This is a situation that just came up at my FNM. I was the player who made the judge call in this case, but if this is something that happens at an event I'm judging, I'd like to know what to do so I'm asking about it. Also even though this is Regular REL forum, I judge mostly Comp REL events so if your answer would be different at Comp REL, it would be useful to me to know.

Player calls judge. When you arrive at the table, the facts are as follows: Player A called you over after discussing (and being a bit salty) that he drew poorly and his opponent “had it all” and etc. In the course of the discussion, Player B (the opponent) mentioned that, in between games, he sorts his deck so as to “de-clump” it so he gets “more even” draws, and recommends to Player A to do the same so he gets more even draws as well.

Since the match is over, you have no evidence of any deck stacking and you cannot perform a deck check. What you have as extra information is as follows:

Player B plays a lot of high level events, travels to GPs, SCG opens, etc. He also does very well at these events; aside from being an FNM “end-boss”, he usually performs well at local events (PPTQs, SCG Invi Qualifiers, etc) that he plays in.

Player B made the implication that he knows that he draws uncharacteristically well and attributes it to this shuffling technique openly. This fact is not in dispute. However, Player B also believes the (seemingly contradictory, imo) statement that he is sufficiently randomizing his deck by shuffling after he sorts his deck. Which is to say, he believes that his shuffling procedure meaningfully impacts his draws, but also believes his deck is sufficiently random. I am aware these statements are contradictory.

Questions:

1) Is what Player B is doing illegal?
2) How would you go about proving/disproving cheating in this case?
3) This was the last round of the event, so observing Player B in future rounds is not an option. Is this something to keep in mind for future events he attends, or do you let it slide?

Thanks!

Edited Lyle Waldman (June 16, 2017 09:52:58 PM)

1 and 2 both require a lot of questions. How are you declumping your deck? What are you doing after you declump your deck? Are you aware of policy regarding this? If you're doing this and you think it has an effect on your deck, are you aware this is effectively stacking your deck? If you're doing this and you don't think it has an effect on your deck, why are you doing it to begin with?

Now, all this said: Is he actually sorting his deck into basically Decklist Order before he shuffles in between games? If he's doing that, then pile counting… that's supremely weird to me, and probably bears some further “what on earth are you doing” questions.

Honestly, if he's a (semi-)regular player at your shop, I'd turn a sharp eye toward him in coming events. Even if a player isn't actively cheating, they can definitely be doing things that aren't by the book, and they should be counseled as such.

Those are all questions I asked him before calling the judge (I don't actually know what he said to the judge, as is standard practice in this sort of situation I was not part of that conversation). His answers were basically to the effect that he is aware that what he is doing is affecting his draws, and also is aware of the policy, but believes that he is sufficiently randomizing his deck afterwards and hence it's fine.

Yes, I agree with you that those statements are contradictory. I was unable to convince him of that fact and to get a straight answer out of him.

As for sorting the deck, I don't know exactly what he does. I presume it's like lands and spells and then pile count the deck so the lands and spells are evenly distributed. He did the sorting procedure without me noticing during our games, so it could not be too involved, definitely not sorting the whole deck.

Edited Lyle Waldman (June 16, 2017 11:01:57 PM)

Without knowing exactly what is happening, it's hard to say if something is illegal or not. A safe thing to say to the player is that creating a good/even/predictable distribution is not random, as random can and will contain land and spell groupings most of the time. If he did this and incorrectly believed that it was sufficiently random, it isn't cheating. He is just misunderstanding the meaning of random. This misunderstanding is somewhat common. (If he chooses to “shuffle” incorrectly after being told otherwise, then yes it's cheating.) If he is stacking followed by thourough shuffling, it's also not a problem.

I would like to make a point that a deck check (or thumbing through the deck at any point) isn't something that should be considered as “evidence” of deck stacking. If the “best” draws are on top of his deck, that doesn't really matter. They could have made it there through legal randomization or through cheating. The final result isn't evidence of how the cards got there.

Edited David Rockwood (June 18, 2017 07:15:41 PM)

Didnt that get a proplayer DQed @ a GP? I can't remember the name tho I think it was a european GP.

edit: http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpman16/fabrizio-anteri-disqualified-grand-prix-manchester-2016-05-28
A quote from Anteris facebook page that since then got deleted as it seems:

After sideboard I normally check if the configuration is the optimal one for the match (make sure there are not undesired cards), while I am looking through and checking I am also moving my lands to separate them. Once I am done looking, I will carry on shuffling.

found it :)

Edited Johannes Wagner (June 18, 2017 07:36:39 PM)

This sounds a lot like other discussions that have happened in the past - if a player thinks they are cheating but are not, should we DQ them?

In my opinion, if a player is sufficiently shuffling it doesn't matter what they do prior to the sufficiently shuffling, unless it is wasting time in a match. So if they are doing all their “manipulation” between rounds, and they are shuffling randomly and well, any “benefit” they are getting is going to be psychological rather than actual.

In summary, I would want to confirm what they are doing is in my opinion sufficiently randomising their deck before presenting and if they are, and what they are doing between games/matches is not impacting anything (wasting time basically) then I'm not going to do anything about this.

Johannes, it's kind of pointless to try and draw a parallel between a DQ at some other event, and this other situation that happened somewhere, once. Every DQ should have an investigation based on the facts, unique and specific to that occurrence.

And that leads us back to Mark's comments - we would need to investigate the specifics of the circumstances Lyle described, to determine if there is sufficient randomization, or not.

As we've all learned fairly recently, you can no longer use a pile “shuffle” technique more than once per game, both to avoid the “double nickel” mana weave and to save time. As Mark also said, if Lyle's player isn't wasting time during a game/match, and is shuffling sufficiently, then the rest is no concern.

d:^D

Originally posted by David Rockwood:

I would like to make a point that a deck check (or thumbing through the deck at any point) isn't something that should be considered as “evidence” of deck stacking. If the “best” draws are on top of his deck, that doesn't really matter. They could have made it there through legal randomization or through cheating. The final result isn't evidence of how the cards got there.

This isn't quite accurate. There's a chance that the cards ended up there legitimately, and there's also a chance that the player didn't shuffle well enough. Whichever of those options you deem more likely is the one that for all intents and purposes is true. If I look through a deck and see a perfect alternation of lands and nonlands, I'm not just going to walk away because the cards could have gotten there legitimately, that player is either receiving a penalty for Insufficient Shuffling or for Cheating, depending on how my investigation goes.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys! And glad to see this thread get some attention after Vegas, I hope everyone had a good time :)

What I'm gathering so far is that nothing is definitely wrong here, but it is worth watching the player in future. I will do so, both when I play against him at FNM and also when I judge events where he is present.

To be absolutely clear, this deck manipulation is done quickly enough so as to not be considered slow play in my opinion. I am excluding discussion of slow play from this conversation, as that's not the direction I want to move in, if that's ok with everyone.

Please keep the feedback and discussion coming, it's very useful to me :)

The similarities are obvious. I didn't say he needs to DQ the player, I just pointed out that for a similar action there was a DQ.

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

The similarities are obvious

and that's where we disagree.

In the case of the DQ, the Head Judge investigated and determined that the shuffling was not only failing to meet the requirements, but that it was intentional, seeking to gain advantage.

In the case Lyle presented, we know the player is manipulating his deck in order to optimize the order prior to shuffling; that isn't illegal. What we don't really know in this scenario, is how this player shuffles; if he shuffles sufficiently, then what was done before is irrelevant.

Originally posted by IPG:

A deck is not shuffled if the judge believes a player could know the position or distribution of one or more cards in his or her deck.
-and-
Any manipulation, weaving, or stacking prior to randomization is acceptable, as long as the deck is thoroughly shuffled afterwards.

Lyle's scenario is about the “manipulation, weaving, or stacking prior to {shuffling}”; the scenario you wish to label as similar is a DQ based on an investigation of shuffling techniques.

I've DQ'd players for their shuffling techniques. I doubt that I'll ever DQ a player for what they do before they shuffle.

d:^D

There was a longer statement from Anteri where he described his technique.
He wrote that he manaweaves and then goes on to shuffle like everyone else. That's one similarity.

Also Lyle stated that he thinks that the player in question gains an advantage from his shuffling technique.
Also a similarity to Anteri's DQ. We don't know enough about their shuffling technique except that a HJ believed Anteri doesnt shuffle correctly in Anteri's case.

The reason I posted the DQ case is, that Lyle's player could go on to risk a DQ if another judge sees it and believes he's cheating.

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

Lyle's player could go on to risk a DQ if another judge sees it and believes he's cheating

Absolutely - a very valid concern.

Originally posted by IPG, repeated:

Any manipulation, weaving, or stacking prior to randomization is acceptable, as long as the deck is thoroughly shuffled afterwards.

Again, that's the key part I'm trying to communicate to everyone reading this thread - we don't care what you do (quickly) before you shuffle, we care that you shuffle sufficiently. In the case of the DQ, the determination was that the shuffling was not sufficient. And, in a couple DQs I've handled, the shuffling was the means of manipulating the deck.

Once more, stated differently: we care a lot about the shuffling, not so much what's done before that.

d:^D

@Uncle Scott: I see what you're getting at, but I'm more with Johannes here. My inclination, having talked to the player directly, is to believe the following:

1) Before shuffling, the player is doing some manipulation to their deck.

2) Subsequent to manipulating their deck, the player shuffles. I am going to stop short of saying the player shuffles sufficiently, and say only that he shuffles, and this distinction is important for the reasons you have outlined.

3) The player believes that this technique meaningfully improves his draws, and based on his results in events and having played against him and watched him play against others, I am inclined to believe him. However, at the moment I have no proof that he is stacking his deck in any formal or meaningful way.

Now, point 3 is obviously the important one. If the player is meaningfully drawing better based on this shuffling technique, then he is reducing the variance in his deck relative to if he were to not use this technique and just shuffle the way people normally do. This is tantamount to stacking the deck if true (in terms of the penalty he would receive for doing so, is it not?). However, the player believes he is shuffling sufficiently, a contradictory statement (which is to say, if he is shuffling sufficiently then he should not be reducing the variance of his deck, i.e. “drawing better”, which is a statement that the player admits to doing).

Apologies if my posts thus far have been unclear, and please ask any questions you may have.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

The player believes that this technique meaningfully improves his draws, and based on his results in events and having played against him and watched him play against others, I am inclined to believe him. However, at the moment I have no proof that he is stacking his deck in any formal or meaningful way.

It sounds like you suspect that there is something going on here, so I think the next step would be to investigate the particular shuffling technique to see if your concerns are justified.

I think it's entirely possible for the player to simply be lucky or particularly good at Magic and mis-attribute their success to their shuffling technique. It is also possible that the player's shuffling technique does give them a small advantage, not because they are insufficiently shuffling, but because their opponents are perhaps not shuffling thoroughly and are allowing “clumps” to persist from one game to the next. Obviously this last possibility is extremely unlikely if applied to all of this player's opponents, but it is reasonable for something like this to occur in a single match at FNM.

Now, it's also entirely possible that the player is not shuffling sufficiently and that their stacking is giving them a small advantage. This will only be found by investigating the technique itself and the quality of the subsequent shuffling. It is entirely possible for someone to believe two contradictory things (I am sufficiently randomizing my deck; my “de-clumping” technique gives me better-than-average draws) if they haven't considered the implications too closely.