Suspicious Shuffling?

[apistat_commander]

I had something occur last night in a match that I was curious about. My opponent was pile shuffling (with 4 piles) and putting groups of 2 and 3 cards in each pile instead of just a single card. He also seemed to be counting/muttering to himself. He was playing RUG tempo and even though he only had 19 lands in his deck he still managed to hit every single land drop in both of our games. A friend who played against him the night before noticed the same thing with his shuffling. The player himself is quite talented, but I can't shake the feeling that something fishy may have been happening.

Would you have called a judge? Shuffled his deck a ton? Called him out or given him the benefit of the doubt?

[Esper3k]

If it's not a Competitive+ REL event, I would take care to shuffle the deck yourself and mention to him that pile shuffling alone isn't sufficient randomization (if he's a truly talented player, he should know this so that part is suspicious). I would also mention to the store owner this behind the scenes so they can keep an eye on him.

[cdr]

He may just have been counting his deck, who knows. Pretty much the sole reason I pile shuffle myself/my opponent is to count the decks.

If it's at competitive REL (GPT, PTQ, SCG, GP, etc) and you're 100% sure something is going on, you can call a judge when he presents, take the judge aside and relay your concerns. A level 2+ judge should know how to spot a stacked deck. Be prepared for a pissed off opponent, though.

Alternatively, if you're only suspicious, you can call a judge aside and have the judge surrepitiously watch the shuffle.

[chags]

He may just have been counting his deck, who knows. Pretty much the sole reason I pile shuffle myself/my opponent is to count the decks.

If it's at competitive REL (GPT, PTQ, SCG, GP, etc) and you're 100% sure something is going on, you can call a judge when he presents, take the judge aside and relay your concerns. A level 2+ judge should know how to spot a stacked deck. Be prepared for a pissed off opponent, though.

Alternatively, if you're only suspicious, you can call a judge aside and have the judge surrepitiously watch the shuffle.

I typically take the second route here any time I think something may be up with a player, keep things discreet and ask the judges to keep an eye on the player. That way if you're right a judge will catch him in the act and if you're wrong he won't know you ever had suspicions.

[cdr]

I typically take the second route here any time I think something may be up with a player, keep things discreet and ask the judges to keep an eye on the player. That way if you're right a judge will catch him in the act and if you're wrong he won't know you ever had suspicions.

Right, the first option is only if you're positive he shuffled insufficiently/stacked his deck. If someone say mana weaves and then does a few shuffles before presenting, you call a judge immediately.

[chags]

Right, the first option is only if you're positive he shuffled insufficiently/stacked his deck. If someone say mana weaves and then does a few shuffles before presenting, you call a judge immediately.

Agreed. Here is a question though, if all someone did was pile shuffle (face down) and then present without doing any shuffling after picking up the piles would that be enough for you to call a judge or would you just shuffle their deck a whole bunch and ask them to do some more shuffling before the next game?

[kombatkiwi]

Agreed. Here is a question though, if all someone did was pile shuffle (face down) and then present without doing any shuffling after picking up the piles would that be enough for you to call a judge or would you just shuffle their deck a whole bunch and ask them to do some more shuffling before the next game?

You can call a judge for anything magic-related in a magic event, that's what they're there for. If you're not sure, then there's no harm in raising your hand and asking.

In this example that would definitely be a case of insufficient randomisation and you should notify the judges to make sure that the player doesn't keep trying it in subsequent rounds.

In saying that, I know plenty of kind/sportsmanlike/easygoing (however you want to describe it) who would go for the second option of just shuffling the deck and continuing. However, calling a judge is the correct thing to do

[Esper3k]

Especially when you're in a tournament, letting your opponent slide with something sloppy may seem like you're being a good guy, but you could be potentially letting a cheater continue on their antics throughout the tournament if you don't notify a judge.

[cdr]

Agreed. Here is a question though, if all someone did was pile shuffle (face down) and then present without doing any shuffling after picking up the piles would that be enough for you to call a judge or would you just shuffle their deck a whole bunch and ask them to do some more shuffling before the next game?

A single pile shuffle absolutely falls under Insufficient Shuffling, which you get a single warning for. Call a judge and explain what happened. We shouldn't be lenient on lazy people, proper randomization is very important and letting things slide opens up opportunities for cheaters to exploit.

[Aggro_zombies]

I had something occur last night in a match that I was curious about. My opponent was pile shuffling (with 4 piles) and putting groups of 2 and 3 cards in each pile instead of just a single card. He also seemed to be counting/muttering to himself. He was playing RUG tempo and even though he only had 19 lands in his deck he still managed to hit every single land drop in both of our games. A friend who played against him the night before noticed the same thing with his shuffling. The player himself is quite talented, but I can't shake the feeling that something fishy may have been happening.

Would you have called a judge? Shuffled his deck a ton? Called him out or given him the benefit of the doubt?
If your opponent is trying to stack his deck to some degree - even just ensuring an even distribution of lands - shuffling it after he presents it to you is a good way to undo that. If you suspect he's cheating, by all means call a judge (as others have said), but if you aren't sure and don't want to piss him off needlessly, shuffling his deck should do the trick.

[apistat_commander]

It was a pretty casual Legacy FNM so I didn't bother calling a judge (I doubt he would have been much help). Would shuffling his deck a few times be enough to undo the damage or is there really any remedy?

[joemauer]

It was a pretty casual Legacy FNM so I didn't bother calling a judge (I doubt he would have been much help). Would shuffling his deck a few times be enough to undo the damage or is there really any remedy?

I bet if his deck is stacked you could pile shuffle to really screw him.

[Tammit67]

I bet if his deck is stacked you could pile shuffle to really screw him.

As fitting as that is, that is also cheating, IIRC

[GnuHouse]

It was a pretty casual Legacy FNM so I didn't bother calling a judge (I doubt he would have been much help). Would shuffling his deck a few times be enough to undo the damage or is there really any remedy?

If it's casual, then when he presents it I would let him know that pile shuffling alone isn't enough and insist that he riffle shuffle. If he refused, then I'd start asking around very loudly if anyone else knew if pile shuffling was sufficient for randomization. It both shames him into it, and puts others on notice (while kinda making you look like an ass, but c'est la vie)

Technically, if you riffle shuffled several times you could sufficiently randomize it, but as others have mentioned it is his responsibility to present a randomized deck and pile shuffling alone doesn't do the trick

[kwis]

Normally when I suspect that someone is trying to mana stack their deck I give it about 5-6 passes through because I find that lumps all their lands together.

[GnuHouse]

As fitting as that is, that is also cheating, IIRC

Don't think it qualifies as cheating.

You only have to randomize your own deck, not your opponents. When you read the rules, they talk about randomizing your own deck prior to presentation (and specifically state that pile shuffling alone is insufficient), however after presentation the language in the rules changes to shuffling. I think the theory is that a player could manipulate their own deck through pile shuffling, but that an opponent would not be able to easily do this since they would be presented with a randomized deck.

That being said, if a judge was called and you could find some sort of pattern AFTER you pile shuffle post presentation, the judge could DQ you for Cheating - Manipulation of Game Materials.

Long story short, always make sure your opponent riffle shuffles and you do the same

[Tammit67]

Don't think it qualifies as cheating.


Knowingly stacking an opponents deck to shit on him doesn't sound like cheating to you? It's the definition

[GnuHouse]

Knowingly stacking an opponents deck to shit on him doesn't sound like cheating to you? It's the definition

So your opponent has already committed Cheating - Manipulation of Game Materials, and trying to undo it is cheating?

[dontbiteitholmes]

So your opponent has already committed Cheating - Manipulation of Game Materials, and trying to undo it is cheating?

Yeah but if he calls a judge he's basically admitting he cheated, so gg.

[Tammit67]

So your opponent has already committed Cheating - Manipulation of Game Materials, and trying to undo it is cheating?

No, if he does what is known as the nickel shuffle and you use that info to stack his deck so it is all lands in one clump -that- is cheating. That is what I was referring to in my post to the quote: "I bet if his deck is stacked you could pile shuffle to really screw him."

Undoing it isn't cheating. Changing it to anything other than 'random' is, no matter who does it. You'd both get dq'd

[cdr]

Yes, knowingly stacking an opponent's deck is cheating, even if he stacked it first. I've seen this happen unfortunately - you *will* get DQed. Like anything else don't try to 'fix' it yourself, call a judge.

[SpikeyMikey]

Yes, knowingly stacking an opponent's deck is cheating, even if he stacked it first. I've seen this happen unfortunately - you *will* get DQed. Like anything else don't try to 'fix' it yourself, call a judge.

That's too bad. I would consider that clever revenge. If all you're doing is re-piling the deck he mana weaved, I don't think you should be penalized. Of course, I don't make the rules, unfortunately. I also think you should not be penalized for beating the snot out of thieves (outside legal consequences aside, I just mean penalized from the DCI), so I guess that's more just my stand on dealing with immoral people in Magic.

[Esper3k]

That's too bad. I would consider that clever revenge. If all you're doing is re-piling the deck he mana weaved, I don't think you should be penalized. Of course, I don't make the rules, unfortunately. I also think you should not be penalized for beating the snot out of thieves (outside legal consequences aside, I just mean penalized from the DCI), so I guess that's more just my stand on dealing with immoral people in Magic.

If your opponent is doing it purposefully, then I think getting them DQ'd for cheating is a harsher punishment than re-piling the deck.

[Darkenslight]

That's why I do a weave, 7-pile, double-riffle, vanilla, 7-pile, double riffle, vanilla. And if my deck isn't sufficiently randomised then, I know i'm screwed either way.

[cdr]

That's why I do a weave, 7-pile, double-riffle, vanilla, 7-pile, double riffle, vanilla. And if my deck isn't sufficiently randomised then, I know i'm screwed either way.

Weaving is obviously not shuffling, and neither is piling. It looks like the above is at most six actual shuffles? It's entirely possible your deck may still be stacked (from the weave) at that point, depending on how good your shuffles are.

I can't ever recommend weaving, as its entire purpose is to stack your deck. There's little as a judge I love more than nailing cheaters, aka people who mana weave.

[xeraseth]

That's why I do a weave, 7-pile, double-riffle, vanilla, 7-pile, double riffle, vanilla. And if my deck isn't sufficiently randomised then, I know i'm screwed either way.
Why do you bother weaving? It only opens you up for the possibility of being DQed. There are only two scenarios with weaving.

1. You weave and then sufficiently randomize your deck so the weaving had no effect.
2. You weave and then don't sufficiently randomize your deck and are cheating.

There is no reason for an honest player to ever mana weave.

[Sloshthedark]

So as a spectator you'd call a judge on a well known player in a GP day 2 if you stand behind him and see - putting all lands on bottom, random 8 pile shuffle last to 2 eights clockwise, riffle, 8 pile clockwise, 2 riffle ... // it looked more than suspicious but it was last game last round and they tried to start the 3rd game quickly, so there was no point doing so as he could not be caught repeating it... i tried it home but did not get the expected result :really:

[SuperProxy]

Maybe hes just Brainstorming, Pondering, and thoughtscouring thats why hes not missing his land drops. thats what rug is anyways

[cdr]

So as a spectator you'd call a judge on a well known player in a GP day 2 if you stand behind him and see - putting all lands on bottom, random 8 pile shuffle last to 2 eights clockwise, riffle, 8 pile clockwise, 2 riffle ... // it looked more than suspicious but it was last game last round and they tried to start the 3rd game quickly, so there was no point doing so as he could not be caught repeating it... i tried it home but did not get the expected result :really:

That's borderline, but 3 riffles (the only real shuffling he did) are almost certainly not enough to randomize the ordering of land/non-land. I would have called a judge, and as a judge if I saw that I'd probably step in. It was probably unintentional due to time, but it sounds like Insufficient Shuffling to me - there's no defense to improper shuffling.

[Darkenslight]

Weaving is obviously not shuffling, and neither is piling. It looks like the above is at most six actual shuffles? It's entirely possible your deck may still be stacked (from the weave) at that point, depending on how good your shuffles are.

I can't ever recommend weaving, as its entire purpose is to stack your deck. There's little as a judge I love more than nailing cheaters, aka people who mana weave.


Why do you bother weaving? It only opens you up for the possibility of being DQed. There are only two scenarios with weaving.

1. You weave and then sufficiently randomize your deck so the weaving had no effect.
2. You weave and then don't sufficiently randomize your deck and are cheating.

There is no reason for an honest player to ever mana weave.

Which is why I made sure that the deck was sufficiently randomised each time I was suspected. I have nothing to hide when I shuffle. It's always good, however, to call a judge if you suspect cheating.

I'll be considering losing the weave section of my shuffle, because that removes nearly 40 seconds from my shuffle time and reduces the likelihood of me being called out.

[feline]

If he is just pile shuffling & then presenting, it's not that he is cheating for certain, or that he isn't cheating for certain, it's that you don't know, whenever you don't know, make it so you know for sure cheating has been deterred, so just shuffle their deck a few times after they present, shuffling an opponents deck can prevent cheating when you don't even know it. Another way people cheat is by marking their sleeves, but that is a bit harder to spot because if they do it right, it's barely noticeable as they can see "just enough" of what to look for, while an opponent across from them is too far away to really see it, has no way to compare their sleeves anyway, & would likely not even know what to look for. It's one of the reasons that some shops prefer blank sleeves, I've actually taken part at some places where they did not allow "design sleeves" with art on them at tournament's.

There are a LOT of ways to cheat in magic, whether it's even noticeable at all or just outright suspicious, & everything in between, but if you know what to look for it helps a bit, if they know what they're doing however, it won't be so obvious, it'll be more like "hmm that's odd" like a "red flag" going off, sometimes randomness does happen, it is magic, but when things happen consistently that mathematically never should, or something just "doesn't seem right" multiple times when you play against someone multiple times, the chance of it being cheating is alot higher than just those, crazy random games that only ever happen once in the extreme. Forgive the bit of a rant, but I really dislike unfair play, even calling a judge on someone over something totally frivolous is something I personally can't get myself to do, even when someone makes what is clearly an honest mistake, I am usually ok with it being fixed (depending on specifics of course), getting them a game loss over something dumb I feel is very unfair even though I know many people will take any chance to win they can get at these bigger events.

Having said all that however, I don't always cut/shuffle my opponents decks, but I also watch them shuffle, & if some part of the deck isn't being shuffled, like the top cards always staying on top, half their cards are upside down while the other half are not, or just anything weird that I can't quite understand motivation for, I will shuffle in those situations. But if I see them legitimately shuffling I save the time and rarely even cut, but I think it's a habit I got into pushing high tide, since I try to do everything I can to save time and cutting decks a dozen times a match can add up to "a little bit of time saved" (I absolutely hate going into time and getting draws, it's burned in my brain not to let that happen, though when I do draw it's usually when I'm pushing Prison stax, not high tide, lol)

[cdr]

snip

First of all, cut the color shit out. Only mods get to post in obnoxious colors.

Second, this is a completely wrong-headed way to approach tournament play (competitive REL).

You shuffle your opponent's deck every single time because you shuffling is a failsafe against him doing something shady that you didn't catch. You don't shuffle only when you notice him not sufficiently shuffle, that's just dumb. If he doesn't shuffle sufficiently call a judge.

If he gets a game loss he deserves it because he has to do it multiple times to get a loss and at that point he's either cheating or too sloppy to be playing in a competitive event. Not calling a judge when your opponent blatantly breaks the rules of the game is what lets cheaters get away. There's nothing 'frivolous' you can get a game loss or worse for.