My name is Nicholas Trudeau, and I cheated ShaqFu at GP:Columbus

[nickvo$]

I doubt many of those who read this will remember who I am or the incident I mentioned. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to address what happened, and at least attempt to clear my conscience.

After losing the match to ShaqFu (who I believe is named Jon Daily - please forgive me if I am incorrect), I made the worst decision of my Magic career and allowed myself to be talked into altering the match slip. On that point I have no one to blame but myself. As to the reason that I was not banned (I was not banned or suspended, for those wondering), when confronted by the Head Judge of the event, I confessed to him the entirety of my actions, and explained to him how I had planned for GP:Columbus to be my final major event, as I was planning to reduce my Magic playing. As a result of that, coupled with having not slept the night before, I was overcome with a feeling of desperation following my loss to Jon Daily (since it knocked me out of contention). The desperation, exhaustion, and urgings of some people around me led me to give in and alter the slip.

I recently read a post on the Source asking why I wasn't banned. It hurt to read that, but I realized I had only brought the anger of those persons on myself. As I said before I have no one to blame but myself, and there is no excuse for my action.

I want to apologize to ShaqFu. I hope that he reads this post, and I hope he remembers the event in question. I hope he forgives me for wronging him.

A consequence of that day was that I lost a lot of confidence in myself as a Magic player. Whether you believe it or not, I had never cheated anyone before. I had never needed to. Ashamed of how I had sunken to such acts, I sold what cards I had left and stopped playing legacy. It has been nearly 3 years since I played a game of legacy Magic.

I hope to return to the game one day, and eventually return myself to a place of respect among the Magic Community. For now I ask forgiveness for my transgression, and warn other players to consider the outcome of their actions. What is done today will have consequences for the future, and people's memory of a bad deed is long and cold.

I thank all those who chose to read this post in its entirety.
Nicholas Trudeau

[HAVE HEART]

You should come back to innovate 4C Landstill. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has made the deck ridiculous again.

Every other Sunday at around 6/6:30 P.M., there are Legacy tournaments at Game Empire. You should drop by this Sunday the 14th.

[anonymos]

I used to play with Nick back shortly before the incident. He's a decent guy. Kind of cocky at times, but what magic players aren't when they're winning somewhere consistently? I never had an issue with him. He was usually willing to help figure out what went wrong with my deck that week and the tweaks I should make.

[luckme10]

A few things: The only information regarding this post is a thread created 3 years ago, ironically about the average duration of a suspension for committing such an act. That thread was eventually locked by nightmare for offering essentially zero productive value to the source. Based on your post here, it sounds to me like you've undergone some self inflicting atonement from the incident. For it to eat at you for this long, you have my sincerest sympathy.

Here's a list of things you could have done for three years of imprisonment:
"Wesley Snipes gets 3-year jail term for tax convictions"
"An Indonesian court sentenced a Muslim woman to three years in prison Thursday for harboring terrorists"
"Rodell Vereen's Sex With Horse Nets Him 3 Years Prison"
"Vancouver man sentenced to 3 years prison for drunk driving crash that killed his girlfriend"


Point is, it's been long enough. If you want to feel bad about something for 3 years, you could have done any of these things, be caught, and to be atoned by society... If you still want to feel guilty, I guess you can have sex with a horse. Otherwise, Landstill could use your input. Mtgthesource needs more adept players to help those less experienced. San Diego needs more quality players. Perhaps it's time to let yourself comeback to the game.

PS: I'll personally dress up like the Pope and make a confessional out of cardboard if you're willing to drive up to the Bay Area and bring me one of those California Burritos from Super Sergios.

[Tinefol]

"Hello, I'm John Smith, I'm 37 and an alcoholic. I haven't drunk for 12 years."

Seriously, just get on with it.

[JACO]

You should come back to innovate 4C Landstill. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has made the deck ridiculous again.

Every other Sunday at around 6/6:30 P.M., there are Legacy tournaments at Game Empire. You should drop by this Sunday the 14th.Nick no longer lives in San Diego, or California for that matter. Most of our team BHWW has moved out of state or out of the country, unfortunately.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

My name is Jack M.F. Elgin, and I don't believe you.

There are a few reasons for this.

1) You're still trying to blame your decision on other people- now it's mysterious and unnamed friends on the side who purportedly convinced you to cheat against your will.

2) You're making this apology public instead of going directly to the source, and talking to ShaqFu, who is after all the only one who can offer you forgiveness. This suggests that you're more interested in repairing your own reputation.

3) What you did was dumb. I mean, really, extremely dumb. So dumb, in fact, that no one who had not ever cheated before and had two brain cells could have thought they would've gotten away with it, sleep deprived or not. The only possible explanation as to why someone would cheat in a way that they would so obviously be caught is that they were completely used to cheating and getting away with it, and thus had lost sight of where the line was. This also synchs up nicely with the performances you racked up for a while with a deck that all of our testing showed to be trash and no one else did well with.

So, call me callous and unforgiving, but I very much doubt this apology was in earnest, given all the hedges and what seem to be to be further untruths in it.

[nickvo$]

Mr. Elgin,

I see your points in regards to my statements, and I would like to respond to you personally. As for the appearance of me blaming my decision on the influence of others, I seem to have been unclear. It was at the suggestion (innocently enough, I'm sure) of one of those present that I change the slip, however let me be clear: It was my decision, and mine alone to alter the slip. No one else had a hand in carrying out that act. And as for not going directly and privately to Mr. Daily, there are 3 reasons for that. Firstly, I was unsure whether he still used this site, and I admit, I made little effort to locate him. I felt that if he were still a user he would either find the post himself or someone would notify him of it.
Secondly, I wanted to apologize to the Magic community at large and specifically to the Magic community of San Diego (although I neglected to do so specifically.) My actions were not only against Mr. Daily, but against the reputation of those players with whom I played on a regular basis. I damaged their reputation by association with me.
As for my own reputation (and forgive me if this sounds arrogant) I believe that if or when I return to playing legacy, I will be content to let my play results be enough to build my reputation. Obviously one apology, even when it is meant earnestly, is not enough to repair the damage of having cheated. What I had hoped was that the reputation of 4C Landstill (which I am arrogant enough to believe I affected by cheating) would be repaired to some extent. Many of my friends and associates worked hard to bring that deck to the forefront, and it is disappointing to find that there are those who believe its success was only the result of indiscretions and cheating.
And as for you last point; yes, it was incredibly stupid, one of the stupidest things I've ever done to the point that I still think about and regret it 3 years later. I think it makes more sense that I would have no idea (or at least a naive ignorance) that I would be caught if I had not even attempted to cheat before. It seems as though someone who HAD cheated before would KNOW that they were likely to be caught (since I seriously doubt ANYONE could go very long without being caught for it).
The way I tried to go about altering the match slip shows my inexperience as I changed the penned results [I]using a different color pen[I]. Even the judge pointed out how stupid that was, as they questioned the authenticity of the slip even before Mr. Daily mentioned it.

It seems to me that Mr. Daily might be a friend of yours, which would make what I did all the more personal and infuriating. If that is the case then I apologize to you as well. As I stated earlier, I don't expect this to make everything better, I simply wanted to get it off my chest, and hopefully clear the name of a deck I played and that many others helped to create, which doesn't deserve to be written off because I did something stupid.