Is it legal to go through your deck and find clumps of lands and then separate them out as long as you still shuffle afterwards? Because sometimes shuffling by itself doesn't separate the land clumps.
I do this quite often. As long as after you separate the clumps you THOROUGHLY randomize your deck, it's alright. Otherwise it's cheating: "Failure to Sufficiently Randomize a Deck".
I like to tell people the act of playing Magic invariably separates your lands from your spells. You are essentially putting your lands in one pile and your non-lands in another just by playing the game. Keeping this in mind, a little "mana weaving" is a good idea BEFORE you start shuffling your deck for game two.
G.6. Failure to Sufficiently Randomize a Deck
A player has not performed sufficient actions to suitably randomize his or her deck prior to presenting the deck to an opponent.
Note: At the judge's discretion, this violation may also be enforced against players who shuffle their decks face up. This penalty does not apply to deck stacking or other deck manipulation that is considered cheating (see section J.4).
Penalties:
Level 1, 2, or 3
First Offense: Single warning. The player must sufficiently randomize his or her deck.
Second Offense: Single warning and duel loss.
Level 4 or 5
First Offense: Single warning and duel loss.
Second Offense: Double warning and ejection.
It's either wasting time or cheating, so don't do this.
If separating lands before shuffling has any effect the post-shuffle state of your cards, it is considered stacking the deck.
If it has no effect, its of no use (and still *looks like* cheating).
To shuffle is to randomize your deck. If you feel your deck is not randomized enough, just shuffle more or better. Don't go separating cards by type.
You may do so, as long as you properly shuffle your deck afterwards, and don't take too much time in doing so.
Quote from 3.9 Card Shuffling »
Decks must be randomized at the start of every game and whenever an instruction requires it. Randomization is
defined as bringing the deck to a state where no player can have any information regarding the order or position of
cards in any portion of the deck. Pile shuffling alone is not sufficiently random.
Once the deck is randomized, it must be presented to an opponent. By this action, players state that their decks are
legal and randomized.
Similar to pile shuffling, you have to shuffle in a truly random manner after you weaved or otherwisely un-clumped your mana sources, or risk being disqualified for cheating.
And again, take too much time and you might be disqualified for stalling.
This happened to me at GP Seattle/Tacoma where my opponent separated his lands and sifted it into the deck every other card or so. I just called a judge over and asked the judge to shuffle my opponents deck due to my opponent separating lands and spells like that.
The judge was more than happy to assist in that situation. Its not like i was trying to press for a game loss, i just want a non involved 3rd party to make sure the deck was randomized after my opponent sorted his lands and nonlands.
This happened to me at GP Seattle/Tacoma where my opponent separated his lands and sifted it into the deck every other card or so. I just called a judge over and asked the judge to shuffle my opponents deck due to my opponent separating lands and spells like that.
The judge was more than happy to assist in that situation. Its not like i was trying to press for a game loss, i just want a non involved 3rd party to make sure the deck was randomized after my opponent sorted his lands and nonlands.
I did similar at an FNM during a prerelease, I believe Gatecrash. Nothing against my opponent, he was just confused as to why I told him he shouldn't mana weave after a game, she was happy to explain it to him.
If you're getting screwed, you're probably not shuffling well enough to begin with. I'm a compulsive shuffler, and I rarely get the mana screw. Seriously, I get screwed more on Cockatrice than in real life.
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I typically shuffle all of my cards that i played in a game together first, and then shuffle it into the deck. I think that helps me subconsiously move past the "clumping" without weaving. Next, I shuffle my sdieboard into the deck, shuffle a few times, and pull out 15 cards. Then, i pile shuffle, riffle shuffle, then pile shuffle again. That seems to do the trick.
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I get screwed more on Cockatrice than in real life.
That probably means you have a problem with your shuffling technique (or you're suffering from confirmation bias). A sufficiently randomized deck will have clumps most of the time.
Sufficiently random doesn't mean even distribution.
I have my doubts if the majority of MTG players can sufficiently randomize a deck by riffle shuffling alone in the time allotted. If you can do one riffle in like 10 seconds and do it 10+ times, then yeah, you're fine no matter what the deck looked like beforehand.
The majority of people just aren't that good at shuffling, though, and probably take 30 seconds or more to do one riffle. They will not have a sufficiently randomized result regardless of what the deck looked like before they started shuffling. Since this is technically cheating no matter what, you might as well pick the option that gives you the most advantage.
I've actually challenged people to do this. Stack your deck with all the lands in alphabetical order followed by all the spells in alphabetical order. Now try and randomize it in one minute with riffle shuffling alone. Not many players can do it. If you look at the cards afterwards, the deck is obviously not randomized. You can tell just by looking for the multiple clumps of 4-ofs that are still present. While clumps of land or spells are to be expected in a randomized deck, a clump of four cards with the same name is extremely unlikely to happen.
I have my doubts if the majority of MTG players can sufficiently randomize a deck by riffle shuffling alone in the time allotted. If you can do one riffle in like 10 seconds and do it 10+ times, then yeah, you're fine no matter what the deck looked like beforehand.
The majority of people just aren't that good at shuffling, though, and probably take 30 seconds or more to do one riffle. They will not have a sufficiently randomized result regardless of what the deck looked like before they started shuffling. Since this is technically cheating no matter what, you might as well pick the option that gives you the most advantage.
I've actually challenged people to do this. Stack your deck with all the lands in alphabetical order followed by all the spells in alphabetical order. Now try and randomize it in one minute with riffle shuffling alone. Not many players can do it. If you look at the cards afterwards, the deck is obviously not randomized. You can tell just by looking for the multiple clumps of 4-ofs that are still present. While clumps of land or spells are to be expected in a randomized deck, a clump of four cards with the same name is extremely unlikely to happen.
Riffle shuffling alone is generally not considered to be sufficient randomization. It is recommended that you use at least 2 methods of shuffling (riffle, mash, etc) when randomizing a deck. Also, your definition of "sufficient randomization" appears to be complete randomization, which is not what the MTR definition is.
Quote from MTR »
Randomization is defined as bringing the deck to a state where no player can have any information regarding the order or position of cards in any portion of the deck.
Also, the idea of "everyone's cheating so I might as well cheat the best" is very harmful to the game. Look at the Steroid problems in sports. We're trying to protect the integrity of the game, not further deteriorate it.
Also, the idea of "everyone's cheating so I might as well cheat the best" is very harmful to the game. Look at the Steroid problems in sports. We're trying to protect the integrity of the game, not further deteriorate it.
It's not really this. This implies that the person has a choice of whether or not to cheat but chooses to cheat anyway. For the majority of people, they actually can't choose not to cheat, since they can't randomize their deck, they're cheating no matter what the deck looked like before they started shuffling it.
Your quote pretty much confirms this. If you do a perfect mana weave on your deck and then only do one riffle on it, you don't know what the order of the cards is, but it's obviously not randomized and you're pretty blatantly cheating because it's probably still mana weaved to a significant extent. Depending on how you define "any information" in that quote, either this kind of "shuffling" is legal or any kind of shuffling where you know the result is not perfectly randomized is illegal.
Land sorting is something people did 10 years ago to avoid mana screw when playing 20 or less lands. These days you just use 23-25 land and shuffle properly, it's not that hard.
Sorting/weaving is cheating because it allows you to run less lands.
Land sorting is something people did 10 years ago to avoid mana screw when playing 20 or less lands. These days you just use 23-25 land and shuffle properly, it's not that hard.
Sorting/weaving is cheating because it allows you to run less lands.
It's cheating because it's basically, by definition, stacking the deck.
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So long as you perform sufficient shuffles to ensure you don't know the location or order of cards in the deck, and do so without taking an unreasonable amount of time, it's 100% legal and not an infraction in any way whatsoever. That's really all there is to it, and I don't really care if people are superstitious so long as they get the shuffling done without holding up my tournament.
I like to tell people the act of playing Magic invariably separates your lands from your spells. You are essentially putting your lands in one pile and your non-lands in another just by playing the game. Keeping this in mind, a little "mana weaving" is a good idea BEFORE you start shuffling your deck for game two.
G.6. Failure to Sufficiently Randomize a Deck
A player has not performed sufficient actions to suitably randomize his or her deck prior to presenting the deck to an opponent.
Note: At the judge's discretion, this violation may also be enforced against players who shuffle their decks face up. This penalty does not apply to deck stacking or other deck manipulation that is considered cheating (see section J.4).
Penalties:
Level 1, 2, or 3
First Offense: Single warning. The player must sufficiently randomize his or her deck.
Second Offense: Single warning and duel loss.
Level 4 or 5
First Offense: Single warning and duel loss.
Second Offense: Double warning and ejection.
If separating lands before shuffling has any effect the post-shuffle state of your cards, it is considered stacking the deck.
If it has no effect, its of no use (and still *looks like* cheating).
To shuffle is to randomize your deck. If you feel your deck is not randomized enough, just shuffle more or better. Don't go separating cards by type.
Similar to pile shuffling, you have to shuffle in a truly random manner after you weaved or otherwisely un-clumped your mana sources, or risk being disqualified for cheating.
And again, take too much time and you might be disqualified for stalling.
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But if you sufficiently randomize your deck afterward, separating the lands from the nonlands has achieved nothing! You've wasted your time.
If you waste your time, it's legal. If you don't waste your time, it's cheating. It's not a recommended practice.
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The judge was more than happy to assist in that situation. Its not like i was trying to press for a game loss, i just want a non involved 3rd party to make sure the deck was randomized after my opponent sorted his lands and nonlands.
I did similar at an FNM during a prerelease, I believe Gatecrash. Nothing against my opponent, he was just confused as to why I told him he shouldn't mana weave after a game, she was happy to explain it to him.
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Sufficiently random doesn't mean even distribution.
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The majority of people just aren't that good at shuffling, though, and probably take 30 seconds or more to do one riffle. They will not have a sufficiently randomized result regardless of what the deck looked like before they started shuffling. Since this is technically cheating no matter what, you might as well pick the option that gives you the most advantage.
I've actually challenged people to do this. Stack your deck with all the lands in alphabetical order followed by all the spells in alphabetical order. Now try and randomize it in one minute with riffle shuffling alone. Not many players can do it. If you look at the cards afterwards, the deck is obviously not randomized. You can tell just by looking for the multiple clumps of 4-ofs that are still present. While clumps of land or spells are to be expected in a randomized deck, a clump of four cards with the same name is extremely unlikely to happen.
Riffle shuffling alone is generally not considered to be sufficient randomization. It is recommended that you use at least 2 methods of shuffling (riffle, mash, etc) when randomizing a deck. Also, your definition of "sufficient randomization" appears to be complete randomization, which is not what the MTR definition is.
Also, the idea of "everyone's cheating so I might as well cheat the best" is very harmful to the game. Look at the Steroid problems in sports. We're trying to protect the integrity of the game, not further deteriorate it.
It's not really this. This implies that the person has a choice of whether or not to cheat but chooses to cheat anyway. For the majority of people, they actually can't choose not to cheat, since they can't randomize their deck, they're cheating no matter what the deck looked like before they started shuffling it.
Your quote pretty much confirms this. If you do a perfect mana weave on your deck and then only do one riffle on it, you don't know what the order of the cards is, but it's obviously not randomized and you're pretty blatantly cheating because it's probably still mana weaved to a significant extent. Depending on how you define "any information" in that quote, either this kind of "shuffling" is legal or any kind of shuffling where you know the result is not perfectly randomized is illegal.
Sorting/weaving is cheating because it allows you to run less lands.
It's cheating because it's basically, by definition, stacking the deck.
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