It wouldn't surprise me if these 3 cheaters is a set-up to try provoke wotc into making stuff better (at tournament scenes).
Its just too unbelievable that they would do this on camera when the effect of it is so large in all the non camera matches summed up.
Yes he just gave up his worlds spot and rookie of the year title to make everything better for everyone else...
Im not talking about the "witch hunt" that led to wotc waking up, because that hunt could have started whenever (by whoever).
Worlds spot or not, if you wanna taint the game on camera you might easily end up getting prizes as result of the cheat activities, that's how cheating works in too large extent in mtg.
You said the three of them were a set up, IE they cheated on purpose to get caught. Something which no one would do if they valued their prizes.
It wouldn't surprise me if these 3 cheaters is a set-up to try provoke wotc into making stuff better (at tournament scenes).
Its just too unbelievable that they would do this on camera when the effect of it is so large in all the non camera matches summed up.
Yes he just gave up his worlds spot and rookie of the year title to make everything better for everyone else...
Im not talking about the "witch hunt" that led to wotc waking up, because that hunt could have started whenever (by whoever).
Worlds spot or not, if you wanna taint the game on camera you might easily end up getting prizes as result of the cheat activities, that's how cheating works in too large extent in mtg.
You said the three of them were a set up, IE they cheated on purpose to get caught. Something which no one would do if they valued their prizes.
You think the general mtg player values a better tournament scene lower than potential (camera evidence stretches years back) prizes from said tournament scenes ?
All I can say is that I don't agree with that.
Mtg players play way less for the TO-prizes than some people think.
They should have arrested him, 46 month ban? please... thats a joke. He should be in jail right now with other criminals. You cheat at gambling people break your legs, MTG should be no different.
For what? Cheating at MTG does not break any laws.
The ban is sufficient enough.
While I am not in a hurry to start awarding prison sentences, I'm not sure this is true.
Winning any contest with a monetary award by means of cheating is fraud. The reason I say "I'm not sure" is that I can't actually find the applicable law against fraud, but fraud is definitely something that people pay fines and go to jail for. If you go to a casino and cheat at poker and win some money and are caught, it's not just "you're banned from the casino".
I'm a criminal law professor. English common law long recognized a crime of cheating, which usually required proof of some scheme that is executed to deceive others in a manner that ordinary prudence wouldn't detect as well as proof that the scheme damaged the victim's property rights ( aka the victim lost something of value). Many modern jurisdictions have codified this concept of criminal cheating and made it a felony. Here is one such example:
Quote from from= "Florida Statutes 817.29" »
Cheating.—Whoever is convicted of any gross fraud or cheat at common law shall be guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
This would be an interesting case because the property being obtained by the scheme is not the direct victim's property but the property of the tournament organizer. You also could not claim the tournament organizer is a victim as there's no change to how much they pay out, only to whom they pay out.
Even with the above issues aside, It would be extremely difficult to win a prosecution for criminal cheating against him based on the available evidence, and I can't imagine there's much other evidence that isn't known that would change that.
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If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
1 you didn't see him NOT look at the bottom card. Every other action he took was consistent with actions that would be taken if you knew what the card was and wanted to cheat.
I think its this kind of argument why it was called a witchhunt.
"no your honor, i didnt see her perform witchcraft, but i also didnt see her not perform witchcraft, and yet the cattle went ill and the corn was rotten on the field, so there is evidence enough, isn´t it?
I was one of the people who was looking at the videos, and yes, it was obvious that he did shuffle in an unusual way, but i believe some people do thinks like that as a lucky charm. For a clear proof of cheating, you have to proof he know what the card was, and i couldn´t find that proof in the videos. But maybe we just have a diffrent opinion what evidence means.
The whole point never was if he was a cheater or not, but if there is real evidence enough to be sure.
And that hasn´t changed, despite the outcome. That people seem to think they "won" because he might be a cheater, dosnt mean they won, because if he is a cheater or not wasn´t the point.
1 you didn't see him NOT look at the bottom card. Every other action he took was consistent with actions that would be taken if you knew what the card was and wanted to cheat.
I think its this kind of argument why it was called a witchhunt.
"no your honor, i didnt see her perform witchcraft, but i also didnt see her not perform witchcraft, and yet the cattle went ill and the corn was rotten on the field, so there is evidence enough, isn´t it?
I was one of the people who was looking at the videos, and yes, it was obvious that he did shuffle in an unusual way, but i believe some people do thinks like that as a lucky charm. For a clear proof of cheating, you have to proof he know what the card was, and i couldn´t find that proof in the videos. But maybe we just have a diffrent opinion what evidence means.
The whole point never was if he was a cheater or not, but if there is real evidence enough to be sure.
And that hasn´t changed, despite the outcome. That people seem to think they "won" because he might be a cheater, dosnt mean they won, because if he is a cheater or not wasn´t the point.
Boettcher turned me into a newt!
But you got better? He still received his deserved punishment for his ban according to the DCI after their investigation. I'd would have liked to see their evidence, since they had access to a body of evidence; much more than we do in a few video links.
He's been banned for cheating. It is an act of wilful idiocy to somehow think this is an open question.
You must be new here. There's a segment of this website that would argue that the sky isn't blue, given enough opportunity. Willful idiocy is par for the course with that crowd.
I'm baffled that there's even a question here, and the only explanation I have is basic oppositional defiance or rank stupidity. There was sufficient evidence for an investigation, and sufficient evidence for a lengthy ban subsequent to that investigation.
Agreed. The fact that there are still people defending this guy is just another example of the internet blind White Knight / Social Justice Warrior complex wherein facts and insurmountable evidence mean nothing to the self-righteous.
Either way, glad Wizards and the DCI made the right decision here.
I never said he wasn´t a cheater. And if the DCI came to that conclusion, i do not doubt their decision.
I only had problems with some of the arguments, and some more with the "evidence".
But maybe thats just my fault, because i go more in the line of scientific proof.
My thought was that: Both players are resposible for randomizing the deck.
If boettchers opponent is not a cheater himself, then the deck he presented should be fully randomized.
Not knowing any cards in the deck, does boettcher´s shuffling have any influence on the deck? Can it make the deck more or less random than before?
I think the answer to that is no, a random deck stays random, AND it either is random or its not. So as long as he doesn´t know the cards, whatever
shuffle he uses can´t be cheating, for if a ranmdom deck was presented, it stays random.
That does only change if he knows the position of one or more of the cards. If he know the bottom card, and shuffels it up, then its not random anymore, therefore its cheating.
So, to proof he was cheating, you have to proof he knows(or at least could know) the position of one of the cards. But the videos i looked at (again, i didn´t see them all) he was looking away while shuffeling.
Also, some of the videos thats where shown as proof didn´t show his face at all.
But as someone posted, law might see evidence a little diffrent from science.
But since a scientific view of the matter seem to put me on the same level as cheaters and even holocaust deniers, i dont think i will be further involved in such discussions.
Have a nice day.
The guy is shuffling with the card face pointing toward him.
The overhead camera can see the cardface. He would have a clearer view than the camera.
Magic isnt science. The scientific burden of proof cant exist because experiments must be repeatable. Here we have social observations. Claiming to be a man of science thats just rubbish. <I hope you do remove yourself from future discussions because you have zero credibilty and I will treat all further comments from you with the short shrift they deserve.>
No, just stop, just stop... As someone who has a degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering this just sounds obnoxious, it's like when people pitch homeopathy or whatever talk about quantum vibrations. You don't have a scientific view, you're just using the word to gain credibility and it's obnoxious.
You saying that your view is scientific, or there's a scientific method of approaching this issue, is like me saying my Quantum Calcuology tells me he's cheating.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
/Shrug. Law at best is a social science, and at worst a humanities:
Law in common parlance, means a rule which (unlike a rule of ethics) is capable of enforcement through institutions.[21] However, many laws are based on norms accepted by a community and thus have an ethical foundation. The study of law crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and humanities, depending on one's view of research into its objectives and effects. Law is not always enforceable, especially in the international relations context. It has been defined as a "system of rules",[22] as an "interpretive concept"[23] to achieve justice, as an "authority"[24] to mediate people's interests, and even as "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction".[25] However one likes to think of law, it is a completely central social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of thinking from almost every social science and the humanities. Laws are politics, because politicians create them. Law is philosophy, because moral and ethical persuasions shape their ideas. Law tells many of history's stories, because statutes, case law and codifications build up over time. And law is economics, because any rule about contract, tort, property law, labour law, company law and many more can have long lasting effects on the distribution of wealth. The noun law derives from the late Old English lagu, meaning something laid down or fixed[26] and the adjective legal comes from the Latin word lex.[27]
No, this isn't me being elitist, a social science is defined as such for a reason and when one claims to be scientific they evoke a completely different meaning than that. More so, there's not "interpretive concept" or "social institution" that makes science work and function. At the end of the day science is very different from law, at least in layman's terms, which is what this forum uses unless specified directly.
Additionally, law isn't even part of the core social sciences if you really want to be pedantic about things:
In a wider sense, social science also includes amongst its branches some fields in the humanities[1] such as anthropology, archaeology, history, law and linguistics.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
Just making sure that the phrase "doctor of the science of law" on the diploma is accurate. I will now certainly sleep better. Phew.
Great, so will the guy who has this:
Dr.sc.mus.: Doctor scientiae musicae, Doctor of Musicology
I understand this is an ego thing for you, that's alright. However, let's put it this way, I double majored in Physics and Electrical Engineering, and frankly the only reason I did Physics was to claim I have a degree in science. I know, it's shallow, but like you I have an ego and the cross over between the two majors was enough to allow me to accomplish it without extravagant effort, but I've always focused on engineering more, and I can tell you this much, I don't consider engineering to be a science in itself. I think it has to do with something a scientist once said "The first time you do something, it's science. The second time you do it, it's engineering... And the third time it's mass production." I don't think I have to get into detail to explain the meaning of this, but who knows.
In short, I'm basically asking you to be an adult in this matter, and to understand that the legal definition isn't the definition this person was using, nor the definition most people would bring to mind when reading it. You can tell people you're conducting science, or whatever, but let's be real here.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
My girlfriend studies law, I study mathematics and to sum things up: Law has close to nothing to do with science. Law science has close to nothing to do with science.
Law is extremely important and you have to have a good understanding of it. So, diplomas in law are more than justified. But it's just not really a science...
And now back to MTG, which sadly is still not a recognized science^^
"Law science has nothing to do with science". Hmmm... Green chairs are not chairs? Apple computers are not computers? This red magic the gathering card has nothing to do with magic the gathering? Me. Is. Confused.
Could this whole type of thing not be easily avoided by a deck being required to be cut at least once as the final action prior to it being returned to its owner, or if the deck is not cut that the owner of the deck may perform a cut as the final action?
I know it's been the same forever where your opponent randomizes your deck and once they give it to you that's the end of it, but that leaves the door wide open for these types of shenanigans. Sure the unscrupulous player may try to force a few bad cards to the middle of the deck and try to cut to it but that's a lot more difficult to do with any degree of consistency than to stack the top of an uncut deck.
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Look at my name...what did you expect?
Thank you WOTC for introducing the Modern format, a format where all the whiners can enjoy a level playing field and where they can play with none of the best cards of all time!
You said the three of them were a set up, IE they cheated on purpose to get caught. Something which no one would do if they valued their prizes.
All I can say is that I don't agree with that.
Mtg players play way less for the TO-prizes than some people think.
I'm a criminal law professor. English common law long recognized a crime of cheating, which usually required proof of some scheme that is executed to deceive others in a manner that ordinary prudence wouldn't detect as well as proof that the scheme damaged the victim's property rights ( aka the victim lost something of value). Many modern jurisdictions have codified this concept of criminal cheating and made it a felony. Here is one such example:
This would be an interesting case because the property being obtained by the scheme is not the direct victim's property but the property of the tournament organizer. You also could not claim the tournament organizer is a victim as there's no change to how much they pay out, only to whom they pay out.
Even with the above issues aside, It would be extremely difficult to win a prosecution for criminal cheating against him based on the available evidence, and I can't imagine there's much other evidence that isn't known that would change that.
Professor
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say what you want about Trevor at least he owned up to his short-comings after the finding.
screaming i'm innocent when everyone else can see it is just stupid. own up to it, repent and ask for forgiveness.
I hope he never plays again.
Haha...
Care to expand upon this? Better in what way?
Boettcher turned me into a newt!
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
But you got better? He still received his deserved punishment for his ban according to the DCI after their investigation. I'd would have liked to see their evidence, since they had access to a body of evidence; much more than we do in a few video links.
Big Thanks to Xeno for sig art <3.
Agreed. The fact that there are still people defending this guy is just another example of the internet blind White Knight / Social Justice Warrior complex wherein facts and insurmountable evidence mean nothing to the self-righteous.
Either way, glad Wizards and the DCI made the right decision here.
(Also known as Xenphire)
The guy is shuffling with the card face pointing toward him.
The overhead camera can see the cardface. He would have a clearer view than the camera.
Magic isnt science. The scientific burden of proof cant exist because experiments must be repeatable. Here we have social observations. Claiming to be a man of science thats just rubbish.
<I hope you do remove yourself from future discussions because you have zero credibilty and I will treat all further comments from you with the short shrift they deserve.>
Flaming Warning -Cythare
No, just stop, just stop... As someone who has a degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering this just sounds obnoxious, it's like when people pitch homeopathy or whatever talk about quantum vibrations. You don't have a scientific view, you're just using the word to gain credibility and it's obnoxious.
You saying that your view is scientific, or there's a scientific method of approaching this issue, is like me saying my Quantum Calcuology tells me he's cheating.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Professor
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Believe it or not, but most things in life aren't scientific, mathematical maybe, but we rarely live our lives the way we conduct science.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Professor
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/Shrug. Law at best is a social science, and at worst a humanities:
No, this isn't me being elitist, a social science is defined as such for a reason and when one claims to be scientific they evoke a completely different meaning than that. More so, there's not "interpretive concept" or "social institution" that makes science work and function. At the end of the day science is very different from law, at least in layman's terms, which is what this forum uses unless specified directly.
Additionally, law isn't even part of the core social sciences if you really want to be pedantic about things:
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
So what you're saying is that law is something between a science and a science?
Professor
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Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Professor
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I understand this is an ego thing for you, that's alright. However, let's put it this way, I double majored in Physics and Electrical Engineering, and frankly the only reason I did Physics was to claim I have a degree in science. I know, it's shallow, but like you I have an ego and the cross over between the two majors was enough to allow me to accomplish it without extravagant effort, but I've always focused on engineering more, and I can tell you this much, I don't consider engineering to be a science in itself. I think it has to do with something a scientist once said "The first time you do something, it's science. The second time you do it, it's engineering... And the third time it's mass production." I don't think I have to get into detail to explain the meaning of this, but who knows.
In short, I'm basically asking you to be an adult in this matter, and to understand that the legal definition isn't the definition this person was using, nor the definition most people would bring to mind when reading it. You can tell people you're conducting science, or whatever, but let's be real here.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Law is extremely important and you have to have a good understanding of it. So, diplomas in law are more than justified. But it's just not really a science...
And now back to MTG, which sadly is still not a recognized science^^
"Law science has nothing to do with science". Hmmm... Green chairs are not chairs? Apple computers are not computers? This red magic the gathering card has nothing to do with magic the gathering? Me. Is. Confused.
Professor
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I know it's been the same forever where your opponent randomizes your deck and once they give it to you that's the end of it, but that leaves the door wide open for these types of shenanigans. Sure the unscrupulous player may try to force a few bad cards to the middle of the deck and try to cut to it but that's a lot more difficult to do with any degree of consistency than to stack the top of an uncut deck.
Thank you WOTC for introducing the Modern format, a format where all the whiners can enjoy a level playing field and where they can play with none of the best cards of all time!