Am I cheating?

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

I've done this for a while playing at local events and no one has called me out on it but if I ever play at a larger event I'm concerned,

Am I allowed to do this?

When I sideboard my cards, I side in my cards by sticking them evenly spaced into my deck.

When I finish a game, I mana weave when I pick up my cards that were just on the table.

Regardless if it is pointless to do this or not, as long as I properly shuffle afterwards am I allowed to do it?

Are any of you judges and could give me a good answer?

I've asked on reddit and got a really mixed response.

[thecrav]

as long as I properly shuffle afterwards am I allowed to do it?

I'm not a judge but if you're fully randomizing your deck after making some change to the deck, that's fine. However, I personally believe that you should be called for stalling if you're organizing a deck that you're about to shuffle the organization out of.

[Julian23]

Yes, you are. No matter whether you think it's effective or not, manipulating your deck in a way that is suitable to produce an advantage for you is very much cheating. Fabrizio Anteri was even DQ'ed and banned for this last year. This followed reports of several players who had previously observed him mana-weaving his decks between rounds.

[apistat_commander]

3rd Google result: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...nts-2006-07-07

In order to sufficiently randomize a deck, a player must use a series of proper shuffles and cuts. Some players like a variety of shuffling methods during the course of their matches, mixing pile shuffles, riffle shuffles, and whatever else they are in the habit of doing. Even though they might be mixing up their shuffling methods, one thing must remain constant; they must randomize the deck. Mana weaving without further randomization is deck-stacking, pile shuffling alone is not adequate, and one or two riffle or pile shuffles are also inadequate. Pile shuffling as the final shuffling method is also not adequate.

Edit: More Googling:

9/26/16
Section 3.9 (Shuffling): This change has to do with "pile shuffling." Pile shuffling alone is not a sufficiently random form of shuffling. Update states that a player may only pile shuffle once each time a deck is randomized. The one pile shuffle is allowed in order to count the number of cards in the deck.

1/16/17
Section 3.9 (Shuffling): In the previous Tournament Rules update, we announced rule changes regarding "pile shuffling." Based on observation and feedback, we are now restricting pile shuffling to once per game and only at the beginning of that game. Remember: "pile shuffling" is not sufficient shuffling. It should only be used to count the cards in a deck.

[Julian23]

pile shuffling is not a shuffling method

Fixed That For You.

[apistat_commander]

Fixed That For You.

Amended the post after doing more Googling. It is relevant to note that you can use the method, but that it is not considered randomizing your deck.

[Troll_ov_Grimness]

Yes, you are. No matter whether you think it's effective or not, manipulating your deck in a way that is suitable to produce an advantage for you is very much cheating. Fabrizio Anteri was even DQ'ed and banned for this last year. This followed reports of several players who had previously observed him mana-weaving his decks between rounds.

Mana weaving without further randomization is deck-stacking,

this is from a wizards article posted below and I guess answers my question. After I mana weave my board I shuffle afterwards, so it's ok?

[Julian23]

No matter whether you think it's effective or you, you are seeking to get an unfair advantage which makes it Cheating. Don't do it.

[tescrin]

Yes, you are. No matter whether you think it's effective or not, manipulating your deck in a way that is suitable to produce an advantage for you is very much cheating. Fabrizio Anteri was even DQ'ed and banned for this last year. This followed reports of several players who had previously observed him mana-weaving his decks between rounds.

I think this is an oversimplification. How can we ensure proper randomization with only 8 shuffles? There are actually ways that 8 shuffles can lead back to a perfectly stacked deck IIRC. Make it twenty, the problem is you're trying to sufficiently randomize a very small subset of cards; and if we're fair, while you'd get less hands with the appropriate; when you found one with hate without doing this it would stack the hate so thick that your opponent has a literal 0% chance.

Imagine against reanimator I side in 2 tutors, 1 rip, 2 priest, 1 cage, or so. I shuffle a bunch with them at the bottom to start with and 3-4 of them stay in a pack (as you might expect when you are only shifting 1-3 cards per shuffle in that area.) If I draw a hand with Tutor + Cage + Priest; how the balls is that guy going to win even with a hand stacked for counter magic?

Without making a computer animation (that I can't make) it looks something like this when you shuffle: Sideboard cards marked with x, non sideboard with o. Suppose the bottom is the bottom 10 or so cards of your deck, and you slapped your hate on the bottom and keep splitting roughly in the middle of the deck, then shuffling together; a common practice. The deck halves will probably look something like this:

Sh1 Sh2 Sh3 Sh4
o o| o o|o o|o o
o o| o o|x o|o x
o o| o x|o o|o o
o o| o o|x o|o o
o o| o x|o o|o x
x o| o x|o o|o x
x o| o o|x o|o o
x o| o o|x o|o x
x o| o x|o o|o x
x o| o x|x o|o o

The problem is that you're not likely to be splitting any cuts in just the last 10 cards in any of this; meaning it's very possible that you *and your opponent* sufficiently know that there's a block near the bottom or top of your deck that is threat dense.

By inserting them throughout your deck first, you are Guarantee'ing that they are going to not only not be in the same half of the deck, but that they will be split so that shuffling actually randomizes them; in other words; that shuffling doesn't continue to put them in a single half of the deck.

This is all because cards only shift 1-2 positions at a time relative to their old position, and those positions can be counter to the direction they shifted previously: which is to say that if it goes up two, then the next two shuffles goes down 1 each time, it's in the same position.


IMO, the correct way to randomize your deck (aside from trying to cut in different areas each time) is to probably do a pile shuffle or similar, and then do your regular shuffling, because regular shuffling is insufficient for true randomness; specifically because those cards on the outskirts of the deck have a good chance of remaining on the outskirts. Cutting greatly benefits things in the middle of the deck, vs the outskirts.


One could make a case that shoving your sideboard roughly where you intend to cut will give it sufficient variance without manually spreading it; but that is thusly still cheating by your interpretation.


In conclusion; to follow the above, where you slap the sideboard on the top half of the deck and *never cut it specifically because that would also be cheating*, you would therefore know that a lot of it remains on top of your deck, which is then mostly cut away, but probably leaves choice morsels on top.

There is no way to take the human element completely out of this nor the fact that it's psuedo-random and not truly randomizing the deck. In realizing that even just shuffling the sideboard roughly into the middle of the deck, by the definition given my Julien, is cheating of the same kind as evenly spreading it or similar.

The justification of any judge on this matter that the person is cheating by attempting to approximate actual randomization is a misunderstanding of randomization and shuffling I'd argue, and that rulings based on such should've simply resolved with a judge shuffling the person's deck. It's complete bollocks that given the looseness of "do you think it benefits you?" vs. "but it's actually random!"; is a false premise, because it's not actually random, it's psuedo random. Get a magician shuffling magic cards (ironically enough) and even with opponent's cuts I bet he'll win a lot more than he should, simply based on slight of hand and understanding how any reasonable person cuts the deck (usually somewhere between 20-40 cards in.)

Again, you have to somehow say that mixing those cards in at roughly 10 cards different each, versus shuffling in the middle, versus placing on top (where you'll actually know the location of the cards with good probability) is somehow different. They each manipulate the deck in such a way that is more predictable than it was before, and being physical cards and human beings following simple algorithms that don't actually produce true randomization; we are less likely to approach a fair game.

Conclusion: You must argue that shuffling in the middle, vs placing on top of the deck, vs spacing cards at roughly even spacing through the deck, is somehow going to not only approach reasonable randomization by the average person using a variety of unmonitored shuffling techniques that don't produce sufficient randomization; and further you must show that these actions; conscious or not; are equivalent in terms of cheating.

Lastly, if you can show that, you show that ALL possible sideboarding techniques are illegal under the rules because you realize that a human manipulated it at a given point in time, and thusly may understand where cards are in a probablistic manner. I believe this could be mathematically shown (or possibly with a computer program that approximates human shuffling techniques rather than randomness.)

[from Cairo]

This discussion in ridiculous.

Mana-weaving is cheating, setting up your deck so there is a better chance you see a spread of spells and land. If you're sufficiently randomizing the deck afterward, then there is no reason to mana-weave in the first place, IE whatever the weave was supposed to accomplish has been undone by shuffling. If one feels the weave still benefits them then they're not sufficiently randomizing afterward. This is essentially what Julian's flow chart is depicting. If there is no advantage to the action don't waste time doing it, if there is an advantage than it is cheating. End result don't do it.

How you jam your SB into your deck isn't the same thing. Put them in a clump, slide them in every 10 cards or so, shrug... just shuffle a bunch afterward like you're supposed to.

[Megadeus]

This discussion in ridiculous.

Mana-weaving is cheating, setting up your deck so there is a better chance you see a spread of spells and land. If you're sufficiently randomizing the deck afterward, then there is no reason to mana-weave in the first place, IE whatever the weave was supposed to accomplish has been undone by shuffling. If one feels the weave still benefits them then they're not sufficiently randomizing afterward. This is essentially what Julian's flow chart is depicting. If there is no advantage to the action don't waste time doing it, if there is an advantage than it is cheating. End result don't do it.

How you jam your SB into your deck isn't the same thing. Put them in a clump, slide them in every 10 cards or so, shrug... just shuffle a bunch afterward like you're supposed to.

I agree with this. Basically like the flow chart said. If you think you're giving yourself an advantage by doing it, then you're either not sufficiently randomizing your deck or you're ignoring what shuffling is supposed to do.

[ed06288]

I think tescrin made some good points. I think weaving in your hand and graveyard after a game and then mash shuffling a good number of times could actually be better for randomization. Versus say, picking up those cards, putting them on the bottom of your library, and then mash shuffling the bottom half of your library with an overhand grip (and then your opponent cutting the top half of the deck). I could see this technique being easily abused with stuff like leyline cards.

I think the best takeaway is that if cheating is suspected, just let the judge shuffle the deck and get on with the match, that seems like the best bet.

[thefringthing]

Let's all please recall that "random" doesn't mean "evenly distributed".

[ed06288]

i played with a 30 card sideboard one time

[AznSeal]

Let's all please recall that "random" doesn't mean "evenly distributed".

Then why do people assume "starting from a clump" is more random than "starting from weaves"? That's the whole argument against mama weaving. Why is it "more random" if I start with 10 lands in a row?

[Phoenix Ignition]

Then why do people assume "starting from a clump" is more random than "starting from weaves"? That's the whole argument against mama weaving. Why is it "more random" if I start with 10 lands in a row?

They don't, or at least they shouldn't. The problem comes when people don't sufficiently randomize their deck after the starting position.

Mana weaving can give a significant advantage to someone when they don't sufficiently randomize afterwards (you get good ratios of lands to non-lands), whereas starting with your spells and lands completely separated before insufficiently randomizing is almost definitely going to be bad. The people who mana weave before shuffling for real who think they get better games from it are probably the same people who don't shuffle properly, thus stacking their deck.

For sideboard weaving, as we're talking about here, it could guarantee that you hit at least 1 sideboard card in a game assuming you don't sufficiently randomize your deck. If you do sufficiently randomize your deck, nothing you do before randomizing will matter.

The main problem with these things is that they are easily abuse-able, since not only do they waste time (stalling and possibly causing draws), they only help if you are cheating. It's really annoying to have to shuffle your opponent's deck 8+ times after they present it to you, all of us would rather be able to trust them and just cut it, but you can't trust people to shuffle properly, especially when there is a potential advantage to be had in doing it.

[iatee]

Then why do people assume "starting from a clump" is more random than "starting from weaves"? That's the whole argument against mama weaving. Why is it "more random" if I start with 10 lands in a row?

People are bad at understanding what 'random' means. A randomized deck is not a deck that has a well-distributed mix of lands and spells. 'I have a well-distributed mix of lands and spells' is going to be the case *much* of the time with a randomized deck, which is why people mentally mix up fully-randomized with 'well-distributed mix of lands and spells'.

If you play enough Magic and shuffle your deck well, you will have your share of no land hands and a (smaller) share of 7 land hands. Starting with a clump is something that happens relatively infrequently due to the ratio of lands and spells we play in Magic, not because you shuffled your deck well that day.