Just wanted to share with you all an idea that I came up with today for a sealed tournament that I'm running tomorrow and might be handy to anyone running a PTQ in the near future.

I've heard of a situation, where a player was caught and DQ'd for fudging their deck list. The cheat was, that the player brought their own pool to the tournament “accidentally” dropped their deck list on the floor at one point, and then swapped it with one from their backpack. From what I've heard that player went to the extent of writing up multiple copies of this list in different colours of ink so that they could even match the pen colour the person registering the pool had used on the real list.

From what I'm told, the only reason this player got caught was because he ended up being paired against the person who registered his pool, who noticed something was off while they were playing.

So, I came up with an idea to prevent such a cheat from being successful, without relying on the player being randomly paired against the person who registered the pool. At my event, we will be handing out the deck list forms at the same time as the packs are distributed, and making sure that the players know they have to use the lists we've provided, they're not permitted to bring in their own (which I've never heard of anyone doing for a sealed event anyways).

And the decklists I printed were modified before I printed them, so that they all have the same random 4-digit number in the corner (I used a program called PDF X-Change, but there are lots of options out there). Once decklists have been collected I will be instructing my judges that the first thing we're going to check is that all the decklists collected have that number in the corner, and launch an investigation into any lists that are missing that number.

At my next sealed tournament we're going to use a different random 4-digit number. Cheaters might come prepared with multiple lists filled out in multiple colours, and they might come with lists filled out on different colours of paper, but they won't come with 10,000 lists filled out.

At the sealed PTQ I judged last weekend, the scorekeeper marked one of the corners of all the lists with a sharpie. Crude, but generally effective. A paint pen would have worked better, I think, since it would “bleed” into the page. The random number isn't a bad idea, though.

While that's certainly effective, I think its starkness potentially gives a
very “tinfoil hat” impression to the players. It also makes what you are
doing obvious to cheaters because someone is bound to ask you about this
random number thing.

You can achieve the same goal by throwing an event description in a
watermark and dropping it in a random spot on the page. (The odds they
guess the event description, location, font, and size correctly are
basically 0.) This has been my practice for sealed events for a while now,
and I don't think anyone suspects any ulterior motive apart from a little
extra branding for the TO. And, as you said, modifying a PDF for the event
only takes a couple minutes.

The easiest way to dissuade this is to print the lists on colored paper.

You should use ways that aren't easily noticeable (and are easy to
implement). -> I was taught to make a mark like filling in a specific ‘a’
(or other letter with a small hole) with a black marker.


2013/11/1 Josh Stansfield <forum-6829-882d@apps.magicjudges.org>

Personally, I always looked at this as being a question of goal. Is your goal to deter cheating? Or to catch cheating?

Means that deter cheating include using watermarks, colored paper, or even pre-labeled decklists. Any of these methods serve as very obvious indicators that the decklists are specific to that event and only that event. Any card pools/decklists generated prior to the event will be rendered moot, since anyone could spot the difference in the decklists. Cheaters are unlikely to risk that level of detection.

Means to catch cheating are the “black out a letter” or other means, where a small and generally unnoticeable alteration is made to the decklist. Players may not see the error, but judges will know to watch out for it when checking lists. So, if you come across a decklist without the alteration, you've caught someone who is using an improper decklist and probably used a “pre-generated” card pool/decklist.

Really, it comes down to: What is your goal? IMO, there is a reasonable basis for either approach.

There are two schools of thought when using “trapped” decklists.
1) Use covert markings so players aren't aware of the difference between
normal decklists and the trapped ones (i.e. changing a letter on the list)
2) Use overt marking so players are aware of the difference (colored lists,
name of event, etc)

The former method is the better way to catch cheaters in your event. The
latter method is the better way to prevent people from cheating in your
event. You can decide which you prefer to have.

Shawn

I am more into the “covert marking”. My personal mission is to “witch-hunt” cheaters of all kinds. That includes giving the “witches” a bit of a bait.

By the way, using a clearly event-customized decklist does NOT prevent people from cheating in the event. They will just have one less possibility to cheat. You will not remove the cheater's mindset from their head. And if someone is willing to bring their own cardpool to the event, I really expect him/her to be proficient in some other forms of cheating…

As to the question of should we catch or deter, I think it comes down to resources. Setting a trap also involves checking it, and if you're the only judge at an event, those few minutes spent making sure everyone's A is blacked out means a few minutes less on the floor. In that case I'd opt for a nice ream of colored paper.

If we're in a large tournament and I can spare a few more minutes of floor judges' time to capture cheaters, then I'd love to ensure that cheaters get their just desserts.