Upper Deck Entertainment Forums

Thanks Chad for helping me out there.  Those are all good reasons that I'm not sure as judge lvl 1 I could allow a player to do, even under my supervision.

If I was in any of those situations, and it was something that could not wait until the end of the tournament, I would (time permitting) have them look at the deck list they provided me, but only in front of me so they could not change any of the cards listed, any thoughts?

1202630:

From a player perspective, I don't want my opponent getting the final say on how my deck is shuffled.  So I would say opponent shuffles, then the player shuffles, then opponent cuts. 

As far as only wanting my opponent to "cut" my deck, it does say in the rules that "If the opponent shuffles the player's deck, then each of the players, first the player and then the opponent, must cut the deck."  So that is right in line with the way you feel.  Not to mention the word "must," makes it necessary.

I have to admit I am new to tcgs, having only seriously played since November of '06 when I started WoW.  So there are many things I'm picking up along the way.  The first time I saw opponents shuffle each other's deck was while watching a local Magic tournament.  This caused me to investigate WoW's rules on the subject (and is another reason I'm thankful for this thread).

What I discovered in direct reference to this thread is that there are already rules in place that can ensure significant randomization of any deck.  So to further echo the opinion, education is crucial.  After all, knowing the rules is the first step to becoming a better player, and if the players can be convinced of that then we have a win-win situation.

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Sean Ryberg
WoW TCG RK 1
WoW PM 1

I get the whole "education" on the importance of randomization thing, however, as we all know education doesn't necessarily equate to application. Giving the opponent the "option" to shuffle their opponent's deck (even after education that it's a good idea) doesn't make it happen. For instance, we've been educating players for years that you don't play a spell card to the graveyard in Yugioh since the beginning of the game, it still happens often. Only when we start to apply a penalty do those same players start paying attention.

366390:

Only when we start to apply a penalty do those same players start paying attention.

<chuckle>  Yes an imposed insentive brings people around quick.

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Sean Ryberg
WoW TCG RK 1
WoW PM 1

While it's true that imposing penaltys will set players straight after a while all this does is create alot of unnecessary extra work for the staff of UDE events...I mean if we were to enforce a penalty for not shuffling your opponent's deck at a SJC can you imagine how many penalties would be applied before the start of the first round...It would be alot simpler to just make an announcement at the beginning of tournaments regarding this and maybe make this announcement a few moire times during the day between rounds...It may take a few months to get it through some players heads but it will also be signifigantly less work for staff at larger events...

Remember that in most cases the simpler solution is usually better...
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid

Just my 2 cents :D
The 'Biggg' One

731819:

2. Clarify the rule to allow some forms of presetting, but not others.

Maybe you were trying to head off having this conversation, but what forms of pre-setting do the PM3 folks have in mind as being "allowed"?  Presumably, players would still need to shuffle thoroughly before continuing.  In that case, is it intended to be a psychological salve to players who feel they need to "de-clump" their deck before presenting?  Or is it to avoid penalizing those players who do "de-clump" and then shuffle up?  Or is it to assist players who may be de-sideboarding, or considering their sideboard plan between matches (or even games)... and in the process, sort their deck in order to see how many Ability cards, how many Trap cards, they have in their deck?

Edit: (Saw Chad's post with examples.)  I can see how those kinds of sorting scenarios are permissible... but with sufficient randomization, isn't ANY kind of pre-setting then permissible?

If UDE is motivated to allow those kinds of situations (and i think that they are... eg., if a match coverage reporter wants to talk about sideboarding strategy with a feature match player), then the sensible policy is along the lines of, "Do what you want with your deck, but it must thoroughly randomized before you present to your opponent.  Insufficient randomization is part of every deck check."

From my point of view, allowing pre-setting under some circumstances and not others  injects ambiguity into a process which is currently unambiguous.  It opens up a window for players to argue with judges, and without a lot of philosophy for why this is sometimes allowed, inexperienced judges may find themselves unable to discern which cases are okay and which are not.

3. Remove the rule and make an insufficient randomization penalty.

In my experience, more players read/are familiar with the Tournament Guidelines than the Penalty Guidelines.  At the judging/PM level, we know that this isn't sufficient, but from a practical standpoint, it's good to keep this in mind.  I think having a general admonition as to best practices for randomization is one of the most important things UDE can publish in the tournament guidelines.

I think it's fine to create an insufficient randomization penalty, particularly for the reasons already mentioned-- giving judges a more clear guideline as to what is and isn't appropriate, and what the correct remedy is.  Is there a reason why overlap between the rules and the penalties is undesirable?

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Eric Lui

783308:

I think it's fine to create an insufficient randomization penalty, particularly for the reasons already mentioned-- giving judges a more clear guideline as to what is and isn't appropriate, and what the correct remedy is.  Is there a reason why overlap between the rules and the penalties is undesirable?

Sorry, I was talking in the abstract sense. I agree that there should be overlap between rules and penalties. Meaning that if we were to choose to implement an insufficient randomization penalty, we'd certainly expand/clarify randomisation in the Tournament Policy.

Alex

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Alex Charsky
Judge Manager
Upper Deck

783308:

From my point of view, allowing pre-setting under some circumstances and not others  injects ambiguity into a process which is currently unambiguous.  It opens up a window for players to argue with judges, and without a lot of philosophy for why this is sometimes allowed, inexperienced judges may find themselves unable to discern which cases are okay and which are not.

Very good point, I absolutely agree!

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André Bronswijk, Germany

1175924:

783308:

From my point of view, allowing pre-setting under some circumstances and not others  injects ambiguity into a process which is currently unambiguous.  It opens up a window for players to argue with judges, and without a lot of philosophy for why this is sometimes allowed, inexperienced judges may find themselves unable to discern which cases are okay and which are not.

Very good point, I absolutely agree!

second that!

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I am a monument to all your sins:
"I will ask and you will answer..."

1984233:

1175924:

783308:

From my point of view, allowing pre-setting under some circumstances and not others  injects ambiguity into a process which is currently unambiguous.  It opens up a window for players to argue with judges, and without a lot of philosophy for why this is sometimes allowed, inexperienced judges may find themselves unable to discern which cases are okay and which are not.

Very good point, I absolutely agree!

second that!

I aggree as well. :)

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Leader of Team Epslion

Lv.1 Yu-Gi-Oh Rules
Lv.2 Player management (As of SJC San Fran 1/11/09 Thanks Alex ^_^)
Lv.1 Tournament Organizer
Lv.1 Specialist
Lv.1 Huntik Rules

731819:

Sorry, I was talking in the abstract sense. I agree that there should be overlap between rules and penalties. Meaning that if we were to choose to implement an insufficient randomization penalty, we'd certainly expand/clarify randomisation in the Tournament Policy.

Let's face it. The trouble with making rules about "deck shuffling" is that it's highly subjective.
When do we have this kind of issues?

a/ Low-level tournaments, where young players will tell you "but we always sort our decks where we usually play, why is that not legal?"

b/ Any tournament, but mostly tournaments with something at stake: players trying to cheat and stacking their decks (we had one during the French nationals last year).

c/ Top level tournaments, where players are able to stack decks, either theirs or their opponent's (in the latter case, causing "mana clusters" at Magic and such).

We all agree all three cases are really different and should be treated differently. In the first case, it looks ok to enforce a new penalty for "Unsporting conduct: unsufficient randomization" because this kind of behaviour doesn't deserve more than an slap on the wrist (game loss at max.). So how do you tell a/ apart from b/ and c/? I guess you can't, or it's very difficult, unless you know the player's background. So why bother with rules?

What I mean is that in most cases, it will be up to the HJ to decide of the penalty, and it can be anything from "don't do it again" to "don't show up in any of my tournaments or I'll kick you out again". In this case, I'd rather have a paragraph in the TP explaining what the proper randomization technics are (shuffle, pile...) and even have a BIG annoucement on the official website. As for the line in the penalty guidelines, I guess it depends on what you guys want to obtain at the end of the journey. Too harsh, you'll lose players because of rule-***. Too lenient, you'll keep in some unwanted players who can lie properly...

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Jean-Sebastien GRINNEISER

WoW RK2
PM1
TO1

1905489:

I guess you can't, or it's very difficult, unless you know the player's background. So why bother with rules?

What I mean is that in most cases, it will be up to the HJ to decide of the penalty, and it can be anything from "don't do it again" to "don't show up in any of my tournaments or I'll kick you out again". In this case, I'd rather have a paragraph in the TP explaining what the proper randomization technics are (shuffle, pile...) and even have a BIG annoucement on the official website. As for the line in the penalty guidelines, I guess it depends on what you guys want to obtain at the end of the journey. Too harsh, you'll lose players because of rule-***. Too lenient, you'll keep in some unwanted players who can lie properly...

I am in favor of leaving the rules as they are, but I have to disagree strongly with 'why bother with rules' and the HJ decides the penalty.

The rules give use guidelines to follow and set a standard that the players can expect to be follow consistantly. Yes there are cases where the HJ may alter the penalty that is given. However they only do so in extreme situtations. The majority of the time, the HJ is merely following the penalty guideline.

If UDE does decide to allow some randomization, then it is our job as judges to try to identify whether the player falls into your A, B, or C scenario. Doing that is a matter of asking the right questions and having the experience to tell if the player is being honest or not.

Also the penalties for this infraction (if they decide to add one) would not include the penalties if they are intentially attempting to cheat. Those penalties are already covered in the unsporting conduct guidelines.

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WoW RK2
VS RK2
PM LV2
Specialist LV2 (formerly demo team)
TO LV1

Ok, but exactly how is:

pile shuffling?

riffle shuffling?

Thanks a lot!

Pile shuffling is dealing your deck out into multiple piles and then putting the piles on top of each other.  There's an example of riffle shuffling in this video.  I don't have my headphones on at the moment so I'm not sure what he's talking about, but he starts shuffling at around 40 seconds.

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Andy Danielson
World of Warcraft Rules Knowledge level 1
Player Management level 1

I’m in favor of the third option, removing the rule and creating an insufficient randomization penalty.  The rule as is, is very hard to enforce correctly.  Players will always do some sort of presorting.  As Chad mentioned earlier in this thread, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to end up sorting your deck between rounds.  Asking a judge to discern between legitimate sorting and actual presorting is problematic at best. Allowing some presorting and not others is walking down that same road, especially when we need to decide on the scenarios where we will allow it or not.

 

Removing the rule for presorting would allow judges to concentrate more on what is happening in the tournament and not what the players are doing with their decks in the back of the room. Once the players are better educated on what shuffling entails, they will take care of most of the problems themselves.  I think shuffling will be easier to educate then when presorting is allowed and shuffling. Creating the penalty for Insufficient Randomization will also help us track the players that may be trying to take advantage, as well.

 

Aaron Matney

WoW RK 2

PM 3

I just wanted to point out that the rule as is, does not work.

As a judge, you're mostly busy with the games at hand, I myself know that there is plenty of time to actually go put your deck in the right way, before the start of the next round. (no, I know this not of personal experience, but logic deduction of the time taken to get the next pairings out) So if you don't want a judge to see, go sit aside a bit and do it there. This is especially doable on the DMFs.

What I'm trying to say is, the rule as it is now, is a punishment for those players who are trying to play fair, but are overconcerned that all their quests are together from last game. They see as a solution, to put all quests on a pile, and the rest on another (might be some more piles) and then lay out in a prime number (like 5 or 7), then a layer of quests, then another 2 layers of cards and then another layer of quests and so on. After that, they will shuffle again most probably and ask their opponent to shuffle. Obviously decent randomisation.

Rulesharks in the lattercase, will call a judge and tell to ban this guy. Meanwhile, the player who did it before the round and did it more precise, putting together his combo, didn't shuffle all that greatly and looks a bit inexperienced, with his bad shuffling technique... They then win the game(s) and proceed to the next round as a winner.

So, the rule as it is now, punishes those who try to do the good thing. Those who want to do bad, can still do bad, just not at the play table...

My oppinion? Change the rules, to allow for more pre-setting, but learn everyone how to decently shuffle!

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Patrick "Patrigan" Provinciael
World of Warcraft RK 2
Player Management 1
Belgium