Is this cheating?
I control Chalice of the Void with one charge counter.
My opponent shuffles his deck and inadvertently reveals Nettle Sentinel on the bottom of the deck as he is handing it to me to cut.
After shuffling lightly, I surreptitiously put the Nettle Sentinel on the top of the deck.
Is it straight-up cheating, poor sportsmanship, or some combination of something else?
Straight-up cheating, and I frankly don't know how it could be seen as anything else.
You purposely make the deck nonrandom, the opposite of what you were supposed to do, to get an advantage.
701.16. Shuffle
701.16a. To shuffle a library or a face-down pile of cards, randomize the cards within it so that no player knows their order.
It is 100% cheating, and has no place in MtG tournaments.
In a situation like this, the only thing to do is to inform your opponent that you saw the bottom card, and to please shuffle more while being careful. Anything else can get you disqualified from the tournament.
I had gotten confused with the notion that if an opponent carelessly reveals cards in his or her hand, it is not cheating to look at them, i.e., an opponent tips their hand. It won't happen again
Uh...if you see it because he's shuffling and you see the bottom card, that's not cheating, but if you move the card from the bottom to the top, then it's most certainly cheating. I'm not sure how this can be thought any other way.
I made an attempt to explain that. I asked if it was cheating because I was unsure. In the heat of the game, and perhaps because I did not consider it well enough, I may have done this without realizing I was cheating. Insinuating that it is impossible to not recognize this as cheating is not entirely helpful, and I'm not sure what it is supposed to demonstrate. That I deceived myself? That I just simply cheated? That I am too dumb to recognize the obvious? Possibly. I have heard several scandalous tournament reports, where players apparently saw nothing untoward in their actions, but which were determined to have been a violation. I am not interested in receiving forgiveness or persecution over the Internet, and invite anyone to consider questions in this forum as hypothetical, whether they are or aren't.
I appreciate the rulings responses. I sort of figured I would open myself up to some moral judgement also because of the (foolishly) candid way I phrased my post, but all I am really looking for is the ruling judgement. But I do apologize if I shocked or disillusioned anyone, or if I revealed a dishonest side of myself that should have remained secret.
For the record, this is the official definition of Cheating according to the Infraction Procedure Guide (which is used in events that are run at Competitive and higher REL):
Unsporting Conduct — Cheating
Definition
A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.
Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:
• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action.
• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.
If all criteria are not met, the offense is not Cheating and should be handled by a different infraction. Cheating will often appear on the surface as a Game Play Error or Tournament Error, and must be investigated by the judge to make a determination of intent and awareness.
Stacking a specific card on top of your opponent's library after you shuffle it violates the rules for shuffling that willdice quoted, so that causes the first criterion to be met. The judge has to have reason to believe that a player knows that they aren't allowed to do this in order to actually give out a Cheating infraction, but the only way it wouldn't be is if the player can make a compelling argument that they honestly didn't know that they shouldn't stack their opponent's deck (which is a hard case to make, as stacking a deck is illegal in the vast majority of card games.) The part about gaining advantage is pretty clear due to the Chalice in this case.
Hypothetical or not, the use of the word surreptitiously would lead anyone to believe that there was intent. Always best to remove any appearance of impropriety. I have played games where my opponent chose to wear reflective sunglasses. I could see the cards in his hand reflected on them and pointed it out ASAP. But I do apologize if I shocked or disillusioned anyone, or if I revealed an honest side of myself that should have remained secret.
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I control Chalice of the Void with one charge counter.
My opponent shuffles his deck and inadvertently reveals Nettle Sentinel on the bottom of the deck as he is handing it to me to cut.
After shuffling lightly, I surreptitiously put the Nettle Sentinel on the top of the deck.
Is it straight-up cheating, poor sportsmanship, or some combination of something else?
J
You purposely make the deck nonrandom, the opposite of what you were supposed to do, to get an advantage.
701.16. Shuffle
701.16a. To shuffle a library or a face-down pile of cards, randomize the cards within it so that no player knows their order.
In a situation like this, the only thing to do is to inform your opponent that you saw the bottom card, and to please shuffle more while being careful. Anything else can get you disqualified from the tournament.
J
I appreciate the rulings responses. I sort of figured I would open myself up to some moral judgement also because of the (foolishly) candid way I phrased my post, but all I am really looking for is the ruling judgement. But I do apologize if I shocked or disillusioned anyone, or if I revealed a dishonest side of myself that should have remained secret.
Thanks!
J
Stacking a specific card on top of your opponent's library after you shuffle it violates the rules for shuffling that willdice quoted, so that causes the first criterion to be met. The judge has to have reason to believe that a player knows that they aren't allowed to do this in order to actually give out a Cheating infraction, but the only way it wouldn't be is if the player can make a compelling argument that they honestly didn't know that they shouldn't stack their opponent's deck (which is a hard case to make, as stacking a deck is illegal in the vast majority of card games.) The part about gaining advantage is pretty clear due to the Chalice in this case.