Alex Bertoncini's serial cheating.

I'm surprised there isn't a thread on this yet. He's locked up the invitational and is the highest ranked player in the world. All because of:

http://i.imgur.com/WR2C0.jpg

5 cards with brainstorm? Must be nice. Earlier the commentators caught him using brainstorm as an ancestral recall as well.

Also he double explores in this video:
Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd7cd-K8ImQ

There's alot of noise being made on the scg life feed now. Thoughts?

I'm going to refrain from commenting myself, but my frame of mind is: cheats don't belong in any competitive hobby. The only question now is how long should the ban hammer be?

I believe his name is actually Bertoncheaty.

Drew Levin's been making a huge stink about him recently. I actually saw a thread started on here with Drew Levin's email to Sheldon M. about it, but it looks like the thread got deleted?

Lots of stories about him drawing extra cards (like opponent Duresses him on T1 and catches him with 8 cards in hand) and preboarding.

I think there's a famous one where he was in a feature match and got someone with a preboarded Sower, then the T16 decklists came out and he had the Sowers in the board?

I also saw another video of him where he had a Kira out, opponent Jace bounces it, then Cursed Scrolls it and Bertoncini returns Kira to his hand.

There was a thread earlier this week after Drew Levin called him out on twitter or something for his multiple instances where he has been known to cheat

...pre-boarded sower against a reanimator with plat angel
...drawing extra cards
...3/1 mainboard/sideboard timely reinforcements against burn where his list was supposedly 2/2
...submerging forestless opps

The thread was deleted for unknown reasons

I can understand deleting a thread when there's slandering without proof. But when videos and screen caps of obvious cheating appears, something definitely has to be done. This evidence seems pretty conclusive IMO.

Opponent: no he's good
Drew: you sure?

lmao.

http://blip.tv/scglive/scg_sanjose_l...nd-007-4944362

There's also this. Check out between 35:00-36:00. His opponent has Jace+Cursed Scroll. Alex plays a Kira, opp. bounces and shoots it. Alex stacks up his graveyard and plays a second Kira. This time when it gets bounced+shot, he just picks it up. Nobody notices because there's still a Kira on top of his graveyard.

There does seem to be an overwhelming amount of evidence being put forth suggesting that he is cheating (intent) vs. playing sloppy and not maintaining gamestates.

The photo of him on StarCity right now is pretty sickening. It seems clear that he is a serial cheater and this is well documented. He should be stripped of all winnings and banned by the DCI.

The video's of Alex are multitudes worse than anything Saitou ever did.

That's sad that he needs to cheat to win. Ban his ass.

-Matt

Well, he's laughing all the way to the bank, probably listening to his Nickelback CD on the drive over:

http://starcitygames.com/scglive/ima...3159000000.jpg

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Originally Posted by KevinTrudeau

http://starcitygames.com/scglive/ima...3159000000.jpg

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http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...4306&type=card

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Originally Posted by Tha Gunslinga

I believe his name is actually Bertoncheaty.

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It's crazy how he knew everyone was going to be watching him this weekend......and then he still goes for a five card brainstorm on camera.

I don't actually care though.

that explore vid is pretty clear cheats...it'll be interesting to see how the DCI handles this, and even more interesting to see how scg handles proof that their star is a cheat.

That was absolutely disgusting. I thought he was going to get DQ'ed right there.

I think Explore just got an errata.

"You may play an additional land this turn. If your opponent doesn't notice, you may play two additional lands this turn.

Draw a card."

I think the real question is, how long will the suspension be. I mean, the guy that peeked at his opponent's draft picks got what, a year? With all these infractions, he probably won't be playing magic for a while.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chags

that explore vid is pretty clear cheats...it'll be interesting to see how the DCI handles this, and even more interesting to see how scg handles proof that their star is a cheat.

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SCG said they're merely a third party, they're leaving everything to the DCI.

Looks like Nate Pease didn't teach Alex how to draw four off Brainstorm as well as he should have

Is there any chance that he is just really stupid?
I know that I have accidentally drawn 2 cards from the top of my library by mistake a bazillion times.

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Originally Posted by Octopusman

Is there any chance that he is just really stupid?
I know that I have accidentally drawn 2 cards from the top of my library by mistake a bazillion times.

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Drawing extra cards is mistakeable. Pre-sideboarding perfect cards... much less so.

It should be noted that there are some serious axes to grind here. Drew and Alex have a lot of personal history that should not be ignored. Lots. That is pretty ugly.

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Originally Posted by Justin

The photo of him on StarCity right now is pretty sickening. It seems clear that he is a serial cheater and this is well documented. He should be stripped of all winnings and banned by the DCI.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by CorpT

Drawing extra cards is mistakeable. Pre-sideboarding perfect cards... much less so.

It should be noted that there are some serious axes to grind here. Drew and Alex have a lot of personal history that should not be ignored. Lots. That is pretty ugly.

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Yeah, I though drew and alex were friends. Anyone know what caused drew to start this riot?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CorpT

Drawing extra cards is mistakeable. Pre-sideboarding perfect cards... much less so.

It should be noted that there are some serious axes to grind here. Drew and Alex have a lot of personal history that should not be ignored. Lots. That is pretty ugly.

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I don't know a whole a lot about this. What happened between them?

Maybe Drew is just an honest player and has some class and respect for the game.

For anyone who wants to read the email from Drew Levin it is here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Octopusman

Is there any chance that he is just really stupid?
I know that I have accidentally drawn 2 cards from the top of my library by mistake a bazillion times.

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So the player of the year, no 1 in the world in pwp makes the mistake of accidentally drawing extra cards/not returning cards to the top of library by mistake? I think not. If you look at how fast he plays, you can obviously see how people might be confused. I always watch my opponents carefully when they drop lands/draw cards. That's the most common way to cheat especially if they play really fast.

I've seen plenty of people go draw a card before untapping (very fast, like sleigh of hand fast), think for a long time, untapping and then say "upkeep", pausing to check if the opponent catches it. Then he will proceed to draw step and draw again. That is totally not catchable because your opponent acknowledges the upkeep step where as it actually should be the 1st main already. I'm pretty sure Alex is a master of these "sleigh of hands". Not surprising that he's the world no 1.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but in the Explore video it looks like he gets another card off the Preordain.

To me it looks like...
Cast Preordain, put one in hand and one on bottom, drew for the Preordain.

I wish my Preordains and Explores were this good...

In fear (not really) of sounding overly aggressive, if I caught some little shit head cheat like that in a high stakes tournament I would honestly punch him or her square in the kisser. And twice for having an Italian last name. Three times if they were really Italian.

Am I alone on this?

http://t.qkme.me/35govm.jpg

I have nothing constructive to add

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Originally Posted by psu42

Maybe Drew is just an honest player and has some class and respect for the game.

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Not quite.

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Originally Posted by DoomPenguin

http://t.qkme.me/35govm.jpg

I have nothing constructive to add

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You clearly don't because that's not Alex

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Originally Posted by clavio

Not quite.

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Maybe more so than Bertoncini.

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Originally Posted by DoomPenguin

http://t.qkme.me/35govm.jpg

I have nothing constructive to add

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fail.

In my defense I did not create that, it merely appeared when I googled his name out of curiosity and I have no idea what he looks like.

This of course further shows my ignorance and why I should not involve myself.

Good day

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DoomPenguin

In my defense I did not create that, it merely appeared when I googled his name out of curiosity and I have no idea what he looks like.

This of course further shows my ignorance and why I should not involve myself.

Good day

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There is a pic of him earlier in the thread and on SCG's main page.

But honestly while what he has done is pretty low, I don't honestly care much anymore. There is nothing I can personally do about it, and he hasn't cheated against me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DoomPenguin

http://t.qkme.me/35govm.jpg

I have nothing constructive to add

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Maybe they labeled the pics wrong in that match writeup, but that's Kurt Spiess, not Alex.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but he didn't just slip a land into play on the explore video, at 1:11 he points to his graveyard and claims that he played 2 explores on that turn and that was the justification for the extra land when in reality 1 explore was on turn 2, then the 2nd on turn 3.

I saw him essentially coerce an opponent into scooping, when AlexB had a losing board position and started nitpicking on his opponent's foils. What a guy...