This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Another One in Albuquerque. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
Get to the table with all your lands stacked on top of your deck, or if you're sideboarding, put all those lands on top. Then pile shuffle into five piles, putting cards down into pile 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 then 1 then 2 then 3...
Then, pick up pile 1 and put it on pile 2, then pick up those and put them on pile 3, then put the whole thing on pile 4, then put it all on pile 5. Now, pile shuffle again the exact same way, then present to your opponent for the cut. No matter where they cut your deck, you won't draw four lands in your opening hand, and you'll never hit two lands in a row. it'll mostly be two nonlands-one land-two nonlands, with the occasional land-nonland-land.
It's cheating because you've rigged your deck. Maybe not the exact cards that you draw, but certainly how often you draw land, which is still a purposeful insufficient randomization, which falls into the cheating realm. The actual penalty is Cheating--Manipulation of Game Materials. It's a DQ-able offense.
The board position is him at 4 life with a 1/1 Redcap and an Ajani and I have a treetop and Finest Hour. I activate Treetop and swing, he blocks with Redcap and asks how I'm dividing the damage (he has two mana open which makes me wary of Persecution). I say 2 to Redcap, 2 to him, and he tells me I have to split just lethal or put it all on Redcap.
You are right: your opponent crossed the line here. He's wrong. Flat-out wrong. If he knew he was wrong, then he's also committing Fraud, and should have been investigated for Cheating and possibly DQed. If he didn't know he was wrong, well, everyone makes mistakes. Either way, you should have called a Judge. Always always always call a judge if you disagree with your opponent on anything.
That is a really foul trick. And the fact that he picked up his graveyard and put his lands into the pile afterwards, was i reckless? yes. Was it illegal? apparently not, but i feel that the Penalty guidelines should be reconsidered since an idiot friend of mine said he did the same thing to an opponent and it was intentional that he wanted his opponent to think he had scooped.
I would never disagree on the dirtiness of the "scoop" trick. And sadly, it's something you'll only ever be able to avoid after being exposed to it (seeing it, hearing about it, having it happen to you, whatever). But, ever since I heard about it, I always ask my opponent if they're conceding when they begin to scoop. Or, if I think I'll set them off by asking, I wait until everything gets stuffed into the library, then I begin packing up myself.
As a judge, I'll make certain that if i get called to a situation like that, that the person doing the fake scoop did not in fact destroy the game state. If anything went into their hand (read: touched) or their library, things aren't looking good for them. But the problem with trying to make a rule to cover it is that players can rearrange their cards however they want. And if there are prescribed ways to set your cards up, you can get rules-lawyering in the other direction, where someone may have piled up a bunch of lands to tap them all at once, but the opponent calls scoop or some nonsense.
In the end, the only way to deal these kinds of tricks are to know about them (and Ari's article has done a nice job of informing people), and to just be careful. That, and believe in karma.
This is just my personnal opinion, but i feel Chapin's toes went over the line of what constitutes as unsportsmanlike conduct. If i understand the posts correctly, (there have been a couple interpretations) he said: "All of my legal targets have fear". I agree with the fact that my could have been opponents creatures. The correct way would have been "All legal targets i control have fear".
And to those who say the opponent was at fault for not asking, why should he have to? Chapin played the spell, why shouldn't it be his responcibility for specifying the targets?
Isn't language fun? The fact is that in English (and lots of other languages) two identical sentences can mean different things. But here's the thing with the Chapin scenario: both he and his opponent understood that the "my" meant the creatures Chapin controlled, making his statement fine. Sneaky (and if you want to call it underhanded, okay), but, take it from a judge, legal.
Maybe its because i feel magic if more of a fun game than the cuthroat life of a poker player, but Chapin lost a lot of respect in my book.
I was in an epic duel with a buddy one night, playing an affinity deck with a ton of lifegain using Loxodon Warhammer & Cranial Plating, and he was gaining life with Spirit Loop and Boon Reflection. Anyway, he puts out a second Boon Reflection, and kept on forgetting to gain the extra 33% life, (He was gaining 2x life rather than 3x.) he finally got an advantage and started to whittle away my life total, and I ended up conceding, but not before he realized his mistake. I made the mistake of telling him I noticed all along... He got angry, but I got even. We switched decks and I put the hurt on him with Exalted weenies.
if that were a tournament, you admitting you knew all along that he was supposed to gain more life but didn't tell him (or didn't record the correct amount of life gain) would be grounds for a Cheating-Fraud infraction. the Boon Reflection is not a "may" ability. It happens, regardless of whether or not your opponent remembers its effect.
really, what most of this article, and the chapin play, boil down to is maneuvering your opponent with legal means into making sub-optimal, but not illegal, plays. chapin said what he was targeting with the command: his creatures that were legal targets. noticing what's in your opponent's hand because you caught it in their reflective sunglasses is them accidentally revealing cards to you. staring into their regular, prescription glasses, moving your head to the best angle to try and get a reflection off of them, all to try and catch a glimpse of their hand? many (most) judges would consider that excessive lengths and give the Hidden Information Violation.
remember that the penalty guideline, the universal tournament rules, and the floor rules recognize that there is a wide gray margin between sporting and unsporting conduct that is not illegal. just about all mind-games skirt around in this gray area. call the tactics in the article legally unsporting if you want; call it being a jerk. but it isn't cheating.
of course, unless you are quite familiar the with PG and the Communication guidelines (and other than judges, who reads those things over regularly?), it becomes quite easy to accidentally cross the gray area into the cheating/unsporting area. and if you do, you have no one to blame but yourself...
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: A Little Fae, a Little Draft. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
This thread is for discussion of Bateleur's latest article, Five Card Blind. We would be grateful if you let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
This thread is for discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Another One in Albuquerque. We would be grateful if you let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
Good call on the Garruk Tokens, guys. I'm pretty sure that was it.
As for the B/W matchup, it's rough. There's a reason that deck is considered the best right now. I can beat it if they let me drop the merfolk bomb, but otherwise, the match is turning out to be a blow out for B/W.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Relapse in San Diego. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: A Little Bit of a Bunch. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
Only one problem with this, Mike--it would put me up to 6 Thoughtseizes. A strong as it is...
Here's some more food for thought: U/B Faeries, can it run Evacuation instead of Infest? Does it do the same thing at instant speed (since all those tokens it bounces are effectively killed)? The only reason I ask is because of Kithkin and B/W Tokens. They have pump cards and can get their tokens to 3/3 status. Yikes.
This thread is for the discussion of my latest article, Good Game: Fae Don't Hate Red. We would be grateful if you would let us know what you think, but please keep your comments on topic.
Get to the table with all your lands stacked on top of your deck, or if you're sideboarding, put all those lands on top. Then pile shuffle into five piles, putting cards down into pile 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 then 1 then 2 then 3...
Then, pick up pile 1 and put it on pile 2, then pick up those and put them on pile 3, then put the whole thing on pile 4, then put it all on pile 5. Now, pile shuffle again the exact same way, then present to your opponent for the cut. No matter where they cut your deck, you won't draw four lands in your opening hand, and you'll never hit two lands in a row. it'll mostly be two nonlands-one land-two nonlands, with the occasional land-nonland-land.
It's cheating because you've rigged your deck. Maybe not the exact cards that you draw, but certainly how often you draw land, which is still a purposeful insufficient randomization, which falls into the cheating realm. The actual penalty is Cheating--Manipulation of Game Materials. It's a DQ-able offense.
You are right: your opponent crossed the line here. He's wrong. Flat-out wrong. If he knew he was wrong, then he's also committing Fraud, and should have been investigated for Cheating and possibly DQed. If he didn't know he was wrong, well, everyone makes mistakes. Either way, you should have called a Judge. Always always always call a judge if you disagree with your opponent on anything.
I would never disagree on the dirtiness of the "scoop" trick. And sadly, it's something you'll only ever be able to avoid after being exposed to it (seeing it, hearing about it, having it happen to you, whatever). But, ever since I heard about it, I always ask my opponent if they're conceding when they begin to scoop. Or, if I think I'll set them off by asking, I wait until everything gets stuffed into the library, then I begin packing up myself.
As a judge, I'll make certain that if i get called to a situation like that, that the person doing the fake scoop did not in fact destroy the game state. If anything went into their hand (read: touched) or their library, things aren't looking good for them. But the problem with trying to make a rule to cover it is that players can rearrange their cards however they want. And if there are prescribed ways to set your cards up, you can get rules-lawyering in the other direction, where someone may have piled up a bunch of lands to tap them all at once, but the opponent calls scoop or some nonsense.
In the end, the only way to deal these kinds of tricks are to know about them (and Ari's article has done a nice job of informing people), and to just be careful. That, and believe in karma.
Isn't language fun? The fact is that in English (and lots of other languages) two identical sentences can mean different things. But here's the thing with the Chapin scenario: both he and his opponent understood that the "my" meant the creatures Chapin controlled, making his statement fine. Sneaky (and if you want to call it underhanded, okay), but, take it from a judge, legal.
And that is totally legitimate.
if that were a tournament, you admitting you knew all along that he was supposed to gain more life but didn't tell him (or didn't record the correct amount of life gain) would be grounds for a Cheating-Fraud infraction. the Boon Reflection is not a "may" ability. It happens, regardless of whether or not your opponent remembers its effect.
really, what most of this article, and the chapin play, boil down to is maneuvering your opponent with legal means into making sub-optimal, but not illegal, plays. chapin said what he was targeting with the command: his creatures that were legal targets. noticing what's in your opponent's hand because you caught it in their reflective sunglasses is them accidentally revealing cards to you. staring into their regular, prescription glasses, moving your head to the best angle to try and get a reflection off of them, all to try and catch a glimpse of their hand? many (most) judges would consider that excessive lengths and give the Hidden Information Violation.
remember that the penalty guideline, the universal tournament rules, and the floor rules recognize that there is a wide gray margin between sporting and unsporting conduct that is not illegal. just about all mind-games skirt around in this gray area. call the tactics in the article legally unsporting if you want; call it being a jerk. but it isn't cheating.
of course, unless you are quite familiar the with PG and the Communication guidelines (and other than judges, who reads those things over regularly?), it becomes quite easy to accidentally cross the gray area into the cheating/unsporting area. and if you do, you have no one to blame but yourself...
As for the B/W matchup, it's rough. There's a reason that deck is considered the best right now. I can beat it if they let me drop the merfolk bomb, but otherwise, the match is turning out to be a blow out for B/W.
Time to audible? Scary...
Funny that you say that, as yesterday, I was messing around with the deck and seriously thinking of going back to U/B...
Where do the Scions fit in? That's a creature I'd love to run, but I can just never find space for it.
Only one problem with this, Mike--it would put me up to 6 Thoughtseizes. A strong as it is...
Here's some more food for thought: U/B Faeries, can it run Evacuation instead of Infest? Does it do the same thing at instant speed (since all those tokens it bounces are effectively killed)? The only reason I ask is because of Kithkin and B/W Tokens. They have pump cards and can get their tokens to 3/3 status. Yikes.