even could, as the mulligan data just isn't there. You aren't going to know how many times the opponents mulliganed throughout the entire tournament, as most of their matches won't be recorded to that level of detail.
Moreover, you just don't need that level of analysis assuming you aren't actually "convicting" based on mulligan data alone. Mulligan stats would just be a way to highlight potential cheaters for more in-depth investigation, not the proof that they cheated.
Right. Well, I never play at a high level, but if I did, and I made a top8 or something, then I'd consider doing this. Obviously I don't want to be a burden but if I made it far enough in the tournament that there few players and more judges around I'd ask, if I thiught it was worth it.
I made a mistake when I didn't do this at an FNM. There was a player who is a very good player and has been around for forever, although he rotates from LGS to LGS. He is even considered somewhat a friend. He did a specific 3 pile shuffling and cut one time at FNM and every single person seemed to get mulligans like crazy. I heard about it during previous rounds, so I watched him carefully. Sure enough, I mulled to 4 the first game, and 5 in the second game. My big mistake was not asking a Judge to shuffle, but I couldn't visually see anything wrong with his shuffling other than "3 piles isn't randomizing the deck." I told myself the next FNM I would ask a Judge to shuffle when I was paired vs. him. I didn't see him for another few months. After beating me during that round, he was at 4-0 with 1-2 more rounds (can't remember exactly how many) to go. So it seemed to be working, although he has a higher play skill also than anyone else at that LGS too.
Well here we have actual multiple problems.
The 3 pile is actual a fairly simplistic way to "hate" on mana-weaving.
If a deck consists of 2 spell 1 land and does that for all cards (or at least a lot of them) , then the end result will mean that 1 of the piles will have a lot of lands and the others just spells.
However, if the deck is indeed "properly" random, that wont do anything, so its not illegal per se.
BUT if the player "knows" your deck is stacked and undos your mana weaving knowing that, he is cheating aswell ! He simply undos your cheat (knowing it or not, some players mana-weave the deck slightly, without giving it much thought, they just do it).
So if that 3 pile worked, you guys probably have a bad way to shuffle your decks anyway and i would guess that some of your players mana-weave at least in some way (either hardcore stacking the deck right away with 2 spells 1 land , or smaller versions of this, like putting the lands in the deck at different positions before shuffling).
The deal with it is, neither you or the opponent should gain any benefit from a NON-randomized deck.
Every player has to make sure the deck is indeed random and neither player knows any cards specific or relative positions.
If either player knows, its cheating (ofcourse theres tiny versions of this and some might even consider them not problematic, as its not uncommon that a player will indeed see a tiny short moment a card on the bottom of a library that is shuffled, so they kinda "know" the relative position, but nobody cares for that and its hardly possible to prove, unless that player tells it to someone else).
-------------------
Specific for FNMs choosing a way to shuffle (or pile cards) that undos "common" newbie mistakes is not cool, but it indeed increases your odds of winning by a lot.
Result is, that player should not do it, and judges should know about it and tell that player and the newbies to properly shuffle their decks (i even show a newbie to do so, and they are all happy about it).
Well, watched all these new videos of Jared now. I have to say there's a lot of evidence against him. When I watch him do it though I just don't see him looking at the deck. I would believe he's honest at this point if he responded to this by changing his shuffling pattern. If he keeps to the same thing he has been doing though I think that's a big strike against him.
Maybe that's making him prove his innocence a bit, but guilty or not his shuffling is clearly disturbing to a lot of people. The decent thing to do would be to change it up.
I've seen a lot of discussion about mulligan data in this thread and how it could be misleading, as some decks are more likely to mulligan. If you get paired up vs. those decks a lot, you'd have a higher Opponent Mulligan Rate (OMR) than the average player.
There's a pretty simple solution to this: Compare the number of mulligans each opponent took to the number of mulls they took in the other rounds they played in. If a player mulls 4-5 times against you, but averages 4 mulls per round anyways, then you're probably not stacking their deck. On the other hand, if everyone you play against mulls 2-3 times but averages >1 mulligans in their other rounds, that's a bit suspicious.
So it's not that the data isn't informative, you just have to interpret it correctly.
I don't know if you need to go that far, or more importantly if you even could, as the mulligan data just isn't there. You aren't going to know how many times the opponents mulliganed throughout the entire tournament, as most of their matches won't be recorded to that level of detail.
Moreover, you just don't need that level of analysis assuming you aren't actually "convicting" based on mulligan data alone. Mulligan stats would just be a way to highlight potential cheaters for more in-depth investigation, not the proof that they cheated.
People have mentioned that the match slips have a place to write down the number of mulligans each player took, so they do have the data.
And even just for looking for potential cheaters, you should probably analyze the data in such a way that you don't just end up with a list of "These are the people who played vs. aggro a lot", which is a concern that has been repeatedly mentioned in this thread.
I've seen a lot of discussion about mulligan data in this thread and how it could be misleading, as some decks are more likely to mulligan. If you get paired up vs. those decks a lot, you'd have a higher Opponent Mulligan Rate (OMR) than the average player.
There's a pretty simple solution to this: Compare the number of mulligans each opponent took to the number of mulls they took in the other rounds they played in. If a player mulls 4-5 times against you, but averages 4 mulls per round anyways, then you're probably not stacking their deck. On the other hand, if everyone you play against mulls 2-3 times but averages >1 mulligans in their other rounds, that's a bit suspicious.
So it's not that the data isn't informative, you just have to interpret it correctly.
I don't know if you need to go that far, or more importantly if you even could, as the mulligan data just isn't there. You aren't going to know how many times the opponents mulliganed throughout the entire tournament, as most of their matches won't be recorded to that level of detail.
Moreover, you just don't need that level of analysis assuming you aren't actually "convicting" based on mulligan data alone. Mulligan stats would just be a way to highlight potential cheaters for more in-depth investigation, not the proof that they cheated.
People have mentioned that the match slips have a place to write down the number of mulligans each player took, so they do have the data.
And even just for looking for potential cheaters, you should probably analyze the data in such a way that you don't just end up with a list of "These are the people who played vs. aggro a lot", which is a concern that has been repeatedly mentioned in this thread.
For the people that input the data its just an extra annoying number to put in.
While that might sound like not much, its a distraction and its really only a thing for judges to get additional sources of information to identify "suspicious" players.
It certainly works, but its not a realistic option that would have a positive effect per cost, its just a hassle and promises not much gain (as any cheater that "knows" the results are writen down will reduce its behaviour, its not like you need that data to see that some dude has a gigantic amount of "mulligans" in his matches from opponents, if they do it that often, it will allways be suspicious).
For the people that input the data its just an extra annoying number to put in.
While that might sound like not much, its a distraction and its really only a thing for judges to get additional sources of information to identify "suspicious" players.
It certainly works, but its not a realistic option that would have a positive effect per cost, its just a hassle and promises not much gain (as any cheater that "knows" the results are writen down will reduce its behaviour, its not like you need that data to see that some dude has a gigantic amount of "mulligans" in his matches from opponents, if they do it that often, it will allways be suspicious).
Mm, good points.
I'm not saying that WotC should require mulligans to be recorded. I'm just trying to point out that other peoples' concerns about the data don't mean that it's useless for catching cheaters. (Personally, I think that random variation would throw results off enough that it would be useless anyways, though).
Discouraging cheaters from cheating would be a good outcome, though. It isn't about catching as many people cheating as possible, it's about reducing cheating, and if people stop cheating because they don't think they can get away with it, that's probably better than having them cheat and then get caught.
And of course it's possible that WotC wants data on mulligans for other reasons, in which case the entire discussion is pointless.
The 3 pile is actual a fairly simplistic way to "hate" on mana-weaving.
If a deck consists of 2 spell 1 land and does that for all cards (or at least a lot of them) , then the end result will mean that 1 of the piles will have a lot of lands and the others just spells.
However, if the deck is indeed "properly" random, that wont do anything, so its not illegal per se.
BUT if the player "knows" your deck is stacked and undos your mana weaving knowing that, he is cheating aswell ! He simply undos your cheat (knowing it or not, some players mana-weave the deck slightly, without giving it much thought, they just do it).
So if that 3 pile worked, you guys probably have a bad way to shuffle your decks anyway and i would guess that some of your players mana-weave at least in some way (either hardcore stacking the deck right away with 2 spells 1 land , or smaller versions of this, like putting the lands in the deck at different positions before shuffling).
The deal with it is, neither you or the opponent should gain any benefit from a NON-randomized deck.
Every player has to make sure the deck is indeed random and neither player knows any cards specific or relative positions.
If either player knows, its cheating (ofcourse theres tiny versions of this and some might even consider them not problematic, as its not uncommon that a player will indeed see a tiny short moment a card on the bottom of a library that is shuffled, so they kinda "know" the relative position, but nobody cares for that and its hardly possible to prove, unless that player tells it to someone else).
-------------------
Specific for FNMs choosing a way to shuffle (or pile cards) that undos "common" newbie mistakes is not cool, but it indeed increases your odds of winning by a lot.
Result is, that player should not do it, and judges should know about it and tell that player and the newbies to properly shuffle their decks (i even show a newbie to do so, and they are all happy about it).
Someone else here said the same thing when I wrote a thread about it. Someone figured out that it was a way to cheat or stack your opponents' decks, even if they hadn't mana weaved.
I 100% didn't mana weave. I know what that is. It used to be legal back around 1994 in tournament play. At that time when it was legal, I did do it occasionally. Since coming back to Magic in 1998, I have never mana weaved ever. I know how to shuffle to get someone mana screwed when they mana weave. I haven't had to use this since Zendikar times and I know it's illegal to shuffle someone's mana weaved deck to mana screw them.
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Well, watched all these new videos of Jared now. I have to say there's a lot of evidence against him. When I watch him do it though I just don't see him looking at the deck. I would believe he's honest at this point if he responded to this by changing his shuffling pattern. If he keeps to the same thing he has been doing though I think that's a big strike against him.
Maybe that's making him prove his innocence a bit, but guilty or not his shuffling is clearly disturbing to a lot of people. The decent thing to do would be to change it up.
I would think the exact opposite. I mean if his shuffle isnt cheating then why would he change it. By changing the way he shuffles it would be admitting that there was something wrong with how he was shuffling
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No, it's a real concern. You would have to adjust for deck archetypes and even then you'd only be able to get a list of people to put under additional scrutiny. You wouldn't be able to draw any conclusions from mulligan data alone.
In a view of Limited:
1 time mulligan is quite normal happens often.
Mulligan to 5 ?
Well thats much more rare, if that happens multiple times, thats a damn strong signal something is fishy, its just THAT unlikely.
And even if anyone gets a false positive, this is just a "signal" that something is likely to be fishy, and would mean judges would look more into it (watch closer and the like).
Number of mulligans is for sure a way to get that signal data, but its just one of many "signals" that add up to help find at least a bunch of cheaters that do it regularly.
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To be fair though rules lawyering has been toxic for a long time now. How many game losses have there been lately from people not revealing morphs at the end of games, worse still people who actively wait until they shuffle up to get the free game, that's against the spirit of the game if you ask me.
At least people being wary about cheating is at the expense of people with malicious intent.
There actually aren't THAT many ways that you can just flatout scam a game loss away from people. But I've heard of stories where someone will have a game in the bag and his opponent will try to claim he drew an extra card, or that his life total is lower than it really is. And because the opponent kept good notes and the other guy didn't, a judge will usually side with the opponent. That's why they say you shouldn't rely on your opponent to keep track of life totals.
In the case of claiming they are cheating via shuffling a weird way. You just aren't going to get punished for it unless there is a lot of evidence you are doing it. They aren't going to just DQ someone just because their opponent said so. And therefore... I don't think people have anything to worry about because no one is actually calling cheater on opponents. I think what most people would do if they suspected an opponent of cheating is they would get a judge to watch the game.
Player A: I presented my deck to player B and he shuffled meticulously, I then drew a land. The odds of me drawing a land there were 10%. THis then happened again when the odds were 8%. He used the same technique.
Player B: I didn't see any cards while shuffling the deck.
Judge: ????????
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I would suggest that someone do this if they feel suspicious about their opponent's shuffling.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I bet at least half the mtg players hear stuff like "that kid game again ?" whenever they come
home from being away for hours having done whatever.
And does this explain the stupidity of doing it in front of camera ? Maybe *in front of camera* is exactly what
Bertoncini and co want ?
Let's be careful: Jared Boettcher has not been found guilty yet.
I personally believe a suspension would be odd based only on the video evidence. There is no "smoking gun" or evidence from the video that he did indeed cheat, only that he "could have" cheated (which is not enough evidence for a suspension IMO and hence the "witch-hunt").
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What about people that have cheated in tournaments for over 5 years??
It seems odd to me that a cut is not required after a shuffle. I can understand not being allowed to cut my own deck after my opponent has shuffled; I can not understand why I may not ask my opponent to cut my deck after he has shuffled it. In my opinion, a cut should always be the last action after a shuffle and before the deck is presented.
I play another card game (bridge) where shuffling is important. A few years ago there was a cheating allegation that could have been avoided if the player in question had simple cut the deck after shuffling. After the accusation, I started paying attention to shuffling, cutting, and dealing habits. They are overall rather poor, few players cut, many expose cards during the shuffle and/or deal. I believe that in the overwhelming majority of cases, these things are inadvertent (except for the lack of a cut which is just lazy or ignorance of the importance) rather than an effort to gain advantage.
There's many ways to fake cut (or only cut cards below a certain number of top cards), so a simple cut wouldn't work.
I did suggest a while back a possible simple solution to this (but not all) problems: Have the person cut the deck into 3 or more piles. Then you point/select the order & let him re-stack according to your choice. This way you can't cut to a specific card by touch, and you can prevent him from loading the top card/cards.
That's called a cut.
I made a mistake when I didn't do this at an FNM. There was a player who is a very good player and has been around for forever, although he rotates from LGS to LGS. He is even considered somewhat a friend. He did a specific 3 pile shuffling and cut one time at FNM and every single person seemed to get mulligans like crazy. I heard about it during previous rounds, so I watched him carefully. Sure enough, I mulled to 4 the first game, and 5 in the second game. My big mistake was not asking a Judge to shuffle, but I couldn't visually see anything wrong with his shuffling other than "3 piles isn't randomizing the deck." I told myself the next FNM I would ask a Judge to shuffle when I was paired vs. him. I didn't see him for another few months. After beating me during that round, he was at 4-0 with 1-2 more rounds (can't remember exactly how many) to go. So it seemed to be working, although he has a higher play skill also than anyone else at that LGS too.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)There's a pretty simple solution to this: Compare the number of mulligans each opponent took to the number of mulls they took in the other rounds they played in. If a player mulls 4-5 times against you, but averages 4 mulls per round anyways, then you're probably not stacking their deck. On the other hand, if everyone you play against mulls 2-3 times but averages >1 mulligans in their other rounds, that's a bit suspicious.
So it's not that the data isn't informative, you just have to interpret it correctly.
I don't know if you need to go that far, or more importantly if you even could, as the mulligan data just isn't there. You aren't going to know how many times the opponents mulliganed throughout the entire tournament, as most of their matches won't be recorded to that level of detail.
Moreover, you just don't need that level of analysis assuming you aren't actually "convicting" based on mulligan data alone. Mulligan stats would just be a way to highlight potential cheaters for more in-depth investigation, not the proof that they cheated.
Well here we have actual multiple problems.
The 3 pile is actual a fairly simplistic way to "hate" on mana-weaving.
If a deck consists of 2 spell 1 land and does that for all cards (or at least a lot of them) , then the end result will mean that 1 of the piles will have a lot of lands and the others just spells.
However, if the deck is indeed "properly" random, that wont do anything, so its not illegal per se.
BUT if the player "knows" your deck is stacked and undos your mana weaving knowing that, he is cheating aswell ! He simply undos your cheat (knowing it or not, some players mana-weave the deck slightly, without giving it much thought, they just do it).
So if that 3 pile worked, you guys probably have a bad way to shuffle your decks anyway and i would guess that some of your players mana-weave at least in some way (either hardcore stacking the deck right away with 2 spells 1 land , or smaller versions of this, like putting the lands in the deck at different positions before shuffling).
The deal with it is, neither you or the opponent should gain any benefit from a NON-randomized deck.
Every player has to make sure the deck is indeed random and neither player knows any cards specific or relative positions.
If either player knows, its cheating (ofcourse theres tiny versions of this and some might even consider them not problematic, as its not uncommon that a player will indeed see a tiny short moment a card on the bottom of a library that is shuffled, so they kinda "know" the relative position, but nobody cares for that and its hardly possible to prove, unless that player tells it to someone else).
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Specific for FNMs choosing a way to shuffle (or pile cards) that undos "common" newbie mistakes is not cool, but it indeed increases your odds of winning by a lot.
Result is, that player should not do it, and judges should know about it and tell that player and the newbies to properly shuffle their decks (i even show a newbie to do so, and they are all happy about it).
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Maybe that's making him prove his innocence a bit, but guilty or not his shuffling is clearly disturbing to a lot of people. The decent thing to do would be to change it up.
People have mentioned that the match slips have a place to write down the number of mulligans each player took, so they do have the data.
And even just for looking for potential cheaters, you should probably analyze the data in such a way that you don't just end up with a list of "These are the people who played vs. aggro a lot", which is a concern that has been repeatedly mentioned in this thread.
For the people that input the data its just an extra annoying number to put in.
While that might sound like not much, its a distraction and its really only a thing for judges to get additional sources of information to identify "suspicious" players.
It certainly works, but its not a realistic option that would have a positive effect per cost, its just a hassle and promises not much gain (as any cheater that "knows" the results are writen down will reduce its behaviour, its not like you need that data to see that some dude has a gigantic amount of "mulligans" in his matches from opponents, if they do it that often, it will allways be suspicious).
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Mm, good points.
I'm not saying that WotC should require mulligans to be recorded. I'm just trying to point out that other peoples' concerns about the data don't mean that it's useless for catching cheaters. (Personally, I think that random variation would throw results off enough that it would be useless anyways, though).
Discouraging cheaters from cheating would be a good outcome, though. It isn't about catching as many people cheating as possible, it's about reducing cheating, and if people stop cheating because they don't think they can get away with it, that's probably better than having them cheat and then get caught.
And of course it's possible that WotC wants data on mulligans for other reasons, in which case the entire discussion is pointless.
Someone else here said the same thing when I wrote a thread about it. Someone figured out that it was a way to cheat or stack your opponents' decks, even if they hadn't mana weaved.
I 100% didn't mana weave. I know what that is. It used to be legal back around 1994 in tournament play. At that time when it was legal, I did do it occasionally. Since coming back to Magic in 1998, I have never mana weaved ever. I know how to shuffle to get someone mana screwed when they mana weave. I haven't had to use this since Zendikar times and I know it's illegal to shuffle someone's mana weaved deck to mana screw them.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I would think the exact opposite. I mean if his shuffle isnt cheating then why would he change it. By changing the way he shuffles it would be admitting that there was something wrong with how he was shuffling