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Actually the rule as it stands right now, allows the judge that happens to see someone sorting thier deck during a tournament to step in and investigate. Can a judge catch everyone that does it? Obviously not. However if a player that is attempting to cheat by sorting their deck is likely to do the same thing fairly often and that will increase the chance that a judge or player will catch them.

As it stand now, if a player is pulling out the quests first and sorting, they are not playing fair because no one else is allowed to do it. Think of it this way, A police officer is not going to catch everyone that speeds, but I can promise you that claiming 'everyone else was speeding too' is not going to prevent you from getting a ticket. That also does not mean you were teated unfairly because you were caught and the others weren't or that it is an unfair rule.

If a player is worried about quests being all clumped together they can still deal the cards out in piles prime number piles, they just need to do it with the entire deck face down and without sorting out the quests. This will break up any likely 'clumps', without revealing to the player the where certain cards are in the deck.

If you remove the rule entirely then you open the door to free reign on stacking the deck.

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

As it stand now, if a player is pulling out the quests first and sorting, they are not playing fair because no one else is allowed to do it.

This is assuming they would actually gain an advantage by doing so, which if they sufficiently randomize their deck, they won't. They are actually wasting their time.

If you remove the rule entirely then you open the door to free reign on stacking the deck.

How so? In order to benefit from stacking your deck, you have to purposefully fail to sufficiently randomize your deck AND your opponent must fail to shuffle your deck as well. By adding a failure to randomize infraction you are actually encouraging players to shuffle better and gives a tool for judges to deter cheating even further.

If you as a player intended to cheat by stacking your deck you will have to take the chance you will get caught failing to thoroughly randomize your deck(which would earn you a game loss at best or DQ) and even if you don't get caught, your hoping your opponent won't shuffle your deck. Even if you got to play your game with the stacked deck, there is still no guarantee you will win. That seems to be a fairly low return on the amount of risk you are taking.

Will people still try to stack their deck? Of course. Does the current rules really stop them? No, it doesn't. Further more, the DCI, which runs Magic Events, has allowed presorting for years and there still is no outbreak of rampant cheating.

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Chad Daniel
PM 3
WoW 3
Vs 3

Ofcourse, if we go punish for bad shuffling, we have to make sure that players are well informed, maybe another use for UDE Points cards? :p

Presorting is useless, if shuffled decently. laying the deck out in prime numbers (first 7 then 5) is a great way already to ensure decent shuffling (could do better ofcourse). It's easy to teach and it's an extra way to count the number of cards, to make sure you still have them all.

We have to be especially cautious with the younger players. I think there, an educational approach is the best, instead of a lawenforcement one. Explaining the above system is easy to do, just example it and explain in simple words "make 7 piles of your deck, take cards together and then do it again with 5 piles".

Such an explanation can be easily done while judging an official tourney and I think, hope, that all people who actually want to do the effort of judging, can have the time and the kindness to do this. Perhaps not even for the younger players, also older.

Important is also that we have to educate people in what they can and can't do with their opponent's deck. Some players are still telling their opponents that they are NOT allowed to shuffle their deck. I believe this is ofcourse intentionally and in such cases I also warn the players, although I feel DQ is more in place, because it's in my oppinion an act of cheating. (telling your opponent he can only cut, sounds to me like you're actually saying that your deck has the right cards in the right place)

edit: small addition: above is stated that a judge has the right to step in if he sees that a player is putting his cards right. How many judges here have the time to oversee the whole area and actually have time to go ask a player if he's doing something illegal? More often, you have your hands full with players who have questions, with managing Mantis, or with other things that a judge should do. With 10-20 players it is doable, but at a DMF, I'm pretty sure no judge can see everything, not even with the amount of judges there (enough spots to seem like you're no competitor)

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

863356:

If you remove the rule entirely then you open the door to free reign on stacking the deck.

How so? In order to benefit from stacking your deck, you have to purposefully fail to sufficiently randomize your deck AND your opponent must fail to shuffle your deck as well. By adding a failure to randomize infraction you are actually encouraging players to shuffle better and gives a tool for judges to deter cheating even further.

Sorry, I mis-read the post, I thought he was saying to take out the penalty entirely allowing people to not bother randomizing the deck.

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

Presorting is useless, if shuffled decently. laying the deck out in prime numbers (first 7 then 5) is a great way already to ensure decent shuffling (could do better ofcourse).

Pile shuffling alone will not randomize your deck at all though.

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

1123981:

Presorting is useless, if shuffled decently. laying the deck out in prime numbers (first 7 then 5) is a great way already to ensure decent shuffling (could do better ofcourse).

Pile shuffling alone will not randomize your deck at all though.

According to my personal calculations, it should...

I agree that 1 pile shuffle in a non-prime number is not enough randomisation. However, this is pile shuffline, 2 times in 2 prime numbers, which has a tremendous effect already. Most often than not, people will follow that one up with a little bit of Stripping, or even a riffle (or combining the 2, taking a pack from the bottom or top and riffling it in the middle of the other), which is of personal choice.

Personally, I'm a firm believer of shuffling in as many different ways as possible, because when you shuffle in 1 way, the outcome is pretty predictable. With the 2 pile shuffles, the outcome becomes harder to predict. With a combination of all 3 techniques, you will already have a hard time guessing already...

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

If you have a pre-determined way to pile shuffle your deck it's pretty easy to reverse engineer what how you want your deck to turn out. . . and this is in the absence of any other form of shuffling which does complicate things, but is ignored for the purpose of this demonstration:

Let's say you always want two cards together (Wolverine, Logan together with Cyclops, Slim, let's say).  You construct your deck in the form you want with proxy cards numbered 1 to 60 and ordered sequentially in your deck.  You then go through your pile shuffle routine (prime numbers, even numbers, imaginary numbers, makes no difference as long as it's the same thing you'll do in the tournament).  Now, look at the deck and find the 1st, 2nd, 16th, 17th, 31st, 32nd, 46th and 47th cards in the deck and see what numbers they are.  If you want to stack your deck so that those cards will always be together after your pile shuffles, you put them in those spots in the deck.

As said previously, the only way to insure randomization in a deck is a combination of riffle shuffles, side shuffles and pile shuffles (in decreasing order of predictability).  Please note that some very experienced card stackers can stack even a riffle shuffle.  But, it takes lots and lots and lots of practice.  Stacking a side shuffle is easier and pile shuffle stacking is trivial (as shown above).

The straightforward resolution to folks "mana leaving" (to borrow a term) is to a) tell them not to do it when you see it and b) deck check those who do it to see if you can detect any funny business or c) monitor a player to see how consistently godly their draws are. . . if someone draws Exodia in their opening hand multiple times in a tournament, it might be time to call Shenanigans and get your broom.

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Dylan Northrup (aka Doc X)
Level 2 Vs Rules Knowledge, Player Management
Level 1 WoW Rules Knowledge, Tournament Organizer
Level 0 Time Management

According to my personal calculations, it should...

I got busy this morning and Docx beat me to the response. As he indicated, pile shuffling alone is not random. All it does is reorder the cards. If you take an ordered deck and pile shuffle it the same way, you will always get the same end result. This is not random.

Also if you have some calculations that prove pile shuffling twice makes a completely random deck, then I would like to see them.

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Chad Daniel
PM 3
WoW 3
Vs 3

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I went from the point, where we as judge have to teach players a shuffling way, which we can show pretty quickly, is easy to execute for beginners and advanced players and can give enough randomisation for a player who just wants to declump with no bad intentions. I must admit I forgot the cheaters for a second.

If all you know about your deck is that "some quests are clumped together" or "I drew 3 [cardname] last game", then Pile Shuffling is one of the better ways to ensure decent enough randomisation.

If you people think Riffle Shuffling is the surest way to get good randomisation, you are forgetting the cheaters aswell. Even I am capable of keeping a god hand on top of my deck, while riffle shuffling. And I am a person who apparently has very bad control over his hands.

On another note, Riffle shuffling is a good way to damage cards / sleeves, players do not like that. In this case, pile shuffling has the upper hand. Riffle Shuffling is also very hard to execute decently, harder even with sleeves (in my oppinion). This last point is VERY important, we're not working with professionals, in fact, these professionals make up about 5% of the whole playerbase and they often already know the shuffling techniques. I challenge you people to get a 14year old to riffle shuffle in such a way that he manages to get, what you people call "perfect randomisation". You won't succeed...

Ofcourse, in both shuffling techniques, it is possible to cheat. Hence why we should learn players as many shuffling techniques as possible. That is why I personally find the discussion of which shuffling technique is the superior one, pure nonsense. As long as cheating is involved, there is no "best technique". All we can do is attempt to teach everyone as many techniques as possible, starting with the easiest during the games and the harder ones by special demoists at tournaments.

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

At some point though, the player needs to be held responsible. I mean sure, if we're talking very young players, I have no problem spending the time necessary to teach them how to shuffle, or assisting them with a shuffle occasionally. But if we're talking about a 26 year old guy who has been playing CCGs for a while and refuses to do anything at the start of the match other than 2 pile shuffles because "he doesn't want to damage his cards" or "he doesn't know any other methods"... we need a penalty.

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Level 2 WoW RK
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I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I went from the point, where we as judge have to teach players a shuffling way, which we can show pretty quickly, is easy to execute for beginners and advanced players and can give enough randomisation for a player who just wants to declump with no bad intentions. I must admit I forgot the cheaters for a second.

If all you know about your deck is that "some quests are clumped together" or "I drew 3 [cardname] last game", then Pile Shuffling is one of the better ways to ensure decent enough randomisation.

I'm not sure how I can be more clear. Pile Shuffling is NOT random. It redistributes the cards in a specific pattern. Assuming we get a Insufficient Randomization infraction, I would most certainly apply it to a player if all they did was pile shuffle.

If you people think Riffle Shuffling is the surest way to get good randomisation, you are forgetting the cheaters aswell. Even I am capable of keeping a god hand on top of my deck, while riffle shuffling. And I am a person who apparently has very bad control over his hands.

As Docx pointed out, it is FAR easier to cheat while pile shuffling than it is to cheat while riffle shuffling. Anyone can stack a deck via pile shuffling, it is trivial. It takes an expert to stack a deck while riffle shuffling. Also it is fairly obvious if someone is keeping the top cards the same, that is not one of the better ways to cheat.

On another note, Riffle shuffling is a good way to damage cards / sleeves, players do not like that. In this case, pile shuffling has the upper hand. Riffle Shuffling is also very hard to execute decently, harder even with sleeves (in my oppinion). This last point is VERY important, we're not working with professionals, in fact, these professionals make up about 5% of the whole playerbase and they often already know the shuffling techniques. I challenge you people to get a 14year old to riffle shuffle in such a way that he manages to get, what you people call "perfect randomisation". You won't succeed...

If you are going to put someone in quotes and claim it has been used by others, please make sure it is accurate. Not once in this entire thread has anyone mentioned "perfect randomization". In addition a shuffling method that actually randomizes the cards is far superior to a method that does not, regardless of potential sleeve damage. Just in case you didn't get my point earlier, pile shuffling is NOT random.

In addition I have known MANY MANY 14 year olds that could shuffle, and shuffle well.

You seem to be one of those people who have some false belief that equal distribution is random. In a random deck, you will have clumps. In a random deck it is possible to not draw a quest in the first five turns. Pile shuffling DOES assist in declumping a deck and with redistributing the cards, but all that is NOT randomizing the deck.

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Chad Daniel
PM 3
WoW 3
Vs 3

Once more, I went from another point of view, one without cheaters. One where a player is fair and square. Reordering a deck where you have no, or little, prior knowledge about is as good as perfect randomization. (I'm sorry for the not so good quotation, it wasn't meant as a quote. I just didn't find a better way to write it. Apparently you are stepped on your toes rather easily...)

We obviously have a different point of view regarding shuffling. Randomizing a random deck is silly. I can understand that you would use a good randomization method when you recently put your cards in an order, per example to show someone else the content. However, in the middle of a match, directly after a game, I personally don't see a need for great randomization. We could argue about sideboard, but that would require the player to count the exact position, now that's an expert technique.
Mathematical, the pile cheat is more precise, but the riffle shuffle is way easier to execute and also a lot harder to discover. Remember, to really cheat with pile shuffle, you have to insert the cards on the EXACT position, or it completely fails. I want you to try that in the middle of a game, good luck... Don't always go by numbers like a blind man. You can't judge using numbers only either and you would suck as a judge if you tried...

However, and I will say what I said in my last paragraph. All this squabbling about randomization is pointless. There are cheaters and whatever method we decide on for shuffling, they will find a way to bypass it. Hence the most surefire way, is to force people to use at least 3 shuffling methods. I hope this time you will get to this point, instead of shooting me down, without actually giving it a thought...

The real question we should be asking here, is the one that has been asked in the beginning of this thread by Mister Charsky. What is the best way to handle this?

My opinion now is pretty clear, drop the rules as they stand now, cheaters can easily bypass them. We need to educate the players in as many ways as possible and we have to create a little bit of freedom in deck prepping, to even the level a bit between the cheaters and the fair players.

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

One where a player is fair and square. Reordering a deck where you have no, or little, prior knowledge about is as good as perfect randomization.

This is the crux of the issue and one where you will need to change if you want to comply with UDE policy. Players are required to thoroughly randomize their deck before presenting it to their opponent. It does not matter if they only knew the location of one card in their deck, they still must thoroughly randomize their deck. Even if they currently have no idea of what is in their deck, once they sit down for their match, they must sufficiently randomize their deck.

However, and I will say what I said in my last paragraph. All this squabbling about randomization is pointless.

It isn't pointless if I can show you and teach you the proper way you are supposed to randomize a deck.

There are cheaters and whatever method we decide on for shuffling, they will find a way to bypass it. Hence the most surefire way, is to force people to use at least 3 shuffling methods. I hope this time you will get to this point, instead of shooting me down, without actually giving it a thought...

Three methods is a bit of overkill, the policy document already requires players to use two different methods which is sufficient.

The real question we should be asking here, is the one that has been asked in the beginning of this thread by Mister Charsky. What is the best way to handle this?

Which has been answered. The best way is to drop the pre-order policy and more strictly enforce shuffling with the use of an Insufficient Randomization Infraction. If we teach players to randomize their deck and make sure their opponents randomize their deck, the possibility of someone getting away with stacking their deck drops dramatically.

We need to educate the players in as many ways as possible and we have to create a little bit of freedom in deck prepping, to even the level a bit between the cheaters and the fair players.

What do you mean by freedom in deck prepping?

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Chad Daniel
PM 3
WoW 3
Vs 3

Once small correction, the polcy doc does not currently specify a number, but does say, "Players are encouraged to mix several different shuffling methods, such as pile shuffling and riffle shuffling, as they randomize their decks. "

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Chad Daniel
PM 3
WoW 3
Vs 3

i do not think punishing people for not suffling their deck very good is the right idea i know a lot of little kids that can not suffle thier decks very good and it would not make the game fair for them if they got punished for not suffling their deck very good
I do think the rule needs to be changed to not all games but to per game
I think Yugioh should have it set to were the only Preset allowed is when splint the exodia cards so they do not butnch to gether i am not sure about the other games as I only do yugioh but if each game had thier own pentiles then having a set pentiles for all the games then it might help solve a lot of prolems and it might open up the door for a few othr changes down the line that is just what i think

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