Rule change: Drawing extra cards illegally

[barcode]

Wait, no sportsballer has ever intentionally fouled against the other team as a strategic tactic?

I didn't realize Magic was the same as sports. Let me alert the judge community!

[Asthereal]

I'm with Martin here: This WILL result in free shuffles

Of course it will, in some cases. But good players take stuff like that into account. I am a bad player, yet I still keep stuff like that into account. Not all the time, and definitely not with stuff like a ~10 card cascade, but a top 3 from Top should be easy. So should a bottom 5 from DTT. If stuff like that is too hard for a player, other stuff will also be too hard, and the player will lose because of poor play.

If you pay attention to the game and all its aspects, it will win you games. It has always been like that.

And as mentioned a couple of times already, it's a warning. Warnings are noted. If you get multiple warnings for this particular thing, you will be charged with cheating. You will get a DQ. You will get suspended. If cheaters use this, they will be discovered very quickly. We help a lot of players who make an honest mistake, with a small chance of a cheater getting away with a cheat slightly more easily. It's always going to be a trade-off.

[TsumiBand]

I didn't realize Magic was the same as sports.

That really isn't the point, Broryuken.

The point is -- apart from just saying "any system can be abused" because that's just beside the point as well -- a system that would ideally seek to penalize a player can actually end up being a boon. Mana Drain, right? That was supposed to be a "bad" version of Counterspell; what on earth was aaaannyone going to do with all that colorless mana? Of course they'll all take mana bu -- oh, wait.

So instead of flat-out losing that game for drawing more game pieces, now we have this crazy process where the opponent basically Thoughtseizes the opponent and the opponent gets to weird-shuffle where they keep cards that they know where they are in position in the deck. There's a ton of complication added to a situation that used to be simply resolved, and if anyone actually thinks there is less potential for abuse here than the previous situation, I would encourage you to simply sit back and wait for the Mike Longs and Alex Bertosomethingsomethings of the world to get really good at making this awkward kludge work to their advantage. It can't be every game, that's suspicious and obvious; it'll be hard matches, it'll be long days and drawn out games, it'll be complicated decks vs. each other and making it really clear that the player overdrew (as opposed to now, see my example of the bear-paw durp 3 draw that players shouldn't do but totally do anyway) and watching as the game tilts precisely because there's a lot more knowledge about the state of the cards in libraries and hands and so on.

I'm textwalling again, bah... ! I'm not angry or anything, I just really don't think people get how fucking terrible this whole concept actually is and if anyone really thinks no one will ever make this work for them - which a game loss arguably can never do - then I say, let's just see how it plays out.

[Ellomdian]

Lots of people either didn't read Toby's full post, or don't seem understand the philosophy behind the policy.

There are 2 possible outcomes: If a player is determined (By Me, a Judge) to have unintentionally drawn an extra card, warning, apply fix, move on. If I think a player did so at all intending to gain an advantage (for any reason, including shuffles), I'm Sorry, DQ, Paperwork.

Also, and this is important - standard procedure is to only shuffle the randomized portion of the deck. If you have known cards on top (or bottom), it's not random, and we aren't going to be shuffling them.

This does not encourage players to cheat any more or less than the 'old' procedure. And, FWIW, it makes the 'Judge'ment call even more polarizing - this completely abolishes the Gray area involving Game Losses (which is both a Good Thing, and consistent with recent policy revisions.)

Also, as far as the resolution (and I love resolutions that involve Players, in Game, so I am biased)

"What we want to avoid is penalties that have unpredicatable in-game impact... By allowing the opponent to choose, the judge does not have to make a strategic assessment, which is an important requirement for any penalty, as it protects the judge from accusations of bias."

[Sloshthedark]

People are posting things like "I've gotten a game loss for drawing extra cards and I think this is a good change because that game loss sucked", but maybe it'd suck less if you just stop drawing extra cards. I've gotten several game losses for decklist errors, gave myself a game loss by making the wrong play after a judge informed me he was giving me a warning for slow play, and had a reeeal long talk with a judge at GPNJ for playing a Chalice of the Void through my own Gaddock Teeg. And, you know what, for all of those and more, I fucking deserved it. There are consequences for being making mistakes.

this!

Lots of people either didn't read Toby's full post, or don't seem understand the philosophy behind the policy.

There are 2 possible outcomes: If a player is determined (By Me, a Judge) to have unintentionally drawn an extra card, warning, apply fix, move on. If I think a player did so at all intending to gain an advantage (for any reason, including shuffles), I'm Sorry, DQ, Paperwork.

Also, and this is important - standard procedure is to only shuffle the randomized portion of the deck. If you have known cards on top (or bottom), it's not random, and we aren't going to be shuffling them.

isn't it easier for every party involved to just acknowledge the mistake and go to another game? finding out which cards are known or not and whether it was intentional or not seems more painful

[iamajellydonut]

isn't it easier for every party involved to just acknowledge the mistake and go to another game? finding out which cards are known or not and whether it was intentional or not seems more painful

Agreed. There's ripping off a Band-Aid, and there's peeling a Band-Aid off reeeeal slow in order to peek at the wound then putting the Band-Aid back for a sec before finally peeling it completely off reeeeal slow.

[Tammit67]

This does not encourage players to cheat any more or less than the 'old' procedure. And, FWIW, it makes the 'Judge'ment call even more polarizing - this completely abolishes the Gray area involving Game Losses (which is both a Good Thing, and consistent with recent policy revisions.)

Of course it encourages them to cheat more than the old procedure. Cheaters now have a lower EV necessary to achieve in order to feel it is worthwhile. If they get caught, they just lose a card instead of losing the game. I don't know how you can say otherwise.

[Aggro_zombies]

Having read this thread and discussion about this change in other parts of the Magic Internet Community, I am soooooo glad regular players aren't in charge of policy changes.

Look, not every violation of the game state is part of a nefarious plot to cheat you out of a win. Sometimes drawing extra cards happens accidentally. Maybe it's the end of a long tournament and the sleeves you bought before round one are starting to stick and you accidentally scoop up two cards during your draw step. Maybe it's game three with only a few minutes left on the clock and you're feeling pressured to play fast and you accidentally grab an extra card. Maybe you're just tired. Maybe you're a player with manual dexterity issues because you have some sort of disability. Whatever, you guys get the point. Going for maximally draconian punishments for every thing that could go wrong just means fewer regular people are going to want to play at Competitive or higher REL (that is, GPs and up), and that's just bad for the community. It also does nothing to dissuade the cheaty min-maxing assholes who will spend hours and hours learning to palm cards or do biased shuffles or whatever else because they can't resist that sweet, sweet +EV from cheating every round.

I think people are way overthinking this the same way they're way overthinking the new mulligan rule. I think that at least 95% of the time, this is going to be a strict upgrade on the previous penalty; the rest of the time, your opponent is going to deliberately try to run the cheats and a judge is going to have to make the call on whether there needs to be a DQ. If you think your opponent is trying to pull one over on you, appeal.

This is the same as it's ever been, it's just now honest mistakes don't result in auto-losses.

[iamajellydonut]

This is the same as it's ever been, it's just now honest mistakes don't result in auto-losses.

But why shouldn't drawing an extra card result in an auto-loss? It may be an honest mistake, but that doesn't prevent said honest mistake from being heinous, and messing with hidden information is about as bad as it gets. A game loss sends a clear cut message of "don't ever do this again" and forces a man to learn to fish whereas this policy is simply a patch on the problem that will leave one player with a distinctive advantage and both players feeling particularly gross.


On another note, Ellomdian, can you elaborate what you mean when you say that this policy would eliminate "the grey area involving game losses"? Sincere question unrelated to the above paragraph.

[Aggro_zombies]

Well, let me put it to you this way:

I work at an LGS. A few months ago, we held a Sealed GPT that a father and his young (probably 10ish) son attended as their first "official" Magic tournament. Both of them did well and made top eight. They built decks, registered them, and started playing. The judge went through the t8 lists and determined that both father and son had made deck registration errors, something dumb and easy to forget (it might have been lands or something). He game loss'd both of them. The problem? The dad was 1-1, the son was 0-1, and both were in the middle of playing when their tournament was ended. Sure, they got the message that they should be more careful next time...but they also haven't returned to our store. You can argue that they deserved it and this penalty is necessary to send a strong message to cheaters, but all I can think about is all that potential revenue we've lost because the decision has been made to have maximally draconian punishments for honest mistakes. Neither of them meant to cheat but both of them have been turned off to competitive Magic because the punishment for accidents is way out of proportion to the harms resulting from accidents.

Going for the harshest punishments approaches players in bad faith. The implicit assumption is that there is no such thing as an accident, only a cheater who can lie well. I think pretty much any player with half a brain in his head is going to understand that drawing extra cards is a Bad Thing; if not, giving his opponent a free Thoughtseize is going to do a pretty good job of showing him that maybe the payoff isn't there for him. Why game loss on top of that? The only reason to do that is because you simply assume either that your players are too dumb to figure out that drawing extra cards is bad or you assume that they meant to do it and just don't want to fess up. That's...just a prima facie shitty policy, IMO. It doesn't deter the actual cheaters, because we have harsh punishments now and people still cheat. It doesn't stop accidents, because they're accidents. It leaves people who are honest with a bad impression because they feel like they got a penalty completely out of proportion to the damage caused by their action, especially if they notice right away and do the right thing by calling a judge (one potential lesson: next time you draw an extra card, do your best to hide it and try to end the game before your opponent notices).

[iamajellydonut]

While it's sad to hear that a ten year old's dreams were shattered, you talk about the loss like it was bad for the community, and I wonder why that's only now a concern. What did the community do for them? The number one killer of "new" players at any competitive Limited event is the decklist. This is well known, and I don't think I've heard of or been to a competitive Limited event whose small talk wasn't dominated by discussions of heartbreak or close calls or fear due to decklist errors. But where was their preemptive word of caution? Or did they get a warning and choose to ignore it?

The word "accident" always carries connotations of chance occurrence, but the truth is that someone is always directly responsible. Just because something is dangerous doesn't mean people won't be careless. It is a shame to hear that they haven't returned, and I do wonder a few things that I will leave unsaid so as not to derail, but you can be sure that boy and his father will never make a mistake on their decklist again. While the spirit of any event certainly shouldn't be elitist, the word used to describe the event in question is "competitive".

[glowparty]

i'm uncomfortable by the judge's responsibility of surmising intent behind such violations. This is considered competetive magic and is treated as such by many. An approach I would imagine a good cheater could take advantage of this:

'If there are games I feel likely to loose, I'll try to win these by drawing extra cards without getting caught. Never attempt if my opponent is attentive with keeping track of my hand size, watching cards drawn go into my hand, watching me shift my library, etc. Never attempt if gamestate indicates I'm loosing. '

if the approach was something like that, they may rarely get caught and easily appear innocent when caught. they could just stop cheating after getting caught twice (or even once) during a tournament to be smart / safe.

[iamajellydonut]

'If there are games I feel likely to loose, I'll try to win these by drawing extra cards without getting caught. Never attempt if my opponent is attentive with keeping track of my hand size, watching cards drawn go into my hand, watching me shift my library, etc. Never attempt if gamestate indicates I'm loosing. '

if the approach was something like that, they may rarely get caught and easily appear innocent when caught. they could just stop cheating after getting caught twice (or even once) during a tournament to be smart / safe.

Except that, while the standard punishment for extra cards may be getting forcibly Thoughtseized, the judge will still look at who what when where why and how those cards got into the hand, and you will still be disqualified. There is little difference between this policy and the previous with regards to cheating.

[glowparty]

but if the judge determines it was accidental, then no dq or game loss, i thought? just a warning. whereas the old rule would always result in game loss or worse.

[iamajellydonut]

but if the judge determines it was accidental, then no dq or game loss, i thought? just a warning. whereas the old rule would always result in game loss or worse.

And if a player is caught playing an extra land but it's determined to be accidental, they get a warning. Or do you also want to upgrade that to a game loss just because some cheaters might sneak through the cracks? If you accept the policy for the general public, you have to accept it for the "cheaters" who got away.

[glowparty]

But why shouldn't drawing an extra card result in an auto-loss?

[ ... ]

Maybe i'm misunderstanding what you're saying now, but it seems different than what you had said previously.

Anyway, dropping extra lands is a different situation and I haven't considered it. Seems not advantageous , you can more easily constantly observe land-drop differences in the early game than you can cards in hand, and as the game progresses, it sort of stops mattering. Why would you need extra land drops at that point, and where are you getting all those lands from? I guess it could matter in 12 post, probably not miracles.

Still, my view on the extra card drawing topic remains that game-loss should be the result in all cases.

edit: it seems like you're assuming the cheats and mistakes will be easily discernible, whereas I'm assuming the opposite since:

1) cheater could be crafty, skilled, and a good actor and / or judges unobservant.
2) i'm considering problem situations where this rule falls short.

[barcode]

Maybe i'm misunderstanding what you're saying now, but it seems different than what you had said previously.

Anyway, dropping extra lands is a different situation and I haven't considered it. Seems not advantageous , you can more easily constantly observe land-drop differences in the early game than you can cards in hand, and as the game progresses, it sort of stops mattering. Why would you need extra land drops at that point, and where are you getting all those lands from? I guess it could matter in 12 post, probably not miracles.

Still, my view on the extra card drawing topic remains that game-loss should be the result in all cases.

edit: it seems like you're assuming the cheats and mistakes will be easily discernible, whereas I'm assuming the opposite since:

1) cheater could be crafty, skilled, and a good actor and / or judges unobservant.
2) i'm considering problem situations where this rule falls short.

Focusing on corner cases is not really productive. They just don't come up often enough to matter.

[rufus]

...

Also, and this is important - standard procedure is to only shuffle the randomized portion of the deck. If you have known cards on top (or bottom), it's not random, and we aren't going to be shuffling them.

...

Can someone elaborate on this? It seems like it's got huge headache potential. Let's suppose a player's fired off alternating Recross the Paths and Shardless Agents so that there are alternating chunks of library that are shuffled within themselves and completely known. Does the shuffle mean splitting the library into suitable piles and then shuffling only the piles that were in random order within themselves?

[Lemnear]

Well, let me put it to you this way:

I work at an LGS. A few months ago, we held a Sealed GPT that a father and his young (probably 10ish) son attended as their first "official" Magic tournament. Both of them did well and made top eight. They built decks, registered them, and started playing. The judge went through the t8 lists and determined that both father and son had made deck registration errors, something dumb and easy to forget (it might have been lands or something). He game loss'd both of them. The problem? The dad was 1-1, the son was 0-1, and both were in the middle of playing when their tournament was ended. Sure, they got the message that they should be more careful next time...but they also haven't returned to our store. You can argue that they deserved it and this penalty is necessary to send a strong message to cheaters, but all I can think about is all that potential revenue we've lost because the decision has been made to have maximally draconian punishments for honest mistakes. Neither of them meant to cheat but both of them have been turned off to competitive Magic because the punishment for accidents is way out of proportion to the harms resulting from accidents.

Going for the harshest punishments approaches players in bad faith. The implicit assumption is that there is no such thing as an accident, only a cheater who can lie well. I think pretty much any player with half a brain in his head is going to understand that drawing extra cards is a Bad Thing; if not, giving his opponent a free Thoughtseize is going to do a pretty good job of showing him that maybe the payoff isn't there for him. Why game loss on top of that? The only reason to do that is because you simply assume either that your players are too dumb to figure out that drawing extra cards is bad or you assume that they meant to do it and just don't want to fess up. That's...just a prima facie shitty policy, IMO. It doesn't deter the actual cheaters, because we have harsh punishments now and people still cheat. It doesn't stop accidents, because they're accidents. It leaves people who are honest with a bad impression because they feel like they got a penalty completely out of proportion to the damage caused by their action, especially if they notice right away and do the right thing by calling a judge (one potential lesson: next time you draw an extra card, do your best to hide it and try to end the game before your opponent notices).

And on the other hand, I was basically cheated out of a prerelease event by an similar old boy, who draw'd several extra cards in a game and wasn't punished by the judge because "he's just a kid" and I never again returned to hat store either. Its a slippery slope and not exactly the same scenario, but handing a gameloss for deck registration in a local event while shuffling cards back someone unintentionally or intentionally drew extra is in no propotionto each other

[PirateKing]

Can someone elaborate on this? It seems like it's got huge headache potential. Let's suppose a player's fired off alternating Recross the Paths and Shardless Agents so that there are alternating chunks of library that are shuffled within themselves and completely known. Does the shuffle mean splitting the library into suitable piles and then shuffling only the piles that were in random order within themselves?

As written, yes.

In practice? Doubtful.