Upper Deck Entertainment Forums

What is said to have happened:

a. player is selected for random deckchecking
b. judge finds 2 Redcap, 2 Shauna and Wind, and 2 Slipstream next to each other (separate pairs, not in a run)
c. judge awards a match loss for "insufficient randomization"
d. judge dismisses player's argument that this is a possible random outcome

This is nothing less than ludicrous, because

a. insufficient randomization is not in the UDE penalty guidelines
b. awarding a match loss in between rounds for an allegedly insufficient randomized deck goes far beyond repairing any potential broken game state and is not a penalty that a reasonable person would consider appropriate
c. it is possible for randomized cards to be next to the same copies of each other; precluding such combinations from satisfying a standard of "sufficient randomization" is not actually random
c. the pairings are not such as to suggest that the player would have deliberately placed them next to each other

The match loss awarded in this case was the direct cause of the player not qualifying for a top 8 cut.

At best, the tournament official was grossly incompetent - and at worst, this incident casts serious aspersions on the integrity of the game, perhaps suggesting some kind of impropiety on the part of the tournament official.

The tournament official's response has been underwhelming in the extreme, declining to satisfactorily address the player affected by his decision.

It is simply not good enough and it beggars belief that this can happen at a high-level event like a National Championship. I believe that this needs to be addressed as soon as possible in order to preserve the integrity of the Huntik organized play brand and the good record of UDE in managing organized play events in general.


I would like to ask UDE if;

• they intend to investigate this particular incident and any possible misconduct of the tournament official
  
• they intend to compensate the player who has suffered out-of-pocket expenses and had a promising gaming experience (the Nationals event) ruined by this incident
  

If a public response is not appropriate then please provide a private response (posting here if done through the private messaging system on this forum) and lock this thread.

I agree with you there in the sense of this is a really unfair way granting a match loss.. The Shauna and wind and redcap could simply be together becasue they are promote cards, and ARE VERY PRONE to being BEND.. I got a couple of suit, agents in actions today, and they are so bend that I kept drawing them.. I have to sit them under something heavy for a while I think.

Also, insufficient randomising itself is not the players fault, it is up to their opponent to shuffle their deck however they see fit.. the recommended way is to pile shuffle them and don't do it in any particular order neither. Also, if 'stacking' was involved, then you could get a game lost, but how would stacking those cards help anybody? Its not like a Dante and a hyperstride are all found in pairs.

(the other bit deleted because I remembered the policy about not posting about specific events)

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Jack
Lv2 Yu-Gi-Oh Judge knowledge
Lv1 Tournament organiser
Lv1 Huntik Judge knowledge
Lv1 player managerment
I run stuff at roundabout toys, Ashton, UK
visit http://www.yugioh-guide.com and http://www.huntik-guide.com

First of all, I'm not going to comment on the specific incident in the original post. I wasn't there, I don't know all the details, and I don't believe all the details are being relayed about it, not to mention that a public forum isn't the place to discuss specific incidents.

From reading the original post and the reply I feel there are several misconceptions that need to be cleared up. The first is this:

Also, insufficient randomising itself is not the players fault, it is up to their opponent to shuffle their deck however they see fit..

No, that's not the case, the tournament policy states the following:

To guarantee fairness, each player must ensure that his or her deck is thoroughly randomized before presenting it to an opponent at the start of any game.

Following that it goes on to state:

Presenting your deck to your opponent implicitly states that you have thoroughly randomized your deck. Players may not pre-set or sort their decks in any specific order before shuffling. Stacking a deck or illegally manipulating the order of the cards while shuffling is considered cheating.

To make a rather obvious point, pile shuffling does not randomise a deck, it must be combined with other forms of shuffle to perform that task.

A deck check if done correctly waits for the deck to have been passed to the opponent for shuffling, at this point you are saying you yourself have sufficiently randomised the deck. One of the first things a member of the deck check team will do with your deck is check for signs of pre-ordering or stacking of the deck. If they find such signs they should investigate the matter further to determine intent and then rule appropriately.

The closest guideline a deck that is insufficiently randomised would fall under is probably Marked Cards, the penalty for which would be a warning (assuming no pattern), or a match loss (assuming there is a pattern). Both of those penalties assume no intent on the behalf of the player involved.

It is possible for a perfectly randomised deck to appear to be pre ordered or stacked, it is up to the judge checking the deck to determine if this is a random occurance or not. At the end of the day, if the judge is sure the deck wasn't sufficiently randomised and they noticed a pattern the match loss penalty is appropriate and justified. If the player doesn't agree with this then they can and should appeal to the head judge of the event who will review the information and make the final ruling.

The only thing left that concerns me from the original post is this:

awarding a match loss in between rounds for an allegedly insufficient randomized deck goes far beyond repairing any potential broken game state and is not a penalty that a reasonable person would consider appropriate

An insufficiently randomised deck cannot be discovered between rounds, as stated above it is discovered after the deck has been declared randomised by passing it to the opponent to be shuffled.

At this point there is no game state to fix, the deck is either "marked" or not. The penalty for this has to be a warning or a match loss, the warning is only appropriate if no pattern is discovered. The reason for this is to prevent people being encouraged to pre-order their deck (which is CHEATING and carries a much more harsh penalty) under the impression the worst they'll get is a warning and made to shuffle the deck. The penalty is the only such penalty a "reasonable person" would award as it's the only one that makes sense.

It's worrying that players still don't find any problem with actions that are borderline cheating and something that will hopefully be addressed further with the upcoming penalty guideline update.

thanks man, guess I have to re-read the penalty guideline a little, i did say stacking would result in a game lost (as in delibrately ordering your cards) easily, but where do you draw the line of knowing if we have sufficiently randomised a deck? I always just cut deck in half, then put them next to each other and squeeze them together, repeat a few times, then do the normal shuffling if I don't feel like pile shuffling them first (i still do the traditional shuffling afterward if i do pile shuffle). If I did all that, and the deck still looked like it has been stacked afterward, surely there isn't anything more i could have done?
A lot of promo cards are meant to be legal soon as you get them, and they are more often then not very bend, and they tend to stick together as bend cards does, what is the advice on that? Because I am pretty sure that's why the shaunas are stuck together. I certainly don't want to get done for running bend promo cards. (I put them in a very tightly packed deck box, but don't seem to do much, do i want them warm or cold?)

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Jack
Lv2 Yu-Gi-Oh Judge knowledge
Lv1 Tournament organiser
Lv1 Huntik Judge knowledge
Lv1 player managerment
I run stuff at roundabout toys, Ashton, UK
visit http://www.yugioh-guide.com and http://www.huntik-guide.com

Yes, I agree that if the tournament official had deemed that the player had deliberately stacked their deck, that a match loss or even disqualification would be appropriate. The point is that the tournament official told the player that it was for "insufficient randomization" and the deck was not insufficiently randomized nor obviously stacked.

The problem is that Marked Cards requires exactly that - marked cards. The cards in this case were not deemed to have been marked in any way that would have allowed the player to discern their location in the deck. Cards incidentally being next to each other is not marking them. In any case, having a pair of copies of cards next to each other does not constitute a pattern. The cards in question are not functionally similar.

I am perfectly aware that deliberately clumping or un-clumping cards before shuffling is borderline cheating (if it does indeed affect randomization, it's cheating, and if it doesn't, why do they do it?), but that's not what the problem is. It's that this clumping can happen after legitimate randomizations and does not indicate any wrongdoing in any way.

I was there at the event, and I can't say it was the wrong decision.

From what I could see (don't quote me on this) there were more than 3 stacked pairs. Furthermore, the 'match loss' was really a game loss, it just so happened there was only one game.

I think you misunderstand, I didn't say the penalty IS Marked Cards, I said the penalty is similar to Marked Cards. It is also a perfectly valid infraction to award against a player.

Anything done deliberately to gain an advantage that's against the rules is automatically cheating. Hence you shouldn't be de-clumping cards because you're cheating at that point.

I said I don't intend to talk about any specific incident, the only people that could do so are the judge involved in the deck check and the head judge...And I'd assume they have the professionalism to not discuss it in a public forum.

Insufficiently randomising your deck means your deck is implicitly ordered, it does deserve a harsh penalty, and yes, deciding if it is insufficiently randomised is a subjective thing. Your definition of it will not be the same as mine, just as neither of our definitions are likely to be the same as the judge involved.

At the end of the day, without knowing the facts I would have to assume the judge carried out the check, found something wrong, investigated it and ruled accordingly. The outcome of this ruling appears to have been taken badly by the player involved (probably because in their eyes it cost them a place in the top 8), this does not mean the judge acted incorrectly, or that the ruling was wrong.

Regarding promo cards that bend, yes that is a problem. If the card has a significant bend that's noticable in the deck, the card is marked, there are no two ways about that. As for how to unmark the cards, you'd really have to do something like unbend it yourself (in my experience it'll work for a short time and then go back), or you could try putting it under something heavy for a large period of time. The best thing I've tried is just sleeving the card and leaving it in a packed binder for a while, took care of the bends in my Yu-Gi-Oh! hobby league cards for instance.

As for the legality of promo cards following the policy they're not legal until the first instance of an event they're given out in is run, as such I'd find it hard to say that promos for events that haven't been run in the specific region would be legal for events there, but really that could do with being clarified officially.

I understand that you don't want to comment on a specific incident, and that's why I asked for a private response if they felt that was appropriate.

Marked Cards penalties necessarily have an element of disruption due to additional information being given to the player (or potential information). There is no additional information given to the player through insufficient randomization as long as the player is not aware of insufficient randomization. I don't think that insufficient randomization was true to the case, anyway, but for this point of order, separate from the incident, I don't think that the circumstances are anything like Marked Cards.

Anything done deliberately to gain an advantage that's against the rules is automatically cheating. Hence you shouldn't be de-clumping cards because you're cheating at that point.

I'm not arguing with anybody as to what the definition of cheating is, and I also know perfectly well that de-clumping is cheating. I only mentioned it because the judge in question didn't recognize that and that was apparently why they awarded an infraction based on insufficient randomization.

Deciding if something is insufficiently randomized is not subjective. It either is, or isn't, and intent plays a large role in determining that. There is really no indication of intent of any order, nor is the order substantive enough to suggest anything but randomization.

Judges do not always act correctly, either, and while it's possible that the player took it badly, based on the facts we know it was the case that the judge did not act correctly. Certainly it deserves a closer investigation. It would be nonsensical to ignore the player's concern here simply because it disadvantaged them.

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Huntik TCG cards become legal around the world at the same time except for in the United States and Canada. When a set becomes legal in Europe, it also becomes legal in Latin America, Asia, and so on. 

Promotional cards that are given out for participation, prizes or otherwise at events such as Seeker League, Championships, etc. are legal on the first day that event can be run.  For example, Players may use their copy of “Redcap, Predator,” the 2009 Store Championship participation promo card, in their decks at that very same Store Championship if they choose.

Any version of a Huntik TCG card is legal to use in tournament play. This includes cards that are in a foreign language. When using such cards in a deck, players and tournament officials may refer to the official card text for that specific card found in the Huntik TCG Official Card Reference."

Talking about promo cards being legal that I was complaining about, this is from the official huntik tournament policies. I find it hard to believe that if they said any version of a huntik card is legal, including foreign language, it would be illegal if it was not released in a region yet.. i am under the impression that you can only obtain a card illegally if say some ude employee dropped a dark study at an event and i picked it up, then that card is illegally obatined as it wasn't released any where in the world. (that and it was technically stolen). The wording implies that if say Germany has released a promo card before us, if I can get hold of it and use it..

the very first line that i didn't quote in my other post says all cards all legal around the world at the same time, except for american and canada.. I live in the UK, so if it is legal anywhere, it would be legal here! if they want to enforce this, they have to reword the document, or at the very least announce it in the judge forum.

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Jack
Lv2 Yu-Gi-Oh Judge knowledge
Lv1 Tournament organiser
Lv1 Huntik Judge knowledge
Lv1 player managerment
I run stuff at roundabout toys, Ashton, UK
visit http://www.yugioh-guide.com and http://www.huntik-guide.com