Cheating or clever use of the rules?

I saw something at a tournament yesterday that rubbed me the wrong way, and I'd like to ask for your opinions on the matter as I may have overreacted.

Jeremia Rudolph (Rock Lee) with 12 post was playing against an opponent with chalice of the void set to one and a liliana of the veil in play. His opponent is almost guaranteed to win the game over the next few turns with his nether spirit when this happened:

Jeremiah: Brainstorm -> reach for deck quickly and pick up his first card without seeing it yet when his opponent stops him.
Opponent: Chalice for once counters it
Jeremiah looks at the judge nearby who was watching and asks "If I picked it up faster would I have resolved the brainstorm?"
Judge looks at him funny as he's clearly in an awkward position and I believe tells him "No, that's not ok"
Jeremiah tosses his brainstorm in the bin and passes

Two turns later Jeremiah rips a Crop Rotation that could potentially save him from immediate death. He casts it, then picks his deck up so fast that nobody could tell him to stop before he was already digging for cards. He clearly did this intentionally and ended up resolving that with (I believe) a warning afterward. He lost the match anyway but I had never seen a situation like this before. At least half of this tournament was aware of what happened and we all kept an eye out for his shenanigans throughout the day but despite him scrubbing out of the event and never actually playing against me, I still felt "cheated" just watching it happen.

Should there be more severe punishment for doing this? Is it cheating or clever use of the rules? How would you feel if someone did this to you in a game?

Disgusting behaviour Obviously cheating.

He should have lost the match after he drew the card with brainstorm.

VERY poorly judging, done by that judge!

*I would appeal to the head judge if he got a warning.

I myself play cards against chalice, but only resolve them if they make it clear it's ok. But I feel that this is not game of reflexes.
Now when name's have been called, it would be nice to hear Rock Lee's opinion of situations, things tend to get bit onesided. Was name at this point really necessary?

The speed at which he picks the deck up doesn't matter, even if he fetches the land, if his opponent doesn't saying anything it's explicitly the opponent's fault. At any point in time the opponent could have stopped him and said, "The chalice for one counters it". He would call a judge, the judge would ask about the gamestate, the opponent would indicate he made no motion or verbal agreement that the spell had resolved, and warnings / game losses would be given out appropriately.

It's not resolved because you're going through the motions, there's plenty of times people cast brainstorms through thalia's that they can't cast etc. and then get the game backed up.

You are no means obligated to inform an opponent about chalice triggers, but rushing the play without giving your chance to react is cheating.

It could be an oddball chance that this guys actually thinks the game is supposed to be played this way. Regardless that only speaks to motive and he needs to be educated.

That being said, Judges don't like to issue game loses. Almost to the point where usually the victim of a cheater has to suffer the results so that Judges don't have to feel as awkward for only issuing a warning on game state or accumulate enough evidence for a disqualification.

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Originally Posted by Tormod

You are no means obligated to inform an opponent about chalice triggers, but rushing the play without giving your chance to react is cheating.

It could be an oddball chance that this guys actually thinks the game is supposed to be played this way. Regardless that only speaks to motive and he needs to be educated.

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Yep.

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Originally Posted by syfilisx

I myself play cards against chalice, but only resolve them if they make it clear it's ok. But I feel that this is not game of reflexes.
Now when name's have been called, it would be nice to hear Rock Lee's opinion of situations, things tend to get bit onesided. Was name at this point really necessary?

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He's obviously cheating with intent, and deserves to be called out. So yes, naming was necessary.

I agree with the reactions above. It's not a game of whom is the fastest in reacting, you SHOULD give your opponent the opportunity to remind you of the triggered ability when you play spells (like cotv). Picking up your deck at once when casting a crop rotation means you are not even passing priority to your opponent which is against the rules. So it does classify as cheating.
However like it has been said before you have no obligation to remind your opponents of their own triggers, for instance last tournement I played I played a cabal therapy in a chalice on 1 (to empty my hand for an infernal) and my opponent immidiately shows me his hand. This indicates he has forgotten about the triggered ability and the spell will resolve. But not giving your opponent the time to point to the triggered ability should be penalized imo.

Also: you should ALWAYS appeal if you are not agreeing with the ruling of a judge. (this is actually a lesson I myself had to learn the hard way :frown:)

What a douchebag.. Man if that happened to me I'd totaly call judge and request severe actions to be taken vs that player.

Not using stack, priority and clearly playing in a way to bypass that is cheating, with a douchebag icing on top. :mad: :we need to have a puke smiley:

And I totaly agree with the revealed identity, why not, maybe he can try to justify it by "telling his side of the story". If all is in order then no prob, if it aint then it's cheating.

Sadly, this is not the first time I've heard of said player's shenanigans and poor sportsmanship. Judges should be more vigilant about punishing this type of behavior, which, unfortunately, is not all that uncommon.

If you want to phrase it positively, Jeremiah has always had a reputation for being overly competitive. Still, let's just see what he has to say about the situation.

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Originally Posted by Julian23

If you want to phrase it positively, Jeremiah has always had a reputation for being overly competitive. Still, let's just see what he has to say about the situation.

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Overly competetive? I'm sure he has some bullshit excuse. They always do.

Given the description above, my inclination is to treat it as a shameful (and I guess successful) attempt to cheat.

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Originally Posted by birds of paradise2

Overly competetive? I'm sure he has some bullshit excuse. They always do.

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Should have put that part in quotation marks, I guess, to make myself clear.

Certainly cheating. Unlike Reid Duke's similar Chalice situation (where he was able to resolve a Chain Lighting through a Chalice at 1 because his opponent missed the trigger despite him giving ample time and confirming it with the opponent) this is deliberately trying to force a missed trigger and should be punished as cheating.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...the-Cheatering

If you play Legacy or Vintage in New England this guy has been a goon "since like" forever.

Jeremiah AND Chalice? That topic is just over the top in regards to the recent discussion in the Turbo Eldrazi Thread XP

I have nothing positive to say about the player in question, nor would this be the first instance of Rock Lee skirting the boundary of fair play in competitive events.

Considering the card in question, the player, and his deck; I would consider this to be intentional cheating.

Chalice of the Void creates kind of a unique and awkward situation regarding missed triggers. Under the current rules, playing a spell which would be countered by the Chalice in hopes that your opponent will miss their trigger is fully legal. The only thing that makes it cheating is if you try to somehow manipulate your opponent to missing the trigger.

I think it's important when you're playing a deck that includes cards that have these types of triggers (e.g. Chalice of the Void, Nether Void, Counterbalance, etc.) that you have a firm grasp on the rules and also a proper vocabulary to correctly explain any shady situations to a judge. In the example of the OP, if I were the controller of hte Chalice, I would have called a judge and explained the situation by stating that no verbal or clear non-verbal indicator was made to show the passing of priority after my opponent cast Crop Rotation. Furthermore, my opponent had previously asked a judge if they could "speed through" their actions to circumvent the Chalice trigger and had been advised that they could not. As such, I believe that my opponent is intentionally trying to bypass my trigger, which is using the game rules in a deceptive way to gain an advantage, which I believe constitutes deliberate cheating.

To put it mildly, I don't think there's a place in Magic for those shenanigans.

For full disclosure though, after the missed trigger rules changed, I was also locked out by a Chalice on 1 and needed to resolve a Brainstorm to get my Terminus back onto the top of my deck. I patiently waited until my opponent had lethal on board when I cast Brainstorm on his end step. I paused and asked, "resolves?" My opponent said okay, at which point I drew my first card. About a second later, my opponent said, "no wait, Chalice!"

I called a judge, not to rules lawyer him, but because I didn't know what to do after having drawn my first card. The judge told me to just put a card back at random, which was actually favorable for me because it gave me a small chance to put back the Terminus, even though I told him which blank I had ripped off the top.

Do you guys think playing into Chalice was an appropriate move on my part? My out was hoping my opponent forgot his trigger, I gave him a chance to acknowledge the trigger, and even after starting to resolve my Brainstorm, I rewinded the action as much as I could when he remembered. This is the first and only time I tried it, but I wanted to make sure that the new rules allow us to attempt this.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

To put it mildly, I don't think there's a place in Magic for those shenanigans.

For full disclosure though, after the missed trigger rules changed, I was also locked out by a Chalice on 1 and needed to resolve a Brainstorm to get my Terminus back onto the top of my deck. I patiently waited until my opponent had lethal on board when I cast Brainstorm on his end step. I paused and asked, "resolves?" My opponent said okay, at which point I drew my first card. About a second later, my opponent said, "no wait, Chalice!"

I called a judge, not to rules lawyer him, but because I didn't know what to do after having drawn my first card. The judge told me to just put a card back at random, which was actually favorable for me because it gave me a small chance to put back the Terminus, even though I told him which blank I had ripped off the top.

Do you guys think playing into Chalice was an appropriate move on my part? My out was hoping my opponent forgot his trigger, I gave him a chance to acknowledge the trigger, and even after starting to resolve my Brainstorm, I rewinded the action as much as I could when he remembered. This is the first and only time I tried it, but I wanted to make sure that the new rules allow us to attempt this.

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I'm really surprised you had to put a card back. Brainstorm should have resolved after what is clear to me was a missed trigger

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

To put it mildly, I don't think there's a place in Magic for those shenanigans.

For full disclosure though, after the missed trigger rules changed, I was also locked out by a Chalice on 1 and needed to resolve a Brainstorm to get my Terminus back onto the top of my deck. I patiently waited until my opponent had lethal on board when I cast Brainstorm on his end step. I paused and asked, "resolves?" My opponent said okay, at which point I drew my first card. About a second later, my opponent said, "no wait, Chalice!"

I called a judge, not to rules lawyer him, but because I didn't know what to do after having drawn my first card. The judge told me to just put a card back at random, which was actually favorable for me because it gave me a small chance to put back the Terminus, even though I told him which blank I had ripped off the top.

Do you guys think playing into Chalice was an appropriate move on my part? My out was hoping my opponent forgot his trigger, I gave him a chance to acknowledge the trigger, and even after starting to resolve my Brainstorm, I rewinded the action as much as I could when he remembered. This is the first and only time I tried it, but I wanted to make sure that the new rules allow us to attempt this.

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I would actually not agree with the ruling of the judge. There is no rule against playing your spells into chalice fully knowing they will get countered if your opponent remembers his triggered ability. In your scenario the moment you asked if your spell resolved and your opponent said okay it is obvious that he didn't triggered his chalice. Since it is not your job to keep track of you opponents triggered abilities imo the spell should resolve as normal. It is even worse to reverse the action by putting back a random card if the card drawn can still be 'identified' by both players.

EDIT: ninja'd by Tammit, I'm clearly to slow :tongue:

What a douche!

I am a bit naive and also a pretty poor player, which makes it easy for me to maintain morale high ground (since i'd rarely win even if i let my sportsmanship slip a bit in order to benefit). I still consider magic to be gentleman's sport in which both players have some responsibility to maintain correct game state even if tournament rules say differently at the moment.
I'd never play into chalice hoping opponent would miss trigger. I think there is quite a difference between opponent missing a trigger from something i did knowing it would only work if he misses it and him missing a trigger for one of his own actions.
Him forgetting to put a counter on lorescale coatl for drawing a card and both of us realizing it after combat and him suffering the consquences then is OK.
casting a CMC1 spell into chalice hoping he will forget to say it will be countered when i pass priority is NOT.

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Originally Posted by jhhdk

casting a CMC1 spell into chalice hoping he will forget to say it will be countered when i pass priority is NOT.

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Why? I always feel the better player should win. The better player will play to his outs.

The scenario you describe has nothing to do with bad sportsmanship or not being a gentleman. People only feel that way about it because before the rules changes, playing a spell into Chalice hoping your opponent would not recognize it was actually a scummy move that would get you DQ'ed. These day's it's a legitimate out. I also liked the old system way better but that's a totally different issue here. Note that this has nothing to do with what Rock Lee was doing - if it's true what was said here, he was drawing extra cards which should definitely be a game loss if not even a suspension if done on purpose.

Plenty of reasons to run something into Chalice, Tarmogoyf, hit threshold, trigger Vengevines. Playing hyperfast to subvert your opponent is cheating. The same could be said for hyperstorming without giving an opponent a chance to use countermagic.

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Originally Posted by jhhdk

I am a bit naive and also a pretty poor player, which makes it easy for me to maintain morale high ground (since i'd rarely win even if i let my sportsmanship slip a bit in order to benefit). I still consider magic to be gentleman's sport in which both players have some responsibility to maintain correct game state even if tournament rules say differently at the moment.
I'd never play into chalice hoping opponent would miss trigger. I think there is quite a difference between opponent missing a trigger from something i did knowing it would only work if he misses it and him missing a trigger for one of his own actions.
Him forgetting to put a counter on lorescale coatl for drawing a card and both of us realizing it after combat and him suffering the consquences then is OK.
casting a CMC1 spell into chalice hoping he will forget to say it will be countered when i pass priority is NOT.

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They're fundamentally the same thing, why is it ok in one area but not another? Chalice isn't a state based effect, it's like Counterbalance in that you have to acknowledge the counter occurs, and if you're playing Chalice like I have in the past, you should be real fucking adamant about knowing what is and is not countered.

I leave my chalices up front, directly in my line of sight with the opponent at all times--I know some people leave things like Sylvan Libraries and Chalices on the side, don't do this, they're more important than the rest of your board, focus on them, don't miss the triggers.

Playing a 1 cmc spell into a flustered opponent hoping he will forget the trigger is no different than hoping your flustered opponent will make poor attacks or make a misplay, this is totally fine, and it's not unreasonable to disguise plays in such a way to make the opponent misplay.

It's like saying keeping your Verdant Catacombs up to fetch Dryad Arbor in response to a Liliana's -2 sac ability isn't ok because it's not what the opponent wanted to happen..If he was thinking clearly, it wouldn't have happened. Much like Chalice.

His action was the exact definition of cheating


The definition of cheating follows

act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, esp. in a game or examination.

Furthermore if any of the actions could alternatively be described by any of the following its probably cheating too.

synonyms: swindle, defraud, deceive, trick, scam, dupe, hoodwink, double-cross, gull

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Originally Posted by apple713

synonyms: swindle, defraud, deceive, trick, scam, dupe, hoodwink, double-cross, gull

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These all sound like blue cards to me.

Back to the topic, I would hate to be that Chalice player. I would definitely call a judge on that. Permission does still exist in the format and before a spell resolves, the non active player does have time to react to it. Unless he/she says it resolves, it hasn't resolved yet.

Picking up your library because you flashed a Brainstorm might get away with a warning but doing it a again with Crop Rotation, it's either you're a really with triggers or you're cheating.

The fact that his opponent was registering the chalice triggers right after he was casting the spells makes it pretty clear his opponent knew what was going on

I'll be bringing up this specific scenario at the Judge Conference during the Legacy Rules Primer seminar at GP:DC. This is totally unacceptable.

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Originally Posted by HSCK

I'll be bringing up this specific scenario at the Judge Conference during the Legacy Rules Primer seminar at GP:DC. This is totally unacceptable.

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Based on the description the OP provided (nevermind if it actually happened, let's assume it's accurate); how would the ruling not be Game loss for the Crop Rotation player?

I have another example of "cheating".

I was playing sneak and show against a shard less player. opponent suspends an ancestral vision and drops an ensnaring bridge. i cast blood moon a 2 turns later and stick a griselbrand the turn after. Opponents ancestral vision "somehow" stops loosing counters when he realizes that griselbrand can attack if he has 7 cards in hand. Several turns pass and his hand fills one by 1 and he continues to miss the trigger. I finally notice and call a judge expecting him to get a game loss for this blatantly obvious intentional cheating. He gets a warning and forced to resolve the visions.

Stuff like this shouldn't be happening. The through process behind it is ...."if i can miss the trigger without my opponent catching on I can gain advantage. When he catches it theres no penalty for me.

I feel like if there were harsher penalties people wouldn't be tempted to manipulate the rules.

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Originally Posted by apple713

I have another example of "cheating".

I was playing sneak and show against a shard less player. opponent suspends an ancestral vision and drops an ensnaring bridge. i cast blood moon a 2 turns later and stick a griselbrand the turn after. Opponents ancestral vision "somehow" stops loosing counters when he realizes that griselbrand can attack if he has 7 cards in hand. Several turns pass and his hand fills one by 1 and he continues to miss the trigger. I finally notice and call a judge expecting him to get a game loss for this blatantly obvious intentional cheating. He gets a warning and forced to resolve the visions.

Stuff like this shouldn't be happening. The through process behind it is ...."if i can miss the trigger without my opponent catching on I can gain advantage. When he catches it theres no penalty for me.

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Generally, a warning is the typical penalty for missed triggers and GRV's. Repeated offenses in the same vein will escalate. You pretty much get a warning first before anything more serious gets penalized.

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Originally Posted by Koby

Generally, a warning is the typical penalty for missed triggers and GRV's. Repeated offenses in the same vein will escalate. You pretty much get a warning first before anything more serious gets penalized.

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i can understand that but his violation was intentional and intentional violations of the rules should have stricter punishments IMO. I deserved a warning for failure to maintain game state but he defiantly deserved something stronger IMO.

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Originally Posted by apple713

i can understand that but it was intentional and intentional violations of the rules should have stricter punishments IMO. I deserved a warning for failure to maintain game state but he defiantly deserved something stronger IMO.

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The way rulings are judged is independent of the game state. A missed trigger in this game state is identical to one from another game state; as far as evaluating the penalty is concerned.

If you build a deck with the primary goal of 'missing triggers', you haven't actually 'forgotten' about them, at least IMO. If they are not going on the stack during the game, you are clearly accounting for them in your intent.

That's very nebulous of course, so just examine the player's actions. You can't just 'speed' your way through a part of the game, that's asinine. Can you imagine how great combat would be? "I'm thinking abooooout... maaaaybe.... hmmmmmmmm. I miiight pass the tuuuuurn, or I miiiiiiiight...." opponent: "will you just GO alre-" you: "ZOMGATTACKYOUWITHEVERYTHING" *writes your new life total down* opponent "hey wtf man i'm not at 6 you didn't give me a chance to block" you: "well too bad, I already wrote it down"

I think the banning of Shahrazad sets a clear precedent for using tournament rules against the tournament. You shouldn't be able to build a deck that wins on the basis of time/space concessions which need to be made during a tournament.

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Originally Posted by Koby

Based on the description the OP provided (nevermind if it actually happened, let's assume it's accurate); how would the ruling not be Game loss for the Crop Rotation player?

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I almost always side with my fellow judges, even in that PTQ Houston situation I think the ruling was right. I do not agree here, and there's no way I don't kick some one out of the tournament for that. I'll be bringing this up and reporting on it during our seminar. Behavior like this is not to be a part of a healthy community.