Last week during a PPTQ I head-judged, I noticed a player, when resolving Attune with Aether, after finding the land in his library but before shuffling, he put the land on the table and begin rearranging some of his remaining lands in his library.

The reason is obvious, he wanted his lands to be positioned evenly throughout his library, so after shuffling, the chance those lands still stayed evenly would be better.

The main issue here is that I think players are not allowed to manipulate the order of his library. So I stepped in and issue a GRV-warning for his behavior.

—————————————————————–
My reasoning for this ruling are:

1. As in CR401.2:

Players can’t look at or change the order of cards in a library.

and search effects only give player privilige to look at his library, he still is not allowed to change the order of it. And also in official notes for Panglacial Wurm:

While searching your library, you must keep your library in the same order until you shuffle it. This order could matter if you tap Millikin for mana, for example, to pay for a Panglacial Wurm you cast from your library.

Thus I think players are not allowed to manipulate the order of his library during searching actions, So the player violated a game rule and a GRV infraction is needed.

2. I've noticed these kind of actions taken by players in the past. In the case I mentioned in this thread, I believed that player was not trying to manaweaving or cheating in other ways, and he thought this is allowed (if it's illegal). However, if players are allowed to do this, I can imagine more cases of abusing (like manaweaving) would surface. So this issue should be addressed.

Those are my thought on this case. And after discussing with fellow judges in my region, most (yes, most, that's a warning signal you can't ignore right?) of them think I give the ruling wrong. Either too harsh on give a GRV-warning and should just educate the player, or should consider other kind of infractions like Slow Play or Insufficient Shuffling if the situation gets worrying.

——————————————————————————
TL;DR : I would like to have an “O” answer on this situation if it's appropriate. Is player manipulating his library when performing searching actions a GRV infraction?
Please excuse me with my English, thank you.

While it's not specifically allowed, it's also not specifically disallowed. After all, the player could claim that's part of his shuffling technique…

But, more to the point, there isn't an infraction that corresponds to what happened, and Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation shouldn't be used for every little thing that Judges don't like players doing. I see how you connected the Panglacial Wurm ruling with the actions, but I think that's too much of a stretch to justify a penalty.

d:^D

If he shuffled sufficiently after stacking the deck, then there's no problem- that's what shuffling is for. If he didn't shuffle enough, then he committed Insufficient Shuffling, regardless of whether he had stacked the deck previously. (Or Cheating, if it's determined he intentionally didn't shuffle enough.) Similar to manaweaving your deck before the match starts, it's technically legal but very suspicious, since it shouldn't affect anything.

Well, looks like that's a big FAILED for me, glad that another loophole is closed for me, thank you Scott for the “O” answer. I would like to clear things that I issued GRV because I got the impression that this is not allow by game rules, not because I DON'T LIKE players doing. Lesson learned though, thanks again.

Isaac: That's good reasoning, thanks for the input.

However, this kind of actions still raises concerns for me. So I would like to ask, how should I deal with this? Am I pressing too much on the matter? As Uncle Scott said, the player could claim that's part of his shuffling technique. So, is this course of actions are fine? Am I supposed just to observe when he shuffles to determine if it's IS or evaluate if Cheating is involved?
Or, should I still intervene and educate the player that this is still not appropriate?

Feel free to close more loopholes for me, thank you! :)

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 1:14 PM, Siyang Li
<forum-34331-1f00@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> Am I supposed just to observe when he shuffles to determine if it's IS or
> evaluate if Cheating is involved?

Yep, until they have presented a deck that is insufficiently
randomised they haven't committed an offence.

> Or, should I still intervene and educate the player that this is still not
> appropriate?

If you were already in a conversation with them I would comment that
it is a waste of time. It's only against the rules in a material way
if they have a way to cast a spell while searching and methods of
manipulating the top of their deck while casting a spell. Educating
players about such extreme corner cases is an incredibly marginally
valuable use of your time, and that is assuming you don't accidentally
confuse them about something else more.



–
Gareth Pye - chatterof.mtgjudg.es
Level 2 MTG Judge, Melbourne, Australia

Originally posted by Siyang Li:

However, this kind of actions still raises concerns for me. So I would like to ask, how should I deal with this? Am I pressing too much on the matter? As Uncle Scott said, the player could claim that's part of his shuffling technique. So, is this course of actions are fine? Am I supposed just to observe when he shuffles to determine if it's IS or evaluate if Cheating is involved?

Stay on to see if he shuffles sufficiently. If not give warning via TE- Insufficient Shuffling:)

Oh…boy, looks like this is quite a straight forward case for everyone else, and somehow I got my head wrapped around it. Thanks everyone for clearing this up for me, your comments and advices are quite appreciated! :)