Last night I went to a prerelease. It was the 6th or 7th flight my LGS held over the weekend, so plenty of people there had already played a number of times. I built a pretty mediocre UW deck, then sat down to face my first opponent.
Perhaps I am biased in retrospect, but my opponent acted strangely when we started chatting. He mentioned how uncomfortable he was at live events and how he hadn't been playing Magic for very long. He also said he was excited to play in his first GP in the near future. Finally, he mentioned that he had played in almost every prerelease event the store held that weekend. "Cool," I thought, "Another new player is learning the game. This will be fun."
In game 3, he slammed a turn 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. At that point I actually laughed out loud because I had never seen a sealed pool with so many of the best rares and mythics split between 2 colors, and I had seen a lot of crazy sealed pools over the years I've played Magic. Not only that, but there wasn't a single mediocre common or uncommon in his deck. No random bears with no abilities, no filler at all. It was almost as if he had hand picked every good blue and white card from multiple sealed pools and put them together... and that's when it dawned on me. He probably did exactly that after building a collection from playing all weekend. Was the whole conversation about being a new, nervous player an act to throw me off?
So I went to talk to his next opponent. He agreed that the pool was completely unrealistic, and revealed to me that the guy actually had even more rares and mythics than I saw: he had a total of 7 of the very best blue and white rares and mythics between BFZ and OGW (the extra was the foil Quarantine Field). We went together to talk to the organizer running the event. Apparently, we were not even the first people to bring it up. The organizer said that there was no way to verify the pool, and that because the guy wasn't running more rares and mythics than were possible to open in packs, he couldn't do anything about it. The end.
Of course, the guy with the insane deck went undefeated with little trouble. After leaving the store, I thought that another possible solution was to find out who was sitting next to him in deck construction and ask if he remembered him pulling back-to-back mythics from every pack. At that point everyone had left, so it was too late. Still, if I really wanted to I could track them down and ask.
But then I thought better of it; even if this guy did blatantly cheat and essentially stole money from kids who were just playing for fun, isn't that punishment enough? I can't even imagine how sad and pathetic someone's life must be to add cards to a sealed pool at a prerelease. If they ever tried something like that at an event with deck registration there is a good chance they would be caught, especially if they were so blatant about it. If I were theoretically trying to cheat in a sealed event, I would at least try to make my deck believable by adding in some filler, and not having a laundry list of the very best uncommons, rares, and mythics.
What would you guys do in that situation? Based on my retelling of the story, do you think he cheated?
Probably cheated, adding cards happens all the time in local events. But I can't think of much you could do beyond what you did, bringing it to the attention of the store and talking to others about it. Hopefully if this guy gets unrealistically "lucky" like that again the store will have the stones to ban him, or at least have someone start watching him open.
Another way to catch someone would be to ask others who played in the other pre-release against him. Did he have a Linvala in another pool? Does he have two in his collection? If not, he clearly "re-used" the card he opened earlier. The good thing is that he probably played his bombs in earlier pre-release.
Of course, you need to find people who played him and they'd have to remember his deck.
Sounds like he cheated, yeah. This actually reminded me very strongly of my first sanctioned event at an LGS 10 years ago. It was Ravnica Sealed, including Dissension and Guildpact, IIRC. We got a deck and 2 boosters, and my opponent completely stomped me despite what I thought was a reasonable deck at the time. (Of course, my only opponent before that point had been my brother, so I didn't have a very good metric.) I mentioned one of the cards he used having a white border, and my brother said, "Wait, what?" and talked to the store owner. His deck went under review and he was found to be cheating! He got DQed and I was given the win.
Sorry it didn't work out for you, but hopefully you won't have to undergo that again. It's possible that he didn't realize the rules if he legitimately was a new player, but the tournament proctor could have cleared that up for you and I think that would have gone a long way towards discerning his intent.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Local metas are self-policing. If this was not the first time one of the locals noticed shenanigans, there's an easy solution: You just grab his Gideon and put it in your box.
One of two things will happen:
1) He's a wimp and does nothing about this. You get a free Gideon! Sweet. Who cares whether he cheated now.
2) He calls the judge over and complains that you stole his card. You, a regular, then say you don't know what he's talking about and that Gideon was yours. When the judge asks if there are any witnesses who saw the other guy go "yay! Gideon!" when he opened his pool, chances are there will be no one, because hax and all. No one will corroborate his story, you get a Gideon, and he'll hopefully get the message that he's antagonizing the locals with his hax and Think Twice before trying again to Go For the Throat lest there be more Blatant Thievery!
...But lulz aside, I would not advise this unless you and others were very certain he's cheating. Give such players ample benefit of the doubt. At large events, there's inevitably someone who opened an Expedition, a planeswalker, and a foil of that planeswalker. Unlikely but possible. Maybe ask to see the rest of his pool when the game is done. It'll be pretty easy to tell from there whether his pool was just lucky or whether there are a bunch of extra cards total..
Local metas are self-policing. If this was not the first time one of the locals noticed shenanigans, there's an easy solution: You just grab his Gideon and put it in your box/wherever.
One of two things will happen:
1) He's a wimp and does nothing about this. You get a free Gideon! Sweet. Who cares about whether he cheated now.
2) He calls the judge over and complains that you stole his card. You, a regular, then say you don't know what he's talking about and that Gideon was yours. When the judge asks if there are any witnesses who saw the other guy go "yay! Gideon!" when he opened his pool, chances are there will be no one, because hax and all.
But I would not advise this unless you and others were very certain he's cheating. Give such players ample benefit of the doubt first. At large events, there's inevitably someone who opened an Expedition, a planeswalker, and a foil of that planeswalker. Unlikely but possible. Maybe ask to see the rest of his pool when the game is done.
I truly, deeply thought about this before coming to the conclusion that he was likely cheating. In fact, in all the years I've been playing Magic, this is the first time I have ever suspected an opponent of cheating. I've seen many absurd pools, some playing 6 mythics of the same color, but I have never seen a pool that had those mythics plus multiples of every good common and uncommon, zero filler, and perfect mana fixing to top it off. There was just something about his deck that set of my bull***** detector. Limited decks don't look like that. Of course I could be wrong, and he got the most godly pool that will ever exist in this format, but it's a lot likelier that he was cheating. (Also, this event was relatively small, with under 30 people. I haven't seen decks approaching this quality at GPs with thousands of players.)
I wish I had asked to see the rest of his pool, but it seemed like he was only willing to show off the absurd number of rares and mythics he was playing, and I couldn't get a peek at the rest of his deck. I suspect that if I found anything shady about his pool, he would have explained it away as getting mixed up with the other pools he had earlier in the weekend, and there would still be no way to prove anything. In any case I wasn't confidant enough in the moment to accuse him of cheating to his face. I will be keeping an eye of him in the future if I see him at any events.
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Perhaps I am biased in retrospect, but my opponent acted strangely when we started chatting. He mentioned how uncomfortable he was at live events and how he hadn't been playing Magic for very long. He also said he was excited to play in his first GP in the near future. Finally, he mentioned that he had played in almost every prerelease event the store held that weekend. "Cool," I thought, "Another new player is learning the game. This will be fun."
In game 1, he quickly defeated me with a perfect curve of Tide Drifter, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Cyclone Sire, Clutch of Currents, and finally a foil Quarantine Field to exile two of my creatures. I also saw Isolation Zone, Immolating Glare, and multiple Meandering Rivers the fix his mana. This guy was clearly not a new player. I started sideboarding for game 2 while thinking that he drew all of the best cards in his deck. I was wrong.
In game 2, he played Eldrazi Displacer (in my opinion the best white rare in the set), Linvala, the Preserver, Guardian of Tazeem, and Quarantine Field again. Somehow I was able to win the game despite the absurd quality of his deck. Other notable cards that I saw included Angel of Renewal, Halimar Tidecaller, Wall of Resurgence, and Sheer Drop.
In game 3, he slammed a turn 4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. At that point I actually laughed out loud because I had never seen a sealed pool with so many of the best rares and mythics split between 2 colors, and I had seen a lot of crazy sealed pools over the years I've played Magic. Not only that, but there wasn't a single mediocre common or uncommon in his deck. No random bears with no abilities, no filler at all. It was almost as if he had hand picked every good blue and white card from multiple sealed pools and put them together... and that's when it dawned on me. He probably did exactly that after building a collection from playing all weekend. Was the whole conversation about being a new, nervous player an act to throw me off?
So I went to talk to his next opponent. He agreed that the pool was completely unrealistic, and revealed to me that the guy actually had even more rares and mythics than I saw: he had a total of 7 of the very best blue and white rares and mythics between BFZ and OGW (the extra was the foil Quarantine Field). We went together to talk to the organizer running the event. Apparently, we were not even the first people to bring it up. The organizer said that there was no way to verify the pool, and that because the guy wasn't running more rares and mythics than were possible to open in packs, he couldn't do anything about it. The end.
Of course, the guy with the insane deck went undefeated with little trouble. After leaving the store, I thought that another possible solution was to find out who was sitting next to him in deck construction and ask if he remembered him pulling back-to-back mythics from every pack. At that point everyone had left, so it was too late. Still, if I really wanted to I could track them down and ask.
But then I thought better of it; even if this guy did blatantly cheat and essentially stole money from kids who were just playing for fun, isn't that punishment enough? I can't even imagine how sad and pathetic someone's life must be to add cards to a sealed pool at a prerelease. If they ever tried something like that at an event with deck registration there is a good chance they would be caught, especially if they were so blatant about it. If I were theoretically trying to cheat in a sealed event, I would at least try to make my deck believable by adding in some filler, and not having a laundry list of the very best uncommons, rares, and mythics.
What would you guys do in that situation? Based on my retelling of the story, do you think he cheated?
Of course, you need to find people who played him and they'd have to remember his deck.
Sorry it didn't work out for you, but hopefully you won't have to undergo that again. It's possible that he didn't realize the rules if he legitimately was a new player, but the tournament proctor could have cleared that up for you and I think that would have gone a long way towards discerning his intent.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
One of two things will happen:
1) He's a wimp and does nothing about this. You get a free Gideon! Sweet. Who cares whether he cheated now.
2) He calls the judge over and complains that you stole his card. You, a regular, then say you don't know what he's talking about and that Gideon was yours. When the judge asks if there are any witnesses who saw the other guy go "yay! Gideon!" when he opened his pool, chances are there will be no one, because hax and all. No one will corroborate his story, you get a Gideon, and he'll hopefully get the message that he's antagonizing the locals with his hax and Think Twice before trying again to Go For the Throat lest there be more Blatant Thievery!
...But lulz aside, I would not advise this unless you and others were very certain he's cheating. Give such players ample benefit of the doubt. At large events, there's inevitably someone who opened an Expedition, a planeswalker, and a foil of that planeswalker. Unlikely but possible. Maybe ask to see the rest of his pool when the game is done. It'll be pretty easy to tell from there whether his pool was just lucky or whether there are a bunch of extra cards total..
I truly, deeply thought about this before coming to the conclusion that he was likely cheating. In fact, in all the years I've been playing Magic, this is the first time I have ever suspected an opponent of cheating. I've seen many absurd pools, some playing 6 mythics of the same color, but I have never seen a pool that had those mythics plus multiples of every good common and uncommon, zero filler, and perfect mana fixing to top it off. There was just something about his deck that set of my bull***** detector. Limited decks don't look like that. Of course I could be wrong, and he got the most godly pool that will ever exist in this format, but it's a lot likelier that he was cheating. (Also, this event was relatively small, with under 30 people. I haven't seen decks approaching this quality at GPs with thousands of players.)
I wish I had asked to see the rest of his pool, but it seemed like he was only willing to show off the absurd number of rares and mythics he was playing, and I couldn't get a peek at the rest of his deck. I suspect that if I found anything shady about his pool, he would have explained it away as getting mixed up with the other pools he had earlier in the weekend, and there would still be no way to prove anything. In any case I wasn't confidant enough in the moment to accuse him of cheating to his face. I will be keeping an eye of him in the future if I see him at any events.